Maniacal Engineer
Mushy Emotionalist
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The End of All Things part 1: ME's Endgame
The F&G Administration Building echoed with the booming noises emanating from Maniacal Engineer's R&D Plant. The sound of heavy machinery combined with the sound of loud rock music created a cacophony that could be heard even outside the building. Maniacal Engineer himself had not left the plant for nearly a week. Occasionally, he would text one of his staffers: "need food," and the unfortunate staff member would have to go into the plant to provide food for the mad scientist. This evening, it was Lone_Garurumon's turn. As he walked into the plant, carrying a tray with nachos, grilled cheese, and seltzer, the mod was treated to the sound of Metallica's All Nightmare Long echoing eerily in the huge plant. The machinery had stopped, at least momentarily, though there was the sound of banging and swearing emanating from further in the plant.
"That idiot Zexy broke my Regeneration Machine," came ME's voice, "and then, if you can believe it he was promoted to admin!"
The smashing noises intensified for a moment, before a loud thud followed by Maniacal Engineer roaring in pain and a bunch of expletives. Lone found him, next to a partially built Regeneration Machine, just as he tossed his hammer against the wall in a fit of rage. Lone looked closely at his boss. ME's eye were bloodshot and twitching. He had dark bags under his eyes, and his hands and clothes were stained with motor oil. His hair, grayer than ever, and possibly thinning, was untidy and drenched in sweat. Most notably, though, was the madman's skin. He was pale. Very pale. As LG approached, ME was staunching the bleeding from where his hammer had recently come into contact with his biological right hand. The Super Mod noticed him approaching and quickly grabbed the tray, devouring its contents ravenously. LG looked around at the half built machines and gadgets and then at his boss.
"Maybe you should take a break," the moderator suggested, "whatever you're working on, you've got time."
ME exploded.
"A break?!" he shouted, "I don't have time to take a break. There's still so much left to do before..."
"Before what?" asked Lone, curiosity piqued.
The Super Mod stared into LG's eyes with an intense and manic glare for a moment before standing, causing the now empty tray to clatter on the ground.
"Get out!" he yelled, "GET OUT!!!!!"
As the moderator fled, the music intensified, and the clanging resumed. Just barely, he could hear ME repeating a mantra over and over again.
"There's no time. There's no time. There's no time. There's no time. There's no..."
The following morning, having relocated temporarily to The Situation Room to avoid the excessive noise in the F&G Administration Building, the F&G staff met for their daily meeting, including F&G's newest mod, Rainbow Cloud. ME was still not present, though this surprised nobody at this point. The section's other Super Mod, SoaringDylan, led the meeting. After they discussed the day-to-day stuff, conversation naturally turned to their absent comrade.
"I have never seen him so angry before," remarked Elementar, "when I went in there with food, I saw him punching the walls."
"When I brought him a stack of waffles, he yelled at me and asked what sort of idiot eats waffles for dinner," DarthWolf recounted, "it was 6:00am."
"He's not angry," stated Lone_Garurumon, remembering the intense and manic stare that ME had given him as well as the repeated mantra, "he's desperate. Keeps saying how there's no time."
A collective hush fell over the mods, until Rainbow Cloud voiced aloud what they had all been thinking:
"What could have ME feeling so backed into a corner?"
"Someone needs to have a talk with him," suggested Elementar.
"Yes," agreed Dylan, "but not any of us. We need someone that ME will actually listen to."
Enzap arrived outside the F&G Administration Building. True to the urgent notification he had received from Dylan, the noise level was indeed audible from the street. He walked in to the deserted building and over to the metal doors that led to ME's plant. He opened the doors and was greeting by the blasting of My Chemical Romance's Welcome to the Black Parade.
Enzap took a look around at the assembled technology, impressed by his protege's work. A loud crash and a bunch of swearing reminded the admin why he was there, and he set off across the labyrinth of half built or disassembled machines to find Maniacal Engineer.
He found the Super Mod cannibalizing the remains of a prototype engine for his Punstermobile and muttering to himself. The mad scientist grabbed an armful of the parts, and started walking away, without noticing Enzap. As the admin followed, one of the parts slipped from the precarious stack, and fell to the ground. ME swore, as he tried to reach down and grab the part without toppling the rest of the pile. Quickly, Enzap walked over and picked up the part.
"Figured you could use a hand," he said, smiling.
Though outwardly he was smiling, inwardly, he was worried.
"What's going on with you?" wondered the admin, "you've never driven yourself this hard before. You missed your last two fencing lessons."
For his part, the madman glared at Enzap for a moment, before shrugging and continuing to walk, muttering to himself the whole way.
Enzap caught the words: "administrator," "enemy," and "time."
The admin tried to engage Engie in conversation as they walked through the piles of technology.
"What are you working on?" he asked.
The Super Mod just kept muttering to himself: "interloper," "spy," "sabotage."
Suddenly, Enzap noticed what they were walking towards, a partially rebuilt Regeneration Machine.
He stopped short, shocked at what ME was doing. For his part, the maniac walked over to the machine and set down the pile of parts he was carrying.
"ME," said Enzap, taking an unconscious step backward, "dig forbade building more of these. You know that."
The insane tinkerer walked over to his former boss, grabbed the part from him, and examined it thoroughly, still muttering to himself: "condemned," "death," "revenge."
Satisfied that Enzap hadn't tampered with the part, Engie took it back to the machine, picked up his tools, and began integrating the pile of parts into the machine.
For his part, Enzap regained his senses, and stepped forward.
"ME," he said, "you need to come with me. Whatever is going on, the admins can help, but I cannot let you build that machine. They're too dangerous."
"Not yet," muttered the engineer, "no. I cannot be stopped now."
"This is your last warning," said Enzap, sternly, "I don't want to have to hurt you."
A dangerous glint appeared in ME's eyes, underlying the insanity and desperation within, and suddenly Enzap's blood chilled.
The Super Moderator finally stopped working and turned to the Administrator.
"I will not let my work be disrupted," he said, "if you continue to delay me, I will need to remove you by force."
"ME, let's talk about this," Enzap begged, "whatever problems you're having, we can fix them together."
"No time," said the mad scientist, "this is your last chance. Leave, or I will remove you myself."
Seeing the gleaming piles of technology that ME had at his disposal in the plant, Enzap decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and turned to leave.
"You know that I'll need to let the other admins know about this," he said.
The dangerous glint reappeared in ME's eyes, and he raised his robotic arm. As Enzap was leaving the plant, ME fired an energy blast at him. Fortunately, the madman's aim wasn't exactly stellar after working himself virtually non-stop for a week, and the shot went a bit wide, but it still singed Enzap's side.
As the metal doors closed behind him, the admin sighed.
"So that's how it's going to be," he said sadly.
Dylan was waiting outside for Enzap to return.
"So how'd it go?" he asked, jumping on the Admin, as soon as he exited the front doors.
"I have to go back to the admin section," said Enzap, "ME has just declared war on the admins."
It was then that Dylan noticed the burns on Enzap's side. His eyes widened.
"Anything we can do to help, of course," the Dutch Super Mod said.
"Thanks," said Enzap, "I appreciate the offer, but the admins should be able to handle this. Just make sure that regular users are evacuated from the area."
"Understood," said Dylan.
As Enzap turned to leave, the din from the F&G Administration Building got worse. In addition to the machines and the music, the alarm was now also blaring.
"Uh-oh," said Dylan, "that ain't good."
"What's that?" asked Enzap.
"ME's put the building on lockdown," explained Dylan, as metal bulkheads surrounded the building.
"...that complicates things," sighed Enzap, "things are never easy with that guy."
With that, the admin departed, going off to let the other admins know of the recent developments.
"He did what?!" asked dig, incredulously.
"He's building another Regeneration Machine," Enzap repeated, having just delivered his report.
"So he is up to something with that thing," said Zexy, as much to himself as to the others in the room.
"And he refused to listen to reason?" asked Shiny Celebi.
"This isn't like him," said Enzap, shaking his head, "there's got to be something else at play, here."
"Perhaps so," said dig, "but he did declare war on the admins, both by breaking the rules and then by shooting you. We cannot let that slide."
"What's the plan, boss?" asked the newest admin.
"You worked with ME on the upgrades to the F&G Administration Building since Enzap left," said dig, "so you're most familiar with the building's potential weaknesses."
Zexy nodded.
"Getting into the building shouldn't be a problem," he stated, "it's meant to be manned by multiple people in times of crisis, but since ME has isolated himself and, likely, locked himself in his R&D plant, the outer defenses won't be in use. We'll need to break through the bulkheads, but that's it."
"Sounds pretty easy so far," commented dig, "go on."
"ME's plant is going to be the bigger problem," said Zexy, "ever since the new F&G mods broke in there a few weeks ago, he's upgraded the security on that place. It's his own personal fortress, and, even if we do get in, he's got access to plenty of weaponry in that plant, so we'd likely be outgunned."
"I don't know," interjected Enzap, thoughtfully, "most of what I saw in that plant was disassembled or only partially built. He's been cannibalizing a lot of his machines for the Regeneration Machine."
"The key here is that he's only one man," said dig, "based on Enzap's description, he's probably in a weakened state."
"I wouldn't necessarily say that," said Hidden Mew, "yes he may be functioning on minimal sleep, minimal food consumption, and have been pushing himself to the point of exhaustion for a week, but given the state of mind he's in, he's clearly not thinking rationally, and that makes him more unpredictable and dangerous."
"So he's unpredictable, likely has access to a lot of deadly weapons, and time is not on our side," concluded dig, "so we need to go out, and go out in full force."
After drawing up rudimentary battle plans and tasks, the admins departed, destination: the F&G Administration Building.
True to his word, Dylan had cleared all of the regular users out of potential harm's way, though most of them had been avoiding the area due to the noise, anyway. The Super Mod met the admins as they entered the designated perimeter.
"Good luck," said the Dutch staffer.
Glancing back at the locked down building, he added: "you're going to need it."
Dylan departed, and the admins began their campaign.
A master of tunnels, the Head Administrator dug his way into the F&G Administration Building, while Zexy and Enzap started dismantling the external surveillance equipment.
Shiny Celebi and Hidden Mew used their combined psychic powers to warp the external bulkheads. True to Zexy's intuition, they were met with no resistance as they breached the building's exterior.
When dig attempted to tunnel into ME's R&D Plant, however, he was blasted backwards by a force field that extended underground. Similar attempts to warp the plant's metal doors were met with failure, as the cacophony disrupted the telepathic concentration of the two psychic admins.
Zexy and Enzap charged into the building, and stood by the door.
"The force field is powered by a generator in the plant itself, which is self-sustaining in terms of power," explained Zexy, as he and Enzap helped the dazed dig back on his feet, "no chance of us cutting off his power supply."
"I thought as much," said dig, "so we'll have to either short out the force field or find a way to disrupt it from out here."
Enzap pulled out a special fencing foil.
"I think this will do the trick," he said, "it's made out of Nth metal, because I got sick of ME grabbing my foil with his robotic arm during our fencing lessons and it evens out the match a little by increasing my own strength and healing. Nth metal protects me from the elements, so I should be able to use it to disrupt the force field."
Sure enough, Enzap was able to effectively slice through the force field and step through it holding his Nth metal sword. Walking over to the electronic panel, he stabbed it with the curious blade. Though this did successfully short out the external defenses, including turning off the force field, the feedback was too much for even the mystical metal to withstand. The blade melted, and Enzap was blasted backwards.
After quickly confirming that Enzap was dazed, but okay, the other admins filed in to the R&D Plant, with Zexy bringing up the rear.
The newest admin saw it coming, but was unable to warn the others before dig tripped a hidden wire, causing the two closest piles of machinery to topple over. Zexy dodged the avalanche, but the other three were not so lucky. They were trapped by the mishap mess that the machinery caused.
Dig noticed Zexy's hesitance.
"Go," ordered the Head Admin, "I can get us out of here, but we're running on a clock. If ME finishes that machine, all this will be for nothing."
Zexy nodded, and ran off, careful to avoid any of ME's traps.
Eventually, he heard the sound of ME muttering. Following the noise, he found the mad scientist putting the finishing touches on the new Regeneration Machine. He flicked a switch, and the dangerous device began charging.
Maniacal Engineer laughed evilly.
"It is done! I am victorious!"
The F&G Administration Building echoed with the booming noises emanating from Maniacal Engineer's R&D Plant. The sound of heavy machinery combined with the sound of loud rock music created a cacophony that could be heard even outside the building. Maniacal Engineer himself had not left the plant for nearly a week. Occasionally, he would text one of his staffers: "need food," and the unfortunate staff member would have to go into the plant to provide food for the mad scientist. This evening, it was Lone_Garurumon's turn. As he walked into the plant, carrying a tray with nachos, grilled cheese, and seltzer, the mod was treated to the sound of Metallica's All Nightmare Long echoing eerily in the huge plant. The machinery had stopped, at least momentarily, though there was the sound of banging and swearing emanating from further in the plant.
"That idiot Zexy broke my Regeneration Machine," came ME's voice, "and then, if you can believe it he was promoted to admin!"
The smashing noises intensified for a moment, before a loud thud followed by Maniacal Engineer roaring in pain and a bunch of expletives. Lone found him, next to a partially built Regeneration Machine, just as he tossed his hammer against the wall in a fit of rage. Lone looked closely at his boss. ME's eye were bloodshot and twitching. He had dark bags under his eyes, and his hands and clothes were stained with motor oil. His hair, grayer than ever, and possibly thinning, was untidy and drenched in sweat. Most notably, though, was the madman's skin. He was pale. Very pale. As LG approached, ME was staunching the bleeding from where his hammer had recently come into contact with his biological right hand. The Super Mod noticed him approaching and quickly grabbed the tray, devouring its contents ravenously. LG looked around at the half built machines and gadgets and then at his boss.
"Maybe you should take a break," the moderator suggested, "whatever you're working on, you've got time."
ME exploded.
"A break?!" he shouted, "I don't have time to take a break. There's still so much left to do before..."
"Before what?" asked Lone, curiosity piqued.
The Super Mod stared into LG's eyes with an intense and manic glare for a moment before standing, causing the now empty tray to clatter on the ground.
"Get out!" he yelled, "GET OUT!!!!!"
As the moderator fled, the music intensified, and the clanging resumed. Just barely, he could hear ME repeating a mantra over and over again.
"There's no time. There's no time. There's no time. There's no time. There's no..."
The following morning, having relocated temporarily to The Situation Room to avoid the excessive noise in the F&G Administration Building, the F&G staff met for their daily meeting, including F&G's newest mod, Rainbow Cloud. ME was still not present, though this surprised nobody at this point. The section's other Super Mod, SoaringDylan, led the meeting. After they discussed the day-to-day stuff, conversation naturally turned to their absent comrade.
"I have never seen him so angry before," remarked Elementar, "when I went in there with food, I saw him punching the walls."
"When I brought him a stack of waffles, he yelled at me and asked what sort of idiot eats waffles for dinner," DarthWolf recounted, "it was 6:00am."
"He's not angry," stated Lone_Garurumon, remembering the intense and manic stare that ME had given him as well as the repeated mantra, "he's desperate. Keeps saying how there's no time."
A collective hush fell over the mods, until Rainbow Cloud voiced aloud what they had all been thinking:
"What could have ME feeling so backed into a corner?"
"Someone needs to have a talk with him," suggested Elementar.
"Yes," agreed Dylan, "but not any of us. We need someone that ME will actually listen to."
Enzap arrived outside the F&G Administration Building. True to the urgent notification he had received from Dylan, the noise level was indeed audible from the street. He walked in to the deserted building and over to the metal doors that led to ME's plant. He opened the doors and was greeting by the blasting of My Chemical Romance's Welcome to the Black Parade.
Enzap took a look around at the assembled technology, impressed by his protege's work. A loud crash and a bunch of swearing reminded the admin why he was there, and he set off across the labyrinth of half built or disassembled machines to find Maniacal Engineer.
He found the Super Mod cannibalizing the remains of a prototype engine for his Punstermobile and muttering to himself. The mad scientist grabbed an armful of the parts, and started walking away, without noticing Enzap. As the admin followed, one of the parts slipped from the precarious stack, and fell to the ground. ME swore, as he tried to reach down and grab the part without toppling the rest of the pile. Quickly, Enzap walked over and picked up the part.
"Figured you could use a hand," he said, smiling.
Though outwardly he was smiling, inwardly, he was worried.
"What's going on with you?" wondered the admin, "you've never driven yourself this hard before. You missed your last two fencing lessons."
For his part, the madman glared at Enzap for a moment, before shrugging and continuing to walk, muttering to himself the whole way.
Enzap caught the words: "administrator," "enemy," and "time."
The admin tried to engage Engie in conversation as they walked through the piles of technology.
"What are you working on?" he asked.
The Super Mod just kept muttering to himself: "interloper," "spy," "sabotage."
Suddenly, Enzap noticed what they were walking towards, a partially rebuilt Regeneration Machine.
He stopped short, shocked at what ME was doing. For his part, the maniac walked over to the machine and set down the pile of parts he was carrying.
"ME," said Enzap, taking an unconscious step backward, "dig forbade building more of these. You know that."
The insane tinkerer walked over to his former boss, grabbed the part from him, and examined it thoroughly, still muttering to himself: "condemned," "death," "revenge."
Satisfied that Enzap hadn't tampered with the part, Engie took it back to the machine, picked up his tools, and began integrating the pile of parts into the machine.
For his part, Enzap regained his senses, and stepped forward.
"ME," he said, "you need to come with me. Whatever is going on, the admins can help, but I cannot let you build that machine. They're too dangerous."
"Not yet," muttered the engineer, "no. I cannot be stopped now."
"This is your last warning," said Enzap, sternly, "I don't want to have to hurt you."
A dangerous glint appeared in ME's eyes, underlying the insanity and desperation within, and suddenly Enzap's blood chilled.
The Super Moderator finally stopped working and turned to the Administrator.
"I will not let my work be disrupted," he said, "if you continue to delay me, I will need to remove you by force."
"ME, let's talk about this," Enzap begged, "whatever problems you're having, we can fix them together."
"No time," said the mad scientist, "this is your last chance. Leave, or I will remove you myself."
Seeing the gleaming piles of technology that ME had at his disposal in the plant, Enzap decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and turned to leave.
"You know that I'll need to let the other admins know about this," he said.
The dangerous glint reappeared in ME's eyes, and he raised his robotic arm. As Enzap was leaving the plant, ME fired an energy blast at him. Fortunately, the madman's aim wasn't exactly stellar after working himself virtually non-stop for a week, and the shot went a bit wide, but it still singed Enzap's side.
As the metal doors closed behind him, the admin sighed.
"So that's how it's going to be," he said sadly.
Dylan was waiting outside for Enzap to return.
"So how'd it go?" he asked, jumping on the Admin, as soon as he exited the front doors.
"I have to go back to the admin section," said Enzap, "ME has just declared war on the admins."
It was then that Dylan noticed the burns on Enzap's side. His eyes widened.
"Anything we can do to help, of course," the Dutch Super Mod said.
"Thanks," said Enzap, "I appreciate the offer, but the admins should be able to handle this. Just make sure that regular users are evacuated from the area."
"Understood," said Dylan.
As Enzap turned to leave, the din from the F&G Administration Building got worse. In addition to the machines and the music, the alarm was now also blaring.
"Uh-oh," said Dylan, "that ain't good."
"What's that?" asked Enzap.
"ME's put the building on lockdown," explained Dylan, as metal bulkheads surrounded the building.
"...that complicates things," sighed Enzap, "things are never easy with that guy."
With that, the admin departed, going off to let the other admins know of the recent developments.
"He did what?!" asked dig, incredulously.
"He's building another Regeneration Machine," Enzap repeated, having just delivered his report.
"So he is up to something with that thing," said Zexy, as much to himself as to the others in the room.
"And he refused to listen to reason?" asked Shiny Celebi.
"This isn't like him," said Enzap, shaking his head, "there's got to be something else at play, here."
"Perhaps so," said dig, "but he did declare war on the admins, both by breaking the rules and then by shooting you. We cannot let that slide."
"What's the plan, boss?" asked the newest admin.
"You worked with ME on the upgrades to the F&G Administration Building since Enzap left," said dig, "so you're most familiar with the building's potential weaknesses."
Zexy nodded.
"Getting into the building shouldn't be a problem," he stated, "it's meant to be manned by multiple people in times of crisis, but since ME has isolated himself and, likely, locked himself in his R&D plant, the outer defenses won't be in use. We'll need to break through the bulkheads, but that's it."
"Sounds pretty easy so far," commented dig, "go on."
"ME's plant is going to be the bigger problem," said Zexy, "ever since the new F&G mods broke in there a few weeks ago, he's upgraded the security on that place. It's his own personal fortress, and, even if we do get in, he's got access to plenty of weaponry in that plant, so we'd likely be outgunned."
"I don't know," interjected Enzap, thoughtfully, "most of what I saw in that plant was disassembled or only partially built. He's been cannibalizing a lot of his machines for the Regeneration Machine."
"The key here is that he's only one man," said dig, "based on Enzap's description, he's probably in a weakened state."
"I wouldn't necessarily say that," said Hidden Mew, "yes he may be functioning on minimal sleep, minimal food consumption, and have been pushing himself to the point of exhaustion for a week, but given the state of mind he's in, he's clearly not thinking rationally, and that makes him more unpredictable and dangerous."
"So he's unpredictable, likely has access to a lot of deadly weapons, and time is not on our side," concluded dig, "so we need to go out, and go out in full force."
After drawing up rudimentary battle plans and tasks, the admins departed, destination: the F&G Administration Building.
True to his word, Dylan had cleared all of the regular users out of potential harm's way, though most of them had been avoiding the area due to the noise, anyway. The Super Mod met the admins as they entered the designated perimeter.
"Good luck," said the Dutch staffer.
Glancing back at the locked down building, he added: "you're going to need it."
Dylan departed, and the admins began their campaign.
A master of tunnels, the Head Administrator dug his way into the F&G Administration Building, while Zexy and Enzap started dismantling the external surveillance equipment.
Shiny Celebi and Hidden Mew used their combined psychic powers to warp the external bulkheads. True to Zexy's intuition, they were met with no resistance as they breached the building's exterior.
When dig attempted to tunnel into ME's R&D Plant, however, he was blasted backwards by a force field that extended underground. Similar attempts to warp the plant's metal doors were met with failure, as the cacophony disrupted the telepathic concentration of the two psychic admins.
Zexy and Enzap charged into the building, and stood by the door.
"The force field is powered by a generator in the plant itself, which is self-sustaining in terms of power," explained Zexy, as he and Enzap helped the dazed dig back on his feet, "no chance of us cutting off his power supply."
"I thought as much," said dig, "so we'll have to either short out the force field or find a way to disrupt it from out here."
Enzap pulled out a special fencing foil.
"I think this will do the trick," he said, "it's made out of Nth metal, because I got sick of ME grabbing my foil with his robotic arm during our fencing lessons and it evens out the match a little by increasing my own strength and healing. Nth metal protects me from the elements, so I should be able to use it to disrupt the force field."
Sure enough, Enzap was able to effectively slice through the force field and step through it holding his Nth metal sword. Walking over to the electronic panel, he stabbed it with the curious blade. Though this did successfully short out the external defenses, including turning off the force field, the feedback was too much for even the mystical metal to withstand. The blade melted, and Enzap was blasted backwards.
After quickly confirming that Enzap was dazed, but okay, the other admins filed in to the R&D Plant, with Zexy bringing up the rear.
The newest admin saw it coming, but was unable to warn the others before dig tripped a hidden wire, causing the two closest piles of machinery to topple over. Zexy dodged the avalanche, but the other three were not so lucky. They were trapped by the mishap mess that the machinery caused.
Dig noticed Zexy's hesitance.
"Go," ordered the Head Admin, "I can get us out of here, but we're running on a clock. If ME finishes that machine, all this will be for nothing."
Zexy nodded, and ran off, careful to avoid any of ME's traps.
Eventually, he heard the sound of ME muttering. Following the noise, he found the mad scientist putting the finishing touches on the new Regeneration Machine. He flicked a switch, and the dangerous device began charging.
Maniacal Engineer laughed evilly.
"It is done! I am victorious!"