Hired Spy

Sojourner blew smoke out after taking a puff on a cigarette and sighed inaudibly during a snow storm in the middle of Antarctica. He had been hired by a private collaborator of the Coalition to find and spy upon the main base of the Serion invasion. Well after months of searching he had found the blasted base.. but as for spying on it to get more intelligence..

That part was proving to be tricky.. he had to stay in the snow storms or risk being detected by thermal scanning guards and since those were random and lasted differing durations at a time.. well. let's just say he's been having some major issues. So far he's managed to make a map of what looks to be a research facility but he still hadn't found whatever it was they were using to transport their troops onto Earth.

He might have to start a ruckus to get them to mobilize.. putting them on alert would force them to defend any key locations of interest right? that was his current line of thinking.. he sighed inaudibly again as the snow storm had easily put out his cigarette since it wasn't being puffed on during his thinking time and spat it out onto the snow where it visibly disappeared after a few seconds.

He marched forward with his twin blades in each hands..

Today was really going to suck.

(Yes, I'm gonna use npcs because of tier difference)

A humanoid robot entered their main hall. The next research station inspection wasn't for months, so he really didn't have much to worry about. They'd passed several tests already. Hiding all the Serion equipment and their soldiers were easy. So far, nothing much has happened since their attack on the Coalition HQ. Confirmed Serena was among them, confirmed that the Human Leader was a threat the Machine Lord herself. And they weeded out the survival of a long thought extinct race. They'd also been prepared for them. New York was...tougher than expected. But they will adapt. And overcome.

Model X checked the logs for activity around the area. So far nothing, and the storm was still going to be in for a few more days. It was about then he heard the alarm set off. He accessed their network to see what was wrong. Something had destroyed two guards and infiltrated the place? The robot stomped out into the hall, giving orders. "Do not go to guard positions of our Gateway. Scour the area for the intruder. Use all measures. Do not allow this being to find out anything from us. Capture them if possible, but kill them if necessary. I want their head."

Yuma and Marmadon joined him. They were his strongest warriors...and even posed a good threat to him should they challenge for his position. But they were also impressed with his leadership abilities, and didn't want to handle it themselves. They were his supporters.

(ooc: both Yuma and Marmadon are 2-2? Or would that be too much for him to handle?)

BzztttzZzZap. A serion was stabbed in the back and had it's body ripped open from the mid-section up by one of Sojourner's daggers as he passed through quietly now that the entire area was on full alert. He noticed which way every one of the serion's seem to be moving but quickly heard chatter that forced him to frown and sigh. They had a smart one among them because he heard in the distance someone barking order's about not moving towards the portal room. Which meant he would have to find it manually..assuming he could now get them off high alert without being detected......


....Which didn't happen because as soon as he thought this his right arm shot up and stabbed behind him as a robot guard dog leaped from behind to kill him. Giving off an alert screech as it was torn apart by Sojourner's blade.

So much for stealth. At least this meant he'd get to warm up his body now. The cold wasn't dangerous to him but that didn't mean he had to like it. He pulled out a cigarette dispite the blizzard and forced his lighter to work and amazingly managed to light the damn thing and puff a few times before it blew out due to the wind.

But that was all the time it needed to be lit because now the Serion's knew where he was and all he had to do was stand there and wait. Perhaps he could force one of them to tell him where the portal room was...

Yuma:

Marmadon:

From what they found, the intruder was literally just outside the main building. The walls weren't that thick, so he might have heard them. The door automatically opened, and was much larger than appeared. That was mainly due to Marmadon, being ten feet tall. Compared to the 5 foot tall Yuma and the five ten Model X, Marma was a giant. The man they found was...smoking. Or trying to. Switching to infrared, it was no wonder they never detected him...he was as cold as his surroundings. No normal human, even most advents, could survive in these extreme conditions with what the man was wearing.

Yuma automatically connected the three of them. They wouldn't need to speak to communicate with each other and they can share vision and sensory data now. Marmadon jumped to the man's right and darted at him with a jab. The Serion was their primary tank, able to take and dish out damage in close range. Yuma jumped, seeing how the man moved. And did something to aid in their commander's aim.

A large seal appeared at the palm of his hand, along with a smaller one. From it, a couple dozen energy beams rained down on the intruder. However, if hit, they wouldn't do any damage, instead, they would create dual, hexagonal weights on either side of flesh, weighing the target down and slowing their movements. If most of the individual weights were destroy, the rest would pop off easily and with minimal agitation, but harmless otherwise. If most of the weights are on when they tried to take it off, it could actually tear off chunks of armor and skin.

X's hands retreated into his buster cannons and took aim. Firing, one fired a blast as strong as a gran rey cero, and the other fired two blasts equal to a cero each. They doubted that was all it would take, as now they were getting reiatsu data from the man...it was a good thing all three were there...

Three more designed Robots started making their way towards him after his little stunts to get some attention and they didn't exactly waste any time. big one, smaller one, and normal sized one. It wasn't hard to figure out the big one was the front liner. Also didn't seem to make him slow either as he rushed Sojourner and threw a punch. Sojourner pulled an arm up to block it, mostly to gauge it's strength as compared to his current output of sixty percent, which was decent but not much of a threat on it's own though it would be a nuisance since there were three of them.

What would probably begin to worry the Serions or at least confuse one of them. Is that the punch would have seemed not to do anything as he wasn't budged even an inch when the blow connected due to his innate ability to negate inertia.

Further confusion may have occurred when the energy beams of the next Serion did not do as intended. Instead of hitting and causing something to appear on him his body absorbed the energy and used it to recover the minor amount of bludgeon damage he had taken from blocking the first Serion. His Matter Regeneration. It annoyed him that he had it activate so soon especially as he realized the third Serion was charging and firing massive beams of energy that definitely looked more dangerous.. even with his crappy sensing he could still tell it was dangerous at this range.

A look of bored annoyance crossed his face as he was suddenly blasted in place and grimaced as the blow landed. He had attempted a fun trick when it happened though. He tried to grab the arm of the big serion and drag him into the path of the large blasts so that he'd take some of the damage too, but even if that didn't work Sojourner didn't have the luxury of taking the three of them with his usual non-caring. Alone they didn't pose much of a threat, but with this kind of team work it was even more challenging than it should be. His cloths looked ragged and half destroyed which annoyed him further but aside from that he still hadn't budged from his original position.

He sighed and blew out the last puff of smoke he had in his lungs from that last puff of air he had taken from the cigarette, "You know.. It's hard for someone like me to afford clothes like that.. and now they are ruined.." He cracked his neck to one side then the other while frowning, "Now.. which one of you is going to tell me where the portal to your world is..?"

He swayed to the right and suddenly bolted to his left as he ran jumped into a knee kick into the big serion's head trying to barrel right through him and trying to stab into both of the things shoulder's and even if he missed on either count still pushed off the big serion to get to the smaller serion, Yuma, and tried to wolverine stab him in the chest with both daggers at once.

Hit or miss gravity would have kicked in at this point and he would have reached the ground giving him the fotting he needed to run off towards the third serion before stopping right at the last second on a dime and jumping up to do a spin kick for the guys head.

Looks like ruining his clothes might have upset him. After all it was really friggin cold here...

Yuma made a duck face and even spoke. "So annoying..." The fact they literally did nothing aside from a little damage did not go unnoticed. Yuma also made a seal, another one showing up below Marmadon as he was being tossed between their leader's blasts, forcing the giant to bounce up and avoid getting hit. The seal disappeared immediately, and Marmadon used boosters to move back to the ground and away from their assailant. They roughed him up...even pissed him off a bit.

X remained stoic and Marmadon didn't really have a face. But they soon found out the main reason he was there. X snorted, Yuma chuckled, Marmadon was...silent. As if any of them would spill that. Maybe some of the lower members, but not any of them. Especially not when X had threatened to toss them to Rathia for her to do as she wishes should they reveal anything sensitive.

The Sojourner charged Marmadon. It obliged, putting a veil around its yellow eye thing in the head. A white glow appeared around it as it charged to meet whatever the human wanted to do with a head-butt. Which ended up being a knee to the face, but the enhancement stopped any real damage from being incurred, but it took a lot of energy, something Marma didn't really have. The daggers cut into its shoulders though, though should be noted it was...difficult, even for someone as powerful as him, to cut into them.

Then he bounced off it and went after Yuma. All the while being shot at by bala strength energy blasts. Until he got too close the little Serion, still using his duck face. Yuma combined a green, hexagonal with a more hidden seal that would imprint Chain on his fist. Which went through Yuma's shield, but didn't go through his blades that he materialized at his forearms to guard his chest. It did push him back though, compared to most Serion, Yuma was light. Especially when compared to X and Marma.

X was likewise tougher than normal, and shot bala and cero powered blasts at him once he got away from Yuma. Only for him to get right in his face, jumping, and hitting him, shattering through another shield coming from Yuma, but lessening the damage done to X. Meanwhile, small ports on X's body opened up and fired 9 small, stiletto blades right up the human's ass and back...literally. While also copying Inertia Negation, though wasn't active until after he got done sliding. The red jewel looking thing on his forehead shined to indicate it. The robot's appearance changed slightly, adding grey coloring. He can negate inertia passively. Yuma responded with another how annoying. Marma...was silent again.

The little Serion had placed a seal on the ground as Marma did a double chop down on Soji's shoulders, its arms glowing blue from Yuma enhancing that part, increasing its power. Should the human attempt to punch with the same arm he attacked Yuma with, the seals he'd placed on the ground and the man's fist would activate, each firing chains that connected between them. Yuma placed more seals to enhance the chain's strength by quite a bit, but it would still be inevitable when he'd break them. Just...hopefully slows that down.

Marma used his feet to bounce off from the human while X bombarded him with more cero and bala strength attacks, 6 of the former and 24 of the latter. Yuma even had dual seals appear at his palms, firing four dozen energy beams that moved sporadically, aiming at the man's joints. They were weak, but highly penetrating.

His butt got shanked all of a sudden and his perception aura activated alerting him to the other eight. Blades in the back? Despite the pain on being butt stabbed by a butt stabber robot he activated all eight of his aura palms and smashed the rest of the blades last second away from his body. Eventually pulling the blade out of his butt just as Marma came and attacked one of his shoulders. Which did... nothing as he caught it with his left arm and held it in the air though it took more effort than he expected. His body pulsated and the ground underneath him cracked but not from Marma's attack. his power had increased to 80% of it's maximum.

He didn't get much time to be amused by the fact it had occurred though because he noticed Model X and Yuma prepping to bombard him again, giving him only a split second to yank out one of his daggers from Marma  right before he bounced from Sojourner and use that to smash half of the bombardment on that right side but exposed his left which was weaponless and though he did punch the weaker beams and the bala strengthed blasts he still took the full brunt of the damage.

His hand was smoking, his body looked like it had gone a round with the surface of the sun. He stung everywhere and he was now very very..

Angry.

The ground further cracked and shattered underneath him as his power rose to one hundred percent and then something really really fun happened. He took a running pose and the ground around him trembled as he activated Super World King's Fist "Kaio-ken" doubling his senses capabilities, his energy, his speed, and his strength. Then he simply disappeared to all but Model X's sensing abilities as he was the only one strong enough to keep up with what Sojourner had done.

Which was a pity for Marma because it was time for Round Two as his left Knee once again crashed into Marma's face, unless somehow Marma or one of his partners moved him out of the way or stopped Sojourner. It would be very noticeable to anyone though that Sojourner was now covered in a red energy aura as to before he had no aura at all that was visible.

If it weren't for Yuma's connection, there wasn't any doubt on any of the trio's minds that Marma would have been scrap. With that connection and X's sensory equipment, the giant was able to move out of the way and avoid being destroy. Unfortunately, not fast enough to avoid getting an arm completely torn off along with part of the torso. The man was getting stronger. They had to do something soon and at least force a retreat. X gave out a plan. Marma said he'll sacrifice himself.

X's Nova Mode activated, changing his color scheme and adding on more barrels to his cannons, though much smaller. He also activated his armor enhancement. That should allow him to take more damage than normal. Marma roared and charged the human, swinging down. Then, it exploded, overloading its power core for a catastrophic blast. But nothing the human couldn't handle given his readings. Yuma also gave X explicit permission. Both of the remaining Serion put down more seals for Chain.

When the smoke cleared, Yuma charged at the man with a short energy sword in hand. "Bound Double!" Just before reaching the man, a platform formed, bouncing Yuma at 2.2 times his speed straight up. Immediately disappearing, Yuma made another platform above him, along with something else. "Bound Triple, Boost Penta!" Just before he bounced back at the man, the small, white haired Serion was glowing blue. Boost Penta quadruples his punche's power. Yuma was average strength, but still wasn't anything to laugh at.

He was also ready to imprint Anchor Penta on the man. Bound Triple launched Yuma at two and a half times his normal speed, with him putting a spin, hopefully adding even more power to his strike. If hit, he would immediately activate Anchor, creating two large, and hopefully heavy enough weights where this guy would feel it a good amount. It was after all, his heaviest Anchor subset. Of course, Sojourner could just stop it like last time...but hopefully he can't do that consecutively. Yuma activated his dormant Chain, connecting it to another further way and adding 3 seals to strengthen it by 30%. More chains popped up to restrain the man.

On X's side, however, was a catch. X had used Chain Quadre, which was at base 15% stronger than the normal Chains around it, and it fired a spike into the ground to make it harder to pull out. Yuma had put seals on the others as well, strengthening them the same amount. Except for one. Chain Penta was the same as the Quadre version, except it had a second spike and was 20% stronger than normal. Hopefully with the 28 or so Chains restraining him, he wouldn't be able to get away so quickly.

X started to blast him. First with four bala strength blasts, then four cero strength blasts, then he started using Rapid Fire, firing dozens of hado 4-ish leveled energy beams at a tremendous rate of fire at the man. Firing 8 more cero blasts, he fired a stronger one right afterwards, one equal to a Cero Oscuras at his level.

Yuma meanwhile, was combing four of his bullets into two of his composite bullet variations. "Bolt Meteoria plus Viper, Bolt Asteroid plus Meteoria..." His composite bullets had a charge time. Next turn, he'd be able to fire them. Unfortunately, Yuma was steaming...he was starting to overheat...

As he tore through Marma he grabbed his remaining dagger figuring he would need it and landed on his feet using his inertia negation to stop immediately instead of sliding though he did spin around so that he was facing the back of Marma instead of his own back being towards Marma. Which gave him a glimpse of one of the robot's changing color and the sound of engines whirring stronger inside the robots as he now possessed keen enough physical senses to hear such things. So it seemed they were powering up... interesting.. He hadn't fought robots that could power up before so this was certainly new to him.

He stopped musing about that however and paid attention to Marma who had charged at him.. but something caught Sojourner's eyes and ears as Marma got closer to him forcing him to concentrate on the insides of him barely visible through the part of him that had been torn apart. Something was making a louder hum than the others. What could he be thinking??

Just as Marma went to strike Sojourner his craptastical ability to sense energy, enhanced by his SWKF Technique, alerted him to the fact that the louder by the second humming sound was also going to dangerous levels of energy. A bomb! SHIT where was he going to go? Any corner of the battlefield could lead to more serion troops. He could run for it.. but then he wouldn't complete his mission. Damn it all. So he just twitched an eye, frowned and put up his arms and one leg trying to keep as much damage from the explosion as possible from hitting his face and torso.

before the smoke cleared Sojourner coughed a bit and sighed as he was now butt naked. In the snow. In the middle of the fucking Antarctic. On a mission he couldn't afford to abort. To top it off he physically looked like hell. He was in some major pain in his left arm as it had taken the most damage since the fighting started and he was covered head to toe in minor cuts and bruises from the multiple bombardments.

"This is really getting out of hand.." He said just as the smoke cleared and Yuma appeared next to him with an attack already coming his way. Suddenly Sojourner was staring right at Yuma and hand backhand parried the blow with the dagger in said hand, causing a large shockwave of force to expel between the two. The blow from Yuma was definitely stronger than normal but it was not enough to overpower Sojourner in his current state and because of inertia negation all of the momentum that would have otherwise moved Sojourner was collapsing onto itself where their weapons met. Hence the shockwave.

His dagger was suddenly incredibly heavy after the strike though. Looking at it he noticed that it was covered in weights, "well that isn't supposed to be there.." and dropped it because all of a sudden the secret chain attached to his fist activated and attempted to yank him off towards the ground. He dug a foot in and his inertia negation kicked in stopping him in place instantly while he struck the chain with his other dagger.

his ears told him that more things were coming and taking a quick glance around he took notice of each of the chains. But it gave him more than enough time to decide on a course of action. He dipped sideways from the very first chain to reach him and began a serious of quick, short, accelerated dodges that would only have been possible because of his inertia negation while cutting several more chains that he didn't have time to dodge with his remaining dagger.

However even with this his free arm was still caught and tangled by a few chains and they did not seem like they were going to be destroyed by his dagger any time soon. Which made getting away from what X had planned next to impossible.

Didn't stop Sojourner from trying however. He pointed the one dagger tip first and put what little spiritual control he could manage into the weapon. He stabbed each of the bala attacks effortlessly enough but then came the stronger attacks. He diverted the one. Even managed to slightly parry the other so it grazed his shoulder instead of his torso. But the third one hit his arm followed by the fourth one which tore it off.

Using the physical pain along with adrenaline and mental discipline he forcibly yanked the chains on his remaining arm so hard and so suddenly they didn't have any chance to disperse the force amongst themselves and snapped right at his wrist. Snatched his dagger out of the air as it had been falling from being knocked into the air from his arm being vaporized a second ago and disappeared from the spot as he went from zero to max speed towards Model X spinning jumping and slashing at all of the projectiles fired at him almost making it within striking distance before being hit by the Cero Oscuras point blank.

The smoked settled and it was very likely Model X had backed off but whether he had or not something scary would have occurred. Sojourner looked like a demon possessed as he was now at his limit of patience. He was missing an arm. He was butt ass naked. He was in the middle of a blizzard and to top all of that off he was in the middle of a god damn battle outpost!

"I'M GETTING PAID TRIPLE FOR THIS GOD DAMN IT!" He screamed primally as his red kaio-ken aura forcibly dispersed the smoke clearing it out while he vanished again trying to close the gap between him and X if there was any, and if there was not either way he would have kicked the robot in the stomach with enough force and speed that armored or not he was not coming back into the fight anytime soon. Assuming of course that it even landed. In which case he would have delivered as many series of attacks as he needed in order to ensure the removal of this particular robot for a few moments at least. The main goal being to launch the thing into the distance. If that happened then the following would have occurred. If it didn't then the following is void and he only would have kept the pressure right on Model X with as much ferocity as he could manage.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Leaving the very bloodied very injured very one armed body of anger that was Sojourner staring at Yuma.

He walked towards him slowly, methodically, with as much calm as he could possibly manage in this state spewing words at him while he did so, "You will tell me what I want to know. How are you keeping your invasion forces portal open continually! WHERE IS IT BEING KEPT IN THIS STUPID PLACE!" He didn't keep his guard down however. He really didn't think it was going to be that simple to get the information he was after. He also didn't know if Intimidation even worked on these serion.

They lobbed off his arm, shredded what little remained of his clothes, and now he was pissed. And X felt it. His armor enhancement lessened attacks by 75%, his secondary shield that he put up didn't hold up for long, and Yuma's shield had diminishing returns, lessening power the first time use the most, a little bit second, and an even smaller bit the third time. Then all ports on his body opened up and gave the man a hellstorm of small, stiletto like blades, the rest of his 91. He did not budge an inch thanks to his copying the man's Inertia Negation. But after the man had done his damage, the Serion slumped down, several cracks and depressions around his entire body. And he wasn't getting up at all. One of his buster cannons was even crunched up, as was one of his legs completely messed up. He'd be completely destroyed if not for the shields and armor enhancement.

Yuma stared in aw at the onslaught, too scared to even assist. But his model counterattacked while being pummeled, and was still alive. But probably not much else. If he had the parts, the little Serion would probably be emitting liquids by now...even as his two composite bullets continued to charge. Yuma took a few steps back. He decided to mock the man a little bit. "You will turn around and run away...the Force compels you to leave..." He mad a silly hand motion he'd seen in a movie when checking out some of the humans' old entertainment movies. He doubted he did it right, but it was an attempt. The dual cubes by his head suddenly shone with even more brightness, indicating their readiness. "Eat this! Penetrator and Annihilator!"

The one cube split into six separate pieces and fired at him. Each bullet was the strength of two cero, were armor piercing, and 40% slower than a cero. But it was worth it. The second cube split into 8 separate bullets, each the power of a gran rey cero and each had a 20 yard blast radius. It was also half as fast as a cero. Luckily, X was just outside of their range, so he'd nothing to fear then. The later was spread out from where the man was towards Yuma, in an artillery like fashion and with an overlapping area of effect.

Right after they fired, Yuma shut down and crumpled to the ground, melting the snow. He was steaming. Alive...but essentially knocked out after that. He just generated way too much heat.

His perception aura activated and warned him at the very last moment of the incoming danger from Model X's final act of defiance as it slumped to the ground as a busted pile of scrap. Sojourner didn't have the time or chance to check if he was deactivated permanently because of him blocking, backflipping, and essentially sacrificing a leg on purpose to, the seemingly countless blade like protrusions that Model X had fired before his slump to the ground.

His leg felt like a pin cushion right now. something he wasn't too keen on as he proceeded with his initial attempt to intimidate the information out of Yuma hoping if nothing else is current visage would scare the serion into talking.

Unfortunately he didn't seem to give two shits about that. He mocked Sojourner by making a movie reference, which confused Sojourner at first as to how an invading serion even knew about that, but before he could think of it further, he noticed the two cubes near Yuma glow more brightly now than when he initially started his movement towards the little robot and internally just grimaced in pain as his craptastic sensing informed him he was about to be in some serious trouble.

"Son of a.." He just muttered as he watched the dozen projectiles come at him. With his leg still pin cushioned.. he would not be moving fast enough to dodge all of them. He gripped his weapon in his remaining hand tightly and slammed it into the first wave of projectiles to reach him, and though he didn't know it that meant dealing with the armor piercing shots first, easily chipping away at his empowered dagger though not destroying it til the last one leaving him unarmed for the remaining eight shots that seemed even more dangerous than the ones he had just dealt with and they were right behind them giving him little to no time to think of something to do that wasn't going to severely injure him.

He immediately punched the first one. Causing it to explode in his face slightly premature so that it dealt less damage than it would have normally though the next one he swatted with his arm claimed the very thing that detonated it. But sacrificing his arm gave him the extra time he needed to tense all of the muscles in his leg that was not injured and using it to propel him backwards at top speed to give him more time to think of a plan. Each time he made contact with the ground he stopped due to inertia negation but he immediately repeated his full tense leg jump around to keep the shots coming at him instead of catching up, but they were powerful enough that they didn't seem like they were going to dissipate on their own. Forcing Sojourner to keep moving backwards until he was well outside of the serion outpost's perimeter.

Coming to the realization he really wished he still had his lighter from his previously destroyed pants to throw at one of these stupid things. He decided on a different course of action. Stopping by a jutted out iced over rock formation he spun while stopping on a dime and kicked it with his pin cushioned leg. entirely lacerating it as the blades dug to the bone and causing him to scream in pain but he continued. Determined to live through this "stupid" mission as he know saw it his kick forced a good chunk of the formation free and sent it hurling into the first of the shots still coming after him. Causing it to explode and catch the shot right behind it making it explode as well. However the final shot was either slowed by the blizzard or just lucky as hell because it caught up to Sojourner since he had stopped and exploded right ontop of him while he was still in the kick position with his severely wrecked leg taking it off and nearly killing him in the process.

He fell over as he lost balance from lack of limbs and started to bleed out slowly, as the wounds were mostly cauterized from the blasts, and sighed as he started to feel colder for the first time in.. well.. he couldn't even remember.. it had been that long.. his mind was feeling weak and he grimaced as he figured he was about to die.

If he believed in miracles. Now would have been the perfect time for that faith to pay off. His matter regeneration ability, which he had used during the first few moments of the conflict against those three serion. Re-activated and caused the snow, which had slightly melted from his remaining but depleting body heat, to absorb into his body and stop his bleeding.

He didn't even think. Except for one word. Survive. He used his one leg and shook his torso until he rolled in the snow and continued to do it over and over and over to cover him in the stuff before slowly pushing him into the distance with the one good foot.

It was going to be a very long, very painful, extremely unpleasant trip back to civilization. Considering where he was. But he was going to live. and though his map data had been destroyed. He could at least convey his memories of the outpost to his clients and describe how the serion fought against him. That would count for something.

Then just before this story ended. Moving to the next story. He realized something.

He failed his mission. He did not locate either the power source or the portal to which the power source was meant for.

That meant he wasn't going to get paid.

"SON OF A BITCH!!!" Echo'd his scream through the frozen artic lands, possibly even reaching the serion outpost, but not being loud enough to do more than make someone go "whut?".

So now this story ends for real.

And Sojourner didn't get paid.

God dammit.