Jake sped into the headquarters, slamming and locking the door behind him. He realized that with super-creepy-crazy bad guys after them a locked door wouldn't do much, but he figured he might as well try.

"Computer," he barked. "Locate Michael Macbeth."

There was a low hum as the computers processed the command. "Command accepted. Locating target: Michael Macbeth. Requested target is not in the headquarters."

Jake frowned. "That's impossible."

The computer hummed again. "I am not programmed to argue with you."

Jake rolled his eyes. Stupid machine... "Computer, is Michael Macbeth on the grounds?"

"Locating target: Michael Macbeth. Requested target is not on the grounds."

Jake was about to yell some random obscenity at the computer when he heard the sounds of footsteps coming down the stairs. Jake quickly jumped behind a pillar just as a woman in a flowing gold gown appeared in the foyer, arms laden with valuables from the various Leaguer's rooms.

"Let's see," Avarice purred to herself. "This one, I'll put over the fireplace. This one will go over my bed, and this... this I'll wear for Pride."

She giggled quietly, carefully laid all of her loot in a bag she retrieved from her cleavage, and began to wander about the foyer, apparently looking for more to steal. Jake tried to step around the pillar as Avarice approached, so that he wouldn't be spotted, but ran his toe into a heavy table, swearing loudly. Avarice spun about, grabbed him by the arm and threw him into the center of the room.

"Well, well, I didn't know I would be entertaining company. If I had, I would have tidied up a bit," she said, circling around Jake. "Time to die, darling." She cackled as two long, curved blades shot out of her billowing sleeves and latched onto her wrists. Jake's eyes widened, and he rolled away just as she brought a blade down where his neck used to be.

"Whoa, that is NOT cool!" Jake exclaimed, ducking as Avarice slashed at his head.

"Stand still and let me kill you!" Avarice hissed, her blades narrowly missing his belly as he used his super-speed to evade her attacks.

"Not a chance, psycho! You're-" But Jake never finished what he said, as Avarice put out her arm and clotheslined him. His head met the floor with a loud crack.

Avarice touched the tip of her blade to Jake's throat. "Funny... I'd heard such grand things about the League of Dorkdom. This is MOST disappointing. But a nuisance is a nuisance is a nuisance, and must be dealt with as such. And I believe your Achilles' tendons would be a good place to start..." She kicked him onto his stomach, and positioned her blade above the back of Jake's ankles. "Let's see you run away NOW, you little brat."

*****

Septroy uncurled himself from his ball-state and ducked behind a tree. His sensors told him that three enemies were just behind that tree, about twenty meters away. They had Brinn-human and Jaccie-human surrounded. From the vital readings he was getting, both of the Leaguer-humans were unconscious.

He curled back into his ball form, and rolled silently to the next tree, attempting to get closer to the captive Leaguers. He uncurled once again, and retrieved his pistols from his feet-storage compartments. He was aiming at the purple DSer's head when a voice crackled over the comm system in his head.

"Septroy, report. This is King Matt. Report."

If Septroy could have rolled his eyes, he would have. Talk about bad timing…

"Septroy, here, Highness-human. Jaccie-human and Brinn-human have been spotted. They are being held by three enemies."

"Good," came King Matt's response. "We've almost got the grounds clear, and Bethany has recovered Jesse. He's been injected with something… we know it isn't lethal, but we haven't been able to wake him up so far."

"Would you like me to retrieve Jaccie-human and Brinn-human?"

"Yes. Do you need back-up?"

Septroy was about to respond, but his sensors picked up something directly behind him. He leapt out of the way just as a jet of flame ignited the tree he'd been hiding behind.

"Back-up is needed, King Matt-human. Septroy out." The little Septron spun about to find himself face to face with a lithe woman in a red bodysuit, with equally red spiky hair.

"Hey, there, little fella," the woman growled. "Wanna play?"

"No, ma'am, but I would be content to reclaim the captives you are holding."

The red woman threw her head back and laughed. "You'll have to get through me to do that," she cackled.

"If you insist, ma'am," Septroy said shortly. He then threw his guns up into the air, curled into a ball and launched himself at the woman. She hurled balls of flame at the little robot, put the polished Septrochromite plates around his body deflected them. He extended his Septronite spikes and smashed into the woman's face. She fell back screaming and clutching her slashed face. Septroy uncurled as he landed, caught his guns and let loose a volley of molten energy. The woman shrieked as she attempted to fend off the onslaught from the little robot.

Suddenly, another woman, this time clad in green, appeared beside her defeated companion. Septroy paused in his attack.

"Now, now, Tinman," she whispered. "Play nice with the other kids."

Septroy cocked his head to the side. "With all due respect, ma'am," Septroy said politely. "I doubt you know anything about ‘playing nice' with anyone. And I happen to be constructed out of Septronite and Septrochromite, which is a highly refined form of Septronite enhanced by-"

"Shut up," The green woman hissed as she telekinetically ripped two trees out of the ground and smashed them into the little robot.

*****

Gluttony rubbed his enormous head and glanced over at Sloth. His brother's hoverpod was currently picking itself up off of the ground with robotic arms, lest Sloth have to do it himself. The shielding technology of his hoverpod had protected him from the unseen attack, but had knocked him over.

"S-man, we gotta tell P that we're under attack. They're prolly gonna try and nab this little cream puff if we don't…" Gluttony trailed off as he glanced at the captive Jesse. Or at least, where the captive Jesse used to be. "WHERE THE HELL DID HE GO?!"

Sloth moved his hoverpod to his brother's side. "What's up, Rhino? What happened?"

Gluttony face was turning a deep shade of purple. "THEY GOT THE CREAM PUFF WITH THE GUN!!"

Sloth decided it was worth the energy to glance down. "But… how? We were only distracted for a-"

But Sloth's statement was left uncompleted. Neither of the two brothers had noticed the airship coming back around for another assault. As such, Sloth didn't have time to even activate his shield generator, and even the armor plating on the hoverpod couldn't withstand the plasma bolts being fired by the airship. A direct hit to the anti-grav powergrid ripped the hoverpod apart, throwing Sloth over the edge of the roof. Gluttony, though armored by his thick skin and layer of nearly impenetrable blubber, did not have time to brace himself, and was pummeled by blast after blast until finally he toppled over the side of the HQ.

Sloth, on the ground, could not move himself, due to the long fall and to the fact that he hadn't been able to physically move his own body for years now. Alright, maybe not years, as he had only just recently been created but… you get the idea. He could feel his thin blood escaping from his body, and knew that he would most likely die from blood loss, as his lack of nutrients liked to keep his blood from clotting.

He looked up however, just in time to see his obese brother hurtling down towards him, and his face contorted into an expression of horror, possibly the most energy he'd exerted all day. Know what happens when you drop a 600-pound behemoth on a twig? Sloth was about to find out.

Crunch.

*****

Avarice lifted the blades over her head, and brought them down in a sweeping guillotine chop. They never made contact with Jake, however, as Avarice suddenly received a swift kick in the gut, sending her flying back into the wall.

"Ooh! Sorry! I didn't mean to kick that hard!" Michael exclaimed as Avarice crumpled to the floor.

Jake heaved himself off of the ground. "Michael, do me a favor."

"Yeah?"

Jake glared at him. "Shut up."

Avarice, her head still spinning, leapt off of the floor and took off at Michael, blades slashing furiously. Jake, however, sped over, and in the time it would have taken to blink, tripped Avarice, grabbed her by the hair and smashed her face into the floor.

Crack.

As she stood up, he delivered an uppercut to her jaw, and she was sent careening backwards. Jake ran to catch her, then kneed her in the face.

Crack.

Avarice tried to stagger away, but Jake caught her arm and threw her into the wall yet again. Avarice cried out in pain as her head shattered the window.

Crack.

"Jake, I think she'd down!" Michael said loudly, but Jake ignored him.

"I am sick of you people!" Jake cried, pummeling Avarice in the face. "You always call me stupid! Always take me out first!"

Crack.

"Always treat me like a kid!"

"Jake, stop! You got her!"

Crack.

"I hate you!"

Jake hadn't noticed when the large goggles clamped over Avarice's eyes had cracked. Or when that crack grew and branched out. Or when the plastic splintered. But now, finally, as his raw, bleeding knuckles pounded her face one last time, the lens shattered. Avarice suddenly let out a scream, unlike anything Jake had heard. It was a scream of pain, and at the same time an animalistic cry of pleasure. She threw Jake off, then reached up and tore the fragments of the yellow glass from her face, leaving bloody red circles around her eyes from where they had been embedded. Avarice's pale yellow eyes flashed with a crazed look, a wild, passionate fire burning in her eyes. A smile spread over her cracked, bleeding lips.

Michael glanced at Jake. "What did you do?"

Jake didn't answer, but he didn't like the cold terror that rippled through him.

*****

Sarah Kay leaned over the railing of the airship to see what was happening. They had been blasting two of the DSer's from the roof (either Bethany and King Matt had REALLY good aim with those gun things, or the base suddenly had some kind of shield), and Bethany, in a moment of ninja-tastic-ness, leapt from the airship, grabbed Jesse and jumped back over.

Now, normally, at this point, they would have called iDoe over King Matt's PencilComm and had her transport the two DSer's to some high-level containment center that only she knew the whereabouts of. However, iDoe was no longer an option. With iDoe captured, they didn't really know of any way to detain the DSer's. There was a brig in the basement levels of the headquarters, but nothing that could hold the likes of them for long. To mention nothing of the problem of actually MOVING the fat orange one.

Before she had been captured, iDoe had told them to locate "iRam" and "iDume". That was all very well, except for the fact that apparently no one other than King Matt (and possibly Christy, though Sarah Kay hadn't approached her about it) knew who or what those were. And King Matt didn't actually know where to find them, he only knew who they were. Which is all fine and dandy until you wind up in a pinch and need their services. This was such a time.

But since the fat DSer and his scrawny sibling were down for the count, they were headed to give Septroy some back-up. King Matt had given Bethany the coordinates (because along with her crazy-deadly ninja skills, she could apparently drive nearly every vehicle imaginable), and they were coming up on them fast.

Upon reaching the coordinates, they found Septroy bouncing away from a green-clad DSer who was ripping trees out of the ground and throwing them at the poor little robot.

"Alright, King Matt, target is in sight, fire away," Bethany said as they closed in on the woman assaulting poor Septroy.

From the ground, Envy looked up just in time to see the airship let loose a volley of plasma. One blast exploded the tree she was levitating above her head, riddling her body with a rain of splinters and woody shrapnel. A second blast sent her lacerated body flying through the air, smashing through several tree trunks, and landing several hundred yards away in a position that humans do not live through.

Crunch number two.

Septroy glanced up at the airship, gave a small, crisp and ADORABLY PRECIOUS salute, motioned for the airship to follow him, then rolled into a ball and set off to rescue the Brinn and Jaccie.

*****

The scarred Lust glanced out from her hiding place. She could see that pesky little robot... and in another moment, she would have him. He just needed to come a little closer... of course, Lust hadn't counted on her sister to come flying through the air and smash her into a tree. Hard. Hard enough that she left a large crater in the trunk. A crater which caused the trunk to splinter and crack. A crack which caused the top half of the tree to break off and come crashing down.

Right onto Lust's already scarred head.

Crunch number three.