"Skull" Battle: Part 2
The battle continued on the Dark Moon Battlescape.

With one team already eliminated, another on the brink of elimination and the intense sun lighting the battlescape, things started quickly. After an intense round of calculations that lasted a half hour, Mannequin, H’Ronka, and Berserker reviewed footage from their adapter droids and also from a hidden device that Ironsides took with him in-case of capture. With a plan conceived, they mounted a rescue and recovery team including a number of web-bots and berserker bots.

They reached Prince of Gates' base none too soon as the Shendondrian Dominatrix was taking its toll on Ironsides. They were unprepared however, for hidden anomalies surrounding the base caused by the many portals that were used in that location. They were more successful, however at avoiding the larvae fields that were growing for miles around the compound.

As they reached the anomalies, Mannequin, Berserker and the berserk bots met the bulk of Prince of Gates’ army including the Prince himself. The battle raged on as H’Ronka and the web bots sneaked through a back route carved by a driller earlier, and reached Ironsides, Trace and the Dominatrix.

The quick attack took the captors off-guard as Trace and the dominatrix found themselves captured by the web bots. The half-delirious Ironsides regained his composure and they fled back through the tunnel to the outer perimeter of the base.

Meanwhile, the conflict out front continued to rage and saw the end of Berserker, leaving the Prince and Mannequin the only survivors. When Mannequin received word of the successful capture, he retreated and the Prince returned to the base only to find his prize and his Skull Trace, missing. Even H’Ronka and Ironsides already far away could hear the loud ominous scream of the Prince.

With the Prince’s call, things turned bad for H’Ronka and Ironsides. They had been making their way carefully through the overgrown larvae fields for over an hour when the call of Xarz’ycus began to awaken them, leaving the cyber team in the midst of a demon nightmare. They received word from a scout, of a large crater and set up a makeshift base to hide out and plan an escape route.

Four hours into the second day, Lothar received word from P.K. who had been doing portal reconnaissance of what had transpired. The team created a plan to win the match in one final battle. They decided to ambush Ironsides and they captured Trace and eliminate them, thereby removing the other teams’ chances to capture a Skull, except through their own Skull, P.K. They would then wait out the final hours against the weakened teams and capture the win.

Lothar and Ryla set off leaving The Stranger and P.K. in their well-protected base. As they reached the outskirts of the larvae fields the sun had retreated and only six hours remained in the match. An hour later Ironsides and H’Ronka along with the prisoner Trace set out carefully from their protective crater. Despite a good amount of information, a half hour later and nearly out of the fields, the demons caught their scent. As they fought their way through, slowed greatly by the struggling Trace, the Prince caught up with them and a melee ensued. H’Ronka continued on with Trace in toe with the help of his web bots as Ironsides fought alone against the Prince in an impressive confrontation of gunfire and Bio-attacks.

At the same time, Lothar and Ryla caught sight of H’Ronka, and Trace and made short work of H’Ronka. In a last minute decision they decided to capture the vulnerable Trace instead of taking her out. Ryla headed back to base with Prince’s Skull as Lothar pressed on towards Ironsides and Prince of Gates.

When Lothar finally arrived, the battle was already over and the Prince had won through unknown means, as a large trail had been made back towards his base. Lothar stalked forward and followed the trail.

The next set of events was the most dramatic of all. Lothar fought his way past demons, then arrived at the base only to find P.K. unconscious. Ironsides had died rather than give his glyph, keeping his team in the match, but the Prince captured P.K. and was trying to get his signature and tie the match.

Lothar now saw why Ironsides had gone down. A monstrous sized horror blasted into the base shattering it and facing him down.

Lothar fought on against the massive horror and the Prince. He finally managed to take down the Prince with two massive Bio-attacks he had saved up. The attacks were too potent even for the Prince to survive, especially after two days of intense fighting. The side-effect, however, was that Lothar was also drained, but luckily The Stranger arrived even though he was badly beaten from earlier when the horror captured P.K.

The two thought everything was saved when a final bombshell hit: Mannequin arrived with an army of Mannequin droids that he had been building since the first day!

In the end, Lothar was badly injured, The Stranger had been eliminated, and a near fatally injured Mannequin retreated along with two remaining droids, and the body of P.K. in toe. It was now a race to the finish as Lothar left with “Skull” Trace and Mannequin with “Skull” P.K. Either team could now claim victory if the captured Skull gave up its team’s glyph signature.