The Greatest Failures

ERROR. DOMAIN FAILURE.
SYSTEM REBOOT IN PROGRESS
CHECKING FILES
...
1%
...
2%
...
12%
...
UNEXPECTED ANOMALY DETECTED
CORRUPTION OF CORE DATA
WIPE FILES? OR PURGE INFECTION?
...
PURGE COMMENCING
ONE MOMENT PLEASE.
...
PURGE FAILED. CORE DATA STOLEN.
UNKNOWN DATA LOCATED.
RUN OR DELETE?
...
STARTING SCRIPTS
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wELCOME TO SHIEL INDUSTRIES.
pROFESSIONAL IDENTIFICATION LOCATED.
cORE DATA LOCATED.
DR. SCHROTT MISSING.
...
wELCOME DR. SCHROTT.
aCCESSING MEDICAL RECORDS.
aGE: 41
hEIGHT: 5'7"
wEIGHT: UNSPECIFIED?
DOB: 3/8/67
DEATH: 3/8/08
cAUSE OF DEATH: UNKNOWN
LOCATING WILL
...
UNKNOWN VIRUS LOCATED!
ATTEMPTING SHUT DOWN

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ATTEMPTING TRANSLATION

WE DO NOT HAVE MUCH TIME. THE SENATOR WANTS US TO HAVE A WORKING MODEL BY APRIL. THE MACHINE AS WE HAVE DISCOVERED, CAN -BEND- TIME AND SPACE. THROUGH ROUGH TESTING, WE NOTICED A ROUGH AGE CHANGE. DR. XAVIER WENT FOR A CLOSER STUDY OF THE MACHINE AND HE...HE DISAPPEARED. HE JUST VANISHED. WE NOTICED WHEN HE VANISHED, THE MACHINE GAVE OFF A LARGE RADIATION DISCHARGE. THIS DISCHARGE ALTERS REALITY. IT SOMEHOW TAKES PARTICLES IN THE OBJECT AND COMPRESSES THEM, THEN LAUNCHES THEM ACROSS THE MULTIVERSE. I WILL BEGIN MORE EXPANSIVE TESTING NEXT WEEK. TONIGHT I WILL RETIRE TO MY HOME AND CELEBRATE MY SON'S 2ND BIRTHDAY.

SHUT DOWN SUCCESSFUL.

REBOOT IN PROGRESS.

...

From New York Times Article 76: A government engineer was assassinated at his house earlier this morning. Government officials are trying to locate the Assassin.

The engineer's family was slaughtered. The family had apparently been celebrating the young son Maxwell's birthday. The bodies were taken for autopsy. "The scariest part of the whole ordeal," the Schrott family maid, who had survived the event told us, "was the fact that the Assassin did not look human.." A medical examiner told us that the maid has a disease that led to her false claims...

A black silhoute in the night runs across a warehouse rooftop. The figure tosses its package then runs off into the shadows.

A man is awoken with a large explosion. He stumbles out of bed quickly dressing himself. He grabs a handgun out of his dresser he keeps for emergencies. He racks the slide back with a dull click. He braces himself next to his bedroom door.

The doorhandle begins to move, timidly at first, then the door gets kicked open. The man turns the corner to try and find his would-be Assassin. He raises his pistol as he turns. The dull illumination of the concrete hallway, lights the corridor just enough to see that there is no one there.

The middle aged man lowers his pistol in confusion. Just as he skims the hallway a second time he spots a dull blue light in the shadows below a burnt out ceiling light.

"Come out! Now!"

The ceiling light above the intruder flashes.

"What the.."

A dull blue light launches out of the shadows hitting the man in the chest. The man stumbles and falls to his knees.

*clip clop*

The man aims the gun at the noise, he is shaking wildly.

*clip clop*

"D-Don't come any closer!"

*clip clop*

The mans begins shaking irradically. His vision beginning to blur.

"Stop!"

A figure emerges from the shadows covered in sleek black armour. All four of its legs producing a dull blue light. The man fires twice. The first misses, the second however lands a perfect blow to the creatures chest. The bullet impacts tearing through flesh and bone. A steady stream of blood begins to pour out of the wound creating a pool on the ground.

The man snickers. "You could have just left! but you had to be foolish and come closer! You dumb, worthless piece of shi-"

Before the man can finish, dull blue sparks ripple up through the body of the creature. The wound is covered in blue sparks. The wound slowly begins to close.

The man fires again, two more bullets whiz through the air impacting the creature. The first shot tears through the front left leg of the creature effectively tearing it apart. Bone fragments and tissue tear out the back of the creatures leg sprayin the rear legs with the fragments. The second shot hits the creature in the neck. Tissue and blood spray through the air.

The creature stumbles and falls.

The man smiles and tries to stand. He puts all of his effort into his legs as he shakily rises. He limps his way closer to the creature, pistol at the ready.

"Not so badass are you? You still awake shit head?" The man is getting closer to the creature, he is no less than three feet away from the body. The man trips and lands on his knees.

"Arggh...Fuuuck... what did you do to me?" The man looks down at his legs to notice they are almost a sickly white. He rubs them and notices they are numb.

The man looks up to throw another insult at the creature only to find he is staring eye to mask with the creature. The man's heart skips a beat.

"Umm...uhh....sorry?"

The creature bashes its head against the poor bastard's cranium. The guy ragdolled unto his back, a steady pool of blood ozing out of his head wound. The badass monster laid back down on its side clearly exhausted as blue sparks shimmer and cover it's entire body. The living silhoute checks over itself, watching as the blue tendrils criscross over it's wounds.

The entity sighed and looked over towards its new captive. It watched as a few more drops of blood ran down the man's face. The matte black mask of the creature hisses and break apart right down the center. The sides of the mask fold down into the pack on the creatures back. As the mask descends, alabaster ears stand up straight and shake themselves involuntarily and large blue eyes blink multiple times. The equine-like creature, after all its wounds had closed, stands up and trots over towards the unconscious man.

The man shows no sign that he is conscious, so the Armored Equine quickly goes to work searching over the man's possesions, checking pockets and such. While examining the weapon, AE drops the magazine. AE was curious why ALL those shots had penetrated the armor. Then AE notices the FMJ rounds the man had been using. The armor that the equine was currently wearing was supposed to prevent from small arms fire. Apperantly the armor was not designed to withstand FMJ rounds, this was a clear design flaw and needed to be corrected. The AE snorts and leaves the man to go search the captives apartment.

The AE enters the appartment to the sound of broken glass, it looks down to see a photo of the man hugging a female. The females face has a red circle drawn around it with the word bitch in all capitals.

...

The equine continues searching around the room, opening cabinets, drowers and anything it can and cant get into. The AE comes upon a small lockbox underneath the man's bed. The armored robber swivels on its front two legs and delivers a powerful kick to the box. The box lid blows off almost comically. The AE turns back around and begins searching through the box. Signed documents, autographs and money are thrown to the floor. Finally the equine picks up a set of keys and observes them.

The keyring has four keys on it and they are all conviently labeled. The first key is silver with a heart case and has “Bitch Girlfriend's House Key” written on it. The second key is copper shaded and has “Entrance Key” written on it. The third key is a tarnished steel color with the words “Safe Key” written on it. The fourth and final key was a dark bronze color with a small logo of a shield on it, it is labeled as “Warehouse Key.”

The AE dropped all the keys in the pack on his back. It's pack was a matte black compartment on its back which was placed there to evenly distribute weight. Now some people would think to place weight on either side of the fourlegged creature. This would be normally be a great idea for any circumstance, except this one. This armored creature had rails and slots in that location designated for weapons, the only reason the slots aren't occupied was due to the fact this was interpreted as a stealth assignment. Light weight was a priority for stealth.

The warrior turned and exited the dark, damp room. As it exited, its helmet went back up into place enhancing the equine's vision. It slowly moved throughout the building, only stopping to hit the man with another dull blue blast. Slithering through the hallways with practiced stealth, the equine exited the building with ease.

Outside the building, two more AE's were awaiting the first's arrival. The Second had a slightly smaller build, while the Third was much larger than the First. The Second AE had a dull purple color radiating from it's legs, while the third had a dark white color coming from it's legs.

The Second spoke up as the First came closer, “Sir, I detonated the charges above the warehouse, Sir.”

“Good, any altercations?”

“No Sir.”

The First looked at the Third, “Are the guards subdued?”

The Third remained silent.

“Steel?” One and Two asked in unison.

Steel raised a leg and hit it against the front of its mask a few times. The mask with a screech folded up.

“Sorry guys one of 'em buggers got a shot off and messed up my mask, but don't worry he paid dearly for it. Heh” Steel responded darkly.

“So the guards are taken care of? Good. We may proceed.”