The New German Republic was based in Europe, where it was one of the two strongest governments on the continent. They had a peace agreement with the quiet Russians, and fought the gargoyles plaguing their lands and made sure the hellish beings of Africa never advanced north (The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse had become a reality, and were raping the land for undead souls to harvest and what not). The NGR had cutting-edge technology, and unlike most other governments, embraced psychics and beings from other dimensions. The outpost had been setup several years ago to monitor what happened in the central United States.

Klang checked his watch; June 24^th, 2397. He had plenty of time, but still kept a well-paced walk to the warehouse where he stored his power armor and weapons. He entered the room after scanning his recently-acquired ID card in the security lock. The warehouse was as high as a hangar in height, but stretched out for about seventy-five yards. It was filled to the brim with armors, all lined up and hooked in to recharging conduits. The armors were as various as all the Megaverse's alien inhabitants. Colors ran from red, to blue, to yellow, to the more dominant grey. They ranged from three feet for the smallest of species, to an astounding twenty-five for the tall, or just power-hungry human. About a dozen humanoid workers mulled about the place, working on their own arms and armors or working the warehouse.

The weapon giddy man walked down the warehouse and turned a corner to see a German man wearing an NGR uniform with a hand-held computer surveying Klang's armor where it sat tin the line.

"Hey! What're you doing with my armor?" Klang snapped.

The man backed away a few steps and said in broken English, "I no speak English!"

Klang cleared his throat and repeated in German, "That's my armor, what the hell are you doing with it?"

Klang was a tall, strong, imposing man. Much like He-Man, or Conan. The German meagerly answered, "The- ehhh- NGR requires identification of all armors that it holds, sir! Got it now, thank you for your cooperation!"

Klang curved his glance into a menacing glare and said, "If I find anything taken or added to my armor, I'll see it that they'll need to identify you once I'm done with ya!"

The man walked away quickly. Klang's small brain (even for a human) knew that something was up, because he had given full identification and all the serial numbers the day before. So what was that guy up to? "Better not've screwed with any of it," he said as he approached his armor, and retrieved his Energy Rifle that Victoria wanted to see. "Don't like the government interfering with me… Not one friggin' bit."

"Sir, the SNAFU squad is here for your meeting." Nexxis' secretary told him telepathically.

Situation Nominal: All Fouled Up was what SNAFU stood for. It consisted of six mercenaries who were collected together by fate. They all happened to be stranger than the average bear, and only one of them could be considered a full human. They had all met just before joining Omega Force, which was a rogue mercenary group located in Neo-Vegas.

Nexxis cringed at the word: SNAFU. They had not had one single successful mission yet, and were simply a bunch of clowns. "Ughhhh, send them in," he mentally replied.

The squadron of mercenaries entered Nexxis' office. Gwenyth Tel'Dur sat down at one of the chairs. She was exceptionally pretty, and well-built, thanks to the fact that she was really a dragon, and was in a form she created in her mind and morphed into from her natural gigantic self. She was probably the most social of the group. Yowie McCloud sat down at another chair. He was the weak leader of SNAFU, and a normal human, whenever he wasn't summoning fire out of thin air. Jak Kruag Sotekame entered behind him and stood behind Gwenyth. Jak was covered in a metal exoskeleton, and also was borne with some spikes poking out of his head and arms, as well as a slender tail. He knew some knowledge of spells like, Gwenyth and Yowie. Jeff Parker stood to the side of Jak, with his arms folded. He was the minority of the group, because he was actually normal! He had lived as a military warrior, fighting for one or two governments in the past. Saligar, the wackiest, entered last and sat down on Nexxis' desk seductively. He had several metal knobs sticking out of his skull, which were connected to his brain, enough said. Strangely, he was probably one of the smartest in the group.

"You called, boss?" Gwenyth said.

Nexxis, one of the mission generals of Omega Force looked around the room. "You're all a bunch of freaks. I needed to tell you that. Now, onto business. Your sixth member, Klang Kerenski has gone to the NGR outpost in Utah. His armor has technology that only Omega Force knows. If the NGR gets this technology, we will be in big trouble strategically. Also, the NGR has a way of making visitors stay, and a man as angry and bilingual as Klang makes for a nice 'visitor'. I want you guys to go get Klang out of there. View the NGR as your enemy. You may bring three others along with you. Meet in Hangar eight in three hours for your transportation… Now get the heck outta my office!"

"Aww, you don't have to be so angry, Mr. Nexxis-boss-man! We will make this mission as successful as spatulas!" Saligar said.

Nexxis blinked as his mind was harassed by Saligar's, the "Crazy", comment. He was able only to whack his head with an open hand as the squadron of mercenaries left.

SNAFU met up at the hangar when the time was right. With them, they brought Therros, Morrigan, and a woman specializing in computer hacking. Therros was a powerful, but maniacal magician the group had recently befriended. Morrigan, Jak's beautiful wife, knew a lot of magic too, and was also skilled at many forms of martial arts. The squad brought along the computer hacker in case the NGR logged some of the technology onto their computers. She was a young adventurer looking for fun, whatever…

They all boarded the jet-helicopter that would transport the squadron to Utah from Neo-Vegas. The trip took about an hour, and the squad was dropped off about two miles from the NGR outpost, as to avoid detection. Once the transport ship had left, however, four patrol men wearing Power Armor approached the party. Jak, Gwenyth, Morrigan, Saligar, and the hacker hid in or around some trees, while Yowie, Therros and Jeff stood in what armor they had to talk with the NGR.

Once the NGR had stopped to talk, everyone saw that one of the armors was Klang's.

"Seems we've found Klang." Yowie said to SNAFU while looking at the armors.

One of the armors, about eight feet tall with weapons in safety mode walked a pace closer to Yowie and said, "Greetings from the New German Republic. How are you?"

Yowie had been able to work up an ingenious answer, "Our car broke down. About, two miles back. We saw this place on our map, and thought we could get help."

"Ahh," was the reply, "What kind of vehicle were you riding?"

"Uhmmm, a-- C-1007 Armored Personnel Carrier."

"Really. That's funny. C-1007's run on particle acceleration, those don't just 'break down'. And our outpost isn't on any map."

"Uh, oh well--" Yowie stammered, knowing that a peaceful confrontation was history. Therros wanted the first shot, so he cast a mechanical paralysis spell on the tallest armor with a few words. The armor fizzed, and faltered. Two shots rang out from the trees as Jak and Jeff fired their rifles at another armor, which, in turn, buzzed in alert.

A gun fight began between the two factions, with Klang not knowing who to fight since he had just gone with the NGR patrol for fun. SNAFU was his gang, but the NGR had done no wrong so far! Then Therros cast an overkill spell-- everyone in the vicinity was suddenly faced with their worst nightmare, even SNAFU! In order to break the spell, one must exit its forty foot radius, or wait until its duration ended.

Those who could, Morrigan, Therros and Gwenyth, teleported away. However, the rest were plagued by the most horrid of things! Jeff was being yelled at by his bully drill sergeant, Saligar was facing a skeletal cat psychologist, Klang suddenly was weaponless, and Jak was being chased by some S&M demonesses.

Eventually, SNAFU was able to leave the parameters of the spell, and disarm the NGR armors. They all talked with Klang and explained the mission.

Once done, they asked Klang, "Did they mess with your power armor?"

Klang remembered, "Yeah, some snoopy mechanic was screwing with it this morning! Are we gonna get to pound him?"

"Yes we are, we are Klang…" replied Gwenyth.

The squadron walked to the outpost, which turned out to also be a small city, reaching it by nightfall. Sometime during the journey, Therros disappeared. The squad didn't care about him too much and agreed it was for the better.

"We should infiltrate the base as quietly as possible, and split up into small groups." Jak suggested, "Morrigan will go with me, Gwen will cover the hacker and check the computers, Klang, Jeff and Yowie will go in to look for any replicants of Klang's armor, and Saligar… He can go on his own."

"Yippee!" resounded the 'Crazy'.

"Everyone meet over there, half a mile from the west wall in the forest." Yowie instructed.

Saligar went first to cause a distraction, so the others could sneak in. He strutted before the outpost's walls with his chest out, arms bold and arched towards the ground, bearing fists. Truly an odd spectacle.

He walked before the tall guard tower and said, "Hey the New German Republic stinks! I prefer the Coalition States any day! HAHA!" He then proceeded to gesticulate to add angst to his efforts at getting a rise out of the guards. The two guards in the tower looked at each other then back at Saligar. They didn't do anything else until Saligar mooned them.

Reeling at the site, one spoke into his radio, "This is Tower A, we've got some sort of deranged human heckler. Can I get someone on the ground to apprehend him?" The radio acknowledged his request. Soon enough, two armed men in simple body armor approached Saligar. They attempted to grab him, but he dodged their grasps. Saligar's insanity was a product of his enhanced nervous system. He had twice the reflexes of a cat and could dodge the fastest bullet. The guards still tried to apprehend him, but were failing over and over again. Several other guards had gathered around to watch the sight and laugh.

With some of the guards drained, and all of them diverted, the others moved in. Klang, Jeff, and Yowie quickly scaled the walls while Gwenyth teleported herself and the hacker into the outpost.

Klang and his two buds were behind a building, in a dark alley. Their guns were readied and the eyes of their armor glowed a dull blue. They all ran around to the corner of the building, deeper into the outpost to see what was out there. Klang was able to spot the warehouse or armors about 100 yards away. A series of raised bridges that connected the buildings was the best way to go, because of the abundance of patrols and sentries everywhere on the ground.

The three waited until a patrol passed by, when Klang quickly went around the corner and slid his Identification card through a lock. The door slid open, to expose an official standing in the doorway. The man looked up in curiosity to meet the ten-foot gaze of Klang's armor, only to be slapped unconscious by the pilot.

Gwenyth ran ahead to check for any guards. Once it was clear, she and the hacker ran to the locked door. The hacker was able to break the lock in fifteen seconds, and the two dashed into the vacant room. As they had suspected, a computer terminal was running that was connected to the database of the NGR outpost.

The hacker plopped down happily at the computer, bringing out her lucrative bag of goodies, and began to crack into the recent archives of the base, searching for any new armor technologies.

Jak used his most powerful spell, animal metamorphosis, and assumed the form of a Doberman Pincer. Morrigan walked with him to the front gate. The two walked past the silly Saligar and approached the single guard attending a small entrance door to the base. Morrigan began explaining that the general's recently-adopted pet had arrived, flirting and using her seductive beauty to gain entrance.

Once inside, Morrigan looked over at a nearby bar and back at Jak the dog, "I'm going to go pilfer me an ID card from some drunken, lonely officer, hopefully high-level, ehh? We should pretty much split up. Meet me near that building when we must leave, ok dear?"

Jak panted in all his canine capacity and licked Morrigan's face before trotting off into the heart of the outpost.

He walked past guards left and right, no one caring about some loose dog, until he saw a large hangar nearby. He approached the hangar, but couldn't get past the ID locks. Disappointed, Jak wandered around until he found a door without a lock that was near the hangar, with a sky bridge connecting the two.

Jak was able to open the door easily- it was one of those bar-knob deals, not the round kind. Inside, a scientist was working at a lab and typing at a computer. He looked over at the dog, losing his train of thought. He stood out of his chair and said, "Dumb dog, go away!" and was about to push Jak out the door before the dog instantly became the 6' 1" tall Jak who grabbed the scientist by the shoulders, twirled him around, and tackled him to the ground.

The scientist was puzzled and frightened, but they both said nothing as Jak stole the ID card off the man. Jak then lifted him up and instructed him to sit in a chair in front of the computer. The scientist willingly did so, as Jak followed right behind, making sure no alarms were set off. Once the scientist sat down, Jak opened a vial he had and held it under the scientist's nose. The scientist passed out, looking as if he had fallen asleep a the computer. Jak smiled and raced up some nearby stairs to get into the hangar.

Jeff struck the back of the guard's head with the butt of his rifle and the man fell unconscious. Jeff looked behind him and motioned for Klang and Yowie to come out. The three continued across the bridge that would bring them to the warehouse. The three came to a turn, then opened a door that exposed a reinforced catwalk in an unlit room. The three quietly tiptoed into the room and saw a red light on the side of the wall, except for Klang, whose power armor supplied him with ten foot night vision. "Ahh, a light switch!" Klang said. He pressed a button and a sound like a whirring generator erupted and lights exploded to life in the hangar, exposing the hundreds of power armors that sat in intimidating rows on the floor. Quite awesome. The three who stood about fifty feet above the floor on the catwalk looked at each other and grinned.

The hacker grinned and said, "Aha!"

Gwenyth came over to the hacker's shoulder, "What? Found the files?"

"Yep, they've stolen all they can from that armor. It'll take me a while to delete it all!"

Gwenyth went back to watching for any approaching guards and said, "Get too it, babe… Quickly now."

An unarmed worker jumped out from behind an armor and sprinted for the exit. Klang aimed his rail gun to the man's back and fired, hitting the guy in the shoulder. Since rail guns do far more damage than an old fashioned revolver, and the guy wasn't wearing armor, his arm blew apart in fragments of bone and blood as he fell lifeless to the titanium floor.

"Eww." Klang said.

There were two dozen of Klang's armors, that had recently been replicated from technology the NGR copied off the original. Since they couldn't be operated without a higher class ID card, they had to be destroyed. Jeff and Yowie were busy rigging two fusion bombs to the two groups of copied armors and Klang stood guard.

Some clanging pounded from a ventilation shaft and Klang immediately had his gun trained on the source. Jak came rolling out of a vent and fell onto the fifty foot high catwalk.

"Heya Jak!" Klang cheerfully cheered.

Jak looked around at the armors, seeing Jeff and Yowie briskly strapping on high powered demolitions.

Another minute passed, and the two bombs were set for three minutes. A shiny red button on one of the fusion blocks was all that needed to be pressed for the timer to start ticking. Klang's obsession with explosives kicked in and his eyes locked on the button. The shiny, candy-like button. He couldn't resist it, he leapt over and pressed the button with a gigantic cackle.

"STUPID! We needed to warn the others!" Jeff said.

Yowie said, "Call them while we run! HEAD FOR THE HILLS!"

Fusion blocks do a lot of damage. They're like a concentrated nuclear bomb that only spreads in a two-hundred foot radius. They are unpredictable however, and due to debris, it’s a good idea to be far away from them when they explode.

Yowie, Jeff and Klang all sprinted for the exit. Jak, still on the catwalk, ran with his hands running along the rails of the suspension. He was approaching a rather tall armor, so he jumped onto its shoulders and hopped down its arm, and onto the ground, to sprint away with the others.

"Show off," Yowie said.

Jeff got onto his radio, "The bombs are set to go off in under three minutes, head for the hills! Gwen, Morrigan, uhh, Hacker babe! That means you!"

Gwenyth replied on the radio, "Are you sure? We're still busy with the computers!" to the side she said, "Are you done yet?"

Distantly, the hacker said, "Two more minutes."

Gwen spoke into the radio, "Uhhhh, sure, we can make it!"

Morrigan, who had the gift of telepathy told Jak that she was already waiting over on the wall for him. Jak smiled.

Klang, Jeff, Jak and Yowie busted through the door, triggering an alarm. Jak activated his forcefield, as the others increased their power armor-aided sprint towards the nearest wall. They all began to fire upon the wall with their strongest weapons, while some nearby guards fired upon them. Lasers and rails and huge slugs dug dents and burns into the armors, and sent ripples through Jak's field. The wall crumbled, and they all put their weapons away to run faster.

Jak was suddenly lifted off the ground. He looked up to see Morrigan's face smiling back. She could use her mind to fly at up to fifteen miles an hour.

Saligar was being carried into the base for custody, after he was finally caught when seven guards converged on him at once. The guards, however, stopped when the alarm rang. They all immediately dropped Saligar and ran to the heart of the base. Saligar, who didn't have a radio, knew that it was time to exit stage left. He smiled as he ran as fast as an average automobile out of the place.

Gwenyth and the hacker burst out of the room. Guards were sprawled everywhere outside, and didn't notice until Gwen transformed into a thirty foot tall dragon. Most of the guards then staggered or screamed as the mighty dragon grabbed the hacker and quickly flew away.

Jeff and the others quit their run after they were well into the forest. He spoke into the radio, "Bomb should be… going off any time… Everyone clear?"

"Hacker and I are out."

"Me and Morrigan 're clear."

Jeff looked to Yowie, "I'm sure the alarms have given Saligar plenty of chance to flee."

The bombs exploded. The hangar, just visible over the wall, exploded with its roof being vaporized instantly. About one second later, however, the entire outpost and town went up in a massive, fiery cataclysm. Every building was leveled, and the trees nearby bent away as the shockwave hit.

Klang's mouth dropped, "Good Lord! What did you guys do???"

Yowie's eyes glazed over at the pyrotechnics, while Jeff said, "That isn't just fusion blocks."

Jak, Morrigan, Gwenyth, the hacker, and Saligar all gathered around. After several minutes of discussion, they figured that pipes containing combustibles, maybe fuel, must've laid under the hangar and led to the rest of the town and base. Their mission was successful, but they did destroy a town full of innocent people.

Everyone bit their lower lip at the thought, wondering how they would explain it to the boss. Saligar said, "They don't call us SNAFU for nothing!"

Some nearby bushes rustled with activity, and a large, armor-clad man stepped out into the clearing that SNAFU had met in. He was obviously very powerful; his armor and glowed brightly.

He got to the point, "I don't want to know what that was all about. I'm looking for some guy named Therros, you've seen him?"

Gwenyth said, "Uhh, yeah. He was with us earlier. Weird he is."

The guy said, "My name is Norman. Do you have any idea where he is now?"

"I'm Gwenyth. We separated about two miles south of here. He shouldn't be too far I guess…"

Norman said, "Ahh, thanks. I thought he'd be snooping around Earth again… I've gotta go search for him. Thanks for your help…" He was way too cool and supreme, paying no attention to the destructive carnage!

He began to walk away when Yowie said, "Hey, do you think you could help us get home? You seem sort of-- buff."

Saligar looked up at Yowie, "What about the helicopter call-control they gave you when we got off the copter?"

"I uhh, lost it…"

All of SNAFU said, "Damnit, Yowie!"

Norman nodded and said, "Neo Vegas right? Yeah, I can tell, I'm just that good…" He held his arm out, and a portal appeared in mid air. "This should bring you there…"

SNAFU nodded thanks, and all hung their heads low as they walked into the portal, to face their fate…