He rolled his eyes as he noted the two females in the forest, and took a full ten seconds off the time limit, putting it at a little over a minute before irrepairable damage was done. He already knew what would happen if both monkeys were still alive at that point, one would consume the females, the other continuing toward the outpost. He watched as for nearly ten seconds as the pursuit banshee tried to swat its agile opponents, and the two support banshees pushed their engines into the red zones, finally catching up with their opponents. The two new ones apparently had better AIs than the first one, or perhaps they were relying on the first one to keep the targets moving forward, for they did not fall in behind the targets, but moved off to the sides, flanking them, and providing a deadly crossfire.<br/><br/>Five seconds after joining the pursuit, the third demon spider monkey was clipped, taking one of its tentacles off, and staggering it long enough for the left flanker to put two more shots into it, severing its spine just below the top pair of arms, causing it to scream in fury as it tumbled through the trees limbs, smashing its head and body against the tree limbs that had served it so well just seconds before, before slamming into the ground with a crunch. The creature screamed as the right flanking banshee banked into a tree, an small explosion on its side indicating something vital had been damaged, before listing over to crash into the ground, smoking and sparking. After a moment, it ejected its 'shell' and stood up, revealing a humanoid form inside it, though it looked like a gleaming steel gray skeleton. The rotary turret on its shoulder tracked its surroundings as the 'core' of the banshee slowly staggered toward the hissing and flailing monkey, slow like a glacier but inevitable as the death its form so richly implied, its glowing red eye in the center of its 'head' seeing only the form it staggered toward.<br/><br/>The remaining two banshees were desperately weaving through the trees as three shots rang out behind them, and the third monkey made a long, hideous death scream that sounded like a child's, before its cold voice reverberated through his link with the avatar. "Banshee bike unit 000012, core unit, successful termination of escaped demon spider monkey, subject id 000258a.98. Requesting extraction as able for terminated subject and damaged banshee bike unit 000012."<br/><br/>He sent an affirmative, along with orders to return to its chasis and begin field repairs, along with estimating four minutes before extraction. He was not aware that Avi was listening to the link, as an new voice cut in, this one as amused and personable as the first had not. "Air walker units 000254 and 000255 to Defender Leader. We are in the tubes, armed and ready for termination of escaped test subject demon spider monkeys. Awaiting portal exit location and attack vectors. Over."<br/><br/>Draiss sent an affirmative, and warned that they would likely be deployed on top of the remaining subject if it made it to the clearing. He turned his attention back to the chase as a portal opened near the destroyed banshee bike, and five humanoid shaped units stepped out, their armor styled similar to the Banshee bike units, black primary colors, red secondary, and gold highlights. Four of them took up guard positions, their weapons looking like an oversized and bulky crossbow missing its crossbar, as the fifth unit began digging through the damaged unit, collecting the pieces in the back on its back. Knowing that the technology of the Banshee bikes was now being retrieved, he turned back to the chase, the remaining monkey now caught between the two remaining pursuit bikes, one running backwards through the forest as the two bikes fired, the first not at the monkey, but at the branches it was using to help avoid the rear units' shots. Draiss watched impassively, as the timer clicked down from thirty seconds. He glanced at the ninth screen, which showed the two elven women standing near some trees, as the screams of the demon spider monkey, the banshee's engines, and the shots could clearly be heard.<br/><br/>He cursed, and was just setting up a bombing attack vector and exit portal location for the two air walkers on standby at twelve seconds until contact with the, when the two bikes finally caught the monkey with a shot, square in the front of its chest, the first direct attack shot from the front bike catching it completely flat footed, stopping its forward momentum and dropping it down behind the rear bike as it turned, engine screaming as its reversed its heading and screamed to a stop, before the two bikes slowly rumbled forward, as the demon spider monkey made one last attempt at defiance, shooting its fangs and lashing out with its tentacles at the front bike, which bounced off its shell. The two bikes each fired three shots, two into the head and one into the chest, overkill, but this creature had proven that it was a cut above and beyond its kin. The creature silently fell back to the ground, as the two air walkers were removed from standby and returned to duties, while the extraction teams quickly recovered the carcasses.<br/><br/>The minor emergency over, he watched until all of his units were through the portals, noticing his line warriors had particularly well developed AIs that continued to sweep their areas even as they retreated through their portals. The last portal closed, and he stood up and stretched, having been closely linked with the Death World Avatar, reinforcing the anti-portal defenses and ensuring that proper magic saturation would occur in the proper portal exit locations to prevent further weak spots, before working to figure out what had gone wrong with the large scale portals. Finding several coupling problems in the main power plant was disheartening, but that they had been found before actually needing the stations was a good thing. Next time, and he made a sign with his hand to ward off fate, he might be dealing with the hyperdevourers, or a phase chameleon, or even worse, a swarm of magiscorpions. Shivering at that thought, he took a long pull from a bottle of Grand Marnier, and then jumped back over to where Bahamut and Avi were. "Sorry about that. Did I miss anything important?"<br/><br/>He paused, and then leaned back and looked into the main room, where it was showing his banshees deploying from portals in pursuit of the demon spider monkeys, exactly as it had happened, on the largest projection screen the room had. He sighed, before yelling, "HES DOING IT WRONG!"<br/><br/>He turned back to the pair with him, and looked at Aviendha, and then Bahamut, hoping there was going to be some kind of explanation as to why his first real screw up was being played larger than life, with the song for Phoenix Wright, the Pursuit song in Cadenza Remix, playing in the background. Nevermind that it fit the pursuit perfectly, but still...