Choose your destiny! Flawless victory! [Inevitable Tournament Arc]

[meat_mooks]

No sooner did the Obs Deck descend to Arena Planet LXIII, and the crew allowed to disembark, than they were met by a veritable cloud swarm of cameras. Sleek, elegant things that might have been living, might have been machines, maybe were even magical... but were definitely nuisances as the swooped around to capture video of the crew at all conceivable angles, close up and far away. Their every move from this point on would be on camera.

In front of a small crowd of retainers stood what appeared to be a great circular orb whose only distinguishing features were a nose, and what appeared to be the most overblown mustache ever, which actually appeared to be supporting that two-foot-diameter orb at shoulder height to a tall man. Then the orb took a couple of steps forward,revealing that no, those were actually just really, really hairy legs. A seam cracked open on the creature, and in a voice loud enough to echo across the broad open plains without any need for amplification, it bellowed, "AND NOW! STRAIGHT FROM THE TRANSMIGRATION NINE VESSEL! OUR NEWEST COMPETITORS! FRESH TO THE STAGE OF BATTLE, BUT NO STRANGERS TO WAR--"

It went on like this for some time.

Under cover of this introduction, a small man that to all appearances seemed to be the love child of Richard Nixon and a particularly aggressive Furby stepped forward, and in a bored businesslike tone recited, "Welcome to the tournament. There will be one battle per day. The arena in which you battle will be determined by random draw. Our medical crew will perform all healing necessary and ensure no deaths so feel free to not hold back. Please refrain from accepting any bribes or favors from on-planet spectators--"

"--ARE YOU READY?!" the orb bellowed even louder than before, completely swamping the smaller man's recitation. "THEN STEP THIS WAY!"

And so saying, the orb and its procession began a clearly well-choreographed procession towards a large, medieval-looking fortress that hung dramatically just on the edge of clear vision. (Conveniently, this procession passed several large advertisements.)

Comments

[meat_mooks]

Gashakura didn't advance, not yet. "If I advance, I will fight against your comrades! Do you want them to face me? To be smashed beneath my morning star?"

[morphitudinous]

"No," Billy whispered. He repeated it more strongly. "No. But don't be so sure that you could smash them."

[meat_mooks]

"Maybe I couldn't. But it will be much easier if you just surrender your power to me now." He raised one armored fist. "At least make me work for it!"

[morphitudinous]

Billy felt as if he'd been slapped by a familiar voice from the past. The far past, before this whole intergalactic war.

What kind of awful Ranger would he be if he surrendered his powers? How could he bear to see his friends and allies mowed down that way? He couldn't, that was how.

The spark was back. Despite the long odds and the world of pain that were waiting for him...he'd fight. That's what he was here for. His mind's focus slipped back into place, pulling away from despair and toward efficiency. Even David beat Goliath, though the power at Billy's side was not of the gods.

"I think that can be arranged."

[thewunderkind]

She only had time to dodge to the left swiftly as it nearly struck her and touched the side. "EWWWWW!" She said all to very maturely. "Those attacks are so gross!" Gross and kinda cool, but still gross. The fall caused her to be distracted enough but she held on rather easily thanks to her CO powers. OTherwise...she would have been the one gone in that hole. Rather embarrassing.

"OKAY! NOW I'm pissed off." She moved her sleeves so that her henshin item could be activated and turned into the yellow ranger, unconsciously doing a pose, before taking out the gun and firing at the opponent, using the ranger-enhanced powers to move along the snowbank at rapid speeds.

[dragonspooker]

"..."

Lina's not sure she wants to check. It could be a trap where she'd get blasted yet again, or it could be a valid thing in need of checking.

However, curiosity will get the better of her, and she will peek out - after moving to what she's fairly certain is behind the thing, and on the opposite side of the bridge that she went under.

[meat_mooks]

"That's better."

The three long armor plates on each side Gashakura's torso whipped up from their moorings. On long black tendrils attacked to the armor, they struck for Billy, six lances arcing around to stab him from all sides.

[meat_mooks]

By popping up, Lina would discover two very alarming things.

First, it could track her, even underneath the bridge. The machine had swiveled on its mounts so that as she flew up it was pointing just to the left of her -- it had gotten that far before it had to stop to charge.

Second, it was charged. The awesome, sun-nova power of the P3Wx2 vaporized the air itself as burst out of the main cannon, close enough to graze her cape. All well and good that it missed, but a moment later the mount interlocks disengaged with a hiss and the cannon began to swivel, the sustained beam tracking towards her.

[meat_mooks]

"Did you seriously just do a magic girl transformation?" the Exsanguinator sneered. She brought her blood shield around in front of her to block the gun shots, which thumped through it and dropped limply on the other side into the snow. The Exsanguinator's sword tracked Lash, but didn't strike out with another shot again -- either it couldn't fire through the shield, or it needed to be recharged.

[meat_mooks]

Kurei hastily brought up his hands to deflect the sword by slapping the flat of it away -- but he had forgotten that it was imbued with Hana's spirit, not simply a weapon. The strike chopped into his forearm violently, and he let out a grunt of pain as he dodged back.

Behind Hana, Kurenai unleashed another volley of searing-hot flame lances.

[meat_mooks]

While an excellent strategy, it was imperfect; the shield was smarter than it seemed, or at least more in tune with the combat rhythm of its wielder when he himself was active. The shield moved to catch the blows on the left side, while the knight himself parried or turned away the blows on his right with cool determination. He could not attack, but his defense was well-judged; they had achieved a stalemate for the moment.

[moves_like_jaeger]

"Vat?" Maxim asked. He hadn't exactly been paying attention much to the mission briefing after "you get to fight", after all.

"Hy dun remember anything about schpoils, just dat ve fight," he said.

[meat_mooks]

The old man attempted to become irritated, but couldn't. What did you expect out of the sort of meatheads this tournament attracted?

"You may lay claim to one power or item your defeated foe possesses," he said.

[moves_like_jaeger]

The old burnt-up fart had Maxim dead to rights, at least. He WAS a meathead, even if a relatively well-meaning one. He just had a certain list of priorities and followed them to the letter...

"Vat are de options, den? Hy dun vant his axe, or his armor, dey iz too much for me."

[meat_mooks]

"You may also draw from his supernatural powers as well." The old man looked over the Jaeger with a frown. "Implantation will be tricky; we will have to go through the machines. Still, it is nothing beyond me."

[swordofdorn]

Erhart withdraws to the safe island, swapping to his bolt pistol once more, flicking the selector to full auto before unleashing a ripping burst of mass-reactive rounds towards Heigan.

"By the Emperor just die! Even for a plaguebearer you die hard."

[moves_like_jaeger]

"Dat doesn' surprise me. Beink vat I am," Maxim said. "Ennyvay, I heff little idea vat his powers do, vhich is vy I vas askink in de forst place, eh? Heffink a choice is all goot, but I like to know vat dey are, hoy?"

Maxim's eyes, however, were on the machine. It looked vaguely familiar, and yet, he knew better than to let anyone mess with him if they weren't a Heterodyne. And as much as this angry little man smelled like a smoked ham, he didn't smell like one of the family.

Well. Maxim probably could punch him in the face and get away, foot or no foot.

[meat_mooks]

"Boiling blood, exploding blood, marking a person with a rune that heals on attacks, summoning blood beasts..." The old man recited this wearily as an attendant rolled over the trilobite-marked machine to position it over Maxim. "Must you make this an effort in agony?"

[meat_mooks]

Heigan deflected two of the rounds with his staff, though a pair more passed through to thunk into that undead flesh. The necromancer seemed thoroughly unbothered, though, perhaps almost gleeful as another poison explosion rocked the arena -- and this time, the safe zone was behind Erhart again! The first explosion had not affected the first quarter of the arena, the second explosion the second quarter, and so in turn this third explosion didn't affect the third quarter of the arena.

[dragonspooker]

Well, crap.

After much scrambling, Lina's darting through the air again, rather panicked by the fact that it could follow her underneath the bridge. However, she must remain vigilant!

And get that jerk back for getting her cape.

As she flies, trying to go in an erratic circle overhead, she begins to make motions with her hands and speaks an incantation - "Wind, crimson flame. Grant the power of thunder to my hand! DIGGER BOLT!" A crackling beam of lightning fires off once the incantation is finished.

[meat_mooks]

The cannon, in fact, tracked relatively slowly -- enough so that she could fly behind it. And it didn't go up very far.

The blast crackled through the machine as it completed it sweep. The side guns swiveled upwards, unloading bullets at her as another rocket burst out of the rear mounts towards her.

[nize_hat]

"Not on purpose. Hy hef to be careful. Hyu schould underschtand." The words came out of Maxim's mouth in a rush, but his eyes were pretty much locked on the machine, marked as it was with the Heterodyne sigil.

Maybe he wouldn't be punching any faces right now. Well. There was always later.

"De healink rune sounds goot. Useful. Hy'll take dat."

[meat_mooks]

"Very well," the old man said, and, walking over to the supine figure of Maxim's opponents, plunged his hands into the death knight's flesh the way another man might plunge his hand into a bucket of water. He seemed to rummage a bit before withdrawing a closed fist, and having done so, he stepped over to the machine.

[dragonspooker]

What, MORE projectiles?!

This couldn't go on, not like this. It keeps up, she'll expend all her magic flying around!

She pulls in closer, and flings a fireball, readying another as soon as that one had let fly.

[shroudedintent]

'Vadum took particular note of the way the shield worked with the knight, it was not fully automatic in its deflection of blows it seemed. For the moment he kept up rapid successive strikes, though alternating the location of his strikes, high or low, left or right so that it would be far more difficult for the Knight to predict his blows, continually circling the night as he continued to strike.

After a moment of continued strikes 'Vadum attempted to deliver a powerful kick with all his strength to the knight's torso, even if the shield intervened he hoped that the blow would press it at the least back in against the knight where he could take advantage.