[L] Aria & Android R VS [W] Legion & Verglas [OS]

“Word from Overlord Verglas, sir.” The voice of a panicked warrior broke through the silence that had swept over Legion’s room. The Fallen Commander sighed, he already knew what was coming. “Sir, it is urgent.”

Legion stood without another word, his hands grazing over the laces on his gauntlets and pulling them tight. “Gather the Fallen,” He said in a monotone voice, he was not afraid of death, but failure was an option he did not wish to experience again.

---

The Tempest of Souls walked side by side with his new ally, Verglas, no more than a half a step behind him to show his respects to his title. They had battled together, drank together, and faced Lord Frost together, a bond that strengthened through fear -of Lord Frost- and blood. This time they had the first advantage, they could see the Kai Forces just over the rolling hills on the lit side of the planet. The Exiled King could see his Changeling Ally make his own preparations for battle, his hands forcing a needle into his own flesh. He too did the same, however a bit different in comparison. Handfuls of dirt were pushed to the side as he gently placed four seeds into the ground and when he stood he unleashed his hellish aura into the field of battle.

Verglas raised his hands and the uniformed click of boots sent a single echo into the battlefield as the army halted. There was no time for speeches and the Changeling Weapon Master knew that, his words were short and to the point. By the end of his commands four saibamen were already sprouting from the ground, their lime green skin and red eyes glowing against the flash of the star above. Verglas took the lead, but Legion was right on his heels. The two moved and worked together like a well oiled machine.

A quick slash from the ki infused blade would give Legion just enough time to focus his energy on the rat. His eyes traced through the battlefield, weaving in and out as he viewed the stream of ki around him like a river. His hands picked and grabbed at it, as if it were tangible, and he manipulated it into a lasso of sorts. Round and round he went, his aim to entangle the Racoon like a rodent. Without a single word, under the cover of the changeling, he dipped into the guard of his opponent. His right hand shot out quickly, ki already forming around his target. The darkened crimson sphere was lighter than he expected, maybe because of the size of the thing he was aiming at. Easily he was able to slam it into the ground creating the smallest dent in the crust of Mortoseth.

Wasting no time and allowing not a moment to recover Legion lashed out like a crazed swordsman. His arms swung left and then to the right, two fingers extended on each of them as invisible blades flew through the air. His signature move, if they connected with the racoon it could spell disaster, they were as sharp as the finest blade. His eyes continued to scan for any signs of retaliation as he lowered himself into a defensive position. He knew that the enemy would push back, but how hard?

Free. Telepathy dodge Whirlwind
1. Telepathy Dodge vs Whirlwind #2
2. Firmware Upgrade during A1
3. Transmute Energy vs A4
Free. Shishio vs Daichiretsuzan
4. Ion Blast @ EVERYTHING (DR6 | -16% Ki)
S1. Charge Solar Flare
Free. Advanced Energy System
S2. Charged Mastered Solar Flare @ Legion (DR3 | 2 Action Stun | 2 Action Blind | CE: Blind | -5% Ki)
Free. Restore 20% Ki with Recovery Node Mk II

Attacks Taken From (Small Saiba Assholes: DR3 x 3, DR4 x 1)

The Damaskian troops were an electronic warfare technician’s wet dream. Not only were they all linked together via a series of communications networks, but each and every soldier carried a weapon powered by an energy cell. They lit up the electromagnetic spectrum like a national holiday every time they began to operate. From his position in the drop ship, several conversations could be heard via intra-squad communications. While most of the squads could only communicate with each other, the two androids leading the charge were capable of processing much more data than a human brain and thus were wired into everything. Every so often R heard a conversation that made him smile.

They used his promotion course material as an example in my recruit school. The guy mocked a fat lady for being caught in a thicket and blew up a monastery.

R laughed quietly to himself. He hadn’t been sure what was going on at first, but advice from others had been to be as chaotic as he could. Thus the mocking of the fatty and the explosive end of the crane school. His own squad of troops was characteristically silent and was hanging around the edge of the column. All equipped with jetpacks, it wouldn’t do for them to blast off from the middle of the host once the shooting started.

As soon as the targets were identified, the commanders were launched. Commander was perhaps a misnomer for these two. Both products of Damaskian Robotics, the two barely held a rank within the Shadowguard. Aria and R were generally dispatched to handle situations where collateral damage was less something to be avoided and more something to be encouraged. As a robot, R didn’t get motion sickness, but he spared a thought for those who did as the gravitational forces pushed and pulled against his tiny body during their descent. The impact was… problematic.

Aria kicked the door open before remarked about the landing. As usual, her southern drawl left the problem considerably understated.

“There was a landing gear?” he grumbled as he looked around at the black armor of the Damaskian host behind him. R too was clad in black, his exoskeleton appearing to draw in light as he moved. It was difficult to determine the outline of his body in such an outfit.

A changeling charged towards them, murderous intent evident in his … well in his everything. Aria moved ahead, placing her hand gently on his shoulder as the whirlwind slashes of the overlord’s blade passed harmlessly through both of them. R couldn’t help but gape as he found himself unharmed by the slashing of the blade. The motion continued unabated as though the overlord wasn’t fighting against two ghosts from the Empire. Calculations began to ping in R’s head, predicting velocity and momentum and moving his body without requiring confirmation from him. Rafael had been sealed more tightly and R's processor upgraded to grant the Nephilim’s abilities without allowing him to see the light of day. R’s body shifted and weaved as he avoided the striking of the blade.

As Aria engaged the overlord, the Legion approached. In this instance, the legion was their quarry and also a squad of saibamen that appeared to be interested in doing his bidding. As they approached, R’s chaotic little mind began working overtime.

“Sir,” he said, looking at Legion, “sir, do you have a moment to talk about our Lord and…”

That was all he got out before the saiba were upon him, their clawed little fingers poking and prodding like the worst kind of kindergarteners. In the midst of it all, a slicing blade of energy cut through the gloom. As it came into contact with R’s exoskeleton he erupted into flames. The saiba paid no mind to the flames and continued to pound on him like he was a delicious breast of chicken that needed to be deep fried. More and more cutting blades appeared, though once again algorithms in the mechanical part of R’s brain kicked into gear. He couldn’t make himself intangible without Aria’s help but what he could do use these obnoxious green children to shield himself from the worst of it. And you know what? They didn’t even care! These were some resilient little offspring.

“Okay, you know what?” he said, tiring of the input from the brat pack, “can you read yet, you obnoxious little fucks? This is called an ion bomb. The timer says two. I’ll let you find out what that means.”

Considerably less than two seconds later, an explosion erupted beneath them. Like a surfer riding a wave, R coasted up into that air on the shockwave and was irritated to see that the resilient little assholes were continuing to touch him like he was a priest at Sunday mass. Rather than throw another bomb, R elected to bring out a very special grenade. This grenade would erupt into a miniature sun and vaporise these assholes. They may have been immune to ion bombs but they wouldn’t be immune to an actual sun.

As though they knew what was about to happen, however, each and every one of the little green children erupted into an explosion that sent R pinging back to the ground with a weighty thud. He picked himself up, dusted himself off and glared daggers at Legion. Realising that his thumb was still on the Deadman switch of the grenade, he flung it with all of his might at the saiba breeder. Three quarters of the way to its target, the grenade erupted into a sun whose corona was about to burst with two large solar flares. Having been able to resupply on Damaskia, this grenade had more bang packed into it than normal. Both flares lashed at the space where Legion stood, though R couldn’t see from this vantage point how much damage had been done, if any.

“I said,” he continued insistently, “have you got a moment to talk about our Lord and saviour, Clark Pendragon? Because he’s veeeeery unhappy with y’all right now.”

1. ST + Dodge Verglas A2[Whirlwind] (Speed: 170,160)
2. Ultimate Hell Flash @ Legion (DR5 | Speed: 226,880 | Strength: 205,776 | -1% ki)
3. Stun Grenade @ Legion
4. Double Zanzoken + Charge.
DZ1. Charged Mastered Burning Jutters Signature Kamehameha Blast @ Legion (DR8 | Speed: 226,880 | CE: Burn | -8% ki)
Free. Advanced Energy System
DZ2. Flash Bomb @ Legion (DR8 | Speed | 226,800 | Very Hard to Dodge | -16% ki)

Attacks Taken From (Small Saiba Assholes: DR3 x 3, DR4 x 1)

Perhaps the target hadn’t heard him. R failed to see how this was possible, but not everyone was capable of the sort of activities that the Damaskian Robotics team were famous for. Nevertheless, the bounty hunter in R required that the target recognised what he had done, what he was responsible for. The Kai army had and wanted no part in this. The entire operation was planned on the orders of the Emperor as a show of force. Legion had chosen the field of battle simply by being here. Damaskia cared not for the locals.

The changeling approached, his awesome power on display for all to see. It wasn’t that long ago that R was fighting with the Fallen and would perhaps have counted these two among his allies. There were certainly plenty to be had on that side. Like his friend, Walid. The Avatar of War had sought to protect the Elder Council before joining his friends on Azazel’s team. Now that Damaskia had switched sides, R supposed that he was the enemy now. In danger of becoming predictable, the changeling once again brought his sword to bear in a sweeping motion whose aim was to attack both R and Aria. This was now the third time that the enemy had swept his blade in a wide arc whose aim was to target Aria and R together. As soon as the blade unsuccessfully passed by his somersaulting compatriot, R was already on the move. His form shimmering with the energy expended, he dived in the opposite direction as the blade passed harmlessly between them. It sang through the air with the promise of death if such a strike would ever impact successfully.

The thought of Walid gave R an idea. This was Damaskia’s fight and what better way to let the universe know that the Empire wasn’t to be trifled with than by using the very flames of hell itself. From his backpack, R retrieved a communication device. The small, spherical ovoid was a broadcast device and was capable of hovering, recording audio and recording video.

“Yo, lightweight,” he said into the camera, the call going through to Walid on another planet, “I was just thinking about how much you like burning things down and thought you might get a kick out of this.”

The camera shot up into the atmosphere to get a better view of what was happening. R raised his hand straight up into the air, a movement that was incredibly not intimidating from such a small creature. What would perhaps have been more so was the immediate rumbling of the earth beneath their feet. The crust of Mortoseth roiled in protest against the unholy powers that R was bringing to bear. After several long moments of shaking Earth, fire was simply everywhere. Deep indigo flames exploded outwards and shot directly towards the target of this entire invasion. Where Legion now stood would quickly be engulfed in an equal mixture of indigo flames and explosive ki energy. Above them, a new red sun beat down upon the battlefield, casting an eerie glow and causing everything to look even more like a hellscape than it had before. He hoped Walid liked the show. Perhaps it would convince him to return to Damaskia’s warm embrace.

Flitting this way and that, his armored exoskeleton blending in with the abundance of shadows that were cast by the presence of such a unique source of energy. During one run past the tempest of souls, he dropped a present in the vicinity of his quarry. 

Having been content with simply flitting this way that that like some sort of hairy woodland faerie, R now turned up the head. He moved in a parabolic arc around Legion, appearing and disappearing, speeding up and slowing down, and generally moving in such an unpredictable fashion that he appeared to have split into several copies. Each of the copies was forming a ki orb whose nature appeared to be some sort of swirling liquid metal. At its core was the explosive potential to level a city, just waiting to erupt on a lucky individual. That lucky individual was Legion and R continued to move in and out until he released the blast at point blank range once again. The shockwave beat against his back like a cresting wave as he retreated once more.

In the next pass, he drew his quad blaster. For the next several moments R held the trigger, building up the charge in the chamber of the weapon before dashing straight at his foe. With the weapon held at point blank range, R released the trigger. The shotgun blast of energy was aimed directly at Legion’s centre mass and would likely be incredibly hard to get out of the way of, even for the more powerful walking soul trap that was Legion.

Free. Recovery Node Mark II vs Stun Effect (0/4 Posts Until Reset)
1. Opal Electricity vs Dirty Fireworks (-8% ki | +9% ki)
2. Power Up
3. Energiser
4. Night Terror Projection @ Both (DR3 | Unblockable | 25% chance 1 Action Stun)

Attacks Taken From (Small Saiba Assholes: DR3 x 3, DR4 x 1)

As the walking soul stone’s aura flared with the faces of those who had been absorbed, R momentarily forgot the racist slight against his species. Ordinarily he would have responded with a biting retort, but with the hell fire still burning in places around them and the red sun casting its eerie glow across the hellscape, the aura of souls was just too badass for the diminutive bio android to even consider insulting his foe back.

Flickering afterimages promised bad things to R’s foe, but unfortunately his gambit was not the kind that would fool an ancient being such as Legion. As soon as the dangerous ball of ki was released, Legion began to fritz out like a television in a thunderstorm and as the explosion erupted, he simply wasn’t there. R wondered briefly if Walid was still watching … if his friend got a kick out of it, the explosion wouldn’t be a total waste. If his shotgun had missed, R might have sought out Juturna to get his ballistic analysis software checked. It turnout out to not be necessary, but R had miscalculated the ability of his projectile to penetrate the badass skin of souls that Legion was wearing like a glove. Timed to explode simultaneously with the impact of the shotgun was a grenade that was very similar to that which R had used many times before.

He froze in his tracks, static electricity freezing his joints and preventing him from moving. Inside his head, a special gland kicked into gear. In a universe where poison, ice and crushing gravity were used to inhibit fighters long after the delivery of successful attacks, Damaskian Robotics had invented a new organ to fight such an occurrence. As R’s system was overwhelmed by the static, stronger electricity was fed through his system, neutralising the stupefying effects of the grenade. The electricity continued to arc as an explosion blossomed at the behest of the tempest of souls. Lightning arced between the orb of ki energy and absorbed its power, adding it to R’s reserves. In a desperate attempt to kick the bio android’s body back into gear, R’s defensive systems removed the governors restraining his energy. The resultant outpouring of pure white celestial energy raised his ki to maximum and energised him for further confrontations. R blinked, his conscious mind once again in control of his body as he fought to figure out what the hell had just happened.

When he realised, he decided that it was time to play merry havoc with Legion’s internal systems and for that matter, the changeling’s as well. He first directed his attention to Aria’s plaything for his single mind was much more able to be affected than Legion’s complicated mess of personalities and histories. The changeling would see Lord Frost descend to the battlefield, but the arrival would be anything but reinforcing. Frost would point an accusatory finger at the commander and denounce him for his previous failures and his inability to achieve a task as simple as breaking two robots. From there, energy would lance out from the outstretched finger to pummel the Overlord mercilessly.

From Legion, R found it difficult to detect a psychological weakness. There were just too many variables from too many personalities. Just as he had against the Supreme Kai of Time, R picked an option that he thought would appeal to the fears and insecurities of the largest majority of the population. The theme of this intrusion would be betrayal. In his time, the tempest of souls must have experienced issues with trust, with people betraying him for personal gain. The technology in his head would scan for these specific themes in the mind of his foe and attempt to bring out someone specific. If it failed to do so, or such a thing did not exist in the ancient one’s past, the Lords of Universal Terror would arrive once again. They would be betraying the Fallen, just as the Fallen had betrayed Damaskia. Perhaps then the one known as Legion would understand the folly of his actions.