Fight for Power

Vashj glares at Rune and nods silently.

"But there is another consideration worth noting, something far more grave," Rune warned, her voice transitioning into an even more paranoid one. "What if you are a spy that doesn't realize that you're a spy? What if you were secretly turned into a sleeper agent without your knowledge? If you spent an extended period of time next to the spy ring, and you didn't know they were spies, they may have compromised you without your knowledge. You would be the perfect spy to infiltrate us. We need to rule out all possibilities for spies. Spies would be disasterous for us as well."

"That's some B-grade science fiction bulls***, Vashj retorted. "My mind is my own."

"With psychic powers known to exist, and the unknown means by which the Terran Theocracy "recruits", this is very much a possibility, unfortunately," Rune explained. "If you knew about how to handle spy espionage well, you would have detected the spy ring sooner, would you not?"

"And you're saying you would have noticed? Otherwise ordinary people working for a bunch of lunatics?" Vashj shot back.

Rune: Yes.

"Prove it," Vashj demanded.

"Okay, but you need to be blindfolded and otherwise sensory deprived so you can't spill our spy-detection methods in case you're a sleeper agent. We can't let the Galactic Gods know how we detect spies," Rune noted. "If you agree to be tested for potential spy-ness, please step over onto the platform over there in the other room while we place the sense-nullification devices on you. It might take quite a bit of time, though."

"Psh. This ought to be good," Vashj muttered, stepping onto the platform.

"Now then, let's begin," Rune stated, strapping the sense-nullification devices onto Vashj. Rune casts a lot of spells, very fast, too fast for the eye to see even.

"Next," Rune holds her staff over Vashj like a metal detector, waving it around and around.

"And finally," Rune states, striking the ground with the bottom of her staff. Suddenly, a huge, gigantic, incomprehensible machine teleports in.

"DEEPSPY SLEEPER AGENT AND SPY DETECTOTRON GO," Rune commanded.

SCANNING boomed the spy-detecting device.

SCAN COMPLETE.

RESULT: NEGATIVE declared the spy-detecting device dramatically.

Rune teleports away the DEEPSPY SLEEPER AGENT AND SPY DETECTOTRON machine back.

Rune removes the sense-nullification devices from Vashj.

Rune: Okay so you tested negative for spyness. You're probably not a spy.

Vashj: Woo. You planned to run that whole rigamarole on anyone you suspected of being a spy? Because I somehow doubt you'd get very many people to go along with it.

Rune: You're the queen though, right? You can just order people to do it. And we can't be too careless. From the sounds of what happened to your civilians, had you done this, you may have been able to save lives.

Vashj resumes glaring at her.

Mithril decided to interject here. "I've been thinking about the combat data thing... have you faced off with any Black Pikmin that were significantly bigger than the others? IIRC the bigger ones were the more powerful ones, so if there's anything that you remember about those ones that would be really helpful."

Vashj: ... One, yeah. A sniper. Tried to shoot me while I was in the throne room. I gave him some trouble, but he was a slippery bastard.

Orvtre and the others walk out of the room, and into a waiting room where Sigma and whoever other Hero Squad members were, inside the secret underground place.

Orvtre: Do any of you know of any Black Pikmin snipers, on the big side?

Sigma: Epsilon.
Gamma: Yeah, only one I know.

"Any idea what Epsilon can do? What are his powers? His battle strengths?" Orvtre asked. "Any combat data would be helpful."

Gamma closes his left eye and points to his right. "He's got this weird eye, gives him crazy good aim. Mind, I haven't talked to Epsilon in a WHILE. None of us has. For... obvious reasons."

"That explains how he was able to make a shot across half a mile of water..." Vashj noted. "I only deflected it at the last second.

"You actually deflected one of his shots? That's pretty impressive," Sigma commented.

"The bullet or... whatever that projectile was, carried some steam with it. I was able to seize the water in it to push the bullet off course, barely," Vashj explained. "Damn thing skimmed right past my head. I kinda thought it was just a lucky shot."

"So do you currently have any place to stay, Vashj?" Orvtre queried.

"Somewhere in the colony, most likely." Vashj answered.

"You could join Hero Squad, Vashj!" Orvtre suggested. "We're looking for more members."

"I'll... think about it," Vashj replied.

"Hmmm... Vashj, fight me," Mithril said. "I'm bored and I need some entertainment; from the sounds of you deflecting this Epsilon person's shot, you seem to at least have some skill."

Vashj gives Mithril a look, then shakes her head. "Alright, fine. I needed to blow off some stress. Get my mind out of the hole it's in."

"Alright let's go, to Hero Squad HQ's arena!" Mithril exclaimed.

<]-Mithril-[>

So, we're back in Hero Squad HQ's arena! And yep, you guessed it! It STILL hasn't been cleaned up after the me vs Adaptrix and me vs the Thetas fights!

"Kinda looks like someone dropped a few... hundred bombs in here," Vashj noted, examining the battle-scarred arena.

"I know, right? You'll LOVE it! I'm proud of my artwork," I grinned, laughing to myself in my head.

As a test, I wanted to see the famed "Vashj deflected Epsilon's shot, that's pretty impressive" skill that she allegedly displayed. So I started the battle off by making a ball of metal in my hand and chucking it at her as a projectile. Sure enough, she shot it out of the air with a very fast drop of water.

Ah. This could be interesting. I can use this chance to improve my accuracy, sharpshooting, and control to even higher levels. I think I'll give this a try, going along with this for as long as it feels right. I can just transition into my punchy, fiery, sharky, motorcycly, truck spam later on if I feel like it. In fact...

Hold that thought; Vashj retaliated by slinging a drop of water at ultra high speed at me. So I decided to try that trick out for myself; I shot out a single drop of liquid metal from my body, which hit Vashj's shot and deflected it from me.

"This level, I can handle, no sweat," I stated. And it was true; contrary to what the unobservant might think; my control is extremely good, in fact.

What was Vashj's response to this, you may ask? Well she threw a spray of water bullets at me, so I countered by making a swiping gesture in the air with my hand, which sent my own spray of liquid metal drops towards her.

With the sprays colliding, I deflected the majority of water bullets headed my way. Pretty good. However, this is where the "I could use this chance to push my accuracy even higher" comes into play though. I missed a few of those water bullets my way, so I had to annihilate and purge the water drops I had been hit with. Vashj said she derailed Epsilon's shot by controlling the steam in it, so might as well be diligent and not let her set up some kind of compounding attack later on.

Vashj deflected a few shots that came at her, with one of said shots slamming into the wall behind her, expanding into a fist upon impact. That metal drop fist shot punched the wall, denting it. However, a single drop of liquid metal she missed slammed into her gut. Said drop expanded into a fist upon impact, with said punch forcing her back a step. I, on the other hand, had not yet moved from my initial starting position.

Yes, I can in fact punch you even if I'm not right next to you. I invented punch bullets, and I have plenty of tricks to try out! Such as fire fist bullets, spiky fist bullets, exploding fist bullets, fire spiky exploding fist bullets, piranha bullets...

Time to try out some of this ammunition! Still grinning, I made the same swiping gesture in the air, sending some of the aforementioned liquid metal ammunition at her.

#Vashj#

I've had a really s***ty couple of days. My city destroyed, my trust betrayed, everyone I've ever cared about murdered... There's a lot of stress on my shoulders. Miss Metal here better be able to handle it.

Ducking and weaving away from the metal bullets, I hopped behind a pile of debris, and into a sizeable puddle of water. Half the room was frozen, but a lot of it had melted, leaving tons of water for me to throw around. I stuck my hand in the puddle, grabbed hold, and yanked the water up like it were made of silk. Drawing the whole puddle up behind me, I jumped over the pile of debris and threw it.

"Shark Wave!" I snarled, the torrent of water frothing into the shape of several sharks as it launched in Mithril's direction. It crashed over her, the weight of it pushing her back several feet, and I followed it with a dozen water bullets before diving back behind the debris pile.

I am no fool. A direct fight with this person is suicidal. This thought was reinforced when a series of large metal spikes poked through the debris pile I was ducked behind, so I quickly moved on.

Launching a few more water bullets in her direction, I took a second to make note of the locations of the largest puddles of water, as well as the spots where there was more still-frozen ice. If I can get her to melt the ice, good. If I can get her to evaporate it, better.

One second of distraction was apparently enough for her to put a decent-sized metallic fish into my midsection. "Eyes on the prize!" Mithril shouted over as another one - this one on fire - flew in my direction. I grit my teeth, threw away the metallic lump that had first hit me, and dropped into a stance.

"Thousand Brick Fist!" I growled and threw one straight punch at the incoming projectile, which s***tered into pieces on impact. Mithril whistled appreciatively.

"Hiding a lot of power in there, huh?"

"You have no idea," I muttered, c***ing back my left arm. "Shark Brick Fist!" I yelled next, thrusting my arm forward. A wave of force followed in a straight line, transferred through the water vapor in the air. As it hit Mithril, her entire body wobbled backwards slightly before she was launched into the far wall. Before she could recover, I headed straight for another puddle - this one large enough to be a small pond - and dove in to get ready.

<]-Mithril-[>

My observations: Vashj hasn't generated water yet, nor has she manipulated water through any means other than direct contact. I did in fact catch her eyeing the locations of where bodies of water and chunks of ice were located.

While this could be an indication of her limitations, this could also just as easily be a "I was only pretending to be unable to generate water/control it from a distance" thing. So I should still be on guard.

Now onto current matters; Vashj has just jumped into a small pond and is probably about to prepare some kind of attack.

Hmm, attacking. I like attacking. Anyways, there are a few things I wanted to test out further: alkali metals, as well as some more electrical attacks. Okay here we go!

Right when I was thinking that, Vashj decided to throw the pond at me. Oh ok. So to combat this large amount of water coming at me, I threw a truck made of alkali metal at the current of water. Cue big explosion.

Due to all of this distraction that my alkali metal bomb caused, I was able to sneak some metal strings over towards Vashj, and then give her a large dose of electrical current.

So it seems Vashj doesn't have an innate resistance to electricity; that means electricity is probably a viable means of attack. She's now sporting burns from both the electricity and from the aforementioned alkali metal explosion.

Nonetheless, it wasn't all sunshine for me, so to speak; I'm still in training with regards to the school of "blocking with alkali metal explosions" so some of the force from that huge attack back there still hit me. And I also got hit by another "somethingsomething Brick Fist" attack as a followup from a frustrated Vashj.

That said, my current battle "plan" is to try and abuse alkali metal; the fact that alkali metal + water -> metal hydroxide + hydrogen should screw around with Vashj's ability to utilize the water in this area; I'll just throw in some electricity as a bonus since I want to play around with that.

In fact, I want to electrocute her more right now! Soooooo I created a comedically oversized arrow made of alkali metal and then gave it a juicy electrical charge.

"Alkali Arrow!" I yelled, hoisting up said oversized arrow one-handed before hurling it towards Vashj. Naturally, given all the water in this place, there was a literal trail of explosions following the arrow, before the subsequent crackling of an electrical discharge came. And then a huge explosion happened to cap off the whole attack.

#Vashj#

Well, my hand stings now.

As the smoke from the arrow's trail cleared out, Mithril got a good look at me standing a little to the side of where I'd been standing when she'd fired, right hand outstretched with a black mark on my palm where I'd swatted it aside. Stung like hell, but better than letting it hit me straight on. As soon as she caught a glimpse of me she grinned and generated several more of those alkali arrows. Like I'm gonna let her fire more of those. As soon as they popped into existence I flicked my hand in her direction, accurately putting a large drop of water on each arrow in the blink of an eye. Gotta say the explosion is nicer to watch from a distance.

Mithril emerged from the smoke on a collision course with me, having apparently grown tired of the long-range back and forth. Yeah, let her come. I planted my feet, c***ed back my arm, and let my fist fly as she came in.

"Three Thousand Brick Fist!" I roared as my fist made contact with what felt kind of like punching a large wrecking ball. Mithril wrapped around my fist with an odd cracking noise, then it became readily apparent what a bad idea it was to let her do this when my entire body lit up with electricity.

I snapped my fist back and delivered an uppercut, but Mithril shook it off and retaliated with a massive headbutt that felt about like getting slammed in the head by a truck. Crazy strong and durable to boot; I see I was better off fighting at range, so I need to make some distance. That'll give me some time to shake off the head trauma, too.

"Five Thousand Brick Roundhouse!" I growled as I snapped my foot around and into the side of Mithril's head. That was enough to throw her off balance, allowing me to follow with a Shark Brick Fist, warping the water vapor around her to launch her all the way across the room. I then quickly jumped back as my skin began to tingle, the pair of lightning rods Mithril had left behind lighting up just a moment after I'd gotten out of the way. With barely enough time to react I threw a blob of water to divert the metal rod Mithril threw from across the room, just barely pushing it away from my head.

Across the room, Mithril had taken a moment with withdraw two chunks of metal from herself; both were cracked and warped. "s*** lady, you hit like a train," she commented as she turned the two pieces over in her hands. Examining them wasn't enough to stop her from blocking the water arrows I tossed in her direction with an alkaline wall, though. Damn.

I need to get to more water; my clothes are running low.

<]-Mithril-[>

If Vashj is truly unable to generate water, she should be running low on ammo by now. Since Vashj's attacks generally benefit from having water at hand, I believe that she's trying to find a chance to head for the nearest water source. ... I can exploit that "predictable" aspect of this fight. And by exploit I mean spamming s***.

Despite Vashj's considerable strength, I'd imagine that I still have the advantage at close range, especially if she has no ammo. So with that in mind I made several clones and began spamming projectiles all while charging full speed at Vashj. While screaming like a maniac, of course.

Vashj took down a few clones and several projectiles via her own water projectiles, before realizing that she doesn't have enough ammo to deal with all that I'm throwing at her. So as expected, Vashj was forced to dodge some of my barrage. Good, that means that I'm all set up!

The first source of water Vashj attempted to head towards was small enough that I could just send a few alkaline spikes up to quickly negate that source. The second source, I had set up a bunch of mines to deter Vashj from getting there, but to her credit, she instead jumped up and kicked off the wall right above the water, then used some of her water ammo to launch herself towards a third source.

However, I had been preparing a kick of my own. I grinned as my legs lit up with electricity.

"Flying Thunder Kick!" I yelled as I jumped up and then dove into a diving kick towards Vashj. Upon the sight of my attack, she promptly used what was probably the last of her water ammo to try and evade my attack and knock it off-course.

Unfortunately for Vashj, my setup that I had alluded to earlier was a series of powerful magnets; I had thrown some of those earlier during my massive projectile spam to set up this diving kick. I activated said magnets; and by both magnetizing myself and utilizing my metal control, I was able to change course mid-kick and successfully kick Vashj in the gut despite her efforts to push me off-track.

Now, remember how I said that I wanted to push my accuracy even higher? Well I was actually aiming for Vashj's face... kicking her in the gut is fine too.

Anyways, a loud clap of thunder echoed through the arena as my kick rammed into Vashj's gut, and we both slammed into a wall. Vashj immediately utilized the water vapor in the air nearby and whatever water she had left to make a direct beeline to the water source right next to us, as I brought down my electrified alkali motorcyclehammerfist as a follow-up.

"Alkali Thunder Crasher!" I roared, as I brought the hammer down. Vashj made somewhat of an alarmed look as she immediately utilized said water source for defense, sending a lot of water at me in response. Cue huge explosion, huge clap of thunder, and a huge shockwave to boot.

#Vashj#

I think I've had quite enough of the explosions and electricity, thank you. Fortunately her attack hadn't burned away all of my water, which left me with more than enough to form a water spear. Before the smoke could clear, I leapt in full force.

"NGAAAAAAAH!" I roared, slamming the spear through her guard, its liquid form allowing it to simply wrap past her defenses and penetrate her chest. Lethal to a normal person, but not so much to an elemental. I pulled the spear out to the side and ducked her retaliatory punch, electricity crackling about her fist. I swiped my spear back across her and followed it with another heavy kick to her side to push her away.

Mithril followed that with what looked like an actual missile still connected to her arm, but I swiped my spear up and sliced it in half length-wise. Mithril stood there staring for a second.

"But that was an alkali metal!" she protested as I kicked her in the face.

"Spears have always been the one shape I was ever any good at really holding together," I replied, jamming the spear through her guard again and then pulling away the moment the electrical crackle became evident. "That trick's not gonna work on one of these."

"Then how about this trick?" she replied, forming a metallic spear of her own, crackling with electricity. She wants a spear battle? Oh I'll give her one.

<]-Mithril-[>

It's time for stabby stabby stabby! Ah, but I have to keep in mind that nonelementals don't really take stabs as well as I do. So I better keep that in mind and avoid stabbing my opponent in a place that it'd kill her.

Unsurprisingly, this made my job of stabbing her a tad more difficult. I think I took a few extra kicks and stabs before I first stabbed Vashj since I was trying not to stab my opponent in the places that it'd kill her. That said, I did successfully electrify myself and her during some of her stabs.

After a bit of back-and-forth, I ducked one of Vashj's kicks and then literally rocketed at her, tanking one of Vashj's stabs in the process. I then stabbed my spear towards her and then downwards, wrapping past her guard and nailing Vashj in the knee, giving her a big dose of electricity. I followed up by growing half a dozen arms and then unleashing a flurry of punches, which caused Vashj to extend her spear at me and then back off.

A few more exchanges, me stabbing Vashj in the knees a few more times, electrifying her, and kicking her, with Vashj countering with her own stabs, kicks, and punches, and I had stealthily forced her to an area where I could quickly move some metal behind her.

Remember how I said that I had set up beforehand? Vashj never actually got rid of some of that metal lying around... so I used that to send some projectiles and electricity and attacks at her from behind, while I pincered her from the front.

Obviously, Vashj could not deflect and evade all of what I sent at her. She negated a respectable amount of that barrage, but not the most important one: Remember my electrified spear? Well, I had my spear split off into a multitude of strings, aimed at her torso.

"But wait Mithril wouldn't Vashj see something like that coming right at her???" one may ask. Well duh, that's why I both eschewed spear stabs aimed at her torso & distracted her with a huge barrage aimed at her from behind. Misdirection!

Vashj cut several strings with her spear but by that time it was TOO LATE DUNDUNDUN. So my remaining electrical strings latched onto Vashj and gave her lots of zapping, but even more important than that is that it reeled her in like a fish caught on a fishing rod. Reeled her in right into my enormous electrical jet-powered punch!

"Thunder Jet Impact!" I roared, before punching Vashj so hard it caused a loud thunderclap and huge explosion on impact. This caused her to slam into the wall nearby, forming a nice sizeable spiderweb crack where Vashj hit the wall.

I lobbed a few more alkali bombs her way while I gave the locations of metal and water around the arena another look over. A thought came to mind: What are Vashj's SECRET TECHNIQUES? I mean come on, pretty much everyone has at least one; it'd be really unlikely that she doesn't have some kind of ace up her sleeve.

... Am I gonna have to play tag again pretty soon?

#Vashj#

Peeling herself away from the wall and landing with a hard thump, Vashj pulled back one arm, clenched her fist hard enough to crack the knuckles, and threw it forward.

"Arabesque Brick Fist!" she growled, and all the projectiles Mithril had thrown ground to a halt before slowly, ever so slowly beginning to move backwards until a massive shockwave hurled everything away. Even Mithril's body rippled a bit despite the distance, prompting a shark-like grin as she spun up a new wave of weapons. She didn't get a chance to send them out before abruptly noticing the stream of water passing by her feet, which immediately led to noticing all the rest of the water in the room coalescing on Vashj's position.

"You sneaky git, you can manipulate water!" Mithril shouted to the blue Pikmin on the other side of the room.

"Not quite," was Vashj's short reply as Mithril finally noticed the growing vortex of water she was cupping between her hands. The assortment of weapons she'd made were immediately abandoned as she began to charge up an attack of her own.

A moment of silence fell over the arena as both parties gathered power. As soon as all the water in the room had been gathered up, Vashj grabbed hold of it, spun her arms, and dragged the liquid forward.

"School of Mermaid Combat... final technique...!" Vashj grunted, "ULTRA... MARINE!" she roared as a twister of water blasted across the room at intense speed.

"Alkali Annihilator!" Mithril roared back from the other side of the room, firing a column of alkaline metal. The two ad hoc beams collided in the middle of the room in a vibrant plume of fire before one bored through the other through sheer volume.

There was an awful lot of water in that room.

Mithril had an instant to look surprised before juking to the side, the twister of water slicing a good chunk off of her as it went past and slammed into the wall, drilling a decent-sized hole in it. Mithril whistled appreciably at the power before turning back towards Vashj just in time to receive a meteoric axe kick to the face.

"Eight Thousand Brick Axe!" Vashj snarled as the impact cracked the floor under Mithril's feet. Mithril bounced right back up with a kick of her own at Vashj's chest, who grabbed hold of the offending leg to slow it down just enough to take the edge off. She didn't let go even when Mithril lit herself up with electricity, instead directing another kick towards Mithril's own chest, who caught it just as she had.

This was about the time when all the water came pouring back out from the hole it had made, splashing over both of them in a grand wave. With a sudden strength she hadn't possessed before, Vashj pulled herself free of Mithril's grasp and punched through the wave with a force far greater than she'd shown earlier.

"Twenty Thousand Brick Fist!" came Vashj's warbling voice through the water as she delivered a blow hard enough to shake Mithril to her core. All for naught, as a second later Mithril covered herself in alkali metal.

The resultant explosion flung Vashj across the room again where she flopped gracelessly to a halt, very much unconscious.