Fight for Power

<Trombe>

A strangled roar of pure rage came from Trombe as he slammed both of his blades tip first into the floor. The sheer force released a massive pressure wave, blasting away the winds that had been slicing into him. As the winds died down and he drew his blades back up, a tangible change seemed to wash over him.

Mithril didn't even have a second to consider what that meant before Trombe demonstrated, vanishing from where he'd been standing and slicing directly into her in an instant, a sonic boom echoing from both actions simultaneously.

'He can shift his stats too?!' Mithril realized as she teleported out of range and summoned a dozen clones. Trombe instantly splattered three of them in a furious burst of movement, but it gave Mithril a chance to see the diminished effect of his swings. They were faster, yes, but the pressure waves they let off were less intense. That said, his attacks still hit hard enough to hurt like hell, and she quickly observed that he was actually just straight up faster than her, the only saving grace being that she could teleport and he couldn't.

As he carved through four more of the clones, Mithril and the other six clones generated a pair of large jet turbines on their arms. "Beryllium Burst!" all seven yelled, though the sound was immediately drowned by the roar of the engines and the burst of wind that followed.

Quite opposite expectations, Trombe stood his ground through the attack, raised one of the blades over his head, and threw it... where it became massive mid-flight, splattering all six of the remaining clones with its passage. Being in the back, Mithril ducked under the attack, which slammed into the wall of the cavern before returning to Trombe's hand... right as he swung at down at Mithril's head, leaving no time for her to dodge.

'He didn't even seem to notice that attack... can he shift his resistances too?' Mithril wondered. 'But if he shifted his resistances... did he also shift his weaknesses?'

Hissing, Mithril's bisected halves reformed, the clone moving to attack while the real one teleported out of range. Trombe's sword shrank immediately back to its regular size as he used the other one to slice the clone to ribbons, but by the time he turned around there were over a dozen more clones ready. The sight of them preparing to attack got a very angry growl from him, the first one with any kind of comprehensible words in it.

"None of your games," Trombe snarled, "Master Shift," and then he was surrounded by a dozen floating copies of his swords. In a blur of speed he became unto a tornado made of violence, tearing through the clones like a blender. None of them even got a chance to attack. Mithril got about a second to process that before Trombe set upon her with a whirlwind of swords following his every action. She didn't even bother trying to dodge normally; any direction she went, she'd simply be met with one of the incoming swords.

So instead she started teleporting short distances, leaving a clone behind each time. They'd get shredded almost instantly, but occasionally one would get an attack off. One that she left behind detonated in his face to little effect; it had hurt him, but not by much. Even pausing to process that gave him an opening to hit her from behind with two of his floating swords, but she teleported out of range before he could follow up. Even leaving twenty clones in his path, though, Trombe went through them like they were made of air, closing the gap almost instantly, a hailstorm of pressure waves and flying swords preceding his movements.

The first set of blades she conjured to try to defend herself got sliced to pieces in short order; the difference in quality was too wide. Even attempting to fight him at close range was pointless, she could see that.

'This might call for the big guns...' Mithril considered as she teleported again, a cry of fury and a storm of cutting force following.

<]-Mithril-[>

I have an extremely in-depth knowledge of my own powers and how to apply them in various situations. I know myself far, far better than anyone else. Piecing together the puzzle that is the likely Zeromus-buffed Trombe takes a moment in which I am likely hit by his absurdly fast whatever. Scheming up a plan involving my own powers? I can think up esoteric strategies involving my own powerset immediately. It helps that I often think of new ways to abuse my powers in my spare time.

The time taken to execute said strategy however, is an annoyingly painful one. That is because the gameplan I have chosen to go with is charged attacks. After I've given my attacks some charge, I can execute them with greater speed and make them faster and stronger, increasing the likelihood that said attacks will successfully hit super angry super Trombe. But Mithril, how are you going to charge your attacks when super angry super Trombe is raging down on you? That's simple. His stat shift towards a speedier build has reduced the power of his slashes and pressure waves, reducing the reach of the latter. With that in mind, I have been covertly teleporting inner parts of myself to remote locations just outside his pressure wave range, and have been charging them up remotely. When the opportunity arises, I will call said parts back and unleash the big guns.

The second component to my plan deals with Trombe's presumed ability to shift his immunities, resistances, and weaknesses around. Since it's possible that super angry super Trombe now has different weaknesses, I'm going to use an attack tailor-made to pinpoint his new weaknesses. Said attack? It's a barrage of analysis needles that rapidly cycle through all of the elements I am capable of utilizing, which will bring data back to me on which element is currently hurting him the most right now. Bets on it being something I haven't used yet in the fight, though.

After being hit by a few more attacks than I'd like, the charge had reached an acceptable level. Enough stalling. Time to dish out the pain.

One of my clones finally landed the analysis needle attack, the needles lodging themselves in Trombe's skin, cycling through various elements, searching for a weakness. Of course they were blown off quickly by all the pressure wave insanity, but not before I pinpointed his new weakness: cold.

It isn't exactly practical for me to utilize water for what I hope are obvious reasons. That said, extremely cold metal should work well as a substitute. Now, charged attacks time.

Of course, super angry super Trombe isn't making this easy for me, making it difficult to call back my charged attacks safely. One of the attacks had the unfortunate instance of teleporting straight into a pressure wave. That said, it wasn't a complete loss, as I had managed to salvage something out of that: As super angry super Trombe was currently weak to cold, the residual frost from that failed attack slowed him barely, just enough for me to get in the full force of my other attack.

"Titanium Tundra!" my clone roared. Even as said clone was destroyed, the extremely cold metal attack slammed into super angry super Trombe, temporarily making him slower but making him even angrier.

The fact that he was kind of stunned now meant I had an opportunity to slam him with even more charged attacks. Yes, I had queued up some more charged attacks even while I was executing those cold ones. That said, super angry super Trombe changed around his weaknesses again but I had my clones spam those analysis needles to solve that problem. Now, the second wave of charged attacks!

"Platinum Plasma Pike! Platinum Plasma Pulse!" roared two more of my clones, firing said attacks at the now-weak-to-plasma Trombe, earning me another enraged snarl. As the attacks impacted him, I nonetheless kept up my guard. Even though I got in those attacks without much difficulty because of the cold debuff, said debuff probably won't last long...

-{Keyza}-

"Don't like the dirt, do ya? Let's see how ya like this then," Keyza said conversationally, and then she puked a firehose-esque stream of blood at the Corrector, eliciting a rather high-pitched screech of indignation. Oh, this guy was gonna be fun.

"Filthy, disgusting degenerate!" Black Manta yelled, firing a sustained wave of soap-laden water into the stream of blood in response. That didn't exactly get rid of the blood, though, that just left a big, foamy, bloody mess on the ground. And then Loki joined in, adding a much larger stream of blood that Black Manta couldn't hold off for long, forcing him to drop back as the streets became slick with gallons and gallons of blood.

"Filthy, filthy, FILTHY!" Black Manta screamed, rather literally, from the rooftops. Loki bent his head down enough for Keyza to hop onto the tip of his beak, then flicked his head forward, snapping her in Manta's direction like a bullet. This earned her several water blasts, but also put her in prime position to take a deep breath and exhale a huge cloud of noxious fumes, which rapidly descended upon the now-panicking Corrector. It was thick enough to resist any attempt to disperse it with his water shots, so he settled for scrambling to a different rooftop while pelting Keyza with more water shots.

The Grand Devourer, for her part, simply laughed as she fell into the river of blood occupying the street. Because while he'd been focused on her, Loki had taken a deep breath as well, and when he exhaled, it formed a massive, all-encompassing smog that Black Manta didn't have a prayer of getting out of the way of. It washed over him and everything else in the area, sticking cloyingly to anything in its path. This produced a scream of rage and a barrage of water shots being directed at Loki... who neatly swerved his serpentine body out of the way of each and every shot. By all rights a Snagret's skeleton shouldn't have been capable of moving that way, but apparently no one had told Loki that.

Meanwhile, a whirlpool formed in the blood that lined the streets, gathering together until Keyza suddenly launched forth, riding a tornado of blood in the Corrector's direction.

"Vortex of Gore!" Keyza cackled as she started hocking up bones to spit in Black Manta's direction with bullet-like force, leaping from the whirlwind of blood as it approached the Corrector's location. A massive vortex of water sprung up around him in response, clashing with the blood and spraying red foam in all directions, which Keyza and Loki added to by puking more blood at him. The water surrounding the Corrector was shortly more red than water really should be, and with a disgusted shout he blasted it all away before calling up more fresh water to spray at Keyza and Loki. Keyza, releasing the stream of blood she'd been spewing out, dodged away from the water and leapt off the roof and back down into the streets, while Loki coiled away from the blasted directed at him, ducked beneath the roofline, and began spitting up large sprays of bone and viscera to rain down upon Black Manta.

/|\Ark'thugal/|\

Ark's smile simply grew toothier as he pulled his foot out of the floor. Lacking a chunk of his left cheek probably helped with that... for a given definition of "help".

"Now that's more like it!" the Warboss grunted, turning away from Cassandra to tromp into the green flames lining the room and grab Shadowmourne, ripping it from the now-melting stone. She'd moved as soon as he turned, but pulled up when he simply walked into the flames. Shouldering the weapon, he spun on his heel and walked back out of the flames, cracking his neck and offering her a 'bring it' gesture.

That sure as s*** got her blood boiling, going by the vicious series of blows she directed at him. He took a few of them head-on while twisting and turning his axe into the path of others, before catching the punch that she inevitably aimed at his face. Before she could react he slammed Shadowmourne's horn into her chest, then reared his head back for a headbutt.

Turned out she'd done the same, so rather than obliging he stepped aside, pulled his axe free and swung her over his head, turning her own momentum against her in order to slam her into the floor, then slammed Shadowmourne into her head point first. Cassandra twisted herself about in order to kick him loose, forcing him to release his grip on her arm after a few kicks but pulling Shadowmourne free. She slammed the floor as she got back to her feet, cracking it underneath both of them as she charged shoulder first into his chest, shoving him along the floor and leaving a pair of gouges as he attempted and failed to plant his feet as she dragged him through a few factory conveyor belts until she rammed him into the wall, where Cassandra set about slamming him in the gut over and over until he coughed up blood.

Said blood promptly spiked downward into her back, eliciting a hiss of pain as it burrowed in and then burst out the other side, painting the floor with the Teal Pikmin's blood. She didn't stop punching, however, not until the wall cracked and crumpled behind the Death Knight, sending him tipping over onto the floor. Before she could follow that up, however, a tendril of unholy energy snagging her from behind and yanked her back, towards the green flames now consuming the room. Skidding to a halt as soon as she hit the floor, she snuck a quick glance behind her, revealing no one, but giving her a chance to dodge aside as the green flames raced along the floor and toward the now-standing Warboss.

Ark had hoisted Shadowmourne over his head, the green flames coiling around him and up onto the weapon's blade, a huge, smug grin on his face. Cassandra dashed as him as he wound up his swing, just a moment too late.

"Doomfire Armageddon!" the Death Knight roared triumphantly, swinging the axe down directly into Cassandra's path. There was a horrible, green-tinted explosion as the flames burst outward, accompanied by a metallic screech as the walls of Ludibrium's innards buckled and tore open from the blast.

When the dust settled, Ark stood before a veritable sea of green fire, the skies beyond visibly peeking in where the outer walls had been blown out. He couldn't see Cassandra within the flames... also, Shadowmourne's blade had finally snapped along the fault she'd introduced, the entire upper section of the blade gone and the rest cracked, damaged beyond repair. Ark'thugal merely shrugged, grabbed the haft in both hands, and snapped it like a twig, tossing the two pieces aside.

"I'm gonna be very disappointed if that actually killed you..." the Warboss just about purred into the smokeless flames.

?-Orvtre-?

An update on how the summons are doing: They're doing okay. The copies of the strange, Asura-like cyborg beast with dozens upon dozens of arms were currently fighting with some Black Pikmin. Said summon is a strong boss creature, so even though the Black Pikmin were destroying some of the copies, in return the summon was killing some of the Black Pikmin.

It helped that in the beginning, they had underestimated it, perhaps not thinking much of beasts. They had started taking it seriously when a few Black Pikmin were killed by fire-electric melty lances. The retaliation of bolter fire had taken out several copies of the summon in return, but there were more copies where that came from. The summon promptly made that clear by linking hands to fire a powerful laser that took out a Nob, and then slammed some kind of electric vibroblade through an unlucky Black Pikmin.

The Black Pikmin barrier users coming in however, have begun to make killing them harder, both for the summons and for us. That said, we were still making progress; I was mainly concerned with making sure that none of the Bloodseed died, so my primary task was looking for surprise attackers, putting up shields, and healing the group when necessary.

I used clones to spread out and attack; it just needed a bit more oomph to force my way past whatever barriers the Black Pikmin put up.

A Nob burst in and attacked me, I imbued Gurgurant with lava and then slashed, putting some muscle behind it to cleave through the barrier and the Nob's armor. Another Black Pikmin attacked me as well, which I dealt with by freezing him. However, soon after that, a Black Pikmin with a binding power attempted to bind me, which I countered by blasting away the bind with electricity and shooting the binder with a powerful shot from the Prism Cannon.

Blade Wolf used this chance to try to attack me again, but he was interrupted: The next time Blade Wolf came around, the stealthy Black Pikmin was in turn hit by a surprise attack, being slashed by summon copy that had been hiding beneath the ice. The injury to one of his legs wasn't severe or trival, being a moderate cut. The summon copy was quickly dispatched in return by some of Blade Wolf's knives.

Since Blade Wolf was rather fast, I opted to try and hit him with some lasers. Because he was moving around so much, he wasn't getting the benefit of the barriers some of the Black Pikmin were putting up, and due to the lightspeed quickness of my lasers, he was hit by a few before he zoomed back behind the barrier line and recloaked, now wary of such a fast attack in my arsenal.

Of course, I couldn't spam as many lasers as I'd like, because Blade Wolf had sent some knives the Bloodseed's way, forcing me to move the Bloodseed around to keep them safe. It's extremely important to keep these guys alive and healthy; every Squad member helps, and we need all the help we can get.
________________
X-Count Dooku-X

A dozen or so of the Cult of the Damned's minions fell to the floor in pieces, Count Dooku having cut them up with his lightsaber. It was then that he noted the arrival of Zon'ozz. It was hard to miss the giant Faceless general, really, given his huge size. The Corrector went right to work on the giant, blasting away at Zon'ozz with electricity, before slicing into him with lightsaber slashes. Said attacks didn't even slow him down, as Zon'ozz replied with a melee attack that Count Dooku had no trouble dodging and a psychic blast that did little against the psionic-resist Count Dooku.

Dooku got in several more slashes and zaps before Zon'ozz broke out the first thing that would be a meaningful threat to the Count: the Void of the Unmaking. This bouncing ping-pong ball-like attack was notably more difficult for the Corrector to avoid, though the old Count was cautious and determined to play it safe and avoid receiving unnecessary damage.

That would become even harder when Zon'ozz called forth Go'rath for aid, the greater minion of the Old Gods spewing forth ooze and spamming tentacle lashing attacks against Count Dooku.

X-Cassandra-X

Ark'thugal need not be disappointed; it was immediately after the Warboss spoke that Cassandra walked out of the flames, injured but still alive. It was then that the Death Knight knew that something was off; she did not run, she did not snarl in anger, something about the way she was acting seemed so... off.

"Now... now I have ensured the kill. There is no escape for you," Cassandra stated.

And then she was suddenly in front of Ark'thugal, kicking him in the torso. Unlike the other times, this blow sent him hurtling back, in blatant disregard of the vile magic he had used to stay still the previous times. His flight only stopped when he slammed back first into an invisible barrier, now rendered visible by his blood splattering the barrier wall.

As he slid down to the bottom of the spherical barrier encompassing a wide part of Ludibrium, Cassandra appeared before Ark'thugal again and stomped on his legs, s***tering them beyond repair. The Warboss replied by unleashing a horde of green flame spikes, slashing Cassandra's legs. She made no attempt to dodge as Ark'thugal attacked with everything he had left: driving said flame spikes through her chest and impaling her in the head with his hands, attempting to brain her.

Cassandra simply exhaled, a gust of vile cold that snuffed out the soulflames, annihilating them. They had never reached her heart or internal organs. A dark chuckle escaped her lips. "... did you really think I did not have a means to ensure you s***stains stayed dead?"

Ark'thugal's hands never reached Cassandra's brain, they just seemed to freeze over with the same magic that snuffed out the green magic, the limbs falling apart into nothingness.

"Did you really ever believe you had a chance at winning?" she sneered, flexing the arm which Ark'thugal had necrotized. The unholy power was then forced out by sheer might, the vile energy dispersing, the arm regenerating.

Ark'thugal's fight against Cassandra had been all for nothing. As that thought dawned on him, his face, bizarrely, turned to elation.

"... Glorious." Ark'thugal chuckled, satisfied. The barrier began retracting inwards, enclosing towards Ark'thugal like a guillotine. Then, right when the barrier began to crush the Warboss, Cassandra clenched her hand into a fist, the barrier squeezing into an impossibly small sphere that alighted with a flash of vile cold.

Ark'thugal could've never killed Cassandra. Not in life. And not even in death.

The Warboss's final ability: Death's Spite. His granted Black Pikmin ability, one that causes him to explode catastrophically when killed. The explosion was powerful; strong enough to punch through the impossibly small spherical barrier, strong enough to take out a significant portion of Ludibrium, and strong enough to take most of Helios Tower's upper section with it.

It was not strong enough to kill Cassandra.

As her skin and her arm regrew, the teal Pikmin look one final look around the ruined city, to make sure Ark'thugal was dead. Confirming that, she walked away, intending to leave Ludibrium. The other Correctors could handle the Cult of the Damned. She, on the other hand, had some business to attend to.

... Or that would've been the plan, had Father not ordered her to stay put in Ludibrium to fend off the Cult. Before she could protest, a bunch of Old God cultists showed up, clearly too dumb to realize that they were impossibly outmatched. Slaughtering them effortlessly, Cassandra was then met with the Sha of Pride and various other lackeys.

Cassandra hissed in annoyance. Fine, if that's what Father ordered, then she'll kill these guys ASAP, and then resume murdering the Black Pikmin. 'Now hurry up and die.'

~~~Ludibrium~~~

The blast let off by Ark'thugal's demise was easily felt across the entire city. The plume of green flame that consumed a large chunk of the eastern half of the city was hard to miss. Even harder to miss, however, was the aftermath. The blast had taken out part of Helios Tower, and more importantly, the part connecting it to Ludibrium.

Ludibrium was not meant to be supported by only one tower.

With a hideously loud crack, the top of Helios Tower crumpled under the city's weight, causing the entire superstructure to lean towards the eastern side. Eos Tower could not hold the strain by itself, and with another cannon-like report, it gave out as well, the middle floors of the western tower buckling under the strain. From there, gravity took hold.

With one massive shift, the entire city fell.

The bulb containing the Path of Time hit the water first, producing a tidal wave from the impact. The sides of the city's 'bowl' then hit land on the two islands that the towers had been built upon. It buckled from the impact, but did not s***ter. As the waves from the city's impact rolled back, they shifted it slightly, leaving the city askew.

Far above, Aeonus watched as history repeated.
_____________
\\\Eclipse///

Spiking tubbo the drunken panda into the ground for the umpteenth time, I didn't really think much of the city shaking, not until the whole thing just kinda fell out from under me.

Being as I could fly and tons of fun couldn't, that left him to fall with the city... along with everybody else who couldn't fly. I caught sight of Loki squawking before he pulled into a steep dive, along with a few other fighters diving back towards the falling city. A particular point of amusement was Rampa and the bird brain cursing each other out as they fell, still grappling with one another.

I chose to wait until it had impacted and settled before diving back down myself. Tubs McGee wasn't much fun to fight, didn't react enough to pain. Where's Master, he'll have something interesting for me to do.
_______
<Theta>

Bullets whizzing overhead, I set myself into the task of dealing with the explosive one. He wasn't making it easy, though, detonating part of himself any time I swung at him. He appears to have a cooldown on it, though, something I can easily judge by the glow on the parts of himself that explode.

'Blast', as the others had called him, was actually quite good at using his power, using smaller explosions to maneuver around me while using bigger explosions to press his attack while his allies fired on my position. On one occasion that he flipped behind me, I threw up a massive ice wall between myself and his reinforcements and set upon him as one of the EBO machines swooped in for a strafing run. He detonated a finger to push himself out of range of my first swing, then detonated a toe in order to break his foot free when I froze it in place. As I charged, he swung his leg and detonated the whole thing as an attack, but I coated myself in thick ice to ward off the flames and dove in regardless, with a large overhead swing...

... which bounced off a barrier that popped over him at the last second. Damn. His brothers had broken through the ice wall, and a partially bloody one had directed a hand in Blast's direction, shielding him at the last moment. He wasn't paying enough attention, though, and died when I extended a number of icicles from the wall, impaling him several times over.

Of course, that gave Blast plenty of time to get up, deck me in the face, and detonate his hand there, sending me flying through the ice wall and back into the Black Pikmin's line of fire. The distinctive sound of the main cannon spinning up then followed, a few 'Ard Boyz falling back to create cover over their line as another of the EBO machines swooped in to fire upon them.

Pulling myself up, I slammed Frostmourne into the ice, sending cracks out in all directions. Let's see if they can keep their footing on broken ice as well as I can.

X-Stormstout-X

Stormstout is drunk. Very very drunk. Extremely drunk. And he was currently fighting Seraph's main lackey, Eclipse the Darkling since a while ago.

You see, Eclipse the Darkling was strong yes, but so was Stormstout when he drank enough alcohol. The Terran Theocracy had prepped Stormstout for the Ludibrium invasion by giving him lots, enough for the Corrector to go toe-to-toe with Eclipse. For every swipe of his claws that Eclipse landed on Stormstout, it seemed that the drunkard landed a powerful drunken punch in return. For every void beam that grazed the drunken Corrector, Stormstout countered with a fiery alcohol-powered belch.

Stormstout's drunken movements made his attacks more unpredictable, and his immunity to pain annoyed Eclipse to no end.

The extreme drunkard slammed Eclipse into the ground and then bodily slammed into him, an attack that cratered the ground. Eclipse's resistance to physical damage was proving useful here, enabling him to receive Stormstout's physical hits reasonably well. The Darkling may have wished that he had more resistance to other forms of damage though, as Stormstout then followed up with a literal tidal wave of burning, fiery alcohol, an attack that crashed into Eclipse and burned into him until the Darkling responded by grabbing the drunkard and slamming him into the ground again, deepening the crater that Stormstout made.

As Eclipse slammed Stormstout into the ground again, Ludibrium fell...
_______________
X-Black Manta-X

Very disgusting.

Black Manta's armor had been dirtied by Loki's breath, and that was very disgusting. Very disgusting. And that made Black Manta angry. Angry enough to use more water and soap.

The immediate problem was the bone and viscera that was raining down upon Black Manta; the Corrector used some water and soap to deflect some of that, dodging and weaving through the rest, before firing more shots of water at Loki to "avenge" his armor. When the Snagret attempted to dodge these shots again, they suddenly exploded, having had torpedoes hidden inside. Black Manta also began spamming torpedo shots against Keyza, who was prowling the streets grabbing any corpse she could, eating them to keep her health up.

And that was when Ludibrium fell.

Black Manta's armor let him fly, so this did not inconvenience him much. This opportunity however, meant that the Corrector used this chance to blast Keyza with a heavy soap-water shot infused with torpedoes. Loki unleashed an even heavier rain of gore that caused Black Manta to screech in indignation, forcing him to dive downwards to search for cover.

Having Black Manta be this close to Ludus Lake would prove quite costly for Keyza and Loki.

The Corrector blasted the water with soap and then dived into Ludus Lake. It was shortly made quite clear that letting him do that was a bad idea, as a powerful geyser of soap-water infused with torpedoes slammed into Loki, blasting him back into the air. Keyza was alarmed as a followup shot overpowered the stream of blood she was spewing, taking out part of her torso. She then immediately retreated inland to avoid the followup tidalwave that nearly came crashing down on her.

The Grand Devourer her pet Snagret unleashed a combination attack of filth and smog that Black Manta had not dodged back on land. In the lake however, Black Manta's speed was augmented, enabling him to swim around to dodge and blast powerful geysers of soapwater to deflect the attacks. Keyza then grabbed as many corpses as she could find and ate them, sharing them with Loki as they both dodged away from the powerful geysers of soapwater firing beneath them, only to find themselves face-to face with another tidal wave, this one filled with torpedoes.

Yeah, Black Manta, neurotic as he was about cleanliness, was definitely one of the stronger Correctors...

<Trombe>

Taking several large hits in a row seemed to shake something in Trombe's head, and when Mithril's next strike came in, he withdrew all of his blades to spin around him, deflecting the attack.

"Blockade Shift," Trombe growled in a tone several octaves lower than his voice usually was. His speed filtered away into defense and offense, his blades whirling around him protectively. Moving at all would be slow with this much shifted out of his speed... but he was about to not need to move that much anyway.

"Genocide Shift," the Warboss growled again, the measly dozen blades surrounding him suddenly multiplying into hundreds, weaving about him in concentric circles. Mithril's eyes widened at the sight and several of her charged attacks were launched at once: a frigid storm, a coiling stream of lightning, a massive burst of liquid flame. Whatever they were, they crashed upon the swarm of blades and were broken, Trombe not moving an inch from where he stood. Crossing his arms, he willed the entire lot to rise up, points down.

"Break Rain," Trombe snarled, the blades slamming down. And then the floor was made of swords, an endless barrage of blades sprouting up from the ground in waves, tearing apart anything in their path. Mithril was caught off guard only by the first such attack before she took to the air as more clones warped in. Even those that appeared directly in Trombe's face, however, were instantly shredded by more of the blades whirling about the Warboss, and Mithril shortly found herself dodging dozens of Azoths being fired at her like bullets, each one sparking with some hateful electricity. There was very obviously something not normal about it, and Mithril quite frankly didn't want to find out what.

Her attempts to dodge were rather abruptly interrupted as five massive swords slammed into the floor in front of her, very effectively forming an unbreakable wall and forcing her to spot dodge the incoming electrical blades. Still more sprouted up from the ground, these emanating off-red flames as they launched into the ceiling and sliced into the stone like it were made of butter, leaving liquefied stone to drip down beneath them before they warped back into defensive formation.

Alas, Mithril's speed and luck eventually gave out, one of the electrified blades scoring a hit and imparting a hefty jolt that clung to her body. She tried to force it out, but before she could finish that some force grabbed hold of her and slammed her into the blade-infested floor, where several dozen more electrified blades appeared above and slammed down into her, discharging their payloads with a massive thunderclap that shook the entire cavern. Trombe didn't relent for a second, dedicating three dozen more blades to the attack, wreathed in electricity, flames, and shadows.

Before he could throw any more into the attack, however, Mithril exploded in a cacophony of metal and elements, a swarm of metallic constructs bursting forth in all directions but mostly aiming towards the Warboss himself, but his only response was to grow ten blades to massive size and launch them into the fray, slicing apart or simply blocking the movements of the barrage of weaponry as his remaining blades warped back into their defensive positions and closed ranks. He couldn't see her, and that was dangerous.

As the slightest hint of movement from the ground beneath him, dozens of blades slammed into the ground, filling the underground with a more specialized version of his previous Break Rain attack. He was hardly stupid enough to leave his feet undefended.

There was stillness for a moment, during which he drew in his blades in preparation. Where would the next attack come from...

<]-Mithril-[>

By this point, I've figured out pretty much the maximum I can charge an attack before super angry super Trombe notices and sends another Break Rain the way of my clones. The super angry super Warboss now has even more swords thanks to Genocide Shift... what's next, Omnicide Shift?!?!? Well, I'll deal with that once it comes, but for now, I'll handle the present situation.

My current status: In stealth. There are upsides to being hidden: namely, the reduced amount of offensive pressure I'm facing means that I can focus more on metal control. Most projectiles just move in a straight line, and with added control, I can change that and maneuver said attacks past Trombe's defenses. As an additional bonus, I can cycle through elements faster thanks to the increased control. It isn't easy (nothing in this fight is) due to all the blades, but that's what I'm gonna go for.

Important thing to note: Super angry super Trombe has to divert some of his swords away from his defenses for a moment if he wants to attack me. He has to attack me too; if I get a high enough charge then he's screwed.

So with that in mind my clones began charging up their attacks again, one of them doing so in a really, really obvious way. Namely, right beneath Trombe's feet again. This choice caused the Warboss's face to ever so briefly shift into an incredulous one as he sent another Break Rain in said clone's direction. Said clone was destroyed obviously, but the drop in the amount of blades protecting him meant that I had a chance to hit him.

Firing off another clone's charged attack, I then focused and then took more direct control over said metal. I'll be honest; the majority of the attack, which was composed of extremely dense marbles packed with lots of metal mass, was destroyed... but with my focused metal control, two marbles slithered through the gaps in Trombe's defenses, slamming into him, expanding, and cycling through various elements rapidly, before one of the marbles hit the element he was currently weak to: electricity. Both of the marbles then synced to said element as I unloaded the full force of that accumulated charge. Titanium Twin Thunderbolt!

As the twin thunderclaps resounded through the cavern, the super angry super Warboss retaliated by destroying the clone that launched that attack with Break Rain and then began searching around, sending dozens of swords off to launch wide-range slashes, attempting to probe for where I was hiding. I kept on the move to avoid being discovered, noting that due to Blockade Shift, he was taking quite a bit less damage than before, even from attacks he was weak to.

Since I probably hit super angry super Trombe through Blockade Shift that first time due to him being surprised by the projectiles' enhanced maneuverability, I'll need more blades diverted away from his defense for my next attack to hit him. I had more clones charge up attacks to force the Warboss to send more blades to Break Rain them.

At this point, I noticed that Break Rain didn't require the swords to remain planted; they seemed to emit some wave of magic that made bigger swords, and Trombe basically withdrew said blades immediately after emitting said waves. That observation noted, I continued my offensive efforts.

Onto the next round of my precisely-controlled charged attacks. This time around, without the element of surprise on my side, super angry super Trombe was doing better at defending against my attacks. That said, since I was forcing the Warboss to send more blades away to stop my clones from charging up too much, I was still able to nail him with a few precise attacks that made it through the bladed obstacle course. After the attacks that got through cycled through elements rapidly and pinpointed his new weakness, the extremely dense marbles lit up in a gigantic blaze of metallic fire. Terbium Torch!

Right as that occurred, a few blades of his were cutting uncomfortably close to my current location, so I kept moving. I don't want him to catch wind of my position.