Fight for Power

Black Scythe

The addition of the Spiral Warrior was unpleasant, but Black Scythe could still deal with that. A very close clashes with him had been more than sufficient to tell Libera that he couldn't stay in close combat for very long, not without expending an enormous amount of energy maintaining his Super Spiral Shield. With that in mind, Libera had taken to firing beams and missiles at him from afar using his new arm, then clashing when Black Scythe closed the distance before warping out of range again.

He only had to keep it up for a few minutes before Digital Gear crowed triumphantly.

"100%! About damn time! Hey Black Scythe, I brought a present for you!" the digital overlord called to him as something shimmered into existence behind him. The Supreme Warboss planted his feet, gathered energy, and launched a barrage of dark red flames at Gear, but he simply laughed and stepped back as a massive, silver form folded into the room. The flames hit it with a tremendous explosion, but when the smoke cleared it was undamaged.

"I call him Silver Scythe! Get along now, you two!" Digital Gear cackled as the massive robotic doppelganger stomped forward, towering three times Black Scythe's size. Black Scythe simply glared at it.

"Another of your cheap knockoffs, Gear? Is this all you can-" he sneered before abruptly being cut off as the massive silver mech grew a huge energy blade from its arm and swung at him. The Supreme Warboss held up his left arm to block it, skidding several feet just from the force of the blow, but nonetheless stopped it.

"-all you can do?" Black Scythe finished, before opening his mouth and breathing black flame over it. Silver Scythe responded by opening a port where its own mouth would be and firing a massive sound wave, blowing the flames away and driving Black Scythe to his knees. A hateful snarl erupted from the Black Pikmin as he gathered energy in his namesake blade.

"Dimension..." he growled, hefting the blade over his head. A huge green energy blade erupted forth, piercing through the ceiling of the Path of Time and up through the city.

"SLASH!" Black Scythe roared, bringing the blade down on his robotic copy. A metallic screech echoed from the massive mech, but as the blade passed through it revealed only a scratch going down the mech's right side. Digital Gear's laughter echoed from nearby.

"Not so easy as my previous machines, is it?" Gear cackled, before sidestepping a Black Phantom that zoomed past him at a ludicrous speed. He directed a glare in the direction of Hero Squad as they gathered around the injured Juggernaut, zeroing in on Quicksilver in particular.

"Oh, you did that on purpose, didn't you," he muttered as Black Scythe and Silver Scythe clashed once more. Well, whatever. Nothing was going to ruin this moment for him.
_________
Somewhere far off, over an old battleground, a dark cloud rumbles with thunder loud enough to shake the pebbles loose from the ground.

It is not yet obvious, but this is no ordinary storm.

On top of Lake Vashj'ir...

The humongous main cannon was hard to miss. Also of note were the absurd amount of anti-air defenses, anyone rushing in would be met with a LOT of incoming fire.

For the stronger Hero Squad members like Mithril and Zeta, they wouldn't have as much to worry about, but this would be more of a concern for the comparatively weaker Hero Squad members like the miscellaneous Bloodseed and the various summons and robots that were deployed to this location.

Nonetheless, Orvtre's summons and Rune's summons had plenty of shielding and healing between them, so there were plenty of protective measures to ensure survivability.

Hero Squad's local guy made of rock was strudy. That said, he preferred to stay in the background and avoid enemy fire altogether.

The first strike was possibly one of the most important; take out as much of the enemy's attack potential as possible with a humongous, combined charged attack. The rock guy, the strange, Asura-like cyborg beast with dozens upon dozens of arms, and basically any ranged guy here contributed to the initial combined charged attack, charging the attack up as high as they could handle it, and then letting it loose against the Black Pikmin and their guns and missile emplacements.

Said attack destroyed an acceptable amount of the Black Pikmin's attacking capabilities. However, the battle had just begun. G3 was the first to burst onto the front lines, tanking incoming fire while punching any Black Pikmin within melee range. Said Black Pikmin promptly exploded.

The next on the front lines were the Blasting Corkoink, and copies of the strange, Asura-like cyborg beast with dozens upon dozens of arms. The Blasting Corkoink could regenerate, and the copies were more or less expendable, so they didn't really require much support. The copies in particular spread out and gutted as many Black Pikmin as they could with the initial push to try and minimize injuries later.

Finally, the other robots and the Bloodseed arrived with summons backing them up, many shields + healing + support summons among them. Also amongst these summons were ones that benefited from the icy terrain here, and they promptly capitalized on that by freezing a few Black Pikmin, which the Bloodseed then s***tered with their fists.

Black Scythe

The fight wasn't as totally one-sided as Digital Gear had been hoping, but it was still going well, for him anyway. With Hero Squad backed into a corner defending Juggernaut, Silver Scythe was relegated to battling Black Scythe alone. Well, with Gear himself for backup, anyway.

Even still, Black Scythe was no easy opponent. For every massive blow Silver Scythe landed, it seemed Black Scythe simply pulled out an even more absurd power to strike back with.

"Dreadflame!" the Supreme Warboss bellowed, a dark red torrent of fire springing forth from his hand to wash over his massive metallic counterpart. Silver Scythe responded by opening a pair of ports on his forearm and unleashing a pair of flamethrowers, heating Black Scythe's armor to the point of glowing. He hissed steam and swiped his right arm in Silver Scythe's direction, sending a wave of superheated air at the massive construct. It didn't cause any damage, but it distracted the bot's sensors long enough for Black Scythe to unload a Dimension Thrust on it, blasting Silver Scythe across the path with a noticeable dent in its chest. Before he could capitalize on that, though, a pair of massive golden beams lanced out from beside him, their brightness dazzling as it washed over him.

"Forgetting someone? Never take your eyes off me!" Digital Gear crowed. That had been his entire solar battery, but hell, the look on Black Scythe's face was worth that expense any day. The wisps of black smog that curled away from him? Worth even more.

Across the Path, Hero Squad was still struggling with a swarm of Black Phantoms. Quicksilver dashed between them like a ping pong ball on every single variety of hardcore drug simultaneously, but even with Grav enhancing the weight of his blows, it wasn't enough to keep them down for long, so Libera and Orvtre had directed their attention towards locking down the ones that were pushed away from the main fight. Sapphire, meanwhile, had moved to freeze those that were pulling themselves back together in order to delay them just a little longer.

Sigma had apparently turned himself into a blender, and had now established quite a wide berth where the Phantoms were unwilling to approach him. Maintaining that state meant he had to be quite far off from any of the others, however, or he'd have cut them to shreds as well. Even with the distance he'd made, however, those with ranged attacks had continued sniping at him.

The whole thing suddenly came to a close when all of the phantoms simply dispersed into smoke and whirled back towards Black Scythe and rejoined with him. Libera immediately made to lunge for the Supreme Warboss, only for Orvtre to grab his mechanized shoulder. As soon as he'd paused, Orvtre lifted hir hand to reveal it was slick with blood... Libera's blood.

"You're overworking yourself already. Omicron did mention you'd probably do that..." shi recalled. "I think Hero Squad has enough serious injuries for one day. Let Gear and Black Scythe hammer away at each other for now. With any luck they'll take each other out, but hopefully at least Gear brings Black Scythe down."

"And what then?" Libera pointed out. "Chances are as soon as he's dealt with Black Scythe, he goes after whatever's down here for himself."

"Chances are as soon as Black Scythe is dealt with, the Infinites will bug out and give Chi room to go after him if he's stupid enough to try," Orvtre replied, pointing to a corner of the room where at least one Chi could be seen, monitoring the fight.

If Libera replied to that, his words were swallowed by the eruption that came from Black Scythe's latest attack...

continued

A moment earlier...

Black Scythe screeched, a high-pitched sound blasting forth from him that was enough to send Digital Gear sprawling, his audio sensors squealing in protest. Silver Scythe, however, had opened a port where his mouth would have been and emitted what may as well have been a beam of pure sound, rattling Black Scythe to his bones. Gear simply laughed as he got back up.

"Anything you can do, Silver Scythe can do better!" Gear cackled. That was when Black Scythe had drawn the Phantoms back to his body, let loose a war cry, and charged forth hell for leather. When Silver Scythe swiped its tail at him, though, Black Scythe had skidded to a halt, caught the massive blade on its tail, and turned, dragging the massive bot to the floor and then spinning it around his body, smashing through the walkways and scaffolding of the Path before throwing it into a pile of debris. Even as he'd spun Silver Scythe, green energy had collected around his right arm.

This time, however, it spread across him further. Juking a strike from Gear, Black Scythe leapt into the air over his mechanical doppelganger and roared.

"DIMENSION RUPTURE!"

The resultant release of energy was about like an atom bomb going off. An intense wind buffeted Hero Squad's position and echoed throughout the Path, found its way up above and whirled through the innards of Ludibrium, blasting out every door and window on its way up to the top where every manhole cover or entryway was simply blown away, never to be seen again. The entire city shook from the blast.

The burst had slammed Silver Scythe deeper into the floor and had thrown Gear for a loop, keeping him from interfering when Black Scythe slammed down on the mech's face and reared back to impale its optics.

He never got the chance. The massive mech, far from immobilized, reached up and grabbed him around the middle, produced one of its energy blades, and held him out and away from itself as green energy collected about the blade. Black Scythe had one moment to stare in shock before it unleashed an ad hoc Dimension Thrust of its own. This one was rather more violent.

With one massive heave all the air in front of Silver Scythe simply vacated the area and took Black Scythe with it, a powerful funnel that blasted a huge hole in the side of the Path and flung the Supreme Warboss from Ludibrium at several times the speed of sound. Black Scythe found himself hurtling through the air, pieces of his armor chipping away from the sheer force of the attack, before gravity eventually brought him back to earth with an unsettling crunch. He bounced, almost comically, before slamming back down again in an ungainly heap, rolling end over end until he skidded to a halt, leaving bits of armor and black blood in his wake. Using his right arm as a crutch, he pushed himself back to his feet, glaring into the distance. Ludibrium was so far away he could barely see it on the edge of the horizon. That had been one hell of an attack.

Every instinct screamed at him to get back up there and resume the fight, but something else told him it was time to quit stalling. He froze, then, an enormous weight seeming to slide away from him as he did. One short snarl rose from his lips before he abruptly turned to drag himself away.

"... fine then... Plan. B."

<Aeonus>

"And that's the end of that," Chi muttered, giving a half-lidded look to his opposite. Aeonus narrowed his eyes at him.

"The end of-"

"Black Scythe's just been blasted out of the city. Won't be coming back, either. Your plan's fallen apart on both counts. End of the line, Aeonus."

There was a series of pops as the Infinites around them vanished in panic, while Aeonus merely stood stock still, eye twitching. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. Black Scythe wasn't supposed to lose. They weren't supposed to be routed, not with his help, this was all... The black and white timewalker clutched his face and grit his teeth in rage. And then, with a startling suddenness, he went slack, arms flopping to his sides, head turned down.

"This is all wrong... it wasn't supposed to happen this way...! Everything I was trying to do... why couldn't you just leave well enough alone?!?" Aeonus growled, the space around him beginning the crack and fray. Chi put his guard back up; Aeonus clearly wasn't finished yet.

"I thought maybe, even if you couldn't understand, you'd at least see reason and let me do my job. But if you're just going to be an obstacle in my way... THEN I SEE NO REASON TO KEEP YOU AROUND!" Aeonus roared, time bending under the weight of his fury. Time and space around them distorted heavily, and an unholy screech began to rise from seemingly every direction.

'He's shaking the very foundations of the universe...! How can he have become that powerful?' Chi thought to himself, even as he braced for Aeonus's attack. He could never have expected what it would be, though.

"GRAND CROSS: ALPHA!" the Infinite bellowed, thrusting a wave of time, space, and chaos over his past self. At the last possible moment, Chi shoved Libra aside and took the full brunt of the attack head-on, screaming in agony as it washed over him. It lasted only a second, and then Chi abruptly vanished. Libra gingerly picked hirself up, shaking off some kind of thin, crystalline dust that had fallen over hir. Looking around, it had coated much of the surrounding area as well. Aeonus didn't seem to notice hir at all, though, turning his back as he slowly dissolved into sand.

"It doesn't matter... this isn't over yet. I still have time. Time is still on my side," he muttered as he disappeared.
_____________
)))Digital Gear(((

"Hahaha! Eat s***! I'm winning this time!" Digital Gear crowed, patting Silver Scythe's head. The massive mech made no move to acknowledge the praise.

"Right! Topside we go to share the news, shall we?" the yellow overlord declared, and Silver Scythe immediately fired up its boosters to exit through the hole that they'd blown Black Scythe through while Hero Squad pulled themselves back up.

Silver Scythe was a bit dinged up, but he could make repairs on the way out. For now, he simply had Silver Scythe ascend to the city above and flew up into the skies overhead.

"Get a good look at what victory looks like, plebeians! You'll be seeing a lot more of it in the future, because I just ROCKED YOUR SUPREME WARBOSS LIKE A HURRICANE!" Digital Gear cheered, earning the immediate and sincere attention of all present.

Fallen Seraph

The battle with his mechanical shell had been going on for an irritatingly long time. It wasn't as fast nor as agile as Quicksilver, so he could hit it easily, if not consecutively. Unlike Quicksilver, though, the damn thing had shields. And then there was the fact that it was firing goddamn ether at him. When the hell did Omicron set up a leyline siphon?!

Any thought of the battle at hand came to a screeching halt when a voice rang out over the city. Mechanized, yes, but still recognizable. All of Seraph's eyes immediately turned to the source, a source you couldn't miss if you tried.

"Is that...?" he muttered, throwing up a barrier to deflect Mara's inevitable attack of opportunity. All at once he gathered himself up and launched in Gear's direction leaving Mara behind. The mech took a look up at the retreating form.

"Orders, sir?"

"Black Scythe is no longer an issue, and we do not need to chance Gear turning on you, even if it is not likely. Fall back and rendezvous with forces en route to Megadakka," Omicron's voice came to him. Mara nodded and jetted off, feeling a bit disgruntled at being denied his primary target.

>X<Cross>X<

Goddamn finally, they were being sent out! Even if he had to deal with the lunatic, still a good time was at hand.

"Onii-chan seems excited! Pinocchio is also excited!" declared said lunatic. Cross continued to ignore him, as ever, causing the puppet to pout.

First order of business was to check in with Gear and get all the juicy details about how he'd bested Black Scythe, because he wasn't going to miss that story for anything. Sure, the Black Pikmin were quickly pulling back to the Cathedral, but he'd have time to have some fun before they were all out. Pinocchio stuck with him, to his annoyance, but as long as he kept his trap shut things would be fine.

When he finally caught up with Gear and Silver Scythe, though, he found there was already company, a dark shadow with dozens of tendrils trailing behind him. Digital Gear grinned at Cross as he approached, the three factions now standing a respectable distance from one another.

"Who's this guy?" Cross said conversationally as he settled in, tilting his head towards the shadow. The shadow stared at him with far too many eyes.

"Oh, that's rude, Cross. Are you going to tell me you don't recognize your little brother?" Gear replied. "After all, you practically made him."

Cross inspected the shadow more closely at that. It was a bit hard to tell under all the tendrils, but sure enough, he held a recognizable shape.

"s***, is that you Seraph? Damn kid, what have you been up to while I was gone?"

"Ah, what a lovely family reunion we have here," Gear noted ironically, "Even if some of us are only here in spirit," he continued, glancing at Silver Scythe.

Seraph held his silence for a moment, flicking his many eyes between Digital Gear and Cross before growling in irritation.

"Ghosts, rising when I'd thought them gone forever. You are genuine, Cross, but this... machine is not our father," Seraph hissed. Gear pouted at him.

"Yes, the real me is definitely dead. I may just be a ghost... but then what about you, Seraph? What has become you of, hmm?" Gear replied with a fatalistic tone.

"I have become something more than what I was," was his only reply.

"Can't help but notice that we all seem to be on different sides, now," Cross mused, tapping his chin. Pinocchio nodded enthusiastically, producing a clacking noise as his head bobbed up and down.

"Two, serving ancient gods... and one, who seeks a world without gods. I do hope the two of you don't regret your choices," Gear said solemnly. "A day may come when we have need to fight one another... but not today, I think."

"Not today," Seraph echoed, turning his back on them.

"Not today," Cross echoed, turning his back as well. Gear said nothing else, the only sound Silver Scythe's thrusters as the massive mech took off to head after Black Scythe.

"Onii-chan...?" Pinocchio asked, uncharacteristically quiet. The mood apparently hadn't quite been lost on him.

"I think I want dearly to murder something now," Cross replied, his voice level. "Let's find something to murder, shall we?"

Pinocchio's eyes sparkled. "Yes!"

X-Phoenix-X

f***ing hell. Several days and nights of no sleep, and we weren't sent out. Just when I was finally about to get some shut eye, we're sent here to this stupid as s*** place. What's with all the damn toys?

So some Black Pikmin decided to potshot me as they retreated. I sent some feathers some way to try and skewer them, but they avoided that. They also avoided the blasts of fire I sent their way, but then I just rushed down the bastards and punched them until they died. This was, annoyingly, more effort than I had wanted to exert, probably because these are the strongest ones. I also got shot at by their warship several times. f*** you and your damn bulls***, Zeromus. Die in a fire.

Next came the lightning dude with wings. Did I mention there was a lightning dude? Because there was one flying around, zapping Black Pikmin, the cultists, and us. Me especially. I'm getting tired of this s***, so I rushed him down and tried to maul him. He was fast, but he wasn't quite fast enough to escape me grabbing his ankle and then setting him on fire. He screamed like a little girl and then zapped me a lot, which hurt like hell, but I spammed lots of feathers to try and impale him. That said, he seemed a lot more intent on running away after I burned him. What the hell?

I punched his stupid face with my fists, giving him some explosions before a slash from his blades finally forced me back. He fled quickly, and before I could pursue some cultists from that other religion thing came over to try and kill me.

Thankfully, unlike the remaining Black Pikmin who were annoying to kill, these guys died easier. I crushed the throat of one, burned another one, and then gave yet another one a feather through the skull.

And then I was attacked by a shouting dude. It was a Red Pikmin (of course I have to always fight people who are immune to fire f***ing s***heads) and apparently he keeps shouting about faith and s*** and OH SHUT THE f*** UP!

Both the feathers I shot at him and the chunks of the ground that I ripped out and threw at him were stopped by... whatever. You know what, just die. If projectiles don't work, I'll just punch the a****** to death.
__________
?-Orvtre-?

Okay, we should get Juggernaut and the others over to Hero Squad HQ right away. We need to tend to the injured, and make plans on what to do next in our fight against the Black Pikmin.

It was right when Dusk showed up to rendezvous with us that we noticed a powerful presence. It wasn't Seraph, who had arrived earlier, but...

"So, one of the Galactic Gods has made his visit here... " growled Bloodriver. I could feel it, I think all of us could feel it. That reminds me, I have to get that component for the godslaying weapon from Omicron. I have a feeling I will be needing that pretty soon...

"Something's been bothering me though: I'm curious as to what Black Scythe had been seeking down there anyways. What could possibly be down there?" I wondered.

"That would be a dimensional convergence point at the Clock Tower," a Chi explained. "Had Black Scythe gotten there, he'd have gathered up a limitless number of Black Pikmin from across all timelines."

"That would explain why the Galactic Gods and the Old Gods are interested in this place," Bloodriver noted. "Does that mean we'll have to force them off this city immediately, despite our injuries?"

"The defense mechanism that guards the dimensional convergence point should hold for quite some time," the Chi replied. "Though I can't guarantee it'll hold forever... anyways it should be fine to go after the Black Pikmin, finish them off, and then force the occupiers off Ludibrium later. Black Scythe could only access the dimensional convergence point because Aeonus was going to help him past said defense mechanism."

Father

That "presence" was the only warning Seraph got before absurd amounts of holy light was blasted into his face. Encasing himself in a shell of Old God metal fended off the worst of it... but not for long, as Father's avatar hammered through the shell and then began pummeling away at him.

"Ludibrium belongs to the Galactic Gods," Father stated. "You are an eyesore. Die, ant."

With the amount of holy light Father's avatar was outputting, it wasn't practical to use shadows or darkness at him right now. Therefore, Old God blood and elemental control was the go to play. That, and the Saronite Animus. For that, Seraph punched dimensional holes to the source of the Saronite vapors, an Old God that lay sleeping below Gloomy Glacier.

The initial attacks Seraph threw out shook the city, caused large shockwaves, and otherwise created sizeable fissures in the floor of Ludibrium. Said attacks, spires of saronite charged with elemental power, did not damage Father's avatar or even repel it, but nonetheless temporarily held off the worst of Father's holy light.

As Father's holy light burned the initial saronite spires into oblivion, that left a gap for Seraph to slam a much larger, high velocity saronite spire charged with elemental power into the avatar's legs, knocking it off balance. A follow up spire forced the avatar back, denting the avatar and giving Seraph a brief reprieve in which he could clad himself in the Saronite Animus.

Seraph's lackey, Eclipse, appeared and attempted to back up his master, and attacked Father's avatar directly with void beams. Unfortunately for Eclipse, Father's avatar was able to divert the beams away from it with some kind of holy power. Even more unfortunately was Father's avatar returning fire. Unlike with most light attacks, Father's holy light burned through Eclipse's immunity, hurting him even through said defenses.

Before Eclipse could attack again, he was very quickly intercepted by an extremely drunken Corrector completely drenched in alcohol. Said Corrector, Stormstout, hit Eclipse with a full body-slam, forcing him away from Father's avatar.

Father's avatar resumed its attack on Fallen Seraph, who was now clad in the Saronite Animus. Even with the Animus protecting him, it wouldn't last long. Not with how strong his opponent was. With that thought in mind, Seraph immediately pulled out the next big attack in his arsenal.

-{Grand Lector Arygas}-

"So! The champions of the ancient gods make themselves known! Know this, fools: You are the chaff of the world, a decaying relic of a bygone era! The time of your gods is gone, and our time is upon you!" the deaf priest bellowed as the fiery Collector tried over and over again to attack him. Her strikes were simply dodged, or swatted from the air by the hand of Sulphur.

"Would you just SHUT! THE f***! UP!" Phoenix snarled, firing a barrage of her razor-sharp feathers at him. Her words fell on literally deaf ears, though, the Grand Lector unable to even hear her words, much less care for them. She was spared any further lecture when something big and angry slammed into her like a freight train.

"SMASH AND TRAMPLE, CRUSH AND CRUMPLE!" the huge Pikmin snarled. Whatever color it once was couldn't be discerned under the bone white and blood red colors that covered her, but she was hugely muscular and apparently really, really angry.

"Oh fan-f***ing-tastic! Do any of you ever stop talking?!" Phoenix demanded, almost but not quite equally angry. The only response she got was a devastating right hook to the mouth that sent her flipping end-over-end down the street until she skidded to a halt, minus a few teeth.

"RIP AND TEAR!" the Grand Thirster roared, and with the sound came a hellish miasma, gathering around her.
______________
Fallen Seraph

Trawling through the streets for Black Pikmin to kill, a god wasn't something he'd been expecting to encounter. But sure enough, that's what he'd found.

'Not a god in the flesh, no. An avatar, that which bears the image. It bears not its full strength. I can hurt it,' were the Fallen's thoughts. Perhaps not kill it, no. But leave something to remember him by.

With the Animus active he was invulnerable to the Galactic God's attacks, at least as long as the Animus held, so while it filled the air with saronite fumes Seraph called upon C'thun's aid.

'Great Old One, cast your gaze upon me! Fill me with your might!' he called silently, and was rewarded by an invisible presence settling upon his shoulders. The eye of C'thun now looked over him.

Just in time, too, as Father finished blasting the Saronite Animus apart. The fumes it had left behind would take some time to disperse, however, giving Seraph an advantage.

"Great Old One, sear your ancient foe with your burning gaze!" Seraph called, his own eyes alighting with C'thun's power. He directed each of them towards Father's avatar and unleashed several dozen beams of the Old God's burning wrath, the flames instantly heating their surroundings until they were molten. As the steam from the attack billowed away, Seraph dove into the ground, narrowly avoiding a massive lance of light that came forth. His shadow, and all the other shadows in the area, danced around the avatar's glowing frame, both from its own inner light, and now from the heat sizzling away at the outer armor.

Y'sharrj demanded his turn be next, and Seraph had no complaints. The strongest of the Old Gods would leave the Galactic God something to remember...