Fight for Power

<Beta>

I am a leaf floating gently in a stream.

The ripples and waves made by my opponents may disturb the water, but I am fine as long as I don't go under.

Bulk's waves are huge, constant, and nearly overwhelming. Keyword being nearly. As long as I ride those waves out of the way of danger, I am fine. His approach, and the accompanying punch, are a large wave, and I need only angle myself to ride it rather than capsizing. A small movement is sufficient to avoid the punch and the shockwave that comes with it, producing a spray of water behind me. Bulk, on the other hand, is in no position to avoid the high pressure jet of water I slam into his unprotected side, a choked sound between a gasp and a laugh emerging from his mouth as the water I just slammed into him turns a frothy red. The Black Pikmin is pushed aside, grunting in pain.

Bomb - the Brown Pikmin, I'm calling him Bomb - produces waves more slowly. His bombs can each produce a separate wave, and the waves clash, cancel each other out, or combine and grow in size. It's quite chaotic... but if I prevent those waves from forming in the first place, then there's no trouble.

I send a blade of water through each of the first set of bombs he launches at me, slicing through a tiny fault line on each that disarms the explosives. The second wave of bombs is less clustered, and I slice through a few before dancing away from the rest, allowing them to skip past me and towards Bulk. I don't bother paying attention to how he reacts.

Mithril's waves... are quiet and insidious. She's spreading metal across the platform, much as I've been spreading water. Those tiny ripples will eventually merge into a massive tidal wave if they're not stopped.

I am no longer a leaf on a stream. I am now a shark that has caught the scent of blood.

I dive fully into the water that layers the arena floor, avoiding a shcokwave from one of Bulk's punches in the process, and beeline towards Mithril. She takes notice of the bulge of water heading towards her immediately, and erects defenses of alkaline metal. I halt my charge, but the water I've collected continues onward in a small wave. As it gets closer to her, I shove more water into it, and the small wave becomes a tsunami that crashes upon Mithril's alkaline defenses and explodes, sending a shower of metal and water all over the platform.

Mithril is pushed back... but not by much. A quick looks through the water tells me she's welded her feet to a large mass of metal that's covering the platform in order to remain on it. She's preparing more alkaline metals to counterattack, but I send a few well-placed waves in her direction and she abandons them, not wanting any more explosions going off right on top of her.

More importantly, however, the earlier blast has gotten the sincere attention of Bulk and Bomb, who've apparently both noticed what Mithril's up to. I drift away and emerge from the water once more as Bulk charges in at Mithril; there's a few wince-inducing popping sounds as he grows even more muscle mass than before, so much so that some of the outer strands snap from the strain. I don't have muscles, but I'm pretty sure that's supposed to hurt. Bulk doesn't even seem to notice, though. The waves he produces now are truly massive; I'm not sure I could handle those. Each step he takes rocks the entire platform, not from his weight but from the sheer force he imparts with his movement, charging towards Mithril with all the force of a runaway freight train.

<]-Mithril-[>

It was at this point in the final round that all three of my opponents are focused on attacking me or otherwise undermining my preparations. Rock guy was coating as much of the arena as he could in stone to try and prepare something of his own and counter the metal I've set up, Beta had dove into the accumulated water and raised it into a watery tornado, and Bulk was attempting to punch me off of the arena now with even more enhanced strength. At this point I've had to bulk myself up by increasing my mass and density to increase the force of my blows in turn and anchor myself to the platform, returning fire with fire, flaming fists, and a burning Cobalt Crusher; said Crusher being a massive, burning, blue, rocket propelled hammer.

Begrudingly, I admit that I've started to give ground at this point, even with blow after burning blow slammed into the Black Pikmin's cackling face. The laughter only intensified when Bulk saw the watery storm headed toward both of us; that prompted him to muscle up yet again; several popping sounds being produced as even more outer strands broke under the strain. He then began attacking with even more ferocity as the tornado approached; his blows now strong enough to cause tornado-esque bursts of wind. Said wind irritated the crowd, but did not actually injure any of the audience.

With all that said, it's time. Metal Gate.

My next hammer swing slammed into the Black Pikmin's face; this one taking him off-guard with the sudden increase in power, sending him skidding back. This gave me an opening to fire a "Double Dolomite Drill!", one at Bulk and one at the rock guy. Sounds of muscle shredding rang through the arena, as the Black Pikmin grabbed the drill and then stopped it... before it exploded in his face, compounding the damage. The other drill traveled along the arena floor, burrowing away the rock that stone dude prepared, before impacting a wall he put up. Cue massive explosion.

What's next? Even more explosions of course! For the water tornado, I unleashed a powerful "Potassium Pain!" at it, causing Beta to yelp and dodge away as the massive beam of metal impacted the storm of water, an enormous explosion resulting from the attacks. As I was in Metal Gate, bulked up, and welded to the large mass of metal covering the platform, I decidedly remained on the arena.

The humongous explosion actually caused Bulk to skid back a bit; something which I capitalized on by rushing at him, full-speed, rockets on my back, screaming all the while. The Black Pikmin laughed in turn and countercharged, the clash itself causing a shockwave, the winds whipping around the area, irritating the audience but leaving them unharmed.

Fist to fist, fist to face, head to head, hammer to face. With each blow and each punch I dealt, Bulk found himself being forced back ever so slightly. Every Cobalt Crusher hammer-strike, every "Alloy Anchor!" to the face, every "Platinum Laser Crasher!" to the gut inched him closer and closer to the edge of the arena.

Throughout all of this, the Black Pikmin was pummeling me hard in turn, each of his punches strong enough to rock the very platform, shockwaves and winds accompanying each of his powerful blows. Even so, I pressed forward, forcing him ever closer to the edge of the platform. Even so, it was clear to both of us that his current power wasn't enough to stop me.

That prompted Bulk to power up even further, eliciting a cacophony of popping, snapping outer muscle strands. He had equipped himself with a humongous and utterly grotesque amount of muscle mass now... but it was all for nought.

Before he could launch another attack, I moved. With one deft motion, I unleashed one mighty swing from underneath Bulk, the hammer blow slamming into his chin, sending the Black Pikmin into the air. And now, bulking myself up even more with the metal from the ground...

"Osmium Obliterator!" I roared, the extremely dense four-fisted punch slamming into the airborne 'min's gut, the punch cracking bone, emitting a gigantic shockwave, and sending him hurtling into the wall and out of the arena.

One down.

I turned towards the other two combatants, readying my material while they were readying theirs. With Metal Gate activated, my rate of metal generation increased, the metal covering the arena at a now-frantic pace. Even if both of my opponents decided to try and contest my control of the platform, it would only be a matter of time before I overwhelmed their attempts and crushed the opposition.

Knowing that hanging back now would lead to her defeat, Beta rushed forward, with lots and lots of water at her disposal, readying her next attack. I stepped forward to meet her, with all the alkaline and regular metal that implied.

\|\Bulk/|/

Outside of the arena, Bulk pulled himself free of the wall and tilted his head side to side, releasing a series of popping sounds. With a large exhalation, his built up muscle fibers slowly withdrew, sliding back into his body like grotesque noodles. Mithril had been mistaken in her assessment of the sound that had come out of him on impact, however; the crunch had been muscle fibers rubbing against one another and breaking under the strain, but Bulk himself was mostly unharmed save for some nasty bruises. Not that it put him any less outside of the arena.

"Guess that's that, then. Least I got a good fight out of it," he chuckled to himself as he stalked off in search of a food stand.
______
<Beta>

If I rush head-on into Mithril she'll wipe the floor with me, even with Serene Mind. Which is why I'm making a big show with the wave I'm headed at her with; the blast from this much water hitting alkaline metal would be more likely to hurt me than her.

Which is why, as soon as I got close enough, I shoved the wave off to the sides and away from all of her alkaline defenses, in favor of a thinner stream I drew up from below with my hand.

"Blade of Still Water," I whispered, swinging my hand upward. A high pressure string of water came up with it and sliced clear through Mithril's first line of defense, a wispy trail of flames the only reaction the alkaline metal got out of it. I swung my arm back down and brought with it another thin streamer of water, slicing through the second layer she'd hidden behind the first.

Mithril clearly hadn't been expecting such a weak reaction, and her own followup attack - one "Sodium Slammer!" - bulldozed through the cut-through defensive walls, neatly knocking them out of my way as well. All I needed then was to simply slide out of the path of her attack and around behind her back while raising a blob of water to hit her Slammer.

That provoked the explosion she'd been expecting earlier. I, meanwhile, used her as an ad hoc shield from the blast and set about slicing into her unprotected back with more Still Water swings.

Bomb seemed to have decided to capitalize as well, sending in a number of bomb rocks on short fuses. Again, I stayed behind Mithril to avoid the blasts as Bomb laid into her.

Unfortunately, the blasts blinded me to Mithril's counterattack until it was just about to go off. She launched something forward to fend off the bomb rocks, then jumped up and over... a cannon, pointed directly at me. Feck.

"CAESIUM CANNON!" Mithril bellowed as the cannon's front end exploded, launching a thick wave of liquid metal at me. Too much... I tried to slice through it with Blade of Still Water, but there was just too much of it. In one last ditch effort to save myself, I threw up a wave of water at it.

The explosion was huge. I coiled myself around my Orb for safety as the blast send me hurtling off the platform. No impact with the wall for me, though, as a very large hand caught me mid-flight. Juggernaut grunted as I reshaped myself back to normal, my Serene Mind state now very much disrupted.

"Bleh... I tried," I lamented, earning another grunt from Juggernaut and some lighthearted ribbing from Quicksilver.

Libera had his attention fixed on the match, however. "And then there were two..." he muttered.

<]-Mithril-[>

I have to compliment stone dude's performance so far. His endurance is impressive, having lasted through having Bulk slam him with powerful hits, Beta slam him with critical hits, and of course lasting through the stuff I've sent at him so far. He even took that explosion that resulted from my Caesium Cannon reasonably well, not skidding backwards as much as I thought he would... though the fact that he anchored himself to the rock covering the arena helped with that. I kind of wonder if he'd be interested in joining Hero Squad...

According to chatter from the locals, it turns out that this rock guy had won at least one Rocky Rumble in the past. Furthermore, word on the mountain is that stone dude is an armorsmith of sorts, able to craft and repair even the most difficult of powered armor. Current hypothesis is that he has some kind of secret technique that he has yet to deploy, perhaps having something to do with that crafting skill of his?

Turns out that was exactly on the money; immediately after taking the explosion that resulted from my Caesium Cannon earlier, he had finished preparing some kind of powered armor made entirely of rock, suiting up in it. Since we were currently on opposite sides of the arena due to the Caesium Cannon explosion, both of us began setting down our respective materials on our respective sides of the arena. I fired a multitude of various metal projectiles at him, but he shot them all down with machine-gatling guns that fired off a multitude of accurate, exploding bomb-rocks.

He also stomped the arena floor, blasting away at the metal there I tried to use for an attack, and sending a wave of lava towards me to contest my control over the arena. I countered with a wave of frozen metal, and as the two waves clashed, he bomb-rushed me and tried to punch me in the face. I ducked under the punch and socked him in the gut, before using my Cobalt Crusher to hammer him in the face... however he caught the hammerstrike with a punch, canceling the strike's forward momentum and then forcing it back with an explosion emanating from said punch.

Since one of my hands was still planted in his gut, I took the opportunity to fire a point-blank "Beryllium Buster!" Simultaneously, he decided to attack as well, doing yet another bombrush, this time full body tackling me at point-blank range. And that was when an explosion emanated from his tackle, the powerful blast forcing me back further than I thought it would. I anchored myself to the metal on the platform to stop my skid, as he anchored himself to his material as well.

Part of his armor was cracked, bits and pieces falling out from it from where my one-two attack landed. His powered armor, of course, did not stay damaged, as he used his rock powers to replace the missing bits and repair the cracks in said armor. We took another round to exchange projectiles and build up material on the arena before rushing in for another round of close-range combat.

This time, more punches, more hammer strikes, more frigid metal attacks. He retaliated with explosion punch after lava blast, dishing it out as well as he took it. Even as the Cobalt Crusher slammed into his armor, bits and pieces of rock falling off with each strike, he repaired said armor and counterattacked with blow after powerful blow. Eventually, a few of his attacks slammed right into the far end of the hammer, blasting off the head of the Crusher. However, I quickly replaced the top of said weapon and reinforced it, now calling it my...

"Metal Mace Masher!" I roared, bringing the heavy weapon down upon him, delivering powerful blows that emitted shockwaves upon impact. He forged his own weapon, a stone club, and attacked with it in turn, each attack creating an explosion upon impact.

Weapon vs weapon, fist vs fist, cold vs lava, metal vs stone. The current situation damn well shows why rock guy was a previous Rocky Rumble winner, his endurance commendable.

And even as we fought, I schemed up a way to break the stalemate...

Just gonna bump for safety...

<]-Mithril-[>

A cacophony of blows rang throughout the mountain as I clashed with the rock guy, both of us now dual-wielding. Me wielding both my Metal Mace Masher and my now-repaired Cobalt Crusher, and him wielding his club and a stone hammer, with said hammer also creating an explosion upon impact.

Throughout this battle, I've tested a multitude of attack types, including, but not limited to: frigid metal attacks, molten attacks, sonic attacks, etc. And still, he fights on. And still, the stalemate remains... though not for long. Unfortunately for him, I've thought up a way to end this.

An intense gust of wind kicked up as I manipulated metal, this time in its gaseous state and enormously hot. I then blasted him with intense gale winds, while simultaneously continuing my attempts to pummel him with my varied array of weapons. He returned fire, unleashing explosion strikes, lava blasts, and various stone projectiles.

Even an ultra-hot "Terbium Tornado!" was insufficient to strip him of his powered armor, the rock guy clearly used to handling the heat.

By now, both of us were tired of the stalemate. It was time to finish this.

We readied the material we had prepared. We brought it forth to bear... and then we collided in one, final clash.

That was what he was probably saw, at least. However, while mostly correct, that omits a few details: Namely, I had opened up holes in his powered armor, condensed some of that metal gas into strings, and yanked him back at the last moment, disrupting his movements and giving me an edge, however slight.

As the rumbling subsided, I found myself on the very edge of the platform, dangling off said edge and extremely close to falling off. Stone guy, on the other hand, had been blasted just off the platform, if only inches away from the arena itself.

The result is clear then. With this, it's my victory.
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latest version of log here: https://pastebin.com/Wtw9BqnY

[[[[[Tectus]]]]]

A brief moment of silence descended over the arena as the dust cleared, as the final impact sank in. Then a thunderous roar of applause raised from the audience, shaking the room with its volume.

But one member of the fight's audience remained still for several long seconds, before standing from his throne and beginning a slow, thunderous clap of his own. The sheer impact of it silenced the rest of the crowd, as Tectus stepped forward.

"Congratulations, outsider," the mountain's overseer drawled as Mithril's opponent stood, shook himself off, and climbed out of the pit around the arena. "You have claimed victory over all of your foes in the Rumble... all save one, that is."

Mithril blinked, then steeled her gaze on Tectus, who gave her a sardonic grin before bending his knees and leaping to the center of the arena. He landed with a mighty crash, tilted his head to both sides to crack it, and adopted a wrestler's stance.

"It is the right of the Overseer to challenge the final competitor of the Rocky Rumble, should they be an outsider. This tournament has always been won by a denizen of Blackrock Descent. That will not change this day."

Mithril glared at him in response. "You didn't say anything about that when you were announcing the rules."

Tectus merely grinned back at her in the manner a shark might. "I announced the most important rules. We'd have been here all day if I announced all of them. Check the rules in the record room, if you like."

There was a blur of motion from the stands as Quicksilver left and returned in the blink of an eye. "He's right, it is there in the rules," he called over, clearly sounding annoyed.

"Keep in mind, overdweller: I am still the arbiter of the Rumble's rules. Should you break them, I WILL disqualify you. Now... KNEEL." Tectus bellowed, pressing his palms towards Mithril. A heavy, invisible weight slammed down atop her, producing a grunt, followed by a growl of rage as she procured her arsenal.

"Ah yes... Open the slag flumes!" Tectus called out. Hidden panels in the ceiling slid open, and gouts of molten rock poured through from above to fill the pit surrounding the arena. As Mithril launched metallic projectiles at him, Tectus pulled in globs of magma, shaping them into large, rocky hands to block her attacks, even as yet more magma blobs leapt up to the platform and began to harden into earthen mines.

The hands slowed her down only briefly, but it was enough for Tectus to slam a hand into the floor and pull upwards, sending a wave of rising pillars in her direction. These proved far more difficult to get through, and she backed off as more rocky mines jumped up to the platform from the rising magma at the sides.

"Is the lava in the rules too?" Mithril called out as she formed simple projectiles to detonate the mines with, sending a few over the risen pillars at Tectus as well. He came around the side of the pillar-wall and slammed his foot down, producing a landslide of exploding stones that shot toward her at high speeds.

"Of course it is!" Tectus called back, pulling in more molten rock around Mithril in an attempt to enclose her in place. A Cobalt Crusher smashed the rocks and landslide away, only for more landslides to be sent her way. It was at this point that she noticed a little something about the magma he was using; namely the fact there was very little metal in it.

'So that's why he called it slag... they've strained most of the metal out of this,' she noted, 'but not quite all of it.' There had to be some way to make use of that, even if it was such a tiny amount. That would have to wait, though, because that was the moment Tectus barreled into her to bring the fight to close range.

<]-Mithril-[>

First close quarters combat of the fight; time to use this opportunity to gauge Tectus' abilities. Initial exchange is fist to fist; my fist clashing with his. His followup punch came my way, and I can already determine that Tectus isn't as mobile as the rock guy I found in the previous round; it was easier for me to evade his followup punch and slam several arms' worth of attacks right into him. What was also pretty clear was that Tectus was overall tankier than the rock guy from the previous round; he took that barrage of mine reasonably well; that said, the aforementioned barrage was enough to halt his forward momentum; I haven't deactivated Metal Gate, after all.

I circled around Tectus, slamming strike after strike into him, and he responded by attempting to slow me down, sending more of whatever his stone version of Iron Maiden is at me. I generated even more arms, this time with more arms that could deal with attacks aimed at my back; with all the weapons I held, I broke into a spin, a whirling frenzy of weapons keeping the rock at bay, and slamming a myriad variety of weapons into Tectus' face, some of them imbued with harsh cold.

That storm of attacks forced him back, however it also gave Tectus a chance to reach down to the floor and pull up, sending a wave of pillars from right beneath me, ending my spin. However, I hurled several of the weapons I had wielded over the pillars at Tectus, which then exploded in a shower of frost. Unfortunately, because I had been hit by the pillars, Tectus used this opportunity to send more of those earthen prisons at me.

I stomped the floor, covering the immediate area with metal and freezing the stone headed my way, before decimating the stone nearby with a flurry of drills. I then shifted said drills into a few frigid motorcycles, most of which I threw to take out the additional mines that Tectus had put up, the remainder thrown at Tectus himself.

Though said frigid motorcycles indeed functioned as freeze bombs as intended, successfully freezing more of the molten slag that Tectus has sent into the arena; they failed to hit Tectus himself, as he had crafted more rocky hands out of the magma before the freeze bombs detonated.

I then rushed forward, covering the arena with metal as I moved, and hammered at the frozen stone hands, s***tering them and driving several weapons into Tectus' midsection, each attack freezing him more and slowing him down ever further. I'm going to see if I can exploit my speed advantage over him for all it's worth...

[[[[[Tectus]]]]]

'Let us see how well she runs about with less room to work with...' Tectus thought with a sneer, before launching himself into the air. With a simple twist, he sent himself feet first into the center of the arena with a monstrous impact, a wave of force blasting out across the whole platform that was enough even to push Mithril back. A loud crack followed, and several feet broke off the edges of the arena and descended into the magma surrounding it.

"Wha- hey, what happened to 'don't damage the platform'?!" Mithril drawled at him, even as she dove in to resume her assault. Tectus barked out a laugh, adopting a wide stance and striking at her with an open palm slam as she approached.

"I'm already paying for the arena, what do I care?" Tectus replied easily. Mithril dodged his first strike, but he followed with a second one with his other hand, the impact heavy enough to produce an audible shockwave. Even so, Mithril blocked it and began punching him with a multitude of metal fists until Tectus kicked at her, hitting hard enough to shove her back a few feet. From there he slammed his fist into the ground, producing three landslides of explosive rocks. Mithril used her enhanced speed to zip around behind him, only to find he'd anticipated this and had turned to launch three more landslides as soon as he'd launched the first set. One of them hit home, and then Tectus followed up by leaping at her feet first and scoring a powerful dropkick.

Staggered by the impact, Mithril was nonetheless able to get her arms up to block as Tectus rolled toward her and directed another open palm strike at her, and this time she didn't budge from the hit, instead taking it head on bodily slamming herself into Tectus, shoving him several yards back.

'f***ing hell this dude is way heavier than he looks,' Mithril complained internally. That hit should have shoved him much further. Instead he leaned into her, skidding the two of them to a halt with a horrendous scraping noise. She attempted to lift him for a suplex and only unbalanced herself for her effort, which Tectus took immediate advantage of, shoving forward to push her to the ground where he could set about pulverizing her face. He never got the chance, as Mithril steadied herself with a few metal struts, then generated a bunch of extra arms to begin pummeling him again. This got a growl of anger out of him, and with a double open palm slam he pushed himself away, skidding across the floor.

"Bomb Boulders!" Tectus shouted, blobs of lava once more leaping up onto the platform. These, however, were much larger than the ones before, much larger even than the bomb rocks the previous Brown 'min had been using. And in a clear pattern, each of the rocks began to glow quite ominously...