Fight for Power

<]-Mithril-[>

It was at this point that I decided, hey, I haven't been using cold attacks recently, maybe I should fix that. Freezing Quicksilver to slow him down and/or hinder him in general might help with this current situation somewhat. And by cold attacks I mean really cold metal, freeze bombs, freezing wind attacks, etc.

Anyways, an elaboration on the current situation: Tetra is apparently powering up, since she seems stronger than at the beginning of this fight. Wax guy has built some kind of wax armor for himself that he called "Candle Champion".

I've isolated and pinned down wax guy due to all the frozen metal and freeze bombs littered across that part of the arena. Quicksilver obviously did not want to touch those cold metallic things littered around the arena with his bare limbs, so he settled for the indirect method of just getting an L-block and some wax tools to try and move them away.

Tetra more or less stopped trying to use my metal objects as part of her powerup after that boomerang gave her a bad case of nausea and side-effects, and the most recent metal objects began exploding and unleashing freezing shrapnel everywhere.

Since I can't use clones during the Rocky Rumble, I've instead opted to just simultaneously set up big attacks against Tetra and wax guy. Quicksilver, as fast as he is, can only be in one place at a time, and having to work around the random freezexploding and spikes is probably a hassle for him.

Time to simultaneously attack both of these people at once. Towards wax guy, the cold metal that accumulated around his side of the arena was unleashed all at once in a mighty "Alloy Avalanche!" that bore down upon him, sweeping him away even in his wax armor and sending him towards the edge of the arena and beyond.

For Tetra, I simply bruteforced my way past the blocks and then made a gigantic frozen mass of metal...

"Iron Iceberg!" I roared, slamming said mass into Tetra with tremendous force, resulting in a shockwave and causing her to hurtle towards the edge of the arena at high speed.

<Quicksilver>

No way am I gonna be able to help Wax Guy, not with that heavy armor weighing him down. Fortunately, her attack on him had taken almost all of her metal from across the battlefield aside from the mass she'd thrown at Tetra, and that was just a single chunk rather than a bunch of them littering the arena, so racing across the arena to snag her before she went out was pretty simple. Wax guy, seeing he wasn't going to be getting any help, decided to leave a parting gift.

"Wax off!" wax guy yelled, causing his massive set of armor to immediately melt into a thick but liquid goop, which he then directed into a massive wave, running over the metallic wave that was currently taking him off the arena. Mithril dragged her iron iceberg into its path before the wave could flow over her, while I pulled Tetra with me as I ran over the wave and skimmed the surface at high speeds, not sinking in purely because I didn't place enough weight down at any one point. The benefits of super speed, you see.

As the wax guy was carried off the edge completely, he yelled out once more, "Wax on!" The wave of wax immediately solidified, covering most of the arena with its mass while wax guy flopped atop the pile of metal that had carried him out. A resounding clap brought attention to Tectus as he stood, drawing a brief halt to the fight.

"Candle is out... yet his power still coats the arena. Very interesting," Tectus mused, stroking his chin. "I shall allow the fight to continue as is. Candle, you are not to interfere with the wax that remains on the arena until this current bout is over, at which point you shall clear it away. I will be watching closely to make certain," he warned. Candle - apparently the name of the red Pikmin - scoffed.

"As if I'd be stupid enough to screw with a fight I'm no longer part of," he grumbled, gingerly making his way off the pile of metal, making sure not to cut himself on anything.

"Very well. Continue!" Tectus announced, to which I immediately zig-zagged my way through the new wax terrain to make several high-speed strikes on Mithril's back. With only one teammate remaining, I can't afford to sit back; she'll overwhelm Tetra in an instant if I don't keep up the pressure.

Mithril, for her part, continued with her frozen metal attacks, now aiming almost all of them at me. This proved to be a fruitless and frustrating endeavor for her, as I nimbly dodged anything she threw my way. Even when she started incorporating the bits of metal she'd already thrown out, she couldn't hit me, only come close to it. Good thing, too; I can feel the cool air in the wake of those metallic chunks she's throwing around, and those are cold enough to take skin off.

"Would you... just... HOLD... STILL!" Mithril roared in my direction, pulling up enough chunks of metal to form a large dome of metallic shards around me, which she then started sending smaller chunks flying through.

"That'd be awfully dangerous, you know. If I were still inside of it," I admitted from directly next to her, before dodging an overhead swing.

"How did you-" Mithril growled before Tetra's block-chain wrapped around her. We both turned our heads to see the blue Pikmin glowing with a black light that occasionally emitted white motes.

"Hey there. I just got a decahexatris," she uttered ominously. I took the moment to back way off as she unleashed a huge pulse of energy down the chain that sent Mithril skidding across the waxen arena, leaving a thick gouge in the wax in her path.

Huh. Think I'm gonna stay outta the way for a bit here...

<]-Mithril-[>

First things first, I want to limit Quicksilver's options against me. Nothing ruins a match faster than defeating a powered-up foe, only for Quicksilver to rush in and snipe you out of the arena. Time to prevent that.

The only warning either of my two opponents got was the sudden lack of cold imbuing my attacks. Soon afterwards, much of the wax near me evaporated as I began emitting intense heat, causing my body to glow ominously. That said, the arena floor was holding up rather well compared to the wax, probably due to it being designed with magma exposure in mind.

As Tetra threw several blocks my way, I dodged aside and then returned fire with molten metal, covering the arena floor with it wherever I could. Initial gameplan is to simply evade as many of Tetra's attacks as possible, disrupt her attempts to power up further, and then cover the entire arena with molten metal, with victory coming soon after that.

Weaving through a barrage of blocks Tetra threw at me, I fired off several fiery projectiles to blast away at the blocks nearby, forcing them out of position and denying Tetris Girl her powerups.

Quicksilver was the first of my opponents to figure out my plan; once he did, he immediately started grabbing blocks and throwing them at me since he couldn't attack me directly without burning; Tetra on the other hand was powerful enough to simply throw out a large number of blocks to sweep the slag off.

Okay so the "cover the whole arena with molten metal" strategy would work if it was only Quicksilver left as my opponent, but not if Tetra is also here. Since Quicksilver and Tetra are applying constant pressure and clones are banned, I can't really utilize charged attacks.

Revised strategy: disrupt Tetra's ability to attack through sheer damage, forcing her into unconsciousness if needed.

I bulked the hell up with increased mass, grew a half-dozen arms, and then rocketed towards Tetra, slamming fist after enlarged fist on her, unleashing explosions and blasting her with molten metal with every blow. However she kept parrying my attacks, and still making lines on top of that.

...

I am not going to let Tetra power-up anymore. Metal Gate.

The barrage of punches I was unleashing multipled severalfold as they kept coming out faster and stronger, each punch generating a shockwave and an explosion, the blocks around me cracking as I just kept on pummeling her. It was at this point that she had to pull most of the blocks away from her lines to parry my blows and counterattack.

Even with her efforts though, several attacks got through, either in part or in whole: a burn here, a bruise there, a shockwave fire fist to the face now.

It was at this point that Quicksilver was out and out trying to help Tetra to make more lines, manually grabbing whatever blocks he could and arranging them to clear lines, but even so I just kept attacking.

VIOLENCE INTENSIFIES

<Quicksilver>

Hmm. Maybe I should have applied more pressure sooner... ah well.

Tetra's still putting up a good fight, somehow managing to match Mithril blow for blow, which I find pretty impressive. At some point, though, she seemed to realize that she's not going to be able to keep up whatever powerup she's got forever, and so the blocks she was forming stopped producing lines and instead stormed in to strike at Mithril from behind. It happened fast enough that Mithril didn't see it coming, which put her off balance long enough for Tetra to wrap the chain around her and swing her around, towards the arena's edge.

Unfortunately Mithril was able to grab onto the chain before Tetra completed the throw, preventing her from being launched out, but her triumph there was short-lived as a flood of blocks rushed in to try and simply shove her off. There was no attempt to make lines, merely a random jumble of blocks pushing in as hard as they could.

It wasn't enough. With a furious growl Mithril reared back a massive, molten metal fist and punched through the entire mass, then charged towards Tetra, who had lost her black and white glow. Tetra threw together a desperate last strike - a group of bracket-shaped blocks she tried to contain Mithril with - but wasn't fast enough before Mithril slammed into her. The blow was strong enough to send Tetra careening clean off the arena, and with the molten metal on the floor, I couldn't get there to stop it.

Speaking of which, I'm a little confined to the last remaining corner of the arena that's not covered in searing hot metal. Hmm.

Mithril turned her gaze towards me, the last remaining opponent in the arena.

"Well, well, well. Looks like you're out of options," she said with a lopsided molten grin. I grinned right back, tapping my fingers on my leg holsters.

"Mmmm. I wouldn't say that..." I replied, dropping my right leg back into a sprinter's stance.

"Oh come on, you're not really dumb enough to-"

She didn't get to finish the sentence before I moved. Time seemed to slow to a crawl around me. Four steps was all it took, four steps across red-hot metal, four steps that didn't burn me simply because my foot wasn't in contact long enough for the heat to transfer. With the last step I kicked off and spun into a flying roundhouse, my leg whipping around fast enough to leave a trail of turbulence only I could readily see. It connected with Mithril's midsection at amazingly high speeds, with enough force that it should push her out before me.

But I've miscalculated. Normally, she'd be solid enough for that to push her in one solid mass, but she's molten right now, weakening the metallic bonds. My kick instead drags her lower half with me, stretching out a long, thin bead of metal before it snaps, leaving her upper body in place. Damn. My own momentum carries me clear out of the arena, over the gap between the arena and the rest of the floor, and straight into a wall where, fortunately, nobody is standing. Mithril's molten lower body hits first, while the shockwave from my own impact blows it out of the way and into a million little sparks.

One second has passed since I started moving.

A lot of physical events happen at once following my passage. A trench is carved in the molten metal where I'd run over it, while a sonic boom produces a shockwave that sends twin plumes of flame out to the sides of said trench. The shockwave hits Mithril hard enough to send her upper body sailing over the side of the arena, but not quite out to where I am.

It also knocked over the entire audience. Whoops.

Tectus pulled himself up from where his seat fell over and looked wildly about the room. "What - what the - WHAT HAPPENED?!" he demanded, pointing towards myself and Mithril.

"Uh... I went out first," I called over to him. No point in being dishonest. Mithril kind of stared at me for a moment while her legs reformed; clearly that attack was not within her expectations. I shrugged at her in return, tapped my leg holsters, and moseyed off as Tectus declared Mithril the winner, then called for a break while they cleared out the molten slag. I didn't get far before being mobbed by Beta and Libera, who'd apparently shown up not too long ago.

"Nice move, dude! Too bad it didn't work," Beta lamented, "That just means I gotta fight her at some point."

"That's what you get for sandbagging," Libera poked at me a few times, while I waved him off. Another gaze had gotten my attention.

I'd seen him earlier and been rather surprised that they'd let him in here, but sure enough, here he still was: a Black Pikmin, directing an inscrutable look in my direction. Big dude too. I threw a look in his direction, and he simply grinned and turned away. I get a nasty feeling he's going to last to the final bout.

<]-Mithril-[>

With the recent fight against Quicksilver in mind, I noted that I should probably work on Metal Gate: Accel Shift some more to combat enemy speedsters, who I envision being problematic to face. Hmm, I should probably add teleportation to Accel Shift, in fact...

Anyways, several rounds later, and it's the final round. Me vs Beta vs some guy made of rock vs some big Black Pikmin.

First things first, a note on what the finalists could do before we get into the fight.

The Black Pikmin basically just punched people really hard. I don't think he used his special power yet or anything, it was just basically him beating people up and booting them out of the arena. He didn't seem to have any ranged attacks, though.

Beta was using water attacks, as usual. What wasn't usual was that one time, her eyes turned a deep, oceanic blue. It wasn't that long, but while whatever technique that was was active, she was very adept at evading attacks and at landing precise, critical hits.

As for the rock guy, well, he could control rocks. Strong, bulky, not particularly fast, but what was of note was that he was adept at ranged attacks. He was very accurate with ranged attacks; sniping down opponents that tried to keep away from him, and pummeling people who came up close.

ACTION TIME. Rock guy immediately began pelting the Black Pikmin with big rocks and bomb-rocks. Black Pikmin ran towards the rock guy to try and punch him. Beta shot a jet of water at the rock guy, who deflected said water jet with a well-aimed rock projectile.

As for me, I decided to prepare something different: an attack made of alkali metal. Rock guy was doing well against the Black Pikmin, going fist-for-fist against him. Beta sent a few jets of water my way, but I weaved around those and fired an alkaline wave at her. She countered with a wave of water, and as the two attacks collided, the wave of alkali metal exploded, taking the wave of water with it.

I then fired a barrage of spiked alkali mines towards all three of my opponents. The mines detonated, firing alkaline spikes all over my opponents' approximate location. Beta was closest to me, so she couldn't avoid all of it; at least one of the spikes struck her, causing an explosion upon impact. The Black Pikmin received a direct hit from a mine. Rock guy blocked the mines with a stone wall, but was distracted enough by that for the Black Pikmin to sock him in the face.

I grinned as I crafted even more alkaline attacks, unleashing another barrage of alkali to bear down on my opponents.

<Beta>

Ow, being exploded straight off the bat isn't very fun. I've gotta be careful here, or I'll be the first one out. Let's see...

Dropping to the floor in the form of a puddle, I crept through the intricate engravings on the arena floor, neatly avoiding all the projectiles flying about overhead. As the Black Pikmin was busy powering through the Brown Pikmin's attacks and closing in, I figure I'll focus more on Mithril for the moment, namely by swirling towards her and spritzing her projectiles with water.

The resultant explosions got me her immediate and sincere attention, which, as things go, probably wasn't the wisest idea. Divert, divert!

Hitting a moving puddle isn't the easiest thing in the world, of course, even with Mithril throwing a hwacha's worth of alkaline spikes at me. Those I couldn't shoot down in midair I simply moved around, slithering my way to the opposite side of the Black and Brown boys, figuring maybe I can get Mithril to switch her attention to them.

Which she did, only for the Black 'min to swat away the incoming projectile, grab the Brown Pikmin, and bodily hurl him at her, guffawing all the while.

"C'mon, den! Gimme da good s***! Lessee whatcha got!" he bellowed as the Brown Pikmin and Mithril collided fists first. The Brown promptly blasted himself away from her with a bomb rock, then threw another at her before s***tering it with a smaller rock, sending a spray of tiny earthen shrapnel at her. Mithril retaliated with a spray of metal bits, then lobbed a molten metal ball in his direction, which he countered with another bomb rock before getting clobbered in the back by the Black 'min, who then grabbed hold and charged at Mithril, using the Brown as a shield.

Right up until I slid a puddle in his path, sending him skidding out of control. Mithril used the opportunity to sock him in the face, then grabbed the Brown and slammed him on top of the Black. This elicited laughter, which cut off when he stood and lifted the Brown 'min over his head

"Haha, dat's betta! Now lessee if ya can take sum a' dis!" he growled, as pink... strands began growing out of his arms and wrapping around them. Before the Brown could twist around to hit him, the Black threw him at Mithril again... this time, far harder than the first, sending both of them skidding across the arena.

"Don't tink I forgo' about 'chu, 'ittle blue," he laughed, turning toward my puddle now, cracking his knuckles. Oh. Oh dear. Swirling back up into a regular Pikminoid form, I regarded him for a moment before forming a pair of watery whips.

"Alright, bring it on," I goaded.

<]-Mithril-[>

As both me and the rock guy are now closer to the edge of the arena then before, I took this opportunity to try and shove him off the arena, via a barrage of burning metal fists with explosions on impact. As expected, he was quite resistant to the heat, fire, and explosions due to hanging around bomb-rocks and magma. He attempted to bomb-jump back up onto the platform, so I followed up with a tidal wave of liquid metal. However, he was able to maneuver around that with bomb-jumping as well. To be honest I didn't expect to be able to force him off the platform this early; anyone who made it to the finals would clearly be difficult to force out of the arena.

Anyways the platform has been rumbling a lot recently as Bulk the Black Pikmin has been throwing punches that caused shockwaves and the aforementioned rumbling. Beta was dodging around with some difficulty, occasionally landing a hit on him, with Bulk laughing whenever he received damage. Notably, they seemed to be inching towards my position, hmm I should pelt the two of them with ranged attacks soon.

Speaking of ranged attacks, guess who was sending some of those my way? The stone dude, of course. He fired a lot of bomb-rocks towards me, so I settled for encasing whatever bomb-rocks I could in alkaline metal and redirecting them towards Beta and Bulk. Beta dropped back to try and use those against Bulk, but the Black Pikmin beefed up one of his arms and threw a punch, creating a large shockwave that blew the bomb-rocks back.

I threw several motorcycles at the rock guy to keep him busy and then made the UBERSPEAR, this time with fire and explosiveness added into it. I then threw it at Bulk, who had just threw another punch at Beta. He actually managed to catch the spear by the tip with one bulked-up hand, deforming the spearhead, but before he could followup with anything the UBERSPEAR exploded in a very violent BOOM.

That forced him back somewhat. That also got his attention, as he immediately leapt forward to try and punch me. I sneered and created a few burning trucks to pummel him with.

Go ahead and attack, all of you. I can handle all three of you at once.

\|\Bulk/|/

"Kick his butt, Mith!" came Libera's shouts from the stands, followed by similar calls from Quicksilver, then a much deeper cheer from Juggernaut, who was next to the stands on account of being too large to sit on them.

Bulk didn't care about that, though. The only thing he was thinking about was the target right in front of him. Well, the one behind the trucks, anyway. Speaking of which...

"Ya fink dis is gunna stop me?" Bulk cackled, adding more muscle fibers to his arms and bulldozing clear through the first burning truck like it weren't even there. The second he slammed into elbow first, tilted his arm up, and tossed it over his head. The third he simply punched, causing it to crumple into a flat metal disc, which he then also threw behind him with no particular aim. Seeing the large trucks weren't working, Mithril threw a bunch of smaller, spiked wheels in his direction before generating a pair of swords.

Not too far behind him, Beta coasted towards them, riding a small wave of water. With all the water she'd been using in her attacks, the grooves of the platform's floor were slowly filling with it... well, she'd consider that in a moment.

Meanwhile, the Brown Pikmin, now largely unbothered, worked at pulling together a particularly large bomb rock...

Leaping between the metallic wheels Mithril had launched at him and laughing all the while, Bulk pushed forward, finally closing to melee range and throwing a massive punch that Mithril dodged away from. The sheer power of his fist's passage released a burst of wind, producing a cry of shock from the crowd. Ignoring that, Mithril dove in at him blades first, stabbing them into his arms... which only got another laugh.

"Good plan dere! But it won' work on me, hahah!" Bulk cackled as muscle fibers grew over his legs. He then pulled himself up using the blades, drew up his legs, and slammed Mithril in the chest with an enormous dropkick that sent her skidding away in a shower of sparks and blood as her twin blades were pulled from Bulk's arms. Bulk barely even seemed to notice, charging towards her again as even more muscle grew to cover the injuries.

As they clashed once more, the unnamed Brown Pikmin finished his preparations, lobbing a huge bomb rock in their direction before hauling ass to the other side of the platform, clearly wanting nothing to do with what was about to happen. The rock's impact nearby got Bulk and Mithril's attention immediately, prompting a shocked hiss from both as the bomb detonated.

Beta, having been further away, was less affected by the blast, going to ground in the form of a puddle. When she popped back up, it was to the sight of a large gouge in the platform's surface, which the water she'd been spreading about was slowly filtering into. Mithril pulled herself up somewhere near the edge... and then grunted in aggravation as the water covering the platform suddenly rose into a large wave headed her way.

Bulk, meanwhile, had been hurtled in the opposite direction. A huge knot of muscle fibers slowly untangled itself from around him and withdrew back into his body, followed by a bark of laughter.

"Not too shabby! But a bit too obvious, mefinks!" he cackled, before bulking back up and launching himself at the Brown 'min at very high speed...

<]-Mithril-[>

Current situation: I'm close to the edge of the platform, and there's a large wave of water headed my way. Solution: Send a wave of my own at the water; a wave of very cold metal. The waves clashed, and the water froze. Running forward, I then grabbed the entire frozen mass, threw it at Beta, and fired a huge amount of alkaline metal at it.

The resulting explosion was impressive and immediately caught the attention of the other three combatants, who by now have learned not to ignore really large explosions in the area. Something seemed to change with Beta right as she avoided the huge blast... that something being her eyes turning a deep, oceanic blue, just like that time in a previous round.

Since she is almost certainly going to try and snipe me now, I instead immediately fired a wave of alkaline metal followed by regular metal at her to keep her occupied. Beta avoided that far too easily, so I followed up with some chilly metal attacks to try and slow her down. She boiled herself to stop herself from freezing, and then fired several boiling droplets at me at very high speed.

I put up several layers of frozen metal, alkaline and otherwise, to deal with that. The droplets somehow found some kind of weak point in the first layer and pierced through... before impacting subsequent layers, either being slowed down by the cold or destroyed via contact with the alkaline barrier.

Upon noticing that I had blocked that attack, Beta settled for putting more water in her next one. I sent wave after wave of metal at in her general direction, which she obviously avoided. I made sure to send enough alkaline metal to destroy any water currently residing on the arena floor; I wanted to cover the platform with my metal so I can turn the area into an unfavorable one for my opponents.

Back over on the other side of the platform, rock guy had used that big alkaline explosion earlier to slam Bulk with explosions of his own. Stone dude had also created a huge club to bludgeon the large Black Pikmin with, delivering powerful crushing blows. Bulk responded with powerful punches, laughing all the while. The two of them were rather decidedly not staying in one place, with the rock guy bomb-jumping from place to place to maneuver around, angling himself for good ranged shots and melee blows, while the Black Pikmin jumped around in turn, using his speed and strength to pummel the stone 'min.

It wasn't too long before their exchanges made it to our part of the arena, with the rock guy and Bulk now in the midst of me and Beta. I took the opportunity to burn Bulk with scorching jets of fire, flaming vehicles, and burning fists to the face. For the stone 'min, I sent waves of cold metal and a chilly UBERSPEAR, which was promptly met with a volley of explosive stone constructs in turn.

Even as Bulk punched me with a powerful two-fisted punch, and Beta fired twin jets of water that sent me hurtling back further than an attack of that caliber should've, I generated wave after wave of metal to coat the platform, setting up future attacks while still decidedly remaining on it.

The rock guy and Bulk were promptly hit by jets of water as well, the jets puncturing the walls of stone that the stone 'min put up and the mass of muscle that covered Bulk's body, impacting them and sending them closer to the edge of the arena. That promptly got their attention, with the rocky Pikmin returning fire with shot after explosive stone shot, and the Black Pikmin jumping forward toward Beta; Bulk readying a muscular fist, laughing all the while.

Throughout all of this, even as I attacked the other three combatants, I made sure to cover the arena with more and more metal. Perhaps Beta's mysterious power involves some kind of mystic vision? Perhaps Beta can see the attacks coming towards her in the immediate future... but I wonder what the extent of her vision is.

All that is certain is that I'll crush all three of them with the metal I've built up, one way or another.