Fight for Power

<<<Edge>>>

"Hey, this looks to still be in good condition, whatcha think?" a Red Pikmin asked his yellow companion.

"I think you're pushing your luck getting that close to the chalk lines," the Yellow replied drily. The Red shrugged and tossed the device he'd salvaged back to his partner before digging back in. A crunch made both jump, weapons instantly at the ready. Several more crunches followed as a large Black Pikmin stepped out from behind a ruined section of wall. Both exhaled in relief; not the Night Haunter. Neither sheathed their weapons either, though; you did that around a Black Pikmin at your own peril. Especially not around this Black Pikmin.

"Resistance," the Separatist leader muttered in their direction, less a question and more a statement. If he'd thought them to be Imperial, they'd probably have died without ever knowing he was there.

Both of the Resistance Pikmin remained tense. The Resistance and Separatists were merely allies of circumstance. Both knew that if Edge had his way, the Separatists would be in the position the Empire currently occupied. They worked together only because they had to.

"I would suggest you clear out," Edge growled as he swept past them, heading deeper into the ruins. The Red sneered at his back.

"And who died and made you our boss?" he replied, while the Yellow desperately tried to shush him. Edge actually stopped, and for a moment the Yellow believed they were both about to die. But Edge merely turned a sidelong glance to them.

"I'm about to provoke the Haunter. If you want to stick around for that, it's your funeral."

Both Resistance members practically turned sheet white.

"Haha, f*** that. Come on, man, if he's got a death wish, we're not taking part in it," the Yellow hissed between his teeth. The Red nodded numbly, and the two quickly gathered whatever salvage they'd already picked out before beating a quick retreat along the chalk lines. The "safe" path.

The Night Haunter did not attack merely for entering Morytha. Only if you stepped within his arbitrarily defined territory. Edge had at least gotten that information before coming here.

It was his first time coming here himself. Something he felt like he needed to do.

"You still bear a connection to Zeromus, the same as I do," Edge said aloud as he continued through the city ruins. "You must feel it. I know I do."

An animal growl echoed through the ruins as something acknowledged his presence. Edge smirked. He knew it was listening.

"The others have lost their connection, had it severed. They do not know Zeromus as we do," he continued, stepping closer a chalk line that extended past a fallen wall.

"Speak to me, brother. Help me reforge the connection."

Another growl was the reply, and this time Edge could tell which direction it came from. It was close.

He very deliberately took a step over the chalk line. The next growl came from right next to him.

++<Betariver & Xenon>++

Hero Squad HQ has built-in defenses against hostiles. There were two reasons why, until now, they had not fired on Lazenn.

The first was that, by default, the defense system doesn't fire on Hero Squad members, and Lazenn still has his Hero Band. The second was that Lazenn disabled the defense systems when he hijacked the landscape generator.

In the background, Xenon had been trying to fix this, first by reactivating Hero Squad HQ's defense systems, and second, by altering the defense systems settings to fire on Lazenn. Xenon actually altering the defense systems settings to consider Lazenn a foreign intruder and fire on him was rather difficult. What Xenon did manage to do so far, however, is that she altered the defense system settings so that it "recognized" Lazenn as Gravius. Now that the defense system thinks that Lazenn is Gravius, it will fire arcane stun bolts, energy weapons, and stun lasers, and do whatever it was programmed to to neutralize "Gravius" aka Lazenn.

There were defense system settings to neutralize Blood Flare Broxigar as well, but those are inactive and won't be activated in this fight since firing on Brox would be counterproductive in this fight.

As the defense system fired arcane stun bolts, energy weapons, and stun lasers at "Gravius" aka Lazenn, a recording of Alpha played, showing him giving a stern and disapproving look, stating, "That's enough out of you, young one." While Gravius would've generally react pretty indignantly to that, the only reaction Lazenn had was momentary confusion.

That said, the anti-Gravius defense systems, on their own, weren't quite enough to fend off Lazenn for a bit. They needed some help, help they got when rock guy raised a wave of stalagmites at Lazenn, which forced him to block all of that with his Spiral Shield. Lazenn's charge at the Squad members was thwarted when rock guy quickly raised the earth beneath the Squad, a pillar of rock now towering over Lazenn, who responded by slicing the pillar of rock with the Lance of Longinus. If he had expected the pillar to fall like a chopped tree, then he would be sorely disappointed to learn that rock guy just levitated the pillar of rock to stop a "Timber" moment. Since Hero Squad and their defense system were blasting him with various projectiles, Lazenn Spiral Perceptual Teleported up onto Hero Squad's location... only for the Squad members to read that move, with Betariver and the now recovered Broxigar slamming an attack into him right as he warped into the Squad's midst, with Sapphire and rock guy unleashing a followup blow that punted him right off the tower.

Lazenn's response to this was to channel his warped Spiral Power through the lance, firing off a powerful laser that split out to chase each individual Hero Squad member. The Lance howls as he does this.

It was quickly clear to Hero Squad that the homing aspect of that attack would thwart attempts to dodge, so the group largely stood their ground. Broxigar caught the worst of the laser with his axe, rock guy put as much rock as possible in between himself and the beams, using focused explosive force imbued in the rock to divert as much of the beam as he could. Betariver & Xenon blasted the beam with a massive glowing bloodwater cannon and caught much of the beam on the armor's integrated shield, Sapphire slammed a fist into the ground to raise a large block of ice around herself, then used her drill punch to burrow underground before the beam pierced through.

By this time, Xenon had successfully altered the system settings to also consider Lazenn as a hostile foreign intruder, and not just as "Gravius", with the defense system now firing even heavier attacks at him.

A quick check by Betariver revealed that although the group had sustained injuries from Lazenn's latest attack, the Squad was still in good enough condition to launch another assault. Xenon shined a focused beam of extremely bright light in Lazenn's eyes, screwing with his vision for a moment. Unfortunately, due to his Spiral Perceptual means of attacking, this didn't cut down his accuracy that much. Remembering Omicron's fight against main timeline Libera, Betariver used the armor-integrated sonic wave emitter to briefly disorient him. Rock guy raised a massive swamp of lava from underneath Lazenn, which Betariver then mixed in with some water and blood, now making a spinning vortex of gloop. A wave of frost from Sapphire flash-froze the tornado, and she and Broxigar slammed a combined heavy blow into Lazenn, cracking and crashing sounds resulting from this.

It was too bad that this wasn't enough to finish Lazenn.

With a horrific screech, Lazenn broke out of the mess and grabbed hold of the Lance of Longinus with both hands, the tips of the Lance twisting together into a single point. White Spiral Energy bursted out of it, turning into a huge white drill that launched forward.

That was when Anti warped in, clashing with Lazenn's attack with a huge black drill of his own, breaking both. This revealed that his drill was also formed around a Lance, though his had a more defined spear head with a green gem in the middle. Lazenn screamed at him in pure fury, seeming to forget that Hero Squad is even there.

"So... you came back. This time... I'll make sure you stay down for good," said Anti.

<Anti>

It was easy enough to predict that Lazenn would focus on me above Hero Squad, immediately extending a large cylindrical drill toward me. I blasted it out of existence with a beam of red Anti-Spiral energy, to find Lazenn already charging through its remains into close range. He lunged at me with the Lance of Longinus; I countered his lunge with the Lance of Cassius, accurately planting its blade between the tips of his weapon.

"So you've figured out how to harness the Lance. Too bad for you, I had a backup."

Lazenn howled at me in response and surged forward along his lance's haft to lunge at me with one of his odd tri-tip drills. I simply raised my free hand to slam a drill of my own into the center of his, peeling it apart in a single hit. Rather than try to contest me, Lazenn pulled back, white fire exploding out of his chest and left arm, metamorphosing into more of his odd drills as it spilled across the area. A series of attacks followed him as he retreated as Hero Squad added their two cents, until he responded with a spray of white beams to force them back. A series of explosions and beams scythed out of the city as the automated defenses had a go at him, though I suspect they will have little luck.

I flew into motion as the blasts echoed across the city, aiming to chase him down as quickly as I could. The Lance of Cassius is better used as a melee weapon than a throwing one, but then I doubt Lazenn will relinquish Longinus willingly. Hero Squad followed shortly behind me, one of them - a fusion? - moving up beside me with too-smooth movements.

"How'd you know to come here?" they asked, skipping over the "how".

"Something shook within me, and I knew. I can only suspect the hands of the Experimenters," I replied without taking my eyes off of Lazenn's trail.

A bright glow emanated from within them, pulsing in time with a question, "The Experimenters knew about Lazenn?"

I very nearly scoffed. "The Experimenters contained Lazenn, at my behest."

"Sounds like an interesting story. What would you be willing to tell us regarding that?" asked another. To this I scowled; this is hardly time for a story. Lazenn punctuated that by launching a projectile in my direction, which I recognized as it approached as a white, corrupted Spiral copy of the lance he wielded. That which bears the image bears the power... but I whirled Cassius into position and sliced through it. A copy is still a copy.

"Libera became Lazenn, I defeated him with the Lance of Longinus, and then I brought him to the Experimenters to fix him. Looks like it didn't take."

"To be fair, I am getting an inkling that he may be in a state of undeath or something similar to that, given that there's a huge gaping hole in his chest, and his lack of vital signs. I'm guessing that the Lazenn suppression measures didn't account for that," the fusion interjected.

"Possibly. Whoever raised him must have felt that twisted Spiral Power underneath the surface and let it loose."

"What even made Libera turn into Lazenn and fall into such a hostile state in the first place?" they continued, "How can this undead disaster be prevented in our home timeline?"

Home timeline...? Chi, then. Naturally.

"... I don't know. I returned to the same scenery as you see around you now, with no explanation forthcoming."

Sapphire seemed to pick up on the implication first. "The same...?" she started, taking a quick look around. "Was this... your home?"

"Once. Maybe he was feeling nostalgic," I ventured, as this time many copies of Longinus burst through the remains of a building. "Enough talk! The Lance of Longinus was designed to pierce the defenses of divine beings, nothing you can produce will protect you from it!" was the only warning I gave as I sliced through those that approached me, then fired back with a spray of Anti-Spiral beams to cut the building down. With Lazenn revealed once more, I fired a barrage of thin drills toward him, which he countered with a huge cylinder drill. As soon as my own drills finished breaking up it, he launched it in my direction. I merely waited for it to approach before slicing through it with Cassius.

Before he could make another attack, Broxigar barreled through a ruined building from behind him, swinging his axe at Lazenn's back. Lazenn was able to twirl the Lance into place to block it, but Brox kept up the pressure... affording me with an opportunity to teleport to close range. As soon as I made my swing, though, Lazenn vanished in a swirl of white fire, leaving my Lance to slam into the ground. Seems like maybe he learned a bit from last time.

"There!" the fusion called out, a wall of blood crystallizing between them and a large cylindrical drill. It broke through, but Hero Squad had already moved to the sides to go around it, only for another burst of white fire to emerge from Lazenn's point of attack. So he's figured out how to abuse Perceptual Teleportation.

"Heads up, I've got the teleporter network back online!" came the seraphic voice from within the fusion. "Not fully, but we should be able to teleport within HQ!"

"Then he can't play this cat and mouse game anymore!" Sapphire called out, vanishing with a pop. Several more followed as Hero Squad's members made use of their teleporter network to close the distance in an instant. I followed suit, reappearing directly in front of him as several attacks came at him from every other direction. With retreat no longer an option, he made only a short distance warp out of the way and then slammed Longinus into the floor. The ground throughout the entire area glowed ominously, and I heard a series of pops as Hero Squad teleported out of the way of a massive explosion of white fire. I used my own teleportation merely to get closer, vanishing before the blast and reappearing after at close range. We each took a swing at the same time, so close to mirrored that our lances scraped across one another. I grunted as I felt the tip of his cut across my chest, but at least mine did the same to him. Rather than teleport to a distance, Lazenn instead generated another white copy of Longinus in his right hand and tried to impale me with it. I raised my left hand and generated a grey copy of Cassius to block it with.

"Thought you were the only one who thought to make copies?" I jeered. He howled in response, the white Spiral within his chest flaring up to unleash a flood of white flames. I teleported out of the way for that one, coming to rest a short distance away.

boop

Boop a doop

<]-Mithril-[>

My current hypothesis regarding these shard warps and the associated Time/Space f***ery is that these warps function similarly to Spiral Perceptual Teleportation, and can be directed and guided in a similar way.

I've already made an earlier, successful attempt with this when time/space first broke, using this opportunity to pull Alternate Omicron from a fraying timeline. Indeed, the way Hero Squad is being warped from place to place via the shards, and the spiraling cracks from the shard warps... Libera seems to have come up with the same hypothesis as I did regarding this Time/Space f***ery.

I prefer using my own metal power over Spiral power, to be honest. Reasons include better energy-efficiency, being enhanced by both my extremely high intelligence AND extremely high willpower, the fact that I'm not DNA-based dampening any Spiral power I might use, and not causing that Spiral Nemesis apocalypse/end-of-the-universe. My own metal power can make constructs, and, with Metal Gate: Accel Shift, I can teleport. As for the (Super) Spiral Shield aspect and its equivalent, I have some stuff in the pipeline I've been working on that may show up later on...

Anyhow, attempt number two at directing a shard warp: Focusing on a Hero Band to Perceptual Teleport to (I'll say rock guy's Hero Band this time), I broke into what appears to be an ongoing shard event, where rock guy, Sapphire, Broxigar, Anti, and what looked to be a fusion between Bloodriver, Xenon, and Beta fighting what was apparently hostile, crazy Libera.

Running the recent recorded fight footage to bring me up to speed, I learned that hostile, crazy Libera is called Lazenn, he's corrupted and more powerful than present day main timeline Libera, he's... probably undead or something like that, and he has some weird Lance of Longinus thing, with Anti having a Lance of Cassius.

Starting out by activating Metal Gate, I started out by generating a massive barrage of various metal projectiles. Lazenn put up his Super Spiral Shield, blocking that. Mainly to be cheeky, I also threw in several metal copies of that Lance that Lazenn was using in the tail end of said barrage. Unlike the other metal projectiles, Lazenn actively swatted most of those aside with his own copies of his Lance of Longinus, but a few metal copies pierced through the Super Spiral Shield, gouging into his body.

"Huh, that's interesting. Didn't expect the metal copies of that Lance of Longinus to have such a difference in effectiveness... " ... especially since I didn't imbue my power nullifier in those.

"A metal elemental...? So even an ordinary metal copy will borrow some of the Lance's power to pierce defenses," Anti noted.

"What are these Lances anyways? Additionally, how, if at all, does your Lance of Cassius differ from his Lance of Longinus?" I asked.

"Longinus was made more to be thrown, Cassius more to be a melee weapon. If there is any other difference, it is lost to time. I know them only as old weapons that pierce all defenses," Anti replied.

Since it has been confirmed that even metal copies of the Lances can pierce through (Super) Spiral Shields, I decided, hey, I'll spam more of those. However, Lazenn retaliated with his own barrage of Longinus copies, and as the copies clashed, it was clear that his Spiral-based copies had more of that super special piercing all defenses power, beating back my own barrage. I then imbued my power nullifier into my following Longinus copies, and with that, both of our barrages cancelled each other out.

I made a bunch of clones, and then simultaneously charged and stayed back to charge up some powerful attacks. Lazenn fired a huge barrage of cylinder drills, white fire, and Longinus copies, and used Spiral Perceptual Teleportation to home in on me and my clones.

Rock guy made stone copies of the Lances and threw them at Lazenn, Betariver likewise making some blood-water-light Lance copies of a sort, Sapphire made an ice copy of the Lance of Cassius and rushed in to try and stab Lazenn with that, Brox rushed Lazenn with an axe swing, and Anti tried to stab Lazenn with Cassius again. Lazenn made more Longinus copies and widened the scope of his barrage, but several of the aforementioned attacks got through, his body becoming more and more tattered, before he warped away again.

I, along with the few clones that survived the barrage, grew multiple lengthy arms, each one holding a Cassius copy imbued with my power nullifier, and emerged from the smoke, rushing at Lazenn, who had just emerged from a warp. He unleashed a flood of white fire from his chest and his left arm in an attempt to fend me off, but a few clones utilizing my power nullifier kamikazed into the fray, offsetting the flames. I then extended my arms and then stabbed Lazenn straight through his Super Spiral Shield with my Cassius copy, I myself evading his simultaneous Longinus stab due to my superior reach. Just before the subsequent Cassius copy stabs hit him however, he warped away... only for the rest of the Squad (and Anti) to warp right into his location and unleash their respective attacks.

Lazenn's defensive response was to raise a huge burr drill around himself, expanding it tremendously to drive everyone away from him. He then screeched very angrily and used a corrupted Spiral power version of Giga Drill Maximum, wreathed in Spiral power and white flames for the elementals in the Squad, and fired a huge amount of those strange, oversized drills at us. An initial attempt by us to evade revealed that this attack was also homing, and thus each of us would have to deal with part of that attack in their own way.

The other Hero Squad members dealt with the homing attack in a manner similar to how they did before. As for Anti's defensive response, he used his own attacks to neutralize as much of the incoming barrage as he could. I dealt with the attack by countering with my own barrage of power nullifier-infused Lances... however Lazenn, again abusing Spiral Perceptual Teleportation, had the drills open up, multiple lasers emerging from them to blast at us. Lazenn fired a Lazenn Impact at Anti, and then he warped behind me, corrupted Spiral Power gathering in his Lance of Longinus.

As before, I could maneuver around his Lance of Longinus... however this time he fired some kind of massive homing white flame laser drill attack from the hole in his chest at point-blank range. Since I couldn't dodge this one, I instead went in, closing the distance for the cross-counter.

"Chromium Chainaxe!" I roared, slamming a power-nullifier imbued chainaxe into Lazenn's Super Spiral Shield, the weapon cleaving through his defenses and ripping apart his left eye. Simultaneously, his own attack slammed into me, sending me skidding back from the impact.

Before the others could capitalize on that, Lazenn fired off another huge attack, this one a corrupted version of Libera's Maelstrom Cannon. At first Lazenn's version appeared to be the same, aside from the beams being white. Then the portals open back up and out comes a storm of white flame tornadoes in every direction.

I spammed many power-nullifier projectiles to offset part of that, the other Squad members (and Anti) each helping out in their own way with defense, but still, part of the attack went through, the sound of the impacts resounding through the entire HQ.

This time the other Hero Squad members (and Anti) rushed Lazenn to put pressure on him, giving me an opportunity to fire off a strong ranged attack, "Rubidium Railgun!" The charged railgun shot crashed into Lazenn, an angry shriek resounding throughout HQ, as the attack kicked up a massive cloud of dust.

<Anti>

A tense moment passed as the smoke gradually cleared away, slowly revealing the heavily damaged Lazenn. With his shield no longer holding up, he'd taken many hits, losing chunks of himself at a time. Amazingly, the railgun shot itself didn't seem to have caused an enormous amount of damage, but the impact was still clear in his movements, slow and stilted, like a marionette with half its strings cut. Even as I watched, though, white Spiral Power came flooding in to replace the damage.

"All that's left is the finishing blow," I declared, advancing toward him with the Lance of Cassius at the ready. 'This time though, it's really goodbye.'

I was so certain he was finished that I wasn't prepared for what he did next.

In one unnaturally smooth, blindingly fast movement, Lazenn hefted the Lance of Longinus as the twin points whirled together into a single spear-tip, and then he spun on his heel and threw it hard enough to leave a visible contrail in its wake. I began a Perceptual Teleport before I realized he hadn't thrown it at me. He'd thrown it behind me.

At Mithril.

No time to dodge. No time to divert it. Impossible to block it. Someone's getting hit.

It'd be cruel to ask this person to die in a timeline that isn't even their own.

It only took force of will to alter the endpoint of my perceptual teleport and place myself in front of Mithril. It's not enough to stop the Lance, but it gave me a chance to shove her out of the way just before impact. When the Lance hit, I felt all the air torn from me, the shock enough to break my grip on my own Lance, before it picked me up and dragged me into the distance with it.
________
<Lazenn>

"GUUUUOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH!" Lazenn roared, triumphant, as his body began to bulge oddly. With the obstacle eliminated, he could finally ascend.

The interlopers first called out for the obstacle, but to no avail. So they turned their fury upon Lazenn... also to no avail, as his flesh expanded faster than they could damage it. White spiral power and golden skin bulged and grew grotesquely, and then came the point where the interlopers weapons ceased to work entirely, scattering uselessly across an octagonal barrier.

Blood sprayed out of the mass of flesh as it began to take shape, too-long arms and legs breaking forth as a cacophony of wings spread out from its back, and an elongated, misshapen head broke forth to roar once more.

"GUUUUUOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH!"

The beast took to all fours as its wings, many and uneven, unfurled to reveal the huge, spiked golden orb at their center, sparkling with white Spiral energy. The useless attacks of the interlopers continued to break upon its soulspace, and yet one persisted.

The one throwing the inferior copies of the god-spears. The Anomaly. Lazenn would be equally pleased to remove this obstacle as well. He raised his left arm, still glowing and made of Spiral energy, as it began to unfurl.

Panic spread through the interlopers. They teleported away, fully knowing the strength of this technique in his smaller form. But fleeing was useless; Lazenn gathered the Anomaly's location from his Perceptual power and fired in its direction.
______________________
([{Broxigar the Red}])

"What in the name of literally any god you can think of is THAT?!" I demanded as we regrouped, the massive monster's attack blowing down everything in its path.

"I... I don't..." Bloodriver stuttered, completely at a loss for words, "Xenon...?"

"Don't look at me, I've never seen anything like this!"

"Likewise," Sapphire noted in a flat voice, staring at the abomination. Beta didn't say anything at all, merely staring as well. As they did, its eyes lit up and fired a pair of beams into the distance, unleashing a massive pillar of light in the shape of a cross. It growled in seeming frustration as the light faded, then slammed a hand to the ground, enormous drills sprouting in the distance.

"It's trying to hit Mithril, still..." I realized. It was clearly capable of tracking her... she was diverting its attacks. "But what the hell are we supposed to do when it can ignore all of our attacks?"

"There!" Beta pointed at something close to the beast's position. A few seconds passed as all our eyes drew to the Lance of Cassius, partially wedged into the ground where Anti had dropped it. Capable of piercing all defenses, he'd said...

"So... the only weapon we've got that's capable of hurting it... is right at its feet," Bloodriver summarized.

An odd keening noise interrupted any possible strategy talk, as a large white halo began to form above the Lazenn-thing's head. An ominous feeling of impending doom struck all of us at once. That thing isn't going to give us time to talk this through.

"Right. On three?" I proposed.

Boop

++<Betariver & Xenon>++

"Three!"

At Betariver's signal, the Hero Squad members (besides Mithril) made use of the teleporter network to instantly warp to the Lance of Cassius at Lazenn's feet. They were fast enough to grab the Lance and ram it into the path of Lazenn's latest attack, the rapidly enlarging Lance of Cassius boring a hole into the destructive Spiral ray that incinerated the ground around them, protecting themselves from the attack like an umbrella would protect against the rain.

The current path of the attack was headed straight for Lazenn's core. They were not fast enough to hit it however; even with the Lance of Cassius growing boosters to apply pressure autonomously, the pressure applied was insufficient to hit the core fast enough. Due to the lack of sufficient speed, Lazenn was able to move, in a really unnatural manner no less, so that the Lance hit the non-core portion of his body, which healed rapidly.

Broxigar swore under his breath. That monster was faster than it looked. Furthermore, not only was Lazenn's appearance unnatural, his movement was as well: the Angel could bend in ways that just flagrantly ignore physics.

"However, now we know that Lazenn doesn't want to be hit in that spiked golden orb area," Betariver noted. "But we need more speed to hit it. The only one here fast enough to do so is... "
__________
<]-Mithril-[>

"Oh, a giant monster," I noted. Somehow, Lazenn turning into one of those things at this point doesn't even surprise me. Is this also the work of the shard?

By this time, I had already activated my nuclear super mode.

"That thing's soulspace... " I muttered. I see, I see, perhaps I could...

"... you know what that monster's force field is?" Betariver asked.

"If that field is what I think it is, then, technically speaking... " I trailed off, before another one of Lazenn's attacks interrupted the conversation. Anything with a soul has such a field. However they typically exist just to define a being's sense of self. However, for certain types of beings, those fields are much stronger, allowing them to redefine their sense of self.

Anyways, the other Hero Squad members attempted to warp right next to me and hand me the spear, but of course it wouldn't be that easy. Lazenn used Spiral Perceptual Teleportation to create a ring of white flame and drills around me, to deter any attempts to warp in directly. Of course a big portion of that closed in on me as an attack, so I had to keep up my efforts to deflect that barrage.

As for the question of why I hadn't initiated a warp over to the other Hero Squad members? Well Lazenn saved a humongous attack for the Squad member holding the Lance at the moment, spontaneously producing large objects in the area in a swirl of feathers, the massive cylinders homing in on Broxigar, who, dual-wielding his axe and the Lance of Cassius, throws the Lance and his axe as an Aether attack, but only the axe makes the return trip while the Lance keeps going. Sapphire breaks into ice crystals in order to catch it, then reforms just enough to make her pass, throwing out a bunch of crude ice copies of it at the same time.

Throughout all of this, Lazenn was now spamming attacks like a boss from a bullet hell game, a fair number of his attacks involving his blood leaking from said wounds before twisting into really strangely shaped drills, as well as a ridiculous amount of projectiles abruptly appearing and flooding the area. A large portion of those shots were homing in on various Hero Squad members, and the rest acted as area denial to limit the room we had to maneuver and dodge.

Rock guy caught the Lance of Cassius and then zipped around with explosions, simultaneously sending out a massive amount of stone lookalikes holding fake Lances as he moved to try and trick or otherwise bait Lazenn and his projectiles. If nothing else, these stone replicas served to soak up at least a small fraction of the firepower that Lazenn was putting out, but rock guy just barely got the pass out to Betariver as a swarm of attacks descended upon him.

Betariver had Serene Mind active, which helped in delaying the effectiveness of the projectile spam, but considering that said projectiles were homing and had a wide splash range, it wasn't much of a delay. Betariver passed the Lance of Cassius to me just as various drills and white fire clashed against her armor and integrated shield.

Let's get this. Metal Gate: Accel Shift.

Up until this point, I hadn't teleported in this fight, to try and lull Lazenn into thinking that HQ's teleporter network repairs hadn't been applied to my Hero Band yet. Credit to him though that he wasn't fooled by that.

Incredibly, even with my speed boost, Lazenn managed, via a combination of a point-blank massive attack centered in front of his core and some kind of unnatural, bizarre movement, to deflect and avoid my stab with the Lance of Cassius.

However, said stab with the Lance of Cassius created an opening in Lazenn's force field. Though his octagonal barrier was indeed repairing itself, I had the ability to slow down the rate at which his force field replenished itself.

Unfortunately for Lazenn, his force field won't repair itself in time.

"URANIUM UBERSPEAR!" I bellowed, ramming a gigantic, nuclear-powered spear through the gap in the field that the Lance of Cassius made. Several sheets, remnants of the octagonal barrier, separated my URANIUM UBERSPEAR from the spiked, golden orb. They wouldn't hold up.

"Metal Gate: Aggro Shift!" I roared, forcing my URANIUM UBERSPEAR through the force field, the gigantic, nuclear-powered spear impaling Lazenn's core; the massive monster emitting a loud shriek as it began its death throes.

Betariver and the other Squad members teleported away as the UBERSPEAR's glow intensified, and then culminated in a humongous nuclear explosion, ripping Lazenn to shreds and obliterating what was left of that giant monster.

<Sapphire>

Did she get him...?

The blast from Mithril's attack had been huge and had left a smoking crater, so it was hard to tell. It had certainly looked like she'd hit his core, at least. Still, we all decided to err on the side of caution here, especially as a figure began to emerge from the smoke.

"Seriously?" I heard Broxigar hiss, only for it to turn into a gasp as Lazenn came fully into view.

He may have still technically been walking, but it was clear he was done. Shrunken back to Pikmin form, now missing his orb, wheezing loudly and torn apart almost completely, what was left of him lurched in Mithril's direction, his remaining arm extended in her direction. She gave him a moment to approach before unceremoniously slamming the Lance of Cassius through his chest and into the ground. He twitched upon the lance for a moment before finally going still.

"Stay. Down," Mithril growled at the body. Lazenn remained still, but Mithril remained on alert while she began inspecting it to find the shard, and after a moment the others crowded around. I, however, took the moment to go looking for Anti, teleporting a few times in the direction I'd seen him get sent flying.

It didn't take too long to find him; the trail of damage in his flight path was pretty obvious. I found him pinned to a chunk of concrete wall by the Lance of Longinus, a massive black smear of what looked like ink trailing down behind him, dribbling to the ground beneath him. Anti himself didn't look quite as... "sketchy" as he usually does.

As I approached, he shifted slightly and one of his eyes just barely opened. It swiveled around in the socket for a moment before settling on me.

"Is it... done...?" Anti croaked, red spots flickering across his eye. I nodded curtly.

"Yeah. He's down."

Anti's eye closed again. "Then my job... is over... I've failed... again..." he trailed off. As a series of cracks spread across HQ, I realized he'd passed as well, just before the world s***tered.
______
<Zeta>

f***ing hell, my head. Feels like someone just got done clobbering my brain with a tree. At least my shoulders don't feel like s*** anymore, which is kind of weird, all things considered.

Opening my eyes didn't exactly help the headache, cause this sure as s*** isn't Hero Squad HQ. Some kinda town and sundown, looks like. Seems to be abandoned, quite recently and in a goddamn hurry. A loud thunderclap nearby, way too close to the ground and with not enough dark clouds in the sky, kinda gave an impression of why.

Working my way towards the noise, I finally came upon a fight happening right at the edge of town. Kinda more surprising was that it was between two people I know, or uh... who I've met, anyway. One was the winged lightning dude, the one that ported into the big Engine in the science base place? s*** what was his name again...

The other one was that Pink Pikmin who's a member of Hero Squad. Haven't really talked to her too much, but I think she might've been helping Gamma with my shoulders. Real confusing how my shoulders aren't shredded anymore, by the way. Maybe I should be concerned about that. Anyway, what's her name again... Bloodriver? That rings a bell, let's go with that.

Now, weird thing is, I thought lightning dude was on our side, and this sure as s*** don't look like a play spar. So, punch first, questions later.

"Heads up!" I bellowed as I launched myself at lightning dude. He zipped out of reach well before I got there, a thin trail of lightning in his wake.

"What's this, a stray Black Pikmin? Oh, this'll be MUCH more entertaining..." lightning dude snarled, face twisting into a look of pure hate.

"Who...? ah..." came from behind me. I looked back to see Bloodriver clutching her head, a look of intense concentration on her face before her eyes suddenly snapped back open.

"Zeta...?" she asked in confusion, before lightning dude dived at me.

"Come on then, let's see what you've got!" he yelled, swinging both blades downward. I caught both with my bare hands and then sort of regretted it when my nerves lit up like a Christmas tree. A hiss of pain escaped me as I increased my grip upon the blades.

"Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, are you?" he cackled as he increased the voltage significantly. It was enough to force me to release my grip before I could crush his blades, but at that point a bolt of light shoved him away. A soothing feeling washed over my hands as the electric charge dispersed.

"You okay there Zeta?" Bloodriver asked as she stepped up alongside me. Lightning dude gave her a look of disgust as she waved a hand by my own, patching up the damage.

"Working with a Black Pikmin! How pathetically desperate are you?" he sneered.

"What's this guy's deal?" I whispered to her, flexing my fingers. Still not totally fixed, but good enough.

"I was protecting the town when he picked a fight with me. He was... a bit of a hellion in these days," Bloodriver replied. I raised an eyebrow.

"These days?"

Bloodriver nodded. "We are currently one thousand years in the past. Something happened to Chi, and the timeline is breaking as a result. Odd to find myself in my own body a thousand years ago, reliving an old fight..." she mused, "but if we're here, I suspect Dusk has the 'shard' this time."

I blinked at her. "... shard?" I repeated. I feel like I've missed something. I was interrupted from processing that little info dump when the air turned greasy. The two of us jumped apart as a friggin beam of electricity passed through where we'd been standing.

"Enough blabbering!" Dusk yelled, swinging his blades to send a series of electric arcs in my direction. I charged right through them, ignoring the mild tingling of the electricity, and barreled toward him as he aligned his blades to fire another electric beam at me. Before it hit and threw a downward punch, slamming the beam into the ground and catapulting myself toward him. A look of panic came over his face before he flapped his wings, propelling himself backwards, while I slammed down hard enough to crack the ground. Little bastard's too fast.

A spray of blood bolts came from behind me, which Dusk nimbly dodged through while his wings began to crackle with electricity. Figuring that was him preparing an attack, I leaped at him to try to hit him again, but he released it as a massive electrical storm before I could reach him.

Fortunately for us, it all got diverted into a series of lightning rods that popped up from the ground. Dusk scowled.

"What, another one?" he growled, peering behind me. I turned my head to spot... uh, what was his name? The Brown Pikmin. I'm gonna go with Rock.

Rock slammed his hands into the ground and pulled huge a massive boulder, which he tossed in Dusk's direction. Dusk gave it a contemptuous look and sliced it to ribbons before it could hit him.

"Honestly. You fools need to learn your place! LIGHTNING RING!" he shouted, an expanding circle of electricity blasting out of him. It didn't seem to care for the lightning rods, blowing through them effortlessly. Stung like hell when it hit me, didn't see what Bloodriver or Rock did to defend themselves. I didn't have time to recover from that before I heard "Thunder Crash!" and felt a few dozens cuts across my skin as Dusk blew through me and towards the other two.

If we could just keep the little bastard still...