Fight for Power

<]-Mithril-[>

SO. It's finally time for me to get some fighting action again.

First things first, Orvtre and the other Squad members got back from the Bazaar. They were kinda sore about not being able to stop Seraph from making his evily-evil fortress, but Orvtre reassured them by saying that they were at least able to save a lot of the civilians there.

Blahblahblah we waited until the Thetas were all healed now onto the good stuff! FIGHTFIGHTFIGHT

Well, I may have jumped the gun a little. We actually have to get to the arena there. So we got there. Newsflash: The arena wasn't cleaned up after the Adaptrix fight. So there was still scorch marks everywhere, the arena was still all torn up, etc etc.

"Coulda tidied up a bit, yanno?" Sapphire muttered idly. I let out a low chuckle.

"We've been busy, haven't gotten around to it. Now then let's GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" I said, morphing my two hands into two cannonlauncher thingies and firing one huge ass bolt of energy and metal and whatever at each of the two Thetas.

Turns out that's actually pretty good on the defensive side as he blocked that successfully at this range. Okay. Turns out Sapphire can disperse into ice crystals to avoid attacks. Okay.

So at this range, Theta chucked some ice and some freeze blasts at me. Pretty slow, I can avoid those no sweat. Sapphire attempted to try and complicate things for me in a straightforward matter. Basically being immune to freeze blasts, she could just slip through between said blasts and attempt to knock me into the path of one or freeze me herself.

Remember however that I can spam big attacks and thus medium attacks are no big deal for me. So, medium attacks. Sapphire actually attempted to grab one of them and do...something, but it failed and she got like weird burns on her hands. Ah, haven't seen that particular kind of burn since...

"Oh, what do you think you are? Some kind of mystical energy vampire?" I grinned. "Yanno I got the last laugh when Adaptrix lasered me after our fight. Turned out he'd ate part of my Iron Maiden and then came down with a bad case of whatever the hell the machine version of food poisoning was! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL"

More ice. Unsurprisingly, I'm pretty resistant to freezing. Then again, I'm resistant to everything.

Still these two are at least strong enough that I shouldn't really be tanking too much of these. So I kicked the ground and sent a bunch of metal surging upward at both of them. The Thetas did the same to cancel it out, and once it became clear that Sapphire, the more eager of the two to try and engage me in close range combat, would be worn out faster than I would (which came pretty clear pretty fast), Theta stepped in to engage me in close quarters.

Okay, so I've fought Demon Blade before. His defense is excellent, Theta's is pretty good too. By the way, I'm used to swords. And Demon Blade used two of them at once against me. What Theta lacked in the swords department, he made up for in freezing and ice. And honestly, there aren't a lot of ice people running around, so although I'm still resistant to ice and stuff, I'm not resistant to that as say, fire. (Yeah, being in Hybras for that long means that you pick up a sweet resistance to fire.) So that means that this is still kinda dangerous for me.

So, swordfight against Theta. He's probably really glad he has that fancy armor of his now, as it's helping to fend off the splash damage I'm putting out. Speaking of damage, I'm faster than him, can strike at multiple angles (some of them unconventional), and still hit really hard. A couple more exchanges, some metal blows slipped under his guard, a few ice bolts my way, and he gave himself a sparkling, icy aura. After that upkick in power, he's doing better against me.

Sapphire, was, of course, was taking potshots at me throughout this, acting as a supporting role. And to be fair, her support did lead to Theta landing some additional hits on me that he wouldn't have otherwise gotten unaided.

So...after analyzing Theta's current combat patterns, I feigned an opening, creating an illusionary opportunity for him to land a blow. I say illusionary, because when he attempted to capitalize on this non-existent chance, he overextended a bit, enough that I seized on that brief moment and snuck a flaming kick into his face, which forced him back a step. And then my foot morphed into a flaming cannon.

"Copper Cannon Kick!" I yelled, as a fiery cannon blast slammed into Theta's face, the force of said blast being enough to send me flying back towards the unsuspecting Sapphire, who attempted to dodge by dispersing into ice crystals... but I was prepared for that.

"Iron Star!" I roared, nailing her with a massive metal shockwave.

Yanno what happened next? If you answered more ice, you're right! Theta was now sending some huge icy aura shockwaves at me, but given the distance between us and the fact that his attacks are kinda slow, I was still able to dodge them.

Sapphire tried to slow me down enough for the shockwaves to hit by sending some freeze blasts my way, so I responded with some fire. Now, what are these two going to send my way next...?

]]]Skys***ter[[[

... Did everything just taste purple for a moment there? Where was I?

Oh right, Tectus. I was reminded of this by the wall turning into earthen spikes and trying to poke holes in me. What a pest. Someone really needs to put some damn bolts in that guy's head.

Fortunately, I was close enough that I could probably do the deed myself. Namely, I'm pretty sure he's on the level below me, not too far from where I am. That was a simple matter of jumping in place and letting my power boots do the rest, bringing me clear through the floor. Almost immediately I very nearly took a large chunk of rock through the chest, my gravity hammer's barrier pushing it aside while I took a reflexive shot in the direction it had come from. Didn't hit the bastard, but he's close enough for me to shoot at now.

"To my last breath, I GRAPPLE WITH THEE!" the Brown leader roared, sticking his hands into the floor and lifting it. The whole floor, in one great big wave. I don't think stone is supposed to just ripple like that. It was freaky enough for me to toss my pistols aside and pull my gravity hammer back out, using it and my power boots to smash the wave out of existence before kicking in my pack's burners and charging in. This git ain't getting away a second time.
________
<Theta>

Sapphire skidded to a halt next to her Mark I, giving him a short glance.

"Getting a mild inkling this may have been a bad idea."

"It was your idea," Theta pointed out dryly. Sapphire rolled her shoulders in a noncommittal shrug before tightening her grip on her gauntlets.

"Distract her," the Mark II said, before dispersing into ice crystals. Theta sighed, releasing a plume of fog from his mouth, then raised Frostmourne over his head.

"Remorseless Winter," he croaked, a tumultuous, freezing wind kicking up around him. For him, this was about as easy as breathing. It proved useful immediately, because Mithril had gotten bored of waiting for him to approach and had decided to poke at him with a bunch of sharp metal bits... which were simply blown away by the wind. Her followup shot, naturally, was something heavier, which Theta deflected with his blade before launching a wave of sleet at her.

What with the wind, the "wave" of sleet turned into something more like a tornado of ice crystals halfway there, and when Mithril powered through that she was abruptly met with a great big hunk of ice. Rather than go for anything fancy, she elected to just ram into it, smashing through the whole thing... and for the second time, being met on the other side by an attack, which she mentally noted she really should have seen coming. This one, however, was in the form of Theta coming down from above with a massive overhead swing, cleaving Mithril clean in half, something that would be a problem for most other people. Mithril, on the other hand, grew her hands to massive size and clapped them around the Teal Pikmin.

Ten seconds later she realized that containing someone with a massive, freezing storm surrounding them with your hands was a bad idea when her hands froze and fell off. Seems resistance only goes so far, she noted with a slight frown... dodging a swipe from Frostmourne, she grew the two halves of her body into a pair of clones and went to town on the Experiment, interrupted only when Sapphire coalesced between them, a chilly glow surrounding her hands.

"Frozen Blow," Sapphire whispered, before slugging both clones hard enough to both freeze and s***ter them simultaneously. The frozen metal bits shortly melted and merged back together at a distance from the pair, swirling about for a moment in seeming contemplation while Theta picked himself up, spitting out a hunk of blood that immediately froze.

<]-Mithril-[>

Hmm...

Okay, so at this point Sapphire seems to have realized that eating more of my attacks is a bad idea, hence her having Theta try and distract me with ice, freezing, that weird sword of his, blahblahblahblah. Though I will note that just punching Theta and whacking him with stuff actually seems to be doing well or at least decently.

So, ice. The next logical thing is to try and see if either of the two are weak to fire and/or heat. On that note, I had just made some polearms, so by extending them, I brought them behind myself in a swing and then towards the Thetas in the same swing. I also imbued them with FIREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Okay, yeah, they blocked that and/or evaded that. So I just had said polearms explode on contact and/or when they were in boom range. However, yes, doing things at range is probably taking too long. So I'll probably make my approach again if things are dragging out. Sapphire apparently was going to try and have Theta distract me again and such and such. HOWEVER since he took just a bit too long to interrupt me, I took a spear that I had been charging and hurled it in the general direction of the Thetas. Cue large explosion.

Alright, from the looks of things, it seems that Sapphire is more susceptible to splash damage than Theta, due to the Mark I both being part Seraphim and the whole armored thing. After one or two more explody things hurled their way, me dodging a few ice shockwaves and blowing up a few big ice blocks, Theta decided to close the gap between us.

Since Theta apparently realized that Sapphire being worn down via splash damage and all the explosions was undesirable for them, he decided to take the risk of entering close range, probably an attempt to try and divide my attention. Okay. FIRE MCPUNCHY SPAM FROM ALL ANGLESSSSSSSSSSSS

Oh and since I was more or less watching out for Sapphire trying to sneak attack me again, I got the general timing for when she was about to attack me, and I reflexively fired off some more explody things her way when I detected that she was nearby. Quite a bit of explody things, actually. Sapphire dodged them all since said projectiles, though fast, were fired in a more off-the-hip kind of way.

Andddddddddddd she's going right for the face. Funny, I like punching people in the face too. However this is, in fact, rather predictable, so rather than attempt to dodge and probably fail since Theta's firing some close range freeze blasts my way, I set my face on fire. And added some power nullifier on top of that. And added in quite a bit of face FIRE LASERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

"AHAHAHAHAHA OH WOW THAT ACTUALLY WORKED" I laughed. Okay, I lied. Kinda. I didn't say that until maybe a few moments later because Sapphire and Theta actually still got my face and quite a lot of my upper body with that and the freeze blasts. Still, that was less damage than before. Blocking with fire face lasers, surprisingly effective!

Also, remember those projectiles that Sapphire "dodged"? Those were Bronze Boomerangs. And since the Thetas were distracted by my punches and my flaming face laser related insanity, they didn't notice said burning boomerangs headed back towards them until they did notice them, which was right about when I decided to double pincer them with the boomerangs on one end, and, on the other end...

"Ferro Firehawk!" I roared, shifting each of my arms into screaming BURNING METAL FIRE BIRDS and firing one at each Theta, who were basically in point blank range and had their attention split by the boomerangs and the screaming and the fire face lasers.

Cue very large explosion. I must admit that, after my Hybras adventure, I may have developed a mild form of pyromania.

<Epsilon>

Well so far I'd say our invasion of Vashj'ir is going swimmingly.

Heh. Water puns. I do realize of course that I'm just using comedy to distract myself from the gigantic water monster down here with us. Did I mention the giant water monster? Because there's one of those. Some kind of enormous water serpent thing, goddamn fast, too. Hard to get a bead on it.

I'll note we haven't actually gotten to Vashj'ir itself yet, we're still descending. I elected to go with a smaller submersible of my own rather than hitching a ride on the Mek Boyz' gargantuan submarine, and now I'm kinda thankful for that because the serpent seems more focused on that than most of the smaller vessels. Damn good thing we brought the 'Ard Boyz with us, because that submarine would be toast without them defending it.

Still, the serpent isn't alone, Vashj'ir's defenders are swarming the waters en masse as well. They're easier to hit, at least. For the rest of the Boyz, anyway; I'll never have trouble hitting anything. The only problem with the water serpent is that I can't use Pandora's Box from in here, our damn torpedoes aren't fast enough to catch it, and the only thing this submersible is equipped with is harpoon guns, which I doubt will do much of any harm.

Best I think I can go for at the moment is to head to Vash'ir proper and cause some damage to their infrastructure and leadership, because I'm sure as hell not doing anything useful here.
_______
<Theta>

A crackling sound made itself known as soon as the explosions quieted down enough, the smoke clearing to reveal a a wall of mostly melted ice around the two Teal Pikmin. It cracked and s***tered after a moment, the shards whirling into the air with a glowing trail as a soot-stained Theta stood, waving a hand toward Mithril.

"Frost Shards," he hissed, launching the improvised barrage. Mithril, however, produced a pair of steel walls to block them, tossing them aside once they were full of embedded ice crystals. She then promptly snapped her arms up to block Sapphire's attempt to axe kick her head in, something that earned her a fine coating of ice on her arms.

"Howling Blast," came Theta's voice again, a burst of ice crystals sprouting up from below to entrap Mithril's feet. Sapphire took the opportunity to kick off of Mithril's arms, spin in midair, then kick up an intense, freezing wind.

"Drill Punch!" Sapphire yelled, streaking toward the metal min fist first. Mithril, a wide grin on her face, effortlessly broke her arms free from the ice and spun one up into a large drill of her own.

"Titanium Twister!" Mithril bellowed, slamming her drill into Sapphire's fist, a brief clash occurring...

Before being cut short by Theta stepping up and slicing Mithril's drill arm off.

"I really need to do a better job of remembering there's two of yargablargarabbl-" she cut off as Sapphire's punch blended her into metallic slush. The metal splatters ran together at four distinct points, forming into four Mithrils.

"Problem solved!" Mithril declared triumphantly, before firing a dozen or so flaming drills at the duo.

"Frost Blast," Theta intoned, a coil of ice leaping from Frostmourne and bouncing drill to drill, freezing them all solid. One of the Mithril clones scowled.

"Note to self: Less projectile density," she muttered before all four simply charged into close range, fists aflame.

<]-Mithril-[>

Alright, from what I've seen so far, most of not all of the significant hits they've gotten on me have resulted from what Orvtre would call their "teamwork". Okay. What I've also noticed is that when I had a chance to take them on separately, such as that first time Theta tried to distract me or whatever, I stomped.

BLAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

That was the sound of one of me punching Sapphire in the gut with an explody-exploding punch. IIRC she managed to take out one of my clones right before that happened, but I just made another clone so it all evens out. Of note is that I specifically planned out my attacks so that my exploding hit would send Sapphire hurtling AWAY from Theta. Why did I do that, one may ask?

Simple. I think the key to winning this fight is basically how well I can keep them from supporting each other. So a divide and conquer, or whatever the hell it's called strategy, basically by keeping them separated and limiting the amount of help they can give each other, will contribute very much on my trek to victory.

It's worth noting, that their "blackout twin power" only really triggered in their fight against Digital Gear and Theta when the two Thetas were, ugh, making contact. That is SICK and TWISTED and if they try to pull that on me here in this arena then I will unleash the ARM EXPLODING EXPLODY ATTACK so their arms explode before they can touch and since IIRC they can just heal that off later that's a-okay.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM

MORE FIRE PUNCHES. Since Sapphire's a bit preoccupied, and I'm pretty good at evading sword swings, Theta is basically trying to turtle out of this with ice walls and with wide range freeze attacks. It's too bad for him that I can mitigate the damage he does via freezing with fire and BURNY BURNY. Still, at such close range, it was probably a given that he managed to take out a clone or two. However, there were simply more where those came from, and the results of the punchy-punchy BURNY-EXPLODY meant that I was on the better end of the exchange.

So I think what I want to do here is have the Thetas be on the opposite sides of the arena and NOT close to each other. So that means either forcing them to said opposite ends by just bashing at them with attacks, or kiting them there. For the latter, Theta tends to try to stick relatively close to Sapphire anyways, so Sapphire's the only one I can really attempt to kite by trying to exploit her tendency to try and punch my face.

For the former, well, I'm in the process of doing that right now! I've found that Theta is comparatively more resistant to being smacked around the area than his Mark II, but that doesn't mean he's immune to being moved. The clones really do help here, as with my speed and power, I can generally keep each Theta busy enough so they can't help each other. Generally speaking, though I do find that they occasionally try and sneak some help to each other.

For example, now. Theta attempted to send help over to Sapphire by firing a freeze blast in the direction where his Mark II and my clones were at, BUT that meant that I had an opening to slam him in the face with a "Ferro Falcon Kick!", a high speed fiery kick to the face that forced him backwards, though less than Sapphire would've been. However, that also meant that he was still in range for one of my clones to hit him with a followup: a "Burning Bronze Breaker!" right to the face again! Cue large explosion plus large shockwave at point-blank range.

Okay, since they're probably going to try to regroup pretty soon, I've set a few remote mines and other explosives as a means to try and get them to stay separated. However, I need to remember to keep it low density in case Theta tries another Frost Blast. And of course, to use the ARM EXPLODING EXPLODY ATTACK in case they try, ugh, touching again.

<Trombe>

So, summary of my little detour: we have loads of shiny metal down here, and I know how to extract it! Also there might be an opening to Hell underneath it. On the upside, we have a new recruit! Namely, the dude kind enough to tell me how to extract the shiny stuff... "adamantine", he called it. Good, firm name. I like it.

Now then, back to the business of evicting the current occupants. Violently.

Most of what's left is smaller pockets of resistance, futile gestures of defiance that will only end in their deaths. Hell, most of the ones left still fighting haven't even got the shiny blue armor, so they're just worthless scraps. The only interesting one at this point is the leader, so I have to get there before Skys***ter finishes him.

Fortunately, after my encounter with that one Purple Pikmin, I've gotten a good sense of feeling where tremors are coming from, a useful skill now because the whole damn mountain seems to be shaking every couple seconds. A few minutes of trekking through the labyrinthine halls of this fortress, I finally came to a large, open chamber and what felt sort of like a physical wall of heat, because the walkway was suspended over a pit of magma before curving back into the fortress proper.

And by a "pit of magma" I mean more to the tune of a lake. This must be fairly deep within the mountain. To my immense fortune, my search for the battle ended when it came to me, Skys***ter spilling out onto the walkway, gravity hammer in hand, cut and bruised and burnt but having the time of his life. The Brown leader - Tectus, I think? - stormed out after him, lobbing hunks of rock at him.

"Finally!" I bellowed, charging into the middle of it and cutting through a few of the projectiles the brown leader had thrown. He only gave me a scowl before settling down into some kind of sumo stance, and when I swung at him he rolled out of the way and charged, slamming a palm into my chest. I was sent stumbling back with all the air pushed out of my lungs, but Skys***ter leapt in before Tectus could take advantage, giving me a moment to catch my breath.

"Thy persistence is most displeasing," Tectus snarled, matching Skys***ter's gravity hammer blow for blow. Hell of a sturdy arm to manage that. "Begone!" he roared, stomping the floor heavily. An ominous crack sent Skys***ter scurrying back, activating his jetpack and grabbing hold of my wrist on his way as the walkway crumbled. Tectus didn't even take any shots at us as he fell into the magma pit below.

"Well... that wuz antiklimaktic," I grumbled as Skys***ter brought us to sturdier ground. Just as we turned to leave, though, something huge burst out from the magma sea below and slammed down before us. Guess who.

The brown leader now seemed to be clad in several tons of solid rock, producing a cracking sound as he drew up to his full height.

"To mine last breath, I grapple with thee," Tectus rumbled, slamming his fists together hard enough to produce a burst of wind that pushed us both back.

"Hah! Dat's mor like it!" I cheered, clicking in the triggers on my power swords to maximum.