Fight for Power

<<<Sigma>>>

With our course decided, and a time limit now hanging over us, we prepared to make our move. We decided to wait until the bottom team as in position first, no need to awaken the guards in the lower areas before they got there.

Once they arrived and were in position, we struck. I carved through one of the earth elemental guards with three quick slashes and swiftly moved to another, while Mars punched several of them together and then snapped, detonating the pile.

The remaining elementals reacted to our presence, lobbing chunks of themselves our way. A wall of wax rose to block them, then rushed forward as Candle used their own boulders against them, smashing several more of the defenders. A few more emerged from the earth around us, but before any of them could move Bloodriver and I moved through the room like a whirlwind, my blades and her saw carving them to ribbons.

A moment passed in silence as we waited for more to emerge, but none did.

"Well then. Xenon, any idea what all this is?" Bloodriver asked, looking around the room.

Past the more narrow entryway, the room itself was quite large, with numerous alcoves set into the walls. Each contained some element, fire crackling away, wind swirling, a tank or water, so on and so forth. Situated inside each of these was a single earth seraphim.

"These seraphim are all dormant... as I said earlier, this is likely an effort to obtain a second element. As far as I know, that usually requires the spirit to die, so I suppose this is an attempt to bypass that?"

"Wait, you have to die to gain a second element? What?" Mars asked, flabbergasted.

"That's what I've heard anyway," Xenon clarified, "I'm not entirely familiar with the process, given I've, you know, not done that myself."

"You're correct about that, for what it's worth."

"Oh, that's good to know," Xenon replied. There was a brief pause. "Wait. Who was that?"

"Over here," came the voice again. When we couldn't pinpoint where it was coming from, there was a sigh followed by, "The one full of water."

That finally lead us to the alcove that was rather clearly a tank of water... muddy water. Probably what happens when you sit an earth seraphim in it for... uh...

"How long have you been in there?" I asked, jumping right to the point.

"Hah. Longer than you've been around, I figure. Funny thing, waking up and finding a buncha fleshlings being the first intelligent things I see. The elementals were okay, but not exactly sparkling conversationalists if you catch my drift," the earth seraphim replied, "I was told this was gonna take a while when I volunteered. Didn't give a time window, though. Just 'hop in here and we'll come get you when there's results'."

"Really? You just... jumped in, no thought for how long you might be here?" Xenon asked, voice clearly exasperated.

"Hey I wasn't asking questions! They tell ya you can maybe get a second element, and I figured why not? Seems like maybe its been an awful long time since then, though. Maybe this thing went longer than I thought..."

"That'd explain why it took so long for the Super-Bastion to respond..." Bloodriver commented.

"Super-Bastion?! Whoa, we didn't have one of those when I went under! s***, it really HAS been a long time! Those bastards, did they forget we were here? Lemme out of this thing, I'm gonna..." the seraphim growled, the glass of the tank creaking ominously as all the dirt in the water rushed to the front. The four of us had only a moment to jump back before the seraphim smashed through, carrying all the dirt with it... along with all the water, surrounding it in a sphere.

"Huh. Well that's new," the spirit muttered, before the water dribbled away from it, finally revealing a brown seraphim with swirls of blue running through it. "Hey, what do you know, it worked!" Bobbing upward, it swirled around the room. "Well, for me anyway. The rest of these guys maybe not so much?"

As the seraphim rambled, the rest of us huddled.

"Jackpot!" Candle said, fist-pumping. "A dual-element seraphim!"

"Yeah, but is he interested in joining us?" I asked.

"He didn't seem super enthused about being left here... maybe we can work that?" Xenon suggested.

"Worth a shot," Bloodriver replied, glancing over at the still-talking seraphim. "Don't want to be too pushy here, but if we could just-"

Mars interrupted by turning and shouting, "Yo, seraphim! Wanna come with us?"

This pulled the seraphim out of its rant. "With you fleshlings? Huh... well, I got no real connection to whatever's going on out there anymore now do I... So sure, why not!"

Mars turned back to us with an intensely smug grin.

"Yeah yeah, smug it up," I growled at him. "Just because it worked this time..."

"Well then, welcome aboard! Don't think we caught your name?" Xenon put forward.

"Ah, right! Name's Landslide. Pleased to meetcha."

Any further conversation was interrupted by a deep rumbling from below.

"Ah. You uh, got any friends checking out the thing down there?" Landslide asked.

<<<Phi>>>

There were a few more guards than I'd scouted out previously. By the time we we'd finished the whole room was covered in s***tered earth elementals. Fortunately Magnus was present to use his psionic powers as the world's largest broom.

Vika whistled as she looked around. "Well then, what's all this?"

It's a fairly busy room. That walls are covered in the engravings I saw from the entrance, a winding, complex script occasionally interspersed with depictions of robed, legless beings somehow interacting with the room's other major feature, which took up much of the floor.

Said feature is a huge set of concentric rings, inscribed with glowing blue runes. Each ring seems to be set in a track, so maybe these rotate?

"This room is old... much older than the rest of this bastion," Magnus declared, feeling around the engravings and rings. "Very old. A surface scan with my psychometry is only giving me quick glimpses, it all flies past. I'd need to look deeper in order to figure it out... but where do I look?"

"What all can you see from the surface?" I asked. No point jumping in blind.

"This... thing has had a wide variety of visitors over the years," Magnus explained, "These entities on the walls seem to have been the ones that made it, and they appear several times... before suddenly they're gone, then there's long stretches of nothing between each visit, someone new coming through each time. The time frame is so wide they come and go in a blink..."

"I'd say the beginning would be best, then," Vika commented. I hummed to myself.

"Hmm... the construction looks to be long, I would need far too much time to review it all," Magnus replied.

"Fair point," Vika conceded, "Something further along, then? If others have visited, some of them must have known how it works."

"Checking the robed figures might not help, they probably already knew the functionality well enough. A moment where someone's explaining the function would be best," I suggested. Magnus furrowed his brow in concentration.

"I have a candidate. I will need some time to examine it closely," he said, before seating himself in the center of the rings.

As soon as he delved into whatever memory he'd found, a loud clanking sound emanated from the edges of the room.

"Heads up," I called to Vika, drawing my blades. Panels of the floor lifted up and changed shape into suits of disembodied armor, covered in vicious spikes. These don't look like they were left by the spirits.

"Some sort of automated defense," Vika called back, staff drawn and gathering energy, "What even triggered them?"

I took a glance at Magnus. Did these things respond to him just scanning it?

<]-Mithril-[>

Screw this s***. Metal Gate: Aggro Shift. "Metal. Kaiser."

Incoming green flames at point-blank. I'm aware. I don't give two s***s because I'm going to kill Ark'thugal up and then kill Eranikus up and then grab the shard.

"Cobalt Crusher! Hiduminium Hammer!" I shouted, slamming two powerful hammers right into his head. Ark'thugal's retaliation ignited them upon impact. Don't care. Gonna kill his ass.

"I see that fire in your eyes. The drive for victory, the desire to win at all costs. I know that fire quite well," Ark'thugal said, grinning maliciously. "Survival is fury. Beat your hand against that wall until one or the other breaks. I know which one I'm betting on."

If Ark'thugal's going to mess up my plans with all that evily-evily magic s*** then I'll mess up his. "I'll demolish your evil plans and make you die here!" I yelled, slamming his face with a "Titanium Twister!" and a "Dolomite Drill!", which burnt away from the green flames upon slamming into his skull,

"Hah! Better than you have tried. Go ahead, give it your best shot!" Ark'thugal spat in return, spitting a wad of blood on me and punching me in the face with his green flaming fist.

"Beryllium Buster! Iron Impact!" I hollered, slamming additional attacks right into his ug mug, which is now bleeding profusely. Ark'thugal responded with some kind of blood attack mixed with those green flames, but I'm going to HARD SHONEN WILLPOWER past this s*** and win.

"Osmium Obliterator! Dolomite Devastator!" I roared, pummeling Ark'thugal with more massive attacks, piling on damage, forcing him ever closer to defeat.

"You think THIS is enough to kill me? GET. REAL." snarled Ark'thugal, grabbing me by the head and then slamming me down into the ground with enough force to crater the ground.

"I have only just BEGUN to fight!" I hissed in return. "Triple Alloy Anvil! Triple Platinum Pain!" Three anvils and three platinum beams to his face met with two fists in retaliation.

"Triple Silver Slammer! Triple Metal Reaper! I shouted, unloading three massive metal beaters and blades, slamming into his face and tearing gouges into his skull, with him retaliating with several bloody slashes.

"Triple Chrome Cannon! Triple Alloy Arsenal!" I yelled, firing three massive point-blank cannon blasts into his face along with numerous amounts of various weaponry, now forcing Ark'thugal back even as the edges of my vision began to fray.

Ark'thugal responded with an ice attack plus green flames of some kind, didn't hear the name, don't care when I responded and shouted and ROARED, "Triple Titanium Trident! Triple Metal Macross!" gouging him with three huge tridents and pummeled him with three enormous metal crosses.

"Triple Metal Missile! Triple Alloy Amputator!" I screamed, blasting him and gutting his face and I don't think I heard his reply's attack name over the blood and the explosions and retaliating unholy attack.

"Triple Radium Ruiner! Triple Rhenium Razor! Triple Barium Buster! I punctuated, slamming Ark'thugal and pummeling him, forcing him to give ground even as my hearing began shorting out.

"Triple Jet Fist! TRIPLE METAL KAISER!" I hollered, unleashing an astronomically powerful series of attacks, the aftershock of which annihilated the ground we were standing on, the heavy winds kicking up a massive storm of dust, part of that deflected attack lancing towards the green star in the sky and slamming into it.

The explosion was deafening, the recoil from that slamming into the two of us even as we continued to sock each other in the face in mid-air, the ground beneath us now missing. I did not let up, following up with a "Triple Titanium Thundercrusher! and Triple Platinum Punisher!" as Ark'thugal replied with a swarm of undead and green flames.

"Triple Chrome Constellation! Triple Metal Meteor!" I roared, bursting through the horde of undead, unloading these attacks into Ark'thugal's skull, before grabbing Ark'thugal in mid-air, and then slamming him into the ground with a thunderous "Strontium Suplex!", pushing both of us further into the ground, past several roaming Earth spirits into an underground region with magma. Ark'thugal's retaliation froze and evaporated that magma, but unluckily for him I'M NOT DONE.

"Triple Rust Railgun! Triple Silver Strongarm!" I yelled, shooting him in the face and growing several arms to slam Ark'thugal down through the ground even more, magma singing the two of us as we dragged this fight further and further down past the crust, into the mantle of the planet.

"Triple Osmium Obliterator! Triple Dolomite Devastator!" I screamed, pummeling Ark'thugal further into the magma, countless swarms of undead rushing at us as I grabbed the Warboss with my arms and chains and tried to drown him in the magma and he tried to burn me with his green flames.

"Platinum Piledriver!" I hollowed, grabbing Ark'thugal and forcing both of us further into the heart of what is probably part of an active volcano, through enormous amounts of molten rock and past several confused Fire spirits.

"I'm going to drag your s***ty, evil Warboss ass to hell and KILL YOUR ASS THERE! TRIPLE PLUTONIUM PAIN!" I roared and screamed, my massive nuclear explosion fists slamming into Ark'thugal's face, the impact of the blows shaking the earth and unleashing a seismic molten magmafall, sending both of us down through the earth and closer and closer to the planet's core.

<Gamma>

"Gamma? Hey, Gamma! Come on, get up!"

I awoke slowly, groaning. Feels like someone thwacked me in the brain with a wollywog. Pushing myself up from the sand, I looked around slowly before my gaze landed on a relieved Orbin.

"Finally, I've been trying to get you up for like five minutes," he said, pulling me up by my right arm. I rested on him for a moment before standing fully.

"Where... is this Perplexing Pool?" I asked, taking another look around. We appear to be on the southeast end, near the Shower Room. "How the heck did we end up here?"

Orbin shrugged. "I woke up over on the other side of the Shower Room not too long ago. Couldn't port back to HQ, so I decided to look around and found you."

"Well, if we're here, some of the others might be. Let's have a look around and see if we can find anyone else."

Fortunately I have wings to simply fly over all the water here and Orbin is a blue Pikmin, so moving around wasn't too hard. A quick flight to the west, and my attention was drawn by a sharp whistle. I looked down to find Orvtre floating up to meet me.

"Well there's one of you. What happened? Why are we suddenly in Perplexing Pool?" I asked as Orvtre pulled up alongside me.

"Some kind of time fracture. We're mostly likely in either the past or the future, and if the pattern holds there's a 'shard' somewhere around here we'll need to find," shi explained.

"Time fracture? Does that mean Chi is involved in this somehow?"

"Maybe," Orvtre admitted, "although I haven't seen him yet... this may be because something happened to him."

"Hey! Over here!" Orbin called from a bit to the north. We flew over and found him next to-

"Is that... Omicron?" I asked as we descended. Yellow Pikmin, orb at the end of his stalk, wearing... a bunch of gear. Notably not made of metal.

"Oh, interesting! You have an orb like me! And you stand upright, most green Pikmin don't do that!" Omicron said upon spotting me, moving surprisingly quickly to examine me from head to toe. I turned, very slowly, to give Orvtre A Look.

"Ah, this isn't the first of these fractures I've been to. We uh... recruited this one in the first one I was in," Orvtre explained sheepishly.

"You found. Another. Omicron," I demanded more than asked.

"He's real skedaddly," Orbin interjected, as Other Omicron shifted from examining me to very intently examining the bark on the nearby tree stump, with precisely as much interest. "He fired like thirty questions about the shard in my chest in ten seconds when I found him."

"Oh, hello! Who might you be? Are those barbs natural?" Omicron's voice drifted over. He'd moved a fair distance and was now beside a scaly Red Pikmin who was laid out on the ground like we'd been. Spotting the Hero Band on his stalk, I realized he was one of the Bloodseeders that had joined us. Which one was this...?

"Dimetrodon head hurt..." he groaned as he sat up. Ah, that one.

Orvtre got the others caught up on what was going on, finishing hir explanation just in time for our attention to be drawn by some commotion to the north. As the group set off, I flew up to get a bird's eye view of it.

Immediately visible was all the water being flung about by whatever altercation was occurring. As I flew closer, I was able to pick out Hydross amidst the waves, having a go at another Blue Pikmin. I'd assume Beta is around as well, but she'd be effectively disguised in the water around here. Their opponent, on the other hand...

... immediately revealed their identity when they snapped shut the pincer on their left arm, firing a high velocity air wave that Hydross only barely avoided. I dove down to the others.

"Beta and Hydross are fighting someone, and I think I know who," I called out as I came down just above the rest of the group.

"That's Stream, some guy that attacked them a few years back. I'm pretty sure they killed him, actually, Beta told me a bit about it once. So it seems you're right, Orvtre."

"I'd place bets on him having the shard, then," Orvtre replied, "In which case he may be more dangerous than he originally was, and that means Beta and Hydross need our help. Let's go!"

"Dimetrodon Fight!" Dimetrodon loudly agreed, flames catching on his fists. The fight's happening in the water, though, so that kind of restricts his ability to help for the moment...

But it doesn't restrict mine. Whirling into a quick forward surge, I flew overhead and let loose my venom breath over Stream.

"What in the... hey! Back off!" Stream yelled, aiming his pincer at me. That took his attention off of Hydross long enough for him to advance and jab at Stream with his reef spear, forcing Stream's attention back onto him. That was swiftly followed by Orvtre sniping at Stream from the shore.

"Who are these jokers?!" Stream raged, retreating underwater for a moment. This was shortly followed by a burst of air, carrying frothy, high temperature water at Orvtre. Orbin stepped in front and summoned his shield, blocking the attack.

"I'd ask the same question..." Hydross called out, backing off as another air burst fired at him from the water. A blob of water poked up in the distance behind him, Beta waving at me before dropping back in.

"Happened to be in the neighborhood," I gave as my lame explanation, "Need some help with this guy?"

Hydross growled, tilted his head, and nodded. "Whatever, this guy's aggravating enough that I'll take it. Just don't get in my way."

Any response I had was interrupted by another air burst... this one much stronger than the others, slicing its way through the sky, singing one of my wings. I pulled myself into a glide to get back to shore as the air beam descended towards Orbin and Orvtre, who despite putting up another combined shield were actually shoved back this time.

The air burst did, however, briefly push the water away from Stream, and Dimetrodon took full advantage, rushing out through the parted waters to slam his fists against Stream's shell-covered arms.

"How dumb of a Red are you? The water's coming back in!" Stream commented as he deflected Dimetrodon's blows. As the waves closed in, however, they suddenly came to a stop in a circle around the two of them, Beta hopping out of the water behind him to shoulder tackle him in the back.

"Sure about that?" Beta taunted, as Dimetrodon socked him in the face. A growl from Stream was followed by a downward air burst, blasting both of them back, Dimetrodon only avoiding being pushed into the water by Hydross catching him.

"Come on then," Stream sneered, clacking his claw.