The Prisoners: Fight the Tarrasque

[Kill Town]

Fight the Tarrasque



This is the Tarrasque. He > you, though it will weaken with every shot, since the virus will begin taking effect. The weapons you will be using to spread the virus can be anything you want, anything at all, even gloves. Just roleplay getting something from a giant stockpile and rush into battle.

Magnus will be around the area, typically around the Tarrasque, trying to pick people off. He is typically > you, as well, but to a lesser degree than the Tarrasque.

Basically, just write the fight, along with the effects of the virus (anything that you'd need to know, hopefully, is in the round thread).

I'm probably forgetting something major, but I can't concentrate right now. Just PM me any questions that you might have, and I'll answer them to the best of my ability.

[Sage]

She didn’t know how long she was asleep when Ander woke her and asked about Vegeta-Sei. It could have been a few minutes - she hoped, at least, that it was only a few minutes - or it could have been hours. All she knew what that she still felt like shit.

“When... did you want to go?” she managed, still not really sure what to make of the question. She stretched her back and let out a muffled moan, trying desperately to wake up. “I’m not sure I would make much of a tour guide, though... I... I didn’t really leave the palace much after...”

“I understand,” Ander interjected, filling the awkward silence. “That’s fine. You’d still be more familiar than I would,” the thief explained. “Come on,” he insisted after Sage stayed silent a while. “You said yourself that things were really complicated here. Maybe a trip home would help you to clear your head.”

“Okay, okay...” Sage conceded, and seemed to strain mightily to look up into Ander’s eyes for a moment, with something besides the typical exhaustion and pain etched into her vibrant corals. “A-And you said I was a terrible liar.”

“What?” Ander replied almost immediately, a big, goofy grin plastered on his face to cover up the raging mental torrent whirling just beyond his facade. Had she found him out? Maybe she really was toying with him this whole time!

“You just don’t want to go alone,” Sage declared, a look of triumph on her otherwise tired-looking countenance.

Or, maybe she really was that naive. Maybe.

“Uh... yeah, you found me out,” the nomad lamely pretended to admit. “So, how about it? We’re going to Vegeta-Sei?”

“Okay, but, I have to do some stuff before-”

“That’s fine,” Ander interrupted. “And, if you need help, you know, finding Sol...”

“Yeah...” Sage wiggled away from him at the thought, and hugged herself tightly, her eyes suddenly alight with her usual pained expression. But her face suddenly switched to a look of confusion, and then a look of shock, as an idea suddenly crossed her mind. “Hey,” she abruptly said to Ander, turning to face him.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve told you all this stuff, and- wait,” she suddenly shook her head and closed her eyes to gather her thoughts. After a moment, her eyes opened and fixated on Ander’s icy blues. “You know so much about me, now, and I don’t know anything about you. I...” the girl looked away for a moment, in hesitation. “I honestly don’t know why I feel like I can trust you. I-I don’t... mean that... I mean- I don’t really trust anybody. I don’t like talking about me. I can’t figure out why I told you these things- why am I even saying this?” Sage shook her head again and huffed in frustration. Why was she saying this? “I... would feel better, I think, if I knew something about you. Where are you from? What’s it like growing up on Earth? How come you became a thief? Why do you have so much against Kaden? Are you-”

“Okaaay, someone’s waking up,” Ander joked. Sage made to protest but cut herself off when she realized what he had said. The desert dweller thought he might have heard the girl mutter for him to shut up, but he couldn’t be certain as she curled up on the ice beneath her, as though it were no big deal. “Anyway, those are a lot of questions. How about I start where I grew up?” he offered. Sage simply nodded, her eyes no longer open. Ander smirked. It’d make controlling the direction of the conversation easier - not that it had been particularly hard yet.

“Okay,” he began. “I grew up in a little village in the desert, in a... secluded group called the Anati.”

“...Is that like a tribe?” the question was innocent but Ander could still feel the barbs.

“Uh... yeah... it’s... like a tribe,” he breathed. “Anyway, I grew up in a place called Tyrl, a little village. That’s where I started training my metal binding. See, my family owned a metalworking business, and I trained with the scrap metal. I picked it up as a kid, you know. I could easily build you a bicycle with tools, but when I was a kid, I figured it was more fun to just will the metal into that shape,” he explained, his eyes roving over the vast, monochrome landscape. He wondered if he felt the need to one-up Sage’s innate talents, or if he was just changing the story so she wouldn’t actually have a lead if she ever turned on him. He decided it must have been the latter.

“Y-You worked with metal?” Sage murmured. “I thought you said you lived in a tribe.”

“We...” Ander blinked, and then rubbed his eyes. “We weren’t savages,” he said with more than a hint of annoyance, but the girl was simply too tired to pick up on it. “We were more like... a civilization in antiquity. We had established rules of law and commerce, trade routes, entertainment, education. We weren’t living in mud huts.”

“Oh... sorry...”

“Yeah, well. Anyway, I moved. I wanted to become a warrior, so I moved to Dürren. The best combat schools were in Dürren,” Ander explained, weaving a little truth into the lie he carefully constructed. “So, I studied. Got a job. Actually, I was an athlete. We played a game called breakball, ever heard of it?”

“Mm... no,” Sage admitted.

“Well, I joined Sandstorm, the most prestigious team in the league,” Ander explained. “Anyway, breakball is like... what’s that called- football. Kind of. Except that in breakball, you can use ki and elemental powers, and the ball and the field are weapons. It’s way more intense,” Ander explained. That part was true. “I started out a little slow but once I got the hang of it, it was awesome,” he grinned, not that Sage could see it. “I became the team captain in six months, and MVP of the league the same season I became captain. That year, we were undefeated,” he boasted, having switched gears from the ‘truth’ portion of his story. “Well, I got so wrapped up in breakball, that I almost didn’t have time for my training. You know, parties, girls, that sort of thing. Breakball was a really big thing in Dürren. Actually, all over the Anati region.”

“Oh,” Sage mumbled. “So then what happened?”

“Well, I managed to finish my training, and became a full-fledged warrior. But, then some stuff started happening. A rebellion broke out. I left Dürren to stop them. After I was finished, I went after the dragonballs,” Ander declared, idly scratching his arm. He coughed sharply, and then leaned back against the wall behind him.

“But... why didn’t you go back?”

“Huh?”

“When you stopped the rebels,” Sage muttered. “Why didn’t you go back to Dürren?”

“Because I wanted to go after the dragonballs,” Ander matter-of-factly replied.

“But...” the girl paused. She wanted to know what had made him so bitter. He seemed so... angry... all the time. Quietly angry. A star athlete and a war hero shouldn’t be so bitter, should he? What had he seen during that rebellion. What had changed him? She gazed up at the man sitting next to her. “What happened when-” Sage cut herself off as she caught Ander’s eyes. Something seemed... amiss. “Never mind,” she decided, not wanting to hurt the dark haired boy.

“So, yeah...” he sighed. “So, the owner of this mansion, what do you think about him?”

“Him? Do... you mean Yuffith? She’s alright, I think,” the girl shifted her weight to more easily look up at Ander. “Why, did she do something-”

“No. Just thinking, maybe she’s got a spare bed you could sleep on, or something,” Ander got up with a slight groan. “Come on,” he added, reaching a had out to Sage, who reluctantly took it. The metal binder hauled the girl to her feet, and already moved a hand to her shoulder before she stumbled to steady her predictably poor balance. “Let’s go find you a better place to crash.”

“That sounds-” despite Ander’s help, Sage found herself falling to the ground with him in tow, as a thunderous crash seemingly erupted from all around them, shaking the mansion and splitting the frozen earth. A blood-curdling roar thundered so loud, the ice witch could feel it in her chest. Despite her exhaustion, she forced herself to her feet in time with Ander, and the bandit took her by the wrist and led her around the building, in search of what that horrible sound belonged to.

As they made their way to the front of the mansion, however, neither could be prepared for what waited for them in the shanty town in the distance. Sage gasped, Ander said nothing. Both of them stood side-by-side, frozen by shock.

An enormous, monstrous creature with spines and horns, teeth and claws roared and thrashed about, shattering entire blocks as though they were simply card houses. Almost immediately, fluffy, white snow flakes began to swirl about. “I- I’ve never... it’s... what is that?”

Fear and adrenaline erased her feelings of exhaustion, though she could still feel throughout her entire body. She was not fit to fight - especially not when the thing she was fighting was the size of an apartment building.

“I don’t know...” Ander mumbled, before he suddenly went rigid at the sight of something Sage couldn’t make out. Finally, Sage followed his gaze, and she gasped a second time.

“There’s... there’s people down there!” Sage exclaimed. The girl broke her wrist free of Ander’s grip, and bolted toward the two or three people who seemed to be... to be... Sage wasn’t sure. Panicking, maybe. What was she doing?! This thing was a monstrosity; clearly the girl would be powerless to stop it, and yet she was rushing in after a group of people who might even be hostile to her to help them.

Sage’s chest began to burn as she furiously pumped her legs across the desert, under the harsh sun. Sweat poured from her, but she forced herself ahead, despite her brain constantly screaming at her to turn and flee. The monster was big and huge and obviously pissed off, and it was busy smashing the shanty town. Too busy to notice her if she left now.

She didn’t know if Ander was behind her, and was too scared to steal a glance over her shoulder, for fear that the gigantic, Godzilla-like creature might belch a ball of fire at her when she wasn’t looking. Another, thunderous roar rang out, so loud and heavy in the air that it caused Sage to stumble. For an instant, she took a knee, but forced herself ahead, back into a wild sprint, cursing the searing pain flaring across her chest as each breath became more and more difficult to take than the last.

Finally, she could make out the figures in the distance. Yuffith, and the elf-man- Sage had forgotten his name - and... a woman. Sage wasn’t sure who.

“Mixie! Take Yuffith and get out of here, now!” shouted the elf. “Get out of here! Run!!”

The two women suddenly bolted. The one called ‘Mixie’ seemed to be escorting Yuffith away. Sage hoped she would be safe, but the girl seemed to trust the elf-man, so Mixie must have been a sound choice. But Sage was still now almost immediately in front of a monster.

“Wh-” the comical looking man stammered as Sage ran up to the enormous pile of weapons he had spawned. The girl stumbled and leaned heavily against them, trying to catch her breath. “Where- where is everyone else?!” he all but shrieked.

[Ander]

“There’s... there’s people down there!” Sage exclaimed.

Before he could stop her from following through with her idiotic impulse, the beleaguered woman wrenched clear of his prohibiting grasp and rushed fervently towards the monstrosity laying waste to the desert prison. Ander reached out towards her in a useless gesture as a long, eloquent string of confused and helpless grunts escaped his throat in place of words.

God, what is wrong with you?!

Her recent healing endeavor left her completely wiped out, she didn’t have the faintest clue of what the creature was capable of, she didn’t know which people were in trouble or even if they were friends, and she had no plan whatsoever. Either Sage was packing some serious reserve energy, or she really was as crazy as he suspected she might be.

Well you can go get yourself stomped on by that thing, but don’t expect me to come save you. I’m not stupid, Ander resolved.

The thief stared the monster down, watching it completely obliterate everything in its path. He shook his head and rolled his eyes, glancing up towards the top of the mansion. Glistening, slick ice still coated the exterior, but it could not deter his Adhesive technique, so long as he concentrated. At the very least, someone wasn’t waiting at the bottom with a handful of icy claws this time. With swift skill and grace, Ander scaled the building and perched on top of the roof to get a better view of this creature. He squinted his steely blue eyes, noticing two women fleeing – one with a suspiciously familiar blue jumpsuit – and a lone figure approaching the monster all by her itty-bitty self. Had none of the other prisoners noticed the gargantuan beast terrorizing their enclosure?

The creature stamped along the desert, crushing shanties underfoot and whipping its spined, lizard-like tail to take care of any structures it scarcely managed to miss in its maddened march. It opened its enormous jaws and let loose a mighty bellow, revealing crooked rows of sharp, yellowed teeth that probably grew to the size of a tall man’s body. Large, wicked talons scraped deep burrows into the earth, one tiny flick enough to slice a person in two.

Even the sight of the monster would be enough to scare a battle-hardened warrior away. Maybe the other inhabitants elected to do what any sane person would do, and that was to wait out the attack or just plain haul ass out of there.

Ander watched as the mammoth being changed its attention towards the lone girl standing in its path, its watery blue eyes seemingly coming alight with sadistic pleasure now that it had something that could fight back. The nomad sat patiently, unmoving, and watched Sage activate the remnants of her ice powers, sending a blast full in the creature’s face… and it didn’t even flinch. Ander’s brow twitched in surprise. It was one thing not to cause a whole lot of damage, but it was an entirely different matter when you didn’t cause any at all. She swayed, and stumbled as the monster took a giant swipe at her with one of its semi-truck-sized claws. She dropped to the ground, barely getting out of the way in time as it passed cleanly over her fallen body, a surefire decapitation had the cryomancer not dodged.

Ander studied the beast’s armor, almost like thick plating, and had trouble identifying any weak points. It certainly had plenty of natural weapons at its disposal, and thus far, had not demonstrated an ability to hurl any kind of breath attack or shoot lasers from its eyes or something entirely horrifying like that. No, instead, it preferred the up close and personal approach. And out of everyone, the least likely person to actually be able to do anything about it was going toe-to-toe. The thief ground his teeth together; if Sage couldn’t hurt it, what hope did he have?

If this was the bonus round, the desert dweller doubted they would be given a third chance. They were both dead. Screwed and dead.

For one brief moment, Ander contemplated simply leaving. He hadn’t yet found a way out of Kill Town – if indeed this prison associated with Kill Town – and he wasn’t about to play the fall man a second time. He didn’t care about “Gamer” or vengeance or raging against their cage like everybody else did, but he did care about not dying, and he did care about getting out of this tragic and bewildering mess. “Fun,” as Mixie had so articulately put, had run out as soon as he lost the Pac-Man event.

And then he remembered something about time travel and future and all of that babbling nonsense, and as completely ridiculous as it sounded – and even worse that he would even for one second buy into it as possibility or truth – he determined he might have had something to profit from it. Sage, whatever she was to him, was also a potential investment, and when an opportunity lingered in front of him, he had a hard time saying no. When you had investments… you protected those investments.

Ander reached into his capsule pouch, and pulled out a smooth cylinder of katchin, materializing a halberd into his awaiting palm. He drew in a deep breath, recollecting as many details about their building-sized antagonist as he could imprint into his brain.

Then he exhaled.

I’m a fool.

He grunted loudly as he sprung off the roof like a grasshopper on nitrous oxide, sailing far and wide into the cloudless cerulean skies. He couldn’t clear the gap between them, and added that into his calculations as he dropped halfway, springing up once more from coiled legs. Ander felt the wind rush along his skin as the monster approached closer and closer, consuming his horizon. He readied the halberd as he beheld his eventual landing location.

Sage looked up as the thief soared over her head, letting out a mighty yell and narrowly avoiding the twin horns atop the beast’s head. Ander slammed the halberd downward as if it were a pole vault, jabbing it into a hopefully soft spot on the thing’s neck. The raven-haired boy’s face blanched in surprise as the weapon shattered upon striking the dirty brown carapace, sending a painful shock through his hands with the force of resistance. The beast barely reacted, almost as if Ander’s attack had been no more painful than a mere bee sting. It bucked gleefully, causing the thief to lose his balance before being violently ejected off like a cannon blast.

Ander yelped helplessly as he tumbled through the air, landing roughly on his back and forcefully losing all the air in his lungs. He choked in a breath as he felt somebody grabbing at his shoulders.

“A-are you okay?!” Sage asked. Her efforts to help him up faltered weakly.

“Oh yeah, I’m great,” Ander coughed with his best attempt at a smile. “Having fun without me?”

They didn’t have time for cute pleasantries as the thief noticed the beast looming over them, casting a rather large shadow on where they stood. That spurred Ander’s adrenaline, and he burst to his feet, fumbling for Sage’s hand as he dragged them both out of the path of a large foot bearing down on them. The resulting shockwave from the step caused them both to stumble and fall over in their escape, preventing them from making it very far.

“The weapons! The weapons!” somebody cried.

Ander looked up from his sprawled position, seeing a strange little elf man frantically jumping up and down and waving his arms madly to attract their attention. He didn’t have much time to contemplate this otherwise amusing oddity as the monster dipped its head down, pelting them with its hot, putrid breath.

“Come on!” Ander cried, eyes wide with panic. He jerked to his feet and half-dragged, half-carried the bedraggled woman before either of them could be scooped up into the creature’s mouth for a little pre-apocalypse snack.

Oh Jesus, that thing just tried to eat us!

“For God’s sake, use the weapons!” the elf man shouted.

“Over there!” Sage pointed breathlessly.

Ander followed her finger and spied a rather large pile of every possible armament imaginable. They both raced towards it, Sage able to move of her own accord. Ander carefully picked out a rather appealing rocket launcher, figuring he couldn’t do much better than this unless there was an atomic bomb buried somewhere under that heap. He grinned and wiggled his eyebrows at Sage, mounting the weapon on his shoulder and standing clear of her while turning towards the creature.

“Open wide, fatty!” Ander smirked.

The beast roared in response, and as soon as it did, Ander pressed the release, the rocket bursting forth from its cylindrical holding and shooting directly into behemoth’s open maw. The rocket slid down its throat, exploding. It looked at though it hiccupped for a moment, before it belched a stream of fire and smoke from its nostrils. Other than that, it was fairly unperturbed.

“Well that’s no good,” Ander winced. He glanced over to Sage, flashing her a toothy grin. “This is all your fault, you know. The dragons always come to capture the princesses.”

“Ander, please…” Sage groaned. “Not now.”

“I’m serious. Next you know it’s going to be a barrel-throwing ape or an evil wizard who wants him some princess…”

He didn’t get to finish the thought as he felt a powerful blast of ice hit him in the back, coating his torso in an encasement of frost and pummeling him forward. He grunted in pain, feeling the icy burn of the cold on his flesh. The thief struggled to get up, and glared accusingly at Sage.

“What was that for?” he growled.

She looked just as surprised as he did. “I… I didn’t…”

“No, I did,” a flat, emotionless voice answered.

Sage followed the voice, beholding a tall man coated in cold sweat with a dark trench coat. Her coral eyes narrowed dangerously in venomous familiarity. “You!”

“Yes. Me,” Magnus stated matter-of-factly.

Ander staggered to his feet, turning to face their latest adversary.

“Magnus!” the elf man glowered accusingly.

“Kepler,” the hacker replied calmly in turn.

“This is the guy that killed the kid?” Ander asked, brushing off the bits of frost.

Sage nodded quietly, her entire body noticeably tensed up.

The beast had seemingly lost interest in them, moving on to other buildings to destroy whilst Magnus stared them down in a thickly heated confrontation.

“I won’t forgive you for what you’ve done!” Sage cried, a pair of Chillrends menacingly forming along her delicate fingertips. Magnus responded in turn by perfectly duplicating the attack, a motion that Ander did not miss. He should have suspected that the hacker could have done more than simply punch Sage in the face, and if she had come up short the last time, there was a good chance they were going to this time. Except last time, Ander wasn’t there…

“Nice trick, but you can’t beat the two of us,” Ander smirked. He grabbed a pair of swords from the pile, twirling them pointedly in his hands.

“Do you really want to fight me?” Magnus asked flatly. “Or do you want to stop the tarrasque before he destroys Yuffith’s mansion and all of your dear old friends?”

He spoke so emotionlessly, so devoid of any feeling whatsoever.

Ander glanced towards Sage. He didn’t much care about the others, but her actions greatly influenced his own.

“Let me make the choice easy for you,” Magnus said, interrupting their brief deliberations. “You were no challenge to me last time, so for now, the tarrasque can have you.”

With that, he vanished. The thief looked towards the blue-haired girl, waiting patiently for her to respond, but she seethed in quiet fury.

“Sage,” Ander said.

She looked towards him, almost as if remembering he was still there.

“What do you want to do?”

Sage looked towards the ravaging tarrasque, its impending presence drawing closer and closer to the mansion. Then she looked back towards the thief, needing no further time to reach her conclusion. “We have to save them!”

“Okay, but first, we need a plan,” the nomad pointed out. “I don’t have any other way to attack it except directly, so I will try to go for the eyes and keep him off your back. In the meantime, you give me some cover fire and do your thing with your ice, alright? We’ll stand a much better chance if we coordinate our attacks.”

The girl nodded. “O-okay.”

He paused. He’d already made his choice, and he had no recourse but to rely on her during the fight, because he very much doubted his ability to take down the tarrasque by himself. Ander painfully recalled his grievous weakness to anything cold, and didn’t feel very confident that he wouldn’t somehow get caught in her attacks and suffer right along with the beast. Despite this, hesitantly, he added, “I trust you.”

Even though he didn’t. He wanted to… but he couldn’t.

A moment of silence passed, and a roar broke the moment.

Ander flashed a smile, shaking his head once with vigor. “Let’s go.”

[Alexander Trafford]

The blistering desert heat, as well as Alexander’s dreaming unconsciousness, was instantly splintered by a thundering roar that ripped through and dismantled an otherwise calm afternoon. Trafford cringed, his half-sleeping visage become contorted and wrinkled in confused frustration; he then rolled over on the hard wooden floor and absentmindedly slapped his palms over his ears. But then it happened again. Walls and foundations shook and even the very sands of the desolate wasteland vibrated at the mercy of the paralyzing bellow; the deafening cacophony yielded all else unimportant.

Alex, blissfully remiss as to the seriousness of his situation, slowly rolled back over and propped himself up onto his elbows, before blinking several times as he adjusted to the bright and unforgiving luminescence of the distant sun.

“Whoa,” Trafford grunted through clenched teeth, the walls around him had taken to violently shaking once more. The vibrations seemed to rhythmically peak every few seconds. There would be a forceful crash, and then a lull, and then another violent oscillation.

Alex shook himself, and tried to ignore the disturbance. But that proved immediately ineffective. He stamped his feet twice and quickly bounced up to his full height, his brow encroaching upon his hazelnut eyes as they furrowed and his generally-chipper-smirk was replaced by a glowering frown.

“God damnit . . . I just want to sleep!” he shouted to no one in particular, and made his way towards the small, window-less opening that faced out into the open desert.

Frankly he didn’t give a shit what was out there; and he didn’t particularly care about the ‘game’ or whatever it was that he was involved in either. He was not out for blood, or vengeance, or any of that noble-nonsense. All he wanted was to go home. And not back to his dingy flat on Green Street in the slums of West City either, no, he had been running for too long; all he wanted was to go back to the Trafford Estate. God only knew how much he hated his fucking father, and his indifferent mother, but he wanted a normal life; maybe he would get a job or finally enroll at university, anything was better then this. Ever since the Omni Corporation had walked into his life over a year ago, everything had gone to shit. He’d been kidnapped countless times, been involved in an ancient racial-war brought into reality by some insane cult, fought in a martial arts tournament, and he’d had his mind high-jacked by computer genius villains – twice. Was a calming in his life too much to ask for? Some men and women were cut out for this hero bullshit. He was not. Hell, he had even met some of those good natured, use-my-freakish abilities-for good people here.

But I’m not like them, Alexander determined. And he wasn’t, he really wasn’t.

Whatever his reasons, he knew that he would have to get ultimately involve himself in whatever this raucous was, as much as he did not want to. As he peered out the window, however, he realized that he probably should have tried harder to go back asleep.

With widened eyes he stared down at the monstrosity below; a giant, filthy beast thrashed to and fro, whipping up small sandstorms as it stamped about and ripped at the desert floor with its long, blade-like talons. He watched as two people narrowly avoided a swipe from its spiked, scaled tail as they attempted to fend off the massive creature. In response, the . . . thing unleashed an ear-piercing roar, bearing its razor-sharp series of enormous fangs.

“Jesus Christ,” Alex muttered as he shook his head. What manner of man could dream up such a monstrosity, and for what purpose? After the initial shock subsided, his expression, once of disbelief and despair, slowly steeled itself with confidence and defiance. He ran his long and bony fingers through his golden-orange locks and allowed a frustrated groan to escape his lips. “Motherfucker, I am so done with this bullshit.”

Trafford pressed his palms against the windowsill and vaulted through the opening, landing awkwardly as the sand shifted against his feet. “Do you hear me, you piece of shit? I’m not doing this anymore. I am so fucking done.”

He wasn’t speaking to anyone in particular, although he was fairly sure that someone was watching. Ultimately though, it didn’t matter; he wanted out. It was as simple as that. And if he had to kill some ludicrously unreal, barbaric fiend, then so be it.

“I’m so sick of this shit,” he continued to mutter phrases such as this as he shrugged off his silken Armani suit jacket and loosened his tie; it was time to get serious. Walking was difficult in the soft, transformative sand – it just seemed to shift every time he stepped forward – but he’d be goddamned if that was going to stop him. He continued to trudge forward, marching down the sandy dune that served as the divide between the open desert, with its sprawling shanty town, and the massive mansion.

As he moved closer to the titanic, hellish beast it became increasingly apparent that he probably should have second-guessed his rashness, but whatever protests his better judgment and reason crafted had been overruled by his raw, bare-boned emotion. Also, as he continued to race forward, he unmasked the identity of the two, previously unknown warriors: the cerulean-haired ice-queen Sage and the desert-dwelling rogue . . . Ander was his name, if he remembered correctly.

“Alex!” the female screamed as he walked by her and towards the creature. Her voice was unmistakable; quivering amidst a cocktail of uncertainty and fear, yet it retained traces of boldness and courage. She was also the only person to kill him, and then cradle his head and talk to him as he faded into oblivion, and that kind of shit will stick with a man.

“Shut the fuck up Sage!” Trafford shouted without hesitation. It sounded harsh, and a little cruel, but he just was not in the mood. Somehow he figured that she would, of all people, understand his unwarranted outburst. Regardless, he immediately whipped around and jabbed his finger into the air as he shouted and explained himself to her. “I’m going home! I’m going to fucking kill this . . . god damned . . . thing! And then I’m going to go home! And I’m going to go to school, and get a job, and have a family, and . . . and,” he paused for a moment out of necessity, he was nearly out of breath, and then continued, “and I’m going to be normal! And there is nothing that - ,”

A thunderous roar emanated from behind him and interrupted his uncharacteristically rage-driven speech. He was seething as his frustrations continually massaged his anger, which was indeed quite uncharacteristic of him.

“And you shut the fuck up too!” He wheeled around and hurled his index finger towards the demonic monstrosity’s opened maw. Alex almost felt guilty as he turned his back on the blue-haired girl, but that remorse was quickly overridden by a cresting wave of pent-up fury. How long had he been this angry? He couldn’t remember, but his life, since his ‘experiment’ at the age of sixteen, had been spotted with lapses of self-hatred that were spawned from his freakish, ungodly curse.

“I’m going to bury you, do you fucking hear me?!”

As Trafford shouted he hurled his free hand in the direction of his foe and a thick veil of sand launched itself towards the beast’s eyes. A sea of miniature explosions detonated around his muzzle and the monster, which simply shook its head and continued to roar, was otherwise unharmed by the feeble attempt.

“Oh, god, that was a bad idea,” Alex whispered, his rage subsiding just enough so that it no longer blinded him to how irrational he was being. The gigantic lizard-creature lifted its menacing hand and stretched its glistening talons, before lashing out towards the young psychokinetic.

Tiny particles of sand ignited beneath his feet as Trafford instinctively launched his body away from the attack, landing several meters away in a cloud of whipped-up sand. The beast bellowed ferociously and, barely catching the action that occurred at the very corner of his vision, the golden-haired street entertainer watched as the desert-dwelling warrior scaled the monstrosity’s scaled spine, while a freezing gust of snow and ice drove into the beast’s disgustingly frightening visage.

“Use the weapons, you fool!”

Alexander whipped his head around as he peeled himself off the ground and dusted off his silken dress pants. A tiny creature, which bore a striking resemblance to the cookie-baking elves that he always saw on television commercials, was jumping up and down and frantically pointing at a large pile of weaponry.

How convenient, Trafford thought to himself amidst a grimacing scowl. But why use just one?

Utilizing his scientifically-manifested abilities, the young psychokinetic tapped into his inner curse and created a mental link between him and a number of melee weapons that sat within the large pile of steel and iron. Lifting both hands, and hoping that the giant lizard that loomed above did not notice him, Alexander summoned forth a fleet of swords. He was unaware how many he had called to him, but they had all obeyed the power of his will.

As the army of sabers, rapiers, scimitars, broadswords and the like surrounded him, he simultaneously withdrew his twin, gold-plated Desert Eagles and prepared to unleash a hellish attack; the way he saw things, the sooner they felled this evil beastie, the sooner they, well he, got to go home.

“Just give me an opening you foul-mouthed whore,” Trafford whispered as the world around him slowly transformed from tan to aureate, and a wall of sand lifted behind him; his weaponry, the fleet of swords, were being caressed by the golden essence of his inner power – tiny tongues of glowing energy licked the sharpened steel blades and wrapped themselves around the ornate hilts.

“Hey, Sage,” Alex shouted towards the damaged girl, who momentarily removed her gaze from the icy tempest that she controlled and turned towards him.

“What?” she bellowed back and braced herself against another unwarranted barrage of angered screams.

“Just tell me where to shoot all this shit,” he responded and nudged his head towards the amassing armaments behind him, “I don’t wanna hurt your boy up there.”

She nodded and stuttered, “O-okay, okay I guess.”

Trafford guessed that she probably was not used to being the de facto leader of their little motley crew.

It took some concentration, but Alex managed to spare enough mental focus to telekinetically finagle a long cigarette from his pant’s pocket and position it into the corner of his mouth, where it immediately became alit. As he inhaled, he leveled his high-caliber handguns the monstrous foe, and, as he did so, the dozens of augmented swords, along with the wall of aureate sand behind him, twitched impatiently as all his mechanisms of war prepared for battle.

There was always a perfect quote for any given situation, and lately those quotes had come from Clint Eastwood; but here, in this moment, Trafford’s mind chose a different source: Bruce Willis.

“Yippee-ki-yay motherfucker.”

[Piper Juunanagou]

“Hey, Szar, I think I found some—”

Any coherent idea forming in Piper’s mind was silenced by the thunderous, otherworldly roar that sundered the silence that the solider had grown accustomed to in the last hour or so. Turning sharply, the woman’s eyes and ears were able to easily triangulate the source of the deafening noise. After all, it wasn’t too hard to spot a hulking, reptilian monster the size of a couple office buildings just casually strolling down the center of the abandoned town.

“I think I found something better,” Szar shouted as he turned and saw that Piper shared his pale-faced expression of awe and horror. “So what do you suppose we do now?” The changeling scoffed as he gestured toward the lizard. “I don’t think this is an event we’re supposed to win.”

“What happened to that fighting spirit, Szar?” Piper asked as she diverted her eyes from the impossible creature stalking through the city. As her gaze settled on Szar, she noticed that a few of the abandoned, derelict cars parked on the nearby sidewalk were starting to melt.

That’s impossible… it’s not hot enough to melt steel. The woman thought as she furrowed her brow, prompting Szar to follow her gaze to the series of melting vehicles.

“What’s going on?” The changeling demanded as he walked over to one of the molecularly destabilized cars and touched the palm of his hand to the glossy, deformed metal. “These weren’t this way a minute ago. Plus, they’re cold as ice…it doesn’t make any sense,” the alien observed as he pulled his palm away from the vehicle and observed the faint imprint it had left on the surface of the metal.

“Do you think it has something to do with that creature?” Piper asked as the lumbering reptile let out another deafening scream and smashed a nearby building with nothing more than a casual swipe of its armored hand. “Because I’m willing to bet something fishy is going on here…”

“I’m not too sure I want to find out,” Szar commented as he pushed up onto the tips of his toes to get a better glimpse of the creature’s full frame. “Hell might be a more pleasant alternative to trying to combat that,” the changeling said with a smug grin, triggering Piper to roll her eyes.

“Never know till you try,” the soldier said as she vanished in a swirl of lights, leaving Szar to ponder his own course of action.

Piper arrived on the rooftop of one of the remaining buildings just in time to see a pair of somewhat familiar warriors leaving the scene to pursue the lizard. Originally she planned to call out to them, but the moment her eyes fell to the ground at the base of the structure, any concern she had for the other two prisoners fell to the wayside. After all, staring up at the soldier from the base of the decrepit structure she’d teleported onto was a haphazard pile of guns and other assorted weaponry.

“Jackpot,” Piper whispered as she casually hopped down from the two-story shack and landed at one end of the incoherent mess of armaments. Grinning from ear to ear for the first time in a long time, the soldier knelt down and pushed away a pile of handguns to reveal a lovely set of silver revolvers. Judging from the weight and the length of the barrel, the soldier figured they were probably forty-four or fifty caliber. Either way, the woman couldn’t help but extract a sense of comfort from clenching the heavy weapons close to her chest.

“Guns aren’t going to help you,” the moment the words fell upon Piper’s ears, she snapped to attention and had both her newfound possessions leveled with the strange man’s chest. With a faint snicker, the man in the trench coat lifted a palm up next to his head. A beat later, his entire forearm was glowing with sparkling white energy, but even still, Piper kept her weapons trained on the sinister-looking fellow. “Why don’t you join your buddies and play with the Tarrasque?”

“And why don’t you stop trying to boss me around,” Piper said with a wink before narrowing her eyes at the man. It was then that she noticed the dampness that dotted the edges of the man’s countenance. Along with the bags under his eyes, it seemed like the man was either unable to sleep or combating some type of infectious disease. Either way, his callow words and unnerving gaze revealed that it wasn’t too much of a detriment to his physical condition. “You’re not a part of this program, are you?” She asked as she began to detect the faintest traces of anxiety swirling around beneath the surface of the stranger.

“…What are you doing?” The man demanded, as if he could somehow sense the woman probing into his subconscious. “Stop that,” he growled as he leveled his shimmering hand with Piper and unleashed an erratic bolt of white energy at the crouched soldier. Smiling ever so softly, she teleported out of the way and erupted back into existence just as her hands pulled back on the triggers of her newfound weapons. The report of the magnums caught the man’s attention, and just when Piper thought she’d have an easy out, he simply popped out of existence as she had done just a few beats prior.

“Damn it,” the soldier rasped as she quickly cocked back the revolvers’ hammers. “Which one of Gamer’s lackeys are you?” Piper shouted as she surveyed her surroundings—her weapons poised and at the ready.

“Please, you underestimate me, Piper,” the man whispered from behind the woman, prompting her to pivot immediately only to find empty space. “I am Magnus, and I’m afraid if you believe I’m some sort of lackey than you’re going to be sorely mistaken. But please, I’ve never been one for this silly banter. I’d much rather just embarrass and kill you, so I can get back to watching the Tarrasque slaughter the others,” on that note, Piper felt a sharp, jarring pain in the base of her spine as Magnus’ knee found its mark.


Clenching her teeth lest she allow her opponent the pleasure of hearing her scream, Piper hit the ground hard and permitted the momentum to carry her a few yards before she scurried back up to her feet. Turning, the woman fired off two more projectiles as her opponent casually advanced toward her. Unlike the last time, Magnus negated her efforts simply by raising a palm and grinding her bullets to a dead stop a foot or so in front of his face. With mounting frustration, Piper watched as her opponent proceeded to casually spin the bullets around and send them hurtling back at the owner.

Shit shit shit! Falling back, the woman twisted her body and watched with wide-eyes as her reflected bullets whizzed passed her, missing her only by a handful of centimeters. Hitting the ground, Piper glanced back at her opponent to see that he had disappeared once again. Is this how irritating it is to fight me? She began to ponder as she felt a hand close around the top of her skull. With the most complete and utter lack of elegance, the woman reacted by throwing out a foot and drilling the tip of her boot into Magnus’ shin.

The gambit worked, and when the overpowered man’s grip waned just long enough to let Piper smash the butt of one of her guns into his chin. Rising to her feet, the blonde discarded both of the revolvers and opted instead to bury the heel of her boot as far into her opponent’s chest as feasibly possible. With an incoherent grunt, Magnus was plucked off his feet and throw unceremoniously to the ground by the force of the blow. Despite her building momentum, Piper’s offensive came to a screeching halt when the brown-haired man casually leapt off the ground and into a standing position.

Rising up to his full height, Magnus casually brushed the dirt and sand from his trench coat as Piper tried to formulate some sort of feasible offensive. Glancing over to the pile of assorted weaponry, the woman reached out a hand and teleported away just as Magnus’ fist came tearing through the air where she had been a split-second prior. Rematerializing on the other side of the armaments pile, Piper clenched her fingers as her eyes found the handle of large sword. Much to her amusement, the sword faded in a swirl of white and blue lights and reappeared in her outstretched hand.

Well that’s new… The woman mused as she tossed the sword into her left hand and aimed her gauntleted palm at Magnus, who was watching her from the other side of the weapons. Much as it had in the last few minutes, the man’s pale, seemingly weary visage was staring at her with the utmost contempt. Obviously someone needs a lesson in humility. With a dull thrum, a sphere of emerald energy formed in front of the woman’s metal-encased hand.

“Spare yourself the embarrassment, Sarge,” Magnus shouted as he extended both his hands toward the soldier. As Piper watched in horror, several of the guns and various sharp implements that comprised the heaping mass of weaponry between Magnus and herself began to levitate up off the ground. A beat later, the various pumps and hammers of the weapons all clicked as they aimed themselves at Piper. In that moment, the woman’s flight response kicked in on overdrive, and just as the floating guns unleashed their volley, she fired off her rather scant energy sphere and teleported from the line of fire.

“Ridiculous,” Piper whispered as she reappeared a few yards away from the slightly amused Magnus. When the man turned his attention to the blonde, the army of floating firearms all fell to the ground as if their invisible puppet strings had been severed. “What the hell compels people like you to do shit like this?” The woman shouted as she twirled the heavy sword in an attempt to look like she actually knew how to utilize the outdated weapon.

“Just stop talking,” Magnus replied softly as he suddenly noticed that the color scheme of a nearby building had completely shifted in the span of few seconds. “What the hell is going on?” The man added softly in the hopes that the woman wouldn’t hear him. Unfortunately she had, but at the moment, Piper wasn’t apt to do much more than note the strange disturbance and file it with the strange, partially melted cars.

“Fine,” the soldier shouted in response to Magnus’ more vocal remark. “Have it your way,” she growled as she clutched the sword and dashed toward the brown-haired man.

[Juno]

With yellow feathers in her hair, and a dress cut down to there—

Sophia hesitated, but slowly reached up and took Juno’s hand. The ex-fortuneteller wasn’t about to let her change her mind, so he quickly lifted her from her seat and scooped her into a dancing position. He stepped forward, gracefully leading her along, and she raised an eyebrow, impressed by his ability to lead.

It was a three-step dance; one-two-three, one-two-three, rock-step, the basic steps to a swing dance. The couple gracefully slid across the floor, their feet moving in rhythm to the easy, smooth sounds of ‘Copacabana.’

She would merengue, and do the cha-cha, but while she tried to be a star—

“Nice,” Sophia nodded.

—Tony always tended bar across the crowded floor, they worked from eight till four…

On ‘four,’ Sophia bent backwards, and Juno lead her slowly into an impressively low dip. She was obviously following, having not had much experience with partner dancing, but the hybrid didn’t mind, and he smiled as his friend as they moved closer and closer to the ground. Suddenly, however, the music stopped, and their dip was ruined as Sophia’s feet were kicked off the ground by a small tremor; though the girl didn’t weigh more than Juno could hold, the sudden augmentation of the mass—now that she was no longer supporting herself—caused him to drop her and subsequently fall flat on his face next to her.

The stereo lay on the ground, destroyed. Sophia groaned, reaching for the back of her head and rubbing the spot where she’d hit the ground. The black-haired half-Saiyan, having caught something behind closed eyelids when he’d hit the ground, sprung up and bolted toward the door.

He broke into a quick jog in the courtyard, and briefly glanced back to see the priestess following him down the steps, her blue dress hugging her form tightly instead of billowing behind her. He stepped out of the door, and his face went pale with shock. Sophia was soon to follow, and mimicked his expression. The two stood frozen for just a few moments as they stared in awe at the mighty tarrasque that stampeded gradually toward the mansion.

“Dammit,” Juno cursed quietly, staring up at the creature with shaking eyes. The girl beside him slowly looked over at him, but for the first time, he didn’t return her glance, taking off running towards the creature as its quarry came into sight. Sage, Ander, and Alexander Trafford stood fighting their hardest against the monster. The cryomancer’s ice gave it perhaps a brief chill, but had little effect otherwise. Ace’s attacks might’ve looked pretty, but did little to deter it from its course. Ander’s rockets did even less, it seemed.

His feet kicked up sand as he raced at breakneck speed toward the tarrasque, placing both of his palms behind him and letting violet orbs of energy form in them throughout his sprint. He lifted one palm and prepared to launch a loud, violent Pop from the materialized sphere, but his concentration was interrupted by the familiar screech of Kepler.

“The weapons, you idiot! Use the weapons!!”

To Juno’s surprise, he listened to the elf’s advice and immediately broke from his course, running from the beast’s path toward a pile of assorted weapons, at the top of which was… a top hat and magician’s cane?

“What the hell type of weapons are these?” he muttered, and quickly saw what looked to be the real weapons sitting underneath the strange icing on the cake. He grasped the hat and cane in an attempt to get to the weapons before it was too late, but the tarrasque’s gargantuan tail swung overhead, breaking into the building next to him. The physics of the impact sent him flying into the wall of another, already partly crushed, metallic shack, and he slowly rolled out the opposite side into the sand.

He moaned painfully as he slowly rolled over in the sand, the adrenaline causing his fingers to continue to clutch the top hat and cane. As quickly as he could force his aching muscles to, he sat up, and clutched the white-tipped black stick and glanced into the top hat. “Well, I guess this will have to—whoa!”

A bunny rabbit had popped rather unceremoniously from inside the hat, whittling away quietly at the sand. It was, however, quite different from a regular rabbit—its eyes were crimson red, glowing iridescently, and its buck teeth had been replaced by extra sharp fangs. “…what the hell?” he whispered quietly, but the rabbit simply looked up at him, and hopped back into the hat, disappearing as if it had never been there at all. He raised an eyebrow curiously at his ‘weapon’ and cautiously placed it atop his head. Screw this, he thought, shaking his head, This is way too weird.

Nevertheless, he didn’t have time to reconsider his weapon choice as he caught something out of the corner of his eye and quickly turned on his heel to see Piper Juunanagou fly from around the other wall of a building and crash into one on the opposite side of the street. He stood still as a trench-coated man slowly stepped out from behind the wall from whence she’d come, and smirked evilly, standing over her.

“Nice try, Piper,” the man hissed just loud enough for Juno to hear. The half-Saiyan debated, for the briefest second, whether or not she was worth it.

“Let her go,” he sounded, sliding into the least threatening but most awkward battle stance ever, holding out the black cane and gripping the brim of his hat with his free hand. Magnus glanced up, slightly loosening the grip he’d taken on Piper’s throat. He chuckled at Juno’s idle threats, and opened his mouth to speak.

The distraction, however, had left an opening for the blonde-haired sergeant to strike. Juno smiled as he noticed Piper was no longer sitting in Magnus’s grasp, and the grin grew broader as he watched her foot slam into the back of his contorted head, sending him sprawling to the ground. “…thanks, Juno,” she nodded with a bright smirk, and the hybrid nodded as well, flicking the cane and watching as Magnus suddenly found himself floating in a tank of water—that just happened to be populated with sharks.

“I like this,” Juno said to himself, but his happiness was interrupted as the wet figure of the hacker appeared next to him. He glanced quickly from Magnus to the now-empty tank, and slowly let go of the ‘magic.’ The fish tank collapsed to the ground, disappearing as Piper jumped to hover slightly over the rushing waves. The blonde teleported next the hybrid, and the two slowly lowered themselves into battle stances.

Juno lunged forward with the cane, whipping it towards Magnus’s face, but as he stepped forward, the hacker lifted his hand up to the exact spot where the cane would’ve collided with his cheek and caught it. The fortuneteller caught his eyes glaze over for seconds, and he scowled.

He can see what’s coming too, the half-Saiyan realized, slowly yanking his weapon from Magnus’s grasp and jumping a few meters away. Piper back-flipped out of the way of the dark-haired man’s next punch, following her partner’s lead.

“This sucks!” Juno mouthed off, “He’s going to be able to anticipate everything we do, Piper!” The blonde sergeant mouthed a couple of curse words, and dove to the sand as Magnus brought a foot up to kick her. Juno held up a palm and launched a Pop at him quickly, but the beam of violet ki simply sailed through where he had once stood as he disappeared like nothing.

“We’re not going to be able to just hit him, Juno!” Piper yelled, “He can appear and disappear at will, just like I can!” It was at this moment—Piper’s words ‘just like I can’—that the hybrid realized what was happening. He’s mimicking our powers, he understood.

I’ve got to get to him before he uses it to his advantage, he thought, spinning on his heel as he heard the gentle soft-shoe of Magnus as he landed in the sand. Both of the men reached out at the same time, grasping each other’s foreheads, the same idea in mind. Juno suddenly felt Magnus’s consciousness pushing forward into his own, but he fought back with a renewed viscosity having discovered the secret. He’s leagues stronger than us. If I can just… get… control… then we can use… all of us… in… one…

He held fast against Magnus, knowing in his mind that this was the only way this battle was winnable. If he could gain control of Magnus’s mind… if it was just possible… then they would have access to a super-powered being who could use Sage’s ice; who could endow things with ki, like Alex seemed to be able to do; they could use Ander’s talents, whatever the hell they might be, besides flirting; they could use Piper’s teleportation; and they could use Juno’s Foresight. Magnus against the tarrasque was their best bet, at least in Juno’s pitiful understanding of the situation.

“You won’t win, Juno,” Magnus laughed, but his maniacal statement of victory was cut short by a swift jab to his jaw. Piper appeared next to Juno and Magnus quickly teleported out of sight, re-materializing just meters from where he’d stood before in a standing position. Juno cocked his top hat sideways and held up the pole, breathing heavily; he was still slightly worn from the mental spar he’d just had with the hacker.

“We’ve got to take him down, Piper. It’s the only way we’re going to beat that thing,” the hybrid spoke of Magnus as if he wasn’t there.

“I get you, Juno,” the sergeant said, not really understanding what Juno’s final plan was but knowing well that they had to take down the hacker at all costs. The coated man stood tall, a smirk crossing his face. He lifted up his hands and beckoned the two hardened warriors with a twitch of his index fingers. His words were almost as cold and devoid of feeling as the man himself.

“Come and get me.”

[Szar]

Szar stood in awe of the creature that carved a swath of destruction through the surrounding area. He'd never seen anything so big; one of the hairs on its back was probably the length of a car. Iceman wasn't sure what Gamer had planted the creature here for, or if he even had at all. However, it was clear that it needed to be stopped. While the enviornment they were in was virtual, they themselves were very real. A death at the hands of the monster meant dying for keeps. And, having seen the horrors of Hell first hand--Limbo, technically, but Szar wasn't one who got wound up in technicalities--he wanted to keep as many of his friends and fellow contestants from dying as possible.

Being put up against an unstoppable force really made you question your own morality. What would death be like? Would it be painful, painless, slow or fast, there were so many ways to die. And then there was the question of what happened after, where did you go when you left the mortal plane? Did your soul ascend to Heaven on high, or into the darkest depths of Hell? Szar had the luxury of knowing where he was going, but that didn't mean that he was beyond redemption. If he managed to stop this rampaging monster here, would his ballot be reconsidered?

In truth it didn't really matter. Even if he was destined to return to Hell at the game's conclusion, that didn't mean that he would sit back and let the beast roam free. Being heroic was very problematic. It meant putting life and limb on the line for people you didn't even know, simply because it was within your nature to do so. Szar knew several people who would do that, but one wasn't here and the other had already left him alone to deal with the problem in her own way. That meant that he had to step into the hero's shoes. Looking down to his feet, wriggling his three toes, Szar wondered if he could even fit in them, much less wear them. With the sun at his back and the world melting around him, the hell-bound Icer began a full-on sprint, the monstrous leviathan towering in front of him.

As he grew nearer, the scope of the battle became clear. Aside from himself, there were three other people present. One, a blue haired girl who looked more like a princess than a fighter, was slinging ice at the monster. The air around him grew colder as he neared. She has an impressive grasp on cryokinesis Despite her commandment of the elements, she seemed very timid. Her body appeared to be acting on instinct, perhaps she wasn't entirely in control of the situation at hand? Was her power tied to stress, maybe? Szar had heard of people--gifted elementals--who were unable to tap into their powers unless under extreme duress. And the hulking monstrosity definitely qualified as a capable stressor.

Another was a man dressed to impress in the middle of a desert. His outfit was hardly the strangest thing about him, however. His hands were clutching dual pistols --Desert Eagles, unless Szar missed his guess. Floating behind him Floating? How was that even possible? was a wall of weapons. A cryokinetic girl and a boy with impressive telekinetic powers, if not for the fact that their combined attacks did little to phase the beast, Szar would have let them handle it. After all, the Icer knew every pressure point on a man's body, was well versed in interrogation and analyzation, and could drive a car and fly a plane as well as anyone, but fighting giant monsters was hardly his forté. He could use ki, certainly, but if subzero temperatures weren't enough to stop the leviathan, his ki would likely have little impact at all.

The final member of their impromptu crew was a plain, unassuming male with hair as dark as coal. Szar got the feeling that he knew this one from somewhere, but where they might of met escaped him. He was leaping impressively around the creature's head, his twin swords doing little visible damage but that was not likely his intention. He was probably trying to act as a diversion so that the two ranged fighters could do their work without recourse. An efficient--albeit dangerous--stratagem. It did tell Szar how he could be of use, however. While all three were capable fighters and were holding their own well enough, it was unlikely any of them had any formalized training. Szar's mind could come in handy here, the question was would they listen to him?

He hoped that in the face of such a crisis that they would come together, but he couldn't count on it. He would have to establish himself before he began barking orders. They would be likely to follow him if he proved that he was of more use that simply telling them what to do. He just had to figure out the best way to insert himself into the fray. If he charged blindly, relying on his fleet feet and martial prowess, he would be squashed. Three ranged to one melee weren't good odds for the tanned figure, so that was out of the question. Help would come from the most unlikely of places. As Szar stood on the edge of the battlefield, pondering how best to enter, a commanding voice sounded behind him.

"What are you doing? Are you just going to stand there?!"

Szar wheeled around and almost burst out laughing. The man in front of him was short--comically so. His ears were pointed and he was wearing a pair of yellow shorts, a red vest, and a yellow tie. His arms were crossed and his expression was that of absolute fury. Szar knew what it was like for people to balk at his appearance, but that mostly stemmed from ignorance. A changeling was uncommon, but an elf was an absolute rarity.

"I'm thinking, go away." Szar said, flinching as the black-haired man barely managed to avoid the monster's sweeping tail.

"Do you really think now is the time for thinking?" the elf hollered, standing on his tip-toes. "Grab a weapon and help!"

Szar looked behind the elf, seeing a small shanty. There was no door and weapons were literally spilling out onto the sand. How had he not noticed that? He'd ran right by a treasure trove of weaponry and he hadn't even seen it.

"Thanks, shorty!" Szar jibed, relishing in the fact that he had found someone shorter than him, before he sprinted towards the shack. Inside there were innumerable weapons, swords, axes, clubs, maces, flails, crossbows, bows, guns of every caliber. His eyes wandered to a massive broad sword at the back of the shack. It screamed for him to wield it. He'd be like a hero of legend, charging into battle against a fearsome creature with only a sword. However, when he tried to lift it he found that, while he could carry it, it would prove unwieldy. Deciding instead on an equally fearsome pair of axes that, despite their appearance, were impressively light and easy to handle. Twirling them in his grip, Szar felt some of his apprehension slip away. He was smart enough to know that weapons didn't make the battle, but he was competent his skill with them would at least do some good.

Turning back to the Terraesque, he bellowed as frightening a battle cry as he could muster, before leaping at the beast. Casually it turned to face him, its mouth opening wide, exposing rows of razor sharp teeth. Once he was close enough to feel the heat of the monster's breath, he dashed away in a flash of speed, reappearing on its back. Raising axes high, Szar slammed the weapons down. The monster's hide was like steel, and Szar's arms trembled from the reverberation of metal axe meeting hard scale.

"I'm glad I'm not the only one that happened to." a voice said from his side. Turning to face the tanned man, Szar finally realized why the man seemed so familiar.

"Hotshot? You flew an X-Wing in the third round? It's me, Iceman!"

"Well what do you know? I guess we're working together again, huh? What I would give for one of those bombs that blew up that Kill Cluster. And the name's Ander."

Szar extended his hand and Ander took it, shaking it firmly. "So what do you think we should do?"

Ander shrugged. "Hitting it in the face works well enough, I guess."

Szar laughed openly. In the face of death, this man stood unafraid. Or, he was working hard to appear un-bothered by the circumstances. "Good enough for me. I'll take left and you go right?"

Ander acquiesced, and in a flash they were sprinting along the monster's back towards its head. Szar would not let anyone here die. He would die again before letting that happen.

[Piper Juunanagou]

Although she didn’t necessarily want to drag more people into her little spat with the mysterious Magnus, Piper couldn’t help but breath a sigh of relief when the young half-saiyan jumped in to join her. Unfortunately, Juno’s presence seemed only to trigger an increase in their opponent’s strength, as if Magnus’ power was relative to the number of people trying to wail on him.

The concept vaguely reminded Piper of that drab, gothic computer game that Coop and Cruise from Beta Team played on the Internet when they were off duty. It was then that she realized how dearly she missed the majority of her fellow squad members. After all, the two privates would have been able to translate the myriad of nerd culture references inherent in Kill Town.

Juno. Piper conveyed the words telepathically, hoping that none of the other prisoners had the ability to read minds. Can you hear me?

Telepathy? The black-haired demi-saiyan replied, his telepathic voice rife with a sense of intrigue. You’re quite the, uh… multi-faceted soldier, Piper. He added as a slightly dubious grin spread across his young face.

Now’s not the time. The woman answered as she rolled her eyes. Before the soldier could formulate a follow-up, a cold, harsh voice invaded her head.

I know that you’re both telepathic, so why don’t you both cut the crap before I get bored. Based on the widening of Juno’s eyes, Piper could easily see that Magnus was telepathically speaking with them simultaneously. With a frown, the woman clenched her gauntleted fingers together and began to channel her energy as quickly as she could. Really? You are aware that I’m well aware that you’re going to try to throw that and then come rushing at me in a vain attempt to catch me off guard after I bat it away like a snowball, right?

“Fuck. You!” Piper screamed as she threw her right hand forward and hurtled the concentrated sphere of energy at Magnus’ face. The crackling orb spiraled as it zeroed in on its target, but just as he had plainly stated, the man reached out a hand and casually batted the projectile up into the air. Glaring with the utmost dissatisfaction, Piper threw her hand up and tightened her fingers into a fist. As she did, she noticed that the wayward projectile began to slow its ascent.

[I]Weird… Piper mused before Magnus appeared behind her and proceeded to slam his palm into the small of her back with enough force to remove her from her feet and send her crashing through the flimsy wall of a nearby shanty.

“Piper!” Any concern Juno may have had on his mind were diverted elsewhere when Magnus turned his attention on the half-saiyan. Gritting his teeth, the young warrior leaped back in a vain attempt to put some distance between himself and his overpowered villain. Unfortunately for Juno, Magnus was faster and soon the black-haired warrior was propelled through his very own shanty.

“Damn it,” Piper wheezed as she shoved aside the mound of debris that had collapsed onto her prone figure. Lifting her bruised skull up off the dirt floor of the abandoned hut, she managed to get a clear view of Magnus as he smacked the dust off his palms and then proceeded to casually abandon the scene. “Like hell you will!” The soldier rasped as she reached a hand forward to grab hold of the only stable section of the shanty’s outside frame. Clasping her fingers around the dented steel beam, Piper liberated the rest of her body from the rubble.

By the time Piper limped out from the broken shell of the metal hut, Magnus was already a block removed from her location. Growling beneath her breath, the soldier spread her fingers and began to craft another sphere of ki in her palm. As the energy coalesced around her hand, she noticed that Magnus came to a pause. A beat later, the man was standing behind Piper, his expression like that of a father disappointed at a misbehaving child.

“This is futile,” he whispered as he shoved the woman, causing her to nearly fall to the ground amidst her flailing struggle to maintain her balance. “All you’re doing is skipping stones into a hurricane,” Magnus chuckled as Piper reasserted her equilibrium and turned to face the man.

“You’re linked into this computer, and that’s the best metaphor you could think of?” The blonde snickered as she caught Juno lurking in her peripherals. The odd younger warrior was literally pulling rabbits out of his magician’s hat, but unlike the fluffy, adorable animals that magicians tortured for the sake of their audience, these were monstrous creatures with jagged incisors and huge, sinewy muscles.

“What are you looking at?” Magnus asked as he went to glance over his shoulder. Before the man could get a glimpse of the small army forming behind him, Piper released the sphere of ki she had been charging in her fist. The emerald bolt of energy struck Magnus in the gut and caused him to stagger backwards. In that short opening, the soldier was able to teleport a nearby revolver into her hand. Lifting the firearm, she smiled as she pulled the trigger and sent a round right into the villain’s right lung.

With a guttural scream, Magnus clamped his hands around the bullet wound and set his sights on Piper. He managed only to lift a single foot off the ground before Juno came dashing in with his staff. The first blow caught their mutual opponent in square on the back of his skull, but as Juno pulled back for another strike, Magnus pivoted his torso and closed a fist around the whole of the young hybrid’s face.

“I grow weary of this,” the overpowered villain growled as he began to squeeze down on Juno’s skull. It was at that moment that the brown-haired hacker was reminded of that there was a gun-toting soldier standing just a few feet away. With another jarring bang, Piper buried another bullet into the man’s stomach, causing his grip on Juno to waver enough for the wiry young half-saiyan to slip out and retreat a few paces.

“Now!” The impromptu magician shouted as he thrust his cane toward Magnus like a cavalry sword. At the signal, a horde of two dozen dog-sized rabbits came pouring out from behind Juno. The mob of impossible creatures descended upon their trench coat-clad target, and with an animalistic fervor, they tackled Magnus to the ground and began to tear into him like a slab of raw meat.

“Now that’s what I like to see!” Juno shouted as a grin spread across his bruised face. Unfortunately for the pair of battered fighters, the mob of bloodthirsty rabbits was suddenly frozen in a block of solid ice. With a frustrated grunt, Piper glanced up at the sky to see that Magnus was floating above the pack of iced bunnies, but despite gaining a momentary reprieve, it was quite evident that Juno’s tactic had achieved some degree of success.

Magnus’ trench coat had failed him in numerous areas, and in the case of his right sleeve, it had been completely destroyed by the mob of carnivorous lagomorphs. In a few of the regions larger were his coat had been torn away, Piper could spot rather unpleasant-looking wounds that were seeping enough blood to cause a steady series of fat droplets to pool atop the giant, bunny-filled iceberg below the floating hacker. If this were the real world, there was no doubt in Piper’s mind that Magnus would be a dead man, even if one factored out the gunshot wounds on his chest and abdomen.

“Fools,” the brown-haired man snickered as he undid the buttons on his coat and allowed for gravity to do the majority of the work involved with removing it from his person. Beneath the coat, the (oddly enough) built man was wearing black denim pants and a sleeveless black shirt. Both were heavily stained in blood and the removal of the coat provided a much more vivid look at the plethora of jagged, deep wounds that dotted the man’s upper body. “I’m afraid you can’t defeat me,” he remarked as he lowered himself down to the ground. Despite the front, Piper could tell that Magnus seemed to be a little paler than earlier.

He’s bluffing. He may be all-powerful, but he’s human just as much as you and I. Piper said to Juno as she teleported next to the younger warrior. With a nod, Juno clenched both his hands around his magician’s staff.

Guy has one hell of an HP bar... The saiyan remarked as he flashed a grin to the woman. Much to her dismay, Piper didn’t have the slightest clue what made the remark humorous, although she could infer it was probably yet another reference she didn’t quite understand.

Yea…let’s just get back to getting our asses kicked. Piper replied with a faint smile as the twosome turned their attention back to the scowling hacker.

[Celena]

She had a dagger tucked in between a black belt, both which she had picked up from the area of weaponry, and then there was the mace which was gripped in her right hand. Despite her best efforts, the heavy mace had hardly dealt any damage to the largest monstrosity she had ever encountered, known as the Tarresque, and also known as Magnus’ pet monster. As if battling the unstoppable creature was bad enough, they also had to deal with the hacker, Magnus himself. The monster was obviously capable of defending itself; therefore it seemed Magnus was there for his own pleasure.

Xenia ran her left hand through her moist blonde hair as she gazed at a copy of Moby Dick that lay on the ground near her, unable to work out why random things were appearing out of nowhere Among the couple of books that lay on the desert, were a few bottles and soda cans. What also puzzled her was that despite being on the battlefield for the past twelve minutes, Magnus had yet to attack her. He had gone past her a few times but each time, had shown no interest in her despite telling her during their previous altercation that he was going to ‘enjoy killing her’. Perhaps he wanted to save her for last, but he may not get his wish if the Tarresque had its way with her, however, Magnus’ lack of interest towards her was not only mutual, but it worked in her favour because there was a matter she had to take care of, ahead of Magnus and the beast.

With a swift flight journey, she made her way over to her sister and the young man known as Ander. “Hey Xenia,” he smiled; taking note of her screwed up face, and then trailed his eyes to the weapon she was holding in her right hand. “This situation is awful, I agree.”

The blonde turned to view her sister, who was wearing her usual expression, the sad puppy.

“Depressing, isn’t it?”

“B-But we can win, right?”

“I asked you a question.”

“You’re not helping,” said Ander.

Sage dipped her head towards the sand. “I wish you never ever had to see me like this.”

“Then do something about it. Isn’t there anything that can change your mood?”

Ander gave Sage a shifty expression. He was thinking what the blue haired girl was thinking, Valium, but she had no intention of revealing her secret to her sister, and the young man was not about to rat on her even though he felt Xenia deserved to know the truth.

Meanwhile a handful of people had managed to redirect the Tarresque away from the mansion and back towards the opposite direction while Magnus tried his best to keep an eye on the trio, Xenia especially.

This was definitely the most awkward moment of Sage’s life, so awkward that she prepared to go toe to toe with the Tarresque just to get away from the moment. Ice began to form from around her hands while Ander took steps forward. “I’ve got it.” Xenia placed her hand on Sage’s shoulder. “How about Valium?”

The daggers of ice stopped moving as she gazed at the desert in horror, while Ander had to stop in his tracks.

“Why the face?”

She knows, Ander thought to himself. Had Xenia listened to their conversation earlier? If so then he suspected that the Tarresque and Magnus were not the only things he would have to worry about, unless she was cool with Sage having kept this secret from her for so many years, and that she had told him a secret neither were supposed to reveal to anyone.

The ice resumed its formation but Xenia grabbed a hold of her wrist, wincing due to how cold her palm felt, but she was willing to bear it, just as long as she stopped the ice princess from trying to escape from the subject.

“Don’t avoid my questions. Why the face?”

Xenia’s teeth began to clatter while her hand began to sting. For the first time since she could remember, Sage meant her sister harm. She had no intention of reducing her body temperature. She hoped Xenia would let go of her and let her fight the Tarresque in order to prevent the truth from coming out.

Xenia finally let go, placing her red, right hand by her stomach, trying not to utter a cry of pain even though she was hurting. Unable to sustain the weight of the mace in her other hand, she let it sink to the ground. “Just admit it! Admit the truth!”

Sage released a shrilling cry, collapsing onto her knees.

“Admit it!”

“Nooo!” Sage cried, pressing her hands on her face to cover her teary eyes. Xenia released an effortful groan as she used her free hand to pull Sage off the ground. “Nooo!” Sage tried to pull away but her twin gripped onto her like a relentless pit-bull.

Once Xenia realised she was not getting her way, she let her go and watched the blue haired girl sprint away. Ander tried to go after her but was intercepted by the blonde who shoulder blocked him, his momentum, almost the cause of him toppling backwards. “For a reason I can’t understand, she told you and not me, and then there’s the fact that you know who I really am.”

“I’m sorry you had to find out the truth the way you did and not from Sage herself, but as for the other part, I promise, your secret is safe with me.”

“I don’t know anything about you so I can’t trust you with that secret.”

“Sage trusts me, just as I trust her.”

“But the point is that I don’t trust you.”

“You don’t understand the relationship your sister and I have.”

Sage had no idea where she was heading; she just kept running until she tripped, landing flat out on her face. After spitting out dust from her mouth she turned around to see Xenia and Ander in the distance facing one another. A bad vibe lingered, one that caused her to get up and run back towards them.

“There was a reason why we couldn’t tell anyone who we really were, but now that you know, it could be troublesome. I can’t let you live.”

“What?”

With a hiss, Xenia quickly raised her hands in length with his neck and clawed her fingers while her eyes turned completely purple. Ander used both hands to grasp his neck. “With my psych kinesis; I can kill you without even touching you.”

Ander fell to one knee, continuing to struggle while his face turned bright red.

“There’s no use trying to struggle. I’ll eventually crush your neck.”

A dagger of ice pieced into the ground, ten centimetres from Xenia’s feet, causing her to lose her concentration, eyes returning to their normal colour.

“I take it! I take Valium.!” Sage reached into her top and pulled out a tube of tablets. Tears raced down her eyes while her hands trembled, tablets rattling. “Please don’t hurt him! It’s my fault! I should have told you!” Sahe threw the tablet case onto the floor and began stepping on it. “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” Due to the dusty ground, the case did not break under her feet, only dug deeper and deeper into the ground.

“Why him?!” yelled Xenia, pointing at Ander.

“I didn’t want to tell him! I didn’t want him to know anything!”

“Gamer is supposed to be the enemy, yet I found out the truth from his mouth. If it wasn’t for him you’d have continued to hide the truth from me.” She laughed. “Ironic isn’t it? He revealed to me something that the person I consider the closest to me, kept hidden from me.”

“I didn’t mean for any of this,” Sage sobbed.

“It’s too late. You’ve already broken our promise. I can’t let anyone live to share our secret.”

“No!” Sage screamed.

Had Sage not alerted her, she would not have seen the blade poised in her direction. Ander thrust it towards her neck, but she leapt backwards.

“Stop it! Sage came in between them.

“Get out of my way, Sage!” Ander growled, but Sage refused to move.

Xenia reached for her blade. It had yet to get a taste of action, but she had every intention on utilizing it now. His blade was around two inches bigger but that did not bother her. Ander knew too much; he had to die, it was that simple.

“This is all your fault Sage; now Ander has to die because of your incompetence. I’m going to slice him into pieces. Unless he can regenerate himself which I highly doubt, even you won’t be unable to heal him.”

It was no good standing in her way because what Sage failed to realise was that Xenia intended on slicing her way through her in order to get to Ander.

[Juno]

Juno had to admit—Magnus was impressive.

Countless times, the man had done nothing but taunt them with perfected copies of their abilities. Whether it was with his ability to see Piper’s attack coming, or when he’d tried to possess Juno, or when he’d mimicked Sage’s ice technique, or the teleportation the sergeant had become slightly reputable for, it all came as a part of a very powerful package—one that Piper and Juno weren’t altogether sure that they could defeat.

He hovered menacingly above them, and slowly began to lower himself toward the sand until his feet touched the ground with a light thump. Piper opened her palm and formed an orb of ki; the fortuneteller knew it to be no use, and he was well aware that the soldier knew it wasn’t worth it as well, but he had to admit, she had some fight in her.

Perhaps he had… underestimated her. It was difficult for him to admit to himself, but in the past five minutes, Piper had shown more drive than she’d had the opportunity to show during their brief, fleeting encounters in Friend or Foe and in the revolution in Central City; and not only was it a sheer determination that seemed to make her blood boil, but it was a vengeful one, which didn’t come, it seemed on the outside, from any desire to actually do any good. It sprung from her hatred of the situation she was in, and her want to get out. In Juno’s eyes, it was perfectly selfish, starkly different from the Piper he’d imagined.

Of course, he could’ve been completely wrong about the soldier’s motivations. Perhaps being eliminated from the competition was just making the medical officer… sort of bitter about the whole situation. Whatever it was, it was making her a damn good ally.

Juno reached up and grasped the lip of his top hat, tilting it down over his eyes and staring underneath the brim at Magnus. He smirked at the entire situation; it was almost certain death, and yet he couldn’t help but feel like something was going terrifically right. Piper, is it just me or are you feeling really good about the fact that we won round one?

This isn’t the time for gloating, Juno, Piper scolded, Besides, he can hear us.

“I thought it was the boy that could see the future,” Magnus questioned, looking from the soldier to Juno. “I assumed he’d brag, but you shouldn’t call him out on it before it even happens.”

Juno raised an eyebrow, and then his eyes lit up with happiness as he thought about what was happening. Magnus, can you hear me? he projected across the telepathic plane toward Piper, expecting Magnus to interrupt their conversation. Nothing, however, came in reply except for a couple of choice expletives from Piper. He held the brim of his top hat down slightly on his forehead and smiled. Piper, it’s the hat. He can’t hear me through the hat when I pull it down.

Juunanagou, not wanting to blow their chance at deceiving the brown-haired hacker, simply looked to Juno and nodded. The ex-fortuneteller leapt forth, cane in hand, and swung at the enemy, but Magnus quickly brought a hand up to block it, grasping tightly onto the staff and swinging Juno around, releasing him in the direction of yet another building that might’ve been his grave had he not been slightly stronger than a normal human.

The hybrid looked up to find Piper knee deep in the pile of weapons. Magnus had turned his attention to her, and the black-haired warrior had seconds before the hacker was upon his ally. He quickly brought up a hand and launched a Pop, causing Magnus to turn on his heel to raise a hand and stop the blast in its course. The violet ki collided with an invisible force-field, stopping short of its target but distracting him long enough for Piper to place a military helmet on her head. It was forest green with one golden star in the middle of it, like a general’s helmet. The blonde smirked slyly as Magnus glanced from one target to another, vacillating which to kill first. How do I look, Juno?

You look gorgeous, dear, Juno chuckled telepathically, and Piper smiled broadly as their conversation went off without a hitch—no sign of Magnus anywhere in their heads. The actual, physical form of Magnus finally decided to bear down on Piper, shaking his head at the addition of a new garment, and took off in a sprint toward her. The soldier quickly clicked the straps to her helm and leapt off to one side; the hacker barreled through the air where she’d once been, disappearing quickly.

Luckily, Juno was back in full form by that time—after a brief glazed eye, he spun around and launched a punch at the seemingly empty air. His fist connected with Magnus’s face just as he appeared, sending the brown-haired man sprawling backwards, clutching his nose. “Wow,” Juno laughed, “I don’t get to do that often.”

“Forgotten how fun it was to beat a bad guy into a pulp, Juno?” Piper replied casually as she stepped out of thin air next to him. The hybrid smiled and looked to the blonde. Magnus still clutched his probably broken nose, and the pair nodded to one another, drew their fists back, and launched them at the hacker. They collided with his face—hard—and the man went flying through the other wall of the ramshackle tenement, flying into another desert alleyway. Piper wasted no time, placing a hand on Juno’s forearm and they reappeared in front of Magnus, who was sprawled out in the sand.

I think he’s going easy on us, Juno mused worriedly to Piper, making sure to tip his hat down. Piper tugged on the straps of her helmet, bringing it tightly to her cranium.

Yeah, I figured, the soldier replied. Magnus stood, rubbing a bleeding nose, and looked to Piper and Juno. The two fighters—powerful though they may have been to the normal populace—were no match for him, or the Tarrasque. His eyes flitted over to the creature, currently locked in battle with several figures. He sighed wearily; even if he did not defeat them—which he would—the Tarrasque would make short work of this… insolence.

“This is over,” he stated simply, lifting a hand. Juno’s feet left the ground, and he suddenly found his neck in the grasp of Magnus’s spindly fingers. He gagged a bit as the man squeezed, but it wasn’t enough to choke him yet; he still had Piper to worry about.

“Let him go,” the soldier commanded coolly, attempting to keep herself calm as she slowly lifted one of her revolvers and cocked it, aiming it at Magnus’s head. “I will kill you, you son of a bitch,” she muttered, biting her lip. Magnus smiled; she was afraid. Stay strong, Piper—I’ll be fine.

Magnus’s stranglehold quickly turned into a chokehold as he flipped Juno around and wrapped his arm around his neck, holding him like a human shield. “Oh, yes,” Magnus sighed, “I know you’ll kill me… but will you kill him?”

Piper grew slightly paler. It wasn’t as if she and Juno were close; they had barely met before. Yet, for some reason, she valued his life more than Magnus’s. She didn’t want to kill him, and Juno could tell. He wasn’t about to let this happen, either, though. He didn’t want to die much more than she didn’t want to pull the trigger, he knew, but that wasn’t about to stop him from playing the part he needed to play. “Do it, Piper,” he lied nobly, “Shoot.”

The gun shook in her hand. She pulled the trigger warily, hoping that Juno would be okay just like Magnus had been through her first shots; Sage was nearby, wasn’t she?

The hybrid wasn’t leaving it up to chance, though. He kicked his feet up in the air, and watched from an upside-down vantage point as Magnus’s face grew snow white. The bullet slid through his lung, exiting forcefully through his back, and his tightening hold on Juno’s throat suddenly loosened; the hybrid flew up into the air, hovering over the battlefield, as the hacker fell back, seemingly dead. Piper fell solemnly to her knees, and Juno clutched his chest, breathing heavily.

For the moment, it was over.

He slowly lowered himself to the ground, stepping lightly and gracefully into the sand before Piper. She sat quietly, and he knelt down, wrapping his arms around her in a comforting, friendly embrace. He was still, not accepting the offer but not rejecting it either, and slowly let her eyes travel from the hybrid to their opponent. Magnus twitched.

“It’s not over, is it?” Juno asked wearily, and Piper slowly retreated from his hug. “I figured as much.” The pair slowly stood, Juno standing first and holding out a hand to help Piper up. Magnus slowly balled his hand into a fist, letting grains of sand gather and then releasing him as the ground around him slowly began to freeze, until he laid on a mini ice rink, one that the two more heroic combatants stood idly on the exterior of. Frozen spikes burst from the ground, slowly lifting up into the air and aiming toward Piper and Juno. The pair didn’t flinch a bit.

“You ready for this?” the medical officer asked, looking to her companion.

“Babe, I was born ready.”

[Ander]

Ander growled with his swords poised at the ready, as he and the changeling valiantly attacked the enormous maw of the tarrasque. Iceman demonstrated a greater proficiency in his weapons handling, wielding his wicked twin axes with grace and ferocity. Ander struck at the beast’s marble blue eye, meeting with surprisingly little success. He channeled as much Adhesive ki into his feet as possible, feeling a bit like he was riding a mechanical bull and increasing the difficulty of scoring anything better than a glancing blow to the frustratingly impervious hide. The thief tried then digging beneath the eye, as if he were using a dagger to pop a stubborn jewel out of its encasement. This, too, proved ineffective. The monster took a quick swipe at its face, trying to dislodge the thief and the icer. Ander pushed off in an arcing back flip, landing smoothly on the ground, and Iceman quickly followed suit.

Alexander’s eyes glittered with realization, and once the pair leapt out of harm’s way, he released his flurry of kinetically charged swords, twitchy fingers delightfully squeezing the triggers of his gold-plated Desert Eagles. The blades struck the tarrasque in a ring of death, the bullets ricocheting harmlessly away as if they bounced against a wall of reinforced steel. It unleashed a roar of anger and discontent with the assault, and then, miraculously, Alex’s attack did what none others had achieved thus far: the swords scratched the beast’s leathery carapace. No blood flowed, but it proved that the creature could indeed be harmed. The blades then exploded in a fiery eruption of energy as the street entertainer detonated them, and little tiny pieces of shrapnel fell to the ground. Interestingly, the bits fizzled like bad television static, and reformed into their original shapes. They briefly emanated a black glow before resuming normal appearance, and at the same time, the same glow resonated on the scrapes on its hide and then disappeared as quickly as it had come about.

“There’s something different about these weapons,” Iceman concluded quickly, his sharp mind analyzing the occurrence. “The more we attack with them, the weaker this thing should get!”

“You sure about that?” Ander asked, shooting the changeling a sidelong glance.

“Positive,” the horned man replied with a firm nod.

“Then let’s get to it, Ice,” the thief agreed. “Need a lift?”

“It’s Szar,” the changeling said. He propelled from the ground and landed onto Ander’s shoulders, three toes gripping on surprisingly tightly.

“Alley-oop!”

Ander used his Super Leaping to carry the two of them back up to the monster’s face. At precisely the right time, without any instruction, Szar pushed off of the thief’s shoulders and resumed his respective side, the two melee fighters preparing to do battle again. Both immediately and correctly zeroed in on the weak spots of the tarrasque caused by Alex’s impressively dangerous sword attack, intending to aggravate the shallow scores further. The redhead, in the meantime, collected the swords up again, taking a deep drag on his cigarette as he aimed once more and readied himself to fire, working together in perfect harmony. It made Ander glad that they were on the same side this time as he briefly recalled the Armani-clad youth chasing him down relentlessly in their deadly dogfight.

Sage stood next to Alex, biding her time and saving her energy for when it would be needed most. She briefly contemplated running towards the pile of armaments to secure her own weapon, and wondered exactly what type of weapon would fit someone like her. The addict distanced herself a bit from Trafford, more than a little wounded by his aggressive words, but still certain that it resulted from him suffering as much as anyone else here, and even his harsh comments did not deter the unusual bond they had shared over his death.

However, with the tarrasque thrashing about – having felt pain, even in its smallest measurement – Szar and Ander were in danger of being smashed to bits in their daring yet foolish feat. She drew in a deep breath, adrenaline rushing through her veins as she coalesced as much moisture in the air as she possibly could, a daunting task in such a dry and unbearably hot atmosphere. The girl unleashed an angry torrent of ice, aiming for directly under the rampaging beast as the immediate vicinity was consumed by her cryokinetic influence. It faltered short of the attack’s ultimate potential, but it seemed to work. Unfortunately, in her strung-out and exhausted state, her attack misfired, originating much closer than she intended. In the midst of the confusion, a blizzard briefly swallowed Alexander and Sage, obscuring them from sight.

Ander felt a chill slither down his spine, and his body almost immediately shivered as the Arctic Wrath approached their location, submerging the area in a most uncomfortable temperature dip. Szar, having grown up in cold weather, merely shrugged off the sudden and unexpected change in weather. Ander, unfortunately, was born and bred for excruciatingly heated environments. His uncontrollable shaking caused him to lose his balance, and although he tried to hold on, he ultimately slipped and plummeted into a snow bank, losing his swords in the process. He crawled along the frost, dragging himself away from the tarrasque.

In the process, he saw a woman with blond hair approach, armed with a mace and a dagger, an unusual combination if he didn’t say so himself. The thief stood, wishing he had a weapon, but simply flashed a smile and hoped for the best.

“Come to join the fray?” he asked in a friendly tone, trying to keep his teeth from chattering. After a second, he recognized her as the woman who had been next to Sage when he spied in the mansion window.

Her cold blue eyes scoured his features for a moment. “Of course,” she eventually replied. “After all, I am the strongest one here.”

Ander repressed the urge to cock an eyebrow in the open display of arrogance. This meeting wasn’t starting out too well at all. “Feel free to take a whack at it with that little toy of yours, then.”

The woman held herself with a rigid, refined poise. “Don’t underestimate me.”

The thief chuckled, maintaining his composure despite the doubly frosty atmosphere – from both the blond and the Arctic Wrath. He put his hands up in surrender. “I have no intention of doing so, even for someone as good looking as yourself. Name’s Ander, by the way.”

She paused a moment, as if his name came as no surprise. “Xenia,” she replied curtly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go defeat that monster.”

With that, Xenia marched off, as if she were the most important person in the world. Ander stared after her, doing his best to hide his expression of disgust.

Wow, what a bitch. A little common courtesy wouldn’t kill you.

Then, a light bulb went off in his head. Sage had mentioned her sister’s name was Xenia, and it instantly clicked. After all, the physical resemblance should have made it pretty obvious, right? This befuddled Ander even further, almost to the point where his jaw dropped to the floor in amazement.

HER?! That’s Sage’s sister?

The truth of the fact absolutely blew him away.

Over the next twelve minutes or so, he contented himself with watching the fray, unable to participate in the blizzard, and simply replaced his lost weapons with a pair of long daggers, one of which he concealed in his boot and the other he tucked into his belt. The intrepid group of Xenia, Szar, Alex, and presumably Sage managed to turn the tarrasque into a different direction, although the beast crushed most of the ice witch’s glacial structures and seemed to negate the presence of her blizzard as what typically would have remained for a couple of hours melted away.

Ander finally managed to locate her, the blue-haired girl standing apart from the others, likely due to overexerting herself in the fray.

And that’s when everything started to go wrong.

He tried to play it cool, play it smooth, but somehow, Xenia had found out about Sage’s secret, and she was livid. At first, the blond hybrid approached it in a manner that Ander found remarkably similar to his own; she softly tiptoed up to the subject and then blindsided Sage with a direct confrontation. The thief had to play his cards right, or he’d screw up his position as the doctor’s confidante, and then he’d lose everything he worked so painstakingly hard for without seeing any payoff whatsoever. If she wasn’t crazy, she had knowledge of the future, and even better, she was a gilded member of a royal family. That was motivation enough.

Ander watched silently, truthfully unsure of just what to do, as Xenia verbally and physically dragged the truth out of an emotionally distraught and unbelievably submissive Sage. Her own sister. It only further proved to Ander that if you couldn’t even trust your own family, then whom could you trust? Nobody.

As quickly as Xenia aggressively confronted Sage, the blond turned on the thief, determining him as a dangerous loose end in need of trimming. He was caught off guard by her psychokinesis, and would have likely succumbed to it had Sage not intervened on his behalf. She produced a tube of pills, surprising the nomad. Where did she get it, and if she had what she so desperately wanted, why hadn’t she used them until now?

At that moment, Ander made a judgment call by deciding Xenia couldn’t be assuaged by simple words. He used an opportunity of distraction, going after her with a dagger. Sage saw him before her twin did, and alerted her sister to impending danger. The blond princess swiftly dodged, and Sage jumped between them to prevent further escalating violence.

“Get out of my way, Sage,” he growled. Xenia had openly threatened him, and made an undeniably direct attempt on his life. That seemed to be the name of the game these days: kill or be killed. He suddenly hated Bardock even more than he had before.

“This is all your fault Sage; now Ander has to die because of your incompetence. I’m going to slice him into pieces. Unless he can regenerate himself which I highly doubt, even you won’t be unable to heal him.”

The cyan-haired girl could stand in the way all she wanted, but it wasn’t her call anymore.

Before anyone could react, Xenia lunged forward, weapon poised, and she buried it into Sage’s body, ruthlessly shoving her out of the way. Ander’s mouth dropped agape, his eyes widening at the complete and total coldness of the maneuver. What was even worse, is that now their situations were reversed: she was lying wounded on the ground, and he was in the position of power. Only, in his case, he was helpless; he had no way to heal her. With Xenia still moving forward, he didn’t really have any time to think about it as he dodged her next thrust. He sidestepped and popped Xenia in the mouth with his fist.

“What kind of sick person does that?” he accused.

Although, could he really say he wouldn’t have done the same? If he wanted something so badly, needed to protect himself so strongly… wouldn’t he have willingly sacrificed someone else to get it? Didn’t he do that already? It appeared Xenia and Ander certainly had a couple of things in common.

The situation only got stranger after that. The two both positioned themselves in an even draw, blades poised at the other’s throat, and paused their skirmish as they both noticed the injured and bloodied Sage’s image blur, as if somebody poorly adjusted the resolution on a picture. And then she vanished altogether. Ander and Xenia remained steadfast in the wake of this shocking turn of events, made even more shocking as another “Sage” rushed towards them, her face frozen in pure confusion and terror to see her sister and the thief locked in mortal combat.

“Wh-what’s going on?!” she demanded breathlessly, her coral eyes riveting from face to face.

“I could ask the same!” Xenia retorted.

“Oh, you know Xenia, just messing with you again, as usual,” Gamer’s voice snickered all around them.

Ander was perhaps the most lost of them all, still not having figured out they were inside a virtual simulation.

“I made a copy of your sister’s avatar. I wanted to see how much I could provoke you,” Keith laughed. “And now that I have, let’s see how the scenario will play out a second time, shall we?”

Without warning, a blast of force blew Ander and Xenia apart, sending them slamming into the sand with a sizeable distance between them.

“…Xenia? …Ander?” Sage mumbled, seeking an answer to her obvious bewilderment.

“This is ridiculous. I shouldn’t have to explain myself a second time!” Xenia growled. She glowered at her sister, getting to her feet and marching forward. “You, sister dear, have taken Valium behind my back, and told this cretin about it, and not me, the closest person to you. Even worse than that, you broke your promise and told him our secret! Does that about cover it?”

Sage immediately looked towards Ander, and it was written all over her face that she had no idea how Xenia had found any of this out when it had transpired so shortly ago.

“If you insist on denying it again, I’ll have to repeat my earlier methods. You shouldn’t even bother; it’s already been confirmed,” Xenia said.

She looked back and forth between the two, a partially constructed lie sputtering to the tip of her tongue. “I… I don’t… I…. would never…” Nothing more produced from that train of thought, and the girl locked eyes with the thief once more, almost as if accusing him. He understood almost immediately.

“I didn’t break my promise,” he assured.

Then her expression turned to one of pleading, as if she silently begged him to give her an out.

“Ander…” she murmured.

This too, he understood. The dune dweller weighed his decision carefully, knowing that if he helped cover for her now, it would increase her trust in him. But if he assisted her in the lie, he’d be condoning an unhealthy act he simply could not allow to continue. Ander stared back with heavy resolve, and shook his head. He couldn’t give her the out. And it was for Sage’s benefit, not Xenia’s.

Thus, the addict was forced to pay the piper. Tears started to roll freely down her flushed cheeks

“I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice cracking with flooding emotion. “Please, Xenia, please forgive me.”

Xenia was anything but forgiving as she advanced. “You hid this from me.”

“I never meant for any of this to happen…” Sage implored, sinking weakly to her knees in the sand.

“You told him. You didn’t tell me.”

“…I don’t know how to explain any of it, but I’m so sorry, Xenia…”

“You broke our promise.”

“…please don’t be angry with me… I didn’t mean to hurt you…”

Ander watched the sickening display, morbidly wondering how in the world Xenia learned to produce such immediate and profound results. Still, he had trouble stomaching her aggressive nature, as he preferred to attract flies with honey rather than vinegar. Sage was completely and utterly broken, and even worse, begging as if her entire world was crumbling around her. The thief… had no idea what he was supposed to do.

“So now I’m going to finish what I started with your friend,” Xenia concluded.

The saiyan woman changed directions and launched herself at Ander, blade poised. The thief smirked in spite of himself.

Don’t try to use metal on me.

With a flick of his wrist, he had hold of her weapon, and wrenched it out of her grasp, causing her to momentarily stop her advance in surprise. The armament flew into his hand, and the blue-eyed bandit pointedly melted it in his hands, liquid steel dripping into the sand as he completely destabilized its structure.

Then his face cautioned an expression of warning. “I understand you’re upset right now, but this is not the time or the place for this. Do you want to be caught off guard by Magnus or that freak thing stomping around over there? Do you want Gamer to pull some hocus pocus on us in the middle of a fight?”

“I’ll finish you before anyone has a chance to intervene,” Xenia stated confidently.

“Listen, I don’t want to fight you. Not here and not now. But I’m telling you, Xenia, if you hit me, I will hit you back,” Ander threatened. “And don’t think just because you caught me off guard the first time that I’m a pushover, because you’ll be in for one hell of a ride.”

It was unusual for him to get so worked up over something like this. Normally he liked to verbally jab at his opponents, throw them off balance, or even to just make sport of it. But somehow, Xenia just wasn’t the right person for that. She wouldn’t accept anything less than an equal challenge, and he wasn’t about to let her walk all over him, especially with that attitude. For all of their similarities, and all of the qualities she had demonstrated he had seen in himself, she was still the same as everyone else, a high-and-mighty who thought she was better than everyone else, and she needed to be taken down a peg… or ten.

“Stop it, both of you!” Sage cried, looking as though she would tear in two at any moment.

“She started it, and I have every right to defend myself,” Ander shook his head. And then he realized just what a perfect opportunity this was to try and drive a wedge between them, and when he survived – he didn’t want to think about if he didn’t – Sage was going to need a crying shoulder, and his was already broken in. “Besides, for somebody who is supposed to care about you, she sure doesn’t act like it. Seems to me like it’s your problem, Xenia, not Sage’s.”

“Who do you think you are?” Xenia snorted. “You may know our secret, but that doesn’t mean you know anything about me or my sister.”

“I know I offered an alternative to this fight, and you didn’t take it, despite the obvious state your sister is in,” Ander pointed out. “And by the way, when I found out, I didn’t try to make her feel like shit for it. Why don’t you try acting like you care about her for once?”

“I care about her, more than anybody else does. But don’t worry. I’ll fix this once you’re out of the picture,” the blond assured.

“Xenia, NO!” Sage shouted. “Ander, don’t…”

“I’m rectifying a situation you failed to handle,” Xenia said, ignorant to her pleas. “So don’t get any ideas about stepping in.”

“Leave her out of this. It’s me you want,” Ander taunted.

[Piper Juunanagou]

With a groan, Piper rolled her eyes at Juno’s declaration as the free-floating shards of ice suddenly erupted toward them. The soldier’s formerly relaxed expression hardened as she dove to the wayside. To her right, Juno executed a quick, graceless back flip as two of the ice spikes passed between his legs. After the hybrid got back into an upright position, he burst forth—his magician’s staff twirling between his fingers as he glided a few inches above the ice-covered tarmac.

Lacking the finesse of her battle partner, Piper pulled herself up off the ground and called the revolver into her outstretched palm. Swinging her extended arm, the woman pulled back on the trigger and smirked as the bullet forced Magnus to abandon his current position. As the hacker fell back to avoid the bullet, Juno upped his speed and was able to drive the head of his staff into his opponent’s jaw. The impact caused Magnus’ legs to quaver, but before either Piper or the half-saiyan could take advantage of the situation, their adversary took the skies.

Fucker. The soldier seethed as she clicked back the hammer and tried to trace Magnus’ erratic ascent path. As the brown-haired hacker climbed higher and higher, Juno pursued—seemingly oblivious to the fact that he was being drawn into one of the simplest of traps. Divide and conquer… damn it!

Now wearing a rather deep scowl on her beleaguered features, Piper altered her aim and pulled the trigger. A few beats later, Juno came to a screeching halt as the bullet tore through his intended trajectory. Glancing down at his grounded partner, the half-saiyan tilted his head and then proceeded to widen his eyes and open his mouth in a small ‘o’—an indicator that he’d managed to connect the dots. Unfortunately, Magnus didn’t need so much time to process the situation, and before Juno was able to flee back to the surface, the hacker drove both of his heels into the youth’s skull.

A grunt escaped Juno’s lips as he was unceremoniously sent hurtling back to the ground. Gasping, Piper dashed forward in a desperate attempt to catch the falling hybrid before he was impaled upon the ice spikes still jutting up from the surface of their opponent’s miniature ice rink. Reaching her arms out as she ran, the soldier made one final, desperate dash and managed to put herself right under the falling Juno. Sadly, the woman had failed to estimate the degree of the force that had sent the hybrid crashing down to the planet. As a result, the woman’s knees buckled and she was literally smashed between Juno and the unyielding sheet of ice.

“You okay, Piper?” The black-haired fighter inquired as he rolled off the woman’s crumbled form. Standing up next to her, Juno shot a hand down and helped a groggy, achy Piper to make it back to her feet. Without responding, the woman clutched one hand to her forehead and waved Juno away with the other. “Thanks a lot,” Juno added as he leaned forward and gently patted the woman’s shoulder. With his gratitude conveyed, the half-saiyan turned around to face Magnus, who was casually waiting just a few yards away.

“Why don’t we have some fun while we still can?” The hacker inquired as tiny bolts of electricity began to dance around his bare arm muscles. Piper, who was still trying to shake the cobwebs out of her head, was able to recall where she had seen such a display before—Victoria.

This just gets worse and worse. The woman relayed to her partner as she tried to pivot and exit stage left. Despite her well-planned plot, the intensity of the soldier’s situation caused one important detail about the terrain underneath her feet to slip from her mind as she staged her escape, and just like that, Piper slipped on the ice and hit the ground hard.

Although Juno moved to help the woman to her feet, the hybrid’s efforts were stalled by the intervention of the giant bolt of electricity that managed to miss him. With a grunt, the impromptu magician threw his arms up to defend his face from the ice shrapnel. When the dust settled, Juno found himself staring right at Magnus’ smiling visage.

“Got’cha,” the hacker whispered as he grabbed by the shoulders and began to electrocute the young half-saiyan.

“Back off!” Piper screamed as she located her revolver, teleported it into her hand, and moved to shoot. But by the time she was swinging the weapon around to face its target, Magnus’ had already discarded the smoldering Juno like yesterday’s trash and was thus ready to teleport at the correct moment to avoid the projectile’s path. With a groan, Piper reached her thumb up to pull back the hammer, but as the chamber rolled to set up the next bullet, the woman realized something rather unpleasant.

Empty.

Perhaps Magnus noticed as well, because the seemingly indestructible hacker proceeded to calmly walked over to the fallen woman. Leaning over, he tore the gun from her hand and casually flung it down the street. With a frown, Piper teleported up to her feet and attempted to punch the hacker in the face, but as he had done numerous times before, Magnus intercepted her attack and shoved her back against a nearby pillar of ice. And then, he took a step forward and backhanded the woman with enough force to shatter the pillar she was leaning on and cause her to collapse into a heap on the ice-covered street.

“You’re silly, misguided attempts to bring me to justice have failed, Sergeant,” the brown-haired villain spoke. Unfortunately for someone trying to play themselves up, Magnus was seemingly unaware of the fact that his voice lacked the same force it had at the beginning of his scuffle with the two prisoners. “It’d be best if you were to just lie down and accept reality.”

“What reality?” Piper growled as she reached out a hand and slammed it down onto the frozen surface with enough force to splinter the ice down to the pavement below. Lifting her head up, the woman glared at the man who stood perched above her. To the chagrin of Magnus, she seemed to have even more determination in those vengeful green eyes, even in lieu of all the beatings and bludgeonings.

“This bullshit’s about as real as your sex life,” the woman laughed coldly as she dug her fingers into the ice. The soldier continued to laugh until it seemed as if she was having a mild seizure. “I’m sick of this stupid bullshit!” She chuckled as she clenched her eyes shut. For the last several hours (or was it a day by this point?), the woman had played along with Gamer’s little fantasy, even if she had only done so begrudgingly. In that timeframe, the woman had been mauled, burned, frostbitten, electrocuted and pretty much subjecting to every feasible form of bodily or mental torment.

But now she was finished. She was finished with all the games, all the theatrics, and all the self-obsessed wannabe gods. The soldier was through with dallying around in some vain attempt to escape or acquire her freedom. Live or die, Piper was going to make sure that she was not longer a prisoner in Kill Town or a slave to Magnus and Gamer.

“Bold words from—”

“Just shut your fucking mouth, you slimy-faced tool,” Piper snapped as she slowly began to pull herself up to her feet. With an almost manic tone, she continued to talk as she struggled tried to regain a vertical position. “None of this shit is real. It’s just the by-product of two lonely, bitter assholes with too much time and money and not enough friends. Just because the two of you got tired of sitting around masturbating to grainy videos of gay men doesn’t give you the right to kidnap a bunch of people for kicks,” the soldier rasped as the ice beneath her feet suddenly began to splinter as if the woman had suddenly gained a few hundred pounds.

“People like you disgust me,” she concluded as Magnus noticed a translucent layer of white energy forming around the woman’s shuddering body. The faint aura whirled around the soldier, causing her hair to waft as if it was being tousled by a continual breeze.

“You don’t know me,” Magnus retorted as he closed the distance between himself and the seemingly battered, defeated woman. By the time he was within an arm’s length of Piper, the aura of energy had become tangible and—like the attitude of the woman—seemed visibly incensed. Despite all the signs that something was far from normal, he just wanted to be rid of the apparently manic woman. No stupid display and neat effects were going to detract him from ripping out her spine. “You’re done,” pulling a hand back, Magnus snickered once before swinging his fist at the woman’s face.

“No,” Piper growled as her gauntleted hand intercepted the hacker’s fist nearly half a foot in front of her face. Squeezing down on the man’s fist, the soldier pulled it to the side so she could make eye contact with her attacker. At the site of the woman’s now all-white eyes, Magnus seemed to almost recoil, but before he could teleport or otherwise attempt to escape, Piper squeezed down just enough for the three warriors to all hear the sound of bones snapping in twain. “You’re finished,” she seethed as the white aura around her lithe figure surged like a freshly fed fire.

Letting go of the man’s ruined hand, Piper lifted her foot up and drove it into the center of Magnus’ chest with enough explosive force to send him sailing backwards like a ragdoll. With all the grace of a drunken street urchin, the hacker hit the ground hard and rolled across the street until his momentum was broken by a derelict car. Growling beneath his breath, the hacker teleported to a standing position and set his attention on Juno, who was now alone.

“I’m right behind you,” Piper whispered from right behind the hacker, causing him to twitch when the woman’s lips brushed his ear. Turning sharply, Magnus opened his mouth to speak but was only able to let out an incoherent grunt before the woman’s fist forced his mouth shut. Stumbling backwards, the hacker threw his head to the side and spit up a viscous mixture of blood, saliva, and teeth shards.

“No matter how hard you try, you’re not going to win this. You’re just not good enough,” the brown-haired man snickered as he wiped his chin clean with one of his forearms. When he moved his head back to where Piper had stood the moment prior, Magnus was taken aback at the sight of the beach-ball sized concentration of energy swirling in front of the woman’s outstretched hand.

I’m going to love to see how your hypothesis holds up during the experimental phase of this study. Right after Piper’s word had invaded Magnus’ mind, the amalgamation of energy erupted forth with all the rage of a woman scorned. Throwing his hands up, the hacker was able to withhold the searing force of the attack for only a few moments before it shattered his balance, swept him up off the ground, and carried him through the brick wall of a nearby structure. A moment after the energy blast vanished into the building, the entire structure simply ceased to exist as the subsequent explosion reduced it to a glorified pile of ash and sand.

“I… I think you got him?” Juno shouted from across the road. With a heavy frown, the ki-wreathed woman simply shook her head and pointed to the smoldered remains of the building’s foundation. At the epicenter of the destruction, Magnus stood with his arms hanging limply at his sides and his back slightly hunched over.

“Fo—”

Any subsequent syllables that may have come spewing out of the hacker’s mouth were silenced by the hand that clamped down around his neck. A beat later, the brown-haired man’s feet were kicking around a few inches above the ground and his cheeks were beginning to take on a brilliant shade of red.

When I escape from this stupid place, I’m going to hunt you down and remove your insides through the hole in your tiny, flaccid manhood. Piper snickered as she suddenly let the man go and allowed him to topple backwards onto his bottom. Despite the seething anger present in the woman’s voice, Magnus still maintain his rather stoic expression, although it was getting easier and easier to see how much of a façade it really was in the face of an actual threat.

“I still hold all the cards,” Magnus growled as he rubbed at his inflamed throat.

And I’m still going to kill you. Piper screamed telepathically as a malicious smile spread across her bruised, bloodied features. In tandem, her aura began to flare madly as she popped out of existence, leaving an unsettled, irritated Magnus with only a few beats to ponder where she was before he felt her knee impact his spine.

[Sage]

“Leaver her out of this. It’s me you want.”

Sage immediately went as rigid as what little remained of the ice blanketing the desert. Though tears still rolled down her cheeks, she ground her teeth as her eyes flared with anger. This was her fight, not his, and he had the nerve to shut her out of it. He didn’t even have the courtesy to tell her directly to stay out of the fight. No, she had to hear it as an order directed at her sister.

Was it because he thought she couldn’t fight? Because she was unreliable? Incompetent? Stupid? Sage seethed as the temperature once again began to plummet. What was it? Was he scared she would get hurt? That she couldn’t handle the situation? He was just like everyone else.

Sage’s lip curled as she emitted a low growl. Nobody, nobody except Belle ever treated her like she was on the same level. And, she found herself suspecting, if Belle were more attuned with social graces, he probably would have treated her the same way everyone else did.

They all thought she was an idiot. She had to choose between her sister and her friend, and the choice was hardly clear. Xenia was... she was... Sage’s anger subsided in order to give way to a confused apprehension as the idea that Xenia was wrong crossed her mind. For as long as she could remember, such a thing wasn’t even possible. Not to Sage, anyway.

Xenia was wrong, but she was still her sister. And Ander... hadn’t done anything wrong. He just listened. Maybe that’s what she needed; someone to just sit and listen. Even if she had been coerced into talking so that he could listen. Had Xenia ever really listened to her lately? Or even reaching back into the past several years?

The blue haired girl’s chin dipped toward her chest, her fists balled up at her sides, and legs pressed tight together. She didn’t know what to do. Flecks of snow flitted back and forth, and all the while the battle that raged between the tarrasque, Alexander, and Szar seemed to have muted itself in the face of this crisis.

“Xenia... w-we need,” her voice was hardly more than a squeak. If not for Sage subconsciously piggybacking what she said on her telepathic abilities, her sister and Ander wouldn’t have heard her at all. “We need to work together, or we’re... or- or we’re going to die.”

“He’s going to die,” the blond retorted, thrusting an index finger at the dark-skinned man. “I’m more than capable of dealing with this monster myself.”

“N-No,” Sage caught herself saying. “You’re not!” What the hell am I doing?! “You’re a s-super saiyan, a-and we need you. But... you can’t- you can’t do this yourself. It will kill you.”

“So, you have the nerve to call me weak, on top of everything else?” Xenia seethed. Sage tried to get a word in, but her sister propelled herself at Ander, cracking her heel across the man’s jaw, and launching him through the wall of one of the remaining, undestroyed shanties.

“Xenia!!” the littler sibling shrieked.

“Shut up, Sage!” big sister retorted, vanishing in a haze of dark light, before reappearing right in front of her with an angry right cross to her cheek. The blue haired twin hit the sand, hard, and could feel the world around her slipping away. Xenia had hit her. Though she fought to stay conscious, that was the one thought that she clung to. Her sister - her protector - struck her.

The fight, though beyond Sage’s circle of awareness, continued. Ander burst out of the shanty right behind a shiny, metal object, that bounced on the ground in front of the blonde, before detonating into a blinding, white flash.

In her daze, Xenia couldn’t stop Ander from smashing her over the head with one of his tonfa, before jamming her in the gut with his other. As the girl doubled over, he swung upward, cracking her across the chin and sending her sprawling onto her back.

The desert dweller made to put a boot on her throat, but the girl vanished, appearing behind him in time to slam her elbow into the small of his back with enough force to bring him to his knees, before a savage knee to the back of his head dropped him onto the ground.

Sage was on her knees and elbow, gingerly rubbing the spot where she had been hit. She turned her head and gasped as Xenia planted a rough boot to the downed Ander’s ribs, punting him like a football, straight back into the very same shanty she had thrown him through once already.

Fearing another violent reprisal, the azure haired girl said nothing, and remained half-sitting, half-lying down, rooted to her spot in the sand, fighting against the subtly intensifying storm that could only just barely be restrained.

The cheaply-made tin of the building Ander had been kicked into for the second time suddenly and violently groaned, before seemingly collapsing on top of the nomad. A moment later, the collapsed building seemed to be melting.

The coral eyed girl violently rubbed her eyes, and then suddenly remembered that the whole world she was in made no sense, either. It must have just been Gamer. So when the molten metal began to coalesce into a big, tightly-compact bubble, Sage simply looked on with morbid fascination.

Her brow furrowed, however, when and stood up and reached out for the floating, melted-metal ball. Her lips curled into a disapproving frown with the bubble suddenly formed a cylinder, and her face went from concern to shock when the thing exploded in size and suddenly shaped itself as a massive, fearsome-looking sword.

As it solidified, Ander took hold of the hilt with his second hand as well, and still seemed like he had a bit of difficulty with it. Sage wouldn’t blame him if he did; the thing must have been nearly as tall as he was.

But, as Ander hefted the blade and rushed Sage’s sister, the girl suddenly realized that Ander was about to cut her Xenia in half with a giant sword. The girl leapt to her feet, but she was already too late.

And swung the unwieldy weapon in a wide, horizontal arc, but Xenia gracefully ducked beneath it. Not willing to lose his momentum, Ander spun completely around, and came in with a swooping, downward slash, forcing the blonde to leapt out of the way. His attack continued, as Ander leapt into the air with far more agility than should have been awarded someone with such a massive weapon, and swung the blade down upon Xenia’s head, and was met with an abrupt and jarring clang, before he heard the sound of something like glass shattering.

Ander stumbled back a half-step, before forcing himself to lean forward as he slammed his blade into the dirt in order to lean on it. He opened his eyes to find a large pile of broken ice at his feet. The nomad couldn’t help but cast a look at Sage, who, indeed, held a palm out toward him. Obviously, she decided to intervene. And, obviously, she chose the worst possible time to do it.

Sage, however, didn’t miss Xenia clamp her hand around Ander’s throat and lift him to his feet. She didn’t miss the dark haired man drop his sword, either, or his pathetic attempt to pry Xenia’s hand from his airway.

The blonde quarter saiyan raised her free hand, and within her palm, a bright flash of energy suddenly crackled to life. Sage’s eyes widened. The girl leapt to her feet, stumbled, and then took a knee. Goddammit, why did I have to heal him?!

The bright light in Xenia’s hand flashed, and then grew brighter. She was saying something to him. Taunting him. Sage’s eyes watered. She was not going to let her sister kill her friend, just as she didn’t let her friend kill her sister. Why did the people she cared about always try to tear each other apart?!

“Stop it!” Sage managed to scream. The winds picked up, and a dark chill rolled over the desert. “Stop it, stop it, both of you!!” the petite woman found herself surrounded by a shimmering, nearly invisible cloud of mist that seemed to cling to her like a robe. She was breathing heavily, and each time she exhaled, her breath passed her lips as a jet of steam. “Let him go, Xenia,” she hissed, simultaneously projecting her thoughts at her sister, so she knew she heard. The blonde didn’t do or say anything in response. “I said let him go!!”

In every direction, spears of ice burst from the sand, erupting outward before a massive wave of ice that rippled over the desert and smashed through the flimsy shanties like they weren’t even there. Xenia had to drop the nomad to get clear of the incoming threat, and Ander somehow managed to leap over the spears and landed in a heap just inside the expanding edge of Sage’s arctic wrath. He coughed and wheezed as he worked to recover his breath, before Xenia came back for him.

A blinding, raging snowstorm swirled around the blue haired addict as her unnatural glacier continued to consume the desert around her. It kept getting colder, and colder, and the storm got more and more violent. A Long Winter, indeed.

Angrily, Sage charged ahead, leaping into the air just as a disc of ice came hurtling toward her from behind. She planted her feet on it and rocketed forward, landing on the ice between Xenia and Ander with a crash. Both of them seemed horribly uncomfortable with the vicious cold. Sage didn’t care.

“Both of you stop being so stupid!” she barked. “If you can’t work together then too bad! We have to; that monster isn’t going to wait for us to kill each other!”

“Oh, so now you think you can tell me what to do?” Xenia quipped. “You think you can-”

The blonde was not prepared for Sage to smash her fist into her jaw. “Stop it, Xenia. I trust you, you know that. But...” the girl’s shoulders sagged, and her aggressive posture instantly slackened. Ander and Xenia shook like leaves in the cold, but Sage seemed totally at home. “...I look up to you, too. I didn’t want to hurt you, Xenia. I was scared you... I was scared you would be disappointed in me.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you told him about us,” big sis retorted, hugging herself against the cold.

“It slipped, Xenia, but we can-” Sage hesitated, before glancing at Ander, who was on one knee and rubbing his arms as he fiercely shook in the cold. She turned back to her sibling. “We can trust him, Xenia. At least wait until after we get out of this- this machine, okay? I don’t care about Gamer or Kill Town or any of that. I just want to get out,” Sage offered a weak smile. “After we get out, you’ll get to see for yourself, okay? His name is Ander. Ander... Van de Velde. I... know where he lives,” she lied. “Please just give him a chance.”

Xenia did her best to glare sternly at Sage, but did a poor job, as she was freezing to death. “Fine. I’ll wait until after we get out. But I’m not working with that cretin,” the princess growled, before tossed her head over her shoulder. “Magnus is here, anyway. I have unfinished business with him,” she quipped, turning to leave, but she stopped for a moment. “Remember what I’m doing for you, Sage,” she hissed, before leaping into the air and rocketing toward Magnus.

“A little help?!” came the voice of the changeling atop the tarrasque. Fortunately, he was far enough away that Sage couldn’t actually tell he was a changeling, but she did see Ander freezing to death just behind her.

“A-Are you going to be okay?” Sage asked, reaching out to help him up. He recoiled at her touch. The girl narrowed her eyes, not understanding.

“Cold,” Ander curtly explained.

“Can you... can you handle this?” the girl asked, totally innocent of the veiled insult her words accidentally framed.

Sage used her tier 1. As this altered the outcome of a PvP encounter, this will cost 2 pp. Sage is still in tier 1.

[Ander]

So many angry and bitter thoughts sprang willingly forward in response to that innocent question, all screaming to violently rip out from his throat. Sage certainly did have a propensity for throwing salt on open wounds. But Ander couldn’t say anything. He knew that anything to come out of his mouth would only ruin what he had just fought so hard to maintain, and besides, it went against his training to show people his weaknesses, his pain… especially not to somebody who could cause so much of it.

“I’m fine,” he managed, deliberately looking away to one side. He forced himself to his feet, activating a set of spikes beneath his boots, as he did not have the energy to maintain a strong enough Adhesive to prevent any embarrassing slippage. The thief woozily stumbled forward a bit; that Metal Binding he had used on the shanty to turn it into a sword had taken its toll. Ander shook it off, refusing to look any more pathetic than he must have already seemed. Without another word, he turned around, putting one foot in front of the other and leaving a very confused Sage in his wake.

Just keep walking. Keep walking. Don’t screw this up.

And then he stopped, and shook his head.

“N-no,” he said firmly, and turned back around. “No, y-y-you k-know what, I’m n-n-not fine.”

You’re totally gonna screw this up.

“I-I already knew you w-were stronger than me. You d-d-didn’t have to r-r-rub in it my f-f-face,” Ander continued. “Your s-s-sister didn’t think much of me and I guess y-y-you don’t either.”

“Wha-?” Sage sputtered. “W-what are you talking about?”

“I would have b-b-been f-f-f-fine on my own. I d-d-didn’t your help!” Ander snapped.

“She… she would have killed you!” Sage replied, her own volume rising.

“T-t-then I would have died!” the thief declared angrily. “And at least t-then I would have done it with a l-l-little bit of dignity.” He left off what would have followed, about being somebody’s pathetic charity case. “Xenia challenged me. My f-f-fight.”

“Y-yours?” she accused, irately. “Xenia is my sister, and… and this was about me. It… had nothing to do with you… and you… stepped in first.”

His blood felt like liquid ice rushing through his veins, and every second that passed was a second harder to stay upright. Sage moved forward again, as if to assist, and he equivalently moved backwards in turn. “N-no, d-don’t take another step. I-I don’t need you to h-heal me. I will be j-j-just fine on my own.” He hugged himself tightly, trying valiantly and miserably failing to maintain some semblance of body heat. “I-I’m n-n-not h-helpless, a-and I-I don’t need you t-t-to s-s-save me.”

“Ander, Xenia… she was holding back… she…” Sage attempted to explain. “She’s much stronger than that…”

Ander tried to chuckle through his chattering teeth. Why couldn’t she just quit while she was ahead? He felt smaller and smaller with every single word.

“S-s-s-so what? I-I-I would have f-f-figured s-something out. I-I’m not weak,” Ander insisted. “Y-y-you think I am, d-d-don’t you? But I’m not! S-s-so just g-go take your power and s-save somebody else!”

The girl furrowed her brows. “Listen… I don’t even know where this power came from. I…”

“S-STOP!” the thief shouted, squeezing his eyes shut. “Y-y-you don’t get it, do you!?”

“No, I don’t!” she fired back. “Weren’t you the one… who thought I was weak? You… you didn’t even give me a chance to work through this with Xenia.”

The thief swayed unsteadily, struggling even for something as basic as air without it freezing in his lungs; he couldn’t take much more of this. “H-h-how many t-t-times have I-I told you I know you’re s-strong? S-s-since the day we f-first met. I-it w-wasn’t that I d-didn’t think you c-could… I d-d-didn’t think you would. You b-b-begged her forgiveness wh-when you sh-should have s-s-stood up to her. Y-y-you didn’t see how c-committed s-she was… s-s-she didn’t s-stop, even for you. A-and it w-wasn’t you s-she w-was trying to k-kill, it was me. I d-d-don’t need anyone th-thinking they c-can own me, and n-now she d-does. I-I c-can’t stand p-p-people l-like her… a-a-and I-I’ve w-worked so hard… t-to shut t-them up… a-and y-you just…”

And with that, he forced himself to stop the floodgates that threatened to completely overbear him. He’d said too much already, after swearing that he wouldn’t say anything at all. He was an idiot, a complete and total idiot. Had he learned nothing from his past mistakes?

“F-f-forget it,” he mumbled.

“I…” Sage said, her tone softening. She sighed, placing a hand to her brow. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to fight. I… I know exactly how that feels. Everyone around me… they just think I’m… this helpless person… that I must be stupid or fragile… that I can’t do anything for myself. I… I get so tired of it. I… didn’t mean to make you feel that way. I just… everything is so…”

A thunderous roar interrupted their conversation.

“Y-y-you should go. I-I’ll be alright,” Ander insisted, glad for any excuse to end this pitiable display.

“But you’re turning blue…” Sage protested.

She started forward, closing the gap between them. As she drew nearer, he felt it get colder and colder, as if that were even possible at this point.

“No, don’t…” Ander meekly objected, aware of something she obviously was not.

The addict put an icy hand on his shoulder, and even such a light touch sent a searing burn through his nerves. It was just too much. His blue eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he collapsed.

When he awoke, he felt warm sand under his back and hot rays of sun on his skin. Kill Town certainly provided him with plenty of moments to get knocked out and wake back up again. Unlike the many prior occasions, however, he felt like a million bucks, as if he had just gotten about a week’s worth of sleep after having been beaten to a bloody pulp. He glanced around, and immediately noticed the pale-skinned culprit. Sage, still powered up with her odd misty coating, kneeled patiently next to him.

“I… I know you said you didn’t want me to heal you, but…” she said. “I couldn’t… you would have…”

Ander sat up with a grunt, brushing himself off as he stiffly moved to stand on his own two feet. “Don’t worry about it,” he interjected calmly. He plastered his typical grin on his face, though it came a little forced under the circumstances. “Let’s just… forget about the whole thing, okay? Once we get out of here, neither of us will have to worry about it at all.”

“Okay,” Sage agreed, somewhat relieved that she didn’t have to suffer yet another unwanted confrontation.

He wanted so badly to believe that either of them could simply just forget it… forget that Xenia had ended up putting a dent in his plans, forget that he had done the one thing he swore he’d never do by talking about himself, forget the frustration and resentment that slowly festered within him, and forget that once again, despite his resolve, Sage had healed him.

The thief surveyed his familiar surroundings; they hadn’t moved too far in their humid prison, he noticed. To one side rested a spacious patch of glacial ice, and to the other, the tarrasque freely rampaged. Ander couldn’t help but wonder exactly how Sage had gotten him all the way over here, but it was a pointless curiosity. The two of them made their way over to the monster, once again in effort at providing support to their fellow beleaguered prisoners.

“And just where did you two go?” Alexander asked, weapons still aimed and ready to fire.

“Got a little sidetracked,” Ander shrugged. “But no worries, we came packing a little extra power this time.”

In their absence, it appeared as though the tarrasque had been weakened considerably as Trafford and Szar nicked its resistance down little by little, a combination of the redhead’s impressive psychokinetic abilities and the changeling’s relentless physical battering.

“Care to join me up here?” Szar called down from above, still whaling on the monster’s face with his dual axes.

“Nah, I think I’ve got something else in mind,” Ander hollered back. He glanced at Sage. “Show ’em what you’ve got.”

She nodded, and Ander quickly bolted off, charging towards the beast at a full clip. Despite his insistence to simply put the past behind them, the thief felt compelled to prove something, something he had been trying to prove for so many years, what he really should have put to bed years ago and refused to let go. He gracefully dove over a swiping claw that moved to bar his path and perhaps take him out of commission, and Ander easily dodged and moved to the other arm, knowing that the tarrasque couldn’t move two frontal limbs at the same time or risk losing balance. The nomad planted his palms on the warm, leathery skin, and instantly started to draw on its immense power. He felt the energy absorb and collect into his fingertips, rejuvenating him like a battery being recharged. He took as much as he possibly could without overdosing, and then broke away, nimbly zigzagging away from the creature until he was a decent distance away.

He sucked in a deep breath. He had never tried this before, in the very short window of time that he had had this ability. In fact, he honestly didn’t even know how to bring it about, or if it was even there at all. But he had to show them. He had to show them that he could do something. Something more than what they thought he could.

He spread out his fingers and touched the tips together, a motion he thought perhaps might allow him to focus better if at least most his body remained a closed circuit. Ander reached within his core, to the place where his ki reactor resided, and searched for an unfamiliar entity that he prayed lie dormant somewhere inside…

…and then he found it.

He smirked, and brought it forward, sparing no withholding.

They didn’t notice at first, but relatively quickly, his temporary allies realized that the ground beneath their feet was shaking, and jagged spears of rock started shooting out of the earth, directly towards the belly of the tarrasque.

[Szar]

Szar forced himself to continue his attack on the Terraesque. He'd been fighting savagely since Ander decided to take a hiatus, apparently having some dispute with a blond woman and the blue haired cryokinetic. Having been forced to take up Ander's slack only served to make an impossible obstacle even more impossible to oppose. He was moving slower, reacting slower, and striking with less force. The Terraesque was ignoring him entirely, in fact, content with stampeding around, crushing buildings underfoot. Szar imagined himself as a fly on the back of a much larger beast, a fly that was growing tired of not having any marked success in his efforts. Trafford had managed to wound the creature, how Szar's confidence had swelled when he saw the monster could actually be injured. The blue-haired girl, when she was fighting, was also able to slow the leviathan's progress. Even Ander had done well enough on his own before Szar arrived.

Now the Icer was left to try to keep the beast's attention, and he couldn't even do that. It was infuriating. He was a Changeling, and despite his attempts to distance himself from the stereotypes that surrounded his people, he was still furious at his inadequacy. The Changelings had once enslaved entire races, bought and sold entire worlds. Szar was a disgrace. He tried to remove himself from his culture, and it had done nothing for him. His training, his talents, they were useless if he lacked the drive to use them to their full extent.

He'd become a police officer because he'd wanted to help people. To capture a criminal and know that you made the streets safer, that was an incredible feeling. But those were regular civilians, people too weak to defend themselves from the world's torments. The contestants in Gamer's game were a different sort entirely. They had abilities and gifts that Szar could only dream of having. Their powers made his look insignificant, useless. So his mind was sharp, what good did that do? Careful planning couldn't stop this monster.

Brute force was his only option.

He needed power, power enough to make himself useful. To impose his presence upon the Terraesque, he needed an ungodly amount of strength. But it wasn't there for Szar to call upon. The blue-haired girl, the one he'd thought wasn't in full control of her powers, had returned from the confrontation of Ander and the blond entirely different. Her body was veiled in a thick mist, and freezing cold surrounded her on all sides. Her command over the frigid temperatures had grown considerably, as well as her ability to manipulate ice as an offensive tool.

It was then that Szar noticed something unfamiliar. The ground was shaking. It had been already--each step the Terraesque took caused the ground to tremble--but this was different. The earth wasn't merely shaking, it was quaking. The fact that they were in a desert and it was freezing was strange enough. Was this another glitch in Gamer's system? The world around them was already deconstructing, melting away into nothing. Trampled houses melted into a viscous liquid, which was then absorbed into the sand.

Trying to figure out what was going on consumed Szar's entire concentration, so much that he didn't see the Terraesque's claws raking towards him. The creature slammed its foot into Szar painfully, and the Icer was sent rocketing through the air. His grip on his weapons was lost as he flew, and Szar cursed his inability to fly. Just another flaw he'd never overcome. The ground was growing closer now, and Szar was moving too fast to stop himself. His mind was frantic but his body just wasn't responding. His will to continue left him, and he was grateful that he blacked out as soon as he slammed into the unforgiving sand.


"Today, class, we're going to cover Transformations."

Szar looked around, he was back at the Academy on Kajin Rala. His class was small, there were only four other Changelings on the Kajin Ralan police force. They were ordered to undertake lessons on how to tap into their latent potential. They said it was because in order to be able to fight properly, they needed to be able to understand all of the subtle nuances of their bodies. Szar looked to the notebook on his desk, picked up his pen, and began scribbling down whatever the instructor said.

"As you know, all Changelings are born with the ability to manipulate their body structure. Some are able to do this from a young age, others take years, and some never learn to do it at all. The last category is highly rare, though, so we won't cover that here.

It's not yet fully understood what is required to be able to transform, whether it's hereditary or not is also unclear. However, studies are ongoing and we hope that, in a few years time, we will have a better understanding. Until then, we have to go off of what we know, and what we know is this: Changelings who transform are some of the most formidable warriors in the galaxy. Their powers are inhuman, legendary, and entirely within your grasp. Should you complete this course you will have all the understanding necessary to take your place among the legendary."

The Professor stepped down from his podium, turning to the whireboard behind him. Pressing a button on the wall lowered a screen from the ceiling and dimmed the lights.

"This is you." Signaling another student with a wave, a projector turned on and a slide of a person took up the entire screen.

"Everyone is born with ki. The amount you have to work with is determined by the strength of your parents, as well as several other arbitrary factors. Your ki is stored here," he waved again and the projector clicked to a new slide, this one of the same person, only their stomach was glowing purple. "The colored portion is where your ki is stored, it has several names but we'll just call it...your center, or core. There are several channels that run from your core to the rest of your body, their width entirely dependant on heredity.

For example, if your father is able to call upon his Ki easily, chances are you will, too. The inverse applies as well, if your father can't control his ki well, you're likely to struggle with it as well. There are exceptions to every rule, of course, so just because your father is good or bad at ki manipulation doesn't guarantee that you'll be good or bad at it, either. Anyway, while there are channels that are always open, there are some that have blocks or obstructions. These channels, upon opening, will release an incredible amount of ki into your bloodstream, enabling you to transform."

Another wave, and another slide clicked. This one showed the same person, stomach colored purple, with several veins running from the core to the various body parts. A few veins were visible, but they had red lines running through them. "These lines represent the blocks in your ki stream. Let's see what it would look like if they were removed..."

Again the projector clicked and the same image was shown, but the person's entire body was colored purple. "As you can see, if you can remove the locks on yourself, you can access an incredible amount of power. Next week, we'll assess each of you individually and design a lesson plan to teach you how to remove these obstacles. Class dismissed."

Szar groaned as his eyes fluttered open. The sun was hanging just above him, pounding him with heat, and he was sweating. Getting to his feet proved difficult, but eventually he did it. Climbing out of the hole he'd made was even harder, but after several failed attempts he finally did that, too. His body was battered and tired, but he knew he couldn't just lay there, as much as he wanted to. The dream of his days at the Academy was still fresh in his mind. He'd been told that his ki channels were blocked, but that they were flimsy barriers. He had been told that it would only take a few months for him to transform.

Years later, he still hadn't been able to do it. His professors were baffled, saying that he should have been able to easily overcome his limitations. In spite of their constant urgings, Szar gave up all thoughts of transformation and instead focused on the rest of his studies. Now he was wishing he hadn't given up. If he had been able to transform, he'd easily be able to defeat the Terraesque and prove that he wasn't useless. Instead, he was laying in the sand, sweating like a pig, while others stronger than himself did all the work. They would likely die, the Icer was sure, but at least they would die fighting. An honor that Szar had been denied when he himself had died. But, he was alive again and he would not be denied the same honor twice. Closing his eyes, he let himself slip into an intense meditation. Complete concentration would be required if he was going to have any measure of success. The sweltering heat, the pain that burned through his entire body, everything slipped to the back of his mind as he let himself relax.

He envisioned his ki as a box with holes in the lid. The holes let his ki out, but only in small amounts. There were several padlocks on the lock box, and Szar focused his entire being on them. He probed them with his mind, testing their constitution and construction. They were sturdy enough, but upon closer inspection the Changeling found one of them to be slightly weaker than the rest. He willed it with all of his being, urged it to open and give him what he so desperately needed. He begged it to open, and when it didn't obey he tore into it with fervor. It did not budge an inch. Furious now, Szar refused to give up. He needed this power and he would not be denied! He was a Changeling, this power was his birthright! He ordered it to open, demanding its utter obedience, as his people had done so many times before. And, unbelievably, it obeyed. The lock fell away and Szar broke his meditation, grinning victoriously as he opened his eyes.

His body felt different, his chest was burning and energy leaked out of his skin, begging to be released. He was more than happy to oblidge it. With a roar he brought the full of his ki to bear, his body engulfed in a brilliant purple fire. His body began to change, his skin glowing brightly. Muscles swelled on his arms and legs, and he felt himself growing. Bones cracked and stretched as his body continued to morph. After several painful minutes, the process stopped, and Szar was amazed with the results. He had grown impressively--he was at least ten feet tall, now. His body was thick with muscle, and his pride was soaring. This was what it meant to be an Icer, to be the best. He could make a difference now against the Terraesque, but he had to make a quick stop first. Surging forward, the Icer sprinted back towards the town. His body felt different, no doubt it would take some time to adjust to his new form. He'd been used to having short legs, now he covered great distances with a single stride. He was used to looking up at people, now he would look down at them. Everything was as it should be.

Ahead of him, the Terraesque came back into view, as did the shack that contained an armory's worth of weaponry. Stopping just outside of it, he stepped inside and strode confidently to the far wall, to a weapon that had begged to be used. Gripping it with one hand, the Icer plucked the great sword from its place on the wall, marveling at how light it was now. A hero of legend needed an equally impressive weapon, Szar knew, and this one would do nicely. Setting his sights on the Terraesque, he sprinted back toward the battle, eager to test his powers out firsthand.

[Juno]

Although none of the three fighters—Piper, Juno, or Magnus—had an HP bar hanging loosely over their heads, it wasn’t difficult to tell that this battle was winding down. Eventually, someone would lose. Someone had to. The problem was, no one was willing to give up. Not the dynamic duo that Piper and Juno had become, nor the sinister, extremely powerful persona that Magnus had proved to be. This fight—well, it was a boss battle to end all boss battles, to say the least.

Piper’s knee collided painfully with the brown-haired hacker’s spine. His feet lifted off of the ground, and he flew, much like a ragdoll, out of the rubble and back into the sand. Juno smirked, looking down at Magnus as he struggled to recover from the woman’s attack.

“Get up, Magnus,” the hybrid chuckled, moving back to stand next to Piper, “Get up and fight.” The hacker slowly lifted himself up, shaking his head and laughing quietly at the foolishness of the cocky fighters behind him. He glanced over his shoulder, almost as if to make sure they were still there.

“You really don’t get it, do you?” he asked, and Juno and Piper’s expressions suddenly turned quizzical. “I’m all-powerful. No matter what you do, I’m only going to get stronger.”

“You’ve got some nerve talking like that with all those bruises we’ve been giving you,” Piper spat, placing her hands on her hips. Magnus laughed louder, and slowly turned on his heel, holding out his arms. He looked almost as if he was in a crucifixion pose, and slowly, the reddened wounds he had sustained began to disappear. Piper’s eyes grew wide, and Juno stared at the hacker in shock. All of it—for nothing.

The last cut closed tightly, and Magnus’s skin looked good as new. He was still lethargic, worn from the battle, but this last display was quite clearly his message—there was absolutely no hope left for them if he could bite back every punch they threw.

“That little piece of knowledge comes from the same friend who taught me how to throw lightning bolts at you,” Magnus smiled, and Piper bit her lip—Victoria. The hybrid glanced at the blonde, but she didn’t dare take her eyes off of Magnus as the sand around him began to rumble. Juno’s gaze followed Piper’s, and the two stared in awe as the ground beneath him shook. Within seconds, the tremor had reached the pair, and they braced themselves, not about to break their stance for a little earthquake. Magnus’s lips curled into a sinister smirk as he opened his palms. “…well, well, well. Something new for me?” he giggled, and the ground shook once more, “Courtesy of Ander, it seems.”

A patch of earth beneath Magnus’s feet slowly separated from the rest of the planet’s surface around it. The platform rose out of the ground on a column of rock, and within the minute, the brown-haired combatant stood several meters above his opponents, arms still outstretched, laughing maniacally. The sky grew grey, and slowly but surely, a red aura slipped around him. It began to flicker with the bits of Magnus’s power he was now activating for the first time. Piper’s expression slowly grew more and more hopeless, and Juno’s face followed suit.

He stared, dumbfounded, up at the newly powered-up Magnus. His muscles slowly expanded, and his arms now looked not like those of a scrawny hacker, but rather those of a warrior the stature of Ander or Kaden. His hair billowed in the artificial wind created by the sheer circulation of his power, and his booming laugh continued to echo across the desert. He looked down at his prey, and let his eyebrows slowly droop and his lips slowly curl upwards until his expression was more sinister than Juno and Piper had ever seen it. He burst off of his column of Earth, flying at lightning speed towards the soldier. She held up her arms to block, but he was too powerful, grasping onto her shoulders and pushing her into the ground. They flew, Piper’s back grazing against the rough sand, for several seconds before he tossed her up and she crashed into the wall of another ramshackle hut, and slid down the side of the building.

Juno was awestruck; his jaw had dropped slightly, and he stood frozen in the heat of battle. Piper looked up, her aura of ki still swirling around her, albeit a bit weakened. Magnus knelt next to her, and was forced to take a deep breath to keep himself from chortling so much it cut off his breathing. He was enjoying himself.

Slowly, he placed a hand just above Piper’s breasts, on the top of her chest, and the spot where he touched lit up green. The sergeant’s eyes popped open, and she stared, empty, at Magnus, the ki slowly being drained from her body. Juno vaguely remembered Belle doing something similar during the Mass Result event, and he knew that whatever it was, if Belle could absorb as much energy as he did, then Magnus—leagues stronger than any of the contestants—could potentially kill Piper.

His fist clenched, but he didn’t know why. He could sit there, let Piper die—but he’d be next, wouldn’t he? He could run. He was sure that Magnus wouldn’t waste his time with someone so… measly. He could go and help fight the Tarrasque; perhaps if he did that, then they’d get out of here quickly. They could escape Magnus completely, with Piper having given a noble sacrifice to the cause. Nodding to himself, accepting the soldier’s death, he turned on his heel and began to sprint away.

But before he got further than five steps away, he stopped.

He breathed in, and then glanced over his shoulder, his other hand slowly closing into a strong fist. “Stop,” he demanded loudly, and Magnus let go of Piper for a split second, standing and facing the hybrid, who still had his back to the hacker.

“And you expect me to just listen to you,” Magnus laughed, “Just like that? Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill her now.” He slowly lifted a hand and let electricity encircle his forearm. He was prepared to keep to his threat.

“I’m the reason,” Juno stated confidently, “If you don’t let her go, I’m going to kill you.” Slowly, Juno turned around, his hair hanging loosely in front of his darkened eyes.

“You can’t touch me,” the super-powered ‘boss’ said matter-of-factly. The hybrid bit his lip; he really should’ve walked away when he had the chance. Something compelled him to stay, though, to protect Piper—almost as if she was his friend. The hybrid knew that wasn’t true; he’d never really cared for Piper at all before today, and even now, he was having trouble believing her new mindset came from anything other than the distinct lack of reality around them. If this was real—if Magnus was real—would she have been so easy to threaten him? Or was Magnus real? That would prove a point.

“I beg to differ,” the ex-fortuneteller rasped. He opened is palms, letting his fingers grow rigid, and planted his feet. Let’s see if I’ve still got this.

A violet aura exploded around Juno, and particles of sand slowly floated around him. Gravity was cancelled by the power the hybrid emitted as he slowly charged up. His hair began to float away from his eyes, slipping upwards into a spiky form. It waved back and forth before stilling, and the hybrid roared as his eyes opened wide, his hair turned firm, and his power reached its peak.

“You think you’re powerful because you’ve got our powers,” the powering-up Juno screamed, “You know nothing about what people like us can do! You’ve got some flashy moves, you think you know us? I’ve got some news for you, Magnus—you’re wrong!!” The hybrid’s aura burst from around him, being replaced by a golden one. His hair slowly faded from black to gold, and his eyes rolled, replaced by teal irises.

Magnus didn’t seem impressed. The hybrid tapped further into the wells of his pure Saiyan energy, letting the air around him roar. The golden flame that encased him blazed like pure light, and the hacker slowly raised a hand and shot forth a constant bolt of lightning.

The Super Saiyan wasn’t about to let a simple lightning bolt stop him, however. He bellowed with all his vocal cords could muster, and the electricity parted as it collided with the sound waves, slipping around Juno on both sides. Magnus scowled; this might be a bit more difficult than he had originally intended. Not much, though, he knew.

Much to his surprise, however, Juno didn’t waste a moment. A fist collided with the hacker’s cheek, and the man stumbled to the side as the other fist slid into the bottom of his jaw in a piercing uppercut. Magnus was sent flying into the air, and Juno kicked off the ground, bringing his leg up to the hacker’s crotch. The powered-up hacker reacted swiftly, reaching down and grasping onto Juno’s foot, but the Super Saiyan brought up a palm and launched a quick Pop into Magnus’s face, sending him flying to the ground.

The hacker quickly got up, but meeting him when he got to his feet was a rejuvenated Piper Juunanagou. Freshly rested thanks to the golden boy’s attacks, the sergeant launched a fist at Magnus. He was ready, however, and caught it swiftly, and then caught a quick vision thanks to the Foresight he’d stolen from Juno. He brought up another hand, grasping Juno’s fist as it approached at lightning speed. The three warriors formed a triangle as Juno and Piper fought against Magnus’s hold with all of their strength, and Magnus pushed all of his own into blocking Juno and Piper.

“We’re going to kill you, Magnus,” Juno whispered through gritted teeth, “You’ve lost all chance you had for mercy.”

“I doubt I had a chance in the first place with you, Juno,” the hacker smirked, “Thankfully, we won’t be encountering that crossroads, because I’m going to slaughter the both of you first. Prepare to die.”

“That was so lame,” Piper mocked the hacker, “Nobody ever says ‘prepare to die’ anymore.”

At that, the three warriors jumped back in unison, wiping their brows as they rejuvenated their energy before the next assault began. The hacker looked down at the sand, and then back up at the sergeant and the ex-fortuneteller. “I hope you two know what you’re getting yourselves into,” Magnus smirked, “Because if you think you can defeat me with some flashy lights and making your hair turn blonde, you’ve got another damn thing coming.”