Khellendrosiic

Digging its feet into the ground, Eve wheathered the concussive wave and the following onslaught of radiation. A chunk of car sliced into the Devoured's side and left a gaping wound in the mutated monster. Eve screeched in pain but held its ground. Adam was slightly better off, the radiation slowed it down further and the concussion tore off strips of skin but it kept advancing anyway. The Swarm was completely obliterated, but that wasn't very important. What was important was that Adam lobbed a ball of acid spit at the small crater that Atomic had made.

****************************************

Chertak hissed in pain as he was too slow to pull back his hand and was cut across the top of the hand. His hand reflexively opened and the pistol dropped to the ground. The Warmaster pulled back another couple of steps and pulled out its warblade again.

"Small green thing: Very impressive. But I: Shall win this," announced Chertak as ihe lifted up his sword in preperation to strike. But then he suddenly straightened and groaned loudly as CptCommie's rounds dug into his rear armor. The actual bullets themselves barely manged to penetrate the Rikti's advanced armor but that was all the penetration they needed as the shards of mercury stabbed deep into Chertak's flesh. Only the Rikti's natural toughness prevented Chertak from going down right there and then. Instead, Chertak dodged to the right to avoid any follow up rounds and then fell to his knee, one hand planted on the ground for stability. Panting heavily, the Rikti commander cast a burning gaze up at CptCommie's position.

************************************

Titan AE reacted just as quickly as before to the onrushing rocket. It's defensive options reduced, the Titan fired at the approaching rocket with its machine guns. The rapid firing weapons proved to be quite effective as an anti-missile system and quickly blew the weapon out of the sky. Titan AE only wished it had thought of using its machine guns like this before hand so that it could have kept its arm.

Then the gravity attack hit it and the giant machine groaned in protest as its superstructure attempted to hold up one and a half times its weight. Knowing that if this kept up it would be torn to pieces, the Titan locked all avaliable weapons on the gang's position. This time, it would obliterate the entire building.

"Target lock-locked," stuttered the Zeus Titan. "Cannon cha-charg-charging. Fir-ir-ir-ir-ir-ing."

Forty missiles, one plasma beam, and about 300 bullets shot toward Johhny and his pals.

OOC: You can decide how the increased gravity effects Titan AE's accuracy. Use your imagination.

OOC: Chertak is fighting Podo. The thugs are fighting Titan AE after losing two of their number. Atomic is fighting Adam and Eve and CptCommie joined and is currently not doing much. You're still being attacked by the remaining Gunman and the Mentalist. I'll post stuff after you do something.

Chertak's sword slammed into the ground where Podo had been, leaving some cracks in the asphault. The Warmaster ignored the bullets that spanged and pinged off of his armor. Obviously the attacker underestimated the strength of Rikti metallurgy, otherwise he would have fired many more more powerful rounds. Flashing the unseen gunner a human thumbs up gesture, Chertak took a few steps away from Podo and pulled out a repulsor pistol.

"This: Now ends," Chertak said before he pulled the trigger.

****************************************

Eve screeched and teetered backward under the assault of the radioactive beams. But the Lesser Devoured recovered quickly and jumped behind Atomic Firecracker. It pulled back its arm and then brought it up in a devastating uppercut.

Adam seemed to whither slightly as the radiation affected it. Its movements slowed, the creature knew it would not be able to close with its enemy any time soon. So, opening its mouth wide, Adam exhaled a swarm of insects that buzzed around in front of it and then headed straight at Atomic. Many of the bugs making up the swarm perished due to the radiation and their super fast metabolisms but enough made it through the radius to severly annoy Atomic.

*************************************

The second missile went forth and dived at Titan AE's lightly armored control cluster. The Titan contemptuously swatted the rocket aside, breaking off its left arm at the elbow, and took aim at the exact spot the rocket launched from.

"Target locked. Cannon charging. Firing."

The white hot beam of plasma lanced forth right at Erik's location.

OOC: It's not you, it's the lack of action. People like to fight. Handily explains why this thread sunk despite its RP potential and why my explosion heavy Coliseum is booming. *shrug* People.

Turning back toward the main battle, Titan AE has but a moment to notice and block the oncoming missile. But that moment was enough and instead of blasting a hole into the Titan's reactor compartment, the rocket blasted a huge chunk of armor off of its left forearm. The plasma cannon in that arm was ruined but the second cannon was still operational. To prove this fact, Titan AE extrapolated the rocket's trajectory and took aim at that location.

"Target locked. Cannon charging. Firing."

A blazing beam of pure heat shot out of the Titan's muzzle and lanced toward the building the Family was hiding in. But, luckily for them, the Titan guessed wrong and the building next to them exploded, showering chunks of concrete and debris everywhere.

Chertak cursed as Podo jumped over his slash, forcing the Rikti to roll forward to avoid the slice that he knew was coming right at his own head. Rikti armor was not made for feats of acrobatics and they fact that Chertak was able to quickly spring back to his feet was nothing short of miraculous. Hands tightening on the hilt of his warblade, Chertak raised the weapon high and brought it down in a chop that Podo would have no chance to block. Rikti warblades might be a bit unwieldly, but they were very heavy.

OOC: Titan's have pilots? I thought they had autonamous AIs.

BIC: The Gunman fell limply to the ground, his neck turned into so much ground beef as the bullet richoted around inside his armor.

"Treachery!" roared Chertak as he spun around and looked to see where the shot had come from.

"Target locked," stated Titan AE as its torso rotated and its missile launchers pointed to where the Family Hitman was lining up his next shot. An instant later the Titan was obscured in a cloud of exhaust as the missiles fired all at once and lanced outward. The Hitman had enough time to start to scream before he was engulfed in fire along with a chunk of the audiance.

"Well look at that, folks!" cried the announcer. "Looks like someone forgot to put up the crowd shields. Wel, I guess those people got their money's worth! Ha ha!"

Snarling, Chertak unlimbered his repulsor gun and took aim at Becky. His remaining Gunman followed suit and they both fired at the charging hero. The Mentalist crouched behind a ruined car and sent a powerful mental blast at Becky.

Meanwhile, Adam and Eve were tracking Atomic down by following the painful green beam back to its source. By the time Eve jumped on top of the car Atomic was taking cover behind, the relatively slow moving Adam had a long black scar running down its left arm and across its chest.

"FooUUnnddD yUUooO," gurgled Eve as it tried to bludgeon Atomic with its massive limbs.

******************************

The guard looked CptCommie and his minions over and took a look at his ID. Tapping a control on the side of his helmet, the guard had a brief conversation with someone on the other end. At length, the guard handed Commie is ID and slapped a control, causing the door to open. The guard silently hooked a thumb toward the beginning battle and then lifted up his other hand. He held up five fingers and started counting them down.

"Here we go leadies and gentlemen!" started the announcer. "Our second to last fight for the night! And if you thought the last fight was a doozy, well, you haven't seen anything yet! First of all, let's introduce the visiting team. First up: The green skinned swordsman from down under; don't let his size fool you; it's Podo!"

A spotlight flashed on and highlighted Podo as the crowd alternately cheered and booed.

"Next we've got Miss Attitude herself; don't insult her 'cause she'll cut your legs off; Becky Morningstar!"

Another spotlight came on a silhouetted Becky.

"Returning from our last fight, we've got the man without the plan; but hell, he doesn't need one because he's a giant rock! Goro the Stone King!"

The cheers Goro got were perhaps the loudest of the ones so far. Apparently quite a few people had bet on the giant slab of granite.

"And here's one for the old school! He's rough, he's tough, he's brought his whole damn gang with him...Johhny 'The Knife'!"

Johhny had a whole little section that cheered him on louder than any other part of the audiance. Presumebly that's where most of his other gang members were sitting.

"And last, but if you call him least he'll make sure you'll never have children. That radioactive glowing green menace, Atomic Firecracker!"

The cheers were a bit quieter this time.

"And now for their opponants! Let's get them out here!"

There was a loud rumbling from directly under Podo's feet. The goblin jumped away from the center of the arena just as a huge crack split it. A section of the floor split apart and a platform from below came up to fill the gap. The first glimpse that was seen as the platform came up were the massive shoulders and bullet-like head of a Zeus Class Titan. As the platform shuddered to a halt and joined seamlessly with the floor of the arena, the other enemies stepped out from around the legs of the Titan.

"Down on the ground, we've got the Lesser Devoured siblings, Adam and Eve! Right behind them we have a regular to the Coliseum, the Rikti Warmaster Chertak and his trio of commandos! And towering above them all is the Malta representative, the Zeus Titan A.E. 4000!"

Warmaster Chertak raised up his massive warblade and saluted the crowd. Despite humanity's universal hatred of the Rikti, the crowd cheered just as loudly for him as they did for any other hero or villain. Lowering his blade, Chertak looked over at the other fighters. His soldiers, a pair of Headman Gunmen and a Mentalist, took their places next to him. Adam and Eve moved to flank the Rikti line and Titan AE took one earth shaking step forward.

"And now to demonstrate the latest wonders of holographic technology, introducing the bombed out buildings of Dark Future Paragon!"

With a shimmering and the sound of bacon frying, buildings and cars appeared around the fighters. The street under foot looked and felt just like the real deal and the area looked like a perfect representation of Steel Canyon. But this was one seriously messed up Steel Canyon that had popped up. There were more broken and shattered skyscrapers than ones that were still standing and even of those few intact ones they were in horrible disrepair. Burning cars and glass from broken windows littered the streets, as did other debris that made the place look like a riot and a war had recently swept through. The only thing missing to complete this dismal scene were the bodies. Each team was located on an intersection with a large six lane road leading down the center, providing an open line of fire for each team. Tall walls of rubble marked the perimeter of the fake city scape where the arena's real walls were.

"Now that we're all ready," shouted the announcer, his voice gone tinny as though heard from a great distance. "Let's fight!"

"Alright folks!" sounded the PA system over the entirety of the Coliseum complex. "Our next fight is about to begin! All fighters, head to your sides! And if you're on the visiting team, you know who you are, then head right on out for your introductions!"

OOC: Atomic got an A-2.

Down in the secondary ready room...

"Preparations: Complete?" asked a rumbling voice.

"Affirmitive," replied a deeper, electronic one.

"WeeEEee ArrE ReeAadyy," gurgled something unpleasant sounding.

"May this arrangement: Be profitable," said the first voice.

In response there was a heavy clanking noise and the whirr of servos. Then the sound of something very heavy taking a step.

"As always," said the mechanical voice.

OOC: I've always liked doing that sort of thing.

The cold-charged bullets splattered over Khellendros' fire shield as the Malta soldiers opened up on him. Cursing, Khellendros threw himself to the ground. Then, again cursing his automatic responses, the hero pulled himself to his feet and charged straight at the guys who were shooting at him. A creepy looking guy ran right past Khellendros but the hero was too busy trying to grapple with the Malta.

Kicking aside a bush, Khellendros uncovered one of the Gunslingers. Shifting his energy from sword form to the less elegent fist-wreathed-in-fire form, Khellendros slammed both fists down on the Gunslinger, knocking the soldier to the ground and burning him badly.

"Who else wants some?" shouted Khellendros as he dove at the man with the blowgun.

OOC: Alright, if you've already got an ID, just walk on in to the next fight. I'll post the bad guys when everyone's ready.

BIC: The guard looked down at Podo after giving Becky one last look.

"Yeah, squirt, I can help you with that," the guard said. "Judging as how I haven't seen you around before, I think you'll need an ID. Little Miss Attitude here can show you where to test out, after all, she's an A-3."

His spiel done, the guard leaned back in his chair and watched a couple of guys in primitive exoskeletons removing the rubble of the wall and preparing to slap on a patch.

Hearing a shout, Khellendros IIc spun around and lifted up his fists. Focusing slightly, a wave of fire spread out from his chest and engulfed the hero, protecting him in ways his armor clad body could not. Then he made a flicking gesture with his right hand and a sword of fire grew into his grip.

"Who's out there?" he yelled. "Come on out with your hands up and I won't have to come in there!"

"Damn," Khellendros muttered as he walked along. "I hate nature."

Sighing again, Khellendros kicked a fallen branch out of his way and kept walking. If he kept heading in the same direction, eventually he'd get out of this damned forest. Khellendros IIc was completely oblivious to the watching eyes of the Malta operatives as he shoved another bush out of his way and kept walking.

OOC: Next fight: who's up for it?

OOC: Good thing for Johnny's opponents that the Coliseum is held underground.

BIC: Chuckling at Coldfire's misfortune, Andraxus was distracted and thus a bit slow to dodge Jord's attack. Jord's clenched fists hit the archmage right in the stomach. Thanks to the protective magicks embued into his robes, he didn't get his guts knocked over the wall behind him but he did double over out of breath. With a follow up kick, Jord sent Andraxus flying into the wall where, once again, his robes saved him from dying. But he was still knocked out and his medi-porter activated, whisking him away. Sensing their freedom, the amorphous Shadow Beasts dissolved away, intent on regaining their home plane.

Ducking under another of CptCommie's grenades, Captain Farfield saw his last ally go down and decided that enough was enough. With a farewell curse, the Arachnos operative signaled his surrender and was teleported away. Being a part of Farfield's team, the last Longfang was also teleported away right before it could deliver the final blow to Iosif.

"And there we have it, folks!" shouted the announcer. "We have our winners! Let's have a round of applause for Jord, Goro the Stone King, Iron Fist, CptCommie, and Coldfire!"

The audience did just that, although the fighters down in the lower ring couldn't tell, as the audience was removed from them by several layers of titanium for their safety. As silence fell over the arena floor, one of the large entrance doors slid open and a power suited guard beckoned.

"Come on! You can come get your reward money in here, just clear out of there fast!" shouted the guard. "Don't got much time until the next fight."

From behind the guard trooped out several odd looking robots. They proceeded to move about the arena, cleaning up blood, bits of metal, and shell casings. One robot even busied itself adding more sand to the craters.

******************************

The testing wasn't very hard. Just do some exercises, show off any talents, and shoot some targets. The gang was awarded an A-4 classification and informed that they could either wait and watch the next fight or take place in it.

Something Lord Recluse will never get to say:


"MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!! I have killed Statesman! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!"

[ QUOTE ]
Lord Recluse, Mako, and Ghost Widow walk into McDonalds...

[/ QUOTE ]

...only to find Black Scorpion playing around in the Kiddie Play Area. Specifically the little plastic ball pond thingie.

GW - "So that's where he goes after work."

LR - "Someone get me my camera!"

BS - "Yaaaay! Fun!"

OOC: Whoops. Forgot the mafia.

BIC: The shaken guard stood up and brushed some dust off his shoulder with a trembling hand. He muttered something about his contract not covering this kind of crap before he woke up to Atomic and Johnny's prescense.

"Uh, yeah," he mumbled. "Right. The current fight is just finishing up so you guys won't fight in that. What you should do is head on down to the testing rooms, which are on the hallway to the right. Uh, what else? Oh, yeah. You can either test as a group or individualy. Or both, whatever. Just remember that if you want to fight with a different group then you have to get tested with that group. Or maybe they'll just guess how powerful you'll be then."

***********************************

Andraxus calmly watched Coldfire charge at him. Smirking, the archmage called up from the ground several rocky pillars that surrounded and imprisoned the hero. The rocks slowly constricted the hero, trying to crush him into a fine powder.

"Fools!" shouted Andraxus as all three fighters converged on him. Twisting a portion of his staff slightly, Andraxus blinked away. He reappeared two dozen feet away and watched with amusement at what would happen.

OOC: So, Freaks down, Arachnos still tangled with Commie (who hasn't posted yet), and Andraxus is all thats left.

The rock-hard fist slammed into his helmet and sent Khellendros IIc sprawling to the ground. Sending a jet of fire from his hand toward his attacker, Khellendros bought enough time to pull himself back to his feet.

"Trolls," he spat. "It's always the god damned Trolls."

Concentrating, a flickering aura of flames grew up around his armor and pulsed, searing the flesh of the Caliban that had hit him with the sucker punch. The Troll grunted and bent over as if in pain. Grinning under his helmet, Khellendros formed a blazing sword in his hand and stepped forward to put another Troll out of its misery. He didn't expect the giant stone mallet that the Troll came up with just as much as he didn't expect that very same mallet connecting with his head would hurt so damned much. As his world narrowed to a single point of light, Khellendros just hoped, as he always did, that his medi-porter would work.

**************************

Khellendros' eyes jerked open to see a dingy grey ceiling above him. Instinctively, he triggered a wave of fire and then jumped to his feet, anticipating the worst. What he saw disappointed him. A large, grey room greeted him. A room with no furniture except for a large, glowing purple portal sitting across the way from him. On the wall next to it was tacked a piece of paper. Not knowing what else to do and figuring whatever trap he tripped wouldn't be worse than what he'd encountered before, Khellendros walked over and read the paper.

'Welcome, brave fighter,' it read. 'You have been selected to entertain me in a grand tournament where you will fight beyond your limits so that I may be appeased. Consider it an honor. Be prepared to visit this room often as you shall only escape when your power has reached its limits. The portal you see will take you to the Battle Planet where your opponents await you. Gather allies if you wish, but in the end all will come down to one. The winner will be granted omnipotent power. Let the games begin!'

"Someone's got an inflated ego," the tanker snorted. "Typical villain stuff. Might as well get this over with."

Brushing a bit of dust off of his shoulder, Khellendros stepped into the portal and fell face first into a forest. The armored figure crashed through the canopy and broke more than a few branches in his descent. With a great thump, Khellendros hit the ground, causing a cloud of dust to waft up around him. Sitting up, Khellendros shook his head and realized his helmet had fallen off. Eyes widening in horror, he frantically cast around for it. Thankfully, the horned helmet was lying up against the roots of a nearby tree. Putting it back on, the hero stood up and surveyed the surrounding area.

"Great. A forest. The last thing I need is Smokey popping up and telling me not to start forest fires."

The pair of Rikti shoved the other guards out of the way as they trained their weapons on the Jump Bot. The AP rounds that would have penetrated even the super advanced Crey armor merely inconvienced the alien metal. The Rikti shielded their companions and followed the Jump Bot's movements until it paused, about to jump again. At that moment, both Rikti fired. The combined plasma charges blew a hole the size of a basketball through the machine's torso. The Jump Bot crumpled to the ground and then the room went silent.

One of the Rikti walked over to the Jump Bot and shot it in the head.

"Foolish enemies: Destroyed," it stated. "Payment: We will expect: At a later date."

The guard commander looked at the bloody remains of the one guard whose medi-porter hadn't activated in time and shook his head.

"God damn. The crowd would've poured money out the wazoo to see this fight."

OOC: Eh, if you wanted the Jump Bot to have itself a medi-port just say so and I can change this.

"What the hell is up with you villains!" cried the guard commander as the rounds from the MP5s forced him back a couple of steps.

Smoothly, the two guards on the ends of the semi-circle jumped into the air, bounced off the ceiling, and landed slightly behind and off to the side of the Sky Raider group. Both power suited men carried a large pulse rifle and their first target was the Jump Bot.

Two other guards went to one knee and fired their beam rifles at Weston. The purple-blue beams were aimed directly for Weston's jetpack. The commander and the last guard were armed with flamethrowers and they used them to wash fire over the front ranks of the Sky Raiders.

One of the Rikti was knocked flat on its back by the grenades, but the second one managed to weather the blasts and turned its repulsor gun on the Sky Raider grenadier. The greenish-black ball sped at the Raider as the unarmored guard ducked behind Atomic Firecracker, causing the carbine round to miss.

Toy Dispenser sighs again and idly watches a power-suited hero activate his rocket boots and zoom away down the elevator that Toy wanted to use. Draining his drink in one quick slurp, the android slaps the can down on the bar, crumpling it, and jumps out onto the dance floor. He makes a loud thump as he hit the ground and a couple of dancers stagger away from him. After all, a seven foot tall man of metal weighs quite a bit more than your average human, despite all his advanced polymers and light-weight metals. Jerking his head back and forth to work the kinks out of it, Toy Dispenser calls out to his minions and the six robots quickly surround him. Pointing to different spots on the raised platform in the middle of the dance floor, Toy sent each robot to a position. Then, they started dancing. After a moment, Toy copied them.

Coldfire's fireball exploded, shaking the arena to its foundations. The two Skulls and the lesser Freaks were propelled into a wall and their battered and broken bodies showed what happened if you didn't spring the cash for a Medi-port. Shouting in rage, 7h3 74nk stumbled back a few feet from the rumbling and then swung his hammers at Goro. However, the Stone King had been knocked off his feet by the minor earthquake and instead of crushing a stone head between his mallets he instead crushed the chest of one of the Longfangs that had chosen that moment to finally show up. The mortally wounded Arachnos disppeared in a flash of light as his health beacon triggered. The remaining Longfang regained his balance long enough to lash out at Iosif, who, with his cover gone, was in a prime position to be punished with a quadruple helping of titanium spider leg pain.

Caught off-guard by CptCommie's stunt, Farfield stumbled to one side and fell onto his back. Shaking his head, the Webmaster saw Commie training his gun on his damaged armor plate and did the only thing he could do; roll over. The armor on his back was fresh although it still took a pounding from Commie's barrage. Two of Farfield's spider legs were also shot off, reducing his weaponry by half. Enraged, Farfield scrambled to his feet and lunged for CptCommie's legs, hoping to take him down and then tear him to pieces.

*********************************

"What the hell!?!" shouted the guard as the Sky Raiders came bursting in through the wall. "Security! We've got a breach at entrance four!"

A second after the black suited man screamed into his mouthpiece, a few panels in the ceiling burst open and a couple of power suited figures jumped down from them. All told, about half a dozen guards wearing Crey Power Suits surrounded the Sky Raiders and, ominously, a pair of Rikti Gunmen stood behind them, their matte black armor absorbing the light and their guns glowing green.

"Put your weapons down," said one of the guards in a not unreasonable tone of voice. "If you want to fight, we can arrange it, but there are better ways to introduce yourselves then to come in through the wall. Now, lower your weapons and put your hands behind your heads."

The unarmored guard looked over at Atomic Firecracker and looked like he was going to nudge the villain in the side but quickly decided not too.

"Hey, you want to sign up, right? Give the guards a hand if those guys try to fight and you'll definately score some brownie points with the Old Man."

********************************

Back in the arena, the sand golem flew through the air at Andraxus and the mage seemed startled that Jord had so easily deflected his minion's attack. But his confidence reasserted itself as the golem dissolved back into sand as though it had hit an invisible shield around the Archmage. Pointing his staff at Jord, he gestured for her to continue.

"My Shadow Beasts will keep our mutual aquantince occupied for a while, my dear," he said. "But come, let us see which is better, the closed fist or the crystal staff."