Post by Hyoza on Aug 9, 2014 22:20:44 GMT
Hyoza had finally arrived in a town. After days having encountered only a small handful of Earthlings, it was quite a shock to see so many together min one place. It was hardly a bustling city, but here there were signs of technology that had put Earth on a footing that allowed them to negotiate such an event as the Centurial Conference. Weakling humans sped about the place in strange hovering vehicles, chattered to one another in the street, and spent money they no doubt earned performing menial tasks in the shopping mall. Perhaps the most surprising of all was that, aside from a few fearful or angry glances, nobody really seemed to care that he was even there. Indeed, he had seen a fair few earthlings who did not appear to be human themselves, but behaved exactly the same as the rest of the inhabitants, and did not seem to get any particular attention from the more 'normal' townsfolk. The earthlings were in fact a surprisingly varied bunch - with furred, animal-like beings wandering around dressed in the same clothes as the humans, who to Hyoza really just looked like slightly more colorful Saiyans, sans the monkey-tails. Though he did see one Earthling directing traffic that looked an awful lot like an Oozaru, only smaller. An unusual planet, to be sure.
He could sense a handful of above-average auras, but they were in the strange region where they were too powerful to be a strong fighter masking their aura, and not high enough to be a strong fighter leaving their power visible to all. Hyoza concluded they must be amateur martial artists of some sort - they probably weren't even strong enough to channel ki consciously. Hyoza was quite interested in finding out where the strong fighters around here went to train, but he couldn't read the earthlings' language yet, so street signs weren't much help to him, and none of the humans seemed very interested in talking to him.
So, he wandered about town for a few hours. Looking in at shops, watching the hustle and bustle of the earthlings' little lives. It was actually quite relaxing to just explore like this, with no threat of battle. Hell, Hyoza had a little money, he figured he'd try some Earth cuisine. He looked around for a while, before settling on a somewhat fancy-looking (compared to the others he had seen, anyway) restaurant. It was nothing on some of the places he'd been to on Arcose, but it seemed the sort of place to serve the more refined food and drink these Earthlings were capable of making.
He took a seat at a little table overlooking the town square and waited for service. Not long after, a small black-furred creature with pointed ears and spectacles approached him, dressed in a neat black formal suit.
"Good day, sir, what can we do for you?" Hyoza smiled, now this was more like it.
"Yes, I can't actually read your menu since I'm not from around here, and even if I could read it, I imagine I wouldn't know what most of the dishes are. S, how good are you at recommending dishes?"
"I've been complemented on my selections before, sir. What kind of flavours take your fancy today?"
"I'd like something savory, but juicy at the same time, you have shelled animals on this planet, right?"
"Of course, sir. The lobster is very good here."
"Yes, alright. I'll have a lobster, whatever that is, and something sweet and rich to drink. I'm looking to relax and enjoy myself."
"Very good sir, I think I have just the wine to complement the lobster. Shall I bring your drink before the food?"
"That would be acceptable," Hyoza finished, in what was actually quite a polite response for an Arcosian, though the waiter seemed somewhat irked by the seeming rudeness expressed by the diminutive, horned alien. Still, he bowed, and went to fetch the wine, which soon came back, with a fine crystal glass and a polished chrome bucket full of ice to keep the bottle cool. The waiter poured a glass for Hyoza, then bustled off to attend to other patrons.
Hyoza leaned back and sipped at the surprisingly delicious wine, looking out of the window at the bustle of the streets below. For quite some time he just sat and watched, gradually making his way through the wine. It was very relaxing, and he was almost annoyed at the interruption when his food arrived. Almost.
The meal was a large, red-shelled creature, smeared with some kind of greasy cooking fat. Almost the size of Hyoza's arm. It was surrounded with green, leafy salad. The scent was divine, and Hyoza happily plucked off one of the creature's pincers and bit deep into it. The taste was just as good as its scent promised. He continued to happily devour the meal, shell and all. If he'd cared to look around, he might have noticed the crunching sounds and generally 'uncivilised' (by Earth standards anyway) manner in which he was eating were attracting some unhappy looks from the other patrons. But he had soon finished the meal, and returned to the wine.
But not long after he had resumed his relaxing drink, he sensed a number of powerful auras heading towards the town. Within minutes, a group of four familiar figures had entered the restaurant.The doorman had attempted to stop them, and got tossed across the restaurant for his trouble. The poor man crashed across Hyoza's table, scattering cutlery and smashing his wine bottle. The patrons of the restaurant had gone eerily silent - just watching and waiting to see what would happen next.
"'Sup, traitor," said one of the group - an athletic, purple-skinned Brenchian. Hyoza vaguely recalled his name was something like Kamoli. With him were three other former members of Ghirash's pirate crew. A large machanoid known as Primax, a tall and powerfully-built Beppan with grey skin and a number of cybernetic augmentations built into his skull called Naise; and of course, the man himself - Captain Ghirash.
Hyoza had never figured out what Ghirash's race was. His skin was a pale lavender hue, he had no nose, a mohawk of reddish-orange hair and long, pointed ears. In most other respects he was quite similar to an Earthling. Of course, his appearance was made all the more fearsome by his custom suit of battle armour - furnished with scores of kill-markings, and decorated with various rings looted from dozens of worlds he had raided. And then there was the eyepatch. He was a good head taller than Kamoli, and built like a statue of an ancient war god.
Hyoza knew they'd kill him for what he had done - left them stranded on a planet to die. Of course, he hadn't thought they had any hope of escaping, or he would've taken his chances floating in space rather than betray Ghirash. The pirate had a bloody reputation that was very well-earned. He'd killed hundreds of warriors one-on-one, not to mention the number of weaker foes he had slaughtered en masse. Back when he still had a Scouter, Hyoza had measured Ghirash's power level to be even higher than his own fourth form. Even though Hyoza had become significantly more powerful since then, it took time to transition through his forms to reach his most powerful, and he doubted the avenging pirates would give him the luxury of transforming. Then there were the other three - the most powerful members of Ghirash's crew, apart from Hyoza and the Captain himself. Kamoli and Naise were around the same power level as his second form, and Primax was almost as strong as Hyoza's fourth.
Between the four of them, there wouldn't be enough left of Hyoza to fill an egg cup. Still, it would be a shame to spoil the lovely restaurant any further.
"Gentlemen, let's take this outside, shall we?" Hyoza said, rising to his feet.
"And why would we do that, coward?" Sneered Naise in his rumbling baritone.
"Because the food here is damned good, and it'd be a waste to blow it all up in some silly brawl,"
"Ain't nothin' silly about this, Hyoza," growled Ghirash, speaking for the first time. "We're gonna cut you up so small the worms won't even have to chew."
"And I'm sure once you've done that you'd like to have some tasty chow after your long journey, so let's go outside." Hyoza smirked. Ghirash grinned, baring teeth that were mostly coated in various expensive metals, and nodded.
"Traitors first," he said, gesturing for Hyoza to pass him.
Hyoza swaggered past, hoping he wasn't swaying too much after drinking so much of that wine. The waiter tried to say something about a bill as he walked past, but the manager silence him with a hiss.
"Quiet, man. It'll cost a lot more to rebuild this place than we'll lose if he doesn't pay for the damned lobster! Let them go." He sighed as the five aliens left the way they came.
Once outside, Hyoza walked straight into the middle of the town square. The pirates followed closely, until the pirates and he were facing each other down across the square - a large concrete platform surrounded by recently-mowed grass.
"Got anything to say for yourself before we vape your bony ass?" Ghirash said, grinning again. The guy got off on violence, Hyoza was sure of it.
"Not really. But out of curiosity - how in the hell did you get off that planet?"
"Fought our way to their spaceport and stole a ship. Lost a lot of the crew doing it, too." Ghirash said, his expression turning grim. "You know, the Warglaive was a damn expensive ship. Was mighty careless of you to get it blown up like you did."
"Well, what can I say, I preferred not dying. The minute we took off we got hit with artillery and there was no way we were going to escape."
"Like you even tried - you were too busy trying to save your own slimy hide. You know, you Arcosians are all the damn same - a bunch of self-serving, arrogant backstabbers..." Ghirash went off into a rant, a vein in his temple throbbing as he slowly got himself angrier and angrier. The other pirates were watching the Captain with amusement as his temper began to heat up. This was Hyoza's chance.
Without a moment to lose, Hyoza rushed into the act of transforming, unleashing his ki as quickly as possible, his body deforming and expanding as he grew into a towering hulk. Ghirash noticed and hurled a ki blast at him, which Hyoza managed to sidestep, before firing off his Brave Gatling technique into Naise's brawny torso. The Beppan collapsed with a groan, and did not rise again. However, this served only to make Ghirash even angrier, and the three uninjured pirates swooped towards him, hurling their own ki blasts. Once again, Hyoza dodged Ghirash's and Primax's blasts, before slamming his tail into Kamoli's, batting the sphere back into the smug little Brenchian's stupid lilac face. With a bellow of pain, the second of the weaker pirates collapsed to the floor, smoke rising from his now badly-burnt hairdo.
Hyoza then leapt over Primax and Ghirash, firing yet another set of red beams into the mechanoid's exposed back, knocking the machine-creature to the ground for a moment, but Ghirash spun up into the air and smashed Hyoza into the ground with a hammer-blow from his fists. He got to his feet, and narrowly avoided a kick to the head from the now-recovered Primax, but was forced into the path of a gut-punch by Ghirash - undeniably the more powerful of the two. Hyoza collapsed again, unable to speak, as his former crewmates stood over him and raised their hands, red orbs of energy forming at their splayed fingertips.
"Fitting that we kill you with our signature attack, I suppose," sneered Ghirash, preparing to fire. Hyoza simply looked on, battered and with blood oozing from the corner of his mouth.
Then, at the last second, as the pair fired, Hyoza leapt into the air with blinding speed, firing his own barrage of weak ki blasts into the ground, pulverising the concrete and kicking up a huge cloud of dust and smoke around the group. He also deliberately shattered Ghirash's Scouter, preventing the pirate from tracking his energy.
"Brave Gatling is a stupid name for an attack!" He bellowed as he hurtled away to hide among the buildings of the town. LUckily, this bought him a few moments as the pirates attempted to find Hyoza in the billowing smoke. Unleashing yet another barrier on his ki, the Arcosian metamorphosed into his third form, taking on a more saurian posture, his head elongating, as his face becoming a bestial snarl. He was hoping he could even begin the transformation into his third form, but apparently the energy spike had set off Primax's internal sensors, because the silent mechanoid was upon him in seconds, and due to his artificial construction, Hyoza could not sense its aura.
Now more powerful than before, and with Ghirash nowhere to be seen, Hyoza actually managed to hold his own against the powerful machine-warrior, blocking and dodging most of its blows, and even managing to land some of his own. Hyoza managed to land a powerful kick to Primax's chest, which sent him crashing through the front of a jewellery store. As the mechanoid recovered, Hyoza began to charge his Brave Gatling technique. By the time Primax was flying towards him again, Hyoza had charged enough to hopefully puncture the machine's armor. he unleashed the cluster of blood-red energy beams, and to his delight, they lanced straight through the machine's chassis, emerging on the other side before dissipating.
Primax stood on the spot for a moment, totally still. Hyoza hoped he had crippled some vital system, but his hopes were dashed as the machine took a lurching step towards him - its self-repair mechanisms kicking in. Angered, Hyoza flew in and delivered a thunderous headbutt to the droid, slamming it into the tarmac of the road. As the machine labored to get back to its feet, Hyoza wrapped his tail around its neck and tightened, slowly crushing the mechanical skull.
"Die already, you blasted machine!" He seethed through clenched teeth, his coils now so tight it was causing him pain.
There were a number of crunching sounds and a strange mechanical whirr, before the machine went rigid, no longer struggling against the constrictor-like coils of the Arcosian's tail.
"Not bad, whelp, but still not good enough! I can rebuild him, but nobody's gonna rebuild you!" Gjirash's voice boomed from high above. Looking up into the sky, Hyoza saw Ghirash looming high above the buuldings, a massive sphere of orange ki energy building in size above his head. Hyoza could sense enough power there to level the entire town and reduce it to a dusty crater. Fortunately, such attacks were slow.
"I'm stronger than you remember, Captain! You won't kill me like that!" He said, laughing. Truth be told, however, it was false bravado - Hyoza knew all too well that in his current form the blast would vaporize him as easily as the puny Earthlings of the town. His only chance was to transform - though his final metamorphosis took much longer than all the preceding ones had done. Knowing this, he began to break the seals on his aura, red lightning crackling around him as cracks began to form in his skin - baleful crimson light glowering from deep within his rapidly-disintegrating body. Seeing what he was doing, Ghirash released his blast early - the enormous globe of destructive power descending on the town, bathing it in orange light.
Just as the orb began to brush against the tops of the buildings, disintegrating them as though they were not even an obstacle, Hyoza exploded. An enormous wave of ki energy burst out of his body, and in a blaze of red light, his body burst, fragments flying in every direction and burning up into smoke. Then, from the ash, rose Hyoza in his most deadly form of all - sleek and athletic, similar in outline and size to his first form, but far more streamlined and somewhat more muscular. The newly-transformed Arcosian shot up into the sky like a thunderbolt, slamming a palm into the enormous energy ball and firing a ki blast of his own, that sent the attack back the way it came with incredible force.
The sphere shot up through the atmosphere and off into space, such was the energy Hyoza now wielded with almost pathetic ease. But Ghirash was not afraid - he had seen this form before, and calculated its power to be less than his own. Surely, the Changeling traitor could not have grown so much stronger in so short a space of time that he could now pose a threat to the Captain?
As if to prove Ghirash's beliefs wrong, Hyoza whipped through the air and slammed a kick into his ribs with bone-crunching force. The pirate was stunned by the power - the little runt was now almost his equal! He aimed his own retaliatory punch, which was dodged by the speedy little alien. The two began to trade blows at a furious pace, the impacts of those which landed ringing out like thunder across the town, as the people below gathered to watch the battle in the sky.
The pair traded blows, parted, and exchanged ki blasts instead. Their powers were very closely-matched indeed, and though Hyoza might have a slight edge in terms of his raw power, Ghirash more than made up for the disparity with greater experience and fighting skill. They were blurs of barely-perceptible motion to onlooker, stunned by the immense power contained within the two beings fighting above them. Of course, most of them had heard of fights like this, but few had ever seen them actually taking place. It was, truly, something you had to see to believe.
After a particularly bruising kick from Ghirash, Hyoza was knocked back through the air. He took advantage of the distance and charged the Brave Gatling technique again, firing it off quickly, shredding through Ghirash's now mostly-useless armor. Ghirash was not slowed, however, and headbutted his treacherous former first mate with a deafening impact. dazed, Hyoza lost control of his flight for a moment, and dropped like a brick, slamming through the roof of a building before regaining his senses, laying in a pile of rubble in the structure's basement. Standing up and dusting himself off, Hyoza bolted back up into the air, slamming a fist into the Captain's jaw, who was apparently surprised by the speed with which his opponent recovered from the impact.
As he recoiled from the blow, Hyoza followed up with a kick that sent his foe hurtling away, before once again charging up the Brave Gatling attack.
"Why did you give it such. A. Stupid. Name!?" He roared, unleashing the barrage, which lanced through his foe's prone body, leaving the one-time terror of the space lanes with a half-dozen smoking holes punched through him. The pirate choked for breath, his lungs filling with blood, as he dropped to the ground, landing on the edge of the town square, among the bodies of Naise and Kamoli. Hyoza flew in after the fallen warrior, hovering just above the ground, looking down at the now-dying pirate.
"You... Did good... Always figured you'd be the one to - " he coughed up a spray of blood, before his eyes glazed over, and he moved no more. Hyoza leaned down and closed the dead Captain's eyelids. They were enemies in the end, but Hyoza knew he owed his life to the man many times over, and he would pay him some respect now their battle was over.
Looking around, Hyoza saw people all around, just standing in the streets, staring at him. He dropped to the ground and powered down, a red aura obscuring his body for a moment before he reappeared, in his first form once more, his powers restrained again. He looked at the bodies of Naise and Kamoli, and noticed Kamoli was not dead at all. In fact, he had charged a set of red orbs at his fingertips while Hyoza was busy reverting to his weakest form.
Though the Brenchian pirate was injured, his power level was well above Hyoza's in his first form, which meant the now fully-charged beams would probably puncture right through him.
"One last Brave Gatling, for the Captain.." Kamoli gasped, before releasing the beams. Hyoza ducked under them, poorly-aimed as they were, before swooping in and kicking the last pirate in the gut. As he doubled over in pain, Hyoza coiled his tail around his neck, using the muscular appendage to raise his foe up off the ground.
"I'm not calling it that anymore, Kamoli."
And with that, his tail twisted, and snapped the poor Brenchian's neck. He let the body drop to the floor, and looked around at the people who were still watching in awed silence.
"Thanks for the lobster!" he said, before taking off into the sky, leaving the broken corpses of his former comrades behind him.
He could sense a handful of above-average auras, but they were in the strange region where they were too powerful to be a strong fighter masking their aura, and not high enough to be a strong fighter leaving their power visible to all. Hyoza concluded they must be amateur martial artists of some sort - they probably weren't even strong enough to channel ki consciously. Hyoza was quite interested in finding out where the strong fighters around here went to train, but he couldn't read the earthlings' language yet, so street signs weren't much help to him, and none of the humans seemed very interested in talking to him.
So, he wandered about town for a few hours. Looking in at shops, watching the hustle and bustle of the earthlings' little lives. It was actually quite relaxing to just explore like this, with no threat of battle. Hell, Hyoza had a little money, he figured he'd try some Earth cuisine. He looked around for a while, before settling on a somewhat fancy-looking (compared to the others he had seen, anyway) restaurant. It was nothing on some of the places he'd been to on Arcose, but it seemed the sort of place to serve the more refined food and drink these Earthlings were capable of making.
He took a seat at a little table overlooking the town square and waited for service. Not long after, a small black-furred creature with pointed ears and spectacles approached him, dressed in a neat black formal suit.
"Good day, sir, what can we do for you?" Hyoza smiled, now this was more like it.
"Yes, I can't actually read your menu since I'm not from around here, and even if I could read it, I imagine I wouldn't know what most of the dishes are. S, how good are you at recommending dishes?"
"I've been complemented on my selections before, sir. What kind of flavours take your fancy today?"
"I'd like something savory, but juicy at the same time, you have shelled animals on this planet, right?"
"Of course, sir. The lobster is very good here."
"Yes, alright. I'll have a lobster, whatever that is, and something sweet and rich to drink. I'm looking to relax and enjoy myself."
"Very good sir, I think I have just the wine to complement the lobster. Shall I bring your drink before the food?"
"That would be acceptable," Hyoza finished, in what was actually quite a polite response for an Arcosian, though the waiter seemed somewhat irked by the seeming rudeness expressed by the diminutive, horned alien. Still, he bowed, and went to fetch the wine, which soon came back, with a fine crystal glass and a polished chrome bucket full of ice to keep the bottle cool. The waiter poured a glass for Hyoza, then bustled off to attend to other patrons.
Hyoza leaned back and sipped at the surprisingly delicious wine, looking out of the window at the bustle of the streets below. For quite some time he just sat and watched, gradually making his way through the wine. It was very relaxing, and he was almost annoyed at the interruption when his food arrived. Almost.
The meal was a large, red-shelled creature, smeared with some kind of greasy cooking fat. Almost the size of Hyoza's arm. It was surrounded with green, leafy salad. The scent was divine, and Hyoza happily plucked off one of the creature's pincers and bit deep into it. The taste was just as good as its scent promised. He continued to happily devour the meal, shell and all. If he'd cared to look around, he might have noticed the crunching sounds and generally 'uncivilised' (by Earth standards anyway) manner in which he was eating were attracting some unhappy looks from the other patrons. But he had soon finished the meal, and returned to the wine.
But not long after he had resumed his relaxing drink, he sensed a number of powerful auras heading towards the town. Within minutes, a group of four familiar figures had entered the restaurant.The doorman had attempted to stop them, and got tossed across the restaurant for his trouble. The poor man crashed across Hyoza's table, scattering cutlery and smashing his wine bottle. The patrons of the restaurant had gone eerily silent - just watching and waiting to see what would happen next.
"'Sup, traitor," said one of the group - an athletic, purple-skinned Brenchian. Hyoza vaguely recalled his name was something like Kamoli. With him were three other former members of Ghirash's pirate crew. A large machanoid known as Primax, a tall and powerfully-built Beppan with grey skin and a number of cybernetic augmentations built into his skull called Naise; and of course, the man himself - Captain Ghirash.
Hyoza had never figured out what Ghirash's race was. His skin was a pale lavender hue, he had no nose, a mohawk of reddish-orange hair and long, pointed ears. In most other respects he was quite similar to an Earthling. Of course, his appearance was made all the more fearsome by his custom suit of battle armour - furnished with scores of kill-markings, and decorated with various rings looted from dozens of worlds he had raided. And then there was the eyepatch. He was a good head taller than Kamoli, and built like a statue of an ancient war god.
Hyoza knew they'd kill him for what he had done - left them stranded on a planet to die. Of course, he hadn't thought they had any hope of escaping, or he would've taken his chances floating in space rather than betray Ghirash. The pirate had a bloody reputation that was very well-earned. He'd killed hundreds of warriors one-on-one, not to mention the number of weaker foes he had slaughtered en masse. Back when he still had a Scouter, Hyoza had measured Ghirash's power level to be even higher than his own fourth form. Even though Hyoza had become significantly more powerful since then, it took time to transition through his forms to reach his most powerful, and he doubted the avenging pirates would give him the luxury of transforming. Then there were the other three - the most powerful members of Ghirash's crew, apart from Hyoza and the Captain himself. Kamoli and Naise were around the same power level as his second form, and Primax was almost as strong as Hyoza's fourth.
Between the four of them, there wouldn't be enough left of Hyoza to fill an egg cup. Still, it would be a shame to spoil the lovely restaurant any further.
"Gentlemen, let's take this outside, shall we?" Hyoza said, rising to his feet.
"And why would we do that, coward?" Sneered Naise in his rumbling baritone.
"Because the food here is damned good, and it'd be a waste to blow it all up in some silly brawl,"
"Ain't nothin' silly about this, Hyoza," growled Ghirash, speaking for the first time. "We're gonna cut you up so small the worms won't even have to chew."
"And I'm sure once you've done that you'd like to have some tasty chow after your long journey, so let's go outside." Hyoza smirked. Ghirash grinned, baring teeth that were mostly coated in various expensive metals, and nodded.
"Traitors first," he said, gesturing for Hyoza to pass him.
Hyoza swaggered past, hoping he wasn't swaying too much after drinking so much of that wine. The waiter tried to say something about a bill as he walked past, but the manager silence him with a hiss.
"Quiet, man. It'll cost a lot more to rebuild this place than we'll lose if he doesn't pay for the damned lobster! Let them go." He sighed as the five aliens left the way they came.
Once outside, Hyoza walked straight into the middle of the town square. The pirates followed closely, until the pirates and he were facing each other down across the square - a large concrete platform surrounded by recently-mowed grass.
"Got anything to say for yourself before we vape your bony ass?" Ghirash said, grinning again. The guy got off on violence, Hyoza was sure of it.
"Not really. But out of curiosity - how in the hell did you get off that planet?"
"Fought our way to their spaceport and stole a ship. Lost a lot of the crew doing it, too." Ghirash said, his expression turning grim. "You know, the Warglaive was a damn expensive ship. Was mighty careless of you to get it blown up like you did."
"Well, what can I say, I preferred not dying. The minute we took off we got hit with artillery and there was no way we were going to escape."
"Like you even tried - you were too busy trying to save your own slimy hide. You know, you Arcosians are all the damn same - a bunch of self-serving, arrogant backstabbers..." Ghirash went off into a rant, a vein in his temple throbbing as he slowly got himself angrier and angrier. The other pirates were watching the Captain with amusement as his temper began to heat up. This was Hyoza's chance.
Without a moment to lose, Hyoza rushed into the act of transforming, unleashing his ki as quickly as possible, his body deforming and expanding as he grew into a towering hulk. Ghirash noticed and hurled a ki blast at him, which Hyoza managed to sidestep, before firing off his Brave Gatling technique into Naise's brawny torso. The Beppan collapsed with a groan, and did not rise again. However, this served only to make Ghirash even angrier, and the three uninjured pirates swooped towards him, hurling their own ki blasts. Once again, Hyoza dodged Ghirash's and Primax's blasts, before slamming his tail into Kamoli's, batting the sphere back into the smug little Brenchian's stupid lilac face. With a bellow of pain, the second of the weaker pirates collapsed to the floor, smoke rising from his now badly-burnt hairdo.
Hyoza then leapt over Primax and Ghirash, firing yet another set of red beams into the mechanoid's exposed back, knocking the machine-creature to the ground for a moment, but Ghirash spun up into the air and smashed Hyoza into the ground with a hammer-blow from his fists. He got to his feet, and narrowly avoided a kick to the head from the now-recovered Primax, but was forced into the path of a gut-punch by Ghirash - undeniably the more powerful of the two. Hyoza collapsed again, unable to speak, as his former crewmates stood over him and raised their hands, red orbs of energy forming at their splayed fingertips.
"Fitting that we kill you with our signature attack, I suppose," sneered Ghirash, preparing to fire. Hyoza simply looked on, battered and with blood oozing from the corner of his mouth.
Then, at the last second, as the pair fired, Hyoza leapt into the air with blinding speed, firing his own barrage of weak ki blasts into the ground, pulverising the concrete and kicking up a huge cloud of dust and smoke around the group. He also deliberately shattered Ghirash's Scouter, preventing the pirate from tracking his energy.
"Brave Gatling is a stupid name for an attack!" He bellowed as he hurtled away to hide among the buildings of the town. LUckily, this bought him a few moments as the pirates attempted to find Hyoza in the billowing smoke. Unleashing yet another barrier on his ki, the Arcosian metamorphosed into his third form, taking on a more saurian posture, his head elongating, as his face becoming a bestial snarl. He was hoping he could even begin the transformation into his third form, but apparently the energy spike had set off Primax's internal sensors, because the silent mechanoid was upon him in seconds, and due to his artificial construction, Hyoza could not sense its aura.
Now more powerful than before, and with Ghirash nowhere to be seen, Hyoza actually managed to hold his own against the powerful machine-warrior, blocking and dodging most of its blows, and even managing to land some of his own. Hyoza managed to land a powerful kick to Primax's chest, which sent him crashing through the front of a jewellery store. As the mechanoid recovered, Hyoza began to charge his Brave Gatling technique. By the time Primax was flying towards him again, Hyoza had charged enough to hopefully puncture the machine's armor. he unleashed the cluster of blood-red energy beams, and to his delight, they lanced straight through the machine's chassis, emerging on the other side before dissipating.
Primax stood on the spot for a moment, totally still. Hyoza hoped he had crippled some vital system, but his hopes were dashed as the machine took a lurching step towards him - its self-repair mechanisms kicking in. Angered, Hyoza flew in and delivered a thunderous headbutt to the droid, slamming it into the tarmac of the road. As the machine labored to get back to its feet, Hyoza wrapped his tail around its neck and tightened, slowly crushing the mechanical skull.
"Die already, you blasted machine!" He seethed through clenched teeth, his coils now so tight it was causing him pain.
There were a number of crunching sounds and a strange mechanical whirr, before the machine went rigid, no longer struggling against the constrictor-like coils of the Arcosian's tail.
"Not bad, whelp, but still not good enough! I can rebuild him, but nobody's gonna rebuild you!" Gjirash's voice boomed from high above. Looking up into the sky, Hyoza saw Ghirash looming high above the buuldings, a massive sphere of orange ki energy building in size above his head. Hyoza could sense enough power there to level the entire town and reduce it to a dusty crater. Fortunately, such attacks were slow.
"I'm stronger than you remember, Captain! You won't kill me like that!" He said, laughing. Truth be told, however, it was false bravado - Hyoza knew all too well that in his current form the blast would vaporize him as easily as the puny Earthlings of the town. His only chance was to transform - though his final metamorphosis took much longer than all the preceding ones had done. Knowing this, he began to break the seals on his aura, red lightning crackling around him as cracks began to form in his skin - baleful crimson light glowering from deep within his rapidly-disintegrating body. Seeing what he was doing, Ghirash released his blast early - the enormous globe of destructive power descending on the town, bathing it in orange light.
Just as the orb began to brush against the tops of the buildings, disintegrating them as though they were not even an obstacle, Hyoza exploded. An enormous wave of ki energy burst out of his body, and in a blaze of red light, his body burst, fragments flying in every direction and burning up into smoke. Then, from the ash, rose Hyoza in his most deadly form of all - sleek and athletic, similar in outline and size to his first form, but far more streamlined and somewhat more muscular. The newly-transformed Arcosian shot up into the sky like a thunderbolt, slamming a palm into the enormous energy ball and firing a ki blast of his own, that sent the attack back the way it came with incredible force.
The sphere shot up through the atmosphere and off into space, such was the energy Hyoza now wielded with almost pathetic ease. But Ghirash was not afraid - he had seen this form before, and calculated its power to be less than his own. Surely, the Changeling traitor could not have grown so much stronger in so short a space of time that he could now pose a threat to the Captain?
As if to prove Ghirash's beliefs wrong, Hyoza whipped through the air and slammed a kick into his ribs with bone-crunching force. The pirate was stunned by the power - the little runt was now almost his equal! He aimed his own retaliatory punch, which was dodged by the speedy little alien. The two began to trade blows at a furious pace, the impacts of those which landed ringing out like thunder across the town, as the people below gathered to watch the battle in the sky.
The pair traded blows, parted, and exchanged ki blasts instead. Their powers were very closely-matched indeed, and though Hyoza might have a slight edge in terms of his raw power, Ghirash more than made up for the disparity with greater experience and fighting skill. They were blurs of barely-perceptible motion to onlooker, stunned by the immense power contained within the two beings fighting above them. Of course, most of them had heard of fights like this, but few had ever seen them actually taking place. It was, truly, something you had to see to believe.
After a particularly bruising kick from Ghirash, Hyoza was knocked back through the air. He took advantage of the distance and charged the Brave Gatling technique again, firing it off quickly, shredding through Ghirash's now mostly-useless armor. Ghirash was not slowed, however, and headbutted his treacherous former first mate with a deafening impact. dazed, Hyoza lost control of his flight for a moment, and dropped like a brick, slamming through the roof of a building before regaining his senses, laying in a pile of rubble in the structure's basement. Standing up and dusting himself off, Hyoza bolted back up into the air, slamming a fist into the Captain's jaw, who was apparently surprised by the speed with which his opponent recovered from the impact.
As he recoiled from the blow, Hyoza followed up with a kick that sent his foe hurtling away, before once again charging up the Brave Gatling attack.
"Why did you give it such. A. Stupid. Name!?" He roared, unleashing the barrage, which lanced through his foe's prone body, leaving the one-time terror of the space lanes with a half-dozen smoking holes punched through him. The pirate choked for breath, his lungs filling with blood, as he dropped to the ground, landing on the edge of the town square, among the bodies of Naise and Kamoli. Hyoza flew in after the fallen warrior, hovering just above the ground, looking down at the now-dying pirate.
"You... Did good... Always figured you'd be the one to - " he coughed up a spray of blood, before his eyes glazed over, and he moved no more. Hyoza leaned down and closed the dead Captain's eyelids. They were enemies in the end, but Hyoza knew he owed his life to the man many times over, and he would pay him some respect now their battle was over.
Looking around, Hyoza saw people all around, just standing in the streets, staring at him. He dropped to the ground and powered down, a red aura obscuring his body for a moment before he reappeared, in his first form once more, his powers restrained again. He looked at the bodies of Naise and Kamoli, and noticed Kamoli was not dead at all. In fact, he had charged a set of red orbs at his fingertips while Hyoza was busy reverting to his weakest form.
Though the Brenchian pirate was injured, his power level was well above Hyoza's in his first form, which meant the now fully-charged beams would probably puncture right through him.
"One last Brave Gatling, for the Captain.." Kamoli gasped, before releasing the beams. Hyoza ducked under them, poorly-aimed as they were, before swooping in and kicking the last pirate in the gut. As he doubled over in pain, Hyoza coiled his tail around his neck, using the muscular appendage to raise his foe up off the ground.
"I'm not calling it that anymore, Kamoli."
And with that, his tail twisted, and snapped the poor Brenchian's neck. He let the body drop to the floor, and looked around at the people who were still watching in awed silence.
"Thanks for the lobster!" he said, before taking off into the sky, leaving the broken corpses of his former comrades behind him.