Axar
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PL: 15,108
Brute Form (x5), True Form (x10)
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Tag: @axar
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Post by Axar on Sept 3, 2017 16:56:11 GMT
“We’re here.”
The familiar voice of Nova spoke the words into Axar’s ear. He didn’t need her to confirm that: The manhole-like opening that stood out in front of him was clear enough. It hung open on a hinge which remained concealed within the exceptionally wide pipe. It led straight down into the earth of this alien world. The top of what would be the lid looked entirely covered in the soil and moss that grew on the surface of this planet in place of what would usually be some strange form of extraterrestrial grass.
Out of the hole billowed a small tower of black smoke. Axar smelled the vaguely familiar scent of burnt flesh within the dust and gas that flowed out.
“Oh my god,” the Android woman gasped. She took a few steps forward, towards the entrance. Axar’s outstretched arm stopped her like a metal bar in her way. Her looked over his shoulder at her, “Don’t be suicidal.” “But Xavi—” She tried to argue. “You’re able to scan Power Levels yourself,” Axar interrupted. “Do you really believe you can take what’s down there?” The woman stopped and clenched her fists tightly, “How can I trust you to save Xavier?” “You can’t. But you’re out of options, and if you go down there with that, you won’t be coming back out.” Her white teeth clenched tightly and Axar watched the muscles of her jaw flex and tighten beneath her smooth skin, “Go, hurry. You have to help him.”
Axar nodded at her. Then, he clenched his hands into fists and marched forward towards the pipe. The wet soil squelched under his three-toed feet until he reached the entrance. He jumped forward and let himself fall, his heavy tail flapping in the wind as he dropped down.
At first, the pipe appeared to be pitch black. The lower he got, however, the more lights appeared, until he found himself in a silvery, metallic, well-illuminated tower wide enough to fit a couple Space Pods side-by-side. The smoke looked thin; a good sign of the panicked blonde back up on the mossy surface of the planet.
His feet touched down on a cold, metal surface after a minute or two of controlled free-fall. He felt the chill sink into his bones as he stared down a wide, rectangular hallway. It looked to be just as big as the pipe he took down here, except of a different shape entirely. Smoke continued to flow out of it, even though the path itself looked completely undamaged.
Each step he took forward echoed quietly through the facility. The main approach had no rooms on either side of him, only lights in the ceiling and flat, metal walls. Gradually, he made out the shape of a doorway to a much narrower hall ahead of him. The door appeared to slide into the walls that surrounded it and, upon physical inspection, the tips of Axar’s fingers could make out the nearly-perfect creases in the larger wall. It, took, was another door—likely meant to accommodate whatever might have used the full size of this hall.
A crack in the glass of the smaller, interior door allowed the smoke out. Within, the black gas seemed denser. Through it, Axar saw the faint, orange glow of fire.
He pressed the button next to the door. It hissed open right in front of him and the smoke poured out over his body in a giant wave. He held his breath as it did, and closed his eyes, until the bulk of it passed behind him and started to diffuse into the larger hall behind him.
“Gehn,” Axar’s voice boomed, steady, down the much narrower hall and out into the rest of the facility. Axar had no idea how big it was, but he felt confident that the Saiyan coward heard him. “There’s no way out of here. My ship is in orbit watching this facility, and now that I’m here, there’s no hope of hiding for long.”
Axar continued his march into the subterranean complex. As he did, he started to notice scorch marks and a strange, dense sort of dust on the walls in the distance. It seemed to make out a vaguely humanoid shape.
Xavier? Androids? Axar wondered.
“Let’s end this chase, shall we?”
[Word Count: 718] Thread Power Level: True Form @ 90,000 KP: 3/3
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Failure
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Post by Failure on Sept 3, 2017 17:47:30 GMT
There was nothing new and exciting about the plan 64 and Gehn had come up with. In fact, it was probably the oldest trick in the book. Gehn would run off and hide somewhere – she had suggested an old storage closet near the bay room – while she would follow Axar around. She’d keep a healthy distance from him and, when the time was right, strike him down with a single blow.
Easy. Peasy.
Once Gehn had left, 64 hung out in the main room of the facility, eyes focused on the large screen before her. A green dot on the surface hovered near the entrance to the lab. An Android who had escaped an untimely death waited there. Probably too scared to come in. Especially after coming face to face with the red dot that was surely Axar.
64 had no way of knowing if they had even interacted. As far as she was concerned, they had simply crossed paths and, for whatever reason, the Android was allowed to live. Why it hadn’t tried to stop Axar was a mystery, but not one that raised any eyebrows.
The red dot flicked from the surface level screen and then appeared on the main floor as Axar entered the building. He made no detours and simply walked down the long, boring hallway without doing anything 64 could observe. Out of curiosity, she flicked the screen away and tried to open a camera.
The screen buzzed and whirred for a long moment before a distorted image came into view. Stalking down the cloudy hall was a large, unholy beast. She couldn’t quite make out the details between the smoke and the damaged lense, but she could see enough to scrunch up her face in disgust.
She watched as he stepped through a door and, unfortunately, left the view of the camera.
With a sigh, she stretched into the chair she was in, smiling as her joints cracked and a wave of relief went down her spine. With that, she stood up and left the control room, footsteps masked by the sound of shorting circuits and the distant cackle of flames.
“You know,” 64’s voice groaned through the speakers throughout the facility as she spoke into a small device. “When Gehn said you were a monster, I thought he meant it figuratively, not literally.”
She smiled a little as she continued down the hallway, device held close to her lips so she didn’t have to talk too loud in order for it to capture her voice. Making a left through an unmarked door, she bobbed and weaved through collapsed parts of the building, careful not to disturb any of the rubble.
“I would say you have a face only your momma could love, but I think even that’s a stretch,” she chuckled into the comms.
For a second, she eyed the door that peeked out from behind a particularly large pile of debris. Then, as if something had triggered in her mind, she turned to the right and ducked behind a collapsed locker of sorts. It was the size of a large, antique bookshelf, but only had two doors, both of which could no longer shut. Books, papers, and writing tools had spilled out from it and were now smoldering just enough to cast a faint glow against the furniture.
Just as 64 got comfortable behind it, the door she had been eyeing whirred open. It groaned and creaked as it glided against uneven tracks, but eventually clicked open to let the beast of a bounty hunter enter the room.
64 clutched the comms device and brought her other hand near her lap as she crouched in her hiding place. Beneath her skin, Ki energy started to boil along the synthetic muscles within her. Sparks of energy tingled through her veins.
“Do you even have a momma?” 64 continued. “You look like something that has to reproduce asexually to survive. Like. How do you even get laid?”
[Thread PL: Hittin' dat Overdrive 21,900]
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Axar
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PL: 15,108
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Tag: @axar
Posts: 14
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Post by Axar on Sept 3, 2017 18:16:07 GMT
That voice certainly did not belong to Gehn, Axar realized. The voice that came through the facility’s audio system was distinctly feminine, likely human or Saiyan or someone similar. Worse yet, she seemed to know much more about Axar than he expected. Her jabs at his appearance largely rolled off him—mammalian species simply wouldn’t understand the appeal of his superior complexion—but revealed that she knew what he looked like.
“You don’t know much about my kind, do you, woman?” Axar answered as he waved through the hallways. He finally reached the humanoid scorch mark on one of the silvery walls. He ran his fingers over it and, sure enough, it reminded him of the ash created by incinerated flesh and bone—and a little something else, too.
Likely another Android.
Axar opened the door in front of him and listened to it hiss. He stepped forward to find another room covered in scorch marks, though none of them seemed to be in the shape of a person. The consoles were still alive, though seemed locked behind blank screens awaiting credentials that Axar certainly didn’t know.
“You do realize that, when I find you, I’ll kill you along with Gehn if you interfere?” He asked. He wanted this person to be fully aware of the danger she put herself in for the sake of a stranger. “I’m not sure what sort of connection you and he have developed, but trust me: He’s not worth it. Ran away from me after I killed his entire family!”
Axar chuckled at the memory and flicked his tail back and forth. It kicked up some ash from the floor and scattered it through the air. The tip flicked back and forth, contentedly, a few more times before it calmed down.
“So how about you stop hiding, tell me when the monkey coward is, and we’ll all be on our way?” Axar made a play for the easy exit to this situation. “Certainly you’ve made note of my power by now, yes? You can tell that this is a good deal for you. Why, I believe I even have a friend of yours up on the surface—an S-55, if you know her?”
Then, more quietly, Axar spoke only loud enough for his Scouter to hear, “Nova, do you have a fix on her location?” “No,” she answered immediately. “I cannot detect either a power level or the source of her voice. You’ll want to search further.” “Helpful.”
With a sigh, Axar continued forward. He moved through yet another door in the room—chosen largely randomly—and continued down the next hall. This one seemed much more damaged the other, with wiring and piping exposed from within the walls. Some of it looked like it had gotten blasted open, then clenched back shut with the sheer strength of someone like the Power Level that Axar saw earlier.
A Power Level that vanished by the time he got down here.
“Trust me, woman,” Axar continued as he marched through the mangled hallway. “His side is not one you want to take.”
[Word Count: 516 Words]
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Failure
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Post by Failure on Sept 3, 2017 18:28:22 GMT
“To say I’m picking sides is unfair,” 64 frowned into the speaker. “I mean, he did kill my creator and all my friends. Not exactly someone I’d call a friend.”
The speakers in the room cracked and sizzled before evening out. Whether it was because a wave of smoke lingered around the spot 64 had chosen to hide in, or because the wiring was starting to give out was up for debate. Still, she brought down the device to inspect it.
In the silence, she listened as Axar stepped through the rubble and continued his wandering. Cement and destroyed furniture crushed easily under his weight, lending either to extreme power or extreme obesity. The latter was, obviously, far more amusing, so 64 stuck with that.
The device looked fine, though a thin layer of soot was already starting to collect on it (and surely on her as well). She took a moment to rub the muted microphone against her dress before clicking it back on.
“Besides, I don’t even know where he is,” she continued. “My best guess is somewhere in the recovery chambers. We got some nice healing-pod-doohickers that he’s probably taking advantage of.”
She doubted he’d take the bait. After all, that was on the other side of the facility from the escape pods. Worth a shot, though, she supposed.
“Or, who knows, maybe he’s dead already.” Her voice droned on, mostly just to fill the silence and to cover whatever sort of noise she might have been making while she gathered her energy. “This place is kind’a in ruins, if you haven’t noticed. Who’s to say one of the other Androids hasn’t killed him already?”
Her fingers twitched anxiously as the electric sparks of energy started to dance between them. Silently, they hung around her hand, too afraid to jump far from her control. It had been a while since she had really put her all into anything. Was she rusty? Could she even do it?
The computer had pegged Axar as tens-of-thousands of times stronger than what Gehn was. It was a completely different ballpark. But still… if her last test was any proof, she should be fine.
Should.
“I could guide you there, you know,” she went on. “But I’m not coming out. Call me paranoid, but when the boogeyman is stalking through my house, I’m not very keen on trusting him.”
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Axar
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PL: 15,108
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Post by Axar on Sept 3, 2017 18:48:19 GMT
Axar stopped in his tracks when the woman mentioned that Gehn killed her “creator” and all of her “friends.” That told him all he cared to know about the fate of Xavier—something S-55 would not take lightly. It also meant that, like her, he dealt with yet another Android. He smiled when he confirmed what he suspected from the get-go: It meant that he would be able to easily dispatch her if she actively got in his way.
Right now, she only delayed the inevitable death of the man.
“Interesting,” he laughed at the Android’s words. “The others seemed completely smitten by the man! What, are you telling me you weren’t one of his favorites? Jealous, perhaps?”
He chuckled yet again. Mammalian types always proved easily swayed by their feelings. It made it painfully easy to manipulate them. If that’s what Axar needed to do, he would. If plucking at some of the strings that S-55 unwittingly suggested through their conversation would make this job finally end, he would happily torment her womanly heart.
“I can understand not being accepted by those you want most to acknowledge you,” Axar nodded and continued down the hall. As he did, he passed by a section where the metal and stone gave way to an additional hallway that connected two, otherwise separated sections of the facility. He started to duck and weave through the wires and twisted pipes to get to the other side.
“I’ve dealt with the same thing, you see,” he continued as he neared the open hallway ahead of him. “Believe me when I say that Gehn has nothing to offer you. You’ll find no satisfaction with a person like him, nor will he help you find the answers he seeks. He’s single-minded and selfish like that.”
Axar ducked under the last pipe, half-stabbed into the stonewalls of the shortcut he took through the facility. If nothing else, it confirmed that this place could suffer considerable damage before it collapsed completely. Holes through the supporting rock all around them seemed to have no effect whatsoever on the structural integrity.
“Now, now,” Axar mumbled mostly to himself. He dusted off his bare legs and his arms of the dust that stuck to him as he squeeze through that maze of rubble and debris. “Where could she be…”
He looked to the right, which looped back around to the hallway he just left, and then to his left. With a smile, he headed off in that direction, which seemed much more intact than the place he just left. No scorch marks, humanoid or otherwise, colored the walls.
“Besides, if I wanted you dead?” Axar went on as he marched through the hall. “I could just level this place entirely and, eventually, I would find you—or your body. Don’t believe whatever nonsense Gehn has fed you about me: I have no interest in hurting you.”
Then, he grinned.
“In fact, my ship has room for more than just me,” he explained. “I could get you off of this planet, take you back to Earth, or wherever you hail from. Is that something Gehn can do for you? His ship was destroyed, after all—and it only ever fit one.”
[Word Count: 538]
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Failure
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Post by Failure on Sept 3, 2017 19:05:02 GMT
64 peeked out from her hiding spot when she heard his footsteps start to fade. His voice, now somewhat muffled by the distance, echoed from the hall and his figure was no where to be seen. Given how large he was, she quickly decided he wasn’t exactly hiding in the room anymore.
Quietly, she crawled out from her spot and peered over a larger pile of rubble. Just as she did, she saw the flicking tail of Axar disappear to the left. She paused and counted her breaths until she hit ten. Only then did she slip around the rubble and press her back against the wall that kept her divided from the hall he was in.
“Jealous, again, is a strong word,” she answered. The speakers in the hallway Axar was in were far clearer, allowing her voice to even echo off the walls just a bit as she filled the space with just her voice. “Apparently he shut me down and threw me in the trash with the rest of his ‘failed’ projects. So I guess I’m a little butt-hurt about it.”
Why was she having a conversation with him? Why bother humoring anything he was saying? For now, she chalked it up to biding her time.
Her eyes stared at her now faintly glowing arm. The red hue emitting from under her flesh vaguely outlined her bones and veins, showcasing just how much work the Doctor had done on her. Briefly, she wondered what her human form had even looked like. There was no doubt it was a far cry from what she was now.
When she heard Axar turn a corner, she craned her neck to look down the hallway.
“Besides, if you’re half as strong as you say you are,” she said as she started to snake into the hallway. “You would have just leveled this place already like you just said. What’s the point in playing cat and mouse if you really want him dead, huh?”
A half-collapsed door that lead to a room completely collapsed in hung into the hallway, blocking her from view should Axar decide to step back into the hall. Of course, it wasn’t perfect, but unless he knew to look for her there, she didn’t have anything to worry about.
“Gehn does seem pretty selfish,” she admitted with a chuckle. “Kind of a meat-head, too, if you ask me. But, like I said, I’m not really picking sides. I consider this more of self-defense.”
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Axar
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Post by Axar on Sept 3, 2017 19:27:50 GMT
Based on everything that S-55 told him, Axar had no way to know the details of this woman’s history with Xavier. If he did, he never would have tried to the approach he just had, by hoping she was similarly lovestruck and playing off that. He grimaced when he heard the truth about it. He paused for a moment, only to click his tongue and continue to march down towards one of the other rooms.
“What a shame,” he answered her. “You get that he’s not the sort of man you want to work with, but you insist on seeing me as the superior threat? I hate to make your suspicions turn out to be true, but I’m running out of patience.”
Another door hissed open in front of him. This one revealed a room packed with even more consoles than the other, including a single, massive screen up against one wall. Like the others, these consoles were all locked down and prevented Axar from gaining any level of access whatsoever—at least, in any reasonable amount of time.
Two other doors provided access to the room. A look through the glass of one of them revealed a hallway covered in a particularly large amount of soot and ash. Axar could only guess how many Androids died in the hallway, Xavier himself included. As far as he concerned himself, there was no hope of finding an actual body for S-55. She would just have to deal with taking him at his word. If she wanted, Axar figured, she could even search this place to her heart’s content. After he killed Gehn, he didn’t really care what she did.
An bright, orange glow enveloped Axar’s white arm. He turned his head towards the ash-filled hall, then towards the other doorway. The lights of the facility, and the orange light of energy around his arm, glinted off the crystalline stripe through the center of his skull.
“I don’t want to have to do this,” Axar spoke up again, his eye focused solely on the hallway in front of him. The other one seemed to be a dead-end, which meant this one here was most likely to be in the general direction of the Android woman and Gehn alike.
“But if you won’t cooperate, I’ve got no choice. This is a job for me, and I’ve got a client waiting,” he explained as the glow around his arm grew and grew. “Which, if you think about it, is exactly why I don’t care to kill you. Collateral damage doesn’t look good for my business—I’m sure you understand.”
Maybe she would put it together and see that joining him was the better choice. Maybe not.
He raised his arm, his hand lazily half-closed. Then, he smiled, and continued, “This is your last warning, Android. Either I carve through this place piece-by-piece and probably kill you while I’m looking for Gehn, or you give him away, get to live, go home, and forget that bowl-cut fool ever existed.”
With no family, no friends on Earth or elsewhere to speak of, it really would be like he never existed.
“It doesn’t sound like you’re a Saiyan,” Axar added in that last comment. “So be smarter than them: Choose life.”
[Word Count: 544]
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Failure
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Post by Failure on Sept 3, 2017 19:44:34 GMT
Considering how Gehn had described Axar, she had expected someone… less reasonable. It was weird to think the bounty hunter was more amicable than the man she was trying to protect. Though, how much of that was the truth was up in the air.
But if Axar truly didn’t care, why hadn’t he just started blowing the place up the moment he showed up? Why play these games?
64 clenched the device in her hand, testing the integrity of it and listening as the metal started to groan. Just before she could snap it in half, the sound of energy burning and sizzling caught her attention.
She leaned over to look past the door she was hiding behind. An orange glow like that of a sunset burned through the half opened door. His voice boomed down the hallway, strained for patience as he started to dip down to threatening her.
At least he had tried to reason with her. Gehn… Gehn had just saw her as someone to distract his enemies with. A tool. She was okay with it at first. It was everything she already expected of someone.
But…
“Down that hall,” she snapped into the device. “There’s a door all the way at the end. It’ll lead you to a work room.”
What was she doing?
“If you fire aimlessly down there, you’d probably just make it more difficult for you to get to him.”
She wondered what Gehn was thinking. He could definitely hear her.
“He’s in the work room somewhere. Probably hiding in one of the pods, or a closet.”
Her arm felt like it was on fire. Her blood boiled with energy as more and more surged around the veins. It hurt just to move her fingers. She made a fist and started at it, watching the electric sparks dance around her knuckles and wrap around her wrist as she did so.
She breathed five times and then slipped out from her place behind the door. Slowly, she crept towards the room where the orange glow came from. The room that held Axar.
“This place is already starting to collapse. If you want to actually confirm your kill, try not to blow up anymore walls, okay?”
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Axar
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Post by Axar on Sept 3, 2017 20:05:08 GMT
A wide grin spread across Axar’s white face. It was all he could do to not burst out laughing. Just like that, he had a somewhat reliable way to find Gehn and finally put an end to this insane contract of his. Even if he wasn’t in that supposed room down that hallway—Axar certainly never saw it when he looked through the glass—then he could just continue to search. He had time, as much as he wished to spend as little of it as possible down here.
“You made the right choice,” Axar did his best to reassure her when he came to a complete stop. “I’ll get you off this planet, just like I mentioned. I’ll even take you anywhere you would like to go.”
After this contract, he would be able to afford it.
Just like that, he pivoted on his three-toed feet and marched across the room. He approached the door that hid the ash-filled hall and watched it hiss open in front of him. The sudden movement sucked ash into the main room and blew it gently over his bare feet as he marched into the hallway. Most of the lights flickered; Gehn probably destroyed the rest when he killed however many people in this specific place. Pipes and wires hung out of the walls more than any of the other corridors that Axar marched through to get here.
“Where is th—” he started to complain to Failure when he didn’t see the door, until a reflection of light revealed the crease in the metal wall. He stopped immediately and grinned at the wall to his left. He reached out and put his not-glowing hand right up against it and watched as the wall clicked and then, slowly, started to open.
Within was a dark hall, narrower than the one he currently stood in, lined with pods. Presumably, each one held an unconscious Android of some sort. The only light in the room came from the consoles and the glow of Axar’s right arm.
“Nothing,” Nova answered the unspoken question directly into his ear. “But that doesn’t mean anything for sure, since Gehn can clearly hide his power now.”
That was good enough for Axar. He turned around so his right arm faced the doorway and, without taking a single step into a probably-trapped room, swung the arm forward in a lazy arc.
“Bye, Gehn,” he laughed as the gathered energy erupted forward, floor-to-ceiling, in an ear-splitting blast. The orange energy lurched forward and, like flaming sword, carved through the narrow hall of Androids and swallowed everything it passed by. The metal, the pods, the floor, and the stone behind it. The blast went and went until it finally hit something just a bit too tough to swallow whole, and then it exploded.
The blast rushed back out of the hallway and right over Axar as a cacophony of flame and smoke. The Changeling simply held his breath as it burst out, cracked the glass in the door that separated him from the other, console-filled room, and savored the sound and rush of the explosion. It took only a few more seconds for the wild gusts of wind and the roar of flame to die down.
With nothing to burn, nothing caught aflame. When the smoke finally thinned enough for Axar’s Changeling eyes to see again, all that remained was a scorched hallway of stone. Not a single, twisted or melted shard of metal remained. What had once been an advanced section of this facility now looked like a cave fit for Stone Age beasts.
Axar turned and walked back towards the door. This time, it rattled in its frame before it hissed open. Smoke poured into the console room, but quickly spread out even thinner in the air. Most got cut off when the door shut behind him, and Axar took a slow, deep breath, happy with his job. His ears still rang from the proximity of the blast, but he knew that would pass.
As the Humans of Earth put it: This wasn’t his first rodeo.
“Tell me,” Axar continued once he was back in the room. He dusted his hands off as he spoke. “Do you know a way to scan the interior for signs other than Power Levels? I want to confirm that Gehn hasn’t escaped to a separate section of this facility.”
Then, with a grin and a jovial skip in his step, he snapped his fingers.
“Oh, and, please: Would you share your name? 'Woman' and 'Android' sound so rude for someone who has been so helpful.”
[Word Count: 758] KP: 2/3
Nova Wave at 59,400 Power Level.
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Failure
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Post by Failure on Sept 4, 2017 3:41:03 GMT
She wasn’t sure what surprised her more: the fact that Axar so willingly trusted her despite having every reason not to, or the sheer force behind the blast he had chucked into the “failure room”. The very foundation of the facility shook, as if nearing a total cave-in, and even past two doors and a sizeable part of the hallway, 64 could feel the warmth of it.
Anything that got caught in that blast was beyond dead. Vaporized into nothing but a memory.
Her shoulders trembled for a moment when she started to stand up. Unknowingly in tandem with Axar’s strides, she made her way down the hallway and towards the console room. Just as he entered that very room, she pressed her back against the wall beside the door that would take her in.
It was… strange. Knowing someone trusted you and, to some degree, believed in you. Even if it was on such a basic level as this, it was more than she had really ever had. It made something inside of her churn slowly, like someone twisting a mop inside of her chest. She couldn’t decide if it was a light, happy feeling – like butterflies in the tummy – or something more revolting – like eating a too ripe fruit.
Her thoughts were pulled away by the sound of his footsteps on the other side of the door. It didn’t sound like he was leaving just yet. Probably just wandering around the room while he waited for her to show up. Again, surprising. Why not just leave?
Her entire arm now burned with energy even she had never felt before. As if, somehow, while in that blasted pod she had grown even stronger. Or maybe the very real threat of dying kicked something into gear for her. Either way, she might as have not had flesh. Bones, veins, muscles, everything was visible to the naked eye.
Well, visible to anyone who could bare to stare at such a bright light for so long. It was bright enough to be uncomfortable to stare at, but not enough to really illuminate anything more than the immediate area around her and cast an ominous shadow across her face.
“Oh, my name?” 64 spoke into the device.
This is it. Time to see if I made the right decision, she sighed to herself.
She turned towards the door and let it start to open.
“I’m just a so-called Failure.”
Before the door could even finish opening, she lunged forward, fist guiding her path. The door vaporized on contact, burning away into nothing, as did anything else that got in her way in the rather small room. In the few seconds she had before her fist made contact with the thing that seemed nearly twice as tall as her, she pinned down a target.
Her fist, glowing with crimson electricity shot straight for the center of his chest with every intention of either slicing straight through him, or sending him toppling back down the hall he had just come from.
[Ki-Infused Melee Punch, charged for five turns for the maximum of 500%. Hits at 109,500 PL] KP: 0/3
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Axar
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Post by Axar on Sept 4, 2017 4:03:04 GMT
The way the door gave way to the immense power behind it, told Axar all he needed to know. The metal itself seemed to split open like wet tissue paper when the woman’s fist neared it. Her whole limb seemed to burn with red-hot power and, after a moment’s attention, clearly stood out as far more powerful than anything ever leveled against him. In his entire life, no one assaulted him with nearly as much strength as this woman did now.
On instinct, Axar’s arms lifted to cover his face. He grit his teeth and braced his entire body. He even bent at the knees to try to jump out of the way, but it didn’t matter. A split-second later and the Android was upon him, complete with her long, flowing black hair and unnaturally pale—almost gray—skin. Whatever she was, she was very much unlike the decidedly still-human Android back on the surface.
Every train of thought stalled a moment later. In their place, Axar focused solely on the immense pain as the woman’s fist dug into his body. She aimed and connected with the crystalline center of his chest, and he felt his innards compress under the weight of her blow. His eyes bulged out and his body groaned as it tried to withstand the force levied against him.
Then, with a bone-like snap, the orange crystal cracked into a spider-web pattern. A moment later and the force of the punch hurled Axar through the door behind him and back through the smoke-filled corridor in a split second. He smashed into the metal wall a moment later and, despite it, felt the blow drag his body a few more meters into the stone behind the metal walls. His body finally came to a stop at the end of his own, personal tunnel into the planet.
For a second, the dust and debris hung in the air, thick around Axar. Violet blood dripped over his lips and onto his now-dirtied thighs. His eyes hung open, lifeless and white. Then, suddenly, a cough wracked his body. His red eyes reappeared as he convulsed and smaller rocks fell from the top of his tunnel onto the bottom. They rolled to a stop a few moments after Axar’s coughing fit.
“You vapid bitch,” Axar half-groaned, half-hissed the words. His right hand clenched into a fist and lit up with a bright, orange glow yet again. “You almos—almost killed me!”
Now he was panting as he clenched his fist tighter and tighter. His teeth grit together, even as he spit up even more of the violet blood. He tried to lean forward, to start to crawl out of his hole, but pain lanced through his body, from his chest, to stop him.
“Me!” He shrieked, his voice hitting nearly feminine high notes. Another cough followed that spilled out even more blood onto his legs and chest.
He couldn’t crawl, he certainly couldn’t stand, but his arms felt mostly fine. With a loud growl, Axar swung his arm upwards just like he had before, until his palm smashed hard and loud into the ceiling of his stone tunnel. The force shook the entire facility right before another wave of orange energy flared to life at the end of the hole that the Android smashed him into.
“Nova Wave!”
Took the 109,500 Power Level punch, which is ~121% of Axar's current Power Level. Retaliated with Nova Wave at 29,700 Power Level.
[Word Count: 556] KP: 1/3
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Failure
Newcomer
PL: 16,237
Overdrive (x2)
Zeni: 0
Tag: @failure
Posts: 35
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Post by Failure on Sept 4, 2017 16:40:13 GMT
Steam poured off her body and filled the console room in a dense smog that twisted and stirred with the black smoke that now freely leaked into the room. The swirling mass of whites and blacks torrented together in a cycle shape as the lingering force of 64’s attack started to fizzle out.
Sweat dripped from her nose and onto the ground, splattering quietly as she eyed the hallway. Truth be told, she expected him to still be standing up right, an ominous smirk on his face as the smoke cleared away. She expected him to laugh at her attempts to kill him and make a jab about how appropriate her name was.
But instead, she heard coughing, followed by the sound of rocks clambering to the ground. She let her shoulders relax and started to pant softly. He wasn’t dead, but clearly wasn’t feeling to great.
Her fingers twitched lifelessly at her side, the muscles around them burning with exhaustion and her knuckles now bruised and swollen. Disgusting black and red marks started to form where the blood vessels had popped or had been damaged. Her arm looked like that of a zombie’s now.
His voice boomed down the hall, sputtering and screaming like a spoiled brat who had just gotten a spanking. She couldn’t help but smile through her pants.
Well, until she saw the orange glow take shape.
Her arms came up in a cross pattern to cover her face. Knees bent and ready to absorb the attack, she ducked down and braced for impact. Muscles and bones alike hardened with a simple thought, as if to turn her body into stone. Just as everything finished clicking together to turn her body into more of a wall than a fleshy meat sack, she felt the impact.
For a moment, she pushed against it. Her arms burned and sizzled from the raw heat of the blast, nerves screaming in agony as she tried to deflect it in any which direction. Her feet skidded across the ground harshly, her toes digging into the concrete as if that would hope to give her more traction.
She wasn’t too sure when she started losing the fight, but what she did know is the impact of her back cracking against the wall was something she certainly didn’t enjoy. Something snapped – maybe a rib or something – when she hit the wall and felt the metal start to cave under the pressure.
Then, as if that wasn’t enough, the blast finally exploded in her face.
When it was all said and done, the “console” room was more of a cobble mess of stone and a few loose wires that had somehow survived the blast. Electrical “zzts” and “psshhes” promised that some of the machinery was at least not vaporized, but none of it could be seen. It was all hidden behind the mounds of rock and metal that had gathered around the room.
64, pressed into the wall just enough for her to leave a twisted version of a snow-angel there, groaned. Her arms were still held up defensively, if only because she felt as if they had been glued that way. Blood poured from her nose and down her chin and a metallic tang coated her tongue.
She let out a sputtering cough, mostly just to clear her throat and mouth of the blood, and then pulled herself forward. With a bit of effort, she jerked her body free from the wall and stumbled forward. Finally, her arms relaxed and fell to her side.
Her neck cracked and groaned as she twisted it and tried to work away the mind-numbing pain that had left her ears ringing and her head feeling like it was going to explode.
“Give up on this contract if you know what’s good for you!” She barked down the hall, smoke still clouding her vision as she glared at where she expected Axar to be. “You got off easy this time, but if I see you again I will kill you.”
It was all talk. In any other circumstance, she would have been dead by now. But, still, given his reaction, she could hope that he took her words to heart even a little. Though, she wouldn’t know for a long time. Before he could respond, she turned on her heel and darted out of the room. A bit of a stumble in her step, but she otherwise fled with a surprising amount of speed.
As she did, the ceiling of the console room groaned and caved a little, sending tiny streams of dust and small rocks billowing downwards.
[Using that l33t Durability to tank the ever-loving-hell out of that hit, bumping my PL 29,200. Lets me take the hit at ~101% of my PL. And with that, I bid Axar a'deu]
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Axar
Newcomer
PL: 15,108
Brute Form (x5), True Form (x10)
Zeni: 0
Tag: @axar
Posts: 14
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Post by Axar on Sept 4, 2017 17:00:06 GMT
Another wave of black smoke filled the corridor in front of him, along with his tunnel into the stone. Axar coughed and hacked even more as he laid there. His eyes burned from the putrid combination of dust, heat, and gas that assaulted his eyes and forced them to water. He clenched them shut and groaned while he listened to the Android woman’s empty warning before she clearly ran off down the other hallway.
Shortly after she left, Axar heard the familiar sound of shifting stone. Moments after that, the exposed, stone ceiling of the console room collapsed thunderously. The entire facility shook yet again and Axar felt the vibrations even all the way down into his corridor. Another wave of dust followed, this time more brown than black, and rushed over him yet again. Another coughing fit followed as the Changeling laid there and did everything he could not to upset his grievously wounded chest. He even tried to lay a hand down upon it, lightly, only to pull it away when a bolt of electric pain shot down his right leg.
A few minutes passed, and then a few more. The dust and smoke started to clear. Slowly, Axar lifted a hand a placed it flat against the back of the tunnel that his head leaned against. A golden ball of energy appeared in front of his palm before it shot forward. The force of the small blast propelled Axar back down the tunnel of stone that the Android punched him into. He tumbled out of it and across the floor, gritting his teeth to stop himself from screaming in agony. More of his violet blood smeared across the exposed, rocky floor, previously covered with thick, metal plating.
Next to him laid his intact Scouter. His hand reached out, like a blind man’s, and slapped against the stone until he found it. He dragged it, with a groan, across the rocks and brought it up to his ear and secured it against his head.
“Axar? Axar, for the sake o—” he heard the familiar voice of Nova in his ear. “I’m alive,” he groaned into the Scouter. “I knew that, but I didn’t know if you were awake! What happened?!” She asked in a frenzy. “Another Android, this one working with Gehn…” his voice trailed off and gave way to another coughing fit. Axar tried to suppress it, but the way it shook and stretched his chest only hurt even more. “Are you okay? Can you move?” “Not yet, I need time.” “And Gehn?” “I can’t keep doing this, Nova,” Axar answered, almost snippy about it. “This isn’t worth the money being offered anymore.” “If you cancel this contra—” “I know,” he snapped outright, that time. “I know. I already know.” Nova didn’t respond, not at first. She let a minute pass before she finally chimed in again, “I’m detecting a much larger pair of doors opening up. It appears to be some sort of bay for space ships.” “Track them,” Axar answered. His voice was quiet and, now, he felt himself begin to tilt between consciousness and fainting outright. “If I never have to see either of their faces again, it’ll be too soon…”
He barely finished those last few words before his head turned to the side and sleep overtook him.
[Word Count: 557] [Total Word Count: 4,187]
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Entirely Ed
Moderator
The Egg Has Risen
PL: Several Raging Hornet's Nests
Zeni: Some Honey Nut Cheerios
Shoki: Cicada Shells & Dreams
Tag: @ed
OOC Name: Ed
Posts: 310
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Post by Entirely Ed on Sept 20, 2017 8:11:45 GMT
Axar your PL gains are 6108OLD PL: 9,000 NEW PL: 15,108 Failure your PL gains are 4694, -x1 on overdrive, RIP. OLD PL: 11,543 NEW PL: 16,237 As a note for the future for the both of you; don't list your wordcount. Collecting it is our job.
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