Catfish vs Psycho-Police (IC thread)

[Undyne]

Proper stories are supposed to start at the beginning. It just ain't easy saying what the beginning is. The series of events, decisions and coincidences that led the characters of this story here though, do you really want to know them?

At the end of the day, what matters is that two unlikely partners pissed off the wrong people, and now they've got a reward on their heads and two equally unlikely partners on their heels. A hot pursuit that began by the edge of the Tangled Green led them to the outer reaches of the foresty verse, where the hunted find themselves standing at the edge of a large area filled only with whitened, dead trees that. The sporadic patches of grass and the dry, cracked ground, hardened from excessive exposure to the sun, indicate that this area was a battlefield before. Whether it was a battle of living beings who destroyed the forest as they clashed time and time again, or a battle of the elements where a forest fire had tried to consume the trees whilst the rainwater had struggled to extinguish it, remains unsolved. It's not like either party would have the time to conduct much research on the matter, though.

As Undyne attempted to run forward, into this zone of death and decay, Amber held her back. "The grounds are treacherous here! If we charge through we'll get our feet stuck, or worse."

"What do you suggest we do then?" the fish asked, baring her teeth. "Are you finally agreeing on that we should fight?"

"No, but if we go through or around this we're going to lose a bunch of time. Can't you let me try to reason with Carmelita?"

Undyne showed her the scorch mark on her shoulder where she had narrowly avoided getting hit by one of their pursuers's projectiles. "You may be able to get your head out of the noose, but I'm a stranger. I'm not giving them another chance!" Besides, she was annoyed from running away. Wanting to pursue her mission without delay, she had agreed with Amber to try and run for now. Apparently the Faunus had similar reasons to not engage their opponents, besides that one of them was apparently an acquaintance. But they were tenacious pursuers, and her patience wore thin. Why not just bash their heads in a little bit? Enough to scare them off from pursuing. 



Far closer than they realized, their pursuers were hard on their trail, following the very obvious footprints along a mud-path. Carmelita's field experience paid off here, allowing her to identify fake prints made to throw them off whilst Erik used what he could in psychic powers to track the lingering traces of mental auras of the ones they were hunting. Had this been a city neither of their skills would have been useful for long, but out here in the Omni-forsaken parts of the Tangled Green there was not an intelligent living soul to mess with their perception.

"They've stopped", remarked Erik. "I sense that they're not moving anymore."

"A trap?" asked Carmelita.

"No idea. Maybe they're summoning, or one of them's got their leg injured. Are you sure that your shocker-"

"Yes. I fired it by accident so it wasn't properly aimed", the fox responded, cutting Erik off. "I didn't catch where it hit her but it couldn't have been the legs. Either way, if they're summoning a vehicle we have to catch them right now, before they can complete it."

"Understood. So, I leave the one in armor up to you?"

"I'll see if I can stealth up and handcuff her. Amber can detect me so I can't surprise her. For the fish one, go ham. She seems like the aggressive type."

"Right", murmured Erik, still wondering how he got roped into all this.

Carmelita loosened the stun gun in her holster as they slowed to a walking pace. Through the foliage they could see Amber and Undyne, facing in their general direction with their weapons drawn. Did they want to fight? "Sorry Amber, but I'll have to subdue you before I have you tell me how you managed to be branded as a criminal."

OOC thread: http://omniverse-rpg.com/showthread.php?tid=9546

To recap, the terrain is mostly barren with some patches of grass and rocks sticking out of the ground. The burnt area, about half a kilometer in diameter, has trees that are... well, burnt, mostly black or white and very brittle. The ground is dry and equally brittle, so watch your step if you don't want to get your feet caught in a cavity! The rest of the area is medium to dense temperate forest, just like most of the Tangled Green, allowing for fancy tree-top battling and sneaking or ambush tactics.

[Carmelita]

Carmelita gave Erik a quick glance before activating her Communicator.

“Al3x, are you there?”

++You’re coming through loud and clear, boss,++ the AI’s voice replied. ++What do you need?++

“I’m activating my quantum beacon. Send me PCD Squad 001.”

With that, she flicked a switch on the small black box on her belt. There was a hum, a whir and the sound of materialising beings surrounded the two hunters.

Around them ten small, squat drones appeared, small jets of air suspending them centimetres above the ground and blowing the leaf litter away in all directions. She patted one of them on its conical top and grinned at the replying beeps and boops.

“PCD Squad 001, execute manoeuvre one alpha. Advance, spread out in pairs and provide cover until you can surround them. Head out.”

Erik looked at the cute black and gold drones with a questioning look, before each pair activated their SupraPol Cooperative Containment Shield and five orange-blue barriers sprang into existence. The drones advanced towards the edge of the forest, while Carmelita turned to Erik.

“They’ll be a good distraction while I sneak around behind them. Let’s go.”

---

As Carmelita advanced under the invisibility granted by her cloak, the hunted’s attention was quickly drawn to the drones as they emerged from the treeline. One of them, upon spotting the pair of them, began flashing its blue and red police lights and a siren began playing as the group advanced. Any response that might have been made by the pair was quickly diverted as Erik joined the advancing line and summoned his bow.

As Amber and Undyne dived out of the way of an incoming arrow of psychic energy, responding with bullets and magic spears, Carmelita was steadily advancing over the rough ground. Maintaining her footing was easy when she was safely hidden beneath her cloak, and she swiftly found herself behind the pair. This proved to be an interesting place to position herself when a purple arrow of energy whizzed over her head, but she had time to approach.

“Where’s the fox gone?” Undyne asked as she launched a spear that shattered one of the five shields of energy in a single hit. The two drones behind it gave out distressed beeps as they toppled over backwards, prompting a different pair of drones to disengage their shield and head over to help the pair up.

“She’s got a stealth field,” Amber replied, an arrow glancing off her armour as she moved to a different burnt tree trunk, heading away from the relatively ineffective cordon the drones were attempting to close around them. “Keep an eye out for her electricity.”

Unbeknownst to either of them, Carmelita had just finished planting a STAPLER amongst the blackened forest floor, and took the opportunity to charge up a shot on her Shock Pistol. Under cover of her cloak, she aimed squarely at Undyne’s back and fired.
Unfortunately for Carmelita, while she remained hidden beneath her cloak, the ball of electricity fired by her pistol was less than subtle, and Undyne was fast enough to react as she turned her head to talk to Amber. Leaping twenty feet into the air, Undyne grinned and let out a laugh as the ball of electricity dissipated against the tree trunk.

“Hah! It’ll take more than that to catch ME off guard!” she cried, summoning another spear to her hands. At that point, an arrow from Erik struck her in the back of her shoulder, and she was spun around from the impact.

Carmelita took the opportunity to change her vantage point and began firing uncharged shots at Amber, who quickly began firing back. The two of them traded shots, Amber spraying a burst from Razorback at where she thought Carmelita might be before ducking behind cover to avoid a trio of uncharged shots coming from off to the right, two of them catching her in the arm.

Carmelita crawled along the floor as another burst from Razorback flew overhead before her former cover was demolished by Undyne. She rolled away from the splinters that flew everywhere, checking around as Eric’s arrows diverted Amber’s attention again. The PCD drones had been advancing steadily while she had distracted the pair, and now three pairs of drones with barriers advanced on the combat from three different directions. The pair of fugitives were being corralled, and she could only hope that they wouldn’t realise until it was too late.

[Undyne]

Had it not been for Amber’s assessment of the combat situation, this fight may have ended in an arrest far earlier than expected. Undyne was releasing her bottled-up aggressions after having fled without fighting for so long by jumping around and throwing her magic spears at Carmelita, she completely missed that the drones were doing more than just providing shields. She missed that Carmelita’s and Erik’s attacks had a system to them.

When Carmelita stopped shooting her small balls, the faunus detected something was amiss while Undyne mistook the break as that Carmelita had run out of juice. She summoned a new spear to her hand which crackled with magic not unlike Carmelita’s electric shots, and prepared to throw it at the policefox when Amber brought Razorback around like a bat and slammed it into a pair of the flying drones. Though their shields held up the robots were batted backwards and left an opening in the formation. “Jump!” she shouted. The fish-woman had no idea why but the urgency in Amber’s words prompted her to obey. She leapt and Carmelita’s empowered electric projectile barely whizzed over their heads.

“On your feet!” shouted the Faunus. She fired a volley of quick shots from Razorback to force Carmelita back into cover while they retreated. The remaining drones were already reforming and the ones that had been batted away came floating back like tenacious mosquitoes.

An electric attack would not be good at all for her, Undyne realized. Her armor was made of metal after all; it would conduct the zap straight through. “Thank you”, she said while getting back on her feet. “We’re not yet in the clear though. That fox’s gone back into hiding!”

“No matter, I can see her. You get the other one.” With that Amber leapt forward, raising Razorback above her head to attack Carmelita – and stepped square into trap. Numerous thin wires of metal erupted from the disk that had been laying on the ground and caught the surprised Faunus, before releasing an electric shock. Amber’s eyes widened but she held on and attempted to stomp the disk to break it apart. This, however, gave her opponents the opportunity to strike.

“Erik, now!” shouted Carmelita. The floating drones had formed around Amber, their shields erected, leaving one side open – the one the psyker was in. Erik had put away his bow and summoned a disk into his hand that he now flung forward, into the opening and at Amber. The catgirl ducked but found herself inside a dome of shields from which the disk, Erik’s Psi Chakram, bounced off and came right back at her. Only her reflexes saved her from worse injury, but when it bounced back a second time it hit her restrained leg and cut deep in before digging itself into the ground, where it fizzled out.

“Sorry Amber”, Undyne heard. Carmelita was pointing her little gun at her, charging it back up, now in full view. “I’ll make this quick and painless, we can talk later.”

“Like HELL you’re gonna!” yelled Undyne. Their pursuers had outsmarted them with an elaborate plan, making them look like a pair of beginners. Yet Undyne was far from admitting defeat. Just as the catgirl bent down by reflex to hold the injury on her leg Undyne threw her spear through the opening the drones had left for Erik’s chakram, where it whizzed over Amber’s head and at Carmelita. The electric shot met the magic projectile in mid-air and they exploded in a flash of light, forcing the fox to cover her eyes. Amber used the opening to break the STAPLER trap with a second stomp and shook off the wires.

“Oof… thank you”, she called over.

“Anytime. I’m taking on the ranged Human, if you can take care of Carmelita!”

“You got it!”

With that Undyne thrusted her hand at Erik. Yet another new spear formed between her fingers. “Stop skirting around the edge, Human. A warrior fights in the middle of the battlefield. En guarde!” Erik reacted promptly by picking his bow back up, but Undyne allowed him no time to prepare a new shot: she summoned two blue dots at his feet, forcing him to sidestep before the spears could shoot outwards, and as his attention was on the ground she loaded her spear with green energy and swung it through Erik’s body with a rapid sweep. The psyker gasped but not a scratch appeared on his chest, though his feet felt rather heavy. Undyne grinned as she lined her spear back up before taking a stab at him, which he barely blocked with the bow. Hastily he summoned a sword into his hand and attempted a counter-attack, locking weapons with her. “Close quarters now?” he asked. “I’m fine with that.”

[Erik Vrell]

Erik lashed out with his psi blade, only to find it blocked by Undyne’s spear. 

“Ah, of course,” Erik thought to himself. “It's an energy weapon, psi can't pass through it.” The psychic berated himself for missing such an obvious fact. He didn't have time to focus on small faults, however, as the fish monster bearing down on him as a much more pressing threat. Erik attempted to move backwards while drawing Mageslayer, only to find that his feet couldn't move any faster than a walking pace. 

“It must been that blast of green energy.” Erik deduced, barely parrying a blow from Undyne. The situation was rather dire, as the fish monster was noticeably faster and stronger than the psychic, although she was apparently reduced to the same walking pace as Erik. A grin almost split the psychic’s stony face as he realised the monster’s mistake. Removing your own maneuverability was a foolish decision, but Erik had to admire her sense of honour. It took a noble fighter to bind yourself into an equal duel with a foe. Erik took a few steps backwards, knocking Undyne’s wild strikes to the side as he did so. Despite the force behind the blows, there was no keen mind directing them, merely a mad desire to strike at her opponent. Finally, Erik did not take a step back. Rather, he took a step towards Undyne, coming far too close for the fish monster’s comfort, their faces almost touching.

“Are you insane?” Undyne shouted as Erik took his step, barely skirting around her spear. 

“Perhaps,” Erik admitted as Undyne tried to take a step away from him. “But not so insane as to stay in a spear’s effective range. As the psychic mimicked Undyne’s step, keeping only a small distance between them, the monster realised what he was doing. At this range, he was simply too close to be hit by the spear, although Erik’s blades weren't quite effective either, other than stabbing straight into the stomach. As the fish tried to take another step back, Erik swung towards her as she came into a range where he could strike. First his psi blade, then Mageslayer, only to have both swings effortlessly blocked by Undyne’s spear. They weren't for nothing, however, as Undyne's spear shattered and turned to dust in her hands. A look of concern crossed her face briefly and she dashed backwards, before being replaced by a confident grin.

“All right, human, now it's my turn!” Undyne cried, baring her razor sharp teeth. The fish monster dashed towards Erik and planted a fist into his stomach. The psychic did he best to move with the blow, narrowly avoiding having the wind knocked out of him but taking the hit regardless. Erik quickly sheathed Mageslayer and dropped his psi blade, the violet weapon turning to mist as it hit the ground. 

“Now we're doing hand to hand?” Erik asked rhetorically. “Well, I'll gladly accept.” The psychic raised his hands into a boxing stance, guarding his head and body. Erik and Undyne moved around each other, the psychic’s expert stance and footwork contrasting the wild but powerful movements of the monster. Undyne threw a jab towards Erik, followed by a hook towards his head. Erik blocked the jab and ducked under the hook, before delivering a quick blow to Undyne’s stomach. The monster grunted in pain, before returning the favour with another jab to Erik’s side as he was pulling back. In spite of himself, Erik’s normally deadpan face was broken by a grin to match Undyne’s. They weren't even affected by the green energy anymore, they were simply duelling for the sake of it. Erik couldn't deny that he was enjoying the fight, and he had to admit that he liked the monster in a strange way. Maybe if they had were under different circumstances they could have been friends.

“Erik! A little help?” Carmelita called mentally, pulling Erik’s attention from his fisticuffs and reminding him of the reality of the situation. Carmelita, had the Amber on her tail, but both fighters seemed mostly unharmed. Regretfully, Erik ducked under Undyne’s guard and put all of his force behind a blow to the gut, winding the fish monster. Violet mist spilled from Erik’s sleeves and condensed in his hands, forming into the shape of a large bow, almost the same height as Erik himself, and hardening. The psychic pulled the string back and focused as a large arrow formed in his fingers. He adjusted his aim slightly before letting the shot loose, trying to wound, or at least distract, the rampaging Faunus. 

797 words

Erik and Undyne duel for a bit, before Erik breaks her spear and she moves too close for him to effectively use his swords. They then proceed to fist fight until Erik uses his T1 super great psi bow (-1 SP) on Amber to help Carmelita

[Amber Veritz]

The faunus’ barrage kept the fox on her keenest of attentions. She knew the power that was behind that blade, where it came from was still an enigma to the Interpol officer. Amber was smaller than herself, yet held the power of a speeding freight-train in one hand. Even still she was just quick enough to swing the sword too fast for Carmelita to make a safe getaway.

“Erik! A little help?!” She called out, and within seconds an arrow of kinetic energy was soaring at the berserker-cat’s face.

“Isn’t that cute?” Amber says as she glows with a horribly bright, pink light that blinds anyone looking directly at her. The faunus holds up her hand, the bright colors of purple and pink clashing with an aura of lightning. The faunus’ hand clasps against the head of the arrow, completely protected from the damage it causes, and turns it around, throwing it back at it’s caster. Erik flinches only slightly at this as he knows it will dissipate before it reaches him. Just as he thought, it didn’t even make it halfway.

“Hm, how disappointing.” She comments and turns around to see the fox had already vanished. With a sigh she turned back to Erik. “I see, but that won’t save you, Carmel. You know I’m not as dumb as I look.”

Erik is suddenly pulled back into reality as he hears Undyne summon another one of her giant javelins. He quickly ducks under the spear, just dodging a potentially fatal impalement. Amber smirked as she turned back around, looking down at the dry, cracked ground in front of her where Carmelita once stood. The footprints had hardly moved, just around Amber. She was just too slow to react as she felt the cuffs she was so familiar with latch on to her left wrist and her other arm being pulled down. Just before Carmelita was able to get Amber’s other arm restrained, skulls collided together. Amber’s thick brain-shield bashed against the officers. She lets out a heavy groan and is forced to back off.

Before she was able to fully recover from Amber’s blow she hears another familiar click. Amber had locked Carmelita’s hand with hers. In reaction, the fox raised her pistol, which promptly got smacked away by the faunus’ claw.

“You aren’t taking me without a fight Carmel! I hope you’re good at hand to hand!” She yells as the cuffs shock her immensely. Carmel feels the debilitating effect almost immediately, but she has grown somewhat resistant to it through training. Enough to keep her composure, but not enough to dodge or Amber’s assault. While the faunus was unable to use her main weapon, she was still an amazing fighter with just her hands - mostly because of her sheer willpower and strength. Carmelita needed to get an upper hand to release them both from the cuffs before they paralyzed her. Her foot swept under the faunus, who was caught by it. She fell down with Interpol officer, who quickly tried to get the cuff off as it shocked her relentlessly. Amber, however, was still feeling strong, or was pushing through the pain her arms felt to the electric shocks.

In a quick reaction to wear down Carmelita, she pulled her arm in, swinging the fox over her and into the ground on her other side. The fox groaned in pain, noticing her pistol on the ground, which quickly scooped up, just within reach. Meanwhile, the faunus took to her animal side. Black hair grew from her appendages and skin. Her bones deformed into a feline composure, taking on the characteristics of black panther. A low growl loomed over the officer, who had charged her pistol long enough to stun the cat. With the small time frame she had, she unclicked the cuff and they unlatched from the both of them.

Carmelita stands up and gets some distance from Panther Amber. Her eyes widen at the unexpected transformation.

“Well,” She lets out a sigh, “That’s new isn’t it?”

“That’s awesome! So cool!” Undyne’s voice can be heard from a distance.

She swore she could have seen the grin coming off the big-cat. She raised her pistol towards her again, but Amber was faster than Carmelita react. A quick burst of speed closed their distance and claws tore through the fox’s skin. It was hard to react to with the quick dashes of claws coming from many different directions, but soon she noticed Amber beginning to slow down a little. It seems the speed she was running at wore her down rather quickly. Amber growled at Carmelita, who readied her weapon.

[spoiler]Amber used her Tier 2 super defense to block Erik’s super move.
772/800[/spoiler]