02-08-2018, 07:38 AM
The horrid mish-mashed scrap-soldiers of Nebula surged at the Liberators in a single-minded group. They were fragile, yes, but they had an uncanny knack for pulling themselves together again when damaged and blown apart. Grabbing pieces of their scattered bodies, and even 'borrowing' bits and bobs from their downed allies to get back in the fight. Gruesome, all the more so for the constant ghoulish cackling, howling and whooping intermingled with their screams of pain and rage, but certainly effective.
Klaymoor, meanwhile, set about slowly hauling his lumbering frame back to a proper fighting posture. His massive, barrel-shaped 'coat, forming the bulk of his stature and weight, was horribly dented and smashed by the Vision's assault in his Hulked-out state, but it still seemed mostly intact. Thick, oily black smoke belched and burst in uneven streams from small jagged tears and scars in the metal, and from the joins of his arms and collar. "Hmph...you're tougher than I gave you credit for. I can see why Bola had trouble with you, even if he didn't go all-out on you..." He hunkered down, legs flexing at the knee and hurled himself straight up just in time to avoid a vicious shot of energy from the preteen android in red. It left one of his underlings scorched and broken in a crater, but the commander soared cleared of it. Sailing in a rough arc through the air, with all the grace of a drunken gorilla, he reached the top of his jump arc, and looked down at the battlefield. "I'll need to do something to really slow you down...the preparations are almost complete."
He was rapidly running out of time to do more than plan out a rough course of action as gravity took hold and began to drag him back toward the earth again. As he did, an idea did begin to form in his head. The cannon on his right arm quickly built up energy; just a dim glow of pale blue at first, but as he descended it quickly built into a crackling, blinding electric blue glare.
Cloud had just emerged from the foreman's access tunnel, quickly surveying the scene and drawing his blade to join the fight, when the massive, metallic bulk of Klaymoor crashed down right on top of him like a boulder from heaven. It flattened the mercenary into the ground, brutally carving and smashing a perfect Cloud-shaped hole into the rocky surface, as the Darkling commander just barked out a laugh and dust plumed up around the impact, throwing up a thick, obscuring shroud. Smoke billowing from his frame, the cyborg pirate swung his charged arm cannon about, firing wildly in a crazed arc toward the stronghold. Bolt after bolt of energy ripped through the dust and smoke, leaving sizzling trails of electric energy in their wake, hanging in the air menacingly.
The mechanized menace turned and gave another quick hop, leaping off the dazed and crumpled swordsman to crash down elsewhere. This time, the impact not only threw up further clouds of thick dust, it shook the entire cliffside. Seismic waves radiated outward, buckling entire sections of ground and making others rip and jut upward in jagged spires. Panels in his shoulders opened, spewing out thick gouts of smoke and noxious vapors as he wrenched himself free of the ground, tromping off toward his base. Lazily, he turned his arm cannon this way and that, blasting out more ordnance; mines and proximity explosives. Some lay on the ground; others hovered in midair at varying heights; some even flickered out of visibility, lost from sight. A minefield, shrouded in smoke and with ruined terrain to make it even more treacherous. "This should slow you blasted pests down..."
Steam joined the smoke billowing from his damaged frame as he finally sought to make good his escape. He didn't get far. A barrage of energy bolts tore through the smokescreen, many of them going wide of their mark but several peppering the ground around the cyborg and several more cutting across his hide. The onslaught forced him to pause and shield his face with the his left arm, peering futilely through the smoke. He couldn't see any more than they could, but his scanners and sensors still worked. They were firing blindly...mostly. But still with enough of an idea of where he was to be a nuisance.
"Havin' trouble, partner?" The echoing voice was unmistakable. The swirling plume of smoke that spiraled out of the ground as Bola reappeared was almost a welcome sight, in the current situation.
"I'm not in the mood for your games, Bola," the surly tank of a pirate grumbled. "We aren't being paid to throw our lives away trying to kill these 'heroes'. We've distracted these fools long enough. Let's get out of here."
"Well, hey." Bola just shrugged lazily. "Fine by me, partner. This place was getting old, anyway...think it's time to cut and run. We got paid in advance for this job anyway."
"Exactly what I was thinking." The titanic cyborg reloaded his arm cannon, bringing the simplistic option of the high-caliber explosive gatling cannon back to bear. "Is the ship prepared?"
"What do you think I was doing?" the lackadaisical sky-mariner mused, shifting his stance to ready his oversized cleaver. "Gonna take a little time for us to get there from here...think we'll be able to get away from that bunch?"
The mangled howling of the cobbled together soldiers of Nebula had gone mostly quiet. Their regenerative abilities hadn't been enough to keep them going under a sustained onslaught from the Liberators, and they had finally fallen. Now the heroes were hurrying forward, through the smoke-shrouded minefield.
"Hmph. As if that were even a question," the surly artillery specialist grumped. "Let's get going before they get to us."
The pair of mercenaries turned and as one began their retreat. Klaymoor lumbered along on foot as fast as his bulk would allow — not all that fast, really; Bola could probably have hobbled along hopping on one hand and kept up with him —and Bola floated alongside him, facing back toward the chaotic scene at the cliff to keep an eye out. Ahead of them, Nebula's stronghold stretched out. Huge smokestacks belched out smoke and toxins into the air; huge piles of scrap littered the area, wreckage from ships and buildings and other pieces of Nebula's destroyed forces; periodically, dropships and airships would drop off more piles of junk and scrap, and cargo bots would emerge to grab huge armfulls and tote it back inside. The smell of smoke and industry was everywhere, and the sound of electrical arcs and blacksmithery echoed from within the buildings. Every now and then, one of their Recycled soldiers would lumber unsteadily from a doorway, shiny silver and metallic, eyes burning red. They were shipped off to numerous portals and vehicles waiting nearby, thrust off to go tend to the fighting elsewhere in the verse.
The center of it all was a small lake of ugly, oily black water littered with trash and detritus; the corpses and broken forms of the other Darkling Commanders and Darkloids which had lead the assault in other Verses. All of them inoperable and in pieces, just a morbid gravesite for whatever was left of them. But in the center of the lake was another factory, out of which flickered a constant glow of sparking wires and burning steel, as who knew what was forged and built within. The lair of the commander here, broadcast plain as day.
Klaymoor, meanwhile, set about slowly hauling his lumbering frame back to a proper fighting posture. His massive, barrel-shaped 'coat, forming the bulk of his stature and weight, was horribly dented and smashed by the Vision's assault in his Hulked-out state, but it still seemed mostly intact. Thick, oily black smoke belched and burst in uneven streams from small jagged tears and scars in the metal, and from the joins of his arms and collar. "Hmph...you're tougher than I gave you credit for. I can see why Bola had trouble with you, even if he didn't go all-out on you..." He hunkered down, legs flexing at the knee and hurled himself straight up just in time to avoid a vicious shot of energy from the preteen android in red. It left one of his underlings scorched and broken in a crater, but the commander soared cleared of it. Sailing in a rough arc through the air, with all the grace of a drunken gorilla, he reached the top of his jump arc, and looked down at the battlefield. "I'll need to do something to really slow you down...the preparations are almost complete."
He was rapidly running out of time to do more than plan out a rough course of action as gravity took hold and began to drag him back toward the earth again. As he did, an idea did begin to form in his head. The cannon on his right arm quickly built up energy; just a dim glow of pale blue at first, but as he descended it quickly built into a crackling, blinding electric blue glare.
Cloud had just emerged from the foreman's access tunnel, quickly surveying the scene and drawing his blade to join the fight, when the massive, metallic bulk of Klaymoor crashed down right on top of him like a boulder from heaven. It flattened the mercenary into the ground, brutally carving and smashing a perfect Cloud-shaped hole into the rocky surface, as the Darkling commander just barked out a laugh and dust plumed up around the impact, throwing up a thick, obscuring shroud. Smoke billowing from his frame, the cyborg pirate swung his charged arm cannon about, firing wildly in a crazed arc toward the stronghold. Bolt after bolt of energy ripped through the dust and smoke, leaving sizzling trails of electric energy in their wake, hanging in the air menacingly.
The mechanized menace turned and gave another quick hop, leaping off the dazed and crumpled swordsman to crash down elsewhere. This time, the impact not only threw up further clouds of thick dust, it shook the entire cliffside. Seismic waves radiated outward, buckling entire sections of ground and making others rip and jut upward in jagged spires. Panels in his shoulders opened, spewing out thick gouts of smoke and noxious vapors as he wrenched himself free of the ground, tromping off toward his base. Lazily, he turned his arm cannon this way and that, blasting out more ordnance; mines and proximity explosives. Some lay on the ground; others hovered in midair at varying heights; some even flickered out of visibility, lost from sight. A minefield, shrouded in smoke and with ruined terrain to make it even more treacherous. "This should slow you blasted pests down..."
Steam joined the smoke billowing from his damaged frame as he finally sought to make good his escape. He didn't get far. A barrage of energy bolts tore through the smokescreen, many of them going wide of their mark but several peppering the ground around the cyborg and several more cutting across his hide. The onslaught forced him to pause and shield his face with the his left arm, peering futilely through the smoke. He couldn't see any more than they could, but his scanners and sensors still worked. They were firing blindly...mostly. But still with enough of an idea of where he was to be a nuisance.
"Havin' trouble, partner?" The echoing voice was unmistakable. The swirling plume of smoke that spiraled out of the ground as Bola reappeared was almost a welcome sight, in the current situation.
"I'm not in the mood for your games, Bola," the surly tank of a pirate grumbled. "We aren't being paid to throw our lives away trying to kill these 'heroes'. We've distracted these fools long enough. Let's get out of here."
"Well, hey." Bola just shrugged lazily. "Fine by me, partner. This place was getting old, anyway...think it's time to cut and run. We got paid in advance for this job anyway."
"Exactly what I was thinking." The titanic cyborg reloaded his arm cannon, bringing the simplistic option of the high-caliber explosive gatling cannon back to bear. "Is the ship prepared?"
"What do you think I was doing?" the lackadaisical sky-mariner mused, shifting his stance to ready his oversized cleaver. "Gonna take a little time for us to get there from here...think we'll be able to get away from that bunch?"
The mangled howling of the cobbled together soldiers of Nebula had gone mostly quiet. Their regenerative abilities hadn't been enough to keep them going under a sustained onslaught from the Liberators, and they had finally fallen. Now the heroes were hurrying forward, through the smoke-shrouded minefield.
"Hmph. As if that were even a question," the surly artillery specialist grumped. "Let's get going before they get to us."
The pair of mercenaries turned and as one began their retreat. Klaymoor lumbered along on foot as fast as his bulk would allow — not all that fast, really; Bola could probably have hobbled along hopping on one hand and kept up with him —and Bola floated alongside him, facing back toward the chaotic scene at the cliff to keep an eye out. Ahead of them, Nebula's stronghold stretched out. Huge smokestacks belched out smoke and toxins into the air; huge piles of scrap littered the area, wreckage from ships and buildings and other pieces of Nebula's destroyed forces; periodically, dropships and airships would drop off more piles of junk and scrap, and cargo bots would emerge to grab huge armfulls and tote it back inside. The smell of smoke and industry was everywhere, and the sound of electrical arcs and blacksmithery echoed from within the buildings. Every now and then, one of their Recycled soldiers would lumber unsteadily from a doorway, shiny silver and metallic, eyes burning red. They were shipped off to numerous portals and vehicles waiting nearby, thrust off to go tend to the fighting elsewhere in the verse.
The center of it all was a small lake of ugly, oily black water littered with trash and detritus; the corpses and broken forms of the other Darkling Commanders and Darkloids which had lead the assault in other Verses. All of them inoperable and in pieces, just a morbid gravesite for whatever was left of them. But in the center of the lake was another factory, out of which flickered a constant glow of sparking wires and burning steel, as who knew what was forged and built within. The lair of the commander here, broadcast plain as day.
Quote:The group is reunited. Cloud managed to deal with and evade the foreman golem long enough to get to the ladder and escape. Unfortunately, he arrived just in time to play a rousing game of 'catch the Klaymoor' and had a very bad day. Took some damage, but he's fine.
In the chaos, Klaymoor devastated the clifftop area, turning it into a jagged, rocky field of trenches and spires. The entire mess is shrouded in clouds of dust and thick smoke, making it difficult to see, and has been littered with all manner of explosives to make your life difficult.
Bola has also returned, but he and his partner have had enough of you guys. They're going to be focusing on retreating now, but they will fight back if you catch up and decide to keep bothering them. Past this final obstacle, you'll be in Nebula Space proper. It's a huge recycling facility, gathering scrap and debris to rebuild more soldiers to send out to battle. The Commander for this verse is at the center. Get through the factory and its guards and confront him to end this mess.
Everyone has 10 days and up to 2000 words. Go nuts.