The Primordial Weapon

[Proto Man]

Just a few minutes ago, the motley collection of mercenaries had been fighting in tandem to slay a monster that nearly killed them all before collapsing beneath their onslaught. Now that there was a strange glowing orb at stake, they were more than willing to turn their weapons on one another for a chance to claim whatever hovered above the otherwise unimposing obelisk.

With a grunt, Proto Man fell backwards as the glancing blow from the giant copper shield crashed into the side of his skull. Without losing a beat, Atelos took a step forward and swung his battered bulwark at Dio’s face. Although he had established himself first and foremost as a man with a silver tongue, the pale-skinned warrior had proven himself more than capable of holding his own against anyone who threatened him. Fighting without weapons or his supernatural thing, Dio Brando managed to avoid impalement by a free-floating sword.

Left to his own devices with Whirda now knife-fighting the mercenary Alain, Proto Man started to charge a blast. As the Spartan hoisted up his shield for a thunderous bash on a momentarily staggered Dio, the preteen machine released the attack. The charged blast thundered out of his arm cannon and slammed into Atelos chest, throwing the unsuspecting Spartan a few yards away and leaving him with a fresh burn across his abdomen.

A smile spread across the haggard features of Dio Brando as he turned his eyes to the Prototype Robot Master. “I thank you… have you dec—” A concentrated burst of energy to the chest stole the man’s carefully crafted words from his lips and left him on his back.

Turning sharply on his heels, Proto Man made eye contact with Whirda, who was now seemingly alone. The look in her eyes told the robot that they were far from the only two individuals in the immediate vicinity. As his arm started to thrum once again, the red robot glanced to his peripherals as his field of vision was overlaid in a series of different colored filters. The quick succession stopped when his sensors detected the movement of the cloaked mercenary moving in for what he probably hoped would be an easier target.

“You’re going to need better camouflage than that,” Proto Man replied as he discharged the blast at Alain.

Even as he avoided the boy-sized fighter’s attack, he was set up again by Whirda just as soon as he was fully vertical. Proto had little time to watch their almost eloquent attempts to stab one another before a rampaging Spartan slammed into him.

The tackle threw the kid machine to the ground, but it was the fist to the face that really soured his day.

"Stay down, child!" Atelos roared, his eyes burning as much as the aura around his body as he cocked back a muscled arm to deal another thunderous blow. Before he had a chance, a pair of pink beams tore through his left shoulder and slammed into the dirt a few inches from the side of the robot's skull. The raging Spartan glanced over his wounded shoulder to see a smirking Dio staring at him.

Before either Atelos or Dio could fling another venomous barb, a black shape clouded Proto Man's field of vision. He felt the weight of the man lifted from his chest, and a beat later, he heard a crash as an armored man slammed into the ground. As the preteen machine scrambled to his feet, he looked up to see Whirda next to him.

He knew she had murdered an unknown number of people in her past life, and she had even gone so far as to chide him for his conscious decision to avoid the taking of lives. As he looked up at her now, he saw her for the first time as something much worse—a killer. How long had it been since she was just a sick woman turned away from Darkshire? The scariest thought that entered the boy’s mind was wondering whether or not the infection that coursed through her tainted veins had made her more violent or simply tapped into a repressed darkness.

Would she kill him over whatever lay upon the obelisk?

“Pull yourself together, Blues,” Whirda rasped as she turned to where Alain and Dio had Atelos on the defensive. “They’re all dangerous.” With that, the woman sprinted into the fray.

“Just like you,” Proto Man whispered--a sad, broken tone as the Proto Buster started to shimmer and shake. In a fight like this, it was impossible to guard all your flanks all the time, and the others were about to learn that the hard way. Swinging up his hand cannon, the android aimed at the pair of Dio and Atelos. "Finish Buster!"

OOC - Proto Man fires Finish Buster (Tier 1 Super Move) at Dio and Atelos (-2 SP)