[4-14] The Town

[Albert Wesker]

"It would seem that we finally have...a chance to fight together." The voice of the Dean of Security was as decrepit and ragged as the lumbering half-corpse from which it issued, his hulking form taking much slower, but far longer strides as he kept pace more or less evenly with his subordinate.

A flash of emerald light and the snicker-snack of impossibly ancient, corroded metal sounded as both plaguebearer and machine carved a path through the ghoulish hordes, and Colonel spoke up in answer as he separated the head of one of the plague-born revenants from its neck, sending the body shambling forward for several paces, crashing into the path of another of its fellows and sending a knot of them toppling to the ground. "Looks that way. Just wish we weren't so banged up."

Okor scoffed at that sentiment. "Do you fear...your damaged state will hinder you?"

Staring at the massive, tank-like form of the heavily-mutated undead advancing upon them, the soldier navi seemed nonplussed as he answered, "Far from it." He lowered himself into a combat-ready crouch, leaning forward just slightly to spring into action. "In fact, I seem to be experiencing...a critical error."

"An error...is it? Do tell."

"If this were the internet, humans might call it a 404 error, sir," Colonel started, staring at the massive brute they squared off against.

The lumbering Tank smashed both fists into the ground, letting out a basso roar, echoing wordlessly off of the crumbling city around them, the sound surprisingly deep and strong considering the desiccated, bloated hulk from which it emitted. Using its arms as a second pair of legs, it charged forward with an explosive burst of momentum, trundling along like an avalanche of decaying, rotting flesh and swollen muscle. Fists the size of wrecking balls launched it from the ground in a blind lurch, hands spreading wide and grasping wildly for the mountain of filth and the comparatively much smaller warrior of steel that had the audacity to not run from it.

"Fear not found." His energy saber struck upward, intercepting the hamfist of the Tank and knocking the grasping mitt wide of its mark. The war machine buckled under the force of the blow, dropping to one knee, sparks flickering in the numerous gashes and rends in his exterior plating. He couldn't afford to take a direct blow from this thing, if it could hit like that! But he had done his job. The great dumb undead brute was distracted by not completely pulverizing or managing to grapple the impudent little metal man just long enough for the ancient warrior also standing against it to assert his presence.

"Lack of fear is...commendable," the chosen warrior of Nurgle proclaimed, his filth and disease-coated fingers — quite literally more clawed talons than actual fingers, Colonel noticed — closed around the far less revolting undead's limb, wrestling against it to arrest its momentum and fighting strength. "Fear is for those who are not...certain of their strength." A wet slashing and meaty crunch signaled the devastation of the Tank's grappled limb, the dean's diseased digits tearing through the omnilium-mutated brute's flesh and bones.

"For a soldier...our strength is all we have." The digital soldier regained his footing, bringing his blade up overhead as sparks danced along its length. "If we can't have faith in that, then what do we have left?" It was something he had pondered, many a time, in his own private moments, few and far between as they were. And he had never come to an answer. "We always have some cause to fight for. Something greater than ourselves. We need that cause. And that cause needs us." He whirled around, his saber carving a bright arcing trail to mimic his movement, sending a spray of steaming viscera and severed limbs sailing in all directions as several of the ghoulish horde fell into smoking pieces, cloven in two at the waist by the thunderous Screen Divide. "But when we're taken out of reach of that cause, all we have left is the strength we used to fight for it. And a whole lot of rage about not having anything to take it out on."

The noise that issued from the champion of more warfare than most would ever dream of seeing could only be loosely identified as even resembling any sound that a living, moving creature might make. That it was a laugh was almost impossible to discern. "A very...interesting out look you have," he said simply in response, finally losing the struggle to keep the Tank contained, its mangled limb tearing free from his gangrenous grasp. "But if that is truly how you...feel, then stop containing all of that rage, false-man...and put it to some use!"

"Affirmative."

The next instant was a whirling blitz of green, Colonel making a short leap backward and twirling into a spin in midair. He carved a short, mangled swath through the hordes about them, even as many of the misshapen malignants shambled, charged, and sprinted past them, surging around the scene of the contained, titanic scuffle. He landed on the pavement of the street, sword pointing toward the ground. He kept his emotions in check, whenever he could; the ones he was still capable of feeling anymore, anyway. They could make things messy. Especially one of them, which liked to come rampaging out like a beast, take over, and force him into madness. It made him angry; irrationally, impossible so. Gregar was not something to be underestimated, even in just a fragmented, data-memory state as what lurked within his programming.

But a ravening beast might be exactly what was called for right now.

The blade of his saber flickered, sputtering wildly, his eyes taking on a more menacing cast. A flourish of his arm, and the blade emitter gave a sharp whine of protest, the blade flickering briefly off altogether, before the entire arrangement briefly glowed white-hot and spat sparks, the opening for the blade shearing and tearing apart as the blade tore itself a wider opening, spreading into a flat, angular profile. Teeth and spikes ripped out from the mass of energy, and more energy rippled down the length of the blade, strengthening and elongating it. A visible pulse ran through it, and within his mind, Colonel could hear it: the echoing, hungry roar of a wild beast. It drove a spike of wild anger into his heart, and with something which might generously be called a grin on his face, he surged back into combat with the Tank.

The superheated Gregar Saber carved through a ghoul in his path with a single swipe, continuing on to cut into the bloated, overly-muscled hide of the tankish undead. An angry howl was the only response, the brute lunging out to grab him, and this time succeeding, both hands closing around the machine-man and hoisting him off the ground. A horribly deformed, broken face was pressed close to Colonel's and a fist of hot, rancid breath struck him as it roared angrily and defiantly. He was answered by the saber, now shimmering in a cloud of heat haze, sheathing itself in the massive undead's lack of a lower jaw, sparks of energy dripping from it as a charge of energy built up within the glowing blade. That shut it up right quick, leaving it dumbfounded as this odd 'pain' sensation finally registered, with a white-hot blade tickling its rotten brain.

It didn't have long to debate, as it was suddenly relieved of the cargo it was manhandling by a large, pitted blade scything through its already mangled arm, severing it at the wrist. Dropping to the ground again, Colonel immediately took off with a powerful leap, straight up as far as his battered frame would let him. His beastially-empowered blade came up over his head, a massive wash of energy pouring into it. The mad howl of a beast screamed in his mind as he came falling back down on the Tank, sword poised to deliver a killing blow. And just before he impacted it, he struck, carving out a devastating Z of power, bright light spitting the darkness of the city with an emerald flare, the great impact a momentary beacon, before it was swallowed up by a plume of dust and debris, the asphalt shattering into a crater into which vanished Dean, Vice Dean, and Tank all.

"I believe that should be...sufficient to draw their attention," Okor's voice rasped, within the swirling cloud of dush and ash. "Our...allies should have made it...inside, by now."

Hauling himself up to the edge of the crater, Colonel stormed out of the dust cloud, immediately beheading another zombified citizen. "Then let's go join them."

"A fine idea..."

It was a messy path indeed, and a dusty, grime-coated machine and plague-bearing corpse that shambled up to the doors of the census building, hacking and smashing down anything in their way.

1575 words, according to on-site wordcounter.

Colonel used T1 Super Attack: Neo Screen Divide. 2/4 SP remaining.

[Gildarts]

It’s funny. No really, go ahead and start laughing, I’ll be here all night. Hearing their screams. The clock on the wall inside had frozen, its hands, so helpless, only able to hold themselves up until their very last movement. Time, its an amazing thing, always so strange how it delivers us straight to our fate.

And here she was.

Abner following behind her, the mighty lion bounding before her, rear legs erupted from the ground, launching him forth as his claw swiftly fell over the cranium of a too-close monster. It was a quick death, for something already dead, but time only ever really worked as a perception in the first place, so what good did speed do? It was due, she supposed, it was as simple as that.

Abner, his face wafted in and out of her sight, merging with the throes of war while ichor and gore drenched her, spraying like a sprinkler from all of the crossfire. The crimson man stood alongside the executive game master, making an upstanding escort, slicing and dicing until he got to the shining gates of their heavenly haven. Soon it would be over. The hands of time would stop for them too, but when? How? Would Omni do it himself, or would it take someone just like her to end it all? Inches, her bloodied fingers were inches from the door. Grasping the handle, a cold steel, but not quick enough. She looked up, a glimpse at a ghost from the past, and reality of her future: Urg.

It lunged, Christa barely had the foresight to take a step back, Abner sent a few shots of hot laser from his blaster. The corpse slapped against asphalt. Abner held the door as they all piled in, even waiting nobly for his comrade Colonel, to finally close the door behind him. A slam, followed by the echoing wails of un-humans dreading every minute they don't die.

Abner’s hand fell over the side of her cheek, it was wet, coated with tears and speckled with dots of black and brown. The rest of the living scattered down the hall. But these two paused, half a foot of steel separated them from instances that would deliver them to a fate worse than death. Still, still was the distance of the waves between their heartbeats.

There was a spark as his forehead touched hers and he wrapped his arms over her shoulders, never intending to let go again. Christa felt the rush of her survival instincts fall away. His lips, her kiss. Deep, and nothing between them but layers of of clothing. He could taste the last cigarette she smoked as she traced the back of his head with her fingers, thick with the sprouting of his dark hair between them. Finally, their lips parted, if only for them to catch their breath.

Fire ignited in her, and she realized she was mad. She could’ve slapped him, had he not kissed her, she would have. “Where the Hell have you been?”

The ex-soldier’s expression didn’t change as he pulled her into a comforting hug, careful to move around the sling of her shoulder, “I’m here now.” Here, so peaceful. Seconds felt like they had been drenched in hours, so, they pulled apart. The blonde took a moment to look up at his face and appreciate its finest details. A moment, she’d never forget. The way his dark eyebrows knitted together as he looked down in concern, the soft edges of his jawline, littered with the spray of coal-covered shadow, she took a breath, “Abner, I-”

One breath. That was enough. She never finished the sentence.

An explosion of steel came from behind, he pulled her underneath him as he fell to the ground. His weight on her was suffocating, harsher than lightning, was the pain delivered to her broken arm. Before she could blink, she knew what would happen next. How he would be torn away from her, limb by limb. But he wouldn’t scream, because he’d save her life, because that was the way he was, and who he is. There was no way out of this reality.

Clink. Her last grenade.

It wedged into the ceiling before erupting on impact. A sniper, and she’d fucking missed. There was a reign of floorboard and it just so happened a corner of a desk fell directly on the Goliath of monsters. The undead’s neck was snapped to a slant and those that followed flowed in through the dismantled door. White powder fell from the sky, coating everything as Christa batted her eyelashes. Her arm pressed against him and there was no movement. Abner wasn’t breathing.

“Please no.” She said before she saw the chair above them. A zombie had managed this far, meanwhile the titan was teetering backwards, offsetting the surmounting tide of the escalating situation. All it would take was one nibble and she’d never have him back. The wheels in her brain churned until she saw the ones on the office chair.

There was a flash before the bang, and Christa had squeezed her eyes shut, leaving herself blind to the chaos and entrusting his fate to her own too-capable hands. The ever-chiming pitch seared her ears while she kicked a disoriented zombie away, thinking its prey and enemy was behind it. Its senses had deceived it, giving the veteran enough time to shove her un-alive man in the wheely chair and start running for her life down the long, encompassing hallway which lead to the stairs. Karl had been the first one up, followed by the stream of heads that she didn’t have the time to count. Red and Colonel were waiting for her at the base of the stairwell, Christa’s jaw was clenched as she delivered him to the robot, “He’s not breathing.”

The Colonel’s supreme strength could not be outdone, they were retreating up and the machine was carrying Abner as though he were a load of laundry. The second floor, or maybe it was the fourth? Things were a blur, time was a blur in their staggering haste. “Colonel, he’ll die if I don’t give him some air,” she stated, luckily, this was the floor Karl had lead them all to.

The robot braced the door and Christa knelt beside Abner's unmoving body. The same chair that had hit his head had saved his life, or so she hoped. She pounded on his chest, delivering forceful blows straight into his heart, then moved to blowing on the same lips she had just kissed so sensually not a moment ago. They were now lifeless and chilled by the air he no longer breathed, but they were his, goddammit. She exhaled through his mouth while pinching his nose and moved onto drumming his chest, her palms over his sternum.

Tears, the kind a robot could never shed, trickled to her chin. “I won’t lose you like this,” she declared as though it were her choice. Valiant leader, failing, sinking deeper, clawing against stone as though there were some way to grapple her way out of this pit. “I can’t lose you again.”

The unbearable pain of the tragedy threatened to destroy her resolve but she kept pushing against the bone—it was all she had. Her wrist, oh yes, she was using it. Ignoring the pain because emotions always dug deeper, enough to override the physical at least briefly.

Five, seven, nine. Soon enough, there wasn’t a reason to count the time. The robot over her shoulder grunted, thinking it was time to call it. Her palm fell on his cheek the last time, the stubble, coarse in her fingertips.

A breath stirred below her, “Christa?”

[Kenpachi Zaraki]

The burgundy beast stood aside the hulking automaton, watching as Christa quite literally breathed life into the fallen gunman. He felt a sense of weird déjà vu watching her pound on Abner’s chest just as the feline had done for her what felt like forever ago. Before he could stop to appreciate the symbolism or poetic irony in her actions, Nanaki caught sight of the group of pursing ghouls, now tearing their way down the hallway with nightmarish vigor. The majority of the members of their ragtag ensemble had since skedaddled up the stairs, leaving the lovers, the tin man, and the lion. Red drew a deep breath into his raw lungs. What a time for courage.

“Let me out and hold the door closed behind me,” the fiery feline commanded, cocking his head to look up at Colonel as Abner began to stir. 

A pause. The machine stared back at him, then down at his ailing comrade and the crippled huntress. “Understood,” he monotoned, pulling the door open and ushering him through. Without a second thought, the beast bounded down the rickety stairwell to the sound of the encroaching horde. 

He stood once more upon the shellacked woodwork of the first level, at the base of the stairs, calmly staring down the veritable tidal wave of roiling rot pouring toward him. Red would need to buy them time, to put down as many as possible in an effort to grant them the breathing room to get what they needed. His last stand. The eggshell-painted walls, the smell of dust and disinfectant, the absolute mundanity of the décor. The shrieks and groans of the undead, the aroma of rotting meat. Juxtaposition alone was almost enough to bring a smile to his face- Almost. 

“Father,” Nanaki muttered to himself, licking his chapped lips. He flexed his overtaxed muscles, willing whatever strength he had left into his impossibly tired appendages. He couldn’t make out the sounds of Karl and his crew in the room above, the clamor of the pursuing zombie horde replacing all sound. It wouldn’t be long. His thoughts fell back to Cosmo Canyon, to the day his father left his wife and son to stop the Gi tribe’s surprise assault. A proud, regal beast, standing alone against a horde not unlike the one he now faced. “I wonder if this is how you felt.”

“Red!” The call came from above, barely audible over the flood. Perhaps he had imagined it. “RED!”

The beast sighed, releasing a breath slowly through his nose. An honorable death. To lay down his life in the lonely crumbling document repository, to stem the flow of death that would otherwise rise up and tear at the Primes above. Would that be sufficient penance? Would the sacrifice make him worthy to carry the name his father had gifted him? He couldn’t know; he had denied his title as the son of Seto for so long, perhaps he was beyond forgiveness. As the furor of the horde reached a fever pitch he sighed once more. He wouldn’t have a chance to find out. Not here.

With his end in sight Nanaki threw back his head, his mane whipping in the dusty, stagnant air. A haunting howl leapt from his throat and echoed through the halls, carrying over the leprous legion’s cacophony despite their volume. His call carried throughout the building, bearing with it his resolve. As the first rotwalker reached its greedy hand forward to dig a jagged phalanx into the carmine cat’s coat, the windows shattered. 

A cascade of light streamed through the high windows, motes of radiant luminescence bombarding the rushing crowd and detonating on contact. A sea of glitter erupted before the roaring lion, the sounds of the ailing dead cut short as the otherworldly bolts tore through their flesh, vaporizing the gore and leaving only ash. The tight hallway was blanketed in blinding light as the Stardust Ray ate away at the decaying humanoids. Seconds later the missiles began to cease, darkness encroaching once more. 

“I hope...” Red said through panting breaths, feeling his knees on the verge of buckling. “That you’d be proud of me.” 

The hallway had fallen silent, chunks of charred gore littering the hallway among piles of ash. Night had reclaimed the building once more, leaving but a few twinkling streetlights outside to shed a ghostly light through the shattered panes. Shakily, Red turned placing his paw on the first stair. He lifted the second to follow, his heart plummeting in his chest as a raucous roar boomed down the ruined hallway. The scarlet predator slowly turned his ocher optic to gaze down the corridor at the familiar silhouette of the zombified colossus, now bearing full-tilt down the passageway. Whatever otherworldly force that was sustaining the macabre creature had given it ample strength to make chase despite missing entire pieces of its body. 

“Not...done,” Nanaki choked out, clamoring up the first few stairs to the landing. He made an about-face, breathing heavily. Not much left.

As the rotting giant came ever near, a peculiar noise met Red’s ears. Though at first quiet and far-off, it soon became undeniable. The bizarre shrieking made him freeze in place, his limbs stock still as if frozen by a banshee’s cry. Had yet another malevolent machination staked their claim on the squadron of Primes? The burgundy beast had little time to ponder this as the rotting leviathan reached the stairs, raising its mammoth fists skyward as what passed for a mouth warped into a smile.

The monster’s grin was fleeting, quickly falling away as a projectile streamed through the now open window and collided with the fiend. A wet crunch signaled penetration as the lance of God plunged into gray matter. As if in celebration of victory the lance’s end erupted into flames, showering crimson fireflies in a high arc. The impaled colossus cried out in what Red could only assume was a mixture of surprise and agony as it fell forward, crashing through the rickety stairs as it fell upon its own weight. 

With strength that came only from dodging death, the burgundy beast leapt out of the way of the falling titan. He hastily scampered up the stairs as the woodwork, now unsupported, began to crumple. Faster than he ever knew himself to be, he reached the top of the staircase and flung himself through the doorway as the stairwell tore itself loose and crashed down upon the flooring.

“Oh hey, Clifford’s back.” The jumpsuited mercenary waved cordially at the exhausted feline as Colonel slammed the door shut once more.

“Back...to what…?” Nanaki panted, desperately swallowing breaths. He could hear his heart hammering in his ears, but thankfully nothing from the rubble below. 

“Good timing,” Karl said, gesturing to a nearby door. “We’ve found our room.”

Used Stardust Ray: Tier-1 Super. 3/4 SP remaining
2384 words, both posts. 
COFFEE IS FOR CLOSERS.

Also the rocket at the end was Gin's doing, if that wasn't obvious.

[Karl Jak]

End of Round 13

It seemed as if they’d won a moment’s respite, but that little calm ended with a thunderous explosion that shattered the group.  Part of the ceiling caved as dazed primes scrambled to escape the domino effect that quickly brought down the wing of the office complex.  With a grimace on his features, Karl dove hard from the path of the freefalling debris.  He crashed down onto his right side and scowled as a wave of dust and powderized drywall rolled over his body.

Fresh suit…

Karl wondered if this particular group of primes had some sort of animal magnetism that drew in the sad, deranged remnants of the island’s population.  The town should have been large enough to disperse the husks enough to make them a scant threat, but for some stupid, Kai-forsaken reason, the surviving primes were like walking zombie magnets.

I guess the male 18-34 demographic will appreciate this.

The executive producer made it back to his feet and shook the dust from his hair.  Even in the din of combat and with the recent renovations, he remembered how to navigate the structure even though this was his first visit.  As the census building was torn apart by one explosion after the next, Karl Jak slipped into a side hallway and made his way down toward the reinforced cellar.  If the primes blew themselves into pieces, they at least wouldn’t drop the building down on his head.

“You walk fast for a guy in new shoes.”

Karl glanced over his head and smiled faintly at Mr. Wilson, who was leisurely making his way down the corridor.  Behind the mercenary, Hiro could be spotted pulling himself out from under some rubble, but beyond the ebony cyber-samurai—can you imagine what people would pay for an action figure that does computer stuff, oriental stuff, and taps into the black demographic?[/i]—the hallway was a mess of debris.

“Separated?”  The executive inquired, eliciting a slight bob of the noggin from Deadpool.

“You got it,” he remarked, cheerfully as Hiro, successful in freeing himself, stumbled up to his feet and made it to them.  “They were crushed down by the might of sideplot.”

Karl furrowed his brow and stood silent for a moment before gesturing with his head.  “What we need is in the vault.  We should find it, so we can go help the others.  Last thing I need is to deal with the grungy one breathing down my neck again.  You’d think a girl would understand hygiene or breath mints.”  Karl snickered at his own wit and started down the small, declining corridor into the basement.

When they reached the bottom of the landing, the Syntech producer reached over and thumbed a light switch.  While the actual lights were beyond dead, the emergency supply of illumination flickered a few times before casting a pale yellow glow over the room.  As Karl had expected, the vault was on the other side of the room, and despite the general calamity, it stood resolute like the overbearing metal sentinel that it was.

“Black Thunder?”  Karl remarked as he turned back and held out his hand.  After needing a moment to process the gesture, Hiro pulled out the small key and gave it to Karl.  The executive turned back toward the vault and smiled.  “Now are you going to show yourself?”

“I’m right here.”  Deadpool even tapped a hand onto his chest and put the other onto Karl’s shoulder.  “Have you gone full Ray Charles?”

Karl scowled and shook his head.  “The Latina,” he remarked as he turned back into the room.  “If you want, I can just have White Lightning blow this room, but that seems excessive.”

From the corner of the room, a figure stepped forth from the thin air, eliciting a mild squeal from Deadpool.  “A ghost!  A fiery, Latin fox ghost!”

Carmelita scowled at the mercenary’s antics and turned her focus on Karl Jak.  “You’re under arrest.”

The executive producer smiled.  “Sweetheart, I grew out of my cop phase a while ago… it just wasn’t doing anything for me.”

“You can joke, but I’ll see to it that you stand trial for what you’ve done here.”

Karl shook his head.  “What I’ve done?  My plane crashed and I had some bad dreams.  The rest is the Omniverse.  You want someone to blame?  Blame our boss,” the producer pointed a finger up above their heads.  “He didn’t have to program us to mutilate the world in our sleep.”

Carmelita’s facial expression didn’t waver.  “I’ll find a charge and make it stick.”

The executive producer rolled his eyes.  “Yes, in the ‘grand court of the Omniverse’?  What’s next, will you bring down the Empire with the sword of ‘justice’?  How about you go arrest King Aragorn for appointing known racists to positions of power and then letting them lord over their fiefdoms as if they were tiny little gods?  How about Roland?  The one who employs sociopaths and known killers as his police force?  OH!  Don’t forget Costa del Sol, because I guess that Vi woman who runs the place has a history of beating the crap out of people to keep them from committing crimes.”  Karl paused for a moment to smile warmly at the scowling police officer.  “This isn’t whatever world you came from, Mrs. Fox-Cooper.  If you want to do some ‘good,’ you should go make your own verse, with your own little laws, because your badge doesn’t mean shit in the Omniverse.  This isn’t a utopia.  We’re some gods playthings, and you know what the only law is here in the Omniverse?  The only real law?”

Carmelita didn’t have a chance to respond, even if a retort had been forming in her head.

“The law is that you entertain Omni.  You really think he gives a fuck about how the Empire treats its poor?  Or how the Kingdom treats is non-humans?  He could stop that in the wink of an eye.  If he thought I was vile, he could stop me with a snap of his fingers, but he doesn’t, does he?  You know why?

“Because he gets off on all of this.”

Deadpool snickered somewhere behind Karl, who took a brief moment to smile at Mr. Wilson’s simple mind before turning back to Carmelita.  “I’m many things, but I’m not a liar.  Omni led me to this place.  He gave me the will and the ability to make all of this, because he wanted me too.  Why don’t you go arrest him?  Why don’t you slap him in handcuffs and read him his Miranda Rights?  I’m sure he’d find that entertaining.  Hell, he might give you some extra juju just for making him chuckle.

“I don’t mind that you’re having some problems adjusting to this world and its rules, but you need to get the hell out of my way.  Omni put me here to run my business, and right now, you’re in my way.  You’re also in the way of Mr. Pool’s ‘prize’.”

At that, there was the sound of a katana being drawn from its sheath.

***

Red grimaced at the madness.  He knew that Karl and some of the others were gone, but where they had left to, he didn’t know.  In a matter of minutes, the census building and the surrounding structures had been shattered.  Nanaki shook his head to try and clear away some of the haze, but there would be no solace for the beast.  A string of explosions tore through something he couldn’t see through the cloud of debris that hung around the area.

***

The group had been fractured.  Christa squinted as she fired Abner’s blaster at the dark shapes shambling in the dark gray haze around them.  The shrieks that issued forth told her that her aim was still impeccable, even though the recent string of events had started to weigh heavily upon her.  The machine—Colonel—stood tall and hacked down anything that tried to break into their location.  Out in the streets in front of the ruined buildings, they could hear what had to be Okor and Fiara battling for their lives.  

Trent, gun in his hands, took his shots as well.  The young man had come a long way in the time since the plane crash, and each bullet he sent out seemed to find its mark.  He couldn’t tell if he was killing the creatures out there, but he knew that he was doing his part for their group.  As he swiveled to find another mark, he noticed something drop down from a nearby building.  A beat later, that something stood up to reveal one hell of a large thing.

“Guys, we got a…”

Before Trent could finish his remark, a tendril shot through the fog and wrapped around his neck.  Colonel spun and swung his sword, but he was too late to stop the young man from being dragged out from their position.  Without skipping a beat, the soldier navi leapt over the rubble that had served as their barricade and went after the thing that had taken the secondary.  Despite still feeling winded from his near brush with death, Abner was on his feet as well, taking Christa with him into the fray.

After the first twenty yards, they were out of the wreckage of the building and back into the street.  Okor and Fiara could be heard on an adjacent street—the report of their weapons a clarion call against the din of combat.  While their newfound associates were nearby, the group was focused on the eight-foot humanoid clutching Trent within its two meaty fists.  Garbed in a green trench coat, the bald ‘man’ stared down at them—its beady black eyes conveying no human emotion.  With a motion like someone snapping a twig, it tore the Trent in half, easily rending through his skin and muscle before tearing his spine away from his pelvis.

Deadpool and Hiro took 2 points of Accumulated Damage
Red and Christa took 4 points of Accumulated Damage
Okor and Fiara took 6 points of Accumulated Damage
Abner took 8 points of Accumulated Damage
Colonel took 6 points of Accumulated Damage

Okor has been eliminated from Final Prize Contention
Hiro Protagonist has been eliminated from Final Prize Contention

Carmelita ‘won’ Round 12
Red ‘won’ Round 13

Trent is dead.

Christa, Abner, and Colonel are confronted by the penultimate boss, who is based off of the T-00 of Resident Evil 2 fame (base off of.  It isn’t actually the thing… Just felt the need to stress that since this is the Omniverse and all).

Red is nearby.

Fiara and Okor can join them (or not?) – your call

Carmelita, Hiro, and DP need to sort out their scene and then can do as they please.

[Carmelita]

Carmelita frowned as the red and black murderer from the beach began advancing on her swords drawn. Karl Jak had made his opinion on the situation clear with his little speech.

She’d had all of a few minutes to check the vault, and judging from the key in Karl Jak’s hands she had one hope of opening it. Of course, this wasn’t going to be easy.

“So you think that all that matters is Omni’s entertainment, Mr Jak?” she crossed her arms, hands tucked beneath her yellow jacket. “That just because he doesn’t stop you from doing wrong, doesn’t fix your mistakes, it justifies your actions?”

Carmelita took a few steps to one side, her eyes flitting from the mercenary, to the executive and to the swordsman.

“That’s a view I’m not going to try to change.”

There was a momentary pause, and the three men looked at her with various levels of confusion. She smiled grimly.

“But perhaps he’d enjoy a cop drama!”

With that, she whipped out her shock pistol, fully charged and ready to go. Deadpool came at her, faster than she had expected, but consequently received the full blast of electricity to the face. Her shock pistol did its work, temporarily depriving the mercenary of his senses, and she thumbed her collar, her cloak blurring into existence as she ducked a wild swing from the mercenary as he cried out.

“No! I can’t go blind! Daredevil will sue!”

She moved away from the vault door and into the rest of the room. A fairly large office space extended out, computer banks whirring idly in the far corner. Desks and cubicles sat at intervals down the walls, and at the far end stood a large hatstand, a bowler hat and a greatcoat resting on it from some past worker.

The swordsman followed her, keeping his eyes fixed on her location and ignoring the mercenary’s flailing.

“Look, Inspector Fox, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but there’s a big difference between tracking down someone in Coruscant and apprehending a prime like Karl.”

Carmelita paused.

“Hiro Protagonist? The hacker?”

Hiro nodded.

“I thought you were a good guy. Think fast.”

“Wha-?”

Carmelita grabbed the paint bucket she’d put in the door of one of the cubicles and threw it at Hiro. In a flash, the swordsman whipped his katana from his sheathe, slicing through the projectile and neatly letting the halves fly either side of him. What didn’t miss was the gloopy raw Omnilium ore she’d carried all the way from the mines, and the iridescent sludge covered Hiro’s face.

As Carmelita dived into one of the cubicles to get her out of Karl Jak’s sight, she knew that the only way she was getting out of here was after swiping the documents from Karl Jak’s hands once he’d opened the Vault. Until the opportunity arose, she had to survive against the two skilled swordsmen.

The sound of Hiro scraping the goop of his goggles and Deadpool regaining his sight signalled that the challenge had only just begun.

[Deadpool]

”My eyes!” the mercenary yelled, collapsing to his knees. ”MY BEAUTIFUL EYES!”

A foreign narrative voice had him mention Daredevil, and the reference wasn't far off, but what had been overlooked was the discomfort of having electric volts shot into your fucking face. He dropped the katana to the floor, and balled his fists into the eye sockets of his mask. Electricity coursed through his head like a car on a race track; he could feel the nerves in his brain writhing with each lap.

“This is the last chance I'm giving you two to stand down, and allow me to apprehend Karl,” the foxy latina shouted from her hidden position.

”People and their goddamn subplots—Christa and her Princess Peach always in trouble ass sister, Red with his search for his writer's primary character, and now you, with your slightly tweaked version of Samus' subplot from last year.” Deadpool retorted as his eyes fluttered open. The return of his sight was met with a dazzle of colored blotches sparkling in his vision, but it soon subsided. ”What happened to just showing up, and getting your job done, while also rapid-firing jokes to convey character perception in your posts?!”

Hiro stood a few feet from the mercenary. He slouched over to wipe the rainbow goop off his goggles with his palms.

“Watch out for her gadgets!” he exclaimed. “She's got a bunch of things in those pouches around her belt!”

”Ah, the utility belt,” Deadpool replied, ”a must for anyone that can't shoot beams of energy from the hands, eyes, or ass. Including myself.”

He smiled. The disclosure meant that foxy cop's powers were limited to the things around her waist; if she didn't have the convenience of a healing factor, the gal was in for a long and hard day.

Lol, long and hard.

Prior to Carmelita blinding him, Deadpool had taken a moment to analyze her. For a gorgeous latina-fox (which made him feel uncomfortable—was his attraction for her rooted to some deeply hidden beastality fetish?) she had a stoic demeanor. It had probably been forged through years experience and struggle Other than that, the mercenary came up with relatively empty. He had tried to perceive further into her mannerisms, but couldn't—Omniverse mechanics, he figured.

Now, Carmelita had done what all foxes do—she burrowed into some hiding place. But it was fine; Deadpool had lost his virginity during a game of hide and go seek, and the nostalgia from it sparked a subtle thrill within him.

”Ya know, you didn't have to blind me,” the mercenary said, grabbing his katana. ”I would've closed my eyes and counted to ten for you—mississippis and all.”

He rose to his feet and slipped into a traditional samurai stance—hilt adjacent to his temple with the tip of his blade staring staring forward. Proceeding with short, sliding steps across the room, his eyes observantly swept over the piles of debris and cubicle junctions (he could have sworn the room had been empty before his vision was stripped, but thus was the ways of artistic interpretation). He looked for a shadow, or a trail of the fox's auburn fur. Nothing.

”Hey, after you respawn at the Nexus and I win this thing, how about we go out for some chimichangas,” the mercenary offered. "Just don't promise to call back and never do."

The sound of his katana chopping through a broken cubicle punctured the dead silence in the basement. The top part split from the bottom and fell over with the hollow bang of an unattended ladder.

“Your flank!” Hiro roared.

The mercenary turned in time to see an orb of energy zipping towards him. He parried the shot, glancing in the direction of its origins as he swiveled around and readjusted his stance. The blast smashed into one of the basement walls, splattering into worms of electrical current, which fizzled away in a shriek of crackling white-noise.

Crafty mamacita

Deadpool looked at his black friend, who had wiped the goop from his goggles and began to tinker with them. ”We corner this part of the room.”

734/1600

[Zack Fair]

It wasn’t fair.

Abner pulled the trigger on his shotgun, unleashing a powerful burst of devastation into the monster. The pellets of buckshot seared through its flesh, but the tall being never so much as flinched. It merely turned to Abner with a frustratingly stoic gaze. Abner racked another shell into the chamber, and he fired again, slowly stumbling forward. The tyrant saw fit to accept that challenge, and it lumbered towards the approaching wall of lead.

The cold stare of this demon didn’t intimidate Abner, instead it just made him boil with anger. Trent didn’t deserve this. He would probably be brought back by Karl Jak, lacking the memories and maturing that shaped him, but it didn’t change the fact that someone Abner had called a friend had died in such a horrible way. The old Stormtrooper had long accepted that he was a mere peon incapable of bringing real change to the world, but at least he could make this right.

Shell after shell discharged from his shotgun. The plastic casings fell from the chamber, marking the trail of Abner’s slow advance. He’d spent the remaining ammunition already in the gun, but he continued to pull loose shells from his vest and stuff them directly into the chamber. Each time he angrily pumped the slide closed, aimed, and fired again. Flesh and blood exploded from the monster that towered above him, but its slow gait never ceased. His aim was poor, but even the shots that hit seemed to accomplish little. The normally relaxed man couldn't even think straight. His vision was blurred and his hands shook from a combination of fury, fatigue, the effects of this island, and getting blown to hell and back just moments prior.

He ejected another spent casing, and then fumbled for another shell. There were no more, but it didn’t slow him down. His rage caused him to abandon all the tactics and instincts he'd honed over the years. Abner cast the shotgun aside, and took the blaster rifle he’d reclaimed from Christa when pursing Trent back into hands. He raised it and fired, sending a red laser streaking through the air and over the shoulder of the approaching monstrosity. A second shot sailed to the far right, and the third hit the ground between the two. Truly, he felt like the embodiment of many tired, old jokes about Stormtroopers.

The lumbering creature raised its hand, and the same tendril that had doomed Trent wrapped around Abner’s neck. He gasped for air as he was ripped from his feet and dragged towards the monster. As the being grabbed his head within a single palm, Abner could have sworn he heard Christa scream, and Colonel’s heavy footsteps rapidly approaching. Echos of gunfire swirled around him. He didn't know where the others were, having been so focused on revenge that nothing other than the monster had existed for the past minute.

The pressure built on his skull. The monster intended to crush it like a used beer can, it certainly could do exactly that with little effort. To many, it was a hopeless situation, with no possibility of breaking free. As Abner pressed the small button on the underside of his blaster rifle, he was content that he didn’t have to aim, this time.

A wave of blue energy rushed from the attachment on the underside of his rifle, which had already been pressed directly against the hulking zombie’s chest. The monster emitted a guttural roar as it took the full brunt of the point-blank attack, throwing its arms in either direction as it recoiled. In doing so, it lost its grip, and Abner was thrown like a ragdoll.

Abner hit the ground and rolled several times, loudly cursing at least once per rotation. When the momentum of the throw ceased to carry him, he slowly forced himself to a kneel, and then to his feet. The monster was hurt, but it wasn’t dead. Remembering his training, he took a calming breath and raised his rifle. Taking time to steady his aim, he fired another shot and rejoined the fray.

703/1600

Abner used Tier 1 Super Attack: Energy Launcher. 2/3 SP Remaining. (Or is it 5/6? I'll PM you Alex)

[Albert Wesker]

As Abner rolled across the ground, cursing the whole way, Colonel was advancing on the undead monstrosity. The normally stoic, immutable expression on his face had cracked, replaced by a grim, twisted scowl, and there was an almost human fire burning in his eyes. It was clear, even at just a glance: the war machine was angry. After all the horrors of the impossibly long, dangerous night on this hellish island, and all that Trent had managed to — by some miracle or other — survive...to see him get quite literally ripped apart, without even being able to reach him in time to try and prevent it? And after he had sworn, silently, that he would sooner lay down his supposedly immortal life before he let the young secondary die, on top of that? It had awoken something long forgotten in the cybernetic heart of the Colonel.

An entirely different heat burned in his heart, far-removed from the devastating overheating the virus had forced upon him, and it radiated off of him, flaring up visibly into a broad, swirling purple aura. Briefly, it seemed to rear up into the form of a great wolf, or lion, huge, empty eyes leering at the green-clad monstrosity, before it faded back to shapeless violet flame, flickering wildly, dangerously, about the steel soldier as he rushed into the fray, bypassing Abner and hefting his saber.

A wordless shout, of unfettered rage, sprang from his mouth, and in his mind it was echoed by the earth-shaking scream of Gregar. For once, the beast's awe-inspiring rage was useful for something, as it gave his battered body surprising strength, pulling out the last dregs and vestiges of power he had left. His blade crackled audibly with power, carving a bright swathe of spring, tearing apart the dull gray and dust of the city as a crash of thunder, splintering and tearing apart the ground, rocked the immediate area, a blindingly-bright Z of emerald plasma crashing against the superhuman monster, eliciting a wordless, inhumanly deep and mangled howl from it. Smoke rose from the battered creature, a clear scorch pattern burned permanently into its damnedly durable trenchcoat. It stood there, teetering drunkenly for a moment, looking ready to fall...

Then it threw back its head, and it let out another distorted, garbled cry.

Frustration, indignation, confusion, and pain all strove for the forefront of the thing's expressed intent as it took a lumbering step forward, lurching into a short dash to meet the enraged war machine. A massive hamfist came down, striking the spiked edge of the Colonel's sword like a hammer blow. The both of them rebounded from the collision, Colonel staggering back a full three paces, the tyrant in viridian only finding itself knocked off balance, its baleful gaze slowly swiveling back around to lock on the antagonistic android barring it from moving on to easier prey. The blank, milky eyes of the abomination narrowed, lips peeling back in a teeth-baring snarl as it struck out with a backhand, lunging forward in a burst of movement far too quick for a creature of its size.

Blade met bare hand again, and Colonel was thrown bodily through the air, sailing nearly a dozen feet before his boots touched down again, skidding over the uneven pavement as he fought to keep upright. Scarcely had he recovered his bearings with a tendril entered his field of vision, lashing about his left arm. He steeled himself, pulling against the impending grapple, but the tyrant was every bit as strong as it was inhumanly durable, and slowly but surely the soldier navi was hauled across the devastated street, right into the waiting grasp of the monstrosity.

Arms the size of telephone poles closed about him, pulling him into a greatly unwanted and unappreciated bearhug, and immediately there was a groaning of protesting metal, his armored body cracking and warping under the pressure of the deadly embrace. Colonel's teeth were bared in a wordless grimace, sparks flickering from every jagged tear, rend and wound in his exterior plating, bits of the precious liquid data 'blood' within spurting out of the damaged bits. Gregar let out another bestial scream within his mind, giving rise to a single thought: "NOT LIKE THIS!"

Colonel didn't even realize he had shouted the words aloud, and put forth every last ounce of strength he had, managing to force the deathgrip to ease, and cease crushing him. It wasn't until a bolt of energy from Abner's rifle struck the undead abomination in the back, distracting it, that he was able to break the grip, dropping heavily to the ground as the tyrant turned round, pinning its immutably baleful expression on the former stormtrooper, taking a step toward him, arms lifting to ready a smashing blow to reduce him to paste.

But it never got more than one step, as Colonel lurched into action, his mangled left arm closing around the thing's waist, as his branding iron of a sword struck around the other side, burying itself in the durable coat, and deep into leathery flesh, raising a hiss as the superheated weapon bit into the monster. Anchoring himself firmly, Colonel hauled back against the brute, pushing up against the ground, removing any leverage it had to keep moving.

"Hit this damn thing...with everything you've got!" he shouted, over the din of its struggles.

912 words, according to wordcounter.

Colonel used T1 Power Up: Colonel β and T1 Super Attack: Neo Screen Divide. 0/4 SP remaining

[Okor]

The skull of the spiteful spirit crashed into a swarm of the living dead, sending them careening away, a tangled mass of limbs and rotting flesh. The Ghoulish Guardian stepped forward, readying his macabre melee weapon for another crushing blow against the horde.  ”Why in the infinite hells did you… follow me?’ He snarled to his secondary companion, answering the scrabbling claws of the soulless creatures before him with a contemptuous crack of his pistol’s butt, shattering its skull and leaving it to join the ever-growing mound of corpses at his feet.

The heavenly chorus of the Phoenix’s shotguns heralded her answer, her bloodied and battered frame staying just out of arm’s reach of the ravenous dead pursuing her. “Are you kidding me? The only safe place on this island is right behind you, walking on the trail of bodies you leave in your wake.” Nurgle’s Chosen chuckled at the seeming compliment, driving his flail down onto the cranium of another corpse as he fired a flame-filled round at one of the ghouls pursuing his ally.

He looked up from the pulped remains of his latest victim, freezing in place as his adversaries began to close in. ”The rhythm's shifted,” he stated as he lashed out, the impact of his weapon sending a severed head flying through the air. “What!?” Yelled Fiara, her wrist-mounted blades eviscerating an embodiment of entropy as she pumped a shell into its chin. ”Fewer guns firing.” He took a step back, loosing a phosphex bolt into the face of another festering foe. ”It’s sporadic. They aren’t laying down suppressive fire on a horde, they’re focusing on a singular entity.” He dropped a shrunken skull from his belt, the biological bomb landing at his feet and releasing its lethal payload. ”They’re still… firing. Anything unworthy of our attention would have been felled already.”

“They need our help,” growled the gangrenous giant as he broke into a run, shambling towards the others as one of his few remaining rounds streaked towards the ever-expanding cloud of volatile gasses, igniting the airborne corruption behind them. Shards of bone and rockcrete flew from behind them, digging into his thick armour plates as Fiara jogged alongside him, her weary eyes staring into his crimson orb, the corroded construction of the city collapsing behind them. “This is going to be bad, isn’t it?” Queried Mogami a she slotted another shell into her gauntlets.

”Without a doubt. Should I… Fall, find Hiro. He shall guide you.”

“Please, just what on this island has a chance of ending you?” She teased as the pair turned a corner, the desperate bursts of gunfire reaching a crescendo as they looked upon their latest prey. It towered over them, dessicated skin rapidly mending itself as a barrage of bullets impacted off of the scarred surface, the bulletproof coat covering it slowly eroding a it bore the brunt of the Primes’ aggression. The half-scrapped remains of the Vice-Dean were wrapped around its waist, rent-ridden legs slowly being pushed back through the rubbled as they struggled to hold the abomination away from the survivors.

”That.”

He entered into a sprint as he charged towards the Tyrant, the creature snarling as its fist metamorphosized, bubbling over and breaking apart as it reformed into lengthy tendrils, the appendages still slick with the corruption of their creation as they struck. They flogged the pillars the primes cowered behind, rubble flying through the air as the impossible strength of the beast sought out fresh meat to sate its appetites upon.

Incandescent flame impacted against the side of its emotionless visage, the burning flame of Phosphex slowly eating away at its flesh as Okor approached, slowly shambling forward as he held the pistol steady, eliciting a howl of rage with every delivery of the alchemical payload. It turned to face him, ebon eyes ably expressing the full depth of rage and hatred infesting its being, even as the fires consumed its cranium.

”His enemies shall wither and die.” Stated Okor, dropping the blood-stained spine he had wielded, unwilling to allow whatever remained of the Ascended to derive any measure of pleasure from the battle, his now-emptied bolt weapon mag-locking to his thigh, his hands beginning to drip corruption.

A tentacle struck out, the unnatural strength of the being sending Okor flying into a wall, the construction cracking and crumbling beneath his weight, a near-perfect indent of his body formed in the architecture. The champion slowly pried himself from his temporary respite, willing himself away from the far too welcoming embrace of unconsciousness, and the inevitability of death that followed. Colonel still clutched at the thing, the Made-man, his engineered endurance and drive a mirror to Okor’s own gene-forged inclination towards violence. Scrapcode, oil, and tears streamed from their optics as they struggled to hold back the abomination.

”His allies shall wither and die.”

He could feel the shattered bones within his body grinding against each other, tearing into his mummified flesh with every step towards the freak. It mattered little to him, pain being but one of the illusions Nurgle strips away, freeing his Grandchildren from the plagues of hope and the suffering that comes with it.

Nothing could stop him. He was as inevitable as the end of all things, a manifestation of the entropy that would eventually claim all things.

The warped appendages of the Tyrant reached out and wrapped around his arm, and tore the unarmoured limb from his body as easily as a man would pluck fruit from a tree.Tatters of torn skin and flesh hung from the now empty socket as Okor’s stomach split, tendrils of his own emerging and joining his subordinate’s efforts to restrain the beast, the Plague Marine lurching ever-onwards, heedless of his own injuries.

”The universe and all within it shall wither and die.”

He lunged forward, adding his own mass to the effort to hold the monstrosity back as bullets and burning lances of energy alike began to take their toll on the titan. His warped maw and remaining claw dug into its flank, spreading the pestilence infesting his being, grinning as he watched the fester begin to take root in its flesh, competing with the plague already running rampant through its body.

”And so the Lord of All shall arise from the Rot and Ruin, and spread wide his… arms, to reclaim all his Dutiful Children.” He laughed, a hammering blow crashing against his back, cracking the ceramite warplate as the Tyrant attempted to dislodge its attackers. He tightened his grip, trusting in his blessed biology and sacred shielding, faith steeling his soul while power armour guarded the rest.

Let the heavens bleed.

Let the galaxy burn.

Nurgle’s Chosen will outlast both.

1192 Words.

[Gildarts]

Within the dark flash of a blink, the secondary was ripped in half and died drenched in his own blood. Gore splattered the ground while pink intestines fell into a dense, sloppy pile; still etched into her eyelids was the depth of the horror in screaming secondary’s face. His name... What had been his name?

Blood coated her vision and pounded in her ears as she witnessed their enemy’s scaly skin wretching and distorting with each attack her allies unleashed into him. Trench-coat man stood tall while the party of primes seemed to take the upper hand, the beast almost looked human in the flickering toneless light of a nearby streetlamp and so did that menacing snarl protruding on his lip. The kraken-like tendrils swept across the street, falling onto the plague marine, the robot, and her man. Okor glanced down at the pest that had woven itself around his forearm, denting his beaten, rusty armor. He clutched the fleshy vine in his hand, grappling with it before his powerful wrath tore through it, delivered by an immense blow from his hammer. Raw calamari fell to the ground severed, while the other two weren’t so lucky. 

Colonel struggled as the serpentine tentacle slithered around his waist, dragging him in as his heels dug into the ground, sparking yellow against the rough asphalt. Abner’s ankle had been snatched, plucking the ex-soldier off his feet while knocking the air from his lungs. A groan escaped him as his head smacked the ground and he attempted to shoot at the tentacle that was drawing him closer to certain doom. Christa snapped from her daze and crouched on one knee, centering her crosshairs on the narrowest part of the Tyrant’s fat slimy appendage. Through the darkness, she caught the glossy gleam of its sickly skin, Abner was still anchored and in tow. Shots poured sporadically from his blaster and even fell on the sizzling cartilage but it lacked the sheer power to boil itself all the way through. 

Her perched finger never left the trigger as keen eyes trained their target, waiting for the right moment while Abner was dragged too close to the range where Trent had been torn apart. At a little over ten yards away, his fate hung in the balance of a single bullet, cocked in the sniper's chamber. The swiftness of the tendrils took her by surprise and Abner was suddenly dangling six feet from the ground. Shit. Christa’s fingers wouldn’t stay steady enough for a clean shot, true trepidation drummed loudly in her chest. The ex-trooper was swinging side to side like an upside down pendulum, strumming the strings of her fear, each for a different sound. If she missed or the monster jerked, she could hit him in the head and that'd be his tragic end. Brace yourself. she thought, smothering the world from her thoughts and aimed an inch above Abner's foot.

The sniper’s hand steadied.

Splat! The immortal hold on his ankle was freed as he fell on one side, the wave of harsh impact painfully extended to the furthest corners of his body. A severe screech of anguish grated against their ears setting those closest into a recoiling flinch. Next, she loaded a shot in the chamber for Colonel, who had since extended a glowing-green saber from his arm, slicing the tendril in an eruption of goop. Okor grunted to Colonel something inaudible, and the soldier navi dove into position.

It seemed liked they needed a decoy or distraction so Christa threw a shot, which crashed into the streetlamp’s crumpled silver frame, causing the steel to fall, missing the creature by a mere foot. Damn. The .EXE unloaded it’s huge fucking cannon into the aberration. Christa grit her teeth as she watched the large Nurgle swing the pole like a bat, ramming it right into the Tyrant’s face. WHAM! and he was down! But no one was vain enough to rejoice yet. Okor took this time to practice being a lumberjack, scoring one good hit into the mass of downed trench, but within the next swing, a larger hand extended upward and instantly, the hammer was stopped mid-air. 

The plague marine was seething, enraged smoke steaming from the cracks of his ancient armor, while the Tyrant wouldn’t even grace his nemesis with the bitter sound of its laughter. It rose, tossing off the navy trench coat and revealed a transforming body. Bubbling skin stretched to great lengths, revolted and remastered by fresh muscle mutating against the swells of dark bruises. “GRAHHHH,” the Tyrant roared, accepting his new form as though he were a butterfly freshly free from its cocoon. 

Around its muscles, creases of its skin glowed orange, Christa pumped a shot into the beast’s perfectly sculpted chest. It staggered at first, but she witnessed no pain. A twinkling copper shell fell to the ground next to her, a second replaced it. The beast’s sharp eyes caught on her and with remarkable speed, the assumed zombie-gone-wrong lurched out of sight. Seconds later, there was a sound of crunched metal as a compact car was launched into the dark air, perfectly aimed to descend on her very position. Abner couldn't tear his eyes off of her as he willed his lips to move faster than his legs, "Look out!" Christa scrambled to a stand, struggling with the painful weight of injury intermingled with fatigue that collapsed into her lungs. 

Whoosh-CRASH!!!! came the sound of clattering metal as Christa was clipped by the car and forced to the ground. The wheel's rims kept the car from pinning her legs completely to the cold tar, but it had been too close of a call. Tucking into her shoulder, the rifle’s sights lined up on the beast, now moving with enough finesse to juggle the three primes before her. The gunslinger didn’t have time to wonder where Red was, only enough time to squint her eye through the scope, and pull the trigger.

T1 supermove used. SP: 2/9 sp used

[Kenpachi Zaraki]

All at once, the building had become a warzone.

The once proud predator now lay shattered among the remains of the leveled census building, crushing debris swaddling him in a suffocating veil of brick and drywall. Nanaki blinked his sole working eye against the rain of pulverized gypsum that continued to fall, straining his golden optic for any sign of his comrades. As he worked to remove his weakened frame from its confines, the area was rocked by a series of explosions not far off, generating a veritable avalanche of building remains. He lowered his head in an attempt to shield himself from the fallout, wriggling his fatigued form from free of the plasterboard prison. 

Move. His muscles cried out in opposition as he stumbled away from the sounds of the building rending itself asunder. By rights he had no reason to continue; by the smiling deity’s own admission, if he were to perish he would simply be reborn. Though he lacked the phone that Karl had ‘gifted’ him, the knowledge that Vincent was alive should have been more than enough to allow the beast to simply let himself fade into oblivion—but it wasn’t. 

Red stumbled as he walked, as a dog might after receiving his shots. His nostrils were caked with grit, a fierce burning spreading from his nose to his lungs. Eyes watered and squinted through the muddy, distorted image that was presented before his eyes. He was disoriented, fatigued and damn near blinded, but he had to move: For her. Nanaki had gotten what he needed, but Christa had still come up short. Vincent would be fine, Omni willing. It was the sniper’s sister that now sat upon the chopping block. Family, the beast pondered, casting back to his late father and his crippled mother, now both long gone in his absence. Family was worth dying for, even if it were not his own.

As the building’s annihilation began to slow, the sounds of destruction seemed only to increase in rhythm. The ground shook and the air boomed, both familiar instruments of the symphony the building’s collapse had generated. What were alien, however, were the inhuman thundering and the cries of desperation. Though his once-powerful senses had been muddied since reaching the island, in that moment Red began to feel the familiar static-y feeling crawling up his neck that told of those gathered nearby. He had no time to question or analyze the information; He needed to reach them.

CRACK.

He recognized the sound of the rifle’s discharge instantly. Christa. Red broke into an unsteady run, seconds later redoubling his pace as a deafening CRASH met his ears. Was he too late? Muscle and tendon, sore and torn, carried the carmine cat swiftly into the fray. 

“Red!”

His heart leapt at the call, making a beeline for the woman’s position. As he neared he heard a familiar booming cry from some amorphous, grotesque figure to his left. The quakes of its footfalls began to near, soon stopping altogether as the high-pitched whine of Colonel arm cannon offered painful distraction.

“Christa?” Nanaki inquired, blinking hard to clear debris from his eyes. He could make out the vague shape of half of the huntress.

“Yeah,” she responded, voice slightly pained. “You okay?”

“Been better,” he replied, “I can’t see too well.”

“Well, sonuvabitch threw a car on top of me,” Christa replied. Red could see her struggling to extricate herself, her busted arm doing her no favors. Neither predator would have an easy time with the monstrosity currently tangling with the rest of the group. Even at their best it would be a challenge. Currently? They were doomed.

They needed many things. Time. Energy. Strength.

Anything you desire can be yours. The mad God’s words echoed in Red’s mind. Maybe it was time to take him at his word.

“Christa, do you trust me?” Red rasped, stepping closer to her working hand.

“Yes.”

“Give me your hand and relax.” 

She laid her hand gingerly upon his head as he slowly closed his eyes, focusing on a singular thought. Strength. Christa’s eyes widened as her companion dissolved into golden light, motes of energy enveloping her form. She opened her mouth to speak, though she found no words. In an instant, they ceased to exist as two became one.

With a thunderous crash the car left the concrete as the light faded, barreling through the air and colliding with the tyrant’s torso. The mutated humanoid staggered as it was struck, turning his head to gaze upon a newcomer.

“That was yours,” the feral figure growled, flexing its muscly frame. Golden fur covered its lithe humanoid limbs from head to toe, inky black claws tearing into the asphalt. A pair of amber irises focused on the misshapen man, a mocking smirk present on its face. “And this one is fucking mine,” the hybrid snarled, at once generating a fireball within a clawed hand and pitching the explosive projectile toward the tyrant, flesh searing as it detonated.

Using 2 SP to maintain fusion for the rest of the encounter. 1 SP from both of us puts it at 2/4 and 6/9, respectively.

[Hiro Protagonist]

"Ugh! The hell is this stuff?"

The goop had coated most of his face. Frantically, he tried to wipe the shit off of his lenses and face, but whatever this was, it was sticky.  It had even gotten into his mouth! One hand went to the beers on his belt while the other flung thick globs of ooze off his face. He could hear Deadpool bemoaning his lack of vision, and hunting around the office as he rinsed his mouth out with the fine lager, spitting it on the floor and trying to get the nasty, sickly sweet taste of rot out of his mouth.

He drank the rest of the beer and pulled his makeshift headband off, sliding up his goggle to rest on his forehead. The goop was sticking hard to his tech, and he couldn't afford to waste any more time while the fox woman was stalking around. Warning Deadpool of her gadgets, he regained his bearings and sheathed his katana to repair the chipping it had incurred when he sliced the paint can.

"You know," He spoke aloud as he joined Deadpool in stalking around the desks and office type cover, looking for the unseen inspector. "I was more than willing to try and come to a peaceful agreement...but just like one of -my- cops, you shot first and asked later."

Suddenly, Wade chopped a ladder in half, apparently taking aim at what he thought was Carmelita. But in the gloom behind him, the hacker saw the familiar pre-light of an electrical discharge. "Your flank!" The mercenary parried the shot and Hiro spotted a red fluffy tail dive behind another patch of heavy rubble. 

Together, they crept forward into the corner, blocking any possible exit for the crafty lawwoman. "I just wanted to go home. I haven't had a shower in two days. And you just hit me with fucking island jizz. So, please don't take it personally if I end up killing you. Or you could just put your little law enforcement boner on hold and get out of here with us."

His ears burned red for a half second, and the cyber samurai turned to see something red and circular swinging towards him like a mace. It was pure reflex that allowed him to parry the blow with a swipe from his machete. But it was tactics and quick thinking that allowed him to make his next move.

Pulling the machete away, he heard a click as Carmelita hung up her cuffs on her belt and drew her pistol once more, taking aim. But as she brought it up to bear, Hiro crouched slightly and unleashed a wide sweep kick that caused her to stumble and lose her balance. As soon as the kick landed, he hit a few buttons on his wristcomp and took a deep breath as the fox woman tried to scoot backwards, only to press up against a solid green mesh cage.

"Ten seconds, Inspector Fox. I hope you've had martial arts training." They railed against each other, the confines of the vector cage making it very hard to maneuver. Hiro had expected an advantage, simply based on his height difference, but Carmelita was a surprisingly adept boxer. He felt furry fists sock him in the ribs more than once, and his head snapped back with a particularly strong uppercut. But he gave as good as he got, his natural speed and reflexes aiding him in landing crucial punches and chops. Deadpool watched the short kerfuffle, having produced a large white sign that said "ROUND ONE" that he paraded around the perimeter.

Just as the cage faded, both fighters bruised and bloody, Hiro feinted left with a hook while sliding his repaired katana out of it's sheath with his other hand. The fox woman took the bait and juked right into the waiting blade of his sword. Hiro held it against the side of her throat and kept his wrist steady as she froze and glared at him. "You really turned out to be a son of a bitch, huh."

Hiro shook his head, panting. "We can stop now. Just let it go, and come with us. You can try and "arrest" Karl once we're off this fucking island, although I doubt it'll go anywhere." Carmelita cracked a smirk, as if she knew a joke that Hiro didn't. "Maybe not, but I know something else that will."

The hacker tilted his head in confusion, and then his eyes went wide with realization and all the air came out of his lungs in one high pitched squeak. She'd kicked him! She kicked him right in the goddamn balls!

He crumpled over, dropping his sword and clutching his groin in pain. Deadpool came at her from behind, but she was ready for it. Another ball of electricity arced from her hip area and right at the mercenary's face. "AAAGGGHHHH, GOD FUCKING DAMNIT NOT AGAIN! HIRO, I'M GOING TO STAB YOUR WRITER!"

The assassin flailed with his katana like a blender, hoping to catch the crafty fox woman in a vital spot. She tried to fake backwards, but tripped over the still prone figure of Hiro, still trying to regain his breath. Scrabbling away across the floor, the hacker made a wild grab (with his free hand, not the one cradling his damaged privates) and closed it tightly around Carmelita's ankle. "Now...-wheeze-.....now who's the bitch?....oww...."

[Carmelita]

As Carmelita felt the hacker’s wrist close around her ankle, she couldn’t help but grin viciously to herself.

“Still you,” she replied, yanking the Fisti-cuffs off her belt and cuffing Hiro’s arm to Deadpool’s leg.

There was a brief moment where the two of them stared each other down, Hiro’s arm still clamped around her leg, before the cuffs began applying the shocks to the two swordsmen. As his grip reflexively loosened, Carmelita tore her way out of Hiro’s grip in time to avoid a blind swing from Deadpool removing her tail.

Hiro looked at her askance for a moment before the shock ran through his arm, leaving a tingling feeling. He made a grab for his katana where it lay on the floor but Carmelita knocked it away, charging a shock pistol shot as she did so.

“Okay, so you’ve got me at a little bit of a disadvantage here,” the hacker said, glancing down at his wrist in time to feel another tingle travel up his arm. A sluggish feeling was creeping up from where it had been applied.

Carmelita nodded, loosing another high power shot at Deadpool’s back before holding her weapon up and checking the battery nonchalantly.

“I honestly don’t know where you’re getting your logic from,” she said, tapping her collar with a digit as she spoke. A shimmering began creeping in around her, distorting her figure but not her voice as the slight smell of singed air reached Hiro’s nose. “If you’re so intent on getting off the island, why are you trying to break into the census building and attacking me with lethal weapons? Are you expecting an escape pod? Because the only operative one crash landed outside.”

She looked down at Hiro, pressing and holding the trigger of her shock pistol. He took the opportunity to talk back, hiding the manipulation of his data device beneath himself.

“Karl Jak is the one who created this verse-” He jerked back as one of Deadpool’s still blind swings nearly hit his head. “-and he needs the census data to reset the island. Fix everything. You’re getting in the way of us finishing up here.”

Carmelita leveled her shock pistol at Hiro’s face, snarling.

“So he’s covering up the loss of life by summoning up a replacement. ‘Nothing to see here, just a glitch in the system’. Mierda, you’ve got it all backwards. I’ll make sure you get a cell with internet access.”

She released the shot a moment after Hiro’s shield manifested, the ball of electricity fizzling as it met the green light of the shield. Balking at her mistake, Carmelita backpedalled away as Hiro focused intently on the Fisti-Cuffs, crunching the numbers in his head.

Carmelita began firing ordinary shots, hoping to distract Hiro from his work, but it took him all of a few seconds to deactivate the cuffs. Finally released from his allies leg, Hiro rolled over to his sword and got to his feet with a mild stumble from the numb feeling the cuffs had inflicted. Deadpool cautiously felt his leg before jumping in the air.

“Hah! I’m no longer being dragged down by a dead weight! Now it's time for that foxy ghost to be introduced to the top two reasons you don’t blind Deadpool!”

The mercenary blinked furiously beneath his mask as his sight and hearing returned and looked around.

“Where is she? And why do I feel like a cheap knock-off version of myself?”

Hiro grimaced, giving his weapon a trial swing as he was hit in the shoulder by a electric ball that came from above the computer banks.

“Her equipment knocks out your nerves, makes you slower, weaker, more prone to errors. Eventually, you konk out. You wake up later with nothing worse than a headache.”

Deadpool straightened up and laughed.

“You mean she’s hitting us with a boffer gun? And here I was worried about damaging my perfectly good looks. Charge!”

The red and black mercenary leapt into action, flipping over a cubicle and spinning in the air, kicking out at the source of the electric attacks. Carmelita swore audibly and dived out of the way, a faint shimmer briefly visible as she hit the floor rolling. Deadpool stumbled upon landing, leaving Hiro to follow up, compensating for his slower speed with sudden bursts of movement trying to pin down their adversary.

Carmelita took a shot every chance she got, but those chances were being reduced much more quickly than she would have liked. The two swordsmen were slowly regaining their strength and speed, and while her shock pistol was still hampering them somewhat they were quickly adapting to her fighting style, the one she wasn’t firing at closing on her whenever she tried to neutralise the other.

She frowned.

The hail of shock pistol fire halted, and Carmelita snuck across to another cubicle, picking up the briefcase she’d hidden there that contained the inoculation. The round of fisticuffs with Hiro had reopened her stab wound, and she knew that despite her words, there was no way she was going to be able to capture Karl in her state. Her best bet was to grab the documents, which meant lulling Karl into a false sense of security after knocking out the two swordsmen with her shock pistol. The question was, had her equipment softened them up enough...

[Amaterasu]

Fiara knew that she was just playing strong. Okor probably didn't realize it... perhaps he couldn't even understand that she was struggling right now, he was an unstoppable, ever-regenerating beast after all. She wondered if he could even feel pain, if he could even die. Maybe unless he got reduced to ashes by sacred fire he would die for good, but the way that he behaved... the battles that had taken place, the weapons that had pierced his flesh and armor, she wondered if they had had any effect on him. If he even realized that he had been struck. On top of that he was armed to the teeth and battle-experienced. She knew that she had not a chance of making it in a fight against him, and in retrospect she was glad that she had never crossed the line between verbally and physically attacking him. As an ally however he had proven invaluable, he had saved her life more than she would ever admit. She could not show her weakness before him, even if he wasn't an Akuma unlike any she had ever seen.

The truth was, she felt weak. She was tired, weary, her body refused to move as it used to, it hurt everywhere, she felt sick and this last disturbance followed by the fight had earned her a bunch of new injuries that had rapidly undone the good that the medical kit had done for her. How many shells were left in her Blasters? She didn't know, until she threw a punch and the attack merely caused a wet smack as her fist hit the flesh of a tentacle, causing little more than a flinch. Empty. The other one? Same thing. She reached for the ammunition on her waist, but her eyes widened when her hand only touched the leather of her belt. When had she... she frantically looked around while holding off the monstrosity before her with flailing punches and kicks. There! A few steps away... might as well be the other end of the country. She would never reach them in time.

Suddenly Fiara felt very helpless. The remainder of her strength was rapidly fading, the tendrils were closing in by the second. She was separated from the others. Her head was hurting. Her vision blurring... was it tears or was she losing her conscience? A tentacle struck her forehead, sending her stumbling several feet back, she barely registered it. She was feeling tired. Very tired.

A thought crept into her head that she hadn't considered before. Could she give up? Throw herself one last time at the beast before her and let it quickly and painlessly end her life? Her mission was accomplished, Arturia had been given the scroll, Amaterasu would be informed... she would return. The Syntech crew that had gone missing was beyond help if they'd ended up anywhere like this island. The employees that had accompagnied her were all gone as well. There was nobody left to protect that couldn't fend for themselves. In fact, she was feeling more like she held Okor back, clinging to him and using him as protection.

A loud yell tore her out of her spiral and she only now noticed that she'd dropped to her knees sometime during her thought downward spiral. A being that she didn't recognize - the freshly fusioned Nanaki and Christa, that is - were attacking the monster and were near her. It kicked the satchel with ammunition towards her without so much as pausing its assault, and without looking at her yelled: "Snap out of it! We need you if we want to defeat this thing!"

When Fiara didn't reply immediately the fusion stopped as if to check that she was alright, but she got to her feet while picking up the satchel and nodded. "I'm okay... sorry." That was met with a nod and the Nanaki/Christa fusion rushed back into battle whilst Fiara reached into the satchel and produced two ammo belts. After a moment of consideration she then pushed out the first shell on the right-side belt and took out one of the volatile ones before loading her Phoenix Blasters up. She felt that she might not make it through this... she could not try to escape. But if she was gonna die, she was going to go out with a bang, and covered in the innards of her opponent. With a battle cry and mustering the last of her reserves she forced her body to pump adrenaline through her veins, numbing the pains for long enough that she could attack. She leapt straight over the disformed creature and reared her fist, surrounding it in the everlasting flames of the Phoenix. "Okor, look at me. This time I'm helping." Look at me, Amaterasu... this blow I deliver in your name. Then she came down on the beast, and while her body weight was negligible at best the punch she dispensed was quite the opposite. She hammered her right fist down, burying it into the creature's scarred flesh and unleashing a blast that caused the beast's body to ripple as if it was a pool of water that someone had thrown a rock into. A single wave motion caught it and went not just through the skin, but through the flesh and bones, through the organs and whatever other innards this abomination may have. Without waiting for the results of her attack Fiara pushed herself off of the creature and leapt for safety. Now the question was whether or not she would make it...

Fiara has used Quake Slam (T1 Super Attack). 1/3 SP remain.

[Deadpool]

Deadpool moved like a dancer to avoid the cascade of electrical shots; each round whistled passed him, and exploded into a spectacle of live current as they collided into the wall behind him.

”Would you like me to do the Salsa, to pay homage to your culture?” Deadpool began to shake his hips. He looked towards Hiro, and said, ”I'll make it an Afro-Cuban Salsa, that way I cover your demography too.” With his ass still swung side-to-side, he bent his knees and dipped his booty to the floor (Karl probably stood near the vault, arms folded, spreading a leering grin across his visage).

Hiro slapped his face with an open hand. “You let her get away again.”

”Relax, Virgil Hawkins,” the mercenary replied. He glanced at the Furby dangling from his waist, then looked over the line of obstructing cubicles and raised his voice: ”This things got enough punch behind it to turn her hot animorph body into charred rodent meat.”

The hacker's eyes turned to golfballs. “No, you can't be that crazy—that would collapse the building!”

”Oh yeah I am.” He turned to Karl, who leaned against the vault with his arms folded and legs crossed. ”As long as papichulo over there gives me his blessing.”

Karl snickered. “I don't care either way, just make it quick.” His finger pointed at the ceiling—a web of cracks branched across it, sprinkling dust into the basement. “This building is coming down, bomb or no bomb.”

”Hear that, Jennifer Lopez? No more taco-flavored kisses for you, honey.”

His eye caught a silhouette scampering along the back-wall. It misshaped over the ridges of the stairs, then bobbled to the other side of the room, disappearing under a mound of debris.

The bluff had worked; a grin creased Deadpool's mask. People had always called him insane, but he wasn't that crazy—not enough to jeopardize his life while a prize awaited him on the other side of this whacky competition/non-competition rainbow. But the reputation had its advantages, and this was one of them.

”Got you!” he yelled.

He lunged over the pile of mangled chairs and turned over drawers, swinging his sword around to stab at the floor. Carmelita looked up at him with bewildered eyes, but raised her pistol, taking aim. She fired several rounds, all of which struck the mercenary. He flinched, feeling the rippling sensation of electricity strangle the areas he was hit—twice on the bottom of his thigh, and another all too close to the family jewels.

”It's only storyline damage, my dear!” he bellowed, cackling.

The tip of his blade missed the fox, slamming into the floor instead. A piece of concrete chipped into the air. Carmelita had rolled backwards to dodge the attack. Now she rose to her feet, holding her reopened wound. Just what the mercenary anticipated.

Deadpool looked at the fox and winked. ”Got ya.”

He jumped with a leg cocked into the air, spinning his body around like a twirling dreidel. The fox tried to backpedal away, but Hiro had dissected the situation, and flanked her, pinning her between the wall and Deadpool's outstretched foot. She did the only option left—throw her arms in front of her face to absorb the brunt of the hit.

The dull pain of his foot banging against Carmelita's forearms exhilarated him; perhaps, it stemmed from the taboo of abusing an animal, or abusing a woman, or maybe because he managed to do both simultaneously.

His body rotated around a dozen more times before the fox's forearms spread from her face. She grunted like a boxer taking a combination as Deadpool's foot whipped across his cheek twice, thrice.


The powers of TUFTUFTUGEN, courtesy of Ryu and Ken . . . and a couple other characters that were added to later games,” the mercenary said. His body gradually stopped spinning, and he landed on one knee.
She stumbled backwards, hardly keeping her footing. Hiro grabbed her from behind, and pulled her arms into a full-nelson.


“Let go!” she roared; blood slung from her nose as she flailed her legs.

“Last chance, sweetie!” Hiro said.

He struggled to keep her from breaking free, spreading his legs to establish position. The crafty woman saw he opening, and sent a horse kick right into it. The hacker screamed the great joys of incoherent, conjoining curse words. His face turned purple, and he released the fox to grab his genitals.

[Zack Fair]

Abner paused to take just one moment of reflection. This shit was far more than he’d signed up for, way back in the day. As he took the time to place a laser blast from his rifle into the monster’s hide each time an opening presented itself, he had to chuckle a little bit. Just a year ago he was teaching Stormtroopers and dealing with fresh primes at the Nexus, before sending them on their way. Now, he was fighting some crazy monster with the help of a war machine, a rotting carcass, a lost secondary, and his girlfriend who currently had given him all sorts of confusing feelings. Was Christa really in that she-beast?

Then it threw the goddamn car back at the tyrant. Yep. That was Christa.

He strafed two steps to the right, keeping his rifle raised as he did. He unleashed another volley, continuing to play support while the big dogs tangled with the abomination. One of his blasts struck the creature directly in what was left of its ear, causing its head to snap to the side and lock eyes with Abner. It should have been intimidating, but Abner had already been over this thing the second he laid eyes on it.

“Yea, I’m talkin’ to you,” Abner mumbled under his breath as he shifted his left hand back towards the energy launcher attached to the bottom of his rifle.

The tyrant took a mere two steps in his direction before Abner pressed the button that unleashed another wave of pure blue energy. The burst from his rifle struck the tyrant in the chest, and caused it to slow its stride for only a second. Abner rolled his eyes and sighed in disbelief, but he was happy to press the button and release a second wave of energy into the demon’s center mass. Again, it hesitated for mere seconds before continuing its unyielding advance.
 
“Motherfucker!” Abner shouted as he transitioned back to shooting regular energy bolts from his rifle. He couldn’t keep using the energy launcher forever, after all.
 
As his training dictated, he struck the tyrant at center mass several times, only adjusting his aim when it became wildly apparent that wasn’t working. He placed two shots into its forehead, which also seemed to be futile. Annoyed exasperation flushed across his face as he tried to wonder what the hell would work against this damn thing.
 
The tyrant’s advance was halted as Colonel grabbed its arm and abruptly forced the beast to the ground. The creature recovered with lightning speed, rising to catch the soldier navi’s wrist, preventing his beam sword from piercing its decayed flesh. While they struggled, the red Christa-beast leaped in and slammed a fireball directly into the monster’s chest, then continued gracefully stay mobile. She would clearly be back for a second attack in short order. The hulking plague marine advanced as well, its bolter already pelting the beast with corroded rounds.
 
This was the moment Abner had advised all of his Stormtroopers to be aware of. This is when any reasonable person should run the hell away from a battle. Self-preservation would cause any self-serving individual to get the hell away from this insanity. Indeed, just a few months prior, Abner would have done exactly that. As he watched the brawl against this overpowered monstrosity, however, he couldn’t help but ignore his most basic instincts.
 
“Fuck it,” Abner announced to no one in particular, dropping his rifle and allowing his sling to catch it.
 
He ripped his combat knife from its sheath and charged in as fast as his tired legs and weary mind would allow him. The tyrant was distracted with Colonel and Okor, which was even better for him. Abner disregarded every compulsion that pushed for self-preservation as he leaped onto the back of this terror. He wrapped his left arm tightly around its neck to brace himself, clutching at the decayed flesh on its right shoulder. It was loose enough that it wasn’t bound to the tendons, but strong enough that it was a firm handhold. He plunged his knife deep into its neck as soon as he was able, desperate to deal some damage to the beast. Finally, he was rewarded with the deep cry of pain he had been seeking with all of his rifle shots, but he didn’t dare stop here.
 
Abner ripped the dagger from the creature’s throat, and stabbed it over and over again. This thing was super powered, sure, but there had to be an artery somewhere. He hacked away until a small fountain of blood erupted from its trachea. Satisfied that he’d hit the right spot, Abner twisted the knife as much as he could, attempting to maximize the damage dealt.
 
The beast roared and flailed in pain, and the others took the opportunity to continue their own assaults. Abner held on tight, refusing to let the beast shake him off. He ignored his instincts that told him to let go and run for his life, instead twisting the knife deeper into the creature’s esophagus. He paid no mind to the immediate peril he was in.
 
He was a Prime, now, just like all the others. It was time to start acting like one.

1600/1600 exactly, per the site.

Abner used Tier 1 Super Attack: Energy Launcher.
Abner used Tier 1 Super Attack: Energy Launcher again.

SP: 3/6

[Gildarts]

The smell of acrid smoke and Okor’s breath, filled her nose as she challenged the Tyrant’s promise of certain death. The clawslinger’s momentum carried her shimmering golden body forward, as Red’s glowing tail whipped behind her. Red’s tail? Boggled, her mind quickly adapted while she caught glimpses of her lioness pelt below her shoulders. Amid the barrage of battle, Christa felt the immediate coordination of alike minds and just how much her senses had piqued. The cat's mind steadied through the serene rush from the previous thrill. Two bodies toned and poised for battle had woven together, while their combined soul mingled within a body forged by gods. Red leaned to the left and she dove between the Tyrant’s legs; her arms rose upward while crescent dagger-sized claws sprouted out and were driven into the beast’s torso. The fused being slid out of the way of the claws that whipped all too close to her nose.

Glitters of fire came from her palms as the heat of her other half’s energy bubbled within, telling her without force, where to aim. A gush of crimson flooded the thick layers of darkness until it crumbled into the murder-driven monster. It was disoriented and the fire charred the Tyrant’s flesh while Okor unloaded another hammer into its back, Zoooom! Colonel had unloaded a colossal sized missile into the creature’s carcass. A roar of agony sounded as it turned to the most recent threat, and the fusion tackled the beast daringly. Her jaws sunk into the flesh, and she spat out the bitter taste as she racked the claws over his chest, again and again until she finally saw enough shredded flesh fall from the set of ribs.

The creature had feigned weakness, before the lion-like being could dodge, the Tyrant’s own razor-sharp claw fell into her side. A lion’s howl of pain deafened those closest, while Christaki leapt off of her rival, vowing to get close enough for another shot. The creature staggered to a stand, brushing off some of the smoldering liquid essence from its abdomen as it met her amber eyes, now narrowed diamonds. Teeth bared while the two beasts circled, You shed my blood and I'll shed yours too.

It lunged, her fur bristled and her muscles where driven to immediate reaction, however she was not quick enough, for it was not she who was the target. Her eyes widened too late when she saw the claw descend above Fiara, who had somehow crept too close to this massacre, so close she was about to become a casualty. 

Bullets pierced the skin of the beast who snickered at the mere pinpricks; the clawslinger unleashed the raw, bestial fury she’d been holding in for much too long. Unable to see below her, the animal drove her momentum into the enemy and threw her saber teeth into the Tyrant’s shoulder. Hitched on the bone of its clavicle, a snarl caught on her throat and she threw the essence of evil into the nearest street lamp with her pure strength. The plague marine followed up with a strike from his mammoth hammer, while her embedded claw –now stuck on sticky flesh– attempted to pry itself from the mess of silky flesh. Its blood was hardening like stone.

The Tyrant’s laughter now filled the hallowed night air.

[Kenpachi Zaraki]

With a bestial grunt, Christaki tore herself free of the behemoth’s flesh. The feral fusion ducked low, somersaulting backward to avoid the fetid executioner as its tendril-mounted blade cleaved the pavement. In the thick of the kerfuffle, Okor brought the hammer down upon the mutant’s writhing appendage with merciless abandon, his Herculean might driving the immense weight, as well as the slithering appendage, deep into the concrete. With their target pinned to the shattered street, Abner took the opportunity to leap once more upon it, burying his combat knife into the base of its neck and tearing down with his full body weight. Punishment pouring in, the twisted behemoth drew a rattling breath before belting out a thunderous roar, sending the ex-trooper and Nurgle’s Chosen sprawling. 

Twin minds scarcely had little time to account for their shared injuries. Though the synthesis had more or less ‘mended’ the gunslinger’s broken wrist, the limb had remained stiff and painful, though usable. Ignoring the dull ache, the hybrid fell to a crouch, a cobalt aura enrobing the golden beast in mako energy. A moment later, asphalt splintered as powerful quadriceps propelled them toward the revolting combatant, ocher irises trained on it. A veritable wall of tendrils arose to shield its owner from the encroaching amalgam’s scythe-like claws, the hybrid’s magic-enhanced attack tear through the curtain with ease. At the last second the fusion rolled backward in midair, planting her broad feet upon the titan’s breast and throwing her weight into a savage dropkick. The colossus was flung backward, its pinned appendage shearing as its body was tossed some several meters to collide with a crumbling building with a hollow thud. 

Whatever victory they could have hoped for was cut short as the misshapen form of the tyrant emerged from the rubble, necrotic flesh speckled with rubble. Colonel quickly threw himself headlong into the fray at the sight of it, blade hissing as it bit at the hulking monstrosity. Pure rage seemed to pour from the automaton as steel fingers clamping tight around the slimy limb, dragging the unfortunate foe forward to bury the burning blade into its gut with a shrieking hiss. 

“It still stands,” the golden wildcat heard Fiara mutter, incredulous. The girl watched as Colonel dispensed scorching justice upon their stubborn foe, barely managing to dodge the fiend’s greedy tendrils. Her rotting guardian soon appeared beside him, drawing his boltor and letting loose a few blasts as he charged into the fray.

Not to be outdone, the fused warriors flexed their sinewy frame before taking off in a mad sprint toward the gathered combatants. The conjoined predators propelled their shared frame forward, eyes narrowing as they began to channel another orb of destruction within their clawed grip. To their mutual surprise, the cement exploded beneath them as they neared, a tentacle the width of a tree trunk lashing out and catching them in the midsection. Before they could react, the tendril drove them to the ground, slamming the shared body painfully into the blacktop. With strength unmatched, the feral fusion wrestled against its fleshy bondage, tearing the tendril asunder with a bestial cry. 

Not far from Christaki, her comrades lay broken, tossed aside like a pile of toys by a fickle child. The Primes, ravaged by the island’s challenges, were forced to the defensive as the tyrant’s body rapidly recovered from their damage. A swarm of tentacles had emerged from the fiend’s abdomen, hurling the primes away as a deep, throaty chuckle escaped its lips. The predator amalgam watched as the enormous tentacle she had so recently rent now reformed, a bladed end now present. Her eyes widened in shock as it surged forward with inhuman speed, a distracted Abner its new target. Rifle raised, his sights were set on the monstrosity itself, obvious to the subterranean tendril shooting toward his midsection.

“DOWN!” 

The predators cried out in unison, their shared body bracing as they raised their countenance to the heavens. Their fanged maw split open, a mote of light hovering nearly a meter above their gaping jaws,  rapidly growing from the size of a baseball to nearly six-feet wide in a matter of seconds. The luminous orb burned with crimson fury, suspending itself in the air for but a moment before the fused duo arched their shared form, the massive sphere rocketing toward the tyrant. The falling comet streaked across the battlefield, slamming full-force into the twisted being in a brilliant flash of light.

1584 words, all told. Using my T2, Cosmo Memory, leaving the SP count at 2/4 and 4/9, respectively.

[Hiro Protagonist]

"FRRGGGAAAAAGGGHHHHAAAAHAAAAA!"

He swore he felt a crunch, the vixen's foot driving backwards and straight into his already sore groin. Doing what any man would do after being kicked in the balls twice, he released the inspector and crumpled to the ground in absolute pain. This would never happen again. As soon as he got home, he was buying a fucking cup.

Through blurred vision, blinking back tears of pains, Hiro saw Carmelita attempt to repeat her tried and true tactic of diving for cover. However, Deadpool was crafty, and most of the immediate cover had been sliced or battered to scraps by his hurricane kick. This fight was over...but a nasty little urge  drove the hacker to get up and retaliate. This chick couldn't just kick him in the jumblies twice and get away with it! That would be an injustice against all guys everywhere. 

While groping for a handhold, his hand fell upon the metal canister of medigel still strapped to his belt. Why the hell not, maybe it'll help. And oh, it did. The cool foam eased his burning pain enough for him to rise to his feet, even if it was a bit bowlegged. Ahead, Deadpool and Carmelita danced the dance of death with each other, trying to avoid shocks and swipes from their weapons. 

Drawing his machete from the shoulder holster once more, he could feel his grip tighten around it, palm clenching a well worn groove in the handle. Anger. He was angrier than he thought. This stupid animal, this meddling woman was interfering with their escape from this hellhole on some abstract sense of injustice. What did it matter whether Karl was going to reset it? This was his goddamn house!

He started to step forward, not noticing just how shiny and wet the machete had grown, thick blood dripping from the blade as if it had just performed a grisly kill. He burst forward, wincing a bit, and raised the murder weapon high as he shouted towards the vixen. "I told you that was your last chance! GO AWAY!"

Something in the foxwoman's face gave him an odd thrill as he brought the bloody weapon down in a murderous arc. Fear. It was the fear.

Hiro Protagonist used Medigel. +1 HP (Now 13/20)
Hiro Protagonist used Tier 1 Super Attack: Jason's Machete

[Karl Jak]

Still too spry for the hacker, Carmelita hopped back as the machete crashed into the ground, splintering the surface and releasing a cloud of powdered linoleum.  Hiro scowled as he wrenched the bloodstained blade from the floor, but just as it came free, a blast of electricity crashed against his chest.  A moment later, the side of the shock pistol crashed against the side of his head, sending him face-first through a nearby cubicle.

Carmelita turned sharply and slipped out of the way as the katana thrust through the air where she’d once stood.  She saw the mercenary’s masked eyes get a little wider in the moment before she shot him square in the face with a ball of electricity.  As Deadpool started to shout something, she sank her knee up into his crotch, grabbed him by the neck, and threw him on top of his friend.  The two swordsman, their limbs jumbled together as if they’d lost a game of Twister, groaned in unison.

Before the cop could properly secure them, she heard someone clapping behind her.  Spinning on her heels, her eyes narrowed at the sight of Karl Jak standing in front of the open vault door.  The executive had a briefcase tucked under an armpit as he continued his ovation for the policewoman.  “Well done, Foxy, but you’re aware that you probably committed a hate crime, right?  Mr. Protagonist is a minority, and Wade over there is probably clinically insane.  How shameful of you to beat up someone who needs our help.  He needs to be nurtured and resocialized… not victimized.”

“Hand over the case, Karl,” Carmelita rasped as the shock pistol’s barrel started to hum.

“I’m not playing this with you anymore, Sweetheart,” Karl muttered as his smile melted away in an instant. Before Carmelita could find the trigger, the gun was torn out of her hand by an unseen force and flung against the wall with enough force to shatter it into a hundred pieces.  “I’ll have my people send you a check for a new one.”  He muttered as he threw the case into the air over Carmelita’s head.  The fox watched as the case crashed into an overhead sprinkler and set off the entire room, causing a few dozen sprinklers to start spewing cold water down into the vault area.

The case landed with a wet thump near the exit.  Although unarmed, Carmelita could see an opening in the executive’s hubris.  She broke into a sprint through the downpour of water, but before she could get even halfway to the case, a dark hand grabbed her foot.  As she spun to deal with Hiro, Carmelita felt something colder than the synthetic rain push through her back.  A moment later, a blood-soaked katana blade tore out of her stomach a few inches to the left of her belly button.

“This kind of penetration doesn’t count as bestiality, right?  It’s only the penis, right?”  Deadpool twisted the blade, but despite his mirth, the woman responded by bashing him in the jaw with her skull.  The mercenary lost his grip on his weapon long enough for Carmelita to spin around and catch him with a pair of clubbing forearm strikes to the head.  With Deadpool momentarily dazed, the policewoman moved forward and threw herself against the nearest wall.  The bloody sword hit first, and by the time Carmelita felt the wet brick against the side of her face, the katana was on the ground and staining the puddles around it a pale shade of crimson.

Turning as quickly as she could, Carmelita caught a glimpse of Karl blowing her a kiss as he casually strolled out of the vault room with the briefcase containing the town records.  Clenching her blood-stained teeth together, she went for the katana lying on the ground and beat the smart mouthed mercenary by a few moments.  A frantic swipe opened up a bloody line across Deadpool’s chest and sent him stumbling back.  Realizing that she had to put an end to this if she wanted to catch up to Karl, she pushed through the pain and the smelly rain of sprinkler water.

The katana slipped easily into the space right below Deadpool’s left clavicle, but the bloodied cop had been aiming for the heart.  She tried to pull the sword back for another go at it, but she lost her grip amid all the various fluids.  As she pitched back, Carmelita caught herself, even though the office seemed to be spinning around her.  A hand grabbed her from behind and spun her around to face a battered-looking Hiro Protagonist.

“I got your severance package.”  He mumbled almost incoherently as he swung the machete.  The blade found its mark on the woman’s right shoulder and sank down into the flesh and bone.  Carmelita let out a scream as the blade passed through her armpit.  Hiro, his own body spent by the exchange, let go of the weapon rather than deal with the tug of its momentum as it clanged against the ground.  Fresh blood spurted from severed blood vessels as the policewoman’s severed right arm hit the ground and thrashed about for a few moments like an ensanguined fish on the deck of a boat.

Carmelita bit down through her own tongue to keep down the scream as her knees buckled.  The world was slipping away from her, but she had just enough of that fiery spirit inside her failing form to grab at the machete handle and swung it up into Hiro’s crotch.  A bloody grin spread across her face as Deadpool’s katana removed her head from the rest of her body.

***

There was a lull on the battlefield as the group tried to catch their breath.  Christa and Red, their bodies their own once more, found Abner and Colonel and eyed the smoldering, smoke-filled crater.  On the far side of the wreckage, the plague marine stood still, unwilling to remove his focus from what should be the grave of the creature.  A few yards behind him, Fiara rested on one knee and waited for the next hell to unfold.  

“Can we be sure it’s dead?”  She asked the festering bulk of metal and chaos.

Okor had no response for the phoenix.  He could already see that something was stirring down there in the cratered street.  When the tentacles came shooting up out of the smoke, the plague marine was ready for them.  Those that attempted to assail him were ripped apart or torn to shreds by his cancerous hands.  On the other side of the crater, Abner and the others pulled away before any of them could be pulled to their death.

When its retaliation failed, the monstrous humanoid leapt up from the crater and landed in a crouch before the four primes.  Although its body was ravaged by the various assaults from the warriors, the tyrannical creature still had enough spring in its step to try one more time to be their undoing.  A broken fist swung out and caught Christa in the jaw.  She felt the bone snap as she collapsed into a heap on the street.  A beat later, Red pounced onto the Tyrant’s back and started to rip apart what remained of the beast’s already shredded blood vessels.

Although it should have been dead, the monster reached back and closed a fist around Nanaki’s neck.  A beat later, the noble beast was a red blur crashing through the side of a brick building.  Like a bloodied lion backed into a corner, the ‘Tyrant’ lashed out and landed a crushing blow against Abner’s chest.  The Stormtrooper folded like a house of cards and felt blood in the back of his mouth as the shadow fell over him.

“Fucking…” Abner tried to lift his blaster, but for some reason, it was like the gun weighed a thousand pounds.  Before the deathblow landed, the oncoming arm separated from the body of the goliath and skidded to stop a few yards behind the dazed trooper.

Behind the tyrant, Colonel smirked faintly for a brief moment.  The small victory was short-lived—what was left of his opponent’s remaining hand closed around his sword arm.  The pressure that followed crushed his limb as if it were aluminum in the grip of a child.  With a frzzt, the Colonel Saber vanished, leaving behind a few smoldering wisps of smoke.  Colonel clenched his teeth as he tried to free himself, but even with a rapidly approaching pair of Okor and Fiara raining hell upon the creature, it lifted the machine up by his arm and brought him crashing down against the pavement.

Colonel felt one of his legs shatter as a slew of warnings started to populate his internal display.  With his good hand, he lashed out and managed to shear away a handful of the monster’s face using only his fingers before it whipped him up and brought him crashing back down to the ground.  The tyrant released its grip and stepped forward—onto Colonel’s skull.

Abner watched with wild eyes as the machine’s head was crushed underneath the mangled foot of the soulless, seemingly unstoppable monster.

“Son of a bitch!”  More adrenaline screamed through the man’s veins, enough to numb the pain and bring him scrambling to his feet.  Under the combined onslaught of the blaster bolts, phoenix fire, and phosphex rounds, the tyrant wavered—its massive bulk unable to maneuver amid the attacks.  It managed a lumbering step before it proceeded to lose its balance entirely.  As it did, the momentum of its hulking form carried it through the wall of the nearby structure.

With Christa stirring on the ground, Abner couldn’t pull his eyes away from the lifeless shell of steel lying a few yards away.  Every few moments, a bolt of electricity would arch across the corpse, causing the broken joints to shudder briefly before settling back into a calm repose.

“We need to make sure it’s dead.” Okor remarked as everyone had their attention pulled elsewhere by the sound of bricks and debris shifting in a different building.  Although they were all on edge, the group withheld the urge to start shooting at anything that moved, and a moment later, a groaning Nanaki shambled out from underneath the ruins of a wall.

Unfortunately, the joy was short-lived.

The Tyrant erupted from where they had seen it fall.  Always on point, Okor was the only one who managed to get in a few shots before a bulking, three-fingered fist smashed the weapon from his grip.  A beat later, the plague marine was backhanded across the street as if he were a small child.

Eyes wide, Fiara fired everything she had left in her Phoenix blasters.  She kept firing even as the hand closed around her skull.  She kept firing up until the pressure crushed her skull.

Abner’s knife sawed against the tyrant’s elbow, attempting to get through the limb—trying desperately to cut the muscles before it could kill the girl.  When he heard the gurgling scream beneath the bloodied gray flesh of the monster, he clenched his teeth and didn’t relent.  He finally felt bone, but by then, the monster had its eyes set on him.  It beat him down with the back of its forearm.  Abner lost his knife as he fell, but he grabbed for his rifle.  A foot came down on his chest a moment later, knocking the air from his lungs and fracturing more than a few of his ribs.  The tyrant pressed down, attempting to slowly crush the man, but it never had the chance.  A piece of rebar punched through one side of its neck and out the other.

With a crazy glint in her eyes, Christa jammed the metal rod through the monster’s neck, but even that wasn’t enough to drop it.  It turned to look at her—its face now little more than a twisted mockery of the human countenance.  Colonel’s parting gift had torn away half of that visage and left the beady-eyed monster with a permanent smile on half of its face.

Christa wanted to say something.  She wanted to spit right into that hideous mug.  She wanted to roar out with defiance, but her jaw had been broken in a few places.

So she did what she could do best.  She wrenched the rebar free and sent it right through the tyrant’s smiling visage, shattering the teeth as the steel punched out the back of the monster’s skull.

A moment later, the forearm came down and hit her in the side of the head.  Christa Adams hit the ground with a wet thud and an audible snap.  Abner, just a few feet away, watched the light leave her eyes.

The scream that left his wearied maw was a blend of grief and rage, but the concentrated burst of energy that roared from his weapon was pure, concentrated malice.  The blast struck the Tyrant square in the chest, and in that singular moment of undiluted fury, the beast was found wanting.  The energy tore it apart, reducing its body to a collection of gory pieces that were thrown to the winds.

Abner let the warm rifle slip from his hands as he moved to Christa.  Red, despite a serious limp, joined him just a few moments later.

Okor, who had been looking down at the broken body of Fiara—discarded as if it were a piece of yesterday’s trash—heard the sound of a man clearing his throat.  

“I’m sorry,” Karl interrupted.  The survivors turned to see the producer staring at them with what almost seemed to be a morose expression on his face.  A few yards behind him, a ghost-white Hiro was managing to stand only with some assistance from Deadpool.  “We need to get the fuck off the island.  Now.  We have a small window to get to the docks and off before stuff worse than that thing come for us.  So say goodbye to your corpses, because I'm not waiting.  Sorry, not sorry."  With that, Karl and his two gentlemen were gone.

Deadpool has suffered 6 points of Accumulated Damage.
Hiro suffered a Major Injury (8 points)
Okor suffered 4 points of Accumulated Damage
Red suffered 4 points of Accumulated Damage
Abner suffered 4 points of Accumulated Damage

Abner used Tier 1 Super Move – Energy Launcher (2 SP Left)

Fiara, Colonel, Carmelita, and Christa are dead and the last 3 will respawn at the Nexus in 7 days.