Zarkenis Ultima wrote:---
Alas, the monkey man was much too swift even for such a surprise attack, and so, even though Asra was swift to exit the pillar of magma and rush blade-first towards his primitive enemy, it was not enough. The dimensional beast turned just in time and clapped its hands together around the Ashbringer's blade, less than a second before it pierced its heart. Its strength was enough to shatter the sword in a million tiny shards of black metal, but just in case it would prove to be insufficient, the monkey man had poured the might of his own life force into it, and the blue kinetic energy crackling around his open palms pulverized all the shards of Asra's sword, turning them all into fine dark dust. The shockwave pushed the corrupted Rainborn back into the pillar of lava as it was coming back down, and though at first he had been protected from it, now he had been unexpectedly thrown into it, and was not ready. He felt the searing touch of the burning core of that broken world, felt its vengeful embrace surround him and burn away his skin for having shattered its already dead crust with such disdain. A wail of pain was heard from within the pillar, and then silence.
The monkey man leapt away from his current earthborn platform, as it had already shattered from the stress it had been put under after the shockwave from its thunderclap attack struck it. As it landed on another platform, it heard Asra's scream, and thought that its enemy had been finally put to rest, but nothing was farther from the truth, it seemed.
Once again the Blazeborn rose from the boiling magma, but this time, he was not the same. Skin and hair had been burned away completely, and now what remained was only the black stone-like material that all of the Rainborn were made of underneath their human-like appearance. The intrincate mechanisms that gave the parts of his body movement were now visible, if unintelligible for the mindless destroyer primate and most likely for all but the most talented mechanics and engineers as well, and the luminous circle in his chest betrayed the location of the hollow cavity where his Corrupted Core sat idle, giving the Blazeborn his power and governing the all-consuming flames of darkness that he commanded. However, there was something that Asra conserved, even after his trip to the pool of lava. His eyes. His emerald eyes still sat on his face, but this time, they were ablaze with the dark will of the fallen Rainborn, completely alight with viridian flames. His soul's dark wish was heard, and his Core complied.
The monkey man saw him and roared, smashing his fists into his chest before clapping once again, sending a shockwave of azure kinetic energy towards the Ashbringer. However, he simply walked over the magma towards the rock platform where the transdimensional primate stood, his burning wings beating once and creating an omnidirectional wave of almighty flames that consumed the wave of energy before being snuffed out of existence. Several such attacks were attempted by the monkey man, with entire pillars of stone and even half-molten platforms full of magma being tossed at him, and yet, at every such attack, the Blazeborn simply used his wings to destroy the menace before he was even touched by it. Soon, the destruction wrought by the combatants was such that there was nearly no earth left on that half of the planet, and finally, Asra arrived at a circular rock platform in the center of the enormous sea of hissing magma, in order to confront the monkey man.
The beast charged towards him with its fist ready, as it knew itself to be stronger than the feeble Rainborn, but its surprise was great when, once again, just like at the beginning of the battle, Asra responded in kind, charging towards it and sending his fist forward as well. This time, however, there was an indomitable will behind the Ashbringer's fist, and the monkey man screamed in pain as the fists collided, its own hand and its entire arm broken by the impact. Asra took advantage of this and took a step forward as the monkey man recoiled, sending his fist into the monkey man's gut. The monkey man doubled over in pain, but replied after a moment by using its good hand to punch Asra in the face, causing him to be knocked back momentarily. The primate followed up by grabbing the Rainborn's head and smashing it into the ground, causing the large stone platform to begin cracking.
Enraged, Asra slowly began to rise, despite all the weight and pressure placed upon his head by the giant monkey man. Slowly but surely overcoming the creature's strength, the Ashbringer grabbed the monkey man's arm, and, with a vicious howl, tore it off cleanly, using it to backhand the monkey man and then tossing it into the lava, to be swallowed by the hungering earth. Now with an arm absent and another broken, there was little that the ninth-dimensional destroyer could do against the fury of the Rainborn, and Asra was merciless in his punishment, striking his enemy in the face over and over again, until the creature was so dazed it couldn't even react anymore, merely standing still, bleeding from its arm stump, from its other arm, and from its own head, which was rendered into a gory mess already, nearly unrecognizable as a primate.
Gathering almighty fire in his hand, Asra waved it towards his foe, and a half-moon blade of fire surged forward, cleanly cutting off the creature's head from its neck. There was silence in the battlefield as the Ashbringer waited, but finally, the lifeless, headless corpse fell, landing on its back. Not content with simply letting it die, however, Asra walked up to the corpse and, with a vicious, apathetic movement, dug into its chest with his hand, tearing out the creature's heart. He focused, and tiny tendrils of light emerged from the heart and began flowing into his chest, right where the luminous circle was. Slowly, the heart disappeared from this world, its last vestige being the last wisp of light that was absorbed by the beast's slayer.
Suddenly, Asra was enveloped by fire, but in a more metaphysical sense. The damage that had been caused to him by the magma was located, and then turned to ashes and erased from time, negating all the injuries that the Blazeborn had suffered during the battle. When he stood, his skin, his hair and his black clothes were intact, and his eyes had faded to a dull green once again, no longer ablaze with light. All around him, however, lightning crackled, azure bioelectricity that was now generated by his body much like the monkey man had done earlier. It was his power, taken from him as a trophy.
The fallen Rainborn flew high into the air, and from there, watched as the last stone platform sank into the hungering magma below, with the monkey man's corpse on top of it. After watching it be consumed by the dying world, Asra left, never to return to that wretched place.
"...Your very voice is in my heartbeats, sweeter than my dreams. We were there, in everlasting bloom~"Kirisvala's beautiful singing voice echoed throughout the Command Room of the Tower of Youth, the tower that Bruce Wayne had built for the group that had been formed a week earlier after the Rantu attack on Jump City, the Young Bloods. At least, Tower of Youth was the name that the enthusiastic Hadrian had proposed for their fancy little hideout, a suggestion put forward because it fit the themes that their group seemed to be adhering to. She had no idea if they had picked her suggestion (in fact, she wasn't quite certain if they were looking for suggestions in the first place), but she was pretty happy with it nonetheless and would continue calling it the Tower of Youth as long as nobody else had a problem with it.
The tower, itself, was an enormous building in the shape of a Y (another of the reasons that Kirisvala had suggested 'Tower of Youth' for its name), so as to make it clear that it belonged to the Young Bloods. The upper floors, the ones above the disjunction, were the places where the bedrooms were located, along with assorted entertainment rooms that were not actually entertainment rooms, as they were yet to be furnished with arcade machines or whatever the Young Bloods wanted to place in them. Each bedroom was quite spacious, enough to fit most anything that their occupants wanted to place inside; Kiris was reasonably certain that Mars had put a lot of his weird machines inside his room. Down below, where the two lines merged to form the main body of the Y shape, the uppermost floor was entirely dedicated to the Command Room, which had lots of computers and a giant screen for the use of the Young Bloods, to receive information and missions and whatnot. There were also several bean bag chairs. Further below were a kitchen, an empty pantry, an empty hangar, and a whole assortment of other places that the group either hadn't been able to furnish or didn't really need so far. They had the funds, thanks to Bruce, but they hadn't yet had the chance to use them.
All in all, though, Kiris really liked the tower. It was quite the change from the crystal spires of the Wynn, and she felt at home there.
She was currently sitting in a revolving chair, the
only revolving chair in the entire Command Room, destined for the user of the computers present there, though of course, there was no one in the Command Room at the moment, not even Mars or Elena, so there was no one to tell her to get off of it. And a good thing, too, because she absolutely
loved the revolving chair! She could just sit there and spin and spin and spin to her heart's content, all while she sang some human songs she had incidentally come across during the several days she had already spent on Jump City.
That day, the Hadrian was clad in a bit of a peculiar outfit. Her top was a red dress with a white diamond pattern that circled around her chest, surrounding the letters 'DM', which were proudly stamped on it, woven into the dress with golden thread. Down below, she had a skirt that was also a bright red, with a similar diamond pattern and a hemline that reached slightly above her knees at the front, but was longer the further it was from the front, nearly reaching down to her ankles at the back. On her feet, she wore a simple yellow pair of boots, and on her back she wore a yellow cape, with the symbol of a claw occupying the center of the cape, surrounded by a circle, both figures woven into the yellow cloth with silver thread. Finally, and perhaps most peculiarly, a red wizard hat sat on her head, with a circle of white diamonds visible near the brim; it had holes in it to allow her four horns to poke out of it without damaging it.
With the exception of the hat and the boots, which she had bought off of e-bay with some help, she had knit everything by herself (with needles and threads
also bought off of e-bay), despite her large claws, and she was incredibly proud of her work; in fact, she had only finished that morning, and so, she was feeling especially giddy, finally able to don her entire costume for the first time in her life. It was for that reason that she was happily spinning on the revolving chair and singing to her heart's content in the currently empty Command Room, her pink braid trailing after her.
"Joys of the daylight, shadows of the starlight-" She continued, before being interrupted by a mechanical voice.
"MISS RANWYNN, NEW INFORMATION." The voice intoned in a monotone.
Kirisvala smiled and pointed a clawed hand at the giant screen that dominated one of the walls of the room. "That's
Dragon Mage to you!" She said proudly, her excitement practically tangible. Evidently, she had taken to this whole superhero business like a fish takes to the water. However, after a moment, she simply lowered her hand and rolled herself closer to the screen. "Also, it's 'Az Ranwynn', not 'Miz Ranwynn'." She stated. If the mechanical voice had been able to sigh, it would undoubtedly had done so by now. It had been trying to explain to her the social custom of calling people 'mister' and 'miss', but so far it had been futile, because she just wouldn't get it, no matter how many times it explained everything.
"So, what did you want, ADAM?" She asked.
A.D.A.M. stood for Autonomous Database Actualization Manager, which was actually a pretty shitty name, but having an artificial intelligence with a normal human name that gathered information and found missions for the team was
in vogue these days for superhero organizations, so Mr. Wayne had generously donated them one, along with everything else that they had in their tower. So far, ADAM had been pretty helpful, at least to Kirisvala. In fact, he had been the one to order stuff from e-bay on her behalf, which she appreciated greatly. She hadn't yet managed to catch on to the fact that ADAM wasn't actually alive and was in fact just doing what his programming told him to do, though, which led to some amusing situations sometimes.
"THERE ARE MISSIONS AVAILABLE FOR THE YOUNG BLOODS, MISS RANWYNN." ADAM spoke.
Though she was irked at ADAM's reluctance to heed her correction, Kirisvala could feel herself practically boiling with giddyness. "Perfect!" She exclaimed, doing a pair of clawed fist pumps in the air as she practically jumped from her seat and rushed to the screen. She had been dying for an excuse to get the group together to show them her new costume, after all. "Can you call everyone over, then, ADAM?" She asked the AI.
"CERTAINLY, MISS RANWYNN." The AI stated. Then, its voice began blaring throughout the whole tower.
"SUMMONING ALL YOUNG BLOODS TO THE COMMAND ROOM. REPEAT. SUMMONING ALL YOUNG BLOODS TO THE COMMAND ROOM."
Kirisvala heard the message and smiled, plopping down on the revolving chair. Now all she had to do was wait, and she'd know what everyone thought of her costume.