The Proving Grounds [IC]

[Blakullar]

IMPORTANT! If you wish to participate, shoot the OP a telegram, or be specially invited.
~ OOC Here ~

---

---

~ The Proving Grounds: Season II ~

With the glorious success and popularity of the First Multiversal Hammerfall Games in Mechanocratic Russia (ignoring for a second the absolute bloodbath at its end and the catastrophic failure to launch the second Games), it has been decided by the Executive Committee of the Third League of Mechanocracies that a new arena be set aside on the distant, unaffiliated Ringworld 261, for combat sports and relaxation.

When the League collapsed, the high-tech arena fell under new management by the same interdimensional conglomerate that took over the rest of Ringworld 261 when it was abandoned. Now the new arena is a place for the warriors from all around the Multiverse to test their mettle in combat at their own leisure.

Welcome to the Proving Grounds.

---

---

~ CURRENTLY SCHEDULED FIGHTS ~
No fights scheduled at present. Check back later!

---

~ RELEVANT NEWS ~

---

The first PG fight of the new season is now over, with Maiya and Rosa coming out on top in spectacular fashion! Hopefully Ippo will go back remembering one important lesson: revenge is a dish best served cold.

Stay tuned for more to come, fight fans!

---

~ LEADERBOARD ~

---

~ Taraniri (1 Win) ~
~ SIU-K17 (1 Win) ~
~ Shinji Sakahara (1 Win) ~
~ Trofima Medveditsa (1 Win) ~
~ Valeren (0 Wins) ~
~ Subject 03 (0 Wins) ~
~ Sylvia Xi Leng (0 Wins) ~
~ Xiānzhī-7 (0 Wins) ~
~ Kaleb Steichen (0 Wins) ~
~ Kylie-99 (0 Wins) ~
~ Thymos (0 Wins) ~
~ Bellus Councillor Rathis (0 Wins) ~
~ Commander Zhannax (0 Wins) ~
~ Maiya Morez (0 Wins) ~
~ Dzheyson (0 Wins) ~
~ Haivel Eposel (0 Wins) ~
~ Elena Trotskaya (0 Wins) ~
~ Drakolich (0 Wins) ~
~ Efir-Vur (0 Wins) ~

~ Maiya Moréz (1 Wins, 0 Draws, 0 Losses) ~
~ Rosa Vesperī (1 Wins, 0 Draws, 0 Losses) ~
~ Quetzalcoatl Squadron (0 Wins, 0 Draws, 0 Losses) ~
~ Heavenly Emperor Cheonsa (0 Wins, 0 Draws, 0 Losses) ~
~ Heavenly Empress Kaguya (0 Wins, 0 Draws, 0 Losses) ~
~ Sky Commander Aiastom Vic (0 Wins, 0 Draws, 0 Losses) ~
~ Brigadier General Ushe Ai Tochue (0 Wins, 0 Draws, 0 Losses) ~
~ Lord Song Hyun Woo (0 Wins, 0 Draws, 0 Losses) ~
~ Shinji Sakahara (0 Wins, 0 Draws, 0 Losses) ~
~ Mikaere Ruamoko (0 Wins, 0 Draws, 0 Losses) ~
~ Bookkeeper-Sergeant B43A5188 (0 Wins, 0 Draws, 0 Losses) ~
~ Yelena Trotskaya (0 Wins, 0 Draws, 1 Losses) ~
~ Ippolyta the Manreaper (0 Wins, 0 Draws, 1 Losses) ~

---

~ RESOURCES ~

---

Code: Select all

[align=center][size=150][b]The Proving Grounds[/size][/b]
[hr][/hr][b][size=125]~ [img]Flag URL, height 15 pixels[/img] [color=Any colour you want]Combatant One[/color] VS [color=Any colour you want]Combatant Two[/color] [img]Flag URL, height 15 pixels[/img] ~[/size][/b]
[hr][/hr][b][color=Any colour you want]Location of arena[/color][/b]
[hr][/hr][/align]

Coming soon. Check back later!

[Neonymphonia]

League of Mechanocracies Proving Grounds

---

~ Taraniri VS Drakolich ~

---

Mystica Temple

---

A thick, heady mist saturated the air, laden fog rising from the bases of waterfalls cascading upon rocks and condensing on the verdant fronds of lush rainforest flora strewn across the soil and stone. Out from this translucent haze loomed the great lithic constructs of the Mystica Temple, a true testament to the skill and ingenuity of Nymphonian Ecotects, Psigineers, and Edificers working in tandem. Dominating its construction as the arena's ultimate locus, the Temple's centerpiece consisted of a densely forested isle not emerging from the ocean waves, but rather suspended half a kilometer in the air, the sparkling blue of a tropical sea glistening hundreds of meters below.

In the floating island's center, a tremendous circular courtyard of stone slabs chiseled with esoteric runes and symbols carved a vast swath from the jungle vegetation, flanked on opposite ends by towering temple complices hewn from rock and ready-made to appear ancient, overgrowth upon rubble and all. Bordered on one side by a jagged cliff face, on the other by a crystalline crescent lake, and surrounded entirely by impenetrable foliage, the temple square offered little escape from its enclosure, save for those unafraid to clear their own path through the rock and brush.

Surrounding the primary floating isle in all directions, a plethora of miniature islands to mere chunks of earth drifted and danced through the humid atmosphere, orbiting the central monolith. Some bore rainforest copses of their own, teeming with verdant greenery. Others supported fragments of temple buildings artificially crumbled to ruin. Some were tethered to the primary island by thick, viny cords, like ships moored to a pier. Others acted as ethereal springs, drawing water from the inundated air and dropping it upon the central isle via waterfalls from the sky. The vast majority of these petric nodes, nevertheless, were little more than mossy boulders levitating in great droves above and below the psionically-maintained arena.

Taraniri was already wincing at the thought. This exquisitely formulated arena, this monument to the mastery of her people's techniques, fated to utter annihilation. True, the Perceivers who built this arena did so with the explicit knowledge that she would be one of the combatants to use it, even stating they were looking forward to its thoroughly explosive demolition. As much as she had to agree that blasting the rocks and trees to dust would be immensely satisfying, she nevertheless could not shake the feeling that somebody would lament their beautiful creation's destruction.

"Ah well," she reasoned, "I will probably stop caring once the fight kicks off. I have not even met my adversary. Hopefully he is as tough as they say."

The young Aggressor stood from her stone bench, rolling her shoulders and flexing her arms as she worked the last remaining knots from her muscles. She had always hated Transpositions, even when they were to places nearby. This time, however, it had been to an entirely new plane of existence, on the beckon of strangers. The trip had sent her head spinning and made her stomach churn, though the symptoms were mercifully transient. Now, with the crisp, damp coolness of a simulated morning fog imbuing her being, she was feeling refreshed, invigorated, and hankering for a good, old-fashioned brawl.

As per her style, she opted for a minimalist loadout; her light cloth battle dress, and no arms or armor to speak of save for Shock and Pulse, her twin psionic gauntlets. Constructed from master-crafted bioalloy with a watchmaker's precision, they conformed perfectly to the contours of her hands and forearms. Free of the ostentatious ornamentation often adorning the custom weapons of other Aggressors, the two gauntlets sported little more in the way of decoration than the power-focusing psionic crystals embedded within its design, and the psionic energy conduits pulsing from crystal to crystal. After sliding the gauntlets over her arms, she rapidly clenched her fists, activating their connection to her psionic essence as indicated by the crystals' sudden glow.

Twisting the cricks from her necks one last time, she inhaled deeply, spun rapidly around, and punched at the air. A silvery-bluish bolt of spiraling energy shot from her fist, careening through the air and impacting the remnants of a stone brick wall with a booming report. Walloped by the ensuing explosve shockwave, the stone wall promptly blew apart in a swirling cloud of rubble and dust. Taraniri grinned, relishing the earthy smell of pulverized rock and reassured of her capability. She was ready. Turning back to face the anteroom's exit, she strode forth confidently from her temple complex's interior to the tremendous arena courtyard outside. Loth to waste a second in meeting her opponent, she immediately began to holler at the other end.

"Hello there! I am Marauder Taraniri, your opponent! Nice to meet you!"

[Blakullar]

---

DRAKOLICH
THIRTY MINUTES PRIOR...

---

"So you want me to represent the Mechanocracy at these ... proving grounds?"
"I would normally go myself, but as you well know I am very busy. It is not often that I ask such favours of you, but you are one of the few Chthonians remaining on station and ready to deploy."

Before a hologram generator, the figure of a hooded woman flickering crimson yielding the only light in the dark chamber, was a man. He was wearing a fedora with a black band wrapping around its centre, an almost impossibly-smart three-piece suit and optical prosthetics, all glazed with the scarlet of blood. An equally-neat tie, windswept ponytail and well-polished shoes, each as piceous as the night, decorated his frame in addition. This was Drakolich, the Hound of Trotskaya, a living weapon feared among friend and foe alike for his fighting prowess, gelid unconcern for collateral damage and intellectual capacity verging on the godlike. A man who could discuss the topic of flaying someone alive with such preternatural casualness that he could easily be mistaken for talking about his day job...

"Besides anything else," the commanding alto of the woman who bore the Hound's leash spoke up with a smile, "you have already been challenged to a fight. I think that you will enjoy fighting your opponent."
"You think so?" Drak responded in his low, smooth and ever-so-sinister voice. "Show me who it is I'm up against, then!"

Trotskaya's visage changed to the biography of one 'Marauder Taraniri' of Neonymphonia. Drakolich collected a debt of but a few seconds to scour over the document as it was laid out before him, clearly in focus as his machined eagle-eyes studied the scantily-clad swarthy brunette before him.

"I gather you know of the caveats of this mission?" Trotskaya returned to view, after almost an eternity.
"Don't you worry, I know the drill..." Drak answered. "No flaying, no raping, no discussing the usual topics of conversation unless asked about them..."

"Good. Is there anything else you wish to discuss before your departure?"
"Oh, just one thing..."

"And that is...?"
"Keep my hat and jacket safe, would you?" he asked, stealing Trotskaya's jovial smile for himself as he enunciated. "Blood takes forever to clean out of synthread, so I'd rather not have my favourite suit stained with it..."

---

~ Taraniri VS Drakolich ~

---

Mystica Temple

---

In the present day, Drakolich - now devoid of his hat and jacket, exposing his muscular arms and raven-black hair - strolled out into the verdant glade that was to be the arena, the ancient ruin of a temple standing proud before him. The only weapons on his person were his three Kryuk plasma pistols and a Koush laser pistol, all in holsters around his belt and ready to draw at a moment's notice. His other weapons, a quartet of monomolecular buzzsaw blades, were built into his arms, ready to flick out in the stead of the six digits of his claw-like hands at his command.

Where are you, foe of mine?

A question ringing through his mind as his accipitrine watch scoured the arena for his foe, answered curtly by the echoing report of a thunderous explosion from the temple and subsequent booming collapse of one of its walls. Drakolich's poker-faced gaze at once snapped towards the temple, eyes of crimson burrowing into the lithe frame of a female figure stepping out from the temple's antechamber.

"HELLO THERE!" a youthful shout resonated through the Hound's ears through cupped hands. "I AM MARAUDER TARANIRI, YOUR OPPONENT! NICE TO MEET YOU!"

It was her alright. A perfect match to the figure to whom Drak had borne witness thirty minutes ago, just before this upcoming battle. Slowly, but palpably, his eyes narrowed and a smirk crawled up the sides of his cheeks. The next stage of the study could commence...

"You know, it's typically considered improper to trash the arena before the fight starts..." his voice hummed, at normal volume, as he indulged his enemy in ostensibly-friendly conversation.

[Neonymphonia]

League of Mechanocracies Proving Grounds

---

~ Taraniri VS Drakolich ~

---

Mystica Temple

---

"You know, it's typically considered improper to trash the arena before the fight starts..."

Taraniri blanched, glancing backwards at the wall's demolished remnants and chuckoing sheepishly.

"Hehehe, yeah... do not worry about that. I know the guy who had that installed. Knowing my, ahh, habits, he put it there specifically for it to be destroyed. It is somewhat of a shame, too. I really like the work they did here, even though I told them not to build anything too nice. It certainly will not look so pretty once this fight ends."

The Aggressor shrugged. She had already pictured the macerated mess fated for the arena, and resigned herself to its inevitibility. Her figure still relaxed, she seemed perfectly comfortable in making small talk with her opponent.

"For what it is worth, I am honored to meet you! I have heard many accounts of your ferocity in battle, and I look forward to experiencing it firsthand."

Taraniri placed the knuckles of her right fist against her open left palm, bowing deeply in imitation of the Singing Mountain Monks whose martial styles she had adapted into her own.

[Blakullar]

League of Mechanocracies Proving Grounds

---

~ Taraniri VS Drakolich ~

---

Mystica Temple

---

"For what it is worth, I am honored to meet you!" Taraniri lilted with youthful cheer. "I have heard many accounts of your ferocity in battle, and I look forward to experiencing it firsthand."

A jovial address that genuinely took Drakolich aback. This person purported to know of even his worst exploits, and yet treated his personal appearance so casually as to be friendly with him! A contingency that made one of two statements: either this warrior really was even more powerful than he and knew of it, or so ignorant of what he was really capable of that it could only arouse pity. As the Hound's intellect scrambled to figure out which of the two was the truth before having to engage the Marauder in battle, he continued to speak, neither his relaxed tone nor his smug expression yielding any hint to the engines turning and thundering in his mind:

"As have I heard much about yourself," Drak conversed with the enemy-to-be with his smooth grin. "I shall not disappoint a warrior with such a reputation as you by fighting with any less strength than my greatest. I expect you, however, to reciprocate: otherwise, our little clash wouldn't be very entertaining, now would it?"

While he spoke, Taraniri noticed that the Hound's right arm had metamorphosed in colour from the sarcoline pink that it had been since he stepped into the arena to a sparking silver. Like water, the skin covering his talons and then his entire wrist flowed up his arm, entering a centrally-located reservoir of livingmetal which, when his arms were fully retracted, would form an additional layer of armour on his torso. Folding his fingers together, they snapped into his wrist on a rotating pivot as twin circular sawblades, each sharpened to the width of a single molecule, unfurled like oriental fans and took their place. A shrill screech pierced the atmosphere of the glade as Drakolich revved both buzzsaw blades, the feral weapon system's blades spinning in contratandem so as to lacerate flesh rather than merely cut through it. His flexing the changed arm, testing the weapon's integrity, showcased his battle-readiness for all extant spectators to witness.

[Neonymphonia]

League of Mechanocracies Proving Grounds

---

~ Taraniri VS Drakolich ~

---

Mystica Temple

---

Taraniri observed as Drakolich's arm, in a rather grotesque sequence of events, was stripped of its illusory skin to reveal a twisting mass of artificed metal beneath. Components shifted to and fro, the silvery structure of his cybernetic hand mauling and mangling itself into a new permutation in its entirety. Vicious bladed discs unfurled from the appendage's churning mechanical depths, revving up to speed with a portentious whirr.

"As have I heard much about yourself," Drak continued, not perturbed in the slightest by his transforming prosthesis. "I shall not disappoint a warrior with such a reputation as you by fighting with any less strength than my greatest. I expect you, however, to reciprocate: otherwise, our little clash wouldn't be very entertaining, now would it?"

The Marauder's gregarious smile, once as bright and sunny as an estival noon, responded through its shift to a toothy, sardonic crescent of cocksure audacity. She latticed her plated fingers together, pushed them outwards with a crackle, and then spread them wide, as if in welcoming beckon.

"No, it most certainly would not."

Taraniri's fingers snapped into fists, and with a preceding wind-up that seemed to siphon energy from the very spacetime around her, she slammed her knuckles togther in a single, almighty clash. The moment her clenched fists met, a momentous surge of psionic energy cascaded back and forth between each luminescing glove; the catalysis of a runaway chain reaction, a feedback loop of volatile power in its purest form that terminated the next instant in a cataclysmic shockwave rippling forth from its humanoid epicenter. The carved stone slabs beneath her feet buckled into a crater ten meters in diameter, traumatized by the deafening detonation radiating outwards and brushing past Drakolich as a gale-force wind. Her tense form silhouetted behind the ensuing curtain of dust, her feet rooted firmly to the ground, Taraniri had transitoned nigh-instantly to a limber forward stance, fists raised and eyes sharp.

"Expect nothing less! Getting the shit kicked out of me by Rathis had one hell of an effect on my attitude, and such shall not happen again!"

Drawing no conceivable quantity of temporal deficit in her eagerness to fight, Taraniri launched instantaneously into her savage assault, sending the argent bolts of two left jabs careening at Drakolich at a blinding pace. Two step-crosses joined the telecast tirade, the subsequent psionic missiles hurtling toward the Mecharussian's general direction like incipient RPGs, their less celeritous approach indicating a greater concentration of explosive potential to compensate. Twisting her torso like the turbine of a dynamo, Taraniri then launched into an aerial butterfly kick, the first of her pinwheeling legs carving a shimmering crescent into the sky and the second sending the thundering plane slicing through the air.

She landed with a resounding crunch; though her horse stance had been executed with nary a fault, her feet, still popping like firecrackers with residual destructive energy, had crushed their impressions into the already-pulverized rock beneath them. Drawing her fists back to her waist, she then catapulted them forward into a dual palm strike. Summoned from the point at which her two hands met at the heel, a conical torrent of screaming shockwaves bellowed forth, chewing up an ever-widening swath of ground as they howled toward Drakolich. Loth to simply standing around in wait for her barrage of industrial demolitions manifest to make contact, she then tucked into a nimble forward roll and emerged into a defensive stance, crouched low to the ground and weight on her back leg.

[Blakullar]

League of Mechanocracies Proving Grounds

---

~ Taraniri VS Drakolich ~

---

Mystica Temple

---

Not a single femtosecond went to waste as Drakolich's vision carved into the dust-cloud formulated by Taraniri in an attempt to obscure his sight, eyes radiating a solar vermillion as they switched to thermal. Those same crocodilian optics beheld a pair of rippling, daggerlike projectiles, flaming darkly as they cut through the dirt-powdered atmosphere with intent to blast the Hound to smithereens. They may well have, were it not for the graceful bound executed by their mark, somersaulting through the air before landing into a slide to duck beneath the incoming sickle of destruction cast in his direction.

Upon springing back to his feet, Drak's entire body seemed to implode under a burst of crimson light, encapsulated by a collapsing energetic sphere. An identical sheath erupted some twenty metres behind and twelve up from Taraniri's present position, disgorging the Hound from within and scorching the temple pillar atop which he had landed from his blink. By the time Taraniri had acquired her defensive posture, Drakolich had already drawn one of his plasma pistols by his left hand and fired a rapid volley of crimson at his enemy's position, each shot announced by a sweet electrical thump. A competent marksman the Hound was not by any means, much preferring to tear the enemy to pieces with his shrieking buzzsaw blades, but the objective here was not so much to kill as provoke, at most injure. He needed to ascertain his opponent's capabilities before he went in for the kill.

[Neonymphonia]

League of Mechanocracies Proving Grounds

---

~ Taraniri VS Drakolich ~

---

Mystica Temple

---

Her hawklike vision closely surveiling the cybernetic soldier's movements, Taraniri was not surprised by her initial onslaught's failure to land a single strike. After all, accuracy had never been her modus operandi, as she preferred to make up in sheer destruction what she greatly lacked in precision. Nevertheless, she greatly appreciated the many hours she had spent in one-on-one brawls for honing her duelling skills; had her experience been limited solely to her typefied battlefield role of drop-kicking tanks and treating bunkers like punching bags, she would not have even made an attempt against the celeritous cyborg she now faced. On the other hand, Drakolich's sudden disentanglement from space was sudden and unexpected enough to elicit a brief moment of panic in the young pugilist. One of the few times she had ever faced a crushing defeat was against the Adonarch Ariston, when he decided to use his affinity for Transpositions to his considerable advantage. A dirty trick she was determined never to succumb to again.

A rapid patter of energetic pulses clued her frantic mind in to her attacker's location... as well as the imminent assault bearing down on her positon from behind. Taraniri rapidly threw her back into an arch, her upside-down head now afforded a clear view of the plasma bolts barreling towards her, and crossed her arms. A shimmering barrier of glassy azure light coalesced in a shallow hemisphere between its caster and the molten globules aimed at her, bearing the brunt of the attack as they burst and flared against her barrier. The next moment, the barrier had vanished; Taraniri's arms were at that point occupied with catching her backwards tumble, slamming into the rocky ground. Jolting the sinewy muscles in her core, she kicked the both of her legs up into the air, twisted her arms like a helix, and jerked the entirety of her form into an upward orientation, now facing the pillar on which Drakolich was perched.

Clenching her fists, Taraniri reaffirmed her broad, rooted stance. Drawing back her right arm and shifting her weight on to her rear right leg, she positioned herself in an ostentatious wind-up like a pitcher readying a throw. Then, she threw her entire torso forward, swinging her arm in a grandiose haymaker directly towards the base of the pillar; through the extent of her punch's sweep, a convalescence of volatile energy fomented around her forearm, careening forth in a cobalt blur. Following that, in her typical fashion of overkill, she wound up and threw another brutal haymaker, this time slamming her armored fist into the ground. Summoned by the initial indentation-leaving impact, a sudden and violent tremor shuddered through the ground, followed by the spontaneous pulverization of a wake of stone leading up to and surrounding the pillar, grinding the flagstones circling it to gravel. Moments later, the psionic projectile made contact with the pillar at its root, detonating with the force of an anti-armor missile and vaporizing the column's lower half.

[Blakullar]

League of Mechanocracies Proving Grounds

---

~ Taraniri VS Drakolich ~

---

Mystica Temple

---

She doesn't seem to be able to attack and defend simultaneously...

An observation made by Drakolich as he saw his opponent shield herself from the volley of plasma bolts before proceeding to hammer the pillar into dust with a flaring cerulean psionic bomb, smashing into the base of the xeno-esque pillar with all the wrath of an artillery barrage. Had she been capable of doing so, he deduced, she would have used one fist to protect herself and then use the other to throw her warhead toward the pillar while the plasma shots were flying. The Hound had already ascertained his next phase of attack - get as close as possible to her and throw a few punches of his own, forcing her onto the defensive. When she started to tire would be when he made his first attempt at a kill-shot.

A plan whose execution commenced with a graceful leap from the top of the column as it toppled and collapsed with a resonating rocky thud, Drakolich sheathing his pistol and deploying the menacing blades on his other arm, watery livingmetal flowing up his forearm once more and death-saws snapping outward. The very first action taken upon landing with a fluvial forward-roll some three metres to Taraniri's left side was a right hook, swung as the Hound sprang toward her, counter-rotating buzzsaws loosing an aquiline scream as they prepared to sink their dagger teeth into their mark.

[Neonymphonia]

League of Mechanocracies Proving Grounds

---

~ Taraniri VS Drakolich ~

---

Mystica Temple

---

Taraniri's raptor vision closely tracked Drakolich from the moment he leapt from the toppling column, cautious for any indication he might teleport. Transpose himself to another locale he did not, opting rather to absorb the shock of his landing with a fluid somersault and transfer the momentum of his body into a savage right hook, a revenant's scream resonating forth from his radial razor blades. Taraniri drew her fists close together, eyes of azure flaring to life as she traced the strike's howling arc through the air. Not an iota offset from the absolute critical moment, she lunged, deftly hopping within the span of the swing and flinging her left forearm into its path. Her barebones block intercepted the shearing prosthetic at the wrist, circular saws grinding against the bioalloy gauntlet with a discordant wail.

Without a barrier sheathing her arm, but a mere paucity of time was available for action before the sawteeth chewed through her bracers and bit into her flesh. Cognizant of this, she immediately launched a thundering right cross aimed directly at the Mecharussian's abdomen. A crackling cloak of destructive energy enveloped her plummeting fist, silver-sapphire slipstreams spiraling in its wake as the punch blitzed through the air with the velocity and volatility of a rocket. Meanwhile, her legs tensed in place like springs under pressure, preparing to launch her from her rooted stance and regress to a safe distance the moment her strike succeeded or failed to connect.

[Blakullar]

League of Mechanocracies Proving Grounds

---

~ Taraniri VS Drakolich ~

---

Mystica Temple

---

Aha, she can still defend without her psionics! That's good to know...

The first thought that blossomed inside of Drakolich's thought pattern as Taraniri's bomb-fist rocketed towards him, threatening to pulverise his lightly-guarded chest in a single blow. It may well would have, had the Hound not released her from his bite to spring back from the incoming fist. As she executed a graceful backward flip to do likewise, he was preparing his already-calculated next move.

The liquefied livingmetal retreated from both of Drak's arms and flowed onto his chest, covering it in an extra layer of malleable armour and exposing the spiderlike metal constructs that composed his prosthetic limbs - two for each arm, held together by a bolt. The bolt disengaged and detached at the elbow with a mechanical hiss, doubling the number of arms in an instant at his disposal, each arm tipped with a single, voracious ripping sawblade. He allowed Taraniri to absorb the inhuman sight upon her landing, some fifteen metres ahead of him, before disappearing into another imploding vermillion sphere to teleport somewhere else. Now all she had to do was figure out where that 'somewhere else' was.

That query was curtly answered by the racket of shrieking buzzsaws from behind her...

[Neonymphonia]

League of Mechanocracies Proving Grounds

---

~ Taraniri VS Drakolich ~

---

Mystica Temple

---

Devoid of a target moments before it struck, Taraniri's explosive punch fizzled and popped as volatile energy harmlessly dissipated from her fist. Having hurled his body backward in a nimble bound, Drakolich narrowly avoided the metacarpal warhead careening toward his stomach. The Marauder emulated his retreat in turn, back-tumbling to a safe distance as she regained her purchase on the situation. The plaintive bioalloy of Taraniri's left gauntlet Pulse now spared the screeching savagery of Drak's buzzsaws, its cellular lattice catalyzed their regenerative process; like an open laceration stitching itself closed, the jagged gash gnawed into the gauntlet's surface began to seal up and vanish, perfectly reconstituted within seconds. Such celerity was needed, as but mere moments had elapsed before Drakolich was devoured by his crimson portal once again.

Taraniri's senses honed to a molecular point, ready at any instant to counter the Mecharussian's surprise assault from what ever angle it arrived from. When the ferocious cyborg was disgorged from his teleportation naught but a few meters behind her, circumscribed blades howling like a Banshee in anguish, the Aggressor wasted no time in twisting to face her impending doom. Slamming her knees to the ground and bowing her head as if in reverent prostration, Taraniri smashed her fists together in mimicry of her fight's commencement. Like two heavenly bodies colliding, a thundering shock erupted from the young Skirmisher's core, an expanding azure bubble of raw, unbridled force that served to shove away the rapidly encroaching cybernetic soldier like a sheet of paper against the wind. Digging his feet into the crumbling flagstones, Drakolich recovered his balance only in time to see Taraniri's cerulean sight loci glinting back at him.

Welling up a glut of psionic essence with her every breath, Taraniri brought her hands before her thorax in a skeletal cage, cradling within her digits what seemed at first only to be air. Inhale, exhale, and repeat, she conjured innumerable fluvial streams of glittering energy to channel through her quavering fingers and into a shimmering sphere roiling within her grasp. Only when the enervated locus shined with the luminosity of a miniature star did she dare alter her stance. Pulling her hands apart, she seemed to split the sphere in half; jolting her arms out to either side, she cast the ensuing smaller spheres to the ground left and right. The moment they impacted the ravaged rock, they burst, inflating into twin boli of cascading tumult each three meters in diameter. Taraniri brought her fists in close, a pugilist awaiting her chance to strike. Unconcerned with any level of precision, she threw a sweeping left hook, the oscillating sphere to her left mimicking the movement of her fist and carving a wide curve across the ground as it hurtled toward Drakolich.

[Taigawa]

League of Mechanocracies Proving Grounds

---

~ Taigawa Sylvia VS Subject 03 Excidium Planetis ~

---

Arcadia Ruins

---

The city lay in ruin, entire skyscrapers toppled and either burning in places or severely damaged. Hovercar lay in the road, some barely functional, others in various states of destruction. Archologies towered overhead, some baring various degrees of damage. Above it all, a battle appeared to be happening in the skies between rebel forces and the Ecumene military. The sounds of war and fighting can be heard in the distance, with exchanges going off between buildings and plasma fire burning through the sky. Maglev tracks were broken and the trains on such constructs either ruined or outright destroyed. The signs in the ruined city, some hologramic and others hardlight spelled the name of the city out as Arcadia- Capital of Miyesmos and former jewel of that colony. Alarms of various types blared throughout, mingling with the sounds of war and the squeams of fleeing civilians.

Into this carnage Sylvia stepped, memories and flashbacks of the assualt on the city going through her mind. She knew this was not really Arcadia, the military had secured the city years ago. It had to be a copy, meant to stir up memories of the war. She had to give it to them though, whatever civilization had built this construct knew what they were doing. She walked cautiously through the streets of the city, expecting someone to come out and shoot at her at any moment. As she did so however, she called out to the city, trying to locate anyone hiding within the construct. Surely others were here if those who had managed to construct such a complete replica of the city had any common sence.

[Excidium Planetis]

League of Mechanocracies Proving Grounds

---

~ Taigawa Sylvia VS Subject 03 Excidium Planetis ~

---

Arcadia Ruins

---

Subject 03 awakened in what appeared to be the remains of an Excidian dropship. She knew this was not the case, however. She had been briefed before hand by Special Operations, her goal was to compete on a Ringworld in various gladiator matches of the League of Mechanocracies, to test the limits of the hardware she utilized and to test herself as well: the Navy's newest secret toy needed to be a good toy, after all.

Subject 03 climbed out of the wrecked flying machine and dropped down into the street.

The arena today: the arena of the mind. A carefully constructed virtual reality simulation. A digital city, alike in every way to the participants in the simulation... save for a few details. The simulation was constructed to use the neural connections it had with the participants to pull memories from their minds and mold the scenario to it. For her opponent, perhaps it was her home city, or maybe a location of interest to her. For Subject 03, the virtual landscape took the form of a planet that was raided by the Excidian Navy 4 years prior. The rubble of a once prosperous city lay before her, the bodies of some unfortunately primitive alien race lay before her. She was not proud of her actions here, on that day. But she had a job to do then, and she had one now. Ignoring the screams of xeno civilians weeping for their dead family members, Subject 03 moved down the main street.

There. A humanoid figure, wolf-like, and geared for a fight. Clearly different from the fake civilians that were spread throughout the illusionary city. Clearly her opponent. Subject 03 took note of the her target's current position and the time.

She then pulled out her combat knife and impaled herself in the chest.

Some minutes prior

With a scream, Subject 03 awakened in what appeared to be the remains of an Excidian dropship. She knew this was not the case, however. Especially because she already knew what lay outside the dropship: an arena built on memories, and somewhere in there, a wolf-like humanoid who was her opponent.

From the memories that flooded into her mind, she knew that in a few minutes her target would be on the main street, at an intersection with a smaller boulevard. Subject 03 quickly sprinted of, shouldering her weapon as she jumped through a ruined window into a building. She raced up several flights of ruined and rumble strewn stairs before emerging onto the roof.

With an cybernetics-assisted jump, she cleared the gap between this building and the next. And the next. And the next.

At last, she was within sight of the intersection where her target would appear in the next few seconds. Activating her thermal camouflage cloak, Subject 03 unshouldered her rifle and crouched near a ruined section of the short wall that normally prevented citizens from falling off the roof of this office building. Setting her digital scope to optical 4x zoom, Subject 03 surveyed the street.

There, her target, the wolf-like humanoid that was her opponent. Subject 03 set the sights on her adversary, and pulled the trigger.

A small rocket-propelled kinetic projectile left the barrel and cracked the air as it reached supersonic speeds just ten meters from the barrel. The on board targeting computer adjusted the projectile's flight path as it closed in... on Sylvia Xi Leng's chest.

[Taigawa]

League of Mechanocracies Proving Grounds

---

~ Taigawa Sylvia VS Subject 03 Excidium Planetis ~

---

Arcadia Ruins

---

Sylvia had no time to react as the sniper round hit her armor with a very loud and annoying "DING!" The bullet exploded as it crushed itself in an attempt to bury itself in her armor. Sylvia growled, knowing her armor was the only reason she'd survived. She took cover behind a ruined hovercar, deploying her autosentry to track her enemy and regreting not having installed Promeathean vision, which would have allowed her to see her enemy through walls and aid in finding it's location. The Autosensentry however, immediatly analyzed the area and found the location of her enemy....and began to shoot them with hardlight. Feeling the deep impact the round had on her armor and how close it had come to striking her, she decided she was'nt going to give the enemy another chance to hit her and ran into the building she knew her enemy had shot her from, using the ancilia-controlled autosentry for covering fire. She saught to sneak up behind her enemy and attack with her suppressor while it was hopefully distracted.

[Blakullar]

League of Mechanocracies Proving Grounds

---

~ Taraniri VS Drakolich ~

---

Mystica Temple

---

By the time Drakolich had returned to his feet from Taraniri's defensive strike, the girl was already preparing her next attack, twin psi-energetic bolas ejected outward. Akin to the mighty swing of a meteor hammer, the psyker threw her vengeful left fireball into the floor, dragging it across the ground with a thunderous scraping against the stone and carving a hideous curved trench en route to annihilate the Hound of Trotskaya.

Drak waited for the perfect moment, which came when the psi-hammer was but a few metres away. Springing forward with all of his hydraulic legs' might, he pounced upon the psyker in a manner reminiscent of the canid predator from which he derived his title, narrowly dodging desolation by the sweeping bola. Lower left and right arms facing to the fore and uppers readying for a second strike should the first fail to connect, the Hound sailed through the air at breakneck speed, intent upon tearing the psyker to pieces while her bolas were still active.

[Neonymphonia]

League of Mechanocracies Proving Grounds

---

~ Taraniri VS Drakolich ~

---

Mystica Temple

---

Taraniri's telecast tirade given fulminating form stampeded along its crescent path, roiling tempest of destruction manifest grinding a trench through stone and earth, leaving little save a shallow concave divot of rubble and dust in its wake. A perpetuated explosion, preseved in-situ and subjecting to its detonative fury only what experienced the misfortune of encountering its event horizon. Imprecise in its very nature, the howling locus of azure energy could only careen through the position once occupied by the Hound, smashing into and definitively vaporizing a crumbling wing of one of the temples while its prior target soared toward the bolide's projector.

The shriek of his circumscribed shears shriller than a Banshee's mortal scream, Drakolich had pounced upon his prey like a ravenous wolf leaping from the brush, claws analogous wailing with malevolence. Ever fearless in the face of terror, Taraniri stood her ground, solidifying her stance against the imminent approach of bladed steel voracious for her blood. At the cusp of Drak's flight, moments before he began his precipitous decline, Taraniri carved a sweeping uppercut punch across a swath of space. The as-of-yet intact and inactive pulsating ellipsoid of volatility imitated her movements in turn, barreling into the sky between the Aggressor and her assailant. At the very apex of its ascent, mere meters from Drak's position mid-leap, the bottled storm spasmed; like a supergiant star collapsing in onto itself, the sphere imploded back into its most primordial state, a luminescent singularity suspended in space and time. Such was then followed in turn by the equivalent supernova, a thunderous airburst sending shockwaves rippling through the atmosphere.

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

Proving Grounds Ringworld
Interplanetary Space

All the necessary setup for the coming fight was complete. Now would be the chance to test the skill of a combatant from the Aziphan against a completely unknown opponent from what was believed to be another multiverse cluster entirely. Excited by the prospect of such a unique battle, the civilizations of R0-0 had cooperated to broadcast and monitor the event. A small VCMR Citadel, Time Hammer, arrived in this universe's realspace and set up relay equipment, including a set of molecule-sized probes secretly planted into the arena, that would record the match as it progressed, sending three-dimensional video all across the metaverse. Aziphan scout ships appeared and disappeared, making tight circles around each other like a school of fish. The Yunat briefly considered making their observation known with a Claw Hunter, but they ultimately decided against a military presence and replaced it with a group of announcers that would reside aboard Time Hammer and provide live commentary in whatever languages the VCMR couldn't translate their own speech into.

Aboard one of the black-and-blue Aziphan craft, a lone warrior stepped into a teleportation ring and vanished.

League of Mechanocracies Proving Grounds

---

~ Efir-Vur VS SIU-K17 ~

---

Abandoned Warehouse

---

The old, dusty edifice measured three hundred by two hundred meters. Rows of thick square pillars of sturdy metal held up the fifteen-meter-high rooftop, and filling the gaps in between them were stacked pallets and crates. The only light came from a few of the old ceiling fixtures that hadn't burned out quite yet; the building was mostly very dim with objects casting very long shadows.

Despite being built to seem abandoned for a long time, the warehouse had in fact very recently been assembled by a VCMR carrier that briefly dropped into orbit around the Proving Grounds' ringworld to spray mass-energy in just the right pattern. Within seconds, the torrent of white high-energy material had immediately reshaped itself into particles, atoms, and molecules that made up the comparatively "ancient" or "primitive" building.

The carrier wouldn't be the first thing from R0-0 to interact with the Proving Grounds, either.

A ball of multicolored energy materialized and promptly burst, creating a strong sound like a bullet being fired. In its place stood a golden-armored humanoid carrying a tubular cannon-like implement in both hands. This was Efir-Vur; a new member of the Elite Militia, he had been selected among R0-0's civilizations' warriors to participate. Very quickly, he checked side to side and behind him to get a feeling for the surroundings. He had arrived near the warehouse's front entrance. The only things he had to do now were to find his opponent and begin the fight.

[Crysuko]

It had taken a long time for SIU to reach the ringworld on borrrowed travels, seeing as his nation of origin was not capable of travelling such a distance. Nonetheless, there was a task to be done and he intended to do it. He entered the warehouse, he scanners cycling through the wavelengths looking for traps and other riff raff but it didn't take long to locate his opponent. He sauntered over to a few meters oppisite the odd looking fellow, and wielded his cutting torch which glowed a fierce white, spitting sparks out.

"You are to be my opponent in this confrontation, correct?" his vocoder was good but not perfect, there still being a distinct electronic edge to the nonetheless well spoken voice "A considerable weapon you wield. It will not prove sufficient." was the next thing said before two long actuators wielding razor sharp claws emerged from the shell, giving a sinister glint.

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

League of Mechanocracies Proving Grounds

---

~ Efir-Vur VS SIU-K17 ~

---

Abandoned Warehouse

---

Efir-Vur spun around upon hearing a metallic sound behind him; his challenger had apparently entered through the front door. For some reason, he hadn't expected that. Silently cursing at his own inattentiveness, Efir-Vur quickly switched on his suit's translation program to figure out what the mechanical voice had to say.

"You are to be my opponent in this confrontation, correct? A considerable weapon you wield. It will not prove sufficient."

Once he saw the bladed appendages extending from the armored body of the opposing combatant, he decided to only make a very brief reply.

"I think it'll do fine."

Knowing that there was a large clearing between two rows of boxes behind him, Efir-Vur momentarily activated his gravity generator and launched himself back at high speed, clearing a distance of about thirty meters and landing into a backwards roll. His suit's leg actuators forced him up into a standing position so he could face the target. Wasting no time, his right hand pulled the Light Lance's firing mechanism, abruptly sending a blazing-white ray of lightspeed plasma, thinner than a hair, at the mechanical enemy.

[Crysuko]

From the leap back, SIU anticipated the move, nimble leaping to the side of it before crouching for a moment behind a metal container. His processor spun up

>Hostile detected: calculate distance?
>spatial calculation subroutine active, standby...
>
>
>
>calculation returns approximation of 50 metres

when the burn of the beam wound down, SIU took his chance to feed energy into the arc projector, filling the capacitor before making a run for the next container, closing the distance quickly. Soon, they weren't far apart, where he could make a leap at Efir-vur, sending out a bolt of electricity, claws and cutting tool bared.

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

League of Mechanocracies Proving Grounds

---

~ Efir-Vur VS SIU-K17 ~

---

Abandoned Warehouse

---

Within microseconds, the plasma ray had dissipated as the Light Lance's firing cycle ended. Unfortunately, it missed the intended target, instead striking the warehouse's front entrance. Under most circumstances, there would now be a sub-millimeter-wide hole in the metal door; however, the building had been constructed to contain the fighting, and the Lance had only left a tiny black burn mark.

Great Old-Worlds, that thing's fast.

As the robotic assailant closed in at surprising speed, Efir-Vur had to make a split-second decision between trying another backwards jump and holding his ground. Seeing the incoming attack, he chose the latter, arming the gravity generator again and waiting for SIU to reach the peak of its leap. Its arc-projector attack crackled against his armor viciously, but with the suit's defensive abilities not yet weakened by combat, he took the electric bolt with little damage.

While SIU was still airborne, the gravity generator set up two concentric shells: one of them just a few centimeters away from Efir-Vur's body, and the other about ten meters in radius. In between the shells, the hyper-advanced device rapidly oscillated local gravity, from negative to positive and back, many times in rapid succession. Crates and boxes clattered against each other over and over, many of them smashing together and spilling their contents; spare parts, furniture, decorative items. This much acceleration and deceleration would undoubtedly also pulp the innards of any organic in the area of effect... but would it work against a mechanical foe?

[Crysuko]

SIU was made of sturdy stuff, his parts were shaken thoroughly but with his internal construction intended to resist great impact shocks and other physical stresses this did little in terms of damage.

>Compensating for gravitic flux...
>alternating servo motors, unsafe stress detected

It took a few moments for the sensors to compensate for the flux, but as the shells dissipated, SIU took the chance to make a forward jab with the cutter, sending out a short but highly concentrated lance of white hot plasma, various bright sparks leaping off it. In the same instance, spooling up the arc capacitors for another discharge, this would take a while though. But perhaps the joints would be more vulnerable. with torch extended and razor sharp claws outstretched, SIU once more dove towards Efir-Vur, Intending to latch onto the opponent like a mechanical limpet.

[Neonymphonia]

League of Mechanocracies Proving Grounds

---

~ Taraniri VS Drakolich ~

---

Mystica Temple

---

The psionic airburst hit Drakolich by surprise, shockwave battering his mechatronic body and flinging it to the winds. Never a ragdoll for more than a moment, the Mecharussian mid-flight tucked into a ball and activate his teleportation. The imploding crimson sphere ingested the mechanical man once more, its relativistic twin yet again belching him out just behind the rooted Marauder. Another screeching assault careened toward Taraniri from over her shoulder, the Hound's wave of attacks refusing to abate. The Aggressor's patience of such maneuvers had already worn thin. Rather than attempting to repel the cyborg, as would have been both the safe and inanely ineffectual option, Taraniri lunged into a forward roll, springing back to her feet while facing in the opposite direction, just in time to witness the quadruple sawblades whirling toward her like an argent tornado.

More solid and stubborn than the stone upon which she stood, Taraniri dug her boots into the very rock and pulled her arms in close, her every muscle and sinew tensed and loaded like suspension springs. Her raptor vision surveiled the cybernetic assailant as he hurtled toward her, hesitant until the perfect moment. Milliseconds before Drak's plummet terminated in Taraniri's demise, she launched straight at him, explosions catalyzed at her heels firing the girl like a living artillery shell and propelling her at eyewatering velocities straight at the man's center of mass. A similar jet of conjured conflagration screamed from the rear of her right gauntlet, the exhaust plume of the anti-armor missile that was her fist blitzing toward Drakolich's solar plexus, pure acceleration clawing at her flesh. He had not a moment to react. The propitious punch connected full-force with the cyborg's abdomen, trenchant psionic volatility augmenting its force a hundredfold. An azure wavefront blossomed at the point of impact, hypersonic shock thundering the air with its report and propelling Drakolich clear across the courtyard and into the side of the sheer rock face looming over the temple complex with a resounding crunch.

Upon extricating himself from the vertical crater his impact had smashed into the cliffside, Drakolich shook and spasmed erratically for a few moments as he reoriented himself. The Marauder's successful counterattack had somewhat scrambled his semiorganic innards, a reorganization of his components both mechanical and biological that was sure to manifest in a more unpleasant manner in the future. He spat a marbled mixture of blood and oil onto the cracked, mossy flagstones at his feet, then gritted his teeth and prepared for a second assault. Hardly one to disappoint and certainly not about to let up after landing her first hit, Taraniri had already prepared a subsequent attack. Having just catapulted from a sprinter's kneel, she was rampaging directly toward his position with her arms crossed before her. Like the fiery cloak enveloping a meteor in descent, a bluish shroud--with a tail in its wake no less--had condensed to surround the charging Marauder and ensconce her entire form in explosive energy. As if she were an entire wild stampede compressed into a short-statured Aggressor, Taraniri's feet ground to rubble and dust every stone they stepped on, a testament to the raw portension in her stride. Drakolich, stalling his egress like a matador before a bull, teleported to a safe distance away only after he could see the raging whites of Taraniri's eyes.

Unable to steer or stop her barreling rush forward, Taraniri continued along her only possible path; straight into the rock. She hit the rock face with the force of a tunneler's stash of dynamite, blowing a gaping cavern into the cliffside and causing much of its face to shatter and crumble, dozens of tons of rock and soil collapsing from the miniature mount to bury the Marauder alive beneath its geologic might. Thick clouds of dust and mist bloomed from the avalanche's wreckage, soon clearing only to reveal a pile of pulverized rock where the Aggressor used to be. A victory by incidence? Surely not. Cautiously, Drakolich approached the great mound of debris, expecting the worse. An erudite assumption, for the mountain of detritus had already begun to rumble. Pebbles bounced atop the quavering pile and boulders shifted in place, tremors radiating outward from its earthy center. By now, the Mecharussian was hardly surprised by the sight of Taraniri, eyes now aflame with silver-azure energy and body radiating a turbulently fluctuating halo of light, punch her way out of the rubble, sending a few salutory boulders hurling toward Drakolich in the process. Dodging the gigantic rock shards was hardly an imperious task for the cyborg, although the sheer ease with which the Marauder hefted and threw them struck him as somewhat unnerving. Senses sharp, he poised his tetranumerical tyrants of rending alloy in anticipation for her next attack.

It arrived in due time, of course, though not in any form he had anticipated being high in probability. The Aggressor had knelt low to the ground, crouched for just a second's worth of delay, before propelling herself into an explosion-assisted jump far into the sky. A solid backflip and sturdy landing placed her directly atop one of the many floating monoliths drifting innocuously through the air. Once again, the Marauder squatted low, digging her fingers into the loamy black soil before rocketing yet higher in the air. What followed her second leap, however, was in marked deprture from her first; violently jolted by her explosive takeoff, the monolith broke free of its psionic suspension, shuddering and lingering mid-air before plummeting downward. The gigantic mass of rock landed in the jungle vegetation just adjacent to the temple courtyard, flattening a massive tract of forest and sending vibrations rocking through the entire island. Half of the already-scarred cliff face, the middle of the glimmering crescent lake, and even one of the two temple towers fell victim to the stupendously destructive repeat offense, grinding whole swaths of the island to sediment and pushing its superstructure to its physical limits with every impact. For fear of stumbling beneath a behemoth in freefal, Drakolich could only remain still and vigilant, watching in morbid fascination as Taraniri leapfrogged from platform to platform until she reached the highest point, a mere footstone half a meter in diameter.

At the very apex of her ascent, Taraniri latched onto the lone sphere of jagged lapidum and gazed downward at the decimation she had wrought some three-hundred meters below. Massive lumps of gray marked the crash sites of her monolithic projectiles, all surrounding the untouched focus of her final assault; the courtyard in the center, where the half-malfunctioning Drakolich awaited her coup de-grace. Truly a spectacle it would be. Biting her lip is juvenile eagerness, Taraniri swung around to the underside of the hovering rock, planting her feet firmly on its lower half and craning her neck to see her bullseye down below. Welling up a terminal surge of psionic might, Taraniri pushed off the bottom of the rock and, right fist cocked, commenced her rapidly accelerating descent to the ground. Energy seared through her being, ejecting outward from the flares of her corona and forming a cometary shell around the blazing form of its Aggressor projector. The ground rushed up at hypersonic speeds to meet her, an imposing wall of solid rock bearing mass easily a million times her own. Nevertheless, it stood not one semblance of a chance.

Even if she missed Drak himself by several dozen meters, she hit the very center of the courtyard square-on, throwing her fist directly into the keystone with a TNT tonnage equivalent easily in the triple-digits. What followed was pure, unbridled mayhem. The stone beneath her fist and that in a fifty-meter radius besides was vaporized in an instant, succeeded by a rippling shock that rolled through the ground before pulverizing it to a fine clay within moments. Even as Drak tried to flee via transposition, there was little he could do; what good was teleportation when every conceivable space to teleport to was victim to the blast all the same? He was soon caught in the horrific roil, thrashed about like a child's toy within the calamitous explosion's titanic fingers. The wrenching acceleration, the streaking shrapnel, the crushing air pressure, they all worked in perfect tandem to swiftly yank the black curtains of unconsciousness across the cyborg's mind.

By the time he came to, digital systems whirring to life, he was bellyup on a pile of vegetative flotsam drifting on the calm tropical sea. The floating island, absent from the sky where it once rested, was now little more than a crumble of sediment sunken beneath the waves. As for the fight's apparent victor? Dozing off on her own custom-fashioned raft of splintered trunks and leafy fronds several meters out, lounging contentedly beneath the sunshine as if nothing had happened. Nothing more than a relaxing vacation.

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

League of Mechanocracies Proving Grounds

---

~ Efir-Vur VS SIU-K17 ~

---

Abandoned Warehouse

---

The incoming blast of plasma slammed against Efir-Vur's armor, cracking a frontal plate and sending him staggering backwards. Quickly recovering, he spun the Light Lance around just as SIU leapt forward, but was too late; the mechanical enemy's claws slammed him to the ground and tore through many of the various connected pieces of graphene that made up his suit's outer layer. White Aziphan blood pooled in a pair of small wounds that the attack had made.

However, he was nowhere near finished off yet. Thinking fast, he made the decision to go up, by removing the two vibrating shells and instead reversing his personal gravity in an attempt to propel him through the air. Simultaneously, he pulled the Light Lance's secondary trigger. In an instant, the narrower slot in the tubular weapon extended a solid ray of hard light roughly five meters long, which he swung down to knock SIU off him... or cut the machine in half, should the weapon prove powerful enough.