"In that case, Pietro and I are going to go train."
"Like I said, we'll let you know when Stark's ready!"
With that, Wanda and Pietro head off to one of the base's training rooms.
"Heh, I was just about to suggest that very plan..."
Using his power of illusion, Loki disguises himself as a Vahki while making Tahn seem invisible.
"Alright.", Pseudo says as he and Botar see them off.
"It seems things are finally starting to look up for once.", Botar comments.
"Yes... so let's be extra careful in the near future."
Tahn doesn't respond, just in case the Vahki can somehow intercept it. Which it can't, but Tahn doesn't know that.
The Vahki walks into view on all fours, and in these dark hallway, it actually looks really intimidating due to its gorilla-like stance, glowing eyes and head, and it being just as tall, if not a little taller, than Loki is.
It turns to look at the disguised Loki, then shifts its stance to stand on two legs before approaching a little. Tahn isn't moving, even holding his breath, and hopes that Loki will be able to keep his cool too. After all, as long as there's no alarm, there's no guarantee that this Vahki has found them out yet.
In the year 202X, all is devastation... Soon, any last shred of hope had by the saintliest optimist shall die and decay.Wildspire Waste - Small Monsters Abound
The lizards screech and turn to face the newcomer.
One brave Shamos lunges to bite Varik.
—
Alduin swipes his tail at Reyna, knocking her over. She rolls out of the way of a follow-up bite and slashes him as she stands up.
He turns around and draws his head back for a Fire Breath shout, but she just gracefully flips past his head and slices down his neck. With each swing, a bit of Dragon element discharges from both the blade and her body, damaging herself even if it doesn't hit... but she doesn't seem bothered at all.
"A wizard is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to."That Shamos will probably find itself smacking face-first into what seems like nothing, but is actually a barrier Varik casts in between the both of them for a moment.
Varik follows this up with a swift, brutal swing of his sword, trying to take out the Shamos in a single hit.
That seems to have been the right action, as the Vahki, after a few seconds, nods back, then walks past the both of them, shifting back to walking on all fours.
Once it's out of view, Tahn relaxes.
"That was scary. I'll admit, you're good.", he mentally says to Loki as he starts walking. "Were you a criminal once? Or do you just have a knack for this?"
In the year 202X, all is devastation... Soon, any last shred of hope had by the saintliest optimist shall die and decay.The Shamos flops down and gets sent tumbling away by the slash. It woozily picks itself up, though.
From behind, two Girros snap their fangs laced with paralytic venom at Varik one after the other. It shouldn't paralyze him right away, but each hit will build up towards that... roughly four hits will be enough to drop him for a brief time.
—
Alduin takes to the sky and tries to snatch Reyna in his talons, but she's used to enemies that attack like that, and rolls out of the way. She then pole-vaults up to his level and does an advancing aerial slash, which strikes and bounces her up higher into the air. To finish, she separates her Kinsect (True Dragon Soul), points her Insect Glaive straight down and plummets down, stabbing through Alduin before striking his tail twice with huge sweeping swings of the glaive, placing a pheromone marker, and, in a flash of red energy, fully healing off all her self-damage! Meanwhile, the Kinsect zooms down after her, doing rapid light damage and collecting both white and orange extracts as it barrels through Alduin!
Alduin gets hit by all of this due to the surprise of seeing Reyna seemingly wielding a dragon's spiritual face as a weapon, but he remains airborne.
Edited by KiriK on Apr 15th 2020 at 11:43:30 AM
"A wizard is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to."Varik looks slightly surprised that it took that slash. Because of that, one of the snaps hits him, though just the surprise from it makes him stumble forward and evade the second.
A little annoyed, he leaps to the side to build some distance, after which he doesn't attack, instead spending a turn charging his sword attack. He wouldn't have to do it for long though, as he calculates a single charged attack should be able to deal a killing blow to at least one of the Shamos. He has no idea if the Girros will require more.
1/13
In the year 202X, all is devastation... Soon, any last shred of hope had by the saintliest optimist shall die and decay.Three Shamos rush in to bite Varik, but their bodies get in the way of each other, making them less accurate. Another Girros bites at him again.
—
"VEN MUL RIIK!"
A fog spreads down from Alduin, obscuring Reyna's surroundings from sight.
"Hah."
"JIID... SO DAAN!"
Then meteors start falling.
"Oh." Reyna gets blown away by a meteor explosion due to being unable to see it coming, tumbling to a stop flat on her face.
Edited by KiriK on Apr 15th 2020 at 11:44:48 AM
"A wizard is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to."Varik brings forth another barrier, since only a single one of them managed to actually attack him.
Then, however, he leaps past the Girros and swings his sword at the stumbling Shamos, trying to take advantage of their situation, since it's near-impossible for them to dodge his charged swing now. And said swing now has enough power to cut them in half.
"Guess so... though I don't think we were told a time limit."
He pauses.
"Wait, you don't think we're going to be stuck down here until we win, do you? ... I mean... the big dude did bring up food, water and bathroom breaks... but that Pseudo guy wouldn't pull something like THAT, right?"
He pauses again, then looks at Loki.
"... right?"
In the year 202X, all is devastation... Soon, any last shred of hope had by the saintliest optimist shall die and decay."There's a fine line between those two, and it's not always easy to see where that is.", Tahn says. "I know where that line is. But I don't always stay behind it. I'm not afraid to admit it."
He then ponders.
"So, since we're supposed to learn to get along well enough to pull this off...", he says. "Why don't you tell me what your opinion about me is. And no trying to sound softer because you don't want me to get bitchy. I wanna hear the full thing. I can handle it, 'cause whatever you're going to say, I've most likely heard much worse."
Then he raises his hand... before remembering that he's invisible.
"Oh, hold on with that for a moment.", he quickly says. "More vibrations. They're stronger, so I think there's multiple ones nearby."
Edited by DevilPsyco on Apr 15th 2020 at 7:18:59 PM
In the year 202X, all is devastation... Soon, any last shred of hope had by the saintliest optimist shall die and decay.They are indeed cut in half. That leaves two.
And another Girros attacks.
—
Reyna runs and rolls through the meteors, waiting for a clearing in the fog to appear.
Alduin emerges from the fog to snap at her, but she dives out of the way. Meanwhile, her Kinsect nabs green extract from his tail, and she promptly recalls it to herself for some healing. Then she sends it at where she thinks Alduin's head is.
"A wizard is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to."Obsidian Spot
By now, Set's attack has largely been erased by the Arena. In Falkrath, there remains only one black mark, as a reminder of what happened.
Scarily, Set is hovering above it, with a creepy moan escaping his equally creepy head. His head is 2d style, and looks straight out of a hieroglyph, but his body is, otherwise, all in 3D. He's kind of meditating and moaning, though it sounds like a thousand people are moaning together when he does.
Weird.
Edited by Bolded1 on Apr 15th 2020 at 7:19:18 PM
Nautolan picture belongs to Bonesmarinated on twitterVarik gets bit on the arm by the Gizzos, and after shaking it off, he takes a step back.
"Why are they only trying to bite and nothing else...", Varik mutters, starting to become suspicious.
Well, regardless of the reason, Varik then points at the five Girros and starts emitting a hypnotic wave, attempting to make them fall asleep.
In the year 202X, all is devastation... Soon, any last shred of hope had by the saintliest optimist shall die and decay.The Girros lumber towards Varik, only to falter and pass out.
Meanwhile, one of the Shamos leaps at Varik in an attempt to body-check him.
—
Alduin gets hit by the Kinsect, which Reyna calls back to herself, receiving the extract. "Just give it up already..."
"Fo... Krah Diin!" A torrent of frost erupts from the mist.
"Whup!" Reyna dodges through the Frost Breath, only being lightly iced (heh) in the process. "Sick of you ice-users..."
She catches an incoming meteor by smacking it with her Insect Glaive, then spins around and sends it flying at Alduin!
"A wizard is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to."Varik gets slammed, falling on the ground. Now becoming a bit tired of being pushed around (literally), he decides to play it a little more seriously.
First he attempts to kill the sleeping Girros by running over to them and kicking at their necks to break them.
Should he be successful with at least one of the three, he'll try to cut off its head and then pick it up, planning to use it as a dual weapon and shield, the head there to block potential attacks and the teeth there to make them.
Sure, it's a bit bloody and disgusting, but Varik's experienced much more bloody and disgusting. And not all in a horror sense, as he's had to traverse multiple sewers during his career as a bounty hunter.
"Well, I don't know much of these machines, but I may have an idea... I just hope it won't count as a loss. You'll have to wait for a moment, so if they show up, don't let them notice that something's up."
After that, Tahn goes completely silent. A few seconds later, three Vahki walk in from the left side of a nearby split. Two of them don't seem to pay Loki much mind, but the third one appears unsure, tilting its head and poking the other two, gesturing for them to investigate.
They start approaching Loki now.
Edited by DevilPsyco on Apr 15th 2020 at 7:54:23 PM
In the year 202X, all is devastation... Soon, any last shred of hope had by the saintliest optimist shall die and decay.He gets two of them before the other three wake up.
They and the Shamos suddenly stop and back away from Varik, hissing.
He may get the sense that he's no longer their biggest problem...
—
The meteor hits Alduin and explodes, knocking him out of the sky.
Reyna proceeds to run in and just whale on him!
"A wizard is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to."Still holding on to the head, Varik pauses when he sees their reaction, knowing enough that these pack creatures wouldn't back down just because he's holding a head. No, the most likely reason would be...
Varik immediately turns his head to look.
"A stronger predator!", he says upon the realization.
The one that had seemingly been suspicious a moment before starts moving its fangs a little, upon which the space in between said fangs starts to glow, creating a round, disk-like shape. Most definitely an attack. But the question is, does the Vahki know, or is it testing the 'Vahki' in front of it?
Loki'll never know because, all of a sudden, a loud, metallic bang echoes through a distant hallway. The three Vahki instantly turn around and charge towards where it came from, with one of them motioning Loki to follow. If he stays behind and they notice, the jig will be up, so he has little choice in the matter.
If he follows, he'll see that, about two halls further, more Vahki appear from the hallways, following the group as well.
At a certain split though, he'll hear Tahn's voice in his mind again.
"Turn left at the next split, but do so subtly. Don't let the robots see it."
This shouldn't be difficult, since Loki will likely be at the back of the group.
In the year 202X, all is devastation... Soon, any last shred of hope had by the saintliest optimist shall die and decay.Alduin gets up.
"I tire of entertaining this farce. I shall return to claim your life." He spreads his wings and flies off, letting the mist clear away.
"Yeah, yeah, keep talking..." Reyna puts away her Insect Glaive, reverting her armor to its base state. "Hoo... wonder how Varik is doing."
—
Varik finds himself face-to-face with a big black hybrid of a wyvern and a wildcat of some kind.
◊
It makes a screechy, vaguely-pantheran 'roar'.
Red Glare in the Darkness ~ Nargacuga (World Ver.)
Nargacuga twists its body and swipes its tail horizontally over the ground. The Shamos and Girros are all tossed away by the attack, but what of Varik?
"A wizard is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to.""... shi-"
He too gets hit, slamming onto the ground hard when he lands. He briefly loses his grip on his sword and head-shield-weapon-thing, but he's quick enough to grab them again, looking up at Nargacuga with a bit of a scowl.
"I better get paid extra to kill you.", he says as he starts getting back up, holding his sword in front of himself and taking an aggressive stance to let the creature know that he's not backing down.
It seems like they were in too much a hurry to do so. Once deeper into the hall, he'll hear Tahn again.
"Alright, we're back together.", he says, to let Loki know that he's here, since he's still invisible.
"I figured a loud sound would get the Vahki to think that's where we may be. It was a gamble though, because the Vahki could have sounded an alarm."
He chuckles.
"I took the risk because I figured that, as long as the Cyber Angels don't know there's intruders, they probably wouldn't go as far as to sound the alarm just for a sound, granted that we'd be near other Cyber Angels already and not in a place there's not supposed to be any sound in. The big guy didn't show up, so I guess my gamble paid off."
While Loki won't see it, Tahn casually puts his arms behind his head and smirks childishly.
"You can now proceed to praise me for my brilliant idea before you tear me a new one with your overall opinion of me.", he jokingly says.
In the year 202X, all is devastation... Soon, any last shred of hope had by the saintliest optimist shall die and decay.

Varik looks at the two groups after noticing the trail changing color and tilts his head.
"This is what I'm up against?"
He shrugs, pulls out his sword, and doesn't even try to be sneaky, just walking forward and well into view.
"'lright, let's do this."
"Nothing that I can think of at the moment.", Pseudo says. Botar reappears near the group.
"Ah, and? How's it going?"
"They were caught once. I gave them some advice though."
"I see. Well, to be honest, I actually like that they didn't just clear it in their first try.", Pseudo says, leaning against his arm rest.
"This way they'll be more careful and learn more, making it less likely that they'll get complacent."
"Great, excellent. Makes things a whole lot easier.", Tahn says, smirking, then going quiet again. Metallic bumping can be heard getting closer from within the darkness.
"One of the robots is getting close. You have illusions, so can you make yourself look like one of the robots and me invisible?", Loki will hear Tahn ask in his mind.
In the year 202X, all is devastation... Soon, any last shred of hope had by the saintliest optimist shall die and decay.