A Game of Gods: A Multiversal Challenge

There ought to be something that can be a gamebreaker!!

—

—

Oh?

— Twirling his scytheblades, Digamma brought them down to point at the floor (and by consequence, the roots), and with a blinding flash of white and gold light, the floor detonated, flinging anyone close to the gilded Reaper away in the shockwave.

For what seemed like hour, dust and ash and poisonous fumes swirled hither and thither in the air, not a thing visible through this composite miasma. Not twenty seconds later though, the giant four-armed shape stomped through, a thin layer of fabric covering his slowly reforming legs. Noticeably, a large chunk of his tabard had been cut off in a chevron pattern, various truncations visible across the outfit where needed. On the right side of his Greek helmet, the cheek guard had been smashed away, and flickers of silver flame gnawed at his already horribly scarred face there before being snuffed out by fibres. In the bare,slickly wet, and short-sleeved right arm's palm hovered a ball of plasma burning away like a miniature sun. In the left palm was held the sword of Lambda, feeling it over and leaving small burn marks in it as he did. —

Young Pups Typically Do THINK Themselves Superior To The Older Generation...'

— The golden deity brought his scytheblades together and fired off a thunderous blast of divine energy at the Challengers further afield. —

But That's Where You Are SEVERELY Mistaken, kid. I AM An Old Commander, But I Can STILL Put You In The Ground, Like You And Your Mouthy Mate SHOULD HAVE Done To Rho And Lambda!

— The rattle of dogtag chains came from both of the scythes, one taking a silver and black tint, the other red, violet, and black. The ceiling shattered into thousands of fragments showering down on them all.—

I've Looked Forward To This For Eons, kid.

— Across the walls, those countless one-way portals opened up, but this time murky red light surrounded them. Harsh white and gold light came down from above, streaks of black lightning firing into the portals. From each one struck, the ghostly chatter of the Militantiaries came, and though the number of portals was in the hundreds of thousands so far, the pace of the lightning strikes increased by the seconds passing. —

Oh Yes, And YOU May Never Give Up... But Your Body WILL.

—Laughing with the volume of shipboard cannons going off, Digamma took aim and fired, a jet of red and gold snarling for Lambda, and a bolt of silver and gold blasting at Rho. The sword of Lambda was thrown back at Mysterio, breaking the sound barrier with its speed, all while the machine cannons resumed their barrage.

As the Golden Reaper laughed, a small clear box holding a tiny cloud of black flew out, bouncing off the floor not far from Spriggan. —

Bowser remained where he was, stunned. He wasn't going to get back up for a few minutes.

—-

The wounds on Digamma's legs continued to spread, and feeling began to disappear in his legs.

—-

The various Nomads would mentally hear a weak garbled message.

   Ke—-n at—kin—gamma—s lo-s he -ist-cte—on-oti-e t-in—-rol.   *

To be seen, stand up To be heard, speak up To be appreciated, shut up

Rey wasn't entirely reacting on sight of the sword, it was too fast for that...yet somehow he still found the capability to grab Link from in front of him and fling him out of the way...a tad harshly, but doing whatever he could to get the younger man out of the greater harm's way as quickly as possible.

Easing back into life one step at a time

Sub-Zero formed two large ice crystals above Digamma's feet and let them fall.

J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS!

Grimacing from the pain of the swollen vesicles which now dotted his face, Lambda held his left hand out before himself once more, reshaping the silver energy construct which functioned as his temporary prosthesis into that simplistic, blocklike barrier in an effort to protect himself from the incoming blast. His efforts were in vain, however, for this mixed torrent of crimson and gilded energy, bearing traces of his wife's own power in addition to Digamma's proved too much for his shield to handle; it held for less than a second before shattering like glass, and the argent deity could do little more but hunch his shoulders and bring his right arm up in front of his face—his mangled left arm, bereft of its prosthesis and bleeding profusely once more, now useless for this task as it dangled limply at his side—as the scalding blast washed over him.

A snarling roar of mixed pain, anger and defiance tore forth from Lambda's mouth as he was engulfed by the powerful torrent of destructive force, his armour glowing white-hot under this scalding assault; parts of it began to run and melt like wax exposed to tremendous heat, while other sections of the sleek silver platemail—particularly in the area of his right arm and torso, which took the brunt of the blast—simply fractured and came apart, blown away like leaves on the wind. The argent deity braced his feet on the floor and actually managed to stand firm against this overwhelming force for a few seconds, snarling in his throat as the energy continued to scathe and burn him; but while his will was still strong, his body had reached its limit, and as the destructive torrent finally abated the argent Nomad collapsed onto his knees, breathing heavily as he slowly keeled over to lie on his back.

To say that he was in bad shape was an understatement; all of his arm and torso armour had been completely destroyed by that barrage of red and gold destruction, leaving him naked from the waist up with the sole exception of the silver gauntlet—blackened, scarred but otherwise intact—which still covered his right hand. The intense heat of the blast had largely cauterized the grievous wounds to his left arm, though silver blood still oozed from a few points along the forearm and hand, and the blisters and vesicles which had covered his body had all ruptured, covering him in a thin film of translucent plasma. His right arm and much of his torso were covered with horrific burns, and in places the skin had peeled away to expose charred sinew, arteries and the occasional hint of a bone; the plasma had begun to seep into this ghastly injuries, irritating them and inflicting upon him considerable pain. He stared blearily up at the world through one eye, the other now closed and leaking blood from the tear ducts; for a moment he seemed completely out of it, but then awareness crept into that one orb and he slowly turned his head in the direction where Rho had been standing when this attack had first come.

The argent deity's eye widened in horror and alarm at what he saw. She lay a short distance away from him, still and unmoving; like him, much of her plugsuit had been burned away as a result of Digamma's attack, though the damage was largely focused on her right side—apparently she had tried to dodge, yet had been caught in the blast anyway.

"Asu...ka," he whispered, his voice dry and cracking both from the effects of the mustard gas on his trachea and the pain of his burns; he tried to lift his left arm and reach out to her, but it would not budge. He tried the same with his right arm, but he was only able to keep the limb aloft, wavering and unsteady, for a few seconds before it came crashing down on his chest. He tried to sit up, but his back could only lift his torso up to a forty-degree angle and his legs would not move; the heat had fused the joints of what remained of his armour almost completely shut. He wanted to scream in rage and frustration, but his back muscles, overtaxed from his injuries and unable to support his weight any longer, chose that moment to give out; he slammed back down onto the floor, the impact driving the breath from his lungs in a pained gasp, and then for a moment all he could do was hack, his ragged coughs dislodging large clods of phlegm and silver blood from his mouth.

Still she did not move, and from this distance the argent deity could not even tell if she was still breathing. Tears of desperation welled up in his one good eye, and Lambda grunted with effort as he began to rock himself back and forth with increasing agitation. Gone was the arrogance, the anger, the contempt; any thought of retaliation against Digamma or pursuing his own agenda had been shunted away from the fore, replaced by a very real fear that after all he had done to reach this point, after finally being reunited with the woman he loved more than life itself after so long, she might have been taken from him. But that wasn't possible...she couldn't be dead.

Could she?

The silver Nomad finally managed to flip himself over, landing on his chest with a grunt of pain; then, muscles straining from the effort, he slowly and shakily extended his one good arm towards his wife before bringing it down on the broken floor, hooking his armoured fingers around a suitably-large rent in the tile and furnishings, and ever so slowly he began to bend his arm, dragging himself across the floor inch by agonizing inch. the jagged remnants of the ground, fragmented squares of marble and chunks of stone and steel, brushed against his bare chest, tearing open his wounds and filling them with dirt; had there been enough breath in his lungs and had he been a lesser man, Lambda would surely have screamed in protest, would have paused for respite or reconsideration of this course of action.

But he did not; sheer force of will would not allow him to do so. How could he allow concern for his own pain, his own injuries, to slow him down when his wife might be dead or dying not five feet away? How would he be able to live with himself if Rho expired before he could reach her, before he could tell her all the things that truly mattered, because he had given in to his body's weakness and frailty?

And so he did not rest; he continued to drag himself across the floor, one inch at a time, his wounds coating the broken ground with a thick trail of silver blood to mark his progress.

"Don't...die on me, Asu...ka," he rasped, fear warring with resolve in his dessicated voice as tears ran down his face. "I'm coming...to help. I won't...lose you again...not so soon...not before I can say...what really matters..."

---

Things were rather grim, to be sure, but all was not lost...not yet; even in this seemingly hopeless and impossible situation, one ray of light still shone faintly yet firmly.

Had Digamma not been so busy gloating in his assumed victory, he might have noticed that the sword came to an abrupt halt scant inches from Mysterio's face...and then it immediately shot towards the gilded Reaper once more, seemingly under its own power. As it flew, a strange transformation came over the weapon; it twisted and wrapped around itself mid-flight as though it were made of tinfoil or aluminum, rapidly packing itself narrower and tighter until it no longer resembled a twelve-foot long double-bladed menhir of a sword...but a twelve-foot long bident of an intricate and almost organic design. The long, incredibly sharp tines of this polearm seemed to wrap around one another in a double helix, forming the weapon's ridged silvery shaft, and despite its delicate appearance it was clear that this spear was both impossibly durable and indescribably lethal.

This spear hurled straight for the cackling Reaper's face, accelerating without any visible means of propulsion until it was actually warping the light around it, and stabbed deep into the gilt Nomad's eye; the tines erupted from the back of Digamma's head, spraying what lay behind him with the fragments of his rapidly-shattering helmet and thick gouts of divine blood and cerebral matter, until they protruded a full five feet beyond the confines of the war god's now-perforated skull. Now firmly lodged within Digamma's cranium, the bident then glowed briefly with an intense silver light as it began to draw upon internal reserves of energy for some unknown purpose...a purpose which was revealed a moment later when the weapon's blood-and-offal-drenched tines suddenly discharged an intense pulse of prismatic radiance, flooding the Reaper's body with an intense torrent of impossibly powerful energies before causing him to emit a blinding shockwave of energy that washed over everything in the room.

The Danse Macabre Codex

"Lambda... Asuka... NO. No... No... Somebody help them. I'm weak..."

To Be Updated when I'm not Lazy

Rey gasped softly, having flinched back and squeezed his eyes closed, waiting for the anticipated pain...but when it didn't come, he peeked one eye open, then looked up, gasping softly as he saw what was happening. After just a moment, he slipped to his knees, panting a little as color slowly started to return to his skin, staring up at Digamma from where he was crouched.

"Oh my God..."

Easing back into life one step at a time

Spriggan retreated a bit back after Digamma sbowed off that he's a bit more than he can handle.

Crap! Now what?

— The giant sneered down at the cube, even as the red was burned away.—

Be Silent, You Sniveling Little Piece Of—

— The lance struck, tearing apart the whole left side of his helmet and mangling his head in the process.

The gilded deity staggered back with a gasp, his limbs spasming violently. One second later, he stopped, chuckling mockingly. After all, for an entity who had survived such things as an entire stellar cluster blowing up in his face, a blow even unto the brain was only going to slow him down by a few degrees.

He reached up to pull the weapon out, and was about to start yanking on the thing when he felt the power building within it, that thrumming pulse that made his skull ache.

Ohhh, Fuck Me...

—

It wasn't the pain that made the god bellow like a wounded elephant, far from it, since there was really no pain to be had. It was the sense that just about every cell in his body was being damaged beyond repair. He dropped down to one knee, snarling his displeasure. All systems failing? No, that was impossible! Or was it? Was that saying about soldiers after a war? Nonsense!

Digamma forced himself back to his feet, the fibres of his outfit and prosthetics beginning to grey into black. A wet, hacking laugh built up in his throat as gold blood turning red spilt from his jaws.—

Uhhohohahahahaahhhh... Couldn't Do It Yourself, Huhhh? Had To Have One Of Your Pet Obsessions From Home Do It For You...Rrrr AARRGGHH!

— Digamma wrenched the Lance out of his head, holding it with shaking fingers, before crumpling the metal it was forged from with his grip. —

Look At The Pair Of You, Unworthy Thieves Of Worthier Beings' Corpses, Now Lying Like The Dead Yourselves. How Sweet!

— He staggered backwards, raising the right scythe over his head to point at the harsh lights from the ceiling. The blade gleamed, six times for six seconds. After that, the pace of the black lightning strikes on the portals increased to 66 per second. The chatter grew louder and louder. —

My War Will Go On, System Against System, Cluster Against Cluster, Galaxy Against Galaxy, And Best Of All, UNIVERSE! AGAINST! UNIVERSE!

—Blood and ichor of every possible colour poured forth from the Reaper's decaying body to cover the utterly and hopelessly ruined floor, forming small charnal streams and rivers that lapped at the Challengers' feet, and threatened to drown Lambda where he lay.—

It Doesn't Matter What You've Done To This Body! The War Will Remake And Sustain Me, As It Always Has.

—The fibres of his gloves turned bronze and peeled out, turning brown, then black.—

The Boxes Of Ammunition And The Instruments Of Lethality That Fire Them? I Paid For Them. The Shells And The Earth And People They Break? Mine To Direct! The Posters Calling Young Sapients To Fling Themselves Into Harms Way For Leader And Landmass? That Is ME Calling Them To The Slaughter!

— The fibres began to fall off their wearer, dropping into the pool of blood with the sound of a bloated corpse dripping.—

It May Take Thousands, Millions, Hell, Maybe Even A Billion Or So Years For It To Work, But I'll Be Back In The Flesh Someday. With This War, Well... Heehehhehehehhohohohhohahahahahhahahah AHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHHA!!!

— Through the hideously scarred skin, the lines of divine power blazed bright, searingly so. The Golden Reaper Of War grinned at those whom had defied him and won their little victory, raising his left scythe arm in a salute.—

Until Then, Insects, I'll Be Seeing You On The Next Front. ENJOY YOUR REST WHILE YOU CAN!

— With a deafening rumble of artillery fire, Digamma fragmented explosively, setting the blood alight. —-

...Finally.

— From an alcove, Saren Arterius decloaked, helmet disengaged, stalking his way over to the wounded silver Nomad. The Turian looked down on him with barely concealed contempt, readying his gunarm to point right between the former pilot's eyes. His voice was soft and without tone. —

Give me three very good reasons why I shouldn't pay you back for all the humiliation you wreaked on me, Ikari Shinji.

"I think I would count for a few myself Saren." Zeta said as he stepped between the Turian and the downed Nomads. He folded his arms behind his back as he stared down Saren. "I doubt you wish for another confrontation with a Nomad, correct?"

Rey grunted softly, moving to try and sit up a little more. "Saren..."

Easing back into life one step at a time

Chi dropped to the ground like a cat, his swords vanishing an a flash of light.

"Is... Is it over?"

edited 23rd Jul '11 2:59:08 AM by Deadbeatloser22

"Yup. That tasted purple."

A brown - gauntleted hand was extended to Rey. Link looked down at him, smiling.

"It's over," he whispered.

Then, he looked back up at Saren, eyes growing serious once more. "It's over, Saren."

He gestured to the silver Nomad at his feet.

"Leave Lambda be. Without him, I doubt we could have defeated Digamma. And he has proven a valuable ally... Let him have peace."

"Let us all have peace."

edited 23rd Jul '11 2:00:07 AM by troydenite

'Being around you guys makes me go "wtf" instead of pondering the ever increasing dread of time' - EchoingSilence, 2023

"Saren. I hate Lambda as much as you do. I hate letting him go. But it's for Rho. It's for Asuka. You saw the challenge on Thor did you not?"

To Be Updated when I'm not Lazy

Rey smiled slightly, taking Link's hand, but just shaking it, remaining seated. "Not sure if I'm standing up for a few minutes yet, but I appreciate the offer." He winced slightly. "Sorry I pitched you, I didn't want you to get skewered. You all right?"

Easing back into life one step at a time

What about it?

—The Turian said cooly, activating both layers of barrier, edging around Zeta to continue covering his target.—

That doesn't change him, or the misanthropic abuses of his power.

The purple Nomad was suddenly flanked by the remaining few Zeta-bots that remained, blocking Sarren once more. "Do you really want to let your ego get in the way again, puppet of a Reaper? Maybe I should get Shepard to knock some sense into you." Zeta said coldly.

"I know Saren. But if we get Lambda Rho will attack back. She's earned her happiness."

To Be Updated when I'm not Lazy

Link looked tenderly at the wrestler. The older man had become a close friend, that was for sure - but he knew that Rey - was more than just a friend. More like... a father?

He blinked and shook his head, realizing that he had been staring into space.

"No, it's okay, Rey."

"You've saved my life more times than I can count today."

"I just wish that one day...."

"One day... -" What was he thinking? He would be leaving this place, soon. Going back to Hyrule.

Back to the past, where no one cared.

He turned aside briefly, trying to conceal the brief flash of sorrow that had crossed his face.

"That... I'll be able to return the favor." He turned to face Rey again, and smiled, albeit rather sadly.

This... is the last time we meet, isn't it? Soon I'll be gone from this place.

Soon...

edited 23rd Jul '11 2:19:43 AM by troydenite

'Being around you guys makes me go "wtf" instead of pondering the ever increasing dread of time' - EchoingSilence, 2023

Rey looked up at Link, then grunted, putting his hands down, more or less forcing himself unsteadily to his feet, staggering just a bit, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Link...I know you won't listen but I'll just say it once more...you can stay with me. I can help you...somehow. We can figure something out."

Easing back into life one step at a time

The Hylian's eyes were sad as they looked at the man before him.

"I... can't. Much as I would like to... I can't. There is something in store for me, Rey."

"My fate is still bound to my world. Maybe it is my lot to die in obscurity, somewhere alone and forgotten, or on the fields of battle in some distant plain -"

"But whatever it is, I can't leave. No matter how much I want to, I can't abandon Hyrule - "

"Because they might need a Hero someday - and I'm - I'm all they've got."

"It's... Destiny, you see."

He touched the hand on his shoulder briefly, then let his hand fall.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

"Go back to your family. Live the happy life you were meant to live. Forget about all this death and bloodshed and violence that haunts the rest of us...."

"It's better that way."

edited 23rd Jul '11 2:39:07 AM by troydenite

'Being around you guys makes me go "wtf" instead of pondering the ever increasing dread of time' - EchoingSilence, 2023

Rey shook his head slowly. "That's not gonna happen for me, Link. I don't know where I'm going to end up. ...but I can't go home."

He put a hand on Link's shoulder. "For what little it may be worth to you...you won't ever be forgotten. Your name is known...maybe not on Hyrule, but elsewhere. And you're beloved, and appreciated. And you always will be. By me, too."

Easing back into life one step at a time

Link felt a sudden rush of emotions, and stepping back, he struggled to contain the tears that loomed in his eyes at Rey's words. Then, he lowered his head in respect and gratitude.

"Thank you."

"Thank you, Rey...."

"For everything." Despite these soft words, in his heart burned a fiery resolve, and he clutched a hand to his chest.

There will be no more tears, Link. No more chances for someone else to hurt you, no more chances for you to hurt anyone else ever again.

My heart shall be as iron.

I promise, from now on...

No more tears.

He raised his head to the luchador.

"...Let's go."

And with that, he set off towards where Saren, Lambda and Rho were gathered.

edited 23rd Jul '11 2:56:42 AM by troydenite

'Being around you guys makes me go "wtf" instead of pondering the ever increasing dread of time' - EchoingSilence, 2023

When Digamma died, Mason was freed.
At which point he collapsed.
"You guys who much fake paperwork it would take to give any one of you a liveable life in another world?"
He coughed. Damn his lungs burned.

They do have medals for almost, and they're called silver!