DeviousMe

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"But let's have other places be other places." the elder Khelari did away with the rather cumbersome topic of social orders (and disorders) across the cosmos, "I'd much rather hear of yours. Is it like here? Or very different? One of those arctic places...?"
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Elven Forest

"Yes, I would like her to!" Jade couldn't help but burst out with a shout, looking to Bathory, then back to Rotten, "Do I really have to say that out loud?! If someone can help her, do something alrea-!"

Then space-time tore open, and the Dragon's words fell into silence. He only stared blankly as the phenomenon ran its course, ending with Ildela's appearance.

"Oh no..." he said tonelessly upon recognizing the gash, hurrying over to the woman, "How bad is it? Can you hear me...?"

((Alright then...let's see where we can go with this.))

Jade looked to Cerelassion and then back to the acorn still in his hand. Trinket. No, that was dead too. He didn't realize the elven man meant a different one. All he knew right now was that Bisys was dead and he couldn't do anything to change that. Worse, though all this talk was going on, no one seemed to actually be doing anything.

He wanted to shout, to scream, to attack someone...but what would that've helped? No, that wasn't the answer. Tafari was gone too, meaning he couldn't even vent his pain in that direction. He wanted to be angry at someone, but he just couldn't seem to muster up the steam. For the first time in a long time, the Dragon's heart was calm.

What had she said? Live your life. Be happy. Admittedly, he liked the sound of that. But no, not yet. He had work to do.

"You said you'd learned some things about the machines, right?" he asked of the elf as he rose, his tone laced with cold determination, "Can you show me...?"

((Guys, please don't start this. I've already said that stuff doesn't grow in the Desert, so I'd prefer it if yalls didn't just ignore that because it doesn't suit you. I don't really care whether or not it grows in Paragon, but I put a lot of thought into the Desert plot and would appreciate if you didn't try to passively countermand what I've set up. Thank you.))

((Hello? Anybody still around? >_>))

"Mighty observant." cackled Sage from the rumbling saddle of another machine, despite very clearly not having stolen one from the as-expected floored demons. That the thing didn't look anything lie theirs wasn't even needed to clue anyone in there, the nightmarish mishmash of mechanics that was a the Hellknight's Korps Bike more than duly distancing itself from the norm that ran around here.



"Perhaps too observant." he added with a sinister smirk of suspicion, "I'm keeping my eye on you."

Though spoken mostly in jest, there was a grain of truth to those words. These people were apparently able to crash down dragons and stomp flat demons without so much as breaking a sweat, much less getting hurt in the process. If Kasha didn't watch it, they might just break something important - and though he'd been told to help, that was something he wouldn't be able to let slide...

The Desert

Paragon City may have been the ship's next target, but getting there by air was easier said than done. The cragged, rocky, lifleless expanse that now surrounded the city had been named the Desert for a reason: nothing would grow here. It was a harsh, dangerous, and just generally unpleasant place to be, harboring a great number of hostilities.

Like the dust storms.

One such cloudalanche of dirt and grit rolled across the jagged landscape and toward the vessel even now, sandpapering anything and everything it came across with wind speeds of several hundred meters per second - and that was just the fine stuff. Coarser and larger debris whipped up by this thing could literally put a number of projectile weapons to shame. If the Heart Tree (or the mutation) hadn't endowed the craft with some decent resilience, it may well have been a fatal mistake to enter this area...
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Eleven Forest

If the wolf was still there by the time Akat passed the area from which Graxitica had jaunted, it would no doubt see the Khelari pass by in the forest canopy. She didn't pay it any mind just on the virtue of being there though, her intent focused ahead. After all, she had a very long way to go. True, she could've just called the Range Runner and use it to span the distance, but right now that didn't even occur to her. She was hunting. Khelari hunted on foot. That was the way it had always been...

'Twin City'

Ildela found no such thing, regrettably. The entire central sector was indeed hermetically sealed by those blast doors, and the scanners that presumably opened them were next to impossible to get past without the correct hand along - and not just because they called down Reavers on those who tried otherwise.

Now, if Ildela's shadow form could become like an electrical impulse or such, then she could just travel through the cables that connected the sectors in this fashion. Otherwise however, she'd likely have no option other than finding a Dragon's hand somewhere...
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Eleven Forest

Jade just crouched there in silence for a while, working to absorb all this information. He wasn't quite sure what to make of it. He should be happy, the message had said...but how could he when those he cared for still kept dying, even now that he wasn't a machine anymore? Was this some kind of mark on him? A curse? A curse for whom? Him or those around him?

He didn't say anything as suggestions were voiced, but he did look to those putting them forward, as if to tell them to please try. Hopefully, something would work...
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"Ah, you meant social, not physical." Vetdjat gave an understanding nod with a smile, once more having to remind himself that this was a very different being than he, "Though actually...no. There are very many social systems around and about, some of which I have to admit I'll never be able to understand, that are stable and satisfying to their creators."

"Not here of course." the elder Khelari remarked with a shrug, "We probably couldn't exist around anything even resembling real stability. But I've seen some and hard of others, so no, not always..."

"Me?" Sage chuckled darkly, yet still spoke in a childishly innocent tone, "I had nothing to do with this. Honest."

He didn't perceive the telepathic message, but the way Rotten threw himself into the biker gang gave him more than enough clue to put two and two together. He merely smirked and placed his weapon over his right shoulder though, content to let the zombie handle this. After all, these guys had clobbered a dozen dragons without so much as breaking a sweat. What were a few demons on motorbikes to them...?

M'kay, that might not be so bad then if most everyone else has been talking out loud - reason being Kasha doesn't do telepathy. You could have a telepath mind-yelling at him all day long and he wouldn't catch a thing.

((Telepathy, huh? Would've been nice if you'd said so earlier. Or just differentiated it from normal speech by not putting it in the same format. Generally, thoughts and telepathic communication is written in unquoted italics.

Gonna take me a while to figure out how to deal with this. Carry on.))

Elven Forest

Akat's eyes narrowed, and her claws swept through the air toward the fleeing Graxitica, earth and stone bursting forth from the ground beneath him in simultaneous motion. It didn't make a difference of course, the material of this plane passing right through the being partially on another, but that didn't deter the Khelari. She may not have been able to feel him in this state, but he'd have to come out of it again at some point.

And she had a direction.

Releasing her stance as well as the air in her lungs (which gave her a weird, shuddery sensation; this stuff was entirely too foreign and thin), she stepped over to a tree and began to climb - at pace, but not hurried. She knew she wouldn't be able to catch him by speed. He far outmatched her in that. But that wouldn't stop her from giving chase. No. She was determined to catch him. Fortunately, Khelari were fairly decent trackers. It'd take her a while, but eventually she'd catch up to Graxitica, that much was certain...
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"That's...quite a long time." Vetdjat couldn't help but remark in surprise, eyes wide toward Negative Rise, "I've heard of cultures where people have to agree on something for it to happen and then they can't, but I didn't think it could be that severe. Or are you saying your planet decided it would assume a different state and just took that long to reshape itself...?"
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'Twin City'

Ildela's hopes were answered. well, sort of anyway. The machine did indeed have no idea in which direction to turn. So it didn't. It just stood there. Scanning. Waiting. Of course, if she simply stayed away from it, the Reaver probably wouldn't do anything else until it received further orders, giving her a relatively clean getaway...

((Um, actually it was a more coherent form of Stone Spears. >_> Y'know, I think I can work with that, though. And alrighty, let's thy this again then...))

'Twin City'

Follow her? Right now, the Reaver was practically glued to Ildela. It didn't give her the chance to gain distance, sticking around at arm's reach and continuing to pound its raging limbs against her shield. It didn't really care that it was doing even less harm to her than she was to it. It was betting on the power of probability. Sooner or later, one of them would make it through somewhere, and then she'd go from pristine condition to blood-coughing heap...
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The Sudden Clearing

He didn't. At least not immediately. Paxtera's voice cut through air, crashes, and chaos alike, but the pain it only barely managed to push through. Oh, Jade heard her alright...but it was faint and distant, like a star on the horizon. His attention was nowhere to be found, not even on the earth on which his fists had come to rest.

Why her? Why her?! All she'd done for him, all her past sacrifice, and now...

The Dragon's eyes snapped open.

Past!

He whirled around to Paxtera. Time traveler! Could go back! Undo this!

No.

When she told him what had happened last time, his fervor evaporated. He couldn't ask her to do that. Not someone else for someone else. That wasn't right.

But when she reminded him of the Token, a glimmer of hope returned to his eyes. He nodded, taking the little thing from where it was and holding it before his nose, wondering just how he should 'use' it.

"Can you?" he finally opted to just try and talk to it, "Can you tell us any answers...?"
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The Mutated Forest

No. No, you're not going anywhere.

Akat reacted almost instantly, shifting her weight to the sole of her left foot in its step forward, making solid contact with the earth. Virtually in the same moment, Graxitica's feet began treading goop instead of ground. The forest floor had transmuted itself to a sticky, viscous fluid with properties not unlike those of quicksand.

But what quicksand! Unlike the stuff usually called so, this gunk really put the quick into it, like it had been boosted with a great deal of additional power. In addition, the area encompassed was respectably large, making the chances that Graxitica could run his way to the edge before the stuff sucked him down rather low indeed. But either way, it dropped his speed catastrophically...
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"No, this is just..." Vetdjat answered Negative Rise with a casual shrug, then caught himself before he could continue the misinformation in light of the demon's last words, "I mean yes. Well...yes and no. We've many ways to talk to other worlds. This is just the quickest. I could've just sat down and tried to make direct contact, but that always takes ages."

"And I'm sure you will one day." he added with a smile, "Probably soon too. I've noticed that people who use spells very much don't usually take long to make one that does what they want it to once they've seen it somewhere else. I imagine that once your people know there are many other places around, not much time will pass before someone on Ag'xis writes a spell to talk to them..."

I don't know about must, but I am guilty of torturing my characters with out-of-proportion misfortunes so their stories end up more dramatic.

((Oookay, I can see where this is going. >_> In that case, it's probably better for everyone if I just suspend the Twin City partition for now. At least until more people arrive there.))

Elven Forest

"Damn it, don't you run!" Jade screamed at the fading Tafari as his fists made contact with nothing but 'jello', "Don't you run from me! Don't you dare run from me!!!"

It was all for naught, of course. No matter how loudly he roared out his pain at the collapsing mass, no matter how many more times he pounded his fists into the stuff with all the strength he could manage, it didn't make a difference. Tafari was beyond all that now. Tears in his eyes, the Dragon's knees eventually touched earth, fists ever more slowly and weakly digging into the ground before him.

"...don't...don't you run..." his screams had become whispers between sobs, and his eyes had long since closed. He didn't notice the statue, didn't notice anything or anyone else around. All he felt, all he knew right now was the pain of losing yet another friend. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair at all.

Eventually he stopped, kneeling there in sadness' silence, knuckles resting still on the beaten earth beneath him. Not fair at all...
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VFSSR ERIKA
Tar System, Andromeda

She lumbered her way steadily into the system, engines on standby. Control had given the clear, and now she was on approach, coasting in. The distant sun's light glinted brightly off her silver-gray hull, reflected in a myriad of angles and directions by the thick armor of the massive vessel.

And then came the shadow.

It passed over her like a silent specter, the sun's light robbed away by a shroud of darkness. It didn't take long to run down her length, and soon she was completely in the shadow of what lay ahead.



VFSSR KAGO
Current Assignment: 3rd Fleet Command Ship

If the ERIKA was massive, the KAGO was sheerly enormous, the command ship easily capable of fitting her and her present sister ships into its volume and still having some to spare. That came at the cost of acceleration of course, the four central, oversized engines of the smaller ships not helping the KAGO's case, but when one needed a mobile command center and materials depot out in deep space, far beyond and independent of supply lines, the practicality of the superlative was hard to beat.

Still it was the crew that made it all work, the personnel that manned the stations, maintained the ship, carried out their tasks. Even now, with the ship docked and resupplying, in the rest period designated 'night' in a place that lacked any such thing as a true day or night, the crew's shift on duty kept attention high, desiring to be ready for whatever might've come their way.

But it was in a dark cabin in the depths of the vessel that the transmission came to final stop, a small screen beside a low, simple bunk blipping to life with flashing green text.

This in turn caused a stir in the sheets, and a hooded wraith arose against the faint green light, swaying gradually to and fro as tired eyes brought into focus what the rude little luminance wanted to convey. It took a while, but thereafter events passed in snaps. A pair of heavy boots hit the floor with report, a thick, flowing cape was whisked from the back of a chair with a rapid flap, and a pair of guardsmen in full power armor jumped to attention with all the speed they could muster when those cabin doors hissed open and out strode the jet-black boots with deft, purposeful steps, the like-hued cape that followed not receiving the slightest hint of a chance to touch the ground.

The bridge doors came open with suddenness much the same, and the boots' thick soles kept their stride toward the large transparent panels that formed the forward windows of the deck, the distant starscape twinkling in the vacuum outside, surrounded by the light and metal of the dock on all sides.

And with the sweep of a cape, they began to recede. The KAGO had come under motion...

"And I'm surprised at your naivete." Kasha smirked in retort to BrassRobo, then looked to the Illusionist in addition, "Also, y'know, the point of being incognito is kind of to not say out loud who you are and what you're doing in a public space where everybody and their mother can overhear you."

The Hellknight holstered his weapon and stepped off the roof, the giant 'boots' that enveloped his oversized feet and toes in an almost glove-like fashion feathering the impact without issue.

"Guess it would've gotten out soon anyway, though." he remarked with a casual shrug, "Dragons are blabbermouths like that. Probably already chattering you off to half the city. C'mon, let's get moving before the crowd gets any bigger. Allie's waiting."

With that, he set himself in motion, seeming to know just which direction he wanted. He didn't remark on the car - and for good reason.

It wasn't there anymore.

At one point or another, the vehicle had vanished without a trace. All that remained were the Illusionist's weavings over the empty space...

The Sudden Clearing

Cold. Again. He felt cold. But it wasn't of the body. It was of the heart. Two or not, all Jade felt as he watched the scales run through the fingers of his empty hands was cold. Like sand they went, so very much like water not wet, and he couldn't do a thing to stop them. All he could do was watch them go, frozen in place by the horror of it all.

Awe wasn't something that easily overwhelmed him. Wonder wasn't something he could find from someone like Tafari. Loss, however...loss was the thing that froze him cold, blacked out the world around him until all there was were his hands and all he could do was stare at the scales running through their fingers.

And then came sadness.

Pain.

Anger!

"You *******, ********, ************* *********************!!!" the Dragon roared to high heaven and launched himself at Tafari, heedless of all. He didn't care that the fist headed for the man's face was likely harmless to the villain, that he could bat Jade aside like so much rubbish, that Dragon or not, he wasn't a superhero anymore...

But he didn't care. He wasn't thinking logically anymore. In fact, he was barely thinking at all. He was in pain, deep inside, where no aid could come. Perhaps the same on the outside was the only way to deal with it. Perhaps even the slightest chance to inflict could lessen. Or perhaps his spirit had just finally broken and he'd gone insane...
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The Mutated Forest

Someone. Something. Sometimes, there was no difference. Graxitica's rampage was thus abruptly ended with the appearance of both, a wall of granite-like stone erupting from the ground before him, heading both up before and toward the beast, seeking to simultaneously block his path and smash him to the ground with all the tender love and care of a locomotive possessed by psychopathic pixies boiling over with homicidal schizophrenia.

That was the something. But whether or not it succeeded, there was the someone.

"Don't you dare keep going!" Akat snarled viciously, stalking through the flames crouched low, teeth bared, looking like their fury manifest. The tinder that flared where she stepped, the fire that licked up her legs and the contours of her body, even the embers that danced about her silhouetted form all seemed almost part of her, marring not a speck of hide, instead burning with fervor deep within the slitted pupils of her ice-gray eyes.

She'd had enough. Enough of not understanding, enough of all these people killing for no reason, and most importantly enough of doing nothing. No. She didn't need to understand to do something. She'd just do. And with others already dogpiling onto the first firebug, she'd decided to do something about the second.

And she could.

Graxitica the shell knew this. The instinct of the taken creature recognized an apex predator by simple nature. There was no mistaking it. Even with its augmentations, even being Graxitica, the beast felt itself as prey.

And there stood the predator.

Or perhaps there stood the shell...?
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"Fancy words for recorded sound and pictures." Vetdjat allowed himself a smirk as the elevator arrived atop the tower - an open-aired, glass-walled enclosure topped with a number of arches supporting a large sphere overhead. The glass was of course not really glass, and the architecture of the thing was decidedly alien, but chances were that negative Rise wouldn't have much trouble recognizing a communications center either way.

Orange holograms formed interfaces and displays, several mechanisms provided hard points, sometimes-glowing crystals routed energy, sigils and patterns of long-dry blood connected the paths, and so on and so forth. A human might've called it some manner of tribal technomagic. Khelari simply called it know-how.

"And the manager is always listening, so it'll tell us when something comes back. We don't have to wait around." the scaleless reptilian explained, then looked up toward the sphere, "Did you get all that?"

"Affirmative." an unseen voice much like that of a range runner's autopilot confirmed. This one had a male 'personality' however, though it still spoke in the same soft, artificial tone, "Requesting receiver address."

"Just make it omnidirectional." Vetdjat said in response, glancing back to the demon, "Wherever a reply comes back from...well, if we get a reply back, assuming Ag'xis isn't in another universe or time or something, enter that as the address."

"Confirmed." the manager answered, "Transmission sent."

"Don't worry." the Khelari smiled to Negative Rise, "Someone will get it..."
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Alynn Prime
High Orbit

Quiet. Calm. Serene. It all looked so peaceful from up here. The roar of the crowd at the launch pad, the hoots and bellows in mission control, none of it mattered up here. All was silence. All was peace.

The satellite's camera witnessed what had never before been seen: the curvature of the horizon that belonged to the bright-brown planet below, a soft velvet glistening in the rays of the nearby yellow sun like a marble of the finest glass. It was a desert, yes. But to those who loved there, to those who saw it now through their machine, it was beautiful as could be. In the lens of that camera that looked out into space, the firmament silently speckled with stars, the planet rolled quietly by below, and even the slim solar panel that jutted into view from the side made not a sound as it powered the machine.

And then came the shadow.

Then shattered the silence.

The sun's rays vanished from the panel from one second to another, the shadow zipping over its cells from back to front, its ubra enveloping the camera. Then the lens began to shake, to rattle, and the image distorted for a moment before returning to clarity. By then though, it was already there.

First to pass overhead was the nose cone, titanic in nature, silver-gray metal sliding over the stars as if to swallow them whole. The rest of the massive ship soon followed, growing steadily wider as it flew by above the camera's view, expanding gradually ever more. It didn't take long for the next section to follow, four gargantuan, rectangular outriggers joined to the hull at midpoints of length and slanted angles filling the sky, soon after passing into the soft, iridescent blue of slow-streaming plasma.

Engines.

The rest of the vessel came after, hangar bays and further armor, lights of many colors both steadily alight and blinking in strobe accompanying their charge.

VFSSR ERIKA
Current Assignment: Reconnaissance Patrol

Her crew didn't care what happened below. The small yellow star Alynn was a patrol waypoint. They would observe, catalogue, and fly on. The satellite was just one more entry. The local civilization had developed. An envoy would be dispatched the next time the ERIKA sent in a report. She didn't stop for them. She was hunting. Contact wasn't her job.

But listening was.

And she received a transmission.

High General Nev'oroxis.

Suddenly, everything changed...

"Oh no, I can see that just fine." Sage smiled mischievously, giving the goggles over his eyes a tap with his free hand, "But I can also see more. And sure that's doable. But who says I'm here to help you?"

With a twist of fingers, the oversized gun in his other hand gave an ominous clack, and the orange-skinned Vrakht's smile widened into a grin, "I doubt you'll be so glad after I'v-mh?"

The very next second, a sound of thunder cut through the air, and the blasted-apart remains of a certain kiosk vendor hit the street. Seems he'd not taken kindly to being robbed and had tried to sneak up on one of the team.

"Oh come on!" Kasha harrumphed in exasperation from his perch, barrel of the hand-cannon still smoking, "Can't one of you let me milk it just for once?! Yeesh, I swear...fine, guess it's out. The boss says you're okay, but if you get killed, you're still dead, yadda yadda. Oh, and we should move before he reconstitutes himself. He'll be mad, and since I'm not one of the real imposing-looking Hellknights...well, you get the idea..."

Hah! Finally caught up and got the time to tack on another thread to my list. I can already feel the evil spreading. Whoopie!

"And still you'd get no answer." said a slyly smiling voice quickly recognized as that of Sage, the Vrakht perched atop the roof of another nearby kiosk, this one selling what its sign advertised as 'lunch'. Unlike before however, he was presently in full, SWAT-style ballistic armor, the 'gun' in his left hand sporting a barrel large enough to be come kind of cannon.



"You know, I didn't think you'd actually make it this far." he spoke with casual tone, "I'm impressed. How'd you get the fallen angels to let you past the wall...?"

OOC:

Well, the way you describe it is kind of - ahem - rather aphysical, so I can somewhat see why people would decide it doesn't affect their characters. Also, I'll go ahead and assume those are very special scimitars.

Oh, and none taken. In fact, it's about time you did. I was getting worried since I couldn't think of anything more explicit to say than 'it cheats' without barging into OOC territory. Glad you finally caught it. Now you should probably have Ildela catch it too.

BIC:

'Twin City'

ERROR
TRACKING ON TARGET HAS BEEN LOST
ATTEMPTING TO REACQUIRE . . . FAILED
ATTEMPTING TO REACQUIRE . . . FAILED
ATTEMPTING TO REACQUIRE_

Some said machines were perfection. That built for a certain function, nothing could do it better, especially an organic being. But even machines had their limits. Even something that 'thought' in terms of hertz with a ridiculous number of zeroes attached didn't do so instantaneously. It still took time. Time to find Ildela again.

Too much time to find Ildela again.

With a raucous stereo grind, the scimitars' tips scraped along the Reaver's chest plating. They didn't penetrate. The interior charge that repelled them once more mitigated the damage to shallow gouges.

Luckily, the machine didn't yet realize she was anticipating its movements, and thus continued its apparently very predictable attack pattern, a fist hurtling toward Ildela in the manner of a rabid wrecking ball less than half a second after the scimitar tips had made contact...

Elven Forest

Jade's eyes went wide at Bisys' collapse, the Dragon rushing to her side at once. He didn't wait for any sort of answer from Tafari, snatching the metaloid satyr off the ground by the sides of her shoulders, then pushed her into the instinctive 'protection' of his right wing, looking to Tafari with a stern, yet awaiting eye. He didn't really pay attention to anything else just then, suspicious that the man in arm's reach would lash out and try to sock him, her, or anyone else at a moment's notice, and thus kept his eye on the guy so he'd have that moment.

Akat meanwhile did, but wasn't sure what to make of all this. What was going on here? She got the idea of the recall, but what was a Nemesis? The one that had come from the trees and then turned around? The animal trying to prey on the tree...and apparently not succeeding? Or was it just an expression uttered by this character when he decided to get violent again?

She didn't know. Not knowing things was bad for acting upon them, though. So she didn't. Not yet. She would if something happened, though. But for now, all she knew was that she needed to know more - just like before, when she'd examined the supposedly out-of-place piece of forest.

What was it...?
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"Tevron High Council..." the black Khelari repeated thoughtfully, "A...ruling body, if I remember right, yes? Well, either way it's an addressee. Should be enough."

While he spoke, Vetdjat led the demon onto a walkway around the cylinder, then into a niche about half-occupied by a hologram of the surrounding superstructure, the orange projection of light showing clearly that the underslung cylinder was the bottom of a tower that reached rather high into the sky.

"Anything specific you'd like to send?" the elder Khelari wanted to know as he bid Negative Rise to step into the alcove with him, then touched a claw to the section of tower near the top. Not a second later, a faint hum of energy signified the placement of a kinetic barrier between them and the walkway, and then the floor was already on its way up the side of the tower, rising with speed and giving the demon a view of a large portion of the city.

True, the overall appearance hadn't changed, structures and platforms 'dangling' alongside and between crystal branches and metal threads, but being closer now, some more details could be made out. Machines of various forms and functions made their way about on six to no limbs, and though there wasn't an overly large number of them, their bustle was certainly noticeable. Indeed, it was about all that was. If this was a city, where were its inhabitants? Did Vetdjat live here all alone?

"Audio, video, so on?" the Khelari went on, "And do you expect a reply? If so, of what form...?"

'Twin City'

Now this surprised the Reaver. Ildela abruptly reacting and moving in a span of microseconds was something it definitely hadn't counted on. If it had been capable thereof, it would've wondered from where she'd suddenly gotten that speed, not to mention why she'd waited until now to use it. Being an organic, logic would've suggested her structure wouldn't have been able to take those kinds of stresses. Apparently, she was far sturdier inside that shield than she looked.

Fortunately, so was the machine.

The blades raked across its abdomen, but the gouges didn't end up deep. The Rikti had armor. The Reaver had armor. The Reaver reinforced its with an energetic charge. The Rikti did not.

SECTORS 112-216 REPORT MINOR DAMAGE

COMBAT MODE
[ENERGIZE PERIPHERAL SECTORS]
ANALYZING ALTERNATIVES_

And then the Reaver caught her blades.

Somehow, some way, it wrapped its fingers around the swords of energy and squeezed, the charge in its hands keeping them from cutting deeply enough to slip free - and all the tugging and twisting in the world wouldn't move them from the machine's iron grip. Had the blades been material, they'd surely have been crushed.

Not that what the Reaver did was very different.

The instant it had made contact, the machine's energies were already at work. Not a second later, the cutting energy vanished, a crackle in the air draining them of their energy (and quite possibly snatching a large chunk of Ildela's as well), leaving them depowered and useless.

And then came the tail.

Rushing toward her with all the tender love and care of a falling ton of bricks, the powerful metal appendage sought to bat her into the wall and have her pinball across the surfaces of the corridor.

If that didn't work either however, the Reaver would stop playing by any rules at all...

((Gonna wait a little longer so more people can post at the other locations. Just got bit by the writing bug, so I had to get something out. >_>))