Goro slamed the headof his hammer down into the ground and leaned on it. "Thanks" he said a little lazily ashe waited fr the next fight to start up.
Atomic entered the ready room after completeting a small test of his powers; the result of the test being that the test room would be dangerously radioactive for the next 47 years.
Atomic took his place in the ready room and looked up and around at this rounds 'comerades.'
"Alright folks!" sounded the PA system over the entirety of the Coliseum complex. "Our next fight is about to begin! All fighters, head to your sides! And if you're on the visiting team, you know who you are, then head right on out for your introductions!"
OOC: Atomic got an A-2.
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
Podo, a bit touched, just smiled at Becky's concern. "Thou underestimates me, as do all humans I meet. Do not let my size fool thou, I have lived and fought against powerful enemies all of my life, ever since the day I was introduced into manhood and chosen as my tribe's Warrior Incarnate. I have fought villains on the surface since I arrived, and I still draw breath. Your concern is misplaced, thou need not worry about me!"
The doors of the arena swung open before them, taking the smile from Podo's face. To survive in combat, one had to take it seriously, and he always survived. He tensed his powerful leg muscles and leapt, soaring into the air and landing in the middle of the arena after several midair flips.
The goblin unsheathed his sword, pulling it from his scabbard, which had a large slit at the top so he could pull it out without difficulty. He began a deadly dance of swordplay for the crowd's amusement, spinning and leaping, his sword a blur as he flipped over it again and again, performing feats that seemed physically impossible.
With lightning speed, the sword returned to its sheath and Podo gave a bow to the audience. Not a bow that expected applause, but one that showed respect. He turned back to the doors and motioned for Becky to follow with a wink of his remaining eye.
Becky walked out with a smirk. This would be her chance to prove herself to Coldfire, who she knew was in the audience.
The Mafia men cracked their necks. They loved a big entrance.
They entered as a whole, yelling, flashing Family symbols, firing their guns into the air, all to ((Edit if wanted....)) Roaring applause. The low lifes of the Isles loved the Family, and the Family loved it.
"Ye-Yeah!" Cheered a Gunner as they readied themselves for the fight. Donny only shook his head from his perch and laughed cooly, drawing a bead on a few different combatants and then taking his eye from the scope to watch the Arena.
"Here we go leadies and gentlemen!" started the announcer. "Our second to last fight for the night! And if you thought the last fight was a doozy, well, you haven't seen anything yet! First of all, let's introduce the visiting team. First up: The green skinned swordsman from down under; don't let his size fool you; it's Podo!"
A spotlight flashed on and highlighted Podo as the crowd alternately cheered and booed.
"Next we've got Miss Attitude herself; don't insult her 'cause she'll cut your legs off; Becky Morningstar!"
Another spotlight came on a silhouetted Becky.
"Returning from our last fight, we've got the man without the plan; but hell, he doesn't need one because he's a giant rock! Goro the Stone King!"
The cheers Goro got were perhaps the loudest of the ones so far. Apparently quite a few people had bet on the giant slab of granite.
"And here's one for the old school! He's rough, he's tough, he's brought his whole damn gang with him...Johhny 'The Knife'!"
Johhny had a whole little section that cheered him on louder than any other part of the audiance. Presumebly that's where most of his other gang members were sitting.
"And last, but if you call him least he'll make sure you'll never have children. That radioactive glowing green menace, Atomic Firecracker!"
The cheers were a bit quieter this time.
"And now for their opponants! Let's get them out here!"
There was a loud rumbling from directly under Podo's feet. The goblin jumped away from the center of the arena just as a huge crack split it. A section of the floor split apart and a platform from below came up to fill the gap. The first glimpse that was seen as the platform came up were the massive shoulders and bullet-like head of a Zeus Class Titan. As the platform shuddered to a halt and joined seamlessly with the floor of the arena, the other enemies stepped out from around the legs of the Titan.
"Down on the ground, we've got the Lesser Devoured siblings, Adam and Eve! Right behind them we have a regular to the Coliseum, the Rikti Warmaster Chertak and his trio of commandos! And towering above them all is the Malta representative, the Zeus Titan A.E. 4000!"
Warmaster Chertak raised up his massive warblade and saluted the crowd. Despite humanity's universal hatred of the Rikti, the crowd cheered just as loudly for him as they did for any other hero or villain. Lowering his blade, Chertak looked over at the other fighters. His soldiers, a pair of Headman Gunmen and a Mentalist, took their places next to him. Adam and Eve moved to flank the Rikti line and Titan AE took one earth shaking step forward.
"And now to demonstrate the latest wonders of holographic technology, introducing the bombed out buildings of Dark Future Paragon!"
With a shimmering and the sound of bacon frying, buildings and cars appeared around the fighters. The street under foot looked and felt just like the real deal and the area looked like a perfect representation of Steel Canyon. But this was one seriously messed up Steel Canyon that had popped up. There were more broken and shattered skyscrapers than ones that were still standing and even of those few intact ones they were in horrible disrepair. Burning cars and glass from broken windows littered the streets, as did other debris that made the place look like a riot and a war had recently swept through. The only thing missing to complete this dismal scene were the bodies. Each team was located on an intersection with a large six lane road leading down the center, providing an open line of fire for each team. Tall walls of rubble marked the perimeter of the fake city scape where the arena's real walls were.
"Now that we're all ready," shouted the announcer, his voice gone tinny as though heard from a great distance. "Let's fight!"
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
"De-YAM! It's like dey made tha course for us. Come on, boys!"
The Knife rallied his men into one of the more stable-looking buildings, the other fighters losing sight of the mobsters.
One of the Headmen laughed.
"Cowardly humans: Soon to die!"
As soon as the words had left its mouth, the crowd in the observation box was blinded by a massive muzzle flash, Donny firing right at the weak neck of the Rikti's armor.
Atomic quickly made himself hard to find, running into a pileup of broken and burning cars. He peered around the side of one to look at Adam and Eve, and his stare was not a normal one, with his simple glance, he was pounding thousands of rads per second downrage at the two Devoured siblings in the form of two green beams eminating from his eyes.
Becky cracked her knuckles and walked right at the enemy. She needed no cover, needed no gun, and needed no ally. She set her sights at the titan. "I hope you enjoy pain." she said as she countinued walking. Titan AE fired a barrage of bullets into her, but they heal almost instantly. "Instant Regeneration?!" The pilot of the titan said in disbelief. "You can't do anything to me you moron." Becky said still walking down the false road. "Activating charge sequence!" The pilot said as he began charging his laser. "Heh, pathetic." She said as she broke into a run.
CptCommie ran toward the door, only a few minutes late. He had ran to the armory to acquire some ammo, and two satchel charges. These were strung across his chest, and from a untrained eye seemed like simple bags full of various junk. When he saw that the doors to the arena where closed, he cursed and slammed his fist on the door. He turned to look for the guard of that door, who he quickly found.
"Is there anyway I can still get into this fight? I'm really not even that late, I haven't heard any commotion from iside yet."
OOC: Titan's have pilots? I thought they had autonamous AIs.
BIC: The Gunman fell limply to the ground, his neck turned into so much ground beef as the bullet richoted around inside his armor.
"Treachery!" roared Chertak as he spun around and looked to see where the shot had come from.
"Target locked," stated Titan AE as its torso rotated and its missile launchers pointed to where the Family Hitman was lining up his next shot. An instant later the Titan was obscured in a cloud of exhaust as the missiles fired all at once and lanced outward. The Hitman had enough time to start to scream before he was engulfed in fire along with a chunk of the audiance.
"Well look at that, folks!" cried the announcer. "Looks like someone forgot to put up the crowd shields. Wel, I guess those people got their money's worth! Ha ha!"
Snarling, Chertak unlimbered his repulsor gun and took aim at Becky. His remaining Gunman followed suit and they both fired at the charging hero. The Mentalist crouched behind a ruined car and sent a powerful mental blast at Becky.
Meanwhile, Adam and Eve were tracking Atomic down by following the painful green beam back to its source. By the time Eve jumped on top of the car Atomic was taking cover behind, the relatively slow moving Adam had a long black scar running down its left arm and across its chest.
"FooUUnnddD yUUooO," gurgled Eve as it tried to bludgeon Atomic with its massive limbs.
******************************
The guard looked CptCommie and his minions over and took a look at his ID. Tapping a control on the side of his helmet, the guard had a brief conversation with someone on the other end. At length, the guard handed Commie is ID and slapped a control, causing the door to open. The guard silently hooked a thumb toward the beginning battle and then lifted up his other hand. He held up five fingers and started counting them down.
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
Podo leapt and flipped through the air, already swinging his sword at Warmaster Chertak. The massive rikti blade blocked his sword and the rikti pushed forward, forcing Podo into a backwards roll that he came up from with an upward slash. The clang of a parry rang once again, followed by the crowd's gasp as the Warmaster shoved and Podo's blade was forced to the side and the rikti blade slashed at him, forcing him into a sidelong roll followed by a wild leap to gain distance.
The rikti pursued, slashing in a manner that seemed wild to the crowd, but Podo knew he was a truly disciplined swordsman as he watched the calculated swipes, hard to parry and impossible to find a weakness in. At least, from the front.
The goblin jumped to his feet quickly and turned just in time to leap above a slash and continue over the warmaster, taking his large sword back and under himself in a slash for the rikti's head.
Chertak cursed as Podo jumped over his slash, forcing the Rikti to roll forward to avoid the slice that he knew was coming right at his own head. Rikti armor was not made for feats of acrobatics and they fact that Chertak was able to quickly spring back to his feet was nothing short of miraculous. Hands tightening on the hilt of his warblade, Chertak raised the weapon high and brought it down in a chop that Podo would have no chance to block. Rikti warblades might be a bit unwieldly, but they were very heavy.
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
CptCommie and the two mercs rushed out the door, then crouched behind a slab of steel and rebar fallen from a damaged tower. From there, he bounded from cover to cover, with Iosif and Semenov in close order, only puasing to cover each other. The trio stopped behind and smoldering bus and looked down the street. What appeared to be Podo from earlier was fighting a Rikti swordsman in the street. Assessing that having a melee fighting in the team was always advantageous, He decided to aid Podo. Quickling sprinting into a building, the three men clamored up the stairs. Finally reaching the fourth level, CptCommie set up his men.
Iosif was put on the stair well, watching with his AK-47 and a pair of hand grenades on a string. The two grenades where concealed in to trash at the base of the stairs, the cans and bottles would only add more shrapnel to the already potent trap. Semenov watched out the window into the street. He did not have his weapon out, and was nearly invisible to the naked eye. His job was to alert the other two men if attacks were coming. CptCommie Stood in the corner of the window and took aim at the Rikti Podo was fighting. He squeezed off a few shots before dropping out of sight.
"Mutha' o' God, we lost Danny!" Screamed a Buckshot, smashing his cellphone into the ground.
"Chillax, doo." Responded Erik, grinning insanely.
He had been carrying a large weapons pack, mostly backup ammo and sidearms. However, as he reached inside, he pulled an RPG-7, a Chinese-made tank killer.
"Dat mech is dead." He told the others as he took up a firing position in the window.
"Kerblam!" He yelled preemptively as the massive rocket Fwoosh! -ed from its barrel.
The blade came down at Podo, impossible to parry, but that hardly mattered, the goblin rarely even tried to block an enemy's attack with his sword. With reflexes honed by years of fighting dangerous beasts and twisted monsters, the warrior dipped to the left and spun, bringing his sword in to slash at the rikti's side. The attack scratched into the armor, but it was hardly deep and barely drew blood.
Now that he had gotten out of frontal combat, the goblin was in his element, he began a ferocious attack routine, flipping and slashing, staying away from the front of the warmaster as he spun to catch up and counter. Only the insane length of the blade kept the rikti parrying, and just barely. Podo was gaining ground, and it wouldn't be long until he moved into a position where he could lead with an uncountered thrust and skewer the rikti.
Unfortuanatley, the goblin's battle plan was ruined as his warrior instincts kicked in, screaming at him to get out of the way. He complied, knowing the sixth sense had saved his life countless time, and kicked off the ground and back, rolling.
Bullets whizzed down at the rikti warmaster from CptCommie's attack.
At the sound of the battle livening, The Knife had an idea. "Vinny, Johnson, git behind dem twos barrels next to da' do', and watch dis."
The Capo Gunners rolled behind a pair of sand-filled barrels and watched as Johnny picked up a large, sharp piece of metal and some loose string and formed a rusty guillotine trap at the door.
"If dat ting swings, yous twos gonna finish off whutever tryin' to get in here, dig?"
"Yeah, we dig." Nodded Vinny.
Atomic Fireball saw the tree coming at him and was ready, as Eve rounded on him, he threw up his hands and sent a carpet of radioactive particles streaming at his target, confident that the powerfull stream if measured would have made chernobyl look like a small leak.
Atomic then looked at Adam, concentrating for a moment, and haze of radioactive particles clouded around the creature. The cloud extended approximately 30 meters and all life in that area would quickly start to feel its debilitating effects.
Turning back toward the main battle, Titan AE has but a moment to notice and block the oncoming missile. But that moment was enough and instead of blasting a hole into the Titan's reactor compartment, the rocket blasted a huge chunk of armor off of its left forearm. The plasma cannon in that arm was ruined but the second cannon was still operational. To prove this fact, Titan AE extrapolated the rocket's trajectory and took aim at that location.
"Target locked. Cannon charging. Firing."
A blazing beam of pure heat shot out of the Titan's muzzle and lanced toward the building the Family was hiding in. But, luckily for them, the Titan guessed wrong and the building next to them exploded, showering chunks of concrete and debris everywhere.
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
"Shey-ite! Yer gonna get us all killed!" Screamed Johnny.
"This one won't miss!" Responded a stone-faced Erik.
"Erik ya --"
Fwoosh!
Chertak's sword slammed into the ground where Podo had been, leaving some cracks in the asphault. The Warmaster ignored the bullets that spanged and pinged off of his armor. Obviously the attacker underestimated the strength of Rikti metallurgy, otherwise he would have fired many more more powerful rounds. Flashing the unseen gunner a human thumbs up gesture, Chertak took a few steps away from Podo and pulled out a repulsor pistol.
"This: Now ends," Chertak said before he pulled the trigger.
****************************************
Eve screeched and teetered backward under the assault of the radioactive beams. But the Lesser Devoured recovered quickly and jumped behind Atomic Firecracker. It pulled back its arm and then brought it up in a devastating uppercut.
Adam seemed to whither slightly as the radiation affected it. Its movements slowed, the creature knew it would not be able to close with its enemy any time soon. So, opening its mouth wide, Adam exhaled a swarm of insects that buzzed around in front of it and then headed straight at Atomic. Many of the bugs making up the swarm perished due to the radiation and their super fast metabolisms but enough made it through the radius to severly annoy Atomic.
*************************************
The second missile went forth and dived at Titan AE's lightly armored control cluster. The Titan contemptuously swatted the rocket aside, breaking off its left arm at the elbow, and took aim at the exact spot the rocket launched from.
"Target locked. Cannon charging. Firing."
The white hot beam of plasma lanced forth right at Erik's location.
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
Atomic knew it was a simple choice between a vicious uppercut or a proper stinging. He also knew the answer, Neither. With a deft leap he dove into the pile of cars and at the center activated one of his more powerful attacks. With a force only twice duplicated by non-supers, the pile of cars exploded, sending one ton pieces of shrapnel flying in all directions, a concussive wave, strong enough to turn insides to jelly preceeding them. Invisible to the naked eye, but there nonetheless a huge wall of radiation darted away from ground zero of the blast.
Seeing the Rikti infuriated CptCommie beyond no end. He loaded the M203 and switched out the mag. He replaced it with a larger magazine, loaded with a special ammunition. He took aim and let loose the entire magazine at his target, only pausing to refine his aim every couple of shots. The rounds screamed downrange at there target, the mercury tipped slugs traveling at the speed of sound. When these bullets found their target the end would flatten, propelling the mercury at incredilby speeds in the forms of knives deep in the victim.
As Coldfire walked to the medical area he waved over his shoulder at Goro. "Nice fight." he said, one of few compliments he had ever said.
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Becky looked at Podo bewildered. She couldn't believe someone with no power would enter something like this! "Podo, how will you survive this?!" she asked wondering if he could fight any of the opponents that she had seen in the last fight, "There are very powerful enemies in here and your telling me you have no powers or defences other that those robotics?!" She looked at him amazed, Podo was either really brave, or really...