Vai had to put distance between the two of them, creating a buckler sized shield on her wrist, she was able to bring it up just in time to deflect the red shards directed her way. She grinned when Superion entered the arena and her grin widened when her opponent flung himself at her in a fit of rage. She generated a construct shaped like a hammer and swung it up at the precise moment her opponent was near enough to strike. The aim was to use the war-hammer combined with her physical strength and the momentum of the swing to hopefully lift her opponent off his feet and send him crashing to the floor with at least one broken rib and the wind driven from his lungs.
If successful Vai would follow up by creating a green energy cage around him to trap him in place and leave him unable to further contribute to the fight. Though she had tried to kill him earlier it had been out of instinct, once again given enough time to act on logic and training she would attempt to keep him alive, if possibly severely injured and well out of the fight. Once he was down...Where did the other one go?
Vai arrived in the sort of style her cover demanded...a blazing red Aston Martin, one of several of her personal cars. She had spent careful time since returning to her mother's time period constructing her life as a stereotype, a spoiled rich girl that saw men as disposable and spent money like it was going out of style. This was done for one simple reason, it disarmed her in the eyes of the public. None would expect Vai to be anyone else, they would look, see what they expected to see and look no deeper.
The car rumbled as she pulled up to the front door. She stepped out and tossed her keys at the unfortunate employee waiting to park cars without so much as glancing in the poor girl's direction. She walked through the front doors and smiled brightly as she entered the ball. Technically it was her mother who had been invited but since her mother hated these things, she had chosen to represent her mother's interests and provide some sort of polite excuse as to her absence.
Vai walked to the bar, these things always had a fully stocked bar. She smiled a little, flirted briefly with the bartender and acquired a Vodka Martini, shaken, not stirred. She smiled to herself at an internal joke, took a sip of her drink and leaned back against the bar to cast her gaze out at the wider party as people continued to arrive. For her part, Vai was worth upwards of three billion dollars, through her mother of course. Xae herself was worth more, but Vai found three billion a nice sum to play around with. At least, to the public.
Its nice to see everyone mingling, even if they almost openly don't like each other sometimes.
He very nearly took Vai by surprised, she was so focused on fighting the big guy that she almost forgot her surroundings. Almost. Vai's predatory instinct alerted her to danger and she spun around, dropping her attack on the big guy. Her hand dropped to her side, slid the sickle shaped knife from her belt loop and slid it into her hand in one smooth motion. Both Vai and her mother carried a pair of such weapons at all time and neither was afraid to use them. Vai tried to avoid killing but she wasn't entirely against it, it was in her nature to kill. In a moment driven by instinct she went for the easiest to use weapon, a six inch curved blade like the sickle claw of a dinosaur. The handle slid in as a cross hand beneath her fingers in a clinched fist and the blade stuck up between her middle two fingers. She slashed across her opponent's mid section, intending to gut him where he stood.
The blade itself was composed initially of bone but was reinforced and coated with a metal alloy similar in durability to cold vibranium and then sharpened to a mono-molecular edge. To make it stronger, a swift impulse of will coated the blade in protective green energy. There was no anger in her actions though, they were driven by instinct, the natural ability of a lethal predator to...well...be a lethal predator. She didn't have time to focus on Hal, though her ears informed her that he'd somehow shrugged off the Rage attack and she smiled a little internally to know he was ok.
@vai: Hal's eyes suddenly glow green for the briefest of moments and then he looks at her with normal colored eyes, "Too true. But I have a feeling that the Reds are just pawns on a large game board. That maybe someone else is pulling the strings, someone who isn't a Red Sentinel. Think about it, Vai. Why now of all times did they show up? Didn't you say the Red Sentinels in your time weren't active? Nothing adds up, unless someone is pulling their strings. I don't know who that someone is, but I'm going to find out."
Hal flies towards a red glow and is then blindsided by a punch to the stomach which knocks the air from his lungs. He kneels down on the ground, holding it, looking up at seeing a giant monster with red skin, teeth like a shark and yellow glowing eyes that are so full of rage, it was unbelievable.
This being was massive. Muscles on muscles with claw on the end of each finger. Hal thought the Reds were always angry, but this being radiates pure, unfiltered, rage. Hal had to concentrate so he wouldn't be affected by it. W-Who are...you?"
And when this giant Red Sentinel speaks, he speaks with authority, with a voice that oozed pure evil. It was deep and foreboding. When his foot touches the ground, it burns and kills anything within a few inches. "I am Alduin, the World eater. I am rage personified, I can be your salvation or your death."
Alduin looks from Hal to Vai, not impressed by what he sees. Vai may just get a feeling that this guy isn't going to be so easy to beat like the others were. His very presence was almost intoxicating.
Hal flew back to Vai's side, "What do you want? Why have you come here?"
Alduin almost seems to laugh, the very air echoing instead of his rage, "I am Alduin, the world eater. I consume planets with my rage until all become my children. And even though you two do not belong here, I offer this gift to you as well. I will not offer it again. The alternative is death, in...horrible ways."
Hal clenches his jaw, pointing his ring at him, "DEATH THEN!" And tries blasting Alduin with his most powerful energy blast. But the Red leader just stands there, and with a casual wave of his hand, he blocks the energy blast with a red force field. Alduin narrows his eyes, "Pity. You both, as well as the one outside, would have made excellent Red Sentinels."
Then Alduin fires a wave of pure red energy at them both, the force of this wave was off the scale. Hal calls for back-up, Superion is now on his way. Hal puts up a force field construct made of bricks but it immediately shatters from Alduin's attack and he screams in pain as he falls back.
Vai had anticipated a rage filled blunt force attack and wasn't disappointed. Rather than try to create one shield barrier to defend herself, she cast one several feet in front of her. The wall of red energy broke it almost instantly but she created another behind it, then another and another and another before she finally enveloped herself in a protective forcefield. The end result was the wave that struck her had been reduced in power working its way through the rapid succession of green barriers. When it struck it flung her backwards but her final shield was enough to absorb the remaining power of its strike. Vai hit the floor and slid several feet before she came to a stop.
Vai flipped to her feet. "How creative." She said sarcastically. The activation of her ring and enforcement of her will created dozens of small discs shaped like the Green Sentinel Logo that flew out in a swarm and attempted to fly around the Red Sentinel, intending to assault his shields with death by a thousand cuts. Each of the discs was 'sharp' enough to cut through steel and spun as it flew. Their paths were chaotic, flipping, darting and spinning around in a cloud of flying razors.
Even as she launched her attack Vai didn't expect it to be successful, typically such powerful opponents required more trial and error than simple one off assaults. She backed up to stand beside Hal and started running through a series of next steps in her mind while attempting to anticipate what the Red Sentinel might do next.
"Works for me." Vai said with a shrug and followed after him. She landed at the bottom in a neat crouch and stood up. "You know you have to hand it to the Red Sentinels, they're always really obvious about everything. No trying to figure out where they're hiding, just look for the huge spooky red tower of doom. Then once you're inside you just look for the loud angry people covered in red from head to toe acting like you said terrible things about their grandmother."
The ever beautiful Vai was right, they needed to work together to put a quick end to this fight. Hal has no doubt in his mind he and Vai would eventually win. But they needed to face the main villain here and Hal as a feeling in his gut that these two are just pawns in a larger game.
The large Red that came after Vai creates a force field as defense against her machine gun. He laughed, saying nothing and charging in with all of the fury and rage he could muster.
Hal dodges an attack by the woman and it's then that he notices a pattern. The Reds are doing their leveled best to hit them hard, not bothering to see where their attacks hit. Hal smiles, "Follow my lead, Vai! I have a plan! Just do what I do, but watch your six!"
Hal starts flying around like crazy, dodging the many energy blasts that Red woman keeps firing his way. But if Vai is smart, and she most certainly is, she'd see plainly what Hal is trying to do because eventually Hal is now flying directly at Vai. He smiles and winks, then dodges.
Hopefully, Vai dodges as well. More importantly, Hal hopes Vai did what he did. If Vai did so, then whenever she dodges, both Reds would end up firing on the other, screaming in shocking rage and then crashing into each other for a great knockout victory. That is, assuming Vai followed Hal's lead.
Hal grins at Vai, "Good job, Vai."
Vai did indeed improvise in the way he indicated. Her own naturally superior agility made dodging almost easily, her anticipation of their shots allowed her to keep her shield up without being overly stressed in her own defense. Eventually Hal's plan reached its climax and at the last moment Vai dodged out of the way yet again, watching the two Red Sentinels crash into each other with a bemused smirk.
She dusted herself off (not that she actually needed to) and grinned. "All in a days work right? I'm sure there's more to it than this though and we need to figure out the rest. Time to call in our support yet or press on?" Vai asked with a slightly cocked head. She let her ring run a scan of the complex to see if there were other life forms that needed to be worried about or if they were alone.
Hal smiles, just loving the fact he's with someone who loves action just as much as he does. In the back of his mind, he wonders if their relationship will last or will he end up being like Captain Kirk and married to his job while the real relationships fail all around him? Hal just couldn't shake the feeling that one day...he'd die alone.
He shakes the thought away and nods at her, "I'm ready."
"Ready to die?" Asked a female voice. Then a woman with blue skin and wearing black and red appears. A rather large muscled alien, also wearing red and black, appears as well.
The woman is the one who speaks, still smiling, "But why die? Why not give in to rage? Become one of us?"
Hal stares at them both grimly, pointing his ring at them even as it gives off a bright glow. "No thanks."
The woman glares at Hal, "Then you die."
Hal smiles, he was wanting a fight anyway. "I don't think we will because I'm betting on green!" He says as he creates rocket launcher and fires off a blast at them. But the two reds block the blast with a force field.
The woman finally loses her smile, "I'll take the man, you take the girl." She says to her companion.
As the woman engages in battle with Hal, the large muscled bound alien leaps towards Vai, spitting red plasma out of his mouth in an attempt to nail her with it.
Vai cocked her head slightly when she observed the two Red Sentinels and smirked a little at the exchange between them and Hal. The leaping alien very nearly took her by surprise but she responded quickly and brought her arm up just in time for a green shield to form around it and absorb and redirect the red plasma. She pivoted on her foot and spun out of the way of his leap and her shield morphed into a green Thompson sub-machine gun. She pulled the trigger, intending to spray him with hundreds of large green bolts of energy in the shape of bullets.
"Hal, teamwork will get us farther than working alone!." She called out to him. Since the Red Sentinels were fighting apart they could use their close relationship to fight together and hopefully overcome the pair rather than fighting them each individually. They're weakness, other than their blind rage, is that they rarely work together, Red Sentinels are usually less prone to work together and we might just be able to overcome them before they adapt, otherwise this could be a long fight.
Hal and Superion both listened to Vai's plan and then Hal nods in agreement, as does Superion. Hal is the one that ultimately speaks, though,
"Alright, me and Vai will charge in and try and find a weakness to this tower and destroy it. Superion and will hang back and take care of it's defenses we can get inside. And if we need you inside, Superion, we'll call. Sound good?"
Superion nods once more, his blue ring glowing, "That sounds fine."
And then Hal takes off, deploying a force field in front of him even as Superion flies behind. The tower does, indeed, have defenses. And they activate. But Superion becomes a blur of motion as he slams into a few of them and destroys them, using his nigh-invulnerable body to do so. But there was more defenses that needed handling.
Hal smiles, dodging some laser defense fire. He seems to be really enjoying this. He creates some huge green energy tongs and uses them to step into the tower then forcing the tongs apart to make a small opening. He looks over at Vai, "Hurry! Go!"
As soon as Vai goes in, if she does, Hal follows and the tower seemingly heals itself as the opening closes. Inside the tower is huge! And it smells...of blood. And rage...
Hal could feel himself becoming angry all of a sudden. But he resists it, knowing that is must be coming from the tower. Vai might feel the urge to get angry too and it was strong. Could she resist?
Vai swiftly followed after him, destroying defenses of her own with green discs of pure will. She stepped through the opening with him just before it snapped shut again. She looked around quietly and could feel the primal senses of rage that the Red Sentinels tapped into it. It tried to rise within her but Vai's weakness was not rage...her mother's perhaps, but not her own. She tightened one of her hands into a fist until her fingers cut into her skin a little and green blood dripped onto the floor. The pain allowed her to focus her will away from the rage, it served as a place to anchor her emotions.
"Let's get this done." Vai said and stepped up beside Hal with a nod. "Time to show some Red Sentinels what losing feels like...give them a real reason to be angry. Nothing worse than a bunch of people basing their entire lives on nothing more than angst." She channeled energy through her ring and created a long, slender sword. She smirked, swishing the blade through the air a few times to get used to the feel of it, or rather it's lack of weight. "Ready?"
Log in to comment