The Savage Brawl [Round 5: Battletopia]

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

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Konka Rar made his way through the ventilation ducts with surprisingly little trouble; he'd expected the mothership to take more strikes from Gormand's armada in the meantime. It was almost disconcerting; was the meatball leaving the mothership alone, or was he losing? Granted, given Gormand's development this round, it would eliminate a risk were he to die; but the ship's power core held such promise to Rar that it would be a grave disappointment if he were pulled away before acquiring it.

About halfway through, he discovered that the path he had selected, which was the shortest, actually involved going through an engine. An active engine. At least, that was his best guess judging by the massive flame filling the tunnel ahead of him.

At first, he cursed his luck. But then he thought for a moment and realized that this presented an excellent opportunity for a distraction. An imminent engine failure would draw quite a bit of attention, after all. Perhaps it would not directly draw guards away from the power core, but it would likely slow down any reinforcements.

Through his synthetic eye, the lich carefully scanned through the flames, trying to find the source. He found it, and aimed his cybernetic arm towards the machine he expected to find at the other end.

One laser blast later, the flames slowly died down. Rar hovered through the tunnel, then stopped. He would not be able to maintain his levitation spell while performing this next incantation; he needed too much concentration.

***

The sudden engine failure caused a high-priority alert; still, as there were three engines, it was hardly critical. Commander Las'healt was on edge, however, as the ship - in fact, the fleet - was now under his command with the High Admiral's death and the inability to receive orders from High Commands.

The fact that they'd had an alarm in the High Admiral's office and security had found only a raging fire when they finally made it inside did not help his mood.

"I think this is the work of the saboteur," the Commander muttered, mostly to himself. Then he sent a message to the security chief. "Send a security team - no, three security teams - to inspect the area. I want that saboteur captured before he does any more damage. Or killed if capture proves infeasible."

The order was transmitted. Teams Alpha, Delta, and Upsilon were dispatched towards the engine room.

***

It was a member of Team Upsilon who found the saboteur, just standing there in the middle of the exhaust tunnel. The guard pressed a button on his wristband in case he needed backup, then prepared to tackle the lich from behind.

When he was about five feet away, two things happened. First, the rest of Team Upsilon arrived, along with about half of Teams Alpha and Delta, and the guards began swarming the tunnel.

Unfortunately for them, the second thing that happened was Konka Rar completing his spell.

"COCYTUS!"

A massive icestorm filled the tunnel, passing all the way to the engine and encasing everything, save Rar himself, in a layer of thick ice. The security guards were frozen, as was the engine itself, and the six technicians working on it.

Konka Rar's skeletal grin seemed to widen as he recast his levitation spell. This had helped him even more than he had expected. The one downside was that he would have to take a less direct route to the power core, as there were likely other security forces looking for him by now; he floated down a side path back into the ventilation ducts and continued on his way.

A few minutes later, Team Alpha's captain tried to contact one of his men for the status on the saboteur. He received no response. He then failed to contact five other members who had responded to the call for backup, prompting him to suspect that something had gone wrong. He sent a scout to investigate and report back immediately, with orders not to engage the saboteur directly.

Thirty seconds after receiving the scout's report, eight additional security teams were dispatched to the engine area.

By the time the order was transmitted, however, Konka Rar had already left, and was taking a detour towards the security room. He'd noticed a few troops heading towards it, and reasoned that it might benefit him to acquire some new minions.