Re: The Battle Majestic (Round 1 - Bubble Universe)
02-19-2010, 03:32 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Baphomet.
Vexmagog was almost as grateful for this opportunity to cavort through this alien treescape as he was for something to distract him from the contest he had been entered into. Every preceding moment since he'd arrived had been underscored by the lingering knowledge that the place and the reason for his presence in it were wrong. Now, as he streaked through the branches, he was content to just stop thinking about it for the first time. If anything, the gravity alteration made the experience more fun. He grinned as he latched onto one springy branch, letting it bend with his weight which, upon pushing his legs towards the tree trunk, suddenly changed direction. He performed what could best be described as an artful tumble before catching another, more solid branch, spinning on it, and alighting atop it.
"Hey!...Vex!...Can I...talk to you?..."
Vexmagog's head turned quickly to the unexpected voice behind him. Unexpected, because he knew the voice belonged to Blitz, who he had left behind on the trunk some time ago. Two things shocked him then, the first being the speed with which the human had caught up to him.
The second was the sudden, unexpected loss of the gravity field.
Blitz lost his too, its time limit expired. He, however, was in a much more precarius situation, standing on the trunk above Vexmagog. He immediately fell onto the former deity's shoulders, knocking him off of his position atop the branch.
The two tumbled down the side of the tree. Vexmagog reached out instinctively with his right arm, thought better of it, and grabbed Blitz's shoulder with his left. His left leg, too, grabbed Blitz by the arm, while his right side scrabbled against the tree trunk. Digging into the bark with his Magog arm, he left a long scrape down the side of the trunk. He released and snagged a nearby branch, albeit one off-center from their current trajectory.
The two swung wildly in an arc under the branch, which strained and ultimately failed to hold their combined weight. Hoping for the best, he pulled Blitz closer and pushed away from the main tree trunk and towards the top of a nearby, lesser tree.
Another lighting panel on the artificial sun darkened as some survival instinct on the part of the tree insisted on circling the sphere, seeking out the warmth emanating from the far side. Another, and another. One ring of panels around the pylon remained, and the branches and roots dug in and around the sun to seek it out.
One root, digging further into the globe than the rest, suddenly struck something. Something warm. Something familiar.
Something radioactive.
With a sudden surge of energy, the branches outside thrust themselves into new frontiers, namely the side of the pylon itself. Not quite understanding the situation, much less notions of structural integrity, they began to dig, seeking out new boons like the one it had just found.
News of the newfound energy source reached the Tender, whose beady black eyes narrowed further. His needle-toothed mouth twisted into what would almost approximate a grin, and he leaped at Alex, claws drawn back for the strike.
Alex let loose a burst of flame whose energy even he was not prepared for. The concussive blast scorched the earth, knocked the tender's trajectory off-kilter, and blasted Alex back a few feet. Both recovered before touching the ground, skidding across roots to a halt. Alex felt a pinch on his back. A quick glance told him that failure to recover as quickly as he had would have impaled him on rapidly-growing spines now circling their arena.
A snarling alerted him to the fact that Wolf had easily padded through the dense growth behind him and was charging forward, teeth bared. His hand found the handle of his sword and he rolled to the side as both Wolf and Sen leaped at his current position. They met each other, instead, and the much larger Sen carelessly batted Wolf out of the way. He hissed as he searched for Alex, who had rolled under the cover of some nearby roots.
John groaned as he looked at his ruined legs. Both were broken at the shin. The left was bent to the right and swollen. The right was twisted almost all the way around. He felt a piece of the bone protruding from the skin and felt lightheaded, due to either the shock or the blood loss from the gouge running up his right thigh. His breathing was shallow, but he closed his eyes with an intense look of determination.
He took a deep breath. With a sickening sound, his right leg twisted back into place. He winced, holding back nausea as a wave of pain washed over him. He sat there against the roots of the tree for a moment before likewise telekinetically setting the bone in his left leg. Drawing on the power of his staff, a thick layer of ice covered both legs, the right one covering his cut. They would have to act as a splint for the time being, and the cold would help to reduce the swelling.
There was a metallic groan from above, but John was too busy seeing if his ice-legs were stable enough to walk with to notice.
Steven, kneeling for better balance on his handy flight platforms, hovered over the treetops. His search for a friendly presence had finally borne fruit. He set himself down on the matted root floor as he looked up at the pair dangling from a branch.
Vexmagog's expression was one of concern. During the tumble through the trees, he had been forced to grab for Blitz with his right arm. With his left arm and leg, he was supporting them both on a branch. He pulled the human up and took his hand with his right foot instead, but it was clear from Blitz's expression that some manner of effect had taken place. He quickly rearranged, holding the branch with both arms and Blitz's arms with both legs. The downside to this setup was that Magog was now in full contact with the only thing supporting him in place, and their combined height was still too short to drop Blitz safely.
Vexmagog couldn't see, but Steven watched with interest as Blitz looked conflictingly back and forth between his left hand in contact with Vexmagog's foot and Vexmagog himself. Was that...fear in his eyes? Cowardice? He couldn't tell. Rather than prolong the situation to find out, he elected to step into plain view and clear his throat.
"Need a hand?"
Jacob crouch-ran through the undergrowth. He had been trying to circumnavigate the battle ring to covertly reach the escape pod hatch, but had found the previous direction too overgrown. Rather than waste energy plowing through, he'd elected to circle around the other way. Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. He stopped and ducked behind a knobby root structure to observe, as Blitz, Steven, and Vexmagog were hastily picking their way through in the same direction.
Vexmagog was in front, his long legs taking strides over the tangled growths. Steven walked calmly behind, his two gloves floating ahead of him and pushing the obstructing roots out of his path. They mostly held the openings long enough for Blitz to step through them. Mostly. The cripple looked tired, both physically and mentally. His eyes darted back and forth, and he pawed at his left arm. The darting eyes caught sight of Jacob.
He stepped out from behind the root and waved them down. "Hey," he quickly waved and gestured in the direction they were headed. "Escape pods are this way. The other four are fighting around it."
Vexmagog's brow furrowed. The other four. John, Wolf, Alex, and Sen. John and Alex are not amicable to each other. If Sen is fighting, he must have been involved in it before we arrived, which means he's fighting Alex. And Wolf has already established some form of bond with Sen. "I suspect Alex is fighting the other three. We should try to stop the battle so that he does not die and we are not rem-"
As was quickly becoming a theme, Vexmagog's words were cut short. This time, by a terrible metallic scraping sound from above. The last of the artificial sun's lights were extinguished, as the wrenching sound was accompanied by the snaps and cracks of strained wood.
High above them, the pylon's support beams snapped. The sun began to tip to one side, but conflicting gravitational forces kept it from falling straight "down". The roots completely encompassing the now-dim globe glowed brighter than the others due to the leeching radiation, and the crowd below stopped and looked up in awe as the sphere that had been a constant since they arrived heaved. One panel completely separated and fell down. The trees near Jacob, Blitz, Vexmagog, and Steven bent under the weight as it hit. The gravity itself deactivated for a moment, but some sort of auxiliary power source kicked in and it resumed. The crisscrossing, faintly-glowing globular web began to tilt.
It began, and it accelerated. The massive trunk of the world tree bent as much as it was able, the young wood at first yielding to the now-indomitable gravitational force. But, with an increasing series of eardrum-shattering snaps and cracks, the side of the tree opposite the tilt began to tear. This only hastened the sun's descent. With a crash that reverberated throughout the entire station, it smashed through the barely-illuminated dome atop the town hall. The stone structure and the metal sun proved far less yielding than the wood, and indescribable sounds of immense force washed over them all as both objects shattered. The shockwave of the air trying to get out of the way of the mass expanded in all directions, and the curving surface of the interior of the station caused a compounding effect. When the wave of air hit the crowd, they were all blown off their feet.
The damage did not stop there. Outside the station, a fissure between the exterior plates caused by earlier root growth cracked further. Sudden decompression blew a stream of rubble -- stone, glass, wood, soil, steel -- into space. Inside, the force of the shockwave seemed to rebound back at the eight. Much more softly, but more constant. A soft breeze blew towards the hole as the air started its slow, unavoidable escape from the colony.
The Tender screeched in pain. Not only had it felt the full force of the trunk tearing itself, but it had been blown back into the spines around the arena, tearing a deep cut through its left leg. The wound secreted a clear green ooze and began, steadily, to mend. The tree, meanwhile, was nearly torn in two. What was once the base was only connected to the canopy through a few strained wooden tendons, bent almost to breaking. As if to compensate, the roots near the smashed remains of the former sun were reinvigorated, the breached nuclear power generators throughout the central structure of the sun revealing more and more sources of precious, nourishing radiation. Most trees would be felled by such a wound.
This was not most trees.
Spoiler
"Hey!...Vex!...Can I...talk to you?..."
Vexmagog's head turned quickly to the unexpected voice behind him. Unexpected, because he knew the voice belonged to Blitz, who he had left behind on the trunk some time ago. Two things shocked him then, the first being the speed with which the human had caught up to him.
The second was the sudden, unexpected loss of the gravity field.
Blitz lost his too, its time limit expired. He, however, was in a much more precarius situation, standing on the trunk above Vexmagog. He immediately fell onto the former deity's shoulders, knocking him off of his position atop the branch.
The two tumbled down the side of the tree. Vexmagog reached out instinctively with his right arm, thought better of it, and grabbed Blitz's shoulder with his left. His left leg, too, grabbed Blitz by the arm, while his right side scrabbled against the tree trunk. Digging into the bark with his Magog arm, he left a long scrape down the side of the trunk. He released and snagged a nearby branch, albeit one off-center from their current trajectory.
The two swung wildly in an arc under the branch, which strained and ultimately failed to hold their combined weight. Hoping for the best, he pulled Blitz closer and pushed away from the main tree trunk and towards the top of a nearby, lesser tree.
Another lighting panel on the artificial sun darkened as some survival instinct on the part of the tree insisted on circling the sphere, seeking out the warmth emanating from the far side. Another, and another. One ring of panels around the pylon remained, and the branches and roots dug in and around the sun to seek it out.
One root, digging further into the globe than the rest, suddenly struck something. Something warm. Something familiar.
Something radioactive.
With a sudden surge of energy, the branches outside thrust themselves into new frontiers, namely the side of the pylon itself. Not quite understanding the situation, much less notions of structural integrity, they began to dig, seeking out new boons like the one it had just found.
News of the newfound energy source reached the Tender, whose beady black eyes narrowed further. His needle-toothed mouth twisted into what would almost approximate a grin, and he leaped at Alex, claws drawn back for the strike.
Alex let loose a burst of flame whose energy even he was not prepared for. The concussive blast scorched the earth, knocked the tender's trajectory off-kilter, and blasted Alex back a few feet. Both recovered before touching the ground, skidding across roots to a halt. Alex felt a pinch on his back. A quick glance told him that failure to recover as quickly as he had would have impaled him on rapidly-growing spines now circling their arena.
A snarling alerted him to the fact that Wolf had easily padded through the dense growth behind him and was charging forward, teeth bared. His hand found the handle of his sword and he rolled to the side as both Wolf and Sen leaped at his current position. They met each other, instead, and the much larger Sen carelessly batted Wolf out of the way. He hissed as he searched for Alex, who had rolled under the cover of some nearby roots.
John groaned as he looked at his ruined legs. Both were broken at the shin. The left was bent to the right and swollen. The right was twisted almost all the way around. He felt a piece of the bone protruding from the skin and felt lightheaded, due to either the shock or the blood loss from the gouge running up his right thigh. His breathing was shallow, but he closed his eyes with an intense look of determination.
He took a deep breath. With a sickening sound, his right leg twisted back into place. He winced, holding back nausea as a wave of pain washed over him. He sat there against the roots of the tree for a moment before likewise telekinetically setting the bone in his left leg. Drawing on the power of his staff, a thick layer of ice covered both legs, the right one covering his cut. They would have to act as a splint for the time being, and the cold would help to reduce the swelling.
There was a metallic groan from above, but John was too busy seeing if his ice-legs were stable enough to walk with to notice.
Steven, kneeling for better balance on his handy flight platforms, hovered over the treetops. His search for a friendly presence had finally borne fruit. He set himself down on the matted root floor as he looked up at the pair dangling from a branch.
Vexmagog's expression was one of concern. During the tumble through the trees, he had been forced to grab for Blitz with his right arm. With his left arm and leg, he was supporting them both on a branch. He pulled the human up and took his hand with his right foot instead, but it was clear from Blitz's expression that some manner of effect had taken place. He quickly rearranged, holding the branch with both arms and Blitz's arms with both legs. The downside to this setup was that Magog was now in full contact with the only thing supporting him in place, and their combined height was still too short to drop Blitz safely.
Vexmagog couldn't see, but Steven watched with interest as Blitz looked conflictingly back and forth between his left hand in contact with Vexmagog's foot and Vexmagog himself. Was that...fear in his eyes? Cowardice? He couldn't tell. Rather than prolong the situation to find out, he elected to step into plain view and clear his throat.
"Need a hand?"
Jacob crouch-ran through the undergrowth. He had been trying to circumnavigate the battle ring to covertly reach the escape pod hatch, but had found the previous direction too overgrown. Rather than waste energy plowing through, he'd elected to circle around the other way. Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. He stopped and ducked behind a knobby root structure to observe, as Blitz, Steven, and Vexmagog were hastily picking their way through in the same direction.
Vexmagog was in front, his long legs taking strides over the tangled growths. Steven walked calmly behind, his two gloves floating ahead of him and pushing the obstructing roots out of his path. They mostly held the openings long enough for Blitz to step through them. Mostly. The cripple looked tired, both physically and mentally. His eyes darted back and forth, and he pawed at his left arm. The darting eyes caught sight of Jacob.
He stepped out from behind the root and waved them down. "Hey," he quickly waved and gestured in the direction they were headed. "Escape pods are this way. The other four are fighting around it."
Vexmagog's brow furrowed. The other four. John, Wolf, Alex, and Sen. John and Alex are not amicable to each other. If Sen is fighting, he must have been involved in it before we arrived, which means he's fighting Alex. And Wolf has already established some form of bond with Sen. "I suspect Alex is fighting the other three. We should try to stop the battle so that he does not die and we are not rem-"
As was quickly becoming a theme, Vexmagog's words were cut short. This time, by a terrible metallic scraping sound from above. The last of the artificial sun's lights were extinguished, as the wrenching sound was accompanied by the snaps and cracks of strained wood.
High above them, the pylon's support beams snapped. The sun began to tip to one side, but conflicting gravitational forces kept it from falling straight "down". The roots completely encompassing the now-dim globe glowed brighter than the others due to the leeching radiation, and the crowd below stopped and looked up in awe as the sphere that had been a constant since they arrived heaved. One panel completely separated and fell down. The trees near Jacob, Blitz, Vexmagog, and Steven bent under the weight as it hit. The gravity itself deactivated for a moment, but some sort of auxiliary power source kicked in and it resumed. The crisscrossing, faintly-glowing globular web began to tilt.
It began, and it accelerated. The massive trunk of the world tree bent as much as it was able, the young wood at first yielding to the now-indomitable gravitational force. But, with an increasing series of eardrum-shattering snaps and cracks, the side of the tree opposite the tilt began to tear. This only hastened the sun's descent. With a crash that reverberated throughout the entire station, it smashed through the barely-illuminated dome atop the town hall. The stone structure and the metal sun proved far less yielding than the wood, and indescribable sounds of immense force washed over them all as both objects shattered. The shockwave of the air trying to get out of the way of the mass expanded in all directions, and the curving surface of the interior of the station caused a compounding effect. When the wave of air hit the crowd, they were all blown off their feet.
The damage did not stop there. Outside the station, a fissure between the exterior plates caused by earlier root growth cracked further. Sudden decompression blew a stream of rubble -- stone, glass, wood, soil, steel -- into space. Inside, the force of the shockwave seemed to rebound back at the eight. Much more softly, but more constant. A soft breeze blew towards the hole as the air started its slow, unavoidable escape from the colony.
The Tender screeched in pain. Not only had it felt the full force of the trunk tearing itself, but it had been blown back into the spines around the arena, tearing a deep cut through its left leg. The wound secreted a clear green ooze and began, steadily, to mend. The tree, meanwhile, was nearly torn in two. What was once the base was only connected to the canopy through a few strained wooden tendons, bent almost to breaking. As if to compensate, the roots near the smashed remains of the former sun were reinvigorated, the breached nuclear power generators throughout the central structure of the sun revealing more and more sources of precious, nourishing radiation. Most trees would be felled by such a wound.
This was not most trees.
Spoiler