Intense Struggle! (Round 7 - The Database)

The air crackled with electricity. Aph's skin pulsed with it; she was all but consumed by it. It arced to the nearby machinery, leaving any of the whirling arms that got too close to her nothing but a charred and twisted mess and the huge black cylinders half melted. Aph cackled and slowly glided towards her former lover Xan, leaving the floor behind her blackened by her presence. Effortlessly she raised an arm towards the machine closest to him and electricity shot through the air, consuming it. When it abated a moment later there was nothing left but scrap and melted wax.

"Long time no see Xan." Aph sneered. "As you can see I'm doing quite well for myself, and well I must admit you're not doing too bad considering the last time I saw you you were in pieces. Literally."

Xan said nothing. In fact he had barely reacted to Cerise's backslide into Aph at all. He was not cowering, attempting to back away, looking for a way out or even bracing himself to fight back. He was just watching attentively. Aph didn't seem to notice.

"It's a shame really." Aph mused. "To think of all the time you must have spent putting yourself back together and how far you must have come just to end up once again dead at my feet." She snickered. "I never realized you were such a masochist, Xan."

"Just get on with it." Xanthor said.

"What did you say?!" Aph bellowed as the electricity that had ebbed slightly during her taunting now came back in full force.

"If you were fighting an opponent who really wished you dead and had the capability to make you so, time spent spitting insults would be time for them to regain the initiative, to prepare a particularly devastating attack, to launch an offensive themselves." Xanthor explained. "You could be dead twice over by now. Come on, hit me with your best shot."

"You pitiful creature!" Aph screamed. "How dare you tell me what to do!" Furiously she shot forth a bolt of lightning towards Xan, but before it could strike him he was gone, out of the way faster than any normal human had any business being. Aph stared for a second and then tried to demand a pathetic weak miserable human being like him could possibly have done that but she couldn't quite find the right words and all that came out was a scream of frustration as she launched another burst of electricity. Moving impossibly fast Xan strode out of the way almost effortlessly. Aph didn't waste any more time, she launched attack after attack getting more angry and more powerful with each bolt that failed to make contact.

"You're weak." Xan said, when she seemed to be faltering. "You're defective. A failure."

Aph's skin burst into flame, her entire body consumed in fire and began again with renewed vigour, uselessly shooting bursts of fire. Within minutes the entire assembly hall seemed to be burning. The air was thick with smoke and there was barely a machine or a cylinder that was not unbroken or on fire.

"I believe that is enough." Xan said, as a green light shone from under his hood.

"Silence worm!" Aph shrieked, "I'll say when it is enough and it won't be enough till you are nothing but ash!" but within moments of making that boast she found her powers ebbing away, and felt herself getting weak. Xan was suddenly by her side to catch her when she collapsed. He felt wrong, some errant part of Aph's mind observed. He felt too rigid. "You!" she hissed weakly. "What did you do to me?"

"Rest." Xan instructed. There was a whirring around them as the cylinders still left were lifted from their bases. Xanthor slung Aph uncomfortably over his shoulder and climbed onto the side of the nearest and still mostly in one piece cylinder. Aph thrashed against his grip but eventually she could stay conscious no longer.