Epic Clash - COMPLETE!

Originally posted on MSPA by Wojjan.

---

It was clear that there was some devastating power at work. The rumbling towers, collapsing walls, this wasn't part of the stage. For yet another time, everything she knew, everything that was alive, she herself, this wonderful city, it all had to result in death.
Asteira was sick of that.

She knew she could save it. This ascended city, as the storyteller drones repeated incessantly, has a power source. As long as it was safe, the city would remain in the sky. But she didn't care the least for that source. She needed the warriors assigned to protect it. She needed to save everything.

“Well, they sure look strong.” Lasers raced around, ricocheting on the polished, smoothened copper, filled the previously black room – so dim and dark she wouldn't know if she passed through a wall – with an intense light and heat, one she thought not even Spencer could match.

This is what she needed. She took quick actions, floating past all beams, trying to get to the core of the robot. She entered, and found herself in the blandest mind imaginable. Of course it was, a robot owned it. There wasn't even a struggle for power, not a will trying to repel her. She got in soon enough, and tore the place apart with her controlling grasp. The robot, while internally destroyed was fully operational and was subjected to Asteira's will, and she was frantically intent to save whatever was left of this world. Towers and roads crumling, she sped through the devastated scenery.

It sounded something like this.

Pacing through the endless corridors and passageways, nearing the source of the destruction every rhythmic step, as she finally appeared before Spencer, entirely ready for battle. The invisible choir sang.

“Hey Spender, one more tower down and you'll go with it! I've got control over the entire grid in one swift movement, and I can make this world fall to its doom any second! I'm not letting you rampage any longer!”

Originally posted on MSPA by suomynonAyletamitlU.

---

SpoilerShow

Lyrics warning. Maybe. Sorta. It's hard to know what they're saying.

"You don't say..."

Spender's smile was wide. He felt like crying, somewhere inside, but he caught his facial expression before it reflected that, and simply let the smile stay. All for the show, my friends, whether you consent or not.

He switched beats, lifted off the platform, hovered menacingly, then flew backwards, ducking down behind the platform on the other side and charging straight for the ground.

Behind him, dozens of coins spilled into the air, their activations keeping time to the wicked metal beat, their explosive payloads impacting the bottom of the floating platform, blasting holes in it until something inside broke, and it started to slide off sideways, then plummet.

He impacted the top of a waterfall, causing a large geyser of water to shoot up. While he was shielded by it, he grabbed the water around him, opening up another pocket dimension, and stuffed hundreds of gallons into it, then sealed it off temporarily. He also threw more of the watery fuel down into his reactor plant, just for good measure, even as the earth around him crumbled slightly from the ongoing disintegration.

Thomas was coming, but Spender didn't stay in one place. He rocketed off, instead; behind him, with the force of the launch and weakened by the impact and the spellwork, the waterfall collapsed slightly, causing a load of rock and muddy soil to slide off the edge and into the pool below. Spender didn't notice; he aimed himself at the underside of a particularly large island, making sure to just miss impacting it at the last second, then flew tantalizingly close to his new metal ceiling.

Around him, again, bronze crumbled into dust and swirled in his wake, most of it catching up to him, some of it drifting away on the wind. Idly, a part of him thought that it would sting quite a bit to fly through, but he didn't pursue the thought.

As soon as he got out from under the platform and into open air, Asteira's mesmerized robot opened fire, and only a delicate evasion pattern let him evade while making forward progress. Halfway frustrated, he ducked down onto the deck of the large platform, and rammed his way through a doorway and into a long metal corridor, one that stretched the length of the island. On his left, a metal bulkhead stretched onwards, occasionally broken by doorways; on the right, huge windows looked out over a large marching ground, and then into open air.

Spender slowed, and suspended his disintegration spell momentarily, trying to puzzle out the complex to find the engine for this particular island.

SpoilerShow

Wojjan - Are you in control of several robots or just one? Asteira sounded like she had more than one, but your description makes it sound like she's just controlling one of them.

Also - that disintegration spell only affects inanimate matter. It can be resisted by anyone, and when resisted, it won't affect an area around them, not just them.

Originally posted on MSPA by Wojjan.

---

SpoilerShow

Much like a police brigade, these robots have a distress beacon to send in reinforcements, which are just as easily possessible, or issue commands to others.
The core thing was total bluff though.

SpoilerShow

Edit: didn't get my post done in the reserve time.

Originally posted on MSPA by McBatman.

---

"You always have to be so noisy, don't you Spender?" Glere chuckled, staring at the focus of his increasingly complex plot. However, nothing could account for him seemingly destroying the very ground they were supposed to be standing on. It looked like this one had his own fair amount of madness. Somehow, it wasn't as comforting as he had hoped. He faced a few problems, one being the rapidly disintegrating platform he had been walking down, second was that ghoul had gained control of one of the robots.

He ran down the walkway, quickly jumping to an adjacent one as explosions rocked the engine as several key systems began to fail. He continued his mad dash until reaching a platform well beyond Spender's range, and even then, that could change at a moment's notice. He scurried on top of another bronze dome, finally getting a good look at the chaos. The explosions were occurring quickly, and...

Glere tilted his head, raising a brow. Then he tilted it the other way, then he spun around and looked bent over, looking between his legs at the scene, then standing on his head. Thomas had intercepted at that point, charging at Spender, and Asteira's droid had opened fire as well, temporarily suspending the destruction as Spender ducked into one of the structures. He wasn't even a blip on the radar of those two at this point. He still puzzled at what to do about the undead one... still, if he could pull it off. He snapped his cape off again, shaking it repeatedly as several items fell out. A large rubber band, two metal polls, and a large mallet. With several hard clangs, he drove the polls into the bronze roof, and slung two ends of the rubber band onto the posts, and started walking backwards, holding a thumb up and sticking his tongue out while squinting with one eye.

"That... should... close... okay!" he lifted up his legs and shouted in a mixture of amusement and terror as he catapulted through the air, sailing in an arch past Asteira's droid.

The robot Asteira had seized control of looked up emotionlessly as a strange object screaming "WEEEE" sailed by overhead, crashing through the same doorway Spender had taken. Asteira blinked inside the machine.
"...Glere???"

Spender's search was temporarily suspended by a loud crash and several thuds, as a familiar figure tumbled in next to him. He almost lost his interest in the music he was listening to as the person stood up, dusting himself off.

Glere adjusted his sleeves and dusted himself off, scratching at a crack in his fishbowl. He coughed as he dusted himself off, having sailed through a large cloud of bronze dust and who knows what else. His annoyance at the crack vanished as he started laughing.

"And people call ME crazy, Spender! Hardly here 10 minutes and you've gone and destroyed half the place already, and without me even!" he said, searching for another fishbowl inside his cloak. He wrapped his head in his cape, and unwound it, swapping out the fishbowls without the familiar motions from before.

"And as I've said before, the offer from before still stands."

Originally posted on MSPA by suomynonAyletamitlU.

---

"It's all an illusion, Glere."

Glere tipped his head quizzically and didn't respond for a moment.

"This world, I mean. It's manufactured. It has a physicality to it, but it's a Nightmare's territory; I can practically taste it. I am a nightmare hunter. This is what I do."

"I don't care about the contest. Asteira is a nothing--a Minus, I think, somewhere between B-rank and a low S." He didn't bother to explain the categorization or ranking.

"I want to see the guts of this world. I want to tear apart the real and see the falsehood that lies underneath--and I do mean that literally. But first I need to tear the layer we see to pieces, to get just enough energy to move deeper."

Spender finally nodded to himself and blasted open a nearby doorway. "If you want to be helpful, see if you can find a way to ram a bunch of these platforms together. If I can get enough of the power cores together, I might be able to start a tear."

He paused, then turned and flipped Glere a coin. "You recall the Superbowl Special. This is the normal version of that spell. No matter what you imagine--a fantasy creature, a mecha, whatever--you'll become it, and your real body will be hidden for the duration. Just don't get defeated."

SpoilerShow

Note that it has to be somewhere in the order of human sized--no building-sized monstrosities or anything. It doesn't pack a power plant capable of powering something that large.

Originally posted on MSPA by Wojjan.

---

“Think about it!” Reiterating Glere's final words in the colloseum, Spender headed off to search for the engines, hoping to crash this entire complex into the ground.
He had to push up the tempo.
Asteira quickly had her puppet sound the alarm, the cue for many robots of the kind to join in, each speeding from a different angle, before she reemerged from her metal shell, ready to speed past Spender, into a new hull that already awaited her at the end of the endless corridor. Lateral missiles blazing, she took a little time to converse. “There's no way you will win, Spender. At this moment, with me in the network, I am the island!”
Spender heeded these empty threats no mind, running around in the dazzling towers, looking for the engines and with a soldier's notice searching for that core she spoke of. As a turret screeched with open fire and missiles sped by, he hit a dead end. A myriad of robots, C at best, blocked off the final stretch to what he was sure must have been the engine. Spender quickly jammed a coin in his device, slicing the corridor in twain, disjointing it from the towering behemoth it was a part of, then opening up a small part of his pocket dimension, having the robots short-circuit on their way down the endless plummet. The chasm it left behind was easily crossed with a flight coin, and he soon arrived at his destination. Just that little bit more…
Asteira reared up with a leaping jump, past the pit Spender created for her. He was getting to close. It mustn't happen, but it did. With a single lethal blow, Spender shut down the engine entirely, causing the tower to again submit to gravity, leaning all connecting towers to the right. The engines, now diagonally on the zenith, started to propel the floating towers to the right. Even the largest of robots started to lose balance, and finally tipped over just as well. The world was toppling over, and it mustn't happen. Asteira was enraged.
“Well, Spender. You are planning to destroy this world? You think you can face everything in it, and make it crumble by your hand? No, that would be a horrible deed. This is a thing of beauty. Life was a thing of beauty, and I'm not letting you take this from me again!”
Frustrated beyond belief, and confused as of where that ‘again' came from, she mindlessly started firing all around, hoping to hit him, just once. “It won't happen! I won't allow it!! You are dying, and I will make sure of that! Do you hear me, Spender? You are going to be killed!” She lost control. The robot sprang up, wide awake, to see a strange black-coated individual having recently mauled the engines of tower 4B-Demeter. It regained consciousness and, although maybe more refined, the pattern it followed didn't differ much from Asteira's commands.

Originally posted on MSPA by McBatman.

---

Glere caught the coin, staring at it, then pocketing it for later use. He watched as Spender hopped off, pursued by Asteira again. He narrowed his eyes at the ghoul again.

"She might be a low class threat or whatever you call it, but she wasn't clawing around inside your head..." he grit his teeth, but then smiled wryly.

"Though, if she ever tries that again... she might find herself in more trouble than she would think." He then hopped off the platform to one below as it started to shake apart as Spender went back to his rampage. Glere looked at several nearby platforms, scratching his chin.

"Alright, several brought together huh?..." he slung his cape over him again, with more loud crashing. Several more odd items went sailing out, a barrel of smoked ham, several more grandfather clocks, a foam rubber finger, several old issues of Time Magazine, and a 1/32 scale of the Large Hadron Collider made entirely out of balsa wood. He climbed back out the cape with several grappling hooks, bundles of C4, and his usual suit replaced with what appeared to be a jumpsuit with several kevlar patches. He stuffed various items into a satchel at his waist, before putting on a pair of goggles and rappeling down one of the platforms to a larger one below.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.

---

SpoilerShow

I probably shouldn't write posts when I have a headache and need to sleep, but whatever. I might come back and fix this up later.

Spender had shaken him off for the moment, but Thomas wasn't giving up that easily. He sped around the city, eyes flicking around, searching for any sign of the other combatants.

A burst of weapons-fire and half-mad screams caught his attention. Asteira. There was no debate in his mind- simply the proposal of an idea and the instant acceptance. He turned and flew toward the spirit, eyes opened wide.


Despite being ejected from her robotic housing, Asteira was still shouting threats at Spender as much as she could. She hadn't quite realized the change of body yet, but when Thomas flew at her, though her, she noticed. He had aimed precisely, and her eyes directly intersected his, occupying the same space at the same time.

In that brief instant, their minds connected, and she found herself within him once more.


They had redecorated. What had before been a homey apartment now resembled the bridge of the Enterprise more than anything else. Gone were the worn carpets, replaced by crisp, cool linoleum. The couch too was gone, a very Trek-esque captain's chair in its place. The four iconic areas had changed- they still reflected the four individuals, but they were all now simply different stations on the bridge. Clockwise from the north, they were the Engineering, Weapons, Intel, and Communications posts, each subtly decorated with the appropriate element and colour. The window had been squished and widened, now styled as a viewscreen.

The room had also taken on aspects of the city around them- the steampunk influences could be seen in the brass dials and controls, the tangle of pipes covering the ceiling, and the old tube-style monitors.

The most notable difference, though, was the occupants themselves. Bern had abandoned his previous basketball uniform for a full-on medieval knight's outfit, complete with plate mail and plumed helm. Walt's casualwear had been replaced by a simple brown robe, reminiscent of those worn by reclusive monks. Eric, knowing the power of symbolism, had followed the environment and sported a faithful TNG uniform adorned with a clockwork communicator badge. Greg, unsurprisingly, was still in his tweed. He'd added a deerstalker, though, moving him away from "dusty academic" and closer to "resourceful investigator."

At the moment, Bern sat in the captain's chair, and Walt, Eric, and Greg were at their stations. When Asteira found herself tumbling through the viewscreen, only Eric turned to face her.

"Let's make this quick. You want to stop Spender. We want to stop Spender. We could do this more effectively if we worked together. Correct?"

Asteira nodded.

"Excellent. Now, we've come up with a plan, but we need your help..." They spent the next several minutes going over it, discussing it, and improving it.


An instant after the contact had begun, it was over, and Thomas flew on through.

Asteira reentered the robot she had just been ejected from. The core ruse may have been a distraction, but she had the droid. The droid that was, like all others, connected to a network. It wasn't hard for her to send out a general query, and the response was swift. Once she pinpointed the correct building, she let off a single shot, which splashed harmlessly against the side.

The building in question was beginning its descent already. It was a smallish, three-story building, square and solid-looking. It had none of the elegance of most of the other structures. It was simply a brick, suspended in midair by a quartet of failing rotors.

Thomas, seeing the signal shot, dove towards the building. There were lives at stake.


Spender had returned to his destruction, knocking buildings together and sending them spinning to the ground. He didn't look back when Thomas called his name from behind him. He'd decided to just bite the bullet and erect a bent-space field around himself, which would simply turn aside anything coming at him. It took extra focus, but it meant he didn't have to worry about any new threats for the next little while.

"We've been thinking about what you said," Thomas said, "about nightmares. It raised a question, and it's been bugging us: have you been checking the buildings?"

Spender paused, the rhythmic downpour of destruction faltering for a brief moment.

"Because we thought back to what the Overseer told us when we got here. He said there might be some stragglers still around, but he hadn't checked."

The hammering faltered again.

"Of course, if there's one thing we know about you, it's that you wouldn't just condemn an innocent person to their death. So obviously, you must have been checking the buildings for occupants before you destroyed them."

The stream of destructive spells slowed, trickling down to a gradual stop.

"We thought we'd take a look for ourselves, and honestly, we were surprised. And you know what?"

Slowly, Spender turned his head.

Thomas hung in the air behind him, carrying a small child in each arm, each slumped, unconscious.

"So were they."

Originally posted on MSPA by suomynonAyletamitlU.

---

Spender hung in midair.

His head hung, too. It wasn't guilt, though. It wasn't agony, not quite. It was more along the lines of rage... no, fury.

He spent a modified Analysis coin just to check. He, and Thomas, and the babes, had they been conscious, they all received the same knowledge about the people sitting there. Of the four--well, seven--of them, only Spender knew the reasons behind the data.

"Greg," said Spender suddenly, not caring which persona was in charge. "You're an educated man. I'm sure you're familiar with the philosophies of early humanity, the ones questioning why an omnipotent ruler would create an imperfect world."

"He is," relayed Bern, compelled by his anger to stay in charge.

"In the EDF we have come into contact, from time to time, with entities of godly power--which we rate as X-rank threats. Many of these entities create their own universes within their 'domain'--sometimes large, sometimes small. However, they are all 'planned' universes--nothing exists except that which was created. Everything, the smallest detail, was created on purpose, even if what it becomes, through the process of time, and life, is not what was intended.

"These are, of course, very small things, in the grand scheme of things. Generally, not even a full planet, as they don't know or care about the details of the inner workings of a world. Sometimes, these worlds are copied directly from something which exists, but even then, their contents are vetted."

"However, we have come across living organisms in those worlds, which require those worlds to continue to exist. If we are forced to destroy the X-rank being in charge of those worlds--if it becomes a nightmare--we may be forced to kill innocents on a scale you cannot conceive of."

Bern tensed. Only his own hostages stopped him from striking Spender at that moment. He was inwardly deciding where to drop them off before Spender began again.

"Obviously this presents a problem of official policy. We cannot, as a matter of policy, be cruel. Therefore we learn, evaluate, and try to determine what value those people have--to each other, to the greater universe, to themselves--before we determine what to do."

"The data in front of you. You do not know what it means." Spender put his hands in his pockets and turned full on to face Thomas, but his eyes were closed, and tightly, and his head was bowed. "It means that this world is an imitation--that it is created, rather than that we were brought to a place that had existed before the Overseer arrived. And it shows that those babes in your arms are 100% human... facsimiles."

"Genetically, memetically, you might even argue spiritually, they are human. However, they are mere copies of something that existed elsewhere. The people in your hands exist somewhere out in the multiverse, and those," his eyes opened, and a fury poured out of them that Bern could not believe, and he could barely stand to make eye contact. "Those are bait."

In instants, Berns face went through confusion, anger, and several other emotions. After a moment, Greg's eyes replaced his. "So what you're trying to say is that they were put here merely so that we would feel reticent to kill them. However, what you're advocating is still the murder of innocents. Even if I were to accept the theory that they are fake--"

"No, they are not fake. They are actual, living beings." Spender turned away. "So were those twisted wax visages in the arena--and so were the rock creatures in the bent world. Just like the wind on your face is real, those humans are real."

Spender's voice was hard enough that Greg very nearly backed away, but he knew he could not afford to. "Is that your opinion as a soldier?"

Spender reached up to his collar and dislodged a coin from it. Wordlessly, he took the coin, and pressed it into Thomas' hand, without forcing him to drop his cargo; when Greg shifted his burden, he found that on its face was a golden gravestone with silver filigrees. He also found that Spender had disappeared.

He hesitated, then found a safe place to put down the unconscious children, before activating it.

The four of them all felt it--it seemed like they were frozen in time, but they found their minds in a graveyard, one which the spell implicitly informed them was millions--no, billions of gravestones large. Upon entering, each of the four of them was given exactly one flower, each a different color, one that soothed their own hearts; the spell informed them they would have to come back to gain another. Each had names and faces, and signs to indicate the circumstances of the death.

For all that, as the four looked around them, but they could not see a single grave, save only the half dozen or so fresh graves before them, which did not have at least two flowers on it, and many had many more. All of them were the same silvered golden blooms.

They looked at each other, but could not find words. After a few moments, they each placed a flower, and as they did, they were each sent back to their own collective mind.

Greg regained the captains chair just in time to hear Spender's percussive barrage start again, somewhat more distantly.

It had no music to it at all.

Originally posted on MSPA by McBatman.

---

Greg's focus was once again shifted as a surprisingly louder, and much closer, explosion rocked through the area. He looked to his right as a large platform had suddenly shifted course, and was now flying headlong into a smaller one directly below theirs. Several of the rotors underneath had been destroyed, leaving it propelled at a strange angle. Dozens of wires and hooks had been fastened to several platforms around it, suddenly causing a delayed tug of war between their control systems and the sliding platform.

"What the hell...?"

Glere laughed as he rappelled down the side of the colliding platforms, landing on another walkway beneath them. More explosions shook the tethered mass of buildings as more fell to uneven tilts, their weight pulling on more platforms. Several wires began to snap from excess weight, but many more had become lodged together in unstable orbits above the ground, the remaining engines nearly smoking from trying to compensate.

"Not sure what that guy's trying to do, but oh so much fun!" Glere shouted, as several sticks of dynamite went sailing through the air, flying into dozens of small windows beneath the walkway. He jumped off to another, catching a handrail as the pathway exploded into a cloud of debris and shrapnel, sailing through the air into several other stations. The explosions had begun to speak to him in such a way he hadn't heard in quite some time, not in this particular engagement at least... it was almost a bit... maddening.

He pulled out a rivet gun from his cape, and started to anchor down several more wire ties, sliding steel chords through the holes, before pulling out something that looked like a high-tech harpoon gun. He fired several as they jammed into adjacent structure, he then quickly climbed onto one of the ropes and scurried across. He secured the ends of more wires, riveting them to the structure as well. He slid into an open window, making his way to a nearby engine room. He placed several more batches of plastic explosives, adjusting small timers on each, before almost dancing out of the door and leaping back onto the roof as another explosion rocked the structure. He pulled out his cape, making a makeshift parachute, as the shockwave from the blast carried him higher up onto another pathway. He looked at his handiwork as several structures had started to careen into one another, pulling on several next to them, while crashing through those next to it.

"Not as fancy as Spender's but it works!" Glere shouted, pulling another harpoon for his strange gun. He attached a batch of explosives to the tip and aimed at another small building, firing at another propeller. Another explosion rocked the area, as more debris and smoke filled the air.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!" Glere cackled again, similar to the first time in the cavern with the rock genies. Only his maddening laughter was overshadowed by the percussive explosions of several more rounds of explosives detonating, this time bringing many more buildings crashing to the ground. Whatever crazy switch Spender helped to convince Glere to throw, it seemed unlikely he was going to turn it off anytime soon.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.

---

There was an organizational structure between Thomas' four personalities. It wasn't really a chain of command- one of them did not give out orders, and no one personality had the final say in every decision. It was more fluid than that, more practical. They had lived with each other since the day they were born, and they knew that they each had their own strengths and weaknesses. They knew full well they would disagree in some situations, that much was obvious, but they recognized the fact that, just as they had their own areas of competence, so did the others. When the time came to balance a budget, there was no question about who would take charge. When they were going into a job interview, the choice was obvious. If someone had an idea that was squarely under their domain, the others would listen, even if it didn't make complete sense to them at the time.

So when Walt, looking distant, put his hand on Greg's shoulder, it was a relief. This was partially due to the confusion the others felt- Greg, like Eric and Bern, hadn't understood the significance of the graveyard. Yes, they realized what it held, but they didn't see how it affected this city. It was, while touching and sad, rather non-sequitous.

The thought that Walt knew what was going on was comforting, in a way. Walt didn't really do much on his own. The vast majority of the things he did, he did at the behest of others. He was patient and dexterous, so he could pick locks and do delicate work like that, but he never really chose those actions. He did those things because someone asked him to, not because he had decided it was the best thing for the situation. He didn't really volunteer ideas to get them out of this or that temporary predicament or come up with a devious plan to outwit the villain of the week. He wasn't going to argue something to obtain a particular goal or form an alliance; he was going to talk to someone to help them work through a personal issue or overcome a self-imposed barrier.

Eric knew the people, but Walt knew their spirits.

So when Walt stepped up to take charge, it was a relief. Greg vacated the seat, and Walt sat down, not saying a word, just staring off into the distance.

Once more, Spender was at work, raining destruction down on the city. It was different, though- the rhythm that once pervaded his effort was gone. It was just a series of blows, no longer united in a magnificent, raging symphony of chaos. He just hung there, suspended by his flight spell in midair, sending one blow down after another.

Clouds began to form beneath his feet. The coming storm was still a ways off- these were just clouds of ambient moisture, drawn artificially together to form a mostly-flat plane.

Walt walked up behind him. He wasn't really walking, of course- it was still the flight spell. Flying just isn't a natural state for humans, and every small step towards the rational norm was helpful.

He stood in silence for a minute.

Silence can actually be a very expressive thing. There are tense silences, awkward silences, silences that kids shouldn't be exposed to until they're older, all kinds of silences. The differences are incredibly subtle, influenced by posture, tiny movements, breathing speed, and any number of other factors, and contrary to popular belief, they are anything but silent.

Walt was good at silence.

He just stood behind and slightly to the left of Spender. It was a respectful silence, the kind where one person is letting another finish something important before interrupting. No subtle movements to indicate impatience, no tiny coughs to draw attention. He did not waver in place as though uncertain of how to proceed or roll his head as though bored. He stood just in view, enough to be seen but not enough to distract. He stood with his hands in his pockets, making it clear his intentions weren't violent.

He stood in respectful silence and waited.

The building Spender was working on finally collapsed in on itself, and he turned around. For a moment, the two simply regarded each other in silence. It was a calm silence, but not at all devoid of communication.

This place was doomed. The buildings, the people, the planet below, all were going to be returned to the void from whence they came when the surviving competitors moved on. There was no way to avoid it- even if a peace was reached between the remaining five, one of them would die of old age, and this place would be lost. There was nothing anyone could do- every life, every soul here would simply be unmade when the Overseer's playthings were shuffled along to the next place.

And there was nothing Spender could do to stop it. There was no monster to slay, no nightmare to overcome. There were dozens, maybe hundreds of lives here, and there was nothing Spender could do to save them.

The silence lasted for several seconds, broken eventually by Thomas.

"We're sorry."

He said it not as an apology, but as a consolation, as one who knows another has been dealt a great blow and understands how they feel. Indeed, he now understood how Spender felt- he was a soldier. His whole life revolved around protecting the innocent, and now he found himself unable to make the slightest difference. There was quite simply nothing he could do.

He was pissed, and rightfully so.

Thomas' gaze hardened, transitioning from remorse to determination. Spender was going to do everything he could to take the Overseer down, and Thomas was right there with him. There were only two outcomes: either the Overseer went down or they did, and until one of those happened, there would be no resting, no breaks, no peace or calm.

Just fury.

The two nodded to each other, and Spender returned to his work, a renewed fire flowing through him. Walt simply turned and raised a hand, beckoning towards the dark clouds.

The storm surged forward, the moisture in the clouds drawn towards the city, particles rubbing together, charging the roiling mass, lightning flashing inside. The tempest bore down on the city, and the winds began to whip around them. The floor of clouds vanished, and the two were left hanging in midair before the oncoming storm.

Soon, sooner that should be possible, it was upon them, rain pouring down in sheets. Lightning flashed out at random intervals, striking the tips of towers and being channelled down lightning rods and disposed of safely.

Walt, his part done, handed control back over to Bern. He kept his hand raised, and the storm changed, shifting. He reached inside it, found the fires within, took hold, and brought them lashing down.

A sustained blast of lightning tore straight through a building, cutting it neatly in two and sending both sides swinging down and away. A few seconds later, another blast, and another building was destroyed. And another. And another.

The two fell into a rhythm. Spender's song had returned, and it was louder, stronger, underlined by the deep bass rumblings of the storm and punctuated by the repeated roar of lightning.

Fury rained down upon the Ascended City.

Originally posted on MSPA by Wojjan.

---

"Stop it." Within the confusion of the noise - it went long since past the point one could still call it music - Asteira was back inside Thomas, barging in on the other four. "You are destroying this world! This is a real world, just like Spender says! Preserve it." She proposed an offer. "I want to practice on you. If I can try here to take over Thomas, against the four of you, I might stand a chance against Spender. He has the coins to undo this all, to make right what we all made wrong." She stepped forward, and rammed an enthralled Bern out of the captain's seat, seating herself in control.
Thomas' eyes no longer portrayed colour, but a bleak grey hue, devoid of anything joyful. A sorrowful look too infested itself upon his face. He ran away from the fight and the storm, and that incessant booming of devastation. "What are you doing?" "This is not the deal!" "I make a new deal! I'm not giving up control until you make me. Make me!"
The internal conflict was intense, and Thomas remained at a standstill, by Eric's command. It was far too dangerous to be flying around giant towers with the control over his body being handed over and over to the others again; it was a confusing sight. The battle inside wasn't at all physical, much to Bern's disapproval. No, this was a mental battle, an epic clash of words.
"What are you doing?! I thought for a moment we had the same goals, but you just remain the lying wench you are! You were better off dead!"
"Me? You just now went and aided Spender! You gave him the exact means he needs to further demolish that beautiful view! And you've seen it too, it was such a beautiful view!"
"We... We are just!" Greg started talking. "You are what Spender said you were. A nightmare. A horrible dream, entering your mind, and filling it with doubt and fear!"
Eric, although usually more quiet, now too lost his temper. "Get out! We'll make you get out!"
"Don't you see? Thomas isn't just an empty hull you're all living in. What if that boy actually has a personality? He has you four, and me now, and can't make heads or tails out of your bickering! He's a poor, broken soul and the last thing he needs are you guys! He might awaken sometime soon, and then you'll all just be useless voices in his head."
"So possessing people is right, but being there ever since is wrong? How can you say that? How can you even dare say that?!"
"You still don't get it do you. Poor young Thomas never got a chance to out his own personality because he was possessed from the very beginning. You are all just like me. Nightmares troubling that poor boy. He's... he's crying. Why is he crying?"
It was very simple. Walt was crying. Crying in fury, maybe in spite of fury. "You're a liar! you are a no-good liar!"

SpoilerShow

Explanation for this sudden change of heart: Asteira is trying to mentally assault Thomas right now, to learn more skills to fight Spender with, ultimately. This will happen with all our contestants in this round, and I will eventually get to using Michelle in this round aswell.

Originally posted on MSPA by McBatman.

---

Glere watched as the storm began to tear building after building apart, in addition to Spender's continuous onslaught. If this were a war, they'd definitely be winning, but it's hard to win wars against inanimate objects. Glere knew that personally. It was a bitter feud, and the fridge still won. He swore he could hear some kind of music playing, but shook his head. There was always a melody of some sort, though it was usually a calliopi and trumpets. His attention was however, pulled to a very distracted looking... Thomas... Bern... George, whatever the four-in-one called itself. He was just floating there, almost falling out of the air at times.

Glere narrowed his eyes. He knew the behavior. The uncertain movements, the struggle for control...
"Asteira..." he almost spat the words out, but narrowed his eyes, looking rapidly back and forth between Spender and Thomas. Whatever gears weren't caught up in the wanton destruction were calculating something. Spender was by far the most dangerous of the bunch. Thomas was about the only one who could put up a one on one direct confrontation with the him, but if Thomas could be eliminated, it MIGHT take Asteira with him... but she was already dead.

"...not worth it yet." Glere said solemnly, before pulling out another harpoon, and firing another line to a building close to Thomas. He may not have had much of a defense or means of dealing with something like Asteira, but he did know how to knock someone out of one of her trances.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.

---

Thomas swayed back and forth a bit as the battle inside him raged.

"You lying bitch!" Bern, eloquent as always, lunged at Asteira. She dodged, simply rotating the chair and catching him with the corner, sending him sprawling to the floor.

"I'm lying? If I'm lying, then why are you so mad? It only hurts because you know it's true."

"No! If we had an underlying personality, the scans back home would've detected it!" Eric wasn't bothering with the physical violence. It was really all just a representation of a conflict of wills, and the form the fighting took only affected the confidence one had in their skills.

"Not if it was being repressed by a quartet of malevolent spirits, it wouldn't."

"No! No, that's not true! What have we ever done that makes us seem malevolent?!" Tears of desperation and anger rolled down Walt's face.

"Please! You use poor Thomas as a vessel, nothing more! What have you ever done for him that doesn't benefit you in some way?"

"But we are Thomas! Anything we do to benefit him benefits us as well!" Eric, of all of them, seemed the most calm. He was shaking, but that was a lot less than Bern and Walt.

The argument continued to rage, Asteira holding her own against Thomas' three personalities.

Wait, Asteira thought, three?

"Party's over, bitch."

Greg's voice filled the room, his calm confidence shocking against the desperate shouting and conflict. It was surprising to Asteira, and even more so to everyone else- Greg usually phrased things carefully and precisely, using a variety of words and phrases to accurately and concisely convey his meaning. He swore about as much as Bern tried to resolve his conflicts peacefully, and that, more than anything, gave the others pause.

Near the beginning of the conflict, Greg had seen something. He was by far the most detached and analytical of the group, and because of that, while most of him was caught up in countering Asteira's accusations, a small part realized that the others weren't exactly themselves. They were... off, somehow. They'd been affected by her presence more than they should've.

So he slipped away into his room.

The others kept their rooms fairly simple and clean. They spent most of their time with each other, so their private spaces weren't often used. Greg, on the other hand, was rather introverted. He spent substantial time alone, thinking, so his room was much more developed.

It was a fairly large room, and a cot sat dishevelled in one corner. The rest of the space was taken up by floor-to-ceiling shelves, filing cabinets, data servers, and all sorts of other data-storage methods. He kept facts and memories meticulously stored here, all carefully organized and catalogued.

That didn't mean finding things was fast, not by any stretch of the imagination. The volume of data was just too high, so even though he knew what he was looking for, it still took him time to find.

Asteira, he reasoned, was doing more than just talking. She was pumping pure emotion into the confrontation, using her own feelings to make them irrational and defensive. As soon as he'd closed the door to his room, he'd felt the difference- he was truly cut off in there, and any emotions other than his own were severed. He'd quickly formed a plan to counter it, and he had sought out a particular slim file.

It would've been nice if it had been thicker, but when it came down to it, he was a freak. He was lucky the file existed at all, really.

So he stood in his doorway, with all eyes turned towards him, and opened it.

Emotions, powerful and primal, rushed out into the room, sweeping over everyone in a wave. Its overwhelming, mind-numbing goodness filled their souls with fire, and all else was forgotten. Nothing mattered but that electric feeling, that sense of pure right, as though all that mattered was there, in that moment. Nothing else was relevant, nothing was important but the two lives, intertwined. Their souls burned bright, together as one-

And then it was over. Greg had been prepared, so he was still standing. He was the only one, though- everyone else was slumped, exhausted both physically and spiritually. It didn't take much effort to roll Asteira out of the chair at that point; she was probably affected more than any of the others. Greg supposed she hadn't felt that alive in a while.

He stood over her, glowering down at her unfocused eyes. She was still in a haze, and he wanted to make a point.

After a few moments, she began to focus, gazing vaguely in his direction.

He kicked her, sending a jolt of pain through her body. "Listen up. You broke into our mind once, and we let you go in peace. We were even willing to work with you at one point."

"No longer. You just declared war. If it were just up to me, I'd kill you here and now. Instead, I'm going to let you go. Run off and try your tricks elsewhere. For now, everyone stays alive."

"Just remember this: once we're done in this city, your life, such as it is, is forfeit."

"Now get the hell out of our mind."

Another kick sent her tumbling out the window.

Greg slumped down in the captain's chair. Just staying focused and coherent had been hard, what with Asteira's meddling and the intensity of the memory, so he just sat there. He breathed slowly, in and out, walling off his emotions once more and waiting for the others to regain their senses.

Originally posted on MSPA by suomynonAyletamitlU.

---

Spender dropped his pretense of rhythm again the moment Asteira stuck her neck out, but with so many things happening around him, he didn't have the time to jump to Thomas' defense--which seemed to go well enough, as after a moment, she reappeared, with only a light-headed Thomas to show for it.

Spender, however, used that moment to ready a trap, and when she reappeared, he threw down an energy net, pinning her against a brass wall.

Asteira struggled against the net, but somehow, she couldn't phase through either it or the wall behind her. As Spender moved forward, though she saw a ripple in the space around him, as though some sort of field were in place around him.

When that field touched her, she suddenly saw and felt things--thoughts and feelings, but not ones connected to a person, more like facts and analysis.

She saw and felt his fear, and could almost see his thoughts. And the moment she recognized it, it changed, as though he were seeing her own thoughts in return. Time seemed to move in slow motion, but she reached for those thoughts of his, as though they were dangling in front of her. Just before the field collapsed, she grasped them:

She can possess not only people, but everything with an "inside", like those robots.

But my holography has an "inside"--because it's a spell; it's fake.

And this whole world is fake...

Everything here has an "inside".

Is she really capable of--?

Spender ripped the analysis field out of existence with a yell. An attack coin rolled down the inside of his sleeve, one he was only dimly aware of having requested, but just as it brushed his fingertips, even before he could cast it, he saw what he knew shouldn't have been--Asteira, even still bound by the spell, seemed to possess the brass wall behind her, but only for a moment, slipping out of sight and out of the net.

He cast the spell anyway, throwing the firebolt into the brass plate, but the hole it blew open merely revealed her on the other side, laughing a cruel laugh. Then, she vanished.

"Shit."

SpoilerShow

Okay, what I mean is this:

Any single thing--a solid piece of glass, or whatever, but not where it meets anything else--is possess-able. What Asteira is capable of doing with a solid piece of metal, I dunno, but it is artificial matter--she may be able to turn into a golem or something. Now, if it's two pieces of metal bolted together, that is not "a single thing". An entire island is not "a single thing". But maybe she could get creative.

Reference for holography having an inside (fighting Euryale); specifically, the holographic wall turned to wax, and Spender said: That (turning to wax power) needs... eye contact or some other way to get inside of (him). Or, in other words, it was getting "inside" his spell.

I know, I did a terrible job explaining it, too technical, I'm sorry, but I was thinking about it back then. So any object he creates out of holography will be similarly possess-able. Not necessarily the fireballs and whatever, but anything that seems like it's an object.

Is this too complicated? [img]images/smilies/what.gif[/img]

Originally posted on MSPA by Wojjan.

---

SpoilerShow

Though you could have run that by me, I undestand and second your ideas.

Originally posted on MSPA by McBatman.

---

Spender was suddenly startled again by a harpoon crashing into the wall next to the hole, with a wire attached. He spun around, seeing Glere shimmying across it, surprisingly quickly.
"Oh, it's you. What do you want now?"

Glere suspended himself from the wire with a harness and a wirehook, connected to the line he had just secured. He stared at Spender with an 'I told you so' look. Spender just narrowed his eyes slightly.


"...what do you want Glere?" Spender began to get a bit impatient. The sudden realization was a bit troubling even to him.

"I told you she was a problem! But nooooo, no one wanted to believe the Fishbowl Headed Man! I WAS RIGHT I TELL YOU RI-" A swath of tape appeared across his mouth as a spellcoin vanished from Spender's hand. Glere stared at him flatly before ripping it off.
"Alright, point taken. Whatever project you're working on at any rate..." Glere pointed a ways behind him. Several platforms were caught in a slow moving rotation, with several more lodged amongst them. On the ground was something of a raging wildfire, and in the distance were large platforms seemingly burst into flame continually.

"So, put that coin to good use then?" Spender said, crossing his arms. Glere just waved his hand dismissively.

"Who needs magic when you have c4!?"

Originally posted on MSPA by suomynonAyletamitlU.

---

SpoilerShow

Though you could have run that by me, I undestand and second your ideas.

Oh, yeah, other players, that thing [img]images/smilies/mspa_face.gif[/img]

Sorry, I was just taken by inspiration. I'll try to remember for next time

Originally posted on MSPA by Wojjan.

---

SpoilerShow

It's totally cool. That was the thing I was going for. Asteira passing through walls sort of relies upon the fact she can get inside materials.

Originally posted on MSPA by Wojjan.

---

“...That went surprisingly well. I got Thomas, who has four minds inside of him, on the verge of collapsing, and have driven him to immobility. I should get on to the next player in this wretched thing. Where's Michelle?” Michelle wasn't far away. She was running – no, hopping from tower to tower, apparently exercising her skills for chasing zombies. It was time to turn the tables on her.
“Hello, my dear. Looking well, I see?”
“Oh no, not you! What do you want?”
“Hey, hey, hey. That's no proper greeting. You are as mean as that Thomas.”
“I'm warning you. Get back.” She readied her gun.
“Well, I'm afraid I can't do that. See, I need to practice aswell, and sadly, the joke's on you right now. Go on. Try and stop me from getting to your inside. From crushing your feebly resistant spirit like it were a paper tissue.”
She ran, but there wasn't a thing she could do. Asteira could always pick a short cut, straight through the walls and towers. As the chase went on, she begrudgingly greeted Glere, who was frankly not too happy on seeing her again. She reflected again, thinking she's been making quite the list of enemies since the contest started. Her drifting thoughts rejoined her as she saw Michelle jumping past.
“Well, well. Let's see what's troubling you.”
It was a very clear and plain mind, not perturbed by the crazy delusions of a mad fishbowl or a quartered spirit arguing with itself ad nauseam. If it came down to it, Michelle was most probably the sanest in the contest. Such a shame to see her go to waste, but what was there to be helped? She spoke up.
"What are you doing here?"
“You are a delusional freak, Michelle. Your mind is too clear.”
“Well sorry, demon girl, if I'm just making sense, unlike you. Now get out!”
"Hush now. I didn't say it was clear, it was too clear.”
“W-What do you mean?”
“You are a sole survivor of zombie carnage, and suddenly got plucked away from the battlefield. You can't be certain that you've won. There's no sign of you winning, but here you are, masking those worries with hope. What arguments do you use to bandage those wounds of the past?”
“Well… There's Thomas, right? And he is from beyond my time. That must mean life is possible.”
Asteira shook her head. “You are failing to realize one thing. Thomas was brought up in a synthetic world, encased in a fake perfection! What happened to all the rest of the world? I'll tell you what. You and all your other petty friends have failed. You saw it yourself. Nothing got killed. Death isn't a certainty anymore, as the reaper assigned for an infinite list of dying people just got terminated. And you know what? I think that we might be responsible for his death, and the resulting undead. You are stuck in a timeless field, with those who doomed your world for many years to come! How can you still be sane?”
“You… You're wrong! You can't be serious! I would know why there were zombies, and it had nothing to do with this! We're in my time, still! This is after the apocalypse!” As doubt continued to seep into her mind, the previously hospital-white walls began to reshape, and turn dark, grim, and splattered with blood and tears. It took the form of a shelter, with a raging terror just outside. The walls vibrated with the banging of her fear.
Michelle, back on the physical plane, collapsed. She was crushed and exhausted, and the torments of the dead, in more ways than one, stormed through her mind.
Exit Asteira, but her ideas and theories remained.

Originally posted on MSPA by McBatman.

---

SpoilerShow

Is Alice even still around to continue with Michelle??

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

---

SpoilerShow

She posted in the "Art Contest" thread on the Meta forum just the other day.

Originally posted on MSPA by bobthepen.

---

SpoilerShow

It is very unlikely that Alice will post for Michelle. It was my impression she's moved away from almost all forum-related projects and will only post in a spur of the moment manner (hence the art thread post). I could be wrong though.

I suggest killing Michelle in a humiliating manner. Probably by falling down stairs. Like, lots of them.

Originally posted on MSPA by Wojjan.

---

SpoilerShow

And the curse of Round 3 strikes once more...

Originally posted on MSPA by suomynonAyletamitlU.

---

SpoilerShow

Sorry, I've been thinking for a while that I should post something if nobody else does, but I've been really bummed lately and haven't wanted to touch it. Just life catching up... or failing to.

So in the end I guess I don't have a good excuse. Although, it would be nice of Alice could post in the round at some point...