re_alignment | END GAME Part Two: THE BADLANDS

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END GAME Part Two: THE BADLANDS

On the outlands of Haven, the Badlands are surging to life.

Megatronus stands with his brother Alpha Trion, the two as different as night and day. The picture of calm, the thinner Trion stands behind the bulwark that is his more physically inclined sibling, massive tome in hand. Optics and biolights aglow with concentration, he stands vulnerable and distracted as clawed shadows rage on either side of them both. Some come within arms-reach before they - and swaths of their fellows - are cut down by Megatronus' blade, pieces trailing burning cinders and ash.

The Prime Guardian of Entropy moves like a wraith, the shadows no match for his flame and fury - if it were not for the sheer numbers they have, replacing the fallen, the outcome of the battle would have already been assured.

Alpha Trion seems unfazed, the glowing gaze flicking briefly toward the camera with only a nod.

"I am a bit busy concentrating at the moment, but I think I've managed to establish a link to the network. Megatronus, if you'd please issue the call..."

Alpha Trion said, seemingly without moving; voice gone eerie and electronic as he used his various talents to call out, even while overseeing the field of battle. Faint, holographic icons can be seen flitting in front of his optics, across a map of the local area. Icons position themselves like pieces on a chess board, and the closest mark is obviously of Megatronus as he tears through the ranks of pawns.

"Marked of Megatronus, of Alpha Trion, and Liege Maximo - join us now on the field of battle! Our boundaries are besieged!"

Megatronus roared out, turning away from the fight long enough to address the camera.

"Come! Let us see what you are made of at long last! You will hold the line, or all shall Fall!"

Behind him, Alpha Trion gestured to the map, giving locations along the North and Western sides of Haven that needed the most attention, and sending coordinate pings through the network along with them.

"Report to any of these coordinates if you can join in the fight," he says to the camera, before turning back to Megatronus.

"Onyx has the Southern field well covered. The surge on the west flank is closing in on the Haven. We must move."

He then frowned, helm cocking slowly. The map hologram flickered rapidly as though searching for- and failing to find- something.

"...And where is Liege? He is not guarding his quadrant."

Megatronus snarled, a swing of his blade wreathing the area in flame.

"Liege! What's taking you so long?!"

The camera abruptly cuts out as as the two Primes teleport off.

Either Prime may be encountered on the field of battle. Fight, hold the line, and buy time for the other groups! The final battle is at hand!

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[Did someone say asskicking was needed? Because Lea distinctly heard that there was asskicking to be done.

Lea can be found tearing across the battlefield on the Western side of Haven, Keyblade in his right hand, one of the Eternal Flames in his left, and spouts of fire repeatedly erupting around him. Indeed, it's easy to see where the former Nobody had gotten the name The Flurry of Dancing Flames; if either of the Primes saw him, they might well compare him to Megatronus in organic miniature, what with the way he slashed and burned his way through shadow after shadow, a ball of firy destruction.

They kept coming, but so did he. This was the one thing he was really good at, the one thing he could do to protect his friends. And like hell was he going to give up now.]

[It's certainly a display right out of Megatronus' own spark.

The dark Prime can only approve when they pass on the battlefield; in a fight against shadows, a source of flames other than his own attracts attention. He cuts a swath through the encroaching horde with his burning blade, less graceful that Lea's dancing flames, but more brutal in execution.]

Good to see someone knows the best way to deal with shadows.

[It's as close to open praise as he may ever get, but the approval in his tone is obvious, even over the sounds of battle.]

[Lea is grateful for that swath since it gives him much needed moment to catch his breath a bit. He's powerful, but a giant robot demigod he's not. He only makes this look easy, folks.

Still, he tosses off a quick salute along with his trademark smirk.]

Well, you know what they say; better to light a fire than curse the darkness, right?

[And then the brief reprieve is over, and he lays into the next monster to come his way.]

Though I'm beginning to think this is how Sora must've felt at Hollow Bastion, what with that whole 1,000 Heartless thing.

[That salute actually earns a faint nod of a helm in return.]

Lighting a fire and burning the darkness is my preference.

[His helm tilts at the reference to 'Hollow Bastion' and 'Heartless', but the general gist is easy enough to catch. He smirks, and swings his blade, carving a divot out of the ground as flames arch from the weapon, mowing down the enemies foolishly attempting to come from the rear.]

I think the numbers are somewhat worse than a simple one thousand. But we are not a mere army of one, either.

That's good too. Somebody needs to make that a saying.

[And yep, still kicking- and burning- of ass. There doesn't seem to be any significant reduction in the number of monsters, despite their efforts, but there's nothing for it but to keep at it.]

Yeah. I lost count somewhere around 150 myself, but there's definitely more than 1,000. Doesn't even seem like we're making a dent, numbers wise.

[Huh, odd. Either Lea's hallucinating, or that voice he suddenly hears is sure an awful lot like Ven's.]

Lea! Where are you? How are things over there?

Ven?! What the hell-?!

[The reply is both mental and vocal, since he wasn't expecting this at all. Kinda bad timing for that brain call though, unfortunately, as it causes enough of a distraction that Lea is almost caught by a monster's claws, He narrowly dodges and incinerates the offending monster before giving any further response.]

Western side of Haven, up to my neck in monsters, but holding my own. Where are you?

[He's trying to look around for his friend in between beating off monsters, expecting him to be somewhere visible, despite being sure that the voice was in his head, not in his ear.]

And how are you doing this?

[He can note that alarm and surprise in his friend's voice, and for a moment he's worried that he's gotten Lea hurt.

It's a relief when he hears him respond once again.]

Sorry..! I'd forgotten about this until now. Something I can do as Prima's Initiate-

I'm up above.

[Prima, Vector Prime and their marked fly about in the skies below the Lambda, fighting their own battle, distant specks of light zipping about as they try to fend off swarming drones.]

[The next reply is much more typical Lea, and colored with amusement, despite the situation.]

Ha! Told you Prima's guys got all the good tricks! Just would appreciate a little warning next time.

[He spares a glance upward at the battle above him, wondering which of those specks was Ven, before being forced to return his attention to the battlefield.]

How are things going up there?

Kinda got caught up in things- you're okay, right?

[He sounds a little sheepish, obviously, but he's glad to hear Lea's response sounding normal at least.]

Pretty busy, but we're doing everything we can. There's gotta be an end to these things...

I'm still good, yeah. Though I don't know about you, but I'm definitely gonna need a day off ofter this. These things are more of a pain in the ass than Neoshadows.

[Lea's glad to hear that you're doing reasonably OK too, Ven. He knows how good you are, but this is a sticky situation by anyone's estimate.]

About the same as down here, then.

Though I don't if you've heard, but we've got a complication. Leige Maximo's turned on us. He's made a deal with Unicron and is trying to get people to side with him in exchange for a free ticket home.

Yeah, I don't know which I'd prefer fighting myself, Unversed or these things-

[Ventus's surprise on his end is evident, although there's a longer span of silence from him before his voice is heard again. Fighting drones and commanding acolytes is pretty distracting!]

-what?? But why?

[He doesn't know Liege very well, but he can't understand why anyone would turn to Unicron after everything that's happened.]

Edited 2014-08-10 06:27 (UTC)

Apparently, he thinks that fighting is useless, and we'd all be better off running for the proverbial hills and leaving the other Firstforged to fend for themselves. Plus, he wants power and thinks that Unicron will give it to him.

I pretty much told him where he could stick the whole 'running' idea, naturally.

[Sadly, Lea can sort of understand why someone would turn. Darkness was powerful. And tempting. Liege would hardly be the first who thought he could bend it to his will. But Lea knew better now than to trust the promises of those sided with it. If he was going to fight and possibly die, he was going to do it beside his friends.

And that, in the end, was all that mattered to him.]

Edited 2014-08-16 23:27 (UTC)

[Power. It's always power, huh?

Still, the news upsets Ventus. What had all that they'd been doing until now been for, otherwise?]

We should be fighting together, not against each other...

[You're a nice kid, Ven. It's part of why Lea likes you. But you're a little too nice for certain things. Or maybe just too young.

He hopes you never change, though. The world needs more people with no interest in power.]

You're preaching to the choir here, Ven. The one you need to convince is Liege. Though good luck with that.

[Yeah, he's naive, but he's always worn his heart on his sleeve.]

...yeah, I know. It doesn't hurt to try talking to him at least, right?

You're welcome to try. Who knows, maybe you'll have better luck than me; diplomacy was never exactly my strong suit.

[Not that he'd really been trying to be diplomatic with Liege, but still...]

Edited 2014-08-18 05:03 (UTC)

Guess we'll see.

Aaahhh so now I see what you mean by FIRE.

[He's impressed, little human-like thing.]

Do you not get burned?

[ Despite the situation, Lea gives an amused smirk as he incinerates the nearest monster.]

Ha! You should see what I can do when I have time to get fancy!

And nope. Part of the whole fire magic package is that fire doesn't hurt me. In fact, certain kinds of fire magic actually heal me.

Fighting and performance have always been the same thing to me.

[In other words, if you feel like showing off he doesn't mind.]

Does normal fire heal you?

They do kinda go hand in hand sometimes, don't they?

[It's less not having a desire to than not really having the time or energy to spare to get really artistic. However he does wreath his chakram in flames and send it spinning into a group of nearby monsters, guided as much my his will as his throw.]

I wish. It really has more to do with absorbing magical energy of the same type as my own than with any actual mundane aspects of fire. That's also why water magic really hurts me but normal water just gets me wet.

[Easily catches the chakram as it comes back around, the flames around it dissipating as he readies it and his keyblade for another assault.]

Edited 2014-08-16 23:39 (UTC)

[In all honesty, Gunmax really, really, really didn't like fighting apart from the other Brave Police, so he's been pinging them pretty regularly just to make sure they weren't exploded or anything. In the meantime, he'd moseyed on over to the Badlands and equipped his gunbike armor, and was in the process of beating the shit out of things. Man it sure would be nice if he could just turn into a BFG and plug into J-Decker, but hey. He does what he can.]

So does anyone have like, a spare bazooka laying around? Because that would be great right about now.

[Apparently he still has time to be a mouthy asshole.]

[He would end up getting mouthy when Megatronus ends up in earshot. Of course. Even if the Prime is carving his way across the northern flanks, trailing ash in his wake, he still catches the comment.]

You did not think to bring a more satisfying weapon with you?

[The Prime sneers, watching Gunmax's progress out of the corner of his optics.]

Baby, if I had a more satisfying weapon, do you think I would have brought a friggin' shotgun to the middle of a war zone?

[nevermind the fact that he shotgunned the face right off of some punk but hey]

[Megatronus growls out a laugh.]

Given who I am talking to?

Yes.

I must give you credit for coming out here even without one.

Is everything that Earth makes so...dangerous?

[He laughs, and would happily shoot his cannon over Gunmax's shoulder to help clear out some of the fray.]

If you lure them in, I can mow them down.

I'm not about to sit on my ass while the world's coming to an end!

[You know what pal, that sounds like a good plan. Gunmax flashes a thumbs up and takes to the air, fixing to round up a few enemies for mister cannon]

Indeed no. Not if you want there to be a tomorrow.

[He watched the other take to the air, impressed.]

I would not have mistaken you for a jet. Tell me, what do you transform into?

[Taking a step back, he kicked off a shadow while preparing his cannon for another blast.]

Nothin' on my own.

[Hang on he needs to smack a thing in the face with his shot gun and then shoot another thing with it BLAM]

This right here, I'm wearin' my bike. And I turn into a bigass useless cannon with it.

I would hardly call a cannon useless.

[Actually, its something he's thought of turning into himself...]

How big?

[Because a second canon would allow him to do plenty of damage.]

See it is useless 'cuz I gotta be plugged into another guy to even charge up, much less fire. I can't exactly pull my own trigger.

Pretty big, though.

Did someone say war?

While he had renounced faction in his own world's (and many alternatives') civil war, Thundercracker was a warrior at spark, and he couldn't deny that there was a special thrill that only came from the heat of battle. He never felt more alive than he did in combat.

Thus it was he had answered the call of his Firstforged - both of them, as it turned out, with his primary having teamed up with his secondary. The battlelust made him suddenly understand maybe why his Megatronus outline had grown so strong over time, despite his own actions and wishes. Now he was almost glad for it. He felt nearly invincible, able to withstand more damage than he thought he ever had (maybe one day he'd actually discover the existence of his first-level boon).

The powerful blue Seeker streaked back and forth over the waves of enemies, carefully avoiding the line of allies as he alternated flattening, deafening, and disorienting the ranks with controlled sonic booms and strafing them with his twin rifles. He kept a mindful distance from any allies, but his comm was open to any chatter going on among his friends or the First-forged.

Definitely a war, and one that the dark Prime seems to be reveling in.

But Megatronus actually pauses what he is doing, watching from the ashes down below as the blue jet decimates a wave of enemies. He seems pleased, using the distraction Thundercracker creates to cleave through the survivors to get at the line of shadows further back.

::Hn. I always knew you were a bit too battle-minded to fit solely with my brother::

This is apparently intended to be a compliment. Megatronus claimed Thundercracker as well, after all.

The voice over the comm sends a shudder through the Eagle, one he hopes is hidden in the g-force stresses of the loop he's banking around on.

::Megatronus. ...yeah, guess that's true.:: Okay, focus. ::If you have any strategies, sir, I'm at your disposal.::

Edited 2014-08-14 02:36 (UTC)

You know...I would say something about this being your battle to fight and win, and not ours...

But that would mean missing out on all the fun.

[He's never entirely trusted you, Firstforged, but he can't deny that being on a planet eaten by Unicron is a bad idea. He's here to help....him, his cannon, his mace, and every single other dastardly upgrade that has been made to him over the years...Even the ones made against his will.]

Hn. Seems you are finally catching on.

[It's only a matter of time before they cross paths on the battle field. It makes Megatronus' grin - already wide with vicious enjoyment - turn positively feral as he sees one of the mechs using his name finally displaying some proper potential.]

It has not been easy to adjust to your world...or to your influence.

[He grins a sharp-toothed grin, mirroring the one that Megatronus Prime uses.]

Still. Its hard to object when you've always been forthright with me, and when you've given me such advantages...

[He appreciates the boons he has.]

...and I must say you throw the best parties.

In the Badlands, the fight rages on. They almost seem to be winning.

Between the fury and coordination of the Firstforged, their boons, and the prowess of the battling Marked, the line is not just holding, but forcing the shadows back.

But the Chaos Bringer has one final trick up his metaphorical sleeves. When victory seems assured, the shadows shift.

No longer are they generic monsters; insects and beasts, crude constructs and indistinct forms.

Now, they become recognizable.

They become darkened forms of the familiar.

Every one who ever vanished into Badlands.

Every long-gone acquaintance passed on the street.

Every friend.

Every lover.

Every. Single. One. Is represented in the forms they steal, the voices they emulate in mocking, loving detail.

Some jeer. Some plead. All seek to distract and torment, and attempt to turn the tide in the Unmaker's favor.

"Skywarp! No! It's me! IT'S ME!"

It's no use. The purple jet dogs and dances around him, easily giving chase or teleporting to cut him off, shots tauntingly JUST missing him. And then the real taunts start - Weakling! Autobot sympathizer! Traitor! TRAITOR!

Thundercracker falters, pleading to no avail. And then his wingmate is joined by others.

Slipstream. Fracas. "White" Megatron. Swoop. Drill Boy. Even Barricade, impossibly - apparently he's gained flight mods. Crow and Teddie and Kay are clinging to his wings. A wisp of darkness slips through a crack under his canopy, and Four is ravaging the controls in his cockpit.

Help . . . oh, Primus, no . . . PLEASE!

When the forms of the monsters had changed, Lea just scowled. Some of the forms they took he recognized. Some he didn't. He'd be willing to admit that Luxord surprised him a little, but even that fell flat. Luxord was never that aggressive, and was more interested in games than destruction, unlike this doppleganger.

So Unicron was taking a page out of Zexion's book, was he? Whatever; Lea wasn't fooled. And continued to slice and burn through the suddenly less monstrous-looking monsters.

It seemed that someone was fooled though. Lea heard Thundercracker before he saw him, as usual. Except this time, it wasn't one of his signature sonic booms, but instead cries for help. The monsters in familiar forms were harrying the blue jet, trying to drive him to the ground.

"Thundercracker!", Lea yelled, hoping his voice would carry over wind and the noises of combat enough to be heard. "Don't let them fool you! It's a trick!" Lea launched a ball of fire at one of the larger robot-form creatures attacking the blue jet.

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END GAME Part Two: THE BADLANDS

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>>Incoming Braincall

Lea kinda wishes his brain had voicemail ATM. XD

Ahahahah xD

Re: Ahahahah xD

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His primary /and/ secondary patron FFs in the same place? ...yeah, no question where to find TC

Aw yeah

FUQ YAR! XD

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The Badlands 2.5: Fighting shadows

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