Tempo Trigger Chapter 22
Weapon Attack!
By Nanaki
8,000 B.C.
The Lavoid opened the eye pod on his shell as he detected the rock he was burrowing through crumble away in front of him. The eye pod revealed a cavern of tremendous size, rippling with heat, with many pools of lava scattered randomly around the red stone floor. He quickly smashed all the way through the rest of the rock, and directed his shell to settle in the very center of the cavern. He couldn't have asked for a better spot to absorb some of the planet's energy. As an added bonus, it was also full of the immense heat that all Lavoids had such an affinity for. He settled his shell down into a dormant position, and green tendrils of lifestream energy began to curl up into it. The Lavoid relaxed, basking in the pure essence of life itself.
Suddenly, a great roar shook the cavern. The Lavoid's shell vibrated with the deep sound. The eye pod quickly whooshed back open, and the Lavoid could see two pairs of angry eyes glowing within the rock wall. A second later, another roar came from behind him, and he was sure it was more than the reverbations of the chamber. 'A Weapon ambush!' He cursed to himself. It appeared that he would have to cut this draining session short. He also momentarily regretted the fact that, as a Class B, he didn't have such things as Weapon intelligence infusion and mind control automatically built into his systems. He had to make a conscious choice to activate them. He doubted that either process would be instantaneous, and with him in full view, the Weapons might retain their desire to destroy him even if he gave them more intelligence. He would have to go for mind control, if anything. In either case, he would have to stop draining now.
Unless... His shell could basically complete the energy leaching without his guidance. He could always just go out there and fight the stupid things. As a gigantic fist smashed through the rock wall, he raced out of the chamber he was in, and went straight to the one containing his biological battle armor. As the roaring of the Weapons mixed with the sound of breaking rock, he hurried to get everything strapped on. Much as he hated to admit it, they did pose a threat to him. Soon, the smashing stopped, and only low, rumbling growls could be heard. The Lavoid smiled, and walked toward the front of his shell. The eye pod receded back inside, and the front portion opened wider to allow him through. He quickly surveyed the four Weapons that surround him. The largest had chosen to be about sixty feet tall, so he crossed his arms and grew to that size as well. "So, you four actually think you can defeat me?" He was fairly sure that they could, but he wasn't about to let them know that. The Weapons narrowed their eyes at the sound of his voice, but also shook their heads in confusion.
The Lavoid took that moment of distraction to size them up. The largest was very stockily built, but in spite of that, had some very sharp edges to his armor. His overall appearance was reminiscent of a huge crystal. The next Weapon was a dark orange color, and draconian in form, with some very long claws to complete the look. The third was much like the first, though a bit slighter and build, and lacking the sharpness of the armor. It's coloring was a bit darker than the leader's. The Lavoid quickly recognized the final Weapon as the most dangerous. It radiated a soft, blue glow, and clearly possessed a mastery of the ice element. Since Lavoids were getting to be a rather common planetary enemy, it looked as if this planet had taken the precaution of tailoring a Weapon specifically for Lavoid combat.
The Weapons, finally having decided that, voice or no, this was still a Lavoid, advanced on him. The leader raised up one hand, and nailed him with such a potent Ultima that he was hurled into the opposite wall of the chamber, which was a fair distance from where he had been standing. In an instant, he drew in a huge number of Shadow waves, and hurled a seperate Dark Matter at each of the Weapons. They vanished in a huge Shadow explosion that caused the high vaulted ceiling of the large chamber to rumble, shaking a few rocks loose. When the dust cleared, all the Weapons still stood there, looking none the worse for wear. Now, the Ice Weapon sneered. The Lavoid crossed his arms and took up a defensive stance. The Ice Weapon brought its wrists together, fingers spread apart, and a shuddering blue blast raced toward the Lavoid. As he commanded the lava in the chamber to rise up and protect him from the onslaught, the Lavoid tried to analyze the attack, and found that the power of it was so high, it was impossible to accurately measure. The lava that he had raised instantly solidified into stone, and then began to crumble away beneath the blue beam.
Incredibly, the stone on the Lavoid's side began to glow blue. He froze, waiting for the beam to break through, but the Ice Weapon finally let up. Peering around the side of his newly made wall, the Lavoid saw that the glow around the Ice Weapon's hands had diminished. It looked like he was momentarily out of juice. He quickly retreated back behind the partial cover the rock offered. If that blast had connected with him, it would have injured him very badly, possibly even killed him. He realized that the planet would spare no expense in getting rid of him, and would probably pour every last ounce of power it could into these Weapons. He knew he could not reasonably hope to match the planet's power. Especially not outnumbered as he was. However, he wasn't about to reveal this to the Weapons.
He quickly stepped out from behind his shelter, and both fire laser batteries in his breastplate opened up at full blast. The room was filling with pure fire energy, which exploded right in the Weapons' faces. In the center of the inferno, the Lavoid thought he could make out the form of the Ice Weapon staggering back. He allowed himself a smile.
That smile quickly became an O of surprise as two huge, crystalline spikes suddenly burst out of his chest, spraying orange inchor everywhere. He belatedly reminded himself that the Ice Weapon was not the only threat as the Crystal Weapon lifted him up. He realized he was impaled on the behemoth's shoulder spikes, and his apprehension increased as the giant lowered his head and charged straight at the wall.
If not for his armor, being smashed between the rock and the gigantic body of the Weapon would probably have finished him. As it was, he was driven hundreds of feet into the rock, and left stunned and in pain as the Weapon retreated out of the tunnel he had just made. He quickly began casting a spell to heal himself, but was not fast enough. The leader of the Weapons stepped back up to the entrance of the tunnel, and brought his hands together in a manner very similar to the way the Ice Weapon had done. The Lavoid gritted his teeth in preparation for the beam of energy that rushed at him. As it blasted away at his armor, he was unable to even determine what type of power it was. He could only tell that it was very destructive indeed.
He managed to scrunch up against the wall enough so that a good portion of the beam carved up more of the rock, making the tunnel much longer. As the beam of power died away, he sent a mental signal to his shell to launch the trademark of the entire Lavoid species, the Rain of Destruction. The Weapons roared in surprise as they were assaulted from an object that they had assumed to be inanimate. They quickly surrounded his shell and began pounding away at it, seemingly oblivious to its spikes.
The Lavoid was still in great pain, but now he smiled as he got a moment's rest. Not wanting to be left without a backup plan, he quickly initiated his mind control sequence. It would take several minutes to activate, but he was sure he could last that long. There was a large chance of failure, but if the battle progressed to a point where he actually needed to use it, he would be at failure's door anyway.
As the Weapons continued to ignore him, he again commanded the lava. It rushed up and formed an edged weapon in his hand. Its basic schape was that of a sword, but a scythe like protrusion was also attached to one of the edges. He quickly ran up behind the Crystal Weapon, and hacked off both large shoulder spikes before the leader could do anything. After that, all the Weapons roared at once, and quickly forgot about the shell.
The two Weapons which had not previously done anything both rushed him at once. The draconian Weapon slashed at him with its long claws, and the Lavoid was dismayed to discover that they cut through his armor with ease. As a follow up to that, the humanoid Weapon bowled into him, knocking him over. The draconian Weapon reared back its head, and then sprayed him with fire from its mouth. The Lavoid would have laughed, except that the fire seemed to have some jade magic mixed into it, so it was still quite painful. The humanoid Weapon was still standing too close for his liking, so even as he was being bombarded, he swung his swordscythe up and into its stomach.
All the Weapons roared again, and the Crystal and Ice Weapons hurried over before he could get up. Now he was surrounded, and all their hands began to glow at the same time. He opened up with his fire lasers again, but the Weapons hardly seemed to feel it now. Then eight hands were pointed downward at him, and the laser batteries were destroyed with the first rush of the blasts.
Balls of energy pulsed from the Weapon hands almost faster than the eye could see. The combined explosions grew gradually bigger, but the Weapons just stood in the middle of them, apparently immune to their own destructive energy. Soon, the explosions filled the entire cavern, and it was just a sea of destructive power. The ceiling began to seriously cave in. The Lavoid cursed at the pain flowing freely through his body, then again as he realized his shell was taking damage from all the energy.
But as the cumulative effect of the energy blasts grew worse, the Lavoid stopped caring about his shell. He realized that his armor would be completely eaten away in about thirty more seconds, and he would be dead in less than a minute. He simply couldn't believe that a Lavoid as powerful as himself was going to die this early on in his career. The energy filling the cavern would have been enough to blow the planet apart, had the planet not been controlling the flow of it. The Lavoid gritted his teeth, but he feared he was very close to screaming, and he did not want to give the Weapons that satisfaction.
Then, suddenly, it stopped. The Weapons stood up and remained motionless as the energy ran its natural course and dissipated. The Lavoid struggled for an explanation, until he remembered that he had activated his mind control sequence earlier. His desperation move had actually worked! He groggily began to move his aching body. He scanned for his swordscythe, but it had been destroyed in the maelstrom. He slowly got to his knees, then stood up. He motioned for the Weapons to line up in front of him, and they obeyed. He smiled and nodded at them, then pulled the Ice Weapon out of the line. "Sorry, my newfound friend." He continued to grin at the Weapon, which dumbly smiled back. "But you're far too dangerous to leave alive." The Lavoid put his left hand on the Weapon's forehead, and it lit up with blazing fire energy. He channeled the blast into the Ice Weapon's head, and the whole creature exploded in a shower of blue sparks.
Before the Weapon's spirit energy could be absorbed by the planet, he quickly locked on to it. He turned back to the other Weapons, ready to infuse them with this extra power from their fallen comrade.
Instead, he turned back to see only two Weapons waiting patiently for him. Whipping around, the Lavoid saw that the Crystal Weapon was standing at the entrance to the passage he had originally entered the chamber from. The Weapon roared a challenge at him, then jerked his hand out. The spirit enegy hovering around the Lavoid raced away from him and gathered around the Weapon. The Crystal Weapon roared again, but this wasn't a simple battle roar. It was a feral, bestial howl of sheer rage, sending a very clear message: "I'm going to kill you."
Then, he disappeared down the tunnel. The Lavoid scratched his head. He didn't know how the leader had broken his control. It was possible that the Crystal Weapon had never been under his control to begin with, and had simply mimicked his comradesÕ actions when they stopped their attack. It was also possible that the destruction of a Weapon under his command had snapped the Crystal Weapon out of his trance. The Lavoid sighed, aware that he now had a very powerful enemy gunning for him.
But the sigh quickly turned into a smile with a sudden realization. The Weapons had only been so powerful because they had been supplied with virtually unlimited energy directly from the planet. Although the planet would almost certainly cut off its power from the Weapons now under Lavoid control, it would also be loathe to use the Crystal Weapon to destroy those Weapons. It would also be unlikely to depend on a single Weapon to wield enough power to destroy him. The planet had considered four Weapons to be unstoppable, but one was not. The only thing that kept the Lavoid from feeling complete relief was the spirit energy that the Crystal Weapon had stolen, but that was a minor detail.
He turned back toward his shell to see his two Weapons grinning idiotically at him. Thinking of his favorite human action that he had learned so far, he tilted his head back and laughed.
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"Being a fiend is like being a photographer. You have to wait for the right moment." - Vegeta
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