Trauma Spike Act 2: The Aristagalde Floor

[Armored Bishoujo]

Strongarm didn't so much struggle to break free of the chains as he did simply try to break the chains with his own strength. Eric was a meatcake before implantation, and now as an Implanted, the chains binding his legs began to creak under Strongarm's unyielding might. But the chains were holding somehow, and Strongarm had to turn his body over to engage Jasper with his massive arm.

He did so by bashing the ground.

A lot.

The localized tremors were actually quite effective at making it difficult to keep ones footing.

-----

It ended like some kind of wild western draw. Kisser stopped shortly and her chainsaws opened, ejecting no less than six rapidly spinning circular sawblades which were more like giant gears. Alexander didn't even need to gate-stock them away since his barrage of bullets smacked them from his path on their coarse to Kisser.

The lance was getting too cumbersome to maintain against the recoil so Alex had to stop and survey his work. Kisser had seen better years, definitely. She lay on her side, blood pooling on the road where her prone body had fallen. It seemed like she was trying to speak, but her lungs were injured and she only lost more blood trying. Alex could maybe pick up a few words that she tried to form, and decided it was language best left to the imagination.

Whether Alex liked it or not, Kisser wasn't spared death by forced implantation, and he was free to pick up the chainsaws and the gear saws which spun the chain and apparently functioned as lethal projectiles.

-----

Now Gwenneth was on the defensive. The Ragnareaver was spinning in midair, urged by Kefka's wind spell to rip Gwenneth in half. Gwenneth's psionics were trying desperately to keep that from happening. But she was failing and the scythe began to start clawing into her chest.

During the battle to decide Gwenneth's fate, the psychic bitch snapped.

The Ragnareaver was knocked away like a cheap toy, the wind subsided, and Gwenneth fell to her feet on the ground. Her head was tilted, her eyes were blank and unseeing. It was like she had lost all control of herself. And she was more or less naked, but not so attractive now that anyone cared. The long vertical gash from the collarbone to the base of her sternum was particularly morbid.

Gwenneth raised her right arm and a huge chunk of the road just ripped itself out of the ground by a psionic force so powerful you could actually see it. Kefka mentally judged the situation. Gwenneth recieved a lot of punishment even before the Ragnareaver ate into her body. And from the health that the Ragnareaver passed on the Kefka, he could assume that Gwenneth was on her last stretch of life. Her mind lapsed into psychosis and was now eating her very existence. Gwenneth was now a slave to her own psionics and it was going to kill Kefka, even if it meant destroying itself.

-----

Warbirth (Jubilette) swung one of her huge claws around to defend herself. Rhonia's blade clashed with it...and stopped suddenly! What the hell were those claws made of!?

Rhonia had to abandon the blade or have her clothes and flesh eaten away when Warbirth unleashed her highly acidic spittle like a firehose. Warbirth followed Rhonia to the ground, where the latter had to strafe around, then backflip over the stream of grey foul-smelling fluid to avoid being melted. Warbirth's spittle stopped and Rhonia could see that Warbirth had exhausted almost all of her bile in that attack.

Warbirth swiped the sword to the ground and began to waddle-charge Rhonia. The bile was refilling inside her huge gut sack, and this was a perfect time to cut or rip her open and start tearing away Hymnblades. If she could just get inside the range of those massive claws.

-----

Kaliph tried an Annihilation Flare again.

Dumb animal.

Kuhg was finally rewarded with a surprised yelp that turned into the gurgling of rushing blood. Kaliph's head, no longer attached to the rest of his body, flopped around a few meters before resting on the ground. The large body hit a second later. Kuhg may have tried to split the beast down the middle, but the Annihilation Flare blinded him and altered his swing. Still, a freshly slain pair of pants was a freshly slain pair of pants.

Three Hymnblades suddenly shot out of the sky and impaled the beast, to no avail. Kuhg may not have been able to understand it, but apparently those magical swords couldn't do any kind of magical mutating on corpses, or in this case carcasses.

The Hymnblades, unable to do anything to Kaliph's body, were still singing their hymn, but it didn't affect Kuhg. Victims must need to meet an intelligence requirement in order to understand the Hymnblade's instructions.

-----

"Worthless. All of you, worthless."

The petite royalty who implanted Eric and Jubilette threw three final Hymnblades. These swords flew straight into Shevenston's chest and head, knocking him to the ground. Shevenston tried to stop the magical assault, but his body was already pounding on his own armor from inside.

Princess Alicia, satisfied that she could do no more, vanished. Shevenston stood up as his armor was fragmented and shifted to his backside, forming a kind of turtle shell defense that extended to a long tail. His legs thinned out and split into four spiderlike extensions. His arms lengthened and grew large at the wrist and hands, turning them into three-clawed pincers. One of Shevenston's eyes popped out of its socket, grew well over twenty-five times it original size, and melted into the chest with the rest of the head. A Hymnblade was impaled directly in the center of it. The sound that came from somewhere on his body sounded a horse neighing through a synthesizer.

-----

Level 1 (Final Update) ~ It's Da Juggahnaut, Bitch!

Death Baron - Poor delusional Shevenston joins the ranks of the Implanted. One of the larger and more bizarre looking Implanted to date, the Death Baron shouldn't prove nearly as deadly now that Kisser and Kaliph have gone bye-bye.

[Overcast]

Imprisonment was at work, soon enough Strongarm would be covered in the chains(save for the swords which he would leave open to be pulled out by some herculean effort) all he needed to do was keep his hands on the massive beast and hold his concentration. Then of course the tremors came. Falling over would mean certain doom for the technique as his hands would leave the man and he would be weaponless, stunned, and on the ground for the gargantuan lummox to beat into a bloody pulp. Luckily though Jasper was no idiot and he thought up a brilliant plan to keep his balance.

He sat down.

He was tall and lanky enough to keep his hands in proper place from a seated position, and from a seated position he didn't have to think about the ground shaking for any other reason that it was starting to hurt his bum. He continued to work the chains around the implanted Eric, ordering the cocoon to work on completing itself with his mind. He would incapacitate the unlucky fool and see if he couldn't get those swords away from him, and even if he couldn't there wasn't a creature alive strong enough to break from Imprisonment when the technique was complete.

It was just a matter of time.

[Arcanum Darkfire]

Alex walked over to Kisser's soon-to-be-corpse and picked up the chainsaws. A few quick rifts allowed him to gather up the blade-gear-projectiles without moving, and he now had two fully functional chainsaws. Which he then used to decapitate Kisser as she tried to gurgle out a few last words.

"This place has had too many tricks up its sleeve for me to just leave you to die," he said as blood sprayed across the ground. "No, we need to be efficient. And damn, these things are efficient."

Alex kept the chainsaws in his hands as he surveyed the rest of the battle. He needed a new target, but he didn't want to steal anyone's glory.

Let's see, dead dog with blades stuck in it, not a threat. Bile-spewing thing seems to be taken care of. There's a giant turtle-thing over there. And... oh you've got to be kidding me.

Alex saw Jasper sitting down, with his chain binding Strongarm. Just a quick glance and Alex could tell that there wasn't enough pressure on Strongarm for him to die any time soon. The bastard is trying to take him alive? Oh hell no.

Alex ran over to where Strongarm lay, bashing away at the ground. He jumped into the air to avoid losing his balance from the tremors, but also to use gravity to his advantage. The chainsaws revved fiercely as he dropped down, his reflexes amped up enough for him to ensure his weapons struck between the chains.

Even if Jasper didn't want to kill Strongarm, he was doing a damn good job at keeping him still enough for Alex to try and decapitate him.

[BardTheFifthLightWarrior]

Kefka winced a little at the sight of Gwenneth, he should really start killing his enemies before this sort of thing happens. But alas, now he was faced against a girl probably more crazy than him who could rip the road apart with her mind.

To get rid of said chunk of road Kefka quickly cast a lightning bolt to shatter it, but he was too busy to see just how wellk that went. His main focus was Gwenneth, or killing Gwenneth to be exact.

Kefka then lifted Melfiorn's horn which he would need for his next spell. Kefka decided that Gwenneth was more or less undead, or at least not something that belonged in this world, and his staff had just the spell for that.

"Holy!", the clown called as the blast of magical purity shot at the psycho. Hopefully putting her out of her misery.

[Armored Bishoujo]

It was difficult to see Strongarm as the chains continued to obscure more of his massive frame. Jasper definitely had him, for what it's worth. Strongarm could still move, and still did, but he wasn't really accomplishing much.

-----

And then Alex's chainsaws entered Strongarm's strange flesh, causing the beast to struggle violently as discolored blood, or perhaps some other internal juice, started to stain the chains ate into his body. Alex had some difficulty as the chainsaws started to chew into the thick skeleton of the beast, but after several moments, he saw he didn't really need to. Strongarm stopped moving. Probably dead. Probably barely alive. Either way, between the chains and the chainsaw...and the other chainsaw, Strongarm wasn't resisting any more.

-----

Gwenneth may have had extremely powerful psionics, but even her mind could only go so far. Battling against Kefka's lightning, she wasn't well defended against Kefka's holy. A scream pierced through the light that consumed Gwenneth, one that didn't sound near human.

Once the light receded, Gwenneth was left on her back. One could sense life within her, but her mind was gone. The section of road that she had lifted before came crashing down.

-----

This left Warbirth and the Death Baron as the remaining to, but they were in great condition to keep up the fight. Suddenly, sections of the ground fell and were devoured by a maelstrom not far down. Alex had to leapt off of Strongarm's body as the section of land he fell on dropped into the perpetual storm. "Finish it quickly," Armored suggested. "Before Trauma Spike eats away the whole damn arena."

[Overcast]

Jasper stared up at the end of Imprisonment expecting to see Strongarm doomed in the cocoon of chains with no escape so that he could just leave him useless at the side. Instead he saw the cocoon interrupted by newfound implements in the form of two chainsaws in the gaps. In the cocoon the life of the man trapped seem to fall away and in his rage he gripped a group of the chains with his left hand and ran across them with his right hand,

"Sever! Constrict! Imprisonment!"

They leapt up and surrounded the chainsaws and pulled them deeper into Strongarm. Surrounded and doomed they were irremovable from the large creature as he sunk into the perpetual storm that took the place of the land he had been, if Alex wanted to survive he had to lose the weapons he had just won. It wasn't all that Jasper wanted to take from him, but there was more to be done here and he was on a time limit now as he turned to Warbirth and Death Baron with Imprisonment spinning in his hand,

"Fall."

Warbirth seemed far more troublesome at the time and he could not think of how he could actually use his chains in an effective way on her, but the Death Baron at least had conventional anatomy, and he could work with that. He threw his chain at the Death Baron's exposed hymblade hoping to cause him the same sort of crippling agony he had pulled on Strongarm. After that he'd have a bit of leeway to take him down with.

[Arcanum Darkfire]

Alex watched in horror as Jasper's chain grabbed hold of his chainsaws, keeping them tucked away into Strongarm's body. Alex had plenty of curses he could throw at Jasper but now wasn't the time for such petty disputes. He had to get his chainsaws back before Strongarm was completely consumed. So Alex did the only reasonable thing he could think of.

He jumped.

As he flew through the air towards Strongarm and the Trauma Spike-induced-maelstrom he flung his arm out behind him, creating a rift that launched Gracefaith on to solid ground. With that taken care of Alex hurled himself after Strongarm with the help of his air platforms. As soon as Alex was close enough he threw open three rifts, one for each chainsaw and one for himself, which he fell into before he was completely sure if he'd gotten both weapons.

----------

Alex was back inside one of his own dimensions, although this one was slightly different than the last one he had visited. It was list by a red glow this time, instead of dark purple, and was slightly brighter. Alex could also make out the same faint clouds in the distance, only these ones would occasionally light up with a red flash.

However Alex wasn't too concerned with the scenic view, and instead concentrated on his chainsaws, willing them to come to him. Only nothing happened.

Screw it I'll figure this out once I'm out of here, he thought, and just like last time he willed himself to exit this place and he found himself flying towards a speck of light.

----------

Alex fell out of a rift and landed directly on top of Gracefaith. He grabbed the staff and dropped it into another rift, then he created two more and willed his chainsaws out. However, only one of them answered the summons, with nothing else emerging from the second rift.

Oh son of a...

The rift flickered and then a chunk of mutated flesh and bone dropped out of it. He had missed his mark, and now one of his newly-acquired chainsaws was lost to the Trauma Spike.

He is so dead once this is over.

Alex turned his attention back to the battle to see Jasper engaging Death Baron. It also looked like Warbirth was the only other enemy remaining.

Screw it, the jackass can do that on his own, he thought, turning his attention to Warbirth and replacing his chainsaw with his two revolvers.

"Let's see how the pus-bag likes being full of holes," he said to nobody in particular as he opened fire on the hideous, disgusting-liquid filled hag.

[Armored Bishoujo]

The Death Baron opened one of his large pincers. Three prehensile tentacles lashed out and wrapped around the chain. The baron affixed his gaze on his offender and out came that strange alien horse noise. Then the impaled eye started to glow and Jasper could feel increasing voltage on Imprisonment.

Bioelectricity? This fiend had some pretty impressive tricks hidden up its pincers.

-----

Warbirth suddenly collapsed in on itself and brought its stubby arms around to protect itself. Given that it had exhausted much of its bile on Rhonia, it didn't have a lot of body mass, and was able to defend itself well against those seemingly impenetrable claws.

But it's body mass was returning, no doubt due to the rapid bile production. Then it rearranged its body to allow it to stand up and start advancing on Alex, protecting its more vital organs with its claws while peeking out from behind its natural cover to spit toxic bile bullets at Alex.

[Intern Nin]

After hitting the ground and spending about a minute trying to rub the spots out of his eyes, Kuhg gazed proudly upon his hard earned reward. Suddenly, some stupid swords flew out of nowhere and impaled themselves through the slain creature, making Kuhg's new pelt unnecessarily holey. Kuhg wasn't pleased at all by this turn of events. Then the swords started making a very stupid noise that didn't seem to do anything except make Kuhg angrier. With a grunt and a curse, Kuhg yanked the blades out of the carcass and smashed them to pieces against the street.

Now having successfully dispatched the humming annoyances, Kuhg set his eyes back on prize. Using his pizza cutter, he quickly but neatly skinned Kaliph's body and, since he could use a hat, scalped the head while he was at it. He placed the still dripping with blood animal scalp atop his own and held up his newly acquired pelt.

This is a fine pelt, even with the holes, the barbarian thought to himself, But they could be easily sewn up. Still, got a lot of tailoring work to do now. A lot of measuring, cutting, sewing- not to mention that it still has to dried out first. Hmm, wonder if this tower even has a place with sewing equipme-What's that noise?

Kuhg turned around to see parts of the ground breaking off and falling down into some sort of magic storm.

"Kuhg run now."

He quickly threw the pelt over his back and tied the front legs around his neck. This, along with the scalp, gave him the appearence of a bleeding, apron-clad Kaliph. Well, if Kaliph still had its skin. And head. And wasn't plummeting down into the afore mentioned storm while the barbarian who was wearing its skin and scalp ran away from the crumbling sections of this arena.

Directly in the path of Kuhg's fleeing was a particularly ugly monster with some Hymnblabes stuck in it. It was then that Kuhg decided that it was this monster and the stupid humming swords were the cause of everything breaking apart. It was clear what needed to be done. He needed tear a blade out of the Death Baron, brake it in half, and then use it to bash in the part of the mutant's torso that could be considered its face.

Simple, Kuhg thought. And with that he made a grab for one of the blades jutting out of the aberration's body.

[BardTheFifthLightWarrior]

"Freaking finally", Kefka muttered as Gwenneth fell.

There were currently two more enemies fighting, but Kefka was still in some pain from fighting Gwenneth. And he was also preoccupied running from the falling.

There was another problem to, after he used the spell 'holy', it seemed to have a minor effect on him to. a small one, but it was there. Kefka felt a weird feeling in his gut. A feeling that he believed failures called 'regret'. Kefka hated this feeling.

The clown decided that if Holy made him feel regret for his actions, then the opposite of it should neutralize that effect. He just needed a target.

This was were Warbirth came in, she didn't seem to notice Kefka's movements, which gave him an edge. Determined, the clown raised his weapon and took aim "Darkness!" he called, not laughing for once.