"I don't know?"
She tries to stamp on my bleeding foot but I crouch slightly so that my left knee prevents her hitting her sword. She stamps on the side of the boot instead, which-.
He's holding her that far off the ground? Or is his armour
that much larger that he's like eight feet tall? Either way, that stomp-stab thing would have hurt. Good dodge.
"Try it!"
She doesn't break the armour, but a super strength stamp's opposite reaction results in her body jerking upward and my reflexive grab with my left hand results in me going with her. We hit the ceiling together and she brings her feet up to try and push off me. I latch my left hand onto her shoulder to prevent her changing angle, keep my right hand's blade pointing at her face and bend my left leg back-
Nice tactic. If she falls down under you, your mass will drive the sword into her head. Try to twist, you get an opening to stab her anyway. The only problem...
DRHHHHHHHHHHHH!
-which causes her sword to drop out. OOOw!
...Is the injuries you've already taken. Might want to down a potion from your little sippy straw dispenser.
"Canis! Catch it!"
Canis darts forward even as we both fall back towards the cave floor. The sword goes out to the side as Aurakos and I awkwardly wrestle for position, and Canis grabs it and pulls back just before we slam-
And if I understand the narrative effects of her Source-powered godspeech earlier, that means she's now disarmed. I suspect OL's knives are about to start playing up, unless her fists count as equal to them.
HUGGGGGGGGGHHH!
-back onto the ground! I land on my right side and Aurakos tries to break my hold to clamber on top of me.
Really missing that pain-suppression capability, huh? Dropping twenty-plus feet in about a half-ton of armour, plus the 150-odd kilograms of New God Zombie can't be pleasant.
Ophidian.
But the weight of this armour against the floor is nothing like enough to stop my arm moving and while she's wrenching at my left hand I stab with the blade on my right! She tries to evade but I still manage to slash under her helmet and cut through the flesh of her neck. I retract-
Okay, it's not counting her as disarmed enough to futz up your blades. And you nearly got the decapitation too. Keep this up and you
might grind out the win.
A Sheeda maggot stumbles down the stairs, eyes glowing orange as its puppeted by my wraith. Not what I asked for, but-.
The maggot collapses, and its bloated stomach undulates and writhes.
Ah. The Wraith found a maggot about to pop, huh? I was right, this is messy. Ew.
-the blade and swing my right arm into the floor. Not a big swing -that just isn't possible from this position- but it's still enough to get me more or less upright while she's awkwardly hanging off me.
Ophidian.
Boy, Best Snake usually doesn't take this long when he calls her, does she? And good use of strength-boosts. You don't often see people fight like this in the comics.
The maggot bursts, and a wraith-possessed Spine Rider flies my way while Canis waves his Mother Box at his newly acquired sword.
Ophidian.
Wow, she is either out of range or really distracted by something. Or the Orange Light Entity around here doesn't answer to that name...
It's not that I can't feel her. There's definitely something there, but I can't feel anything like the level of responsiveness I usually get from her. Nice that she finds the Corps so enthralling…
Without her aid, I try to feel Aurakos's connection to the orange light myself. Depending on her level of remote control, there might not be anything other than the direction which Melmoth is providing her. And it's… Working. I see a cage forcing the orange light to move-.
Oooh, looks like picking up some of the top-end talents of the Orange Light shaman tree is finally paying off. This looks something like Grayven pushing his Godly senses into action...
"Wait." Melmoth's voice sounds uncertain. "What are you?"
I would be so tempted to reply with something like 'Your worst nightmare: A Fanboy with a Power RIng.' or something similar. At least OL managed to surprise him with that.
Aurakos copies me, bending her knees and swinging her feet against the wall with enough force to knock us into the middle of the room. Not wanting her to land on top of me I kick out with my right leg, hitting the floor and sending us careening-.
She grabs my left gauntlet and yanks, finally separating us. I hit the wall near the stairs, drop, then roll onto my f-feet. She lands.. on her hands and handsprings onto her feet nearer the centre of the room.
Oof. That gives her the advantage again, because she's a lot faster. Hopefully she doesn't go after Canis to recover her sword.
And both New Gods wince at the less-than subtle not-quite-Godspeech. Bet he sounds like a screaming toddler to their divine senses.
The light from her forehead shimmers between sigil-yellow and avarice-orange, causing her to stagger and her eyes to unfocus. I could try charging her down and stabbing her, but that risks her desires aligning with Melmoth's desires, which would undermine my work. Interesting that she's still got significant desires in grundy form. Also interesting that this challenge system thing considers my armour's healing potion dispenser to be equivalent to her regeneration; the wound in her neck is gone with only a small amount of grey blood clinging to her where it once was, while my foot is considerably less painful.
Well, at least he's allowed to heal up when given the chance. It's not going to make much difference in the long run, his armour is more likely to break before he runs out of potions...
"Why do you obey your murderer!? Why do you obey the backstabber who murdered your father!?"
Who do you Want to Kill?
Nice, work that narrative aspect. Push her to resist the mental control!
"Heroic resolve never ceases to be tiresome."
Aurakos jerks as her sigil glows brilliant-white, the light-
It's a trope for a reason, swirly-cheeks. And New Gods operate on narrative tropes, baby!
Wraith, now.
Yes, Master.
I wonder how that plays in the narrative of the battle. Does the Wraith count as a follower, or equipment? And will her challenge allow it to affect her?
-shining from her eyes, presumably a sign of Melmoth asserting full control. But as the wraith-possessed Spine Rider lunges for Aurakos's neck, my environmental shield re-engages because apparently she can't use her New God powers while like this.
Something's happening with her body, her armour shuddering is response to forces I can't see. But that doesn't matter, because my power rings are working again. I form a small construct crumble gauntlet, duke it under her helmet and push it in the direction of Melmoth's sigil.
Ah, the bastard's control is weakening her New God aspect. She can't maintain the terms of the challenge. This fight is over, then.
The lights from her head go out, and-.
The armour covering her right arm explodes as the limb within expands to grotesque proportions! The skin has torn in several places, grey blood dripping through the tears and muscles visible beneath! The limb is about eight times its former thickness and-.
Oh, crap! She's pulling a Tetsuo! Must be a side-effect of the Grundification. Her body must be trying to regenerate dozens of people's bodies from the blood in her veins. And hopefully that's enough to make Melmoth reconsider the concept... Unless he decides to use her as a bomb.
The rest of her body is doing the same, armour failing under the internal pressure as whatever Melmoth just did causes her to grow. If I'm going to.. preserve her, I need to stop this. With the armour gone there isn't anything to stop my ring-based abilities, so-.
A construct-claw grabs her helmet, severs the straps holding it on her head and pulls it off. The enslaved Spine Rider takes that as its cue to dart in, dodging her expanding shoulders to stab her in the swelling neck.
Should make it easier to prevent her from thrashing around while he.. operates on her. Hopefully he can preserve her mind, because that regeneration is likely trying to do the same thing inside her
skull...
"Wraith, cut her brain's connection to the rest of her body."
Two dozen strands of orange light connect me to her grotesque and mostly naked body as I try feeling the magics being applied to her and feed on them.
Good way to defuse her New God traits: Empty the tank of magical energy. Let's hope it works, I want to see what she's like without Melmoth whispering in her head.
"Master, I do not know that I can."
"Do your best. Canis, if you can help, do so."
"Cutting off her arms-."
That may be a good idea, given the rapid mutation. It's gross, but a good idea. The only problem is if other body parts start doing the same thing.
"Canis."
"We heal back mundane injuries. Though I suppose her current.. state may impact that."
Which we've seen with Grayven. Remember all the times he's had to regrow fingers after they get cut/shot/torn off? Regrowing his eyes? Never mind the internal injuries he's recovered.
I remove my spell eater and attach it to Aurakos with a construct necklace.
"Let's not do anything we can't repair. I meant New God abilities."
So, plug Mother Box into her, let it try and regulate her bodily recovery. Good plan, Mother Box knows New God physiology better than OL does.
"Are you.. giving her to me? I did not think-."
"Canis, less… Less Apokolips. Alright? We're trying to help her."
She's a defeated foe, Canis, but she is
not spoils of war. No enslaving, no abuse and definitely no
rape. Wouldn't be surprised if that's what she expected them to do, if she lost the fight. After all, she comes from an ancient era, where that sort of thing would be normal...
"Then we should destroy her. Being twisted into something other than what we are is a most supreme torture for a New God." He comes a little closer, looking her the twitching abomination before us with… Actual distaste rather than the fascination he usually shows in situations like this. "I think that is what New Genesis would do."
"If she wants to destroy herself once she's back in her right mind, she can. First, we try and help her."
After all, if that's what she
wants, then who are they to stop her? But as far as OL is concerned, that's a choice she can only make once she's
whole... I'm also impressed that Canis could make such an observation as he did. He's come such a long way in such a short time (less than a year since he arrived, isn't it?)
