"My prediction? Pain."
- Mr. T
"Are you okay?"
- Terry Bogard
2002 was a good year to be a nanomachine.
The engine room of Omega Rugal's airship looked like a technological wasteland. Collapsed power grids sizzled with electricity, turning the entire room into a hazard area. Monitors strewn across the floor all showed the same broken white noise. Massive military-grade cooling systems covered the room in a light fog.
Rugal appeared as nothing more than a cloaked shadow in the ruins. Power cables protruded from his back, charging his augmented body from a generator high on the ceiling. The camera in his right eye glowed dimly, turning his silhouette into a red-eyed cyclops.
Athena remained brave in the face of trepidation. She pointed at Rugal and proclaimed,
"You! Invaders! Get you the hot bullets of shotgun to die!"
In his most Norio Wakamoto voice, Rugal answered simply,
"Mwahahaha."
The swarm of cables dislodged from Omega Rugal's back and fell to the ground. He tossed his static-resistant cloak off his shoulders, unveiling his towering cybernetically-enhanced physique. He looked down on his opponent with a cold diabolical glare.
Athena did a little unveiling of her own. Her street clothes dissolved into sparkles as she twirled in place. Her body changed into a pink pixie-like form as her Psycho Soldier costume began to materialize.
Poor Athena had no idea Rugal had special anti-magical girl limiters installed throughout his headquarters. It only took 0.3 seconds for the airship's sensors to detect her repulsive magical stench.
Rugal struck before the announcer lady even had a chance to say "Round 1." He pounded his prosthetic fist into the floor, sending out a shockwave that traveled straight under Athena's feet. Shackles shot up from the floor and locked around her ankles, trapping her in mid-transformation.
"Huh?" Athena muttered as she looked down.
The metal panels under Athena's feet folded upward. She saw the doors of a hydraulic iron maiden closing around her, lined with hundreds of serial ports in place of sharpened spikes. Then all she saw was darkness. She let out half of a panicked shriek before the soundproof titanium sealed shut.
The bioreader in Rugal's robotic eye scanned the cylinder and locked on to Athena's rising heartbeat. Automated power conduits slammed into the sides of the cylinder with the sound of thunder, dousing her in high voltages of electricity. An x-ray view of her skeletal system flashed through the panes of metal.
Rugal began his killer combo by striking the cylinder with a Reppuken. Athena recoiled in pain inside of her shell.
Rugal followed up with several Kaiser Waves. The cylinder was rocked with each attack, and Athena's heartrate gradually dropped. Her signal flatlined for several seconds, but then came back as a series of mechanically-timed square waves.
Rugal delivered the coup de grace with a Genocide Cutter, shattering the entire cylinder into metal splinters with his monstrous leg strength. Then, he waited.
The room grew cold as the smoke cleared. After a long silence, the rubble began to stir.
A slow-moving automaton stood up in the wreckage and walked toward Rugal on faulty hydraulics. At first, the artificial being seemed like it was made entirely out of cluttered computer parts. With each step, however, its movements became increasingly more human, and more of the rubble slipped off to reveal its true form.
Athena's transformation was complete, just not quite in the way she had intended. Her two-piece dress was made of heat-resistant black fabric with a neon green trim. An elaborate cooling system ran through her petticoat skirt, and microscopic circuits were sewn into the threads of her black aerobic shorts. Oversized transistors were welded on to her boots and her gauntlets, and her fingernails were styled as small microchips. Her fiberoptic highlights twinkled as she brushed her long violet hair over her shoulder. A small radio antenna poked from the star ornament in her hairband. She was sort of like Barbarella with a more goofy Jetsons vibe.
Sweet, innocent Athena had been reborn as the Goddess of the Gigabytes. The Digital Diva. The Borg Babe. Delta Athena. And, of course, she used her fighting stance from KoF '96.
Now Rocketmoto would have an Athenaloid to call his own.
Athena looked over her shoulder toward the remains of the cylinder. She concentrated all of her powers—magical and mechanical—to conjure a ball of electricity in her palm. She hurled the sphere, vaporizing the wreckage in a massive explosion of lightning. Rugal grinned with approval.
After she shuffled the rest of the debris away, all remained was a single cable plugged into the base of Athena's spine, swaying slowly like a cat's tail. She tried to remove it herself but couldn't find the release mechanism.
"Allow me, dear," Omega Rugal said.
He gently grasped her just above the rear, twisted the cable counter-clockwise, and tossed it to the floor. The end of the cord made a loud hiss as it spewed steam. Athena cooed softly in his arms.
She ran the tips of her fingers down his chest, tracing his rigid pectorals through his form-fitting vest. He wrapped his hand over her bare waist, admiring her girlish curves and her soft but well-toned midriff.
"Master Rugal, don't you think you should finish... installing my upgrades?" Delta Athena asked with a devious twinkle in her optics.
"Yes," Omega Rugal smirked in response. "You need to pass one last performance test before you're ready for combat."
And then they interfaced I/O ports.
The End.