Disclaimer:
Metroid and Legend of Zelda belong solely to Nintendo. Other Characters belong to their respective owners.
Darithee, he and Vulthee -who is busy watching over their resident 24-hour invalid- being the only commandos not concerning himself with opening the lock on the door, opens a channel on the comlink.
"Mmmmm... omoshiroi ne, Kazuko-nesama?" Yoshiko is heard talking to Kazuko
"Nani wa omoshiroi? The hacker asks, turning her visor covered sight towards her sister
"Nan de mo nai..." the other one sneers
"Don't we have a cipher for that language yet?" one of the Commandos ask via com
"No, I'm afraid not. It won't be long, though, not after Kazuko recounted what happened to Minako," Encarathee replies also on the com, being the one whose job it is to find translations for other languages.
"Good. It drives me crazy to not know that they're saying. What if they're plotting something?"
"What, a way to turn our armor colors? Come on, what are they going to do?" Vulthee interjects, rolling her eyes.
"It's the principle of the thing."
"Ahah!" Encarathee yells, this time not on the link. She flicks her wrist, neural link flickering down into her bomb rack and shifting the desired explosive. This causes that specific explosive to be the one which appears in the commando's hand unfailingly. She molds the bomb's claylike surface into the proper shape, then pushes it into the lock itself.
"Stand back," she says, running a detonator cord to the explosive. The cord disappears into the commando's gauntlet, and she clearly intends to blow the lock off the door. "We don't know what's on the other side, so it would be best to take every precaution."
"Acknowledged. Prepping for door breach," Horathee says, and the commandos take their positions. Rekthee and Darithee take positions at the sides of the door, both with their respective melee weapons out but not activated. Encarathee and Horathee crouch just to the side of the opening but in another row, and they both have the bomb racks on their left arms extended and prepped to fire a grenade into the breach. Melothee and Vulthee make up the final row, actually standing between the other two rows and just slightly back. Vulthee's sensors are on full active, and Melothee's light-falchions are already in her hands. They are, however, slightly different in an almost completely unidentifiable sort of way. Peculiar.
The lock explodes and the door slams open, and after less than half a second scanning to verify life signs, no grenades are fired. Darithee and Rekthee duck into the room, weapons raised and activated. They slowly move forward in that peculiar crouch-walk the commandos use, and the rest of the commandos but Vulthee enter the room. Rekthee and Darithee slowly move backward to the door, passing smoothly between the advancing team of three commandos entering the room behind them. Then Vulthee enters the room and takes a spot along with Rekthee on either side of the door, facing outward, and Darithee backtracks into the previous room.
"Clear. No appearant dangers."
At that, Darithee steps to the side of the door and gestures for the girls to enter the room, looking out into the chamber watchfully.
The room itself is a large one, and in the center of it is a pool. This pool has four pillars in it, and there are spikes which extend up the wall three rows high. In the center of the room, in the very center of the pool of water, is a softly glowing orb of red, one which seems attatched to the water by a single vertical tendril. It is totally unthreatening, and appears to be totally uninterested in becoming so.
"There is one bio reading, that one, but it appears dormant," Vulthee says, scanning the room from where she stands next to the doorway.
"Good. Continue to monitor that reading and tell me if its state changes in any way," Horathee replies, and he, Encarathee, and Melothee spread out through the room to personally inspect every part of the platform running around the area.
The Legend of Zelda – The Metroid's Shadow
Mission 31 – The Lair of the Liquid Beast, the Battle vs Morpha
The girls enter the room slowly and steadily, walking behind each other in a line as organized as possible.
As Kazuko started to scan the area for any other threat Minako hit Yoko with a stick. Apparently she was bored of being in a floating ball... or just wanted to do that in a way to get rid herself of the bottled anger.
"Ow... stop it ..." Yoko whined "Kazuko..."
"And you... stop whining... you look act like a street dog" Minako leered
"Minako, stop hitting her" the hacker said, without turning to her sisters.
"You think this is Morpha's room?" Keiko started to wrap her whip around her hips again. She did it in a way the handler where outside so it could slid easily when needed. 'It also makes a good belt' she usually said when they remarked about such way of having it.
"Definitively... this must be it... cool " Yoshiko said, analyzing it like a pro "but's a bit changed from the original game..."
"Well... things do change with time... and, who says it isn't this way?"
"Be quiet..." Kazuko's voice sounded hushed and low. With her green translucid visor over her eyes, she pointed at the pool on the right. "I read some bio-data... the creature over there is asleep, and I don't wish you to battle so soon..."
Turning from her sisters, she started to walk a bit quicker towards the pirates.
"You think that 'creature' is Morpha itself?" Yoshiko whispered to Keiko
"Dunno... I mean, Link made that thing sushi long time ago..."
"Buuuut... who tells it did it completely"
Keiko sweatdropped, but then, a quick memory came to her mind. She smirked pleased with a sigth that made Yoshiko shake.
"If I remember.. it was your idea to come here..."
"Erm eek .. well.. I thought…"
"I recommend ya to shut up and continue"
An evil grin from the fighter that made the leader shiver a bit. Well, it's in part her fault they are there anyways, so it's best not to discuss.
The purple cyber girl started to move as quickly as Kazuko. The blue leader was left in the middle (Yoko and Minako are in the back) with a look of surprise and in some shock.
Then, sighing she tried to catch up with her.
"Damm Keiko... you can be evil when you want ne?" she mumbled to herself
"Alright, the area is clear. There is only one other path out of the room," Rekthee says, turning away from the wall spikes. "These on the wall are quite dangerous, so I recommend keeping a safe distance from them, but they're nothing special. Anchored to the wall completely, they don't have any surprises hidden."
"Good," Horathee says. "Then we should investigate this hibernating thing in the center of the room. If we can understand its abilities, then it could be most useful to the Organization."
"Yes, si-"
With that, the softly glowing red orb in the center of the room is gripped by six additional tendrils of water. They seem to darken slightly, and the sphere shudders in what could be pain, and something seems to be moving beneath the surface of the thing as it twitches. Then, this seems to stop, and the formerly perfect sphere is now riddled with tendrils over its entire surface. The water swirls around the thing, and the six tentacles of water pull out of the pool and lash outward.
Four tendrils lash out at the commandos, while the other two stay close to the sphere itself. Encarathee and Melothee dive in opposite directions, and the limb targeting them passes by and slams into the wall with a frightening crack!.
Rekthee leaps upward, and the one targeting him passes by with similar results.
Seeming to note the effects of the first two, the thing's tactics change.
When it lashes out at Horathee, it stops just short of him and cracks like a whip.
Water splashes off and pelts the team commander, pitting his armor and getting stuck in the wall like knives.
The final limb strikes at Vulthee, who simply remains in place and fires off a bolt of coherent light from her sniper rifle to instantly evaporate the attacking "weapon".
All that took just over a second.
This leaves only two left.
Two to strike down six humanoids. The two fuse together into one, which lashes out. It strikes directly at the core of the girls' group, at the red, green, and yellow ones.
Darithee, the only commando in range, instantly steps in the way of the attacker (since he is incapable of moving all three girls quickly enough.
Instead, all he can do is ram bendezium fibers into the ground for stability and harden his armor for additional protection.
The limb slams into his body with stone-shattering force, and a grunt of agony escapes the commando's mandibles. The chestplate in the center of the attack dents, and the armor as a whole ripples under the impact.
"Kyaaaaaaaaa" Yoko squeals while the tendril hits the pirate who had put himself at the front of the attack.
Its attack successful, the attacking limb draws back and swings to strike at one of the other commandos because it appears that its target is now crippled.
Without that support, Darithee falls to his knees and then to all fours, the biotic underlayer of his suit already working to repair his wound.
It injects Blue Goo directly into the bone of the damaged ribs (an exceedingly risky proposition for a normal person, and still quite dangerous even for a phazon-strengthened commando), and he should be fine in an hour or two.
But that doesn't keep it from hurting like a firebrand on unprotected skin.
Another agonized wheeze escapes the commando's mouth as he feels the full brunt of what should have been an instantly fatal wound.
But it wasn't fatal, and he's just going to have to endure it until it heals.
Kazuko notices that as soon as it hits, her eyes widened in fear as she could hear his slight grunting.
"GET YOUR THING TO SOMEBODY ELSE!!" Yoshiko's voice roared, as she fired a red thin shot from her multi-laser beam.
"Gahhh... Morpha's alive!!" the figther's eyes where as wide as dinner plates, but assuming that such wouldn't help too much, she placed herself on fighting stance, bringing her whip out of her hips and ready to slash
Meanwhile, Yoko started to move her trackball, along with Minako who was also looking from behind.
She had a bomb already in her hand but it seemed that Yoko made her not trow it. In this cases, there was no place for sister's harshness.
"How dare you... " Kazuko said to the creature quietly, but she also seemed mad.
Small things around the hacker started to move and crack, as a powerfull wave was starting to fill the room, emanating from her.
Keiko managed to whip one of the tendrils, but another came and sent her flying to the nearest wall.
She dodged the spikes by whipping quickly a nearby structure and swing to it.
"You ok?" Yoshiko approaches the damaged pirate. She glances at her green sister. It was obvious she was about to use her other abilities to attack
Darithee, simply wheezes at the blue girl and waves a hand at her in dismissal. 'Attend to your team, girl, I'll survive!'
"You know..." Minako shouted to their leader from the other side where the acrobat guarded her as he main weapon had turned into a transport method. "We could really use the Cyber Cannon right now..."
"Cyber Cannon would be fine.. but we need to weaken it first!" Yoshiko hears Minako's comment and turns to her.
The Cyber Cannon is the most advanced and powerfull weapon the group had.
It combined their strongest weapons and abilities into one, forming a huge pistol which had to be lifted by four. Yoshiko was always on the back and ready to shoot the cannon. It is used as a last resourse (and a 'finish him' type) weapon. But due the fact that Yoko and Minako where 'out' there was a minimal chance
Nodding while replying, she starts to charge another beam, this time it's colored yellow/orange.
"Omae wa!! (you!!) " she turned back to the beast, her charged beam looked menacing.
Horathee and Encarathee started to turn toward the attacking creature, firing off two missiles each and leaping aside to avoid counterattack. All four missiles are swatted out of the air, exploding in orbs of fire without effect. Vulthee, unable to get a clear shot at the thing's core (the only part which can feel, apparently) with her sniper rifle due to the necessity of moving at all times, thrusts her electrified wrist blades into the water. The creature instantly sheds all contaminants from the shell of water around its core, and the electricity has no effect. Rekthee leaps aside, the cannon on his shoulder swiveling with his motion to continue firing bolts of light undeterred.
"Lemme spice the thing up!!"
Keiko dashed again at the creature.
Her whip changed color, at the one Yoshiko had on her raygun.
Once it latched onto one of the tendrils, it started to emit a thunderwave that started to reach to the others.
"Aw... I wish to battle..." Yoko watched the scene, keeping an eye on her wounded sister while the others battled
"Over my death body..."
"Will do... if you die, I'll have my trackball again"
"I warn you Yoko..."
Kazuko's hair started to 'dance', caused by the aura she wielded already.
Her first task was to create a shielding barrier to her non attacking sisters and was now starting to use her powers on the beast. It was going to take time though.
Morpha's tendrils whip about as the thunder strikes it, their form slightly disrupted for a moment. The closest immediately swat the blue and purple humanoids aside, while the rest pause for a long moment. It seems to detect something, feel something brewing. And then, every one of the tentacles swing around and strike at the green one, who is preparing to do something dangerous. Its 'sight' detects that its barrier is still incomplete, and if it strikes now it will pierce the beginnings of the humanoid's defenses and stop them completely.
Darithee coughs again, and his phazon jetpack seems to swell.
"Augh...dammit," he murmurs, the pack activating and catapulting him across the room.
Painkillers are administered directly into his brain, blocking out the pain from the wound for a period of about five minutes.
The commando drops to the ground, continuing to run forward as though he were completely uninjured.
He comes to a stop once again between the target of the tentacles and the girl, but this time does something slightly different.
He knows that he cannot possibly take another hit from this thing, however much pain he is feeling at the moment to tell him such.
He instead deactivates his entire suit of armor.
In place of the rest of the systems he activates his shield.
He pumps all the power in his suit into it, and it widens to cover both himself and Kazuko. Furthermore, its surface seems to shimmer as its temperature rises to unimaginable heights, heights which is just barely short of melting the bendezium fibers on his arm.
The water tendrils slam into this and evaporate instantly, and the surface of the barrier wavers in exertion while the power grid struggles to compensate for the rapid loss of energy.
The other commandos, meanwhile, attempt to penetrate the creature's tough armor of water. They are hardly more effective than they were previously.
All but Encarathee, who seems to have found an effective method of deterring the creature's limbs.
By blocking part of the tendril from the main body, she appears to be able to inflict something like pain on the creature and also stop that attack completely. As such, she has dropped her shield on the ground in front of her with a motion detector and the safety interlocks disengaged. As such, whenever the thing attempts to swing at her, the shield activates as the limb reaches over it and severs it completely.
By doing this, she can be almost completely protected from the creature's attacks.
The hacker, not knowing the status on the others was more focused on the pirate.
She had lost concentration by the sudden surprise and started to build up energy as quick as she can to do a barrier for the two.
"Please wait... I'll have it in no time..." she thought, while seeing at her protector
"Kazu..." Yoshiko noticed one of Morpha's attacks, but she got hit before the could even finish the phrase.
Keiko rushed to help her sister but instead got hit as well.
Both crashed in the air by the impact and fell flat in the ground.
Yoshiko was ok since she fell over her sister, which looked quite unconscious.
"Bye to the ultimate Cyber Cannon..."
"Focus on the beast, I will be fine!" Darithee says almost urgently (but not quite) to the hacker behind him, phazon pack initializing.
It activates, firing off and holding him in place. But, not only that, it quickly becomes a self-sustaining reaction.
His suit harnesses the excess power generated by this, using it to bolster that provided by the grid built into his suit.
This additional flow of power causes the shield to stop wavering completely and even expand in size. This is one commando who's not going anywhere.
Morpha's body ripples, pushing the sphere off its body. It is intercepted by a smaller tentacle, which whips through it and shatters it completely.
At the same time, while maintaining pressure at the green one and not seeing any reason to change tactics (Morpha never was very smart), it whips three tentacles at the yellow one. One moves horizontally, while another anticipates a leap to evade the first strike and falls vertically on the girl's position.
The third tentacle anticipates a diagonal leap to evade the first two, so it waits just under a second and then swings horizontally above the first tentacle in the opposite direction.
"How can this thing coordinate so many limbs!?" Rekthee yells, leaping upward and landing on top of the third row of spikes while a tendril slams into the two levels below him.
"I don't know, but I would definitely like to find out!" Melothee says, dive-rolling to the side and hurling a superheated disk at the creature's body. A web of smaller tendrils weave around the disk and push it off course, causing it to 'plink' harmlessly off the ceiling.
"Agreed. An autopsy of the creature would be most informative," Horathee says, swatting a smaller tentacle aside and firing off a three-bolt burst and a missile. Damage is superficial from this attack, as well.
"I can't watch more..." Yoko cried out. She really wanted to help, but at her current task couldn't.
"Well, why don't you let me go of this?.. I mean, I can walk"
"But the pirates..."
"The pirates... my parents... the teachers.. the society. There's always a friggin' excuse, and I'm SICK of it!"
Minako jumped from the trackball and fell on her knee. It was obvious she was weak, but her temper wouldn't let her see more of the massacre.
"Eat bombs squid!!" the bomber tossed a silverish sphere that once it touched the jelly body of the water guardian, started to shock it.
"Track ball to saber!" Yoko called. The big sphere turned small and smaller until it formed a tube from which a light came. Much like the Jedi's weapon it looked.
Once she had a handle to it, she rushed, evading skillfully the tentacles while slashing them.
She was heading to Kazuko.
"Kenjiaku no bishu!"
The acrobat managed to dodge skillfully the 'squid's ' attack as she slashed more and more.
The parts once they where slashed transformed into water and vaporized in thin air.
Though, the act finished when she tripped on the last one who was already wating her to leap over there.
"Kyaaaaa, help!" she cried out. She started to be squeezed, thing that let her grip on her weapon go out and released it.
"TAKE!!" Yoshiko, once recovered from the attack (again) launched several ray attacks at it. This where purple, as the ones she used versus Samus along with her missile launcher.
They managed to slice the attacking tentacle letting the acrobat go. Once in the floor, she gasped heavily, it was apparent the pressure on her was quite strong.
"You ok?" she said coming to her while charging.
"Yeah, thanx... but... Minako's..."
Yoko pointed at the bomber, she was stood up and preparing to launch some sort of black grenade.
Taking aim at the core, she launched it after some the lock was taken off, so once it made contact it would explode.
Yoshiko's eyes where widened in surprise.
"You let her battle…? But, Yoko..."
"I know... but it was my fault... I mean, this is my trackball..."
She pointed at the saber. Indeed, that was one of it's forms.
"Well... what can we do about her, ne? I'll go with her; you keep up slicing and dicing ok?"
"Hai Riida!"
Keiko started to wake up.
Rubbing her neck, she felt all twisted up.
"I'll really need some therapy after this..."
Kazuko watches for a second at the pirate and starts to think, why so much interest?
Shaking her head to snap out, she backed from Darithee and started to elevate her aura.
It seemed she had not lost all the contained power she managed to store, as she quickly regained the strength she had before interrupted.
The commandos as a group move around the chamber to be at five points around the creature's body.
Melothee approaches Darithee's position, joining him in the defense of Kazuko as the creature pulls back all its tentacles.
This motion allows it to simply push aside the explosive flying at its core from Minako, and it ignores the attack completely. It seems to gaze at the three of them, and four tentacles whip in that direction.
Two of them are intercepted by the closest nonefending commandos, Horathee and Rekthee, who cut them off with bolts of light and energy.
The other two whip into their joint shields, actually pushing the two back as the creature forces more of its weight into the strike.
As Morpha attacks, it slowly becomes more aware. It becomes more and more intelligent, slowly moving toward its original near-sentience from before that...hylian killed it. Four tendrils whip out to begin with, swinging at Horathee, Rekthee, Yoshiko, and Keiko.
The ones flying at the commandos split into three tendrils in their own right, spiraling at their target and whipping about unpredictably.
The ones flying at the girls, however, simply fall down in a diagonal swing.
Horathee runs forward, dive-rolling toward the attack and then suddenly flying to the side and out of the area of attack with a burst of phazon jetpack. Rekthee, on the other hand, warps the function of his wrist blades into a pair of shields.
The shields are small, perhaps a couple of feet in diameter, but they are plenty large enough for his purposes. He leaps forward, similar to Horathee, but instead of diving out of the attack area, he evaporates the water out of his path and simply ducks the third attacker. He is safe for now.
Vulthee, on the other hand, approaches Minako in the grace period provided them and grips the unfortunate girl by the back of the armor.
"Do you have any idea what kind of danger you're putting yourself in by not only attacking this thing, but also while you've taken a hit that would have killed you?" she says almost angrily, lightly shaking the red-clad member of the other team.
" Like Bon Jovi said before... 'It's my life' ... so live and let die..."
"That's the last time I let her see a Bond Movie..." Keiko overheard and replied from afar, rolling her eyes
Minako dashes forward, preparing another grenade.
Timing for her is not necesary, as her ability for them seemed to be well digged within her brain.
"Damm it... eat this for the love of ... Denkeri bomb!"
"Back now!!" Yoko squeals, as the bombs where about the make contact with the creature.
The Denkeri bomb was a special type. It worked as a grenade but it only started it's countdown once it hitted something.
Denkeri means from thunder, or shocking, expecting a electric explosion in a radio of 3 mts once it activated.
Was easy to build, but in the hostile place she was the 'ingredients' where lacking, and from the 5 she had at display, she had launched 2 already.
"Gah! It's Denkeri!" Yoshiko shouted. "Back if you want to wake up again..."
"We've already attacked that with electricity... this ain't no pocket monsters ya know..."
"But it's basic college my friend... or why it backed from our first shocks before?"
Keiko started to back from the place she had fallen.
If she didn't move, when activated she'd be at half meter of range
"Hope you're right... this time..." she said, teeth gritted tightly.
Kazuko's powers seemed to have finally summoned completely as not only some boulders started to vibrate harshly.
Yoshiko turned to the hacker, the surprised face turned to a small glee.
"I'll start attacking..." she said. Her voice sounded cold, but it was because of the concentration. It still lingered some of her self within.
The bombs where about to hit the ground, at some meter or 2 from Morpha.
Morpha might be dumb, but it isn't retarded, and it knows the properties of its own body.
It reaches out with several tentacles, wrapping them around the spheres flying at its body. It then purges all contaminants from the water around the weapons.
Unfortunately for it and fortunately for everyone else, not only does it lack the coordination to attack all of them at the same time as doing this, but it also takes about five seconds for this process to occur.
Darithee and Melothee are still occupied stopping the continuous attacks from Morpha's tendrils. Horathee, Yoshiko, and Minako are also being targeted, but the rest of the creature's limbs remain almost completely motionless.
"Any time you want, Kazuko!" Darithee says, swatting aside another tentacle's strike.
Horathee leaps upward to avoid the creature's strike, but the tentacle catches him in the leg. He does a sort of flip, falling downward on his shoulder and thudding down on his back. A quick burst of jetpack hurls him back to his feet, but he is too late to attack the creature while it is distracted.
Rekthee comes to a sliding stop, pivoting as he does so that he faces directly at the creature's core. He performs a running jump, then, and fires off a burst of phazon jetpack that will carry him across the pool. While the creature is distracted, he lands on top of the core's shell of water. Though he is slipping off, he has just enough time to ram both claws into it, then pushes off once more to land easily on the other side. Morpha "screeches" as Rekthee stabs it in the core, whipping the smaller tentacles near its core about wildly, but the attacks already in progress do not cease.
Vulthee's position is less than favorable. She hurls herself forward, assisted with continuous fire from her phazon jetpack. Even so, there is not enough time to get Minako out of the way of the attack, and she certainly isn't in the physical condition necessary to evade such a strike herself. At least, not without undoing all the good that the Blue Goo has done so far. As such, Vulthee twists in the air and gathers in her hand a ball of bendezium fibers. The commando hurls the fibers at Minako's back. However, Vulthee's aim with thrown objects never has been even a fraction as good as her aim with guns. As such, the bendezium fibers actually end up catching the girl in the leg, knocking her out of stride and tripping her just in time for her to not be impaled on the spikes around the area's edge.
"Hey!! What's your idea!!" Minako scram a bit angry, noticing how she was made trip. That was until she discovered the reason. All is forgiven … for now
By now, Kauko had enough energy stored that she literally began to glow.
That attracted the attention of the rest of the team, and probably the monster itself.
"Wait 'till the signal!" Yoshiko said cheerfully. The rest of them nodding.
They had all their tactics determinate by the repeating times they've practiced or executed them.
"You just sit back and relax... we'll take in charge of the..." Keiko crossed her arms. There was a sign of confidence on her face, which changed to anger. A tentacle started to drive to her "Gah!! Stupid thing, get away!!" she latched her whip around it and heated it, in a way it could evaporate.
The hacker started to move her hands, directing probably her powers.
Minako started to stand up and head (with some difficulty, since being hit with benzendium isn't something you'd call 'soft') with the rest of her sisters.
"Go time?" she said, kicking a random debris from around
"Wait 'till I... and her gives the signal"
Slowly but smoothly, the hacker started to alter the form of the monster, trying with all her might to expose the red core.
The girls meanwhile, started to arm some sort of fusion between her main weapons.
Morpha's attention shifts toward the green one, sensing a sudden influx of power. The green one uses a sort of almost-magic, seeming to stem from herself rather than the powers of a fairy or a goddess. Nonetheless, even her peculiar almost-magic will be dangerous, as Morpha's core is quickly becoming exposed. Two 'greater' limbs strike out to occupy her bodyguards, and then four lesser tentacles strike directly at the green one. Furthermore, it also senses an amalgamation of power from the other group of brightly-colored ones, and it anticipates something quite bad from that. It swings toward that group with another pair of 'greater' tentacles, along with eight of the 'lesser' variety. All of the greater tentacles move directly at their targets in a thrusting motion that is designed to hurl their victims onto the spikes for a quick, easy kill. The 'lesser' tedrils move erratically and almost randomly, for the purpose of evading defensive motions and attacks.
"I don't suppose you have anything for this situation..." Darithee says, watching the incoming attacks.
"Yes," Melothee says triumphantly," as a matter of fact I do have something. Gimme your shield generator." The other commando does this, and Melothee removes her own. Then, taking the two in one hand, places her other hand just below her upper torso. A ball of bendezium fibers slides out, and Darithee squelches the urge to yell.
"Are you insane!?" He asks, managing to fail in this endeavor. "That's your suit's antimatter reactor in there!"
"Yes, it is," Melothee says absolutely deadpan, placing a shield generator on either side. "And I am aware of the risks involved. But if I don't do this, then what're the chances of any of our little trio getting out of here alive?" At Darithee's grudging acknowledgement of this, she extends the sphere (gripping it on the top and bottom with the shield generators on either side), and activates the generator. "Oh, and you're going to need a new shield after this. It's getting direct feed from the generator core, and we have those emergency protocols for a reason."
At this, a wave of purple erupts from either side of the sphere. It extends horizontally in a perfectly flat plane directly out from either side of the sphere in twin bands of exactly the width of the generators themselves. Melothee snatches her hands back, and Darithee takes hold of the back of the sphere just long enough to extend a pedistal to the floor. Then, the twin bands track along the room backwards to create a trapezoidal space around the two commandos and Kazuko. The bands widen to cover the entire space from the floor to the ceiling on the sides of the trapezoid, creating an enclosed space whose only link to the outside world is the space above the sphere and between the two generators. The tentacles slam uselessly into the superhot planes of energy.
"So...how long do we have?" Darithee says, stepping up to the opening and raising his arm cannon.
"Forty-five seconds right...now."
"That's not exactly good," the point-guard says, firing off a couple of bolts of energy at the creature's core.
The other commandos, meanwhile, have joined up with one another on the same side of the pool, the one adjacent to where the group of cyber-girls is standing. The four Zebesians run forward and leap across the gap between their two groups, bouncing off the edge of the pool right in front of the girls and going directly for Morpha's core. Since they are an unanticipated factor, there is nothing to strike at them. Morpha sees this as something of a problem, so it rerouts a 'greater' tentacle back in their direction, plus five of the 'lesser' tentacles. One of the lesser catches hold of Vulthee, who is then dragged to a stop and hurled at the wall with the help of one of the other two lesser tentacles. The greater tendril slams into Rekthee's back, pinning him neatly against the ceiling and incapacitating him. The remaining lesser limb hits into Horathee's side, knocking him off course and causing him to hit into the corner of the pool with his stomach. The only commando to penetrate the web is Encarathee, who's not exactly the most ideal commando for hitting vulnerable, known, fairly small targets. Simply put, she just twists around so she's face down and moving feet-first, then slaps a heat-activated explosive onto the core's surface and lands on the edge of the pool. When the girls attack, the mine will go off and the two together should make Morpha really dead.
"Steady..."
The girls had already finished in making the cannon and where already in position waiting for both Kazuko's and Yoshiko's signals.
It was a long and thin weapon that was majorly yellow since the trackball was the base to fussion. It showed some ammo on the tops which seemed to be of Minako's manufacturing while Keiko's whip as all around it, brigthing in a blue neon color, same color as the energy which was starting to charge at the tip.
Yoshiko was standing behind, having on her power the trigger coming from her basic ray gun.
"Shoot already!!" Minako shouted
"Why?" the blue leader was not risking her loss of concentration, as a shot takes to charge the exact time Kazuko does to attack.
"They are after us!!" Yoko cried out.
The tentacles rushed towards them, and with no weapons at their disposal, rather than the cannon they had formed, the step in front of the leader to try to stop the attack.
"You guys!! You're insane!!" Yoshiko saw with surprise, how they actually jumped into the creatures attacks, specially Minako who seemed to be more in trouble, yet, she didn't look that much unpleased. More like she had something on her sleeve
"Just keep the cannon ok... we only got one shot and one Kazuko..." Keiko grunted, trying to squeeze herself to get away.
"We are still here you dummy!"
And so Minako waved.
The Leader was quite perplex at how she managed to be in 2 places at the same time.
That's when, while rolling her eyes, she showed some capsules
"Holograms… pretty things to make stupid creatures and people like you get distracted"
"Hah ha ha…" a sardonic laugh "How funny… now come here and help me with the cannon"
"Mind if I join chuu?"
What's this? Where'd those come from? There're only supposed to be four over there, and now there are seven! Oh, well. Morpha, not being particularly far from the line marked 'self-aware' on the intelligence-o-meter, just swings another 'greater' tentacle and six more 'lesser' tentacles at the newcomers.
Kazuko meanwhile continued with her strategy.
The power within her was quite overwhelming it had actually created a small shield around her perimeter, but it was only as a draft of the powers she was not using at the moment, making it somewhat unstable and weak.
The attack on the rest of the team did not seem to alter her, or probably it was that it did, but due the charge she had, she could not let it go.
Her silence then ended abruptly, as her secondary shield shattered like glass and started to roar, caused by the overpower she wielded.
The cannon charge color turned to green, then to a crimson red. Finally it changed to a bright white light.
"Now!" the hacker roared the energy around her body was such that she started literally to elevate into the air.
Engaging Cyber Cannon
Unit 001 key is online
Unit 002 key is online
Unit 004 key is online
Unit 000 reserve is online
Unit 000 key is online
Unit 003's power will start to sync.
Potency is calculated to be 300 UPA's, shoot with extreme caution.
"I don't need warnings for that..." Yoshiko started to aim
Minako, knowing it was time, launched a piko bomb to the floor.
The explosions made the watery tendrils evaporate in a manner they could quickly jump and go away.
They had planned to entertain the enemy in order to charge the final blast completely.. or maybe too much.
"TO THE FLOOR, NOW!!" Keiko shouted to the pirates she could see.
"Ok... in position"
Cyber Cannon is online and ready...
Kazuko was still on the air, she was completely tensed, head looking up while her aura seemed to expand. It was obvious she had never reached such levels, and as consequence unable to maintain it for long. So it was now or never.
"Cyber Cannon..." the team announced using a Japanese pronunciation
"Hashin! (Launch!)" Yoshiko shouted
pulling of the trigger, the white beam exploded when released, causing a big bright wave that was directed to the creature.
It was pure and concentrated power, such that even made the place rumble a bit.
The nearby tendrils disappeared by the force of the attack.
The burst of energy tears through the intervening area, vaporizing all the water between it and Morpha's core. It can do nothing, and it knows this all too well. The bolt of energy strikes the core, and the core vaporizes. There is nothing left. But...something's not quite right. Hey, what's that happening to the floor...?
As it turns out, Morpha did more than just float around in a pool all day. Its body actually extended into the spaces between the stones in the room (though in too small quantities to do anything useful), and actually held the room in place. Now that it is dead, and its water gone, there is nothing holding the floor together. This is a rather decidedly bad thing for the commandos and Girls both, because this was a sort of 'dead-man's switch' for Morpha. Beneath the floor, there is a plane of pure magic, a spell keyed to a teleportation spell that will send those in the room to random locations outside the temple. That way, they can't get the seal of Water, and have to hike all the way back through the temple to get it. By which time one of its offspring might be in place to oppose them once more in one of the alternate Seal rooms. However, the problem with this spell is that Morpha just isn't intelligent enough to make it sensitive enough. Groups close enough together will be transported to one location in the same formation as they fell into the plane in. This means that there will be three groups: the commandos (sans Darithee and Melothee), the Cyber Girls (sans Kazuko), and the trio not in either of the other parties. Probably not the best dispersion of forces possible.
"Oh, dear," Melothee says, as the floor starts to collapse. The center of the room goes first, and the groups have about a second and a half before the floor falls out from under them. She uses this time to grab her Antimatter Generator, disengage the two (totally spent) energy shields from it, give Darithee back his bendezium fibers, and put the core back into her own suit.
Finished the job, the cannon splits in the original weapons.
Each of the girls grabs them quickly as the place starts to cruble down.
"This didn't happen in the game..." Keiko's words where shakey since the land she was started to move.
"I think it did... but... you didn't stop to see if it did..."
"Look... up!"
Yoko pointed at Kazuko.
With all the energy deployed and used for the cannon, there was no force maintaining her up. Also, she was tired, not only by the attack, but she had used almost the same force twice.
Fainting, she started to fall to the floor.
"Kazuko!" Yoshiko shouts, she tries to move in to catch her but the sudden shaking would not let her advance easily.
Minako also tried, but the wound wouldn't let her jump high enough. She grunted in disapproval.
Darithee swings around as the floor begins to fall from beneath his feet, taking two steps toward Kazuko and swooping down to catch her before she can hit the ground.
"By the Sky Demons, woman, this is no time to faint!" he mutters, audio from his helmet to external speakers inactive at the moment. He pulls her close, securing his grip on her with some 'straps' of bendezium fibers, then moves to turn toward Melothee.
"Thank the gods they catched her... " Yoko sighed in relief
"Hmm… why do I think they have some reciprocal atacheme..." Keiko started to ponder outloud being interrupted by Minako with a bunk in her head
"We gotta get the hell out of here!!" she shouted to the group, as they managed to keep themselves balanced.
"Well, the portal is over there" Keiko pointed "Just jump into it..."
"But what about sis?" Yoko's voice sounded preoccupied, mostly like about to cry
However, at that point, the floor has fallen out from under them, and they fall toward the teleporter below.
Neither they or any of the other commandos engage their phazon packs, as they figure something along the lines of 'Hey, what the heck? Might as well, since the doors just locked too.'
However, the other commandos are less than pleased by their position.
They are too far away from the other parts of their team, and they are also too far away from the ones they are protecting. It's a no-win situation, and they can't change that before the floor falls out from under them! And so they fall, and they fade from sight as they are teleported away.
Yoshiko saw how the pirates vanished. There was no turning back...
"She'll be ok... we gotta get out... that primordial... "
"but..."
The blue leader saw Yoko's face, she was not into understanding. They had been together a good amount of time... and they certainly spend another one to find each other. Why split out... again?
"I promise... we'll get back to her…" she winked at her
Keiko whipped the acrobat and grabbed Minako by the belly (which was really uncomfortable and probably painful by the wound she carried.
"ARGH!!" she roared
"Sorry..."
"You'll be sorry later"
"Yoshiko, grab my hand!!" Yoko fastened the whip and tried to approach to her blue sister.
Yoshiko had to dodge some falling boulders and maintain her balance as the earth beneath her seemed to move much more violently.
After much struggling and dodging, she managed to grab her orange sister's arm and embrace herself.
They walked quickly towards the portal. Once there, they took a deep breath while gazing at the weird white hole.
"Alrigth... let's jump" Yoshiko announcing, without knowing what any on her team was doing " 1... 2..."
The team jumps into the portal and vanished into the thin air. The place collapses behind them, leaving no real traces of what happened in there.
At least Yoshiko's idea to get out of the temple worked... but the ending was far from what she supposed…
There where now 3 separate teams: The remaining sisters, the remaining commandos and the 'other mix'. It would take time to determine if the trio would ever join up again.
For now, the place disappears, all of them being engulfed into a bright white line that will take them someplace else.
Mission 31 End
Season 1 End
See you next mission
The Legend of Zelda – Metroid's Shadow
Stay tuned for Season 2.
Tales of the Dark Shadows