You felt odd, processing all these inputs at once. Your multitasking skill was like instances of your own mind all running at once, somehow using the same brain power and processes concurrently. You made a dozen plans in an instant, but sadly while your mind was able to line up your exact actions and help you find the optimal path your body could only move so quickly.
You lashed out to your left first, an arching highway of void searing through the air below Felicia, aimed right at one of the small (relative to where you were anyway) holes in the walls that seemed to lead to subshafts. Her ATs, having been made by yourself, had no problem interacting with the void, and she streaked down the sharp incline, picking up speed as she went.
Unfortunately though the act of helping her didn't arrest your fall it did arrest hers, and there was a limit to how far away you could keep the void roads up. You'd managed to use the air currents down here to spawn one long enough to get her mostly there and aimed her above it to compensate for the drop off when it ran out, but you were falling too fast and too far away to effectively defend her after a minute.
To interrupt anyone seeking to hit her as she escaped you grabbed the air around you, merging the current with the void, and hurled a black tornado straight up behind where Felicia was. You had considered letting her ride in one to safety, but Felicia while able to ride on the void wasn't immune to it like you, and putting her in a vortex of the stuff seemed ill advised.
Regardless her back was obstructed which should give her the minute or two needed to build up speed and get away on the nearly frictionless void road. You turned to help Ruby next but were able to write off the need to as she was headed for the walls already. She had used Yoshitsune's rumble wall combined with one of her own fangs to rebound a ride toward the other side of the shaft from Felicia.
Yoshitsune himself had aimed himself at the same wall and was following her down, already engaging with Mikan as he dropped. Spitfire was blazing through the shaft like a star rushing to intercept Kilik and Ringo who were teaming up in Nat. You considered whether you were needed, but he was going to beat you there and those were the fights those two had been waiting for anyway.
Satisfied your people were mostly on the road to safety you turned to your own situation and cursed. Gabishi, Onibasu, and Om had all encircled you as you fell, waiting to attack. As you watched though, Gabishi lashed out with his hate shoes right at your feet. You snarled and clothed your AT in void stepping on the shell of superheated air...and froze. Fuck. You hadnt considered that. It was within the rules to help others and attacks were legal as soon as freefall ceased. Gabishi had technically upheld the spirit of the rules if he assumed you wouldnt be hurt by that attack.
Now that your freefall has ended though the other lashed out. Onibasu sent streaks of lightning arcing at you and Om managed to pull moisture from the air for a few cavitation bubbles. Gabishi's shells rained down between the attacks forming a tapestry of oh fuck screaming toward you. Activation your concurrent thought you dedicated a single instance to each attack...then another to chaining them...then realized this was a terrible use of your resources and you could have done this with your normal brain.
Mapping a single attack was so ludicrously simplistic that using an entire instance of your brain for it actually caused it to become useless after about a second. You resolved to just map them all at once next time, you were getting too excited about this instanced though trick and overusing it. You stepped across the shells and between the bolts, you avoided the bubbles if possible because explosions.
You considered fighting them all at once but considering there were other members of sleeping forest loose around here you couldnt see and your girls were around it seemed like a bad call. You lashed out with a loose whirlwind of void and they were clearly aware of what it was because they all scattered to avoid the black wind. Then you tucked yourself like a skydiver and grabbed a huge amount of air, shoving it behind you and shooting off in the direction of the first visible subshaft.
The upside to this method as opposed to using a void road became apparent quickly as the wall of air propelling you smashed into the three sleeping forest kings and launched the at top speed in the other direction as you headed for the shaft. You surveyed the battle as you flew with every sense you had at your disposal. Ume was missing which wasnt great. She was their tuner but was also kind of a monster and a Gravity Child to boot. Countering her would be annoying but possible as long as you found her.
Ringo and Nat had engaged in combat heading towards the wall as they fought, while Kilik and Spitfire were taking potshots while heading for the edge of the shaft. Spitfire was hurling wheels of flame at Kilik who was mainly dodging, deflecting or throwing air blasts back as he tried to reach a solid surface. Kiliks Gaia road was fairly surface dependent and the fact that he could stall your mentor even mid air just showed how scary the bastard was.
As you blasted towards the wall away from the three kings who had been trying to attack you and insured of Felicia's safety for the most part you considered your options. You had a dozen plans but that wasnt actually helpful because you could only use one.
Your air manipulation was once again a life saver here, you were able to steer your flight as you fell and shift from the opening in the wall you had been headed for to one closer to Felicia's landing spot. You would have been able to get to the spot she was at exactly, except a tornado you hadn't seen coming slammed into you and sent you reeling off course. You barely managed to make it into a neighboring wall shaft to the one your kitten had landed in by using your void road, but you couldnt control your landing and came in hard, smashing into the ground with teeth rattling force you barely managed to bleed off in a roll.
You lay there stunned for a moment, absolutely flabbergasted someone had managed to get the drop on you. You weren't exactly the greatest air manipulator on the planet but you had some skills and any disruption on the scale should have made a mess of the localized currents. You should have noticed it long before you were hit. You waited for your head to clear and dragged yourself to your feet, injecting yourself with one of your cure alls to heal the multiple broken bones and possible internal bleeding.
Your head cleared and you walked to the edge of the passage to the secondary shaft, you were on a lip between the two shafts that was at least fifteen feet but even someone with your aptitude for zero Gs and air maneuvers got a bit woozy looking out over those drops. You stuck to the wall, remaining on hands and knees in case whatever hit you tried again. You neednt have worried.
You should have expected Sora was the only one with tight enough control to pull off that tornado without bleeding off any air disruptions. Luckily he wasn't likely to follow up as he was currently fighting EVERYONE. You might have been excited by that fact actually, with Kilik, Yoshitsune, and Spitfire you had a damn good chance of killing the bastard. Except apparently he learned his lesson when you shish kebabed his brother because he brought back up this time. LOTS of back up.
Genesis riders rained down from the sky, most of them just random A or B class, but your aura sight flared with the telltale glow of at least ten regalia's mixed in there. The only possible upside is that Sleeping Forest thankfully isn't fucking stupid and has stopped the match to engage them, teaming up with your people. You glance worriedly up in time to see Ruby and Gabishi throw some weird fang hatch venom combo that straight up melted at least fifteen A rank storm riders and smashed some kid with bright white hair and dark skin into the wall so hard it made a visible dent.
Satisfied that your team could handle themselves for a bit with backup you jetted off in the opposite direction into the secondary shaft, keeping your aura sight peeled for Felicia. Against Sleeping Forest catching up to her was a priority but with this fucking army raining down you NEEDED to find her. Nat and Ruby were stone cold killers but Felicia was a cat burglar. If she ran into some of these bastards things could go bad.
The secondary shaft was annoying. Crisscrossed with passages and catwalks you were forced to jet around to different levels and ducts trying to get close enough to her to catch sight of her aura through the blaze of the tower. You didn't know what the damn thing was but this whole fucking place was an artifact with a deep aura, which kind of made sense for a hole to the center of earth (or it felt like it) with a fucking world ending super weapon at the bottom. Still it made navigation a bitch.
You ran into about five parties of Genesis assholes as you searched, and with your worry about Felicia and fear for your friends you didnt even bother trying to take them down nonlethally. Calling up your legion soldier mentality you hurled blasts of void wind at anyone who got in your way and turned them all into fucking smoke and dust. A few of them manage to divert the wind into the walls, which held up oddly well, but you had been training in the work shop for the last five days real time and you had been training hard.
Manifesting an edge of void on your ATs you got in close and, bracing your hands to level your feet into a swing, used the things like foot weapons to cut the A rankers to pieces. One of them caught you in the ribs when you got in close, and another tagged your skull a glancing blow that run your bell pretty good, but you managed to kill them all. You slumped against the wall, trying to gather yourself for the second time in twenty minutes.
You debated taking your cure all but worried one of your friends might need it. You drifted out of consciousness for a minute not even realizing what was happening until your focus snapped back. You levered yourself up and fell back down, a concussion probably. You would need to use the cure all after all. Before you could fumble out the injector though a familiar, beautiful voice screamed "Anthony!"
Felicia's face appeared in your vision, as gorgeous as ever, and your heart soared with gratitude that she was ok. Her gorgeous lips were moving but your head was fuzzy and you couldnt catch it. Interesting thing to note, you did not have concussion immunity. She slipped out an injector of her own, plunging it into your neck sharply and pressing the plunger. Focus flooded back in as your body healed and your girlfriend threw herself into your arms, weeping openly for the first time you could remember. "Oh god baby that was horrible. I've never seen you like that. What the hell is going on?"
After you finished catching up Felicia she was completely on board with your plan to head back out to rescue Ruby. Nat was older and had some extreme training from Rika to fall back on but your assassin was on her own out there. Making your way back up to the main shaft was a pain in the ass to manage but after some wandering around you found the same exit hole you used to get in.
Once again making your way to the edge to peer up into the shaft you glanced back out into the melee. You felt Felicia crawl up next to you and let out a long whistle at the chaos. "God damn. Thats insane, I dont think I've ever seen anything that crazy before. I dont see Ruby up there, not that im surprised with all that craziness going on above us, seriously is that tornado on fire?"
It was on fire. Several of them were. You could see a massive vortex of flame eating up the majority of the shaft, sometimes vanishing into nothingness and then being shot out as a giant flaming wall of force before smashing itself on one of those shitty vacuum spheres. Spitfire and Yoshitsune had basically decided to leave the rest of genesis to the others and were engaging Sora together with Kilik.
The wind asshole was managing to repel all of them though you couldn't see the exact details of his condition from down here. You grinned triumphantly as a spike of steel wall shot out to spear through the vacuum sphere, though even from this distance you could see it didnt make contact. Satisfied your mentors were fine you went back to scouring the battlefield for Ruby. You suspected she might have slipped into the walls seeing as she didnt have much of a way to keep suspended. Only kings like Spitfire and Kilik and Yoshi could be expected to keep up a completely weightless battle.
You locked your eyes on the hole in the wall closest to the lowest dent with the aura of Ruby's ATs and grabbed Felicia's hand, conjuring a void road as you headed straight for it. Luckily the thing was actually fairly close, only a few hundred feet, but your void road was stretched to its limits by the time you got in. You could keep making more road but it could only be so long before you had to drop it and restart.
Felicia dropped to the ground prone as you arrived, pulling you down as well, as you took in the situation in this particular shaft. You crawled across the ledge to look down into the catwalk riddled hole, easily spotting Ruby. She was still fighting alongside Gabishi against the weird kid with the white hair, and they were getting their asses kicked. The circumstances of that were...weird. The white haired rider had ruptured what appeared to be an absolutely massive water pipe running down the side of the tower, and the waterfall of liquid was cascading down over the catwalks creating curtains of water dropping down into the darkness.
The white haired kid was using that water to seriously fuck your girlfriend and her companion up. He appeared to be riding some sort of bloody road variant that used a water base, and the fangs had been turned into giant water knives and were ripping holes in the walls and catwalks to devastating effect. Felicia leaned in to whisper in your ear as you tried to locate the kid after he disappeared into a curtain of mist. "Where the fuck did all this water come from? Why would the tower need this much water?"
You leaned in as well, keeping your voice down for some reason despite the cascading roar of the flood in front of you. "This is nothing. The cut in that pipe is tiny compared to the whole reserve. The notes we found in the library mentioned this actually. The whole tower is something called an eternity machine. Basically it drops huge amounts of water down one side to crank a hydroelectric setup only to boil at the bottom and rise up the other side, the hot air spinning turbines, and collecting at the top to rain back down into the water tank creating a constant cycle that never ends. Hydroelectric and Geothermal energy creating perpetual motion."
Her eyes widened in shock "Wait what? This place is huge, does that even work? And what does it even need that much power for? No way you need that much juice to keep the lights on." A burst of superheated air set off a cascade of steam as Gabishi took a shot at what turned out to be a reflection in a curtain of water. This was getting insane. The water was part of the tower so it was charged with aura meaning your aura sight did jack shit here.
Focusing back on Felicia you shook your head. "First of all you're underestimating the lighting and energy needs for this place. Its fucking hundreds of miles deep. But no its neither self sustaining nor is it using up all the power. Its all being stored at the bottom, and the cheat by siphoning water from the cities water supply. it is efficient as hell though which is why its probably got enough power now to actually work. This entire place is designed to do one thing with that power, and if that happens we're going to have some fucking problems."
Before she could ask what that was you finally saw your chance, a disturbance in the water. You shot out a void road and grabbed Felicia, streaking toward the water curtain as you noticed Ruby's opponent finally emerge. The biggest issue now was how to handle the bastard. After all, it wouldn't do to take the victory your girlfriend had worked so hard for. Maybe you should just let this play out once you drove him into the open.
You streaked out over the watery abyss towards the white haired kids hiding spot, but rather than attack as you had thought about doing you rode your void road up to the catwalk above him and landed there with a splash. Luckily your wheels were made by a master craftsman, which is to say you because there was zero slippage as you came to a stop, making sure to drop down with artisan level stealth so as not to splash and give away your position.
Once you landed you saw Ruby's eyes stop on you and Felicia and her aura pulsed with gratitude and relief. You shot her a wink and put your finger to your lips before nodding and flicking your eyes down to the hiding spot. Ruby's mouth split in a devilish grin and she focused her attention on a completely empty waterfall down and to the right of you, streaking towards it in the most obvious way possible. Her wheels kicked up water as she dashed from catwalk to catwalk aiming for an empty patch of air, before she suddenly arced her right heel up and around pivoting her whole body on her left foot and hurling a massive fang through the water right where white hair was standing.
The little bastard was good though, he mostly managed to dodge the attack losing a chunk of his arm in the process as he zipped sideways and dashed low to avoid being bisected. Ruby was on the hunt though, and she'd seen his little disappearing act up close, she stuck right on his tail hurling out fangs left and right to try to crush the kid. The slippery basted dodged most all of them but it was getting harder, the catwalks were getting chewed up around him, with some fangs landing in front of him when he dodged, forcing him to void the damaged spots as well as the attack.
That pattern would have probably continued, except Gabishi had apparently seen the attacks from where he had been searching further up and started raining down superheated air shells on the kids head. You would have expected that to be the end of him, but unfortunately those shells caused massive plumes of steam, covering the kid for another vanish, though not before he hurled a fang of his own, this one somehow pressurized to fucking explode on contact, though luckily Ruby avoided being hurt.
Your assassin shot a harsh glare up at the masked psycho. "The fuck Faceless? Do you not understand how basic temperatures work? Now that slippery asshole is gone again. Any more bright ideas? Maybe you can try to deafen him by shouting a list of our weaknesses through a bullhorn." Her words were biting and sarcastic but you could see her chest heaving and sweat beading at her temples. Ruby was getting tired. You readied yourself to step in if needed, but you held back to give her the chance to finish this on her own.
Gabishi ignored her, being the absolute fuck waffle he was, and began to scan around them for the little water asshole. The steam had mostly faded by now, with just a bit of it hanging in the air rather than being washed away by the cold water. He suddenly focused off to one side and hurled another shell, condensing it a bit more than usual, presumably to make the water boil off to quickly to obscure view. The white haired kid was standing right there, in the middle of a catwalk, and as the shell hit...he fucking vanished into mist.
At the same time another identical kid appeared above Gabishi hurling down a rain of those annoying exploding fangs. Apparently the kid could make water clones. Weird. Regardless Gabishi would have been a cooked goose if not for the hail of fangs Ruby sent up to detonate the exploding ones. The ones that missed were set off in a chain of explosions, mainly missing the face freak but covering the kid to slip away yet again.
You were seriously reconsidering leaving this to Ruby, this kid was fucking annoying, and his abilities were weird. Water clones was a weird ass ability and an annoying one to counter especially in this environment, but Ruby held up a hand in your direction without looking. She closed her eyes, focusing hard on the sound of the water. She stood still as stone, barely breathing the cascading falls around her creating a deafening roar. You stood down. You knew she was trying to handle this herself, if she died you could rez her, but stepping in would damage things between you.
Ruby focused on her surroundings, every drop every puddle, every catwalk. She stood there for several minutes, waiting in silence. Listening. She was one with her surroundings, completely vulnerable. Harmless, a target. Ruby had once told you that the most effective assassin was one that looked the least imposing. She stood there like that for thirty more seconds, then her eyes snapped open and she spun her body with almost no telegraphing at the highest speed you had ever seen her move, lashing out with a fang.
As the spray of blood arced up from the headless body of the water kid Ruby smiled serenely, already being washed clean by the downpour. Sometimes it was easy to forget how fucking scary your girlfriend could be. You smiled proudly down at her as the forge triggered, and exhausted from your dash to get here you took a minute to let it connect.
Celestial forge accessed: Laboratory (Ben 10 0.1) (400CP) Sufficient CP. Purchased. Total remaining CP: 600.
You dropped in to check on Ruby after the fight of course, and brought Felicia with you. Once you made sure your assassin was alright you huddled them both together to discuss your options. "Alright girls, I'm going to head up to help Spitfire and Yoshi with Sora. I'd prefer not to leave you both alone, in case Genesis has anyone else on Sora's level or several king level riders jump you as a group. That said you more than proved you could handle yourselves and you have the cure all on you, do you want to go look for nat and help her or head into the work shop?"
Surprisingly Ruby was the one who looked pensive "Honestly I'm exhausted babe, I'd love to go help Nat but I think at this point I'd get in the way. I dont want Felicia doing this on her own, I think we should head in and take cover for now. You can send Nat in when you see her." She did seem tired, but it seemed more a mental exhaustion from the constant state of intense emotion than a physical tiredness.
Felicia looked distinctly unhappy with her answer but after a bit of thinking she nodded with a scowl "I don't like it, but I couldn't follow most of that fight. The A and B rank riders kind of skewed how strong i thought these people were. That kid was a monster, and I know you said there's more. We should lay low."
You smiled with relief and pulled them both in close "I know it sucks and I'm sorry, but you'll be safer this way and it'll help me focus. This is almost over. Once we finish this final fight we can jump, I can feel it. I guess beating Sora still counts as a win, which is nice. We can get that done, say goodbye to our friends and head somewhere a little less...this."
Felicia giggles and pecks you on the cheek and Ruby just laughs and holds you tight before they both let go. With a glance to the side you spot the door right ahead on the current catwalk you're standing on and lead them both in, stepping back out as they notice and begin to get excited about your new lab. Time for that later, though you warn them both not to touch anything because the tech looks really advanced.
Gabishi vanished during your conversation, presumably to go murder the living shit out of any Genesis riders he could find so you headed back up to check things out in the main shaft. Finding your way back to the lip of the entrance was a pain but when you got up there you winced. The entire peak of the shaft was still filled with burning tornadoes, but there were more of them and they were burning less hot.
Twisting your palms you hurled a tornado of your own, with no void in this one since you planned to get in, and used a trick Ikki had shown you during your final days of training. Pile Tornado: Limited Express. The vortex sucked you down the tube of the tornado and spat you at the other side of the shaft full force, with some english on you. Luckily you had done this before and knew you could only manage a tornado a few hundred feel long even going all out.
You angled the thing close to straight up and hurled yourself up the shaft with only a slight angle to reach the spot where Spit and Yoshi were fighting. It took you two void roads platforms and two more tornadoes to make it up there but you finally got within viewing range of Sora. Things were...not going well.
Yoshi was grimacing in pain, his body torn up by absorbing the recoil from all this wind, Spitfire was covered in sweat, and Kilik had blood coating him in several places having apparently been using his insanely hard body to tank hits for the others when they couldn't be dodged or reflected. The only bright spot here was that Sora was undoubtedly too busy to notice your presence and lose his mind in a revenge frenzy.
The wind king did look fairly tired himself though. Not as obviously, but within a few hundred feet your enhanced perception let you notice the slight tremble in his muscles. He was a total monster but he did have limits. You considered how the hell you were supposed to use this opening. He would feel any wind you threw, you didn't have good enough control to keep the disturbance tight and foil detection.
You could only use the void here. The amount of void you could summon was limited and you had to drop the platform to do it, but you did have an idea. Sora was a bit out of the range of your road, but if you tightened the focuse you might be able to send a single spike of void further. You released your hold on the platform and lashed out with a kick, hurling the thinnest blade of void you could manage, basically a wire with a sharpened end right up at Sora.
You thought it would land for a second, but his eyes widened and he hurled himself sideways, getting speared through the shoulder from below. He hissed in pain and glared down at you, raising a hand to hurl some more wind. It looked like you had injured one of his arms enough to at least slow him down, he must have detected the air from the damn kick.
Unfortunately despite the corrosion the incredibly thin void wire wouldn't have done anything immediately debilitating. This fight would be easier but there was a long way to dodged the wind blast and used your void road to barrel up towards the others,. With another burst of flame Spitfire interrupted his attack, and it was on.
You had to admit, Sora really was a genuine monster. Even getting close you could barely avoid the attacks working with the others. As soon as you got close enough you stuck Spitfire and Yoshitsune with the cure alls, healing them both back up to perfect health. You tossed one to Kilik as you went by, mostly because you suspected sneaking up and stabbing him would have gotten your spine ripped out, the man was tanking hurricane force windshear, his body was insanely tough.
Without missing a beat the weirdly dramatic fake priest injected himself with the cure all as well, healing himself back up to full. Together you all converged on Sora again lashing out at the insane wind king with every trick in the book. Yoshitsune was siphoning up most of the tornadoes as quickly as he could make them and you were bouncing off platforms hurling waves of void at the bastard. Spitfire was riding the walls leaving white hot trails and using the catching moondrops technique to step on air.
You had never seen anything like this fight. Every single person was not only fighting each other but in a constant battle against gravity, the perpetual falling and reversal created an insane dynamic that all of you had to constantly counter, with Sora the only person managing to cheat with his insane bullshit wind regalia. The major issue however was that as you stepped up your game, so did he.
Sora started amping up his attacks, letting loose bigger gales and tightening up his form, becoming slowly more intimidating and effective as the fight went on. Rather than look smug or like he was toying with all of you however the harder he fought the more annoyed his aura became. It took you a minute to puzzle out the input before your eyes widened in realization, putting together the disparate facts with his downward flicking eyes and growing annoyance.
You turned to bellow at Kilik across the distance "He was sandbagging!" The gem king raised an eyebrow at you in confusion being close enough to see. You couldn't believe it took you this long to notice, Sora was even staying near the walls. He wanted this fight to happen, he wanted to get beaten, and you ganging up on him like this meant he couldnt risk his original plan. Your eyes widened. "The fucking vacuum sphere! It feeds off heat and pressure, but its incremental! He wanted you to try to smash him so you could build up the sphere for some reason, but my void wire made him lose the shield!"
Kiliks eyes widened in comprehension and he snarled at the wind king. "Of course. You lack the capability to survive the heat and pressure at the depths of the tower! Even your strongest defense wouldn't be enough to withstand it. You needed to borrow our strength to reinforce your shield to allow you to reach the regalia!" He was understandably pissed off the insane gravity child had been using the three of them like a hammer on an anvil.
Sora let a snarl of his own overtake his face, this one aimed at you "You!" He roared out "Are extremely annoying! I've known you for about ten minutes total and you've ruined most of my life's work! Well you know what? If I can't accomplish my goals with your help, I'll just kill all of you morons and figure out a way to manage it later!" With that, he wheeled his arms to gather more air and hurled it at you, and thats when you realized something very bad.
Sora had STILL been holding back. He was throwing those stupid tornadoes at you all to make an impression and look intimidating but they weren't actually anything special. Windshear and air rotation were all fine and good, but the thing that made air really dangerous was PRESSURE DAMAGE. Within seconds the air was no longer full of rampaging wind funnels, now the attacks were bursts of displaced air causing pressure force equaling a fucking speeding car. And he was throwing HUNDREDS of them. Sora was officially making his stance clear on his number of fucks and willingness to give them.
Yoshitsune was having a much harder time absorbing the pressure from the displaced air than the big obvious hurricanes, and Spitfire was flickering in and out of sight trying desperately to dodge the hammers of air and force that were impacting the walls of the tower and leaving massive dents in the metal. Kiliks spikes were being flattened back down and Sora appeared to be ramping UP not down as he attacked.
The fucking air cannon attacks were even smashing your damn void spheres, and he wasn't giving you nearly enough time to gather a cohesive burst of concentrated power to get to him, forcing you to dance to his tune as he hurled down destruction at all of you. His command of the sphere of air around him combined with his bullshit gravity child cheat sense was letting him conduct all of you like a fucking orchestra and if something didn't change you guys were going to die. You just needed a fucking second to wind up for a big punch and you could do something about it.
Luckily, you got that second. Because Sora wasn't the only freakish genius around here. An enraged voice full of belligerence and venom bellowed "Null Wind!" And within seconds every single attack vanished. You grinned wickedly at your plummeting friend heading down from above into the fight a savage vengeful baring of teeth splitting his face.
You had what felt like a few seconds to exalt in the backup and laugh at Sora's misfortune of course, before every single one of you started to fall. Of course you could have caught yourself on your platforms but everyone else wasnt as lucky. As you all started to plummet headfirst into the depths of the earth you took a moment to let the forge connect, hell maybe you'd get something that could save you.
Celestial forge accessed: Restriction/Formation Expert | Cultivation | Formation and Restriction Flags (Renegade Immortal) (800CP) Sufficient CP. Purchased. Total remaining CP: 0
You had gotten a bunch of really crazy abilities from the forge, knowledge and power and several weird artifacts. Being Named fundamentally changed who you were as a person on the deepest possible level. But none of those things came even close to the feeling of becoming a cultivator. It wasn't that you could get stronger now, or even that you would eventually be able to share that ability, as great as that was.
One second you were a normal albeit augmented human and the next you were...the beginning. You were starting out on a road that could take you to the apex of the cosmos. You had taken the first step to being a god. You could feel some synergy between this perk and artisan, though only a little. Your cultivation improved through a breathing technique and the artisan level of breathing put you just at the edge of what could be considered one of those.
Your breath changed mid fall and you felt yourself grow with every inhalation, slowly growing in power, breathing in strength and breathing out weakness. Then you remembered that air was pretty relevant here because you and most of your loved ones were plummeting to your doom down a miles long hole in the earth next to sociopathic egomaniac bent on world domination and decided to shelve the revelations about changes to your nature for another time.
You did notice something interesting though. Aside from just generally being stronger physically your new breathing seemed to give you an intuitive sense of the air around you. Air which was no longer unnaturally still from Ikki's trick since you had fallen out of the damn field. Of course Sora had been higher than you, so you had a few seconds after noticing that to react before he left the null void himself.
You once again engaged your multi tasking. You were a small bit faster but that wasn't important, with your improved ability to feel the air you could reach almost twice as far with your void road. You noted the position of every one of your friends, luckily because of the battle they were all fairly close. You spotted Spitfire sparking up his wheels to try to generate some flames to gain mobility. You saw Kilik attempting to steer himself towards the wall. You saw Ikki still in the null field trying to aim as best he could without wind, and finally Yoshitsune who seemed to be much more stable than everyone else, having saved up his own wind during the last round of tornadoes and not used it yet.
Your voice road sputtered to life under Spitfire, giving him a ramp, under Kilik providing a solid surface for the man, under Yoshitsune who had gotten pretty close to you with his own power, and finally under Ikki in a sharp slide leading down to where you were standing all leading to a solid void platform in the middle of the shaft bringing all of your group together. Holding this thing together at such a size was actually incredibly taxing mentally. Luckily your multitasking made it much easier so you were able to hold a conversation.
The combined force of some of the greatest stormriders on the planet all huddled together looking a bit sheepish. Spitfire spoke up first "Well I'll be honest. I did not see that coming. If Sora was always that strong he's been holding back on us substantially. Then again if any of this shit taught us anything it's that Sora Takeuchi is a completely different person than he showed anyone." He shot a glance at you "Except maybe Nike. But with that bastard dead I suspect no one really knows whats going on in that guys head. Fortunately I think he finally cut loose. I don't think we're going to see any power kept in reserve. Question though, anyone know how to counter whatever the fuck that was without stripping almost all of us of our ability to function?"
Kilik frowned "I am unsure how much of that was actually him. He was always powerful, more so than he let on, but at least some of it was his new connection to his regalia. Giving up his legs did have certain advantages. Granted his air control is more terrifying than even I knew, but his precision and power come at least partly from being intertwined with Bagram."
You scowled at that "So he's basically got fucking aim assist. I can tear through most of his defenses if you guys can pin him down and get his attention. Ikki you got anything in you bag of tricks besides your no no zone? And Yoshi, any chance you managed to work out how to absorb those pressure hammer things? We need literally anything we can get. He passed us a couple seconds ago and once he gets his bearings he's going to start raining hell on us again."
Spitfire looked pensive "I can do much more with Ikki in the mix. Flame works well in combination with wind, Sora was able to offset the effectiveness by controlling his own attacks but with a partner I can probably at least control the field a bit." You considered that strategy along with having Yoshitsune throw some walls of force and having Kilik try to use them as a base for his gem road, hardening them up for more damage and flexibility.
With Ikki in the mix you had a diverse set of skills but no clue what to do. Whatever you decided on it had better be fast though, Sora would be attacking any second and if he caught you unaware you might be finished. Not to mention you might not be able to rez your friends if they fell deep enough to get pulverized by the heat and pressure at the bottom of the shaft. So the question remained, how the hell should you handle this? Who would pin Sora down so you could finish him?
You were pretty glad you had managed to hurry things along and get Ikki and Spitfire ready to attack because about ten seconds after you finalized things Ikki bellowed "Dodge!" And you all had to scatter. The platform you had been standing on was smashed to pieces by invisible hammers of aerokinetic force and Sora was naturally once again standing in midair on those annoying metal wings.
Sora looked...mostly annoyed. You could swear you could hear him grinding his teeth from a full twenty yards away. As soon as his eyes focused on you though the annoyance turned to rage, and the snarl that split his face was much clearer than any imagined teeth grinding. Before he could hurl an attack at you though he got a bit distracted. A fucking HYDRA of blazing fiery tornadoes roared up from directly below the bastard and attacked from every side.
His sight of you was interrupted by the flames, and you immediately conjured your void road and streaked toward him at top speed. Yoshitsune and Kilik were off to the sides of the flaming deluge interrupting as best they could. Kilik was sticking to the walls hurling perfectly timed spiked of metal that distracted Sora enough that he almost got burned a few times. Yoshitsune was shutting down any of the massive gales of wind he tried to conjure.
His stupid air pressure hammers weren't an option either, because between the massive air distortion from all the heat and the constant rhythm breaking from the others he couldn't get the moment of breath he needed to put together something that complex. It took you a few minutes of that to find a spot both free of flames and where he wouldn't notice you. You were thankful for your enhanced perception yet again, and your new connection to the air from your cultivation helped too.
Finally you spotted a hole you could get through and streaked toward it at top speed, leaping between whirling dervishes of flame to get close to the wind king. Landing silently on a void road inside the blaze you covered the last few feet and launched a scythe of the corrosive energy in a kick at the mans neck. Unfortunately disturbance or not getting that close tripped his aerokinetic senses and Sora immediately jerked forward, leaning under the sweeping kick and throwing out a palm to blase you with displaced air.
You changed direction mid attack and split the air burst with your scythe blade, breaking most of the effectiveness and dispersing it as a strong gale that ruffled your hair, but in that time the wind king backed up to the edge of the empty sphere he had been managing to hold in the flame attacks giving him enough distance to keep you in full view. He was keeping the attacks off himself with a shield like the vacuum shield he had used but bigger, but you werent worried about the sky regalia. Sora wasn't leaving this bubble.
He glared at you in annoyance "Why am I not surprised it's you again? Why can't you just leave me alone? All I wanted was to fix the world. To use the sky regalia to make sure that everyone got the same chances. The ninety nine percent are held down by geniuses, kept enslaved by people like you, and there's so much suffering because of it. If I can get the sky regalia I can help them, give them the technology to fix things! Is that really so bad? Am I so evil just for wanting to help?"
He was almost panting in rage as he spat his goals at you dashing forward to lash out with a palm strike that smashed out with the force of a freight train because of his air manipulation. You managed to dodge and he just threw another, raining down bursts of air as you weaved around them, you close quarters skills far above his even if your power wasnt. You couldn't help but answer "You don't want to uplift shit. You're an emotionally stunted lab experiment who is pissed off he wasn't as special as he thought he was and wants to take over the world. You just want to be nice about it as much as possible so people will like you. You aren't a visionairy, you're a sociopath with a Napoleon complex."
He actually screamed in rage at that deflecting a blow with a palm as a void blade nicked his arm and then dodging another only get a small cut across the ribs"No! I'm just trying to help! People like you want to keep me from uplifting everyone else so you can keep being important! You geniuses are disgusting! You think being intelligent or skilled means you should be in charge, that you can decide what people should do, but you're wrong!" He drove a larger than usual palm of air at your head but you slipped to the side, kicking out with a small blade of void that opened a gash on his inner thigh, but he barely seemed to notice.
He kept lashing out at you, screaming about inequality and how he would fix things. All the while the pumping of his heart pushed blood from his femoral artery out of his leg and soaked his pants. His blows got weaker and weaker as he ranted, working himself up so much he literally bled to death from overexcitement. Finally after a few minutes of attack his feeble lashing out weakened so much he couldn't even lift his arms and he collapsed, falling towards the shaft. You dashed forward and caught him on a platform.
You expected to see fear or anger when you caught him but instead there was only tears in his eyes. His voice was weak "If I don't finish it it was all for nothing. I have to...fix things." He coughed weakly as you held him there, dying, before looking up at you in anguish "I never meant to kill them. Don and the others. I just wanted us to all be together. What did I do?" The tears flowed more freely as his breathing got shallower. Before it stopped completely he managed to croak out. "Hey. Tell Rika...sorry...ok?" And that was the last sound you heard before Sora Takeuchi died.
You were fairly busy over the next couple days, you said your goodbyes to all your mentors and friends. You made sure to get their numbers and connect their phones to you akashic network so you could keep in touch. You asked Randall and Fran (who were staying behind to try to build their own lives instead of being a doppleganger and would give you a way back anyway) to keep an eye out for everyone for you.
You said all your goodbyes to Ikki and his friends. Rika had been both upset and relieved when you gave her Sora's message. She cried in your arms for an hour after, and actually blushed when she realized what she was doing. She revealed she was pregnant, though the baby was apparently Kilik's not Sora's. When you asked about that she just said she had an active sex drive and hadn't had the exclusivity talk with either of them, which you could respect.
As a final parting gift after you got all the mushy stuff out she thanked you for saving her brother, and to you complete shock pulled her pants down and bent over. She gave you one good slap and commemorative photo, because she knew you were leaving the universe. She moaned nicely when you smacked it and then pecked you on the cheek with another thank you and a wink. You made the photo your background and she actually giggled when you told her, saying maybe next time she'd let you see the rest of it, since she understandably wasnt really interested in anything sexual with this all so fresh.
Finally almost everything was in order, with only one last thing to do. You showed up at the tower in mid afternoon, and were greeted at the elevator by Ine, who knew you were coming. As you climbed into the lift she turned to look at you sternly "Spitfire told me you know. That you're taking her if she wants to go. He won't say where, but he says its far and she'll be gone a long time." She stared hard at you. "I raised that little girl. I taught her and I took care of her. I'm not her mother but I'm as proud of her. She has so much more potential than I ever did. If you hurt her... I'll crush you."
You were a bit shocked. You'd never been threatened by a girls parents. None of your girls were that close to theirs. Except Felicia, but her dad had accepted her "leaving town to find herself as a thief" way too easily to be normal. Ruby's mom might have tried but you'd all fucked off without mentioning it to her because she was an abusive asshole and Ruby thought it served her right. It wasn't exactly scary, but it was intense. You gave her a reassuring smile anyway though. "If I hurt her, I'd already be crushed."
She gave you a considering look before nodding slightly as you climbed off the elevator before nodding her understanding and striding off to leave you to your conversation. Kururu was bent over in front of her work bench when you arrived and you stopped to stare again. She wasn't wearing her overalls but instead a pair of short shorts and a t shirt with a small jacket over it. It took longer than you cared to admit to notice she was rummaging around in a duffle bag, but she noticed you before you figured it out and popped up with a squeak of embarrassment.
She blushed heavily as she glared at you, but her aura made it clear she wasn't mad, she actually liked the attention. She glared for another few seconds before sighing and rolling her eyes, turning back to continue packing, perhaps waving her hips side to side a bit more than she had been. She spoke as she packed, not bothering to look up. "Don't bother giving me the sales pitch, I'm obviously coming." She must have been looking at your face from between her legs when she said it because she giggled. She straigtened back up and turned to look at you. "Did you really think Ine wouldn't tell me when she found out?"
You just shrugged "That makes sense. I guess I assumed the threat meant she was giving me the chance to ask, but in retrospect that was stupid. So you're coming with huh? You know whats going to happen? Where we're going? Well I know not exactly where because even I dont know, but how far." You stumbled a bit there, your rhythm thrown off by her easy acceptance. You finished up helping her pack and escorted her into the work shop where all the other girls were waiting.
You looked around the place one last time in this world. Seeing all the differences, all the new spaces, the memories with your mentors and new friends. The spot where Randall spent his time and where Fran had been created. Even now there was a new avatar forming though this one had only been started recently and was only a month into a two month development. You looked around at the space you knew would be the same even after you left, but saw all the things that wouldn't be here.
You looked out at the tower one last time seeing the spot you came into this world and knew you wouldn't see it through that gateway again anytime soon. Even if Randall could theoretically open gateways for you to visit until you got a third avatar you wouldnt have a return anchor so the forge wouldnt allow it. You knew it would be a long time before you saw your friends here again. With a sigh and a nod to your girls you initiated the jump. Time to explore a whole new world.
_
Perks:
Laboratory (Ben 10 0.1) (400CP)
Of course you need somewhere to work, you buffoon! What, do you think you were going to make some of the greatest wonders in the universe in some busybody's toolshed?! Ahem. This is a fully stocked Galvan laboratory with all the tools and resources needed to do research and development. Subatomic observation platforms, computers with exabytes worth of storage, and so forth. It's a generalist sort of facility but there's room to add to it later if you wish to specialize.
Restriction/Formation Expert | Cultivation | Formation and Restriction Flags (Renegade Immortal) (800CP)
Restriction/Formation Expert (300CP)
Formations and restrictions are two different yet similar methods of achieving similar results.
Formations are ordered structures built from materials and powerful resources that can accomplish a variety of tasks, including teleportation across vast distances to pre-set destinations, creating incredibly powerful barriers to keep enemies out or allowing multiple weaker people to work together to create a far more powerful force. One of the most potent examples of formations, one that only late Second Step and Third Step cultivators would know about, is the Realm Sealing Formation, an unimaginably vast sealing formation that separates the Cave World into the Inner and Outer Realms.
Restrictions, on the other hand, require no resources aside from knowledge and the divine sense and they can change according to the will of the user, making them much more dynamic and free-form as compared to formations. The most common use for restrictions is to boobytrap an area, filling a space with manifold restrictions that require long periods of careful study to bypass, lest you step on a blade of grass that will become a storm of blades that simultaneously sets off all the adjacent restrictions and creates a truly dangerous predicament. You have an incredible talent for your chosen discipline, as well as years of experience and a well honed sense of intuition for unknown restrictions or formations. This talent and experience has manifested in a particularly piercing gaze, allowing you see through restrictions, formations and patterns with incredible ease.
Cultivation (0CP)
This represents your ability to cultivate, be it your body, your soul, your spirit or stranger things. Whatever the path, you have an average talent with all of them, representing a span of physical potential, mental ability and potency of self. Your willpower is bolstered, enough that the pains and hardships everyone must face are bearable. Focusing on one thing or another for long periods of time is now easy.
Drop-ins start at the first stage of Qi Condensation, but have no method or techniques they didn't buy here. Mortals have no cultivation and thus no method or technique, but still retain the same level of talent as the others, barring any other purchases. Young Cultivators have a method of average value, a small handful of middling techniques and a cultivation mid-way through Qi Condensation. Old Cultivators have a cultivation of early Foundation Establishment, a potent method and a collection of techniques that would make any junior envious.
You aren't restricted in the heights your cultivation can reach, but with just this it's unlikely you'll make it far with just this.
Once you leave this jump you will be able to give other people the ability to cultivate.
Formation and Restriction Flags (500CP)
This is a set of formation or restriction flags, created from a great deal of resources, that allow you to easily set up formations, or employ restrictions, on the fly. For 100 CP you receive a set of nine basic formation or restriction flags.
The set of formation flags each have one fairly basic formation that can be set up on any location in moments, and removed just as easily. They contain basic formations such as ones that can gather enough spiritual energy from the surroundings to greatly aid the cultivation of even a Foundation Establishment cultivator, seal areas so that even peak Foundation Establishment cultivators have to go to great lengths to break into them, or link the energies of a set of people inside a certain area so that each of them is as strong as all of them put together, up to the peak of the great circle of Foundation Establishment.
The set of restriction flags contains flags of the same strength except that these contain one restriction each. They contain basic restrictions such as ones that can launch attacks when unauthorized people trespass on certain places, restrictions that can trap locations, doors, chests or items and trigger preset effects when they are interacted with in certain manners, or even restrictions that act like spells and abilities of significant strength and can be used actively in combat.
You can obtain either set for 100 CP and both for 200 CP. Formation Experts receive a basic set of Formation Flags for free and Restriction Experts receive a basic set of restriction flags for free. And both of them can modify and even replace the formations and restrictions in the flags.
For an undiscounted 100 CP you can upgrade all your sets of flags. Upgraded sets have flags that can hold multiple formations or restrictions, up to nine each. The upgraded flags can hold restrictions of any level of strength and the formations or restrictions they hold to start with have increased in strength to the Core Formation level.
* Cultivation is needed to make use for formations/restrictions
