Hydrazine knew she was soon to be locked in mortal combat with the brute of a fusion that was the mega amethyst. Though her relatively smaller frame could do little against the sheer physical might possessed by quartzes, she at least partially compensated for it by having two pairs of arms to attack with, along with two heads to keep track of the battlefield with far more ease than most.
As the lumbering behemoth came into striking range it was not hard to predict what they were going to do next. The amethyst brought her axe down in a two handed overhead chop that Hydrazine easily evaded by taking a few steps backwards, but moments later Hydrazine was nearly bisected at the torso when they barely dodged the axe's second approach, the amethyst having swung it around in a wide arc from her hip.
Hydrazine knew she couldn't keep on the defensive for too long otherwise she would have no more ground to fall back on, and so as her slower opponent brought the axe upwards once more she ran forwards and with a leap Hydrazine landed an uppercut on them with her upper right arm. It was not the most well aimed uppercut, in fact it mostly struck the purple giant in the neck, but it had the desired effect. The amethyst stumbled backwards a few steps giving Hydrazine a chance to breathe.
And as she did a few wisps of crackling flame escaped her lips, catching her in surprise. Neither she nor her opponent knew it, but a key component in the fuel that primitive human spacecraft used is hydrazine, and it was quite a volatile one at that. The amethyst soon regained their senses and came barrelling towards her at a frightful pace, axe held up in the air and ready to come down to split her in two. Thinking quickly Hydrazine took in a deep inhale, holding in her breath and preparing to stand her ground.
The amethyst brought the axe down for a killing blow, but Hydrazine caught it in her hands by the shaft as it was about to descend on her left head. Though even her strength could not match that of the larger dedicated war fusion, and inch by inch her grip was forced back until her left head was forced to join in with the battle by gripping the axe with its teeth. Even then, she could feel the axe still slowly sliding downwards as the amethyst increased the force behind her assault - it was now or never. Hydrazine's mouths began glowing with an intense blue and yellow flame like a lit blowtorch.
She proceeded to open her maw as wide as possible before exhaling as heavily as she could. It forced a veritable firestorm out of both of her mouths that stopped the amethyst's attack dead in its tracks as they instead brought their axe up in a futile attempt to shield themselves from the coruscation. Hydrazine's fire was unlike the true fire of other pyrokinetic gems, instead her's was more of a burning liquid fuel meaning that didn't dissipate once striking her opponent, but rather splashed onto them while continuing to burn
As she ran out of breath the veil of flame began to dissipate, but as it did a pair of enormous fists came cutting through followed by the rest of Hydrazine's form soon after. They had jumped upwards and brought her fists crashing down on top of the amethyst's head before then landing and quickly kicking their shins hard enough to smash their lower leg backwards, causing their foot to fly off the ground.
The unexpected follow up attack forced the amethyst to lost their balance and fall over onto the floor, making them drop their axe on the floor. Hydrazine then used her bulkier upper pair of arms - likely coming from Rhodonite's ruby half - to deadlift the still downed amethyst and throw them all the way to the other end of the rock bridge.
When she used the time this allotted her to assess the situation Hydrazine felt her gemstones crackle in nervousness when she saw Fluorite slowly being pushed back to the wall by Holly Blue who had one of the dreaded destabilisers held in her hand. Thinking on her feet, she picked up the enormous axe that the amethyst fusion had dropped and chucked it to Fluorite in order to lend her something to tip the balance of their duel.
Once the deed had been done Hydrazine turned back to see her opponent rising up once more, another newly summoned axe already in their hand, but she would not allow herself to be dissuaded by the gesture. Hydrazine rushed forwards in a beeline sprint, new flames already billowing in her mouth that were ready to lash out against the opposing purple titan.
Holly Blue saw the large weapon flying in her direction, not wishing to be crushed by it she took a few steps backwards, giving an opening for Fluorite to grab hold of it without fear of being struck by the destabiliser. Despite her size, she had relatively small arms and so to lift it she had to have all four of her arms clasped around it. Fluorite had a wearied smile of relief on her face, for she now had an actual way to defend against Holly Blue.
Though just as the two of them were about to meet in a duel Fluorite saw Bolt's body zoom right past beside her before she heard a resounding boom as he impacted the wall behind. She didn't dare take her eyes off Holly Blue to look, but the noises that followed afterwards told her everything she needed to know. Fluorite feared for him as she heard rubble break off of the wall, but what finally pushed her was the pained and terrified wail the child had let out before he was silenced by falling debris.
"BOLT!" She called out his name in the vain hope that he would call back, but there was no response.
This was the last line for Fluorite. She pivoted to place herself between Holly Blue and the pile of rocks where Bolt lay buried, the small amount of hope that he still lived and fiery anger born from motherly instincts motivating her to meet the officer in head on combat - their destabiliser and electro-whip be damned. Even the threat Holly Blue's weapons still posed to her did little to persuade Fluorite away from the path she had chosen.
As Holly Blue aimed for the axe with her whip Fluorite turned the flat side of the weapon's blade to deflect the whip and prevent it from coiling around the axe. Then in return she charged forwards, rapidly dropping the axe in a flurry of strikes that forced Holly Blue to be on the defensive as she had to manoeuvre around Fluorite's rapid and heavy offense.
She saw firsthand how powerful the illicit fusion's strikes were as each one that she narrowly dodged left deep gouges into the sturdy rock of the bridge that they stood on. Holly Blue knew that even a single direct hit would likely mean taking enough damage to poof her, and so not wishing to tempt fate she continued to simply avoid her foe's strike, electing to wait for Jasper and the amethyst fusion to finish off Hydrazine so they could join her and overwhelm Fluorite.
Now realising that she would get nowhere with this plan of attack Fluorite tried something else. Just as she was about to bring the axe down on the ground she flipped it to use the other end of the weapon as a battering ram, and as Holly Blue weaved to the away from the strike Fluorite whacked her sideways, the enormous shaft of the weapon flinging her to to the ground.
Fluorite made haste to capitalise on Holly Blue's disoriented state by charging over to her. She switched the axe back the right way around before bringing it down on her torso, the massive blade cleanly shearing away her entire right arm and part of her torso with a single cleave. The removed section of her body poofed away in a puff of blue dust, leaving nothing but the whip her right hand formerly held laying on the floor.
Fluorite dropped the heavy weapon that was weighing her down and hurried to turn back around and sift through the rubble to look for Bolt. All four of her arms rapidly worked to swat away large chunks of rock all the while calling frantically calling out his name, and as Fluorite finally sifted his head out of the debris she immediately went in to feel it. She felt an indescribable weight fall off her shoulders as her hand still felt warmth emanating from his body, then moments later she nearly felt jubilation as his eyelids began to flicker about and partially open.
However, her moment of joy was destined to be short lived as she felt immense pain overtake her whole body. Looking down she saw her body begin to be covered in crackling yellow seams and instantly she understood what had happened, she had been struck with the destabiliser. Fluorite craned her neck backwards to see exactly what occurred, and in her last conscious moments she saw Holly Blue standing right behind her in victory.
######
Even through his blurry vision Bolt felt nothing but horror as he saw Fluorite slowly falling apart in pieces before his very eyes, the fragments of her physical form poofing away as her gemstones fell clattering to the ground. Behind where she once stood was a battered yet triumphant looking Agate, though missing a significant amount of her physical form it seemed she had garnered the will to keep herself together. A tired smile had formed on her face as she marched unopposed over to where Fluorite's gemstones lay.
The Agate holstered the destabiliser then used her remaining hand to re-summon her whip, and at that moment Bolt instantly knew what she was going to do. He felt rage, compassion and desperation jump-start his broken body. After the robonoid incident he had made a promise to himself, a promise to do his damndest to protect the ones who unconditionally protected him when he was but a vulnerable infant. Now he would hold true to his silent oath.
He punched one arm through the rubble, sending broken rock to pelt the Agate in the face, the display diverting her attention away from Fluorite's gemstones and to him instead. Bolt used his now free hand to shove aside the rubble covering his chest, once that was done he jerked upwards before dragging his legs free from the debris through sheer brute force. Then in the very split second he was free he did a hunched run towards the Agate, arms splayed out wide with the intent on tackling her to the ground.
"GRAAAAAAGH! YOU GET AWAY FROM HER YOU PIECE OF SHALE!" Bolt had nothing intelligent to say, there was no rebuke to be had, no battle between ideologies, only unrelenting fury. In another place, in another time, it was a fact known throughout an entire galaxy that earning the directed ire of a Primarch was something proven to be tantamount to suicide; not only for individuals, but for entire civilisations.
Here it would not be any different.
"I will make you know your stars-damned place, human." Holly Blue threatened as she struck Bolt with her whip, as the weapon struck his thighs it coiled around them and as soon as it did she pulled on her whip as hard as she could to tighten it, tripping Bolt over and causing him to land chin first on the hard rock. Once he lay on the ground Holly Blue activated her whip, sending hundreds of volts of electricity down it and into him.
Though screeching in pain, Bolt did not give in, if anything it caused him to fight harder as redundancies in his modified body activated to dull the pain and pump even more combat chemicals into his veins. With a struggling breath Bolt managed to get up and kneel on both his knees, and in a show of sheer stubbornness he grabbed the still electrified whip and began a tug of war with her. It was one that he was slowly winning as Holly Blue was dragged closer and closer to him.
As the distance closed between the two Bolt could see the confused fear in her eyes while she could see the fiery determination in his. Whilst dragging her towards him Bolt opened his mouth wide and sucked in a few lungs full of the arid cavern air to dry his mouth. It was an action that would seem odd to any onlooker but made perfect sense for the unorthodox plan he had in mind - and now that Holly Blue was close enough he enacted it.
Bolt bit down on her whip, his dried maw making sure minimal electricity was transmitted into him by the act, and within a few seconds his incisors had made short work of her weapon, snapping it in twain. His arm let go of the section of whip he had held onto and shot out to grab Holly Blue's leg while his other arm worked to loosen the bonds around his legs. He stood up as fast as he could while also raising his arm to flip her over, but with Bolt still being a little shorter than her Holly Blue now dangled awkwardly from his hand as half her back touched the ground.
With a roar Bolt flung the arm gripping her leg in a wide arc upwards before suddenly slamming her back down as fast as he could. He turned his torso to the other side and swung his arm in another arc to slam her down again, then once more he turned his torso back to the side he originally faced and as Holly Blue did another orbit around his head she shouted threats at him. 'To let her go' otherwise she would 'ration his food and water supply' and then 'give him a hundred lashings for his disobedience'. Bolt simply ignored her and brushed the empty threats aside and continued his barrage.
He did this again, and again, and again, such was his fury that each time he slammed Holly Blue on the ground it formed a series of cracks on the solid bedrock upon impact. On the sixth time, instead of letting her hit the ground again, Bolt began to swing Holly Blue around overhead like a lasso. As he did this his eyes took the time to analyse the battlefield before honing onto Jasper, who was currently curled up in a comet charge aimed for Hydrazine's legs.
She was still locked in combat with the enormous amethyst fusion and Bolt knew Hydrazine couldn't take both them and Jasper on at the same time. So wishing to grant her some reprieve, his superhuman mind worked to calculate every variable possible about Jasper's movements and how to knock her off course. Moments later Bolt surged the top half of his body forwards and let go of Holly Blue, flinging her towards the exact area he predicted Jasper would be in.
In a panic Jasper tried to slow down as she saw someone flying towards her - but it did little good - a cloud of light blue dust erupted from the impact and only a faceted teardrop shaped gemstone that fell on the ground remained as evidence of Holly Blue's existence. In the heat of it all one of the cubic robonoids, who had so far only been spectating, rushed in to recover her before rapidly rising back up to the surface of the planet.
Jasper herself soon came tumbling unceremoniously out of the dust cloud, instantly she looked in the direction where Holly Blue had flown from. Wrath, hatred and vengeance were not adequate words to describe how Jasper felt the moment she saw Bolt standing there and shooting a disdained glare at her as she lay on the ground. Despite one of his arms laying somewhat limp on his side, the singeing around his legs, and the other numerous injuries they'd sustained Bolt still had an air of triumph around him that she could not stand.
Jasper was too close to him for an effective comet charge, and so she stood up and began to run towards Bolt. Much to her delight he simply assumed a defensive stance and soon the two warriors were joined in a rut of pure strength where she had the clear advantage. Though Bolt was not truly short by any definition - currently standing at three inches short of six foot - he was still far overshadowed by the behemoth that was Jasper who towered over him at a little over eight feet tall.
Crossing his arms with the undamaged one on top, Bolt was forced a few steps back as Jasper went on the offensive and brought down punch after punch on him. He blocked each of her hits with a hiss as his good arm was forced back and impacted his damaged one, transferring a considerable percentage of the force from Jasper's blows into it.
Knowing her injured foe had no way to block her crash helmet effectively, Jasper suddenly changed her pattern of attack to headbutts in order to surprise him. But the sheer height difference between the two meant that Jasper's headbutt took longer to come crashing down, Bolt used these precious few split seconds to react. He stopped blocking and instead ducked beneath her, in fact he had ducked far lower than what was necessary to dodge the attack.
In combat a wide stance was preferable when going on the offensive, Jasper knew this, and so she took one up the moment she began clashing with Bolt, but unknown to Jasper, he had formulated a plan to use her own competence against her. As he crouched down he spread his arms wide and placed his neck right under Jasper's crotch while his arms just about managed to clasp half way around her pillar like legs.
Then, with as deep a bellow as his young voice could manage, he began straightening his back and with a herculean push Bolt managed to heft Jasper's titanic mass off of the ground and onto his shoulders. He could hear his spine crackle and feel his near broken arm scream in protest at the effort. But in the end, for the off colours' sakes, he soldiered through it.
With Jasper still bent forwards in a headbutt her centre of gravity was still off and Bolt used this to awkwardly turn around before he then leant back and began running backwards as fast he could while still remaining stable. Jasper attempted to dislodge herself by kicking at his chest and hammering into his back, and though each time she struck with enough force to buckle a steel plate the bent chunk of refined adamantium that made up Bolt's crude chestplate proved able to absorb her strikes.
Seconds later Bolt began leaning backwards even further, increasing his speed drastically at the cost of what little stability he had in the first place, then as Bolt stumbled over and landed on his backside he let go of Jasper and she struck the rock wall face first. The ram of her crash helmet was now buried in it, momentarily pinning her in place. But to Bolt's dismay it was only for just long enough to allow him time to stand back up and soon Jasper ripped her head out of the wall, sending pebbles flying all over the area before turning to face him.
Bolt was the only thing that stood between Jasper and Fluorite's gemstones, and he was intent on defending them with his life. Knowing she would not be away from the offensive for much longer he decided to be the first to land a strike in the renewed melee. Bolt sprinted forwards, sending a fist that would have mushed the chest cavity of an elephant squarely into Jasper's abdomen, but this only elicited the battle hardened veteran to hunch over for a moment before she grabbed ahold of his arm and threw him down range again, the sound of scraping metal filling the area as Bolt skid to a halt.
"Why do you continue to do it? You humans have such a comfortable life in the zoo, why give all that up to hang around a bunch of abominations?" Jasper questioned him sincerely as she picked up one of the gemstones that made up Fluorite in her left hand, inspecting it appraisingly while applying some pressure on it as a threat.
"You damned fracture I dare you, I FRAKKING DARE YOU!" Bolt chose to ignore her question as he got on his feet, his betcher's gland fired up again, causing him to form a rapidly growing wad of spit in his mouth that began to spill out onto his lips. An outsider may have thought little of this action or have thought that he had lost himself to anger, but it was not born from that, rather the action had come from yet another thought of combat cunning.
"If you say so." Jasper replied with contempt as she increased her grip's pressure, causing the gemstone in her hand to emit a screech as it was about to begin cracking.
That was the last straw for Bolt, he charged forwards at her with reckless abandon and in return Jasper stopped crushing the stone for a moment to take the time to send her fist careening into the side of his head, sending him falling sideways down onto the ground. In reply Bolt simply snapped his dislodged jaw back in place with a visceral crack, he immediately rose from the ground with a high jump aimed for the arm in which Jasper currently held the gemstone in.
He latched onto her forearm, both of his arms and legs wrapped tightly around the limb before he began ferally tearing into Jasper with his teeth, the acidic spit he had been building up in his mouth instantly being put to use as it soaked into the bite marks he had ripped into her body and began eating away at her physical form with terrifying speed. Jasper attempted to beat Bolt off of her with multiple hammering blows to his damaged arm and head, but if anything it only caused him to bite down harder and salivate even more.
She could only watch in muted horror as her arm was quickly lopped off by the caustic liquid all the way up to half her bicep, it fell to the ground before releasing it's grip from Fluorite's gemstone and poofing away in a mote of orange dust. Bolt fell down with the arm as it dissolved away, a sting of pain shooting up legs as he landed flatly on the skinned soles of his feet. He took the time to kick all six of the gemstones that made up Fluorite away from where he and Jasper fought in an attempt to keep them from being damaged in the chaotic melee.
Jasper clung onto her physical form to stop it from poofing with sheer willpower alone, she was running on fumes at this point, but so was Bolt. Both sides had fought as viciously and vigorously as eachother with no qualms on the horrendous wounds they would inflict on one another. While their nature meant that both would be able to easily regenerate, that all depended on whether they could escape eachother or not.
"I will send you back to your masters, freshly chastised and cowering inside your gemstone like the PATHETIC WHELP YOU ARE!" Bolt fired at Jasper as he wiped the spit away from his face.
After this final insult Jasper found it in herself to make for one last attempt to finally break Bolt, she let out an ursine snort before lashing out at him in a quick series of uncoordinated, but deadly punches and headbutts. But much to her frustration Bolt merely bided his time, dodging and weaving out of the way of all of her attacks.
Knowing his opponent was desperate for victory Bolt dodged her latest uppercut with a jump and landed in such a way that he was ready to leap again while also bending slightly forwards to jut his head out. Much to his delight Jasper's desperation had her fall into the bait as she attempted to bring her remaining fist crashing down onto his head. He could not have asked for a better opening, and so to instantly use it Bolt hopped again back to dodge her strike before then jumping onto her clenched fist to use it as a platform to jump onto her shoulders.
He shoved his right knee through her bushy orange tinted white hair and into the base of the back of her neck, then his left leg followed that up by wrapping around the whole front half of her neck. When Jasper stood back up to try and shake him off Bolt grabbed the underside of the ram on her crash helmet and he began pulling back on it as hard as his aching muscles could manage.
Jasper growled as she tried ripping his left leg off of her, but it was a short lived attempt, for only moments later a guttural crack could be heard echoing across the kindergarten. As it did, Bolt knew part of his job was finally done, the young demigod of war at last let himself slouch and slide off Jasper to gently collapse on the cold rocky ground.
Whilst Bolt lay tired on the floor he raised his head just high enough to admire his handiwork, he had bent Jasper's neck at a sickening nearly ninety degree angle backwards. Her beyond broken physical form now slouched before falling on both knees, she held that pose for a moment before her behemoth of a body went limp and fell sideways, finally hitting the ground with a thundering boom.
A veritable cloud of orange dust exploded from her dissipating form as she retreated back into her gemstone to heal, leaving only it laying on the ground. Bolt rose up, and despite the battle still going on between Hydrazine and the mega amethyst in the background he was quite sure she could take care of herself. Instead, he walked over to where Jasper's gemstone lay and picked it up in his hand to scrutinise it for a time.
"You aren't even worth it." Bolt muttered as he shook his head. "No, instead you will be my messenger. Your now flawed existence will serve as a warning to the Empire, you will let them know that we have grown teeth." He said to himself as he stared into the orange rock that held Jasper's life force within it.
He was not going to shatter her this day, but he was not above dealing Jasper the ultimate insult. Bolt worked his betcher's gland one last time and stuck out his tongue to lightly dip his index finger onto it before tapping the very top of Jasper's gemstone and letting the corrosive liquid do its work. The damage the small droplet of acid did physically was superficial at best, but that was not the purpose Bolt had in mind. No, this minor injury was instead meant to shatter her pride and reputation for all eternity.
"Farewell, foe." Bolt said somewhat solemnly as he walked over to the ledge of the rock bridge, his tightly clasped fist slowly uncoupling and let go of Jasper's gemstone, making it fall down deep into the kindergarten's many chasms. He saw one of the cube shaped robonoids go down and chase after her gemstone, probably in an attempt to recover her safely, just like the other one had done for Holly Blue.
Now there was only one left of the three machines that had originally come with their pursuers - the footage it streamed definitely having mortified whoever was viewing the battle. The chance that there was a viewer behind it was all the motivation Bolt needed to do an act of sheer spite. He walked over right in front of it before facing them and doing a broken version of the Empire's salute where his hands didn't fully connect to form a diamond shape. The gesture was small, but it spoke volumes of his opinions.
After several seconds he dropped it and went over to pick up Fluorite's gemstones, carefully cradling all six of them in his arms. Bolt jogged over back to the tunnel where they had come from and deposited all of them in there.
"Don't worry, you're all safe now." He whispered to each rock quietly as he set them down and patted them softly before running back out to make sure Hydrazine was still doing alright.
Only for him to be dissuaded after having barely taken a few steps by an enormous purple figure being sent flying his way. The damage he and Fluorite dealt to the terrain was great, but the gargantuan amount of force imparted onto the structure by the impact of the amethyst fusion had finally wrecked the bedrock that formed the bridge to its last legs, as was soon demonstrated by large pieces of it beginning to crumble off.
"HYDRAZINE! You need to run over here, NOW!" Bolt shouted out to her with worry woven into his words, hoping to get her attention before the gap grew too large in size to cross.
The fusion seemed to have heard, and as soon as she had turned around to see the falling bridge Hydrazine was struck with sudden panic before she immediately made a dead sprint over to Bolt. She had to time this correctly for if she was too late then the bridge would crumble from under her feet before she could even jump, while being too early meant that she might not have been able to build up enough speed to leap over the gap.
He looked on with baited breath, time almost felt as if it had slowed when Hydrazine finally made her leap, the rock under her feet crumbling downwards only moments after she did. To ease his mind Bolt took the time to calculate her trajectory, and much to his relief she should be able to land on a relatively stable part of the bridge with at least a meter or two to spare.
Yet, much to Bolt's sudden shock, just as Hydrazine was about to clear the jump the supposedly knocked out amethyst fusion moved to grab her leg just as the section of bridge they laid on began collapsing as well. Both of her faces erupted in equal parts surprise and fear as she felt herself immediately begin falling with the amethyst. Hydrazine managed to use her upper left hand to hold onto the ledge before trying to dislodge the amethysts, she tried kicking, punching, even breathing flame - but it was all in vain.
Bolt was petrified in place and he could only look on in sorrow as the rock around Hydrazine's large teal hand began to crack before finally also crumbling off, taking her with it. As he fell to his knees in despair Bolt could have sworn that he heard her call out for help, he could hear her screaming grow quieter and quieter as she fell down into the labyrinth of Homeworld's kindergartens. Potentially tens, or even hundreds of kilometres down…
A/N:
Whew, this chapter might just be the longest single one I'll write in a while. After this I might just move the standard chapter size I intend from 2k-5k words up to roughly around 4k-8k instead just to allow me more flexibility.