Crash's Earth hadn't been entirely consumed by Hell. Much like Argent D'nur, bits and pieces of the world had been consumed and plunged into the dark dimension, claimed as trophies in their insatiable conquest. Many of Earth's largest cities would remain lost forever - but what remained of the planet was still salvageable, as survivors had yet to be extinguished from every corner.
As Kira Morgan, Stan Blazkowicz, and Riley O'Connor had in the distant past, Crash and her new companions orchestrated Earth's liberation from the moon. SAL had proved to be an invaluable asset - through the use of a nearly endless supply of drones, she had been able to identify key targets across the globe for the gladiators to target. Invasion orchestrators, hell nobles, and most importantly, the remaining Super Gore Nests. When Uriel had finally been convinced of SAL's trustworthiness, she was brought to the Arena Eternal.
The Arena's central control station was located in the very arena Doom had slain the Vadrigar so long ago. Where most of the gladiators had walked out to find a world they didn't belong in.
Final Resting Place remained mostly as it had always been since they'd seized control. The statues of past and present Arena Lords remained, while the gratuitous ammunition and firepower were removed. Thanks to Orbb's body being made of Vadri tech, a basic understanding of it allowed the technicians among them to operate the Arena at the most basic of levels. Technical expertise wasn't the only tool required to take control - as it wasn't just tech the Vadri's machinery ran on, but dreams, too.
With this knowledge came a well of information that only Uriel was allowed to drink from, at risk of breaking the last semblance of sanity they all desperately clung to.
SAL was the only other one Uriel could confide this information to - in small enough quantities at a time to not overload her with things no artificial intelligence could handle. Through this process, she became wiser, and more painfully alive than any mere AI. She became the new voice of the Arena Eternal, the one that opened and closed its doors and maintained a permanent neural connection to Crash and every other gladiator as a result. Through Riley's chip, she was allowed access to any system Crash could access physically, which effectively worked as something of a skeleton key in a world where most locks lacked them.
With SAL at the helm of the Arena, it meant more of the gladiators could help out on the field. With her growling knowledge of Vadri technology, she had been able to provide new equipment to further enhance their prowess.
"Your Vadri Suit has served you well over eons of battle, Crash. Hammerspace weapons storage, enhanced durability, flexible and reflective plating…these tools have no doubt been paramount to your survival over an eternity's worth of conflict. But…don't you think it's time for a few upgrades?" SAL asked.
"Depends on what you had in mind," Crash sighed, walking through one of Final Resting Place's new developments - a research and development wing.
"The Kira I knew had an unusual affinity for armor management and repair. Your battles with VIOS in that time may have given me a few ideas for a new suit…if you don't mind me using an old alias of yours."
"Hey, armor shards and flak jackets were the way to keep alive back then," Crash said blankly. "VIOS, huh…."
VIOS had been a human creation - an obsessed scientist's attempt at creating a digital demonic entity. He succeeded, modeling the beast after the legendary Icon of Sin. VIOS quickly infected the UAC's subsystems and teleportation technology. It was only thanks to SAL's efforts that it had been prevented from taking complete control - and even still, Crash and her friends were regularly sucked into cyberspace to deal with it personally.
Crash recalled the program's lightning-fast reflexes and terrible strength. It teleported around the arena it had constructed to test her, delivering blows from every angle and blasting her with cyberized energy from its hands. In their later encounters, it had begun using telekinesis, smashing their bones against digital walls of its construction. It felt absurd, and yet entirely too real. VIOS was intelligent, and absurdly powerful, but even through all its efforts, not even a demonic computer program could survive a rocket to the brain.
She stepped into the newly constructed test chamber and was greeted with SAL's latest contribution to the war effort. Crash walked around the armor, carefully crafted to preserve her desires for flexibility and protection where it counted. The backward streak coming off the armor's curves brought to mind the enemy she'd vanquished long ago. She couldn't help but crack a smile at the sleek blue color - this thing was made for her.
The suit was crafted with SAL's newfound understanding of Vadri technology. Ethereal power emblazoned the Arena Eternal's symbol on the suit's back. The same energy coursed throughout the suit in the same way Arena Lords' armors were empowered. It was something new that called out to her as if she'd been born to wear it.
"Why was it you named yourself 'Crash', Kira?" SAL asked.
"Well," Crash said, scratching the back of her neck. "It's what I did. I crashed VIOS. Thought I saved the world."
She removed her helmet and looked up with a mildly unamused expression on her face. "Don't tell me you called this thing the Crash Suit."
"No…I felt Maelstrom was more appropriate."
. . .
Crash watched as Uriel brought the Vorpal Blade down upon the second Gore Nest, the macabre tower splitting down the middle in a grand display of blood and defiance. Her allies cheered, as did the resistance members who joined in on the effort.
"Hell yeah!" Slash cheered, pumping her fist in the air. "Or would it be hell no? Cause, you know, we're denying Hell and all that…"
Lucy rolled her eyes. "Feel free to stop talking whenever," she said, holstering her Rocket Launcher as she checked her grenade supply.
Visor chuckled. "You should know by now the girl doesn't have an off switch."
As strenuous an ordeal it had been cleansing the demons from Earth, Crash had noticed it had no doubt breathed new life into her kind. Sarge and Daemia led the charge against Mars and its moons - joined by Mynx and Orbb.
Anarki, who still hadn't gotten back with Slash during their endless on-and-off-again seasons, led the team clearing out Venus.
"Ready up," Crash commanded, eyeing the Gore Nest's portal destabilizing. One final wave usually followed a Gore Nest's destruction, both big and small.
SAL came on in her ear. "I sense the presence of a Cyberwraith in the coming wave. Be ready, Crash."
Codex
Cyberwraith
The forces of Hell had found VIOS' infiltration applications incredibly useful during the initial invasion. They sought to replicate its success with their own take on the demon. The Cyberwraith was formed in VIOS' image, bringing its speed, power, and versatility to battlefields both in the flesh and through the code.
Crash likened the Cyberwraith to some unholy combination of an Arch-vile and a Prowler. They attacked with the tenacity of the latter, but had the utility and durability of the former.
It led the charge of the small army of demons that'd been displaced in the warp. Crash locked eyes with the echo of her fallen foe, and the creature cackled in the familiarity of the face-off.
"Alright SAL," Crash whispered, cracking her neck as she lowered into a combat stance. "Let's see what the Maelstrom Suit's made of."
Crash sprinted full force straight into the encroaching horde, firing rocket after rocket that still had plenty of time to go before they'd hit their mark. She and the Cyberwraith she'd locked eyes with both vanished at precisely the same time, just as the armies came to a clash. Crash reappeared behind a few of the frontline monsters, and grabbed ahold of two Gargoyles by their necks. She jumped right back into the rockets she'd fired earlier, the demons turning to paste in her hands. A Hell Knight jumped to intercept her, and she quickly fell to her back with her Shotgun at the ready. One blast to the beast's abdomen rended chunks of flesh from its body and carried it just high into the air enough to get decimated by another of Crash's rockets.
A quick teleport forward sent her through two Revenant punches and directly into a Baron of Hell's body, the beast exploding in every direction as the law of impenetrability made itself gruesomely clear. Crash equipped her Gauntlet without missing a beat and pummeled one Revenant into the air courtesy of a full-force uppercut, another rocket blowing it apart. The other Revenant was caught in the Lightning Gun's shaft, and a quick jerk upwards allowed the last rocket to rend the skeleton's head from its shoulders. Crash rushed in, grabbed the felled Revenant's arms as its jetpack began to go haywire, and rode the ticking time bomb back the way she came on volatile flames. She teleported past a small group of fodder, and let the Revenant bomb fly right into the Cyberwraith's back as it reappeared.
The blast wasn't enough to bring the Superheavy-class demon down, however. The second it recovered Crash felt the familiar crushing grip of a telekinetic grasp around her ribcage as the beast grabbed ahold of her from afar, and made easy target practice for a group of Imps in the area. Crash was able to teleport away just before the fireballs could make their mark, and responded with a force grip of her own - courtesy of gravity manipulators built into the Maelstrom Suit's gloves. She grabbed ahold of the three imps from a distance and threw them right into their own projectiles - following up with a rail that splattered their burned bodies into pieces.
The Cyberwraith's plasma projectile exploded against her breastplate, just as fast and unpredictable as VIOS' had been before. Now, they danced, each of them firing a projectile and teleporting out of the way before it could hit the other. Another plasma ball barreled towards her mid-air, and just as she tried to trigger the warp, she found that it had run out of energy and was on a recharge. Crash swore as her body became a bullet-like projectile, the force of the explosion sending her boring through an unprepared Sawcubus' body.
Slash spun, twirled, and ducked as her hover skates took her over the rubble-ridden terrain. After every jumping split and after every spin, she fired a rocket at another demon and delighted in the shower of gore that erupted around her. A click of her heels pushed her new, upgraded skates into overdrive, and she painted a plasma trail in her wake. Hell Knights and Pinkies that chased her were sliced apart upon making contact with the trail, and anything else that got too close was devastated when the trail exploded shortly thereafter.
Following a rocket's trail blowing smoke in the face of a Mancubus, Slash jumped through the cloud skates first and carved right through the demon's head. She felt overwhelming warmth at her back and the faint hum of an artifact, just like those that spawned in the Arenas. This one had risen from the creature's gore. It sat ominously, yet invitingly in the air over its remains.
"Fatso dropped a Demon Rune, Crash," she reported, communicating across the battlefield by way of a headpiece.
Codex
Demon Rune
Amid a messy invasion, the cult UAC sought to develop an artifact that'd allow high-level demons to be made out of personnel on the spot. Working closely with VIOS, the Demon Rune was created. Upon collection, the subject's physical body is altered and rewritten like code to match a particular demon species. As an artificial demon, the subject's soul (if applicable) is left intact - though the transformation often drives the individual insane, leaving them as ample servants to Hell's forces anyway. Another side effect is that the subject's physical ability is split with that of the demon - making soldiers far more suitable candidates than scientists. The transformation only lasts for a period, after which the body reverts - at which point the subject is usually given up for sacrifice.
"Go for it," Crash replied, the THOOM of her Shotgun from the other end making Slash flinch.
She shrugged and skated right on into the Demon Rune.
The transformation was never a comfortable one. It came with all the whiplash one would expect from such a jarring shift in physiology, along with an overwhelming sense of anxiety and urgency curbed only by the immediate decimation of everything in the vicinity.
Slash let out a deep, guttural chuckle as she adjusted to the new, grotesque form.
"Now I know how Lucy feels," Slash taunted over the comms. A Hell Knight leaped to crush her and instead was blown away courtesy of the overclocked projectiles coming out of her cannons. She swatted an opportunistic Prowler out of the air and onto the ground. Before it could recover, Slash had jogged over and leaped - dropping the full heap of flesh and steel upon the demon's skeleton. It was promptly reduced to paste. Slash's trademark giggling was all the more disturbing done with a Mancubus voice. She toggled the flamethrowers on her cannons and engaged in a duel with a pair of Bruisers that challenged her.
"Keep yappin' and you'll really learn how I feel," Lucy growled. She was set up with a spider-like turret drone they had salvaged from a UAC compound. SAL had upgraded them with energy shields and Plasma Guns, and Lucy had yet to be seen without at least one at her side. The two of them went toe to toe with a pair of Barons that had picked her out for the extra calories. A right hook from her Gauntlet opened one target up to a Shotgun blast that caused it to falter. Her drone pelted fire into the mountain of a beast's abdomen, further softening it up, which gave Lucy time to punch through and stuff a grenade into its guts. She nearly got clobbered from behind, but just before the beast could make an impact its head was taken clean off…nothing but a spiraling trail of smoke to show for it.
Visor sat perched high above with his Railgun and a clear view of the battlefield despite the mask grafted to his face. He could make out every target, including the ones behind walls. For every demon that dared show its hide, a rail would put it down.
"Ты в порядке?" Visor asked Crash, giving her covering fire as she recovered.
"I'm fine," Crash said, despite her vitals reading otherwise. She shook her head and kicked herself off her back, going to jump back into the fray until she noticed the Sawcubus' gibbed corpse had left a demon rune behind.
SAL chimed in. "You can use the Maelstrom Suit to scan Demon Runes for later activation, remember? It appears we don't have the Sawcubus saved to your playlist yet."
Crash grinned, letting the blood from her missing teeth drip down her jaw. She held her hand out to scan the Demon Rune. Its essence was absorbed into the suit, and as she took the diabolical pose of the Arch-vile, her body transformed - rewritten on the spot into the nimble, deadly form of the Sawcubus. Crash's armor changed shape to adorn the new form comfortably. She spread her legs wide and let out a howling, mechanical roar as the chainsaws on her arms came to life. They spun with a centrifugal force only Hell's forgeries could produce.
"Use us," the Soul Cube whispered. Crash directed the weapon forward, and she and it became whirling blades of destruction.
They tore through the remnants of the demonic horde on her way to the Cyberwraith, cutting demonic entities of all tiers to ribbons as she ran. The Sawcubus' chainsaws spun at such a speed that they had the innate ability to parry nearly any projectile. Crash jumped toward the Cyberwraith with her saws in an X, cut its projectile right back at it, and the Soul Cube followed through and sliced the cybernetic beast into ribbons. The once-again dormant Soul Cube returned to float idly at Crash's side.
"Uriel - what's your status?" Crash growled through the demon's raspy voice. She looked up at the split Gore Nest. The gateway hadn't fully dispersed yet.
"The Vorpal Blade…it's malfunctioning," Uriel yelled.
Lucy butt in. "Malfunctioning? How does a frickin' sword malfunction?"
Before any other questions or explanations could come, the grand portal's destination rapidly flickered. A colossal burst of energy blew the Arena Warriors and remaining demons off their feet, debris and rubble following suit. Slash's transformation wore off just as she hit her head on the remains of a truck, cursing before her attention was taken by the shadow cast over the site.
The portal had vanished - but in its place was a mothership. A deep crimson, smooth with sharp angles that looked as if they scraped the sky. Not even SAL recognized the insignias on it, not from Crash's world or any other.
When the remaining demonic forces were wiped out, Crash's unit regrouped.
"Another complication," Visor observed.
When the ship's bottom hatch opened up, it rained unlike any of them had seen before. They were bodies - at least, they appeared to be. A million shades of red spiraled like a twister descending upon the planet. The bodies were sharp and simple, made up of cones and angles. The bodies weren't the only threat - as from the spiral came thousands of beams that struck every single target they found. The shots were instant, like rails, and pierced through buildings.
The call to take cover came, but nothing stopped the cavalcade of corpses starting to pile up around them. The resistance fighters didn't stand a chance, and while those from the Arena fared much better in the scramble, they were not without casualties either. Slash, Visor, and Lucy were all returned to the void of the Arena by the invaders. The firing ceased only when one creature broke from the masses behind it and landed before Crash. Its single, red eye glared at her as the rest of its race took formation around the site of the Gore Nest.
Its speech was translated as it came out, and its demands were simple.
"Lay down your arms and surrender the planet to the Kriken Empire. Or face swift execution."
Uriel caught up to Crash and landed from his glide next to her. The Vorpal Blade lay unstable at his back, and the famed BFG10K was held at the ready in his arms. He was just as ready for business as she was.
"And to whom exactly do I make out the deed?" Crash asked.
"Trace," the alien replied.
Crash elbowed Uriel slightly, just out of sight. He got the signal and disappeared back into the Arena.
"I'll warn you, Trace," Crash admitted, keeping her cool despite the several thousand weapons trained on her. "My world - hell, this whole solar system, isn't exactly in its prime right now. In case you didn't notice during your little drop spiral thing, another group already beat you to the punch."
"And you've almost repelled their attempt, congratulations. We'll take it from here."
Crash didn't break her gaze from the invader. Nor did Trace turn around when Uriel reappeared in the skies behind him, bathing in the lightning-blue glow of the Quad Damage rune. Lasers painted the sky red as the Kriken tried to shoot him out of the air, but all met radioactive devastation. The BFG10K pounded the earth like a jackhammer as Uriel flew, dismembering anything that wasn't outright annihilated.
Trace simply vanished into thin air as Uriel laid waste to the army behind him.
"The target is cloaked," SAL explained, a fact made incredibly apparent by the Judicator sniping weapon's swift red laser nearly taking her head off.
"Some nasty firepower too, that tech is more advanced than anything between here and Mars," Crash observed. The Plasma Gun in her hand became a Railgun instead, and Crash took to running. Mentally, she went back to the Arena, on Anarki's turf - Vertical Vengeance. Her opponent had the Railgun and was sniping at her from the top level - a game of outpacing and outshooting, dancing in rhythm to the Railgun's recharging battery. It wasn't a game she won often, but it was a game she'd win today.
When Crash vanished into that cyan spark, she reappeared somewhere in his flank. Judicator beams passed the Railgun's trails mid-air as the two warriors dueled. Trace's aim might have been better, but Crash's tactics were superior. While her teleport may have had a slight cooldown, that wasn't the only thing she relied on. The environment became her weapon, too.
Whenever she got the chance, she'd warp to a higher elevation courtesy of a ruined building or vehicle. She'd run in between cover, and switch weapons as she did so, sending rockets or grenades wherever Trace had fired from last, and occasionally where he might retreat next. She had reminded him of the accursed Hunter, with her versatility and resourcefulness. Trace's exoskeleton changed shape on a dime, morphing him into a three-legged war machine dubbed the Triskelion to evade another hail of rockets. Before he had time to counterattack, Crash immediately followed up on him with the Lightning Gun. A steady shaft of electricity fried the fleeing Kriken, and his smoking body rolled over uncurled with Crash's weapon in his face. Behind her, the remnants of his army were devastated in droves by the winged one, courtesy of an unholy dosage of radiation.
"You can either go back to whatever world you came from, or we can finish kicking your friends' asses too."
"Can you?"
Crash's head snapped in the direction of the alien whisper before a devastating Railgun slug pierced her shoulder from behind. The force kicked her sliding chest-first onto the grisly terrain.
"I should have known the scum-sucker would be a traitor," Crash spat under her breath. "Don't remember inviting you, Klesk."
The Chitinid alien kept its Railgun trained on Crash's body, a sight that was enough to pluck Uriel from the skies and return him to Crash's side. Trace wearily rose and trained his Judicator on Uriel.
"Klesk follow hundred voices to fill silence," the alien replied. "Kriken voices mostly agreeable. Klesk join less grating chorus."
Crash pointed at the ruin Uriel had wrought upon the Kriken empire around them. "The chorus is looking a lot more like a dying wheeze, Klesk. You sure you picked the right crowd?"
"Regrettable outcome, yes," Klesk admitted, glaring briefly at Trace. "Fighters gathered strength fast. No happy. We challenge, like old times."
"Now is not the time," Crash growled.
"Teacher is displeased. Thoughts of unhappy new to Teacher. Why?"
Uriel stepped in. "Because she now has something to lose."
Trace grew tired of playing backseat to the foreign drama happening before him. "Klesk. Do you have a plan?"
"Yes. Klesk bring all back to place of silencing. Too late to consider."
The four of them were blinded by a flash of light, and in an instant, Crash's Earth melted away around them. Once more were they dragged into the old, but never forgotten place - this time with the first new face the Arena Eternal had seen in ages.
Q3TOURNEY3 - HELL'S GATE
Hell's Gate had been an arena that most were all but certain had been ripped right from the clutches of Hell. Clouds in the blood-red sky raced forward as if time were in an unending frenzy. Two cathedrals opposed one another at opposite ends, connected by a perilous bridge in the center, and four alternating walkways. The taller of the cathedrals bore a monument to the demonic horde - an inverted cross blazing with unholy fire beneath wicked steel greeted all who wished to cross the divide into unending torment.
It was in this temple that Klesk and his alien ally had spawned. Eons of conflict had molded Klesk into a cybronic killing machine. Klesk killed, and Klesk consumed. This was all Klesk could do to ease the many voices that spoke to it, and by the time the Vadrigar fell, the only voices left were its own and its peers. While it would view the Arena Eternal with negative association, it was just as true to it as it was to any of the others that the Arena had become the only thing that made sense.
It wouldn't stop Klesk from doing everything in its power to bring new voices into the choir, and in its search to fill the void, Trace of the Kriken Empire had made an unwitting fit for Klesk's needs.
Trace looked over his body as his flesh formed anew in the hot, acrid temple around them. Burn marks and bulletholes had healed and vanished as if the beating he'd taken had never occurred. His efforts in the Alimbic Cluster awarded him a small army with which to conquer the next planet, and in a matter of seconds not only had that army been reduced to slag, but he was now in the custody of the borderline psychotic stranger he'd foolishly hired. Two planets were under their belt as a result of their partnership, and now, the moment cross-dimensional conquest had become a possibility, he'd been reduced to worse than nothing.
He found his biomechanical cannon aiming at Klesk, whose back was turned - myriad metallic spikes facing him. The Judicator's piercing laser cut through Klesk's fortified body and pierced its skull. Klesk recoiled as half its skull was melted, and it turned to face Trace before it fell over, lifeless.
Trace shook his head as the silence kicked in, and he now observed his surroundings. Behind him, there was a barred window to the oppressive red hurricane surrounding them outside. On either side of the platform he stood on, there were propulsion pads on the ground. Equipment was scattered about the area, including some kind of archaic, rudimentary rocket launcher floating before him.
"Colossal ridiculity is Trace. Unhappy, Klesk on Trace side."
Trace glanced at Klesk's body on the ground. Then at Klesk standing near one of the propulsion pads below him. Trace raised the Judicator again, but a Railgun in Klesk's hands immediately put a slug through gun and arm, rendering both useless. Trace cursed in an alien tongue and dove for the Rocket Launcher in front of him. Klesk had taken the jump pad, and was right above him, Railgun aimed right in the middle of his eye. Trace fired the rocket - aiming more where Klesk was going to be than where he was. It hadn't been his first time using a handheld launcher like this.
Klesk quickly adjusted his aim to blow the rocket up underneath it, and when it landed, it threw a golden sphere at the wounded Kriken. Trace squinted, but when the sphere made contact and dissipated against his exoskeleton, he felt empowered. Once again his wounds had vanished, and his gear repaired itself. Trace threw himself back onto his feet and again stared Klesk's Railgun down the barrel.
"Single-brainer Klesk stupid. Klesk. On. Trace. Side. Klesk lord of Hell Gate - all die facing Klesk."
"Point taken," Trace conceded, pushing Klesk's Railgun out of the way. "What exactly are we doing here?"
"Simple even for Trace to understand," Klesk snarled. "We hunt. We kill. We leave. We happy."
Trace stepped out of the cathedral taking the center bridge, Klesk at his side. Beneath the bridge, an abyss of red fog haunted their every step. A primal urge compelled Trace to gaze into the cloud of death below them, and a striking familiarity left an unbearable pressure in his head and heart that brought him to his knees.
Klesk approached the struggling invader with confusion and mild irritation. "What problem now? Kriken useless, Klesk regrets joining voices."
"Where…are we?" Trace asked, his vision going blurry. "Where…is it?!"
On the other side of the Arena in the opposing cathedral, Uriel put his hand in front of Crash before she started running the rat race again.
"The sooner we dumpster those idiots the sooner we can get back to work," Crash objected.
"Wait, Crash. Do you not feel the presence beneath us?"
As one of the older members of the Arena Eternal, Crash had picked up some degree of sensitivity to the realm around them. Disturbances were faint, far, and few in-between. More often than not, it had been the reverberations of creation, or the Vadrigar stepping outside of its domain for one reason or another. She could still faintly recognize the same feeling within Uriel, as a distant creation of theirs.
Doom had slayed the Vadrigar of their Arena and set them free. In the time since then, save for Uriel's presence, not once had she felt the drumming of the Vadrigar in this place.
Not until now. It writhed and hammered beneath the surface, stirred from a timeless slumber.
"Yeah, Uriel. The hell is that?"
Never in the eons they had spent trapped in the Arena Eternal, had they witnessed an entity rise from the abyss of certain death below. It took the shape of a golden ball of fire - it resembled a star. Following behind it as it rose from scarlet uncertainty came the components that comprised its body. Metallic shapes clung to the orb like a shell.
Trace aimed his cannon at the core that assembled its shape before him on the bridge.
"You…the Hunter destroyed you. I bore witness to your demise!"
The entity's head took shape atop the ball of fire and creation, its single yellow eye fixated on the invader as the creature gradually woke from dormancy.
Its name left Trace's mouth at the same time it was broadcast to everyone's subconscious.
"GOREA."
"Crash," Uriel whispered to his partner. "We need to leave. SAL, put the Vorpal Blade in its resting place. We CANNOT allow it to be compromised."
"Here, protect the Soul Cube too," Crash commanded. Both disappeared in a show of blue sparks.
"Be careful, all of you," SAL instructed. "I will do my best to fortify the walls of the Arena Eternal."
"We conquered the Vadrigar, didn't we? What's another pet proj-HRK…"
Golden tendrils had erupted from Gorea's core, and impaled her, Uriel, Klesk, and Trace all at once. It lifted them high up into the air, as it did several other gladiators who entered Hell's Gate to find the source of the disturbance. Many came prepared, bearing the powers of the artifacts that granted strength in the Arena Eternal. Invisibility, Quad Damage, Haste, Battle Suit, Flight, and Kamikaze. One by one the powers of the artifacts were ripped from their bodies and absorbed into Gorea's essence. The weapons they carried were configured into Gorea's body, and the memories and experiences that guided them were downloaded into Gorea's mind.
All were dropped to the floor when Gorea had finished extracting what it needed and completed taking shape to challenge those that had fed it strength. The creature was massive - taller than even the Vadrigar that had constructed it. Its biomechanical, corpse-gray body was wide and bulky, made up of floating segments around its burning core. Its arms were configured into incredibly heavy cannons. It stood mounted on three legs, each somehow disconnected yet entirely capable of supporting the creature's immense weight. When it landed in the center bridge of Hell's Gate, the entire arena shook.
Crash looked around her to find that several of her allies had been drained of all life, left to crumble into dust as they hit the ground. "Let him have it!" she commanded, and those that remained took up arms against the monstrosity.
Crash watched as Gorea spun the barrels of its cannons around and unleashed fully automatic rockets against them like hellfire, decimating the hardened warriors and sending them to respawn elsewhere in the Arena Eternal. It leaped from the center bridge onto one of the walkways and then planted its feet as it changed configurations - its color changing to sky blue in the process. It sent a torrential storm of lightning arcing between fighters and popped even fully armored combatants in seconds. It took rockets, cells, and slugs with little to no issue, and seemed to revel in the fact that its targets were fighting back.
"Uriel," Crash said nervously, her body smoking from the punishment she'd taken. Uriel stepped in front of her and spread his wings, shielding them from an insurmountable concentration of bullets spewing at them from Gorea's Chaingun configuration.
"Its name is Gorea. A sentinel of the Vadrigar, much like myself. It was created to test faraway worlds for the emergence of warriors fit for the Arena. More often than not, it leaves entire galaxies in ruin before it finds individuals worthy."
He grabbed Crash and flew her far out of the range of a supercharged BFG projectile, arcing plasma in all directions as it blew a hole in the area where they'd stood.
"Didn't red and spiky say someone had destroyed it?"
"We have all been destroyed many times over. We simply return where we come from. Before the Vadrigar was able to abduct the warrior who did it, our master had met his demise."
"Get to Trace!"
Uriel and Crash swooped in around the doorway to one of the two temples on either side of the arena.
"Hey, Dark and Edgy," Crash called, watching as Trace futilely attempted to carve a door to escape using his weapon.
"What is this foul prison?" Trace asked, slamming his cannon against the wall. "My relocator isn't functioning, and topographical scans indicate this place is impossibly boxed in.
"You want answers, you give me mine first. You said you saw that thing destroyed firsthand. How'd you do it?"
Trace shook his head. "The Hunter did it. She of human blood and Chozo feather. That woman was a walking superweapon. And a lucky one at that."
Crash turned to Uriel. "Our Hunter was deadly, but not 'walking superweapon' deadly."
"It couldn't have been her, anyway, " Uriel growled. "She and Sorlag went right back to leading their tribes against one another after the seal was broken."
"Either way, we can't risk Gorea remaining active in the Arena for too long. If the other Vadrigar discover that a prize like that's been sleeping here, we're gonna be up to our asses in trouble before we can even think about it."
Trace spoke up. "You don't plan to send it to your world, do you? Surely your lizard-faced friend is aware of the destruction Gorea leaves in its wake. Your solar system is as good as gone if it steps foot into your world, to say nothing of the power you buffoons already fed it."
Crash exchanged glances with Uriel, who nodded solemnly.
"We've poured endless resources into saving your Earth," Uriel said. "It is possible we may defeat it here."
Crash shook her head. "If it somehow gains control of the Arena, we will be inviting ruin beyond the scope of the dimensional barrier. I'd rather fight it somewhere where loss doesn't put everyone else's world at risk."
Though the words came from a place of logic, they also came from a place of pain. The suffering her world endured in her absence, the deaths of her original companions, SAL's desperate struggle to persist…
"It's okay, Kira," SAL said, sensing her turmoil. "We will destroy this threat in a place where we still have the option to rebuild."
Gorea's roar was heard throughout the Arena Eternal and echoed across the Dreamlands beyond it.
It rounded the corner the three warriors had escaped around, and manifested the Artifacts above its head. It selected Flight, and Gorea's legs changed shape accordingly. They melded and spread into aerodynamic wings behind its body as the hissing screech of a jet engine emanated from its body. Uriel, Crash, and Trace all fired upon the flying hell encroaching on them, a devastating cloud of explosive shotgun shells clearing them out of the temple.
"SAL, now!" Crash commanded, the three of them falling toward the foggy abyss Gorea had risen from. The walking weapon flew directly above them, weapons ready to send them to oblivion.
Hell's Gate disappeared around them, and they landed in the ruined streets of Crash's Earth yet again - this time in the center of a downtown city block.
"Where's Uriel…?" Crash asked aloud, jumping to her feet with Trace at her side. She handed him a communicator.
"We have more pressing concerns," Trace said, pointing at winged Gorea descending upon them like a bat out of Hell.
"SAL, is the Demon Rune Projector recharged?"
"Charge is at 100%, Kira!"
"Trace, gonna be counting on that aim of yours," Crash said. She ran her palm across a holographic projection on her chest, cycling through a small list of captured Demon Runes until she landed on the closest thing to a fair fight. She spread her arms once more, and a pained growl turned into a ferocious roar as her body became that of the mighty Tyrant, walking tribute to the legendary Cyberdemon.
With her newfound size, she grabbed Gorea with bent knees and stopped its jet-powered descent before it could crush her and Trace. The latter aimed the Judicator at its glowing eye, and a pull of the trigger blinded the monster, however temporarily. With the Tyrant's mighty arm cannon, Crash charged a devastating laser and fired Gorea through a ruined building.
In little time, Gorea crawled out of the side of the building and changed configurations again - taking on a black and yellow sheen. It aimed both of its cannons at Crash, and the same targeting laser she'd used seconds ago now painted her person. She heard the blaring alarm of the Tyrant's cannon even from a distance and understood that with her current build, there was no way she'd be avoiding the damage. She grit her teeth.
Trace watched as Crash's body was blown back past him, and he used the diversion to get out from in the open and behind the cover of a building. He reconfigured his body into the Triskelion form and scaled up the side of a building, finding a better vantage point. He was grateful for the complete invisibility stillness granted him, and used the Judicator's scope to regain visual on Gorea as he took cover behind what remained of a billboard. The beast was approaching Crash as she recovered and charged both of its laser cannons to pile on the damage. Trace popped it in the eye again, finding that this time, Gorea resisted it. His aggression was repaid with Gorea switching targets and blowing away the billboard he hid behind. The laser devastated part of the building behind him, too, and buried him beneath the rubble.
That brief moment gave Crash a window to mount a counterattack. She clenched her right hand and a colossal energy blade formed from her wrist. She plunged it into the ground and a Seeker Wave erupted from the earth, sending a crawling wave of plasma toward Gorea and blasting it backward. This one it felt, but when Crash began firing rockets en masse in its direction, Gorea's configuration changed again as the beast became red. It fired its own hose of rockets at Crash as they approached one another, and while Crash's body sustained heavy damage, Gorea now seemed entirely unphased. Crash faltered, and Gorea swapped forms again, now in the ebony and emerald colors of its BFG configuration. The Quad Damage artifact appeared above its head and cast Gorea in its empowering glow. The ensuing blast destroyed the Tyrant's body, sending Crash rolling out back in her own body, heavily battered from Gorea's awakening only minutes prior.
"Something about the weapon it's using influences its resistances," Trace reported, crawling out from the rubble Gorea had buried him in. "But it's able to change forms instantly…"
Gorea roared in dominance and approached Crash with another BFG blast charging, nearly ready to fire. Getting fragged outside of the arena meant sacrificing at least a day's worth of time to recover. She thought of what Gorea might be able to do in a day, how much of her world it could purge. She thought of what would happen when she came back - what if she died again? More time for the monster to take what it wanted, to grow stronger as the other gladiators and the resistance tried to fight it.
Uriel landed from his glide right in front of Crash as the projectile began to fire, the dark glow of the Vorpal Blade swiping straight through the lethal concentration of radiation, and dissipating it in an instant. Haste and Quad Damage artifacts granted speed and strength to his body and weapon.
"Uriel…!" Crash coughed. "What are you doing? Get the Vorpal Blade out of here!"
"Gorea has to get hit by a weapon first to adapt to it," Uriel explained. "We can throw everything else in our disposal at Gorea and it will only grow to outclass everything."
"One strike," Trace murmured.
"Uriel…you'll only have one shot at this."
"I know." He looked back at Crash, and mustered up the closest thing he could to a smile. "I intend to get to see that favorite restaurant of yours."
He turned back to face Gorea and spread his wings wide.
"Both of you…throw whatever else you've got at him."
He reached back to take Crash's hand, and she manifested the old-fashioned Cess Rifle Machine Gun in her free arm.
Together, they flew toward uncertainty at blistering speed. Uriel threw Crash up into the air at the last moment, and she rained screaming hellfire upon Gorea from above. It aimed one of its cannons up to finish her off, and went to aim the other at Uriel before Trace pelted his core with Judicator rounds. At that exact moment…Uriel's blade made contact.
Time stood still.