Dreambert giggled like a little child as he sent another enemy towards Antasma, it's not one of the revived villains nor is it as powerful, but that doesn't mean it's any less dangerous. The mechanical Pi'illo chuckled darkly, it's one of his favorites too, it will definitely serve as a good test.
The giant robot that's currently traveling to Antasma in the many tunneling systems underneath the floors of the ship is outfitted with plenty of type one and type two explosives, along with a couple of miniguns equipped with a three-hundred-sixty degrees turning. What it lacks in intelligence is made up with its absurd fire power.
And now that exact thing is barreling towards his old friend, as much as he wanted to see Antasma again, he needed him to understand one thing.
He's the one in control here
And he will make sure that he will get the message.
As Dreambert watched the monitor, he had a big bag of newly roasted popcorn and a large cup of chucka-cola on hand. The fight won't exactly last as long as the previous one, but it'll certainly be more flashier and intense than before, which is always a welcoming aspect for every performance. He opened a packet of caramel and squeezed it onto the popcorn, the concept of simply roasting a singular corn til it pops was such a bizarrely simple idea, that it's a surprise when such things was never discovered during the ancient times, perhaps it's because of the lack of land for growing such delicate crops, or maybe because the seeds does not naturally form from the island, and they have no way of importing it much less knew about it due to the island's isolated state.
So when he first munched on such delicacy, it was an interesting experience. It was plain until marinated with a different flavor, and the way it adapted through the differences of taste is quite interesting and marvelous, it is definitely a tasty treat that he would enjoy for a long time.
He tapped his fingers irritatedly on the table, despite the high speed traveling tubes, it is still taking a while for the machine arrive at its destination…or rather it's surprise ambush since he coded it to pop up from an undesignated, definitely not pre-built exit area, and may or may not caused irreversible damage to the pressure tube that will certainly cost a fortune to repair. But oh well, despite how the war is going, money is still plentiful, a little tube is nothing too much of an expense.
So whatever happens next, it is definitely going to be a beautiful show.
Antasma screeched in surprise when a huge iron mech burst out from the ground, it completely tore up the floor and exploded shrapnel everywhere in the gym with its arrival. He covered his face as the force blasted him back and protected himself from the incoming debris, the eruption was earth shattering as the machinery pulled itself from the hole and onto the floor with its huge robotic tentacle legs. It was shaped like a Pi'illodium but with a more bulky, steely appearance, however it lacks any wings from a typical Pi'illodium, and is instead supported by the aforementioned robotic tentacle legs with huge tripedel claws. It sprouts a single red eye from its head as it swivels to scan the room, but before Antasma could even think to hide, it already finished scanning and locked its crimson eye onto him.
"Target Found - Objective: Destroy"
And within moments, it produced two gigantic miniguns from a tiny compartment in its sides and started firing.
Antasma yelped as it sprayed its bullets towards him, he quickly dodged out of its firing path and hid behind a column.
…So that's a new one, it's most likely an advanced Pi'illodium that was built by the Pi'illos, but from the looks of it. It has an advantage for ground coverage instead of aerial. He glanced at the steely machine from the reflection of a mirror off towards his sides, judging by it's dark steely exteriors, it's probably built by this world's technology instead of magic from the ancient times. Which is explained by the two very obviously large guns that it's rapidly firing at him right now, a normal magical ancient Pi'illodium does not come equipped with miniguns.
He waited out the relentless barrage, hoping that it would burn through its current bullet supplies and giving him an opening.
Then soon enough. he heard clicking coming from the mech, indicating its empty cartridge and a chance to attack.
So he activated his ability and charged straight at the Pi'illodium, the time dilation definitely helped mask his movements as he swiftly striked and took out one of its legs before it could do anything. As he came out of his module, he watched the futuristic Pi'illodium stumble as it attempted to adjust towards its new balance and accommodate for its missing leg. However, just as fast as he destroyed it, a new one instantly replaced the missing part and it swiftly regained its balance as if nothing happened.
Antasma was stunned, there were no Mini Pi'illoids coming out from its body to heal it, or any sort of obvious repair tools that the machine might pull out to fix itself. No, it no longer has such a weakness and fragility, showing that this is what the future holds and one of its many mastery over the art of stability and greatness.
He backed away from the mech, whom now possesses a renewed sense of intensity that is glaring through its singular eye. It raised it's right tripedal claw and swung, however due to it's slow speed, he parried the heavy hit easily with a loud satisfying clang.
Yes, he parried a thousand ton blow like it's a normal sword swing with his bare hands, his cybernetics are incredible, the mech also seemed slightly stunned at the feat as it swung at him once more, with the result of him parrying the blow.
For a brief moment, it stopped attacking as it's stunned by the strength of this tiny man. Even Dreambert was slightly impressed by how well Antasma utilized the newly designed parring system that was outfitted with every combat cybernetics, but that moment was quickly passed as Antasma raised his hand and it quickly transformed into a flamethrower that he got from his newly installed module and blasted the machinery with a wave of flames, it recoiled at the surprised attack and instantly began to attack him once more, this time re-equipping it's dual miniguns and sprayed at the aggravating bat.
In a moment of panic, Antasma raised his hands instinctively to parry the blow, which resulted in him discovering that he can just…parry it. He diverted the incoming bullets in a string of parries and easily endured the robot out of its precious bullets in a matter of seconds. He doesn't know how to disable the minigun, but it appears that he doesn't need to. Which is proven more when the Pi'illodium leaped backwards to give itself space, and it proceeded to shoot out homing missiles aimed towards him…that he just parried.
Yeah he has no idea how he's parring literal exploding missiles with his bare hands, but he did it somehow. The Pi'illodium is just as shocked as he is, with it literally stopping in its tracks once more to gawk at his unbelievable feats. Antasma saw his chance and attacked, then the cycle repeated.
Until the Pi'illodium had enough had decided to leap into the air. Antasma squinted at the move, what is it doin-
His system made a loud, unbearably sounding beep as it signals to him to dodge the attack, despite its previous achievements, it cannot parry this move.
And within a split second reaction from his end, he managed to barely dodge the incoming slam that produced shockwaves which shaken the entire gym.
There were a few times he wasn't able to react fast enough for his parries and got severely punished from it's attacks, whether it was being shot point blank by a missile that he wasn't able to parry in time and had his blockage completely shattered from it's attempts at protecting him, or he was intercepted while he was in the middle of attacking.
But eventually, with enough dodging, parrying, and sometimes incredibly painful blocks that almost shattered or did shatter his blockage shield from one of its swings (he needs to upgrade that more later). The futuristic Pi'illodium was defeated, as he watched the mech slowly collapse into a pile of burnt, slashed, and broken scrap, he noticed a small ball of tiny blue vials within the wreckage, he floated over towards it and unearthed it. Which turns out to be Castaphrose, and it just so happened that it has exactly 20 gallons of it.
Antasma excitedly registered the Castaphrose into his system and went to his portable upgrade menu, however, just right before he selected the first option. His curiosity spiked at the second choice, a new fighting style, originally he was just gonna get the upgrade that lets him do more physical damage, but now that new fighting style was starting to pique his interests.
So instead of the increased damage, he chose the second option and finalized his decision.
A robotic female voice informed him of it's installment as he waited for the upgrade to process,
— – New Fighting Style Installed – —
– Intermediate Combat –
Wow…what a creative name.
A new alert popped onto his view and informed him that he can switch to his second fighting style whenever he wishes to, Antasma squinted at the information, so he's just going to…
Immediately, he felt a shift of instinct within his senses as he changed his stance. Now he's no-longer extending his claws and metallic metal curled around his knuckles like a power glove as he took a bladed stance.
He blinked, well that was sudden, the open fighting style that contrasted his previous boxed stance was a refreshing change. He cracked his neck, well it looks like he doesn't need to keep denting his claws against metal, his system says that he could do blunt damage with this fighting style. Antasma raised an eyebrow towards this statement, why can't he just…do both? Is he just restricted to using his claws for only basic combat? He can't use his knuckles to fight unless he switches?
Apparently that's the case for his system as it retracted its metallic support for his claws and increased its weight onto his knuckles. Antasma sighed, since when have there been such restrictions?
He stretched his back, the following events since he's reawakening was pretty hectic, first he discovered that he was remade into a cyborg that's prepped for war, then he got assaulted by a group of soldiers, another revived villain, and then a revamped Pi'illodium, his plate was extremely full.
He scratched his neck, he wanted to take another nap after what had just happened, but there's a possibility that Dreambert might send another revived villain at him while he was asleep and he is seriously not feeling up to doing all of that again. Maybe a shower and a hot bowl of Nightmares would be nice, after all he does feel pretty filthy from all the beanish blood, machinery oil, and debris from all of the previous battles.
Now that he thought about it, he hasn't eaten at all ever since his revival and yet he doesn't feel hungry or thirsty.
He grimaced, had they also removed his stomach? He immediately began fiddling around his abdomen, the area was covered by armor but it didn't stop him from trying to pry open and see what's inside, see what more they took away from him. He continued to pry at the cybernetics with his claws, but it didn't budge. His prying persisted, why can't he tear open his own armor yet easily tore through others? Is something preventing him from doing it? Was it a mental thing?
Eventually he gives up, he doesn't exactly want to kill himself by trying to figure out the differences of his biology, or cyberology, so he huffed and stopped thinking about it.
The bar that was displaying his current health was pretty low, even though his cybernetic is repairing itself slowly, it wouldn't be enough until he was shoved into another battle once more.
Wait, doesn't he have a repair option in his newly installed upgrade system?
He opened up the menu and sure enough, there's a tab with the word 'repair' labeled on it. That's going to be his only way of healing huh, other than just sleeping. He selected the repair option and it led to a page of a diagram of his body. It's not necessarily detailed, but it does show which part within an area needed to be repaired, and how much of it was damaged in percentage wise.
Currently, ten percent of his chest, both arms, and his abdomen was in need of repair, which kind of surprised him considering the amount of damage he took from the previous fight. but the damages are probably averaged out sorted into his general health bar. However, what pissed him off even more is that he needs more Castaphrose to instantly repair himself, which he currently has none of, fantastic.
He groaned, it looks like he'll need to rely on the slow innate repair system he has to heal. He doesn't want to sleep yet and he has no Castaphrose on hand, he rubbed his face once more in frustration since when had he ever dealt with dwindling resources? In his previous life within the Dreamworld, food is aplenty in there due to the vast amount of dreams and nightmare energy that makes up the swirly dimension, it was both colorful and fulfilling. He never needed to worry about going hungry since he could always just suck on some unsuspecting dreamer of their nightmares and feed himself, why have the need to hunt when food is everywhere?
But now he had to deal with the problem that all animals will eventually face, which is the lack of essential resources and the difficulty of obtaining them. He doesn't necessarily need food per say, but he definitely needed a resource that is essential to his health and improvement. And currently, he has none, this ancient conflict has finally managed to challenge the Nightmare King.
Antasma gritted his teeth, he supposed with a new life, there will be new challenges, and it's really up to him if he wants to face it or die once more like a pathetic bat. He balled his hands into a fist, he's not going to lose again. Even if he's doomed to become a weapon, he's not going to let that stop him from trying.
So with a newly formed resolution, he exited the gym and pressed on.
"Bravo, BRAVO, HA HA HA!"
Dreambert laughed as he clapped happily at the fight, he was so proud of his best friend's performance and was impressed that he even managed to pull off a few moves that even he had struggled mastering early on. Despite the destruction from the resulting battle, he couldn't care less about it since the BeanBean Kingdom can always cover the damages.
As he finished his snack and wiped his face, a knock came from his door.
"Come in"
A Beanish officer stepped into the room, and Dreambert swiveled around his chair and stared at them unhappily for the unwelcome disturbance.
"Sire, both Subject - DI22y and Subject - KB00o have resided themselves within different essential ship mechanical rooms and threatened to destroy it if we were to interfere." The officer reported.
Dreambert glared at the officer as if it's their fault that they've been put into a ransom situation.
"And what do they demand?" he asked, his cybernetic eye seemed to burn holes through the poor Beanish as they began sweating underneath the harsh gaze of the Pi'illo
"F-Freedom." He responded.
Dreambert reclined in his chair and lessened his intimidating demeanor, he tapped his golden metallic chin as he pondered on the response.
"So they want freedom? Is that it? Nothing more?" he asked.
The officer simply nods.
Dreambert chuckled at the demand, which elected a worrying grimace from the officer. He noticed the concerned expression from the commanding Beanish but he simply waved off their concern.
"We'll let them wait in the rooms for now, Subject - TA33y will deal with the situation for us." He replied, "He already neutralized Subject - LE11a with little to no trouble, so the others won't be a problem for him."
But the commanding Beanish noticed several problems with this plan,
"But sire, what if-"
Dreambert cuts him off with another wave of his golden hand.
"He'll be fine, officer, believe me, he won't fail." He chuckled, "Afterall, from what I've observed, they're more likely to beg for mercy at his feet than ever having a chance of scratching him."
The officer gulped at the Pi'illos' confidence.
"I hope you're right, sire."
The Pi'illo laughed in response at the officer's doubt.
"Oh there will be no 'I hope', it's an absolute."
Then he turned back towards the screens, watching Antasma nervously exit the gym as his mouth twists into an uncanny smile.
"And I'll be the one to crush that absolute."