"The Steward of Imperium"
POST XII
THE_STORMCHASER
1ST EXILED-GALIDRAANI DIVISION
2ND GALIDRAANI ARMOURED-VOLUNTEER BRIGADE,"BLUE-HEART BRIGADE"
OBJECTIVE 3: Remnants of Dust
Taskforce LIONHEART: Willan Tal Konrad Bolter Enedina Tal
ALLIES (NIO/GA): Irveric Tavlar Tulan Kor Noel Strasza
Fisk Kamer DT-0800 A.I.M
Djorn Bline Rika Hiro
Tiberius Julian Qar Arcturus Tal
Cotan Sar'andor Captain Raith Suri Vullen Maynard Treicolt
Kal Ostan Zirell Marxon Master Zoryu Zark San Tekka
Kinoan Asmundr Varobalder Aelys Allyson Locke
ENEMIES (TSE/CIS): Irina Volkov Valen Taeli Raaf Sith Dominance
The Amalgam Laertia Io Maple Harte
CALLSIGN: BLUE-HEART ALPHA
Custom Blaster-Pistol | Basket-Hilted Vibrosword Claymore | Mylesy's Trusty Fairbairn
A BARRAN WASTELAND - A Stormchaser's Sword 2 (The Chosen Blades of Fates Intertwined)
'Who is the Amalgam - to you? Your turn to talk now - er... What the kark is your name, by the way?'
Standing at a safe (or rather, safe enough) distance, Lord Erskine was watching on with arms folded, observing the spitting image of his dead son growling as she pulled herself free from the jutting Fleeter debris; however, this time around would leave the blood-spilling effect nowhere to be seen, just pure mercury-like liquid metal, returning to the source-host as the hole in her head, her broken knees and the frenzied Meyer-style cuts to her torso from before gradually diminished. All would look to return to normal before the Advanced Nuetralizer spoke again, but she proved him wrong in her own show of otherworldly endurance, reverting to her base form and replying,'The Amalgam and her Witches are but useful tools...', with a massive gap in the center of her forehead.
Pausing as she waited for the legs to strengthen a little more beneath her, the Nanite-Droid straightened her posture and let the studded biker-leather imitation take shape before continuing,'That's all she has ever been, in spite of her power. And as to your other question...I haven't picked one before this moment. This is my second Battle. My first was aboard The Prosperity to kill personnel and sabotage equipment. I am the reason the Prosperity was delayed from reaching Bastion.'. A fact that actually irritated the Lord-Commander to some degree, though not by any lasting means, considering that Vostok's Dark Troopers would've survived their envelopment if the Prosperity had arrived to offer air-support in time, though understanding the Prosperity could've done nothing to stop the ICBM that killed Heggy and Jorie just as much as he did on the aforementioned circumstances.
Pausing properly this time, but dwelling on his question as a ploy to buy herself time hadn't escaped Barran's notice, though it was seemingly allowed to stand out of sheer curiosity alone. As he kept his arms folded, the Brigadier-General stood almost statue-still as he considered the difference in the time it took to heal from blunt-force trauma, and inwardly compared the results to those of the cuts he'd inflicted beforehand, watching like a hawk, studying the head slowly taking form again as the pair stood completely silent in the fading, smoky-light of the battlefield mist as it covered the descent of Ziost's sun. Eventually, the feminine droid would resume in her attempt to respond to the best of her ability, revealing,'If I must have a name, call me...Effigy. For the face you see is one all my Sisters bare. The face of one murdered by The Amalgam.', letting her arms form into two of the most unnatural swords Erskine had ever seen as she spoke.
Oh, how foul! And she choose to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with the Amalgam, knowing all this? Disgusting....
'I am an Advanced Model 1, The first general production Nanite Assassin Droid, First Generation. My Brothers are shock troops. I am an assassin and sabotuer. Bred for war, for conflict. Your soldiers had to have the Murder trained into you. But Murder is part of a Nuetralizer from the moment they are first activated. We walk the path of Death and Hell, from the moment the first spark of thought erupts in our minds to the last second before shut down, we are ALWAYS ready to wage war, Lord Commander, and we are here to wage it on Ziost to the bitter end, your hands around our throats as much as ours will be around yours, shedding us of weakness...'
Where most would be terrified in the Brigadier-General's place, Erskine seemed to be getting the spinal rushes again; feeling the aesthetic pleasure from the prospect of dragging his Nanite-driven adversary to a Hellish afterlife with him, getting goosebumps at the mere thought of both of them trying their hardest to choke the life from each other and still trying to wipe each other's souls from the memory of time itself. Agreeing such revelations would shed them of every last inner weakness they possessed, and knowing his near-death before had in fact shed him of every weakness his heart possessed, the wisdom of the Advanced Model 1 had imparted was taken with appreciative seriousness for the first of (what looked to become) a long run of fighting moments of clarity between them.
'Now answer me something, Erskine Barran! Why, why, why do you persist?'
It was a good question to ask him in that moment, the Lord-Commander couldn't deny it, as the answer was somewhat impossible for him to grasp at until then; all Erskine knew of the how-and-why was that something had dragged him from his own madness, and coincidentally the dead-heap he'd almost slipped into at the base of that crumbling garden wall, something he couldn't articulate into words without serious extensive thought and analyses on the matter. All Erskine could really take from the matter was the meaning of a simple nugget of wisdom from his favourite Woad intellectual of old, shrugging when he replied,'Not so sure it's for me t'say at this point, Effigy. But I'll say this much, there may be wisdom in the philosophies of Gordon Thrast that could aid us in answering such a question, humour me if you will....'
"The mind is a being of it's own, and if trained and tempered - strength and power become of it. But what else can become of it from within those same glorious recesses of the sentient psyche? What else is there to save us from perdition, if not the very hands we were born to carve out a future with? Something else resides within, and it's kept us alive from the very beginning, even in our most simplistic of evolutionary forms. Warriors, son.... Never underestimate them, for they never fight alone."
An apt excerpt to quote at such a pivotal moment of their fight, for both opposing warriors had something within them that escaped their complete control; on one hand, the Nanites were constantly working to keep Effigy alive, even if ever it seemed like she wouldn't them to, and on the other, the unexplainable somehow blessing the slumped Blue-Heart General of all people. Drawing his sword once and setting his posture once more, and perhaps for the last time that day, or perhaps for the last time ever, the Lord-Commander set his posture and said,'We'll maybe find the answers to such questions before we meet our ends, but I still have more questions.... Firstly, I'd rather get some more fighting done before that, if you don't mind. Shall we?'
A BARRAN WASTELAND - A Stormchaser's Sword 3 (Erskine Vs. Effigy)
That's right, Erskine.... Dip the hips, bend the knees and lead the blade down in front of you.
Wielding her dual-blades like a sword-dancer, twirling them around in an attempt to keep the Lord-Commander's eyes from focusing on her shoulders and constantly-switching stance, the Advanced Nuetralizer would be the first to strike out as her opponent maintained his calm, energy-conserving posture, but Erskine would draw both her intended stabbing-devices upward and over towards her left side waistline and attempt a spinning-pivot in the other direction. Effigy would be having none of it, backpedalling to find a safer angle of attack as Erskine slowly drew backwards to reassert his posture for the next engagement, keeping his Vibrosword lower than his poise as the Advanced Model 1 formulated another plan in silence.
The posture is everything with this technique, Erskine. Keep it nice an' loose, relaxed an' measured.
Opening her guard to hold both blades over her shoulder, Effigy would start her approach with a run to slow into two forward skip-jumps that led to lateral movement Erskine hadn't seen her displaying before, though his rotation to meet the new line of attack would be enough to keep his eyes on the mercury blades before they swung around towards his left arm and throat. He didn't decide to duck, roll or kneel, nor did he try to backpedal or make lateral steps in the other direction, but Barran had decided to run straight at her and force the Advanced Nuetralizer to sidestep and quickly sprint out of harm's way. Bluntforce trauma was off the table with Effigy, so anything resembling attempts to hit or grab for slams would be treated with a near-cerebral level of physical respect, despite her clearly being in a fully-healed state in that moment.
This frustrated the Advanced Model 1 enough to take a more head-on approach in the next phase of the bout, running in low to get on a hip-level with the Brigadier-General's own, only to find herself having little more than a split-second window to avoid the sudden pommel movement that pointed Barran's blade right under her chin. Taking the outside angle, the Nanite-droid shifted her weight quick enough to aid her in bobbing her head in a rightward direction, but she would have to block the Lord-Commander's blade as it whipped round in an attempt to catch her across her mercury eyeballs, blocking the blade with her left as her right tried to stab his midriff whilst he was in a similarly transitory state. Just as Effigy knew Erskine wouldn't be able to catch her in his original intended angle, Erskine knew Effigy wouldn't be able to catch him in her intended angle-of-attack either, so they both followed their outward trajectory to reassert their stances and plans of attack with begrudging willingness to keep with each other's fighting states of psychological flow.
Another relaxed posture stance, but I want to attempt something in particular this time....
Noting the change in the Blue-Heart's choice of blade positioning, the Nuetralizer soon reverted to using just one of her mercury-imitation swords, and deciding on the spot to make the one she had remaining a little longer and wider for reasons Barran knew all too well. Whether this made the blade heavier or not, Erskine knew he'd be in big trouble if he didn't block a strike from it, but this only made him keener than ever to try the new augmentation to his complete stance. In all of this, through all the feints, dodges and lunges, they both seemed to be in a state of combat perfection without even realising it, like their bodies had taken control and started putting on the competition of a lifetime without their input or forethought; continuing to fight on like nothing else even remotely mattered in these moments, like nothing else even existed in their shared solitude of duelling souls. The only words said between them in the next ten minutes or so of combat bliss, only two were spoken by Lord Erskine, growling,'Keep - going!', as the droid's eyes began to express indications of disbelief in the fact they were both fighting so well, urging himself as much as he was urging Effigy to fight on without distraction.
Last edited: