"Defense is a sword's and greatest ally. Let your guard down, and the enemy will seize the opportunity to kill you." General paced back and forth before the trembling Octave.
The gray Robot Master was at his knees, scuffed and damaged to the point of electrical sparking from his joints.
"You're determined to be an asshole about this." Octave grunted defiantly as he stood upright.
"An asshole? Witty remark." General huffed, smirking as he did so. "If you were as willing to use your saber as you are with your mouth, then you'd be an S-Rank before your first century alive. Again." General mocked before beckoning, using his unarmed left hand to signal Octave to attack.
Octave shot upright and dashed into General, their sabers clashing when he got close. In a short grapple, Octave struggled to get an upper hand on the much more powerful foe. General stood at his leisure, tilting his weapon and sending Octave stagger to the side, opening his flank for a roundhouse kick.
Flying into the steel wall of the sparring floor, Octave let out a shout before tumbling to the ground. By the time he forced himself up, General was in his face with another kick, this one to the head. The blow sent Octave skipping across the dirt that lay at the base of the sparring room.
It was to give the illusion of intense, gladiatorial combat should the fight be lacking. This one wasn't.
"Your flanks are your weakest point, yet you flaunt them around like a fortress wall. Again."
"I can't..." Octave whimpered.
"Excuse me?" General stopped, lowering his saber.
"I can't win and I can't learn, man! I'm a fucking robot! And I'm a month old! And you keep beating me into the dirt before I can even get a good try in, so what's the point!" Octave shouted, retracting his saber and reforming his arm into a humanoid fashion.
General strolled up beside the fallen robot and crouched down towards his level. "Every defeat is a lesson as long as you do not allow it to happen again. When you were learning to walk in your frame for the first time, did you quit and cry after falling from the first step, or did you get back up and try again?"
"I got up."
"Good, I would hope so. So now, you're going to get back up and attack me again. And if you are right and you cannot learn, I will keep knocking you down until I find you worthless and kill you." General's tone got more and more dire as he spoke until he finished and stood, a seemingly sadistic look on his face. "Or, you will prove to be the stubborn child I take you for and FIGHT BACK!"
General suddenly aimed his saber downwards and stabbed. In a twitch reaction, Octave rolled away from the attack and brought himself to his feet. He drew his saber once more and attacked in a violent and fear-filled volley. General clashed and swatted away every strike until Octave's back was exposed. He went in for the kill, a beheading blow flying at the back of Octave's neck. His face softened with disappointment as he struck.
But this is not where Octave would die. He turned around sharply and ducked below the swing and spun, his saber coming around at General's ankle, the hit landing and sweeping General off of his feet. Now on one bracing hand and one foot, General was exposed at the midsection. Octave brought his spinning momentum back around and stood, putting his saber in the air and throwing it down for the kill.
Faster than Octave could see, General clutched the hilt of Octave's saber and impaled him at the hip. In a show of mercilessness, General lifted Octave from the ground, his saber slowly cutting its way up Octave's torso up into his breast before the veteran finally slid him off of his blade, Octave screaming in agony the whole time.
"Vesper! See him to Doctor Monday and get him repaired. Octave, you will NEVER be an S-Ranked Combat Master from what you have shown me today." Octave glared at General with pure hatred from the floor as he laid there clutching his wide open torso. "But maybe you might just survive long enough to prove me wrong."
SaberMan made a dash for Gust, who blew him away like a piece of paper in the breeze. Rolling backwards over his shoulder, SaberMan recovered almost instantly.
"Having trouble getting close, blue boy?" Gust chuckled as he spun a new cloud of dust and shot it in SaberMan's direction.
The blow was wind and sand, sharpened to a point of deadly edge. It dashed toward SaberMan at a deadly speed, one only SaberMan could dodge as easily as he did. In a remarkable show of speed, SaberMan ran towards Gust, hurtled over another blast of sand and wind, and found himself above looking into the eye of the storm. He shouted, and began flipping side over side to gain momentum. As SaberMan descended, Gust attempted to dodge too slowly, a deep gash in his chest to show for it. The hit knock Gust out of his whirlwind and send him reeling back into the sands.
"No. I am not having any trouble, thank you." SaberMan walked towards the cowering for at a slow place, intimidating Gust as he went in for the kill.
"Wait, hold on. No!" Gust shot his hands forward, two blasts of wind hurling towards SaberMan. The hit sent SaberMan to the floor. To follow, Gust stood and waved his hands downward, sharp shots of air cutting down on SaberMan and sending him deeper into the sand.
SaintMan shot a heavy blast from his buster behind his small shield on his left arm, the snakehead carrying Snake dodged it easily. Snake drew his own busters on either hand, shooting three snakes into the sand from one arm, and another sending fully automatic small rounds all around SaintMan, most of which he dodged.
The snakes protruded from the sand beneath SaintMan, the Combat Master barely fast enough to dodge the bites. As the first one attacked, SaintMan brought his energy laced mace down, smashing it to death with ease. The second struck SaintMan from behind with a headbutt, launching him into the air. SaintMan landed and recovered too slowly to dodge the third snake, that bit his armed arm and held him there, the second snake coming and taking hold of the other.
Snake stepped off of his animal and strolled over to SaintMan, shooting another snake into the ground and holding his buster arm to SaintMan's head.
"Consstrict..." Snake hissed with a sinister tone and the new snake wrapped itself around SaintMan's torso and began crushing him. SaintMan screamed in pain as he did so.
"Shit." SaberMan stood upright, looking over at Gust as he paced around to SaberMan's left. "Sorry." SaberMan dashed away from Gust, who stood in annoyance for a second before creating another tornado of dust to float upon to chase.
SaberMan smashed into Snake with his side, sending Snake to the floor a few feet out and stunning him. Before either Snake or Gust could react, SaberMan cut apart the snakes constricting and holding Hymn, freeing him soon enough to jump and deflect Snake's shot at SaberMan with his buster.
"Switch?" SaberMan asked, annoyed at Gust's new tornado.
"Go."
The two turned around sharply and switched opponents. In one fell swoop, Octave dodged the large snakehead's fatal bite and cut the top of its mechanical head off at the jaw and continued his charge at Snake, who fired six more snake drones into the sand while he back pedaled to the top of a nearby dune.
One by one, out of the side of the dune, the snakes bit out at Octave, who slashed them away with terrifying ease. The sixth and last one, being the largest, stood at the width of the end of a baseball bat. Octave clutched it by the neck and crushed it in his hand as he continued his sprint up the dune.
Atop the large dune, Snake stood, waiting on his impending battle that would either destroy him or make him a force to be feared in the Wastes among all Malevolent. Despite his common sense telling him to flee while he had the chance, his pride forced him to stand and prepare for the fight.
Snake aimed his Serpent Buster downwards, sending ten of the largest snake drones he could produce among the denizens of the dune. When Octave arrived at the peak of the dune, he would be in for a surprise.
"So, promise me this envy. Get it? Green with envy? Your armor's green? Nevermind." Octave chuckled, stopping his dead-on sprint and deactivating his combat mode when he reached Snake's level. His saber and facial protection retracted.
"Promisse you... What?" Snake hissed, eager to launch his trap.
"Look, if this goes south for me, I want you to promise you'll see a vocal coach for that damn lisp." Octave reactivated his combat matrix, drawing his sword and lowering his face gear.
"Now... I've alwaysss wondered why you wear both gogglesss and the mouth-piecce." Snake bided for time, his drones still maneuvering on SaberMan's position in the dune. "Isss it really for protection or do you jusst play up the whole... Intimidating asss thing?"
"Funny. No, no, that was funny. See? I'm laughing. No, seriously. That was hilariousss. For your information: yes. It is to intimidate. Look at your arm, it's shaking like a newborn." SaberMan pointed at Snake's arm. When he went to look down at his very still buster arm, SaberMan dashed toward Snake with deadly intent.
But his roll was soon slowed.
A very large snake droid bursts through the sand beneath SaberMan, one about the same size as the droid Snake rode in on. SaberMan went flying into the air, another snake droid coming up beneath him to swallow him up.
As he fell, SaberMan knew he had limited options. As fast as he was, he couldn't change his direction so quickly in midair. He had no idea just how many drones Snake commanded at this size, so killing the one beneath him would prove almost pointless. Besides that, his weaker blade had a charge, and it was at 40% now. While he could still kill this and a few more snakes, SaberMan didn't know if he could win this fight with the charge left in his saber, and if he did win it wouldn't charge for hours. So, weighing all that, SaberMan made a choice even he knew might just prove fatal. He bent forward, aiming his saber at Snake and put the last of his blade's charge into one last attack.
"BREAK-RAID"
SaberMan shot his blade just between his dangling legs. It traveled through the head of the snake drone that shot him into the air and speared Snake right in the center of his knee, the sheer power of the move blowing the left half of Snake's body clean off up to his breast, and sending him tumbling down the other side of the dune as SaberMan plummeted into the snake drone's mouth.
SaintMan shot his buster, knocking Gust out of his tornado with ease, the wind calming without his presence. As Gust landed, he looked down and saw his chest was now blown open, the mechanics of his torso falling out like organs on an injured human. He screamed profoundly before looking up at the approaching Combat Master.
___________________________________
"No, wait! Please! I don't want to die!" Gust begged, his arms sparking from damages as he attempted to use his powers once more.
"Heavy shot, huh? One of the strongest busters ever made, forged by a very young Monday. Now, if you don't tell me the force strength of the Spire Nexus just South of here, I'm going to show you just how heavy my mace is." SaintMan threatened, crouching down to Gust's level and waving his blunt weapon in his face.
"I've only been there once, but the Screechers flock to it, you know!? There's hundreds of them just wandering nearby picking off curious humans who have no sense!" Gust spouted the information almost too fast for SaintMan to register, but he understood the situation well.
"Any high functioning Malevolent? Tier 1 or Tier 2's?"
"I don't know what that means!"
"Right. Screechers are Tier 3 Malevolent, low functioning. You, you are Tier 2. You're better, but not so tough. A Tier 1 Malevolent would be a general or a leader or some guy no one wants to fuck with because he's so tough." SaintMan explained, trying to ease the process of information gathering while inching his mace closer to Gust's wound.
"Okay, okay, okay! There's a few 2's who keep the Spire Nexus safe, but the Toymaker sent the Gemini. They'd be like, Tier Zero or something. That's all I know I swear!" Gust pleaded, hoping he staved off the Combat Master's thirst for his life.
He was wrong. SaintMan was a brute without mercy or most forms of honor. Unless outlawed directly from the mouth of General, he tended to do as he pleased, to the misfortune of those around him.
In a single mighty blow, SaintMan bearer his mace down on Gust's head, completely destroying his Integrated Circuit and killing him and his Soul forever.
When he stood and looked over his shoulder towards SaberMan's bout, he saw sign of his ally, only Snake crawling away at the foot of the dune.
"Your body should lock up here soon. Until someone finds you and repairs you, you'll be stuck here, totally aware and awake, but unable to perform much past moving your eyes. Where's Octave." Hymn deactivated his combat matrix as he approached the fatally wounded Malevolent. An unfortunate defense mechanism, the bodies of both Benevolent and Malevolent Souls will lock up when the damage is too great of a toll for the Soul to bear. When a Soul is alone without anyone looking for them when this starts to happen, many kill themselves. It's a fate worse than dying.
"In... The belly... Of the whale... Prick." Snake had lost his breathy tone for a more staggered, injured one.
"You know, I was gonna kill you, but that hurt. When I report this, Lady Opera is going to be upset that I let a Soul suffer a lockdown, Malevolent or Benevolent. Have fun." Hymn walked to the top of the dune, away from Snake, whose screams could be heard for miles before his body finally locked down.
Atop the dune lied a dead mechanical snake, a large explosive hole in its skull, and nothing else. Octave was nowhere to be found.
Suddenly, Hymn staggered back, activating his combat sequence when another large snake protruded from the ground, it's maw wide open facing the sky. It held itself upright for a moment, and then tumbled into the sand, mouth agape with the oil-covered Octave crawling out.
"It's... A good thing snakes don't chew." Octave huffed as Hymn deactivated his combat mode and aggressively helped him up.
"What'd you do to that Malevolent? That was some gruesome stuff to look at." Hymn turned South and continued walking, almost as if nothing had happened at all.
"We got a new big-shot in town. Manhattan's good. I've got a goddamn edged cannon right here." Octave patted his saber arm, which vented out the residue of the energy he used while fighting.
"I've got information on the Spire Nexus. It's surrounded by a few hundred Screechers, staffed by a few Tier 2 Malevolent and commanded by some Tier 1's that go by The Gemini." Hymn stated, his walk becoming a jog to hasten the traveling process.
"Sounds... Daunting." Octave matched Hymn's lugging speed with ease. "Sounds like we could use some backup."
"Please. I'd be able to do this myself, but I have to drag you here with me. Besides, I don't think many of the other Combat Masters care enough as to follow us all the way out there."