as written by Ronin and Lobos
Just as the Butcher soared over the coastline, he would be intercepted by a .50 round aimed at his neck, trailed by a zipline of frost as the water particles froze on-contact with the projectile. Swathed in a cloud of subzero frost, the bullet easily cut through the butcher's heat aura without melting. If it connected, the slug would explode in a cloud of dense cryogenic gas nearly -300 degrees Celsius.
The assailant, who had seemingly stepped out of the air in one of the moments when the Butcher was looking back at the Fiddle, hovered above the waves in a relaxed, neutral stance. He was garbed in seraph armor, the bands of shining protosteel painted red in strips along his shoulders and waist. His visor was a deep shade of sanguine. He cradled a large gun over his chest, the wings of a raptor pack rising from his shoulder blades.
"You, my little babby," his voxed voice ringed with a Northern Irish accent, coy and mischievous, "are one ugly little maggot." He lowered his altitude and circled around the dragon near the water.
"Name's Candycane. Remember it. I think it's funny when people have to say they got their ass handed to them by a mint."
In the distance, the Fiddle trudged along slowly. Smoke rose out of the crater the Butcher had left in its hull, blue sparks of plasma exploding near its backside. The frigate dipped in altitude every so often in sudden jerks. Half the lights were out.
____
Unexpected, the little gnat who's bullet hammered into the base of the skull from much closer. Clever even.
Butcher's reaction to the chill was immediate and violent, a twisting pitch that sent the drake headlong into the water a fair distance from the shore, a tremendous burst of steam erupting like a geyser as his superheated form struck the cooler liquid. And indeed, at first glance, it seemed that the blow was true, the boiling water continuing for several moments and drifting, before it settled. The ambient heat was dropping quickly.
And continued to drop. Faster, and faster still. What had been a massive thermal signature was quickly becoming an absence.
Under the water, the Butcher's flames guttered and died, but not in death throes. Gliding smoothly, the beast had taken the advantage and was turning it via yet another power granted to him. Inversion, a turning of nature's to the opposite. Water collected in his fearsome countenance in the form of ice, shards spiralling in his wake as he used claw, wing, and tail to swing under the surface, dive, then coil around to settle on the sea-floor. The dead holes that had previous held hellish daemonfyre now gleamed darkly lit azure, a quaking chuckle resounding below the surface as the inversion resolved quickly.
The game had turned, and then turned yet again.
____
Now nearly three mile offshore, Candycane swept over the waves on his raptor, scouting through the cloud of hissing steam for his foe. His scouter registered the dragon's energy signature descend to the depths ... and noted, with alarm, the sudden drop of scorching heat surrounding him.
Candycane gave pause. The ocean wasn't that cold. The Butcher was deliberately changing his aura, modifying his protection so as to better defend against the new weaponry. The TNG was using frost. Now, so was he.
"Clever bastard," Candycane smiled beneath his visor. Flying swiftly into the air, the guardian racked his frostwaker and unleashed a volley of shots into the water over a wide radius, the chilling rounds and gas instantly blanketing the sea in a bed of steaming chill. A continent of ice molded over the waves - a great glacier that blanketed the ocean's surface and carried into its depths for a few feet. It was a desert of ice - very wide, not very deep.
"Oracles, give me a simulacra," Candycane's voice carried through his comms, a static-sodden affirmation buzzing back into his ears. The air to the left of the trooper shimmered and distorted, empty space morphing itself into the shape of a man, assuming armor, a gun, a raptor pack ... flashing into existence as the spitting image of Candycane himself. The illusion held its rifle at ready, scouring over the newly-created ice shelf with calm vigilance.
"That'll do boys," the guardian smiled, inspecting the simulacra, "handsome looking dope. Send him down." The illusion lowered closer to the surface, leaving a shadow on the glacier front. The real Candycane soared higher until his own visage left no shadow at all.
"Candy to Fiddle, how's the walk in the garden?" he slung his frostwaker over his shoulder and upholstered his pistol.
"We're on our way, Candycane," Vrail commed back from the bridge. "Just keep him busy. Try to stay alive."
"You've got a way with words, Cap'n. Bet your wife loves that." He fitted a small tubular device into its barrel before snapping up a grenade from his belt and fastening it to the top.
Vrail offered no response. He was unmarried, but he saw no reason to bring personal matters into this situation. He turned to a technician. "How are the guns?"
"Ready to fire at your command, sir," she replied, "now that he's reverted to frost, couldn't we fry him with a DE cannon?"
"No," Vrail shook his head, "we don't know how his powers work, or how quickly. He's demonstrated the ability to make himself stronger using heat. We don't use heat." His brows furrowed at the screen. "Gauss cannon is all that will do it. We just need the right opening."
____
The presence of the one above was no more than an irritant, as Butcher relaxed on the seafloor, building his energies for another assault. The deepening chill of his body had begun to freeze the water around him, the ice churning as it twisted with his coruscating aura. A weaving of power was underway, preparation to end this confrontation once and for all.
____
Candycane paused, a frown passing over his face. His scouter documented the Butcher's alarming energy spike meticulously. "Oracles, lets get this thing moving. Add a shock charge to it."
The simulacra whose shadow the Butcher watched began to hover across the ice slowly before beginning to rise - seeming, perhaps, to make an escape.
In the distance, Candycane waited; the Fiddle closed in. The Butcher was right. It was time to finish this.
____
Within the ocean ran currents. Currents north, currents south. East west. Upper, lower. But the distinction that Butcher cared, was there were warm currents, and then there was cold currents. Three miles out to see, the depths in which he rested were lightless, frigid.
Pliable.
"Bo ahrk alok, zuth envok. Feykro do troz, feykro do iiz." A murmured cant, strangley muffled without the air from above. "Bo ahrk alok, zuth envok. Feykro do troz, feykro do iiz."
Power weaving, power flowing, stretching a web forward, the residual clingings of his wound allowing he to maintain his focus. He knew his prey approached. It was the point. It was a trap, after all. "Bo ahrk alok, zuth envok. Feykro do troz, feykro do iiz."
And now, he would spring it. "Bo ahrk alok, zuth envok. Feykro do troz, feykro do iiz."
"Griiv avok, ahrk krii!"
Power rushed through the web, carrying water in turbulent currents with it as most of the built energies he had collected surged forward, churning the silty floor before finding its place in the depths below the Nero's Fiddle, the spell hanging for a moment before it triggered, twisting reality to the daemon's will. Water flash froze, massive spears thrusting up through the liquid like fangs as they grew in length and girth, culminating in twenty such spears, 100 meters long, 30 meters thick. Natural, then infused with malevolent power that etched into the ice, hardening it to the strength of diamond. The bloom of the dark power within each crystalline heart sent them rocketing upwards, forced to extreme speed from the tremendous pressures of the depths they begun, rising impossibly swiftly. First a hundred meters per second. The five hundred. One thousand. Five thousand. The shockwaves of their passing sent thunder across the oceans, buffeting even Butcher where he lie in wait, otherworldly eyes tracking their elevating as though the darkness did not exist.
To breach the sea surface in seconds, shockwaves breaking over their edged tips in the air before the soared skywards for the ventral belly of the Fiddle.
____
As powerful as the Butcher's magic was, it had a long way to travel from the depths of the sea. As the dragon's commands took wings on the currents of the ocean and found purchase in the seabed below the Fiddle, the Trireme was already scouting the accumulating energy, shields rising to accommodate the massive power. Unlike its confrontation with Fellhammer, the ship had a few scant seconds to prepare itself for the incoming assault.
The first dozen shards shattered against the Fiddle's shields like water on rock, ice pillars as hard as diamond practically disintegrating against the Trireme's protected hull. Those aboard the bridge watched the shield reserves with muted worry, bracing themselves against the awful tremors each impact left on the frigate. The blasts were literally forcing the massive warship higher into the air, each ice bolt jolting the Trireme a bit higher from the sea.
Its shields couldn't stave off everything. These weren't bullets or missiles - the speed, size and hardness of each pike made every projectile comparable to advanced Gauss weaponry. With little-to-no lag time between attacks, the shields were spared no opportunity to regenerate themselves. The final three spears would make headway into the ship's interior, rending titanium and tungsten aside like cardboard and making it several dozen feet inside. Though it didn't quite leave the impact Foehammer did, it did more damage, the down-top pikes striking through far more floors and areas of work than the lateral beam had managed.
"Damage report," Vrail barked.
"Left dormitories and cargo bay are hit. Engine room is compromised."
The captain's eyes darkened. He looked at the Butcher's signature, nestled deep below the ocean's crest. An idea came to him. "Lock onto the signature. Gauss cannon. Three rounds. Have the oracles stand by for damage control."
The orders were given, and the Fiddle fought back. The main Gauss cannon revved, primed, fired - once, twice, three times. Massive, supercharged slugs sped into the sea in blurs of blue light. Even at the Butcher's great distance, they would reach the sea floor in a matter of seconds - trails of near-superheated gas following them as water literally vaporized on-contact with the slugs. They powered through underwater plateaus, punching holes in rock formations the size of mountains without missing a beat, the kinetic aftershocks reducing all in its path to heaps of bubbling rubble.
At Butcher's distance, pinpoint accuracy was almost impossible. It was unlikely that any of the rounds would hit the dragon directly ... but they didn't need to. As the slugs hammered into the sea floor tens of thousands of miles below the surface of the ocean, the crust of the earth fractured. Great wounds opened in the seabed, massive craters from which immediately spewed geysers of raging magma. The Fiddle's Gauss cannons had created makeshift hydrothermal vents in the ocean's bottom. The Butcher would find himself surrounded in an inferno of fire and water, Valore's lifeblood spilling out in a viscous gush to consume him whole.
The insane expenditure of energy following the impact of the rounds was not confined to the area of seafloor the Butcher occupied. Already great ripples of power were surging to the shore - energy that, if allowed to surface, would create tsunamis large enough to consume hundreds of miles of the Midlands. The oracles knew this. Aboard the Fiddle, they charged their psionic powers, preparing a great spell to counter the rising force.
____
The retaliation against the Butcher happened in tandem as he felt spears laced with his power embed themselves in their target, words uttering in the darkness of the deep seas, ten miles below the surface.
"Kren ahrk bo." Shatter and fly.
Delayed as the triggering wave of energy passed by gauss slugs that ripped through the water like divine lances, creating tunnels of displaced water that allowed for the briefest moments direct sight through open space to the ocean floor, those words caught the surviving ice spikes and caused them to erupt like bombs, devastating bursts of super-dense shrapnel not unlike a bomb dropped from a bomber plane, the potent concussive force nothing but a catalyst to propel shards feet to yards in length at thousands to tens of thousands of feet per second in every direction. The geysers formed when the ocean reclaimed the empty space in the wake of the shots would be like cannon fire, as millions of gallons of water filled the void and erupted from the mouths as though fired from high pressure cannons.
Butcher himself was missed directly the first slamming into the muddy, rocky bottom one hundred yards behind him, the next by seventy yards behind and to his left, the third almost sixty yards to his left. Water was a terrible thing to firing into, it's flexible nature anathema to straight and sure paths. Virtually solid at the leading edge of the slugs from sheer pressure, the water boiled and steamed, the sheer magnitude of the water pressure being shunted away from it like a hurricane force gale that plucked the daemonic drake from the floor and hurled him amidst turbulent currents away from the impacts, spiraling out of control at the full mercy of the water. But he remained whole, if battered and scraped from the occasional hard reintroduction with the sea's stony bottom.
It was highly likely the captain above didn't realize the depths of his folly, for the currents of the ocean varied with depth. The mammoth power of the surface currents funneled waves that were easily seen, and thus readily handled, though they themselves were doomed to burn out long before they would generate a tsunami. The surface was too easily churned to make good on its threatened promise. But the riptide currents of the depths, however, met with conflicting strengths, and seethed. These waves carried no tell-tale sign, and short of being within the deeps themselves, or deeply planted instruments to detect the sudden pressures, there would be no warning as these headed for the coasts, in every direction. Indeed, even if there had been early warning equipment, the shockwaves resonating through the crust shook the ocean floor badly, and the chances of total failure from the beating was extremely high.
As well, the kinetic shock of the crust's pounding was likely to trigger nearby faults within fifty miles, which might very well result in secondary and tertiary tsunami's produced by the quakes likely to result from the shots.
Butcher himself, satisfied that the wounds would prove crippling or destructive, allowed enough of the tidal forces to ebb before making his way deeper within the Astral Sea, swimming along the floor, allowing the time that would be needed to locate him among the chaotic carnage of the shot's aftermath to build power anew.
Just as the Butcher soared over the coastline, he would be intercepted by a .50 round aimed at his neck, trailed by a zipline of frost as the water particles froze on-contact with the projectile. Swathed in a cloud of subzero frost, the bullet easily cut through the butcher's heat aura without melting. If it connected, the slug would explode in a cloud of dense cryogenic gas nearly -300 degrees Celsius.
The assailant, who had seemingly stepped out of the air in one of the moments when the Butcher was looking back at the Fiddle, hovered above the waves in a relaxed, neutral stance. He was garbed in seraph armor, the bands of shining protosteel painted red in strips along his shoulders and waist. His visor was a deep shade of sanguine. He cradled a large gun over his chest, the wings of a raptor pack rising from his shoulder blades.
"You, my little babby," his voxed voice ringed with a Northern Irish accent, coy and mischievous, "are one ugly little maggot." He lowered his altitude and circled around the dragon near the water.
"Name's Candycane. Remember it. I think it's funny when people have to say they got their ass handed to them by a mint."
In the distance, the Fiddle trudged along slowly. Smoke rose out of the crater the Butcher had left in its hull, blue sparks of plasma exploding near its backside. The frigate dipped in altitude every so often in sudden jerks. Half the lights were out.
____
Unexpected, the little gnat who's bullet hammered into the base of the skull from much closer. Clever even.
Butcher's reaction to the chill was immediate and violent, a twisting pitch that sent the drake headlong into the water a fair distance from the shore, a tremendous burst of steam erupting like a geyser as his superheated form struck the cooler liquid. And indeed, at first glance, it seemed that the blow was true, the boiling water continuing for several moments and drifting, before it settled. The ambient heat was dropping quickly.
And continued to drop. Faster, and faster still. What had been a massive thermal signature was quickly becoming an absence.
Under the water, the Butcher's flames guttered and died, but not in death throes. Gliding smoothly, the beast had taken the advantage and was turning it via yet another power granted to him. Inversion, a turning of nature's to the opposite. Water collected in his fearsome countenance in the form of ice, shards spiralling in his wake as he used claw, wing, and tail to swing under the surface, dive, then coil around to settle on the sea-floor. The dead holes that had previous held hellish daemonfyre now gleamed darkly lit azure, a quaking chuckle resounding below the surface as the inversion resolved quickly.
The game had turned, and then turned yet again.
____
Now nearly three mile offshore, Candycane swept over the waves on his raptor, scouting through the cloud of hissing steam for his foe. His scouter registered the dragon's energy signature descend to the depths ... and noted, with alarm, the sudden drop of scorching heat surrounding him.
Candycane gave pause. The ocean wasn't that cold. The Butcher was deliberately changing his aura, modifying his protection so as to better defend against the new weaponry. The TNG was using frost. Now, so was he.
"Clever bastard," Candycane smiled beneath his visor. Flying swiftly into the air, the guardian racked his frostwaker and unleashed a volley of shots into the water over a wide radius, the chilling rounds and gas instantly blanketing the sea in a bed of steaming chill. A continent of ice molded over the waves - a great glacier that blanketed the ocean's surface and carried into its depths for a few feet. It was a desert of ice - very wide, not very deep.
"Oracles, give me a simulacra," Candycane's voice carried through his comms, a static-sodden affirmation buzzing back into his ears. The air to the left of the trooper shimmered and distorted, empty space morphing itself into the shape of a man, assuming armor, a gun, a raptor pack ... flashing into existence as the spitting image of Candycane himself. The illusion held its rifle at ready, scouring over the newly-created ice shelf with calm vigilance.
"That'll do boys," the guardian smiled, inspecting the simulacra, "handsome looking dope. Send him down." The illusion lowered closer to the surface, leaving a shadow on the glacier front. The real Candycane soared higher until his own visage left no shadow at all.
"Candy to Fiddle, how's the walk in the garden?" he slung his frostwaker over his shoulder and upholstered his pistol.
"We're on our way, Candycane," Vrail commed back from the bridge. "Just keep him busy. Try to stay alive."
"You've got a way with words, Cap'n. Bet your wife loves that." He fitted a small tubular device into its barrel before snapping up a grenade from his belt and fastening it to the top.
Vrail offered no response. He was unmarried, but he saw no reason to bring personal matters into this situation. He turned to a technician. "How are the guns?"
"Ready to fire at your command, sir," she replied, "now that he's reverted to frost, couldn't we fry him with a DE cannon?"
"No," Vrail shook his head, "we don't know how his powers work, or how quickly. He's demonstrated the ability to make himself stronger using heat. We don't use heat." His brows furrowed at the screen. "Gauss cannon is all that will do it. We just need the right opening."
____
The presence of the one above was no more than an irritant, as Butcher relaxed on the seafloor, building his energies for another assault. The deepening chill of his body had begun to freeze the water around him, the ice churning as it twisted with his coruscating aura. A weaving of power was underway, preparation to end this confrontation once and for all.
____
Candycane paused, a frown passing over his face. His scouter documented the Butcher's alarming energy spike meticulously. "Oracles, lets get this thing moving. Add a shock charge to it."
The simulacra whose shadow the Butcher watched began to hover across the ice slowly before beginning to rise - seeming, perhaps, to make an escape.
In the distance, Candycane waited; the Fiddle closed in. The Butcher was right. It was time to finish this.
____
Within the ocean ran currents. Currents north, currents south. East west. Upper, lower. But the distinction that Butcher cared, was there were warm currents, and then there was cold currents. Three miles out to see, the depths in which he rested were lightless, frigid.
Pliable.
"Bo ahrk alok, zuth envok. Feykro do troz, feykro do iiz." A murmured cant, strangley muffled without the air from above. "Bo ahrk alok, zuth envok. Feykro do troz, feykro do iiz."
Power weaving, power flowing, stretching a web forward, the residual clingings of his wound allowing he to maintain his focus. He knew his prey approached. It was the point. It was a trap, after all. "Bo ahrk alok, zuth envok. Feykro do troz, feykro do iiz."
And now, he would spring it. "Bo ahrk alok, zuth envok. Feykro do troz, feykro do iiz."
"Griiv avok, ahrk krii!"
Power rushed through the web, carrying water in turbulent currents with it as most of the built energies he had collected surged forward, churning the silty floor before finding its place in the depths below the Nero's Fiddle, the spell hanging for a moment before it triggered, twisting reality to the daemon's will. Water flash froze, massive spears thrusting up through the liquid like fangs as they grew in length and girth, culminating in twenty such spears, 100 meters long, 30 meters thick. Natural, then infused with malevolent power that etched into the ice, hardening it to the strength of diamond. The bloom of the dark power within each crystalline heart sent them rocketing upwards, forced to extreme speed from the tremendous pressures of the depths they begun, rising impossibly swiftly. First a hundred meters per second. The five hundred. One thousand. Five thousand. The shockwaves of their passing sent thunder across the oceans, buffeting even Butcher where he lie in wait, otherworldly eyes tracking their elevating as though the darkness did not exist.
To breach the sea surface in seconds, shockwaves breaking over their edged tips in the air before the soared skywards for the ventral belly of the Fiddle.
____
As powerful as the Butcher's magic was, it had a long way to travel from the depths of the sea. As the dragon's commands took wings on the currents of the ocean and found purchase in the seabed below the Fiddle, the Trireme was already scouting the accumulating energy, shields rising to accommodate the massive power. Unlike its confrontation with Fellhammer, the ship had a few scant seconds to prepare itself for the incoming assault.
The first dozen shards shattered against the Fiddle's shields like water on rock, ice pillars as hard as diamond practically disintegrating against the Trireme's protected hull. Those aboard the bridge watched the shield reserves with muted worry, bracing themselves against the awful tremors each impact left on the frigate. The blasts were literally forcing the massive warship higher into the air, each ice bolt jolting the Trireme a bit higher from the sea.
Its shields couldn't stave off everything. These weren't bullets or missiles - the speed, size and hardness of each pike made every projectile comparable to advanced Gauss weaponry. With little-to-no lag time between attacks, the shields were spared no opportunity to regenerate themselves. The final three spears would make headway into the ship's interior, rending titanium and tungsten aside like cardboard and making it several dozen feet inside. Though it didn't quite leave the impact Foehammer did, it did more damage, the down-top pikes striking through far more floors and areas of work than the lateral beam had managed.
"Damage report," Vrail barked.
"Left dormitories and cargo bay are hit. Engine room is compromised."
The captain's eyes darkened. He looked at the Butcher's signature, nestled deep below the ocean's crest. An idea came to him. "Lock onto the signature. Gauss cannon. Three rounds. Have the oracles stand by for damage control."
The orders were given, and the Fiddle fought back. The main Gauss cannon revved, primed, fired - once, twice, three times. Massive, supercharged slugs sped into the sea in blurs of blue light. Even at the Butcher's great distance, they would reach the sea floor in a matter of seconds - trails of near-superheated gas following them as water literally vaporized on-contact with the slugs. They powered through underwater plateaus, punching holes in rock formations the size of mountains without missing a beat, the kinetic aftershocks reducing all in its path to heaps of bubbling rubble.
At Butcher's distance, pinpoint accuracy was almost impossible. It was unlikely that any of the rounds would hit the dragon directly ... but they didn't need to. As the slugs hammered into the sea floor tens of thousands of miles below the surface of the ocean, the crust of the earth fractured. Great wounds opened in the seabed, massive craters from which immediately spewed geysers of raging magma. The Fiddle's Gauss cannons had created makeshift hydrothermal vents in the ocean's bottom. The Butcher would find himself surrounded in an inferno of fire and water, Valore's lifeblood spilling out in a viscous gush to consume him whole.
The insane expenditure of energy following the impact of the rounds was not confined to the area of seafloor the Butcher occupied. Already great ripples of power were surging to the shore - energy that, if allowed to surface, would create tsunamis large enough to consume hundreds of miles of the Midlands. The oracles knew this. Aboard the Fiddle, they charged their psionic powers, preparing a great spell to counter the rising force.
____
The retaliation against the Butcher happened in tandem as he felt spears laced with his power embed themselves in their target, words uttering in the darkness of the deep seas, ten miles below the surface.
"Kren ahrk bo." Shatter and fly.
Delayed as the triggering wave of energy passed by gauss slugs that ripped through the water like divine lances, creating tunnels of displaced water that allowed for the briefest moments direct sight through open space to the ocean floor, those words caught the surviving ice spikes and caused them to erupt like bombs, devastating bursts of super-dense shrapnel not unlike a bomb dropped from a bomber plane, the potent concussive force nothing but a catalyst to propel shards feet to yards in length at thousands to tens of thousands of feet per second in every direction. The geysers formed when the ocean reclaimed the empty space in the wake of the shots would be like cannon fire, as millions of gallons of water filled the void and erupted from the mouths as though fired from high pressure cannons.
Butcher himself was missed directly the first slamming into the muddy, rocky bottom one hundred yards behind him, the next by seventy yards behind and to his left, the third almost sixty yards to his left. Water was a terrible thing to firing into, it's flexible nature anathema to straight and sure paths. Virtually solid at the leading edge of the slugs from sheer pressure, the water boiled and steamed, the sheer magnitude of the water pressure being shunted away from it like a hurricane force gale that plucked the daemonic drake from the floor and hurled him amidst turbulent currents away from the impacts, spiraling out of control at the full mercy of the water. But he remained whole, if battered and scraped from the occasional hard reintroduction with the sea's stony bottom.
It was highly likely the captain above didn't realize the depths of his folly, for the currents of the ocean varied with depth. The mammoth power of the surface currents funneled waves that were easily seen, and thus readily handled, though they themselves were doomed to burn out long before they would generate a tsunami. The surface was too easily churned to make good on its threatened promise. But the riptide currents of the depths, however, met with conflicting strengths, and seethed. These waves carried no tell-tale sign, and short of being within the deeps themselves, or deeply planted instruments to detect the sudden pressures, there would be no warning as these headed for the coasts, in every direction. Indeed, even if there had been early warning equipment, the shockwaves resonating through the crust shook the ocean floor badly, and the chances of total failure from the beating was extremely high.
As well, the kinetic shock of the crust's pounding was likely to trigger nearby faults within fifty miles, which might very well result in secondary and tertiary tsunami's produced by the quakes likely to result from the shots.
Butcher himself, satisfied that the wounds would prove crippling or destructive, allowed enough of the tidal forces to ebb before making his way deeper within the Astral Sea, swimming along the floor, allowing the time that would be needed to locate him among the chaotic carnage of the shot's aftermath to build power anew.
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