Episode 35: Deadlocked

[Tracy White]

Tracy shook her head with a smile on her face. She had the look of someone who could detect a lie from any angle.

"Really? Is that what your sister said about you during her battle?" Tracy recalls a certain segment of Niko making it very clear that she would rather be degraded than for someone to ever choose to be on her side. Either Yita was in some crazed denial, or she was truly sick. Unfortunately for the Spartan, Tracy's power has something that can devastate her to the core.

"I've got just the surprise for you then. I'm a healer, but I dabble in curses too. I have just the spell that's meant to expose your sins and use it as a weapon. Watch this." Tracy pulled out two abilities, one being clad in indigo. "Ability activate! Amplify Power!"

Skystar's scepter became cloaked in a purple veil, progressively bestowing Darkus capabilities on the weapon. This gave her the passive ability of taking power away from anything she comes into contact with, whether it be her own body, staff, or the abilities that she uses.

The more impressive detail to note was that Skystar had now matched Neri in power in regards to their attribute usage; both Bakugan were now sporting a diagonal relation and a triple node. Knowing that the field was set for a breakdown, Tracy took her indigo-clad ability and let it rip.

"You've underestimated me and even defeated me once before, and that's one experience I can't let you have anymore. I'll show you how much stronger I am and just how weak you really are," Tracy introduced. "Ability activate! Illumina: Pain!"

As a spell that took on Baalenoid before, this ability was an extremely lethal ability without a shadow of a doubt. The first thing Skystar did was blanket the entire arena in a gloomy space-like setting.

"This is an amalgam of all of your sins," Skystar announced. She called forth several memories that were created because of Yita's activity. Doing so caused Tracy, Alana, Niko, Noland, and their respective Bakugan to unconsciously tremble as their memories started pouring out.

Alana's inflated depression thanks to Yita's attacks against her spawned several apparitions of Skystar. More started popping up when it came to Tracy's disconnect from Noland, even comparing him to Tank's earlier self at one point. Noland was a surprising factor in all of this since his feelings were brought out without his permission, but it showed the chain reaction of what Yita's attacks against Alana meant for Noland and how much stress he incurred trying to make everything great again. Niko's repeated sufferings of abuse from Yita created the most phantoms out of anyone's.

"How's this for not being affected?" All of the Skystar's pointed their staffs towards Neri. Each of them protruded a giant indigo blade that stabbed Neri progressively, one-by-one without any sign of stopping. It took a good while for the last stab to go through, then the entire space collapsed right into Neri's being, making her collapse instantly. Those struck by this ability would tend to experience that entire process in repeated cycles, but Neri was not an ordinary Bakugan; she might actually be able to live through something like that.

"So much for trying to knock me out. Hey, how about you take your own advice and stay out of our way? It might prevent you from getting embarrassed any further."

[Yita Aileen Nyx]

YITA AILEEN NYX

Hao "Spartan"

Yita had to admit that gave her a fright. Seeing what she has done appear in Skystar clones who went all stabby-stabby on Neri. At the same time, she was glad she had left an impact on people, ever if it wasn't in a good way any whatsoever. She breaths a sigh of relief once the stabbing session was over, and Neri was left and a tattered state.

Now, there was no way for a bakugan to survive that. But Yita's case is different. In fact, anyone who brawls in the Nyx clan is far from a normal brawler.

"I will admit that's pretty nice... But not nice enough," and she snaps her fingers. At that sound, Neri slowly staggers to her legs, rising much like a zombie. Once she was on her four legs in a battle crouch, all her fur had detached and blown off. This reveals Neri's true form. A robot feline. The darkus-ventus wings and subterra armor activated from Blood Bonds still lingered around the cat. It was transparent, much like a ghost. It flickers in and out of reality like a candle clinging onto its wick.

"Soul Cannon," Yita calls out as Neri pulls up a cannon with the spirit wings and armor. It took only seconds for the cannon to charge up to max power and shoot at Skystar. Neri then shifted her aim towards Hydranoid, blasting one at him too.

"I'll continue to watch over my darling."

► kaigra ◄

[Alana Cortese]

Alana was pleasantly surprised that Tracy did that much damage. She was not even close to using her full power. Whatever training she did with Tank definitely paid off. Skystar skinned Neri without using her final form.

Then there was the issue about this robot cat thing that's on the field. It did look like a menace. It was probably a good example as to why people think cats are bad and flock over to dogs instead. The way Alana saw it, that same idea applied to Yita's personality as well.

"Child's play," Alana analyzed of the incoming attack. She threw her left arm outward in its direction. "Hydranoid!"

"Mhm," Hydranoid responded. His shackles did not seem to disturb him. All three of his heads patiently waited for Neri's attack to get close to them before biting into the blast. Rather than cause an explosion, the blast withered away. Hydranoid had devoured the energy contained in that attack and added it to his reserves.

[Tracy White]

"Of course there's a new form...why wouldn't there be? No one's normal anymore..." Tracy facepalmed after watching that happen. She would have liked to believe that this annoying cat would have been dealt with quickly, but she guesses that was too much to ask.

"Fitting appearance," Skystar remarked. She got her scepter ready to cast another spell as soon as Neri unleashed a very threatening attack.

"Ability activate! Spirit Blade Storm!" A triple node ability combining Darkus, Ventus, and Subterra, this spell surrounded Skystar in a purple-colored twister, the power of which rippled energy through the ground. The strength of it was enough to contend with the robotic Neri's high-powered attack. In an impressive showing of strength, Neri's attack dispersed the twister before Skystar could use it offensively.

Skystar wasn't angry about that though. Neri's power increase was something to be concerned about, but not to be completely feared. That was when Hydranoid came in. It was only fair that he had his turn.

"I appreciate you feigning capture so I could do that on my own, Hydranoid," Skystar thanked. She waved her staff in Neri's direction. "Want to do the honors?"

"She's all yours, Alana," Tracy passed off. "Judging by how Hydranoid just dealt with that attack, this is about to be quick."

[Maria Zenovia]

Surrounded by popcorn, boxes of chocolate, painkiller pills, wet tissues and bottles of juice, Maria lies on the couch, watching TV. 

Her thigh has been recovering just fine with constant medical attention of nurses, but recovery seems to have gone for much better with Asuka present. 

Maria suspects it is doing of Ares, whose high ranking among Bakugans lets him heal Maria’s wound despite the circumstances.   

And Asuka has been extra-nice and hard-working around Maria to speed up the recovery so Maria could walk normally again.  

She has been watching TV for several hours now. Battles between Resistors and Spartans seem to be on all available channels, so she decided to watch that. Considering they have been working so hard it could be impolite not to watch it. 

Alana and Tracy versus Yita could seem like one-way fight with definite victory for Resistors’ side, but Yita is not a very predictable girl; tides could easily change in seconds. 

For a Haos user and, on the top of that, a healer Tracy did pretty well against Yita on her own. Hydranoid was not even bothering to escape the chains and yet Tracy seems to have the upper hand most of the brawl. “What an adorable brawler she turned to be.” Maria compliments, but remains unclear whether she says that because Tracy turned out to be stronger than expected or because she really thinks Tracy is adorable. “You say that for every girl…” Hydra mumbles silently. “Oh, do I now? Hmm… perhaps.”  

Maria does have a tendency of calling every girl adorable, but maybe she has her reasons. And she has a tendency of murdering guys. Not literally. 

“Aside from that…” Maria says as she grabs a load of popcorn and stuffs them inside her mouth. “Mmmhhh…” She mumbles with her mouth full and Hydra cannot understand anything. “…I don’t speak that language. Don’t talk with food in your mouth.” Hydra complains. 

Maria takes some time to chew and swallow and then continues. “I said I was surprised. That little girl and her Hydranoid have gotten a lot stronger to be able to stop that attack the way they did it.”  

Normally, it takes an ability to stop another ability, but there are rare exceptions to it that are overpowered enough to stop a strong ability with a normal attack. Maria has witnessed that happen from her own experience with Admiral Asuka, Alex and Darkus Lost General, Ran. Well, she pretty much did that to Alex while Asuka and Ran nuked Misfortune 13 the same way. 

“Her Hydranoid’s strength has evolved. Neither one of us fought for entertainment. A lot of power has been absorbed.” Hydra is actually surprised that Maria is surprised about this. After all… “Why is it so surprising? You and I were no different back in the day.” Hydra questions. She and Maria have been as energetic as Alana and Hydranoid; striving to success, conquering challenge after challenge and accomplishing great things in life and career. Hydra has been stubborn like Alana’s Hydranoid, but more-or-less in a motherly way towards Maria.  

“By your standards, how is her Hydranoid doing?” Maria asks. 

Hydra remains silent for a few seconds recalling all things that happened during the training and that happen now. “He is doing fine. He and his brawler showed me that they have a lot of potential… Who knows… maybe one day they reach third evolution and sit on our chair asking and answering the same questions.” Hydra replies implying that Alana and Hydranoid really did go through major changes recently and made huge accomplishments. 

“Although… I have chosen not to attack them when he gained new powers. They surrendered and I was not able to see what he can do now. Therefore, I do not know what he is capable of now.” Hydra explains.  

Hydra did not try to humiliate her opponent during the training by allowing him to hit her and prove her power. However, her way of being polite seems like humiliation to many, who see it as her way of looking down on weaker foes. “You could assume…” Maria begins, but was interrupted by Hydra. “I cannot. Our power development is quite different.” 

“Although, now that his power is higher he would probably want me to attack him.” Hydra says. “Hehe, well he is on a whole new level now.” Maria admits. “Indeed.”  

“Yita is doing nice, too.” Maria admits. “…Who are you rooting for??”  

[Alana Cortese]

Hydranoid stretched out Neri's tethers as he started moving around. He was laughing the entire time he was doing this, clearly showing that Neri's underestimation of Hydranoid's power was going to cost Yita big time.

"You were cutting it close there, Skystar. I almost didn't get to have my revenge," Hydranoid scolded on a minor scale.

Alana cut her serious act for a moment to recognize what Tracy just did. She came a long way. If Alana didn't have anything against Yita, she could argue that Tracy would handle this one by herself. It was very exciting to see.

"I'm so proud of you, Tracy," Alana congratulated. She gave her a thumbs up, accompanied with a bright smile. "This doesn't get said often, but you could really be a secret weapon for us."

"Right alongside me," Hydranoid suggested. "Now, it's my turn." Hydranoid focused on Neri now. "As for you, you can expect the ass-whooping Skystar just gave you, but on a much more grievous scale."

Alana made sure her BrawlX was ready to be used after the downtime. Her and Hydranoid had a score to settle. This upcoming battle was not going to have a pretty sight at it's conclusion.

"No more fun and games, Yita. This ends now."

(Boss Theme 2)

[Yita Aileen Nyx]

YITA AILEEN NYX

Hao "Spartan"

Yita hums, appearing unfazed by Hydranoid breaking from the tethers. She was really beginning to lose her composure. "Sad to see that you two need each other to beat one of me." Yita says as her eyes drat from bakugan to bakugan. Was there a way to win this now? Yita wasn't so sure. Maybe if she played her cards right, then something would work in her favor. Even if it was a close win, she would accept that.

It seemed the most logical to aim for Skystar first, she is the cleric after all. And many know the cardinal rule of RPGs is to always knock out the healer first, or the tank would be an unstoppable force. "Shadow winds," Yita calls out in hopes of wreaking Skystar eventually to a point of knockout. Neri's wings flap in a wild manner as she becomes airborne. A few seconds in the air and she goes invisible. For a brief moment, the feline would become immune to that of the dark attribute, and gain strength when fighting a bakugan of a haos element.

She reappears to Skystar's side and begins to execute a powerful blow with the metal force of her frame.

"I'll continue to watch over my darling."

► kaigra ◄

[Alana Cortese]

"Oh really? Sounds like someone is in denial that she just got beat by ONE person just now." Alana made a kind smirk that suggested she highly disagreed with Yita's assertion that both Hydranoid and Skystar were necessary to take Neri down. "You're going to add one more to that list very soon."

Hydranoid rolled his eyes at Neri's sudden movement. He didn't really see where she was going to pop up, but that didn't matter much. His improvement increased his speed to the point where a fast twitch movement was on par with his Phantom Transmission ability. It could even be said that he could perform the move without using an ability, akin to that of Gargulion's "soul step" move in his spirit form.

Using this capability, a dark aurora of energy was left in Hydranoid's current position as he positioned himself in front of Neri's path of attack. Hydranoid intercepted the charge with his right fist. Whether or not that did any damage to Neri remained to be certain. What was certain was Hydranoid's lack of movement or pain from the force Neri exerted. While doing that, he used his tails to push Skystar lightly to separate her from the enemy.

"You're pathetic," Hydranoid insulted. He wasn't directing that entirely to Neri's strength. He was referring to how Neri would attack Skystar after she had already passed the role of defeating her to Hydranoid. Considering Hydranoid voluntarily stayed still the entire time rather than eat her alive, Yita was a bit of a dick to pull that move.

"Eh, didn't work. Try something else."

[Yita Aileen Nyx]

YITA AILEEN NYX

Hao "Spartan"

She grimances for a split second. It seems like the Hydranoid has become stronger than they had last brawled, Alana's spirit got on Yita's nerves even more. Even so, she suppressed it, the feeling of anger and annoyance. It seems like the healer couldn't be harmed, and Neri would have to defeat the duo the more painful way. Beating the tanker, hopefully hard and fast enough so that the cleric wouldn't be able to continuously heal the tank.

A mechanical growl came from Neri as her eyes glow a lavender color before it faded off into a color that no one was able to see due to only being able to view the color spectrum. It seems that she has fused the two elements of haos and darkus within her artificial body, and it touched uncharted colors in the human eye. "Tenebrus," Yita whispers as Neri opens her mouth to quickly charge up a sphere of energy mixed with both light and dark, releasing it in the way of Hyrdanoid.

"I'll continue to watch over my darling."

► kaigra ◄

[Alana Cortese]

Neri didn't give Hydranoid much of a choice in that scenario. She shot the blast in close quarters. One would have to wonder what this would do to Neri more than Hydranoid, but it was Yita they were talking about. If it was going to hurt her even more, why would she do it?

"Ability activate..." Alana purposely allowed Hydranoid to be struck by Neri's attack so that the smokescreen would mask her approach. She didn't want Hyranoid's power to be close to being fully revealed too soon. "Pulse Head!"

Hydranoid used all three heads to blow a gust of wind towards Neri in the form of a shout, dispersing the explosion's smoke. This force was transparent and took on the shape of a giant Hydranoid head. It struck Neri dead center. Neri was strong enough to prevent herself from being launched too far by the attack, but the technique didn't really specialize in showing Hydranoid's brute force. What it did was violently vibrate Neri's body for a couple of seconds, or whatever time the victim chooses to allow this to happen. This is caused by Hydranoid forcibly boosting Neri's power to the point where her body is unable to handle it, and he continues to throttle up and down to cause her even more pain.

"Ah...this is going to be fun," Hydranoid laughed as he was just getting warmed up.

[Yita Aileen Nyx]

YITA AILEEN NYX

Hao "Spartan"

An energy boost? That certainly was a surprise for Yita. She was expecting something dealing strength or something, seeing how Hydranoid has a high status there, but no. It was an attack that boosted Neri's own power. She narrows her eyes, this could be beneficial, yet frighteningly dangerous at the same time. Yita had dealed with these kind of power levels before while experimenting, in the process of creating Neri or fortifying her.

Too much power and Neri would break. Luckily, Neri was an artificial bakugan so she could withstand more than the normal bakugan, but everything had its limits. Neri was close to reaching hers. If Yita didn't execute this correctly, Neri could unleash a series of powerful attacks and may become immobile due to the lack of energy. Like how a child would get on a sugar rush, and black out afterwards. If only she had made an ability to specifically deal with this.

"Nice ability there, that's something you don't see everyday." Yita hums as she readies her ability. She had quickly concluded that brute strength attacks should be enough to keep the power levels stable, and not something that could be burnt to all too fast. Luckily, Neri was made of lightweight but diamond-hard material. She could retain her speed and hopefully land some decent attacks. A more dense frame would have been more favorable, but this would have to do. "Power switch," and Neri begins to speed around the arena, coming in every so often to take a strike at Hydranoid.

"I'll continue to watch over my darling."

► kaigra ◄

[Alana Cortese]

Of course. Speed is the key to getting the better of a Hydranoid, or so they say. Would that actually ring true against this one?

"That reminds me...I need to run around more. I remember feeling stiff from before..." Hydranoid had enough time to think about working out rather than the danger Neri posed. That should explain what Hydranoid thought of this situation.

"Ability activate! Grand Down!" Neri continuously circling the arena to strike Hydranoid was no longer going to be an issue. Hydranoid held true to his monstrous staying power and remained focused on activating this ability. He unveiled his miniature heads from his wings and had them inject themselves into the ground. This resulted in an intense pressure being placed underneath the entire field, causing it to erupt from everywhere else, save for where Skystar and himself were standing.

[Yita Aileen Nyx]

YITA AILEEN NYX

Hao "Spartan"

Neri was strapped down by the force, rendering her to not be able to move at all to release the energy that was still coursing through her. "This isn't good," She mumbles, narrowing her eyes to scan the situation. As everywhere else had that same force applied, ecpect for where the Hydranoid and Skystar were of course. And that's...

"Ability activate, send to: blank-E5," Neri disperses in a stream of data which flew over to the safe zone that Yita had pointed out. She had a spawning point of over Hydranoid, and after spawning she did a flip to accelerate her speed down to give him another smack.

"I'll continue to watch over my darling."

► kaigra ◄

[Alana Cortese]

To be surprised that Yita made a move like that at this point would mean that Alana has learned nothing about her. The key to not being surprised was expecting that nothing was out of Yita's reach. Still, there was an obvious flaw in her attack pattern. There's a reason why Hydranoid has two other heads aside from looking like a monster. If one head gets attacked, then the others can still see for it.

"Ability activate! Blinding Spice!" Hitting Hydranoid again proved to be Yita's downfall. She was walking straight into Alana's hands.

The moment Neri made contact with Hydranoid, a dark aura became linked to her body. This deprived her of her vision in addition to her powers being used to fuel Hydranoid's growing desire to destroy her even further. Hydranoid saw this as an opening to nail Neri in the face with his powerful tail.

"This isn't really the best you can do, is it, Yita?" Alana questioned. Hydranoid secretly cut off the miniature heads from his body so they could stay in the ground. He replaced them with newly grown miniature heads, making this battlefield incredibly dangerous for Neri. "Try not to make this a shitshow and actually make me try, okay?"

[Yita Aileen Nyx]

YITA AILEEN NYX

Hao "Spartan"

The feline roars in frustration it seems, trying to find her way around the field. Was this how Niko felt? At times like this Neri, genuinely wished that she and Yita shared a similar bond. But it was far, far from that.

Rather than being concerned for her bakugan, Yita continues to unleash attack after attack. "Override!" Neri shook to regain what senses she still had available. Her metal tail opens yet another rift in space, opening up what looks like some master database for the abilities played so far in the battle, and it was chaotic in there. Neri targets the box that radiated Hydranoid signature, overriding the abilities played with her own. It was an effective way on nulling the opponent's attacks, especially if they became troublesome.

"I'll continue to watch over my darling."

► kaigra ◄