Episode 38: Markus, The Phantom Blade

[Vengeance]

Gargulion should have realized by now that Dryoid can detect him in that state of his. Dryoid can use thermography to track him. That was the method used to find him when he was traveling through the city at high speeds, and that was going to be done to track him down now.

That didn't seem to go as planned though since the heat signatures of Markus and Gargulion were only visible for a brief period before they disappeared, rendering that type of vision completely useless.

As a result of this, Dryoid did not prefer running through the wall as it feared being caught off guard. It definitely did smash the wall with his swords, but Dryoid had slowed down its momentum enough to not advance past the point where it was rose from.

[Markus Hederick]

When Dryoid broke the wall, it was the signalling end to this brawl. It fell for a deadly trap.

"Stone Cold, bitch," Markus notified before using his now-enhanced strength to kick several large pieces of the broken wall towards Dryoid's suit. This was also how him and Gargulion avoided being detected by his thermal visor. Stone Cold drops their body temperature, making them blend in with their environment. This made Dryoid unable to target them.

"Gargulion, end it!" Markus called out. "Ability activate! Touch of Stone!" Getting hit by Markus' barrage of solid projectiles was damaging enough for the mechanical. If it got hit by Gargulion's swing kick, it would be turned to stone, even if it defended against it.

[Vengeance]

Dryoid was not expecting for its opponents to outsmart its systems. This miscalculation was a fatal mistake.

Dryoid activated a defensive enhancement to parry Gargulion's kick. As it was about to strike Gargulion once again with its blades, the body enhancement from its foe started to kick in. Because Dryoid made contact with Gargulion, it was subject to petrification under Gargulion's command. It froze in place from this ability's effects.

Before it was completely frozen in place, Dryoid defiantly moved its left hand up and gave Markus and Gargulion the middle finger.

[Markus Hederick]

Gargulion took his body pieces off of Markus and joined them back to his own body. Having Markus personally enter the fight was a unorthodox, but it greatly contributed to Dryoid being incapacitated in a timely manner.

"You're a monster for coming up with that one there. Nicely done," Markus commended Gargulion.

"It was a cinch," Gargulion passed off. He spat at the petrified Dryoid, causing it to crumble into pieces. "Hmph...what a waste of talent."

"...It would have been more difficult if it were my data being used..." Gargulion cockily mentioned in his head.

Markus boarded Gargulion again so they could resume their progress towards their objective. Suddenly, green lights started to litter the sky as a horde of blasts began raining down on top of them. Gargulion was able to maneuver around them, but this didn't bode well for them if Slipstream continued to be active.

"I know Oberus doesn't need me to say anything, but...she needs to hurry up and destroy that thing before it destroys us."

[Vengeance]

Slipstream was minding its own business until an annoying, big-beaked bird came out of nowhere trying to interrupt its functions. A Legendary Soldier coming after it wasn't a huge concern to it. It simply didn't care that she was there. The only thing it was doing was playing with her until she decided to leave out of frustration.

In other words, the mechanical Bakugan has taken a liking to Ahio's playful nature and decided to make a very brave venture into trolling the fastest Bakugan alive.

Every time she would try to attack Slipstream, it would simply fly out of its way with speed just under Oberus'. If she attempted a physical attack, Slipstream would just warp to the other side of the planet, forcing her to give chase until Slipstream repeated the process of ring around the rosie. It was now targeting Markus and Gargulion specifically, deeming them the more vulnerable threats out of the bunch without causing any friendly-fire.

[Vince Hardy]

The good news to come out of this ridiculous engagement was that Slipstream was distracted from annihilating anyone on the planet. The bad news was that Oberus was getting very pissed off by this mechanical Bakugan thinking this was funny.

"I can't believe this is happening! This is so embarrassing!" Oberus complained. She stayed afloat for a couple of seconds to think of a way to hit Slipstream. Whoever built this Bakugan was smart to make it a 2-in-1 combination, because their tasks could be split up individually, making the possibility of assaulting it while it's doing something null and void.

"I bet they're all wondering how I'm taking so long. No excuses...I'm just going to fight this..." Oberus hummed as she retreated from Slipstream for now. She reentered Vestal and positioned herself in the sky. "Power Windup."

Her attribute energy gleamed throughout the planet's sky. The power that she leaked out of her body started a planetary storm of massive proportions, strong enough to disrupt the technologies on the planet and blind Slipstream from viewing what was happening on the surface. This would also disperse any more direct attacks from Slipstream in case it wanted to get bold enough to shoot anyway. Now it would have to chase her.

[Vengeance]

Slipstream's eyes were blinking red over Oberus' interference. It was steaming mad. That single ability was absurd in the amount of power it had, and it made Slipstream's role as the planetary defense system useless since it couldn't see anything.

Oberus would now have to contend with the fact that Slipstream could manipulate weather conditions on the planet as well, and her ability wouldn't be any different. The only significant factor here was that it would take a bit longer to disperse since it was Oberus in the hot seat; however, the idea of Slipstream even being capable of ridding the planet of that kind of power spoke volumes of the power this machine had.

The spikes on its body shot a green lightning bolt towards the planet. It had to keep this steady stream of energy going for a couple of seconds in order to end the storm, but once that time comes, Oberus would have to come up with a new idea.

[Vince Hardy]

Slipstream walked right into Oberus' claws very nicely. She doubted the machine had the reaction time to teleport to the other side of the planet if it couldn't see where she was coming from. Slipstream's problem now was that Oberus could see where this lightning bolt was coming from, making her aim much more precise.

"I got you now," Oberus declared. She jetted up into outer space once more and was able to get within five feet of this monster. She opened her mouth and released a fiery substance.

"Wind Down." This stream of fire made contact with Slipstream. It was immediately engulfed with this energy. Exposure to this ability drastically slows the victim's mobility and reaction time, aside from reducing its overall power levels.

[Vengeance]

Slipstream being a machine did not make what just happened to it anything less than irritating. Oberus' flames tampered with it's systematic functions. Perhaps trolling a Legendary Soldier was not the smartest idea.

A mechanical-sounding screech was heard coming from Slipstream as Oberus closed the gap between them. It started to focus solely on Oberus now, seeing her as a potential threat who could take it offline and compromise the planet's defenses.

The Altair unit had glowing rings project through its spinners. An armada of these rings were sent out of this projection so it could surround the entirety of Slipstream's occupied space. They flailed around without any set pattern, making it a very difficult attack to evade. The same unit then fired a thunderous beam that struck one of these rings and bounced off of it, repeating this process until their portion of outer space was lit up with penetrating lasers covering all points of Oberus' approach.

[Vince Hardy]

Oberus attempted to dodge the discs, but their random nature made it very dangerous to approach any further. For that reason, Oberus pulled herself back from the expanding defense. When the lasers started to fire, Oberus knew she had to make her move, or it would be too late to stop the previous cycle from beginning anew.

"Scarlet Twister." Oberus blew a buff of air that formed into a bottomless twister. It came for Slipstream from the top and bottom. It slammed into it and brought it into its own array of lasers.

"Ah. That's better. Things are much quicker when you stay still," Oberus chimed.

[Vengeance]

Before critical damage could be done by this clever maneuver, Slipstream decided that it would be better to escape the attack by projecting a shield in the shape of a hexagon from its mouth. It waited until Oberus' twister dragged it farther away from her before bringing the shield into existence.

Simply brushing against the energy the shield erected canceled out any power. This was done to prevent Oberus from using its own attack as a weapon. It then touched the twister itself to automatically negate it.

It then discharged a storm cloud in front of it. This phenomenon possessed extraordinary capabilities. Nothing could pass through it without contesting the highly potent lightning, many of which can nullify attacks on contact, or singe unwanted visitors. Natural lightning began to shoot out from it in the same manner as it would strike a target on the ground: instantaneously.

[Vince Hardy]

Instantaneous was only a matter of perception, at least for Oberus. If any regular human or Bakugan could not avoid being hit by this natural disaster from their reaction time alone, that was their problem. This was right in Oberus' alley. She dodged the lightning strikes without a problem.

"That's a very nice ability it has," Oberus secretly coveted...or was she? "Electric Squall!"

Oberus would easily show Slipstream the proper way to use that technique. She jetted straight through Slipstream's cloud, dispersing it with only a slight hint of damage. A translucent, green trail of energy then left Oberus and flew into Slipstream with speed equivalent to three quarters to her max speed. It progressively absorbed power from Slipstream. The power taken away would then take a physical form around the victim and form fierce thunderclouds that acted in a similar manner to Slipstream's clouds, adding the power trick for obvious reasons.

[Vince Hardy]

Slipstream was beyond it's tipping point by now. Oberus was taking advantage of it around every corner. It didn't seem like Oberus was fazed by anything it was doing. It screeched one more time before unleashing a devastating move on this annoying bird.

"Go away!" a mechanical voice yelled. A pulse wave was released from Slipstream that traveled throughout outer space, including a select section of Echo City where it was previously aiming. This was an EMP blast in nature, but it was highly specialized to attack one's central nervous system in case a living target was hit.

Striking Oberus with this move was rather simple. With her being stunned, there was nothing she could do to stop it from firing a particle cannon blast in her direction.

[Insidious]

A purple star was seen coming from the planet's surface and landing a devastating blow on Slipstream's hull. This caused it to easily miss its mark. The particle buster's shot had veered off onto the planet itself, strolling straight through multiple buildings without a care in the world.

"I expected this one to know better. This is no time for games," the masked person remarked. Oberus' playtime was cutting into his/her time, and that wasn't going to fly on this planet.

Hades was actually dealing with two mechanical Bakugan at once: Boriates and Macubass. The EMP shot that Slipstream used out of desperation may have been the attack that got it destroyed. Hades was still functional - clearly as it was the one who sniped Slipstream - despite the blast. The masked person clearly knew what he/she was doing for Hades to avoid being shut down by it, or the metal exoskeleton could serve as a makeshift Faraday cage. One or both could be true. The only thing of the masked person's that was shut down was the BrawlX, for obvious reasons.

"Hades," the masked person called out, pointing towards Boriates and Macubass, "Eliminate them all."

Hades developed three individual dark lasers and had them converge towards the midpoint of Boriates and Macubass. The resulting blast engulfed both mechanical enemies. Once it disappeared, it spat out ash.

[Vengeance]

That was it. Slipstream had quite enough of these rascals, and it was about time it got these pests off of its planet.

The first order of business was separating into two units: Altair and Aluze. The head detached into two separate heads, one for each Bakugan. Their bodies soon followed. Because Aluze was the faster one out of the twins, it flew ahead of Altair so it could reenter the planet's atmosphere and reanimating the two fallen mechanical Bakugan. Altair would lag behind Aluze to make sure Oberus did not damage the faster sibling any further.