Episode 49: The Fallen Hero

[Vince Hardy]

"The Alternative, a weapon that destroyed your planet and is about to blow ours up as well," Vince bluntly put it. "Listen, I'll deal with the Alternative. I need you to look out for the BT System. We know it's still out there, and I wouldn't put it past Dasia to have this behemoth as a distraction for the real deal."

Apollonir's body became coated in a whitish energy veil. The secret art had been put in motion.

"Here it goes. Virtue Synthesis!" Apollonir activated. His energy could not be felt while this technique was active. It was like the secret art made it nonexistent while the ability's effects were still active. That can work to his favor, as the Hurranians will not feel the amount of power he is accumulating and will not be tempted to eradicate him specifically.

"Quickly now. You're all going to attack me with strong abilities," Apollonir informed them all. "Oberus, Excedra is right. Your ability is NECESSARY for this to work. Excedra, I'll take your Eye of the Devil. Those two abilities alone will cripple their entire fleet. Lars Lion, I need a buff in power. Helios, I require a devastating ability from you. Hydranoid, use an ability that can cut off certain characteristics of the enemy. Tyr, I need a momentum-based attack that will get stronger as I go faster. Gorem, do not attack me. Get ready to receive my power."

Oberus flapped herself backwards to instantly appear thousands of meters away from the entire party. She then dived straight for Apollonir, intending not to hold anything back. "I've always wanted to do this," Oberus shamelessly celebrated. "Visceral Impact!" It was established that Turmoil, her signature ability, was hailed as the strongest Ventus ability.

This was a lie.

This ability here was THE ability that should be talked about, but wasn't due to wanting to keep it a secret. Turmoil was a very overpowered ability that boosted Oberus power into forbidden tier, allowing her to defeat targets in an instant upon being struck, even if they were physically built. It also allows her to destroy targets much more powerful than herself, so Apollonir would be worried about it; however, for this one, this was so much worse. Apollonir will only have to deal with the damage aspect of this ability while the other effects of it will have to be shown when there are suitable targets, which will be the Hurranian battleships when this formula is complete.

First, Oberus created transparent orbs in front of her while she was in flight so that when she flies through each individual one, her power is boosted. Eventually, her body was bursting in flames from how fast she was going, and large amounts of electricity surrounding this flame. She crashed into Apollonir in less than a blink of an eye. The impact caused the landscape behind Apollonir to be devastated. Not even the stadium could stay afloat due to Oberus' sheer strength. Despite that, Apollonir stayed still where he was. He had his right eye closed after being hit. The aura glowed to show that the ability had been recognized and was added to the formula.

"Hmph...that was rougher than I expected...not bad..." Apollonir commended. "Excedra?"

"Working," Excedra acknowledged. "Eye of the Devil!" Excedra opened his actual mouth and looked into Apollonir's soul with the eye. It turned red as it was looking. The aura Apollonir had became cloaked in red until it was recognized by the secret art and registered into the formula.

Like Oberus, this was Excedra's trump card, not Demon and Final Wizard. This ability is primarily meant to counter transformations or upgrades of any kind. An opponent affected by this ability wouldn't benefit from their transformations at all. It will just be a waste of energy for them, no matter what they do. Of course, Excedra doesn't reveal what this ability does, and the effects it has on the opponent are negligible, so no one would guess that Excedra is setting them up. If they activate a transformation anyway, not only would they be wasting their energy, but Excedra will be using it at their expense, because he'd have full command over their powers. It was a wicked ability for sure, but there was another utility here that would be used against the entire fleet. "There you go. Make sure it kills someone."

Vince looked at Damian, Deon, and Alana. It was their moves now. "You three are up. Lars Lion will input hers last. Here's to saving Earth."

[Deon Irvine]

Deon took a card from his pocket and put it into the gauntlet.

Situation looked very desperate from how things were happening. Was he upset? Of course he was- no one stares death straight in the eye without fear. However, he would rather know he died fighting an unstoppable force rather than hiding and waiting for Legendary Soldiers to take care of everything. And who knows- maybe they somehow find the miracle in this danger. "Do me a favor and don't die the moment you take off." Deon said. His gauntlet released a green light. "Ability activate! Madness Chain Strike." Deon declared giving Tyr this new and improved ability they have been working on- it was still imperfect since Deon and Tyr could not find a good synchronization, but in this moment there were no enemies they had to fight directly so he could spare a moment to concentrate.

"Here it goes!!" Tyr yelled out and then its body began experiencing changes. He grew wings that were far bigger than with past abilities he used and his body developed quite the muscles making him look like a bull that did not skip any gym day. Horns on his head extended and changed material into something much sturdier that could make a soup out of his target.

Tyr began to move at hyper-speed and hit Apollonir only once so he would not cause potential damage that would harm him, but he did show something of this ability. Madness Chain Strike increases one's speed to a point where they would remind of a living, breathing bullet that can maneuver like a freaking warplane and the longer he remains in movement the stronger his attacks become- this ability can use up a certain amount of energy and make up for many other abilities in arsenal since it potentially can cause massive damage at cost of one ability instead of using multiple abilities that would not come up to that score even if combined.  So a single ability that can come up to power of hundreds at once if not stopped properly and how is it going to be stopped with the fact that speed increases every moments as well? Quite difficult if you consider a Legendary Soldier using it.

[Damian Knight]

Damian was speechless at this sudden appearance of an entire armada. It was the most heinous thing he has ever witnessed. It wasn't enough that she destroyed an entire planet. Now she has to bring all of this with her to come and destroy this one...which Earth probably deserves, but that's neither here nor there. Dasia could not get away with this, not again.

"I have something for those bastards up there," Damian hinted as he put his ability into action. "Take this. Ability activate! Defuse Quasar!"

Damian figured this would be devastating to the entire fleet if used with Apollonir's secret art, and it likely would. Previously, against the Assail System, this ability was enough to neutralize an entire power boost. If this secret is as powerful as it's looking to be right now, it could lower the power of the weapon systems these ships used, if not outright stop them altogether.

Helios charged a fireball in his mouth and shot it towards Apollonir. It then split into several different strands of energy and struck Apollonir several times. Each time, a light erupted from his position. All of this was taken in by the formula of course.

"This better work," Helios commented on this ability of theirs. If not, they were all toast.

[Alana Cortese]

Alana's blood pressure may have risen a bit for obvious reasons, but she knew what she had to do. She had the ability ready on demand for when Apollonir called for the specific function.

"Here's my power," Alana prefaced before playing the ability. "Ability activate! Eradication Head!"

Apollonir told Hydranoid to use an ability that cuts off certain characteristics, so Alana did just that by playing this. Hydranoid pointed his heads towards Apollonir before it activated.

"It'll work, Hydranoid assured Helios. His heads turned into full-blown Excedra heads and came off of their sockets like rockets. They smashed into Apollonir who was then greeted by an even larger Excedra head in the open spaces the former heads left. Hydranoid shot this monstrosity at Apollonir as well. It clamped down on him before exploding in a dark fit of rage.

"If this doesn't work," Hydranoid started as he regenerated his heads, "Helios and Excedra, I wanted to let you both know. You're some bitches."

[Vince Hardy]

Apollonir now needed one final ability, and it was going to come from Lars Lion. She had her concerns for Apollonir's health as this ability had never been used to this extent before, but it was going to have to work its magic.

"Coalescence!" Lars Lion's power flowed through Apollonir. Now, the secret art already melded the powers together, but Lars Lion's spell was highly effective, even in this situation. She could treat each individual power in the formula as if they had a piece of everything else in the container. For example, take Hydranoid's Eradication Head. That ability now had everyone else's power contained in it. The same applied for everyone else. Now, all of that was going to be brought in one place once Apollonir completes the ability.

"Okay. That'll do," Apollonir acknowledged. He dispersed the Virtue Synthesis aura. It sprouted like a flower and released particles that sprinkled all over Apollonir's body. Numerous heartbeats could be heard from Apollonir's body as he started experiencing the power surge.

"Alright. Let's go dual," Vince suggested. He charged rainbow energy in his right hand and dark energy in his left hand. The same happened with Apollonir. This energy bursted out, resulting in Apollonir being covered in an aura that transitioned from rainbow to black in regular intervals.

"Hm?" He started sensing a rise in energy from one of the battleships. It obviously had to be the Alternative itself. It seems the charging time for the ability wasn't as long as power like that should've made it. "Go ahead."

"Ability activate! Dragon Proudia! Let's go." Apollonir converted his body into a trident. This was the same as last time, except it carried a distinct aura that matched with Duality. Whoever holds this weapon would effectively become stronger than Apollonir himself.

The trident threw itself into Gorem's grasp, powering him up greatly to the point where he was much stronger than Apollonir. He knew what his job was now, so there was no time to waste.

"It's on you, Gorem. Be quick about it. The Alternative is getting ready to fire again," Vince reminded him.

"I need you to head to the rear on one of those ships, and then you're going to throw me at the spot I'm going to mark through your eyes," Apollonir started instructing to Gorem. "In case you ask, yes, we're targeting a small ship. Oberus' ability will do work on the actual Alternative. Just stick to the plan and go."

[Allen Silva]

As Apollonir flew into Gorems hand, Allen begun to understand what was happening. He was about to save the world. Isnt this ussually Nolands thing. He was most of the time backup, but now hes the hero. It was kind of wierd. Not his style. But since the two options were do this or die, he could deal with it once." Alright, so go to a ship, and stick the legendary soldier of pyrus up inside it, and the magic happens. Am i forgetting anything Gorem?"

" how about the part where we become awesome." Gorem eloquently added in. He was clearly feeling the power from Apollonir's ability. Gorem begun to fly upward towards one of Dasia's ships."i mean look at me, i can fly. Since when could i fly."

" just dont forget we got a job to do. This is life saving stuff we are doing."
Allen said, trying to get his partner to calm down at least a little." Also, remember that we have to hit the rear of the ship."

" yeah, i got it." The large golem bakugan said, more serious than before. He then passed under his target before tossing the trident into it." Hope you like the present, you witch."

[Vince Hardy]

When Gorem hit the skies to go after one measly Alternative ship, the ones behind the particular ship he targeted started shooting at him once they realized who he had in his hands. Gorem easily withstood the storm of attacks without having to address them directly. Seeing that the attacks did nothing to damage to Gorem, they used a scanning mechanism to lock onto Gorem's DNA code and attack him from there; however, this did not work either, as Apollonir's influence prevented them from targeting it. Left with no other options, they fired miniature Power Balls that started to track Gorem.

Not wanting them to exhaust Apollonir's power, Oberus took to the skies and brushed past all of the Alternative ships, pushing them off course with each flyby. She was also able to push the Power Balls away from Gorem so that he could focus. Gorem then went to the rear of a ship just like Apollonir had said. Through his eyes, he could see a circle on the rear of the ship. He instinctively took aim, and threw Apollonir towards that spot.

"Thank you very much, Iron Juggernaut," Apollonir thanked, addressing Gorem by his moniker. As Apollonir soared through the air, he progressively became faster. A green, fiery aura engulfed him and became bigger, not just because of Oberus' power, but because Tyr enhanced it even further the more he moved, its power reached the point of being felt by all beings on the planet. A purple swirl revolved around this aura, hinting at Excedra's power starting to take form. Red strips were poured out from it too, showing that Helios' ability was here as well.

"Hold on!" Apollonir yelled to everyone else. He zoomed into the rear of the ship. Instantly, a planet-rocking explosion occurred that destroyed the ship Gorem had targeted. An omni-directional wave of green energy spread throughout the entire planet. One by one, each ship was destroyed as they were all struck in the same spot that the initial ship was struck at. THAT was where Oberus' Visceral Impact came through. If it hits one entity, that same hit will be dealt to its allies in the same manner. It was the only way to counter the Alternative since it was in Africa at the moment.

The entire world's perspective of this occurrence was shocking at best. All they saw were explosions from the destruction of the Alternatives. Unintentional quakes happened across the planet as a result of this outpouring of energy. They were in a state of panic. First, alien ships pop out of nowhere, and then they all get destroyed. Go figure.

As for the Alternative itself, the ship was badly stunned. A big enough hole was formed in the rear of the ship. A Dragonoid and a Gundalian could be seen entering the structure.

[Noland Hardy]

(Inside of the Alternative: Part 1)

The Dragonoid and Gundalian were the obvious people anyone would expect. Noland was walking alongside Drago through a metallic hallway. Green pulse waves circulated throughout the facility like it was a living entity.

"Drago, where's the reactor core?" Noland asked as they were moving.

"Checking..." An energy pulse was released from his body to get a feel for the layout of the ship. It was REALLY BIG, so navigating it without any sense of direction was going to be bad. "Found it..."

But...before he could tell him where the reactor core was, a zapping sound could be heard. Both of them then found themselves in a digital arena. Anyone could tell it was digital. The background looked like they were in cyberspace.

"Show yourself..." Noland demanded.

[Dasia Turano]

Dasia's body formed inside of the arena to greet the infamous Master Blaze and his pet dragon. They were invited guests, guests of honor even.

"Welcome, Noland and Drago," Dasia greeted. "It's good of you to come. Please, make yourselves at home. You will not be leaving here for a while."

After outright telling him that she was going to keep him here, she thought it would be nice of her to tell him exactly what's going on here with this Alternative. After all, in his evil state, he should be supporting this, which he probably is in a way. Dasia was about to tell him why.

"I cannot have you blowing this up YET. Tampering with the reactor core is absolutely unacceptable. The destruction of this vessel will have unimaginable horrors come upon this planet. You will only end up making Earth an exact replica of Venus," Dasia warned him in advance. "But that's okay too if you want it that way. Our technicians have made us adaptable to that climate if you wish to bring Armageddon to this world. You will all end up getting infected or killed either way you look at it."

As for Noland being trapped here... "In case you wish to try your luck and destroy this ship, I can tell you how to get out of here. There are various spots scattered all over this ship that will transport a non-Hurranian host into an arena quite like this one. Then you fight an opponent, or opponents if you hit the jackpot. If you win, you move on. If you lose, we infect you, or finish off anyone like you who can resist our infection. Lucky for you, I will not be pitting any of my forces against you. The opponent for this arena is going to be YOU against anyone unfortunate enough to come in here before the hole is closed up. Isn't that lovely?"

[Noland Hardy]

"You think the Alternative's destruction is any of my concern?" Noland asked her. "I can care less about the runaway greenhouse effect. I'll gladly turn this world into hell to take you with it. I'll make sure to include you in its explosion."

Knowing that he was being trapped there until he can defeat someone, Noland had no choice but to wait. The only issue with that was...Noland wasn't about to let this bitch keep him contained.

"Drago, tear this thing open," Noland ordered. The back of his hand had an attribute circle emerge from it. Drago was seen entering the Switch Code form. "Ability activate! Slip Stream!"

This adaptation of the space-time ability Drago has enabled him to ignore anything that transported him away from a selected space. With this activated, Noland and Drago walked right through the checkpoint without batting an eye. He then canceled the Switch Code form, but Noland and Drago kept the enhancement, ensuring that they were not trapped from this point forward.

"I'll deal with the others on my own time. You're not telling me what to do, bitch. You got that?" Noland responded to Dasia's supposed plan, which failed miserably.

[Dasia Turano]

"Hm...you might be a problem after all..." Dasia realized. Her voice was now audible throughout the entire Alternative. "In that case...I'll do this."

The interior of the Alternative disappeared for a brief second to transition to another setup. This time, it wasn't a simple hallway that Noland and Drago were walking through. It was an expansive maze filled with cheap obstacles such as a DNA wall that keeps outsiders out. Then there were bs bosses like the Fortress units in there that blocked off certain hallways. Even for offense practitioners like Noland and Drago, they will never charge through them with brute force. Behind those Fortress units were another set of Fortress units reinforcing their defensive formation.

"It would seem like you're not as free to be as rebellious as you thought you were on my home turf," Dasia reminded the young man. "Now run along and play until someone else makes it in here. You WILL attack whoever tries to come past you."

[Noland Hardy]

Now Dasia had him blocked in if any of the paths the DNA walls are blocking leads to the reactor core. As for the Fortress units, they weren't going to be any problem. They can thank Admiral Asuka for that one. One ability they have makes that entire defensive line irrelevant. If only those types of abilities worked with a DNA wall...

"You really are annoying..." Noland growled. He looked around at the updated area. The maze looked very complicated. The first thing he noticed was that she made it quite obvious that there was not much that could be done in this scenario. There were three paths available to him. One path took him all the way to the left side of the room, but it was a dead end. Then he took the path on the right, and still got nothing. The middle path granted nothing as well. This created two possibilities. Either there was a hidden path somewhere, or he had to comply with what Dasia told him to do.

Something told him that it was set up to be unfair on purpose so no one would get by. Very smart. By this, Noland ultimately chose to play along and manipulate someone else into bypassing these defenses IF Noland can't figure this out in time just to conserve power. The abilities he was given are quite powerful, and will have an effect on his stamina if he were to use it carelessly here.

"Fine... You want to play this game? Have it your way then," Noland surrendered. He sat down on the metal floors and began meditating. A huge buildup of power started building up around him as he was in total focus. After ten seconds, an outburst of energy occurred when he opened his eyes. He got up from his seated position and started walking. Noland took the center path again and felt a vibration on the other side of the wall. He charged up electrical energy and pressed it. This interfered with the Hurranians on the other side of it and caused it to get deleted almost instantly. Drago followed closely behind him as Noland kept navigating the maze, having figured out the layout of the entire thing.

"Congratulations. You almost made me consider using an ability to get through the first obstacle," Noland sarcastically congratulated. "Good luck with the rest of the maze though."

[Dasia Turano]

"Most impressive, Noland," Dasia commended. "You will be entertained for a little while longer before you have to do anything drastic." Dasia was indirectly implying that there was no way Noland and Drago will make it to the reactor core by themselves, even with their enhanced sensing abilities. Noland cheesing the maze was not of immediate concern based on how she sounded. There were much better things to do than to worry about the little boy.

"The hole shall be closing up soon," Dasia announced. "My entire fleet has been destroyed, and I cannot call for reinforcements or I risk Excedra absorbing their power and making them useless. It looks like our weapons systems are down as well from Helios' power. Even when I spent so much time studying and preparing for this, there always seems to be something I've never seen before. Is this how humans feel when they take exams?"

The Alternative started flying through the Sahara Desert. It was looking to flee to prevent anyone from going through the hole that is being patched up right now. One could see that it was progressively getting smaller as time went on. Soon, Noland and Drago will be trapped inside of the Alternative all by themselves, and that's when all hope will be lost for the alliance.

"I expect to be attacked soon. I shall make preparations for the next phase of our plan."

[Vince Hardy]

Various news stations across the world started covering this ongoing situation. No one knew what to think about the explosions that rocked the entire planet. Only a few knew what was really going on, and that was within the United States. The president himself nodded at the current events, knowing the group of people who were responsible for this.

Apollonir reverted back to his Dragonoid form and made a loud triumphant roar that could be heard across the world, but it wasn't over yet. Now, they had to get some bodies in that battleship.

"Oberus," Apollonir called. She came over to him. He brushed her beak to pass on some of his energy to her. That was because he was telling her where the Alternative was. "Take off."

She jetted all the way to the Alternative's location. Meanwhile, Apollonir briefed them all on the current objective. He descended back to the ground along with Gorem. He gave the golem a pat on his back for a job well done. He had just saved an entire planet's population by not missing.

"Lars Lion, cue the teleportation immediately when Oberus gives the signal," Apollonir ordered.

"Gladly," she accepted.

"Excedra, is there anyone here you want remaining outside?"

"ALL of them will go inside," Excedra suggested.

"Yita, I will pray for your safety. I just heard some terrible news from Frosch about their mission. Tracy was killed during the battle, so please watch your surroundings. Because Skystar is still recuperating, I must remain here with Apollonir."

"Excedra, go inside with them. Zero Hydranoid will cover your place until you get back," Apollonir suggested.

"Are you sure you want me out of the action with all of this here?"

"No, but I need you to keep them alive, and I need Oberus out here so we can respond to the BT System when we detect it. Lars Lion is the only healer we have out here right now until Skystar recovers."

"Fine then. I'll make sure they live...I don't know about Hydranoid, but everyone else will be okay." Growling could be heard from Hydranoid when Excedra made that comment.

Lars Lion felt a tugging on her head. Oberus had found it. "Let's be quick. The hole in the Alternative is closing." Lars Lion used her magic to create a big circle underneath everyone's feet. Everyone descended into it. Once they were fully submerged, they found themselves ascending from the circle. They were directly under the Alternative. Everyone was being carried in the sky by Lars Lion's power. She directed her palm towards the opening, and everyone who was going headed straight for it.

"Good luck, Excedra. I wish you well," Lars Lion supported.

"Thanks a bunch. I won't be saving any leftovers for you, so I'm sorry in advance."

"Remember, Noland and Drago are not allies. Do not hesitate to attack him! He is in that ship!" Vince yelled to that entire group. The group were sent inside of the Alternative around thirty seconds before the hole was fully repaired by the regenerative properties of the ship. Vince, Apollonir, and Lars Lion looked at this and thought about what would they needed to do next.

"Do you realize what we've done?"

"Yes. We've sentenced our sons to death."

"Are you okay with that?"

"No. I assume you aren't as well?"

"You got it."

"Yeah...? There's no way around it. They are a threat to us, so we have to stop them. That's just the way it is. If a miracle happens and they come back to our side, great. If not, oh well."

Apollonir and Lars Lion backed away from the ship with Vince on board the legendary Dragonoid. As they were doing that, Lars Lion offered some more advice about their current situation.

"Even with them inside, we still have to minimize the damage the Alternative can cause," Lars Lion suggested.

"I know... That called for one final assembly. "Vince?"

"Working on it." Vince was about to get on the phone with Andrew and Maria. Things were about to get very hectic. Despite the fact that they could not outright destroy the Alternative, they can at least keep it at bay with a lot of effort until the group inside works their magic. Excedra would be there to ensure nothing went wrong. Hopefully, the Hydranoid keeps his end of the bargain.

[Dasia Turano]

Once the hole was closed up, Dasia did not necessarily have to do anymore running. Running was useless against Oberus anyway. She was too fast. Thanks to her, she has to cope with more intruders, one being Excedra. That's not good, no matter what kind of monsters she has lurking inside of the Alternative.

"Welcome to all of my annoying guests, and Excedra," Dasia announced over the intercoms. "Please make yourselves cozy and pay no mind to the 'rearranging' I might be doing while you're in here. I'm rather picky."

As she said that, the environment around that squad changed into an area where all of them were separated from each other. Each of their environments were different, but the general theme was that each of them had a preset path that led somewhere. Whether that somewhere was a dead-end or to the reactor core was uncertain. What was certain was that Dasia was the director of this entire operation.

"There we go. Wasn't too bad, was it?" Dasia inquired. "You didn't think coming in here with numbers was going to help your case, did you? It'll be a shame if you did. Have fun exploring while I destroy your friends, 'kay?"

It would sound like Dasia thinks this is a game rather than a serious situation. There were enemies inside of the Alternative. Was this Alternative really an "alternative?" It seemed rather suspicious for Dasia to not sound concerned about this...at all.