Episode 49: The Fallen Hero

[Alana Cortese]

"..." Noland sure didn't hold anything back when it came to his opinion of her. Were those genuine feelings, or was that his dark half talking? She'd end up hurt either way, so there was no use wondering what the answer to that is.

"As if you're a prince yourself," Alana countered. "To be all honest, Allen's way more reliable than you'll ever be. If you weren't so obsessed with power, you'd see what a genuinely sweet person looks like."

Hydranoid stepped out in front of Alana to confront the Dragonoid. He revved his sawblades as an intimidation tactic, even though he knew it wouldn't work out that way. It was in his character, so he stuck with it. At the end of the day, they were looking for a fight, so Hydranoid had to show him who's boss.

"But no...you only look after yourself right now. That's all you're good at, right? How many times do you have to leave us for you to finally learn that this isn't the way?"

[Noland Hardy]

"Way? You want to talk about what the way is? You don't even know the way yourself," Noland called out. "The only damn thing you were doing since you got back was go like, 'Noland-senpai! Please notice me! If I can't have you, no one will! That's why I physically abuse you so much for looking at other girls, especially Maria who will always have a bigger chest than me, because I know I'm not good for much. My only contribution was being your childhood girlfriend, and you damn well better still have feelings for me, because I know that Yita is way better than I am and the only thing I can do is bitch because I can't accept how gorgeous she is!'"

Drago stepped out in front of Noland around the same time Hydranoid began making his move. He made a pre-battle roar to respond to him, since Hydranoid strangely thinks this is appropriate.

"Allen's too laid back to say it, but I don't give a fuck. Someone needs to say it. Your only contribution is being an annoyance," Noland clearly demonstrated. "Want to guess what that's going to cost you? Come at me and find out!"

(Boss Theme: Phase 2)

[Alana Cortese]

The roasting was A LOT for Alana to take in. At first, she was going to wonder how Noland could say something like that, but then she remembered who she was dealing with. "So that's what you really think of me then... Wow..." Without offering any rebuttals, she just took it. She didn't need anything else to confirm how she feels right now.

"You good, princess?" Hydranoid questioned before beginning this slaughter.

"No, I'm not," she answered. "Wipe them out."

"Ha! Yes, ma'am!"

"Ability activate!" As she said this, she pulled out an ability that was quite different from Hydranoid's other abilities. This one had an Onyx cover on it. "Perfect Mayhem!" As Alana was intending to defeat Noland quickly, she opened with this ability Admiral Asuka gave to her.

Hydranoid's muscles started to spasm when the ability took its hold on him. His pupils started glowing red indefinitely. Not wanting to show Drago what this ability specifically did for him, Hydranoid opted to remain stationary for now.

"Now, take this! Ability activate! Chaos Leap Sting!" Hydranoid no longer required his miniature heads to do the job. He was going to do it himself. He constantly bombarded Drago with energy blasts that continuously got faster and more powerful as each second passed...

[Noland Hardy]

"Perfect Mayhem...?" That was a new one. It was impossible for Noland not to know that the Silver Knights must have had something to do with that ability, because there's no such thing in Hydranoid's arsenal.

Drago started smacking each projectile away with his tail just as fast as Hydranoid was sending them; however...there was one caveat. The force of these projectiles were increasing in intensity, and it didn't look like Hydranoid wanted to stop anytime soon. Without activating an ability, Noland can now confirm that Perfect Mayhem boosted Hydranoid's frightening improvement rate.

"Ability activate! Novia Edge!" Right when Drago was going to be overpowered by Hydranoid's ability, he flailed his tail in the hydra's direction. It detached and went towards him as a ballistic drill of sorts. At the same time, the thorns along Drago's body were sent towards Hydranoid as well. All of Hydranoid's blasts were ran through by this projectile, and it was about to collide with Hydranoid's chest.

"Hm..." Drago was forced to play defense right now. He had his guard up, ready for anything.

[Alana Cortese]

Hydranoid bravely took Drago's attack head-on. He handily gripped the incoming tail trident with his hands. He could see the sparks coming off of his hands, but it didn't matter. It was forcibly stopped, and then tossed it out of the arena like it was a piece of trash. The thorns simply bounced off of his body when they came.

"'Hm...' is right," Hydranoid agreed.

Alana was getting ready to activate another ability, but there was a trick to this. In her mind, she knew that she didn't have to activate a single thing. She faked getting something else ready so that Hydranoid could show off what Perfect Mayhem did to his body. His attack, defense, and speed parameters were doubled, and all three statistics will increase by 1% for each second that passes after the initial activation. What this means is that Hydranoid can not only improve from the influx of battle energy that gets created from the battle itself, but Perfect Mayhem will continuously improve him without him having to consider the battle energy. Combine those two together, and there's little chance that Hydranoid can lose in a contest of battle power. That isn't mentioning the additional buff to his awareness as he can now see, feel, and hear anything within five kilometers.

Hydranoid zoomed towards Drago and delivered a bone-shattering punch to his chest. This should suffice until Drago has to get extremely serious and resort to relying on forbidden abilities to catch up.

[Noland Hardy]

Drago quickly put up his guard, but even that was about to get broken by Hydranoid's surprising strength. This was troubling.

"Not bad..." Noland commended as Drago was shoved backwards by a wide margin. He was knocked on his back briefly, but rebounded back to his feet very quickly. "You might even stand a better chance of beating me than Allen..."

Having said this, Noland's body language did not depict him as being concerned about being on the losing end for right now. He could tell that he REALLY pissed her off. Her usage of that ability was perfect, as she believes she locked Noland into a corner and now has to do everything by her terms. While mostly true, Noland is more patient than she thinks.

"Ability activate! Molten Ire!" Drago's raw power materialized into a personal cloak for him. Now, his power should be up to speed with Hydranoid's. He lodged his right fist into the ground to rupture it. The force of this move went all the way to Hydranoid, slamming him in the body and the jaws. He then jumped into the sky and got airborne.

[Alana Cortese]

This blow only made Hydranoid angry. He roared in anguish as he went after Drago in earnest.

"Ability activate! Alpha Buster!" Alana called out immediately. Hydranoid's power also allowed him to materialize a cloak of the same kind as Drago's. With this in play, Hydranoid swung his fists in Drago's direction. The sheer force from his punch was great enough to blow parts of the colosseum away as well as momentarily stun Drago.

Then he advanced towards him...

"You're supposed to be tougher than that," Hydranoid said to Drago as he clashed with him in the skies, causing clouds above to disappear. "You weren't supposed to make the same mistake that I made. What happened to me should have been it." Both combatants managed to lock each other into a stalemate after trading punches. Their hands were together, and they were both pushing. "Is this what you like? Going against your principles is acceptable to you?"

[Noland Hardy]

"You still have no idea what this power represents, do you?" Drago questioned, entertaining Hydranoid for this one and only exchange. "I had this power all along. This IS ME. You really think this whole thing is just an alter-ego?" Drago swung his feet from underneath him and planted them in Hydranoid's shoulders. As he did so, he momentarily switched to the Hex Code to hit even harder, because Hydranoid would've resisted the hit if he didn't. He then sledgehammered him down into the ground.

"But you knew that already, didn't you? You know the truth about Alana, but you don't have the decency to come out and say what everyone's thinking. She's a waste of space, and so are you."

Noland began laughing at his opponents when Drago told them the truth. Hoping it would demoralize them, he allowed it to go down. As far as he was concerned, there was no chance that he would ever consider treating Alana as an ally. Not again.

"Ability activate! Hyper Igniter!" Drago's empowered Hex Code flames allowed this fiery stream to be even more of a catastrophe than it already was. When Drago launched it, it appeared as a fiery tornado that was swiftly burning everything around to ashes. Hydranoid would soon be a casualty to this when he gets within kill range.

[Alana Cortese]

Alana was going to be burned to a crisp by Drago's attack very soon, so the attack had to be interrupted. Luckily for her, she didn't have to think too hard to stop that one.

"Thanks for sharing. You cleared any doubt I might've had on that one," Alana eerily said with a creepy smirk on her face. "Time to die."

There was one final perk about Perfect Mayhem that hasn't been hinted towards up until now. All Hydranoid has to do is have someone in his eyesight, and he'll be able to teleport to them. No movement signals are required. He could only do this once though. Since that was the case, he might as well make it count.

"Ability activate! Titan's Jaw!" Hydranoid teleported above Drago and opened his mouths. His teeth shined blue, indicating that this was an Aquos ability. All three heads took a good bite on Drago. The central head chomped down on Drago's neck while the other two heads tasted the flesh on his upper body. Drago's attack was abruptly canceled, and he found himself getting stomped to the ground by Hydranoid.

"Waste of space, huh?" Hydranoid queried with his mouth full. "They say not to talk with your mouth full of bullshit." Using his massively buffed speed, Hydranoid grabbed Drago's horn and brought him right to the colosseum structure. He slammed his face into it and ended up breaking the horn off in the process. He then took his tail, and flew him through the remaining slabs. He let go of Drago to allow him to fly cleanly to the other side of the colosseum and have those pieces collapse on top of him when they collided.

Alana then looked on her BrawlX to see another attribute of Titan's Jaw. The affected target becomes "prey" for the user. Now they could see Drago's exact stats. His health, attack, defense, speed, and even weak points were now known in concrete detail. Additionally, the attack itself wasn't too taxing on Hydranoid's reserves, so it could be used again later. The next usage would be 10% stronger than the last, and that's not counting what Perfect Mayhem is doing for Hydranoid already.

If Alana wanted to say she was now the strongest Resistor, she could say that without sounding cocky, because it was now true.

"After all that, is that all?" Alana asked Noland about his path to power that is of no use in her eyes. Hydranoid then took aim towards Noland and started shooting at him.

[Noland Hardy]

Noland grit his teeth upon Hydranoid manhandling Drago like that. NOW he was concerned. Hydranoid hasn't branched into his battle energy-related abilities yet either. He was in serious trouble now.

"..." Noland didn't want to say anything just yet, because he was currently being attacked from behind. Without looking at Hydranoid, Noland casually sidestepped each individual shot. "As an old enemy once said, you started this." He said that in reference to Hydranoid directly attacking him.

Still walking away from the blasts, Noland decided to finally get serious. "Ability activate! Dianos Cocos X!" A pillar of darkness shot up into the sky from where Drago was. The atmosphere around him was very unstable. This just goes to show that this activation was stronger than the first time he used this ability. Now Alana could see that Drago's energy was fully replenished and his injuries were completely negated. Even Hydranoid's insane power-up couldn't protect him from being pushed aside by the initial burst of energy.

"You may have exceeded me in power, but that's still not enough," Noland warned Alana. "Now that my energy control is on point thanks to the Switch Code, my Hex Code is even stronger than it was previously. There's no limit to how high I can push my power now."

[Alana Cortese]

Alana looked at her BrawlX to see that Noland wasn't bullshitting about what he just said. Before, the key weakness to that ability was that Drago could be burned out if pushed too far, but further experience with the Switch Code may negate that weakness. She doesn't know for sure, but for safety reasons, she'd need to treat it as if Noland's power was infinite in this state.

She thought back to what she used against Atlas and Nightwalker when she tagged with Allen and Alex. That ability, Alpha Eraser, may be what she needs to eliminate this forbidden ability from the equation and give her a surefire chance to win, but Hydranoid has to get within close quarters to do it. Does she really want to do that with this forbidden ability active?

"Hmph...so we're even then..." Alana swiped the ability she needed to compete with Drago's forbidden energy...at least for right now. "Ability activate! Alpha Gainer!"

Hydranoid's energy shot up into the sky as well. A vacuum was created that gradually sucked in all of the battle energy created from their battle. It was absorbed into Hydranoid's body and powered him up even further.

"The Switch and the Hex Code are no different in my eyes. They both took my friend away from me, so they may as well be the same," Alana suggested to Noland before playing her next ability. "Ability activate! Trident of Doom!"

Hydranoid gathered three blasts in his mouth and shot them upwards. He continued to do this until a giant blob of darkness was hovering above their heads. When it was complete, the mass orb started to descend downward, all the while raining pellets of destruction on top of Drago the entire time.

[Noland Hardy]

Noland didn't bother to look at this incoming ball of destruction. Drago did though. He titled his head upwards to see how grand of a spectacle it was. The pellets being shot down towards him didn't dissuade him from looking straight at it either. It was rain that he barely felt on his skin.

"That's going to get annoying..." Noland briefly commented on the power of Hydranoid's attack. "Ability activate! Aegis Crusher!"

Bringing out an old favorite from when Drago was still Cinder Dragonoid, Noland has boldly stated that Hydranoid's power was so insignificant that he was going to wave his own attack in his face. To do so, Drago surrounded himself in a swirling barrier of dark energy. He allowed the massive death ball to creep upon him. Once it was within range, he stuck one hand out to literally catch it. Drago showed no signs of struggle on his part in doing so.

"That move of yours just cost you the brawl," Noland warned his persistent adversary. "Take pride in the fact that you made me try."

[Alana Cortese]

"And I'm supposed to be the overconfident one?" Hydranoid complained out loud. Little did Drago know, that statement of his actually applied to HIM.

"Right back at you," Alana returned. "'Cause I still plan on winning this battle!" She took out what should be her ace in this situation. Just as she thought before, the opportunity to play it has now presented itself.

"Ability activate! Alpha Eraser!" Not wanting to get that close to his own attack, Hydranoid allowed his miniature heads to do the dirty work. Battle energy swirled around each of them, then they lunged at Drago as the Trident of Doom was being held. Each miniature head bit into Drago. The individual bites benefited from Titan's Jaw that had been activated earlier. This was due to the ability increasing Hydranoid's bite strength by 30%.

There were a lot of percentages to keep up with when it comes to this battle...

Drago's endurance with the Hex Code's forbidden power was eliminated completely. This was an extremely deadly situation on Drago's part, because Alana had just exploited the forbidden ability's weakness. The Trident of Doom is an attack that carries more battle power than Hydranoid does himself, so with Dianos Cocos X attuning Drago's power to match it, she was able to goad Drago into blocking it so that when his forbidden power is cancelled, he will not have the strength to escape this attack.

By now, Alana had already accepted what she had to do to Noland, so there were no signs of regret to be shown on her face when she played her next ability. "When...or IF someone decides to revive you, I hope you can come back as a better person. I'm not just talking for myself either. If Yita is as great as you says she is, and you treated her the way I heard you treated her, then what's the fucking point?" She swiped it slowly, almost as if she was hurting herself doing this. "Ability activate! Alpha Demolisher!"

The steady accumulation of battle energy from the Trident of Doom allowed this ability to continue until the attack was gone, and that's if Drago did nothing afterwards IF he manages to continue living. An endless amount of Hydranoid heads spawned in the area. They all proceeded to charge straight for Drago, chomping down on anything they reached. Of course, this attack also benefits from Titan's Jaw.

[Noland Hardy]

Earlier when he was taken aback by how powerful Alana really was, Noland showed signs of concern for his well-being. Now, even with her unleashing this power, he did not grimace. Even with Drago - who now needed to use two hands to even attempt to hold Hydranoid's attack back - having his feet being plunged into the ground from him being overpowered, Noland simply rolled his eyes.

(Still Too Strong)

A blinding burst of rainbow energy erupted from where Noland and Drago were standing. Shortly afterward, Noland shouted an ability's name.

"Ability activate! Slip Damage!!!!" Drago's eyes let out a flash of rainbow energy. Now, he could see a perfectly normal Alpha Hydranoid through his eyes, one who has not been influenced by the power of the abilities Admiral Asuka gifted to him nor his battle energy-related techs. With this in play, it wasn't so outlandish for Drago to stand back up with Hydranoid's attack in his hands and walk out with it. The power given to him by Aegis Crusher allowed him to withstand the beating he was taking from Alpha Demolisher. In fact, now that Drago's energy control was more precise just for being in the Switch Code transformation, the Hydranoid heads were now being absorbed.

It was all over for Alana now...

"You tried," Drago shrugged.

"Unfortunately for her, I didn't ask her to try," Noland responded. "I'm now telling her to DIE." Drago unleashed his power from the Aegis Crusher ability. A clean, but destructive, wave of energy was unleashed in Hydranoid's direction. The landscape was completely devastated by this, so much so that one could see a clear path that the attack had made. Water started filtering into this wide canvas of destruction not too long after it was created.

[Alana Cortese]

This was clearly a death-dealing blow against Alana. When the land was torn up, neither her or Hydranoid were anywhere to be found, at least until the dust cleared up. When it did, Hydranoid was defiantly standing, but not in the same form he was in. Now, he was in the battle as Dual Hydranoid, which means...

"Final...Survival..Shield..." Alana muttered, short of breath. The shellshock from the explosion was still affecting her, so she was not completely 'there.' She had one eye closed, and she was wobbly.

"This is bad..." Despite surviving the attack, Hydranoid knew that his chances of winning now were very slim. He retained the power that he had prior to getting wiped out, but there's one major problem. If there's an ability strictly relegated to the Alpha evolution, he can't use it. The battle-energy related abilities were still usable, but that's clearly not enough against Drago's power. The only beneficial thing Alana did by doing this was require Drago to kill Hydranoid a grand total of three times before she officially loses.

"Ability...activate...! Polarizer Cannon!" This ability was shaping to be more powerful than anything Alana has ever used. Its power is proportionate to the amount of damage the user sustained throughout the battle. Considering Drago had just obliterated Alpha Hydranoid at the height of power he was in, it wasn't looking pretty for him. This ability has special properties that involved Drago's inflicted damage, so even if Drago was only seeing an Alpha Hydranoid without any enhancements, the damage he caused has already been done. There was no way for him to power this down with Slip Damage.