Raid #94

Thunder echoed throughout the region, lightning cracking and tearing blue bolts across the grey stormy sky, as they came to earth and struck towers to neutralize their energy. The Thunder Plains was a well known and infamous area for anyone travelling between Besaid Island and Zanarkand, two places on extreme polar opposites of this world, but had been made renowned in their own right from the history and individuals of this world. While not often visited and even less a area desired to remain in, even here the reaches of the Heartless roamed and were left unchecked, electrified Emblem species attracted to the surges of electricity and resembling the fiends native to the area lurking in the shadows around the towers. The lightning flashes only served to stretch the shadows even longer than they would in the sun, even if they lasted only instantaneously. Perhaps a world that best served as an example to the natural chaotic state that Spira was always plagued with, as the Eternal Calm present was hit with wave after wave of chaos, in the twisting spiral of goodwill and malice that was the land and waves of Spira.

Closer to the base of the towers, the Heartless slowly rose up from the shadows, only a few of them present in the hopes of picking off a travelling wander. Either if they fell from the savage fiends that attacked them, or if they were unluckily struck by lightning that the towers failed to ground, another reason why the Heartless were more abundant in this patch of land than any other in Spira. They had arrived out of the darkness to pick off one stranger that had been moving in the twilight, who hobbled and stumbled as if they were critically injured, but all there was to recognise them by was their darkened silhouette in between the highlights of the lightning. The Heartless moved like scavengers after the lone individual, slowly rising to surround them, waiting for the right moment to strike to steal that precious heart.

Whether it was of light or darkness, it did not matter nor could it be distinguished, only that it was seized.

A Shadow swept in, moving across the ground as if it’s feet slid across the shadows, leapt in with clawed hands out to make the first strike. A shadowed hand swept out from the figure and struck the Heartless, throwing it backwards, ripping it apart as it disintegrated and returned to the darkness whence it came. More Shadows swept forward to attack after the first, but they only met the same fate, as the muscular arms of the male struck through them and tore them apart with pure strength one by one. After they were gone, there was a tremendous bellow that ripped through the plains as it was followed by lightning, and the nearby tower buckled as large digits raked through the surface of its metallic base. The inhuman roar was followed by the accompanying crash of thunder after it, and then the blinding flash of lightning as it struck the tower, highlighting the silhouette of a man crackling with violent electricity as he stood hanging from the side of the lightning rod at it’s apex.

Whatever this raging being was… it was no longer human.

(OOC: Just be careful how you interpret things, Celes. I didn't say this individual was struck by lightning until he hung off the lightning Rod of one of the towers.)

The creature had been watching from the top of the tower, watching the stranger below him with glowing eyes. The metal it had been hanging onto twisted and bent with the weight he had applied to it, and aggressively he tore it off and threw it away. From his roar which had finished echoing throughout the Thunder Plains, it was obvious it was agitated in some manner. It's large frame moved within the shadows, making a gut-wrenching growl at the newcomer, until suddenly it leapt off the tower. It landed with a solid thud before the young woman, slowly rising, revealing little by little it's hulking body as it towered over her. It continued it's intimidating growl, it's face contorted into one of suffering and rage.

It seemed to be giant metallic creature, covered in silver metal, like an Iron Giant. Not as large, but all parts of it's body was shaped with smooth steel, only jagged in places with spikes and bolts coming out of his body. Like a robot Frankenstein, except it was not pieced together with the parts of dead bodies, but moved seamlessly together with a will of it's own despite it's chest being lined with large stitches. It had almost ivory sweeping spikes of hair flowing down it's back and alongside his face to his chin, a skeletal face that also had stitches running through it, and a red glow coming from the slit of it's intense eyes. The left arm was completely covered in gold armor, and it also had gold plates buckled to it's bare dragon-like humanoid feet. Black trousers ripped at the knee and ankles covered his lower torso and legs, and a strange crimson coat with a black buckle to keep it belted to it's waist like a small robe, with more black buckles and tattered, frayed edges showing as it blew behind him from the air that was kicked up.

The Death Gigas was also covered in a veil of darkness that rippled around and off his body, his broad chest heaving as he inhaled and exhaled loudly in extreme anger, and almost immediately it snarled as if something about the lady had set him off. He moved forward, like a enraged gorilla would do when it was threatened, moving forward with it's hulking mass in almost the same manner. A solid fist came flying down at the girl, attempting to strike her first, slamming into the ground and sending the blue rock below scattering in dust and pieces everywhere. Another fist came at her, a large swing of the opposite fist traveling in a horizontal fashion, as if to punch her across her face... or head it would seem, as that was about the same size as his massive fists. As he swing wide with his swing, if he had missed or not, he staggered just a bit off balance long enough for the female to see there was a opening of some sort in his back where batteries - or perhaps something smaller and rounder in shape - was missing.

For those that knew Vincent, the Protomateria was gone, and he was being controlled by a source of darkness not present in this world.

(OOC: Vincent is using one of his limit forms in this fight, as the cost of being stuck in it, being limited to the attacks only Death Gigas can use and in immense pain because the darkness is not allowing him to transform back for plot reasons.)

Battle Theme.

(OOC: Yeah, you might want to work on that. He didn't completely rip off the entire lightning rod, just a bit of the tower. Also, I meant to not reveal who he was until he attacked to add to the tension and suspense for some intense atmosphere into the writing, eheheh.)

Hard stone met metallic fist as it cracked into the earth, rage increasing as it missed it’s target, the Death Gigas breathing hard of his nose and looking under narrowed white eyebrows at the female human. Moving swiftly despite it’s gargantuan size, it stepped forward with a powerful blow that would have clearly knocked the girl’s block off. However, she somehow even managed to evade that punch, leaving the metallic giant to swing at air. A sharp howl of fury rang forth from it’s broad skeletal jaw, and it lumbered forward to follow up it’s assault on the annoying young female. It moved with the speed and strength of a freight train, but was slowed as a sudden shard of ice magic lanced through the air and stuck him.

The flash of snowy white and the thrum of cold magic was the only warning the behemoth got, and his raised his arm in the air to defend itself, too big to change it’s forward momentum. Digging his heels into the cold blue stone beneath his feet, the frost struck and started freezing up his arm, causing ice damage and freezing a solid block of ice shaped around his arm. A yelp of pain was forced from his beastly jaw as the frostbite set in and assaulted his nerves, and with another sudden roar blasting forth from his lungs, pushed off from his defensive position it had hunkered down into. Closing in on the spellcaster, the horrific giant swung his ice-encased arm towards her in a slamming punch straight into her gut, the force behind his metallic arm along with the water frozen solid around it multiplying the damage used back at her. This should allow the ice to crack, if not completely shattering it, if he was successful in even landing a hit.

If not, he quickly followed up with the energy he had been struck with earlier from the lightning bolt along with his own, a violent crackle of electricity arcing from his back. He pulled his arm away from the solider as he jumped into the air, and came down upon her with a electrified Giga Dunk, one frozen hand balled into a fist into the other to deliver physical damage on wherever it struck upon her. This should break the cold casing around his limb, but if not, his metallic body conducting electricity within would protect him and more than likely melt the ice with prolonged use of his fists. Suddenly lightning struck the tower the beast had been standing on before, and a explosion of electricity surged over it, the lightning rod still intact from the piece of it having been discarded by him earlier. With a pained roar, the humongous hulk made a massive leap from his position in front of Celes, jumping to the tower and climbing up it once more. Using the lightning surging through the tower, he grasped his hand onto the lightning rod and fed off it’s energy once more, taking a ranged position from his victim as he prepared to strike her once more.

Leaving herself paralyzed would not benefit the young woman at all, but the beast was in no better off himself. As her sword Save the Queen had slashed through the sheet of metal, Death Gigas felt it slash through his left, right, and upper chest, as well as the spinning blow which hit his lower abdomen. Electricity spilled out of the gashes like crimson liquid, and the Limit Break clearly showed it's damage as it successfully hit. The metal hulk covered the open tears with one tree-trunk of a single arm, grunting in pain, and reached out to the tower alongside him to balance himself from falling over. With a loud snarl, the beast snapped off a large metal pipe from the wreckage of the tower, glowing eyes locked on the paralyzed form of the girl.

With a metal rod in the air, that was when thunder resounded throughout the plains, followed by a single flash of light.

The lighting, no longer having an earthly conduit to direct it towards since the tower's destruction, loosely snapped to earth and hit the ground between Celes and Death Gigas. A branch of electricity snapped out and struck the metal pole the advanced iron giant had been holding, conducting it and adding to the reserve of depleted energy in his body. Then, the lightning bolt was gone, leaving Death Gigas as he was before, his current form being able to absorb the element of Thunder healing his wounds. He staggered forward, and with his other arm, snapped the long metal girder in two. Now with two bludgeoning weapons, and with a sudden roar, he charged forward to finish off his opponent.

Coming with the speed of a freight train, and darkness misting around his form to make his appearance even more frightening, he barreled forward with a horizontal swing first from his right arm. The metal pole was intended to hit the lady in the left side, or her left leg followed by her right, to knock her over. Then he came down with his left arm clutching the left pole in a vertical slam. This would strike the female solider in the head, attempting to render her unconscious.

With a thunderous bellow as loud as the accompanying storm raging fiercely overhead, the Death Gigas sounded angry but also in intense pain, and within the feral instincts of the monster Vincent Valentine had only one constant thought; he did not want to be doing this at all.