They had finally managed to rendezvous with the rest of the team and while the Titan held hope that regrouping would make them stronger, the sight of them made her heart sink in her chest, wondering what on earth they had faced to have forced them into a full retreat and in such a poor condition.
Naomi had remained mostly silent as conversations continued, paying attention to what was being said before looking around as Honoka mentioned some kind of Helicopter… thing, whatever the hell that was. Revenant soon turned up despite their attempts to slow him down, seeming to talk more shit which caused Naomi to roll her eyes.
"This kid…" she muttered to herself before her brow furrowed at the mention of something else coming this way, presumably the thing which had forced the defending team to retreat to begin with. The Titan paused to consider options for a moment, looking back down the long metal hallways before turning to FOX and Gillian.
"I'm gonna go slow down whatever the fuck is coming this way, do whatever you have to do here. I'll catch up or if worse come to worst… make my own way out" she said before she turned and started to run, turning to call back at them as she jogged backwards for a moment,
"And do something about the sexually frustrated psycho kid!".
FOX, who had been too focused on administering first aid to the mortally wounded Valkyrie, only caught wind of Naomi's intentions towards the end.
"Wait. I don't think that's a very good-" The Ronin halted mid sentence, realizing the futility to his words. No, it was quite evident that Naomi wasn't about to listen to him.
"Stay safe." He added with a frown, holding pressure down on one of Valkyrie's wounds. It felt like anything he did at this point was going to be inconsequential.
Naomi gave a thumbs up in response before she turned and quickened her pace down the metal hall towards whatever the hell had managed to push the team back. Admittedly she was nervous, which considering how tough she could be to kill was saying a lot. But whatever had managed to push the team back in that condition must be strong.
'Knock it off, you'll be fine... you're always fine...' she thought to herself,
"Not like I'm running to my death or anything, or talking to myself to avoid the fact I'm actually nervous... " she said to herself as she approached the other end of the facility.
She'd just about arrived when something huge boosted its way inside from the destroyed entrance, causing her to raise her arm to guard against the dust blown around in it's wake. When the dust settled she set her eyes upon the large black suit of armor, furrowing her brow before one of them raised.
"... A tank... man?" she said aloud.
"Or are you a robot...." she followed up with, wondering just what in the fuck was standing in front of her.
As sensors alerted him of the presence of an approaching hostile, Vaskus slowed his flight until he merely hovered, plumed sword at the ready as she spoke out. Naomi, callsign Titan. High durability and destructive ability, though lacking in speed and technique. The one who killed the King, but certainly not the one who orchestrated the chain of events leading to his death. Blue flame disperse from his jet-wings as the Andras Set landed, standing imposingly within the flickering lights of the hallway.
The second test of Project FENRIR's capabilities then. Vaskus suppressed a wince as needles dug into his spine, siphoning more energy and granting him more power in return.
"Ready yourself, worm."
Naomi placed her hands on her hips as she cocked her head to the side, staring up at the giant tin man.
"Sooo not a robot then... " she replied, observing the black armored thing before raising both her eyebrows,
"Alright even I have to admit that thing is pretty cool" she commented, clearly having no real understanding of the actual danger she was in which was pretty typical of her honestly. In a literal blink of an eye her eyes turned red, large mechanical hands manifesting which she punched together with a smirk, Naomi had cracked many tanks in the past, what difference was a walking one.
"Not even gonna do first names huh?"
There was no answer, only the flaring of flame as Vaskus's jet wings ignited, red lines tracing over the grooves of his black sarcophagus. The hallway was a one way road, but he had seen the recordings of TITAN's clashes with the King. If that vacuous man's half-baked power was enough to break her, then the pinnacle of Project ORACLE would be more than sufficient for making her fall to her knees.
The roar of the engines was deafening as Vaskus rocketed down the hallway, the area behind him melting into slag as he spiralled towards TITAN, sword readied in front.
Naomi watched as the thing powered itself up before propelling itself towards her at staggering speed.
"... Not a talker, got it" she mentioned, probably more to herself given just how loud this machine was. She kicked off her back foot as she ran towards the mechanical monster, throwing her hands backwards before discharging two shockwaves to double up her own speed, causing the metal of the hall behind her to warp a little. As she charged she pulled back a fist to prepare, leading her left fist forward, her combat enhancement feeding limited information based only on what she could observe in that moment.
A combat solution readied itself in her mind, asking from her to put some distance between the sword and the machine, after all it was a weapon that had lethal potential depending on its properties. Arata's sword could cleave through her body and knowing that meant it'd be stupid to assume he'd be the only one who could.
As the opposing forces closed in towards each other Naomi would throw her fist to the right and blast herself towards the left wall, using it for a moment to gain footing as she crouched before springing herself towards the mech, aiming to throw a heavy punch towards the flat side of the sword to dislodge it.
But she was a beat too slow.
The combat enhancement program installed within her mind was out of date, after all. Too slow, feeding too little data into the mind of its user. By the time TITAN's optimal course had been decided, FURY's own sensors and programs had already plotted out the possibility, his mind entering hyperdrive as his reactions accelerated to the extent that time seemed to be moving half as fast.
As Naomi's fist drove itself towards the flat of the plumed sword, the blade disassembled, scattering into a storm of razor sharp feathers as the Andras Set converted forward momentum into rotational force. The bladed feathers latched onto FURY's armored boot as he delivered a heavy axe-kick on TITAN's back, sending the NOAH bouncing up and down the hallway.
It was almost satisfying, watching a human become a bouncy ball.
For Naomi it all happened so fast that she wasn't entirely sure what happened, though being turned into a skipping stone wasn't a welcome result nor the one she was expecting. The Titan let out an
'oof' sound as she hit the ground for the final time, recovering as she got herself to her feet seeming pretty unharmed all things considered, save for her pride.
"Alright... what the fuck" she commented before recomposing a combat stance. This thing was inconceivably fast and strong enough to physically bounce her off a metal floor.... with it's foot.
The young girl of five foot five stretched her back,
"Good shot..." she called to the tin man before grounding her stance, dropping her weight to center her gravity. The plates of her gauntlet shifted and slid as they reconfigured, changing up her combat stance form a faster technique to one which more designed around stronger hits and overwhelming force. Bending her knees she slammed both fists into the ground, ripping up two floor plates like she had done in the lab, hoisting them up like she was wielding dual shields before she began to
walk forwards this time.
Her walk would pick up into a jog and then up again into a full sprint as she closed towards the machine again. The sword was gone, so her objective had been somewhat achieved, never the less this tin man was more than what it seemed in the surface, more than just a walking tank. Her combat enhancement worked itself again, adapting, changing with the new information as several more solutions presented themselves. Naomi would close towards the mech and launch her left shield towards the tin man's shoulder joint, aiming to stagger it before following up with a patented Juniper shield bash with the right towards it'd head.
A veritable wall rushed up towards him, but if Project FENRIR didn't even have enough firepower to deal with a single sheet of metal, Vaskus would have personally beheaded every scientist within Project ORACLE. The first sheet of metal was knocked aside with a backhanded blow, orange sparks bursting as it slid against the adjacent wall. The second was evaded completely, as FURY's jet wings burst aflame, somersaulting him up and over the head-level strike.
Feet pushing off the ceiling, the armored warrior landed behind Naomi and grabbed her by her nigh indestructible hair. Without even a grunt to demonstrate exertion, Vaskus pulled her up and over, hurling her further down into hallway. As the three hundred pound Titan sailed into the darkness, those wings flared to life with brilliant prominence, catapulting him down the hallway at an even greater speed before he delivered a double kick that accelerated her even further.
She was losing ground, fast. If she wanted to hold her ground, hold off this monolith of extradimensional steel, TITAN was going to have to take drastic measures.
The way it moved, so much faster and so much stronger without seeming to really be trying. Naomi wasn't used to being thrown around like a ragdoll, it was a new experience and one she didn't care for. Her usual methods, the go-to moves and tactics weren't cutting it. She'd been bounced off the ground and now thrown down the hall as if she were nothing more than a football, only King had moved her with such force which made her really question what this machine was and what might be controlling it.
Naomi's eyes widened as her hair was grabbed and she let out a grunt as a mechanical foot sent her flying down the hall till she eventually landed, hitting the floor and flipping over herself before eventually coming to a stop, groaning as she recovered.
"Alright... " she said as she took herself up onto one knee, exhaling out as she stood up fully,
"Now you've gone and pissed me off... ". In the space of a few minutes the machine had gained a third of the hallway towards where her friends were, if she didn't pull out the stop here her attempts would be in vain.
She set her eyes upon the advancing machine, letting her mind think back to the others that lay further down the metal hallway. All of them had given so much, lost so much and gained so little... to have come so far now just to be pulped by some walking tank and a teenager who desperately needed to get laid... it was wrong, so wrong. Arata, Tia, Maria, Valk, Eresh, Gaia, Juniper, Alex, Fox, Jill, Gillian and even Dmitry, their names moved through her mind, each of them an independant story of pain and suffering.
It couldn't end like this, it wasn't fair... they were so close.
"I don't know who... or what you are. Frankly I don't give a fuck, but you're not getting past me... you hear me?" She took a deep breath, letting her Elegance feed into her body, the pain, anguish and upset manifesting from the pit of her mortal core to empower the Titan and make her truly the devastating force she was created to be.
"Witness, Fury" a surge of power rushed through her body, doubling the size of her fists which crackled with red sparks of energy shifting between the plates as they shuffled to embrace her empowered form.
Her eyes burned brightly than ever and her face was contorted in an expression which could only be described as pure hate and contempt. Control was still hers, was it the will to will to steadfast in the protection of her friends, or was it perhaps something else? something different that the Titan was fighting for now. It mattered little now, Naomi was ready to engage at the maximum destructive force her body could project, the true show of force that awarded her the moniker of Titan.
Naomi began to walk towards Vaskus. There was no more words, no feed from her neural enhancement to find an optimal combat solution, there was just the beautiful agony the girl had become, a vessel of hate and unwavering will to destroy. As such, she refused to be moved, refused to waver in the face of this adversity. This machine would be stopped here and allowed no further, even if she had to spend the rest of her existence fighting it here and now, in a bloody deadlock of exchanged blows.
Naomi's massive mechanical gauntlets whirred with power as red electric spat between the plates, metal fingers curling into fists as she began to pick up her pace, a walk turning into a jog, a jog turning into a run before a run turned in a full on sprint. She let out a war cry of anger, a shout that'd scatter lesser willed opponents from the sheer vicious ferocity brought by ever taken step. She charged Vaskus head on, raising her fist before she planted her right foot hard against the floor, crumpling the metal under her foot before slamming her fist towards his, a single line of thought clear in her mind.
'You will not get past me!'
Tactics, strategy, intelligence, rationality all told him to dodge, to use his superior speed to drive past the enraged TITAN, taking advantage of her berserk state to outwit her. But that wouldn't make for a good test, and strategy?
Strategy was what the weak used, not the strong. Not the Lord Commander of all CLERIC forces within New Eccelesia, not the Grand Field Marshal who was armed with the greatest weapon mankind had ever known. Before the ELEGANT might of TITAN, he'll call forth the very depths of his power and force her to submit to superior strength. Within the black sarcophagus, Vaskus grit his teet, bared his fangs, and roared out.
"AD VITAM ÆTERNAM!"
Red lines flared up in the cracks of the Andras Set, turning as incandescent as the corona of the sun, jet-wings spewing white flame as Vaskus propelled himself forward to meet TITAN, FURY incarnate. The razor feathers formed over his gauntleted fist as he launched a blow to match her own, surpassing the speed of sound as metal struck metal.
Clang!
Both fists repelled at the tremendous impact, fluorescent lighting tubes shattering as the walls bent outwards from the shockwave, but Vaskus wasn't done yet. Even if she had met him with strength alone, Project FENRIR encapsulated all combat stats to create the perfect all-rounder!
One became two became four became a dozen, as jet powered punches rained down on TITAN with the speed of machinegun fire, each as earth shattering as the last..
Naomi felt the force of her fist strike against his, the consequential shock wave washing over them both as the world around them warped and twisted in the wake of their combined power. The raven haired Titan had never met an opponent that could match her for strength, let alone one which retained the ability to surpass her if need be. This was a true challenge, a test unlike that she'd ever faced before. Could she beat the machine alone... no, perhaps not. But then what was her goal here,
'Hold him back!'.
Each of his punches was met by her own, smashing raw anger against the onslaught of the machine's speed and matching strength, sometimes sliding under or between a punch only to roll and hook her fist into the next incoming impact. Naomi shifted her weight as her foot planted back, rolling under the next punch before she shot her right arm forward, catching the left fist of Vaskus in her mechanical gauntlet before the fingers crushed around it, straining as both metal alloys fought against the pressure, the crushing power of Naomi's hand against the density of Vaskus' armor.
She'd catch the inevitable strike from his other fist, locking in the grapple, to which she was sure he'd attempt to use the boosters to seek his advantage and throw her off.
"Like fuck you're getting away that easy!" she'd shout angrily, slamming her leg against the knee joint of the mech to temporarily pause it from jumping before she'd pull the mech's arms towards her and downwards, slamming her head against the helmet of the mech to physically force Vaskus back, for perhaps the first time during the entire engagement.
It was a clarion call as synthetic flesh struck otherworldly steel, a single star bursting in the vision of FURY as he lurched back from the blow, more out of surprise than anything else. Through the coffin, he
felt that, and it only made his heart pound more violently, more fervently. Oh, that was pure hilarity right there, using one's head when their arm was many times greater.
"You BITCH."
Amusement and belligerency fused together as the armored PRAETORIAN answered with a headbutt of his own, razor plumage encasing his skull to create a hammer-wedge that would part the flesh of even the indomitable.
When her head struck against the armor of the mech she barely felt it herself, her rage pushing her body beyond the barriers of pain, her Elegance demanding that her body hold unwavering against any and all punishment and to deal out an overwhelming force to obliterate her opposition. His response only excited her own adrenaline, after all nothing pleased hate like the sound of your enemy getting angry. Naomi simply sneered, seeming pleased with her work as the mech lurched back before her expression darkened seeing the quick transformation of the mech's head.
Most of the attacks this thing was shelling out seemed to use that same feathered aesthetic, though the reasons why that was escaped the Titan that released the mechanical beasts arms as it prepared to return the headbut. Naomi would reach and grab hold of the plumage with both hands, a roar like growl of anger escaping her body as she attempted to bring the head to slam against the floor using his own momentum, pulling back her fist as she aimed for something more important,
'Clip the fuckers wings!' she would aim to slam her fist against the jet propulsion system.
As TITAN's fists closed over the razor plumage, the feathers parted away from the black helmet, leaving her grasping nothing at all. But Vaskus's body dropped regardless, the corona of his jet-wings bursting with beams of plasma as he tackled TITAN, the massive propulsive force pulling them both airborne.
Even as impacts struck the wings, causing occasional spirals, smashing the two juggernauts through a wall or a ceiling or a floor, the damage was irrelevant. If the path was simply to gain ground, it didn't matter how many fucking walls he drove TITAN through! In this battle for territory, he would
win.
She felt every single impact through every single surface she was smashed against and put through. But she would not yield, the TITAN of this world would not bend a knee to this machine of war and death, she would give everything till her last breath was squeezed from her lungs before she'd give up. Screams of her enraged fury filled the halls as she slammed against his wings over and over again, unrelenting in her punches while the other fist held onto the mech to keep the two intertwined in their aerial dance of death.
After many consecutive punches the wing had started to bend, unable to contend with the overwhelming force of her relentless impacts as the giant gauntlet crackled and spat violent red sparks with every connection. Naomi reached and clamped her fist around the base of the wing, fingers wrapping it tightly before she gave an angry growl, metal whining as she ripped the wing clean from the mechanical monstrosity. The two of them crashed once more, the impact causing blood to spatter across her chin from the corner of her mouth as her organs sustained critical damage.
Of course they would start to regenerate as her elegance drove her onwards, the TITAN refusing to give in, refusing to let herself be overcome by this weapon built specifically to put them in graves. Naomi wielded the wing in her grip like a sword, the metal tip burning red from the heat of the plasma from the jet propulsion system which also seemed to have burned her fist from overexposure to the heated plasma. The neural enhancement was warning her that the fist would be compromised if she wasn't more careful.
Red lightning raced up and down the heavily damaged propulsion system, igniting the plasma chambers within before everything burst in an uncontrollable sunburst of flame. In that infinite instance, metal walls vaporized as the area around them was transformed into a hellscape. The pillar of white flame pierced through seven concrete-and-steel ceilings, before bursting outwards into a blinding tower visible for miles around.
And, at the very epicenter of the hellish inferno, the ominous shadow remained standing, plumage peeling off one by one, as the raven-phoenix molted.
Recovering from the crash of their final destination, she stood to face the mechanical beast once again, wielding the heated wing beside her. His wings were clipped, time had been bought... she'd succeeded in stalling for her friends. The fight was soon reaching its fruition, one soon to overcome the other in this brutal exchange of blows.
"WHO ARE YOU!?" she shouted, demanding an answer from her opponent, a name for the one who met her strength as equal, the only opponent that ever has.
"Ars Goetia. Leraikha Set."
With a clap of black lightning, the third sarcophagus descended into hellfire, a billion distinct plates spreading outwards to consume him once more. He embraced it fully, a dozen needles in return for his acceptance. A slimmer form, more elegant, refined, as a great bow pixelated into existence through his extended hand, the divine warhead manifesting in his other.
"It appears that if I am to bring you down, my past efforts will not suffice."
An otherworldly wind swirled around him, molten metal cooled into onyx-black within an instant.
"Be proud, TITAN. The valor of mere vermin has earned you the right of my name!"
Every part of his body thrummed as he drew back the projectile, a golden flame trailing out of the Leraikha Set's right eye.
"The Lord Commander of New Eccelesia, Vaskus Adrian Mansteinn, stands before you! Show me the depths of your might, or be reduced to cinders!"
Twenty-four starlit blazes converged into one, a golden radiance unmatched by the paltry torchwick of Andras's wings. With a calamitous roar, the arrow of the gods fired, a spiralling meteor driving through the nightscape of the destructed hallway.
"SAGITTARIUS INCAENDIUM!"
Naomi's hard expression didn't change as her opponent finally revealed himself and who he was, red eyes glaring with hate and loathing as the mech once again transformed, more than likely into another devastating weapon. The Titan bared her teeth as she planted her foot behind her, readying her stance to stand strong as she prepared to meet the new challenge. Similar to the attack she'd thrown at Revenant in the lab, Naomi pulled her fist back and as Vaskus released his godly projectile, letting out a growl of anger as she threw everything she had into one heavy blast from her gauntlet.
A violent red wave burst forth from her fist which spat more red sparks as it traveled towards Vaskus, warping the already destroyed and twisted metal of the hallway into more distorted angular shapes. Naomi never saw her salvo reach its mark as his blazing projectile found her almost instantly after she'd thrown it, exploding and enveloping her in flame and light. The agony of her flesh burning caused her to scream as she was launched the test of the way down the hallway, her fists detonating into a secondary explosion that immediately followed from having absorbed the brunt of the projectiles firepower.
Her body bounced and rolled, shards of metal caught in the wake of the explosion shredding her flesh as she traveled, eventually coming to a stop back near the group at the elevator. Naomi breathed heavily as she rolled onto her back, arms outstretched as she stared at the warped metal ceiling, her flesh slowly regenerating as metal shards were pushed out of her skin. Her clothes were shredded too, though fortunately not nearly as much as they had been when they fought King. After a moment she started to slowly get herself up, groaning as the fatigue from her Fury took its toll on her.
'There's nothing more I can do for now'
