Cool Runnings

Characters

 * Rowa
 * Lamian
 * Canon
 * Panisa
 * Icer
 * Miki

Story
Icer sat perched on his captain's chair, his arms fold, looking out the great window at the planet below. Around Icer were some of his most experienced soldiers - well, they had been soldiers once. We're all pirates now, Icer mused. They wore the armor of the Planet Trade Organization, but that organization no longer existed. They were the last ragged band of an otherwise dead empire.

Rowa was pacing. The others were standing completely still, or were on their stations. That was how Icer preferred them. They were disciplined, silent, strong. He was their emperor, and they loved him. At least, I hope so. He smiled. Surely a few of the pirates wanted him dead, but none of them had the strength to challenge him. Nor would they ever. Icer had the blood of King Cold in him. It was his duty to follow in his brother's footsteps. But he didn't care about ruling the entire universe. He just wanted a small bit of it to himself, a loyal army, and enough money to buy anything he wanted. That's not asking too much.

"Lamian," Icer said coolly, sitting up in his chair. "Tell me, why are we here? Is there someone you need dead? Or perhaps you have some of that treasure you owe me." Icer scratched his chin. "You owe me quite a lot of treasure."

Lamian looked at the ex-royal from across the video screen, while he sat in his own ship, far from the Charybdis. First Rule of Piracy: Never be caught off guard, that's what the pirate that formerly owned the fleet Lamian now owned always said, before his, disappearance, of course.

"Can't friends just talk?" he joked, "Anyway, you owe me those ships you 'borrowed'. I'd consider us even." Lamian's voice shifted to a more serious tone, "I do need someone dead, however, some alien, about 1.7 meters, silver haired, blue eyed, female-looking. Surprisingly powerful, but I'm sure you'll be able to deal with it. Hell, I'll even help," Lamian smiled "in exchange for a lowering of the price, friend."

Icer grinned a cold grin. "You want to help? That's a first." The emperor stood up and took off his dark cloak. The artificial air made his skin freeze. Just the way I like it. He began stretching his muscles out. None of his pirate comrades dared move. "Very well. I'll bring along some of my weaker pirates. If this foe of yours is as strong as you say, I don't want to lose anybody I care about."

Icer nodded to Rowa. "Go fetch me the pirates from the lower deck. The ones who like space ponies a little too much."

Rowa ran off, dutifully. Icer leaned over, as if he was bowing, and found a row of white powder lined up on a small table. He snorted it hard, expertly inhaling the entire line in one breath. Then, he stood up and flexed his muscles to Lamian. "Space cocaine is my best friend, Lamian. You aren't far behind, though. Let's do this thing."

And so Icer, along with some of the weakest, most detestable pirates in his crew, left for the planet below. Lamian, and whatever help he would bring, were not far behind.

Lamian brought twenty small landing ships, filled with barely trained fodder. He always found that powerful mercenaries costed too much, when you could just acquire massive groups of ki fodder for cheap prices. But Lamian knew the advantages of a few well trained individuals, so his ship and another, the eleventh and twelfth, respectively, carried his honor guard, the best of the best, or in common pirate terms, could fight Icer together and survive for three hours. Two hundred and twenty soldiers, in total.

"If any of you survive, you could retire with what I'll pay you," he spoke to the troops with fire in his eyes, "if any of you kill her, you get a planet. If you capture her, five. No, ten, ten planets for her capture. I want that thorn out of my side, no matter what. Now go."

They left, each one of them ready to fight.

"Hey Gringo, wanna pass the di__ Goddammit not again."

A barren, icy tundra rolled out for miles on end on a seemingly dead planet, from what Canon could tell. He'd never seen the place before, and he most surely didn't know its name. For that matter, he didn't even know what universe he was in. Just a few seconds prior he had been at a ramshackle bar down in Space Mexico, Universe 007X-3666, eating tortilla chips. Then suddenly, he simply teleported to some far out region of the universe on an inhospitable part of the universe __ again. That's what he got for being the acolyte of Kakó, constantly being out on a mission to destroy something.

"So, what is it this time," he thought aloud, using his internal power detector to scan the area. "Just as I thought, the place is barren, except for... one B Class power several hundred miles south. And, wait... a whole cluster f*ck of small powers coming down along with one big one."

Canon quickly sprung into action. He sought out the landing point of the cluster of powers, happening to coincide with the one big power on the planet. The makings of a battle were imminent. Calculating the time of impact, Canon began to fly towards the other powers, determined to extinguish whatever awaited him in the name of the god Kakó.

Miki snapped out of her meditative state as dozens upon dozens of power levels suddenly began spilling onto the planet's surface. The sudden flood of power was enough to overwhelm Miki's limited power sensing abilities, making it impossible to identify individuals among the mass of power. No longer suppressing her immense energy, Miki's power flowed from her body, shattering the fragile pillars of ice that surrounded her, covering the surrounding area in a shimmering shower of ice shards. Miki cursed under her breath, knowing the surge of energy she had just allowed to escape surely would give away her position.

"Awh hell." Miki muttered. "That pretty much takes lying low off the table." Getting to her feet, Miki scanned the ice gilded valley, now almost completely clear without the frozen spikes that had protruded from the surface mere moments ago. To her north, a series of snow covered mountains studded high above the desolate surface of the planet, long streaks of deep blue ice giving the impression that the mountains weeped for the planet. Looking to the East, West and South, Miki saw nothing but wasteland and icy plateaus that paled in comparison to their larger brethren. The mountains were the most logical place to make a stand, as it would be easy to bottleneck any enemies that dare target her. "Mountains it is, I guess." Without wasting another moment, Miki shot upwards towards the mountains, her deep blue aura leaving a long trail in her wake.

The small fleet landed near simultaneously, at least, as simultaneous as massive metal objects plunging from the sky into a frozen wasteland could get. Lamian threw on his insulated armor and grabbed his weapon, which was rightfully the possession of a high ranking PTO officer's next-of-kin, but being rightful never got anyone anywhere. He exited the ship, his honor guard shielding him, and snapped his fingers. The two hundred lesser soldiers stood at attention. Lamian's personal assistant, a ten-foot tall tree honor guard that was currently flowering, handed him a small datapad that served as a scouter, which Lamain was unable to use due to the shape of his head. The datapad showed two high power levels, one in the mountains, one above, certainly Icer landing, which meant the one in the mountains was the female annoyance, and one anomaly steadily moving towards both, surely the datapad malfunctioning.

"Today, we march," he spoke intently. The two words pumped up his forces, and were simple enough that even some of the Yardrat Company's least intelligent beings would understand them. The inclusion of 'we' was certainly intentional, making his soldiers think that they were in this together, despite the fact that only they would die, and 'march' was meant to harkon back to their species' Middle Ages, the days of glory and honor. The forces let out a small hurrah, one of bravery, and the slight avarice that brought them here in the first place. They could have been great warriors, but life is not one of those who could have, would have, or should have, it is one of those who did. Lamian would not regret letting them die.

It was cold, but it not a cold as biting as on Icer's homeworld, and not as harsh as the black of space. The planet was draped in snow, and Icer saw his breath frosting before his nose. He surveyed his troops, noting Lamien's company forming behind them. There were several hundred of them - the worst of the worst pirates in their fleets. They are weak, but they will serve their purpose well enough, he thought idly. When our foe kills them, I will see just how powerful they truly are. Then, Icer would gauge which transformation he would need to use, if any. Currently, he was in his species' first form, a small, fragile state of being. If the foe was as strong as Lamian had hinted, though, Icer would need to transform at least to his second stage.

He scanned the planet until he caught a power level heading towards the northern region. ''Smart. There will be plenty of mountains to hide in up there. Whoever this foe is, they know we're coming, and they're scared.'' "You there!" Icer pointed to a random soldier. He didn't have any of his notable officers with him, as he didn't want anyone important to die in this battle. "Tell the others to form up behind me. We're heading to the mountains. There our quarry awaits. They will likely try to ambush us, so make sure everyone is on guard. Got it?"

"Yessssss sssssir!" the lizard-faced soldier hissed and then flew over to the other soldiers.

Once everyone had been alerted, the soldiers fell into rank behind Icer, and the group flew off. The planet's sun was high in the atmosphere, though impending blizzard clouds obscured it and made it seem almost like night. Icer knew many of his soldiers were shivering, freezing, suffering from hypothermia. But he was at home in the icy air, the space heroin hot in his veins. Icer was ready to get some blood on his hands.

A small legion of soldiers weaved through the mountains, led by what was definitely an Arcosian. They were looking for something, or more likely someone: the other power source who was in the mountains.

Canon lay perched at the peak of one of the taller mountains, burried in snow to keep from sticking out. The frigid temperatures normally would have been too much for any human to handle, but Canon wasn't simply a mere human. Part of his Android abilities included the ability to shut off his senses, including temperature and pain. That skill was an essential when fighting some tougher opponents; Canon can't remember how many times his limbs were torn off in battle. He couldn't simply let the pain faze him.

The soldiers, following an order from their leader, suddenly scattered, sending weak energy blasts from a motley assortment of blasters to draw out their perceived foe. Perfect.

Canon scouted out an incredibly weak one, one that had to use a jet pack to fly and was only about twice as strong as a regular human. He waited for him to fly behind his mountain so that he was safely out of the view of the others before pouncing on him. With a quick grab, Canon twisted the creature's neck so swiftly that his head came clean off, his beheaded body falling perilously into the ice caps below.

He observed the head. It belonged to some sort of lizard-like alien, none that Canon had ever seen before. The kill had been too easy, it made no sense for Canon to have to kill these half-wit warriors, they'd be down for the count just from the frostbite. These warriors were weak on purpose, there was no reason for an Arcosian to have such a weak company about them when they could easily command some of the finest warriors across the universes. This was a trap.

Seven more soldiers spilled out from the other side of the mountain like bees defending their hive. More were quickly on their way.

"Lord Icer, we found something! I'm not sure it's female, though," said one of the soldiers into their PTO Scouter. Sadly, those were the last words he would have the chance to utter. Canon moved at a speed of which none of the soldiers could see him, delivering a punch through the soldier's head and shattering it like a sledge hammer on a watermelon. The others quickly assembled into a horrid formation; they were clearly poorly trained.

"As fun as it is to fight you weeaboos, sadly I have more important priorities," he mocked. He formed a small energy sphere and hurled it at the group, exploding in a huge burst of light and raining bodies.

The blood bath had begun.

Shivering within a small crevice of one of the many mountains, Miki pulled her cloak tighter around her body. She desperately wanted to use her energy to ward off the cold, but restrained herself from doing so, for such an action would prevent her from suppressing her power level and allow her to be detected by the swarm of enemy soldiers. Though her power sensing abilities were well below par compared to some of the stronger warrior she had met, she was easily able to distinguish individual power levels as the swarms of soldiers reached the mountain range. The low power of the individual soldiers was now apparent to Miki, each one not even amounting to a minute fraction of her power. But still, Miki could sense a massive cluster of power in the distance. It would take a large number of these weaker soldiers to amass such an energy. It seemed much more likely there was a handful of extremely powerful beings on the planet.

Miki inched her head out of her hiding spot, seeing several soldiers blindly firing their weapons in the distance. It was tempting for Miki to rush out and eliminate them, simply for being an inconvenience, but she knew better than to rush into fighting. It was much wiser to wait and see what information she could discern from the soldiers. If she was lucky she would be able to isolate one of them and perform a quick interrogation.

While in thought, Miki was distracted by a thunderous explosion emanating from the next mountain over. The blast filled the gap between the mountains, forming a shockwave that Miki felt even from an entire mountain over. A blast such as that was well beyond what any of these simple soldiers was capable of, yet Miki had not detecting any notably large power levels among them.

“What the hell was that?” A deep voice bellowed above Miki. Looking up, Miki noticed a handful of the enemy soldiers floating above her, each on fixated one the dispersing dust cloud of the explosion. Whether Miki had her luck or their stupidity for not being noticed she couldn’t tell, but either way she was grateful. Even more so for the up close look at the armor the soldiers wore, bearing the symbol of the long disbanded PTO. Seeing the symbol filled Miki with rage, as it had ever since her days as a punching bag for the former Emperor of the Universe, Frieza Instantly, any uncertainty of whether or not to engage the soldiers was gone.

Miki thrust her hand forward, firing finger beams from each one of her extremities, each blast piercing straight through one of the soldiers. As the quickly dispatched soldiers fell like pitiful stones, Miki soared up above the mountain, visible to every enemy soldier in the vicinity.

“Hey, you PTO trash!” Miki yelled as she condensed a massive amount of energy in her hand. “I’m gonna burn all of you!” With a flick of her wrist, the condensed energy ball shot form her hand, flying towards a pocket of soldiers hovering over the adjacent mountain.

Suddenly, Canon detected one of the energy signals from before, which had gone silent since, beyond the mountain. From the massive depletion of the other countless sources, the soldiers, Canon could tell that this one was not on their side.

"Good," Canon said aloud. "I just love a three-way." With that, he formed a barrier of energy all around him, humming to the brink of explosion. Releasing it, Canon created a blast that leveled the mountains around him, instantly killing all of the weaker soldiers, leaving only those who were out of range from the worst of the attack. Many of these dropped out of the air like flies, the wind knocked out of them and many of their bones definitely crushed.

Canon could now see every actual serious competitor. Across the way was a female of a humanoid alien species, not donning the armor that the other soldiers had been wearing. This one was definitely the alien who had been fighting the soldiers. Two others hovered in the air above the scene of the wreckage. One was an Arcosian for sure, seeming to be the most powerful of the bunch. The other was some unidentified species of alien, none that Canon cared about anyways. From the looks of it, the two in the air were allied to some degree.

A few seconds after a calm had settled after the deafening explosion, more soldiers had began pouring out from all around. These lucky ones had been stragglers to get into the battle, and lucky for them it meant a few more minutes left to live.

Icer burst through explosions and tumbling limbs, his aura wrapped around him like a cloak. Tracking the abnormal-looking creature attacking his men to the east, the Arcosian pirate closed in. ''This isn't the one whom I tracked earlier. Curious.'' He cracked his knuckles and sniffed. Icer felt the ice running through his veins, the ebon-howling blizzard on approach.

Icer found the strange fighter occupied with his soldiers and easily snuck behind him by afterimaging across the sinking sky. With a roar, he materialized behind the alien and pounced forward. Icer grabbed his foe by the neck, jerked him into the air, and threw him down toward the snow. The alien tumbled into the side of a frost-covered mountain; the Aphotic Prince threw a cluster of explosive energy, obscuring his foe from sight. For a blink of the eye, the smoke, the snow, the blood all around dissolved into one and Icer felt like he was home again. He thought of his brother then - his dead brother - and of the blood running down King Cold's royal armor, the despair in his brother's eyes as that golden warrior cut him to pieces. Damn it, what am I doing?! Icer thought furiously, glancing around for any sign of his quarry. ''This is no time for sentimentality! I didn't even like my brother!''

"Fuck," Canon thought to himself as he lay in a pile of snow and shards of ice. He hadn't expected the Arcosian's counter attack to be so fast or strong, but he didn't have time to just lay there. Rather than just flying upwards like an idiot wanting to get shot down, he summoned his ki into two compressed spheres of opposite energy. He let them fly towards each other, and with a hideous ripping sound he created his own portal. Sucking himself into it, he appeared faster than the speed of light behind the Arcosian and drove his leg into the small of his back, sending him flying.

"Oh no you don't!" Canon taunted, flying after his quarry. He grabbed the startled alien's tail and, after swinging him around a bit, sent him flying into a glacier below. "I think it's time to heat it up a little bit."

The Android brought his hands out before him and prepared an attack. What came out, though, wasn't a ki blast, yet rather highly pressured jets of flame twice the temperature of the surface of the sun, turning the glacier and everything near into a gigantic swimming pool, hopefully boiling the Arcosian within.

Things were escalating much quicker than Miki had anticipated. Following her Full Power Energy Shot, another massive blast leveled several mountains at once. That was followed by more powerful bursts of energy and what appeared to be intense energy beams that emitted an intense heat that could be felt from Miki's distant position. There didn't appear to be anymore PTO soldiers remaining, minus the ones not fortunate enough the die after being shot out of the sky. Who had blasted them form the sky Miki was unsure of, and the floating debris from the explosions made it difficult to make out the remaining players. Needless to say, Miki was lacking some vital intel on the situation. Perhaps she had been a little premature in her attack. But it was too late to hide now.

In an attempt to gain a better vantage point on the battle, Miki dashed through the air, arching around the heated energy blasts. Before rushing into the situation further, she needed to at least know who or what she was dealing with. She kept wary of the second large energy signature, almost sure that one was with the PTO soldiers. With luck, Miki would be ignored by that player until she figured out what was going on in this forsaken tundra of a planet.

Lamian absorbed the smell of battle through his pores, ​Ah, I love the smell of plasma in the morning. He fired a shot in no direction in particular, just watching the carnage unfold. That's when the unthinkable happened. A stray shot hit his cloak.

Now, in order to understand his actions here, you must understand the character of Lamian. Lamian is a businessman, a very good one and very proud. This cloak was weaved from the finest silks in the known galaxy, rimmed with the finest cloth, and designed by a snazzy secret society with only one known member still living. It was unique, and costed a lot of credits. This cloak was Lamian's favorite possession, it showed how far he had come from the slums of Yardrat. But now this cloak, HIS cloak, had been destroyed by some two cent ruffian. He was pissed.

"THEY SINGED MY CLOAK!" Lamian screamed, "HONOR GUARD, KILL THEM! NO MERCY!" The Guard yelled and hollered, and heeded the order. It was unwise to displease an angry Lamian. The Guard rained fire from the skies, aiming at the two ruffians, who the group had seen as the most likely culprits.

Soldiers fell from the sky like lazy snowflakes. Icer's ears were ringing; everything was in slow motion, like he was moving through life in invisible gel; everything was quiet. It was cold. He needed more space heroin. Below him, the glaciers melted and pooled as water where Icer's weird-looking foe had tried to douse him in fire. The Aphotic Prince stretched his jaw and drew up his ki around him before speeding off towards the creature shooting fire.

The being saw Icer as he approached, and so the two charged at one another in the air, trading blows in an icy blur. There is something off about this one, Icer thought. His punches feel different. Icer created a sonic burst that pushed back his opponent, stunning him briefly. Then, the Arcosian rushed forward, creating spikes of ki between his fingers, and punching at the enemy. When his foe went to block, Icer stuck him in the forearms with his ki, teleported behind him and kicked him away. As he went to pursue, however, Icer saw a power level flash across his scouter. ''The same level I saw before. Lamian's quarry.''

That was when some of the mountains exploded for apparently little reason, but Icer liked that because explosions are, in general, rad. Lord Icer pulled out a needle from his back pocket and stuck himself in the arm with it. At once, warm space heroin filled his veins again, and he was happy. He didn't have to think about anything he didn't want to. Now let's go kill us a bitch.

She hovered over the destroyed mountains, watching the fighting going on between the other aliens. Icer found it easy to sneak up on her in his drug-addled state. Before she knew it, Icer had wrapped his tail around her neck and tightened it, sucking the breath out of her. He punched her in the small of the back, then did a front flip and released her in the air before shooting a green energy beam at her. Before it hit her, Icer teleported in front of the alien tumbling through the air and kicked her into his attack. Satisfied, Icer began to purr. I'm a space pirate, he thought, smiling. Now I just need to find some space rum and it'll be alright.

It had happened so fast, taking the young warrior off guard. By the time Miki even realized one of the combatants had broken off of their engagement and set their sights on her, her vision had become a rapid blur of motion as a series of sharp pains erupted all over her body. By the time Miki's vision became constant enough for her to make out what she was looking at, she found herself heralding towards a massive energy attack.

"Oh damn." Miki shrieked. With little time to react, Miki thrust her arm to her flank, a powerful burst of ki erupting form her hand. The blast send Miki off course, maneuvering her just out of the path of the oncoming attack. Miki could still feel the heat from the immense ki blast as she narrowly avoided contact. The blast flew down the to planet below, causing a massive explosion that threatened to singe Miki's eyelashes from below.

With the intimidate danger evaded, Miki turned to see several more massive explosions crush several of the remaining mountains. It was crazy, within the span of a few minutes, almost the entire mountain range had been reduced to a crater dotted wasteland. Miki had no idea what was going on, there were PTO here, several massive energy sources, and from at least from what she had gathered, three separate sides to the conflict. The PTO had engaged someone else before Miki had made her move. Whether that party was friendly or foe had yet to be seen. Hopefully, that had not been the one to attack Miki. Only adding to the situation was the fact Miki had been so disoriented by the swift ambush attack she had completely lost track of where her attacker was.

"This is just fantastic." Miki began frantically searching for her adversary, but the dozens of energy signatures and increasing amount of snowy debris made it difficult to pinpoint their location. "Can't anyone take a mother blasting second to calm their ki so I can figure out what is going on!"

If Canon could feel pain, he'd be feeling it right now. A lot. The Arcosian had rushed him from out of nowhere, and with some sort of ki blade covering his hands he slashed through Canon's forearms. Before he could retaliate, the alien had sent him spiraling towards the ground with a kick from the backside, before quickly losing interest in him. That tore it for him.

The Android watched his arms, which were leaking red oil from the gash, exposing his bio-metallic innards to the cold air, slowly repair theselves. He had a limited form of regeneration, though it took time and, if it was bad, extra metal. Luckily, he wouldn't  seem to be needing any of that. He took the few moments of peace that he had to set up a sort of strategy, or more accurately, his next quarry. The Arcosian was battling one of the other higher powers that he had detected earlier, a female alien. He decided to let them settle it out. Canon instead turned his attention to another side of the battle, where more soldiers, these ones wearing different uniforms, poured out of the sky. They were being directed by an angry, short alien of the likes that Canon had seen before.

"Lardtwats, were they? No, Yardrats," he thought. They were a curious race, pretty weak, though they could use a form of teleportation more efficient than Canon's own. The Yardrat was dressed funny, wearing (now smoldering) clothes that seemed to be of a high make. This was an expensive little bugger, yet he had dressed in a suit to go to a bar fight. Canon could sense no power of any consequence from him, so he decided to have a little fun.

Flying high in the air, he shot one of the high-density energy balls towards the Yardrat and cluster of soldiers, all of whom were blasting like crazy. Instinctively, they all dodged, including the Yardrat. "Good," Canon thought. He rushed down there, breaking the bodies of a few soldiers while forming his next energy ball. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that his arms were now healed. As the Yardrat was still disoriented, Canon shot the other ball right in front of the Yardrat, forming a portal right before him. Before the alien could escape, Canon rushed and shoved him through the portal himself, before jettisoning away as it closed.

Across the battlefield, as Canon observed, another portal opened up, dropping the Yardrat in the midst of the fight between the alien girl and the Arcosian. Perfect, now all sides were acquainted except for him and the girl. Their meeting could wait, however, as Canon now had a swarm of soldiers to take care of.

Miki binked twice, for a moment wondering if he has hit her head too hard and was beginning to hallucinate. In the blink of an eye, an overly dressed Yardart appeared before her, seemingly confused and infuriated. Miki had encountered Yardarts before, recalling them to be weak race but possessing a powerful transportation technique. In fact Miki had based her own transportation technique off the Yardart's ability, though she had only so far managed a limited imitation.

Before Miki could question the steaming Yardart, another familiar species floated in Miki's field of view. Though sporting a different color scheme than her former torturer, the late Frieza, Miki always recognized an Arcosian. Just seeing another one of those shiny craniums filled Miki with rage, but having taken out her initial anger on the space fodder that came to her in the form of low level soldiers, Miki was able to restrain herself from making any rash decisions.

"So am I safe to assume I can blame all this chaos on the Arcosian?" Miki shouted over the Yardart's furious babbling.

Lord Icer came roaring at the female alien again, this time with both arms outstretched, firing rapid-fire energy shots at her. He noticed that Lamian was about to be attacked by her, so Icer pressed forward to protect his friend. ''Foolish Lamian. He doesn't know who he's dealing with. She'll kill him if I don't do something.''

The space heroin was still hot in his veins; Icer's mind was as clear as a silver dawn. He bit his lip as he flew through the explosions he had unleashed upon his foe. Not seeing her amongst the fire and smoke, Icer used his scouter to scan the surrounding area. Catching a hint of a huge power level, the Arcosian went dashing off towards the ruined mountains, where many of his remaining soldiers were still located. When Icer arrived there, he noticed the weird-looking alien he had recently fought against destroying all of his lackwit lackeys.

Icer raised his fist to deal with that alien once and for all when he felt himself being punched in the back. He felt himself falling forward until he landed in a crater of snow and dead minions. Trying to stand up, Icer felt himself being hit again, this time in the back of the head. He was seeing spots and stars and could hardly breathe. Icer tried to look behind him to see what had attacked him, but he was met only with another punch that knocked him over again. I need to power up, he realized. I need to be in my final form to deal with whoever this is.

His opponent was moving too fast for Icer to see it. All he felt was the pain of their fists and kicks connecting with his pale body. But soon, his body began to numb up, the space heroin evaporated from his veins, and all Icer felt was the cold.

The Arcosian had taken his eyes off of Canon for one second, yet that was one second too many. Teleporting behind him, Canon had launched an assault on the alien. He had seen what he had been trying to do. Canon was well aware of the Arcosians' transformations, and he would not let this one transform. He had made that mistake once before, and was nearly beaten to death before he activated his own full capacity. He had no plans for such a drastic measure in this little skirmish.

Forming a powerful blast of ki in his palm, Canon unleashed it at the ground before the Arcosian, creating a large, deep hole with no bottom in sight. He grabbed the off-balance alien by the scruff of his neck and drove him down into the bottom of the abyss with a satisfying crash. Flying out of the hole, Canon made released a volley of energy spheres and flames, causing the ground to cave in on itself and flood with melted snow, forming a muddy grave for the Arcosian.

The boy sensed for an energy reading, yet could not find one down there. Whether that meant he was dead, had miraculously found some way to disguise his ki, of his signal couldn't penetrate that far into the ground (which he knew wasn't the case), Canon didn't care. At the very least, he had stalled the Arcosian, which led him to his next plan: destroying the planet.

All Lamian could feel was pain. Teleportation could cause quite the strain on a body unprepared for the ripping apart of time and space. Lamian had teleported many times before, but this was only the second time he had been teleported against his will, and while this was nothing compared to the Yardrat Inquisition's teletorture, it still hurt. His brain was scrambled, to put it in simple terms, and all he could do was scream and babble. This took a few moments to wear off, but many things could happen in a few moments, one of which was an attack on his ally Icer, at least, he remembered him to be his ally, memory got so confusing after teleportation.

Now, usually, Lamian couldn't combat enemies without dying, but today was different, he had his gun. A WM-17 Officer Model Energy Obliterator, or Mister Happy, as Lamian had nicknamed it. This weapon would easily kill any low-level combatant, and injure major opponents. He removed Mister Happy from its holster, and decided who he would shoot. Then he saw the dirty mongrel who teleported him, and smirked.

BANG!

While contemplating his next moves, Canon felt a blast of energy hit him in the back. Hard. Looking down, the adolescent noticed that a hole, albeit small, had pierced through the center of his chest, just inches away from his mechanical heart. Luckily, the blast hadn't pierced anything important. Thanks to his improved body structure from when he became an android, his spine had been rendered a vestigial structure. Its destruction would not leave Canon paralyzed.

Nevertheless, Canon fell down. He was lucky enough that he had previously shut off his pain receptors. If not, the damage he felt would have been exruciating. He needed time to regenerate, yet he didn't think he'd manage to get any while laying hunched over in the open. The blast had come from the gun of the small Yardrat. Canon had never seen a gun quite so powerful, but then again piercing this body of Canon's was not that much work. Had he have been in his katchin body, the attack would have merely bounced off.

After his body had started to repair and he felt he could move again without further damaging his systems, Canon decided his next attack. The Yardrat was still gloating over his perceived killing of the boy. He used that to his advantage. Mustering up enough energy to teleport, he once again appeared right behind the alien. His regeneration needed metal to make up for what was lost, and in the Yardrat's hand was the perfect source.

Yanking the blaster from the surprised Yardrat's hand, Canon placed it into his wound, which soon began analyzing it before breaking it down and melting it. With that, Canon was repaired and the alien left, to his knowledge, defenseless. That was not all, however. His system indicated something else after he had absorbed the blaster: an upgrade to his own projectiles. Taking the data received from the gun, his own ki blasts had become more powerful and efficient. He could smear the alien across the slushy tundra with one weak blast, but he decided not to. He needed to destroy the planet; he didn't have the time to waste on such a creature.

Today was a bad day for Lamian. His men died more than usual, his gun was absorbed into a holed man, and his cloak was singed. This planet was clearly unlucky. So, Lamian did the thing any heroic commander would do. He called his main commander, the tree man with a name Lamian hadn't bothered to remember, and told him his plan of action.

"Whatever-your-name-is, you're in charge."

Then Lamian ran. Well, he didn't run, he had the power of instant teleportation anywhere, anytime. He poofed to his ship and entered the password for the engines. He installed it to simply spite the being who would eventually kill him and steal his ship. Vengeance could come in very small pieces. As the ship lifted off, he sent a message to the fleet hovering over the world.

''​you c those ex-mountains with the booms and stuf? Fire all weapons at that, plz, thx''

- Big L

ps make me a space martini, ill be up soon

It was hot near the center of the world, and dark too. Nameless things crawled through the sludge and mud and rock miles beneath the planet's surface; to separate himself from this ghastly creatures, Icer had created a huge energy attack that had sent an oblong gash streaking from where his opponent had thrown him all the way to the planet's core. Now he stood, covered in mud and blood and bruises, hovering over the planet's mantle, live molten rocks moved in torrents like a great underground stream. Amongst the heat and the low-fires of his destruction, Icer thrust his arms out to either side and began to scream. A blue-black aura materialized around him, and electrical sparks bounced and exploded across the air. From a gash on his forehead, blood seeped out, coating his face in scarlet tears. It's time I end this little game.

Steam rose from the exposed mantle as Icer transformed in a flash of milk-white light. His screams subsided, and the Aphotic Prince stepped out from behind a screen of smoke. Feeling his wrists, Icer began to stretch. It's not often I have to transform into my final form, Icer mused in his mind. This will be fun.

The Arcosian found his way to the surface and was met with a blast of frigid cold. The night was dark, a great blizzard roaring through the ruins of the mountains. Dead soldiers covered the broken ground like bloody garbage. It was quiet, save for the wind. And then, Icer saw the bursts of light. One after another, they flashed into sight before being swallowed up by the blizzard. Then, Icer felt the ground shake and rumble, causing him to nearly fall over. Explosions they were, and as he watched more and more of the lights, Icer realized they were coming from above - from space. Damn that Yardrat! Icer thought, angrily. ''Doesn't he know I'm still down here?! Maybe he knows I can breathe in space, but does that fool expect me to survive this planet exploding?! This Yardrat may be as dumb as he looks, after all.''

The darkness and cold about him, Icer began to fly off in the distance when he saw an alien hovering in the air. The female Lamian wanted me to kill, he noted. Well, if she's going to die, I'll have it be by my hand, not the fleet's. So then did the pirate lord rush at the female alien, noting with his scouter, that she hadn't powered up from their previous fight. With Icer hundreds of times stronger now than he was back when he clearly overwhelmed her previously, he expected this fight to be a short and bloody one.

Retreating to the outskirts of the mountains, Miki transported away from the conflict to try and make sense of what was happening. It was obvious the Yardart and filthy Arcosian were her primary threats, the army of lesser beings proving themselves as more of an annoyance than anything else. However there was obviously another powerful figure at play, one whom Miki was unable to sense. It was unknown to her if this mysterious third party was friend or foe. If they proved to be the latter retreat was Miki's best option, as having to deal with three powerful figures would prove as a notable health hazard. This fact only became more prominent when one of the large power sources suddenly increased, resonating frighting power.

"Well, better see if this is two on two." Miki muttered to herself. "Just hope I get the chance to beat that Arcosian to death with his own tail."

With her strategy decided, Miki again teleported back into the carnage. Immediately she was faced with a surprisingly human-like being, one that greatly resembled a young man. The being appeared to be in mid strike having paused at Miki's sudden appearance. Judging by the odd burnt smell in the air, the Yardrat was only a short distance behind Miki, likely the intended recipient of the attack.

"Umm..." Miki stammered unsure of how to proceed. "Friend or foe?"

Canon sensed an explosion of power from deep within the planet, which promptly began to fly at incredible speeds towards the surface. According to his calculations, the power came from exactly where he had blasted the Arcosian to hell. His calculations also indicated a 99% chance that that was the Arcosian, a 1% chance that he had accidentally released an imprisoned space pirate, and a 100% chance that he was f*cked. At least, at his current power output.

Suddenly, another power began approaching his direction. The only being left on the playing field that could reach that velocity and that he wasn't already monitoring was the alien girl. Turning, he saw the girl stop her flight mere meters from his position. She looked slightly confused, but managed to utter two words: "Friend or foe?"

Canon was distraught at the girl's naive question. Surely she had no idea what she was dealing with. It didn't matter to Canon, though. What did, however, was that the girl had been luring the Arcosian to her. Suddenly, the monster appeared and all three combatants were face to face for the first time.

She is even stupider than I thought, Icer mused as he watched the female alien fly over to the male one. ''She hasn't powered up yet. Maybe she's already at her full power. That would be rather unfortunate for her.''

The air smelled of plasma and glass, and smoke rose from all directions. Lamian's fleet continued to bombard the planet, but their energy salvos were hitting the ground too far away from the two hovering beings. They are safe, for now.

Icer sped over to the two, and he noticed the girl was speaking. But it didn't matter what she was saying; he had a job to do, and he needed to finish it.

"Lamian sends his regards," Icer said coldly as he reached the two. He teleported up to the girl and then punched her hard in the chest. As she fell down to the smoldering ground below, Icer turned to face the other alien. "You're too slow," he said. "I'll kill her first."

Icer then sped off after the falling female alien. Snow was falling on the scorched ground, melting and steaming as soon as it touched the glassy surface. Still, it was cold. Lamian's plasma attacks were only a superficial heat, a fake heat. At that moment, Icer felt himself longing for some space heroin again. He shivered. ''I won't end up like my brother. I'll kill this foe, and I'll survive. And then I'll treat myself to some high-grade space heroin.''

The thought of that almost made Icer purr.

Again utilizing her limited teleportation capabilities, Miki appeared directly in front of the oncoming Arcosian, driving her fist directly into his face as he sped towards her and sending him in the opposite direction. Following up her surprise counter strike, Miki extended her index finger in her target's direction and began firing off a rapid succession to Death Beams.

-

Lamian finally arrived on his main ship, the massive grey beast known as the Hobo Karate. He walked forward as his leal servants stripped him of his armor. He gaspeto himself as he realized that he forgot to do something. "Hey, did we tell the other guys to retreat yet?"

A small space badger, who had reproduced several times already and was suckling no less than three cubs, spoke up, "No, sir."

"Frig. Fire harder so they don't get angry at us, plus screw those other guys down there." Wait, am I forget- OH RIGHT DAMN "Also, try not to shoot at Icer. Is he still alive? I think he's still alive."

Lamian put out his hand, but nothing was given to him.

"WHERE'S MY SPACE MARTINI?!"

The death beams felt like the low-powered water jets in Lamian's hot tub. Why won't she power up? That perplexed Icer. When he had been thousands of times weaker the last time they had met, he had easily dealt with her too. If she doesn't power up soon, I'll kill her without even trying. Icer laughed. ''I wonder what she did to Lamian that made that Yardrat want to kill her, though. Maybe she's a space hooker.''

"Hey space hooker," Icer shouted as he rushed towards the female alien. "You really don't know what you're dealing with, do you?"

He kicked her in the chin, teleported behind her and did a front flip, slamming his tail against the alien's face. When she spun backwards, Icer created half a dozen afterimages. Simultaneously, the fake clones charged up energy beams and prepared to shoot them at her. It was just then that Lamian's fleet began to target the female alien, sending another volley of energy her way.