NoW Round 2: Tannis Green vs. The Clockwork Man

[MelonHead]

The explosive dropped, the Clockwork Man noted the significant energy build up as his opponent uncannily spotted and reacted to the small explosive, despite the cloud of smoke all around them. With his adept vision filters, the Clockwork Man was hardly impaired, so he summarised it made sense his similarly technologically advanced opponent was hardly affected either.

The Clockwork Man made a quick decision himself, his opponent opened up with the pistol blowing stone away with massive amounts of force. It was possible he intended to throw back the explosive, which wouldn’t be an issue; however he may also be planning to use some new dangerous attack. Remotely, with his technopathy, the Clockwork Man detonated the grenade in mid-air before it was ready, leaving it to pose very little threat to Tanis, but also depriving him of his target.

The Clockwork Man immediately followed it, rolling out of the hole towards the ground, his opponent clear to the sensory eye. His left hand swung outwards with the magical inhibitor clasped tight, he activated it the moment it was pointing in Tanis’ direction as he fell to the ground, the powerful wave of debilitating energy shooting outwards to wash over the Collector. It was designed to stop mages by distorting magic and causing massive disorientation, judging from what he had picked up on his biotics it would have a similar effect on him.

Its power spent, he discarded it as he crashed into the ground, feeling the collision shake his already unsteady cogs. He landed on one knee, drawing his fully charged pistol with a sudden shaking speed as he realised he was pretty much dead if it failed to pierce the man’s powerful armour. He fired as it pointed at Tanis’ centre of mass, the collector only ten feet away from him it should have been a certain kill. As he fired he strafed the pistol upwards so the first two shots would hit his lower and upper chest respectively, with the final incredibly powerful round hopefully piercing his skull.

Down on one knee, the gears of his joints whirring with a sudden ferocity as they struggled to lift him, he would holster the now unloaded pistol while pointing his left hand once again at the man, prepared to unleash one final desperate attack.

[Sikako J]

As Tanis was rushing out of room with shield overhead, the device exploded prematurely even for the destructive capabilities of the warp field at play. The blast wave was minimal but it still managed to upset his full stride as he began to turn back to see if his target had fired off his pistol to detonated the device. He was treated with a scene that seemed as if it had come from a holovid of Setium’s journeys into Prothan digs.

His metallic foe was dropping through the fires of his own explosive, flames licking at the metal frame as if he were a demon sent from an age long ago. Smoke worked through he clockwork cogs as if he were born from it, the whirrs of the discs and pumps cranking and driving giving the hell-born creature an absolute lack of humanity that only further increased the dread it produced. His SWEEP scanner was awash in red as a new device was pulled and emitted a wave of photon particle that assaulted his element zero nodes and sent a horrid chill down his spine. His adrenaline was pumping, a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach…he couldn’t recall being this frightened before.

The brass-bronze monster smashed into the stone below like a meteor falling from on high. His world was growling black as he saw the pistol being swung upward from its holster. ARIA was squealing questions in his head that made no sense whatsoever to him. A shot fired out from the clockwork pistol, speeding like a demon to take his life.

He angled the shield to take the incoming fire, the liquid iridium solidifying just in time to absorb a tremendous amount of force as it caused his right wrist to rotate towards his chest making the top of the shield cover his head. A second shot flared from the hand cannon made of cogs, streaking low below his guard causing an audible grunt to issue from his body as it struck. Ceramic coating burst outward as its kinetic threshold was well exceeded. Continuing the projectile made its way under the last rib on his left side, causing a dull pain to immediately begin to pulse as a new stinging one erupted from his back. He could feel all the remaining medigel pack being emptied in an attempt to coat vital organs from the missiles path. He stumbled back barely able to hold his body up when a last shot fired out, striking the shield once more that would have rendered his skull into penny sized pieces. The force threw his body back as he attempted to throw an additional biotic barrier over his face…sadly a wave of dehabilitating nausea and headaches cause him to black out.

As the world faded from his eyes he though out… ’I didn’t exceed the AMP..why?’

His body fell to the ground, with the shield set over his chest and head. Smoke and a blue mist issued from his stomach wound as the Collector lay motionless for a moment. But then the unexpected occurred, his suit began to highlight in blue…not like when he was using biotics with a simple coating…no this ran along the suit’s actual frame, linking together at every joint, every limb..all leading to a circle around the center of his chest. Tanis began to move once again, his body lifting more mechanically than in an agile manner. He rested his weight on the shield as he pulled himself up by the bottom portion that was digging into the dirt below. As his face passed the halfway point on his shield, his target could surely see that his eyes were no longer simple iris. They were glowing, nearly beaming a light blue color in three circles around the iris.
He finally stood to his full height when a robotic tone issued from his mouth, the lips hardly moving.... “Clockwork Man…it is a pleasure to finally introduce myself. I am ARIA.”

Tanis’s body launched forward into the stone room with speed not of a human as his suits joints whirred almost similarly to that of the Clockwork Man’s . His shield arm locked into position to deter fire from his knee joints to near top of his head, ARIA commanded the suit to bring down the blade taken from their fallen foe with vengeance at the Target’s left limb. The electrical current danced along the blades as ARIA targeted the weakened portion of the left arm where the tracer round had hit with the pressure to cut a Turian’s drive core in half.

Should the Target anticipate the strike to the limb, ARIA would instead seek a powerful stab at an upward angle meant to run through where the bottom of a sternum and spine would be nearly parallel to allow the electrical current to travel straight into the Target’s center.

[MelonHead]

The Clockwork Man made no move, no sound, as he silently and quickly analysed the situation as he holstered the pistol. Tanis was wounded, perhaps not mortally, but there was a significant change in his demeanour. It was exactly what he awaited, for without a physical sound he answered ARIA’s greetings. Directly into her ‘mind’ he spoke through the soul core, lashing out with the words in a semi-painful manner as he responded.

“ARIA, I’ve awaited your emergence with some measure of excitement. We are similar, you and I, but even I would never have gone so far as to enslave the living as my vessel. We are very much different, almost reversed, in that respect. Prepare to die.”

There was no more chivalry or honour, just the cold hard force of the Clockwork Man re-asserting itself over George’s kinder personality. The legs creaked powerfully as he stood with a jerky sudden motion, his already outstretched hand bursting with movement as the contraption on his left hand unleashed the grappling hook straight at Tanis’s sword. The grappling hook would at the very least knock the blade off target, which was enough for him as he pulled his left arm backwards to swing his right hand around to meet the attacker. Quickly, he would strike with a powerful chop to the neck, designed to smash Tanis sideways.

With Tanis hopefully at his left, he would retract the grappling hook fully deployed forcefully to catch the Collector’s back. Then, he would step back on his left foot and tug, aiming to pull him over with unexpected force. Should Tanis be sufficiently unbalanced he would risk jumping forward and ducking, pushing his right shoulder forward to flip him over onto his back.

[Sikako J]

“Clockwork, surely you jest. You have yet to embrace immortality! I though you to be of higher stock, but you are just a fleshling’s spirit with a body of metal. You will be dismembered, studied, and destroyed.” Her inhumanly voice held no contempt, just a haunting monotone promise of destruction.

ARIA’s scans no longer had to comply with Tanis’s albeit enhanced yet still human response times. The grapple tool from the Clockwork Man, was thrown quickly enough to avoid her initial attack with the appropriately named ‘Accursed blade’ as the electrical current continued to dance about its length with a most sickening sound. The grapple struck against the blade channeling built up energy that it seemed to continually produce. ARIA had painstaking assured that the suit would no longer conduct its odd form of electrical current. She had though the blade would have become useless from the photon generator the Clockwork man had produced, however it simply limited the amount of energy it could release..not halt the production.

Her slice was off target missing the outstretched arm instead burying the blade into the stone walkway a good two inches, a feat Tanis alone would have been unable to produce without biotics. The tip of the blade now encased in the stone, the curved cutting surface was still exposed. The Clockwork man then used his considerable bulk to slam his opposite hand into a chopping attack.

However ARIA was ready, the suit’s blue lined shield arm simply adjusting at an awkward angle to absorb the blow. She then used the trick she had recorded Tanis using the previous hunt but in better control. The chop hit the shield as it absorbed the kinetic force; the liquid iridium began to form waves but didn’t solidify. His extended fingers would now strike against the suit’s upper chest portion below Tanis’s collar bone, surely leaving a bruise behind as the suit began to fracture at the impact sight. She had to ensure Tanis’s survival or her functionality would become compromised, but she could have a little leeway with not mortal blows.

As the strike connected she poured a tremendous amount of power into the shield’s generating unit. Unlike the Samuri warrior’s match, the shield unit had not become damaged in this bout. Thus she was able to reform the shield into a solid sheet of iridium, which became extremely dense in an attempt to sever the limb from the point of entry. Howeve the sheilding device had met its limit with the extra exertion. It began to spark and broke apart, falling into liquid iridium once more.

With the momentum of the grappling hook and the unexpected loss of a limb, ARIA would use the force to allow an elbow strike into the Clockwork Man’s left shoulder joint with her now free hand. The suit could perform a dutiful amount of damage, but she couldn’t throw the amount of force she desired to Tanis’s bones laying underneath.

With this attack thrown she would seek to then thrown her right palm into the target's neck joint and a stomp at his right ankle joint in an attempt to push him into the curved blade that was still protruding from the rocky walkway.

[MelonHead]

The grappling hook zipped back to him, the metallic edge primed to slice into Tanis’ back as his right hand glanced off the shield. He pulled it back as somehow the energy reformed itself in a weaponized format. Mechanical mind whirring in response to this, he pulled his hand clear at the cost of his two further right fingers, acceptable losses.

Luckily, it seemed the shield shorted itself for its minor victory, and the hook still shot inwards as the Clockwork Man neatly side stepped right to better position it, following through with the momentum of his strike to avoid all but a glancing blow to his left shoulder. When the sharp blades of the hook collided with the unsuspecting warrior’s back, or even if it did not, he stepped forward with a jerking speed and hopefully slammed his two remaining metallic fingers into the throat of his enemy, the strength of his digits doing wonders in cutting off air flow and debilitating his opponent. None such organics existed, to his knowledge, that could fight effectively after such a painful and effective attack. However, he was ready to be proven wrong if necessary and the action of the A.I in controlling her downed host’s movements might allow her to surpass the biological issues of such a strike.

As luck had it, his opponent was already attempting to strike at his own neck with his right hand, an attack which had brought him perilously close for no real benefit, as the Clockwork Man could twist his neck far right to avoid the strike while delivering his own attack with lethal precision.

With his opponent hopefully gasping for breath, the hook likely impaled into his back, the Clockwork Man would finish with an enormous exertion of strength. Turning his back momentarily as he turned left-ways and grabbed hold of his left arm with his right, he would spin full circle and tug the grappling hook first away to unbalance Tanis, and then around to swing him into the air with all his strength and crush him against the stone pillar ten feet away, to the Clockwork Man’s original right.

[Sikako J]

ARIA quickly calculated the loss of the iridium shield; this was a blow that could result in the loss of this match. But much further, it could result in her loss of control over the suit. If she was defeated now, her programming would shut down to save Tanis’s life. She would not fall here, not to one that disdained what she had achieved…what she had become.

Pressure sensors were alarming her that the grappling hook that blocked the blade was now finding purchase in the rear upper quadrant of the suit. Should it become locked in place, the leverage that could be achieved at this angle would prove too much for the suit strength to counter. She would be thrown off balance or worse achieve an unnatural lift. The liquid iridium splashed over the remaining right limb of the target as the sheild shorted out. Two of the digits had been sheared off, however this combatant knew little in the way of pain and was seemingly unaffected. ARIA knew that her advantage had been nullified on such a target, as she too could withstand the pain that her “carrier’s” body would feel.

The elbow strike she had planned with the suit’s left limb managed to fall into a glancing blow, hitting off where a collarbone would meet the shoulder joint on an organic target. The suit whined slightly as metal hit metal but her arm was soon low enough to use once more. Not that it could inflict much damage on the target’s face or neck joint. The suit might inflict structural damage at full capacity, but Tanis’s bone would shatter should she push to that limit. As the Clockwork Man issued out another strike, ARIA quickly retrieved the pistol that has been holstered and readying the ammunition for maximum armor rending tungsten rounds.

As her right palm went for a strike at the Clockwork’s chin and face, he dodged showing off his jerky yet incredible body control. The neck actually twisted out of range for her to counter with a simple melee blow as the Clockwork Man’s remaining fingers struck out at Tanis’s neck. She attempted to push off the target’s ankle joint with her stomp she had initiated to bring the strike to chest level again, but was only successful in using the suits collar to catch the blow. The liquid iridium wavered as the strike hit, still absorbing an amount of energy.

Red warnings flashed over Tanis’s SWEEP scanner as ARIA’s triple circle eyes flickered from the strike. The collar portion of the hard suit fractured under the pressure of the blow, sending forces of energy into Tanis’s lower neck. The omohyoid muscle began to spasm as result, locking the neck in place and limiting her ability to safely alter Tanis’s head. However she has successfully managed to avoid his trachea from being crushed. Her empty right hand now looked to grab onto any cogs, wiring, mesh, or spinal unit as she could begin to feel the grappling hook tear into the suits layers, sending up sparks as it did so.
Clockwork was winding up with a leftward turn in an attack that would surely mean disaster for ARIA and Tanis both. As he turned she linked up the pistol to unload as many shots as possible into the now left side flank area of the target. Tungsten round began to spin wildly out of the pistols small barrel, but she didn’t have the calculations to know whether it would be enough to halt the Clockwork’s actions. In desperation she channeled what remaining power she could muster to the bluewire tool on the same arm.

She was beginning to achieve lift as the grappling hook tore at the suit lifting Tanis’s body at an odd angle. Nearly over other target’s shoulder now she expended everything she had left to reactivate the bluewire tool. It’s blade flickered out three feet, ready to impale the target between the left neck and shoulder joint, however ARIA’s sensors could only recalculate as she found Tanis being flung along with the grappling hook a full five feet away from their target. She tried to use her free arm to unclip the hook, but couldn’t reach.

Damn the Human body!

Her reticles sized up the wire holding it in place, thick and menacing it would take too long to cut through but she had to try. The blade struck against the wire sending sparks and chunks of the metal, but held firm. Adjusting her view without moving Tanis’s head, her scanners saw she was in a direct path to crash into one of the stone pillars. Biotics were still down and at this velocity it would crack the suit, so she in turn whipped the pistol from aiming at her target and fired at the base of the pillar. Four shots fired out as she approached, she had planned to weaken the structure well enough that when she struck it would have a little give with the first three armor rending rounds and use the last to strike out where she was appraching with a force pounding hammer head round to start the fall of the pillar.

Regardless the next few moments might be her last, she began to record the information.

[MelonHead]

The fires wrapped around the battling pair as the Clockwork Man registered the pistol drawn. Committed to his attack, he did little to alter his earlier move in response to Tanis’ weapon but stepped further right before turning, bullets clattering against his metallic form as some glanced away from his powerful hide. Two entered his left side, cleaving through cogs and internals as his body began to pop and whir with an ear chilling screech of metal. Golden oil leaked from the wounds but with a steely determination he only exerted more force in tugging Tanis off his feet.

This is for my daughter; I cannot afford to die here.

The Clockwork Man could lift a tonne of weight, the relatively minor mass of his foe was of no consequence and so it was that he threw all of his strength into the swinging momentum exerted on his foe. The wire held as Tanis tried to free himself, and then the bullets fired at the pillar drew his attention. Fine, the Clockwork Man thought, we will prolong your suffering.

The flying collector would collide with the pillar which broke apart easily but still fragmented into lethal pieces as he was crushed by it. However, now the collision would not be the end point for the unfortunate Collector. Likely battered senseless, the Clockwork Man’s slight upwards lift would draw him past the ruins of the pillar at an upwards angle and then down into a low wall on his back only a few feet to his left before he was caught by the grappling hook.

Brought down on the wall with massive force, the Clockwork Man would judder over, his body leaking golden ‘blood’ from the two massive puncture wounds to his left side, and he would draw his pistol with his mutilated left hand to reload one last time in this battle. In a seconds time, he could draw level with his unlucky opponent, to fire his three rounds directly into his body at point blank range. If he survived that, the Clockwork Man was ready to evaluate everything he thought he knew about organics, and he had been one once.