[IC] A Hero Tale {Complete}

[tex]

"Uh, Negative," Blup Blooped, "My body with Geode has fused with Oswald's Blup unit. I cannot reveal any more than that."

"Suspicious!" Mikey blared, pointing at Oswald, "Oz, do you know anything about this?"

[Necrophage]

Oz pondered the answer. Geode was an independent being. He did as he willed. The creator was never really a hostage to begin with. Ever since that fight at the citadel he had been floating about one location in the Guild or another. There was no doubt the others kept a tab on him whenever they could. For good and bad Oz never really cared to. He was rather innocent at heart and still felt the megalomaniacal creator had redeeming qualities despite his blatant threats otherwise. Oz was indeed naive.

"I was a little busy getting pincushioned and smashing holes through walls." He flashed Jeff a goofy smile. "My thoughts: Geode found an alternative to his original plan." He stopped at that vague hint.

[SuperFlash]

Jeff didn't take too kindly to the joke Oz had presented to him and took a moment to mumble various words to himself about how he was just lucky that the apocalypse was a valid reason to practically get unlimited funding from Techmo with the added ocasional swear.
The sage then took a moment to ponder the "hint" that Geode left him. Overall between that and the fact he kept pretty good tabs on all the training sessions everyone went through, Jeff was able to form another hypothosis on what happened though descided to keep it to himself in order to respect Oz's privacy. "Well as long as he doesn't go and try to stab us in the back, he can do what he wants" Jeff said acting to shrug off the entire thing now without much worry. "Let's just proceed without him for now then. If he shows up again, I'll fill him in on any details.

At the very least, Oz's words on this relieved his gut feeling and allowed him to return his focus onto more important things.

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Mikey narrowed his eyes. "I don't really have any reason to distrust you, I don't think any of us do. But, since I was a half-alive doll not 24 hours ago, under control of the Order, it's a little freaky to think about one of those void-guys disappearing so suddenly. Meta Energy is capable of all sorts of weird stuff, who knows what he's been up to?"

"Geode's ghost-like form aside, we may have other problems to deal with first, Blup blup.." The entire guild began to shake as Blup spoke those words. An earthquake?

"Whoa! Is it Rajaka again?" Mikey asked aloud. Luke stood up and held on to the side of the guild table, while Ross did the same.

"This is lastin' a lot longer than anything that big yellow freak's ever done!" Ross shouted.

"Bluuhhhhhh..." The quake lasted several seconds, until it died down. "The spatial fabric of reality is beginning to lose its integrity at a far faster pace... I can actually sense it, now, bluh... Bazzzz...aaaa..." Mikey paused and looked up at the ceiling. "...Uh... This... Ba...Bababa... This is..." Luke stumbled across the table towards Jenso.

"I uh, I don't think it's even remotely subtle. Even with my crappy Ki control, I can feel that too." Mike swallowed a mouthful of anxiety.

"I can feel it too.."

Everyone in the room could feel it, then. Suddenly, they were on a very strict timer.

The universe was starting to tear itself apart.

---

~ End Of Chapter 172 ~

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~ Chapter 173 ~

_{Countdown to Chaos}

Mikey wheeled himself backwards and shook his head. "No, no way. This is happening way faster than I thought it would..."

[Necrophage]

While the earth shook Oz stood his ground, not even needing to lean against something to stay steady. "Looks like Yzeira is upping his timetable. We should do the same." Oz looked around the room at the gathering even while the ground still rumbled about. If the world's state was worsening events like this would only grow more dire. "Is there anything else we need before we start the assault? This is the last stretch and we'll be using some of what time we have left just fighting them."

[tex]

"No, no we should be all set," Mikey announced, "Jeff, get everyone's equipment. Power pills, and everything else they might need, quick." Mikey wheeled his way around the table. Luke ran to his side.

"Mikey, we can't leave you here alone," He insisted. Mikey shook his head.

"Please, I might be crippled, but I'm not worthless!" He rose his arm and summoned an Arki gauntlet, "Besides, Ross will be here with me. He's going to be leading the task force with some of our volunteer heroes to keep Tech-mo safe."

[Brucenorris007]

Bruce's hand snapped up to catch his mug to keep his drink from spilling over. His wooden creation clattered to the floor, and his knife vanished. His shoulders shook separate from the steadily worsening tremors.

'Calm, Sakki. Soon.' Bruce thought to himself, hiding an eager smirk by taking a gulp of his drink. 'Don't let them see how excited you are.'

"He'll be fine, Luke," Bruce assured, nodding in Mikey's direction. "Our mentors are not to be trifled with."

Bruce downed the remainder of his significant mug, knowing that, however many hours the fight would take, it would feel like weeks before he had another drink. Once finished, he tossed the mug over his shoulder and shifted the floor beneath Jeff's chair while he stood up.

"C'mon, 'Wild Card'," Bruce said, referring to the comment he'd made to the Wind Sage not so long ago. Jeff's chair began sliding backward as the floor moved toward the exit. "Let's gear up for the ultimate confrontation."

[Hatman1801]

Alvios was already standing despite the tremors, lifting his sword from the table and strapping the blade and sheathe properly over his shoulder. Despite everything, he felt a sudden rush within him. He thought he'd feel intimidation, or have to fight off panic. Instead, he was feeling excited. Perhaps it was because it was all finally going to have closure; his path began with Shaidra and Yzeira, and now he was coming back for them again, with more than just pride in his heart and spirit in his body.

"Power pills or not, I think the only thing Jeff could bring us that would be helpful now is another drink for Bruce. Hell, I could go for one myself. Might as well challenge the end of the world with no regrets."

[SuperFlash]

Jeff nodded at Bruce and smirked upon hearing Bruce's mention of being the wild card once more before standing up and stopping everyone from rushing off just yet. "I wouldn't worry about leaving this room just yet." Jeff said as he kicked back and pulled out his tablet device and hit a few buttons on it before opening up a slot on the table and placing the tablet into the slot and connecting it into. He then activated the speakers for the moment and let his next words echo throughout the entire guild. "ATTENTION EVERYONE, THIS IS YOUR GUILD LEADER JEFF SPEAKING. As you can probably feel now, The Tower of Chaos is making its move and thus we are now too. Every person and machine that is potentially taking part in the battle head to docking bay 1 or 2 as you were assigned. Otherwise please leave buildings 1 through 6 and brace yourselves. We go air born in twenty."

With the message's end the guild leader shut off the intercom and began making preparations while turning his attention to Alvios and responding back to the comment he made earlier about not being much of help. "I wouldn't say that entirely. If we're going to go down it's gonna be guns blazing at max power!" He then hit a switch which had robotic servants come into the room each with a set of nano visors and power pills for everyone. "They might not look like much, but these things will protect you from cheap shots like sudden blasts of light and sound and will take forms of breathing apparatuses in case they try to screw over the atmosphere on us. Given, unless we bring extra air tanks with us, the most they can provide is about an hour.. give or take.."

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Mikey and Ross both smirked as they were referred to as mentors. Even with his capabilities dampened now, Mikey felt a pang of pride well up from the depths of his chest. He sat up straight and wheeled himself out of the room. "Listen to Jeff guys," He announced, just barely stopping as Ross grabbed his chair's handles. Ross smiled and patted Mikey on the shoulder.

"We'll keep things in order while yer all gone," The Gaian announced, "Give 'em hell!"

[Brucenorris007]

Bruce accepted the visor and pills from Jeff, stowing the pills in his robe.

"How fast can we get there?" he asked.

Bruce glanced toward Jenso- he did have one thing to cover with him before everything came to a head.

[Necrophage]

"Let's come back after all this and share a round. Plan out our way forward and a new beginning." Oz crossed his arms and observed as Jeff helped them make their own preparations. He took the supplies and nodded to their benefactor. "Thanks. Let's hope it doesn't come down to this."

[Jensoman]

Jenso smirked as the tremors had occured, despite the fact that it meant bad news. It seemed like it was finally time, albeit sooner than was expected. Finally, the time had come for them to finish all of this once and for all. He remained resolute in his stance, not even budging slightly as the shaking continued.

"HERE WE GO!!! Let's kick their asses, guys!"

Jenso screamed confidently at the top of his lungs, raising his fist excitedly into the air with a confident grin on his face. He respectfully took the power pill, put it in his pocket, and put the visor on his face. He turned to Bruce and walked over to him. "Bruce...I want you to have this." Jenso stated, handing him his bottomless bag. "It's a bottomless bag...I thought it might be useful for you. You can store as much rocks and dirt in there as you'd want. After all, there probably won't be any within the tower." He stated.

He headed towards Jeff afterwards. "Hey Jeff, do you still have use for Zelriane's mask? If not, may I have it?" He asked.

With that, Jenso began to turn his gaze towards the exit of the room but remained within it, as Jeff requested. With that, a few thoughs began to briefly course through his mind.

'Lark...It's finally time. I will save Dacer like I promised...and mom, and Melani.'

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---

~ End Of Chapter 173 ~

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The Final Battle

~ Chapter 174 ~

_{Take To The Sky, Heroes!}

[Brucenorris007]

Bruce took Jenso's gift with immense gratitude, imagining how helpful such an item would be in a fight against the Order.

"Thank you." He said.

Bruce mulled over what he had to share with the golden warrior- he decided what he had to say wouldn't affect much at the moment, not until they reached the moment of truth against their ultimate opponent. An idea sparked in his mind, and he smirked.

"I can't speak for anyone else," Bruce said, heading for the exit. "But if you think I'm going to be sitting indoors when this place takes off, you'd be sorely mistaken."

On a whim, he kicked up the wooden carving he'd been whittling at into his hand on his way out.

[SuperFlash]

"Well from the looks of it" The sage started to respond to Bruce as he checked the data that appeared on the holoscreen that was being displayed from his tablet. "It seems everyone is on top of things so we should be ready in a moment. As for travel wise, we should be able to reach it with thirty minutes give or take any interruptions the masked guys may try to throw at us."

He then turned his attention to the golden hero who had asked about this mask piece he had obtained earlier raising an eyebrow in curiosity.
"Not sure why you would need it. Oddly enough, it's just an alien black fabric with not many uses, but sure knock yourself out." The sage responded tossing him the mask piece before turning back to a couple more side things. "Actually now that you mention that bag of holding, you should totes store that metal crate inside it as well seeing how it has some extra supplies and tech we could potentially use later. Better safe then sorry."
Jeff pointed to an extra crate he kept stashed in the leftmost corner of the room for emergencies. Given regular circumstances he would have left it there but he figured he might as well make use of that bag as well.

After taking a few moments to make everyone was seated properly and that everyone who was meant to be aboard was actually aboard, the guild leader grinned excitedly as he sent both his hands outwards and the surrounding walls of the room began to project the outside world of the surrounding main tower the heroes they were in and the tower itself began to rumble as the takeoff process began.

Once more the speakers for the guildhall were turned on as Jeff spoke.
" ATTENTION! TAKE OFF PROCEDURES ARE NOW INITIALIZING! Launching in:"

"5... 4..."

"3... 2..."

"1!!"

As the count down reached one a huge red button appeared in the center console and immediately the wind sage smashed his hand down on it open palmed.

"AND BLAST OFF!! WOOOOOO!!!!!"

With that the engines roared loudly, the ground shook, and anyone who happened to not be seated at the time with most certainly lose balance as the Castle rocketed up out of the ground and into the air, with the 5 smaller towers following close behind before soon catching up to it. They then proceeded to have arcane beams shoot out of the smaller towers and into the main one which latched them onto it and allowed them to safely orbit around the main tower in various circular motions while safely dodging past one another by staying set distances apart from one another.

"NEXT STOP!! THE TOWER OF CHAOS!!"

[Jensoman]

Jenso smiled as Jeff tossed him the mask, as he stuffed it into his pocket. "Thanks, man!" He shouted. Jenso staggered backwards slightly from the sudden launch, but slid his left foot further back over the ground to support on it to maintain his balance. He turned to Jeff after the launch, and smirked. "Holy shit, man! You really have outdone yourself this time!" He complimented, and headed for Alvios afterwards.

As he reached his friend, he grinned widely at him. "It's good to see you back in the field, man. With you by our side, there's no way we'll lose! Let's make em pay for all they did to us!" He stated confidently, raising his hand once more as he clenched it into a fist to solidify his point. And to attempt to refuel Alvios's confidence in himself if he needed it. Jenso wasn't lying, after all. He truly did feel more calm and confident now that Alvios was fully healed and was able to fight yet again, and strongly believed that his presence could change the outcome drastically in their favour.

[Brucenorris007]

Bruce smiled, feeling the structure fly into the air, rumbling as it lifted off the ground. He watched from the roof as it rose higher and higher.

'Thirty minutes.' He thought, recalling Jeff's estimate. He sat down, cross legged, and brought back his Ki-based whittling knife.

His instrument would be finished in ten minutes, and he'd spend the next fifteen playing an old melody that brought to mind tales of mythical beings and magic-wielding heroes in a guild not unlike the one to which he now belonged. Two minutes prior to arrival, he decided, he'd make a play of his own to provide the Order a 'request' that they extend an invitation into their tower.

The eager smirk he'd hidden when he was with the others grew once again on his face while he worked, and it remained. For all that was at stake now, even with reality tearing itself apart, nothing could dim the somewhat morbid thrill of anticipation toward the impending battle.

'The Order believes they know fury,' he mused, Sakki stirring a bit. A tinge of red ran down the edge of the gold knife.

"They have no idea."