[IC] A Hero Tale {Complete}

[Necrophage]

Oz stood on the shoulder of his avatar, surrounded by a tide of ooze. Atlas' foothold was almost none-existent at this point, the wave of shambling oozes acting like a viscous mud. Atlas fell to its knees and used an arm to steady itself beneath the mass of ooze, keeping the hammer and Oz above the chaos.

"You're good at this." Oz passed an idle compliment. "Good thing I'm a great student." He finished. What he lacked for numbers and volume he made up for in quality. Ada had a skill to change her ooze into what ever being or shape she needed to use in a pinch. Oz also had that value in him. Atlas was made up of the ki he had summoned. That ki was still malleable fuel and he was standing right on top of it. He hopped up Atlas' extended arm and landed atop the hammer. "Atlas. Thank you." He said in a solemn tone. He knelt and placed his hand against the hammer. Atlas let go and the hammer started floating upward.

"Do your duty friend. You'll be back." It may have been a construct for him but he was sentimental. The center of Atlas' chest began glowing a dark purple color that quickly expanded out toward the rest of its torso. Atlas expectantly erupted in a sudden and intense ki explosion, blasting everything around out and giving Oz a greater boost skyward atop the still formed hammer.

[tex]

Ada's wave of ooze wobbled slightly as the majority of her army was consumed in a blast of Ki. Oz had sacrificed his titan to do away with all of it in one fell swoop, Leaving Ada somewhat irritated. But at the same time, unburdened by the massive concentration it took keep her Ozmone army active. "Fine then! We'll get a little more intimate." Ada called out, making a sharp turn with her wave, one hand pressed against the icky surface of the platform as she began speeding towards the ground beneath Oz. When the platform stabilised, she rose both hands towards Oz, and unleashed a torrent of purple go, headed his way. It took no specific shape or form, its purpose solely to trap Oz in a sludge that spelled imminent death.

[Necrophage]

The great hammer flew higher rapidly but Ada made it clear she didn't want him going anywhere by pouring more resources into launching purple tendrils at Oz and his vehicle of choice. At the rate her grasp approached she would reach him before anything else happened. He launched a volley of ki blasts at the reaching ooze futilely. There was too much too fast. He would need to think bigger to counter something like that.

With his hand flat against the flying hammer Oz imprinted into it a specific command, using Atlas' semi-sentient energy that still clung to it. He kicked down against the haft and let it continue upward in a spin. Oz lost his footing, allowing himself to falling a few feet before redirecting himself downward. In an abuse of his power over gravity, Oz dodged the initial tendrils by arcing back upward, twisting around and looking back down in a briefly suspended space in the air. "Intimate. Alright. I'll play." Ada had volumes more ooze than what she was using. It was safe to assume if she caught him unprepared that she would win in spite of all his defensive bluster. He needed to close distance and make such volume and strength over mass impossible to use.

Oz reeled back his left arm and began charging energy into it, it gave off a nearly blinding violet light as the skin itself radiated. It was such an intense amount of ki that he risked disabling or destroying the whole arm in order to guarantee his success against Ada. This was likely the most risky move he'd done in a long time but playing it safe isn't always playing for keeps. You must be willing to sacrifice if you want victory over a universe-shattering force.

The descent began. The usual personal shield protecting Oz went up but it seemed like the shield had trouble protecting the empowered arm. Oz went down, left-arm first and shooting straight toward Ada. "I bet Jenso would call this something." He whispered against the wind.

[tex]

Ada's ooze, missing Oswald in its head-on assault, began to plummet after him, unable to gain in on the heavy-handed tank despite its best efforts. The ooze was sluggish in comparison to Oz's gravity assisted descent, and without form, it was sluggish in general in such large quantities. Ada looked up, and released her control of the Ooze above Oz, letting it disperse into a cloud of thick smoke that began to overshadow the two of them as he came towards her. But she wasn't about to let him strike her with such a straight-forward attack. Here eyes flickered curiously. Was it really as simple as it looked? The goop below her lowered her body and pushed the woman's stance beyond the point of impact, leaving behind a long, thin slick of sludge where Oz was bound to land, while raising a low wall behind Adarine, which she took safety in ducking behind. He body faced away from Oz, but with her visual prowess, he was never truly out of her sight. With her preparations made, Ada braced for any sort of impacting force Oswald was about to make.

[Necrophage]

Ki trailed in ribbons behind Oz as he descended like a comet tail. The raw ki was also pushed ahead of his hand, allowing it to impact the area even before he physically did. The ground shattered on impact, cracking in a wide area and giving into a crater at Oz's position. The thin layer of sludge cleared away from his landing zone easily, giving him some space. An aftermath of shock waves ensued as the energy released itself from his arm.

Oz lifted his good arm in the low visibility of the dust and smoke kicked up from the brief air bout. He created a dome shield that went thoroughly through the ground to trap him and Ada inside of and keep the remaining ooze she had set up outside away.

Then the pain hit. "Aah hell!" Oz cursed. He winced at the sudden surge from his shattered arm. On examination it was as if the arm couldn't decide whether it was partly burnt or totally broken. He peered carefully at Ada's wall for signs of any movement. "You like this sort of thing don't you, dear." He played along.

[tex]

Ada's wave of sludge trembled over the resounding impact, but the woman refused to lose her balance. The tail of her vehicle of choice was shredded, along with a fair amount of the ooze she'd left behind. At first, once she lowered the barrier and stood upright, high above Oz on her makeshift tower of sludge, she seemed barely phased. But when the barrier erected around them, giving both a limited amount of space, her face scrunched up angrily. "Oh, you..!" She smiled and rose a hand, only for it to fall down in a fearsome swing. Nothing happened at first. Ada winced as smoke caught her face, but swatted some of the debris away with her other hand. "hmm~hmm~hmm, of course! A confined space, close together, I can practically taste your sweat." Suddenly, the outer part of Oz's dome was under siege. Well, siege might've been an exaggeration. From the cloud above, drops of rain, purple liquid, began to descend upon the two of them. Of course, they couldn't get inside of the dome, but the thin layer of liquid violet changed the hue of the sunlight, and pooled around the outer perimeter of their new battle-arena. Ada's eyes fixated on Oz's arm, and she licked her lips. "You may have underestimated me just a little, hon. But I admire your confidence. One on one? With me? Hah!" Ada's sludge pillar lowered slightly, and she braced herself, placing one hand on the platform between her legs while it moved. "You and your silly little friends might pose a threat together, I'll concede to that much. But... Hoho, there's no way in hell that you can take me on..." Ada's eyes narrowed as she stared at Oz's injured arm even deeper, "...Single-handedly... Heeheehee~" From the bottom of her pillar, two tendrils of hardened ooze lashed outwards, coming at Oz from both his right, and his left.

[Necrophage]

A dome shield seemed like a good idea for a sweeping attack like this. Inception tricks weren't in his arsenal though. No dome inside a dome. The whips came at him and he had only offense and a weakened shield to counter. He stepped toward the lash closest to his right and empowered his good with a burst of ki. He managed to smash through the hardened ooze as the opposite limb smashed into his weak side, sending him tumbling and bloodied. A weaker man could have been easily crushed.

Oz sat on hand and knees, squinting at Ada through blood that dripped off his brow. Despite the rigor of battle he began counting down in his head. He had a presence of mind to combat distraction and pain. His wrist dragged limply against the ground as he pulled himself back up and smiled defiantly at the witch. "Do you know what it's like to really hurt, Ada? Not the pain of flesh or stress on the soul. No torment on the mind either. But to have your heart broken." Oz used his good arm to emulate a wrenching and crushing motion. "Metaphorically wrenched from you and shattered in your view?"

[tex]

Ada rose her head away from Oz's words, the glee in her posture fading away, replaced by a haughty curiosity, disdain clearly evident in her glare.

_{'What is he babbling about?'
'Why is he smiling?'
'What is wrong with him?'}

Ada's eyes narrowed after she turned her head sideways, as if to pull away from something disgusting. She suddenly smiled wide, her violet mouth visible through the fabric in her mask as she glared at Oz out of the corner of her right eye. "I suppose the answer your looking for is no?" Ada wretched, "Or, what, speechlessness? Confusion? Denial?" Ada's platform lowered slightly, and she knelt down onto one knee, still a ways above Oswald on her little perch. "Do you think me a monster with no grasp on the whims of mortality? Too arrogant to know what love is? Or the backlash of such feelings? Come now- Just because I possess such awesome power and kneel above you like some sort of soulless demon... Feh!" Ada's ooze began to wrap around the entire circumference of the dome's inner edge slowly as she spoke. "I sustain myself on that hurt. I crave it, mould it, build it to relive it- Any opportunity I can get, I'll take it. Men, women, children, stupid little boys who think they can play god, all just puppets to amuse me, their feelings are a circus for me to perform a wicked nostalgia- Oh, how I look forward to slitting that little archer's neck when this all over, even now... I want to feel his sadness, and my own, as tears run down these rosy cheeks relentlessly!.. It reminds me of mother." Ada paused and frowned, looking down at Oz, Curious, and eager. "What do you know of love, little boy? Speaking so highly?" Ada nodded and pouted with here eyes pointed downwards, mocking Oswald's comments.

[Necrophage]

Oz's hand glowed as he raised it to the roof of their arena. The dome's translucency was replaced with a sky blue light that was impossible for normal eyes to see through. He was augmenting it with veil.

"For all I have gained, I doubt I could get much lower." A twinge of sadness furrowed his brow and just as quickly it was gone. "Why would you want to feel woe? To experience such sadness again and again? Is it all you have left to savor and feel?" He continued.

[tex]

Ada stood up, eyeing the dome around them directly. She couldn't see past it, despite her visual abilities. "This is your meta energy?" She muttered to herself. Her head snapped back towards Oswald. His question went unanswered, and she clenched both her hands. "What did you do!?"

Outside of the dome, every trace of Ada's magic was erased. The clouds above, any lingering ooze, and the liquid around the dome disappeared once she'd lost connection with it. Above all else, she couldn't see what was happening beyond the veil that Oz had created.

Ada paused, and looked back down at Oz angrily. She smirked, sinking into a state she'd rarely been privy to. She was serious. "I'm claustrophobic," She wimpered, "This bubble is making me anxious. I don't like this." The ooze that had crept its way around Oswald now surrounded the entirety of the dome's rim. It began to slowly climb up the walls, like candle-wax that melted towards the sky. She eyed it, and then looked back at Oz. She hadn't felt this way in quite a long while. The dome separated her from Yzeira, somehow. She couldn't see him, or feel his presence, despite her innate ability to do so, even between the fabric of reality. The anxiety, pressure, everything about it began to creep past her exterior and into her mind. Her voice echoed inside of Oz's head now. "I don't like this feeling. I don't like it- I hate it, take it down this instant." Ada rose one hand to her mask and felt underneath her right eye with three of her fingers, gently caressing her cheekbone, longingly. "He's not- I can't feel... Take it down, now! Take it down!"

[Necrophage]

Oz clutched at his shoulder as if pressing it closer might ease the pain. "What happened to your speech Ada? Did I mishear that you have a grasp of mortality. Life can be lonely. You may have forgotten how precious it is to have family until now. To be attached, welcomed..." He grunted, rolling his shoulder. "To understand mortality is to understand weakness and loss. I am not a god or pretend to be one like you say, Ada. And if Geode was my god then I will never be what he was. I am weak. Welcome to my world."

Oz kept mentally counting. Ticking away at the seconds left that he planned. He just prayed it wouldn't kill him too. The hammer was falling. Fast. Everyone in the battlefield could see it. Everyone except Oz and the one who used to see everything.

[tex]

"Shut up!"

Ada's platform lowered until she was finally at level with Oz, but by that time, the entire inside of his dome was coated by her ooze. The light was drowned out, leaving the two of them in absolute darkness. Ada's glowing eyes were the only thing visible at first, until, she closed those as well. A resounding explosion, something akin to a lightning storm, roared silently from outside the orb. Ada didn't acknowledge it, instead occupied by her sudden loneliness. "You don't know what we are. He loves us, we're his children. He tore us from our wretched realities and gave us immortality, the will and power to do as we please, and see to our ambitions. You are just a silly little boy, bent on destroying our happiness!" Ada's ooze began to drip from above, closing in on Oz from all directions. Droplets, tendrils, like quicksand from below... "We are his family!" Ada's goop quickly overflowed, pushing against Oz's barrier in all directions, expanding as much as it could possible manage, while also moving in on Oz directly.

"I'm going to squash you!"

[Necrophage]

Ada really had lost it. It was only another facet of her already broken sanity though. She'd been keeping herself safe and distant for most of this battle but now here she was closing the distance for Oz. She was afraid of tight spaces sure but at this point being in here was making Oz claustrophobic too. It was downright creepy in here. Now it seemed like it would be a contest to see which would squash the other first only Ada didn't realize it yet. Oz raised a small mote of energy into the air to light the room, only to find it quickly filling in from the sides. It was like a dungeon delver's worst nightmare.

Oz pushed forward, away from the filling edges and towards the unstable witch. She closed her eyes but it was likely the ooze could act as her sensory agents in her place. Regardless he pressed at her to grab her with his good arm.

[tex]

Ada's ooze quickly pushed Oswald away from her. A few more seconds, and his last pockets of air were officially stolen from him, with Ada breathing in her purple sludge as if it were the air itself. Her eyes, all-seeing, opened again, but there was nothing to see beyond the miniature ocean of purple ooze. It began to press him from all angles. There was no more air to breath. Soon he would be crushed under her power's natural pressure, if his dome didn't give way first. Her voice echoed one more time, in the moments before Atlas' hammer struck.

"D I E"

[Necrophage]

Naturally with nothing left to stop it, the dome gave way before Atlas' hammer fell. It was directed to where Ada hid when Oz initially jumped in and closed himself off. After closing himself in with her he couldn't make any further instructions to Atlas, meaning he needed to keep her from moving around. Did she move very much? Everything was getting hazy.

Oz couldn't see or hear, but he could certainly feel the impact near him.

[tex]

As the barrier gave way, Ada's ooze shot out in every direction, covering a considerable part of the field with a sudden tidal wave of her meta energy. Her eyes flashed, and she shot her head upwards. There it was. From a distance, the resounding crash echoed across the battlefield, strengthening the tide of Ooze that had already burst out from the pressure within the dome of Veil. The waves of goop sunk into Bruce's huge crater, filling it partway, while a large portion of the northernmost part of the battlefield was dampened, with droplets of purple liquid hanging from the grass and soaking into the soil. Oz was launched away from the point of impact, across the filling Ravine, and towards Jeff's Castle, free from her crushing embrace despite the considerable distance he covered. Ada on the other hand, went nowhere. After the explosive impact subsided, a large mound of Goo was left where she once stood, gathered up like a hill inside of the crater left behind, and sinking towards its epicentre. Ada was nowhere to be found. As far as anyone who had witnessed the impact knew, the witch was no more.

---

~ End Of Chapter 179 ~

[tex]

~ Chapter 180 ~

_{What Now, Jenso?}

Dacer slowly stepped away from Jenso's body. It had been competently ravaged by the Royal Amp. There's no way he was getting right back up after something like that. With Jeff now solo, Dacer smiled and began to walk towards him, ignoring the pain that stung the bottoms of his feet. "Well?" Dacer grunted, "What's next? You gonna show me some new form or something? How about another gadget? Or, maybe you'll just run away like a bitch." Just then, the impact from Atlas' hammer shook the very ground. Dacer stood upright, barely shaken by the quake, but he turned to witness the explosion of purple ooze, and Oz flying towards them. "Wha..?"

[Necrophage]

Disoriented and gagged by nasty purple crap, Oz rolled through the air in Dacer's general direction. He skidded across the ground and kept tumbling comically past the stare down group. Finally he slid to a halt leaving a viscous trail of slime in his wake.

Oz rolled onto his stomach, lifted himself up and vomited horrible purple goo all over the ground. After he'd finished dry heaving for an uncomfortably long moment he turned to look at the two fighters still standing about a short distance away and likely staring at him. It was difficult to tell, there was a pinkish blob over one eye and blood crusted on the other. "What? You guys look like.. Uh.. what do you look like..?" He trailed off and brought one knee up so he could use his good hand to clear his eyes. He got a good look at Jeff and Dacer. "Who's the furry..?" He paused mid-sentence as the truth dawned on him. "Oh. Uh, that's right it's Dacer.."

[tex]

Dacer grit his fangs and lashed his tail sideways. The Gaian looked back over at the impact point, where Ada's ooze stood motionless, barely visible over the horizon inside of the crater that Atlas' hammer left behind. He turned back to Oz. It quickly became clear that he was in no condition to fight him. Dacer smiled, his ears shaking confidently. "More fodder," he mouthed, chuckling lightly. "Hey, muscle-head! I took down your precious golden boy," Dacer announced, loosening his stance casually. "You guys just keep lining up to die."

[Jensoman]

Jenso turned his head to Dacer painfully and glared at him, not saying a single word. He was unable to stand up as the electricity coursed through his body. He felt relieved as he heard Oz's voice, smirking at him. With Oz's help, they certainly had a better chance to save Dacer. 'Go ahead and ignore me...Dacer...I'm not down for the count just yet..!' He thought. He remained lying on the ground to wait for the electricity to go away, not wanting to grab Dacer's attention as he looked up at the sky again.