Scene #2961: 1212=A Not So Jovial Rivalry

Owner	Pose
Project MORDRED	The Baron of Amalthea and the Baron of Thebe have long been squabbling, as have their fathers. As such things go, the pettiest reason for strife is eagerly leapt upon, and in this case the heir to Amalthea's throne has made mentions along the lines that anyone who pretends the Petty Titans can stay out of external struggles are deluding themselves. He's right, of course, but the Baron of Thebe has requested aid from MORDRED and some other allies to show him he's wrong. Now there's a loophole, MORDRED is allowed to bring any allies he so desires to the fortress on Amalthea the Thebans will be assaulting. This happens to include the Confederacy. Meanwhile, the Amaltheans have found out MORDRED's aid has been requested, and have sent a missive to the Union for aid defending them from a Confederate attack... though that categorization is debatable. Either way. The Thebans, MORDRED and Confederate allies have taken a position half a mile away from the fortress. Any Union support would have been welcomed beyond its walls, to aid in support. The two groups are about equally sized, before external support is accounted for. Four Knights: Baron, Heir and vassals; along with a dozen squires in space fighters and other combat vessels.
Bardock	Bardock is a saiyan. He is also a member of the Union, and he is also a member of the Time Patrol, but he is mostly a saiyan. That means he looks forward to fights, and is pretty good at combat. The chance to fight against the Confederacy to protect some people, even if he doesn't know them or what they're about, is as good a reason to participate as any. But if there's any sort of feast or other food provided for the Union's champion protector or whatever he's here to be, his hosts may soon begin to regret having him here as he starts eating them out of house and home. Putting away course after course into a body that just plain doesn't look BIG enough to accomodate that much food. And if no food is provided, well, Bardock will be EXTRA GRUMPY due to hunger, and scowl with EXTRA INTENSITY as he keeps an eye out for trouble. He has a scouter, though he doesn't strictly-speaking need one. Mostly it's for communication and other details that his Ki senses wouldn't make him aware of. He also on his typical armor. Though with how often it gets trashed, maybe he should look into something else in the future. Either way, while he may not be familiar with the details of this political squabble, one thing is clear. This bunch need someone to fight on their behalf. Someone from the Union. And that's what Bardock's here to do. And to eat food, because damn he's hungry!
Kari Wolf	Kari peers out at the castle-like structure, having come along to help Project MORDRED. The robot girl is indeed tiny, but her Dire Wolf armor packs a number of anti-personnel weapons as well as some rather sharp and pointy bits for her preferred close-up fighting style. Since the Howling shinki can't fly, she's hitching a ride with somebody, stowed away in the hand of Glare-NT and waiting for the go signal. Maybe they'll recover some loot that can help her Master in Confederate R&D! Of course she's a self-aware AI like the Emergent, which may have unintended consequences given the conflict that AI has caused in this solar system. "Ready when you are, Mister MORDRED." She radios to the pilot of her 'ride'.
Project MORDRED	At Kari's signal, MORDRED just nods towards the Baron of Thebe, and the plan starts. Five Knights and all squires rush towards the Amalthean fortifications each of them, except for MORDRED, aiming their ranged weapons at a single spot in the protective dome. Civilians be damned. The first barrage doesn't break the dome, but it sends alarm systems firing within the Fort, and a thin crack forms inthe crystalline structure. It might take one more barrage, but there's a limit to how much it'll take. The Baron of Amalthea curses to himself, near the empty plates that fed Bardock, before stating over the Fortress intercom. "All Civilians to the lower levels, this is not a drill. My Knights, Squires, Sir Bardock. They seek to force us out, let us be men of honour and meet their challenge outside." One squire offers Bardock a spare vacuum suit before dashing off into his fighter. MORDRED sighs, "I told you I didn't like this plan, your Lordship. It lacks honour." He doesn't otherwise respond, landing on the surface and lowering his hand to allow Kari to get to the ground with only a small jump. "It's starting."
Bardock	Bardock can use his Ki to breathe in space temporarily, but if the vacuum suit can spare him that burden in energy, then fantastic. He quickly puts it on as best he can over his armor, and then heads out with the others. "They seem to care a whole lot about honor," Bardock returns acidly to the Baron. "You don't gotta' compromise your principles, but I hope you don't mind if I take them out BEFORE they can kill all your people rather than waiting for them to accept a letter of challenge or something." He has no idea how these duel things work, but he knows that venting a civilian population into space isn't something he's going to just stand by and allow. He's already done it himself too many times. Bardock doesn't need a spacecraft or anything, so an aura of blue-white Ki blazes up around him as he streaks through the air/void towards the attackers as soon as he's outside. Maybe the knights and such can move fast too. Maybe not. But if he gets there first, maybe he can buy some time for the others if they lag behind.
Kari Wolf	Kari hops down, having much better gravity assist in this armor than her normal Howling armor, though she still lacks any kind of attitude control other than using her tail as a counterweight. She takes a few hops, cautiously at first since she keeps feeling like she's going to fly off into space (and with an escape velocity of just one meter per second, she /might/ anyway). As she gets the hang of pushing herself more horizontally than vertically in this gravity, a fierce Saiyen Warrior appears! Uh oh. Kari hesitates, trying to figure out some way of getting around the big burly guy. Or at least distracting him somehow. Kari wobbles as she anchors herself by stabbing her bladed tail into the Amalthean crust, and then unleashes a barrage of micro-grenades at Bardock from her shoulder launchers. They aren't exactly aiming /for/ Bardock but the icy ground in front of him, designed to cause an eruption of obcuring dust and debris to shoot upward and into the Saiyen's face. A sound is transmitted over the broadband radio, probably meant for Bardock. "THBBBPT!"
Project MORDRED	"They made their intent clear, this is no formal duel. We shall not wait for any further signs they're ready." The defending Baron makes his stance clear as they move out through the airlock into the void outside. They're fast, these fifteen foot tall humanoid warmachines are definitely designed for high velocity activity. Initial barrages of missiles and plasma blasts go flying for the Theban and Confederate forces, one hits MORDRED in the shoulder, another shoots down one of the squires, his fighter spinning out of control into space. While the theoretically neutral locals duke it out, MORDRED notices one person who is not like the other people fighting on the Amalthean side, and he tries to take advantage of Kari's attempts to create dust clouds. He charges up his XTE Lancepack, firing a blast of hydrogen plasma at the Saiyan.
Bardock	The grenades may not have been aimed at him, but Bardock doesn't know that, and so he pulls up short while bracing himself to defend against the attack. When they hit the ground instead, creating a cloud of dust, he quickly realizes it's a smoke screen. The blast that comes at him through the obscuring barrier can't be predicted due to not being Ki-based, but his fighting instincts are sharp, and he flickers out of the path of the attack just in time to only suffer a painful glancing blow off his Ki-infused defenses. While trying to fly around the visual obstruction, he shoot Ki blasts from both hands over and over, at the enemies below. He doesn't think he wants to get hit by either those grenades or that plasma blast directly. Both of them looked pretty dangerous. These aren't mook Planet Traders. They're 'Elites', like Zarbon and Dodoria. Or more properly, closer to Bardock himself in strength. "Tch... I'm going to need an I.D. on these two if I'm going to counter them..." This isn't a tournament match. And he's not fighting just for himself. Not knowing what he's up against could cost a lot of people their lives. The ki blasts detonate whenever they wind up hit something. Also, Bardock gets some rude message over the local radio. He chooses to ignore it for now, but clearly someone in the area is REALLY IMMATURE. >:(
Kari Wolf	Kari is sent flying by one of the ki blasts, arms waving around to clear the clingy dust from her visor... and then she realizes the visor doesn't care if there's dust and stops. She is a bit far from the ground for her to get back easily though. She floats for a moment or two, trying to work out in her head how to deal with this problem. It's totally surreal to her, watching all the fighters and people below and above her moving around in silence as she floats and spins. The grenades kicked, that's why she stuck her tail in the ground. "Hey... why didn't I think of that sooner..." she says to herself, but of course she's the only one who hears it. The shinki's Barkzooka materializes in her arms, more anti-materiel rifle than .38 pistol in scale to the diminutive shinki. And as she spins, she tries to time her shot to wing one of the Barony of Amalthea's fighters roaring past her, the recoil from the shot easily sending the robot rocketing back towards the surface. Kari twists just before she hits the surface, gun stowed back in the shinki's 'hammerspace', and grabs with the claws on her feet and hands to slow herself as she skids along. There's an easy to spot dust trail from her re-entry.
Project MORDRED	Kari removes one of the squires in his fighter from the battlefield, his craft spinning out of control and Amalthea's gravity well. In general, the squires appear to be thinning out, only four on the Amalthean side and two on the Theban side remain operational. Perhaps as compensation of luck, it's an Amalthean knight that first takes heavy damage, one of the Baron's vassals loses her Armour's right arm, highly limiting her combat effectiveness. The Ki-blast does heavy damage to Glare-NT's targeting systems, not ideal in a chaotic situation like this. That robot ought to be in the Union's databases, easily identified as belonging to MORDRED, a confederate Ally local to this region. As his target systems are offline, MORDRED stops trying to fire plasma blasts, instead he draws a six foot long razor thin sword as his thrusters charge up, going straight for Bardock, swinging as soon as he gets into range, to add in extra kinetic energy.
Bardock	Before Bardock can consider backing up the Amaltheans, he suddenly has a mecha his query to the Union databases just provided an I.D. on surging towards him. Likewise, the I.D. of Kari, but he doesn't have the time to deal with her artillery onslaught against the Amaltheans right now. Because he has to channel his Ki into his arms and try to block the incoming sword attack. It catches on his forearms, slashing into him and hurling him downwards into the ground. Moon dust rises around the impact point. But despite the painful cuts on his arms now Bardock comes surging back up out of the cloud, trying to return the attack he received with super strong fists instead of a blade! "Yaaaaah!" he yells with his first attack, a charging punch, boosted by his own flight powers. He then follows up with several more punches at high speed. "Ya Ya Ya Ya Ya Ya!" Driving off the Confederates would be a major step forward in securing this area, but Bardock isn't sure if he alone can do it. Two well-known Confederates, one of them a local who most likely knows the environment way better than he does... He might not be able to fight at 'normal' level for much longer.
Kari Wolf	Kari is a little afraid to get into the fight with Bardock and MORDRED's Glare-NT. That guy is fast and the mecha could crush her way easier than the space-suited person. But she's committed to helping and so she takes some leaps towards the fray. Finally she takes a lunging leap at Bardock's knee, or at least where she /thinks/ the knee will be when she gets there. Her claws in her armored gauntlet gloves glint menacingly and her tail whips around trying to slash at what she assumes are tender spots. If she gets a purchase, she's going to cling on for dear life and distract/annoy Bardock until she's inevitably flung off. She transmits snarling sounds, as if she's trying to give the impression she's rabid or something.
Project MORDRED	In the background, the fight rages, but numbers drop rapidly on both sides. The disabled Amalthean knight is pulled out by one of her squires, while the other Amalthean knight managed to kill a Theban knight with a well-aimed missile. That's one more good knight lost to the squabbles of the Petty Titans. The fight seems to be going roughly equal on both sides. MORDRED is punched several times over, he didn't quite expect the ferocity or power of those punches, and his self-repair systems overload as a result. It's not going well for him, unfortunately. Luck be a lady, but it's not one that favours him of late. He sends a radio signal to the Baron of Thebe to let him know he's not doing well, just in case, then tries to drive a robotic knee right into Bardock's nose, because this is not over yet.
Bardock	"What the hell!?" Bardock yells as he suddenly has some ferocious little goblin clinging to his leg and shanking him in it. For a moment he wonders if he's being attacked by a lilliputian, one of the alien species 'recruited' by Frieza, but it's that Kari Wolf! Not really an improvement! As he tries to deal with the stabbing pain (and just plain stabbing) in his knee, he then gets a knee to the face while he's distracted, whipping his head back and sending him hurtling backwards through the vacuum. He snarls as he comes out of his zero-g somersault, and suddenly starts surging with Ki that makes his whole body crackle. If Kari's still touching him, she may feel the charge, and the powerful aura that is radiating from Bardock may even throw her away if she doesn't hold on tight. The ground below begins to churn and swirl as it errodes away beneath him in fast-forward. The moon's surface craters under the unseen force, and then craters again even deeper and wider. The whole time, Bardock is yelling out in effort as he forces his body to undergo a transformation. And then the inside of his space helmet flares with a blinding golden light that shines outwards like a high-intensity spotlight, illuminating MORDRED as the saiyan hovers there, fists clenched, and finishes powering up. He relaxes his hands and lowers his arms to his sides as he half-turns, his gleaming blue-green eyes staring out at his opponent with golden spikes of hair hanging down in front of his scarred face due to the confinement of his helmet. If Kari hasn't either gotten out of there or been forced off by now, Bardock will take the time to try to grab her and throw her, but then he's pointing his free hand at MORDRED and unleashing a thick beam of blue-white Ki at his target, that trifurcates along the way, turning into three beams that curve in different directions to try to hit him if he evades.
Kari Wolf	Kari clings! She does her best to cling despite the abrupt zero-g somersault causing all sorts of gyroscopic type sensors to complain at her. It stops her from moving until Bardock stops the movement, and then she's clinging again as he transforms and the force pushes her away. The stretchy material of the vaccsuit affords her a few more moments of hanging on before she's pushed away by the Super Saiyen transformation. Kari is flung away, smashing into the outer bailey of the castle, and her signal stops for now.
Project MORDRED	With MORDRED's targeting sensors offline, he has trouble plotting out evasive maneuvers, and he ends up getting hit hard by the Super Saiyan's beams. Several systems start yelling warning messages at him, and with the Thebans not otherwise having the upper hand, he's forced to recommend that which he doesn't want to recommend. "Order your men to pull back, your Lordship. The battle is lost." He immediately follows his own advice, cruising thrusters activating. Faster but less agile than his regular thrusters, he's going for the Wyrmgate. Simultaneously, the Theban knights and squires that are still pull back as well, leaving the battlefield and heading right for Thebe. The Amaltheans, and Bardock, have won. The Baron of Amalthea doesn't seem to have been unaware of Bardock's contribution. "Thank you for your aid, ser. I do hope you stay for the victory feast?" He's seen Bardock eat before the battle, he has a good enough idea to know what he's offering.
Bardock	Despite his bleeding knee, and his aching mouth, and his lascerated forearms, Bardock was just starting to get serious about fighting these two opponents who are clearly worthy foes. But then they start to pull back. Bardock frowns, but doesn't chase after them. As long as the enemy is willing to retreat without hurting any civilians, he has to control his fighting instincts. He remains transformed, though, sensing for the presence of enemies until they are truly deemed to be out of the area. Then and only then does he let his transformation lapse, and the golden aura blazing around him fade from view. The offer of more food is appreciated. Even if he just ate, and hasn't really worked up an appetite, he isn't going to turn down another big meal. Though... "I'd be honored to accept. But I want to do what I can to seal up those cracks in the dome first. Last thing we need is them shooting some final long-range attack out of spite and finishing what they started." With his Ki, he might be able to weld it closed, though a more long-term solution should probably also be sought. "Also, one last thing. Do you have any reason to think they might come back anytime soon?" The attack was over with so fast, he can't really accept that somehow he and the other defenders chased them off so easily. Those were pro combatants. It just feels... Like maybe it was a diversion of some kind. He'll have to do some asking around.
Project MORDRED	"We do not normally fight until our enemies are dead, ser. If defeat seems inevitable, it is more honourable to grant our enemy the victory and retreat to fight another day than to die for an objective that is out of reach." The Baron of Amalthea reassures Bardock, and he does seem unconcerned. "We'll have some of ours repair the dome, though if you wish to aid, I will not stop you." And those words spoken, he heads back inside, where a massive feast is already awaiting Bardock and the Amalthean troops.