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You heard me boy. Let's settle this. Do you...no...does Richter accept? We have to finish that which we started long ago. The battlefield is as last time...anywhere, everywhere, and the nowheres in-between. So what do you say?

OoC: If you want a challenge, I am game. Matt s being a big vagina about the topic anyway and I'm looking for a scrap. The only problem is I just really don't want to post with Richter. If you're still in interested, by all means start it up.

((Alrighty, well, Lander's fight is being saved for Richter when you next feel like fielding him, so I'm bringing Holocaust out for this and changing the battlefield to something more suitable to someone who can't screw with physics in the weirdest ways.))

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There once was a world called Erubitu. This world gave rise to tough, green-skinned humanoids when it was very young and enabled them to flourish, for the world was brimming with energy of all sorts. The bright sun fed the photosynthetic skin of these creatures, the Laji, for hours every day. The thick blue, energy-laced magma of Erubitu's core bubbled to the surface and collected in small stone cauldrons that came to be called Magistri Wells. Even the air the Laji breathed was awash with pure power. It had been made so by the Benevolent Ones in time forgotten.

As with all good things of great power, it took little time for the wrong gaze to settle upon the world of Erubitu and its inhabitants. Hailing from the far reaches of space, a man arrived on the world in a massive spaceship and began to preach a dark gospel. He told the Laji that by sapping the energy of the world they could become as gods and rule their universe. Many believed this man, referred to as Statlis Warlock, was a Laji messiah who had come to guide their blessed race to dominion and eagerly agreed to help develop techniques of draining the world's energy. Others, however, saw the selfish motives behind Statlis's plans and rebelled against him.

Soon, civil war broke out, but with the power of the mighty Warlock behind them, the corrupted ones easily won and decimated the 'heretics' from their ranks. The Benevolent Ones wept and raged at what happened on their chosen world, and when they saw their children would not save themselves, they took action. They descended in power upon the Warlock to imprison him. The battle was furious, the mere mortal man having become so obscenely powerful by drinking the breath and blood of Erubitu. When the battle was over, Statlis was imprisoned in the Infinite Under beneath all universes, and the viciously corrupt Laji were obliterated, leaving their battle-scarred world in silence.

The demon, Holocaust, knew this history well. He had known Statlis in his imprisonment and heard the story countless times. In his mind, he always knew he had to see for himself if the world was as he had said. Most everywhere, the planet looked like old paintings of the lands of damnation, the rock scarred by war, the sea poisoned with black magic. But just when he had given up all hope of finding any sign of the world's ancient power, he found it. An enormous steel monument to greed stood before the brutal demon, the towering form of what Statlis had long ago described as an 'extractor'.

The building was as sinister looking as its purpose, Holocaust's gaze reaching to the top of the building only when he tilted his head all the way back. Enormous steam-pumps hissed as pressurized vapor rushed from the collapsing joints, the myriad transparent tubes filled with the glowing blue magma still ferrying their payload through their coiling path about the twisted spires of the building. All the grinding gears and turning cogs still cranked away within, producing ominous, resounding echoes of clashing metal that bellowed forth from the open entryway of the plant, and if Holocaust had a mouth, he'd have smirked to think it was still working after all this time.

He approached the huge facility with confident strides, the clattering of his obsidian-and-iron armor the only reminder of reality as wild ambition filled his mind.

To gain the power of this world would make me even greater than...him. And if I surpass him, my desire my finally come to fruition.

Ember eyes flared within the searing void of his head, the wreath of green flame encircling it burning wildly at the thought of the power to be taken from the world's blood within the extractor.

All mine, he thought to himself, crossing the threshold into the cold, steel dark.

The atmosphere shuddered. The sky of this world, this world whose history was meaningless and meandering among the greater cosmos, broke apart. Lightning fell from the air, wriggling blinding incisions in spiraling arcs, and the peal of thunder was foreboding and terrible to hear. Holocaust stiffened – each sonic boom was like a hammer-blow to the cage of his chest and he shook with the force of it.

The storm, heraldic evidence of Mjolnir’s presence on this world, that artefact more powerful than the gods cared to forge. He waited above him, a bearded charioteer who’s very flesh seemed to emit a perpetual glow, beard spilling from his jaw in burgundy curls that fluttered of their own volition. His face was scarred, weathered, unhandsome – where lines divided the flesh they had become splintery crevasses yielding a pale, electric-blue light which illuminated his face like fluorescent tattoos. He held the broad solemnity of a judge, stony and discriminate, looking down upon this soldier of fortune.

But more than all in his presence Mjolnir held court – a weapon of such astronomical power and complex technology it seemed to shift in dimension even as he clutched its hilt in an ursine fist, crackling with arcs of power. His chariot was immense, pulled by the immortal twin goats Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr which barred teeth rabidly, phasing out of picture due to their holographic nature, Siamese anti-gravity engines thrumming as they pumped temporal energies from their cores in rippling waves.

He was Thor, son of Odin, champion of the orbital rings of the AEsir Initiative.

Words are not always spoken in those contrivances of mortal minds which we call 'languages'. Enough was conveyed in the peals of thunder that rattled the world for Holocaust to understand everything in a moment. He stopped in mid-step and turned around, having barely passed the threshold of the extractor facility when this man of the storm approached. In an instant, he sensed the man's terrible power and felt a sick glee rush through his system. A worthy foe would make him stronger for the slaying.

Words did not always preface cataclysms. No prophecy of this battle existed, nor did Holocaust care to lay one out to his foe. He said merely one word as he thrust a clawed hand forward, conjuring a green fireball that flung itself recklessly at the massive 'chariot'.

Die.

The fireball missed the mark as the man's vessel shifted out of the way, but Holocaust had intended that. No sooner did the screeching hellfire sear past the man's head than the demon clinched his hand into a tight fist, triggering an explosion that rocked the chariot violently, ruining the holographic projectors that implied his mythic status as master of godly beasts. His foe seemed to fight a scowl, keeping his facade of impassivity despite what Holocaust knew was a perturbing loss.

The man bristled with the power of technology light-years beyond anything fielded in battle against him before, but Holocaust's form stood tall, defiant of this rugged brute who hovered over him as if to pass sentence. He gripped a great weapon that had a power all its own, and apparently the force that had conjured the storm that now sundered the gray sky of Erubitu. Tendrils of energy leapt off it in every direction, but the demon merely laughed a sinister laugh at this. He would humble this mortal construct soon enough.

He turned on his heel and rushed into the extractor facility as if to hide, but no sooner was he out of sight than he spun about and flung more bolts of roiling damnation, burning through piping, walls and sky on their trajectory towards the chariot. They were weak blasts by his standards, but as he willed them all to explode simultaneously around the chariot, he knew they had done their job. The temporal vibrations of the chariot's engines grew wild, sending pounding bass after pounding bass to echo throughout the steel halls of the build until...

Impact, Holocaust thought to himself. He heard the chariot whine as an engine was struck by two explosions, the machine wobbling to the ground awkwardly until it touched down with the hideous sound of grinding metal. Music to the demon's ears, but music was not a luxury he had time for. The man was on the ground now, and there would be no more games. Only the words 'battle' and 'pain'.

Holocaust let out a feral roar that seemed to incite the flame within his body to consume him, and he dropped to all fours, flinging his flame-engulfed body at his foe as if he himself were one of the fireballs he was so fond of. When his hellfire collided with the energy radiating from the man's skin, the peals of thunder came anew, the sky playing the drum beat of a march to oblivion.