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The wind came through Balator Pass as it always did, screaming so wildly that it drowned its own echoes as they ricocheted off the frozen faces of the shallow valley. The snow was piled heavily on every skyward surface, and the mountain summit beyond the pass groaned under the incredible weight of its powdery burden. The blizzard conditions that ravaged Balator Mountain had defeated every challenge civilization had offered it, and it had offered many in pursuit of the treasure that lay under the ice and rock.

The cliffs that overlooked the pass, though covered in layers of pale blue frost that had built up into crystalline walls, still bore the mark of a superior alien intelligence that had once colonized the world. The rock was rife with metal panels, rusted defensive turrets, power and data lines and tightly sealed blast-doors. Legend told of a place deep within the mountain, where the wind and cold could not reach, where this same technology remained pristine, untouched for thousands of years within the walls of the aliens' former stronghold.

So the natives of the world, desirous of the secrets from beyond the sky had sent generation after generation to their death. The white-laden wind was still hurriedly trying to hide its latest victims, four tanks and the accompanying twenty-nine men who, despite the layers upon layers of protective clothing, had only penetrated seventy yards into the pass. The thirtieth man, their commanding officer, had succumbed to the cold only ten yards from the valley mouth during his panicked retreat.

It was, unfortunately, how it had to be. Ockyx knew this, had decided it, had not saved them when it could have. It knew the organic race wasn't ready for this kind of knowledge. But deep within its mind it began to wonder what use it would be, surveying the desolation from atop the eastern cliff. It was just one machine, and had only ever been designed to defend against weakened survivors who went too far without Lady Winter claiming them as her own. Every time, they came better equipped. Every time, they ventured deeper into the pass. All the while, it remained the same as it had been made five-thousand years ago.

Ockyx paused. This was not one-hundred percent accurate: its mind had evolved. Its cloak, made of shimmer-thread that bent the light around it, combined with its photomorphic armor had made it all but invisible to the eye of the unfortunate adventurer. It had played the Daemon of Balator, and as its long-range thermal sensor declared, it would soon have to again. A biological life form was approaching, and it had its duty to carry out. It shut off its distance scanners and drew its cloak around its body, crouching low within the blizzard. Its heat field warded it against the wild flying shards of frost, kept its synthetic blood flowing. Its three photoreceptor units focused on the mouth of the valley, and it waited.



((OOC: Enter Ockyx! I will post a description of him and his abilities in the book of warriors shortly; he's pretty weak by Gunjin standards END OOC))

OOC: Most interesting... Probably about Slifer's level of power, So I can go all out and send Videospirit in.

IC: A lone figure approached the ancient fortress, or perhaps it was just a massive ship. It had lain there, the ground and ice clotting around it for so long that there was little difference between the two. This figure did not know what civilization left this behind, nor if it was any value to him at all, considering the vast technological developments he had access to already. He was simply here to find out. The locals had told him little of the place, other than a magnificient reward awaited any who could challenge the pass and win, and that never in the history of their people had anyone successfully done so.

The figure appeared to be unarmed, Ragged Grey vestments giving him the appearance of a wanderer, a dingy beaten down cloak blowing fiercely in the wind. He wore a pair of goggles that covered his forehead and kept the snow out of his eyes. Despite being so lightly dressed, the cold didn't seem to bother the man. In fact, the snow that touched any part of him but the goggles didn't even melt, most of it bouncing off of him harmlessly, and a few lucky flakes landing in creases in his clothes and taking rest.

The man's hair was short and blond, and blew about in the wind just as fiercely as his cloak, no hat of any kind to protect it. The man wore a Purple pair of strange boots, and his feet left no imprints in the snow as he walked towards the pass. "This wind is nuts... I wonder if it's all natural... with this land formation it's possible. The nullfrost makes it nice and warm, but it's still blowing me around, let's see what horrible creature haunts this pass."

The man entered into Ockyx's infrared sight first, his body heat clearly distinguishable from the freezing air around him. The machine noted with interest that his warmth did not spread to the air around him, but rather remained close to his body, deflecting the cold much like his own heat field. When he appeared on his visible-spectrum lenses, it was as if the man was emerging from the edge of the world to Ockyx. it had not seen the lands beyond the base of the pass since its creators left it, and it had learned to trust nothing that came from beyond. It was given pause for but a moment, however. This man's clothing, his skin, shape, size; none of it matched. He was not a native of this world.

So it waited. A minute passed. The man was twenty yards into the valley. He showed no signs of fatigue or frostbite. Two minutes, forty yards. It became clear he intended to see what lay beneath the mountain, and that was all Ockyx needed to know. It raised its arms, holding its open palms out at the intruder and firing off two high-pitched sound waves into the din of the pass. The walls of noise only penetrated down halfway before the vibrations of the wind's own screeching caused complete dissonance, and a sonic maelstrom whirled down upon the man.

The wanderer heard the oncoming audio assault and appeared not to step or jump backwards, but to simply shift five yards back from where the noise-ball smashed into the snow, sending it flying wildly about. As the snow passed over the bewildered man's field of vision, however, Ockyx had its distraction. Its left shoulder opened up, its bolt gun holding its single charge in reserve. It fired the single lightning bolt, crashing through the thin veil of snow between the man's eyes and the 'Mountain Phantom'. The peal of thunder was silenced by the blizzard winds, but the bolt had made its mark. Ockyx held low to the snow, the bolt gun hiding itself once more as it cooled down.

The machine waited and watched. There was no need to be hasty. Time was always on the side of an eternal machine.

A moment after the lightning strikes the man, he's no longer in the robots immediate field of vision. It was as if one moment he was there and the next he was not.

Video leans against one of the fortress' walls, wincing from the burns. He'd teleported there after realizing he was under attack. A sonic attack immediately followed by an electric attack? Does that mean there's more than one opponent? I didn't sense any life energy, and I didn't see anything at the point of origin. Anything still alive in this place would have to be thousands of years old, and the magical energy in the place is too undisturbed for a more perfect invisibility. That means it's likely a machine. Should I try and salvage it, or destroy it... I need to get a better scope on the situation first.

Video suddenly appears 5 meters into the air above where he'd guessed the lightning bolt had come from, eyes closed, and hands and head towards the ground as a massive spray of hundreds of different colors of ink bursts forth blanketing the area beneath him for a hundred meters. Every droplet emitting a bright light, both a blinding attack, and useful for making the invisible visible.

1 second after the spell is cast, the ink stops emitting light and video opens his eyes, landing on the ground and surveying the area.