This was ridiculous.

Juniortron’s response to the Fangs of Nidhoggr, and Cee’s semi-concealed approach to his position…was to start blasting out more golden javelins, hurling them around in an attempt to interdict her Fangs while he stood there behind his barrier and continued to do [i]nothing[/i].  The Pompeii graser warheads, bursting beyond the effective intercept radius of a bunch of dumbfired, unguided inert [i]barbequeue skewers[/i], spent their fury against the mechanoid’s hazy barricade.  Whether the barrier would last for any amount of time against dozens of repeated graser strikes was up for debate, but Cee didn’t really think the shield would hold too much longer without help.  The Superbubbles plowed through the spear-storm, carrying Pompeii-B micronuke bursting missiles with them beyond the shoddy defense, while Migraine electronic warfare systems howled and Stardazzlers let off their disruptive thunderclaps.  All matched…against a bunch of tawdry lawn darts hurled vaguely in the direction of the missile strike and vaguely in the direction of her Cloaked self.  It was only through nigh-impossible luck that the random shotgunning of skewers held off Cee’s Fangs for any length of time at all, really.

That luck wouldn’t hold, though.

Cee’s scowl of irritation deepened into outright anger; she ceased her ground-hugging, defensive approach to Juniortron and erupted skyward, rocketing straight up.  In the process, she cut her Red Moon Cloak, revealing her precise position for the first time in what felt like ages, and remixed her Fangs.  She cut the minimally effective Stardazzlers down to one warhead in a hundred, keeping the final shot simply to keep the mechanoid honest, and reduced her Migraine EW warheads to four shots in a hundred.  The Superbubble and Pompeii-B micronuke burst counts remained the same, while all of the production cut out from the Stardazzlers and Migraines were thrown into a heavy reinforcement of the Pompeii nuclear grasers.  

A mental twist-and-click widened the Fangs’ attack vector radius, enabling the missiles to swing wide, wide out to the sides, above and below.  The Pompeii grasers were especially dangerous – attacking in what amounted to half of a wide-area sphere centered on Cee, well outside the interception range of the lawn darts, they would continue to spit long-range bolts of coherent gamma at Juniortron while his little skewers wasted themselves on a thickened shell of Superbubbles and Pompeii-Bs threatening the killbot from his front.  Within a few breaths, Juniortron was facing attacks from well over a sixty-degree angle in his front facing arc – nothing that could be stopped by [i]any[/i] amount of lucky lawn darts.

Cee, meanwhile, crossed her arms over her chest as she came level with Juniortron’s altitude, deliberately and visibly reducing the defensive benefits of her shield as she glared across the intervening space at the mechanoid.  Micronuke explosions, short-lived barrier bubbles, and Cee’s own distance and projectile tracking abilities enabled her to avoid any impacts from the lawn darts with little shifts in her position and the occasional savage, dart-intercepting steel-toed kick.

“Are you done?” she barked, revealing why she’d cut the disorienting madness of her Cloak as she started castigating her foe.  “Are you through [i]playing[/i]?  Here I was thinking this was a fight, but you haven’t thrown a proper punch yet, and [i]this[/i] is just a sad joke!” she snapped, waving her left hand at the stream of darts before returning it to its previous imperious pose.

“I can sit here all fucking day and huck missiles until it works, you know!” the Agent barked.  “Or I can work on some fucking [i]BIGGER ONES![/i]” she roared.  And sure enough, behind her the outlines of a pair of [i]significantly[/i] larger missiles began to form, drawing themselves in midair in sparks and lines of glowing golden light.  Just over three meters in total length from tip to fins, if the slowly-forming schematic-like outlines of the weapons were to be believed.  Given the draw on both her secondary processing systems and her Godforge that the Fangs inflicted, the so-called Bigger Missiles formed themselves with what was, to Cee, agonizing slowness…but that was in this singular instance the point.

“These are five-kiloton max yield tactical warheads, with integrated Superbubble projectors to counteract point defense!” Cee bellowed to her theoretical opponent.  “You have until I’m done ‘Forging them to do something [i]worth my fucking time[/i] or I’m going to shove one of them down your nonexistent throat, the other up your nonexistent ass, and make sure the [i]rest[/] of you ends up nonexistent, too!”

The Bigger Missiles took up most of the rest of Cee’s discretionary budget in terms of processing resources and Godforge time.  As well, the additional materials created required her to step down her Lament’s charging cycle to a mere trickle, barely enough to keep the already-built charge stable.  Not that it mattered much – there was already enough power built up in the Lament to core through most smaller starships lengthwise.  There was the usual Panic Reserve of both processing and Godforge capacity that Cee left untouched in any given fight for sudden defensive requirements…but realistically, she was pretty much tapped out creating her plethora of warheads.

Which was exactly the point – she was leaving herself as open as she’d ever been since the ‘battle’ commenced, inviting Juniortron to take advantage of her stationary position, chatter, lax stance, and obvious preoccupation whilst simultaneously pressuring his weak defenses with a widespread, wide-area resurgence of the Fangs and putting him on a nuclear clock.  

It was essentially the same thing she’d tried to do with the Fangs, save explicitly stated and writ very much large – provoke the evil killbot into trying to break the so-called stalemate between them and show her something resembling a good time.  If he continued to stay on the defensive and avoid confrontation…well, she’d either nuke him into dust and find something else to occupy herself with, or she’d get [i]really[/i] mad.
 
[i]End-of-Turn Status[/i]
[hider]
[b]Current Status:[/b]
[i]Title In Effect: Pirate Queen
System Integrity: 100%
Entropic Order: 0% Penalty
Combat Status: Engaged – All Green[/i]

[i]Sinner’s Lament: Active, Charging (ALERT: 95% reduction in charge speed in effect)[/i]
[i]Fangs of Nidhoggr: Active (45% Pompeii, 25% Pompeii-B, 25% Superbubble, 4% Migraine EW, 1% Stardazzler)[/i]
[i]Bigger Missiles: 25% complete[/i]

[i]Ether Field: Green
Ether Stream: Green

Gunsmoke: Yellow
A. Bastion: Green
A. Adjudicator: Green[/i]
Phantasm: [i]Green[/i]
[/hider]

[i]New Stuff Breakdown[/i]
[hider]
[i]Bigger Missiles[/i]: Pretty much exactly what they sound like.  Small* tactical-range weapons which are, nonetheless, full-up ‘reset the battlefield’ nuclear armaments.  Equipped with integrated EW and Superbubble systems to defend themselves against enemy interception systems on the way to their target.  Five-kiloton maximum yield, though the weapons can be stepped down if less raw devastation is required.  For incredibly obvious reasons, the missiles also have a very significant minimum safe operating distance
[/hider]