[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/HWhWXIx.png[/img][/center]
[i]Collab with [/i][@Letter Bee].
[hr]

Qingshe’s smile faded at the appearance of the second sun. For a moment, she was struck with confusion, as Huo Ren’s sun seemed to battle the other for dominance, only for [i]recognition[/i] to send a genuine chill of unease down her spine. Her eyes widened in alarm, but despite frantically scanning her surroundings, no sign of the perpetrator revealed itself.

[color=39b54a][i]Superbia is here?![/i][/color]

The Snake’s lips twisted into a snarl, impotent fury curdling in her chest, as her slitted eyes snapped back up to the sky, her burgeoning plan readjusting at the presence of the second, larger sun. Her eyes narrowed further, as the beacon network she’d created [i]stuttered[/i], some form of ambient interference filling the area. An idle thought ever so slightly widened her shadow’s allowance criteria, and she grimaced at the particles that filtered in within the brief moment before she closed the portal again. She shadow quickly worked at the familiar substance, stripping it down to its component matter and swallowing it into nothing.

[color=39b54a][i]Radiation.[/i][/color]

She was going to need to ensure the entire team was inspected for radiation poisoning after this.

Qingshe glared up at the radioactive green sun, some small part of her mildly offended by its presence solely on the metric that it [i]dared[/i] to share and pervert even a fraction of her color scheme. But more importantly, the longer Pride’s abominable power loomed over the area, the greater the chance that not just her allies but the very land itself would be irradiated and poisoned irrevocably. This could not be allowed to stand.

Qingshe dove into her shadow.

Far down below Ai Chen, the forest was swallowed in a blanket of inky, thrumming black. Rippling out from the position Qingshe had once occupied, her shadow [i]painted[/i] the entire world for 2 kilometers in all directions, tightly hugging the contours of every surface like swirling, bubbling latex. Every fissure of every rock. Every leaf of every tree. Every puddle of water created by the prior spray of hoses from her shadow. Lingering flames were doused in an instant, as the shadow rolled over the surfaces they were burning upon, cutting them off from oxygen entirely and snuffing out the embers with less than a whimper.

In a time period far too swift for comfort, the forest was replaced by a sea of ooze… that immediately began to [i]churn[/i].

The hum of static filled the air, stronger than anything displayed in the battle prior by leaps and bounds, as Qingshe’s shadow began to channel unholy amounts of power for whatever it was she was scheming, the excess bleeding into the surroundings. The very sky seemed to crackle, as emerald arcs of electricity began to jump between the structures coated by her shadow. Audible snaps and crackles echoed near omnipresently, as a flickering tesla-like lightshow began to manifest. The energy in the air was so intense that any nearby onlookers might find their skin breaking out in goosebumps, their very clothes seeming to grow charged with static electricity, occasionally even stinging them.

And then, multiple sections of the sea of ooze briefly [i]bulged[/i], as [i]something[/i] moved beneath the surface.

The air almost seemed to shudder, as a veritable wall of [i]sound[/i] rose from the depths, carrying Qingshe’s voice on a rumbling swell of noise. Her words, possessing a sibilant hiss to them with an undercurrent of rattling, thrummed into the sky. And far overhead, dark clouds churned, illuminated by the glare of the twin suns.

[h3][color=39b54a][b]“You [i]disappoint[/i] me, Ai Chen…”[/b][/color][/h3]

Ai Chen was a coward, but also something that in the eyes of a proper tactician, was much worse: A one-trick pony, someone who relied on one tactic so much that she cannot imagine using her skills any other way. As Qingshe’s ooze covered large portions of the ground, Ai Chen shot and shot and shot, spraying arrows of light all throughout the area, hoping against hope that it would do something, anything.

Some struck the ooze. Others soared towards the dark clouds. Ai Chen, in her fever pitch, was managing a fire rate of 1000 arrows a minute, an achievement that would be held as exceptional or miraculous if not for how futile it was, especially when it did not make up for her tactical inflexibility.

Ai Chen’s fire fell like rain upon the land, and yet, much like rain upon the sea, the arrows were but droplets against the vastness of Qingshe’s oceanic shadow, scores and scores of them swallowed by the lurching, crackling depths with not even a ripple. All the while, the Rooster’s attacks towards the sky were doing what one might even say was less than nothing to the growing phenomenon high overhead. No, if anything, she was making it much much [i]worse[/i].

It was a convergence of coincidences that had ultimately done it. Not only the insane amounts of heat being pumped into the area by Ai Chen’s attacks, along with the twin suns and the early waves of superheated gas and flaming beams that Huo Ren had swept the sky with to clear it of Qingshe’s missiles, but it was also the titanic amount of water Qingshe had pumped into the area in return to douse the flames that scorched the landscape, further supplementing the water that was being rapidly flash evaporated and sent billowing into the sky. [i]And on top of that[/i], there was the ample electrical charge the Snake was further seething into the environment, as she worked her power to levels she might normally have refrained from, energizing the area far more quickly than it might normally have been otherwise without that last little boost.

The outcome was nothing overtly unexpected, at least not to any meteorologist.

An explosive rise in heat from the excessive -[i]and still ongoing[/i]- infliction of plasma-based attacks upon the land and skies was resulting in the similarly rapid increase in the ambient air temperature… which in turn was causing a colossal ascending air current… which was now catalyzing the formation of a massive cumulonimbus cloud the better part of a kilometer across, a dark, rumbling thing that was still growing in size and crackling with barely restrained lightning.

Under normal circumstances, nothing even close to its caliber could have formed in nature in such a manner. But Ai Chen’s persistently desperate attacks were only swelling the size of the very phenomenon she was trying to oppose, even as the twin suns -roughly two kilometers distant into the sky- added their own heat to the problem.

What had once been a relatively calm (if overheated) sky was now the epicenter for a brewing thunderstorm, the outright wholesale unintentional alteration of the weather as the mere environmental consequence of the unrestrained clash of multiple A-Rank caliber Arms Masters. It was a thing given life all its own and now entirely out of the control of anyone present, independent and well past the point of being self-sustaining. The dark clouds began to rain…

[i]A hot, humid wind swept across the ground, as the sky churned tumultuously. Lightning struck the earth with a sharp, pealing whip crack, and the deep rolling grumble of thunder could be heard for miles, thrumming across the land to be felt in ones’ bones and even vibrate the ground.[/i]

That lightning strike would only be the first of many.

And as if that were a prompt to action, Qingshe’s voice rose from below yet again with a rattling hiss.

[h3][color=39b54a][b]“I can [i]smell[/i] your desperation, [i]Rooster[/i]… How shameful…”[/b][/color][/h3]

The roiling shadow [i]lurched[/i] again, as the arched surface of [i]something[/i]… [b][i]titanic[/i][/b] briefly breached the crackling, oozing surface, a brief glimpse of segmented glinting ebony, alight with hints of the radioactive green glow inherent to Qingshe’s cyberpunk aesthetic.

To make things worse for Ai Chen, it was then that the Green Sun flickered out, reducing the heat yet also making the darkness far worse. And the storm clouds drew closer to her, crackling with sparks of electricity.

She screamed as she was struck by a bolt of forked lightning, heaven’s justice ironically fed by her actions, and plummeted down, her Noble Arm unable to sustain its flight as its energy was diverted to regenerate her, to heal her body’s burns.

There was a reservoir behind the dam, much of it evaporated by the two Artificial Suns’ heat, but not all. But not even water could save Ai Chen’s bones from breaking from the force of the impact; it was a miracle, or maybe a curse, that she survived even [i]that[/i], albeit barely, albeit flickering to unconsciousness…

There was a low, creaking groan, a deep, reverberating and somehow [i]fleshy[/i] thing, as the undulating surface of Qingshe’s shadow finally was broken through in truth to admit the passage of a titanic form, seemingly emerging from multiple places at once.

Rising like great, hulking archways with a mere [i]diameter[/i] comparable to a six-story building, serpentine coils of a behemoth of an entity rose into the air, scales like the armored plates of a fortress wall, skin crawling with violent arcs of emerald electricity. It was like a great shadow in motion in and of itself, scales so deep ebony black that they seemed to drink in the light, the figure’s outline only properly defined by the glowing green accents that ran across its form. And the more of the coils that emerged, the clearer it became that they were all part of a singular, terrifyingly vast entity.

[h3][color=39b54a][b]“[i]Why so silent[/i]? Where is your [i]fire[/i]? Where is your [i]pride[/i]? Where is the grandeur, the [i]ambition[/i] and [i]spectacle[/i] that made you fit for the Zodiac, to represent the cream of the crop?! If I’m going to be forced to go this far, at least make it worth my while, Ai Chen! [i]Give me a show![/i]”[/b][/color][/h3]

At the continued lack of response over the radio, a rumbling grumble echoed from the growing entity, accentuated by a deep rattling and the now near omnipresent crackle, snap and flash of lightning alighting the earth and sky. A growling, threatening hiss vibrated the air.

[h3][color=39b54a][b]“So be it. Wallow in your mediocrity to the end.”[/b][/color][/h3]

And then, the titanic serpentine coils flexed, and the head of the beast finally emerged.

Of course, it could have been fairly easily inferred, but in some ways, it was almost difficult to comprehend the scale of the snake that emerged from Qingshe’s ooze, a titan that casually dwarfed the treeline even before rearing up like a cobra, which would likely easily be visible from any position of the slightest elevation. It was like something straight out of mythology, alien and beyond natural, a figure that defied common sense and the natural order just by existing. Six glowing green eyes leered balefully down at the world, each individually large enough that a human could have stood upright inside the sockets several times over, and a colossal, bladed spine ran down the center of the creature’s back, a gaping fanged maw briefly snapping at the air with a sound like a thunderclap.

The Snake turned her newest body’s gaze to face the sun of Huo Ren’s still glaring down from above, and even with the clearly inhuman features of the construct, its voraciously anticipatory smile was obvious to all and sundry.

The serpent [i]moved[/i].

Such a simple action, but for something of its sheer size, one that could have been calamitous if not for the coating of Qingshe’s shadow overlaying the world around her. It was for that reason alone that the Snake did not utterly decimate the landscape, as the bulk of the serpent pulled itself free of the ooze entirely, [i]shifted[/i] and began to [i]coil[/i]. Entire kilometers worth of mass went into the endeavor with a ponderous, terrifying swiftness, as the creature used its body to form a support structure akin to a spring. And all the while…

The serpentine titan’s head began to stretch toward the sky, surrounded by constant flashes of lightning and thunder, as rain poured from the darkened clouds. Buoyed by proper positioning and sheer size, the Snake loomed into the air, reaching for Huo Ren’s sun in plain view. For who could have possibly [i]missed it[/i] if they were but merely to [i]glance[/i] in its general direction? As it approached closer and closer to its target, the serpent’s presence became all the more obvious, as its sheer bulk began to partially obstruct the light of Huo Ren’s sun, casting deep shadows across the land around it.


Originally scaled to target even Superbia’s larger sun, in its absence, the Snake’s gaping maw loomed open, more than twice the size of Huo Ren’s own fiery construct, aiming to swallow it whole. And within that open maw, there lay Qingshe’s shadow as well, courtesy of the second iteration of her Noble Arm. For in truth, the titanic serpent was but a means to an end… the end being to somehow bring her shadow close enough to directly touch and consume Huo Ren’s sun, finally putting an end to his oppressive interference.
[hr]
Huo Ren’s artificial sun, now surrounded by steam, spat fiery defiance in the form of superheated gas at the snake, but it was futile, as even Huo Ren himself knew. So the man said to Cao Bao:

“Can you bring Shen Tu and his book to where that [i]actual[/i] snake is while I distract it? If not, take us away.”

Cao Bao glanced at the titanic figure of Qingshe’s latest crime against nature and grimaced, shaking his head. His power didn’t come with any special awareness of the location of things he’d tagged, and even if it did, it had been months since he’d ever been anywhere close to Qingshe. And he wasn’t about to start changing that now. Besides, if Huo Ren expected him or Shen Tu to actually get close enough to touch that monster… Too many chances things went wrong to dive back into that mess…

Spitting out his cigarette in annoyance, Cao Bao snorted, “‘Fraid not. Greater chances than not that we all die if we split up and try to fight her like she is now, not to mention the storm the fight’s whipping up.” He scoffed. “I don’t fancy testing my reaction time against unexpected lightning strikes.” Or lightning tossed around by the Snake personally for that matter.

That was the thing about [i]actual[/i] lightning. Once you could see it, it was already too late. Real lightning that was visible enough to comprehend was lighting that had already grounded and struck its target. There was no dodging it. Simple as. You could sense the building charge sometimes, of course, and try to find a way to redirect it, but that was a gamble Cao Bao didn’t fancy taking, especially when it was only a single factor among many in the Snake’s favor.

Cao Bao didn’t so much as snap his fingers, but he and his fellow Arms Masters faded away anyway. Things had long since gotten out of hand. The ambush had been crushed, and even though that damned Superbia had taken the time to interfere, he’d done nothing but make their situation worse. Of course, it hadn’t all -or even mostly- been on the Downward Descent that things had gone so badly, but still…

Cao Bao already knew who he was scapegoating in his after-action report.
[hr]
The titanic maw of the Snake distendended, as it finally got high enough to encompass Huo Ren’s artificial sun, fangs closing around the searing ball of plasma and flame with the finality of a flytrap. The shadow -Qingshe’s shadow- coating the inside of its mouth immediately went to work, as furious spurts of flame and steam seethed from between the titan’s lips, boiling and splitting the sky. But the serpent simply recoiled, drawing its head back down from the sky to perch atop a slowly undulating body.

In that moment, the oppressive glare of daylight was snuffed out with finality, turning the once clear visibility back into the murky cloak of night, now distantly alight with flashes of lightning and grumbles of thunder.

Qingshe cast her gaze towards the distance, eyes narrowed at the dam and the landing spot of Ai Chen beyond it. Not the slightest bit concerned by the dwindling form of the sun still trapped inside its mouth, the serpent lurched forward again. Qingshe’s shadow rippled forward, extending to clear a path and retreating in its wake. The gateway of her power maintained its radius around the serpent, sweeping across the land and even crossing partially onto the surface of the river. And as the great serpent approached the dam…

[i]-flames began to leak from its mouth.[/i]

With a shrieking hiss of superheated air, rain flash-evaporating around the area to produce yet more clouds of rising steam, the Snake’s mouth began to open, aimed at the dam. In that moment, all the superheated gas, plasma, heat and flame from Huo Ren’s artificial sun -once swallowed into the shadow inside the serpent’s mouth- was then released as a focused beam of monstrous size and strength, not unlike the very beams that Huo Ren had been using before. Indeed, instead of digesting and disintegrating the power of the sun she had eaten, Qingshe had chosen to turn it against its master. The very dam Huo Ren had been here to protect would be destroyed by his own power.

So it was that a great blinding beam of densely packed plasma -crackling with flecks of electricity- speared from the Snake’s mouth towards the dead center of the wall of the dam, the towering reptile looking perhaps in that moment more like a dragon that the Zodiac’s 5th seat ever truly had.

If the dam breaking and the water flowing out wasn’t enough to drown Ai Chen’s dying form, the heat of the serpent would. Either way, nothing more needed to be said; she was not surviving this sort of disaster. That said, the PoWs in the camps did need to be guided towards the evacuation point - The ridge Rear Admiral Absolo and his compatriot had told the Task Force where to take the freed prisoners…

Such were the at least adjacent thoughts of Qingshe, as she watched the dam finally crumble into melting slag, superheated steam billowing around and upwards from it. Naturally, a gush of water was released down into the lands below it, but her shadow -now spreading slightly across the river- caught some of the overflow, preventing it from flooding the PoW camps and the area around the bunkers. The disaster was averted before it could begin, but internally, seeing the raging storm that had been kicked up by her battle, she frowned at the remains of the dam.

That might have been a bit overkill.

She acknowledged that she’d actually lost her temper a bit. She’d wanted to draw out Ai Chen’s demise a little more, really make her feel at least a smidgen of the terror she inflicted on so many, but she hadn’t expected… Even when backed into a corner, even when provided all the stressors one could ever need to go beyond, the Rooster was…

[h3][color=39b54a][b][i]“Weak.”[/i][/b][/color][/h3]

Or was it that she was… simply too strong? Looking at the destruction around her, at the fact that the [i]very weather had changed[/i] utterly by accident… Qingshe pondered the answer with consternation. Some part of her had told herself she was doing this for… something like justice? It was to right a wrong she should have righted long ago, but in the end, she was… almost offended by how [i]pathetically[/i] her foe had gone down. She’d been struck down by something completely unintentional. If anything, one could almost say Ai Chen struck [i]herself[/i] down.

[color=39b54a][i]How… boring.[/i][/color]

She’d honestly expected more, anticipated that her opponent would reveal a trump card. After all, wasn’t this sort of situation the best way to draw more potential out of a Noble Arm? To face the impossible and [i]make[/i] it possible, such was the realm of the capacity of a Noble Arm to evolve. Qingshe had always thought the Rooster flashy… yet simplistic. She’d thought… [i]surely[/i], that couldn’t be the limits of her ability?

Yet it was…

[color=39b54a][i]How boring.[/i][/color] The thought reached her again. It offended her sensibilities as a scientist. How could she test the limits and surpass them if no-one could bring her to reach those limits? How could she continue to evolve? How could she continue to seek the impossible horizon of humanity’s true potential and make it [i]possible[/i] if there was nothing left to challenge her? Yet… she had to wonder, looking at all this destruction, what sort of price would she have to pay to face a worthy challenge? What would it cost her? [i]What would it cost everyone around her?[/i]

[color=39b54a][i]It’s lonely at the top, huh… But… yes, that’s... part why I’m doing this, isn’t it?[/i][/color]

Abruptly wresting herself back to the present, Qingshe cast that line of thinking aside, not allowing herself to spiral down that unproductive path at this time. Right now, she had a job to do. Focusing on the present was yet again proving to be more productive than considering the future she wished to create… and understanding just a little better how far away that actually was.
[hr]
In the distance from the camps, through the storm that had been whipped up, the great serpent Qingshe had conjured was beginning to sink back into her ooze, either for storage or deconstruction, not that any but she could say for sure. Qingshe’s voice, however, echoed out of whatever radios might remain intact amongst Task Force Obsidian.

[color=39b54a][i][b]“Qingshe here, requesting a headcount. What’s happened? Is everyone alive? Intact? If you’re in a position for it, we should begin the evacuations immediately,”[/b][/i][/color] the Snake of the Zodiac said, concern in her tone. [color=39b54a][i][b]“I would aid you, but I’m going to be busy trying to blunt this storm,”[/b][/i][/color] she admitted, which was truthful enough. Qingshe wasn’t sure if she could dispel it entirely… not quickly anyway, but she could theorize a few ways to stop the furious weather from weighing heavily on the team.

As she was saying so, her shadow was parsing through what it had swallowed from the rush of water that erupted from the destroyed dam, checking for the corpse of Ai Chen that would presumably have been swept along in the flow… and the inert form of her Noble Arm. Internally, despite being dissatisfied with how this had ended, Qingshe couldn’t help but lick her lips. It wasn’t every day you got your hands on a masterless A-Rank Noble Arm, after all…