Heroes Uprising Part 6

Scott nodded as Minerva reassured him that she was okay.
"Okay, I just thought I would check on you."
They both watched Katy's fight for a minute, and he could tell that Minerva was nervous about her own pending battle with this powerful class of demon.
"I have faith that you can handle this," Scott said as he placed a hand gently on her shoulder.
His hand slid off as Minerva turned away to play a game of Go Fish with Ashe and Noah. Scott smirked as he saw the rather lackadaisical attitude they were putting off.

"Don't root too hard for your teammate there, guys," he said sarcastically.
Turning back to the fight, he watched closely as Katy continued her battle with the Ice Queen.
Katy...Be careful. One mistake and she'll kill you.
He was impressed to see her holding her own, and he started to notice a slight shift in the purity levels of the water and ice that was shrouded in evil. If Katy could successfully wrest the home field advantage away from the Ice Queen, then she would be on a much more even footing with her.

The Ice Queen was surprised that Katy had done some slight damage to her with a blade made of ice. She was holding up rather well under her psychic barrage, and her powers and fighting skills were helping her out in this environment. She noticed a slight bit of purity in her realm, no doubt caused by her battle with Katy. If that kept up her powers would be weakened, so she would have to step this battle up into overdrive.
"Sure, let's dispense with the warm up," she responded as Katy asked if she was ready for round two.
Waving her hands, she smirked as her immense power began to spread out.

With complete control of her realm, a great blizzard even more fierce than the one that Katy had dispelled earlier began to be kicked up. The Ice Queen was completely shrouded from view, and the blizzard kept Katy from seeing that the Corrupted Ice Aura had now enshrouded her. With the aura locked in place, Katy would not be able to easily escape her confinement. The blizzard would disorient her, and the realm itself began to attack her within the aura. Snow reached up to tangle her legs, and Katy would feel her powers weakening and her body threatening to freeze. She was suddenly being attacked with ice and snow from all directions, and would have to escape the Corrupted Ice Aura within the next minute or she would be permanently frozen solid.

The Ice General was surprised by the strength and resilience of her opponents. The one known as Roberta was gaining quite a bit of power from the war itself, and Tanesha was holding her own. However, neither had trained for over a thousand years in constant deadly battle, so their fighting instincts and abilities were dulled compared to hers.
"The only basic bitches here are yourselves," she retorted, and proceeded to fend off Tani's whip and Roberta's warhammer with her spear.
Her immortal strength and speed never wavered, and she kept up a brutal blitzkrieg of attacks that bloodied and wounded Roberta and Tanesha. Both sides were fighting for something important to them, and so it was a pure battle of wills.

The Ice General rammed her spear through Roberta's war aura and into her solar plexus, stunning her long enough to elbow Tani in the face and deliver a claw strike that penetrated her chest and was going for her heart. However, Roberta recovered and separated the two before Tanesha could be fatally wounded. The Ice General's Corrupted Ice Aura got even stronger and she literally pushed Roberta and Tanesha back with it. Since using telepathy to increase bad memories was not working, she created illusions with her mind, making Tanesha and Roberta see a blizzard that was not there. When the two next saw each other, each one would see the Ice General and they would fight each other, weakening each other so that the Ice General could go for the kill.

Katy could feel her power weakening and knew she had to move, she pulled a Sub-Zero type of move back flipping away and leaving the snow grasping at a ice clone stature that stood where Katy once was. Katy then summoned a ice pillar that raised from the ground, crashing through the ice queen constructs in raised up underneath Katy who started using it as a platform, riding the ice pillar platform Katy was quickly pushed out of the queen's ice aura.

Feeling her powers return Katy faded into a mist to hide herself. This blizzard made seeing the queen impossible, however Katy had other means then just eyesight she could reply on. Taking advantage of the blizzard for herself Katy able to map out and seeing where the queen was, think of it like each snowflake being a hit from a radar.

Reforming into her water shift elemental body, now with a lock on the queen Katy held her right hand up and summoned dozens of ice spears. Katy then sent the spears at the queen in a barrage like fashion.

At this time Katy's purifying of the realm was starting to speed up, as time went on Katy's understanding of the realm and what to do was becoming clearer, which was making purifying the ice and multi-tasking a fight easier for Katy to do. Katy knew all she had to do was survive, if the ice queen was unable to nail the kill shot Katy would take over. She just had to hold out a little longer.

" I dont think so! " Kano's enhanced reflexes allowed him to turn his body at just the right angle for the psionic blade to to graze his side and immediately healed, using mjolnir he absorbed Sandra's attack, magnified it and turned it back on Sandra, catching her off guard. As she was engulfed by the attack, Kano drew on the infinite energies of the odinforce and enhanced his immense powers even furtherm charging through the attack and meeting Sandra at the center of it.

In mjolnir he channeled godly energy and in his left hand he summoned immense thermal energy, multiple runes appeared around Sandra, keeping her in place, magnifying his power even further, and creating a pocket dimention for the two of them, power of this magnitude would utter decimate the planet and that was certainly not his intention.

" Wake the fuck up Fuller!! "

He brought both attacks point break on Sandra,holding back just enough to not completly destroy the woman, adding more runes for mental clarity as the pocket dimention was lit up nearly obliterated.

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Tanesha's whip lashed out and wrapped around the ice generals neck, she tugged and activated it's explosive properties, the ice general screamed and leaped back, much of her skin was badly burned, she glared at them, wondering why her illusion wasnt working.

Roberta grinned " Our mental defenses do a bit more then keep people from digging through our minds, they protect us from illusions too, courtesy of our girlfriend as well as Emmet, two of the strongest telepathic minds on the planet, like Tanesha said, basic bitches dont factor in "

Roberta's war aura flared up even greater then before, altering her armor " Tani, mind if I take this bitch solo? "

" Do you girl, i'll be cheering you on as I check on the others " She ran off to the place where Kano and Sandra were fighting.

Roberta brandished her war hammer, a second one appearing in her other hand " Ready for round 2? "

The ice general twirled her spear and got into a fighting stance " The last round, for you! "

The two rushed each other and met in a flurry of unseeable movments, weapons and auras clashing, each trying to press the other back, find an opening. Roberta didnt have the years of training that ice general did, but being the avatar of war made up for it, War had existed since time immemoral, countless battles and countless ways of fighting. All that colmunated and flowed through Roberta's mind and in this instant, she was war.

Her movements became more efficent, not one was a wasted one, each perfectly thought out. The ice general found herself being pressed back further and further and further. Roberta's weapons started morphing, changing with each passing strike. From war hammers to swords, spears, knifes, at one point the ice general was dodging bullets, but she had to keep moving, her mind completely on defense.

Time seemed to stand still for a moment, as the ice general's spear was deflected and she was made wide open. Roberta, wielding a gun-lance, rammed it straight through the ice generals stomache and charged it with her war aura and pulled the trigger, the resulting blast obliterated the ice general. Roberta let out a mighty war cry as she fell to her knee's,breathing hard. Her mind was spinning and she felt so elated, her foe was defeated, but the war was still going on.

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" Your asking the wrong people if your expecting cheering " Noah said as he took a 3 from Ashe and not particularly bothered by Scotts" Katy Kharma is a competent fighter. I dont believe she'll fall here, the odds are certainly stacked against her in a manner of speaking, but she is in her element and there is little else to do "

" Her strategy appears to be working " Ashe said, as monotone as ever as he told Noah to go fish " I feel the outcome will reveal itself soon, in any event, I can agree on the cheering. Yet isnt our group known for it's musical affairs? "

Minerva's eyes lit up " Oh my, yes, if Emmet were here i'm sure he'd want song to cheer Katy on "

" How unfortunate that Emmet isnt here " Noah said, ignoring the looks Minerva and Ashe were giving him " Besides, theres no "

As if on que, music started to play and Noah sighed in annoyance before putting his cards and standing up, shooting a glare at Ashe as the source of the music.

Noah:
Pull out the stops, I got a way that we can get it
Just say the word, I'll kick it up to eleven
We're knocking on your door, with what we got in store
Don't break it up, break it down (Yeah come on!)


We'll kill the night
And we'll never see the sun
(Every day and night going crazy)
And I'll call the shots, don't you tell me when I'm done
(Live it up, this life is amazing)
Hey diddle-diddle won't you meet me in the middle
Let the music make you fly
Don't need to show no mercy cause heroes never die

Now listen up I'm gonna give you a rundown
Got you in my sights, you know I've got this on lockdown
We're running out and free
This life was meant for me
Step to the plate, you gotta show me what you got
Show me what you got

We'll kill the night
And we'll never see the sun
(Every day and night going crazy)
And I'll call the shots, don't you tell me when I'm done
(Live it up, this life is amazing)
Hey diddle-diddle won't you meet me in the middle
Let the music make you fly
Don't need to show no mercy cause heroes never die

With a break in the song, Noah crafted a sax made of light and started playing it.

We'll kill the night
And we'll never see the sun
(Every day and night going crazy)
And I'll call the shots, don't you tell me when I'm done
(Live it up, this life is amazing)
Hey diddle-diddle won't you meet me in the middle
Let the music make you fly
Don't need to show no mercy cause heroes never die

I said 'Heroes never die!'


The song was full of engery and made everyone feel pumped, Minerva felt her fear recede back a little more, she clapped and cheered for Katy and congragulated Noah on his performance.

Sandra still seemed defiant as she tied to move but Kano had this battle won already. These demons tampering seemed to be nothing to be taken likely, if they get into direct contact with somebody they can really fuck them up. However Sandra always did have a weakness, Dave may not have been around anymore but maybe somebody else could fill his void. "Fine Fuller, if you won't listen to me then maybe you'll listen to this person." Kano brought them out of the pocket dimension and Tanesha ran over to them, having already been in route to their location. Kneeling at her girlfriends side Tanesha listened on at Sandra's mad ramblings about not being done and making this world pay. It almost seemed like Kano would be forced to finish the job and put down one of his allies.

Tanesha screamed at Sandra to snap the hell out of it and hugged her tightly in desperation. The action seemed to leave Sandra in a confused state, Kano raise an eyebrow as finally they seemed to be making some progress. After a few seconds Sandra seemed to react, at first it looked like Sandra was going to move her hand towards Tani's neck and Kano was ready to strike her down. However Sandra's sanity seemed to finally break through as she embraced Tani in a hug and completely broke down into tears. She was still reliving everything in her mind, her child's death, her ex's death's, her friends death, all the misery she'd endured over the years, the demon had brought everything to the forefront of Sandra's mind and it wouldn't be easily forgotten or repressed, but at least Sandra seemed done with trying to make the world suffer for her problems.

Roberta soon joined them, this may have been the most distraught she'd ever seen the girl. The ice general had fucked with Sandra hard, which made Roberta's victory all the more sweeter. A distinct warning to those who dear mess with one of her girls. It took a while but the group eventually got Sandra called down, she still seemed to be feeling pain not from Kano bringing her to the brink of death but from the ice general forcing it's way into her mind. But on the whole Sandra seemed to be progress along and getting back to her normal self.

Tani and Roberta helped Sandra up to her feet after she'd recovered enough, by this point Sandra seemed to be talking to the two girls pretty normally again and everybody was smiling. Sandra would soon turn her attention on Kano and gave him a truly heartfelt apology for the trouble she'd caused. Much like Kano had suspected, Sandra confirmed to them that the ice general completely blind sided her with that attack, she'd figured herself all but immune to physic attacks at this point but somehow the ice general managed to break though. Sandra confirmed the point of contact being when shit went to hell. Sandra put a hand up to her head, she had a headache and her memories was still lingering. But Sandra confirmed she was still able to go and help out. She did recommend however that they take these demons more seriously going forward, and that they should avoid giving these demons any extended contact with any of them.

Scott listened as Noah and Ashe had confidence in Katy's fighting abilities and didn't feel the need to cheer her on. Scott didn't doubt Katy was a capable fighter, but even if she was in her element, she was still fighting an enemy that was much stronger than her. This battle was far from decided yet. He listened as music started playing with Noah performing it, his foot tapping to the beat of the good rock song. When the song was over, everyone seemed more energized, and Scott had a smile on his face while still keeping his serious body language. Katy was holding her own and taking control of the realm, but she still had a little ways to go before she had a leg up in this battle.

The Ice Queen sensed the ice spears flying at her and held out her hand, turning them around to fly back at Katy. Summoning a ball of ice in her hands, she fired freezing beams of ice, attempting to trap Katy within an ice prison. She could feel her realm starting to slip further out of her control, and she had to stop Katy before she lost her warping ability. Warping to Katy, she grabbed her by the throat and began freezing her solid. Her body was now trapped in ice, and Katy would have to win this battle of wills if she wanted to escape before her mind went blank.
"You put up more of a fight than I thought you would, but it ends here."

To the ice queens surprise she could feel Katy resisting, her body shifting back and forth from ice covered to normal and back again. Each time Katy gained control she spoke a single word "Yes... for... you..." Unwilling to give way Katy finally overcame the ice queens attempt to finish her, Katy refused to see herself done in by this demon, and she certainly refused to be done in by her own element of all things. Usually Katy always did things for others, but truth be told she was doing this for her. Katy wanted this win, she needed this win to prove to herself as much as anyone else that she could hang with the best of them, that she deserved being called a hero and that she deserved a spot on whatever team she'd join.

Shifting back to a normal body again Katy gasped for air under the ice queens tight grip, she raised her own arm up grasping the ice queen by the throat resulting in a double choke hold occurring. The ice queen was about to laugh off Katy's attempts to choke her when she noticed frost starting to cover her body. Shocked and maybe a little panicked the ice queen let go of Katy, knocked the girls arm away and backed off.

Was this girl just about to freeze her, or at least attempt to? No that couldn't have been right, no mere mortal is that strong. She looked over to see Katy cough a few times and rub her throat before looking back with a grin. Katy then spoke "My main goal in this fight might have been for myself, but don't think I'll succumb to you that easily. I have a lot of friends I'm also fighting for, and I'll be damned if I give you the opportunity to hurt any of them."

Katy may of chosen this fight with something to prove, but she also hadn't forgotten who she was nor forgotten those she cared for. Her will was plenty strong and she was going to overcome whatever this so called queen threw at her. "You may think your a queen, but the thing is, you are in my domain whether you link to admit it or not."

The ice queen suddenly noticed her warping ability was no more as Katy had just about finished purifying the dimension. "Let's do this queen" Katy said with snow white eyes, she summoned a long ice spear swirling it around skillfully before taking a fighting stance. The spear was a weapon Katy could use to keep the queen at more of a distance then her usual blades, which was good to help avoid the queens aura. Holding the spear in her right hand, Katy held up her left and brought it down in a slicing motion, seemingly hundreds of ice shards formed and flew like bullets at the ice queen (think some like Jamemba's ultimate attack in dragon ball). The ice queen deflected the attack only to see Katy follow up right behind it and jab the spear forward. The ice queen moved to evade and while her superior speed helped avoid a direct kill shot, Katy did manage to hit a tear a gash into the queen's side.

The two combatants turned to face each other again. "Strike two, I'm sure you've heard the saying queen, third times the charm." The ice queen never expected a mere mortal to turn out to be such a hassle. But Katy knew the battle wasn't over yet.

The Ice Queen smirked in amusement at Katy's defiance.
"How cute that you actually believe you're getting the advantage over me."
The gash in her side healed instanty, and she looked around at the purified water sparkling around her.
"You've purified the surface water of my realm, which is enough to inconvenience me a little bit. However, I have ruled this realm for over 10,000 years and you will not take it from me that easily."
The Queen spread her arms like a crucifix and grinned sadistically.

Her Corrupted Ice Aura suddenly exploded at full power in an instant, covering Katy and locking it in place so that it would be impossible for her to escape. The ability to lock auras in place was a special skill that only the Archdemons possessed, a true nightmare for those trapped under their control. Raging at full power, Katy would start to feel herself turning to ice at a rapid rate, which only exacerbated the weakness and fatigue she would feel in mind, body, and soul. Though it seemed like the Ice Queen was fighting at full power, this was only the beginning of her assault. Putting her thumb to her mouth, she bit it hard enough to draw blood and let a few droplets fall onto the ice before the wound healed itself. Her blood spread through the ice contained within the Corrupted Aura and brought it back under her control, which gave her back her warping ability within this space.

Not wasting a moment, the Ice Queen began warping and mercilessly slashing and stabbing a nearly paralyzed Katy with her diamond-hard icy fingernails. Though she was tempted to gouge out her eyes and pull out her teeth, she restrained herself to keep the future ice statue in near mint condition. She instead drove all ten nails of both fingers all the way into her stomach, relishing her screams of pain.
"That's a little parting gift for thinking you could possibly beat me at my own game."
Withdrawing her fingernails with agonizing slowness, she backed off and began blasting Katy with an ice beam to speed up the process of making her into a decoration. Scott's spirited teammate now had just seconds to act before her death arrived, one last chance to wrest victory from the jaws of defeat.

Scott's eyes widened as the Ice Queen took the gloves off and rapidly swung the battle in her favor. Katy had put up a good fight, but she was now hopelessly trapped in enemy territory with little chance of escape. He found it hard to breathe as he realized that he might witness Katy die right before his eyes. However, all hope was not lost. The one drawback to any kind of aura was that once the opponent was inside of it, they had lost the ability to use it as a shield and would have to rely on other means to protect themselves until the opponent lost the strength to fight back; this was the logic behind Scott's Valor Armor, which protected him while the Destructive Aura trapped and debilitated the opponent. The Ice Queen was so certain of her impending victory that she had neglected to protect herself with some kind of ice armor, making it possible for Katy to go for a powerful attack on her head that might win the battle and save her life.

Katy took a beating from the physically stronger and faster ice queen, unbeknown to the queen this is what Katy was waiting for, this moment when the ice queen opened herself to attack.     However the timing of Katy's next attack had to be precise, and all she could hope to do was to endure her punishment until the right moment presented itself.    Getting stabbed, clawed, and beaten repeatedly at speeds she couldn't match, Katy was losing a lot of blood and close to passing out from the pain.   When the ice queen moved in to freeze Katy and finish her off, making her a ice statue, Katy found her opening and mustered the last of her strength, her eyes glaceing over white for the briefest of seconds a long ice spike impaled the ice queen through the skill, Katy's body was frosted over and just about to be frozen when the spike struck the queen.     Mustering a pained smirk Katy said "See... told you."    

Katy's final attack had went all the way through the ice queens skull and narrowly impaled Katy herself as her control was starting to weaken at this point.     Both women fell to the ground and Katy soon struggled back to her feet, making a ice cane to help her up she most certainly had broken bones and internal damage.     Dissolving the cane Katy summoned a large ice mallet and using the last of her strength took a mighty swing that completely crushed the ice queens head, blood and bone fragments flew everywhere and Katy collapsed to her knees coughing up blood immediately after the swing.

The mallet wasn't clean, wasn't pretty, but Katy wanted to be sure this was over and she didn't have the strength left in her to do anything elaborate.   So brutish and ugly it was.     Katy just hoped this thing wouldn't regenerate a new head or she'd be in a really bad standing.

Scott watched spellbound as the Ice Queen almost killed Katy in the battle.
"Katy!" he called out, afraid that he was watching an ally die before his eyes, something that had never happened before.
However, at the last second, Katy summoned a large icicle that impaled the Ice Queen all the way through the skull. This kind of attack would have never worked normally, but the queen was so focused on killing Katy that she didn't see it coming. The Queen fell to the ground, unable to believe the pain she was in from the blow. With her down, her powers were cut off and Katy was free from the ice.

The Ice Queen struggled to reach up and pull the icicle from her face, knowing that she could regenerate the wound if her head was still intact. However, the brain damage had severely limited her motor skills and she was having a hard time lifting her arms. She had touched the icicle by the time Katy was hobbling over on her ice cane. As she started to push, Katy summoned the ice mallet to go for the finishing blow. Since the icicle was through her face, she never saw the death blow coming for her. When her head was destroyed like a watermelon dropped from a skyscraper, her arms collapsed to the ground and she disappeared in a puff of black smoke along with the gore. The Archdemons could survive wounds that would be fatal to humans, but they could not survive their heads being destroyed. The Ice Queen was now dead until Satan could resurrect her with enough negative energy.

Scott jogged over and looped Katy's arm over his neck while supporting her waist.
"Here, I'll help you back to the Sacred Aura."
He walked with her over to the Sacred Aura and laid her down. A quick scan of her body by Valor told him that she had internal damage to some of her organs as well as broken bones.
"Just hold still and I'll patch you up."
Scott clasped his hands together and focused his aura energy onto Katy, which over the course of ten minutes healed her broken bones and internal injuries.

Scott opened his eyes and took a deep breath.
"Well, you're not quite ready to run a marathon, but you should be good to keep going."
Scott helped her to her feet and turned to Minerva and the CB's.
"Alright, guys, let's get moving."
Dropping the Sacred Aura, he began heading for the exit portal. With their Queen dead, none of the other ice demons would dare to mess with them.

"Thank you." Katy said to Scott after he worked on her. Katy quickly noticed she could still feel some pain, but her major wounds seemed to be healed. Replying to the not running a marathon comment "yea watching your battle with the fire king, I knew if the ice queen was even remotely comparable I wouldn't be able to keep up. Knowing this I figured by best bet was to trick her into a false sense of security. I'd have to get her off guard but that wasn't proving easy. It wasn't until I put myself in mortal danger leading her to think she'd won, until I finally found my opening to strike. I'm just grateful I wasn't to far gone to capitalize. Had I missed my very brief chance I'd of been a goner for sure."

Giving a little pause to break after her explanation Katy spoke again, changing the topic a bit. "Hmm, so I'm guessing healing isn't exactly your forte, is it Scott? Emmet and Sandra among others back on our Earth can heal wounds completely, heck some even fully restore your stamina, and in a quicker time to boot. You seem to be able to just patch somebody up good enough to get by. Are healers more a rarity in your world, or is it just part of your abilities that you struggle with?"

This battle with the ice queen wasn't Katy's first time coming back from the brink, either through herself or others Katy has seen the type of the damage the Phoenix and magic users can undo, even some of the mutants can work wonders. Scott seemed skilled enough to stop a person from dying, but Katy was certainly still feeling some of the effects of battle. So Scott's healing ability seemed limited compared to what she's used to in general.

Ashe had one the game, much to Noahs annoyance, feeling better now, Minerva went back to stand beside Scott and Cheer Katy on. Noah walked over too, but Ashe remained where he was, looking at the cards, but was easily keeping track of Katy's battle. At her victory, Minerva jumped up and down, congragulating Katy on her victory. The group followed after Scott towards the exit. Minerva wondered what the next arch demon would be like, she still held some fear, but was trying to push past it.

Katy suddenly started feeling invigorated, the ache's and pains vanishing. Looking over, she could see a faint aura eminating from Ashe, two faint shimmers behind him that almost formed wings.

" You should be fine now, Scott healed healed most of your wounds, it was good work, I finished the rest and replinished your stamina and power " he said as they walked " I can handle healing, it appears to be something I used to do in the past, I think "

Katy formed some ice as they walked not feeling the least bit strained or fatigued doing so. Dissolving the ice Katy gave a nod to Ashe and thanked him. While she wasn't going to let a little discomfort slow her down and hold up the group regardless, it was nice to be back in tip top shape once again. At least she could defend herself now if need be.

Picking up on Minerva concerns, she went over to the girl. "Hey, don't let fear cloud your mind. The Ice Queen from combat perspective had speed and strength I couldn't hope to match, even her powers ultimately ran deeper then mine. But strength is only half the battle. Even if you feel these battles outclass you, you can still win. Anybody can make a mistake. Just be confident in yourself and always have a eye open for your opportunity to strike. In the end fear will kill you, but if you believe, I'm certain you'll find a way."

Katy was trying to squash any doubt Minerva had and give her a confidence boost, using her own battle as a example Katy showed that you didn't have to be the strongest dog in the yard to come out on top. Having the right state of mind is huge in a fight, and if Minerva had doubts against opponents this strong, that wouldn't of been good.

A void is seen, energy is swirling, clashing back and forth things are occuring, what is the nature of this business only time will tell.

Something is happening, a force is moving, it is begininng,

Scott looked over at Katy as she critiqued his healing abilities as compared to Emmett and Sandra.
"The Sacred Aura wasn't designed for healing, so that explains the lower quality results. My powers are more of the destructive kind."
He nodded at Ashe as he said that he could handle the healing.
"Thanks, man. It will come in handy."

Scott turned around and looked in the direction of the next portal.
"Well, with the Ice Queen defeated, we've done what we have to do. Let's move on, but stay alert. We don't know what might be waiting for us on the other side."
He turned and began heading for the portal. He liked how Katy was trying to encourage Minerva, and he liked how the team really seemed to be sticking together even though they all came from different backgrounds and experiences.

"Don't worry about us Scott. I know of the Code:Breakers from Sandra plus a little personal exposure, they might seem like all fun and games but they will most certainly bring the fight when need be."

Meanwhile as they waited for more enemies and when her headache eased off enough for her to so, Sandra reached out to everybody she could to warn them of the demon generals psionic abilities.

Minerva, Noah, and Ashe followed the others to the next destination.

As Scott and his party passed through the exit portal, they arrived in what looked to be a huge desert. However, what was strange about this desert was that instead of sand, it seemed to be miles of soil. Looking around in all directions, he saw mountains of soil in the distance, but nothing that resembled any kind of dwellings.
"The first two Hells were fire and ice, so I guess now we end up in Earth Hell," Scott muttered to himself.
He began walking with his party, not seeing any sign of enemies. The feeling of a desolate empty wasteland settled over them.

However, this was merely a trap that their enemies had devised. Earth demons could settle into the soil and survive there, so it was no problem for them to move stealthily. Beneath their feet, they followed the party and waited for the right moment to attack. When they did strike, it was from below where their opponents would literally not see it coming. Everyone had their legs grabbed and were feeling themselves being swiftly pulled down into the earth. Other demons piled on top of them, attempting to push them down underground so that they would be buried alive.

An ambush attack? Damn it!
Keeping his head, Scott flared up with his Destructive Aura, which pushed back the colossal weight on top of him. Using his Shining Fist of Valor, he cut a path through them and stepped onto the head of an Earth Demon to get himself back to the surface. Jumping to avoid being grabbed again, he saw Minerva's hand just before it was about to go under. Sprinting over to her, he grabbed her hand and pulled her back to the surface with his immense strength. Katy, Ashe, and Noah were already underground, and they would have to act quickly to save them.

However, before they could do that, the Earth Demons were attacking again. Hoisting Minerva onto his shoulders, he kept her safe from being grabbed so that she could focus on casting offensive magic against their foes. Knowing now where the attacks were coming from, Scott responded to their attacks with a bevy of powerful kicks that broke their bodies easily. Trying not to move too quickly so that he didn't throw off Minerva, he continued to defend them from below while she struck from above. As they had proven in the battle against Godric, they could work well as a team. The Earth Demons would soon learn the mistake they had made in dragging Katy under, as he was sure that her water powers would be enough to rescue her, Ashe, and Noah from their clutches.

While these lower-class demons were attacking Scott and his party, the Generals were being dispatched with their forces on Earth. The first of these Generals headed for Nirvana, landing in the midst of the heroes and attacking them. His great brute strength and his axe made for a powerful combination, and he knocked many foes aside before being stopped by a missile to the face. Recovering from the blow, he was surprised to see a warrior in strange armor standing before him.
"You...You'll pay for that!"
"I do hope you'll provide me a challenge, demon," Cybernator replied with a chuckle tinged with insanity.

The Earth General enveloped him in a Corrupted Earth Aura and swung his axe with great power. To his surprise, however, the axe completely bounced off the armor, despite it being a solid hit.
"Don't insult me, General. You'll have to do better than that if you want to hurt me."
A chest cavity in Cybernator's armor opened and a missile was fired, which blew the General back a considerable distance. Freed from the aura, he shrugged.

"You're not really doing much to make this entertaining for me. I was hoping that a General would be stronger than the demons I've dispatched thus far. At this rate I won't need to do much more than I have."
The General channeled some of his aura into his axe and flung it at Cybernator with all of his force.
He scanned it with his diagnostics and determined that it would damage his armor if he let it hit him, so he calmly moved to the side and let it pass him before reaching up to grab it by its handle.
"Thanks for the gift, but I hardly need such a primitive weapon in my arsenal. You can take this back."
He hurled the axe back on the same trajectory that it had flown at him.

However, this turned out to be a mistake on Cybernator's part. Normally Generals couldn't warp on Earth, but this General had imbued his weapon with his own energy, and so he could warp through space to reunite with his weapon. He did just that and was right in Cybernator's face, swinging his axe with inhuman speed and savagery in a blitz attack. Holbrook weathered the blows and countered with an enhanced punch that knocked him back a few steps. A withering assault from his triple Gatling Guns continued to push back the General. However, when the Corrupted Aura went up, his bullets started ricocheting off, becoming a danger to his allies and forcing him to stop firing.

The General smirked, having deduced the weakness in Cybernator's strategy. His mundane weapons, while potent, would not be enough to kill a demon of his caliber. On the other hand, a charged-up strike from his axe would penetrate that fancy armor and get to the skin and bones underneath. Charging in from the front wouldn't work, however, so he would need to strike from an unseen direction. Melting into the earth, he moved around and prepared an ambush attack. Unfortunately for him, Cybernator had anticipated such a move and had installed ground-penetrating radar into his armor, which allowed him to see his foe clear as day.

Hans had also deduced that his normal weaponry would not defeat this General, and so he readied the special supply of Solaris's flame that the Fire God had given him in order to enhance his weapons. Loading a Hellfire missile into his chest compartment, he coated it in the flame of Solaris and waited for his foe to surface. A point-blank shot from this weapon would surely be enough to kill this enemy. When his foe surfaced behind him with his axe poised for a decapitating strike, Hans turned around and opened the chest compartment.
"Oh yeah, time for a barbecue!"
Unleashing the missile, he heard the pained death cry of the General as he was completely incinerated by Solaris's flame before it exploded in a spectacle worthy of an American action movie.

"Ah, yeah!" Holbrook shouted in joy as he celebrated the kill.
He looked toward the sky.
"Thanks, Solaris. Your enhanced weapons pack a hell of a punch."
Closing the chest compartment, he headed back for the front line where some of the other heroes were being patched up. Leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, he casually whistled a jaunty tune.

The moist soil would soon become dry and cracked making it hard for the demons to move around, many of them getting stuck. It would not be long before the ground split apart where Katy, Ashe, and Noah where swallowed up. From the newly opened split created by Ashe, the 3 heroes rose on a platform of ice created by Katy, who also seemed to be the one that dried out the land. Combining her power with Ashe with the two water water users summoned what seemed like a massive fog or cloud that spread over the land for miles. Soon as the moisture touched any of the demons or the ground it instantly froze, turning the once lush soft soil into hardened permafrost land. "The frost and ice should deal with these lower level demons, or at the very least put a barrier between us and them. I doubt this will hold back the boss however. We should find him quick."

Minerva summond swords of water and hurled them off in different directions, striking the earth demons and moving in tangent with Scotts attacks. She'd completely taken by suprise when the ground opened up and tried to swallow her, thankfully Scott had managed to save her. Ashe and Noah had taken out the earth demons attacking them along with Katy and freed themselves from the earth trap. Ashe jumped from the ice platform and floated to the ground. Kneeling, he pressed his hand to the ground and caused it to shake as he flooded it with angelic energy.

Any demons within it writhed in agony and were disintegrated, he raised his other hand and blizzard picked up, the group standing upharmed in the eye of it, behind the ice was swirl of water imbued with angelic energy that tore into the ground as Ashe flooded earth hell " Hmm, maybe this will make the archdemon come out "

Scott watched as Katy broke through the ground on a pillar of ice, having rescued Ashe and Noah from the ambush attack. Ashe struck back at them with a vengeance, and Katy's impromptu permafrost had trapped the Earth demons underground. With the ground ahead flooded, they seemed to be free of any attacks.
"I wouldn't count on it," Scott replied to Ashe's assertion, "The Demonic Monarch who rules this Hell isn't going to dirty their own hands just yet."
Ashe had flooded the ground for several feet ahead of them, and with the ground in permafrost, it was not absorbing any of the water.
"Katy, think you can do anything about this water?"

An Earth General suddenly appeared in the city of Nirvana itself, trying to break into where Chiang and the monks were. The first to notice the attack aside from the ones inside was Master Permafrost, who happened to be doing a cursory check on the village itself. Seeing the Earth General raise his axe to break the door down, he cupped his hands together and encased him in ice from a sustained freezing spell. Caught completely by surprise, the Earth General was helpless before the ice master. Chanting a spell, Master Permafrost watched as the ice exploded into millions of pieces, killing the Earth General, whose black essence disappeared. Master Permafrost was relieved that his timing had been so great that he had been able to dispatch this General with a minimum of fuss, which prevented further damage to Nirvana City and saved lives. Returning to the front lines where his expertise had been incredibly useful, he watched to see if any other Hell would launch an attack at their front lines. He was correct in this assumption, as the two forces of the defeated Generals attacked the front lines at once, rushing into their counterattack in the hopes that they would break through. As Master Permafrost once more lent his formidable ice abilities to the counterattack, their hopes were quickly dashed.

"Sure, no problem." Katy unfrosted enough ground for Ashe angelic water to seep in, she kept other areas frosted so the demons was either trapped, or if they attempted to attack they had to go through Ashe angelic water.

Scott nodded.
"Thanks, Katy. Let's move out."
The party began moving forward, Scott keeping an eye out for the castle where the Earth Monarch lived. Their teamwork had so far protected them from attack from below, but they occasionally had to fend off attack from other directions. Scott could not yet sense the Monarch, so he could only keep walking forward for now.

The third Earth General located Johnathan and began launching a vicious attack on him. The powerful demon had managed to catch him alone and now they were locked in a life-or-death struggle while his forces harassed his allies from below. The Earth Demons had combined their physical strength with stealth attacks to strike fast and hard. Johnathan would have to act quickly if he didn't want his head taken off with an axe.

Back at Emmet's mansion Collin was watching over Abby, he had been worried about her despite Sandra looking at her. After resting for a while Abby to Collin's excitement had finally woken up. Collin hugged Abby in excitement when she sat up. He soon went on to explain everything that happened around the time Abby passed out.

Ashe seemed mildly suprised or something when the the arch demon didnt come out, but then again the other two had come out some time later upon entering their domain. As the group started walking again, he turned to Noah " These archdemons seem to wait for a specific passing of time or condition before they attack, is that similar in the way of a video game? "

Noah starred at him for a moment before nodding " It's starting to feel that way, doesnt seem to be much we can do but wait and fend off whatever else attacks us " he started to wonder how everyone was doing on their respective battlefronts, but dismissed it as they were all surely fine and terrorizing the enemy.

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Jonathan had chased a demon some distance from the others and took down when the earth general headed for him, his accute sense of smell letting him know the demon was coming, the large white haired wolf launched itself into the air and narrowly avoided the the generals axe, while in midair the wolf transformed into a humaoid form, he snarled and his jaws lached onto the generals arm, biting into it's stone skin and swinging it around towards the ground.

Sandra and the group was chatting about who'd take on the next general, whenever one showed up. "Sheesh they are taking their sweet time." As they continued to discussion Sandra picked up on something and a smile crossed her face. "Ooh it seems like Abigail has awoken." Sandra thought about what to do now, these demon generals seem to be getting stronger each time and Abby/Collin only just got by a fire demon. Sandra turned to her girls "Hey babes I'm going to head over to the mansion and check on Abby. I'd like you two to stay here and back Kano while I give my daughter some backup." Sandra kissed Roberta then Tanesha and turned to Kano. "I have to go check on Abby, make sure she's not feeling any ill effects from her previous battle. In the meantime I'm counting on you to take care of my girls here, alright."

Sandra gave the group a farewell and teleported back to Emmet's mansion giving Abby a big hug on arrival. "Abby I'm so happy to see you back up, how are you feeling?" The two started talking, Abby by now was well used to Sandra just arriving suddenly so the sudden appearance didn't startle her.