"I never heard of any 'La Li Lu Le Lo', Patriots or Illuminati, the world was just a bit too busy at that point with fighting communism and inventing stuff, like nuclear-powered cars. How do I know? Try shooting cars, they'll go up with a mushroom cloud. And I doubt you are a Vault Dweller. A Vault Dweller is a person who lived in a Vault-Tec Vault. It's more a post-war word, though a Vault Dweller is most of the time easily spotted by either a Vault Jumpsuit or a Pip-Boy. Those Pip-Boys can't be forced off. People who had the 'luck' to be chosen to be in one when the bombs fell. But well... we know now the actual reasons of the Vaults." Maria said to Armstrong, continuing after a moment of silence "We know all too well what you mean. We do what we can to make life better. The best thing we did lately was Project Purity. It was my father's idea before I was born. Ever since the bombs, people have struggled in getting clean water, because most of it is irradiated. Thanks to Project Purity, we have fixed that in the Capital Wasteland. It wasn't without struggle. The Enclave found out about it and tried to take over Project Purity. They tried to poison the water with an altered version of the FEV to kill off all life that was irradiated. We did stop them and pushed them out. Now that we have the water, we can do more. It's a beginning of something more stable. It may just weird to you, but water is worth more than gold in the post-war era.""Nothing like a good government experiment to start fucking things up" Armstrong pushed his slipping spectacles back up onto the bridge of his nose with his middle finger and staring off into the sky, letting the sunlight reflect deep into his eyes. He didn't blink. He never did. What use was there flinching and surrendering in the face of adversity? He played 'chicken' with the sunlight, certain not to flinch first "Hasn't been a good experiment since democracy. First cloning, then gene-tampering... sometimes the people in charge don't know what to do with their power... unlike yours truly" He began beaming again "Maybe my world hasn't been turned to shit by nukes, but it sure as hell been turned to shit by the La Li Lu Le Lo... you might know them as 'Patriots' or just the Illuminati. Sons of bitches started out playing fantasy football with politics back in the 60s. Some of their members were Chinese, some American, some Russian. Even back then they had the habit of meddling with civil liberties. By '65 they had almost torn themselves apart from the inside, only to be kick-started by some poncy Brit. That's when things got real bad. He seemed to get off controlling information and thought it was a great idea to build a bunch of A.I.s to start running the world. By the time I was old enough to enlist the A.I.s had built up a 'War Economy'. The 5 Ls would start a war on some damn backwater, and hire out U.S citizens to die freeing it. Got the whole world involved in that scheme. Made a fair about of dough doing it too" He laughed "Maybe I'm some'Vault-Dweller' too, coz I was born into a shit-pit too. Except my world's chaos was organized chaos. Even after the La Li Lu Le Lo upon and got themselves shut down, the world still feels their absence. That's the whole reason I went into politics... Coz there ain't a world out there that's fair... Just gotta do what we can to make it that little bit fairer for our own kind. No matter the cost-- you of all people would understand that, right?"
"Oh... and before I forget, I suggest to change the launch-codes for the nukes. Seriously, ten zeros is not a good idea to use before launching ICBMs." Maria commented after
After all of the unusual things going on, the entire squad and Maria had their rifles trained on the skeletons and Specter Knight. Maria had just about enough of it and swapped her rifle with the Fat Man. She takes, with difficulty, a mini nuke and places it on the launcher. Loading the weapon and holding it ready in case the skeletons attack. Should they attack even one member of the squad, they would all return fire.". . .Huh."
Specter Knight held up his other arm as a wave of dust blew in his direction from the trembling shockwave produced by Shiori Kujou's explosive counterattack. The cursed purple flames vanished as quickly as they appeared, slowly withering into fleeting clouds of smoke that, when they cleared, revealed an unscathed Shiori standing in the epicenter of the explosion.
Countering her own destructive force with...well, even more destructive force. The girl's ghastly sparring partner couldn't evoke much else but stunned silence. After a moment of silence was shared between the two, Specter Knight eventually lowered himself to the chamber's floor and planted his scythe into the floor by its base. He crossed his arms and quietly laughed.
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"Hmhmhm. . .you certainly do not lack in raw power, girl. You could make for a promising member of my order, back in my reality." Specter Knight mused. The words escaped his masked mouth easily enough, albeit with a hint of melancholy. "Far be it from me to put a promising fighter like you through that mundane torment."
Where did that come from? For such an antagonistic looking (and sounding; how raspy can a voice get?) creature, the knight wasn't stubborn enough to know when he's been outmatched. Though he'll make an argument in a battle of speed and reflexes, even he cannot raise a bony finger to a display of such raw, unfiltered power. It's that begrudging respect between warriors that occasionally resurfaces in Specter Knight's rotting veins. Something he would've cherished much more a few years ago.
"I've realized that many of my Curios would be more accurately represented in whatever the true tournament arena will look like, but most of the rest of them are more. . hss, straightforward. So, allow me one final test."
Specter Knight finished the exchange by gripping his scythe once more and rising from the ground. The knight scanned the open space between himself and Shiori, and glanced around the chamber itself.
He raised his free, open hand into the air.
And then, he closed it into a tight fist.
CCRRAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!
For at least the fourth time, another booming sound threatened to rupture the eardrums of every fighter inhabiting the Gravity Chamber. It sounded like a thunderbolt had just struck a few inches away from their face, but the haze of the loud noise wasn't the only thing strange about Specter Knight's attack.
It was. . .dark.
Completely pitch black.
This wasn't your average everyday darkness.
This was advanced darkness.
All light in the Gravity Chamber was suddenly erased in Specter Knight's clutch. Any sources of light simply stopped working, beams of energy wouldn't even emit any light, and even those with biological or technical night-vision simply couldn't see past the impenetrable wall of darkness that blinded everyone.
But that wasn't all. There wasn't any noise. There were no smells. No tastes, no sense of feeling or spacial awareness. Try to talk, scream or grunt in annoyance or confusion, but no one can hear themselves. Even their inner voices were muted.
For a few seconds, the Gravity Chamber was lost in darkness. It was like someone had turned off the lights of the universe.
And then, at once, everything came back on. Light filled the Gravity Chamber as much as it did previously, and the senses swiftly returned like they never left. The smells, the sounds, the taste and feeling of the Gravity Chamber was back to normal.
Except now Shiori Kujou surrounded by skeletons.
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A lot of skeletons.
In the short time span during Specter Knight's 'attack', it seems as if a horde of reanimated bones emerged from the floor of the Gravity Chamber and swiftly took point surrounding Shiori. The skeletal sentries mindlessly stood and stared at the girl, carrying nothing but rusted swords and armors. Specter Knight would suddenly appear from behind one of his minions, rising up and motioning his scythe towards Shiori.
Each of the skeletons locked on to her, and a faint twinkle of purple light began to manifest in their eye sockets.
BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMABAMBAMBAMBAMBAM
Like a firing squad set to execute, a hailstorm of magical missiles suddenly soared towards Shiori from all directions. The sentries continuously rattled their target with volleys of magic missiles from their empty eye sockets, while seamlessly tracking her movements and not stopping their attack until destroyed.
Was this undead firing squad lethal? Get hit, and see what happens.
@Raynar Saassin @Ver @Kaykay @Donder172 @Cromartous @Gummi Bunnies @Gravity Chamber