Meta was shocked to find her own body turning into dust against her will. She twisted and turned her body, in a desperate attempt to escape that which seemed to be inevitable. Finally she was turned wholly to dust, as well as Sin, and blown away on the currents of the wind, off to places unknown to her. It was an odd-feeling form that Sin had turned her into, and God only knew when she would regain her body, except for perhaps Sin.

SPT Layzner stepped out of the portal and saw Sin and Meta. "Are you the two that freed me?"

...I'm sorry, Serena.

...I guess, after all this time...

I guess I'm still the pathetic loser I was before.

I'm sorry I couldn't save you. I'm sorry I couldn't avenge you either. I guess it was all in vain...

The Dark Angel landed in London. X's will had surrendered, yet still the body was not hers to control completely. It was a mystery she planned to solve soon enough. But first, to draw attention to her location.

Dark Angel X (daX) approached a random passerby and blasted a stream of purple energy at him, incinerating. Next, forming a ball of it, she lobbed it into the crowd.

International headlines should do the trick, she smiled at the thought.

SPT Layzner's eyes glowed as he analysed the shrine's interior. It somehow felt familiar to him. Suddenly, he heard Sin's voice. "Might I ask where you come from?"

Layzner stopped analysing and replied. "I was sealed here...sometime ago. I kinda lost track of time. Last recorded year...18759 of the Grados calendar. Now, mind telling me exactly where I am? This place feels somewhat...familiar..."

Meta looked around the shrined after having re-materialized into her good ol' self again. Happy to have regained her form and not be stuck as dust no more, she looked into the direction Sin indicated, and looked on as a figure came out of it. She took a step backwards into the shadows, her dark skin allowing her to blend in with them to a certain degree, trying to keep out of the stranger's sight, as she did not wish to get into an unwanted fight just right after getting out of another. She listened to the stranger conversing with Sin, and noted how he seemed to act rather strangely. Year eighteen-thousand-what? Gradoes calendar? Has that man lost his mind? She thought to herself. Caught up in looking over the man, analyzing his face and get-up, her attention was drawn away from him as she heard Sin speak.

"You may step throught the portal now."

Thinking it best to get away from the world for now, she was happy to oblige, and nodded. She walked past Layzner, her eyes going over him once more and locking onto his eyes, as if to try and see what was within his mind. Moments later, however, she had strode past him, and stood in front of the portal. A deep sigh escaped her, and then she took another last step forward, into the portal, and she disappeared.

Layzner stepped away from the portal and continued to scan the inside of the shrine. Something didn't feel right about this place. he thought. He quickly ran a system check and found out that his memory circuits were damaged. Wonderful. he thought.

"What's this nightmare realm anyway?" he asked.

"Punish the innocent?" asked Layzner. "Doesn't sound like the place anyone would want to end up in. Anyway, where are you going now?"

Xazax's metal body slammed the ground hard, shredding through the field, his abdomen armor buckled in and fractured, and smoking. As his body was propelled, the demon's arm shot out and pushed himself up, spinning upwards and righting himself easily.

R.D. raised an eyebrow from behind the visor of the Dragon King Armor. Then blinked as his body was slammed backwards through the air, barely able to register Xazax's sudden movement. The demon was moving again as R.D. dug his boots into the ground to stop his movement. Raising his arm up into the air, a sphere of cold energy materialized into his open hand. The monster looked surprised as R.D. flung it straight down into the ground in front of him.

The Glacial Wave exploded outwards as it struck, blasting out waves of cold air and mist. The metallic joints in Xazax's legs shorted and froze, and the demon faltered. Blades and spikes of ice shredded into him, and the demon bellowed. His feet slipped out from under him, the ground now frozen solid, and R.D. rocketed up into the air. Xazax snarled as he saw that his feet had been frozen directly to the ice sheet, and he was unable to move.

R.D., right hand ablaze with the Dragon Blaze attack, looked down and gazed downwards, stopping in shock as a heat-radiating Xazax stood and raised his maul upwards. The weapon screamed downwards at the ice.

"Yami Ni Nare!"

The giant hammer struck, and white ice became black. Motes of darkness spread upwards into the air, the weapon converting the ice energy of Lumiya into pure darkness. The demon launched up into the air and stared at R.D., who was glaring back in anger.

"You like?" the demon mocked, hefting the weapon over his shoulder. "We had been monitoring you and your friends for many days. Willard had a great number of interesting techniques. His prized Goldion Hammer was of great interest to me in the canyon, and when I was rebuilt, I commissioned the creation of this, with the opposite ability of the Goldion Hammer."

"Cute," R.D. muttered, falling back into a ready stance, "You're always full of surprises, you freak."

The demon readied the giant weapon at his side. The demon shot forward, swinging the lethal weapon at R.D. who barrel-rolled out of the way and flung the Dragon Blaze at him. The burning dragon-head bit into the demon's side and exploded, engulfing them both in an explosion. R.D. shot out of it, smoke and char on his armor as he sped to the ground and landed near the ruined tank.

(OOC: SPT stands for "Super Powered Tracer" which is the type of unit Layzner is. Guess I should've done a proper introduction for him, heh)

When Sin got into the portal, Layzner decided to look around the place. He eventually found writings on one of the walls. This language... thought Layzner as he examined it. Something told him the language was familiar, but he couldn't decipher it.

"Stupid damaged memory circuits!" cursed Layzner as he punched a hole in the wall. He looked at the hole for a second in astonishement. "...whoa" he silently said. Suddenly, it hit him. I could just activate my internal repair system.

"Computer, activate internal repair system." he ordered.

"Internal repair system requires you to go offline for an hour." replied the internal computer.

"Acknowledged." said Layzner, a second later, his eyes turned black.

Bryant, Veronica, and Brandon, though unmoving they had not stopped thinking. It was utterly amazing that just a mere teen could combat the demon as well as he could and do such amazing things. The power that radiated from the teen was overwhelming at first, and not even some of their older encounters were considered as great. It was shame that Sawyer didn't know of this teen sooner, then maybe he would have been an ally of them sooner. Maybe.

When the teen landed near the Hartnetts, they quickly skidded away, hiding behind some nature and the tank. Despite the fact the teen seemed to be able to handle the demon, they were not about to get caught in the cross fire, not in their condition.

He could hear Xazax escaping the mighty explosion of the Dragon Blaze, and was surprised. It was one of his more powerful attacks at this level--only Dragon Drive FINAL seemed to easily shrug it off. He pivoted around, readying his shield on his left arm, and activating Godhand around his right hand.

The demon soared through the air, swinging his deadly hammer around overhead once before swinging downwards at R.D. in a single, lightning-fast motion. The shield split open four ways and projected an energy barrier, and thunder crashed as R.D. blocked the attack. Hovering the air, Xazax did his best to break through the defense, and R.D. growled and snarled as he struggled to push the demon back.

"Little brat!" the demon roared, putting more of his strength behind his weapon. R.D. could slowly feel himself being pushed back. He had to win, whatever the cost. And now, the fool of a demon had left himself wide open. The damaged area where his God Hand Smash had struck was now a glaring weakness. One R.D. intended to exploit completely.

His eyes flashed yellow behind the visor. A red outline of energy in the form of a flying dragon materialized in front of his armor, emanating from the glowing center ruby. A ring of heat and flame erupted from his back, burning brightly. R.D. swung his free hand up to eye level as the upper arm plating on the gauntlet shifted upwards, the two gold slasher pieces swinging backwards and locking into place.

"This hand of mine is burning red," he growled, looking at his hand, forcing the heat, flame, and light into it, "It's loud roar tells me to grasp victory!"

He brought his hand back downwards, still holding Xazax at bay. Suddenly, the Godhand condensed into his hand, burning a bright reddish-orange. Heat rolled off of his gauntlet in waves, and the cyborg demon stared down at R.D. in shock and horror. R.D.'s eyes flashed gold behind the visor of his helmet.

"Bakuretsu God FINGER!!"

Upwards his attack curved, his arm driving the flattened hand with split fingers up into the demon's abdomen. Unable to take the strain, it easily caved in, piercing metal and flesh to burn at the cybernetics and organs within. Xazax screamed--it was like getting hit with Falcon Punch all over again, only from the inside out. His grip on his hammer weakened, and using his new strength, R.D. hefted the demon cyborg above his head, even as Xazax's body began glowing a bright crimson.

"Yes! And now, Heat END!!!"

All at once, the ring of fire behind R.D.'s back burst outwards, and the gathered heat in the Bakuretsu God Finger dispersed throughout Xazax's body. Parts and wires were detonated, organs and veins were instantly liquefied. Within a second, Xazax's body was completely obliterated, the entire form engulfed in a single massive explosion. Smoke obscured R.D.'s form, and the silence was deafening.

The wind blew, scouring the wind away. The light shone down, glinting off of the cobalt, violet-blue, and silver-blue Dragon King Armor, as R.D. stood victorious. Of Xazax, the only sign that he had even been there was the massive black maul laying discarded on the ground, before it disappeared within a pool of shadow.

Edited by RisingDragon on October 19, 2007 at 13:15:17.

From behind the tank, Bryant, Brandon, and Veronica watched in awe as RD threw his hand out, roaring some sort of war cry. It was slow at first, watching Xazax being liquefied before becoming nothing at all. Smoke blocked all the view the Hartnetts of RD and Xazax, or the lack of Xazax to be exact. Soon enough the Hartnetts, slowly came from hiding, braving the smoke.

Bryant stepped forward boldly before some sort of shadow. He came closer and there stood RD. Bryant was a bit hesitant of talking to the awesome teen, it no wonder because of the new found respect, and almost fear they had of RD. Finally Bryant placed a hand on RD's shoulder.

"Hey," Bryant began, "nice job, but if you're done here, we need to get moving." Bryant said, though a bit hasty was of course right.

R.D. nodded. "Go fix your tank while I go get my bike," he said, motioning to the damaged vehicle. "Always a good thing to get the hell out of Dodge after a battle."

Bryant nodded and returned to the tank quickly. The Hartnetts then used the rockets to boost the tank over again, and replaced them to face back again, for quick travel. They hopped in and quickly went to their stations. Brandon started the tank, it failed.

"Shit..." Bryant mumbled, now that the top was off he was just sitting in a chair above the two.

Edited by Blazen on October 19, 2007 at 16:32:12.

"... that's not repairing the tank," R.D. said, hefting his damaged bike up. Employing the kickstand, R.D. motioned everyone out of the vehicle. As they disembarked, R.D. examined the side, looking for a panel or something similar. He soon found it, and after pushing it in, stepped back from the tank.

In a flash of light, it was gone. Hovering a few feet in the air was a glowing red cube. R.D. snatched it out of the air and tossed it to Veronica. "It's an Isle-made vehicle," he said, "They all seem to have that cube form. After all, look at what the Thunder King came in."

Veronica nodded placed the cube in her poach. Almost immediately however someone came from the shadows, calling out to the teen. The Hartnetts looked over to the man promptly and quickly thought, great...here we go again.

R.D. perked up. His skin crawled beneath the armor. He recognized that voice. How could he not? The voice... belonged to one in a long list of vanquished enemies.

Slowly he turned around, visor kept closed. His eyes flashed golden behind it once as he stared at Lee.

"Well, they're just coming out of the woodwork today," he growled. "I thought Matt had killed Xazax, but I know for a fact he killed you, Lee. How the hell are you back?"

"Wonderful," R.D. muttered, "Guess I'll just have to find and break the damn thing so you won't come back the next time you get stuck full of swords."

R.D. knew already he was much more stronger than Lee was during their last encounter. The problem was, if the scanner in his armor was correct, so was Lee. They could be even, or Lee could be more powerful. He didn't feel like sticking around to find out.

R.D. put his foot out in front of him, standing at an angle to Lee. In his hand was a yellow-colored gem, drawn from the pocket dimension of the Dragon King Armor. Up and down it went through the air as he bounced it on his hand. "Well, sorry to chat and run," he said, his tone indicating he was anything but sorry, "But I have some errands to run."

His hand shot out, clutching the gemstone in his hand as energy flowed through it.

"Chaos Control!"

In a bright flash of light, R.D., the Hartnetts, and the Thunder King motorbike disappeared in a flash of light.

===In Japan===

Alasea had long departed from the company of Awai, Riul, and Mercy. She couldn't afford to stay away from the Pillar of Dawn for long. So, she now was straightening things out in her home, idling for the next day of her training. She hummed a merry tune, sunlight streaming through the window and cascading on her bare shoulders, her jacket discarded over the back of a chair.

Out on the cliffside hill, near the great Pillar of Dawn, lightning flared for a brief moment before four humans and a vehicle materialized on the slight hill. R.D. staggered slightly. Short-range usage of Chaos Control he had mastered, but he still needed to work on long-distance warping with the gem.

R.D. looked about, turning towards the Hartnetts. He belatedly realized that the three of them would hardly be used to the rush of Chaos Control, and he yelled at himself inside his head for his mistake.

"You three alright?" he asked, letting the Dragon King Armor dematerialize from his form.

===Back in California===

"Oh damn, I just missed him," a deriding voice spoke up behind Lee. "I really should stop getting sidetracked so easily. I always miss out on the fun things."

Michael smirked as he stared at Lee's gigantic back. "But I guess we both missed him, eh, you big old brute?"

The Hartnetts, moaned and groaned from the rush of the control. It was such a rush that they even forgot what had happened just a moment before. Veronica ended up falling backwards onto her bottom from being so dizzy. Bryant and Brandon were able to stay standing, but just barely.

"Uhh...I think." Brandon responded, too dizzy to even know who asked the question, but also didn't really care.