Matt glanced up at Geese.

There was a quick, familiar glisten about his form as he flew back, but it faded as soon as he began.

Could he do it again?

"Keep her off him!" Matt shouted. "I'm gonna try something!"

"Right," R.D. said, nodding to himself. He ran forward as Helena moved in to attack, and tackled the weredragon, flinging both arms around her shoulders and neck with a loud cry.

As Helena screeched and struggled, Matt crossed his arms, eyeing Geese as he rose. Hope this worked.

The familiar rush of power surged through him. He felt intense, dangerous. It was a strange, eccentric thrill and fear all at the same. He just hope it was a productive one.

"Hell...and Heaven!" He uncrossed his arms, one after the other, and the world lit up with the sudden influx of emerald energy.

As Matt uttered the words for that infamous attack, R.D. looked up at him in shock, even as the energies of life and death spiraled all around the room.

Struggling against the influx of power, Geese found his arms thrown out against his will. "What's going on?!"

Matt closed his eyes and spread his hands, fingers curled. From the surrounding field, panels materialized, latching about his forearms, tracing up to his fingers, where they were armored with claws.

The gauntlets of Dragon Drive FINAL.

"Gemu giru gan go gufo..."

Electricity crackling between his claws, he struggled to join his hands, until there was a breakthrough, and they wrapped together.

Matt's eyes flew open, now charged red.

"VIIIIIIIITAAAAAAAAAAS~!"

He flew toward Geese, propelled by Hell and Heaven, and smashed into his chest in a powerful, surging display. Geese howled in pain, doubling over, until the attack suddenly ceased, and he flew across the entire arena, falling flat on his back.

R.D. watched in shocked horror as Matt displayed the cursed attack that had destroyed the Omega Core, and had nearly killed him--he certainly noticed those large, clawed gauntlets.

It was then that R.D. began to doubt that Matt was truly free of Dragon Drive FINAL.

However, movement underneath him brought his attention back to the matter at hand: namely, the transformed Helena struggling beneath him.

"Calm down, Helena!" he said, trying to sooth the dragon. "It's okay! We've beaten him!"

He certainly hoped they'd beaten him. If there was someone capable of surviving Hell and Heaven, they were screwed.

Edited by RisingDragon on November 2, 2008 at 17:08:32.

With a noticable effort, Matt pulled apart the gauntlets. He eyed Geese as the gauntlets began to dissolve. He still felt alive. Good. It worked.

"All right," he said. "Get Ileyna and pull out Geese's Omega Essence. I'll hold Helena down."

"Right," R.D. said, quickly switching places with Matt. Taking his bleeding, beaten form into the next room, he looked about for Ileyna and quickly found her.

"Are you alright?" she asked, looking at him in concern.

"I'll live," he said. He aimed a thumb back. "We need you to take Geese's Omega Essence, though."

"Um, okay."

The two returned to the arena, and as she came near Geese's unconscious form, her entire body was lit in the blue aura, the wings emanating from her back and the halo around her head. She quickly flew over to Geese, and raised her left arm up over her head.

"Recro! Singulus... restituo... animus... substantia!"

As her hand swung down and the Purification began, R.D. stood back as the energy was drawn from Geese's body, condensing into a single globule of energy that formed the shard of Omega Essence. Before it could drop to the ground, Ileyna caught it in her hands.

Edited by RisingDragon on November 2, 2008 at 17:28:07.

"Good job!" Matt called out, his jacket already around Helena, who had regressed back to her human form.

"Oh, no, it happened again..." Helena said.

"Well, yeah, but Geese sure suffered because of it, huh?"

"Maybe."

Matt offered a smile. "You did good, Helena. You saved our butts back there."

"Where did you get that armor?" she asked, looking at the metal that covered Matt's arm.

"I'll explain later."

"So, what do we do about the scumbag here?" R.D. said, nudging Geese with his foot. "I'm sure the cops will be on their way, but we don't exactly have any evidence to use to put him in jail."

"Let's dig around his files and see what we can find," Matt said. "I'm sure there's some incriminating evidence that we can unlock."

"He deserves it," Helena said.

"Alright, I'll go take care of that. Oh, and here," R.D. said, fishing his hand into his satchel and pulling out the silver gemstone. He tossed it to Matt. "Go fix Helena's clothing."

As R.D. left the room, looking for Geese's office, Ileyna floated over to Matt and held out the Omega Essence to him in both hands. "Here," she said, "I dunno what to do with it."

Matt took the Omega Essence, and clenched it as he held up the gemstone. "...how the hell is this supposed to work?"

"Heh heh heh..."

Matt's gaze shot over to Geese, bloodied and bruised, as he struggled to rise. "...this...is not over yet..."

Oh, shit. Matt stood and moved in front of Helena. "It's over, Geese! We took your Omega Essence! Now you're powerless!"

Geese grinned, his teeth stained with blood. "Just because you took the Essence...doesn't mean that I don't still have power..."

He raised his arms, and the energy around him spiked. "THUNDER..."

"Geese, WAIT!" Matt shouted.

"BREAK!"

Geese slammed his hands down, and pillars of energy burst about him, growing in size and power as they trailed away. They charged across the entire area, cracks splitting in the woodworks, and the whole arena began to shake and crumble, along with the rest of the skyscraper.

R.D. felt the energy spike even across the other room, and spun around towards. "Oh, hell."

He ran back into the arena just as Geese slammed his hands down, and the floor lurched under him, causing him to momentarily lose his balance. "No!" he cried out as the building began to collapse.

Ileyna had regressed to her normal form once she had given Matt the Omega Essence, and now clung to Matt's leg. R.D. was running towards them, and knew there was only one thing to do to escape, and he quickly reached into his satchel.

"SHIT!" Matt held his metal-covered arm back. The heavy golden bracelet about his wrist spun with heavy motion-the crystals atop the bracelet moved in place under a silver one took dominance, and it shone. "Wind Element!"

"What are you doing?" Helena shouted, as Matt picked her up.

"Gettin' us out of here!" Matt saw R.D. run toward him. "R.D.! Let's GO!"

R.D. said nothing to Matt, and merely nodded. Before she could say anything, Ileyna found herself being scooped up by R.D. in one arm, his right hand holding a white gemstone. Angling his exposed shoulder forward, R.D. leaped up and smashed through the window. Her heart pounding, Ileyna could only scream as the two of them found themselves hundreds of feet up in the air above the street, and the flashing red and blue lights speeding away down below.

Gravity immediately took hold, and the two began to plummet, yet R.D. stayed calm. Looking downwards as they descended, he held his right hand up into the air, where the white Chaos Emerald shone.

"Chaos Control!"

===

Green light flared on a nearby rooftop, and R.D. and Ileyna spilled out from it, with R.D. landing on his feet holding a disoriented Ileyna as she clung to R.D.'s shirts. Turning back towards the skyscraper, he watched as the building imploded upon itself.

Leaping up, Matt caught the wind, soaring high and away as Geese's skyscraper tumbled to the ground in flames.

"Would you quit screaming, it's making this harder than it needs to be," Matt said to Helena.

"PUT ME DOOOOOWN!"

"Okay, okay! Damn." He caught size of R.D. landing atop another building and soared down, landing and setting Helena on the bumpy roof. "Wow. Nice explosion if I do say so myself."

"We certainly have a habit of destroying things, don't we?" he said, looking over at Matt as he set Ileyna down on her feet. She wandered over to and sat against the side of a nearby air-conditioning unit. "Though this is nothing compared to what we did to Greedy's space palace."

"Oh, man, I remember that," Matt said. "For a while there I thought I wasn't going to be able to close that black hole, you know. I'm still surprised I did, I thought I was screwed for a moment there!"

"Excuse me," Helena cut in, clenching Matt's jacket even tighter, "but can we get me some clothes now?"

"Oh, yeah! Sorry about that."

"Time to go back to the hotel, I guess," R.D. said, looking over the edge of the building at all of the rubble. He looked back at Matt. "Where's your car at?"

Matt opened his mouth to speak and it stayed that way.

Finally he said: "The parking lot of the building that just collapsed all over said parking lot."

R.D. found his head being cradled by his hand. "Yeah, that's what I thought," he said. "Luckily, it seems the building imploded. Maybe its just buried under a lot of dust and not flattened."

Looking back up at Matt, he said, "So, let's go down and try and find it."

"What about me?" Helena asked.

Matt sighed. "Hold on." The brace on Matt's arm shifted again, landing on a green crystal, and he snapped his fingers. Vines crawled over Helena's body underneath the jacket, and she yelped. She threw the jacket off of her, only to discover that the vines had grown a thick layer of leaves to surround her like a vague dress.

"Just don't move much," Matt said.

"...I guess it'll have to do."

"I'll meet you three down there," R.D. said, walking off to the side, towards the edge of the building facing another building. He jumped off of the edge before anyone could say anything, and alternating use of the Godhand against each wall, pinballed himself down to street level.

Walking out into the rubble-strewn streets gingerly, using brief channels of wind energy to blow away clouds of dust out of his way, R.D. looked about for any particular landmarks that'd point him in the direction of the parking lot.

Dearg-due smiled and made a seal with one hand. His other hand moved up to intercept the blade. Lightning began to crackle and surge throughout his body.

"Does metal conduct?" he asked. "I can never seem to remember," he said as he gripped the blade with his electrically active body.
~~~~~~~
eX hid behind a table, banging his sword against the floor.

"The fuck? Up, Sylvtonis, up!"

I would like you to stop that.

"Fine, then help me! I'm almost outta energy, and he ain't!"

eX felt the sword grow warm in his hand. "A'right!", he cried as he jumped out towards Tracer. With one swoop of his sword, he sliced the minigun in half.

Tracer grinned and raised his left arm, upon which he wore a gauntlet. At such a close distance, eX realized that it was actually a mass of tentacles enveloping his arm. In surprise, eX jumped back.

"You know what my special ability is, X?" Tracer asked. "I'll tell ya. See this thing? The more power I let it consume, the stronger it--we, become." With that, tentacles unwrapped and expanded, growing from the elbow to the shoulder. Soon every inch of his arm was covered. "See?" Picking up the sword, soon the tentacles even covered his hand, connecting directly to the hilt of his sword as though they were one being. Tracer brought the sword down over his head and slashed at eX.

eX brought up his sword to block, but it took all of his strength not to get killed. Something had changed. Tracer was far more powerful.

Aram saw the spell coming, but couldn't stop the momentum of his swing. Pain bloomed within him as the electricity surged through the King's Sword and across his armor, and he fell back, dropping his sword in the process.

As his armored form crashed into the ground, his helmet fell off of his head, and he found himself facing the ground. He coughed, and a spattering of red was painting on the dirt. Tasting the blood in his mouth, Aram grit his teeth in an almost feral-looking smile, whispering out the chant of a Blood Spell.

Pushing himself up from the ground and onto one knee, Aram glared up at his opponent, and thrust his hands, now glowing a malevolent red, forward at Dearg-due. There was a terrible, soul-wracking screech as something burst from his hands, taking the form of the upper half of a demonic-looking skeleton, with arms much too long for its body, hands with too-long fingers, an elongated skull, fanged teeth, and rows of barbed blades running down its spine. The Bone Spirit glowed crimson, empowered by a portion of Aram's health and blood, and screeched again, tearing itself from Aram's gauntleted fingers and racing through the air at Dearg-due.

Another snap of his fingers, and a platform of vines weaved themselves into existence. "Get on," he said to Helena and Ileyna. "We'll scale down the side using my nifty elemental powers."

"Why can't we just take the stairs?" Helena asked. standing up carefully.

"That's not nearly as cool enough."

She scoffed and moved onto the platform.

Ileyna stood up and brushed off her skirt, then went to follow Helena and Matt onto the platform.

Down below, R.D. had found the parking lot, and was looking at the pile of rubble and dust covering the Firebird--nothing major had fallen on it, but it was dinged up pretty bad by smaller chunks of concrete.

Sighing, he took hold of Lumiya's energies, channeling wind into existence, using it to remove the pieces of rubble off of the car's frame and clear the general vicinity. Next, he used water to fire streams of it to wash the dust off. While it glistened, R.D. looked over the damage to the car.

"Well, once Matt gets down here, we can at least fix it," R.D. said to himself, not entirely confident that his metal manipulation powers using earth energy would be enough to repair the car's body.

They crawled down the building-it was a pretty tall one. Matt stared out toward the rising skyline of the city, until it became quite noticable that the energy within the vines seem to fade to him. That wasn't good.

His gaze clicked on the green crystal atop his bracer. It had almost completely faded to black. "This does not look like a promising connection."

"What is?" Helena asked.

That was when the vines forming the platform decided to wither and die.

"SHIIIIIIIIIIT-!" Matt shouted as they all fell.

As they plummeted, R.D. heard their screams and spun in the direction of their voices.

"Shit!"

Something within Ileyna seemed to snap, and her eyes widened greatly. Suddenly, the blue light of her powers erupted around her, producing her wings and halo, and a shield went out around her and Matt and Helena as she closed her eyes and spread her arms out. The three of them slowed their descent, and soon were no longer falling, but slowly floating to the ground.