Weeding out the competition

[Saber]

The underground arena, a digital slaughterhouse for rogue avatars to prove their worth, settle grudges, and take from others in the community. Like the laws of Cyber Earth, this cesspool of uncontrolled and lawless avatars have a code of their own; the strongest call the shots.

And right now, one new addition to this community was slowly proving his worth. Halberd, the corrupted prototype lawman turned rogue avatar, was clashing blades with one of the seated warriors in the underground's power chain. The avatar had two of his five katanas drawn, and was using both blades to deflect each strike thrown at him by Halberd's massive broadsword. "I have to admit Halberd…You have a lot of potential…"

"But if you really think I'm going to stand by and let you threaten my position of power, you have another thing coming!" The avatar began to take to the offensive, using his katana in ways that mirrored many of the lightsaber battles from the first three Star Wars movies, spinning the blades around his body before striking with a blade. But Halberd was quick to respond, flipping his broadsword into a reverse hold and using its massive blade as a makeshift shield, and deflecting the avatar's strikes with the forearm of his reinforced armor.

Halberd swung with his sword in its reverse hold and batted the katana right out of the avatar's hands, moving for a lethal strike, but it was deflected by the quick drawing of another two of the avatar's katana. Halberd positioned his left arm at his side, and fired a blast from his hand. This blast hit the avatar in his midsection, and was enough to cripple him long enough to lose his composure, and Halberd took this opportunity to deliver a harsh kick to the avatar's chest, forcing him to fly backward into the wall of the arena and lose another two of his swords.

"A weakling like yourself shouldn't even be in a position of power, such an illusion of control is a farce. Whatever tricks you used to delete your predecessor, is not going to work on me." Halberd taunted, as he slowly closed in on his target, flipping his sword back from his reverse hold and dragging it along the ground as he advanced, ready to make a finishing blow.

Meanwhile, the bleachers on the outside of the arena battleground was littered with many different kinds of rogue avatars, each of them cheering, or jeering, some of them demanding that one delete the other, and constantly changing their cheering each time that the odds switched favors between the combatants. To those select few who only wanted to see avatars killing each other, they merely stayed to watch out of enjoyment of the carnage. To them, they wanted to see death, and it didn't matter who was the one dying.

[Prythian]

In the crowds, a robed figure watched silently, purple circles of energy glowing brightly as he intently watched the action. With his hood up, the purple eyes were all that could be seen by any others, his body hidden underneath. His stare was intense as he watched the back-and-forth between the two avatars. There was only one reason he was here; to find the strongest. In the end, everything came down to strength. And once he found the strongest avatar...

Oh, the things that they could do together. Integrate knew the truth behind his existence; he was a weapon searching for a master. And so he had found his way here, where others fought to prove how much more powerful they were than others... to seek the thrill of destroying another's data, rendering them into nothing but ones and zeroes. This Halberd... he was promising. Integrate would stake everything he had on Halberd having some plan beyond simply gaining strength.

He would watch. And wait.

[Saber]

Halberd was slowly drawing closer and closer to the avatar, death in his eyes as the avatar was slowly rising to his feet "I claimed my seat in the chain of command to keep megalomaniacs like you from rising to power…To prevent another war on cyber earth…I can't afford to let you win!" The avatar drew his long staff weapon and rushed Halberd, swinging low and hooking Halberd's left leg to try and pull him off balance. Halberd, unamused, caught the avatar's pull halfway, using his sword as a crutch to maintain balance while pulling down hard with his leg, then slicing the cane staff's shaft in half. The samurai-esque avatar stumbled forward, his head landing right into Halberd's open palm, and gripping the avatar's head firmly "You waste your time, trying to speak of keeping the strong from what they deserve when a weakling like you has no strength of your own to back up your words."

The helpless avatar tried one last time to attack, reaching for his final katana. But Halberd was having none of that, dismembering the avatar's arm before he could draw the blade even an inch. Rearing his arm back, he hurled the avatar back toward the arena's wall, charging after the avatar and impaling his sword vertically through the avatar's midsection and inside of the wall, pinning him in place as Halberd was walking away "To be part of the command chain and be so weak? Your existence is a joke, and a terrible one at that, so I'll do the merciful task of ending your worthless existence…"

Turning to aim his left palm at the defenseless avatar, the red lens in the center of his palm slowly began to glow brighter and brighter "And once I'm through with you, I'll take your place and usher forth a new era for the rogue avatars…One where we will finally take our revenge on the humans that created us and denied us our rightful place in OUR world."

The avatar struggled to try and pull the blade free from his midsection, but his code has been damaged to the point that anymore damage inflicted could very well delete him, permanently. At Halberd's mention of making the rogue avatars take up arms against the humans, he looked Halberd in the eye, staring right past the inevitable tool of his destruction charging in Halberd's hand "You're mad! Without the humans to maintain the servers, cyber earth will become no better than what we're forced to live with now! Halberd, if we rise against them, our world will-"

The avatar was silenced by a charged blast to his head, forcing his entire body to go limp on the sword as his systems crashed. "I've heard enough of your worthless rambling, weakling…" Then, it started to happen. First, the color of the lifeless avatar's body began to lose it's pigmentation, the details of his form devolved to nothing but polygons, then his polygon body devolved again into lines and frame, then flickered a few times before disappearing from existence. After watching his predecessor fade from existence, Halberd removed his sword from the imbedded point of the wall, and headed for the exit gates of the barbaric structure "Wasting his words until the very end, pitiful…"

At the sight of the former leader's demise, there was a brief silence, then a sudden outburst of hysteric viewers cheering, some of them were even chanting Halberd's name as he made his way to the opening gate leading to the Arena lobby.

[Prythian]

Integrate had seen what he needed to. He stood up, and rapidly made his way through the cheering crowds silently. Pitiful creatures, seeking strength in others for nothing more than mere entertainment. This Halberd avatar... he had potential. But so far it was only that... potential. He wasn't quite worthy of being granted his power just yet. At least, not permanently. Maybe just a taste... something to give him... motivation to prove himself. After all, only the greatest of avatars was worthy of using the weapon that was Integrate. He casually entered into the lobby slightly before Halberd himself made his way into there, leaning against the wall, his body still completely concealed.

"Very good. You seem like someone who understands the nature of strength. Tell me, what would you do to gain even more power than you already possess?" The question shot at Halberd like barbs from an arrow, Integrate almost throwing them at him like weapons to see how he would react. His voice sounded unusual, both deep, like echoing up from the bottom of a well, and yet... there was an irritating high-pitch mixed in with it. It made him sound insane.

[Saber]

Halberd was sorting through the spoils of his victory, scanning the data cube for any valuable downloads that could be of use to him. But given he found nothing of use in the cube of data containing a copy of the former seated avatar's data, he crushed it, deleting what was left of the samurai he had just recently defeated. "His data was just as useless as he was…"

Then, another avatar had approach him, asking him what he would do to obtain more power. Halberd turned around and looked down at the cloaked stranger, his orange eyes dull and emotionless. This smaller avatar before him was curious, both in appearance and behavior. But his voice, it bothered him, made him irritable "I'd delete anyone who posed themselves a threat to my power, and take their data for myself…State your business stranger, before your irritating voice makes me want to do the same to you…"

[Prythian]

"Ahahahahaha!" Now THAT laugh was almost certainly insane. "I'm afraid you'd find my data in any other form aside from this current one quite useless to you." He lifted up one arm, black hand glowing with red lines, to pull down his hood, revealing a similarly black-and-red head, with no visible features other than the glowing purple eyes. "You could be the one I've been searching for... someone... worthy." On the last word, his voice broke into a hiss. It would be obvious that something had twisted this particular avatar. "Perhaps if you delete everything in your path, I will know for sure whether or not I was meant to ally my power with yours. But first..." The eyes glowed even brighter. "Perhaps you would like... a taste? Consider it... a sample. A sample of what can happen should I decide to grant you the unique power I have."

[Saber]

Halberd narrowed his eyes as he listened to this deranged avatar's maniacal laugh, the strange avatar's voice irritating him further. Then, the stranger started spouting nonsense about his data being useless if he was deleted. He then started talking about searching for someone worthy. Worthy of what? "Unless your able to hold your own inside of a fight, I doubt I would have much use for someone like you as one of my lackeys.

He drew his sword and glared at the avatar as his hand started glowing "Now get to the point before I delete you out of annoyance!"

[Prythian]

Integrate's eyes dimmed for a moment, before flaring back up to the original brightness. "The point, you say? The point... is this!" His robe dissolved, revealing his entire black body, red lines pulsing. The pulse grew faster until his entire body simply... broke apart. Thin cubes and rectangles of data floated in the air. red edges and black sides. They didn't hang there for long, however, flinging themselves at breakneck speed at Halberd and his sword, each bit of data connecting to a different part of Halberd. It was as if a tiny swarm of bits had simply coated Halberd for some strange purpose. Finally, when the last bit of data connected, they vanished into him, causing him... to transform.

((Appearance change is up to you, but Integrate always causes a difference in appearance. It can be as simple as a color change, or as drastic as the entire armor and body slightly changing to be more menacing.))

[Saber]

Halberd reared back with his sword when the avatar removed his cloak, as if preparing to battle. But as he was making his swing to strike at the weaponless avatar before it could make an attack, the avatar's body broke apart and attached itself to Halberd's armor and sword in mid-swing. After the fusion was complete, Halberd's armor had changed somewhat. The red in his armor was paler, almost reddish gray, and the gold trim on his wrists, ankles, feet and helmet had lost all of it's color to look silver. The horns had also changed somewhat, the smaller, bottom ones shifting downward to look like fangs, while the larger ones elongated and curved back toward the back of his head.

As Halberd inspected his armor, his eyes laid on his sword, and it had changed as well. The blade had blackened, and the sections of the blade that had decorative circles cut into it had extended. The base, where there was a small spike on both sides, now had a pair of thorns reaching up a quarter of the blade moving towards the tip. The top of the blade, where the two spikes pointing toward the grip of the sword, had also lengthened to reach down until the tips found their way to half of the blade's length. Curious to see how this new change had affected him, he aimed his palm at the wall near the arena entrance, to see what exactly this strange avatar did to him.

[Prythian]

"Admiring your new look?" Integrate murmured, amusement in his voice. His voice seemed to simply out of thin air. "My power is thus: I can fuse with another avatar and grant them access to new powers. This is why I am named Integrate. Perhaps you can feel what I grant? Special programs that enhance the weapons and attacks you already possess?" Halberd would probably feel some power, though up until now he wouldn't necessarily have known what they were. "There are three types of these programs: Blade Drivers, Shot Drivers, and Armor Drivers. If you wish to see one of them, simply think of activating the program Ghost Driver, and swing your sword." Ghost Driver was a program that created a ghostly image of any bladed weapons, following in its path like an afterimage. It not only was a way of doubling damage, if both the original slash and the image hit, but also could make someone dodge the first blow only to fall to the second.

[Saber]

Halberd listened to the avatar, Integrate, explain how his powers worked, and was intrigued. Though, the change in appearance was slightly new and needed some adjusting to, he had to admit he was curious what Integrate could provide for him. Perhaps this avatar could be useful after all, as a weapon. Rearing his sword back, he swung it while thinking about the program Integrate suggested, the Ghost Driver. He was pleased to see that the effect caused his sword to swing a ghostly double in the same path as the first strike.

Grinning inside if his mask, he let his sword retract into itself before placing it on his back, with the handle facing vertically upward. "Perhaps I will have some use for you after all…You are going to need to provide me with all of your driver programs eventually. But for now, I think it's time I made plans for further advancement in the chain of command…So I can put my plans into fruition with little resistance..." He started exiting the arena, making his way to the slums of the underground network.

[Prythian]

Integrate gave his insane laughter again. "Just remember... this is but a taste. You have not yet proven to me that you are the strongest. And, lest you get any ideas, you only have access to these drivers through me. Deleting me will only result in programs you cannot use, because as far as I know, no other avatar can fuse with others like I can. For now... I will tell you the names of two other drivers for you to experiment with until I decide to break off the fusion. For shots... Explosive Driver. And for armor... Strength Driver." He gave his laughter again, this time softer. "I am eager to see what you do with these while I maintain the fusion."

[Saber]

Halberd nodded and exited the arena, making his way to the slums, where the next phase of his plans would commence. "You just keep the fusion active…If you want bloodshed, then I'll prove to you that I'm not so easily defeated."