The chain of command

[Saber]

Halberd walked right into the gateway that led to the command HQ, leaving no resistance thanks to his 'legally' acquired position. He pushed the door to the conference room open forcibly, walking in to stand at his place at the conference table, crossing his arms as he looked at the other avatars in the room, and daring one of them to say something protesting his earned position of power. "…So, what position of power did that weak samurai have; 4th seat? 3rd? Or did I overestimate his value in the power chain?"

"Fifth Seat, assuming you're the one who deleted Ronin." A tall, black skinned avatar donning a white mask and hair entered the room ((link)) "And as the lowest seated member, his role in the power chain was battle strategist, fitting for someone who used wits and strategic advantages to overcome powerful opponents. But you don't strike me as the type who uses his mind to win a battle…" The avatar, clearly male by his voice and presence, slowly circled the table, inspecting Halberd from a distance while making his way to his spot at the end of the table "No…You seem more the kind that would use force to resolve his arguments…Not something that our world needs right now."

Halberd shifted his gaze at the stranger, not at all pleased with the fact this individual was judging him based on his actions, albeit an accurate assessment "And I'm saying that it DOES need someone like me planning what your people need to do to survive. But if you think otherwise, perhaps you would like to force me out of my position in the arena?"

The avatar turned to look at Halberd directly, piercing white eyes glaring at him fiercely "Don't even think that we are in the same league, boy. I am the top of this chain of command, and have held my position for two decades. I have both power, and intelligence that state my formidability. What do you have? A few powerful programs to force your will on others? If you think brute force is the only solution for our people's survival, then you truly are narrow minded, and no use to us as a seated member of this council."

Halberd immediately drew his augmented blade and pointed it at the rogue commander, a look of eagerness in his eyes as he stared the mysterious robed avatar down "Then prove it…I challenge you to a death match in the arena, and when I win, I take your place as commander of the rogue avatars, and do with your people as I see fit."

The avatar smirked, and snapped his fingers, the room slowly growing and changing to a decent sized battlefield within the building "Third and fourth seats, leave us. Second seat, I need you here to decide the final outcome." The avatar cracked his neck slowly, flexing and stretching his body as if he were a human preparing for a fight "I'm going to enjoy teaching you your place…I may even choose to let you live, if you actually learn something from this experience."

[Prythian]

Integrate laughed inside of his own mind. The one he'd choose clearly thought that with his power added to him, he could defeat the person in charge of the entire underground! And he was only granting him access to three of his carefully-chosen DPs, at the moment. Who knew? Maybe with Ghost, Explosive, and Strength Drivers, he could! In which case it would mean that on one of his first tries, he had found the avatar to wield his power without reservation. Integrate wasn't worried, of course, for one reason: Even if Halberd died, he would have enough time to disentangle his code to escape and offer his power to the one who had defeated him.

Whispering where only Halberd could hear him, directly into his ear, Integrate simply said one thing. "Let's show him just what you can do with my power."

[Saber]

Halberd narrowed his eyes when the avatar talked down to him, firing an explosive cannon blast before charging at him full speed. But just like his cannon blast that he followed behind, his sword slash passed right through the avatar, like he wasn't even there.

"What are you swinging at, boy?" The avatar was standing to the left of where Halberd was striking, an illusion of himself fading away. Halberd immediately adjusted his position and swung at what he believed was the real avatar, but that too was an illusion, which was starting to test Halberd's patience.

"Perhaps I should have introduced myself before, I'm sure you must know what a Phantom is, yes?" He was standing right behind Halberd now. And when Halberd went to elbow him, he blocked the elbow. This was the real one! Halberd swung his body the opposite way, trying to cleave this 'Phantom" in two. But the result was the save as before, Halberd's sword went right through him.

"You rely so heavily on your tools, it's quite amusing." Halberd twisted his head to look at Phantom, narrowing his eyes at the masked avatar "…What kind of trick are you pulling? Afterimages? Intangibility?" Phantom grinned and looked up at the raised ceiling of this new arena "It's really an easy tactic, but I doubt someone who speaks with his sword and blaster would understand exactly how I can accomplish it."

Halberd tried to deliver a right hook to Phantom, but it was caught in mid punch by the strange avatar "Funny story about phantoms, we're very hard to kill, being ghosts…" Phantom punched Halberd right in the face, sending him flipping back and crashing back first into the arena wall. Halberd was just able to free his hand in time to fire his cannon at the advancing avatar, and he was an illusion once more, and standing a ways away from the illusion "But we can do just as much harm to someone that an ordinary person could. If you can't figure out how to hit me, you're never going to win against me…"

Halberd freed himself from his crater in the wall, cracking his neck and slowly approaching Phantom with death in his eyes "You are starting to piss me off, 'Phantom', stop cowering behind your tricks and fight me head on." Phantom cackled darkly when Halberd challenged him by calling him a coward for using 'tricks' "But that's just it! I have been fighting you head on. I haven't hidden once during our fight, you just don't know how to hurt me yet." As Halberd approached Phantom, he opened his arms wide, grinning smugly "Come on, boy! Show me that you're more than just a walking force with no strategy."

Halberd swung vertically with his sword, cleaving yet another illusion with his sword as Phantom reappeared behind him "Prove to me that there's some glimmer of intelligence and strategy in that dull processor of yours!"

Then, Phantom was hit with something that he didn't expect. Halberd had done a back kick that sent him flying to the other end of the arena, leaving a crater of his own in the wall as he grunted loudly. As Phantom forced himself free from his crater, he noticed Halberd approaching, and shouldering his sword handle, which was retracted "…I think I finally figured it out…" Halberd closed in faster as Phantom regained composure, a pair of 3 inch claws extending from his fingertips as he glared at Halberd "I think I finally know how to hurt you now…" He stood only a few feet from Phantom, flexing and clenching his fists as he activated Integrate's strength driver "…But I just need to test my theory a couple more times…" His left palm began to glow dimly, readying to fire another shot at Phantom. "And you're face going to help me…"

[Prythian]

Integrate felt the flow of his power change as Halberd activated the Strength Driver. Oh ho! I suppose I should let him know exactly what this one does. "Ahh, the Strength Driver." He whispered again. "Half of all the damage you would normally take will get blocked... and then, that blocked power goes into your next attack, turning your opponent's strength against themselves. I doubt he'll have any idea what to do when his own power comes right back at him!" Integrate thought he knew what Halberd was doing. He'd only told him that Strength Driver was for armor, so he must've been boosting his defense while he did his... tests. But now his testing could be even more powerful.

Integrate was having a blast simply seeing what Halberd did with his power.

[Saber]

Interested in Integrate's explanation, Halberd held out one clawed hand at Phantom, gesturing for his current superior to come at him. Getting irritated at Halberd's overconfidence, Phantom activated another program, splitting his body into multiple copies that surrounded Halberd. All of the avatars spoke in unison, as if they were all real "Don't get ahead of yourself, boy…I still have plenty of fight left in me. I hope you can handle ten opponents at once when your sword is useless against me."

Halberd just stood there, silent. Fed up with waiting for Halberd to make a move, Phantom finally took to the offensive. He and all of his clones closed in and began striking at Halberd at different angles. Halberd took the opportunity to strike each one in the head with a powerful blow to the head, each clone dissipating in a cloud of binary code. Every strike Phantom delivered to his body, was returned to one of his clones with a powerful punch, until only the original was left, and Halberd had barely a scratch on his body "Don't tell me that was it. Was that all the fight you have in you?"

Scowling at Halberd's taunting, Phantom Aimed his hand at Halberd, and Halberd did the same. Halberd found this as the perfect chance to use the explosive driver. Countering Phantom's projectile with his own. As the smoke from the two projectiles was clearing, Halberd had drawn his sword and launched a split breaker wave at Phantom. The waves passed right through Phantom, and the illusion vanished. Just as Phantom thought he had the upper hand, swinging a scythe at Halberd, it was blocked by Halberd's broadsword, just as he spun and grabbed Phantom by the neck.

"So…I was right. Programs are ineffective against you, your body deconstructs and leaves an illusion of where you once were, and reappear behind your attacker to stealth kill them…" He put his sword grip on his back again, the blade once again retracted now that he didn't need it again "But when someone figures out your game and takes to a hand-to-hand offensive without weapons…Well, then you're just shit out of luck, aren't you Phantom?"

Phantom laughed when Halberd had him pegged, narrowing his eyes and grinning at Halberd "Well then, I guess you've figured me out. What now, boy? You gonna delete me with a shot to the head? Stab me until i derez? The minute you use any of your programs, we'll be in the same situation over and over, until you see the futility of actions. So what will you do?"

Halberd said nothing, he merely began punching Phantom's face over and over, brutalizing Phantom's skull until it was ready to cave in under human conditions. Phantom was barely able to speak from the beating Halberd left him, struggling to look at Halberd "Your…am…bi…tions…will…des…troy…us…all…" Halberd's hand was glowing brightly, his fist clenched as he delivered a final blow to Phantom's skull. His battered and beaten head exploded in pixels, as Halberd held Phantom's decapitated corpse for the 2nd seated avatar to see "Tell the others what happened here, and who now controls the fate of the underground…"

Nodding, the avatar left the arena, which was shifting back to being the conference room it once was. A thought then occurred to Halberd, if Integrate could attach himself to other avatars, maybe he could copy data from them for his use "Integrate, are you able to copy data from an deleting avatar?"

[Prythian]

After checking to make sure no one else was here, Integrate left Halberd's body, Halberd's appearance transforming back to its normal form. "I can honestly say that I have never tried." Integrate said, voice leaving no doubt that if he had facial features, he would be grinning ear to ear. As it was, his purple eyes were shining so bright that they could be called 'blazing'. "However..." His body rippled as the bits and pieces of it moved apart, and then back together. "Let's see here..."

Rather than simply dissolving and flinging himself at Phantom like he'd done to Halberd, he placed on hand on the avatar, which began to break apart and spread over Phantom's body. But it was only a few moments before Integrate backed away with disgust. "Pah!" He spat. "The dying code... some of it rejects me, and some of it attempts to use my code to patch up its holes! I cannot!"

[Saber]

Halberd scowled when he heard Integrate say he couldn't copy any of the data from Phantom's dying body. Gesturing for Integrate to move while reaching for his sword. "Then this corpse is of no use to me if its data is corrupted." With a swift strike with his sword, he sliced Phantom's corpse in half, and the body derezzed into nothing.

"I now command the people of the underground network, and I've not even used every tool in my arsenal. So, is that enough to make your decision?"

[Prythian]

Integrate's eyes flashed brightly, the thin red lines all over his body pulsing with energy as he considered the question. Was he the one? He was certainly powerful, and one of the strongest around... but the strongest around? So far, he'd only seen him defeating weaker avatars who used tricks to maintain their power... but then, wasn't what he did a trick of some sort? It certainly wasn't fair... but then, Integrate was never about fairness. All he wanted was to match his power with the strongest avatar. And if Halberd wasn't the one... Integrate would find out when he was defeated by one stronger.

But before he answered the question... Integrate held up one hand, and from somewhere in his body a small square with red, green, and black lines appeared, rising up out of the center of the palm as other pieces of his body moved aside. "First, catch." And he threw it towards Halberd.

[Saber]

Halberd caught the cube of data and inspected it carefully. Giving Integrate a curious glance, he figured thinking about it would be worthless, and it would be easier to ask "What is this supposed to be?"

[Prythian]

"A part of me." Integrate's eyes flashed. "With that, you can call me at any time, and I will know and head for you instantly. In addition to that... contained within it is a small text file. It will tell you the names of each program you will be able to activate during their merge." Integrate gave a bow that had just a slight bit of mockery to it. "I will usually not be far from where you are, should you have need of my power. Until someone proves themselves as stronger than you... you have my power at your command." With that, both his hands and feet flew apart, then back together, forming themselves themselves into black-and-red wheels. "Call when you want."

Integrate spun around his wheels, already prepared to leave. "Unless you have some reason for me to stay at the moment...?"

[Saber]

Halberd turned toward the table, waving his hand in dismissal "No, I don't have need of you right now. Leave." Arms crossed, he waited for the other members of the council to return to the room, to discuss what to do next with the people of this server.

[Prythian]

With his dismissal, Integrate simply bent down, placing all four limbs on the ground. Immediately he took off on his wheels, flying out of the room and out of the building.

It was all well and good to pledge his service to the new leader of the Underground. However, should he ever be defeated, or if Integrate ever saw a situation where he might be defeated... well, that would just prove that his loyalty wasn't deserved, wouldn't it? Integrate gave a crazy laugh as he drove off away from the HQ. Halberd would certainly need to be careful with him; there was no such thing as absolutely loyalty from him. At least, not for a long time.