Drakador_Chaos
...as the Warlord was waiting for an answer he suddenly started staring into one of the walls, or something beyond it, Zero-Quad was not entirely sure...
...something in his look had changed, he seemed...more violent than before, hungry...
"It appears we need to part ways now, it would be benficial if you´d leave the Hunters territory as quickly as possible."
...without any further words or explanation he disappeared, an eerie silence filled the room along with the humming of the reactor core...
Fortress Alpha: Dimensional Collective Military Starbase
5 days later
Something triggered within the new Subcores that caused them to start firing at the defending forces of the station - not the station itself, but the defending forces thereof.
Zero-Quad notices the telltale disfigurations and discolorations on the Subcores and he suddenly experiences a rise in ping and forcibly increased packet flow. But it was the scream of the weapons fire and the levels of biological activity that really overflowed its terror receptors. Yet Zero-Quad reminded himself that being afraid is being inefficient, and banished the cowardly thoughts from its programming with ease. Replacing it was conciseness and straightforward confidence. His first reaction WOULD be to engage these Bloodcult-Collective hybrids head on, but Effervescent-Blade's advice comes into his primary processing matrix:
You should not always act upon your first plan, otherwise you become easily predictable. Sometimes, the best way is through another way.
Instead, the Assault-Class Avatar phased through the station into the Engine Core centers. Residue of the Warlord's interrupted ritual was detected. Thinking fast, Zero-Quad attempted to reconstruct the symbols and sigils used for the foundation of the ritual...
As he nears completion, Zero-Quad started hearing... something. He attuned his Avatar's auditory decryption to the foreign noises in order to discern if they were false positives or not... he was not having hallucinations, those are definitely voices. Somehow, despite the accuracy of robotic tuning, they are still indecipherable and eerie, and the bits he could make out clearly fit no known language in his databanks...
The Avatar shook his head and erased all the symbolism. This was obviously a bad idea to try. Pondering on another method of action, Zero-Quad begins adjusting the Engine Cores to increase gravitational output to relativistic speeds and connected with Counter-Lambda, who assisted by attuning time-space stabilizers to compensate for any chronological offset. But increasing it to higher speeds requires a sort of warm-up period to avoid the risk of overflowing rift-energy causing a catastrophic explosion in the station, so he needs to buy some time for the station to escape.
It looks like Zero-Quad is going with his first reaction after all. He contacts Effervescent-Blade, requesting the use of an Assault-Class Sentinel ship...
Zero-Quad valiantly sends three Standoff Variant Subcores to intercept these Bloodcult Hybrid ships, supported by one Sentinel.
At first, the Standoff Subcores are taking Bloodcult hits like they are peashooters...
...but as it nears, something unexpected happens...!
The Bloody Subcore breaks apart, and shows that the Dimensional Collective Assault Hull is only a shell. The real ship is the Core itself, veins of hardened blood armor sprouting like a crimson tumbleweed, connecting to various parts of the shells and other modules that make up this extremely powerful and extremely twisted soul. The Soul that powers the ship still lies within, as does any Subcore-class DC ship, but for the most part, it has turned into a horrifying beast.
Two things are abundantly clear: When this Subcore opened up, it fires faster, more weapons are shown and the ship itself goes almost into a sort of frenzy, but the defenses are lowered as a result - much more of a profile, an easier chance to get a hit into the core of the ship, and it has substantially less shielding than when it was connected as a shell.
Curiously, the other two "Bloodcores" remain closed, continuing to fire deadly Hunter shells from afar...
RandomCommander Drones ++ and bloodcult?!
Wow, now I'm seriously concerned
jbox1 ITZ DEH EXPLORHURH CLLASIS FAWLT
RandomCommander Welp, looks like it's time to nerf Drones ++ again 
(XD, jk, nevah again)
RandomCommander
suddenly,three "objects" came from the opposite direction and nearly hit the fortress alpha directly,just as it seems that a collision is inevitable,the "objects" turn at impossible angles evading the fortress but also tumble into the battle due to their momentum,as these objects finally slow down to normal travel speed,the identification shows it is three berserkers from the crimson alliance,tho it seems it had been through some special modifications.as the berserkers reorganise in battle formation,they start emitting an array of ion beams against the rogue cores,at the same time,the fortress received a transmission from the objects
//transmission starts//
"this is admiral from the crimson alliance,we have been stranded in bloodcult space for...... how much time have we stranded for?" "about two months,sir" "ahh so two months have we stranded in bloodcult space,and due to the destruction of the original hivemind which cause a mass uproar of the bloodcult creatures,our wormhole station had been either destroyed or moved away,and now we have no means whatsoever to travel back to crimson alliance,we do grab sone of these nice impulse engines or whatever they are called on our path but it is not sufficient to travel back to the home system before,you know,our crew starts dying due to old age,now i,the admiral and the commander of this flleet,request some sort of ftl drive from fortress alpha,and we will repay by assisting in this battle and,if you insist,fulfill a special request for the dimensional collective,we awaits for your response"
//transmission end//
although the berserkers seems like doing no damage whatsoever,the rogue core's attention is definately distracted and Zero-quad,for some reason,have a sneaky suspicion that the berserkers is not using its full offensive power
9 days later
Dumb ((Very, VERY sorry for the super-late response))
Zero-Quad himself answers the Crimson Alliance ships:
/Transmission Start/
"Zero-Quad of the Dimensional Collective speaking. I request that you conserve your energy, I have this battle under control. However, we will quickly fabricate some FTL-Drives for your ships to use... it seems you are capable of using non-cult modules for your ships, so integration should not be too much of a problem."
"According to the Collective, Staging of the Duel is almost complete. Normally, we do not allow other factions to interfere directly with the duel itself, however, I have made an exception to that rule - traditional rules state that a Core-AI participating in the duel is allowed to make exactly one significant change to the mechanics of the duel, and this is exactly the change I have made. Now, it would be nice to have the main bloodcult fleet as a contributing ally on my side of the duel, however it is confirmed that they are falling apart - is it fair to assume your faction or the remnants thereof could participate in their stead? I need a powerful ally to ensure Rogue Cores like these do not carry over to the next universe as... 'reformed' Collective entities."
/Transmission End/
- Edited
RandomCommander (hmmm.....alright then,i should prolly improve my subtle hinting techniques lol)
after a brief silence,the berserkers reopen their comms
//transmission starts//
very well,we shall repay the Dimension collective by assisting as much as we could,just to state the bloodthirst of my bloodcult souls,ahem,nevermind that,now,just to ensure you do not receive that much damage......*
//transmission interrupted//
the beam from berserkers are turning from red to..... a blue-ish colour? it seems like the berserkers have picked up an overcharger and overcharged their ions,which blown off two of the primal hunters and send the corrupted core to an uncontrolled spinoff
//transmissions out of sync//
//transmission resync....//
"hmmm i didn't know this is that overpowered,perhaps i should reverse engineer this......oh the comms back on hello there,don't mind if we are abit ruthless,now we shall fall back and await for your frabication"
//transmission ends//
the berserkers reverse as primal hunter shells fly pass their hull,and form formation with fortress alpha while untouched by the rogue core's weaponary
Dumb ((I... had already ran the battle and was going to post the results sooner or later, actually. Sorry about that. Basically the DC won and only one of their subcores were destroyed.))
RandomCommander (well......hmmm.....the results could be the same (i guess))
RandomCommander How do you take images like that?
16 days later
Galaxy-wide sensors have detected that Fortress-Alpha has completely stop--
Wait, I haven't posted the battle results yet? Shoot, I need to do that first...
...Once I fix the computer that actually holds the results of the battle (This will be edited.)
3 months later
((Fuck it, for the sake of plot stuff, Fortress-Alpha is both Out of Bloodcult territory, the Battle has ended with the results below, and is not doing much, just lurking around empty space.))
RandomCommander ((I... had already ran the battle and was going to post the results sooner or later, actually. Sorry about that. Basically the DC won and only one of their subcores were destroyed.))
- Edited
RandomCommander Sokeyr immediately removes the wormhole, then creates another one, which he enters and exits near the position of Fortress Alpha. He sends out a message through the nearby area, hoping Effervescent-Blade would hear him.
"I have been sent by Prime to assist (?) you in some... strange matter in which I have no idea how I could possibly help. I am supposed to assist you create a more stable foothold against any future problems with any 'rogue' cores. If you can hear me, please send your co-ordinates to me."
- Edited
a massive ship suddenly appears out of hyperspace it is heavily battle scared its power levels are everywhere and the ship seems to have suffered some kind of rector meltdown in warp
a faint message is being broadcast its is very short and it repeats
"this is captain eric Holland we are in the middle of a melthdown"(explosion)"Damm it!! get that fire under control... we are currently making an emergency warp exit if anyone finds this message tell the TIE that there cargo will have to wait"
ImTired
The Fortress was hard to miss, a Black-and-Red cross-shaped installation with different types of advanced technology usually stands out in any ship's sensors, or in this case to any entity feeling a massive source of not just energy, but magic, psionics and souls, all of which are being used for military or military-like purposes. A fortress, indeed.
Just then, another massive ship (IronCross42) warped into existence, damaged almost beyond recognition, and just recently shook up by a minor explosion. Sokeyr notices more ships appear, Red-and-Black, much like the Fortress itself, as well as some Yellow, Orange-and-Green ships supporting them. They are heading towards the damaged ship.
Sokeyr then receives a psionic message. "I have received Prime's message way before you transported yourself here. While Zero-Quad and Cobra-Composite deal with the poor battlecruiser-transport over there, I want you to transport yourself to the Station's briefing center located in the hub section. From there, I'll tell you more about what Prime actually means for you to help with."
IronCross42
In the meantime, the fleet that had amassed and headed towards the damaged ship hails them.
/Transmission Start/
"Captain Holland, this is Coordinator Murrick of Subcore 92-C. if you allow us we would like to assist you in containing the meltdown. We will also pass along your message, if we can reacquire where the TIE are located."
/Transmission End/
RandomCommander "Anything to remove this debt."
The wormhole fades as he then begins looking for the station, which he finds rather quickly. He teleports himself to the briefing room upon the station, presumably in the hub section. He looks around, and begins waiting for the response of the AI. Of course, he still believes it is a trap, so he has some defenses that he learned from last time.