High Treason

Loyalty was always a fragile thing for Elena. Through her now more than a century lifespan, it has become less and less common. She feels now the only things loyal to her are that which she creates. And she in return is loyal to them. Hey loyalty lies with herself, and nothing else. For sometime she has been a part of a group known as Rise. A very powerful gathering of individuals, each with their own monumental capabilities. Each with their own brands of loyalty. These members all shared resources, information, power, the lot, however Vexus never truly found herself participating as much when it came to the generosity between comrades. No, Elena was always just kind of there for the ride. To her it seemed like some of the members sensed her lack of contributions, but being one of the most powerful members, no one openly opposed her selfishness.

Utilizing her many connections, Vexus has made her way into Europe completely  undetected to her knowledge at least. Her goal was Belarus, or at least a border village of. With the country being controlled by Rise, it would be easy entry for her but that was not her target. She was after information. Elena had commissioned a rat to deal with the hardwiring across the border of Belarus. Said rat has been “disposed of” prior to her arrival in Europe. She needed a more direct line in order to siphon the information she was targeting. Some research facilities, laboratories, locations of some artifacts she was in need of. Basically a grocery list for Elena in order to further her soon to be projects. It was no doubt dangerous to be crossing Rise like this, especially when information is shared, but it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission right?

In this village outside of Belarus, Vexus had established a base or sorts. In the small town of Piedruja, Lativa is where she was setting up shop. The people here lived quietly, so she made sure she was away from any significant establishments. She had made preparations in case her infiltration was compromised by Rise members, if combat ensued she did not want to be the cause of uprooting the people of the small  town. In the shed she had set up an incredble supercomputer, the processors were all buried underneath the shed and of course rigged with explosives. Vexus sat in front of a very large screen in the dark, illuminating the walls with an eerie blue while typing every so often. Sipping a glass of red wine watching as file after file was downloaded into her possession. Simultaneously she was leaving ghost files of what she was taking so it did not immediately appear as if anything had been lost. However she was ensuring that she was the only one with the information, erasing it from Rise’s databases as she acquired it. Her general stood guard outside of the shed in a large black cloak. Looming outside of the beat up shed he looked like something out of a dark fairy tale.

This would be a treacherous, but necessary, first step for her completion. Vexus has a vision for herself. For all of her existence she had done nothing but try to improve her abilities. This was the start of something greater than anyone would be able to predict.

"HAHAHAHA! They think he's gay! His parents think he's gay! Lucius, you have to co-.... Oh, right," Sven said to himself as he floated through techno-space. Since being put in charge of Belarus' databases and technological resources, Sven was like a kid in a candy store. He had so much to work with nowadays. In the past, he had an on board super computer in Lucius' armor to operate from, but now, he had the tech of a whole country to use. Right now, he was enjoying a quick laugh at a simple Facebook hack of some random soul. His conservative parents were, to say the least, a bit upset at the revelation their son had decided to have on social media.

He was laughing so hard, he thought for a moment to call for Lucius, but then he realized he was in techno-space and didn't use any hardware to speak to his master, and that Lucius probably wouldn't care. This type of thing Red would call 'a waste of resources' or 'childish.' But no matter, because Sven enjoyed it. He was a strong independent AI that didn't need no Lucius.

Sven walked around the little interface he had given his network, bored out of his mind. He walked up to the representation of a SNES emulator, which was an arcade machine, and started playing on it. But alas, even Mario and Mortal Kombat couldn't shield him from the dark abyss of having the capability of doing so much but no ideas on how to use it. When Sven drowned Mario one too many times, he got frustrated enough to just delete the emulator. This of course was represented by him setting the arcade machine on fire.

"Stupid impossible levels..... Stupid lame Mario. I never liked that game," Sven muttered to himself. He then plopped onto the ground, sighing even though he was actually physically incapable of such an action. The AI could only groan as his isolation continued.

"Maybe I'll go see what Lucius is doing. Maybe he's actually fighting someone instead of doing paper......work," Sven said, but paused mid-sentence when he noticed something. Across the mostly all white techno-world, Sven saw something peculiar in one of his file rooms. Of course, he didn't actually see it, that was just how he chose to represent it in his own little world. He actually just found someone breaching one of his many, many file systems. Numerous large, floating folders disappeared, then reappeared, as if they were being deleted and then put back.

Sven's representation's brow furrowed in curiosity, and he was no longer bored. He moved to one of the files, grabbed it, and literally opened it up. What he found was something he knew had not been in there before. These were dummy files, and the actual sensitive content was gone....

"Motherfu-ON MY TURF?! Oh HEELLLL no!" Sven said, withdrawing a little pocket sized safe from his jacket. He then opened it, and instantly the files were recopied to their rightful places.

What? It's not like a super AI wouldn't know to make a damn backup. Ten year old kids know how to do that.

After that, since he hadn't pinpointed where the threat was coming from yet, he flooded the database that the files were being take from with junk. And no, not just a few files, but millions upon millions of images straight from the internet. Mostly porn, but that was only a matter of style.

The intention was to slow down any attempt to copy the database. The computer would have to also copy the ever increasing number of files being added to the system, and to make matters worse, Sven reformatted all the actual sensitive files to be indistinguishable from the junk ones. So, even if someone did want to go through the tedious process of manually looking for the files they were trying to steal, it would be like finding a needle in a haystack. Or, in this case, sensitive Rise information in a pile of porn. Sure he could have just deleted the whole database and started from scratch with his backup, but that would take forever, and he wasn't sure his most recent backup had all of the millions of files stored on this system. Slowing the attack down was the best move right now.

"Now let's do a headcount," Sven said, twisting a dial on his representation's watch. From it popped up a holographic image that showed all the connections to the database he was currently in. And no, not just the ones the server recognized, ALL connections had to pass through his algorithm for detecting them. Because of this, he quickly found the culprit of all this. It was an incredibly fast computer that was going on a raid through his files, and it was coming from outside the country. It took him going through a few proxies, but figuring out where a connection to his own server was coming from was no issue. He got a rough location, but he couldn't disconnect the computer outright. It was fast, sophisticated, and latched onto his database like a zombie mouth on a shoulder.

Sven thought for a moment, bringing his hand to his chin. He could certainly eventually get rid of this attacker, but that would take time to do, especially with so little information. He needed someone on the ground, and quick. He used his watch to do a once over of Rise operatives in the area, and when none seemed close enough, he searched for potential allies of Lucius that weren't affiliated with Rise. He found one in particular he noted as being able to deal with a high metahuman threat, which this could have very well been.

Through a combination of flight records, security camera footage, lodging information, and even images gathered from other people's smart phones, Sven got a lock on Pinnacle, and proceeded to send a message through any technology that happened to be surrounding the male at the time.

"Israel Knight, i believe we've met before. It is I, Sven, the most awesome AI ever. So uh, thing is, i got a bit of an issue......... Somebody in your vicinity is hacking one of Belarus' databases, and is stealing sensitive information that could potentially put people in danger. I can get rid of them, but it could be done quicker and with less risk of losing information if i had a man on the ground..... Unfortunately nobody is available...... Cept you, that is. I'll owe you one. Sorry for the thirty second info dump, and hope ya help out. Here's the coordinates..... BYYYEEE," Sven said. He was really taking or leaving the man's help, but this would go a lot smoother if he had more info about the target..... And, ya know, would be easier if the hacker just got the shit kicked out of them by Blue.

Israel was surprised to get a call from the AI he had been only so briefly acquainted with in the now reburied Temple of Fate in the sands of the Western Khandaqi Desert... But at the same time... He kind of expected this kind of thing by now...

... Not to be having Sven call him, so much as having random big events always happening in his near vicinity. Fate seemed to enjoy playing with him that way, true though it was that the fates had spared him the bitter hand of cards that had been dealt to Lucius, the Prime Minister of Belarus, whom he had come here to visit not long ago.

But now, as it happened, fate was playing yet another game with him and he found himself obliged to reply to the AI's request for aid in expediting the extradition of a technological interloper. Broadcast as it was through the speakers of a variety of objects around him, including passing car radios, the signal being sent to his area was already hard to miss, but the signal had also been sent through ECLIPSE channels, no doubt due to the fact that, as the somewhat unofficial and simultaneously official leader of Belarus, Lucius had easy and authorized access to such channels.

Though, I'm sure that he could probably hack them even if he didn't have authorization. He thought.

Israel headed in the direction of the coordinates that were sent to him using only his head to listen to the message, as he had left the area where the broadcast began almost as soon as it started, letting the fateweave guide him initially until the coordinates gave him a more precise destination. Sure, he could purchase a radio or even make one for himself now that a certain proscenial limiter had been lifted off his shoulders, but keeping tabs on the frequencies around him using his own senses seemed safer anyway, and more efficient.

When he did happen upon a massive nexus of power in the surrounding area outside of Belarus, in a small town on the Latvian border, he approached the area cautiously in a state of proscenial incorporeality, though he chose to appear perfectly normal from the outside to all conventional and mechanical senses, and as he passed through the walls of the shed behind what appeared to be a woman seated inside as well as what appeared to be a robotic man by the door, he was silent as the dust drifting through the air of the small space.

That is... Until he spoke.

Pardon me, Ma'am. He said, bowing somewhat politely, and keeping at what he supposed would be a polite distance from the woman as well as she no doubt turned to face him. Please forgive my intrusion but I must implore that you to desist from your own into those files.

Israel could see through the walls and the floors, which he analyzed as he had glanced around before entering for any irregularities, but didn't let on that he could do so... Though, he did likely just seemingly appear in the room out of nowhere to this woman, he wasn't about to assume that she would be cordially shutting down her operation and apologizing, nor was he about to assume that she wasn't going to do something rather impolite instead...

Elena was starting to get some kickback from the system in Belarus. She had figured Lucius’ AI would kick in eventually and try to stop her. It was actually entertaining seeing it fight back. With how much progress she had given to the area of artificial intelligence, it was refreshing to see some of it in the field. This was however unfortunate for this Rise system. Because Elena was starting to recingnize patterns, she could easy start to shift through the excess information that was being poured back at her. Occasionally she kicked back a massive amount of data just to tease. Having previously been a quantum computer, she could very quickly read computer coding, patterns, all the language and easily revert a hack into her favor. She was allowing the AI to overpower her in spurts, and then she would assert her dominance by reaching around all the data she was being fed and grab what she was looking for.

All was going quite well, she had pretty much acquired what she needed, in addition to a plethora of porn to shift through later. That would be of little issue when compared to the result of her findings. Everything then took a very interesting turn when someone spoke to her from behind.
In the blink of an eye Vexus had her palm aimed intruder with four spell circles surrounding him. A bronze circle both above and below, and light blue circles on his left and right. In the same instant the door had burst open with her General holding one of his beam swords so close to the intruders neck he would no doubt feel the heat off it. In the General’s other hand he had the hilt of the deactivated sword pressed against the man’s back, ready to ignite the laser at any second to pierce through a number of organs. The bronze spell circles were applying a firm pressure on the intruder with Elena ready to up the pressure to bone crushing levels in a snap.

”Now what sort of creature of Belarus do we have here...? No doubt sent in response to current events, I assume?”
Vexus got up from her chair, wondering how this individual snuck past her general and entered without either of them noticing until he had spoken.
”You’d like me to stop? Sure.”
Elena clicked a key and a tube exited from the computer containing what looked like crystals. She then casually tucked it into her shirt.
”There, all done.” she said with a smirk, the magic cage of sorts and blade still very much at the ready.
”I’ll help a little here and skip the intro questions. I’m guessing you are a Rise rat sent to see who was hacking the systems.” Vexus gave a bow.
”Next you’ll probably ask who I am, but you won’t get an answer. I’ll get in even more trouble then. And then maybe a why am I doing this, maybe?” she said, starting to casually pace back and fourth in front of her computer.
”Well, I am here on my own accord doing things that I feel like doing. And that is basically all that there is to it... Now, I think I’ve covered most things... Would you like to share or ask anything else before I turn your skeletal system into a new set of accessories?”

It was clear to Elena that this child was not a simple rat, no meta in Belarus, or all of Europe for that matter, could sneak up on Vexus. He was clearly in contact with that silly AI of Lucius’, and thus in contact with Lucius. She didn’t need the news in her taking this information to get back to him so quickly, she was planning on it taking a while for Sven to try and narrow down culprits. It also seemed like he hasn’t immediately recognized her, so at this point he has nothing but a description. It buys her some time, but less than what she was hoping for.
But of course, this all depends on this boy making it away from Elena alive. He’s caught her red handed, she was expecting there to be witnesses, and she plans to keep it that way.

After sending for Pinnacle, Sven got back to the task at hand. The hack was still happening, and to the AI's surprise, the computer was simply sucking up all the files with no regard to what they were. He had figured it would be cautious, but apparently whoever was performing this hack didn't care about getting a virus. Sven snickered to himself, and pulled a duplicate of himself from his representation's body. The duplicate then jumped in a file, and closed it behind him. This file was actually one of the important ones, so it would surely be downloaded. That hypothesis was confirmed when not only that file but thousands of his junk files were taken, and then the hack was cut off.

The duplicate found itself copied to some sort of advanced hard drive, and before he could move into the computer, the drive was pulled, essentially putting him in a dormant state. But it was no matter. As soon as that drive was plugged in again, the protocol Sven had set up for his duplicate was to erase everything, including itself. Perhaps the only real way to prevent that from happening was to somehow remove Sven from the drive without giving it power or plugging it in. That said, Sven was sure anyone capable of doing this breach, minor as it was, could no doubt figure that out.

Sven did what he could to strengthen the database's security, and made sure to update it's firewall to stop attacks of that nature in the future. He also put all the files back from his back up, and began going on the offensive. He needed to know the identity of this hacker. He could try to contact Pinnacle again, but there didn't seem to be such a high volume of tech in the area to message through. He would have to do this the old fashioned way.

A hologram representing the super computer's sequence of attack and specs appeared in front of Sven, and he immediately started cross referencing it with tech he had seen in the past. What he found was that it was consistent with technology of a very high level. This was maybe a bit less then something Lucius himself might make, but then again that didn't mean this person was using their best tech. Regardless, this was the work of a tech genius of some kind, and there were very few people capable of creating something like it. That meant Sven could narrow it down.

"Travis Masters? No..... He's in Canada at his facility. Zell Atterius? ........At his companies building. Lucius Alba...... Now that would just make no sense. Couple dozen other people........ Annnnd all with verified locations nowhere near Belarus...... Except three," Sven chatted to himself as he sifted through all the information. He stared now at three individuals he couldn't verify a general location for in the last twenty four hours. Lucas Alba, the being known as Anonymous, and Elena Vexus. Sure it could have been someone he didn't know about, but this would have had to have been one of their first moves on this level of hacking. When people had this level of technology, Sven knew about it. The other possibility was someone setting up a convincing alibi, but Sven wouldn't jump to that conclusion until he had ruled out the three he had.

Unfortunately, if this was an attack from one of them, Lucius needed to know, and he needed to know immediately. Sven patched into his master, who was sitting in his office, and then spoke through the intercoms.

"Sir, there's been a breach on one of our databases. Some files were stolen, but i managed to slip a copy of myself in with them. It's coming from a small town on our borders. Coordinates are on your screen. I've narrowed it down to Lucas, Anonymous, and Miss Elena Vexus. All other known and capable entities have been accounted for." Silence filled the air after Sven gave his briefing, and then the Dictator, sitting in his leather chair, sighed. Lucius sat up, and moved to get his armor.

"Anon would do something more playful. He wouldn't steal just to steal unless he was being forced to, and even then he'd add some flair to it. Lucas was in Chicago a week ago, and seemed quite content in making it his little playground. Vexus? Haven't heard from her in months, and she's always seemed to me like a one women show. If i were to do some abductive reasoning, i think i could conclude which is the most likely. Get my suit ready," Lucius said, his words sudden but with a sense of purpose. It was as if he switched from having a nice relaxing moment in his study to being the tactical Rise leader in seconds. Sven did as asked, and the bookcase turned to reveal Lucius' gear, which he started to put on.

"Also, Blue is on the ground," Sven said. Lucius' eyes twitched in confusion.

"Knight? Why is he there? And why do you keep calling him that?" Lucius asked as he sheathed his sword. Sven let out a low chuckle.

"Well, he was in the area....... And he has kinda a similar style of dress....... And he seems to like Blue, and they call you Red. Why do i have to explain this?" Sven said, as if it was obvious. Lucius just rolled his eyes as his wall of gear closed once again. Soon enough, he would be ready to teleport out there.

"Please be serious. If it's any one of those three, this is a touchy situation. I need you sharp—not cracking jokes."

In what could be called the blink of an eye, the woman had her palm aimed at Israel and four arcane glyphs sprung into existence around him; above and below him, the glyphs bore a color akin to bronze, whilst glyphs of a light blue coloration flanked his left and right. As these glyphs formed all around him, the robotic man that stood a few meters off and without the door had also decided to join the party, and had presently flung it open, rushing at him with some kind of energy sword.

Deducing its general damage type from its construction and heat, he dismissed the guard's approach and allowed him to get right up close, placing the energy blade right near his neck. Another, unlit energy blade was approaching his back though, and he didn't want to reveal all of his abilities just yet to his opponent, so he coalesced some extra matter in the shape and texture of himself in his exact spot wherein he was currently phased from physical existence, controlling said matter perfectly to mimic his own movements. This way, he had a body double in case anything went completely south, and the man's somatic threat would rest neatly against said simulacrum of himself.

He drank in the heat from the guard's blade. It was a welcome source of energy after that which he had expended to get here so quickly, and the kinetic energy placed upon him by two of the four glyphs that hung in the air by him were also nothing that his merkavah couldn't handle, at least for the time being. Still, though he could have crumpled his body slightly to exactly match the kind of strain it would put on a regular human body, he decided against it. The woman before him was clearly intelligent, and over-selling weakness was a sure way to have her read into him further, perhaps leading her to figure out more about him than he wanted known at present.

”Now what sort of creature of Belarus do we have here...? No doubt sent in response to current events, I assume?” She said. Israel simply nodded politely, his chin getting dangerously close to the energy blade, as the woman rose from her chair.

”You’d like me to stop? Sure.” She continued, clicking a key on her computer's interface.

This prompted a tube to extend from the machine which contained a crystalline data storage device. Not only was this an extremely simple fact to deduce considering her hacking of the files, but he didn't have to guess when he could see their structure with extreme precision. The woman moved to procure the crystalline device for herself, and so, Israel caused a finite film of matter to encase them, his reaction "time" being what it was, this too was a simple matter. The change was on a scale far too small to notice without an extremely sophisticated means of doing so, as it was on the molecular level, the matter he had formed matching that of the crystalline drives exactly, and thus far, the woman did not seem to let on that she had noticed anything, considering that she had casually tucked the device into her shirt. That would make tracking her down later simpler if she had indeed been incapable of noticing such an infinitesimally small change...

”There, all done.” she said with a smirk, obviously quite sure of herself. ”I’ll help a little here and skip the intro questions. I’m guessing you are a Rise rat sent to see who was hacking the systems.” The woman continued with a bow. The rest of her monologue was not very helpful, and Israel simply shrugged when referred to as a "Rise Rat." Then, she crowned her lines off with a death threat. However, there was one possible slip that she had made when she had said she would get in more trouble if it were revealed who she was.

"And here I thought you might be a bit more courteous." Israel said shaking his head, heedless of the energy sword. "Nice tech, by the way. Him included. He added sincerely, nodding slightly towards the "man" that held the blades to his neck and back. "I've never found too much use for tech, myself."

He let the implications of that last sentence hang in the air.

” Not one for tech?! Oh my dear, well then please, please! Explore!”
The general ushered the intruder towards her computer where the hacking had been taking place. The spell circles dissipated and the General retracted his blade, but still had the one pressed against the man’s back. Giving him basically no choice in moving closer to the computer. She figured he was stalling for someone to arrive, he seemed to be taking the situation a lot lighter than he should have been, granted it did not seem as if he knew who she was yet.
”Ha! You know what? I think I left my car lights on, I’ll be right back.” she said in an obviously sarcastic tone. Elena turned her back on the man, her General taking a few steps back, still watching carefully. Vexus activated her Celestial Eye and evaporated into Technomatter, the same followed for her geneneral shortly after.

The two of them reformed outside of the shack, with more of the grey matter very quickly forming a solid dome around the entire establishment. She had to work fast as she already assumed this man could slip through solid objects. The instant the House was sealed in, the explosives wired to the processors of th computers erupted in a massive blast from underneath the house, scatting the technomatter around everywhere.
Vexus immediately put on her Prada sunglasses and flipped through a few settings.
”Search for life signs in the area. He survived this, no doubt. Engage with intent to kill, by no means shall this messenger return to Lucius or anyone with information.” she ordered to her body guard who then activated his to blades, detaching his arms and ignited the other two. Technomatter swirled around Vexus lightly while she had a red magic circle appear in each hand. She was ready to strike the instant this man decided to show his face. If they were lucky, the explosion may have caught him off guard, but no meta in all of Belarus would have gone down to that blast despite its power.

Fire was left in the aftermath of the blast, smoldering pieces of computer and technomatter scattered about. Both Vexus and her bodyguard actively scanning the area waiting to pounce on ay life sign. As soon as it appeared, and if, Elena would launch a large pillar of fire from the magic in her palm. Her Technomatter accompanying it, swirling around the length. If they managed to evade, the grey sand would branch of in whatever direction necessary to follow up the attack. The General would by the time be in range to engage this individual as well. Aiming to take any appendages off he could, making a target of any and all of the child’s vitals. The onslaught has begun, the boy had best come prepared to fend for his entire being. If either of them managed to catch him, there would be nothing left.

Lucius could have sent someone. The dictator could have planted an army on the coordinates for that matter, yet here he was getting ready for a long distance teleport. Maybe he was in one of those moods of his where he wanted to get his hands dirty, or much more likely he was simply going because this was personal. No matter which of the three it was, Lucius being there was warranted. This was either an old friend come out of hiding, his son playing another game, or Vexus betraying Rise's, and by extension her own, cause. Regardless, Lucius was on his way, and he wasn't happy.

There was a bright flash of light followed by Lucius arriving at the scene. He stood maybe fifty meters from a small building with a dome over it as well as the familiar Israel Knight. It seemed things were already underway. Truly they didn't think such a matter would be resolved without Lucius' interference. He wasn't some fool who employed incompetent minions for the sake of the protagonist getting out of an otherwise unwinnable situation. No, he was notified straight away, and he was here to deal with the matter himself.

If need be, he could get some support rather quickly. This close to Belarus it would take only minutes to get reinforcement or some other advantage. This was his home territory, and the culprit of all this was brave for crossing him on it.

"Not my son's and not something I am aware that Anon can do. That leaves...... Miss Vexus," Lucius said as he looked at the dome around the small building. He walked forward calmly, and he didn't even miss a beat when an explosion went off. He was too far away to be affected by it, now about seventy feet, but he continued to walk even with the sign of danger.

Lucius sped up the process by simply using his personal teleporter to close the distance. This was something he often had to do when using the larger scale teleporter in his Palace. Yes it had more power and was still safe to use, but it was terribly inaccurate. Sometimes you could end up a mile from your intended destination. For this problem, Red usually used the smaller, more accurate device on his person to get to where he needed to be specifically. However, this time it might not have been such a good idea. Lucius unknowingly walked into an attack probably intended for Israel, but in the aftermath of the explosion it was likely hard to tell them apart. If Vexus was simply scanning for life, Lucius' sudden appearance would no doubt trigger any attacks she had prepared.

First, there was a torrent of fire. Lucius was quick enough in processing it to simply raise his left hand to meet it. From his palm came a torrent similar in shape and size to that of Vexus' fire, only this was Red Energy. Even if this was some sort of super fire, Lucius was confident his power would have no problem overpowering it. The energy was known to obliterate some of the strongest materials known to man, so a little fire was the equivalent of exactly nothing.

Second, and after the pillar of fire subsided, a robotic being that was most likely Vexus' lackey closed with the dictator. He really didn't pay too much attention to Vexus these days, but he vaguely remembered seeing her with some sort of robotic general. Whether this was that general remained to be seen, but Lucius was in no way fearful.

The first slash was painfully telegraphed, at least for one such as Lucius. With both hands now resting behind his back, Red simply side stepped the first attack, and then ducked under the second, and weaved out of the way of the third, and bobbed of of the way of the forth....... The general was too slow for Lucius' insane processing speeds. It was as if Red moved out of the way before the robot even decided to make a certain attack. But of course, he couldn't just evade all day, as fun as that would have been.

"Impressive..... But inadequate. I think it's time you let the adults talk," Lucius said. He didn't even remove the device from it's holding place before activating it. He simply gave the telepathic order to Sven, and in doing so an EMP was released from a small sphere that remained in his bandoleer. His shielding, having not been damaged thus far, was enough to shield him from his one EMP, but the same couldn't be said of the General or any other unshielded tech within about twenty feet of Lucius.

Having given no real indication of what he was going to do, it was likely the General would succumb to the effect of the EMP, and shut down. If he didn't it wouldn't be hard to finish the job, but at this junction it was hard to see any way out this for the robot minion. Lucius would relax if the deed was done, now looking directly at Vexus.

"Now that that's out of the way...... Do you mind explaining to me why you attacked my systems? Did you assume you'd get away with such a betrayal, especially this close to Belarus? ........Besides, why steal from a fellow Rise member? The whole point is to share information so we can all better achieve our ends," Lucius questioned. He had much more to say, because he was honestly confused by this course of action, but he held it back for now.

It was generally better, as a so called villain, to be on good terms with Rise. You had access to shared resources and information to further a flexibly vague common interest, you had some of the most dangerous people on the planet on your side rather then looking to stab you in the back, and other members rarely got involved in the way you operated. It was an agreement to pool resources, nothing more and nothing less, yet Miss Vexus decided to cut ties in such a poorly executed way. A tactical blunder, by the looks of it. But if she wanted to cut off a practically no strings attached line of resources for no apparent reason, that was her prerogative.

"I am far too busy to be dealing with bone headed power grabs that will serve only to reduce the perpetrator's allies and increase their enemies. The incentives for being a part of this little arrangement we have far outweigh any negatives, so do enlighten me Miss Vexus, why do i feel the prodding and irritating nudge of an ineffective and blunted dagger in my back?"

The woman made a show of pressing him towards the computer, and as he could already see the traps that were placed via his view of the entire electromagnetic spectrum, he had a fair idea of what she was planning considering that she practically stood him on one of the clusters of explosives, or at least, she had her robotic henchman do so.

To make things even more obvious, she said in an extremely sarcastic tone that she had "left her car lights on" and turned to presumably turn said phantom lights off. The lie itself was decidedly transparent even without his knowledge of micro expressions, not to mention that the nearest car that had its lights left on in the vicinity was exactly 181.735 meters away, rounded to the nearest thousandth. He had passed it on the way over, and the man that presumably owned the car looked like he had realized his mistake inside his house anyhow and was headed back towards it.

Regardless, Israel played along. It was usually far better to be underestimated by a potential opponent than overestimated.

Then she did something he did not expect, and her henchman as well. In his minds eye, wherein he noted the passing of every unit of Planck time, he watched as something changed in her eye, which had looked peculiar from the start but he couldn't have predicted the function that it held, and thereafter, the woman, and her henchman, both of which he watched with his own preternatural eyes without gazing in their direction, had begun to dissolve into a gray, sand-like substance.

It was a material that Israel had never observed before... Not through his own perspective, anyhow. However there was one instant that he had observed it before... Through Lucius' eyes.

... And it was wielded by a comrade of his.

No wonder the woman said that she would get in more trouble if her identity was known.

That said, the woman, known as Elena Vexus he now "remembered," and her cybernetic bodyguard flew out of the shack and a bubble of the silvery material began to rapidly form around his location, and while he could have gotten out in any number of ways, including proscenial teleportation, he once again decided to reveal only the barest sense of his abilities to the woman; make it that much easier for her to underestimate him.

At around the same time that the woman and her henchman had reformed into their old selves again outside of the shack, and the bubble of the interesting matter having closed around it, Israel caught sight of Lucius come upon the scene... Then the explosions started. The expansion of fire expanding up from beneath, from the sides, and even from the computer's processors next to which he stood and his simulacrum in his place.

He chose to remain where he was, or at least, have his simulacrum do so. He would not save this other self in any way, whether through phasing, enhancing its durability, or otherwise... Instead, he chose to let it get obliterated as he phased himself even further, so as to be invisible to the nearly the full EM spectrum, making himself physically void... This way, he could use his simulacrum's utter annihilation via incineration to his advantage. Perhaps he could make it appear that he was impossible to permanently put down. Such a thing would be a handy thing for an opponent to believe.

As the explosion ripped apart and charred his other self to cinders, his own invisibly phased form stood where it was. Perhaps her advanced tech would be able to still see his spirit, nearly unhide-able as it currently was, but either way, that would reveal something to him about her tech, and could still be considered a win. He was still sizing her up, after all, he wanted to know what she was capable of before he gave too much away and did the same for her, though it was often necessary to reveal bits to learn bits in return.

Israel would not repurpose the matter that would be sublimed in the initial explosion, instead choosing to coalesce new material in its place and allow the bedraggled and incinerated material to escape into the air to be utilized later as a hidden weapon or tool. The new matter would take his shape once more after the myriad tongues of flame ceased to lap at his previous ersatz embodiment.

As the blasts ended, it seemed that the woman had not underestimated Israel quite as much as he had presumed, as he heard her say that she expected him to have survived the blast, and again reiterated that she did not want his account of the matter to return to Lucius, whom she seemed to have not yet noticed and yet, the woman and her right hand cyborg that was more machine than organism would find no survivor in the traditional sense in the wreckage, instead, the mysterious silvery sand and smoldering chunks of tech along with blackened smatterings of what was once Israel's decoy body were strewn about the place, and Lucius stood nearby, looking apparently close enough to a blackened Israel Knight that Ms. Vexus seemingly mistook the newly arrived Lucius for himself, and so, the woman fired off her own assault in the configuration of a gout of flame which proceeded from her person in Lucius' direction, which he predictably shrugged off.

As for Israel, the energy of the blast that pulsed through his Merkavah was just the kind of boost he needed to feel like his old self again, and the burning, blackened remains of his other self began to swirl into the air, slowly at first, then picking up speed as this matter coalesced into a form more reminiscent of that of his original simulacrum almost as soon as Vexus had let the fire loose, and she seemed to immediately recognize her mistake as the twisting silvery sand that swirled around the tongue of flame broke off and sped for Israel's newly reforming double.

He didn't bother attempting to dodge. In the first place, he could utilize a portion of its kinetic energy for himself, and so, would benefit from taking the attack head on, and in the second place, he was currently in the process of attempting to sell the image of his own invulnerability. If she believed that he could come back from any attack, it would be so much the better for him, thus, the spiraling mass of silver material that careened towards him engulfed his already blackened facsimile, unhindered.

As the mysterious metallic matter touched him, it seemed to be attempting to convert his own molecular structures into the same material. He decided that rather than fight this process, however, he would allow it to progress so as to completely understand its properties in the way that only full incorporation with a material could instruct via his morphogenetic material bio-mimicry. Only after having incorporated this material's template into himself would he go back to his former self, which did not take long, and would likely go unnoticed, though he couldn't rule out that the woman would have some means of seeing the tiny partial conversion before it switched back to his regular matter, though she was currently probably a bit distracted with the prospect of Lucius, who was currently weaving between attacks of the cybernetic man.

"Come now. Is all this necessary?" He said in an even tone, the silver sand likely still assaulting his elseself, but apparently being ignored. "You've already halted the hack and destroyed the computer. I would have thought that you would have concluded this evening's business by now."

Normally, he wouldn't come off so nonchalant, but he was, after all, trying to sell invincibility.

Lucius seemed to be similarly unamused at her recent activities, as he released a dibilitating EMP at her cybernetic companion before asking her his own questions.

Her and her General’s instincts kicked in quickly and attacked the first sign of life they saw, and immediately regretted the decision. Her blast of fire was met with a beam of energy, and she recongnized the energy. Lucius had arrived.
”General! Retreat!!” but it was too late, He had already engaged. Lucius effortlessly dodged the robots attacks and then attempted to double back. This head of Rise released an EMP that left her General totally lifeless on the ground. She was not overly angered by it as she knew he would restore himself soon enough.
This was bad, very bad. She had not expected Lucius to arrive so soon. And the rat he had sent was proving to be an issue as well. Some how he was able to resist the Technomatter conversion, she assumed he must have a way to analyze it one way or another. The two individuals she faces were a threat, especially now that Lucius was demanding answers.

Vexus gave a glare towards her initial guest that demanded he silence himself and know his place. There was no ability here, no magic, just a stare that had always incited fear over the last century. This one should know to now not to take her lightly.
Her attention turned to Lucius, who seemed to be speaking down to her. Her plan had indeed failed, being caught so early on, but surely he still realized what he was dealing with.
”Hmmm, why have I done thing you ask? Being so young I’ll try to simplify it for you. I felt like it.”
She let out an unsettling laugh, maniacal and unstable in nature.
”Teamwork, common goals, shared information. That’s all very grand. I’ve always been in this for me. Playing the part, enjoying the scenery.”
Vexus took a stance, her arms down at an acute angle, palms open, and her right foot at the heel of her left. The Celestial Eye in the left shone brightly, veins started to rise on her arms, neck and forehead. She was clearly concentrating for something.
”Whyyyy, why why why would anyone fund a cause that would result in their own enslavement? Their own downfall? Their inevitable destruction? A group of this caliber would never. Which is why it’s all be taken care of already.”
Slowly Vexus’ skin started turning scaly in nature and her breathing started to get faster. Her right eye now starting to change.
”Lucius, Rise, that multidimensional rat you sent ahead of you hahahah-GAH-!!” she broke her stance and grabbed her head, dubbing over but staying on her feet. Her breathing was now very heavy.
”So very young, so very intelligent, but still failing to see so so so very much...”
Vexus releaed the grip she had in her skull letting out a rediculous scream. Her body split and cracked with a blinding light letting out an enourmous shockwave of magical power, causing the ground around her to spiderweb.

The screams dulled with the fading light revealing a nightmarish form. The sides of Vexus’ face were covered in dark green scales, outlining her entire body. Her left arm had changed in appearance as well, it was almost entirely white with ten strange eyes scattered about between her hand and elbow. The green scales also appeared along this modified extremity. Vexus eyes slowly opened revealing now two identical Celestial Eyes. The air was thick with magical power making the bodies of those surrounding her feel strangely heavy. In previous tests, she had been unable to clock the level of power she had reached because it was off any and all scales she had tried to use. The form was almost undetectable because of its power output.

”This is what I have achieved under the noses of Rise. If you still remain calm in the face of me as I am, I applaud your resolve.”
This was the first time Vexus has used this form in the field. She had been planning on using it against the Rise members who confronted her later in regards to the stolen information. This would work well as a first field test, however.
”A demonstration.”
Vexus turned towards the first responder and aimed two fingers in her left had towards him. The weather almost immediately was altered, dark clouds conjuring above the three of them, lightning striking the ground around them. The sky had been colored in with a seemingly impossible amount of magic circles created by Vexus. From the dark clouds swirled down massive vortexes of Technomatter that triangulated around her target. A bright white light formed at the tips of her fingers that soon rocketed forward as an incredible beam of super technomatter. Once it reached its destination, it would blow out in a brilliant explosion covering a few square yards. When the light faded, one eye on her left arm slowly closed.

This thing was slippery, so if by chance it still managed to remain standing after this incredible display of power, she dispelled the vortexes into a thin mist that covered the area. With the grey sand lingering in the air if he so dared to reappear the Technomatter would immediately form to him, restraining and eating away at his body.
”This is only an inkling of what I will achieve. I am confident in my ability to erase you where you stand, Lucius. Your entire country, if I feel the itch to do so...”
She pointed two fingers towards Lucius and the same overzealous display began, a bright light appearing at this tips of her fingers.
”These are my orders. Refrain from interfering with any of my actions individually or as a collective in the nearing future. If you do not, I will find myself back to this location and eradicate Belarus, everything within its borders, and all of Rise.”
She began to take some very heavy steps closer to Lucius, random spell circles popping in and out of existence all around the two of them.

”I will see to it that you witness the extinction of everything you have created... Don’t fuck with me, kid.”

Lucius watched from behind red optics something that he admittedly didn't quite understand. It was magical in nature, and scanning only served to give him random and even more confusing readings. In front of Red was a power he didn't know a thing about....... But that was never a problem in the past, and he didn't intend it to start being one today.

From Sin to Silus, from Nicolas Flamel to The Archon, and from Blood Tithe to The Author, Lucius had seen power beyond what many even thought was possible, and he never even flinched. Vexus may have been older, but it's the milage, not the years. The things the Rebrum Redemptor had faced and the battles he had won made this display a joke. Sure, it might make a common man tremble, but Lucius was not a common man.

The cold glare of his optics stared at the woman in front of him. She had changed in appearance, but she was still just Vexus, and this was still a bad idea for her. Lucius stood firmly in the ground, unmoved save the billowing of his longcoat. When Vexus made her display and finally finished talking, Lucius couldn't help but let out a chuckle.

"That's quite the fantasy you have there, Miss Vexus. Let me give you a reality check: Even if you had the power to wipe me from existence five times over today, you'd still fall short of being a thorn in our side. You're going to go into the most well protected and technologically advanced country in the world, kill all of the millions of metahumans that reside there without causing any response internationally, and then dismantle a multinational organization of the most powerful beings on the planet? Even if you somehow managed it, the seeds are already set. We aren't going away. Rise is an idea, Miss Vexus, not something you can blow up with yet another ultimate form," Lucius said, stepping forward to meet Vexus. His words were level and calm. Indeed, the man showed not a single sign or tinge of something that might be called fear. The dictator clasped the hilt of his sword a moment, letting it get comfortable in his hand, and then drew it. The gem in the hilt glew a brilliant cyan as he held the blade aloft in his left hand.

"I always figured you would cut ties with us for whatever reason, but i also figured you were smart enough to wait until the very last possible moment that you could use Rise to your advantage. I guess i gave you a bit too much credit. After all, what I'm hearing is that you simply ignore basic strategy in favor of what you feel like doing. Perhaps, in your advanced age, you've gotten a tad senile," Lucius said. It was at this moment his body started to blur. It would heat his teleporter to the point where he wouldn't be able to make a quick escape for awhile, but Lucius felt it was worth it. Suddenly, the dictator would be gone from his previous location, and instead he would appear in three different places surrounding Vexus. His quantum tunneling was being done so quickly he was, for all practical purposes, in three different places, and they were all in melee range.

The first Lucius, in front of Vexus, aimed to run her through with his sword. It was of sufficient material to cut through most things even without it's vibrational ability, but it was mostly a distraction for the other two attacks. The second Lucius, to Vexus' right, simply aimed his gauntlet and shot a dozen or so micro explosives at her at point blank range. They wouldn't detonate yet, but they were tiny, there were a lot of them, they were attracted to her, and this was happening fast.

Finally, the third Lucius, behind Vexus, would disengage the rapid teleportaton, and would of course have any wounds Vexus managed to inflicted on his counterparts. Even still, as soon as the teleporter disengaged, Lucius would use his Selective Pulse Generator at max capacity. It would send out a force capable of throwing several dozen tons a good football field away, and the only thing selected by it to be affected was Vexus. Everything else in the pulse wouldn't even feel a tug, but Vexus, if within range, would be thrown away from Lucius.

And then the micro explosives, all of them at max power, would detonate.

The woman known as Elena Vexus did as expected initially, giving a rather unintelligible nonexplanation about doing things because she felt like it, just as she had told Israel earlier. It seemed that the conversation was not going to be terribly constructive.

However, after negotiations had apparently concluded in an unsatisfactory manner, he was surprised to see the woman's form change into something considerably more monstrous, certainly nothing he had ever seen before in either his own recent memory, as he had only just met the Rise head, but also nothing that he had seen before in his shared memories given him by a particularly bothersome stone, and with this new form, the air became thick with magic, or in other words, magical energies.

Like the heat from the cyborgs blades of light, he drank in the magical energy around him. The woman's new form was imposing, yes, but she was supplying him with a constant supply of power, so he didn't mind it all that much, all things considered. Still, this woman was clearly not some pushover; Pinnacle would have to be wary as ever.

As Vexus turned towards Israel, Lucius seemed unconcerned for his safety as she aimed two fingers in her left had towards him. Israel took this as a compliment though, a vote of confidence in his own ability to withstand her attack. The weather almost immediately was altered, dark clouds conjuring above the three of them, lightning striking the ground around them. The sky had been colored in with a myriad amount of magical glyphs created by Vexus. From the dark clouds swirled down massive vortexes of silver sand that triangulated around Israel's position, and a bright white light formed at the tips of her pointing fingers that soon rocketed forward as an incredible beam of the stuff, only this particular column that headed in his direction was charged with energy.

This time, he wouldn't allow his simulacrum to be destroyed, and as the technomatter shot towards him, Israel stood where he was as his own beam of energized matter blasted towards its opposing twin, his own projection being composed of etherium, a super-alloy consisting of 84% magnesium, 9% silver carbide, and 7% silicon carbide; a material of considerable strength that rivalled and even surpassed titanium alloys, while remaining very lightweight; coalescing the substance from the æther through his proscenial self-ordination. The silvery sand, charged as it was, was quite powerful, and might have pressed back Israel's own twisting mass of energized etherium, were it not for the fact that the energy of her own beam of matter, including its kinetic energy, was being sapped from it in addition to the counteracting forces being applied to it by Israel's own beam of matter, and their projections seemed to be stalemating eachother until they both dissipated, Israel ending his own push as she ended hers. He knew of more powerful alloy combinations, but he figured that this particular blend would suit his purposes for the time being.

In response to this, her other swirling vortices of uncharged silvery sand attempted to fly into him, presumably to restrain and eat away at his form, but these masses of matter, uncharged as they were and taking into account their mass and overall density, were far easier to halt in their tracks as they neared his Merkavah, forming a swirling silver bubble around his person which was expanding away from him slowly as he sent his own matter to press it away. He once more chose not to convert the material he sent in its direction, so that it might perhaps appear that he was pressing back her uncharged silver sand with nothing but willpower, or perhaps telekinesis, but either way, he could still learn a bit more about her limits.

As for Lucius, he began to take the fight to Vexus, utilizing a quantum teleportation trick that was quite impressive, entangling molecules in the vacinity to himself so as to be in three places at once, essentially whilst unleashing his own onslaught at the woman.

Israel was a bit occupied at the moment, and still wanted to store up more energy before attempting his own offence, and thus, remained where he was, simply pushing back against Vexus' own attacks on his person, or at least that of his facsimile that stood in his place.

Nothing? No reaction? And he still wanted to engage her? How confident was this child. So what if she killed millions, what force on this planet would stop her after a feat like that? Elena was losing her ground. In such a state of power, and she somehow didn’t have the upper hand. She was furious. These two will be left as bloody masses of flesh before she leaves here.
Somehow she was not surprised that her initial attack on the man behind her failed. She was impressed that he managed to resist a full blast of supertechnomatter. Her matter fog being pushed away from his person quite easily. More of the grey sand rose from the ground, small craters being created in the earth and foliage being eaten away as it increased. With the extra matter four humanoid forms gathered. Vexus would put full focus on this one as soon as she finished with Lucius. These four launched towards the man with sharp spears for hands, their exemidies constantly changing to stab, slice and maul from any angle they could. If they were damaged, the still amassing amount of Technomatter would fix them and the onslaught would continue.

Lucius disappeared from in front of Vexus and then appeared in three locations around her at very close range. She could see that she had time to react, but the weight of these combined forms weighed her down dramatically. Technomatter rushed towards the sword to try and stop, but it made contact. It felt like a pinch, but there was no more than some scratches on her scales. The Technomatter would swirl around this Lucius like tentacles and forcibly drag him across the ground away from Vexus. Some spikes had formed and the body was launched towards them.
The second Lucius scattered incredibly tiny micro objects at her that did nothing but stick to her body. Technomatter followed up with this one as well, hoisting him high into the air towards a black spell circle that had manifested.

As the third Lucius engaged, the other two vanished, saving the one from impalement and the other from being subjected to the physics of a black hole. He was coming at her with another weapon so she did what she could to brace for impact. The force was incredible being hit point blank like that. It knocked her off her feet and she tumbled back, her Technomatter stopping her and bringing her to her feet but being blow away by the dozen mircoexplosives on her body. The dust and smoke cleared to reveal her walking back towards Lucius with a couple bruises and some scratches here and there. A golden spell circles appeared behind her as she approached, all the damage clearing up. She saw that he now had a few scratches on him from his image she had dragged along the ground. Seeing this she should have just snapped those things’ neck if the damage transferred.

Vexus had nothing more to say. Maybe she was getting sloppy, the pursuit of power clouded her judgement. The power she had attained blurred her vision in seeing the finer details in everything, thinking she can just power through it and destroy anything opposing her. It was a foolish mindset. Immature for someone of her level of experience. But what she had seen some time ago in that Celestial Dimension, a crafty battle sense would never be enough alone. She feared something was coming.
Once she was some ten to fifteen feet away from Lucius, she casually motioned upwards forming a bronze circlular symbol in the sky. Immediately the ground began to crack and break apart and rise up towards the casting in the sky. Huge slabs of earth were overturned and crumpled further the closer they got. Once anything reached the glyph in the sky it would form in a spherical shape. Her technomattter clones that were fighting the other one would not be effected, but rather would work in trying to get him off the group and up towards the spell circle. Surrounding Technomatter would also attempt to move Lucius up into the air as well. For added difficulty, Vexus conjured white spell circles in the area that now produced a massive updraft.

Elena remained safe on a piece of the ground anchored down by technomatter. She upturned her left palm and a tennis ball sized orb of bright white light appeared. From a multitude of red symbols, black flames swirled up in pillars as the light rose. More bronze spells were made that began to push and warp the black flames around th orb. Tighter and tighter they were condensed. The flames were soon packed so tightly that the light from the orb could no longer be seen, and then Vexus brought it between her hands to condense it further. She now had it all about the size of a golf ball now resting atop the index finger of her left hand. The massive force of attraction above them was to draw them in so Vexus didn’t have to aim. Even in her state now something this powerfully condensed would be tricky to throw properly.

Some Technomatter swirled around her general and dissolved his body to bring him to a location far offsite where she could recover him later, this blast would more than likely destroy this entire area. She glanced at her left arm, seeing that another eye had closed. Vexus pointed her index finger towards where the two of them would be at this point and the small orb of energy moved forward quickly, but at a casual pace. Elena used this moment to shroud herself in a cocoon of supertechnomatter to protect herself from the explosion. She would not see the beautiful eruption of black flames filling the sky, and the blinding chaos of the supertechnomatter following. When all the pressure was released the fire would consume the sky and earth with cosmic temperatures and in the following instant her charged technomatter would blow outwards erasing the fire, and anything else it touched in the area.
When she was sure the carnage had subsided, her defensive bubble slowly evaporated with another eye on her arm closing. Immediately heat began to scorch her face and her grey sand covered her entire body. The ground and air were still at extreme temperatures. The blast was more powerful than she had anticipated. The town over was now working to extinguish flames and treat terribly burned victims. The scorched earth was flat with a few fires springing up and dying off. Eventually the area would cool and become inhabitable again, hopefully the corpses of these two acting a fertilizer for the Earth to regrow itself.

Lucius' little attack had only seemed to slightly inconvenience Vexus, but then again the same could be said about himself. His Repulsive Armor took most of the damage that Vexus inflicted on his teleportation clones, and what it didn't simply shrug off was negligible damages to his outfit. Regardless, the whole engagement resulted in nothing decisive for either of them. Sure Lucuus had managed to get a slight feel for how powerful Vexus was in this form, but other then that he gained nothing.

What happened next was pretty much all reaction. There was little time to do much else, really. First there was a massive updraft that seemed to be trying to pull all matter into the sky, and then there was the attack that Vexus was preparing while that happened. It was a decent distraction, and would give her enough time to pull off her attack, but by the same token it would give Lucius enough time to formulate a defense.

First things first, when Lucius realized he was being pulled upward, he instantly activated his Movement Stabilizer. Instantly he was no longer affected by the  draft, and dropped back down to where he was previously. With this device on, he couldn't be moved by anyone but himself, and that included things such as gravity itself.

As soon as that was done, and assuming the attack Vexus had been charging this whole time would be catastrophic, Lucius instantly began generating a sphere of Red Energy around himself. It grew from the size of a car, to a truck, to a small building, and then finally stopped only when the explosion went off to halt it.

Thankfully he had managed to break off from the updraft quickly enough to prepare this, because otherwise he would have most likely been obliterated. Nonetheless, this wasn't an easy defense. Lucius gritted his teeth as the fury of Vexus' explosion rammed into his solid cacoon of energy. The explosion was powerful, and it was taking all of Red's concentration and power to hold it back. His eyes glew crimson, indicating the heavy use of his power, and he continued to hold at that level until he felt the explosion settling down.

He could hold no longer, and broke off his barrier just as the explosion was reaching it's final stages. As a consequence of this, Lucius was thrown back by the last bits of power Vexus' attack had. The force rammed into his armor's repulsive field, and shorted it out instantly. Granted, not much more damage came through after it shorted out the field, but it was still a loss to Lucius' defenses.

Lucius landed maybe thirty feet from where he was previously. The dictator groaned slightly, pulling himself to his feet. The heat was of no issue. His energy was a rather hot substance, and it being in his body had given him a huge resistance to anything like it as well as most physical threats. That's how he had become so durable. Attacking Lucius with heat was like trying to set plasma on fire. If anything, it only supported the use of his abilities.

"Vexus! You irrational, brutish, homicidal maniac! What you're doing is an inefficient, selfish, and careless waste of power. This cannot have any positive result, and not just for the world, but for you. To drain yourself and to level an entire town just to get information you were likely welcome to anyway?! To make enemies of friends just so you might fuel your ego?! Perhaps you would have been a more fitting member of the Ultragang," Lucius said, clearly a bit of anger in his voice. He had little opportunity to destroy matter to assimilate into his own energy, meaning he had to generate it himself. This had the drawback of leaving him a bit tired and also quite angry after such a heavy use of his power. Usually this took longer, but he had been forced into using his ability in such a way.

"You're officially relieved of your membership. It's clear to me now that you don't have anyone's best interest in mind, not even your own. If I'm to create our Risen world, i can't have people like Deathbringer, Phoenix, and you illogically seeking some sort of quasi-godhood," Lucius said, already patching in to the Palace in Minsk. He knew he wouldn't be able to get support for a little while, but he was done playing. With the loss of a town and people's lives for no reason whatsoever, this was no longer a game.

I need whoever you can spare at these coordinates as quickly as possible. You'll be able to move quicker then a military response, but set it up anyway. I need air support and medical teams here on the double," Lucius said telepathically, speaking over the Palace comms to Daniel Raines. The lieutenant sighed, as he was in the middle of something, but it was clear Lucius needed his help.

That's a twenty minute ETA. We had absolutely no notice anything was happening," Daniel said. Lucius just sighed and cut communication. He would have to hold out with Pinnacle until help arrived. He was confident he could do so, but when they arrived, this confrontation would be over regardless of whether he survived or not.

"Well, Miss Vexus, I'm waiting. You did say you would kill me if i didn't comply with your demands. I feel distinctly alive. And, looks like my associate is, too," Lucius said. The gem on his sword then stopped glowing. It was switching modes, and needed some time to rest before it did so. In the mean time, Lucius was prepared to battle it out a little more aggressively now. He wasn't just going to stall. He would much rather beat Vexus before his support even got there. If Vexus approached him, he would let out a flurry of energy waves, and if she successfully evaded and got closer, he'd simply let out a pulse. If she kept her distance, not wanting to have her durability rendered moot by the devastating power of the energy, then Lucius would meet any ranged attacks with ones of his own.

Soon, more of the metallic matter rose from the ground, creating multiple small craters in the earth, consuming nearby trees and brush from the area as it assimilated more and more mass.

From out of this increasing storm of silver sand, four humanoid forms took shape and launched themselves towards Israel's other self with bladed limbs akin to javelins, their shifting forms changing constantly in a mad attempt to impale, slash at, and otherwise disembowel him. Vexus did not yet realize that her marionettes were not alone in possessing this ability.

Once again, Israel's instant and insanely efficient processing of information proved useful as he bent his facsimile's body to accommodate for and evade the four things' every attack, and though he could very likely have done so at their top speeds, he also absorbed a portion of their kinetic energy as they moved, making them slower and all the more easy to evade. He didn't cause them to completely freeze in place, instead seeding the air with more of his own matter and making it appear that he was more locked down than he was.

The woman then casually motioned upwards forming another of her familiar bronze glyphs in the sky, producing a strong pulling force and prompting the ground in the area to crack and break apart, rising upwards towards the elaborate glowing symbol. Huge masses of the rising chunks of earth were crumbled to dust fairly quickly, the effect increasing in speed and intensity the higher they rose towards it, culminating in being crushed into a spherical shape as they reached its location.

Her sand soldiers were apparently left unaffected by this most recent development, and continued their attempts to uproot Israel from the terra firma whereon he stood. Their attempts were in vain, as he could not only resist this pull with his sub-molecular self-ordination alone, but had also been primarily absorbing the kinetic energy placed upon his immediate vicinity, keeping himself and the terrain beneath him rooted in place, and this area was expanding as he continued to expand his influence via his amorphous autokinesis coupled with his proscenial self-ordination, coalescing more and more matter in order to further his strategic control of the playing field.

Elena's own platform of terrain remained stable, apparently anchored down by the mysterious material she had been manipulating. She upturned her left palm and a tennis ball sized orb of bright white light appeared. From a multitude of red symbols, black flames swirled up in pillars as the light rose. More bronze spells were made that began to push and warp the black flames around the orb.

Clearly, she was charging a large attack, as Pinnacle could observe the energy in the orb increasing at an almost exponential rate. He calculated that the blast radius of such an attack was expanding to a catastrophic size, and so, he left his facsimile to fight with the woman's own, being still phased himself, and began sending out his expanding mass of matter to seek out and cocoon the local residents of the area, focusing on those nearest to ground zero first and expanding outwards in an increasingly wide radius.

The cocooned denizens would be drilled into the Earth quickly, providing them with a makeshift bunker against the impending blast that was almost certain to come, be it as a beam attack or as a nova, either way, they would want to be fairly deep under, and so, that is what he did, giving them each slight shocks to render them peacefully unconscious. In Israel's opinion, it was better to have them shocked, confused of what had happened, and alive then vaporized. They would be provided with oxygen, and any remaining matter that he could spare would cushion them further.

When some of the woman's silvery sand swirled around her cybernetic henchman and dissolved his body, Israel quickly deduced that she must be going for a less precise attack than a beam, and this offered him some small measure of comfort, as he wouldn't be able to cushion as many people from a precision attack of that magnitude, but his relief was short-lived when she pointed her finger at the epicenter of where Lucius and he were located... And fired.

What followed was a cataclysmic blast of black flames followed by a magnificent eruption of her supercharged silvery sand. The explosion tore through the surrounding area, blasting apart everything near the center of the explosion and burning much of the rest to either cinders, smoldering buildings, or ash depending on how close the structures were to the blast.

... And Israel couldn't get to everyone in time.

His expanded Merkavah did its best to shield the inhabitants of the town from the energies of the blast, but it was too much for him to absorb all at once, and he could feel as many of the people he had tried to protect burst into flames. Still others were thrown head over heels by the shockwave. Though many of the inhabitants had been spared death, and some were even spared entirely, it was a bitter sweet victory... He could feel the life as it left some of the less fortunate on the outskirts of the blast radius.

In his efforts to save those that had no way of saving themselves, he had largely left Lucius to fend for himself, and winced as this same explosion concussed through his red energy cocoon and even his armor, he could feel that he was alive, though, and was relieved to see that when it was all over, he was largely okay.

Israel himself was glad for the remaining heat energy in the air, he could use it to recover some of the energy he expended to erect energy barriers against the massive nova of death that had rocked the area, and he promptly absorbed it as swiftly as possible, cooling the air somewhat quickly considering its intense heat only moments before, dropping it by about 5 degrees every full second.

He would instantly begin utilizing this energy to aid those burned or otherwise hurt but still alive, unphasing his true self, as his facsimile had been destroyed, and nodding to Lucius as he cooled the air to do so, and while Lucius himself called for aid for them. He hoped that Lucius would catch his meaning even though it might be somewhat ambiguous to a normal person. He was a fast thinker and knew somewhat of what Israel could do, after all, and had only recently called for medical teams to come in.

Pinnacle felt that he had to focus on protecting and attending the injured before the death count rose. He already felt that it was too high, those he had saved notwithstanding. He wasn't certain if he could hurt the incredibly powerful woman known as Vexus, but one thing that he was certain of was that she was a threat to the lives of the people around her, at least in the immediate vicinity, and thus, he coalesced some of the matter he had seeded the air with earlier into an exponentially multiplying amount of tungsten blades, each flying at Vexus as they formed, and growing as they did. The solid matter that had been in the explosion was still there, after all, it had just changed states from a solid to a gas, subliming in the intense heat; it could still be utilized for his purposes.