Sweet sweet revenge (Khell and Ryan)

Revenge, such a petty thing. When someone is wronged, it is natural for that person to want to return the favor. Thing is, most either don't have the means or are held back by some form of morality. Lucius however, has both the means and the lack of any kind of heart. If someone crosses him even slightly, he eventually comes after them. Its a bit irrational compared to his other tendencies, but he's good enough at pulling it off to avoid any trouble it may cause.

The targets of his revenge this time were not related to each other, yet taking them down together would bring about their demise easier if all went well. The targets in question were a mercenary by the name Khellendros and a boy that worked with Silus in their last encounter named Ryan Lester. Both were not underestimated by any means, they both arguably had a chance against Lucius in a straight up fight alone. However, this wasn't a straight up fight. The entire operation would be littered with misdirection and other methods of confusion. He had prepped his plan of attack for weeks, researching what he knew of his two targets.

Khellendros had a reputation for completing contracts efficiently and quickly, he was very smart and to Lucius was his main threat. Ryan on the other hand had less brains but more power, Lucius had witnessed the boys feats first hand and knew he wasn't one to be taken lightly. Giving these two a chance to team up may have seemed like a horrible tactic, however Lucius wanted it this way for many reasons. Besides the fact that if his plan worked he would be killing two birds with one stone, he believed he could possibly use them against each other.

The stage was set, a building in the the middle of nowhere that looked abandon on the outside but had been tricked out with sleek tech on the inside. It was completely open, no cover and plenty of room to move. This was because in his last encounter with Khell Lucius was stuck fighting him up close, which was not an option with how skilled he was hand to hand. The basic tactic here would be to keep him at range, something Lucius had a distinct advantage in. And, knowing Lucius, of course there were traps. The sleek and open room was sprinkled with them, hidden. They were more practical then what he usually used, meaning they used less tech. Such things would be difficult to detect by Khell.

Lucius had set up force fields that would help in separating his targets, that part was very much needed early in the fight. Ryan would find that the building was bone dry and very hot. Lucius figured the boys powers would be effected by heat just as his were effected by the cold. He himself would have a better time producing energy at this temperature while Ryan may have trouble. All he needed to do now was get them there, which was easy enough. Khell would be given a fake capture contract, Ryan would be alerted to a false kidnapping. The building was a few miles outside Los Angeles, so the boy wouldn't have any problem taking care of a quick misdeed.

Kidnappings, there were neither kids nor napping involved, but they were illegal so he had to stop them. After all, Ryan liked to think he was a hero, which involved saving people from the clutched of the bad guys. Easy enough, unless there was some sort of convoluted plan set in motion but who would want to do that? So dressing up for the job, minus his leather jacket to avoid it getting ripped up, Ryan was out to do what prodigy sort of was made to do. Get there was the easy part, Ryan just had to find the location and water port out there. Slipping from the puddle in a watery form, Ryan took a scan of the area as the rain seemed to pick up into a torrent. The sound of it was audible now, falling down in buckets as one would say.

The water soaked into his hoodie as well as clothing, bringing a sort of comfort to him that was otherwise not there. ”This looks like the place.” Ryan muttered to himself, trying to remember if this was or he had gotten the wrong place altogether. Which sounded like something he would do but then again that was also an assumption. Either way, all he had to do was find out and then go from there. So he would walk into the building, quite unaware of the trap he was walking into. Which sounded about right, Ryan walking into a trap at any rate. The first thing he did notice was that the building was hot, like really hot. It only took a few seconds for him to start sweating, not that it would be too noticeable considering the damper nature of himself at the moment.

The feeling itself was deeply uncomfortable, as if he felt he were going to boil alive or something along those lines. It reminded Ryan of how much he hated hot placed, though he did have a person to save from certain peril. Almost naturally his body attempted to lower the temperature to accommodate him but that did not quite work out like he was planning on. Sure, a few degrees were cut off, that did nothing to relieve his discomfort, but aside from that something else felt off about the building. The amulet around his neck pulsed coldly against his flesh, almost as if something were not right. What that problem was, well he had no clue, so he would have to get this done and then get out.

This did not feel right at all.

"Desserts, such desolate places... Brings back memories." Khellendros had been brought out here by a contract to capture a Brazilian drug lord attempting to escape law enforcement in their own country by fleeing to the states. Why would anyone from a country so humid want to come to a place so dry? It makes no sense whatsoever. He'd simply landed for a visit and was ambushed at the airport with an offer for lucrative work, not necessarily odd in and of itself, but the contractor seemed too... desperate for him to take the contract and any questions were met with excessively vague answers, she seemed as if she were under duress or some fairly significant stress at the time. No floor plans, no estimate on strength of numbers... I'd call bullshit if this were a cheap film but I'm curious, can't be just a drug dealer if they're hiring me on to handle it...

He'd gathered his equipment and made his way to the seemingly abandoned building he'd been directed to. When he began his approach, he was more than surprised to be greeted with what seemed to be a localized torrential downpour, completely uncharacteristic with what the climate allowed for. Not natural, definitely not a normal occurrence. "Alex, was there any call for this kind of deluge in local weather reports?" "None sir, and the phenomenon's source is unknown." Fascinating... Wait, what the hell-no-who the hell is that? He watched as an aqueous form rose out of a puddle and proceeded into the building. Going to take a wild guess and assume the weather is his doing somehow... now to enter the building where he isn't so I don't get... blasted or whatever the hell he's capable of. Might be one of the perimeter guards that she neglected to mention. Circling wide around the building, he came up to a side entrance. "Any signs of security features or personnel heat signatures on the other side?" "No heat signatures detected, sensor detected on door frame."

Must be a fire escape or security alarm. "Fry it." Taking out Wrath, he simply glides the blade into the frame of the door like a hot knife through butter and discharges a high voltage of electricity into the area near the sensor, overloading and disabling it. He then slices the blade downward on both sides before pulling it out of the way and placing it quietly against the wall of the building, no sense in giving away the fact that there's an intruder so soon right?

Good, they arrived at nearly the same time. As soon as they walked a few feet into the building Ryan and Khell would notice a bright blue sheen moving rapidly across the walls. To fast for even a speedster to react to it sealed off and coated the building.  All walls and openings were now covered in this mysterious blue shield. It wasn't exactly indestructible, but it would serve its purpose. Even considering his targets fire power it would take either at least three minutes to break the shield, and that was time they did not have. You see, Lucius needed them in his box. It wasn't like he didn't have a plan if they did get out, but it would be far easier if they didn't. The entire room was a sleek chrome, it literally was a box with how open it was.

Finally from the ceiling a holographic projector shot out, forming a screen. On this screen Lucius could be seen in full gear but no mask. They had both seen his face and he presently had no need of Hector, so it didn't matter.

"Well, i have to say, that was easier then i expected." Lucius said with a small bit of laughter, truly amused.

"Regardless, you two are probably wondering why i lured you here...... Quite simply, i brought you here to die." Lucius said, sipping on a glass of what seemed to be some manner of alcohol as he sat back in his chair. Adjusting his position to lean a bit more toward the camera he would continue.

"But besides all that, i wanna have a little fun. If you play nice, maybe one of you will get out of here alive." Lucius said, returning to his previous position once he was finished.

"Either you kill the other gentleman in the room, or you die. I honestly don't expect you to choose the first option, whether its because of pride or mortality. Just know though, facing me here will result in your demise." Lucius said with a grin across his face. Yes they would probably not up and kill each other just because he told them to, but Lucius was just testing them. He was way to interested in what made people tick, what actions made them draw the line. Of course he would let the winner go if they decided to do the whole fight to the death thing, but either way he would be victorious in a sense.

As soon as Ryan walked into the building something happened, a strange translucent blue barrier began to form over the building. Slowly, the whole sensation he had been feeling a few seconds ago made more sense than ever before, because now he was painfully aware that this was a trap. More intelligent individuals would have figured it out but he didn't quite have the chance. In a sense they were now boxed in, something that Ryan did not like the feeling of at all. He looked around as if there would be another way out, but all he saw was the same blue shield that was holding him in. There was no water as far as he knew, meaning that he couldn't simply water port out there as he would have usually done, and even considering his power the water soaking his clothes was not enough.

He was caught in a trap and as far ad Ryan knew, there was no way out. Turning he would see what looked like someone else, though dressed in armor unlike him who was dressed....well in clothes. Projected across the ceiling was a face, one that seemed to know him but Ryan did not quite know who they were. Short memory in work as many would see it as, though maybe the man would see it as more of an insult than anything else.

Not that his mind was too busy trying to figure out who this guy was as he had more important matters to attend to. Such as why his body hurt so much, because now his whole body was aching like crazy, as if each cell were crying out for something. One thing he could tell about the guy was that he was the one behind all of this, the trap as well as possibly a fake kidnapping thing. Mentally, Ryan face palmed himself for falling to something like that in the first place. Apparently this trap was so they could die, though for what reason he had no clue. ”Ummm...who are you again?” Ryan asked not even willing to attempt to learn the name of this jerk. ”Because I don't really remember you, but if you think you can kill me...well then I guess people call the wrong one stupid in here.”

"Sir, there is an energy barrier forming in and around the structure." "Really now? Well, at least this isn't going to be as boring as it could have been." Khellendros walks a little further into the room before noticing the boy from earlier. Not attacking me on sight... Okay then, not a hostile threat until proven otherwise. And then the lame-ass villainous monologue starts. "Oh great, I get a lame diatribe in addition to purposefully walking into an ill-conceived trap. Perfect." Listening a little further for the purpose to this convoluted scheme, he can't help but heave a sigh. "I don't die on a regular basis when people want me to, not going to start either." The play nice comment he lets pass with a "Pfft, really?" and then the final statement about killing the other guy. "Hard pass Lucius, but if you come on in here I can fix one of your problems relatively easily, well not really, the only way to fix stupid is to kill it's host."

As expected, from the boy at least, they said no to his offer in their own special way. Lucius had figured the mercenary would have been fine with killing someone to be let off scott free, perhaps he was one of those people that refused for pride rather then ethics. Either way, Lucius was done with the psychological info mining.

"Oh, the 'i don't remember the insignificant villain' card, how original." Lucius said in response to Ryan.

"You best hope i can kill you, because if that's not possible then trust me, I'll find something worse that is." Lucius continued after taking the final drink of his beverage. Listening to what Khell had to say Lucius casually put on his mask and secured it, acting highly uninterested in what the man was saying.

"You're more arrogant then i am, and that's saying something. Only difference is i don't need to rely on armor to be nearly invincible. Don't be too confident in your technology, you're not the only genius in the world." Lucius said addressing Khell, his voice now filtered by his mask. So it seemed they wouldn't make this easy, one truly could have left unharmed yet they declined, figures.

"I gave you a chance, now i guess i have to break the kids neck and tear you from that tin can you call a suit." Lucius said getting up from his plush red chair, the hologram fading shortly after. A minute or two would pass, perhaps giving his two targets a chance to talk over tactics or just sit silently. Eventually a door would open on the far side of the building, the shield not coming down yet still Lucius walked right through it as if it didn't effect him. The masked man would come in, eying his targets from a safe distance as he walked to a more centralized position.

"Shall we begin?" Lucius said with a confident yet serious look hidden under his glaring mask.

So neither of them would be trying to kill one another, meaning that things would have to get messy. Likely much to Lucius’ annoyance but then again that just meant they would have to fight him. Not that he had anything against doing so, but then again part of him wondered if he could even defeat the madman, and this heat was not helping at all. Either way, he would fight and make the guy really work for a win if it came to that. If anything, Ryan didn’t fashion himself a pushover and as far as he knew that was the case. Within a few minutes the villain would make their appearance, stepping through the barrier as if it were not even there. That might have been part of the technology or his powers, that much he couldn’t tell upon first glance.

Either way, he had to do a little preparation of his own, attempting to draw moisture from the air to create ice much like he usually did. No matter how hard he tried, nothing happened beyond…well his head hurting. ”No…this isn’t right.” Ryan muttered to himself attempting to produce a burst of ice and only coming up with nothing beyond a small puff of mist from his fingertips. So this was the thing that was wrong with the building, the bastard had somehow messed with his power. Unluckily, Ryan was unaware that it was simpler and involved nothing more than the air being too dry to draw moisture from, and he had forgotten for a moment he had a small amount of water soaked within his clothes.

”I…think we might be in a little trouble.” He whispered looking to Khell with a slightly frantic expression.

Clearly an IFF field in play. Khellendros listened patiently to Lucius' rant as he went through all the tropes of a comic book villain, theatrically putting on his mask and airs as he entered into the room. He can't possibly think he's going to take two of us on at the same time, that's suicidal even for me to take on two metas at the same time. What's the trick? "You hear that Alex? He called Stormbringer a tin can." "Most insulting, he must have learned it from the school children in the city." "Indeed." Turning off external audio briefly. "Prep the overdrive and throw the excess power into Wrath for a Tesla slash, might throw him for a loop since it's a relatively new trick that he hasn't seen." Stormbringer pulses as power is redirected to various portions of the armour and into the Black Knight's sword in preparation for the coming battle.

He watches as the boy in the hoodie looks to try and prepare himself for the oncoming fight, but something seems to be holding him back.

"I... Think we might be in a little trouble."

Khellendros couldn't have been more surprised by this statement if he'd wanted to be. "Alex, our hydrophile seems to be having issues so I'll assume he's a manipulator as oppose to a generator, what's our environment doing to hinder him?" "Humidity inside this structure is low and temperature is high, probably to encourage this." "Find me the climate control and a water main, all buildings require running water by law for fire-fighting purposes, check for a sprinkler system while you're at it." "Of course sir." Turning external audio back on. "I get the feeling we'll have to improvise for you to survive, I'll see about a main or something but in the meantime don't get yourself killed."

"Shall we begin?"

Khelllendros simply turns to face the man he had watched walk into the room through the very field containing them using the 360 degree HUD in his helmet. He takes a few steps before making the first move. "Alex, United We Stand Divided We Fall. I hope you don't mind then if I make the first move, Lucius." Launching himself forward as the music winds up and reaches a volumetric crescendo, Khellendros quickly exceeds the limits of what any normal man can achieve in speed before leaping into the air and taking a downward strike at the man responsible for their presence here. If it connects he will keep up the assault but the primary purpose is actually to strike and shatter the floor to partially break the climate seal in the building.

Despite Lucius acting calm and quiet, he was quite busy. Him and Hector had been working out various methods of attack and defense, calculating outcomes in seconds. His telepathic communication technology really did wonders for planning without his enemies knowing.

"Initializing scanning process..............scanning complete. The armor as we already know is made of highly dense materials, causing any damage to the man inside will be difficult even with your energy output. I would recommend electromagnetic pulses or shock modules. Though using EMPs at this time may shut down your technology including me and the shield around this building, they must be kept as a last resort. The armor does not seem to have many ranged capabilities, keeping this foe at a distance may prove advantageous. However, the armor is currently building up some kind of energy the likes of which we have never encountered, stay alert." Hector would say telepathically, giving Lucius' advanced mind all this information in less then a second.

"Good work. If the humidity changes or any sign of high amounts of moisture arise please bring it to my attention." Lucius thought in response. Most of the information Hector had given him he had already assumed, though the confirmation was comforting. With how unknown Khellendros was Lucius would have to stay on his toes, but for the most part he was beyond confident. Ryan would be his first target, it was only obvious. He needed to get rid of him while he was weak then go all out on Mister Chivalrous, if he did it the other way around the fight with Khell would destroy his box and give Ryan his powers back. This had to be done right or he would lose quite badly, one miss step and his set up wouldn't lead to his desired checkmate.

The armored man would then launch at him at high speeds, though nothing Lucius hadn't already seen. He had fought metas that could travel at three or four times the speed of sound, this was nothing for his hyper advanced brain to react to. One thought was all that was needed to defend against this motion his opponent had mistaken for an attack, one thought. His repulsive field had been activated, meaning not only would Lucius be shielded from the attack but Khell would be repulsed back with immense force as soon as he or his weapon came into contact with the nearly invisible shield. It was quite the niffy little gadget. After the most likely outcome happened, it was offense time.

"Hahahaha......you can't actually take your self seriously with that music playing can you? I seemed to have been laboring under the delusion you were a professional, well no longer." He taunted from behind his protective barrier. It was always a habit of Lucius' to laugh at his opponents early in a fight, though all it took was a few minutes before he hit his serious switch. In the next moment after speaking to Khell Lucius used his thrusters in a sort of rocket assisted charge, not toward his main enemy though. He had launched himself after Ryan with energy radiating from his body, ready to unleash on the boy. At the end of his jump he would end up about ten feet from the water boy with a pulse ready. With a simple gesture a vary serious blast was sent toward the hydrokinetic, hissing and spitting at the air as the crimson light flashed on the stark chrome walls. It was wide and very clearly intended to kill, though whether that would be the produced effect was not known.

This powerless feeling, that was not something that Ryan liked when staring down death like he was now. It didn’t feel the least bit fair, especially considering that the villain would have no problem killing him should he have the chance. Not that villains ever played fair to being with, it was always murdering and cheating for them. However, he had to have some way he could contribute to the while fight thing, not that he could think of anything while he was so buys worrying about not dying. Luckily, he had a knight around that could do something about the supervillain, so he assumed when they moved into a super-fast dash towards the villain. However it seemed that their attack was for the most part a failure, because now he had the guy coming right at him. So he would have to do what he did best when he couldn’t do anything else, and that was run.

Within an instant he would convert to water, rapidly slinking out of the water of the blast that had hit the ground with tremendous force, thought unfortunately it had caught his water form ever so slightly. Considering the nature of the energy itself, that meant nothing good. Slinking back over close to the approximate location of the knight, he reformed, suddenly noticing the pained sensation on his upper arm that felt like his skin was on fire. Ryan’s breath hitched as he unzipped his jacket and looked to see what the pain was all about. What he saw was the flesh burned, second degree if anyone knew about that sort of stuff, looking rather ugly and all over painful. Ice had already begun to form over the wound drawing moisture from his clothes as the means to do so.

So it looked like Lucius was trying to kill him first, which meant nothing good for Ryan.

"Sir, some kind of kinetic barrier has sheathed the subject. Impact imminent." "Shit." Khell couldn't stop his attack at this point, so he'd make the best of it. Probably a reflective barrier seeing as he prefers a distance fight. Practically landing on top of Lucius, the barrier would have the desired effect of launching Khellendros away from his opponent and towards the ceiling. "Brace for impact! Gyro-stabilize." He crashes into the ceiling with jarring force feet first and watches as Lucius launches himself towards the hooded youth. You miserable little shit! Could at least fight fairly and give him a chance to defend himself but of course not! "Arm Surgeslinger." With enough force to shatter a tank, Khellendros pushes off of the barrier on the ceiling and crashes into the floor with Wrath pointed down, once he's hit the floor he'll twist Wrath in the concrete to open the fissure further before drawing what appears to be a handle with a cube attached from the middle of his back from under his cape. Giving one quick motion opens the cube into what looks like a very high tech composite bow before it flashes to life with blue energy shot through with purple electrical bolts. As Lucius fires the pulse at the boy, Khellendros lines up a shot before pulling back the drawstring. "Maximum firepower!" With that, he unleashes a javelin-sized bolt of energy aimed between Lucius' shoulder blades.

When Ryan reforms near him and checks his wounds. "How bad is it?" "Seems to be on par with second degree burns. The youth seems to be treating it with ice formed from the moisture in his clothing." Hitching Surgeslinger to the back of Aegis, he picks Wrath up from the ground and takes up position between Ryan and Lucius, shielding the boy from any further attacks with the tower shield and his armoured body. "I apologize for my error, I should have figured he'd take the dishonourable route and asssault you while you're defenseless. How bad is the burn?"

Lucius was quite shocked to find that the boy had used his water form ability and ported away. It seemed they had made a breach in the buildings seal. It wasn't known how bad it was or how much water Ryan could get from it, but it had to be covered up.

"Slight breach on the buildings floor, it may give the meta human some access to his powers. I recommend repairing it." Hector said notifying Lucius as requested. Turning around he was shocked yet again by the sight of an energy bolt flying toward him, it being to close to even react to with thoughts. His repulsive field had been shorted out by the previous attack, so it looked like he was taking this one. The energy javelin hit him dead on in the chest, sending him tumbling back from the force as the energy bolt exploded. He managed to catch himself before he fell with a thruster assisted save, but falling was the least of his worries. The shot had penetrated his steel chest plate like butter and caused a burnt puncture wound that didn't look very nice to have. It wasn't too deep, but it still hurt more then most things.

"That weapon is capable of getting through your durability, if only a little. I suggest you be more evasive rather then just trying to tank it." Hector said stating the obvious. With a grunt Lucius shook it off and got back into fight mode, this was about to get serious. Sending out two spike constructs they circled around Khell, one on each side. Once they fully circled they would pick up speed, firing themselves at Ryan. If they hit the kid that would be fine, but there purpose was more then that. If they hit they would dissipate as they always did after a successful hit, if they didn't they would land in the crater below Ryan and reform. Once reformed the energy would seal off the breach, making a sort of artificial floor. If that happened they might as well move to damage another part of the ground rather then Lucius' construct, it was actually harder to break then the steel floor.

His flesh burned, painfully so but Ryan had no time to cry about a little pain. Not when some psycho was trying to murder him, not that would have to wait until he had some time to cry to himself, maybe licked his wounds. Should he even have time for that, because this guy seemed pretty intent on killing him for whatever reason. Apparently getting in the way of something he got anyway was enough reason to murder him. Looking down he took notice of the break within the floor, not that it did him any good considering there was no water gushing out of it. So this guy’s sword could do some heavy damage to stuff, meaning that maybe he could do something to the villain for him. The fight continued as the guy would produce some kind of bow that shot weird arrows, aiming one at Lucius who seemed to take it without too much damage.

The damn guy was just too tough. Quick to retaliate, Lucius would unleash his own energy constructs, once again branching off from Khell to attack him as if the strategy was not done already. Much like his usual actions, without thinking he turned into water once again to shift out of the way, this time managing to avoid what would have been a painful and fatal attack. Moving around behind Khell and reforming once again, though it seemed the attacks were just made to seal up the whole made by Khell.

"Lovely, ever the vindictive little shit aren't we Lucius?" Khell could only watch as the hole in the floor he made was sealed by the corrosive red energy Lucius produces, he prods it with Wrath before deciding that it isn't worth the effort to try and break through. "Is this fight really going to be between you and me while you try to murder a BOY? For all your bravado and supposed power, you seem to need to REALLY tip the scales to your favour in order to even try to win." Dropping the volume on his vocal speaker significantly he quickly forwards an idea to Ryan. "I have no clue how far your ability goes, but if you're able to do that water morph thing and latch onto my back or similar I'd have a much easier time destroying multiple surfaces while keeping you safer." Sheathing Wrath and drawing Surgeslinger, Khell starts letting loose with plasma shots in a barrage in Lucius' direction, most aimed at harming his opponent with some purposefully going wide to tax the floor and barrier surrounding the building.