Welcome to Gaia! ::

As Kazuma activated his reflection power, Noire realized he couldn't block it, but he could step out of the way, with little probability of success, instead, he reached out his hand and redirected the energy in a radiant escheresque disk of spatial distortion..

"Nicely played." He stomped his foot hard at an angle, snapping up a piece of spinning cage and catching it, tossing it really fast at Kazuma's throat. He could sense that Kazuma thrived on endless struggle, while his reliance on another dimension's energy reminded him of a certain psychopath in charge of a Kardashev IV empire and their main engines, and how he had/would/would never destroy/destroyed them.

Kazuma's confidence in his own biological relationship to another dimension betrayed his ignorance of the bigger picture. That there were things out there that accessed, manipulated, and consumed alter-native dimensions, devouring them like so much spent fuel in a primitive diesel engine, for even more primitive reasons.

Initially, it seemed like something Kazuma would never have to know about. The horrors out there in the great beyond. But Noire reconsidered. He thought perhaps he could share this tidbit, this flash of insight, this revelation with Kazuma. A very basic telepathic gesture.

Just your garden variety lovecraftian epiphany of noneuclidean cosmic engineering. What harm could it possibly do?

Noire, his hand still extended from the radiant disk, turns his wrist palm downward, and absorbs the alter energy into a tiny triangular bipyramid. A trick he learned from a certain Kardashev III civilization with a hard-on for telepathic biotech and interdimensional energy manipulation. Of course, that civilization had an obsession with saturnine cube worship. Noire preferred more aesthetically pleasing and structurally simplistic containment units.

He is reminded of a megaton nuclear device he used to carry/would carry/never did carry-because-that-reality-was-deviant cleverly disguised as a hieroglyphic golden sphere, a child's toy, and shakes his head, the timelines unraveling even as they are recreated in echoes of a past future.

(( Concerning Psycho-Fish, I've been wondering the same thing. I think I'm going to go a-head and set up a battle thread for Kirin Chimera. ))

"Shell Bullet of Grief. . . ." Kazuma's left eye twitched, and his cheeks sagged with exhaustion. Holding his concrete right arm out in a fist level with Noire's head, the Treasoner walked to-ward his adversary, pumping his legs and muscles up so that he could gain some speed be-fore he broke in-to a steady, head-long jaunt with no regard paid or respect heeded for his own safety. Kazuma noted an escheresque disk glowing be-neath one of Noire's hands, and the triangular bipyramid was analyzed. The tentacle on the back of Kazuma's right shoulder writhed vehemently, releasing energy which both sped Kazuma up and added power to his right fist, which he attempted to push square in-to Noire's skull.

Kazuma's right fist hit the crystal.

Having been thrown back by the anti-Alter explosion, Kazuma stood at the opposite end of the crater from Noire, observing the results of his handiwork. Kazuma's concrete right hand had taken the brunt of the impact from Noire's anti-Alter explosion from the crystal, and was rendered mundane. A bright flash issued forth, and Kazuma was rendered Alter-less. The twenty-seven-year-old with a condensate concrete arm peered at Noire from the edge of the crater. "Are you okay, Mister Noire?" he asked.

"My circulatory system is not connected to the arm," said Kazuma. Using the muscles of his shoulder, Kazuma rotated the arm. "As you can see, I can move the arm using my shoulder muscles." Kazuma's right hand was still clenched in a permanent fist. "Well, shall we dance?" asked the Treasoner.

Kazuma slid his right foot for-ward. Balling his left hand in-to a fist and holding it out in front of him-self, he ran straight at Noire after sliding his left foot for-ward, too, pumping his arms like pistons. The left hand was a feint. He attempted to get close to Noire and shoulder-check him using the grey metal armor on his jacket. He followed by swinging his right elbow in an attempt to clip the bridge of Noire's nose.

Bits and pieces of concrete flew off the biceps brachii area of Kazuma's right arm as Michael Noire's pulse hit the fake appendage. Kazuma's right shoulder was dislocated, causing the Treasoner to wince in pain. Sliding his left foot for-ward and his right foot back-ward, the Treasoner grunted in pain as he used his left hand to pop his dislocated shoulder back in-to the socket. He lifted his right arm up, aligning his fist with Noire's head. Using his shoulder and back muscles to push his concrete right fist for-ward, he attempted to smash Noire's nose in.