On a Vine

[Akaki]

"VINE!"

Traversing out of the forest would have taken too long on foot, which was the reason why he had chosen to base his hideout there. Of course no one could recognise him whenever he is on the job, but there is always a risk someone could track him down and if that ever happens, he needs all the delay he could get.

The new client had a more unusual request than what he was used to. Usually it was money and jewellery. That client did not tell him what it was, but he was to intercept a convoy. Well, no time to lose. He broke his body down into a serpentine tangle of vines and shot towards concrete roads.

[Ancient]

The convoy was more than one person's target. A source said that Foundation X may be staging a convoy in this forest around this time. The man sat astride his bike, an offroad model, a couple years old. He was off the road, waiting for the convoy on the far opposite side of the dopant he didn't know was coming. He teased the purple medal between his fingers, wondering absently.

"Why do they call them medals...? They're more like coins, anyway..." He whispered. He'd hear the convoy far enough off to transform, and his ears perked at the sound of engines. A road this low-traveled, this far from anywhere? Odds were... He raised one hand in front of him, a faint glow forming around his hand as he closed it. He smirked, then brought the knuckle to chest height, resting it in front of his left shoulder. He slipped the medal into the belt, where it settled, and began to glow. He slid the knuckle across his chest, stopping in the middle before slamming it down into the belt. He then pushed the knuckle toward the belt, engulfing himself in purple light.

"Henshin." His voice was almost a snarl, as the bike re-settled under his armor's weight. He didn't turn the bike on, just yet.

[Akaki]

The convoy was one armoured van and two sedans. It did not look like much of a challenge at all, which was perfectly fine since it meant an easier time for him. If the personnel looked as flimsy as the vehicles, then he would pretty much make big money with doing very little. No sense waiting around any longer then.

He curled his serpentine body into a spring from the bottom and pounce straight at the sedan at the front, crashing through its windows and strangling its occupants with his many tendrils. Predictably, they put up a struggle which did not phase him the least bit. While disposing of his first four human obstacles, he spied from the rear window the armoured truck halting. Footsteps accompanied by grunts of "What happened?", and the next thing he knew, four other people were shooting at him. Just as well, he was done with the strangling.

He pulled out from the car and reassembled into a humanoid shape, taking the brunt of the bullets without flinching and then extending thick tendrils to bind his obstacles and smashing them about like ragdolls with flesh and bone stuffing. All too easy.

[Ancient]

He perked his head up, frowning. Gunfire? No... No. NO. He jumped off his bike, then dashed out to the road, turning toward the gunfire. That was not what he wanted to see. Not in the slightest bit.

"Of all the things..." He pulled out a crimson coin, sliding it into the slot on his left hip. Archeopteryx The red energy pulsed out, tracing crimson to his hand, and the wing-like tower shield formed quickly.

He quickly slid a blue medal into the other slot. Megalodon The blue tracery reached his other hand. A serrated blade formed in his right hand, blue and covered in shark teeth. He tensed his left shoulder, readying the muscles and the reflexes.

"HEY! WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?" He was ready to raise the shield in front of himself if the guys with the guns decided to turn toward him. He looked up, the gold visor seemingly sneering. The dim evening light glinted across it menacingly, and he took a step forward. He flicked his wrist, turning the blade sideways, and revving it for effect.

[Akaki]

"Huh? Another Dopant?" He looked at the four persons caught in his vine tendrils, seeing that they were suitably banged up enough. It was okay to let them go. So he tossed them off the road and a few meters away from the vehicles. They were not likely to wake up and start shooting, and even so it would only be a minor inconvenience.

"Hey you listen," he reformed himself into a perfectly humanoid shape. "This is my livelihood here, so if you better get off and not bother me or else I will get very angry." He then stomped towards the van began the hold open.

[Ancient]

Ancient scowled behind the raptor-like facade of his mask. Dopant? He was being compared to those scum? This was the dopant's livelihood? A mercenary... Pathetic.

"You are an obstacle. Out of my way!" He raised the shield, aiming the spinner at the dopant. Fire shot forth three or four times, before Ancient charged forward. He lowered the shield again, holding it in front of him, and he raised the sword slightly, revving it again.

[Akaki]

"Obsta-"

He did not expect to be attacked so suddenly, but of course he had never faced opponents with superpowers before. Were everyone else like that? At least he had the courtesy to warn the other party to gently fuck off. To make it worse, fire! It was burning his plant body too quickly, hurting him too much. He dropped from his convulsions, losing his ability to hold himself together was it seared off layers after layers of skin.

While he rolled along the gravel, he noticed that act combined with his spreading out of his body was quick enough to put out the fire. Lucky, but surely the dinosaur guy would be more aggressive when he gets another chance. Thinking quick, he darted into the forest in snake-like form and then out again as a spear towards the dinosaur guy's head.

[Ancient]

Ancient started to dash toward the forest almost as soon as the Dopant did. He did not, as it were, make it in time to prevent the thing from counterattacking; Running headlong toward the forest, he couldn't effectively dodge the attack; He got his head out of the way, but the motion dragged his shoulder into the thing's path. It was a sloppy motion, the kind that comes from fighting angry. He bit back the pain, and took a deep breath. Focus. Let the anger freeze, to become light, but strong, elegant but deadly.

He was quick to collect himself, taking no time to let the Dopant press the advantage. He could hardly raise his left arm, between the injury to the shoulder and the weight of the shield. He released his hand, using what little motion he could manage with it, and pulled the medal free. The weight pulled off immediately, casting the shield away in a blaze of color. His arm was still sluggish, but he could use it again. He raised the sword, and held it in front of him, ready to defend and fight back, mostly calm again.

[Akaki]

He gathered himself into his humanoid body once again, and saw that that person did not fall in that one blow. That was expected of course, but it did not mean he was not unhappy about it. Everyone else fell in one blow before.

And the way that disturbance's powers work seem so different. Even Kamen Rider used Gaia Memories to fight, or so he had heard. To think that he could be fighting something entirely alien seem off putting in the sense that he was taking unnecessary risks. With a battle cry, he raised his arms and shot a web-like chain at the disturbance, to entangle him and tear him apart as that tactic so commonly worked.

[Ancient]

Vines? A net? He laughed at the attack, swinging the sword along a vertical as the net approached. The serrated edge of the blade caught it mid-air, and the sawblades tore it apart as it was caught; The two remaining halves flew to either side, temporarily nullified. He surveyed the surroundings rapidly, then twisted the blade to one side, dashing forward.

He moved forward rapidly as he could manage, the roar of the sword in his hand the loudest sound in the forest. Once he closed the distance, hopefully while the opponent was still dazed from the almost ridiculous ease used to stop the attack, he countered with a strong sideways slash with little wind-up. It'd have less impact force than most swings, being swung from near the target's mass to begin with, but that was made up for by the saw-blade edge. He aimed for the center of the dopant's mass, since he intended to deal as much damage as quickly as possible, and keep the dopant off balance until he was finished.

[Akaki]

No way! That guy was too strong. Was he definitely not a Dopant? Can a Dopant even get that strong? Or was it just that his Memory was weak?

The slash struck true and the force knocked him on his back. He looked down at his torso and saw a deep gash exposing another layer of vines underneath. That was it. He could not hope to beat that guy in a fight. Perhaps he should just leave. No payment in the world was worth him losing his life.

Wait. Maybe that...

The distance was right. He stood close enough. One last risk.

He broke himself down into a bundle of vines again and pooled around the dinosaur guy's feet and ascended, encircling the limbs as he went up and tightened himself. He figured he could try to take contorl of that guy's body if he could not beat him. But what he was going to do with it later... Well, he would decide later. Take a step and look back and front.

[Ancient]

By the time he'd figured out it was too late, the vines were already starting to encircle his ankles. Ancient tried to leap back, but the vines were too tight, and he just fell to the ground. He winced behind the mask, but as long as he still had his arms, he could defend himself, or fight back. He didn't expect this situation to go well, but he had at least something left up his sleeve, sort of.

He knew this was a stupid plan, but he did it anyway. He pulled out Medalodon, and slid the Mammoth medal into place. He aimed the thing at his legs, and fired off a blast of cold energy. Hopefully, the vines would be as or more vulnerable to the cold than the reptilian energy he was seeping off the Utahraptor medal. It was a desperate move, but... The fight really was at that point.

[Akaki]

So cold. Could hardly move. What powers did that dinosaur guy not have? That was it. He had decided it was not just too much risk, but that it was impossible for him to finish the job with such an opponent in the way. "I give up!" he cried and struggled with some success are pooling himself back into his humanoid form. "You win, go take whatever you want. There's no more reason to fight!"

[Ancient]

Goddamn, that was cold. He watched the dopant recoil away from him, and used the Mammoth rifle to help himself to his feet. His wounded arm sagged at his side, and as he looked at the Dopant, that gold visor glinted again, as he raised the MammoZuka.

"Your memory. Eject it, drop it, and walk away." His tone was commanding, direct, but not rushed. He was pretty sure he had the advantage, now, and so he waited for the reaction to that demand.

[Akaki]

Why? Why did he have to ask that too?

It's better to leave alive, but he had used the Vine Memory so long he never thought he would ever part with it. The thought of leaving it in the hands of someone else was not only disgusting. It was pure defiance against the human soul. It was his true self manifest. No one could ever steal the seal of another. No one could ever steal his self.

"Please don't ask that of me!" he yelled as he climbed to his half-formed feet and pushed himself away as fast as he could. The cold numbness in his legs were like boots of heavy iron, but he had to run.