May thinks "I think we got our primary objective easer than I thought. " May says "Regardless she may be a good source of intel." May puts away the orbs she token out.
"I sure not... If she's an Elite, then we're in trouble. It'll be Metropolis all over again," Avalon whispered back to Berserk. "But Berserk's right! Why should we believe a single word you say? We've been fightin' Xy'phers for a while, so you're not exactly looking very trustworthy right now!"
"No, please! This is a huge misunderstanding!" Nia said, trying to free herself from Superman's grip. "I am looking for a group! The ones who break things!"
"The ones who break... Wait do you mean the Breakers?"
"Yes! The Breakers!"
Avalon huffed slightly before crossing his arms. He grew more suspicious of Nia, considering that the Red King is hunting down the Breakers as well.
"What a coincidence! The Xy'phers are also looking for the Breakers as well. We've been hunted down by your kind for a while now, so what makes you think we should believe you? That Clark dude saw you collecting coins and talking to the other Xy'phers."
"I am looking or the Breakers because I need their help!" Nia kicked at Superman but it did absolutely nothing to the man. It was obvious that, physically speaking, she was incredibly weak. Her real strength rested in her psychic powers. "I was gathering information from the Xy'phers so that I can stop the King! I was going to get rid of the Xy'pher until I was attacked by his madman!" Nia was able to wiggle her finger and ten Vortex Coins came out from a small pouch she had on her belt. "I am collecting these strange metallic objects to keep them away from the Xy'phers. I discovered that the King is after these odd artifacts to create more Xy'phers. Somehow, I am able to sense these little trinkets, especially in large clusters. I can even sense them within the Xy'pher cores!"
"This could be a trick." Avalon glared at Nia.
"No! No tricks! Honest!" Nia continued to struggle against Superman's grip. "You Earthlings must help me. Please! Your planet is in grave danger if you let the King continue his antics. I am so flustered as to how quickly he has gained strength! It usually takes him a couple decades, even centuries, to create a single perfect Elite, yet he already created three of them..." Nia's psychic powers slowly began to pry open Superman's hands from her wrists, enough for the Xy'pher to slip her hands away from him. She rubbed her wrist before taking a step away from Superman. "I am here to stop the King, but I can't do it alone."
"H-Hey, not another step, Xy'pher!" Avalon said. "It'll be real dumb of you to take us all on at once! No way we can trust you!"
"Oh! Yes, yes! I know how to win the trust! I practiced it on Earth! Please, pay close attention to my face! It will convince you to give me the trust." Nia tapped her face and began to contort it awkwardly, particularly her mouth. It seemed like a forced smile from someone who did not know how to smile. Her lip twitched as she glanced at the Breakers with her horrible ugly smile.
"...What are you doing?" Avalon questioned.
"Smiling. I hear it is the thing to do to get the Earthlings to trust you."
"Not if you do it like that..." Avalon shuddered.
"Oh... I'm sorry. I have trouble understanding the intricacies of social interaction..."
"I don't know... What do you think, Berserk? Should we trust her?" Avalon turned to Zenta who was wagging his tails excitedly to see Superman. "Zenta?"
"Considering that she freed herself from Superman's grip and has not attacked us, I suppose that must count for something, yes? Then again, she is a Xy'pher..." Zenta placed his hands behind his back, standing next to Bernkastel protectively. "If she were to attack, I am confident we can all take her on, even in our current state."
Vegetto immediately narrowed his eyes at the outstretched arm from Superman; despite the other's nature behind his words, Vegetto naturally took the concern and desire to help as a personal attack on his pride. Yet despite the begrudging look on the Potara fusion's face, he rose to his feet with the help of the Kryptonian. The intense look on Vegetto's face screamed a preparation to deny Superman's rebuff, as if he would clearly state he had come far. However, for whatever reason, Vegetto held his tongue for the first time in a moment where pride was supposed to spur him on in defense of himself, instead crossing his arms and scowling towards the city skyline left standing in the wake of the combat.
Cayde sighed lightly, his gloved hand gripping the handle of his gun in precaution of Nia but mostly seemed to ignore Nia's presence in the moment. His glowing blue eyes followed the Xy'pher while the others questioned her, but his voice was clearly meant for Superman in his speech.
"Well, at least he'll still listen to you."
The quip from Cayde finally spurred Vegetto to talk, a rushed and annoyed tone behind Vegetto's dual voice in a need to speak out in his arrogance.
"I have gotten better."
Cayde deadpanned slightly.
"You've made two steps forward in like...a marathon, buddy. We'll be coins if you keep moving at this rate."
The android watched on as Superman subdued the Xy'pher, having no reaction due to clearly being used to the latter's company. However, as Nia attempted to earn the Breakers' trust with her smile, he immediately cringed at the sight with an audible noise in disgust.
"Eww...why'd you save this one? Maybe she's useful, but why take the chance? Seems too big a risk to take."
However, before Cayde could continue on with his thought process, Gogeta had already approached the three gathered near Nia with a determined stare. The other fusion had remained mostly silent and had relaxed once Superman had intervened, but Gogeta's newfound urgency was clear in his question posed to Superman.
"If this Xy'pher is willing to trust us or befriend us," Bara then said, "this could be used to our advantage. Think about it, if we have at least one of them on our side, perhaps we can learn something from her, like the disposition of the enemy's forces, their strengths, their weaknesses, anything that we can learn can be useful, even if we don't find a weak spot immediately, we'll have more information on the enemy's capabilities."
Clark chuckled at the exchange between Vegetto and Cayde. “Stubborn as always,” He joyfully said, patting the fusion on the back. “But do take it easy, okay?” He paused; his tone became serious. “You’re right… you got better, but Cayde has a point! You’re rushing this way too quickly, making mistakes along the way.” The sternness of his voice went away, replaced with a cheerful one. “You may not see it now, but I know your heart is trying, so I’m here to make sure your heart gets there. Besides, keep doing things like that, you’ll become a brooding type if you didn’t already!!” He joked.
Immediately after, Clark turned to Gogeta asking his relations to Ultraman and his whereabouts. He eyed at the other fusion before snapping his fingers. “Right. You’re Gogeta right? We briefly met a while back, didn’t we?” Clark was aware of Gogeta’s intent with asking such question. “Ah, right. I was supposed to meet him here with his teammates, but it seems that he’s not here—” Clark noticed Nia escaping his grasp by using her psychic powers, appealing to the rest of the Breakers for assistance. This caused him to quickly end his conservation with Gogeta and shifted his attention towards her.
“Hey, don’t do anything reckless!” Clark said to her, but he didn’t try to subdue her again. It seems that Nia might be genuine in her explanations; especially after hearing her talk about “earth” and “earthlings”.
Detective Spawn didn’t seem to trust Nia. It felt too much of a coincidence that she appeared right after all the others retreated. Yet spilling this much information about the Red King cast doubt on it. He turns to May, seeing her that it could be a valuable asset to see if she’s telling the truth. Besides, as Zenta allured, all of them are capable of taking her on, even in their weakened state. “You’re right about that, May.” Detective Spawn stared at the floating Vortex Coins. “If she can sense these coins, that could lead a helping hand on tracking down the Red King’s location. Perhaps she can even give an insight of those bottles, right Bage?”
After hearing both Clark and Nia’s explanation, Lucifer stood up from his chair as the tension in the air ceased. Once again, another significant aspect had popped in before him, causing him to make a wicked smile. One thing after another, the angel enjoyed this spectacle of chaos brewing within the Breakers. “I suspected as much,” The angel made a conclusive answer after Nia warned that their “planet” was in danger. “There are people that still possessed limited knowledge of this world. The Red King, at least for now, is under the pretense that they are still in their own universe. They likely think that Reality Vortex is nothing more than a planet. At least, this one is led to believe.”
Lucifer turned his head slightly when Bara offered a reason to trust Nia. “I’m sorry, but didn’t you proudly proclaim that you resigned? What’s to say that we followed that advice of yours, only for you halfwits to immediately step away and leave others to doom, hmm? Not that I mind; I actively encourage it.”
Returning to the main topic, the angel placed his hand on his chin. “This is not earth, nor most of us are “earthlings”, in the sense that you might be familiar with. You are on entirely different plane of existence; everything from your world, everyone’s worlds, is gone; no chance of it ever returning.” Lucifer noticed the core on her chest; it didn’t have a Vortex Coin. “Using the power of the Vortex Coins, I can imagine it easy to create such an army in such a small amount of time in comparison of your original world. But that puts me to entire thought. The Red King most likely hadn’t covered the entirely of Vortex if he’s under the same mindset as this one here. So, his army isn’t exactly unlimited; just huge based on the neighboring areas around here.” He turned to Avalon questioning both Berserk and Zenta. “While I massively preferred for this one to be a spy just to get a kick out of it, why not ask the dear leader to see if this one is worthy of trust, hmm? Though, I wonder which one is the “leader” now.” Lucifer smiles, staring at Spina and Bernkastel; especially after the latter challenged the former’s authority.
The strange dark energy that flourished around Spina had disappeared. Although the indifference in his eyes returned somewhat, it was a lot livelier now. He stared at Bernkastel, before shifting his eyes away from her to Nia. “Do you have other means to prove that you’re trustworthy? Otherwise, I’ll just destroy you right here and now.”
May says "The fact she was blatant about being an Xy'pher may be a good indication her good will. Add that to the fact she has some what confirmed and expanded some old intel before we really starting asking her."
Berserk didn't seem all too convinced by the display, pursing her lips as she eyed Nia's actions. "Hmmm..." holding up both hands she counted something on one hand while raising the same amount of fingers on the other hand. "I dunno. It's looking fifty-fifty here with the pros and cons..." following that, she made a pouty face upon hearing that Ultraman simply wasn't in the vicinity. "What? Aww, and I was thinkin' of asking him for a good old street fight after this. If my sisters get to fight him before me, I'm gonna be pissed!"
Bernkastel crossed her arms pensively while she gave things the others said some thought. "So, you're what's called an 'alien'? And here I thought that was a self-induced delusion of the humans," she chuckled humorlessly. Considering she's not escaping like the others with the coins, we could have a valuable amount of information that the bottles can corroborate.
Berserk scratched her head at Lucifer's explanation about what Reality Vortex was to Nia; was that a good idea if she turned out to be an enemy? "I guess that explains why I got funny looks when I asked some rando's about how to get back to Viletown... and Earth. I just thought this was one really big planet. But nevermind that! How're we gonna decide this? We ain't got all day before they come back!" She felt at unease since it was unclear if Vegetto or Spina were even in on this still.
At Lucifer's mention of whom the leader could be, Bernkastel met Spina's indifferent stare with a sharp glare and a stiff upper lip. No words were needed, as it was apparent what question she posed with such a defiant expression: what will you do? Breaking the stare, she put a hand on her hip at Spina's approach. "And what, destroy her after she fails to figure out something that's actually convincing? This is a negotiation, clearly. In exchange for sparing her life she'll get our help to take down the Red King. All that's left is to actually see if she's who she says she is." Bern made a come-hither gesture towards Nia with her other hand.
"I say we start with a simple test... Handing over those Coins she saved would be a good start; we have no use for coins ourselves, so the Agency can keep them. If she can't manage that, then there's our answer. What do you think, everyone?"
"That's not a bad idea... from what we've seen, Xy'phers will do anything for their King, they'll even die for him." Berserk rubbed her chin. "Kinda like it's part of their blueprint to obey his every command, or else they'll get blown up. Xy'phers wouldn't pass up 10 coins if they can go towards the King's army... I guess Bern's testing if Nia's 'programming' is still active."
Bage sighed heavily, watching in dismay as the team's argument once again was on the verge of breaking down into a brawl. It was painful to see, but the detective could only sit back and watch the group argue. He wasn't going to be able to get away with handling this situation as Detective Goku might have. In a way, though, it was crucial to be honest in times like these, especially with your team. If the leader felt so strongly about the negative behavior of their team, then it should be addressed. It puzzled Bage as to why he decided now was the best time to do so... But then again, Spina had been acting unpredictable since his "death".
It wasn't until Clark had arrived and stopped the battle from starting did Bage relax slightly. He looked over the hero for a moment, seeing the casual attire he wore with such a lax smile, and blinked in confusion. This is Superman? He looks like he just got back from vacation! The detective thought to himself in disbelief. He could only remember the stoic images of the hero in his suit that adamant fans have shown him a few times before in passing, but the man standing before them was not that man. And then there was the Xy'pher, who seemed all but harmful to the one who had captured her. "Three Elites...?" The claim was bold but the others were correct in putting their faith in a being that was practically created to destroy and collect coins for their master. Bage turned to Detective Spawn as he made the suggestion to use Nia as a tracker, crossing his arms in thought as the others prepared to test Nia's claims by confiscating the coins.
"That could work. But... she just looks... disorganized for a Xypher. Even if she is one, how could she have so much independent thought to even consider defying the Red King? They're like a hivemind from what we've seen so far. So why does she not follow his every order like the others?" He approached Bernkastel, standing close by as she called Nia over. He examined her form from a distance while asking her a few more questions on top of Spina's question of proof of trust.
"Any information you have collected about the Red King would be helpful in proving yourself. How would taking down the King benefit you at all? He did make you, didn't he? You're able to speak with other Xy'phers and sense coins. If we defeat him, that would mean you die as well. And the coin you possess will go back to being a normal person. So how are you so sure this isn't a task he's assigned you in order to lure us into another trap of his? You could just be programmed with an objective unknown to yourself."
"Oh? This world is... not Earth? That is rather confusing..." Nia said as she listened to Lucifer. "But you look like an Earthling, handsome-winged-man [Lucifer]." She then turned her head to Spina, her eyes widening slightly. "A-Ah... yes, uhm! I do not know what else to do to prove my innocence, scary-burly-man [Spina]. Please give me another chance!"
"Aliens? Humans? Earthlings? What the heck is all that?" Avalon groaned. He then turned to Berserk. "Are those more city foods I haven't heard of?"
"I think it is a race of people," Zenta shrugged. "I am not sure either."
Nia tried to plead with Spina, trying to find a way to convince them that she is not the enemy as well as have Spina spare her life. She was still confused about the situation, especially when Lucifer informed her that they are not on Earth and that her universe was gone. It was a lot for her to take in, especially since she was already accustomed to Earth/Earthling culture. She knew basic human emotion, but it was apparent she struggled to understand the complexity of it, especially when involved in social interactions. Only until Bernkastel said her piece did Nia felt a wave of relief.
"Oh? You want these small metallic trinkets, tiny feline-child [Bernkastel]?" The Vortex Coins floating in the air slowly made their way towards Bernkastel, landing gently at her feet. "Please see to it that the Xy'phers do not capture these Coins, it will only add to their army. I hope that I am innocent now that I surrendered these--"
Nia stopped her words before staring at the floor. Her normal expressionless face turned into a serious one. The Xy'pher held out her hand and pointed a finger at the floor, causing it to crack and shake. The ground all around the Breakers began to shift and lift into the air before being crushed into dust. Each of the Breakers were kept in the air by the powerful psychic powers as Nia seemed to focus primarily on what was running underground: Coin Gremlins. As the Coin Gremlins ran like ants once exposed, they, too, were lifted into the air by Nia.
"H-Hey! I don't like this..!" Avalon said as he wiggled in mid-air. "What are you doing?! It's a set-up!"
Nia said nothing as she pulled the weak gremlins closer to her, watching them squeak like mice caught in a trap. She narrowed her eyes as they tried to escape her powerful psychic hold in a desperate attempt to grab the coins she laid out for Bernkastel. In their tiny sacks, they already had some coins which seemed to anger Nia. Forcing all the gremlins within her view, Nia held out her hands in front of her and imitated the motion of wringing water out of a towel while her eyes shined white. The gremlins would begin to twist over and over and contort violently, as if being wrung out, matching Nia's hand motions. The coins fell out of their pouches and landed on the floor. Their tiny bodies would twist and stretch until they were no thicker than a hair that blew away into dust when a gentle breeze flew by.
Carefully placing the coins neatly and organized on the ground, she returned the Breakers back to the floor, offering Bernkastel the Vortex Coins.
"I am sorry for the noise, I thought that if I gave you more coins, that you would give me more trust." Nia said completely lacking awareness of how she shook the area.
"W-What was that..?" Avalon said as he landed on the floor. "What did... you do?"
"I took out those annoying Xy'pher Fragments. I believe the people here call them the 'Coin Gremlins.' They are the collectors of our race. They only have one purpose, and that is to collect whatever the King wishes. Furthermore, they are very weak and disposable, you don't need to worry about them, even in large numbers."
"Hang on, couldn't you translate what they were saying? You understand Xy'pher talk, right?"
"These little ones don't speak anything that is capable of being understood. It's mostly babble and gibberish. To get intelligent speech, you must seek a common Xy'pher or above. Unfortunately, they all retreated before I could capture one, no thanks to that madman." Nia shuddered at Superman's direction.
"So what does that make you in this Xy'pher hierarchy?" Zenta added, dusting his fur from any dust. "Are you a common Xy'pher?"
"No, I am the King's second in command, a Royal Elite. Well, rather, I was. I rebelled against him and was branded a traitor and sentenced to death." Nia cleared her throat. "Luckily I have not seen or sensed any Royal Elite running around... those take thousands of years to cultivate into perfection. I alone took nearly 200,000 years to gestate in the womb of a fallen planet before I consumed it for nourishment..."
"The fact that you killed your own people, you certainly prove that you are against the Xy'phers." Zenta nodded before turning to Bernkastel and Spina. "What do you two think? I believe she is an enemy of the Xy'phers which could prove useful to us."
"Yes, please loan me the trust! I have surrended my treasures to you, as you requested, tiny-feline-child. I have also disposed of the enemy, hoping to further my innocence to you, scary-burly-man. Please do not execute me, for I am truly on your side!" Nia then turned to Bage. "And to answer your questions, tall-Detective-man [Bage], there is no benefit for me if I were to destroy the King. Back in my realm, I fought against the King ever since my ship crashed on Earth," Nia tapped her core, this one did not have a Coin inside it, however, it was cracked. "My core was affected, as were the memories of what my objective was. I learned the beauty of what life is and how delicate it truly was. I even made friends, and I wasn't the only Xy'pher who disagreed with the King, we had Rebels too!"
Nia smiled to Bage.
"I can no longer hear the King's voice, only mine. It's something the humans call... freedom." Nia shook her head, realizing she was going off topic. "Ah, yes! You request information on the King? Well... He possesses incredible psychic powers and is ruthless to traitors like me. However, he is rather frail in physical combat, like me. Any strong punch from you muscular humans would deal severe damage, no doubt. The problem is getting close to him..." Nia bit her lip. "I am not sure how powerful he is now, but I will stop him nonetheless! You are correct that I may very well die, but as long as life can prosper in this planet, then I won't mind.”
The Xy'pher then turned her head to smile to the others.
"I rather we speak somewhere private, I have found out that there is a Recon-Xy'pher, a spy, if you will. It is incredible dangerous to speak in public for this Xy'pher can be anywhere and look like anyone."
Bara nodded while ignoring Lucifer, disgusted by his usual ways of trying to sow discord in a group which already could barely hold itself together, and for what purpose?
"I'm willing to give Nia the benefit of the doubt. As a saying goes: trust is earned, not given, and so far you've done well in both dealing with those gremlins and alerting us of the potential presence of a spy," Bara said, "this is going to be a case of 'know thy enemy.'"
Bara was discreetly lifting her headtentacle up to use as an antenna to scan the area.
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