End of Infinity IC

Outside of the galaxy, the portal had sat seemingly doing nothing after it had first opened. Now beyond it tiny flashes were seen....
Above countless settled worlds, many flashes light up the sky as thousands of alien robots teleported into orbit and began to ascend. On a particular planet called Sevrith, the sky was dotted with countless numbers of the descending alien constructs. These beings had a large silver head that bore resemblance to a shell of some weird sea creature, under which a single large glowing red eye protruded. As they landed, they unfolded four tentacle-like legs and began to walk, and as the citizens fled beneath their mighty feet, they began to fire great beams of energy from their single red eye, burning through buildings and evaporating the helpless people where they stood. This same scene also unfolded on the other planets, as the thousand-foot robots begin to destroy civilization.

"Sir," Zal-Tek said politely, despite the fact that he hated calling anyone sir, "I think you'll find that this is a fine offer for-"
He froze. Something was wrong. On an impulse, he looked up at the sky. Just in time to see it go black. He growled and snatched the blade from the merchant's stunned hands, held it carefully in his jaw, and ran for cover.

Sure, he was tough, and while eventually things could hurt him, he was immortal, but he would prefer to know what was going on before he jumped into the fray. He ran for the nearest house he saw that looked sturdy, and with a glance unlocked the door. Moments later he was inside, and that was when the attack started.

And he had thought he was going on vacation.

The blade he had just stolen was far from a tail blade, but instead a basic sword. If one with a laser mounted on one edge. He would make it work. He began shifting through the stuff inside the house, paying no mind to it's owner, huddled in a corner.

"Aha!"
Sturdy cords. Moments later the blade was tied expertly to Zal-Tek's tail. It wasn't perfect, but it was close. He leapt back out the door with a roar, and instantly regretted it. He assured himself that he would, in the end, be fine, but when facing down an entire planet's worth of robots many times bigger than him, it was a hard thing to keep in perspective.

As one of the giant robots was going about destroying the city, it happened to notice that one of the specks in front of it wasn't running, but in fact came towards it. It scanned the creature while emitting in a very deep tone a stream of binary. After its analysis was complete, it lifted one of its feet and put it down where the creature stood.

Unfortunately, Sevrith was far from innocent at the moment. From orbit the effects of the robots could be seen. Fires raged where settlements used to be, and the robot's terrible march continued. After an area was emptied of people, the robots began to break down the buildings and build more of themselves.

What was left of the citizens attempted to flee the planet in any ship they could find, but most were vaporized as the robots turned their terrible gaze upward. The handful that were lucky enough to make it past this barrage and the robots in orbit that were glassing the unpopulated areas fled. Unfortunately for them this had no avail either, as they came out of space only to find that the planet they were escaping to was also getting attacked by the "Eradicators", as the robots came to be called.

It took much less than a second for Zal-Tek to leap out of the way of the massive foot. He growled up at the machine and spun around, baring his teeth. He lunged, digging his claws into the metal on each side, and began to climb. Each of his paws glowed a dim gold, he was feeding small amounts of his power into them to ensure he wouldn't fall off. He didn't intend to be sent back to his home against his will.

His tail lashed around, trying to keep his balance, and the lazer-tipped blade on it suddenly met with the metal.

The Eradicator emitted a loud blaring noise as Zal-Tek climbed up its leg. Unfortunately for him, the knife blade barely caused a dent in the leg armor. The machine's massive red eye locked onto him, and it fired its energy beam at him.

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Several of the Eradicators had noticed when a strange meteorite had come through the atmosphere, especially when it didn't cause a large impact in the ground. After triangulating between themselves where the object should have landed, they began to approach the building that Sairei had landed on and scan for live creatures.

Zal-Tek could easily have thrown up a magical barrier or even taken the hit, but that wasn't his style and he couldn't keep it up nearly as long. Instead he dodged. With a quick burst of power he leapt, not down or even to the side, but straight up. He narrowly dodged the beam and made a bit of extra progress on his way up the leg.

He growled, gripping into the metal slightly harder, and kept climbing. His eyes glowed slightly as he magically scanned the thing. He had little experience doing this to machines, and definitely couldn't hack into the computer systems with his mind, but he did hope there would be some kind of driver in there somewhere. That was more his specialty, and if all else failed he could easily force said driver to simply turn the machine off.

Somewhat annoyed now, or as close as it could come to annoyed, the Eradicator tried its next option. Crawling down towards the being on its leg now came two smaller versions of itself, except that instead of 1000 feet tall, these were only ten. They emitted some chattering in binary and began to fire their eyebeams at Zal-Tek.

While this was going on the two Eradicators that had been searching for the meteorite began to dispatch their own small Eradicators to search in the rubble as they continued to scan the area and evaporate rubble in their way with their eyebeams.

Narrowing his eyes, Zal-Tek jumped back to the ground. A split second later he had jumped on top of a taller section of rubble, and looked down at the mini Eradicators. They were just slightly taller than him, but he had gained the height advantage. He had hoped it wouldn't have to come to this, but clearly he couldn't play with the rules today. Oh well. It was rare that he used his higher powers, as he usually liked a challenge, but there was no avoiding it.

His tail lashed left, then right, and Zal-Tek grinned, baring sharp teeth. He unsheathed his sharp claws and leapt off his small tower. As he moved through the air his eyes glowed an intense light, and when he landed atop one of the minis a shockwave went out. The metal of it crumpled slightly, and was then filled with eight small holes, the result of Zal-Tek's razor sharp claws. His entire body glowed slightly gold, enhancing his abilities far beyond that of a normal drake.

He winked, so that for a moment the area beneath him was bathed in pure red light, and then he ripped his claws back.

The mini under him self destructed, throwing him off. The other watched this happen, then fired multiple beams at once toward him in a spray pattern from its eye.
The full size Eradicator watched this happen, then it joined the fray by firing an eyebeam at Zal-Tek as well.

The Eradicator and its minis that had been searching for the strange meteorite began to approach this battle between one of its own and one of the inhabitants of the planet. At that moment, one of its minis sent out an alarm signal as it spotted a reptilian creature hiding in the rubble nearby the duel.

They mini was of course downed, and the other 19 minis began to fire their eyebeams at the creature that had killed one of their own. The two Eradicators that had been searching for her began to fire their own eyebeams at her as well.

Outside of Sevrith's orbit a portal opened and a shadowy figure emerged. From the blackness of space Veriska took stock of her unfamiliar environment, namely the planet below. She was in no hurry and studied the planet intently for some time.

Zal-Tek was, very suddenly, in the air.  He didn't like the way things were going at that moment, but it wasn't as if he could fly. Beams fired in a spray, quite obviously would not all hit, however one of them definitely would, and Zal-Tek definitely couldn't dodge it. He grumbled slightly as he threw up a golden shield, which blocked the beam entirely. He landed gracefully a moment later and stared down the mini Eradicator.

There was a flash of red light, and the god moved almost faster than one can see. He leapt forward, barely touching the ground in a red blur, and reappeared just as he jumped up from behind the giant robot and, with a mix of gold and red magic surrounding his claws, tore through the metal on that one too.

Unfortunately for Sairei, the only thing she hit was the shield that the Eradicator activated at the oncoming projectile. As she bounced off the robot raised one of its legs very fast and whacked her out of the air and fired its eyebeam at her. The other robot fired its eyebeam at Zal-Tek as he attacked the Eradicator from behind and hit its shield that it activated.

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Meanwhile, in orbit of the planet, three Eradicators noticed the dark newcomer that had teleported in, and they began to bear down on the intruder and fire their eyebeams.

"What would dare attack me?"

Upon seeing the robots Veriska threw up a shield of swirling back substance. Simultaneously 6 large beams of similar substance lanced across the void to strike her machine attackers.

As Veriska fired her beams, the Eradicators activated their shields, however the Eradicators' shields took a lot of damage from the dark energy. Four more Eradicators started to come to the aid of the others behind Vereska and fire as well.

Knowing the eminent danger she was in Veriska sent off a pulse of dark energy from her position. Upon releasing it she made 9 identical illusory clones of herself which made it difficult to tell which was the real Viriska.

As had happened to her, the silver fire impacted a shield that activated as it approached
The Eradicator turned toward her and fired again multiple times at once.

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The dark energy pulse hit the Eradicators' shields and downed them. In retaliation, the seven Eradicators fired their eyebeams at the clones and each unleashed a swarm of 10 mini-Eradicators towards her as well. The mob of 70 minis fired a barrage of eyebeams at the group of Veriskas.

The Viriska's opened a two way portal in front of them and it's counterpart behind them. Effectively redirecting the machines fire at each other.