Item was recovered attempting to traverse the Vilersian Sea, believed to be heading to local fishing settlents -- intentions presud hostile based on its response to retrieval craft.
Sixteen retrieval personnel killed, nineteen more severely injured. Item was finally disabled via long-range attack applied by Retrieval Specialist Mirko.
Analysis of the recovered item shows critical damage to exterior systems. In addition, the design of its attack limbs is heavily outdated, and requires retrofitting.
Current estimate is a six month tiline for repair, retrofitting, and reprogramming.
Acquisition Log - "Hierophant"
The Hierophant engaged.
Target was a male human estimated 40-50, wearing a green long coat. Length of coat could be used to confuse sensors or conceal weaponry. Noted. Target was not in possession of any visible weaponry. Noted.
Estimated ti to victory: 0.5 seconds.
The Hierophant lashed out with arms L2 and R2, striking the spot where Target had been standing in 0.5 seconds. Accuracy had been reduced due to speed of attack, but simulations suggested that the attacks should hit all the sa.
Correcting… neither arm had made contact with Target.
The Hierophant searched with the sensors covering its body, locating Target a second later. He had taken to the air, green energy sparking around him as he ascended to the ceiling. As the Hierophant reacquired Target, he pointed down with one finger.
There was an attack. Damage sustained.
Imdiately, the Hierophant slowed down its perception of ti to its utmost, all things around it seeming to freeze in place.
First, it ran a diagnostic -- the damage it had suffered was a minor dent to its outer shell. Systems were unaffected. Imdiate repair was not required.
Next, it considered the attack that had struck it. The distance between itself and Target was such that no physical blow should have made contact. Target held no weaponry, so he could not have used a pistol or rifle to fire upon the Hierophant.
Correction: Target could have used so kind of cloaking device to conceal his weaponry, but the benefit of such a tactic was limited. The Hierophant disposed of that theory quickly.
The green energy was the identifying factor. The Hierophant pulled up ancient records from the battles following its activation, analyzing footage of units that had fought alongside and against it. That energy, superficially resembling electricity, had been visible around them as well. They too had displayed abilities that defied expectations.
Aether, then.
This man had the ability to launch invisible ranged attacks, but what form did they take? The Hierophant replayed the mory of the damage, analyzing it thoroughly.
A flare in the Aether, a sound like a gunshot, and then the attack had landed. Correction: the sound and the attack had been simultaneous, without even a microsecond interval. Conclusion: the sound itself had been the attack.
This man’s Aether ability allowed him to attack using sound as a physical object. This allowed him to execute ranged attacks without use of a weapon. He was now understood.
Estimated ti to victory: 1 minute, 6 seconds.
Skipper didn’t let up for a second.
He flew through the air, Heartbeat Shotguns blasting him in the directions he needed to move, dancing and dodging around the flurry of blows aid for him. The Hierophant’s liquid tal arms were lighter and faster than he’d expected -- at full speed, the six limbs were little more than grey blurs, each capable of smashing him into paste.
They were flexible, too, writhing and turning in ways that wouldn’t be possible for jointed limbs. They were more like tentacles, all in all.
His first attack had landed, creating a small dent on the Hierophant’s main body, but since then it had just blocked his attacks using its limbs. It was clearly capable of detecting his Heartbeat Shotguns and moving to intercept them.
The Hierophant updated its strategy.
Before the Aether attack ca, the energy surrounding Target brightened by 0.2 luns. That increase would be difficult for the human eye to see, but the Hierophant was more than capable of detecting it. When the energy brightened, the attack ca without fail 0.5 seconds later. Direction of attack could also be determined by an aggregate of the target’s eyeline and the angle of his arm.
Using these tells, it was a simple matter to block any incoming attacks. Arm R1 was assigned to that task. Attacks that disrupted the integrity of the liquid tal could easily be repaired -- Arm R2 would take over blocking duties for the 2.4 seconds that took.
Target’s speed, however, was such that no attacks from the Hierophant’s remaining four arms had yet landed. By creating sound blasts directly out of his body, he could control the direction of his flight, efficiently evading the incoming strikes. On each occasion, he dodged at the last possible second, preventing the Hierophant from effectively taking advantage of a recovery period. Target was clearly highly skilled.
But he was understood.
These strikes had only been intended to dispatch the Target for the first ten seconds of combat. Once the strategy was confird ineffective as a killing asure, the Hierophant adjusted its objective accordingly. By striking at precise angles and precise tis, the Hierophant could control the directions available for Target to dodge -- and so, Target would slowly be cornered in one part of the room. Chances of victory would naturally increase as that occurred.
Estimated ti to victory: 44 seconds.
You think I’m a one-trick pony, don’t you, scrapheap?
Skipper grinned halfway through a sorsault, eyes hidden behind his hair as his Aether flared. Imdiately, the Hierophant’s topmost right arm moved to dodge. There was no doubt about it: the automatic had learnt to detect when he was about to use his Aether.
Well, it’d only seen Heartbeat Shotgun so far. Ti to introduce it to the rest of the gang.
Heartbeat Bayonet.
Damage sustained. Arm R1 not responding. Imdiate diagnosis of the issue was required.
Ti froze -- or it slowed to such a degree that the distinction was aningless. The Hierophant took stock of things.
Arm R1 was on the ground, severed cleanly from the Hierophant at the point of attachnt. The fact that the Hierophant was no longer receiving signals from it ant that the control unit had been destroyed in the attack, too. Recovery under these conditions was not practical.
Blocking duty was reassigned fully to Arm R2, with R3 taking R2’s place as a backup. The Hierophant adjusted the attack algorithms for Arms L1-3, increasing their speed and destructive capabilities to compensate for the lesser number of arms that would be attacking the enemy.
Analysis of the damage suggested a slashing attack of so sort, rather than the targeted shockwaves that had been used previously. Replay of mory confird the presence of a whistling sound in the mont before the attack, along with the increase in Aetheral brightness.
The conclusion was simple: the enemy had multiple ways of attacking with sound, not just the shooting style he had originally displayed. Strategy would have to be adjusted to compensate for this.
The Hierophant directed the control units of its remaining arms to be moved continuously through the liquid tal, creating more inconsistent targets. That would make the slashing attack less effective. However, it did not solve the issue at hand: right now, the Hierophant did not have complete information on the enemy’s capabilities.
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If the Target was to reveal another form of attack -- one that had not yet been adapted to -- it could an more damage. Information gathering was necessary before a kill could be completed.
Ti resud.
Estimated ti to victory: 2 minutes, 19 seconds.
For the first ti in this fight, Skipper felt a bead of sweat trickle down his forehead. It had been a while since he’d had to fight so earnestly: with each near-miss, Skipper could feel the chill of death engulf him.
The hands reaching for him changed shape faster than he could keep track. From spears to staves to swords to spinning saws, each designed to end his life as gruesoly as possible. They’d adjusted to his Heartbeat Bayonet, too, the sections he aid for hardening before the attack could land.
He couldn’t afford to waste ti on these arms -- they were clearly intended to tire him out, force him to a part of the room where it was easier to corner him. The main body was what he needed to get to: he’d managed to damage it with his first attack, so theoretically it was vulnerable.
Alarm stabbed him in the back of the head.
Three of the arms were coming at him simultaneously from three different directions, preemptively positioned to cut off his escape route. He was willing to bet a fourth arm was incoming from his blind spot, too, and that was the one intended to deliver the killing blow. He’d been so preoccupied with the culmination of the Hierophant’s strategy that he’d neglected the dirty tricks it would try in the anti.
Dodging wasn’t an option.
Heartbeat Landmine.
Sound exploded around him, destroying the hands that ca for him -- but the liquid tal froze and hardened mid-splatter, the arms retreating as their hands returned to normal.
A second later, as if nothing had happened, they resud their normal assault. Realization dawned: that hadn’t been a killing blow at all.
The Hierophant was tricking him into showing off his capabilities.
Omnidirectional shockwave confird. It was now understood. The Hierophant adjusted its tactics to compensate.
If Target was capable of an attack like that, cornering him would not be an effective strategy. No matter how many arms ca for him at once, he could deflect them simultaneously. Information on the shockwave attack was unclear. Was it a single attack with an opening that could be taken advantage of, or could he unleash it continuously?
Current circumstances made testing the specifications of the move impractical.
Resources available to the Hierophant were as follows: five liquid tal arms, on-board autobrain, rubble, severed and inactive liquid tal arm, and Target. Target could unleash blasts of solid sound, but that did not necessarily an the Hierophant could not take advantage of their existence.
It took 0.9 seconds to formulate a way to do so. First, it would need to create a false opening.
There.
In the monotonous pattern of arms striking at him, Skipper saw a clear window through which he could strike at the Hierophant’s main body. Flipping over a blow from a spiked mace, he pointed his finger at the target.
Wait.
This was too easy.
The Hierophant was no human fighter. It was a machine with an autobrain, designed to pursue the optimal path to victory. It wasn’t capable of making such stupid mistakes as this. The emotion and fatigue that bred mistakes didn’t exist within its programming.
This was a trap. It wanted him to fire his Heartbeat Shotgun for so reason.
Well… he wasn’t one to disappoint.
Skipper fired his Heartbeat Shotgun into the opening -- and at the sa ti, he released a continuous Heartbeat Landmine, repelling any limbs that might have tried to take advantage of his own opening.
The Shotgun surged forwards, visible only from a stray spark of erald Aether --
-- and the Hierophant seized it out of the air.
Strategy successful. It was understood.
Arm L3 had been shifted into sothing like an ice cream scoop, sufficient to intercept the incoming sound attack -- and then, once it t, to seal itself into a hollow sphere, forcing the sound to bounce around inside it’s confines.
Rudintary speakers within the inside of the sphere amplified the sound as it bounced, the attack growing more and more powerful -- dents appearing in the liquid tal as it attempted to escape. The Hierophant waited three seconds for the power of the sound to reach maximum levels --
-- and then it released it, sending the blast right back at Target.
Estimated ti to victory: seven seconds.
The sound was deafening, followed by a ringing of the ears -- but the impact of the blast was sohow even worse.
Skipper felt ribs crack as the attack brushed by him, instantly shattering his prosthetic arm into shards of useless tal and plastic. The skin on one side of his face was scraped away, leaving him bloody -- and he only just managed to avoid being blinded on that side with so quick application of Aether.
What had happened?
The Hierophant had caught his Heartbeat Shotgun, amplified it, then thrown it right back at him. Skipper had judged incorrectly: it hadn’t been trying to create an opening on his part, but to send his attack right back at him, even stronger.
Just like Dragan’s Gemini Shotgun. Skipper chuckled briefly -- and then he hit the floor.
The arms ca down, eager to crush him, and Skipper fired blasts out of the soles of his feet, causing him to slide across the room’s smooth surface. Debris and dust rained down from the blows that rained down on the floor, but Skipper was in no position to avoid them. He heard sothing crunch as a shard of concrete struck his leg at devastating speeds.
What the hell was this? It was making a fool out of him.
He reached the wall and tried to stand up -- only to falter, as he realized his leg was broken. Damn it, damn it, damn it. This was embarrassing as hell.
He hadn’t wanted to use this on such a la enemy.
The Hierophant’s arms lashed at him as one, ready to deliver the killing blow. If he fired his Shotgun, they would send it back. If he used his Bayonet, they would block it. He had no doubt it had a counterasure against Landmine, now, too.
Well, he had another trick in his bag. One he hadn’t shown off before.
Green feathers, transparent like glass, glinted across the room -- where Skipper had been planting them as he dodged. Erald Aether sparked across their surface as they activated. The air seed to hold its own breath.
Countless blades protruded from the liquid tal arms, growing large in his vision, slowed down by focus and adrenaline.
This thing was built to take apart Gene Tyrants. Skipper grinned, blood on his teeth.
Don’t compare to so little Gene Tyrant.
Heartbeat Freedom.
Estimated ti to victory: imminent.
Correction: no attacks had made contact.
The Hierophant retracted its arms, looking at the ruined crater where Target had been lying. There was no sign of him. The blood that was there was what he had already bled -- no new damage dealt. This did not follow. Based on Target’s capabilities, he should have been unable to avoid that attack.
The Hierophant checked its mory, and found no clarification. Target had been there, and then he hadn’t. Had he moved with such speed that not even the Hierophant’s sensors could perceive it?
The Hierophant retreated to the center of the room, hands morphing into shields to defend itself with --
Arm L1 disabled. The Hierophant looked down to it, to the control unit torn in two on the floor. The liquid tal slopped down a second later. The attack had been so quick that the polymorph had taken a mont to register --
Arm L2 disabled. The Hierophant scanned. Sothing incredibly fast was moving, a green blur with extre capabilities --
Arm L3 disabled. The Hierophant lashed out with its two remaining arms, forming a barrier of strikes around itse --
Arm R1 disabled.
Arm R2 disabled. The Hierophant spotted Target, flying above, visible for a mont. Green Aether had coalesced over his shoulders, forming a shape like the wings of an eagle, cracking around him like a thunderstorm.
Target reacquired. Error: no ans to attack target. Recomnd retreating to a safe distance and --
Target lost.
Damage sustained.
Damage sustained.
Damage sustained.
Damage sustained.
Damage sustained.
Damage sustained.
Estimated ti to victory... error. Victory not possible.
It was not understood.
Shutting down…
Skipper let out a deep breath, rising gingerly on his good leg, using a chunk of scrap as a makeshift crutch.
The Hierophant was broken like an egg. Its liquid tal limbs spread uselessly across the floor, like sli, and its electronic innards spilled out of its shattered form. Sparks of electricity illuminated the space around it.
Seed like a hell of a repair job. At the very least, he’d managed to confirm that Heartbeat Freedom -- the thing that would balance the scales against the Supre -- worked.
"Now," he called out to the room. "How about we get down to business?"
For a mont, there was nothing but silence. Then…
"Very well," the Apexbishop growled. "Join us in the Garden."
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