He was indeed a nasty bunch of psi-enhanced, diamond-hard, negatively-powered, power-armored, cyber-laced, apex-evolved, untiring, unaging, and really pissed set of bones. I wasn’t sure where his Health Qi was at, but honestly, at this point I didn’t care.

He was taking all Seven Dragon Masteries at Five. -10 to his Duelist-based Intellect bonus to AC from Way of Storms. -10 to his cyber-enhanced reflexes Dexterity bonus to AC from Way of Fire. -10 to his +5 Power Armor’s AC from Way of Water.

He thought he should be basically unhittable, what with his Energized Armor and everything flaunting our Sun Strikes, only to find out that we weren’t really relying on Sun Strikes at all.

“What do you think his AB is?” Briggs asked, as if Beat wasn’t sending a 200-point-plus hit of blazing power into that breastplate. Black Health Qi spattered like acid as it soaked the kinetic energy and killing power, while the Emperor barely jerked, cut back at the unshielded Briggs, and Chalice whined and struck the lich’s burning Hatesword away, cracking the psychic edge of it and forcing him to Refocus to manifest it again.

Faith slammed into the crystalline lich, driving him this way and that, despite his Power Armor. Six bars of Philosopher’s Might were burning on mine and Briggs’ forearms, my Might was well into the 70’s at this point (Briggs was in the 80’s), and the shocked Emperor was finding that even with psionic Buffs, he couldn’t match our strength.

He had tried blowing himself up to twenty feet tall, but that hadn’t lasted six seconds before one hit from Briggs blasted and Dispelled the extra growth away, and he was being pounded on again.

“Melee Sixteen, plus two from Psion, plus five from Legendary Levels. Figuring a +23.” Which was actually higher than ours, but it wasn’t saving him. He didn’t have the same level of Profound Weapon styles that we did, relying on some impressive psionic channeling and reserves that were just unbelievable. It looked like every bone on his body was actually a psionic reservoir of some sort, given by how some of them were dimming down inside his Armor as we were fighting.

He had tried all sorts of ways to timesight us, and that hadn’t worked at all. Then he’d tried twisting probability in his favor, and that had done nothing. His attempt to superimpose a deflection field around himself I shattered instantly, as I had his attempt to reinforce his Natural Armor to help take the pounding hits I was lashing on him.

He did manifest a psychic shield eventually, as ruby-red as his sword, black and purple growing on it. I took great delight in Sundering it repeatedly, carrying through to shatter his Sword, and then beat on him more.

I gave all my crits to Briggs via Butterfly Sting; the impact of those thousand-point hits were singing music to both of us.

The Emperor was trying to dodge and spin and maneuver to get us on one front, and we were counter-moving just as smoothly and keeping him between us, always flanking. I was working that weapon arm and throwing off his Hatesword, shattering it repeatedly, and then carving into weak spots that shouldn’t have been there, getting past the Fortification of his Armor here and there at times, and opening up a path for Beat to really bring the, um, hammer down.

He was definitely a maestro with the blade, his foundational Melee Attack Bonus just a deadly pleasure to watch.

Sure he got his licks in here and there... but he couldn’t use any kind of elemental damage on his, both of us had copious Psychic Damage resistance from our Vajras, and the combination of Healing Edge and our natural healing factors was earning it back as fast as he was doing it to us... without us expending much.

He was thus spending psi to pre-heal himself, restoring his Health Qi as fast as he could, while we beat it down in explosions of blackness and cutting lines of unwhite.

He thought he should be hitting us more, that he could be assailing us with raw psychic power and trash us with mighty psionic power. I could have told him that our totally overblown Shields had turned all those wonderful bonuses to hit of being +V Psychic Weapons Greater Soulbound Bane/Undead Bane of Legends Enmity/Evil into a +15 Guardian bonus to our Forsaken auras, and he wasn’t going to get any active psi off on us, period.

It meant the Shields’ Defender bonus wasn’t there, but since they were +V Psychic Greater Soulbound Defiant/Undead Energized, that was perfectly fine, too. Despite Rhythm looking like just a buckler on Brigg’s arm, the Emperor’s Hatesword kept skirling against it, and taking a Sun Strike Echo blast in reaction when he did.

No normal human could have followed what we were doing. Both Briggs and I had operating +20 Melee Attack Bonuses, Profound Weaponplay, Ki Reserves above 60, Soul Feats active, and Strength scores in the 60+ (70+) range. Beat was going supersonic with every swing, and if the atmosphere hadn’t been so thin and hot, the crack of it doing so would have accentuated the crushing thunder of its impacts.

Chalice was a swirl and blur of motion that was discharging Sun Strikes non-stop, tearing against his Energized Armor, gouging and scraping it as orichalcum went up against adamantine. His Hatesword and Shield kept getting Sundered and exploding, and he had to re-Manifest them while enduring the blows of Beat and Chalice, and Faith getting all up in his helm, too.

I didn’t bother shooting him for damage; the Spikes of my Tails simply lashed and pushed him around here and there, little impacts that twisted and pushed and prodded him into ever-better line-ups for Briggs, effectively multiple touch-attack Aid Another attempts that were adding up to +8 to Briggs’ attacks.

Briggs didn’t bother with any shooting, either, as all it would do is get his shoulder-cannon cut away; the Emperor’s energy resistance would tank most of it, or he would dodge anything kinetic.

-There!- I /yelled, as Chalice executed a vertical blow that sheared a two-inch gap through the Emperor’s golden power armor. I jammed two Spikes from my Tails into it instantly, and a hundredth of a second later Beat arrived to drive them inside.

They were, after all, nails.

We had tremblesense, and the impacts of our Weapons had long laid out the makeup of his Armor... and the bomb rigged around the necroic power source, wrapped around where a man’s guts would be, ready to deliver some anti-matter goodness if anyone happened to kill him.

So, yeah, first we had to disarm an anti-matter warhead in the middle of a combat with a Legendary-level combatant, THEN we had to kill him. No challenges, please!

The Sundering Crushing Construct-Bane Spikes were driven into the detonation controls of the bomb, and promptly broke them all to shit in the worst ways, as Bane’s Curse-based damage was wont to do.

That gash, not incidentally, got pounded open a bit more, too.

The Emperor realized that we’d just made it real hard to detonate that bomb, meaning he’d have to expend psi directly to activate it, instead of just sending a thought at it.

Expending psi directly wasn’t getting anywhere inside our Source/Null fields, thank you.

There was a swirl and crack and clash of Weapons faster than human eyes could see, and then Chalice inserted into that gash two inches in front of Beat coming up.

Chalice was Indestructible, so she didn’t mind the impact, transferring it all to the Emperor’s breastplate in a ripping shear of eruptions from fifty-two previous strikes designed to set up crystalline fractures in the metal. She tore his breastplate open in a spray of adamantine shards and crystal-black necroic fires inside diamond bones and cyber-components shattering.

Most importantly, it broke the Heavy Fortification of the Armor, which meant our crit successes promptly quadrupled.

He tried to mend the Armor, but my job became making sure that didn’t happen, as my Sunderings kept hacking away at it, along with his Hatesword and mindshield. If he was spinning so I couldn’t, Briggs was more than happy to slam Beat down into the gap, manifesting as slashing damage, and rip and rend his way through more valuable parts.

We could see the anti-matter power core of the Armor now, stuck there where his stomach should be, shining dully, and we could see some of the bones of the Emperor had truly dimmed from their shining state as we worked through his energy reserves.

Let me tell you, that much Health Qi and 300 points of healing a cycle is ANNOYING... but Briggs was still working him down, much to the Emperor’s disbelief.

His attempts to go all-out against Briggs didn’t work, because I kept shattering his Hatesword as he tried to do that, and with just his gauntlets he couldn’t possibly hurt Mah Fuzzy.

Psychic power and black Health Qi scattered. The first threads of vivus began to burn here and there...

Chalice cracked into the joint of the Emperor’s sword-arm. Beat came and crashed into her, Indestructible orichalcum beat adamantine, and her edge tore through the servos there, locking that arm in place instantly. Blooding slithered over the metal, and made it impossible to mend with psi until Renewal, which I had also applied to the open gash in his breastplate after the armor was effectively split.

Him trying to mend his Armor to get back his Fortification meant he wasn’t spending psi on Harm effects to juice his Health Qi. Briggs made great progress, I offset what the Emperor was doing, and only when he realized it was futile did the lich go back to what he was doing before, and I Blooded the gash to make sure it couldn’t be repaired, period.

“Hrah!” I drove Chalice into his exposed ribcage. There were basically only torrents of necroic energy there, but getting Holy Radiant Wrathfire in there was extremely distracting as Faith Sun Struck and forced him back again.

He was one foot past the edge of the Interdiction we’d set up. Beat came around, slammed into his gut, tapped that anti-matter core, and Teleported it thataway, where a convenient deathship was burning in two halves.

Fwip, gone.

A hundredth of a second later, I put the Interdiction back up. An eyeblink after that, the Emperor slammed into the Veil saying no, I smirked, and the sky beyond lit up with a vivic fireball a thousand miles across.

And he was now on backup battery supplies!

He’d switched his sword and shield hands, but the lack of flexibility meant the shield was now nigh useless, and he could only switch to trying to defend with his one working arm.

Beat hammered in once, twice, precise and in piercing mode, and totally locked up the entire shield arm, freezing it in place.

Then Mah Fuzzy hammered Beat into that open ribcage, and left it there, Beat switching to Holy Radiant Chaotic Healing Edge Vivic for about 9d6 of alternate energy burning fun for the old Concentration check. Mah Fuzzy grabbed the Emperor’s sword arm, wrapped around it smoothly, and simply locked it tight, flexing his legs and pinning the Emperor’s nearest leg, too.

Servos whined and gripped, psychic strength flared... and he still couldn’t escape Briggs’ grip.

Which left me to carry the load, but the Emperor was now pinned, and couldn’t dodge or evade at all.

Faith floated behind me as a plain Psychic Weapon +V Sword Focus I hadn’t Named flipped to my hand, Main Gauche to Chalice, and with two Weapons, I began to Flurry with everything.

Yeah, I couldn’t do the damage per blow that Fuzzy could, not even close. But now I was pumping Spikes in, Paten and Host were adding full barrages. I set up a rhythmic pattern of Seven Dragons Striking, and began to work through his Health Qi like a buzzsaw.