Chapter 37
“I got this,” I muttered to myself as the convoy was almost on top of me now. I could hear them slowing down as they approached the overturned car I was sitting behind.
“Sir, we’ve approached the road debris,” I heard a voice say as the lead car came to a stop. “I believe you’ll be able to drive over it.”
I tensed up as I looked up to the roof ahead of me, barely seeing the tip of Floria’s large rifle peeking down at us.
“Proceeding,” someone else yelled as the ground began to shake again, the large truck getting closer.
Just as I thought she wouldn’t shoot, I heard a massive boom, followed by a loud bang behind me. A loud grinding sound filled the air as the engine of the large truck began to seize up on itself.
“Ambush!”
“Here we go,” I said aloud as I flung myself over the car and landed on the other side, surprising all of the heavily armored Kejtdra on the other side as they tried to set up around the damaged truck.
“Front!” one yelled as I dashed forward and drew my katana, striking the nearest one in the faceplate with the wooden blade. He stumbled to the right and fell over, probably not out of the fight but definitely not a threat right now.
It was at that moment that Domitor hit his switch, causing the entire street to exploded with smoke bombs, filling the area in a thick fog. There were a few more shots from above as Floria hit each truck, getting as many as she could before the entire area was obscured in smoke.
Now that I was mostly hidden in the smoke, I dove towards the next guard and swiped his legs out from under him. As he hit the ground I slammed a foot into his faceplate, breaking the glass and hitting him directly in the face.
Thanks to my Egonetic’s and skill points in Perception, I was still able to make out the shapes of the other Gloomers as they moved around, screaming to each other.
Moving gracefully I rushed past four more men, my wooden blade crashing into each of their legs and faces in quick movements. All those points in Strength were paying off as each strike from me seemed to shake their entire body to the core.
“Shane!” I heard Domitor yell from somewhere in the smoke, but I couldn’t trace him.
A few balls of pink went flying past me as I weaved through the street, eyes searching out my next victim. The unlucky fella was a guy standing in the doorway of a car as he fired wildly in my general direction.
I laughed loudly as I effortlessly dodged through his bullets, taking out a guy along the way, and jumped up and slammed both legs into the open door. The man let out a pained yelp as I crushed him between his car and car door. But I didn’t let him recover as I struck him across the head with my blade, knocking him out of the fight.
My left ear twitched as I jumped back, just in time to dodge a large axe of a rather massive Halwen. My eyes went wide as this guy was very intimidating, and was clearly not a normal Gloomer.
“Little kite trying to fly high today?” he asked, twirling his large axe around, sending the smoke around us away.
“LIttle kite?” I asked, not sure how that’s an insult as I dodge his next strike, which completely destroyed the ground where I’d just been standing.
I bumped into another Gloomer, who yelped in surprise and tried to bring his gun around on me, but I just knocked it aside as I punched him right in the face, causing him to stumble back. I rushed forward and knocked him down, just as the axe wielding Halwen came after me, laughing loudly.
As fast as I could I smashed my foot into the downed Kejtdra’s face and sprinted into the smoke, wanting to avoid a prolonged fight with this Halwen monster.
A few Gloomer’s were unlucky enough to be caught off guard by me as I crashed through them, dropping any I came across. This smokescreen mixed with my Perception was a bit overpowered.
Finally I came to where I thought Domitor was, and saw he’d been making quick work of the Gloomers on his side. Fair to say he’d gotten more than I had as the armored guards laid around him, all either groaning or actually dead. Apparently he has no qualms with killing them. Color me not surprised.
“You good?!” he yelled to me as he used his weird tentacle thing to zip all around the area, slicing through the Gloomers with ease.
“Yeah, I thought you needed help!” I snapped, hearing someone coming up on my left and dropping to the ground, just as a few bullets flew over me. I sprang forward and tackled a Gloomer and took him to the ground, where I began to beat the ever loving shit out of his covered face and chest. Once I was done, I got up and turned back to Domitor, who was running out of opponents.
He glanced my way and shrugged, “I was trying to warn you. I saw some kind of large Gloomer heading in your direction!”
“Yep, met him!” I yelled back as I dashed through the smoke and nailed an unsuspecting Kejtdra in the neck with my katana, causing him to yelp and drop to the ground coughing. “I see you don’t care about killing people.”
“Save it,” he snapped, obviously not wanting to hear it from me as he continued his unrelenting attacks on the Gloomers around us.
“Just saying,” I called out as I took notice of the smoke starting to clear out. That’s not good, Floria hasn’t given us the signal yet.
Over the sounds of gunshots and screaming, I just barely heard the sounds of something heavy running towards us.
“Ah shit,” I mumbled as I dashed back as an axe head came out of the smoke, barely missing me as I hit the ground and rolled to my feet.
The massive Halwen stalked forward, smirking as he spun his axe around in his hands. “I honestly am happy to see you little kites,” he laughed, then saw Domitor. “... and weird animal thing.” He just shrugged as he laughed, holding his axe up as he began to spin it around, pulling the smoke towards himself. The smoke began to disperse even faster, and here soon we’d be fully exposed.
My eyes darted over the area as I took in a few more Gloomers who were trying to regroup. Not good at all.
“Domitor, right side!” I called out, watching as he actually listened to me and zipped right over to the group of Gloomers, going to town on them as he sliced and diced his way through them.
“This job has been one of the most uneventful I’ve ever taken,” the large Halwen said with a smile. “But thanks to you two, I get to have a bit of fun. So try and keep up with me!”
“Okay,” I simply said back as he stopped spinning his axe and dashed towards me.
I held my ground as he neared, locking eyes with him as he neared me and swung his axe right for me. Using my own sword I gracefully threw it up and hit the underside of his incoming axe, causing it to go off course and fly right over my head as I dashed in.
“Impressive!” he bellowed as his knee suddenly flew up towards me. I saw it coming and caught it with one of my hands, using the momentum to jump over the knee and slam a fist right into his face. He just laughed as his head recoiled back, but I wasn’t done as I grabbed his chest plate and planted my feet right under myself.
With a roar I put everything I had into lifting him up and slamming him straight down on his face.
He groaned loudly, so I walked past his head and gave him a solid kick, causing his head to bounce around like a bobble head.
“Stay down,” I said as I spat onto his back. This guy was big, but he wasn’t really that hard to fight.
Looking around I saw another Gloomer moving towards Domitor, firing away at the stallion as he used another Kejtdra as a body shield.
I began to move to help him, but I heard Rosemary gasp and yell.
“Behind!”
My eyes went wide as I spun around, seeing an axe head coming straight for me. I didn’t have time to react so I just threw up my arms, taking the blade of the axe right in the middle of my arms. The force of the impact sent me flying backwards and into a truck, which I crashed through and landed right on the interior of the large truck.
Groaning, I saw that there were a few well dressed Kejtdra around me, all looking stunned and panicked.
“What’cha looking at?” I grunted as I went on the attack, punching and kicking them as I crashed their heads off of the interior of the car, and each other. Once they were dealt with I clambered out of the hole I’d made and collapsed onto the ground.
“You’re still alive?” the massive Halwen asked with a loud laugh. “I thought you’d be dead after that.”
“Nope,” I growled as I stood up and looked at my arms, seeing that his axe had cleaved through my gauntlets and had only been stopped by my Ego-enforced bones. If I didn’t have Egonetic’s, I’d probably be dead right now. Because both of my arms felt like jelly now, as that hit was insane!
“Good,” he said with a wide grin as he advanced on me again. “I’d hate for this fight to end now.”
A loud whistle suddenly blared through the area, causing confusion to everyone but Domitor and me.
I just smirked at the large Halwen as I saw Domitor take to the air, flying away. “Looks like fights over, big guy.”
His eyes narrowed at me, “it is not. Not till we show each other all we have.”
“Nah, not my cup of tea,” I said with a smirk as I lowered myself a bit. “I don’t play those kinds of games.”
This brought a sly smile to his face as he dashed towards me, much faster than he should have been able too.
His axe swung for me, and I easily dodged around it, but the sight of it stopping immediately and flying right back for me caught me off guard as the hammer head side of the axe hit me in the chest and sent me flying away.
He wasn’t done with me as he sprinted after me and tried to bring the axe down on me as I flew through the air.
Shit.
As his axe came down for me, I saw some tendrils shoot straight down from the sky and latch onto my chest, followed by me being pulled straight up into the sky.
I flew straight up and was caught by Domitor, who let out a loud groan as he caught me, his wings going crazy as they tried to stay in the air.
“Fuck you’re heavy, Shane!” he yelled as he tried to ascend higher so we could land on a building.
“You’re just weak!” I yelled back, slapping the side of his head.
Down below I heard a loud yell, causing me to look down in time to see the Halwen’s axe rocketing towards us.
“Catch me,” I said as I broke free of Domitor’s grasp and kicked the side of the axe just as it reached us, sending it flying straight into a building nearby. Luckily Domitor wasn’t completely useless as he caught me with his weird tendril thing again and pulled me back up to him.
He struggled to fly us upward, but he eventually was able to get us to the roof of a tall building. The moment I could I elbowed him and jumped from his hooves, landing on the roof.
“Asshole!” he yelled, holding his snout as he hovered above me.
I just smirked at him as I took off running, jumping off the building, using the Wardrobe function to unequip my chest plate and flare my wings. We then both took off flying for the rally point, with him complaining the whole time about me hitting him in the snout for no reason.
ooo000<^>000ooo
“Wooo! We did it!” Floria exclaimed loudly as Domitor and I stepped into the abandoned warehouse.
“Yeah we did,” I said as I re-equipped my chestplate. “You get what we were after?”
“Oh I did indeed,” she laughed as a large device appeared beside her, coming up to her waist. It didn’t look like any kind of weapon I’ve ever seen before, but it’s not like that mattered. “You two were amazing down there! I wasn’t sure we’d actually pull that off!”
Quest complete! 12 skill points awarded!
Level up!
Level up!
You have 18 unspent points!
Rolling my eyes at her as I flexed my arms a bit, “well it was pretty easy, except for that one big guy.”
“Wait, what big guy?” she asked, her excited mood seeming to waver.
“Didn’t you see him?” Domitor asked as he messaged his left wing.
She shook her head, “no, once I finished off the trucks I just came straight down and went for the prototype. I only really saw you, Dom, fighting a bunch of guys.”
“Well he was a Halwen with a large axe,” I said as I lifted my mask and picked at my teeth a bit.
“What was he wearing?” she asked, looking to be panicking now.
“Just a lot of armor with cloth hanging off of him, like some kinda royal prick. I didn’t really pay attention to his armor since, you know, I was trying not to die,” I said, pushing my mask back on and crossing my arms. “Why is this important?”
“Shit,” she mumbled, putting the prototype weapon away in her Vacuole. “That was Jekyll, aka The Undertaker. The Boogeyman of Eris. He’s a high tier Merc that only works for the elites of this world, and he has no morals whatsoever. I’m amazed he didn’t kill either of you.”
“He would have killed one of us if we didn’t get out of there when we did,” Domitor said, glancing at me.
I growled at him as I shook my head, “I didn’t need your help. I had that handled.”
“Uh-huh,” he replied with a raised eyebrow. “Whatever you say.”
“Hey, fuck you, you mothe-”
I was cut off as the garage door was kicked off of its hinges and in walked that massive Halwen again.
“Holy bouncy boilerplate!” Floria exclaimed as she dived away as the garage door flew past her.
“There you kites are,” he laughed as he strolled in, his axe held firmly in his hand. “Let’s pick up where we left off.”
It looked like he’d come alone, as there were no other Gloomers behind him, so that’s a plus for us.
“He followed you, dumb fuck!” I yelled at Domitor, who stared at me with an astonished look on his face.
“Me?! We flew side by side!”
“Stop bickering and fight!” Floria yelled from somewhere behind us.
“Fine,” I grumbled as I turned and squared up with the large Halwen named Jekyll.
“I believe you two have more pressing matters to attend to,” he said in a low tone as he spun his axe around his body a few times, showing off. “You three made me look bad back there. So how about we skip the warm up and go straight to the fun?”
“Go for it, big guy,” I said as I readied myself, my hand on the hilt of my katana as I prepared to draw it.
“Guys, watch out, his Thorn is-” Floria began, but he suddenly flung his axe towards her. She used her rifle to shoot it away just as it neared her, saving her from being sliced in half.
Jekyll let out a laugh as he held up his hand, causing the axe to fly back to him. “Now, don’t go ruining all the fun for me.”
Not wanting to give him a chance to react, I dashed forward as time seemed to slow down. However, to my surprise, he turned to me in normal time and smirked.
My eyes went wide as I stopped my advance and jumped back, confused. Sure, I hadn’t actually slowed time, but even then when I activate that ability everything slows down anyway for me. Yet he just moved like nothing was wrong, which means he’s super fast in both speed and brain power!
“Interesting, what kind of Thorn do you have?” he asked as he stared me down.
Instead of answering I dashed forward again, seeing Domitor’s dark tentacle latch onto the ground next to Jekyll. Doing my best to keep his attention solely on me, I drew my sword and swung it for him.
He just caught it with the head of his axe as his other hand shot out and grabbed Domitor by the face as he appeared.
“Really?” he asked, throwing both of us aside as he stood there, looking disappointed. “I expected more from yo-”
A loud bang was heard as he raised his axe, blocking the shot from Floria’s rifle. Even though he blocked it, the force of the impact sent his axe flying out of his hands.
Not wasting the moment, Domitor shot his tendrils up onto the axe and pulled it towards himself.
The massive Halwen frowned as he raised his hand to pull it back, but a second shot blew his hand clean off.
“What kind of gun is this?!” he yelled in anger as he dashed back, dodging the third shot that rang out.
Floria laughed like a mad woman as she began to follow him with the rifle, firing away. He dodged all over the room, growling and grunting as he did so.
“Those bullets are almost instantaneous! What kind of magic is this?!” he yelled, obviously not being used to dealing with guns that fired bullets that traveled faster than you could see.
“It’s fuck you magic!” she laughed loudly as she kept firing, blowing chunks out of the building around us as she did so.
This caused me to smile a bit as I stayed low, not wanting to get hit by a stray bullet.
Finally I heard her gun click empty as she let out a loud crazy laugh.
“Empty!” she exclaimed in glee as she began to pull more bullets out of her Vacuole and slap them into the gun.
With an annoyed roar, Jekyll began to plow through the building towards her, knocking anything out of his way as he went. But both Domitor and I sprang on him, with Domitor jabbing at him with his sword, and me trying to sweep his legs out from under him.
Yet he basically takes our attacks and did not slow down.
“Fuck fuck fuck,” Floria yelped as she finished reloading and fired the gun without aiming, sending a bullet right through his gut. A massive hole blew out his back, but he kept pushing forward.
She fired again, but somehow he dodged it, even though we were way too close for that to be possible.
“He’s following your aimed trajectory!” Domitor yelled, clearly seeing more than I was in this fight.
With a nod Floria stopped aiming and began to fire at random. This had the effect of a few bullets actually hitting Jekyll, but also almost hit Domitor and I as we kept up our attacks on the massive Halwen.
Nothing we did seemed to stop him as he grabbed her gun by the barrel and threw it behind himself, continuing forward for her. Just as he reached out for her, she was yanked to the left, a tendril attached to her.
Domitor caught her and flew upward, trying to get out of his range as I put my sword away in its sheath and lunged into Jekyll, intent on making this fight fist vs fist.
And he obliged as he took my first hit and then returned one of his own, his own fist hitting me so hard I lost all sense of reality and flew backwards, taking out a few support beams as I did so.
I let out a pained groan as I pushed myself back up, my entire being feeling disoriented.
“You just do not die, do you?” he yelled to me as he held up his remaining hand and caught his axe. “Who do you work for?”
“Can’t say,” I grunted as I adjusted my mask, thankful it didn’t break.
“I see,” he said with a knowing look on his face. “Rig Fanden. He’s the one who put the hit out on that convoy, so it makes sense you three would be his lap dogs.”
“I ain’t his lap dog,” I said, standing up fully and getting into a fighting stance.
He started to say something, but he suddenly jumped to the right as a bullet hit the ground where he’d just been standing.
“Hmm,” he said, looking between me and the other two, who were in the air as Floria rode on Domitor’s back, her rifle propped up on his shoulder. Then a strange look fell across his face as he glanced around. “There’s four of you here.”
I frowned at him, as there were only three of us, not four.
“Ah, it’s you,” he said in a low voice, which I barely heard. “Alright. You three enjoy your little victory. I have some wounds to attend to.”
“You’re not going anywhere, you-” Floria yelled as she fired again, but he simply sprang back and then rushed away, crashing through a wall and disappearing out onto the street beyond.
Once we were sure he was gone, we all came together. Floria hopped off of Domitor’s back and looked around confused. “What just happened? He never leaves till he finishes a job.”
“I have no idea, but he seemed to think there was another person here,” I said, looking around as I was unsure if there actually was another person hanging around.
“Huh…” she said as she rubbed her chin. “Well screw it, it got rid of him, and we were not winning that fight.”
“We were winning though,” I said, pointing to all the blood around the room. “You hit him a few times with that gun of yours, he couldn’t have kept that up for much longer.”
“He could have, his Thorn is something called ‘Opposition’. It always comes up with the perfect counter to anyone else’s Thorn or abilities. So unless I hit a vital with my gun, we weren’t winning that. He can negate all non-fatal damage to himself. Plus he’s a Halwen, he’ll just go find somewhere safe to regenerate.”
“We still would have won that if we kept fighting,” I insisted, causing her to smile at me.
“I’m glad you think so,” she then put her hands in her pockets as she looked around, a worried look on her face. “Now let’s get out of here before any Gloomers show up, or this mysterious fourth person makes themselves known. I don’t like people who hide in the shadows and stalk others.”
I gave a nod of agreement.
“So to Rig’s?” Domitor asked, getting a smirk from Floria.
“Yep, then I’m treating you both to some real food!”
Quest accepted: ‘Rank D: Deliver Prototype Weapon to Rig!’
Before I could say anything, a piece of paper slapped into my face, scaring the shit out of me.
“What is that?!” Domitor asked, jumping away from me as I growled and snatched the paper from my face.
It simply read; ‘Ephermeris Island approaches. Three hours.’
“My stalker,” I growled, tossing the paper to Floria.
“Ephermeris Island?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “You’re going to that tournament that’s been all over the radio?”
“I guess so,” I said with a grunt. “I didn’t know it was on the radio, I just heard about it through these stupid papers.”
“Why are you going to a tournament?” Domitor asked, looking very confused.
“Apparently there’s a reward that might be able to help me get the fuck out of this dimension,” I said, waiting for more papers to hit me in the face.
Domitor and Floria looked at each other, looking unsure.
“I’m going alone, by the way,” I stated firmly. “This was a one time partnership for this job, and that was it. Once we turn that over to Rig, I’m outta here.”
Floria just smirked at me as she put her hands in her pockets and leaned back, “sure. You can go off on your own, not like you need a guide or anything.”
I ignored her, knowing what she was trying to do.
“I mean, do you even know how to access your Vacuole yet?” she pressed with a cocky grin on her face.
“I don’t have one of those,” I said, turning to leave.
But her laugh drew my attention back to her. “You two really are in the dark on how this place works. Trust me, if you’ve been here a few days you have a Vacuole. Sucro should have gathered up in your bodies enough to allow them to form. You just gotta know how to access them.”
I looked down at my sword, frowning. It would be nice to have a way to store gear and pull it out when needed. Sure, my Wardrobe function could do that, but only for my armor and clothes.
Letting out a loud sigh, I turn to her. “Fine. If you can help me with this shit, I’ll maybe let you two tag along with me to the tournament.”
“Deal,” she said with a gleeful smile.
Rosemary appeared next to Floria and smiled warmly at me. “Admit it, you want them to come along.”
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I thought to her with a sneer as I whipped around and began to head for the wide open garage door.
“I can see your thoughts and feelings, Shane,” she said with a chuckle, which just caused me to growl loudly.
“Come on, you fucks, let’s get this job finished!” I snapped, waving for them to follow.
I better not regret letting them tag along.
End of Act 1