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DMA - B2 - Chapter 25 – Storm Force fires back!
🕑 Added 2024-11-23 16:56:41 +0000 UTCJace grimaced as he took up his ready stance, Priam’s golden barrier re-established around him, the contingent heal ready-to-go, and his blade blazing with its purple and crimson. “I gave you a chance to run. Last warning!”
He saw the crackling electricity running along the four armored figure’s weaponry. The red one held a mace in one hand; a wicked, spiked and bladed one, and held a pistol in her off-hand. The green one was wielding an enormous greataxe that was the size of Jace’s whole body. The blue one wielded a pair of daggers that rapidly vibrated, oscillating along some frequency that no doubt increased the cutting power.
And the yellow armored one was the most daunting. He held the hilt of a weapon, but a beam of pure, white light extended from it. A laser sword. “Oh, I want that, Jace thought as he braced himself for their rush.
The four figures moved quickly – rivaling Jace’s own speed. And they had significant prowess as well. The one with the laser sword came in first, and Jace intercepted the blade with his own – only to pull it away as he saw the metal begin to deform ever so slightly. Must be a higher Tier, Jace assumed as he knew that the laser sword user would be the most dangerous combatant. “Greg!”
“On it!” a series of shots echoed out, and the yellow-armored figure with the laser blade was struck by the hail of projectiles, a series of bursts slamming into their torso and causing them to stagger backward.
Jace couldn’t take advantage of the opening as he was beset upon by the one with the dual daggers. The probing blades came quickly, and Jace was only able to deflect one with the sword – the other dagger crashed into Priam’s barrier, and the crackling lighting spread out along the edge of the shell surrounding Jace.
Still victim to the hail of strikes, the red armored figure came up with her mace and slammed it sideways into a sweeping arc, slamming into Jace’s left side. Priam’s shield began to buckle inward as it fragmented. And to his horror, Jace caught a glimpse of the Greataxe wielding one rushing past the melee and heading to Priam and Greg.
>>>---<<<
Greg saw the figure in green armor coming and shoved Priam further back – out of line of sight of Jace, but also away from the hostile threat coming in. Thellor’s Reversal, he thought as he activated his armor’s once per day Skill that would completely reverse the damage he would suffer back onto the foe. Dropping the rifle, he pulled out his Stunstick and triggered the pointed stick mode.
Raising the metal baton, he was able to intercept the axe – but it cut right through and into Priam’s barrier. Greg reached out, grabbed the axe, and then brought his head slamming forward into the armored figure’s face mask. The metal crunched in slightly, and he could hear the grunt of pain from inside the armor. Pulling back, Greg delivered a savage knee into the attacker’s groin, following that up by moving closer into his chest with his shoulder. Lifting the man up with his strength, trembling from the exertion, he flipped them over and slammed their lower back onto his knee as he knelt.
The person’s back snapped, and they screamed. Can’t beat good old close-quarters-combat, Greg thought as he drew the General Logistics 9mm pistol, racked the slide, put the muzzle into the weak spot of the armor’s neck – and pulled the trigger over and over. The person under him screamed in pain again.
An explosion of electricity coated Greg, and Priam’s barrier shattered instantly. He could feel slight discomfort as the enormous discharge of energy failed to get fully past his Planetary Defenses. Dumb move. Activate.
Thellor’s Reversal triggered, and the same plume of electrical power reversed course, surging back into the person’s armor. Shit.
Greg didn’t count on the guy being immune to electricity – and it seemed like he was healed by it. Wrapping his leg around the man’s neck, Greg rolled over him, pulling the arm in between his torso and wrenching up towards him. Both were on their backs, and Greg was choking the armored figure out in a scissor-hold with his massive thighs while doing his best to break the arm.
“Just go down already!” Greg shouted as he focused on the head squeezed between his legs. The person reached up and tried to pry his legs apart, but they might as well have been trying to break a mountain with their bare fists. Greg felt the tension leave the person’s body as they went slack, and he twisted their neck with a swift movement of his hips.
Greg rolled out of the leg lock, grabbed his Enduralife AR off the ground, and then scanned for the next opponent. He was so caught up in the combat that he didn’t notice the blue armored figure had arrived – somehow disengaging with Jace. Must be the laser sword guy giving him problems. And the dagger-wielder was slicing and stabbing at Priam.
If it wasn’t a deadly fight for life, Greg would have found the situation humorous. The bunny-boy Priest was running around the room, jumping up to ten feet at a time, re-angling to jump off walls and kick off to different parts of the room, and just in general playing hard-to-get. The dagger user was obviously fed-up, and they had stopped chasing. Instead, they turned on Greg.
“Ready to die?” Greg asked as he leveled the rifle at the person.
They shifted their body weight and launched themselves at him. Greg unloaded a full magazine, finger fully depressing the trigger, and poured the regular bullets into their charging form. To his dismay, the bullets seemed to fail to penetrate the armor, and he did not have enough time to swap out the clip for armor-piercing rounds. Dropping the rifle, he took up a ready stance.
The dual-dagger wielding, blue armored figure began to unleash a dizzying array of strikes. Greg moved his palms rapidly, deflecting each blow as best he could, and using his armored plates and rocky barrier to block when necessary. Slowly, his defenses were being chipped down.
“Priest’s Smite (Rank 10) [Marking]!” Priam’s voice shouted from across the room. “Greg, back up!”
Greg jumped up and delivered a two-leg kick against the assailant, suffering some hits to his legs but getting distance. He rolled back to his feet as he witnessed something gruesome – the person’s armor began to crumple inward as pulses of yellow, waves of magnetic energy crushed them alive. They screamed as the armor squished enough to lock up their joints. They probably weren’t dead, and Greg ran over to twist their neck with a sickening crunch to make sure.
“Good job, Priam!”
“We have to help Jace!”
>>>---<<<
Jace was being pushed to the brink of his combat prowess. He had had to focus all his attention on the yellow-armored, laser-sword wielding figure. Their weapon was the biggest threat, as it had already shown itself capable of damaging Nethaldrim. That left the red-armored figure with the mace and pistol able to just wail on him.
She had smashed through the barrier Priam had put up, and Jace began to feel the tiredness kick in from the repeated smashing against his Dark Matter Shield (Rank 3). Time for my trump card. [Reflecting], and Hope’s Edge. He saw the blade in his hands shift and distort as the silver and golden sand cascaded up the edge, and the barrier around him began crackling.
Jace threw himself at the yellow-sword-wielding figure, intentionally letting his guard open. The person took that opening and slashed with the laser sword, which hit Jace’s barrier before reflecting the damage back onto them. The large gash they would have sliced through Jace’s shoulder and into his torso instead appeared on them. They screamed – or tried to, at least – as the blade cut deep enough that they had no hope of surviving.
The man fell, and the laser sword retracted as it fell out of his grip. The red-armor-wearing figure screamed in hatred and reloaded her pistol. Jace turned to her, reached out with his right hand, grabbed the pistol, and put the barrel to his head. “Do it.”
The woman tried to pull away, but Jace’s iron grip kept her in place, and he pushed his finger against hers, forcing her to pull the trigger repeatedly. The rounds impacting Jace’s shield, and he heard the panic in her scream as he could hear the slight ping and bang of the damage being replicated against her. But the damage bounced off her armor. Not strong enough bullets to get through your armor. Fine then.
Jace brought his sword up and sliced through her forearm. She backed away, screaming in pain. And then her chest began to erupt in tiny, blossoming flowers of crimson as Greg’s armor-piercing rounds pelted into her from Jace’s right. She fell to her knees, and her visor flipped open. Jace saw a human face, and she coughed up blood. “Fuck you,” she said weakly before collapsing forward.
“Ollie, dust them,” Jace stated as he walked to join his two allies in the larger room beyond the hallway.
//////////////////////////
[Stardust Acquired: 800]
[Stardust Split: 200]
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“Why didn’t the Quest complete?” Priam asked as Jace walked over.
“You guys got a Quest?” Greg asked as he reloaded his weapons.
Jace glanced back and saw the corpse of the laser-sword-wielding one. Did he survive that?
>>>---<<<
Deckard was watching the whole fight at Cybronics through the cameras he had directly feeding from the megacorp to his personal data stream. He saw the Planet Protector, this Greg fellow, kill off one of the most promising melee users with hand-to-hand combat alone. He’s dangerous, Deckard thought.
We need to kill him. Especially because- His eyes went over to the Pulsar Priest. And he saw the slightly glowing, brown symbol above his head. -that Priam there is being covered by him. We have to take out the person generating defenses, and the person protecting him.
And then there was Jace Seren – Flicker. He had pulled a stunt that Deckard had no clue how he performed, and without a Wayfinder present to analyze the fight in-person, Deckard was still in the dark. He tapped his fingers on the desktop. What options do I have?
A screen appeared in his vision. One that instantly brought him grave concern, as the last time they had spoken they had not left on amicable terms. The black color, the swirling, spiky text – it was Troxanir contacting him directly. Faction leader to faction leader.
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[I believe you and I share a common foe currently. Flicker. Jace Seren. I want him dead.]
[One of my fallen Ascendants is willing and able to step into the fallen body of your champion there with the blade of luminous brilliance. And he should be able to help.]
[I propose the following. Allow my Ascendant to take over the once-mortal form of your Aspirant, and in exchange he will use his second chance to take down the man who killed him.]
[Deal?]
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Deckard chuckled, and then cackled in laughter. He knew full well the capabilities of the Black Hole Conclave; how when their Signers and members died, their ‘soul’, as Troxanir put it, would be sucked into the singularity and be in paradise. Which is a whole load of shit, Deckard thought.
But…Troxanir could recall those consciousnesses back to the reality of the universe. Deckard had no clue how that worked on any level, but he knew that the fallen Conclave members could return…once. And they needed a host body.
Plus, his Aspirant was just lying there, dead. They had no need for their body anymore. And Deckard was pragmatic if nothing else. Pulling up the chat box, he fired off a response. Happy to work alongside you in this moment of mutual need. Deal. “Send.”
