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Chapter 207: Night of the Living dead
🕑 Added 2020-07-28 02:05:37 +0000 UTC***Baroke***
Ugh, son of a bitch, Baroke groaned, pushing himself to a sitting position, spitting out dirt that had gotten in his paralyzed mouth.
I get my hands on that bastard, hes gonna wish hed never been born, Baroke thought, climbing to his feet.
The building above him exploded outward, revealing Calvin skating backward on some kind of tentacles, holding an orb of blood, his expression fixed with manic glee.
Immediately afterward, a gigantic Genosian man barreled through, trying to nail Barokes friend with a giant axe-hammer thing. After that was a lithe woman with short-cropped blonde hair, and pair of floating sorcerers, one light, one dark.
What the f-
Baroke, Kala said, sliding to a halt in front of him, Her palm flashing with a white light that seemed to clear his head and make his muscles not so limp.
Sorry about the subterfuge, but Elliot couldnt know about the backup. Calvins body was killed by an immortal representative of a kingdom that spans the stars with beef against Calvin for crimes committed by a previous life, and in the middle of turning into an undead, the ancient spirit dwelling inside him used the opportunity to take control of his body, so weve gotta put him down again so his soul has a chance at retaking control! Can I count on you!?
Baroke blinked, trying to process all that.
What?
Kala sighed and rolled her eyes. Calvins turned evil!
Finally, Baroke thought, eyes narrowing.
I knew this day would come! Baroke roared, leaping to his feet. Come on, lets put an end to him before he inflicts further damage!
Baroke grabbed his bow in his left hand and wrapped his arm around Kalas waist with his other.
The princess squeaked a bit of forced air as Baroke jumped, the compact dirt street cratering under his feet.
He dropped Kala off on the nearest rooftop and jumped dozens of feet into the air, scanning the skyline for Calvin. He wasnt afraid of heights if he jumped up, oddly enough.
There he is, Baroke thought, spotting Calvin fending off multiple Legends simultaneously, his body gradually warping as black keratin armor grew up over his skin, reinforcing his limbs, while simultaneously drawing in Warp like a dry sponge.
Hey CALVIN! BAroke shouted, nocking an arrow. This is for the leeches you put in my pants on my twelfth birthday! They had to burn them off my ass!
Force Amplification.
Assassinate.
Called Shot.
Penetrating Shot.
Sirfens Prey
Pierce the Veil
Godslayer Arrow.
4 Bent reclaimed!
Betty has 18/22 Bent remaining.
***Calvin***
Hahaha! I didnt know Baroke was still sore about that! Calvin cackled.
***Elliot***
These guys are good, but theyve fallen into the same tired clichés. They cant actually make anything new. Not like I can.
Elliot shrugged off the mind attacks and tore apart the illusions from the light-skinned sorcerer, bulled his way through the dark skinned ones weaker counters, and used the organic material on the barbarians axe to pierce the oversized mans hands with bone.
The slender one with the sword tried and failed to get past his armor, so he swatted her away.
God it feels good to have a body again! Maybe Ill go swimming after this!
Elliot had been paying attention when Calvin did his experimentation with different warp mutations, and he was in an even better position to take advantage of them.
He reached into the Mage Armor pocket, took the bio material from Calvins little balls of Mage Armor and mixed it with Pashas blood and made Harbinger keratin reinforced with the warped toughness upgrade, creating a shiny black keratin armor to protect his body from the physical.
The Mental attacks were fairly easy to deal with by creating a sub-brain inside the blood sphere that broke him out of Illusions in fractions of a second. it was a bit like bitcoin technology, with the other brains correcting his if they detected tampering.
Theyd gotten the drop on him at first, but he was rapidly turning the tide. Silly Kala, tricks are for kids. He didnt really have anything against her, though. If his boyfriends body had been taken over by someone else, hed probably try and murder them. Not that Elliot wanted a boyfriend.
Of course, he wouldnt Kill Kala, seeing as she was Calvins girlfriend, and hed already promised to take it easy on anyone or anything Calvin had penetrated. Killing her after promising that would just be rude, but finding a way to deal with her that didnt involve murder or permanent lockup was going to be tricky
Ooh, I can eat real ice-cream now, and visit wrathful vengeance on those who oppose me! and itching! I can itch again! I wanna itch something right now! No wait, gotta fight first.
Hey CALVIN!
Eh? Elliot glanced to the side, spotting a musclebound idiot floating in the air a hundred yards distant.
This is for the leeches you put in my pants on my twelfth birthday! They had to burn them off my ass!
Heehee! Good one, oh shit what is THAT!?
The arrow surrounded by crackling green energy seemingly approached in slow motion as Elliot tried every trick in the book to slow the fucking thing down.
When he yanked himself to the side with Bent, the arrow curved to track him. When he created a wall of reforced keratin, It burned through it like a hot laser through soft butter.
Crap,crap,crap.
Elliot grabbed the dimensional blade off his waist, forcing it to grow a mutated Refraction Spinner in the blink of an eye, creating a pocket of warped space to deflect the burning projectile.
It tore through it like wet tissue paper.
The bolt of green caught Elliot in the chest, boring a grapefruit sized hole through Elliots liver, evaporating a bit of his right lung in the process.
****Baroke***
Haha! Take that you fucker! Baroke shouted, pumping a fist as he began falling back down. Actually, this is pretty scary! Ack! Baroke flailed, trying his best to achieve lift as he fell back down to the rooftop where Kala was waiting.
Baroke landed less than gracefully, his left arm and right hand puncturing through the wooden roof, left hand holding Betty above his head.
He yanked his limbs out of the building and stood. Thatll take him out of commission, he said, standing up and meeting Kalas gaze with a nod. Im sorry you had to find out about Calvins true self like this, but hopefully now you can move on. Maybe you could date a nice regional warlord?
Kala silently pointed up into the sky. Baroke followed her gaze.
You shot me in the liver! Calvin shouted, pointing at the huge hole in his chest. Baroke could see blue sky out the other side. There was only a little bit of blood oozing out the sides, far less than there should have been. What kind of asshole shoots someone in the liver!?
Calvin looked like he was about to do something about it, but he was forced to block another strike from the oversized axehammer.
Thats weird. He should be dead, right? Baroke asked.
Did you hear the part where I said he was undead? Kala asked, her eyebrows knotted.
I I did not hear that part, Baroke admitted, rubbing the back of his neck.
***Calvin***
Calvin, I hate to do this to you, buddy, but Im gonna have to kill your archer friend. He might be able to kill us. Calvin heard Elliot mutter to himself. He glanced up from the board full of letters and numbers to see what was going on.
Calvins view was of his own chest, a massive hole punched through it, His own fingers exploring the size of the wound. He snorted.
Good luck with that. You havent even got to the hard part.
He glanced back down
How about ElliotRox69? Nadia suggested over the Intercom Hes always saying something rocks when he means its awesome or great. And the sixty-nine is obvious.
Yeah, Ill give it a shot, Calvin said, entering the password.
Incorrect Password.
Would you like a hint?
Y/N
Calvin sighed and tapped N, writing down the wrong password on his rapidly growing list of wrong answers. The hint was No hint for you, foo, which was exceptionally unhelpful and irritating. Still, didnt matter how long it took.
It didnt matter how many trillions of combinations there were.
Either hed brute force the damn password, or Elliot would die first. One of those two things would happen.
***Elliot***
Alright, gotta prioritize the archer. Hes got that no-counter max DPS bullshit going on.
Elliot flung his attackers away from him and flew upward on jets of compressed air from his armors auto-magical flight. He raised the sphere of blood up and gave it a good spine, showering the earth below him with Harbinger blood seeded with Warp and Bent, programmed to find and destroy anyone over seven feet in height and smelly.
The droplets morphed into puffballs of corrupted flesh, sending ruddy, pulsing tendrils down into the earth and growing at a staggering rate until they exploded open, thousands of his happy little Harbinger killing machines bursting forth to slice up giant archers.
I really like the design on the Harbinger mutants. Its the crest on top of the emaciated killing machine that really sells it. Like Bob Ross always says, No mistakes, just happy accidents. Well, maybe Giger would appreciate what Im doing here more than Bob.
Kill him.
The dog-sized creatures sprung forward by the thousands. One of them didnt have the power to take the giant down by themselves, but all of them? That kid was going down.
It was at that moment that Kala decided to get annoying, taking a deep draw on her blue glass pipe and exhaling a barricade of smoke, forming up around the rooftop.
What did that accomplish? Theyre gonna tear right through it.
Kala reached into her shirt and pulled out an ampule.
The wedding present. Shit. I forgot she had that.
With a bit of pressure from her thumb, the princess snapped the cap off the tiny piece of glass, and turned it over, dropping the tablespoon of undifferentiated Matter onto the ground.
The house underneath her and Baroke was crushed as an enormous fortress made of perfectly smooth Abyssal Steel grew under their feet, overtaking the surrounding buildings, shoving them out of the way in a tidal wave of crushed wood.
A hundred terminal Veterans coalesced out of the ground, manning the walls of the fortress, every single one of them armed to the teeth. Every one of them had gone into the vial aiming for one last hurrah. A fine and noble goal, but
Elliot hadnt planned on it being against him.
Protect him! Kala shouted, pointing at Baroke. Kill that! She directed her aim at Elliot.
Your girlfriends really straining my goodwill, Elliot said with a growl as the veterans formed a disciplined wall around the only one capable of doing massive damage to him.
People opposing him were coming out of the goddamn woodwork.
A lance of white hot fire blew over his shoulder, intersecting his blood pool and turning it to ash, boiling the outer layer of his armor in the process.
Elliot glanced behind him, squinting against the afterimage.
The Harbinger was floating some fifty feet behind him, arm held out.
Damnit, not you, too.
Elliot raised both hands and aimed a fist-sized beam of Annihilation at the Harbinger and the archer, intending to simply erase their hearts from existence. It cost him a lot of Bent exactly how much he couldnt say without the Systems assistance but it would be worth it to get rid of certain problems.
The dusky skinned sorceress seemingly appeared from behind the Harbinger and fired a counterspell that knocked his spell off target, deflecting the beam just over the Harbingers shoulder.
Kala achieved a similar feat with the archer, creating a hole in the floor between the musclebound idiots legs.
At the same time, the Harbinger unleashed another attack, composed of an orb of scintillating energy that seemed to defy identification.
The orb crashed into the right hand held defensively in front of him and winked out, disintegrating everything up to his ribcage.
Yep. Retreat sounds good. Retreat is always an option. Elliot thought, glancing at the white bones sticking out of his side. Probably should have run right off the bat. I blame overenthusiasm from having a body again. Well, no time like the present.
Elliot dipped his left hand in his chest and flung the thick dead blood in a hundred different directions, each droplet forming a sub-brain.
Comments
0xFFF1
Except it wasn't nighttime
Littleme02
In the bitcoin sub-brain bit you could call it (multi) modular redundancy
Andrew
Thank you!
Deinos
First off, nice chappy in general! But Baroke has quite the roller coaster of character development behind him huh? He started out as someone normal - then somewhat goofy - then dumbish normal goofy - then Actually smart because of high Mind but goofy -... and now simply dumb and stronK. If I had to choose out of all those I think I'd prefer less of a caricature and the smarty version was funny but I wouldn't mind him sticking to his guns -literally- without being Hulk-level intelligent. Was also quite a bit happy-go-lucky how he's gunning down his best friend - I kno I kno it's slapstick comedy.. but ya kno... burnin characters for a gag i donno..
Michael Henson
To be fair, I'm pretty sure one of Calvin's clones specifically talked about how Baroke was uniquely suited for killing Calvin should Eliot take over.
Shinra D Scaryweather
I love how Baroke reacted he was absolutely ready to kill Elliot/Calvin. He had been preparing for it for years he didnt hesitate to put him down. He even consoled Kala after he thought hed killed him.
