[15][25][24][12]
William drops down beside you, resplendent in demonic armor. He crouches low, an Inferno Shotgun in one hand and a cutter hilt in the other. A laugh echoes down the canyon from his curled lips. His helmet seals shut around his head, replacing his smiling face with the twisted, savage grin of a demon. His augmented muscles flex within the armor.
Another man drops down beside you. Eric is a hulking beast now. Spikes of silvery metal rip through his coat, running down his back. Eyes of grey gleam with a malignant light through his gasmask. Every muscle in his body bulges unnaturally against his clothing. A chunk of steel barricade is crudely strapped to his arm-- and a savage, steel axe gleams in the other. Black ichor covers him. It drips from his tattered greatcoat to the soaked earth below.
You hear a click from behind you, and glance back to see Murdach levelling a massive las-rifle at the abomination. The man menaces in his eight foot powered armor. Its shiny black carapace marked with scratch and scar, while covered in the blood of abomination. A grenade launcher fixes on the Plague Lord’s every move. There is no expression that you can see from the ancient Pirate, but you know his resolve hasn’t faltered.
Above you, a light catches your eyes. Two wings of cold, blue fire spread from Emma’s back as she stops to levitate above you. She brushes some hair from her face with a gloved hand. ‘For Polly’ gleams in one of her hands, and a nimbus of hydrogen fire forms in the other as it drops from her face. You catch her gaze and give her a smile. She returns it, soft. “Cephie sends her relativistic regards.”
You raise your brow in confusion.
The Plague Lord stares at its new foes. Perhaps in shock, in confusion, or perhaps in savage joy at the sheer amount of potential meals that have come to surround it. Its many lips split, and it gives a roar of rage-- William and Eric move in quickly--
Emma ticks her head upward. You lift up on your wings, following her out of the Plague Lord’s range. Las-gun lights flash from the canyon below as the battle is joined. William, Eric, and Murdach distract the Plague Lord while you and Emma confer in the sky above the battleground. You watch as Eric rends flesh, as William carves organs, and Murdach sends round after round of explosive ammunition into the fray.
“I need pi--”
Emma draws close, holding energy capsules in her hand. You press them into your mouth wordlessly, swallowing them down. Her thin fingers dance along your shield’s buckle as she undoes it and replaces it with her own. Strapping the worn, weak shield to her chest, she gives you a wane smile. Her body presses against your own, and your eyes meet.
“I love you, Phoebe.” She whispers. “Thank you. For everything.”
You bite back the laugh and smile at her instead. “I love you too--”
“And I’m sorry.”
You blink. “For what?”
Emma doesn’t have to speak. A tear drips down her cheek, and she leans in, planting a kiss upon your lips. Then, in a flash of light, she’s gone to join the battle raging beneath. Giving you time to meditate on the battle ahead.
[37][25][26]
You bring forth manipulators from the carnage below, crafting them into spiked, rusted rings of iron, floating crystals of silicon and lashing wings of hydrogen plasma. With a switch of processes, you keep them sustained with a twitch of your willpower. Next you gather hydrogen, and incase it spheres of thin silicon. When your orbit fills with these packets, you turn your attention to your ‘arm’.
[33]
Pumping energy into the Plague material you bonded with seems like a bad idea, but it comes naturally, despite your trepidation. Your ‘fingers’ elongate, and your arm convulses. Pain shoots through your shoulder as your arm twists itself into a bladed configuration. You pump hydrogen into the reactor, using the outputted energy to form a blade of ionized radiation and superheated metals.
[40]
You follow this by tweaking your internal chemistry to pump your system full of adrenaline, steroids, and neurochemicals. You trim unnecessary processes, burn old memories, and ‘overclock’ your system. Blood drips from your nose, but the world sharpens. Colors brighten, senses sharpen, and the beating of your heart drums in your ears. You swallow, thirsty for the first time in your short life.
[3]
You begin to consider the possibilities before you. The lines of attack, how the Plague Lord will react to each of your moves--
An explosion from below catches your attention.
“I’m pulling Eric out-- Murdach is dead.” William’s voice is tinny in your ear. His voice is edged in pain--
A shot of light, Emma, flies pass. A shard of silicon embedded in her chest and her dark blood trailing behind her. Droplets of the crimson liquid dance in the starlight. You catch her look-- pain, fear, and helplessness all playing across her fair features when she meets your gaze. She’s pale from blood loss. The shield is a smoking ruin on her chest and the gleaming gun is nowhere to be seen.
You react without thinking. You lift your glimmering arm in an arc and swing one of the compressed hydrogen packets around on an intercept course. A directed bolt of energy ignites the hydrogen and explodes just as the Plague Lord approaches. It screams in pain and Emma makes her escape.
[35 vs. 24]
The approaching Plague Lord doesn’t have time to dodge as thermal energy and shards of silicon wash over it. Flesh blackens and chars with the sudden heat. Black ichor splatters as it tries to twist away from the explosion. Malignant in its cancerous hunger, it turns its attention back to you. Its body is marked with a multitude of wounds from the ferocious battle that your allies waged.
[|||||||||||||||](16/16]
[|||||||||||||||.........] (15/24)
[24 vs. 21]
[21]
You dodge the silicon shards before they can impact your shield. Asserting your willpower to push kinetic energy into the projectiles and blast them into the upper atmosphere. The entity continues to fire upon you, and you dance around the battlefield--
[|||||||||||||||](16/16]
[|||||||||||||||.........] (15/24)
[29 vs 34]
[19]
You swing one of the hydrogen packets around in a sharp arc -- it dodges away, but you fire a blast of energy at it anyway. The blast radius catches it with a glancing blow. You try to form the exploding hydrogen and silicon into silane, but it realizes your ruse, and winches away the silicon before you can manipulate it.
[|||||||||||||||](16/16]
[||||||||||||||..........] (14/24)
[3 vs 27]
[14 vs. 14]
A silicon shard glances off your shield, and you hiss out a breath of annoyance-- the next few shoot off into the atmosphere as you dodge out of range. You lift your arm, firing off a laser burst and having a silicon shard smash into your shield for your troubles.
[||||||||||||||.](15/16]
[|||||||||||||...........] (13/24)
[3 vs. 29]
[11 vs. 28]
--the Plague Lord moves before you can react. The hydrogen packet breaks apart before you can ignite it-- and glass dust billows against your shield as it retaliates in kind--
[|||||||||||||..](14/16]
[|||||||||||||...........] (13/24)
[1 vs. 36]
You grin with savage triumph as you maneuver yourself into range of the silicon you sent flying into the atmosphere. You grip the red-hot slag as it comes down -- and your grip slips as the Plague Lord seizes hold of the silicon. You try to dodge, but the metal hits your shield with savage force. You have no time to adjust your propulsion and the newtonian reaction sends you spiralling towards the ground.
[||||||||||....](11/16]
[|||||||||||||...........] (13/24)
[20 vs. 36]
[40]
You curl the ring of iron into a forward facing shield as you fall. Silicon slams against iron again and again, the weaker metal shattering against the stronger. You block the minute, shattered remains while simultaneously defending against the man-sized chunks it flings your way. You grit your teeth, trying to rise, but the Plague Lord doesn’t relent. You block each strike of silicon the best you can, but each blow is a contest of strength. A contest you lose. However, due to your manipulation of iron, you retain your shields.
[||||||||||....](11/16]
[|||||||||||||...........] (13/24)
[40 vs. 30]
You shut your eyes, your willpower twitching out to block oncoming blows whenever you sense a shard of silicon approaching. Reaching into the clouds above, into the heart of the swirling storm clouds, you agitate the water and dust molecules and adjust the electromagnetic field surrounding you. Lightning jumps forth from the storm front, striking the Plague Lord with explosive force. Flesh sears, and its willpower reacts erratically-- it falls to the ground below as its silicon manipulation fails.
[||||||||||....](11/16]
[||||||||||..............] (10/24)
[30 vs. 29]
[36][30][3]
You seize the advantage your stunned foe provides. You swing the remaining packages of hydrogen around and, at once, ignite them all with a blast of your ionized appendage. The explosion blasts you back, damaging your shield, but blowing away chunks of the Plague Lord’s flesh.
[|||||||||.....](10/16]
[|||||||.................] (7/24)
[10 vs. 25]
The Plague Lord screeches its static call, screaming in pain and agony -- ...screaming with the voice of a thousand dead worlds.. . You stagger, blinking back the pain that bursts within your skull. You struggle as visions of great cities overwhelmed with abominations devour your mind. Strangely shaped humanoids scream in pain and fear as ...death rains from the stars….
[|||||||||.....](10/16]
[|||||||.................] (7/24)
[28-5 vs. 15]
[16]
You shake yourself back to sense, bringing down weak bolts of lightning to harry your wounded, screaming foe. Rivulets of ichor pour away from the gouges rent by your storm. The scent of charred flesh and ozone burns your nose, amplified by the hallucinations the Plague Lord’s mental assault brings on.
[|||||||||.....](10/16]
[||||||..................] (6/24)
[16-5 vs. 27]
Your vision swims as blood pounds like war drums within your ears. The Plague Lord takes advantage of your lack of focus to hurl spikes of distracting silicon and close the distance between the two of you --
[|||||||||.....](9/16]
[||||||..................] (6/24)
[14-5 vs. 50]
[13-5 vs. 35]
It strikes at you with tentacles of razor and electricity, batting at your shield. You dodge out of the way-- and directly into the path of several shards of silicon. Your shield crackles and breaks in a flash of light. A burst of energy flings you back, but you regain control with the minute adjustments your skill in flight allow.
[||||||........](6/16]
[||||||..................] (6/24)
You halt your fall and stare into the hungering maw of the Plague Lord. Its false form has fallen away to nothing but pale skin hanging limply between twisting masses of black flesh. It growls a low rumbling sound in the pit of its many throats. You grimace, and put distance between you and the beast. It follows. You have time, time to think--
Screwing your eyes shut, you try to shed your skin as you fly away. Your war form, while powerful, is a disturbing experience, and one that requires perfect serenity. Identity, morality, emotion, feeling, pleasure, relationships, all of them must be stripped away until there’s nothing left but the drive to win, the drive to survive, the drive to struggle. Sometimes you wonder if what you manifest is your true humanity. That drive that drove your race to conquer its homeworld, to conquer physics, the galaxy, and even time itself.
--Bullshit.
You twist suddenly--trying to drive your augmented fist into the creature’s core. The Gs of your sudden deceleration pull at your mortal flesh. It hisses, ripping at your armored form with its razor tipped tentacles. It finds purchase, shredding at your ablative plate. You ignore it and activate the fusion laser within your arm. Chunks of Plague Lord fly away from the beam of ionized plasma. It screams in pain--
No. No. No. No! I will not fight as a god-- I die as a human. I die as a mortal!
--you blow away chunk after chunk of Plague Flesh as it ineffectively scrambles at your frame. Its blows start to weaken as you slam your ionized, flaming fist into its form with savage fury. Pieces break away. Pieces char. The monster screams--
I. Am. Free. Godsdamnit, and I will die that way!
It rips through your armor, but doesn’t draw blood. You, on the other hand, draw plenty of the beast’s foul ichor. Its cries of pain turn into whimpers as it begins to fall to the ground below. You do not relent in your assault. You follow it down, screaming in rage. You continue to pummel it even as the ground shakes beneath your feet, even as an explosion lights up the distant western horizon.
You slam your fiery fist into its unmoving form again and again. Silicon sprouts from the ground around you, turning into floating orbs of glassy metal. Iron sprouts and rusts. Chlorine condenses into a fog of choking death, and still you beat the Plague Lord until nothing remains but a smoking carcass of pulverized flesh and bone.
You heave deep breaths and gather yourself. Then, with an adjustment of the force calculations of your wings, you rise to the skies and return to the battlefield. The war wages on, but your part is done. The Plague Lord is neutralized--
“Load the Antimatter shells.”
On a cliff side far from the Great Crater you watch as annihilation rains down on the Plague Army. A burning flame, a holy flame, washes over the battlefield. Great cylinders of ash and dust rise from the earth to scourge the infestation that haunted your planet and nearly drove you and your people to ruin. Hundreds of thousands died to stop the storm in its tracks. And, thanks to you, they succeeded. They lay the metaphorical laurel of victory at your feet.
But with this battle, you have gained a victory greater than anything.
Phoebe won. The mortal girl, stranded on this planet less than three years ago conquered herself. She turned away from divinity and dark temptation. She spat in the face of gods and kings and remained mortal. The light of antimatter devastation bathes her in its baptismal light. She’s free. No longer chained by the constructs of her birth, of her rage, of her ambition. She surrenders only to the path of contentment.
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Topic: McCreary's Planet -- (FINISHED) (Read 258460 times)