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Jace had activated another Dark Energy Mine at Rank 1 so he could stay engaged on somewhat even ground with the flying opponent. They were roaring with anger as they must have put two and two together and determined Jace had eliminated their ally. “You bastard!”
Jace couldn’t respond even if he wanted to – he was breathing too heavily. The assault he was facing pushed him to his limits. Block, parry, riposte, dodge, strike – they were evenly matched. He had no clue if they had a Skill similar to Swordmage Stance, but even at his (Rank 3) making him a master of all bladed weapons, he was hard-pressed. But, Jace was scoring more hits than he was suffering – and thanks to Dark Matter Mending (Rank 4) [Vampiric], along with the constant [Rending] of Evolution, he was not truly suffering injury.
He felt something solid, heavy, and horribly tiring impact his back. He barely fought back to consciousness as he felt almost as tired as he did after getting shot by that turret back on Velenar Prime.
“Three seconds between shots for them to reacquire target!” Ollie shouted in his ear.
Jace nodded and let the anti-gravity effect fade, trusting that he would fall out of line-of-sight from the shooter. He was in luck, as the flying opponent above him chose to stay elevated and kept flying, recovering their breath as they continued to suffer the constant bleed. It enabled Jace to let himself fall until the last second, at which point he could use the grapnel line to negate any real damage from falling.
“Dark Matter Shield (Rank 2),” he muttered, thinking he was out of line of sight. He also had to let Wrath’s Embrace fade, as he needed to conserve every remaining bit of energy. “What’s the matter?” he shouted up, taunting the person slowly being consumed by the miasma above him.
“You killed my brother!” the voice shouted back.
Jace was about to reply, but felt an intense pain lance through him as an explosive bolt tore through his chest and exploded his guts and organs out in a spray of viscera. Priam’s healing activated and reverted the damage – but he for a split-second saw his life flash in front of his eyes. They can still see me?
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Vhell racked the slide once more and caught the shell as she loaded in another round. The roof of the building she was laying on top of had gouge marks from where the bipod of the weapon had dug in from the recoil. Didn’t expect me to get you, did you? She cackled as she reset her stance.
One of her unique Tempest Sniper Class Skills was that she could hit any target as long as she had struck them once before. Well, provided it hadn’t been more than an hour.
And any type of strike. A spitball, a little pellet, a small pebble. Anything she hit them with that counted as a projectile – she could zero in on the target and guide the bullets to it. The downside was that she could only use firearms on magitech and technology-based worlds. Firearms just didn’t work on magic worlds.
But she had no care about those worlds. She didn’t care that her abilities could only be employed on non-magic planets. They sounded boring. No boom? No enormous crack of the rifle’s rounds splitting the air? Those didn’t sound nearly as enjoyable as this was.
Using her peerless skill with a rifle, amplified by a special Class suited to her tastes was the greatest thrill she could imagine. And here, she was hunting a dangerous opponent. One she wanted to take down.
Sniper’s Deadeye (Rank 10) [Redirect], she thought as the intricate series of wind tubes appeared in front of her. Only she could see them, and they would deliver her bullet right to the center-of-mass. Headshots were fun, but it was a smaller target.
Letting out her breath once more, she pulled the trigger.
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Jace put the tower shield behind him and braced as he took heaving breaths. The incident with the turret flashed through his mind, and he felt like he could vomit. He would have, had his stomach not just been blown apart. He could see his organs still spilled out on the ground in front of him – mixed with the silvery CIF fluid that…slithered back to his foot before becoming reabsorbed.
“That’s weird,” Ollie said. “I’ll send a report to Jonsar back at the hospital, and see what’s going on with that.”
Jace felt the shield buck hard and he did not dig in his feet, instead allowing himself to slide back along the pavement a good fifteen feet before coming to a stop. He could see a sizeable indent, and the six-inch long and three-inches-across bullet embedded in the invisible-to-others shield. That’s a big weapon, he thought as he looked up. The person above him was busy trying to dig items from their bag and swallow a variety of pills, vials, and other curatives – presumably trying to cleanse the [Rending] effect.
Won’t work, Jace thought. Curling his legs under him, he jumped up and caught the faint glimmer of a Skill far off in the distance. Zooming in with his eyes, he saw them on top of a roof. A woman with heavy cybernetic augmentations and holding a massive rifle as big as she was lying prone.
As he came back down, he asked, “Ollie, I have no range limit on Dark Energy Beam – do I?”
“As long as you do not use the [Limited Range] Skill Evolution.”
Dark Energy Beam (Rank 1), Jace thought as jumped up once more, and focused on the woman’s weapon barrel.
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Vhell just squeezed the trigger and felt the rifle begin to kick when something weird happened. Flicker jumped up, a flash of grey-purple light that she barely spotted arced down her barrel – and the weapon coughed instead of going crack from the firing pin hitting the round. The fuck just happened?
She cycled the barrel, and found the whole slide was jammed. Damnit! As quickly as she could she stripped down the weapon and began to clean out the slide. Some type of metallic dust was all that remained of the round in the barrel.
Easy fix, she thought. Just fifteen seconds.
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Jace looked up once more and saw the crimson and purple begin to recede from the Ascendant above. They brandished their weapon and streaked down toward him, shouting a war cry. “For the Nebula Alliance!”
Jace was tired from the Dark Energy Beam’s energy expenditure – but he had tricks up his sleeve. Raising the Dark Matter Shield, he blocked the incoming strike; and the invisible-to-his-foe barrier caught them off guard. Enough for him to flick the tower shield up and sweep out at their legs – taking out one of their ankles with a chop.
She screamed as she went. She kept on one knee and the other foot, slowly backing away as she waved her weapon ineffectually to keep him away.
Dashing forward, he kicked her weapon to the side and slashed down through her neck, chopping into it as blood spurted up. She let out a gurgle and collapsed, and Ollie dusted her immediately.
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[Stardust Acquired: 300]
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
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Now for the sniper, Jace thought as he put the shield back into the direction he knew the shots would come from. They can’t curve it to come from any angle as far as I can tell. Curling his legs once more, he jumped up and spotted them finishing their racking of a round. “Burn. Pyromancy – activate.”
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“Got it!” Vhell shouted with triumph as she racked the slide, clacked it twice to make sure that the action was well-oiled and debris-free, and loaded in another round. Shouldering the weapon, she took aim once more, and saw the figure’s head appear for a brief second.
But then, fire consumed her vision. She screamed in pain as she backed away from the weapon that ignited into a blaze of crimson – impossibly hot as the metal began to heat to a cherry red. But it was an Astral Arms weapon from a Tier 6 technology world. Heat alone couldn’t destroy it – at least not whatever level of heat was being manifested.
But she couldn’t use it until it cooled. Ducking down behind the nearby barrier, she let out a sigh. I have smaller caliber weapons, but those won’t pack enough of a punch to break whatever defense blocked the last round. Glancing at the butterfly Wayfinder that was just inside her neckline, she whispered, “Did they hurt him?”
“No,” the butterfly replied in a light, melodic voice. “Both of the Tempest Twins have perished in combat. You’re the last one on this assignment. I’m sending word to our reports division…They have approved emergency dispatch of an Epic (Equipment) Boon.”
“I need the strongest fucking rifle they can give me.”
“Manifesting…”
The new weapon appeared on the ground right next to her. A gorgeous rifle that looked like it was meant to be mounted on a tank – but with her augmentations, she could fire it. She was sure of that. Astral Arms Mk. 8 Annihilator, she thought with a grin as she saw the five-round magazine slotted into the side-feed.
Laying down, she shouldered the weapon, and clicked the toggle that forced spikes into the ground from the tripod, and caused the stock to merge with her prosthetic shoulder to better disperse the recoil.
Time to die, Flicker.
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Jace was not idle. He had begun running despite his tired condition. “Ollie, use one of the Uncommon (Variable) Boons to get me something that can restore energy.”
“Alright, get ready to poke yourself. I am converting it to Equipment that is going to be a one-time use.”
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[Using Boon: Rare (Equipment).]
[Manifesting.]
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A tube with a small, blue arrow pointing down towards a silver knob appeared in his right hand. Swapping the shield to his sword-arm, he stabbed the somewhat-familiar object into his chest, feeling the piercing pain. A stim – a type of combat drug that mercs and corpo-soldiers used. They were produced for a variety of effects, but Jace knew they had a cost. Normally, a drastic side effect.
But he needed to survive. He felt all tiredness wash away as a burst of invigorating energy coursed through him. Wrath’s Embrace (Rank 10) [Focused], he thought. He was clearing the distance between the hilly ground separating him and the sniper with speed unlike anything he had ever achieved before. The stim was surely amplifying that further, but Jace couldn’t even hear Ollie as the roaring of wind gusted through Jace’s ears.
He could feel the pulsing flame inside like a furnace, the anger of his injury, someone threatening his survival. His chance to bring back Chroma. It filled him with an anger that he hadn’t felt since fighting Yholl when the lich had inflicted dire injury on Priam. With the enhanced perception and amplification from his various Skills, Jace swore he could feel the incoming round’s shockwave before it actually arrived – and he was holding his shield in front of him for its impact.
The enormous round threw him back despite him digging his feet into the ground, and he went tumbling almost fifty feet back, end over end, feeling dull thuds of pain as he bruised under the armor. Did they get a bigger gun? He thought as he saw the projectile that had impacted his shield had almost gone all the way through it – having struck just above the prior round’s impact point. And the bullet was far larger. Easily ten inches long and seven-inches-across.
Growling, he willed the shield to flip over so that the damaged portion was covering his legs – hoping to make sure the next round struck somewhere else on the barrier. He kept running forward.
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You’re a fast fucker, aren’t you? Vhell felt the adrenaline kick in as she tracked the person coming closer and closer. The new weapon was amazing, and she loved the kick that reverberated through her body.
But she only had four more shots. And she knew based on his rate of movement, she would get one, maybe two more shots off before he got to her. She wasn’t a slouch in hand-to-hand combat thanks to the programs installed into her cyberware. But she knew she was no match for a melee-oriented Class.
Either retreat, hide, or keep shooting. She had to weigh her options. Flicker had to be low on energy. He had been fighting for almost two minutes straight. I can afford another shot. No clue what that invisible barrier is, but it can’t take too many more hits. She let out another breath and slowly squeezed the trigger, feeling the incredible thud through her body that vibrated her metal teeth.
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Jace could see the person on the roof of the building at the edge of this hilly region. Some type of antenna extended up from it, and he saw the enormous rifle barrel begin to move. Crouching down, he dug his feet in and angled the shield at an upward profile – hoping to deflect some of the energy.
It didn’t help. The round arced in the air and slammed into the shield, shattering it and breaking his grapnel arm – but not destroying it. Just making it unusable.
“You can’t re-manifest the Dark Matter Shield for a minute,” Ollie yelled into his ear.
I don’t need that long, Jace thought as he sprinted up the hill and leaped up to the roof. He saw the woman who had been shooting at him, had the burning-red gun next to her, another enormous rifle planted on the ground, and she was kneeling with an assault rifle in her hand. He saw her finger squeeze the trigger, and he put his Anathema Arm in front of his face.
The rounds bounced off of the Tier 9 arm, but some caught him in the chest. If not for the Wrath’s Embrace negating his ability to feel pain, he was sure he would be screaming from the pain. But he landed in a roll and swiped at her with his sword. She interposed the rifle – but it did not matter, as his sword sliced clean through it and into her chest – scoring a bleeding, rending hit. Dark Matter Mending (Rank 4) [Vampiric].
His wounds began to mend as the bullets were ejected from the wounds, and the slight, metallic-fluid of the CIF surged back into the wounds from where it had trickled out. “Die!” she shouted as she pulled out two machine pistols and unloaded them at Jace.
He was close enough that he could side-step the barrels and avoid the shots. Bringing his sword down, he cut through her wrist, and she screamed in frustration – not pain – as she turned to her side. A barrel was in the spot where her hand was once connected, and Jace trusted instinct as he shoved his Anathema Arm onto the front of the tube.
He felt the dull ‘thud’ of a projectile impacting the arm before it exploded back into her arm and blew it apart. She screamed in pain and was flung to the ground. Jace jumped on her and punched her over and over, healing himself fully thanks to the [Vampiric] Evolution negating his energy cost to heal with Dark Matter Mending. He stopped when she stopped moving, but was still breathing weakly. Unconscious.
Letting Wrath’s Embrace fade, he sat down and sucked in deep breaths. Despite not being very tired thanks to the stim, he was out of breath and suffering physically. He knew it would get worse. Some of the stim-abusers among the street folk who developed an addiction to it always told him that the side effects were worth the high of being unstoppable for a few minutes.
“Ollie…can we split her up from her gear before I finish her?”
“If it is part of an Equipment Boon or other items counted amongst her Equipment? It will be dusted along with her. If not, then it will be left here.”
“Okay.” Jace looked down at her. “Should we interrogate her first?”
“No knowing her Skills, and we do not have a means to keep her in Skill-locking restraints.”
“Do those exist?”
“I do not know; I merely postulate that something like that may exist, as magic-blocking restraints exist. Without an (Information) Boon, I would need some time to research that.”
Jace nodded and grimaced, reaching down and slicing through her neck with a single, swift stroke of his blade. “Dust her.”
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[Stardust Acquired: 400]
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The woman’s body disappeared, along with all of the equipment and the rifles on the roof. “Damn,” Jace muttered. “I was hoping to get one of those to give to Greg.”
“Well, you can always save up Stardust and buy something back on Khrox. Or use an Equipment Boon.”
Jace nodded and reached into his pack, pulling out the Omnitech prosthetic repair module, and using one of the charges as he pulled the sleeve over his damaged Ghostlight Grapnel Arm, and then shoved it into the box. After five minutes, the box was finished, and he removed his now-repaired prosthetic. A surge of the CIF flowed down from his chest and into the limb, and he felt the warmth and sense of touch once more. We should figure out why it was able to move back into me, he thought as he recalled his guts being plastered over the cement.
He let out a near-hysterical laugh at the realization that he very nearly died again.