Arson spent the next entire day fighting demons, and clearing his mind. He worried that it was his wild mental state that was allowing Reaper to take more and more control of him, and only knew a few actions that helped rebalance him. Combat, and experimentation.
He lost himself in the exercise of slaying demons. He could immediately see that of the demonic hordes he’d fought in his short life thus far, this was one of the more aggressive plagues.
Where could all of these be coming from?
Each time Arson explored further, only more pillaging and violence was found, with no sign of either the being or gateway the creatures were coming from.
Graveyard had already secured many areas of the revealed Under-City. Small camps built to house the police force could be seen from Arson’s current vantage point; major intersections on the former streets used as checkpoints and tent-based command centers.
His watch started to ring as he targeted his next group of enemies, jumping from his perch and triggering Sky to parachute toward a large group of the quadrupeds. The demons moving like packs of wolves, their misshapen bodies shifted with the potential to grow new limbs from places that nature hadn’t intended.
“Hey Unc,” answered Arson. Winter’s face projected from his watch as Arson dove. Jill and Jane both charging the much more powerful versions of conductive water orbs. Arson hadn’t lost control in the same way he had since he’d practically shot himself, but was still weary of the threat that was Reaper, his most powerful Gestalt form.
“Hello my boy, I’m surprised you answered, haven’t gotten through to you since you pulled that stunt at the prelims with your parents,” said Winter with a laugh. Even as Arson dove through the air his brows rose and his face scrunched with confusion.
“What did I do with my parents exactly? You say that like we have family outings or something,” stated Arson with a laugh of his own.
“Well I doubt that you would have lost to most there with the showing you gave, but I think we both know your parents destroyed that MegaPlex to present you with the opportunity you have been given by the Oligarchs,” said Winter, with a confidence that made Arson know there was more than a little bit of truth to his words, the man was speaking from a state of knowing that only came from being well informed.
“Allegedly, and even if I knew what you were talking about…” said Arson with a smile, that made Winter smirk and shake his head.
“That’s enough of that, I have a special request,” said Winter. Arson gave the man a nod and fired with Jill. A massive explosion went off in the center of the group of demons he targeted. Many of his foes were blown away, then immediately pulled back toward the impact point, a singularity forming in the aftermath.
Arson dropped from Sky, allowing Jane to take a hold of his weapon in the same moment the secondary portion of conductive water orb fired . The powerful ring of mana lightning incinerated all the demons within range.
The remaining few, Arson engaged directly in hand to hand. He’d tested if Jill or Jane could be used to finish Sky’s… demands, requirements for growth, food? Arson didn’t know.
The weapon spoke primarily in vibrations. A language that Arson wasn’t intoned with, nor understood beyond simple positives or negative tones. The energies feeling like healing warmth and cold pain prospectively, simple but understandable to Arson.
“You’ve been seen on satellite traversing much of the Under-City, and some of our agents have reported the sights of miniature robotic hands flying around, they can’t seem to be tracked for very long before they disappear, but they are numerous, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about this?” Arson did his best not to make any discernible facial impressions that would show his release of Xani’s Propeller Palm Drones all throughout Under-City, and continued his assault.
“What do you need, Uncle Winter?” asked Arson. His experiments with Mana Lightning were slow and rigorous. He hadn’t been able to fully produce the energy properly, nor move it toward any limb he wanted. Often losing the ability to use mana in the limb he tested the energy within when the mana became unstable.
“Do you have a map of the city, boy? I need more of a view on what we are up against. Honestly just feels like countless demons on all sides.” Arson couldn’t help but glance at his mini map at the words. A 3D view of the entire area shown like a growing replica being built street by street displayed from an arial view. A space so big he wondered how it could fit within the outer shell of Maelstrom, without the crust’s underside being a spacial containment system built from an unknown magic for planet-sized objects.
Hopefully an undiscovered rune…
Arson shared the map without truly thinking about what he was giving the man access to.
“Embers, you have spread this far throughout this space already” said Winter, his eyes widening.
The space showed Arson’s movements, the locations of his guild members, the movements of the pocket apartment gang, the BHC, and even Seneschal. Anastasia blocked the man’s view of Arson’s own people, and froze the growth of the map for Winter, but the map was already so large, he didn’t seem to notice.
“I covered your people where I could, there are a few hotspots I’ve sent some of my guild toward, but it honestly feels like the more I fight these creatures the stronger they get, almost like they're all connected. I’m going to continue for now, but we may need to stop if this is a queen's hive,” said Arson.
“A queen’s hive? Where would you learn of an atrocity like that, boy!” Arson rolled his eyes and continued his practice with Mana Lightning, the makeup of the mana that his Living Hand Constructs used becoming more and more familiar with each attempt.
“If this is what I think it is, we have to kill it at the source, rather than feed it. Only certain things can dispel this type of plague from what I read,” lied Arson, honestly having had experience with a queen's hive in one of the many trials that he completed, one he still felt he’d failed. His actions to do what the trial required of him by the end, feeling wrong, and honestly left him feeling as if he had permanent marks on his soul.
Darker demons than even those I fight may be feeding the Reaper within my soul.
“I can’t show this to my people like this, can you reduce what I can can see to maybe 25 percent of what you can see at a time?” The question was asked and Anastasia changed the parameters for Winter.
“Ahh, that’s perfect, thank you,” said Winter, once the change was made. Arson glanced at his watch, and once more felt an invisible shrug when he met eyes with Anastasia. He sighed as he dodged and called for Sky.
The moment the weapon touched his hands, a roar was heard alongside a tremble that vibrated both the ground and Arson’s mind equally.
“Where are you, boy? What was that sound?” asked Winter in shocked alarm.
“Let’s just say the odds of me being right is growing, Uncle, We may have a real problem here. Tell Almarine I suspect we may have fed a plague den!” Arson sprinted toward the sound.
“Confirm, but don’t engage, boy. She’ll kill far more than me if you end up dead over this. And go visit my brother as soon as you can, we need to build a teleportation grid down here, and he’s demanding your help for whatever reason. I expect an explanation on why later!” The call closed, and Arson heard the words but his mind stored them within his Overlay as a task, which allowed Arson to focus on the situation at hand. His fear becoming more real with every step taken.
Arson ran in the street of the Under-City, the sunlight coming in through the scar above was just enough to give the appearance of daylight where he stood; two walls of darkness enclosing the sunlit areas to either side.
The roar he raced toward came from within the sheet of darkness to his right, and the violent tremor grew. Arson made a right at the next intersection, and stopped dead in his tracks. A group of large scrabbling paws could be seen digging through the ground, tunneling upward.
Arson held witness as the demonic creature he assumed would be multiple creatures, pushed its head from the ground. A large wolf locked eyes with him, the endless night that was its pupils surrounded by stars similar to Arson’s own irises.
The demon’s body was massive, and its structure unlike anything Arson had ever seen before. By the time the demon was fully revealed, Arson’s jaw had dropped, and a tinge of excitement built in his blood.
The wolf from what Arson could see, had eight legs. Four interior legs, that seemed to be devoted to stability and balance, sat just within four larger exterior legs. He assumed at first the larger exterior legs were for the same things, but then he saw the demon shake its body free of dirt and debris,, stretching its outer legs, moving the limbs in a rotation equivalent to a rotating wheel. The powerful appendages built for nothing but digging, and pure momentum.
The creature crouched and Arson widened his stance.
“Bring it on.”
Arson received every bit of the challenge he wanted in the very next moment.
The demon charged. Its incredibly huge body bolting toward Arson so quickly that he registered where it was only because of the flashes of his surroundings being offered with each blink he took, and not his eyes.
Arson dove to dodge, but the creature was faster than Arson thought a creature its size should be. Even as it felt to Arson that he moved through the air in slow motion, he could see the demon raise its large exterior paw on its right side like a hammer. The motion of the limb, smooth, fluid, and accurate.
In that moment, the beast of a demon was half drenched in daylight. Its teeth visible like sharpened obsidian, gleaming with the mana that rushed through its body. The claws of its descending paw also rippled with dangerous energies, a deep green and gold energy tinged with living darkness rippled from the tips of its claws well up its exterior arms.
This isn’t—
Arson’s thought was cut off as his lower half was caught under the might of the demon. Arson easily smashed into the ground, the energies pushed into his body. The demon had struck him hard enough to bounce his body off of the ground, and before he could manage to raise a single defense, he was swatted. The backhand resounding with a sonic boom as Arson was sent through the air.
His flight sent him through the walls of one building, then another, and another.
He wasn’t able to stop until Jill and Jane managed to catch him, both the constructs able to swoop in and grab him by an ankle and an arm.
By the time he realized where he was and what had happened, he was already being rushed by the massive demon again. Being held perfectly in the air in between buildings by his constructs, Arson felt himself begin to feel like a piñata, or a perfectly lobbed baseball at the height of a toss.
Jill and Jane tried to drop Arson when the demon appeared in its own dive toward him, but were too slow, another boulder sized hammer blow from a paw sent Arson careening through the air before he came to a skidding bounce across a random street below where he had been.
His body sounded like a bag of flour being dropped from a high place when his back smashed into the fortified wall of the building behind him, if the bag weighed a ton, and had been thrown at speeds beyond mach one.
Arson shook his head. Dust and chunks of debris fell from his shoulders, but before he could clear the disorientation from being flung about from his mind, Arson was struck again, this time a claw managing to clip him enough to cause a golden spray of blood to spurt from the gash where the blow had landed.
He screamed in pain, once again soaring through the air, unaware of where he was, or where he was going.
Jill and Jane weren’t able to move fast enough to block, or even attack the demon successfully. Arson noting the sound of conductive water orbs exploding in the background wasn’t enough to fill him with a feeling of security, as the roar that drowned out the sounds in the next instance were enough to let him know that he wasn’t safe in the slightest.
Gestalt forms… no, none are fast enough, and Reaper… Every option Arson could think of to, fight, survive, or even escape flickered uselessly through his mind. Each course of action tossed aside more quickly than the last as Arson grew desperate.
The only thing he could think of that could be potentially powerful enough to effect the demon, was Mana Lightning, which Arson had his constructs focus on summoning in the background.
He smashed through another still upright building, and smacked bodily into the edge of a second structure he didn’t even glimpse he was moving so fast, before he found himself rolling across a random rooftop.
He scrambled to his feet, and determined that fleeing was his only viable option. Even if Mana Lightning would work, he’d have to be able to hit the creature; something he didn’t feel he would be able to achieve easily. His head starting to spin at the blood loss he was experiencing from wounds he’d only just noticed weren’t healing by the time he managed to get to his feet.
The dizzy spell faded slightly enough for Arson to charge off in a random direction. He did not even care that he fled further into the darkness in his escape attempt. The sound of the rampaging demon still following him was enough to let him know he wouldn’t get away without something distracting the creature, or godly intervention.
With a glance toward his mini map, Arson focused on a path toward where he knew more of his people were in hopes that he could either use the chaos of one of the nearby battles to escape his pursuer, or the power of numbers to bring it down.
“Looks like I’m going to need help with this one…!