“UPGRADE COMPLEATED”
The red haze faded from Myles’ vision. The whistlers in his immediate vicinity had become various shades of well done to medium rare. Fae close to Myles dropped in puffs of BBQ scented charcoal while the others further back merely shrieked at the pain of their electrical burns.
Heartbeats would have been a generous metric of measuring the brief pause in battle. Red haze gone, Myles charge back into the fray. But his suit was no longer white. Nor were the edges quite as soft as before. Now the suit had gained some harder edges all coloured a gleaming crimson.
Myles felt the change more than he saw it. The borrowed instincts from his Trigger told him he would hit harder, run faster and be 100% cooler in this form. Though he could feel the form already starting to ebb, he would need to work quickly. The jet pack was now built in. It was still expensive to run but the fuel was lining up to volunteer. Taking a deep breath was close, but not quite the right metaphor, he drew in the dead pink bastards. The sensation was strange, like when he sucked off the fairy tainted matter from the eldritch forrest. Except this matter was viable and much less effort to draw into his dimensional storage. He wasn’t yet sure on the limits of his storage yet, but for what he needed right now the tank was full. The expensive to run jet pack fired up, but not skywards, forwards. Myles’ momentum was boosted beyond what the Whistlers could handle. Heads rolled, guts spilled and limbs dropped to the ground immobile.
Occasionally Myles would catch a flash of a Whistler wearing armour or wielding some form of equipment. Always quickly followed by a gun shot and explosive cranial discharge as the head exploded. The magical gear serving as badges of office among the Whistlers became a poisoned chalice. The enchanted tools may as well have been bullseyes for the covering fire raining down from the senior Barrington and his offspring. He needed to go quicker still, his friends couldn’t re-fill the tank on the go like he could.
From out of the crowd burst a large golden knight Whistler, it barrelled towards Myles and Charlie. A bullet induced noggin blowout stopped it dead in its tracks.
“BOOM! Headshot!” Shouted Dyna Barrington over the cacophony.
Dyna ‘Dynamite’ Barrington, did in-fact explode things and Myles wondered if this could somehow be applied to Marjorie Babbage who while technically human he mentally disqualified.
Guttural growls and screeches had long replaced the sound the horde was named for. A horde much reduced in numbers. They had brought the weight of numbers to bear against their prey. Every last Whistler on this stinking human infested island was here for its head but it would not fall. Only once before had a crusade escalated this far and that was a scant ancestral memory by now.
The haft of the glaive was gripped tighter in frustration. It was taking too damn long and paradoxically he would loose his biggest advantage the fewer Fae there were. As it stood, with the fuzzy pink aberrations clamouring for him Myles could lash out in any direction and guarantee at least one kill. Especially with the jetpack, he was moving at ludicrous speeds and bisecting rows of Whistlers at a time. But it was only the constant supply of dead Fae that enable such heavy use of Myles’ very thirsty jetpack… an idea began to coalesce.
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A Whistler wearing an apron and carrying a massive rolling pin like a club tried its luck and was pierced through the heart as Myles was thinking.
The jetpack didn’t need to be always on. Short bursts to boost his own movement might not be the same show of outward power as what he was doing right now… or as much fun. But moving in such a way also wouldn’t need as much coal in the fire.
The jetpack fired up in stops and starts as Myles hopped between targets dispensing violence. Although lacking the swaggering power going full throttle afforded, Myles already felt a net gain from the absorbed fairy cadavers. Knowing how to spend less was a super power in itself.
Panic was starting to affect the remaining whistler horde. The bodies of their fallen were being consumed. They were not supposed to be prey, it was against the natural order of things. The prey was supposed to have been put in his place many times over by now. Why. WHY WOULDN’T IT FUCKING DIE. Those thoughts were cut short by a giant cat eating the face the offending thinker.
“Dad, I think that big armoured cat just managed to eat a fairy with his mask on”
John Barrington didn’t answer, he just felt the cold sweat inside the suit. He would need to offer up a big pile of chicken just to be safe.
“How did Myles get one, I want one.”
“Absolutely not.”
“What if it was a monkey? Less faces eaten but monkeys can hold guns. Twice as many things could get shot”
A mental image flashed across John Barrington's imagination. Hundreds of primates in Trigger armour, with firearms.
“I’ll talk to Myles, no promises.”
Charlie Murderpaws was having a great time. His mouth, annoyingly sealed by this shell was now working again. It had pained him to be surrounded by so much food and not be able to at least give it a nibble. The funny big mice were still throwing themselves at him and Charlie loved to play with his food… and things he wasn’t going to eat. The furry marmalade death machine had been a danger to local wildlife when he was smaller. Now the size of a tiger wearing armour he would very soon be featuring in bedtime stories about what happened to naughty little Fae children.
The Scythe reaped the heads of half a dozen Whistlers in one sweep of the shining blade. Myles was glad of the breathing room.
“Where the bloody hell have you been?”
“Found a copy of the Wall Street Journal Myles, would have been rude not to give it a perusal”
“You just happened to find a copy of the Wall Street Journal.”
“It was in surprisingly good condition.”
“in an abandoned petrol station toilet, in the middle of nowhere.”
“Myles, The Wall Street Journal is the readers wives of financial publications.”
“I refuse to unpack that statement now or ever.”
John Marquis and Myles Endeavour had built trust over years of working together. After shielding Myles from the worst excesses of office politics trusting his boss to have his back against a tide of murderous fairy creatures was no trouble at all. Now fighting side by side, Charlie was to busy running about having fun, the pair from Arkwright & Fletcher began methodically killing the whistlers. Scythe and glaive were sticky with Fae ichor but maintained the pace of butchery and backed up by two rooftop snipers the horde began to falter. The hedges and fields around the derelict petrol station were churned up into mud, the carrion feeders would eat well tonight. However Myles had a problem, his suit was flickering and trying to once more turn white.
In typical cosmic fashion the universe answered his bad news with more bad news. The crusade had one last means of retaliation. At the back stoop two Whistlers, one wearing golden armour and another with a giant cleaver, both held aloft a familiar golden orb.
“Oh Shit.” Said Myles.
He wouldn’t make it before they cracked the orbs. But maybe he didn’t have to. The jetpack roared to life lifting Myles high in the air, higher than he has ever jumped before, carrying him over the remaining whistlers and above his target. He hoped his friends would note his actions and respond accordingly. He could see the orb crack, its golden enchantment oozing onto the fairy knight. It started to grow. Myles dropped like a thunderbolt onto the golden armoured Whistler, stabbing down and stabbing hard, the blade pierced through the things neck as it continued to enlarge. However the growing Whistler convulsed hard, thrashing with wild jerks as the blade discharged crimson lightning inside its body turning the fae to ash. enlarged golden armour toppled to the muddy ground, no longer supported by a living body and enchantment terminated. The second orb has cracked open and its bearer was now rapidly growing. Myles looked up and up… and watched its head explode. His friends had come through.
“Boom, headshot.” He said to himself.