Nika? Alora? Chiyo called out desperately, as she lashed out with a shockwave of psionic power, blasting the debris constraining her away and sending the trio of Regulators that rushed her staggering back. Anyone? I’m exposed! I could use some help!
The Ilithii had crashed down in a heap of debris, having taken the worst of whatever had hit them, disrupting her natural levitation and causing her to land badly on the ground floor, rolling right into the middle of the huge brawl underneath.
‘They must consider me a priority target!’ Chiyo panicked, hacking and coughing as the dust of the broken wood choked at her lungs. Pushing herself to her feet, she looked around for her friends, but on not spotting any of them headed towards the main entrance, she hoped the others were able to get out, but cursed as she saw the bottleneck of the crowd completely blocking the way out in the mad rush to leave, as if the very building would collapse at any moment.
Though to be fair, that prospect wasn’t an unreasonable one…
Suddenly, Chiyo raised both of her arms up in a telekinetic block, as a drunk with blue fur and a thick, trunk-like snout sprung out of nowhere and threw a wild punch at her head, seeing an easy target, before their fist was halted in mid-air.
Fuck off! Chiyo told the drunk in no uncertain terms as she pushed back with telekinesis, lightly shoving them into the middle of an ongoing mosh pit, before the idiot was very quickly clotheslined by one of the very bloodied avian participants.
Chiyo knew she was in big trouble. Unlike Nika or Jack, she knew there wasn’t a chance in hell she’d survive in a brawl like this for very long. Yet if she tried to levitate above it and lose the crowd cover, the turrets above would quickly pick her out and bring her down, not to mention any other Regulators lurking about that could concentrate their fire.
Quickly considering her options, it was just as quickly decided for her, as she heard the yell of Jack in the far distance, sounding like he was in trouble! If she couldn’t find the others right now, at least she knew where they were going to be!
Unsteady on her feet, Chiyo cursed again as she slipped and fell on some broken glass in an attempt to dodge another drunken patron being rugby tackled to the ground, though fortunately her armour prevented any cuts as she scrambled uneasily back up to her feet as quickly as she could. She was so used to levitating instead of walking, that right now even she had to admit that Nika made some good points about how she needed to get more physically active.
“There!” She heard a voice yell from behind her, and the Ilithii instinctively knew that the Regulators she’d previously knocked down were now right on her tail. Straining with the effort, Chiyo dodged a chair that was thrown at her as she quickly dashed through a break in the crowd, heading towards the bar at the other end of the building. It wasn’t where she wanted to go at all, but she knew that she needed to get herself safe first before she could work out how to help her friends.
She let out a semi-silent yip of pain as one of the ceiling turrets swivelled and opened fire, catching her in the shoulder and causing her to stumble as her shields were quickly depleted. Her armour absorbed most of the impact, though she still felt the hot ripples spread along her back. Desperately, she used her power to grab a nearby bar table, putting as much energy into it as she could as she flung the table up towards the turret, getting blasted to smithereens before it even had a chance to hit.
“There she is! Zruul’s pinged her on turrets! Kill her!”
‘Shit!’ Chiyo swore as she turned around and lashed out at the closest Regulator she could see, focusing her mental energy into a concentrated crunch of psychic power, causing the grey-skinned man to drop their gun and clutch at their spine-covered head in agony as Chiyo broke down the mental defences of their mind and gave him a heavy cluster headache.
Raising her hands, she held up a quick psychic barrier that deflected the burst of plasma shots sent her way up into the air as she kept moving, doing her best to put some distance between her and her attackers, and get some cover in the way too!
Seeing a flash from somewhere upstairs, several accurate shots suddenly rang out and smacked into the chest of another enemy, who quickly panicked and disengaged as their own shields were diminished by the surprise assault.
Thank you, whoever you are! Chiyo projected out, knowing that she didn’t have a safe way to get up to whichever one of her friends had just helped her, though there was still one Regulator left…
“The Ilithii’s at my location!” The last Regulator - a pale-green skinned female with gigantic teeth - snarled into her comms before Chiyo could attempt to use her telekinetic power to grip the being in a psychic chokehold to shut them up.
The being grunted with effort as they shrugged off the effects, before firing wildly with their plasma pistol, blasting a Xarak gangster in the back with a roar of pain as Chiyo desperately threw off their aim with a prod of telekinesis, before quickly igniting her psyblade and lashing out in a sudden burst of movement as she quickly levitated forward, lurching to the side as she lashed out with the blade of pure psychic energy, severing several fingers of the Regulator’s hand as they recognised the danger too late.
“Gah! You fucking bitch! I’ll kill you!” The woman yelled in pain as she clutched at the stumps, trying to numb the pain.
I doubt that. Chiyo retorted as she clenched her fist and lashed out with a telekinetic blast at point blank range, obliterating the front part of the Regulator’s skull, the force sending their corpse blasting back in a spray of flesh and gore.
Extinguishing her psyblade, Chiyo wasted no time in losing herself in the cover of the crowd as she desperately looked for her friends. Briefly she spotted Jack get absolutely bodied by the Redeemer as they both plowed through the heavy crowd around them, but she soon lost them again as she avoided a very drunk-looking couple of amphibians that somehow decided that the chaos of the brawl was a perfect time to dance as if completely oblivious to the mayhem unfolding all around them, casually waltzing around in a circle while somehow avoiding the unconscious or dead bodies around them.
Weaving past them, Chiyo reached the bar, or at least what was left of it.
What remained of the shoddy wooden countertop had been smashed to smithereens in the heat of the brawl, as many empty bottles littered the floor around them, accompanied by overturned tables and broken chairs scattered haphazardly across the sticky floor. The air around her was thick with the acrid stench of alcohol and sweat, mingling with a metallic tang of spilled blood, a strong, pungent smell that burned at the nostrils of the sensitive Ilithii.
‘Gods, the sooner we get out of here the better!’ She thought to herself.
Behind the smashed remains of the bar, Chiyo saw a bunch of smashed and broken bodies - clearly the aftermath of a violent struggle for the booze. Sprawled on the ground with two limbs bent at unnatural angles, Chiyo spotted the creepy Xarak barmen that had told them where the River Giants were, and couldn’t even tell if he was still alive or not with the amount of abuse he had taken.
Amidst the wreckage, several rowdy patrons had taken advantage of the chaos to help themselves to the free booze, laughing and jeering as they stumbled about guzzling stolen drinks, brandishing some of the stolen bottles as weapons as they revelled in the mayhem around them, attacking one another for a greater share of the dubious loot. One red-skinned muscular alien with some rough black haired mutton chops raised up a full bottle of some kind of brown spirit into the air, before another yellow-furred ganger smacked him in the back of the head with a chair, instantly dropping him.
‘Shit, we need a way out!’ The Ilithii cursed. Looking around she saw more and more bodies on the ground as the fighting went on all around the building, and she cringed as she saw one get trodden on as two more still-active patrons were trying to claw at each other’s faces.
It was becoming ever increasingly more difficult to hide now.
“There!” She heard again from somewhere to the side as she looked around for an emergency exit. “Slarah! We found the Ilithii you wanted!”
“Good!” A curt female voice barked. “Their Psion is my fight as we discussed! You three eliminate that Outsider filth! The rest of you with me!”
Chiyo spun around quickly to look at the speaker, prepared for a fight.
This particular Regulator was clearly some kind of officer, if she wasn’t the outright leader of the Regulator Order of the Infernal Harmony. Wearing battlemage armour of slender, woven metal bands, the ethereally beautiful, light-purple-skinned woman with pointy ears even longer than Alora’s lowered her grey hood and stared at Chiyo with the confident expression of a professional well-versed in their field of expertise.
Taking no time to talk, they thrust their staff forward with a powerful blast of arcane energy with an unexpected strength that almost blasted through Chiyo’s psychic shields before the Ilithii focused, quickly countering with a powerful telekinetic shockwave that launched two of the Regulators back before they could open fire on her with their plasma rifles.
Attempting to disengage, Chiyo shuffled backwards to get into cover and buy herself some time, knowing she couldn’t win this fight, but found her movements stifled as the area around her was hit with a slowing spell of some kind.
‘A Force Mage, and a powerful one! She must be the one who collapsed the balcony!’ Chiyo thought to herself. ‘But I’m strong too, and my friends need me!’
The force of her counterattack caused the force mage to grimace as she brought up her staff in a block that was able to take the hit. Chiyo squeezed as she brought the full might of her power to bear, but her enemy was able to hold on long enough that her allies could shoot at Chiyo with full auto, forcing her to abandon her attack and block the shots as best she could, though one got through, smacking her hard in the chest.
Anyone? Help! Chiyo yelled out in the hope that one of her friends could hear her, but nobody could. As several shots were deflected straight up into the air, the only thing that changed was the overhead sprinkler system suddenly turning itself on, causing numerous shouts and curses to be hurled around at the uncomfortable development.
“Zruul? Stop playing around!” The enemy mage, Slarah ordered into her comms, while Chiyo took advantage of the monetary distraction and wildly lashed out with as much telekinetic power as she dared from above, smashing two Regulators with enough unseen force to knock them to the ground, dead or unconscious. Slarah growled and lashed out with power of her own, sending a fissure of telekinetic force that churned the wooden floor between them. Straining with effort, Chiyo pushed back and deflected the attack just before it hit her, causing the fissures to split either side of her.
‘Curses, she and I are equally matched! What can I do?’ Chiyo thought to herself. She recalled all the books and lessons she had learned on how to best use her power, but in that moment of panic, all of that knowledge seemed insufficient.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
‘Damnit, I can’t hold on much longer!’ Chiyo thought to herself, until she noticed the trickling of water all around her.
’Wait! That’s it!’
Drawing in the water around her in abundance, Chiyo attacked the force mage again, who had clearly not anticipated Chiyo having any kind of elemental affinity, as though she blocked the kinetic strikes, the momentum of the water was still enough to blast her backwards as the liquid simply flowed around the quick shields she summoned around herself, rattling against her armour and causing Slarah to grunt in pain as she was forced back.
Maintaining her momentum, Chiyo then lashed out with several more well-aimed water blasts at several of the downed Regulators who had been blasted to the floor from the kinetic battle. Though the Regulators had clearly prepared for a fight with the gear to boot, Chiyo hoped her attack was enough to keep them down as Slarah rallied and threw her power at Chiyo, trying to disrupt her concentration.
Grunting with effort, Chiyo found herself desperately holding on, as between her and the enemy mage, a huge congealed blob of water formed, threatening to burst as both of them fought for dominance.
‘I can’t afford to get disrupted! And she has allies nearby!’ Chiyo realised, as several of the Regulators got back to their feet, much tougher than she realised.
‘If I was like Jack, I’d probably be able to think outside the box and surprise them with something…’
Wait…All that water was being compressed by the combined telekinetic force, if it was being put under enough pressure…
Holding on for dear life and waiting for the perfect moment, Chiyo suddenly shifted the focus of her power to strike out and burst a very specific point of the bubble…
Which sent a high-powered beam of water right towards the enemy mage!
Screaming, Slarah flailed her arms as she was blasted back with the sheer force of the released pressure, with the water splashing all over the place, created a blanket of rain all around them. Seizing on the idea, Chiyo used the sprinklers to extend the translucent smokescreen as far as she could.
‘If I’m having trouble finding my friends, so will you!’ She thought grimly to herself.
‘Though I’ve still got to get to them first!
*****
“Shit, that was close!” Sephy panted to herself. She had been able to evade the spell thrown their way and stay on the balcony, using her wings to glide over to a more stable part. Looking down, it didn’t look good. Dust and debris filled the air in a thick cloud, obscuring her vision of the chaos below as she desperately looked for any sign of her friends.
“Still up there bitch?” She heard a familiar voice as several of the turrets swivelled around to aim at her, causing her to quickly dive for cover as they opened fire, tearing chunks out of the wall where she had just been. Hiding behind the shoddy fence and cursing the terrible cover it made, Sephy crouched and crawled around, aiming for one of the pillars at the far end of the room for better cover, bringing up her plasma rifle to surprise a Regulator who had the same idea as her.
‘Any more assholes up here?’ Sephy asked herself rhetorically as she looked around, quickly snapping to surprise another that was trying to line up a shot on someone below.
‘Alright, nobody else up here apart from the madlads sitting and watching, but that slicer’s probably told his friends where I am.’ Sephy reasoned. ‘Can’t have that!’
Grinning, she looked towards the stairs that were now clear, but she knew that she had a better advantage up here, and there was probably an ambush waiting down below. Reaching into one of the pouches on her rig, Sephy pulled out a black ball with a special adhesive that began to activate with an electronic command from her before she quickly threw the slap-mine towards the stairs, with it sticking to the frame.
Though Nika had often told her not to risk throwing those mines and to always place them manually, Sephy didn’t have time for that shit when there were literal turrets trying to kill her!
Springing out of cover, Sephy aimed at the closest turret and blasted it before it could take aim at her in return, chuckling as the other slicer realised she now had a blind spot to work with.
‘But though I’m out of the line of fire, everyone else isn’t!’ Sephy realised. ‘However, I know where he is, and he isn’t far. I just need a quick way out and I can kill him in meatspace. Sucks there isn’t a window I can easily get to…’
Suddenly there was some movement below as she spotted a brief flash of pale blue skin. Recognising Chiyo, Sephy quickly took aim and let off a set of risky bursts that dropped one of the Regulators going after the Ilithii, before Sephy was quickly forced back into cover as several shots zipped above her.
“Too slow fuckers!” Sephy called out with false bravado, as she tried to figure out her next move.
‘Yeah, they definitely know I’m here, this is getting way too hot!’ She chuckled to herself. ‘But I can still try and be useful!’
“Guys? Can you hear me?” Sephy called out into her comms, not bothering to try and go subvocal in the loud mess they were in.
No answer.
“Great, and we’re fucking jammed.” Sephy sighed. “And I bet it’s that gods’ damn slicer too! Fuck I’m gonna kill him!”
She spun around and tried to find Chiyo or one of the others, not spotting any of them before she heard an explosion behind her, as an enemy tried to climb up the stairs.
At least, it was probably an enemy…
Using the distraction, Sephy quickly moved out of cover and searched for targets, immediately honing on a scary-looking Vivren towards the front of the building that was gesticulating with her hands and obviously giving orders to a squad of regulators.
‘Heh! Sometimes they make this too easy!’ Sephy grinned to herself as she took aim and squeezed the trigger, blasting the enemy officer with an accurate burst of plasma fire!
However, to Sephy’s shock the rounds didn’t seem to have an effect on the ugly Vivren, merely bouncing off their heavily armoured form, a feat repeated with a second burst as they turned their snarling visage to look up at the Skritta.
“Oh crap!” Sephy cursed, as the Vivren easily battered aside a drunk that was in her way as she brandished a heavy-looking spiked chain. Flinging it around with supernatural strength, she whipped it towards the Skritta who ducked the side swipe as it pinged above her, forming a huge gash in the wall.
‘What the fuck?’ Sephy asked herself as her eyes widened. ‘I’ve never scored well in physics but I’m pretty sure that shouldn’t happen! Magical bullshit detected!’
“Missed me bitch!” She taunted as she returned fire, before juking the vertical strike that tore through the flimsy wooden fence. Firing back, she hit the Vivren’s centre of mass again, only this time realising that her previous shots found their mark. Though the Vivren’s armour was almost as good as theirs, surely they would have felt something from her attack?
‘Damn, you have a pain tolerance better than Jack’s!’ Sephy thought to herself. ‘But that doesn’t change the fact that I need to get out of here and get control of the turrets…’
As the Vivren yanked her chain back down, Sephy saw the mad rush for the front doors or the building, but could see the gap above the height of the crowd of mostly average-sized species.
It did have to be accessible for megafauna, after all…
‘Gliding there will be too slow…unless! Oh this’ll be so cool!’
Staying light on her feet, and holstering her plasma rifle while coiling her muscles like a spring, Sephy grinned as she waited for the next attack, a look which seemed to enrage the Vivren as she lashed out with the spiked chain again, clearly aiming for Sephy’s legs, who leapt up as high as she could to dodge the attack for a third time, as the spiked chain tore through the wood of the bannister fence like cardboard before wrapping itself around the brick pillar.
Seeing her opportunity, Sephy leapt onto the twisted metal, using the Vivren’s own whip as a tightrope as she ran down it, using her wings to barely stabilise herself and dodge whatever spell the Vivren cast at her, her heart pounding in her chest as in the space of barely two seconds she had descended to the ground and kicked off the head of the Vivren, giving her just enough speed, height and momentum to clear the bottleneck at the front door, before crashing to the floor, landing roughly on the coarse stone of the courtyard outside, sending shockwaves of pain reverberating throughout her body as she rolled and tumbled hard across the pavement, eventually skidding to a very painful stop.
“Owwwww…..” She moaned to herself as her breath came in ragged gasps, before she was able to get a hold of herself.
“Heh…nailed it!” She panted as she got to her feet. “I hope the others saw that shit! That was so fucking awesome!”
‘But where is that fucking slicer?’ Sephy thought to herself as she brought up a virtual reality minimap. ’Side of the building, he’s close, gotta hurry!’
Sprinting, she heard the sounds of comms in the distance as she rounded a corner to see two Regulators trying to look casual outside of what looked like a former service shed for the once-respectable building she had just left, who hadn’t yet noticed her…
“Hostile incoming! Get Zruul out of there!” A cruel snarl spoke up over the Regulator’s comms.
“Yes Lictor-” One of them began to say before a burst of plasma quickly decapitated them. Sephy quickly switched to the other, who quickly fell to the ground with several burns on their torso before they could raise their own weapon, Sephy quickly finishing them off with a shot to the head to confirm the kill.
Wrinkling her tiny nostrils at the putrid stench of piss as she booted open the flimsy door, instantly spotting exactly what she was looking for.
Propped up against the far wall was the limp, helpless form of the obese toad-like being she had met just a few minutes ago when he was fully sliced into the Matrix, and from the looks of things he still was, possibly unaware of the danger.
Sephy put two rounds in their skull without hesitation.
“Now I’ve gotta take the system!” Sephy said to herself in determination as she grabbed at the wires attached to the cybernetics of Zruul’s body, forcibly yanking them away before attaching them to her own device and slicing into the local Matrix once again, bringing up the translucent AR feed once again.
“Zruul! Get out of there!” Sephy heard a voice call out in panic as she took in her surroundings, spotting the form of the enemy slicer rapidly floating over towards her, before stopping, mouth wide open in pure, unadulterated horror.
“No!” They screamed in cyberspace, knowing what must have happened. “NO! NO! NO! NOOOOOOOO! NOOOOOOOOOOO!”
“I told you that you weren’t leaving here alive!” Sephy sneered cruelly, as she found the subtle string of code that connected Zruul’s consciousness with their body. A connection that would be impossible to get at without having direct manual access to the source hardware in question…
“Please don’t!” Zruul begged pathetically. “I’ll help you! I’ll disable the turrets! I’ll let you escape! If you’ve killed my body the Lictor can repair it so I can come back! Just please let me live!”
“No.” Sephy coldly told the slicer in no uncertain terms as she severed his connection.
“NOOOOOOO!” Zrull screamed as his avatar drifted away, slowly decompiling as his consciousness was eroded away into nothingness.
Not wasting any time, Sephy saw the control node in the distance and quickly rushed to it, instantly taking control of the now undefended programs as she quickly worked her magic.
“Alright, reversing the IFF for the turrets, that’s now running…” Sephy muttered to herself, annoyed that the process wasn’t instant. “What’s this? Sprinkler system? Sure! That might help…”
“Cameras? I didn’t spot any around…Better disable footage so they can’t ID us after…oh nevermind…they’re hidden in the bathrooms. Let’s just brick you…What else?”
Moving her virtual fingers like a skilled musician Sephy quickly cycled through the different settings, not finding much to work with. As one final act of spite, she deleted the playlist that Zruul had blasting over the speakers, and changed it to one of her punk playlists.
A sudden beep notified Sephy that the turrets were done recalibrating, and she excitedly went to the virtual console to see what she had to work with.
Grinning as she checked the basic programming and realising it was compatible, she brought up one of her custom programs that had been created to integrate with turret systems to run automatically. Copying it over and ordering it to execute, Sephy quickly backed out of the system while locking it from further infiltration. By the time anyone could unlock it, they’d hopefully all be long gone…
“Alright you motherfuckers!” Sephy grinned as she confirmed the turrets were spooling up again.
“My turn!”