Chapter 11.
Matty did everything he could to land the Pup as fast as he could. Elvis could be described as unhinged on a good day, but he had a tendency to do things completely unexpected, especially since getting his body.
As the Pup spun and hovered to a landing the rear bay door opened as the four remaining passengers ran out. All four had grabbed weapons on the way out and were ready to try and assist Elvis against what they estimated was around 200 Lacertine troops with an unknown amount of firepower and defensive capabilities.
As they ran down the ramp, they all slowed to a stop at the sight of Elvis and the path of carnage he was creating.
Jax dropped the butt of his sniper rifle to the ground and whistled, “Well, I guess it’s best if we just let him finish. I'm gonna head to the top of the Pup and get position to lay down cover fire if it is needed.”
“Yeah, I'll join you. I don’t think we would do anything but get in his way. I’ll call him just to ask, but I’m pretty sure he is just gonna tell us to fuck off and not to steal his kills,” Matty said as he turned to climb the exterior ladder behind Jax.
“Elvis, it looks like you have this under control. We are gonna take support positions on top of the Pup and look out for anything unexpected. Do you need us to do anything?” Matty asked through the comms channel as he laid down and sighted his rifle.
“Music, just music,” Elvis grunted as he cleaved his axe through three more Lacertine victims.
Loren couldn’t believe what she was seeing. There was a charred trail of blood and lacertine bodies in Elvis’s wake as he continued pushing forward into the surging group of Lacertines that remained. They were trying to take up defensive positions and lay down suppressing fire, but Elvis either moved too quickly or just shrugged off the rounds that hit him as many were absorbed by the flaming aura that now covered him and extended to his axe.
“Does this make sense to anyone?” Loren said as she turned to face the others.
“I have stopped trying to make sense of Elvis. Just be glad he is on our side and let him do his thing,” Jax replied through the comms channel.
Elvis stood in the middle of the street. It looked to be the main street of the processing facility. To be fair, it was just an old main street, and the surrounding buildings had been commandeered by the Lacertine troops and turned into a processing facility.
He had never had the chance to use his berserker ability. As soon as he landed, he activated and understood how it functioned. The ability increased his overall stats by 25%, allowing him to effectively operate at a level much higher than his current level of 50. Intense red and blue flames covered his entire body, acting as both an offensive weapon and buffering his overall defensive capabilities by absorbing a large percentage of incoming ordinance.
Elvis wasn’t sure what the effects of using the ability would be; he wasn’t sure how long he could use it either. He was sure that there was no better way to test it than by cutting his way through a couple hundred weak, pathetic Lacertines.
As he stood in the street, flames emanating from his body, the Lacertines remaining organized an offensive push. Nearly 100 of them rounded the corner, rushing toward him, weapons drawn.
Elvis wasn’t deterred for a second as he watched, a toothy smile creeping back onto his face.
“MUSIC!” he shouted as he lifted his axe into a two-handed grip.
Red rushed back into the Pup and set the speaker output to maximum, not bothering to select a song as he knew Elvis would handle that.
“Systems ready, do your thing,” Red replied through the comms.
A low electronic tone sprang from the speakers, blaring into the streets where Elvis stood as he continued to smile.
Bawitdaba da bang da bang diggy diggy
Diggy shake the boogie
Said up jump the boogie
“You can't argue with his taste in music,” Jax slapped Matty on the arm, and they both chuckled.
“You think those assholes have any idea what kind of crazy just dropped on them?” Matty responded.
“Oh, I think they are well on their way to figuring that out.
As the music began to play, Elvis’ smile grew wider. A large hovering tank rounded the corner right behind the Lacertine troops.
“Lay down your weapon and surrender. You will be processed and punished accordingly based on the extent of your crimes.” A loud announcement came from the tank.
Elvis drew his axe back with one hand, flexing every artificial muscle in his new body, gritting his teeth as he strained.
My name is Kiiiiiiiid, Kid Rooooooock!
As the music blared, Elvis released his axe in a throw that created shockwaves down the street. The flaming axe cut directly through the middle of the organized group of lacertine troops, removing body parts and turning bodies that took direct contact to mush. The troops that weren’t directly hit were blasted to opposite sides of the street by the shockwaves the axe created.
The axe made contact with the front of the tank as the barrel of whatever kind of cannon was on top melted and crumpled in from the impact. A millisecond later, the axe had cut completely through the tank as it arced up into the air and flew back to Elvis’ waiting hand.
The music continued to blare as Elvis shot forward toward the Lacertines, who had survived. To the naked eye, it was a streak of fire that zipped down the street, leaving carnage in its wake. Elvis moved so much faster than any being that was uninitiated by the system, and there was nothing they could do. One second, they were shaking off an explosion that sent them flying; the next, they were losing heads and arms to a flaming streak of death.
In a matter of seconds, Elvis stood in the middle of the street again, short of breath and energy as he fell to one knee. Nearly 200 dead Lacertine troops and one exploded tank surrounded him.
Ziiip
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Elvis turned to look over his shoulder as a Lacertine troop stumbled and fell face first, a bullet hole in his head.
“You really need to have more situational awareness, Bro!” Jax laughed from the top of the Pup as Elvis just grumbled something unintelligible.
“I will need help. I have no energy remaining and can't walk back to the Pup,” Elvis said wearily.
“Hey, you got yourself into this situation,” Matty responded with a mental shrug.
“I am here to kill; Elvis did his job,” Elvis replied as he went from a knee to lying flat on his back on the ground.
“Stop being dicks guys; go help him back to the Pup already!” Loren said with obvious agitation.
After a few minutes, Red and Jax had managed to help carry Elvis back to the Pup. The drop ship lifted off without so much as one round being fired in their direction. As they flew south, Matty looked down at the carnage one last time.
Thank God that maniac is on our team,…he thought to himself as he shook his head at the sight of hundreds of dead Lacertine troops littering the ground beneath them.
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I sat down in the dirt, back pressed against the corral fence. He was still trying to process what had just happened. Kaj, his friend and member of his crew, had been hiding his true level. He had apparently been a royal trainer of sorts for the emperor and his family, and oh yeah, he kicked the shit out of me and then sliced open my chest to add insult to injury.
The chest was a nonissue; one health stim later, and the shallow cut was almost healed. Kaj had not intended to harm me physically; instead, he meant to harm my pride. Kaj had managed to completely and utterly kick my ass in front of my friends and family without so much as breaking a sweat.
I didn’t think I was the strongest person in the universe., I knew that there were many out there stronger than me. I did think that I was possibly the strongest in my crew, though, or at least the most capable of coming out on top in a fight due to my skills, weapons, and abilities.
Kaj had completely turned that notion upside down, and now I could only seek to improve. So, what better time to start than now?
“So all of our cards are on the table, then?” I shouted to him on the other side of the corral.
“I see no further need to conceal my true identity, Captain. If you are to progress in your training, then I believe it is imperative that you are able to fight at your maximum. Please take some time to talk with Tiff and discuss any new abilities you may have. Once you feel comfortable, we can continue with your training. I do think it is pertinent to inform you that you will not beat me today, in fact, you will not land a single blow today. You stand at the base of a mountain of knowledge. Today you take the first step in a long journey, Captain. The first step, however, is often the most challenging,” Kaj said as he stood and bowed.
I stood as Tiff came walking up to me, hands on her hips.
“Well, that was unexpected. I did tell you that Malakim are not to be trusted,” she said as she stood in front of me and shrugged.
“Can we just take a minute and check out my skills?” I replied, not taking my eyes off of Kaj.
“Okay pull up your skills menu then,” Tiff replied.
I mentally opened my interface and selected skills, which had an asterisk beside it.
Why haven’t I noticed that before? I thought to myself.
Skills:
Pulsar Blast – Planetary skill
Big Bang – Planetary skill
Do over – Galactic skill
*Shield of Solaris
“All of my skills have new descriptives on them,” I said, tilting my head as I read.
“What do you mean, descriptives?” Tiff asked.
“Well, there used to be just the name of the skill. Now, the skills all say Planetary skill, except for Do-over, which says Galactic skill,” I replied.
“Those are the rarities of the skills. I thought it was odd that your skills had no rarity when you first started to receive them. I can only assume that the rarity descriptives unlocked when you jumped in levels. Rarity describes the power level and complexity of a skill. There are generally four levels of rarity.
Planetary
Galactic
Universal
Dimensional
It makes sense that Do-Over is a Galactic-level skill since it is powerful and utilizes some pretty intense interdimensional abilities as well as being a time skill. The rest are basic melee or defensive abilities, so the Planetary rank makes sense. That doesn’t mean they won't become more powerful as you progress, though. We need to dig back into each of the descriptions of the abilities and see what the upgradability of each is. For now, do you see any new skills?”
“I see something called Shield of Solaris. It has an asterisk beside it; I’ll take a look at the description.
Shield of Solaris – Planetary skill
Generate a shield of solar flare energy. This shield can act as both an offensive and defensive skill, though its defensive ability will far outweigh its offensive capabilities. The skill is highly upgradeable and will charge as damage is taken. Warning: at its current level, this skill will damage the user for the duration of its use, and all healing skills and potions will have a 10-minute cool-down upon deactivation of the skill.
“This boon and curse thing is really starting to suck,” I said.
Tiff just shrugged, “You have the most advanced battle armor ever created and have been given a ship that seems just to get more and more powerful. Maybe don’t complain so much?” She smiled at me, obviously feeling a little chirpy today.
“Okay, okay,” I said, putting my hands up defensively,” I’m gonna activate the skill for just a second to see what happens. I guess this is the benefit of training.”
I held my hands up in front of me and activated the skill. It wasn’t necessarily flames, although it was hot, It was more like plasma began covering my hands. As I watched, a layer of burning plasma covered my hands and traveled up my arms to the elbow.
At first, it was just warm, but as I stood there inspecting the plasma, turning my hands from front to back and clenching my fist, it began to get hotter.
“Holy shit, this is getting really hot!” I said, turning to look at Tiff, who was holding her arm up to shield her face from the heat.
“Hold it as long as you can,” she shouted, “We need to get a baseline for how long you can hold it and how much damage it does to you.
I held on as long as I could as the plasma continued to get hotter. After about 90 seconds, I deactivated it with relief.
“My hands are still burning!” I said as I dropped to one knee and dismissed my armor.
As I looked, my hands and forearms which were still black and reminiscent of the u decorating of my armor, were blistering from the heat. There was no lasting damage, especially with the ability to use health stims, but it would be 10 minutes before I could use one.
My hands were not flesh. No, they were created from the gift, and they were synthetic but still somehow not. They were a part of me, my control over the Havok Bringer armor allowed me to create new hands after I lost mine in the fight against Anthragor, still somehow, I felt everything, they still reacted to heat and showed injury. I couldn’t explain it, it just was another gift of, well, the gift.
“Why is this even a thing? Why do I have to get fucked every time I get a new ability?!” I held my hands out as I knelt in the dirt, shouting.
As I sat there wallowing, I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Get up boy,” my dad said in a low voice, “I know you didn’t ask for this. I know you are doing the best with what you have been given but I’ll be damned if I am gonna let one of my boys give up.”
I looked up as my face flushed. My dad had always taught us to be accountable. He had taught us to be good, strong men and women and to always be grateful for the gifts we received.
“Dad, you don’t understand…” I said, looking back at my burning hands.
“Boy, it isn’t permanent. Pain is how we grow, and if you stand any chance of living up to the faith that has been put in you, then you have a lot of growing left to do. Me and your mom, your brothers and sisters we are all depending on you. Hell, everyone on the planet is depending on you, but none of us can help you on this path you're on,” he helped me up off the ground and turned me to face him.
“Now it’s time for you to fight and grow. We will be here, we will love you, and we will do our part. Most of all, we won’t let you lay down and quit; no son of mine is gonna give up on himself.”
I didn’t respond just nodding in confirmation. After about ten minutes had passed, I used a health stim. As the insect like arms emerged from my spine and stabbed into the side of my neck, I could hear my nephew and nieces shrieking in the background.
I took a fighting stance as I approached the center of the Corral again. Kaj approached and bowed as well.
It was good to be home, good to have my dad and family here to support me and help keep me in line. Most of all it was good to get a second shot at Kaj, it was time to see if I could prove him wrong and land a couple of hits.