The Krizian soldiers believed that Jason was of no threat, that in the worst case scenario he was given power by some devil, but was no match for their god for their god was all powerful, and he who trusted in him would never fall to the minions of a demon. However, no matter the fortitude of a man, there will always come a breaking point. The Free Nation men that Krizians believed were dead and had kicked to the side began groaning. They slowly stood with their aching bodies. Seeing Jason on his feet and facing down their enemies they began to shamble towards the impending battle. This was too much for some of the Krizians. It appeared to them as if their enemy were the undead and as much as they had faith in their god, they could not assuage their fears that were buried deep in the core of their Human consciousness. Several of the Krizians broke rank and fled in terror. Most of the soldiers that remained visibly shook where they stood. There was nothing for them to do other than to engage and try to eliminate Jason before his men got to him and reinforced him. It might have been futile to try to cut down an immortal undead creature but what else could they do.
The Krizians moved to surround Jason. Several formed a line between Jason and his men that were shuffling forward, still numb and hurting from being shot and kicked with enough force to move them off the road. The Krizians took aim at the Free Nation men and opened fire. The fire missed its intended targets. They were spread too far apart and the Krizians couldn’t properly aim. They tried again and again, but to no avail. Meanwhile, behind them, the fight between Jason and almost 3 dozen soldiers began.
Jason took the initiative, not letting the Krizians a chance to pull themselves together. The silver sword arched out toward the closest one to him. The Krizians were shocked as the its edge tore through the ARMS material as if it was nothing but normal cloth. The Krizians hadn’t fought against enemies with such disparate grades of ARMS devices. They had made the mistake that Jason had initially made, that all ARMS material was equally resistant to cutting forces, but that wasn’t true. The higher grades of ARMS devices designate their power capacity, output, default functions, and their ability to manipulate stronger, lighter, materials and what could be done with them. A common low tier ARMS device’s material was impenetrable to normal cutting, slashing, and piercing weapons made of natural and low tech materials such as what mankind had been able to make, but that was because the low tiers ARMS material’s molecular structure was more strongly held together and thus a sharper edge than was possible with even the best steel was needed to get through it. Higher tier ARMS devices, such as the silver swords ARMS that Jason had, could form bladed weapons with an edge sharp enough to penetrate the lower tier material and, importantly, could stand the force needed to do so. The Krizian soldier scarcely had time to react to the realization that the armor he’d put so much faith in had failed. Jason followed through with his dagger, aimed right for the opening, right where the man’s heart was.
The Krizian soldier gasped. Instinctually he grabbed hold of Jason’s arm which would have disrupted Jason’s flow of actions if not for a small amount of green slime quickly oozing from out of Jason’s armor and wrapping around the hands and arms of the man, before pulling them free while simultaneously dissolving them. The process took a little more time than was available to keep from stalling Jason’s flow, but the slime could stretch, allowing it to take all the time it needed to eat the man’s arms. It’s not like he would need them any more since he was about to die. And after the slime was done, it fled back to Jason’s armor, hiding within it once more.
It was known by many people, but it had become normal for those that hung around Jason that they had gotten used to Gabi, the slime girl. When in Free City she would go about the town as any other person and although she was unique, so far as anyone could tell, everyone got used to her like any of the other species that they found themselves living alongside of, but when Jason left the Free City she went with him, either in her crystal home embedded on a gauntlet Jason wore, or wrapped around Jason’s body. Over the course of the several years that had passed Gabi, like Rina, had grown up, the two of them becoming something of sisters to each other. She didn’t have a form that she had to take, but it seemed that whatever determined the structure of her humanoid form had decided to make age and grow up like any normal human. Of course, this meant that the term slime “girl” was becoming a bit inaccurate. She had developed a form that appeared to be that of an over developed sixteen year old girl which made things quite awkward for Humans. It was hard for them to get past that she looked like a very attractive teenager and she was wrapping herself around Jason, spreading across his entire body. Initially she would remain outside of his clothes, but as they fought and learned how to cooperate with each other they learned that skin to slime contact allowed for faster clearer communication. It didn’t hurt that it also felt damn pleasurable to be submerged in her. It posed something of an ethical quandary for Jason seeing as Gabi had taken on a role similar to a daughter to him, however, Debris had long since worn away his ideas that came from Human social mores that he had once had. Where once he might have been totally against an idea, he now evaluated it calmly and objectively as to why he felt that something was wrong or right. He had to, or he could not hold together the new civilization he was putting together and so he put aside his uneasiness about Gabi’s proclivities to cover him in herself. Their battle prowess grew rapidly as the more they came in sync the more options they had to defeat a foe.
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Gabi read Jason’s mind and used herself to make his body move, allowing him to overcome the limits that the Human body naturally had to prevent harming itself. They did this sparingly and usually only in brief spurts, but it was a nice ace to have up their sleeves. The aspect that Gabi’s coverage of Jason was most beneficial of was the aspect that the ARMS devices didn’t seem to have any thought put into. A hard enough blunt force blow and you’d be killed regardless of the ARMS material stopping the penetrative power of the weapons. Gabi’s slime body acted as a shock absorber dispersing the force and preventing harm from befalling Jason. If he didn’t have her for this purpose there was a good chance that he would have more injuries than he did. That being said, Gabi liked being hit no more than any other creature so if she could prevent it, she would, moving Jason as she could to dodge a blow, if it was within her ability but not his. As time went on, this transformed from just evading from time to time to Gabi controlling his limbs freely to attack or defend as she saw fit in conjunction with his actions. One might think that this would not be effective due Jason always being thrown off from the unexpected movements that Gabi made him do, but the fact was, Gabi was a slime and able to make parts of her more or less hardened, allowing her to stabilize and let his body to move as though the movements that she was making his body do weren’t happening for the most part. There was only so much that she could do to neutralize the forces, but if it was something that she couldn’t neutralize, such as fully rotating his body, she refrained from doing it.
Exploiting another one of the ARMS devices’ weaknesses, Jason followed up his dagger stab to one enemy with jamming his sword directly into the face of another Krizian. The default armor of the ARMS devices had no head protection, leaving them incredibly vulnerable, yet most enemies never aim for their opponent’s head. Maybe it was a fear that the “magic” couldn’t heal their brains and it was just a universally accepted etiquette that had developed, or more likely, they just hadn’t thought of it. The armor that most of the other species wore had no helmets if they wore helmets at all and from what Jason knew almost none of the other species were advanced enough on their home planets to have developed medical science far enough to know just how core to their being the head was. On the other hand, for some of the species, the head wasn’t where their brain was. Some even had neural networks that was the equivalent of their brains distributed throughout their entire body so that cutting off a single part really didn’t mean anything to them in the same way it meant to those species who had centralized minds like Humans.
The Krizian soldier slumped to the ground, dead, or quickly reaching the point of permanent death according to Human technological limits. It wasn’t sure just how far gone someone could be and still be brought back by the technology available on Debris. A soldier behind him was sent flying with a kick that Gabi controlled. The Krizians hesitated. Jason and Gabi did not. His sword flashed across the faces of next two Krizians clockwise in a circle around him. One of the soldier’s eyes were cut, blinding them. The other Krizian’s height was enough of a difference that his eyes were saved, but his mouth were split, making his mouth take on the appearance of a clown’s smile. They screamed and grasped at their wounds while Jason’s left arm under the power of Gabi blocked an attack by soldier behind Jason. He spun his blade into a reverse grip and trusted Gabi into the belly of the attacker thrusting it backwards. He felt his weapon plunge into the guts of his attacker, twisted, and pulled it up, making the damage a guaranteed killing blow.
None of the Krizian soldiers were particularly well trained in either melee or ranged combat, but more so in melee. It showed. The soldier attacked, more or less, one at a time, and each of their attacks were easily batted away as if they were nothing, or countered and laid waste to them. Jason gave them no sympathy. They were attempting to kill him and no matter how scared they became they had committed to their attack. Worse, though, was that they were protecting, serving, and promoting a culture that was created by Chris and looked upon him as a god. He had already shown his corrupt morals back in Gondaluke and it was unlikely that he had turned over a new leaf when he rose to such status. The culture that not only allowed him to thrive, but raised him to the highest ranks could not be a good people. Even if they were in the beginning, if they had reached this level of madness to continue to attack him when they could see that Jason was a way out and away from such insanity, in Jason’s mind, they had gone past the point of no return. These soldiers had likely caused horrors beyond what he could even think of, not even just because they were following orders, though that is certainly what they might say, they did it because they believe that what they were doing was right. They had convinced themselves that anything they did was done for the good of all.