Jack deployed his shield and started to move forward. Why hadn’t the AI claw worked? Maybe he had to hit one of the cracked-blue spots. So the face, or perhaps something deep inside of its metallic form. He grimaced, now he couldn’t make out anything as the weight of fire drilled into him, making every step a jittering, shaky affair. He felt the static of its activation as it washed static through his brain for a crucial second. The sudden shift in lateral gravity compounded the lapse.
Something big swiped across his shield and sent him off spinning shield first and, in the same instant, the cyborg peppered his spinning form with a flurry of small caliber defensive rounds.
As he spun off, his stance broken by the strike and the gravitic shift, he felt hot bars of electricity pop around him and pump into him.
Even with Yuma’s help, even if he could somehow beat this… thing. He knew it would cost too much time, time he didn’t have to waste here. The ship’s protesting groan from every side meant that the old girl was in firm agreement. Shame.
It was a small comfort that he had lasted longer than before, with his new stats, but still, this guy was ridiculous.
He landed and a number of small rounds that had recently taken residence in his body fell out of him with an electrical ‘pop’, he bolted to the side and kept his shield up to block the continual streams of projectiles. Could this guy stop shooting for a ship-damned second?!
He saw the electricity in the big cannon start to wind up again, then he stopped short and a sudden shift in a pocket of gravity helped further throw off the cannon shot. Jack abandoned a charge toward the HoS as he saw another big shot was coming his way. He continued to maneuver through the broken room as he thought of a plan. A Nano-Bomb blew out a cloud of obfuscating Nano before he felt someone grab and shock his ankle. He dove next to them below a Terminal.
Jack narrowed his eyes, “Where’d you get the Nano-Bomb?”
Yuma’s eyes widened then turned to slits as she turned her gaze toward Jonah. He held his ground for impressive seconds before it started to get to him.
“What?! I’m supposed to just hand over all my Nano, all the time!?”
“I had to! Why didn't you use it in the Bridge-Core?"
"Y... you'd have wanted to share it!"
"Selfish! So selfish!"
Jack listened to them argue as his mind whirled. Damn, he really needed some sort of heavy long-range attack, or… a distraction. He didn’t see how else was he going to get close enough to do damage.
Stupid stupid stupid. The answer is so obvious it’s causing me actual pain. Impressive. That you’ve survived this long.
Jack bit down on his tongue until it drew blood.
I can’t hurt her, remember? We have the same goals.
Jack believed that second part as much as he trusted a mushroom, maybe even as much as he trusted a crab. Well, he was already putting some faith in the mushrooms, not that he didn’t have to compel them to get even that. Still, they should hold up their end of the bargain. Probably. He was counting on the fact that they developed on the ship and didn’t want to die before spreading. He grinned.
“Hey. Yuma. I’m gonna- just don’t zapp me for a bit. He can’t hurt you on the ship, I need him.”
This level of self-awareness from Jack was… Well, she couldn’t decide if it was good news or not. She had a creeping suspicion.
Jack guarded his head as he stood up and absorbed a flurry of fire, then tried to dodge a big shell that clipped his Gauntlet as he was violently shoved back into cover. His half-broken form bleed intensely, she instinctively moved to push a zapp, but Jack looked at her through his one remaining eye and croaked, “Don’t.”
Current pushed through Jack as his electricity stores drained to heal him. Bullets were pushed out of his flesh, things rebuilt. The pace slowed then stopped. Jack crouched and plucked a few rounds that were still embedded partway through his flesh.
“Miss Yumata.”
She leapt back before Jonah slapped her lightbar threatening hand from firing.
“Will you stop that, Jack wanted me to come out. Besides, I’m not some sort of crazed freak. I’m here to help.”
The Smile that stretched overly wide across Jack’s face told her otherwise.
“I promised not to hurt you either.” NotJack snaked a tongue over his exposed teeth, then paused, overly long, before peeking above their cover. He snapped back down below.
“So, don’t shock me.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Okay, I won’t shock you.” For now.
“Idiot didn’t leave me a lot of time.” He rummaged through his pocket and pulled out the, somehow intact, Zapp Kill’s Electro-Kill Far Zappa.
He took the instructional card and threw the Zappa itself to the side. He had sounded confident when talking with Jack, but, if anyone was able to tell, and they would be, of course, this was much more of a risk than he’d prefer.
> Zapp Kill’s Electro-Kill Far Zappa
>
> A famous bounty hunter, Zapp Kill was to be feared.
>
> Ironically enough besides his eponymous name, Zapp Kill was famous for his non-lethal takedowns.
>
> This Zappa this is modeled after is one of Zapp’s personal creations before he became a bounty hunter as he worked as a bouncer to settle club fights between heavily intoxicated Iridians. This model is mostly aimed at trendy urban dwellers who, on occasion, may have to scare off large rat-kin, small to medium-small canines, the occasional trash demon, and too insistent dates who don’t get the hint.
>
> To Charge, shake the Device back and forth.
>
> To Use, simply press the button to shoot an Electro-Zap up to six units away. For Close Contact use, hold the button and apply to target.
>
> Not for use ages 10 and under.
He flipped it over.
> Instructions for safe use:
>
> 1. Grip Device firmly.
> 2. Aim end towards target.
> 3. If at a distance up to six feet away depress the center button once. An electrical charge will be emitted toward the target.
> 4. If target is in touch distance the Zap Kill’s Electro-Kill Zappa can be held in contact with skin (ineffective against chitin), press and hold the button until the desired effect has been reached.
>
> Manufacturer’s Warning:
>
> DO NOT use internally.
>
> DO NOT hold down the button greater than 6 seconds unless immune to plasma-based reactions.
>
> DO NOT use if wet, if target is wet, or in the presence of H2O-based bodily secretions.
>
> DOES NOT work against organo-silico based lifeforms.
>
>
>
> By using this item you accept full responsibility and release Zapp Kill, Zapp Kill’s Industrium Emporium, and designated retailers from any liability or damages.
>
> Complaints can be filed by pressing the reset button on the back side of the device where the dispute will be mediated outside of a court of law under guidance of a Detronian Death Judge.
>
> To file a dispute simply hold the device reset and say “I, (your name) formally request a dispute resolution with Zapp Kill's Industrium Emporium, witnessed by a High Arbiter of Detron as compacted by His Lord Slareel…
“I, Jackson, formally request an immediate dispute resolution with Zapp Kill’s Industrium Emporium, witnessed by a High Arbiter of Detron as compacted by His Lord SSlareel Tegoradda-
The next words came in a blood-gushing rush, his eyes turned blurry, but if there was one thing that Jackson had in spades, it was focus. Of course, he had more than that, but easily enough for this.
Blood leaked from the edges of his mouth before his voice box cracked and words came out in a harsh whisper that flecked blood across the deck in front of him. It didn’t even cross Yuma and Jonah’s minds to make light of the crack, in fact, they didn’t even notice it, as their surroundings started to tint themselves red. They noticed that as the volume of fire into their position increased even further. The blood that flowed from his mouth was pulled onto the deck in greater and greater quantities as Jack’s form started to hollow out in dehydration.
The eldritch swirl of blood spun itself into a circle, spinning faster and faster before picking itself upright as the circle of blood became an oval, and then became narrower as it spun faster and faster, quickly forming itself into a jagged whirling vertical line.
It popped and splattered boiling blood like a shotgun into the surroundings as it dropped to absolute silence, bullets still traveling in the air slowed to a crawl for a long, entirely, unnaturally long fraction of a second.
A great rent ripped open and screams distantly came through, as if a thousand-thousand voices were being slowly murdered somewhere just beyond perception. The sound made the insides of their ears itch. Jack laid on the ground, faintly breathing, eyes glinting and Smile, not quite as wide, but similarly enthusiastic as usual.
“Who brings corporate dispute to the Lord Arbiter?”
After all, few were foolish enough to risk doing so. The voice came from an… oversized man, with dark orange skin, 4 eyes with two facing forward like a human and two others located on its temples. It was wearing some sort of metal suit cut in lines of overly complicated black, red, and gold. The Lord Arbiter was not… concerned with fairness.
He looked down at Jack, “You. Human? In this sector?”
The figure looked at some screen on his… Gauntlet. Both Jack’s eyes and the figure’s eyes widened as they took each other in.
“So they do come in pairs.”
“Where did you acquire that Gauntlet?”
His were way better and deep red, but unmistakable. The Gauntlets were made of the same strange, rippling, liquid-plastic material.
The long second of temporal injunction ended and the gunfire had been stacking up just outside of the bubble, it all impacted at once, a flurry of gunfire combined with several back to back shots of the heavy cannon impacted into the Lord Arbiter all at once. A double energy shield snapped up but the sheer mass of gunfire launched him backwards. A red-liquid whip struck out against a series of blue shields that popped up to defend. In response, a laser grid flashed several times in quick succession, which meant that the HoS had repaired its capacitor damage.
“Abomination. You dare interrupt a dispute?!”
“Xenos-Freak, you dare enter my ship?!”
Violence erupted in great violent waves around them, shaking the ground and knocking Jackson around. He managed to pull himself up.
Yuma was next to him and his hands turned into claws for a brief second before he relaxed them. She caught it.
“Yumata, you don’t need to electrocute me. I want to escape just as badly, I will be more capa- AGH BITCH! You promised!”
“My name’s not Yumata, it’s Yuma, and I didn’t say for how long I wouldn’t shock you.”
The Smile-Grimace faded and Jack returned a thankful smile, “Thanks Yuma.”
She didn’t return the smile but the zapp she sent into him to ‘make sure’, it said more than a smile.