Devin was pissed. Here he was, relegated to being the obnoxious loudmouth’s assistant. He reached out with his Gauntlet and deflected another stabbing dart from driving into her neck.
As thanks, she stepped into him, stumbled for a quarter of a second then screamed, “Hey idiot! I’m trying to keep you alive so stay the fuck out of my way.”
See if he would block another dart for that bitch.
Well, he didn’t want to get eaten by crabs so he would. That didn’t dissuade his growing dislike for her even a little.
That asshole “Jack.” Devin had recognized the color of the guy’s shield the instant he had seen it. “Jack” had HIS Shield-Attachment for HIS Gauntlet. Devin had already integrated the Punch-Blade Attachment.
He had never fit in, “not worth the Nano” they had said. He had stolen, hid, lied, and fought his way to a distant corner of the Labs and been blessed to find a Terminal that had “My First Gauntlet” in its shop. He had stolen just enough Nano from those assholes he had called friends to get the Gauntlet and the Punch-Blade Attachment.
With the two he had managed to find a catalyst to evolve his Constitution and become stronger than he had ever been before.
The fact that there were other people here as strong or stronger than him pissed him off even further. The fact that this “Jack-ass” had taken what was rightfully his. The Gauntlet belonged to him. The Shield-Attachment belonged to the Gauntlet. Therefore it belonged to him. It all annoyed him to no end.
Instead he got to watch the other guy play hero. If he had HIS rightful Shield Attachment he WOULD be the one being the hero, not just playing it. He’d be protecting everyone in front.
How many people had that man killed already with his subpar ability? If only he had the Shield, he wouldn’t be back here playing unappreciated assistant. He would be the big shot.
He used the Gauntlet’s punch-blade to drive his fist and a punch-blade from his knuckles into the front of its carapace, then used the Gauntlet’s default buckler to redirect a stream of condensed acid into a pool on the ground.
He’d do this, but first chance he got, he’d get the Shield Attachment, then he’d be the hero.
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“Can I see that?” Jonah pointed to a device strapped to her belt.
“See what?”
“That’s an Algorath Wrist Rocket isn’t it?”
Yuma finally turned a hair and gave him one of her indecipherable looks, “Yeah. And?”
“I can fix it.” He saw her pause then duck as an odd-shaped bolt of dark-flashing blue blew off the edge of Jack’s shield and continued past where her head had been.
“Ok, don’t die. I want it back.”
He handled and looked over the poor thing. She hadn’t taken very good care of it. With a satisfied smile various energies sparked off the tips of each of his fingers.
Finally, he could be useful again. He didn’t like not having something to tinker with, in fact he needed it more than ever as death dealt itself all around him.
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Korl was desperately fighting against despondency. He couldn’t help but feel like a liability now; if he hadn’t spent so much time practicing with his offhand he would have already declared himself “Unviable” and thrown himself into one of the traps.
He looked ahead and saw Tule roaming around the front half of the group, darting in and out in support of Jack and Yuma.
With him from birth, Tule was a brother, a mentor, and a friend all in one so as much as he tried to summon some indignation about his arm, he couldn’t manage to hold onto anything but a growing sadness. He used his sword to slap away darts that were aimed at his chest and head.
Korl knew that cuts with Tule’s weapon were exponentially more expensive to heal than normal cuts, even compared to blade-claws or even a laser cauterization. Tule had taken off his own pinky when he first got the Toothpick when he had first been practicing throwing and catching it.
It would have been cheaper to buy a fresh arm up to the shoulder than it would be to regenerate that small digit. He didn’t know how it worked but he knew that the missing pinky sometimes annoyed Tule and yet, still, he hadn’t gotten it regrown.
Still, his pride, built and formed as the hereditary, Wandering Lord of the Sword's Heir refused to let him completely give into pity for himself. His teetering sense of pride kept his emotions stabilized in a delicate balance; it was still a tough burden for someone as young as him to face.
A deep rumbling nearly knocked Korl off his feet before instinct kicked in and he spun to the side and his blade flashed into high-guard, responded with a stabbing half-lunge, then redirected another strike with an faltering offhand parry that he failed to capitalize on. He turned his mistimed parry into a wild distancing-slash to drive some space between whoever, or whatever, that had attacked him.
To the side, running alongside, step for step, was a crab, taller than he was. It had 6 arms, the two bottom were small and humanlike, the next two were inverted on each side. The crab’s right had a pincer on top and a blade below it, on the left had a blade on top and a pincer below it.
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He shouted a warning that he didn’t check to see if anyone heard.
The two continued to trade blows while they ran amongst the traps.
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Jack didn’t, couldn’t, slow down as he hit the Nano-Cloud at full speed, he had already seen it starting to dissipate.
He was kind of shocked by how long it had taken them to catch up to the cloud, either his arm was an absolute cannon or Yuma sent some serious charge into her zapp. Probably a bit of both. On one hand, he couldn’t see more than a foot or so around himself, and on the other hand, the Nano-Cloud seemed to have jammed the traps in the area.
He considered the development a net-positive.
As he settled this minor debate, faint green beams started to struggle and dissipate through the cloud. They stopped as a static build-up caused his hair to lift off his head.
He had no time to figure it out before Yuma rammed herself into his back, wrapping her arms around his chest and tried to move his left hand, holding the Zappa, towards his forearm. He felt the massive zapp she was getting ready to release.
He didn’t know what was going on with her, but faster than thought, he knew that asking her a question at this moment would be the wrong move, he depressed the button as electricity flowed into his forearm. They came out of the cloud with a small electrical corona storming and flaring around them.
The turret is close, was the extent of thought that Jack had time to process before a roaring green-static beam, a full foot and a half across, impacted into the center of his shield.
The flare off from the initial impact launched short-lived green arcs that preceded several garbled screams and even more gushing pops to rip out from inside the cloud.
Jack and Yuma heard none of this as the electricity sparked and swam between them.
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Jonah came out behind Tule, who was laying on the floor directly behind Jack and Yuma, unconscious as electricity poured into his prone body. Directly ahead he saw the degeneration cannon in the middle of unloading a massive beam into Jack’s shield.
It felt like he was wearing sound dampeners as their simultaneous screams fought to overcome the static stifling every other sound in the corridor.
He turned back towards the cloud, “Stop! Stay in the Nano-Cloud!” He had to yell several times but finally it seemed that it had gotten through. He caught a few indistinct figures fade back into the cloud. Inside the cloud he heard the constant background noise of feet slapping the ground slow down as his warning was relayed. The movement of feet then shifted to a scattered patter as clashing blades and firing weapons started to filter from deep within.
He didn’t hesitate as he spiked the Nano in his brain, he hated doing this because he was absolutely going to lose IQ Allocation for it, but the slowed time perception and raw IQ boost made it worth doing in the right circumstances. This counted as the "right circumstance.” It cost him an Allocation point for 10 seconds in the enhanced state.
His hands started moving before he knew what he was doing.
Oh yeah, this was the stuff.
He put the ball of newly-constructed ammunition into the cradle of the recently-repaired Algorath Wrist Rocket and pulled back as he took aim. The boost countdown was being monitored on an Auxiliary Mind-Channel of his and continued its count downwards, 3…2…1…
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It was chaos and it was death. He knew this and the Clan knew this. They were within a half of a kilometer of the scrapped cannon before electricity started flowing through every surface of the corridor.
In a split second the current discharged into their back line as it froze the 20 rear Shield Guards’ movements for a long, terrible second. The crabs, with their electric-resistant chitin, capitalized on the new weakness.
Right next to him an emerging gravity-generation trap smashed one of his shield-bearing Head Guard into the ground as paste.
“Forward! Move forward! Maintain formation!” Staying in formation is how they beat back the Forsaken Army of Clones 380,000 cycles ago and it would help them now.
He almost immediately regretted that decision as a burst of fire cut through the side of an entire row of soldiers. They were turned into clouds of floating, charred Nano.
Leanne, the Sentinel, was already directing her Sentries to float between the formations to try and destroy the traps before they were able to fire off.
One of her Sentries called out a warning about electrical build up before a laser swept through the man and another of her Sentries, ending its sweeping path half-a-foot deep into the back of the clan member holding the force shield in front. A second laser in front immediately fired off into the front of the formation and cut through the troops behind the fallen force shielder.
He recalled History and thought of the present as he wove around a wash of acid from the ceiling and a flame-jet trap that burned through his second guard’s shield. He raised his hand and met the trap’s flame with his own jet of white hot flame that he fired out of his raised palm.
He couldn’t help but grin as he turned up the output as the mechanism in the wall struggled against him for a split second before it was cored out by his own Sacred Flame.
“Sentinel, to me.”
“Aye Clan Head?” She said in between shouting out orders and warnings to soldiers around her.
“Notice anything?”
“The traps are getting worse the longer we stay here.” The oldest machine she had ever seen came out of the wall and was able to charge up, temporarily unopposed, in the chaos.
It started up a laser torch in each of its six arms as it spun and blended through the side of a squad. Only after it had worked its way through the back of five or six clan troops did four shield bearers manage to surround it from all sides and fire their repeaters at point blank range. It took off one of their legs at the knee before it went completely down.
“Well done and correct, I want everyone moving as fast as possible, wounded will provide cover for the safety of the Clan against the crabs on the rear-flank, minimal rearguard otherwise.”
She started to shout for someone to carry the wounded.
"Leanne. The wounded will remain behind." Leanne, the Sentinel, paused for a second, which was a second longer than usual. "Understood Clan Head."
After finishing her current set of orders she turned to report again, "Clan Head, a few of the Monitors and a Sentry of mine have reported sensing an energetic build up in the walls before a trap comes online.”
Yes. He could see that now, none of those feckless Monitors had died yet. They hadn’t been yelling out any warnings either, he would Sublimate them for their selfishness, but not right now.
“I want Monitors spread throughout the formation…”
“Clan Head.” He looked over at her, she was not one to interrupt him. “We could split up the Monitors with groups of Sentries that could target the traps before they have a chance to hit the rest of the formation.”
“Good initiative Sentinel, so it is.”
“So it shall be,” she was off, dodging traps and shouting orders as the last word left her mouth.
He reminded himself of the Kwaloon Disaster of the 4th Era, where many of the details of their History had been lost.
That is why he carried the original copies of the Kintu’s Tomes of History on his back now in a protective casing. With their comforting weight resting on his back, he resolved that he wouldn’t allow that to happen here.