No sooner had Caedril fallen than a flurry of energy blasts flashed past Zayd to explode against the nearest tunnel wall in a shower of shattered rock. Zayd triggered his flight system and launched himself towards the ceiling of the tunnel only to see the brilliant azure energy blasts continue tracking toward him! Throwing himself into a sideways roll, Zayd passed his maul back to the rail system and drew his Firelance, rapidly searching the dark for the source of the energy blasts.
An active scanning pulse flashed out from Zayd’s Saighdear combat armor while passive systems tracked each of the energy blasts back to their origin. A moment later, a targeting sensor appeared in his vision, highlighting a partially exposed figure hunkered behind a pile of rubble. The armored figure carried a large, three-barreled weapon that pulsed rapidly to unleash a storm of energy blasts in Zayd’s direction. The only thing saving Zayd at the moment was that the guard prioritized his cover over his ability to aim accurately and many shots went wide as Zayd continued to dodge through the air.
Finally, Zayd managed to find a rock slab to take cover behind to line up his own shot. The Firelance wasn’t a rapid-fire weapon, each shot had to be charged before it was unleashed and the time it took meant that Zayd wouldn’t be able to line up his shot before charging the weapon. If he tried, the guard with the three-barreled gun would tear him apart before he could get a shot off! Instead, Zayd flipped the selector of the Firelance back to explosive bursts and began to charge the weapon. His accuracy would be poor, but if he could create a large enough explosive blast, it wouldn’t matter.
Wave after wave of energy blasts slammed into the rock slab that Zayd used for cover, rapidly cracking the massive slab of volcanic rock and obscuring everything in the tunnel behind a cloud of rock dust. Zayd relied entirely on his combat armor’s sensors as he popped up above the slab to launch an explosive blast of thermal energy at the guard with a three-barreled gun.
When Zayd unleashed his counterattack, two things happened at nearly the same instant. First, a fireball slammed into the pile of rubble the guard hunkered behind with tremendous force, enveloping the pile of rubble in an expanding ball of flame that almost reached the opposite tunnel wall. Second, a different energy blast came from the opposite direction, slamming into Zayd’s Firelance with a CRUNCH-CRACKLE of electrical discharge. The weapon may not have completely shattered in his grasp but the lance bent sharply off to the side and acrid smoke poured from the fried circuits of the sophisticated Fae weapon.
“Champion,” a pleasant feminine voice called over the open com channel. “My name is Haelith Duum of the House of Duum, vassal of Lady Nimue Gael,” she said, stepping out into the open and allowing Zayd to get a good look at her. The diminutive woman was even shorter than Zayd’s unarmored figure but he barely noticed her height as he took in the distinct difference between her armor and the armor of every other Fae he’d encountered. While the flight systems of most Fae conjured a pair of distinctive energy wings, Haelith Duum’s armor covered a set of genuine flesh and blood wings! The edges of her wings gleamed wickedly with an energy field that radiated a deadly aura of sharpness. In her right hand, she held a similarly glowing curved sword while the left hand held a half-meter-long hand cannon that crackled with destructive energy of its own. Zayd didn’t need warning alarms from his armor to rate this woman as incredibly dangerous!
“I’m Zayd, Champion of Lady Nimue Gael,” he replied on the open channel. “Good shot.”
“I’m sorry… unfair… reward… dinner,” the winged woman said, faster than Zayd could keep up with his limited mastery of the Fae language. There were a few familiar words he was able to pick out but he knew he was missing more than half of what she said. “I can’t… you pass. This… doesn’t… between us,” she finished, raising her blade and taking a ready stance.
“Do what you must,” Zayd said after a moment, retrieving his maul from the rail system and taking a ready stance of his own. The Dark Energy meter in the corner of his vision was already dangerously low and he only had a minute of Dark Empowerment left to use his enhanced speed and agility before he’d either lose the benefit or be forced to expend even more energy to maintain it. Adjusting the grip on his maul, Zayd charged at the winged Fae, hoping to close the distance before she could get off more than a single shot from her hand cannon.
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The wielder of the three-barreled gun further down the tunnel didn’t intend to let Zayd have an easy charge. While his armor bore several scorch marks from Zayd’s Firelance, he clearly still had plenty of fight left. Moreover, now that Zayd had lost his Firelance, the soldier was free to expose more of his body to take a better firing stance. Energy blasts slammed into the rock floor near Zayd or whizzed past him before a chain of impacts slammed into his left side.
At the same time, Haelith Duum snapped off another shot from her hand cannon that Zayd didn’t quite manage to dodge. The edges of the crackling bolt slammed into his right pauldron triggering another wave of alarms in his armor as the artificial muscles in the shoulder became sluggish.
Thankfully, the gunner stopped shooting a moment later when Zayd brought his maul crashing down toward Haelith Duum. The shorter woman blocked the heavy strike with her curved sword and immediately pressed back against Zayd with a counterattack aimed directly at his face! The two warriors fell into a rapid exchange of blows as both sought an opportunity to land a real blow against the other.
Sweat poured from Zayd’s body while his mind searched frantically for a way out of this nightmare. If he disengaged from Haelith to get room for a heavier swing, the gunner down the tunnel instantly opened fire with a flurry of energy bolts, and Haelith herself took any such movement as an opportunity to snap off another crackling energy blast from her hand cannon. It seemed like the only way that he could get through this was to stay locked in close enough melee combat that the gunner didn’t dare to fire for fear of hitting his partner.
Things became even worse for Zayd when the Dark Energy Empowerment ended and his speed and agility dropped noticeably. Zayd let it go. Rather than renew his existing empowerment, he opted to do something else to break the current stalemate.
[DARK ENERGY EMPOWERMENT:]
[STRENGTH: 6 -> 7 (TEMPORARY)]
[SPEED: 4 -> 5 (TEMPORARY)]
[TIME REMAINING: 5 MINUTES]
Since he couldn’t get the room to land a heavy blow with his maul, the only way he could think of to overcome the current deadlock was to generate more power in each of his blows.
The change took Haelith by surprise as blocking Zayd’s strikes started to send shivers down her arm. The Champion seemed to have given up on landing a solid blow on her body and instead went on to aim his attacks directly at her sword arm! Alarms blared in her armor as he succeeded in landing a surprisingly powerful blow on her elbow that locked up the joint and made resisting his attacks considerably more difficult. Desperate to prevent herself from being overpowered, Haelith triggered her flight system to propel her backward, switching to her hand cannon to unleash another crackling energy shot.
It was the moment Zayd had been hoping for. With just enough space to generate a larger swing, he squeezed out every last drop of enhanced speed he possessed and slammed the head of his maul into the winged Fae’s gut. Unfortunately, her hasty retreat robbed the blow of much of its force but the impact seemed to have staggered her as she didn’t immediately retaliate when she landed roughly, knocked several meters away from Zayd.
Zayd’s victory was short-lived, however, as a storm of energy bolts from the gunner slammed into him, raking along his armored figure from legs to head. Alarms blared in his armor as several components on the schematic changed from healthy green or lightly damaged blue to heavily damaged purple and finally disabled black. A moment later, a message flashed across his vision.
EXCESSIVE DAMAGE. DISABLING.
“Victory for Fist Leader Sioban,” Tael’s voice sounded on a com channel available to everyone involved in the drill. “Pack up and return,” he said tersely.
Moments later, damage indicators cleared from Zayd’s armor, allowing him to pick himself up from the floor of the tunnel and return to the waiting shuttle. He hadn’t secured a single objective. While he could claim victory in his one-on-one confrontations, it was abundantly clear that it didn’t take much for him to be overwhelmed by superior numbers. With the assault on Bad Penny Station just a day away, Zayd was afraid of what Wing Leader Tael and the other Fae leaders would think of his disappointing performance in this exercise. He had no idea whether they’d even let him participate in the raid or if Lady Nimue would declare him unfit to be a Champion. Whatever their judgment was, he was about to find out.