He seemed… Calm. Self-assured. But there was also reluctance, as though he had only thought up the terms seconds before speaking them out loud, hoping that Armless would accept them. Taking into account the rather lackluster information available to him, Armless decided it was best to accept. Before he answered, he looked side to side, non-verbally asking for the approval of his comrades. Red-eye’s masked gaze asked for his trust. Rika’s and the Word-bearer’s wary stares questioned his trust in the lilac-armed gunslinger. Vezkig had reached an ephemeral state of absolute anxiety and dissociated from the stresses of reality, filled with the sudden optimism of a man with the noose around his neck and nothing to lose. Armless raised his head, making sure to lock eyes with the Ecclesiarch as he did so. “I accept your offer.”
The very moment he said that, the ruler turned to his protegé and gave a sharp nod. The Unadorned Warrior got up and began walking briskly towards the pit, grabbing a traditional slug-thrower rifle as he stood up. He reached its edge only seconds after Nesgon did, leaning in next to him to whisper a request of “May I go first, venerable one?”
Nesgon gave a reluctant nod, and the Unadorned Warrior stepped into the pit.
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No adornments on his armor, that meant he was a newly inducted Truthseeker. Too new. The apparent certainty, the way he moved with a full casement, all too natural for the lack of experience his lack of adornment suggested. For a new inductee to skip basic armor, plating implants, a servo-suit and immediately receive a full casement, that meant he was either someone truly special, or someone in extremely good favor with the Ecclesiarch. And those eyes… There was something familiar that shone through the muddled film of gold that covered his eyes, caused by the active form of the Ecclesiarch’s Blessing. That could only mean he was too strong-willed for the ambient form to take hold. Whoever was inside that armor still had a chance at recovery, Red-eye was certain of it, unlike some of the poor souls that had become so accustomed to the blessing they’d go catatonic without something or someone to worship.
Red-eye steeled his resolve and stepped over the edge and dropped into the pit feet first. The scales of his left hand had regrown, and he wasn’t afraid of losing the whole arm if he needed to fire his beam revolver at full power through his own power. The Ecclesiarch’s arrogance had given them an opportunity to oust him without risking a direct confrontation, and Red-eye couldn’t waste it. Not with Armless relying on him. This atrocity in the name of man had to end.
The Unadorned stepped forward and held out his right hand, expecting a traditional honor greeting before the duel would begin. Red-eye honored the ancient tradition, holding out his bandaged right. A simple handshake, nothing more. They retreated to opposing sides of the pit, up against the walls, and began circling one another, as per tradition. Red-eye lowered his stance, exposing the holster that hung over his left thigh, at perfect hand height when he adopted that specific stance. The fingers of his left hand - six in number, long and spindly, and with an additional knuckle joint - could reach the trigger faster, hold the gun tighter. It would take him less than a fifth of a second to draw and fire, he was confident in that. The new one’s weapon was well-made, but it was generic. A high-caliber slug-thrower with no custom parts, no adornments, nothing beyond what was necessary for it to function at its baseline specs.
Three hundred rounds per minute. A large slug, fired at relatively low muzzle velocity. Enough force to punch punch a hole through his scales, but not enough to cause a serious wound in one shot. Most importantly, it cycled slower than he could draw and fire. He saw the Unadorned raising his gun, already squeezing the trigger as he lined up a shot, clearly aware of the time it took for the bullet to actually begin moving after the trigger was pulled.
His second thumb pulled the gun from its shallow holster. The claw of his index pulled the trigger well before the unadorned one’s weapon could cycle a round into the chamber, for he’d forgotten to chamber one beforehand. A rookie mistake. A lilac beam screamed death as it ripped through the air.
It hit the upper-right chestplate. Drifted diagonally upwards. Across the faceplate of his helmet. Metal and polymer rupturing. Exploding inward. Molten steel and polymer in an inches-deep wound.
A sonic crack. Another. And another.
Three slugs ripped through the air. The Unadorned Warrior’s aim was quickly thrown off.The pain of the unworldly light. It burned both his body and blessing equally. Still, two slugs hit home. One buried in his chest. Shattered scales, ripped muscles. It was stopped by his ribcage. The other struck a plate. One of the few left on his torso. The combined impact staggered even him. For a moment, he saw into the warrior’s helmet. The wound was covered. Molten steel and polymer. A third of his face, gone. The rest was familiar, however. He wasn’t sure how. The audience screamed louder than he did.
His opponent fell to one knee. Red-eye raised his gun. It was still cycling. The warrior raised his gun. Another burst. All three hit home, buried in his chest. And another. He felt his ribs cracking. Breaking. Fragments of bone and metal digging into meat. The slug-thrower was as custom as it could get. Elegant in its violence. Not fitting to the Truthseekers’ bravado. A fresh crystal cycled into the chamber of his gun. He couldn’t go on fighting like this. Not with that slug-thrower in play. He pulled the trigger. Another beam lanced out. He swung it rightward, cutting the unadorned one’s slugthrower in half. It put a second molten gash across the warrior’s chest, intersecting the first.
But the Unadorned had already fired again before he did.
Two of the slugs, the beam cut in half. The third tumbled, impacted lower than intended. It hit his gun instead of his arm. The tumbling slug ricocheted off it, deforming the main body, wreaking havoc on key components, and embedding itself into the wall.
A gun for a gun.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have power armor.
Red-eye chuckled, staring the unadorned warrior the eye. He let go of his gun and raised a hand. “I concede,” he rumbled through his mask, loudly enough that it echoed throughout the hall. The unadorned one lowered his gun and went limp, resting against the wall. At least he had the decency to accept surrender. Of the things considered dishonorable in a duel, killing your opponent after they try to surrender was not one of them. It was over in the span of a few seconds. The audience saw little more than eye-wateringly fast movements. They saw a masked gunman firing an unholy weapon powered by the unworldly light. Permanently crippling a holy warrior. Destroying his weapon. Branding him with an upside-down, mirrored numeral seven.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Sitting down and admitting his defeat, a grin undoubtedly plastered across his concealed face.
The Ecclesiarch leapt from his throne, briskly walking over to the edge of the pit. He was clearly upset, his holier-than-thou facade broken. He stared into the pit, unmoving, undoubtedly struggling against the old magic that forced him to fulfill the Right of Heresy. He’d jump into the pit himself and try to kill Red-eye then and there, were he able to. It seemed he was about to command one of the High Chaplains to pull the new one out of the pit, but to Red-eye’s surprise, he managed to struggle to his feet, and using his broken weapon for support, walk over to the ladder. He grunted in pain with each movement, but he got out of the pit on his own. The Unadorned Warrior, struggling as he did, managed to stand at attention, covering his wounds with his arms. Red-eye gave the Ecclesiarch one more look as he lowered his hand, and raised his mask just high enough to expose his grinning mouth before putting it back in place.
It looked like the uptight prissy noble was going to explode with the flowery expletives he undoubtedly wanted to unleash. “Get out of the pit, heretic. You will die a thousand deaths for what you just did after this travesty is over,” he spat. Red-eye was more than happy to oblige. He wasn’t in bad shape all things considered, but he wasn’t suicidal. When he returned to his place between Armless and Rika, somewhat expecting disappointment, he was surprised with looks of appreciation and a pat on the back. “You’ve gotten faster,” Armless commented, his pinprick eye-lights shifting to meet his eyes while his head remained stationary. It was on skull--face, now. Red-eye had no doubts that he’d succeed.
The audience was still hollering. Some were yelling about Red-eye’s usage of void energy to inflict wounds in the shape of an inverted seven, proclaiming it as a divine omen. The Ecclesiarch gestured and stated “Silence.” with such gusto that he had to have been waiting for an opportunity to do it. The audience fell silent. It was time for the second duel.
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Nesgon nodded at Armless and stepped into the pit, the skull-faced man following suit. The old dragon held out a hand, and the hooded stranger shook it. They both let go, stepped back, and began circling one another. He could see the fingers of Nesgon’s right hand twitching. A flash of white light from within his helmet. A thunderous roar. A kicked-up cloud of black sand. A bolt of orange plasma ripped through, aimed at the spot exactly where Armless’s head had been only moments prior, scoring a shallow pit into the stone. The sand settled, and for but a brief moment, he could see sparks dancing between the old dragon’s fingers. There was a hole near the wrist of the gauntlet, where the palm of his cybernetic hand fit into it. A wave of hushed whispers swept through the audience. Someone proclaimed “Dragonfire!” in an amazed tone.
Armless finally felt his combat calculation subroutines coming online. The world slowed, he felt every fibre of his musculature contracting and releasing, every grain of black sand grinding against his feet, every pair of eyes that rested on him. “Power reroute, muscular system,” he commanded. An affirmative ping. He lowered himself for a brief moment before breaking into a zig-zagging lunge, three more bolts of plasma soaring around him and scorching the edges of his disguise as he did so. He didn’t expect Nesgon to completely throw the fight. He’d have to make it believable.
His body slammed into the old dragon’s side, and Armless wrapped his left arm halfway around his waist, the top of his head pressed up against his armor. The arm’s power demand drew on his reservoirs, but it was fine. Nesgon grabbed him by the shoulders, sparks crackling around his right hand as though he was going to blast off his opponent’s limb. Armless felt his muscles contracting, his joint servos kicking in, power surging through his left arm as it contracted with a truly titanic gripping strength, sufficient to make Nesgon’s armor emit horrible creaking noises that would remind one of a submarine hull buckling under water pressure.
The cloaked, one-armed man lifted the Supreme Chaplain’s tremendous bulk above his head and fell backwards. A wave of horrified gasps swept through the audience, and even the Ecclesiarch’s eyes went wide. He got back on his feet almost instantly, far too quickly for any living thing to do so. Cries of “Homunculus!” and “Blacktech!” rung out, only silenced by the same white light and a blast of force to free the Old Dragon’s head from the sand. The sheer force of it knocked Armless towards the arena’s walls, his impact against the stone sufficient to kill a normal man. Nesgon seemed unscathed, rumbling out “Impressive lifting strength, heretic.” as he fired off another shot, aimed at Armless’s chest. Armless used the wall as a jumping-off point, darting towards the ground with his arm out like some sort of animal. He rolled, two more orange bolts slamming into the sand behind him before he slammed his left hand against Nesgon’s right, locking fingers with him. The old dragon grabbed his side with his free hand, as if to rip him away, but Armless’s grip remained ironclad. Second by second, he closed his hand more and placed more stress on the plating of Nesgon’s plasma projector hand. The metal strained and buckled under his hand’s supreme gripping strength, and Nesgon continued tokenly trying to pull him away.
The struggle went on for a few seconds, then half a minute. The two warriors incrementally shifted across the arena, but neither would let go. Nesgon was giving him time, trusting in his ability to disable the plasma projector so he could justifiably stop using it.
Crunch.
Armless felt the plating finally give way in his vice-like grip and he let go, allowing Nesgon to throw him aside. His body slammed against the wall. “Supreme Chaplain, end this,” the Ecclesiarch’s voice resounded, and Armless felt something. A slithering presence, fruitlessly trying to wrap itself around his mind. An eerie stillness grabbed Nesgon’s eyes, his body froze and he started trying to pull Armless off in earnest. “Understood, your holiness,” Nesgon’s voice boomed, strongly enough to kick up more sand. The Unadorned Warrior’s head snapped towards the Ecclesiarch, as if the theocrat had said something utterly inconceivable. Nesgon’s tremendous bulk rocketed forward, his right forearm driving him into the stone while his left hand slammed into the wall only inches from his head, cracking it. It would’ve snapped a normal man in half. The Old Dragon leaned in, and for the briefest moment, froze. His ancient will overwhelmed the blessing which had taken control of his body for just long enough to hiss “The blessing. Burn it out.” in a strained voice. Armless gave a nod, and siphoned energy from his capacitors. His legs raised, compressed like tremendous springs, muscle moving out of the way and joints bending beyond what seemed possible to accommodate the contortion.
A sonic crack.
An earth-shaking impact.
Nesgon hit the wall, the chestplate of his armor dented, almost ruptured.
Armless intended to simply use his right arm, but… He didn’t want to kill the old dragon. His left was conductive enough. Its livingmetal plating might be conductive enough to burn out the blessing, if he were to penetrate Nesgon’s armor and plunge his hand into the seam between the old man’s flesh and metal halves. Channeling a pulse of void energy into the gap to exploit Nesgon’s own energy infrastructure might propagate the pulse all throughout his body…
“Your holiness, you said you wouldn’t do that!” Orsha’s voice echoed from the Unadorned Warrior’s disfigured face. Red-eye had destroyed the voice filter. “I said I would try not to, now be silent,” the Ecclesiarch said dismissively. Armless turned his head to look at Orsha. The young one’s eyes drifted to meet his.