Now, Manila
Rai needed to do something.
His best friend, Ambrose, was putting his all into the fight with the super-humanly strong shade.
The tall Headhunter had drawn on everything he had, consuming most of the shrunken animal heads on his belt. They granted him enhanced strength, quickness, agility, coordination and toughness, but at a cost. So many gifts at the same time was a tremendous strain on his human body. He couldn’t keep it up for long.
Even then Ambrose at his peak was still weaker than the shade.
Her punches were like striking vipers and Ambrose barely slipped them as he bobbed and weaved.
His Igorot axe was a devastating weapon, but he only managed to score slight cuts with it. The knife in his off-hand couldn’t even do that. The steel gave the shade paper cuts.
Rai opened his magic up to his surroundings.
The shades were like weak candles in the darkness. Close, but nothing like the true spirits he had utilized in the past. Even the weakest of those had shined in comparison.
He felt it then.
Eyes watching him.
Great and powerful.
An overwhelming oppressiveness.
Rai pulled at the candle flames. He couldn’t do more then attempt to blow them out. They flickered, but refused him.
He was too weak.
A minnow in an ocean.
Where the ocean was a living, seething thing that wanted him out.
Visions flashed across his thoughts.
Dead worlds covered in gray. Barren, empty of all other life.
There was a great flash of white followed by darkness.
“The weirdo kid is down,” Mouthy said. “Don’t ask me what happened. One moment he’s meditating and the next he’s… out.”
They didn’t realize what Rai had wrought.
The shades stopped, hesitated. Their physical forms lost cohesion to varying degrees.
The strongest ones barely flickered before resuming combat.
Others grew insubstantial for a few seconds before regaining full corporeality.
Ambrose benefited from this when the girl he was fighting became intangible the moment he had struck her in the side of the neck with his axe.
The girl regained her full physical form with the axe head halfway through her neck. It severed her spinal cord and sent her back to the fog.
Ambrose staggered back near Rai, spent. He nudged his friend, found that he was still breathing and promptly joined him in unconsciousness.
Their flank was clear for the moment so, Sgt. Butcher and the remaining rangers refocused their efforts to the spear line.
The fight there wasn’t going well.
A desperate charge had allowed Marci to pull the injured Doran to safety, but the act had broken Doran’s Skill and now they were in trouble.
The spears had initially given them the range advantage and allowed them to keep most of the shades at bay. Now, several spears had been broken and the orderly line was degenerating into desperate individual fights as the spears, in twos and threes tried to contend with individual shades.
On the other flank Jake kept the shades at bay with sweeps of his Lightning Claw. His prosthetic right hand was wreathed in crackling blue-white magical electricity.
“I need a few seconds to help Rino!” he called out.
Boy, Venida and Gabrio rose to the task.
Jake had lent each one a smartphone that gave them the same mana shield that he had.
“Let’s go!” Boy banged his sledgehammer and riot shield together.
Jake let the trio watch his back while he pulled out a smartphone. The only one with the spell he needed that he had been able to charge with enough mana during the one full day they had spent at the sanctuary. He aimed it carefully at the cluster of shades mobbing Rino and activated it. “Chain Lightning.”
The bright blue-white bolt arced through the melee and avoided every shade until it struck the ones surrounding Rino.
The shades convulsed as the magical electricity coursed through their bodies.
The stench of burned flesh filled the air.
Several of the shades dropped. Charred skin smoked as their bodies slowly disappeared.
Rino stood up. Her face was a bloody, deformed mess. Her fur was matted with blood. Several sharp teeth had been broken. She limped forward and howled.
“Best I can do, girl,” Jake said.
Meanwhile, Boy led Venida and Gabrio in a reckless charge.
“Charge!” the stocky middle-aged man roared.
He knocked a shade out of the way.
The woman had pushed out with a pair of disk-shaped forcefields from the palm of her hands. She wasn’t physically strong enough to stop Boy.
“Smash!” Boy brought his sledgehammer down on the woman.
She blocked it with one forcefield-covered hand.
The forcefield held, but her wrist and arm didn’t.
The impact broke both.
Bone jutted through her skin.
She screamed.
“Get away from my mom!” a young shade leapt at Boy with a spearhand thrust.
He blocked it with his riot shield.
The polycarbonate was impact resistant, but it wasn’t designed to stand up to superhuman powers.
The young shade’s fingers shattered the riot shield with a flash of light.
The small particles sprayed across Boy’s faceshield.
“Sma—” Boy swung his hammer.
The young shade caught it and punched Boy in the chest. The same flash of light appeared at each point of contact.
Jake’s mana shield flashed blue and shattered.
“Shit!” Venida cried out. She blasted the shade with her shotgun until it was empty.
The pellets had peppered the young shade’s clothing, but harmlessly bounced of his skin with more flashes of light.
Venida dropped her shotgun. She drew her Bolo knife and donned her brass knuckles.
The young shade broke Boy’s faceshield with a punch and blinded him with light.
The stocky, middle-aged man wobbled and dropped to his knees.
“Vanish,” Venida said as she sucked in a lungful of air.
They all lost sight of her. She wasn’t invisible, just unnoticed.
Which allowed her to get in between Boy and the young shade.
She reappeared with a breath. “Bleed.” She slashed her Bolo across the front of the young shade’s thigh. She cut through the jeans with ease. The light flashed again, but this time was different. The wound was shallow at first, but it kept bleeding. More than it should’ve.
“What the hell?” the young shade looked at her with an almost betrayed look on his face. As if she had cheated somehow. He clamped a hand over the wound, but despite the pressure it continued to flow like a river.
The young shade wobbled. Even someone with superhuman physical attributes was affected by massive blood loss.
“Sorry, kid. Jawbreaker Punch,” Venida slammed her brass-covered knuckles into the side of the young shade’s face. She winced at the sound of bones breaking and looked away from the flash.
The pain didn’t register at first.
She looked at her hand.
It was broken.
The young shade scowled at her. “I felt bad about this whole thing, but now… not so much,” he said.
The backhand caused Venida’s mana shield to flicker.
It broke when she hit the side of the building.
Venida blinked. Surprised to be alive, she took a deep breath. “Vanish.”
Boy was in trouble as the young shade refocused on him.
Gabrio couldn’t help. He was locked in his own struggle.
Two forcefield-wielding shades battered the fit young man.
One kept him from advancing by jabbing at him with the end of her silvery staff.
The other peppered him with what looked like small, silvery beanbags that hit much harder than they should’ve judging by the almost lazy way he threw them.
Gabrio blocked what he could with his shield, but he had already taken a few shots on his helmet that had rung his bell.
“Venida! Boy needs help! I can’t get to him!” he called out. He couldn’t see, didn’t know where Venida was.
The silvery staff’s end came thrusting at his face. He dipped his head and raised his shield to block it.
It had been a feint. The girl whipped it down and around his defenses to strike low at the side of his knee.
His knee buckled as he bit back a cry.
Naturally, he brought his shield down which opened him up for a silvery beanbag to the face.
He flinched away as the projectile rang his bell again.
Gabrio saw stars.
He was on the ropes without even having attacked once.
His body sagged.
The two shades relaxed a fraction as they closed in to finish him off.
“Second Wind,” Gabrio whispered.
A burst of renewed vigor flowed through him and allowed him to ignore the hurts, the fatigue.
He exploded toward the two shades. “Quick Cut!” his machete lashed out.
Fingers clutching the silvery staff went flying with a spray of red that momentarily painted color across the gray.
“Fall back!”
Gabrio covered his head with his shield as the male shade peppered him with silvery beanbags.
The girl retreated into a thicker patch of fog and out of Gabrio’s sight.
Safe behind his shield, Gabrio chance a quick glance to Boy and cursed.
The young shade pulled Boy up to his feet and punched him in the chest.
Venida appeared to thrust her knife into the shade’s back, but a moment too late.
The flash of light at the point the young shade’s fist met Boy’s chest sent the stocky man flying like he had been shot out of a cannon.
Several dozen feet away, another shade had been ready for him.
The blade-like forcefield extending past her fist pierced right through the back of Boy’s armor, into his body and out his chest plate.
Boy coughed blood as the shade withdrew her blade and let him fall.
Gabrio lost focus at the sight of Boy’s lifeblood flowing out of him.
A silvery beanbag struck him in the head.
The shade closed in.
A burst of projectiles perforated the shade’s back.
Demi rushed forward. “Get back to the formation!” She was close enough now. She held the image of everyone in her thoughts. Not just her Watch, but also the spears, the rangers, everyone. “Stand Your Ground.”
Now they would all fight for as long as their bodies remained able.
“Mages! Support the spears! Rebekah, you and me are going to have to tank,” Demi said.
“Unfair when you’ve got that alien armor,” Rebekah laughed.
Demi reloaded her recoilless rifle with her last canister of flechettes. “I’ll let you try it out after we get out of this. I’m going to need a long break from field work. Del, you’re on medic duty. If anyone falls, you’ll have to Hide and drag them back to the restaurant.”
“Yessir,” Del remained at the very back of the formation.
Demi squeezed the trigger.
A shade’s head exploded.
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“Eldritch Dart!” Alexa pointed. The pinkish bolt of energy hit a hastily raised forcefield and ate through it.
“Magic Missile!” Amber screeched. The amber-colored marble streamed past the forcefield through the hole and burned another into the shades face.
“What’re you waiting for, Mr. Bigglesworth?” Alexa eyed the hairless, bipedal cat-like familiar on her shoulder. She gestured toward the shades, “… kill!”
Mr. Bigglesworth looked at her dubiously before it jumped down and scampered across the asphalt.
Sharp claws sliced into ankles as it darted through the fray like a rabid squirrel.
The shades took notice of the Watch.
Several peeled off from their attack on the spears.
“Multi-projectiles!” Trevor hurled a small rock at a speed comparable to a sling. The one became many.
Heads snapped back.
A few more shades died.
Others were too tough or managed to block with their forcefields. They kept coming.
“Anything you can try, Max!” Demi called as she continued to fire.
“Root Snare,” Max said through clenched teeth.
Tangled roots suddenly appeared across the feet of the lead shades.
Some tripped and fell.
Others were entrapped, but only for a moment as they had the strength to kick free.
Max’s face was pale and sweaty. “I can do poison gas, but I can’t predict how it’ll spread in the fog.”
“Don’t,” Demi warned. “Everyone, pull back!”
“Mage Armor!” Amber’s voice was high. She wished she still had Hanna’s Threnosh shield. “Magic Sword!” The translucent weapon and armor appeared in the color of her name.
Rebekah’s submachine gun clicked empty. She was definitely out of ammo. Except for her Level 20 Skill. “Reload Magazine.” 30 rounds out of nothing in an instant. “Suppression Fire.”
The shades stopped or slowed in their charge as Rebekah sprayed them with bullets.
“Get ready, Amber! We need to get in there and keep them away from the squishies!” Rebekah barked. “You too, Watch Captain!”
Amber blanched. Her wide eyes were visible through her helmet’s slits, but she nodded all the same.
“I’ll back you up,” Alexa said.
Rebekah’s gun truly clicked on empty. She cast it aside and drew her axe as she charged with a shout.
Demi and Amber were a step behind. The former continued to stream sharp projectiles at the shade, while the latter clutched her conjured sword in too-tight hands.
“Power Strike!”
A shade raised a forcefield against Rebekah’s axe.
It shattered.
“Power Strike!” Rebekah struck again and cleaved the shade’s head off.
Skill use in quick succession might not have been the wisest when one considered conservation of stamina, but the soldier had wanted to be sure.
Another shade charged at Amber. Hanna’s many lessons flashed through her mind.
She cut with her magic sword, placing it diagonally in front of her.
The shade ran into it.
He had tested his skin against steel weapons before and had found them wanting.
Amber’s conjured blade cut him to the bone.
Still, he managed to continue his attack and hit her with a fist.
Her mage armor flashed, but kept her safe.
She moved her blade forward in a push cut, then pulled it back down in a draw cut. Two smooth motions.
The shade tried another punch, but Amber had already withdrawn out of reach. He tried to follow, but rammed right into a thrust, that took him in the throat. He disappeared into fog shortly after that.
Amber stood in shock.
“Eldritch Dart!”
Pinkish light zipped past her and took a charging shade in the face.
A small rock followed and forced yet another shade to stop and block with a forcefield.
“Don’t stop moving!” Demi snapped as she fired into the forcefield until it shattered.
The shade vanished after projectiles filled her body.
Amber could barely hear anything with her pulse pounding in her ears.
“You still with me!” Demi barked.
Amber forced several deep breaths, just like they had been taught, until she could hear again. “I am, Watch Captain,” she gasped.
“We fight together.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Amber found another target and moved to engage.
----------------------------------------
Hanna woke to the sounds of battle.
Angry, desperate cries mingled with the clash of weapons on armor. Spells sizzling through the air and striking flesh.
She struggled to remember where she was. What she had been doing?
She remembered fists and feet battering her amidst flashes of light.
Then, strong hands grabbing her, followed by the sensation of flight.
She turned her head and saw bodies.
Ambrose, Rai and Kristian.
Dead?
No… she saw their chests rise and fall.
She turned her head and saw more bodies.
Spearmen and Spearwomen.
Broken and crumpled.
Bloody and cut.
Completely still.
Hanna rose with a groan. Her head swam and she fought the urge to vomit.
The super-strong blows had managed to hurt her through the Threnosh armor.
A glance to check showed many dents and slices in the thin, flexible plates. Cracks traced fractal patterns in her faceplate.
Even advanced technology and materials had limits when faced with superhuman strength and powers.
She found her sword and shield as she stood fully.
The Watch and Jake fought on the left flank.
The spears still held the line with what remained of Rayna’s Rangers.
She saw no sign of Phillip and knew, hoped that Eron was far away.
Rino was on the opposite side of the street. Her towering form was visible over the fray. She was battered, mangled as shades danced around her.
Hanna stumbled at first as she moved towards the spear line.
“Harmony!” Xing cried out.
Hanna watched as if in a nightmare. She wanted to run forward, but her legs wouldn’t listen. It was like she was wading through waist deep water.
The short Spearwoman had a fit build and was athletic even without accounting for her Skills. She had been pulled out of position.
A shade shattered Harmony’s shield with one punch, but she had managed to move enough that her arm hadn’t been broken along with it. Another shade, one with forcefields around his hands charged her from the right.
“Pierce!”
Her spear went through the man’s forcefield and into his arm.
She let go as the shade pulled and drew her pistol in one smooth motion before shooting him in the face.
The first shade threw wide, looping punches that she ducked under while firing at near point-blank range into his stomach.
The shade ignored the bullets as they bounced of his skin.
She dropped the gun and drew her shortsword. “Pierce!” she snarled as she thrust it into his gut.
Hanna had spoken with the Spearwoman on several occasions. Harmony’s parents had come from the same prefecture in Japan that her own father had. Small world. They both trained with the blade. Though Harmony had picked it up after the spires’ apocalypse. She knew that Harmony had an Enhanced Strength Passive Skill.
A 55% increase to Harmony’s base strength and she only managed to push the tip of her shortsword into the shade’s stomach.
The shade slapped the blade out of Harmony’s hands and grabbed her by the throat. He lifted her off the ground.
She clawed at this hand and arm, kicked at him as her face grew red, then purple.
Xing and another Spearman rushed to help, but they were too late.
Harmony finally stopped. She had struggled to the end.
The shade threw her at her two comrades.
“At least make this hard,” the shade said.
It was just at that moment that Hanna realized she recognized the young shade. “Vern.” Her voice was laced with venom.
Her legs steadied as her own passives kicked in. She broke into a run.
The Threnosh blade flashed through an inch-thick gap in the elbow of an armor-like forcefield.
It took a second for the shade to realize that her arm was on the ground. The momentary confusion allowed Spearman Jessie to jam his spear tip through the thin eye slits of the her forcefield.
Hanna ran on.
“Listen to me, fellow human beings!” A voice called out strong and clear. “By my authority as Ranger Sergeant, as the highest ranked member of Rayna’s Rangers on this land, I temporarily induct all of you into my squad!” A beat. “Squad: Enhanced Coordination, Squad: Enhanced Awareness!” Sgt. Butcher bellowed.
Hanna raised her Threnosh shield to block a barrage of dark brown needle-like forcefields. Somehow, she had seen it coming from another pair of eyes.
She carved her way toward Vern without using her own eyes.
“You again,” Vern growled. He stalked toward her like a jungle cat. Short and wiry, his appearance was deceiving.
Hanna had already experienced his superhuman strength. She couldn’t fight him straight on.
“Already beat you up once,” Vern smirked.
“Didn’t you hear?” Hanna looked down at him with her greater height. “We just got enhanced.”
“Oh? Coordination and awareness? I’m so scared…”
Vern leapt without warning.
Hanna was ready. She had already been moving into position.
She went low and got under Vern, using her shield, she flipped him over her head with his own momentum.
He landed flat on his back.
Hanna had already swung her sword.
Coordination and awareness.
She didn’t fight with hers alone.
She buried her blade into Vern’s skull.
He blinked a few times before his eyes went dead.
“No one really liked him.”
Hanna spun at the voice, sword and shield ready.
The speaker was a brown-haired woman with white forcefields that ran along the outside of her arms and legs. They extended a foot past her fists into a thin, double-edged blade shape. Indeed, the edges of the forcefields looked sharp to Hanna’s eyes.
“You’re a priority target,” the woman said, “you and that thing,” she gestured towards Rino. “The others look to have that one handled, which means I’ll have to take you.”
“Looking forward to a challenge, are you?” Hanna grunted.
“No,” the woman laughed bitterly. “I. Want. This. Hell. Over.”
“We’re doing our best.”
“I know and that’s what makes this so sad,” the woman sighed. “First, I had hoped Eron could do it. That had dwindled as Eron got trapped here. Then you guys came, with Phillip and Calmin. Hope again, but it’s fleeting isn’t it?”
“Eron’s on his way.”
“We know… except, he’s got to get past a terrible monster. He could’ve done it when he had his full power. Now?” the woman shook her head.
“Phillip—”
“He won’t be able to help. He’s busy with our strongest. That’s the only reason you guys have lasted this long.”
“We’re not finished yet.”
“I know. Why don’t we finish it then?”
“You’re not going to give me your name?”
The shade shook her head. “Why? It doesn’t matter. I died months ago.”
Hanna nodded once and attacked.
----------------------------------------
A crack like a gunshot broke the silence of the fog shrouded interior of the mall as Phillip’s fist doubled his uncle over.
A second crack sent Tito Carlos flying to the second floor and beyond.
Rosalita hit Phillip with a display stand.
The flimsy metal bent around his head and shoulders.
He grabbed it and flung it across the floor.
His cousin failed to let go and went with it.
Another relative darted in. Too fast for him to recognize her in the dim interior.
Phillip swung low with two hooks, but she ducked under them and circled to his back while embracing him around the waist.
Up and over he went.
His head and upper back broke the floor tiles and cracked the plain concrete beneath.
She kept a hold of his waist and did it again.
He vaguely remembered Cal pulling off similar moves back when his son wrestled in high school. He couldn’t quite remember what it was called. Something that sounded similar to that French baked dish that was hard to make?
Before he could go on the ride for a third time, he ripped her hands from his waist.
There was a crunch and cracks.
She screamed.
Phillip grimaced. He had applied too much strength.
He turned and recognized a niece, a cousin’s daughter.
“Sorry.”
His niece closed her eyes as tears ran down her face.
He hit her with all his strength. He didn’t want to prolong her pain.
He tried to ignore the feeling as his fist caved her face in.
Bone shouldn’t have felt like an overripe tomato.
It was perverse, but he was relieved to see her body begin to turn back into mist. The dimness of the interior saved him from having to look at what he had wrought to her face. The feeling of his wet fist was bad enough
A hit to his lower back moved him.
Not exactly painful. More… noticeable.
He turned and saw a young man.
The name was on the tip of his tongue.
Another cousin’s son.
His nephew threw hands.
Face and stomach.
A dozen punches in a few seconds.
“Christ, Tito Phillip… worse than hitting metal.” His nephew clutched one broken hand.
“I felt them… sorry about this.”
Phillip struck.
His nephew dipped under the straight and threw a tight hook with his right hand that dug into Phillip’s side.
He winced at that.
A liver shot from what he remembered from the boxing lessons he had taken from Cal and other more knowledgeable people in Rayna’s Rangers.
His nephew had to be decently strong enough for him to even register that.
There was a physical strength scale that his sons had argued over a lot.
From 1-100 in terms of tons he could lift, they had put Phillip at somewhere in the 80-90 range. It had been hard to accurately test. It had involved cranes and trains, which he had gone on to use for his exercises.
He wondered where his nephew was on that scale.
The young man definitely had better technique and skill.
He wondered if that was thanks to Tito Carlos teachings.
Did they even have the opportunity to train as shades?
Unnecessary thoughts distracted Phillip as he tried to hit his nephew.
All his strikes were easily slipped or ducked under.
For each one he received a quick counter in return.
He finally realized that his nephew’s left hand was broken. So, he circled to that side and tried to attack from that angle.
His nephew, being better, smoothly pivoted to keep landing punches with his right.
Phillip missed yet another straight when his nephew, instead of countering, dived to one side.
He half-turned and caught an entire shelf on his shoulder.
His stance hadn’t been set.
The bigger and heavier metal knocked him back. He tripped over his own legs.
He pushed the shelf up, but suddenly found resistance.
Rosalita and his nephew looked down from where they were pushing down on the twisted shelf.
Phillip looked through the tangle of metal on top of him.
He knew that they didn’t weigh enough to give him trouble, which meant that they had to have their feet on the ground for a stable base from which they could exert their own superstrength as they pushed down.
It was hard to see in the dimness. The only source of light was from the hole in the ceiling and that was already being shrouded by the fog.
He gave up on that and came up with another solution.
He twisted the shelf, rotating it like a helicopter’s rotors.
He was much stronger than them.
He swept them off their feet and sent them flying into the darkness.
He cast the ruined shelf aside and stood.
A heavy weight struck him on the side of his face.
Jarring.
He had really felt that one.
Phillip rubbed his jaw. “Pain is a rare thing these days.”
“You’re a lot tougher than you’ve ever been,” Tito Carlos grinned.
“And you’re a lot stronger.”
“That wasn’t just the strength. You’ve got more of that than me. 35-40% more at a guess. That punch was a little bit of strength and speed, but most of it was proper technique. That’s where you find the maximum amount of damage for the least amount of effort. The sweet spot. You’d be a real monster if you had my training. I mean, your strength is really something…”
“It’s hard to get practice when I can pretty much break almost everyone around me. I have to be so careful.”
“This will be good for you then. You won’t have to hold back against me and the others. You can’t afford to… if you want to help your sons, to see your wife and other children again.”
“Can you really not fight its influence?” Phillip sighed.
Tito Carlos threw his hands up. “Haven’t you listened to anything we’ve been trying to tell you? It has us like this,” he clenched a fist. “We can’t push its fingers apart,” he shook his head bitterly, “you and your boys will have to pry them open. If you can’t stop us here, we will kill all your friends, then do the same to Calmin and Eron.”
“Then I really don’t have any other choice,” Phillip’s eyes narrowed.
“You never did!”