Ian kicked it off with Rock Shot. He released one projectile toward the lead shrieker on the right. He wanted to get a feeling for their evasion capabilities. As expected, the shrieker drifted out of the way and the projectile pierced the air harmlessly.

Seth released his only two sentry drones. This would be their first test in battle, so the team wouldn’t rely on them too heavily, but every body counts.

The drones silently floated high above the group. Simultaneously, each of them emitted a blue beam that appeared to select and scan different targets. This scan was followed immediately by a small pulsed blast from the drones.

Each of the blasts scored a direct hit on their respective targets, knocking them aside slightly and leaving a small scorched wound on their bodies. The damage didn’t appear to be significant, but it was damage all the same.

Only a couple of seconds had passed so far in the encounter and suddenly everything was in motion.

Calvin and Freya moved rapidly towards the towering pylon on the right with Amy moving left under Static Cloak.

Their targets were airborne which left Calvin working overtime trying to come up with a way to bring them down into weapon’s range.

“Marshall, Ian! Try to bust those wings. We need to bring them down to our level.”

Calvin wasn’t sure how effective it would be, considering the creatures didn’t seem to need their wings for flight. At the very least, it would help remove their ability to perform that wind blast again.

Marshall sprinted towards a fallen stone, using it as a half-assed cover since otherwise he would be right out in the open. He leveled his pistol at the shrieker above Amy’s position and fired.

The pulse slammed into its left wing and sent the horror tumbling backward in the air, shards of crystal exploded out from the small wound. The shrieker recovered from the strike but Marshall had noted that it sat lower in the air too.

Ian saw the same thing and weaved together a relentless chain of rocks and fire, attempting to saturate the airspace around the creature with magically damaging flak.

Meanwhile, two of the shriekers dove down toward Freya as she darted across the chamber. She nimbly sidestepped the first, however, their coordinated assault found her at the wrong end of the second shrieker’s talons. It slammed Freya into the floor with surprising force and tore at her fur and flesh with its wicked claws.

Freya was no slouch though. As a guardian class, her toughness was well above the team average and these wounds would only have a minor effect. Snarling, she snatched the shrieker’s leg in her powerful jaws and ripped it out of the air.

Calvin was already moving in, he charged at an all-out sprint, building his Resonant Charge in a crackling field of energy around his spear. With a powerful jab, he thrust his charged spear at the prone devil, aiming for a killing blow.

Phwoom

A phantasmal wave of pressure slammed into Calvin and the crackling energy of his spear flickered out in an instant. Briefly distracted by the blow, his aim faltered, and the spear skewered the shrieker’s wing, anchoring it to the floor.

With an otherworldly shriek, the creature ripped itself from the spear, leaving the destroyed wing behind.

The chamber was embroiled in a pitched battle. Shots rang out from Marshall’s pistol as Ian’s magical projectiles peppered the area in destruction.

Seth’s drones laid down a steady stream of distracting fire, keeping the shriekers from being able to stay still for too long. All but one of the shriekers had suffered wounds so far, however, the group hadn’t gotten off unscathed either.

Freya was bleeding from several deep wounds on her side, Marshall had been slammed to the ground by a close-range wind blast and likely sported at least one cracked rib. His breathing was labored and tinged with agony as he fought to keep the momentum. He sucked down a health potion and began repositioning toward Calvin and Freya.

Two of the shriekers had placed their focus on Seth. While his drones were too fast for the creatures to attack, he most certainly was not, and they knew it.

Seth had his back pressed up against the leftmost pylon, working to keep it between him and the pulsating orb. The shriekers dove at him one after another, looking for any opening to bring him down.

His scalpel was threatening to overheat as he slashed it at each descending creature. He had scored a few minor hits, driving the creatures away momentarily but they continued assaulting him, driving him down under their pressure.

Ian was desperate to buy Seth some breathing room and the creatures were too fast for his Rock Shot. Biting the bullet, he charged up Storm Surge and let it rip.

The dense blue bolt of concentrated lightning zapped out and struck the shrieker about to tear into Seth. It arced furiously toward the other flying monster and zapped them both straight out of the air, briefly stunned and highly damaged by that attack.

Seth was furious at these little bastards. He latched his hands onto the wings of one of the stunned creatures, hurling it into the arcing plasma that blazed from the faulty runes on the walls. With a blinding flash the group found themselves with three shriekers and one crispy critter.

Like a wildcat, Amy pounced from her position behind a pylon onto the other stunned monster. She plunged her sonic edge right through one of its cosmic eyes and released the sonic pulse.

Pop!

Like a soap bubble landing on a blade of grass, the creature’s head simply… popped.

Seth gave her a faux disgusted look, to which she just rolled her eyes and continued to join up with Cal.

This was going swimmingly.

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Phwoom

Now used to the timing, each of the group took cover to avoid the effects of the destabilizing wave. Resources were running a little thin for Ian and Marshall, who paced out their efforts a little more now with only two shriekers remaining.

Thump

Thump

Knowing that any new noises in this melee were probably a good sign that the system was about to fuck them, Calvin broke free from his engagement to take cover behind a pylon and scan the battlefield.

Thump

Thump

“Call it out! What do you see?” Calvin shouted.

“I’ve got nothing!”

“Same here”

“Nanovision is clea…. Oh shit!” Ian cried out.

Stepping out of the darkness from behind the rearmost pylons were two ten-foot tall, void-black and featureless humanoid beings. Each of them carried a long obsidian glaive with a curved blade roughly six feet long. Arcing tendrils of what appeared to be black electricity snaked around the blades.

“We’ve got company!” Marshall called. He fired several rounds off at a diving shrieker and clipped its wing.

Calvin knew Ian was low on juice and called for him to drink a mana potion.

“We need to put these damn fiends down fast. Amy! Break off and prepare to ambush those titans. Don’t engage until we’re free of this.”

“LEEEAAAVE!” Boomed one of the hulking warriors. The deep resonating boom of their voice shook dust from nearly every surface.

“Fuck off! You leave!” Marshall offered in response.

He raised his pistol up and landed both rounds of Double Tap into center mass on the closest shrieker. It dropped out of the air in a tumble and smashed into the floor, scrambling for just a moment to get back into the air. Only for just a moment though, since it found it no longer needed to on account of being ripped into two pieces by a seriously pissed-off dog.

Freya let out an echoing howl. The ripples from her abyssal cry were visible in the dust in the air. This momentarily slowed the final shrieker just enough to stop it from avoiding the three fast-moving earthen pellets that silenced it for good.

In the span of a single breath, Ian rounded up three more pellets and hurled them toward the approaching titans. All three struck the leftmost titan, causing it to stumble briefly before it continued stalking the group. They were moving faster now, settling into their own combat formation. It did not appear they were going to fight like the statue from their second challenge. These would be true combatants.

Another Double Tap pulsed out, with Marshall concentrating on the same target.

“Freya, peel the one on the right. We need to separate them. Everyone else, concentrate on the one on the left!” Calvin ordered. He was beginning his charge.

Amy silently snaked behind the Pylons, staying in line with Calvin while avoiding errant streaks of plasma from the walls. She most certainly did not want to end up like the BBQ they left back there.

Phwoom

Another pulse rippled out. Calvin was expecting it and had positioned himself to avoid the wave. He needed his Resonant Charge for this strike. He dashed out from his cover and readied a sidelong swipe at the monster’s feet. His spear found its mark, releasing the built-up charge into the titan’s leg and dropping it to one knee.

“NO” it boomed in Calvin’s face. The unnatural voice sounded like it came from the cosmos itself and wrestled its way into Calvin’s soul. He stumbled forward into a tumble at the pressure of the behemoth’s voice, but quickly scrambled to his feet. He spun around to re-engage and found himself staring down the barrel of a rapidly approaching glaive.

In a highly coordinated feat of acrobatics; which was more like an unceremonious tumble into the water, he narrowly managed to avoid the strike. Calvin’s luck stopped there.

The obsidian giant continued the swing in a full circle and slammed the weapon into the water, far away from Calvin, which was great. What wasn’t so great were those arcing tendrils, which now pulsed through the water, wracking Calvin’s body in painful contortions. His bones threatened to snap in half and his muscles offered to sacrifice themselves in a bid to relieve the strain. Blood sprayed from Calvin’s mouth as he screamed in blood-chilling agony.

The pain stopped as the weapon withdrew with a jolt.

One

Two

Three

Amy landed three quick strikes into the giant, once in the leg and twice more in the back, each releasing a devastating sonic wave into the wound, pulverizing whatever insides the creature might have. She didn’t stick around to inspect the damage. She continued darting to the cover of another pylon before the next…

Phwoom

Freya was a blur of fur and claws. She had her titan fully engaged. With furious barks, she would charge between the titan’s legs, landing an Attuned Bite and then dashing out again, working her zone with total efficiency. Her goal was to keep the monstrosity from engaging her friends, and at that, she was doing a remarkable job. She’d most definitely earned herself a treat after this.

Her claws did little damage to the hulking horror, but damage was not the name of the game right now.

The warrior swung its glaive in a furious rage, doing everything it could to bisect this loathsome creature.

Amy slid from behind another pylon, approaching Freya’s titan from the rear. She jammed a toxic-infused blade right into the back of its knee, the sonic pulse blowing apart the internal structures holding the limb’s muscles together.

A backhand flew backward from the titan like an obsidian avalanche, threatening to swat Amy away like an annoying pest. In a flash, Freya was there with Shielding Fang. The backhand that would certainly have killed Amy connected with the brave pup, causing her to let out a pained yelp. Freya flew back like a missile, plowing Amy into the stone floor and smashed hard into a pylon. Stone shattered from the impact.

Just like that, this battle had taken a grave turn.

Calvin saw Amy and Freya go down and fell into an uncontrolled rage.

He didn’t even notice the arm on Freya’s titan burst open like an over-ripe void-tomato. If he had, he would have likely connected the dots.

Instead, he charged with extreme recklessness and stabbed down hard into the titan’s foot. He ducked under a somewhat lazy swing of its glaive and stabbed up into the monstrosity’s thigh. Ripping his spear sideways out of the wound, he tore open a gaping rift in the creature. He sidestepped another uncoordinated swing from the titan and promptly caught an obsidian knee to the face. He just barely had time to slam down on his Nanite Barrier, but it was still lights out for Calvin.

Seth commanded his drones to pepper that titan in distracting fire while Marshall and Ian kept the first one suppressed through a heavy barrage of magic and pulse rounds. He sprinted over to Calvin’s prostrate form and slapped a Runic Snare on the ground before dragging his body away. The titan limped after them, enraged and looking to end this battle. Unfortunately for the titan, it stomped right onto the snare.

What Calvin would have noticed, if he’d kept his wits about him, was the reason the titan’s arm completely self-destructed. Freya had activated her stonebound sentinel’s pendant in conjunction with her Shielding Fang. The combined effects had a remarkable synergy. Not only did they both mitigate a substantial amount of damage, but they redirected a portion of that damage as well.

Freya was already up and moving away from where she’d almost been pummeled into puppy chow. She was wounded from the strike, but nothing a little loyalty and rage wouldn’t overcome.

She saw Calvin take a powerful blow and then Seth moved in to drag him away. She saw Seth place the rune and trap the gargantuan being. Freya mustered every last bit of her strength and leapt onto the creature’s back, sinking her teeth hard into the back of its neck and snapping its spine in a sickening crunch. The powerful titan collapsed beneath her feet as she rolled from its corpse.

Freya didn’t stop. She lunged at Ian and Marshall’s target, sinking her teeth into its calf and dragging it backward, pulling the creature off balance and back to the ground. Her Attuned Bite marked the titan, increasing the damage it took from nanite-infused attacks, which right now, was a shit-load of damage.

Ian dumped every last point of mana into his spells, releasing skill after skill into the titan’s head. He pushed his skills to the absolute limit as he completely drained his resources. Ian collapsed in an exhausted heap, having no more to give.

Lucky for the group, that was just enough.

Marshall casually walked over to the barely living horror, placed his pistol against its head, and released a Double Tap, before he too collapsed.