One thing about calling in reinforcements, especially from Olympus, is that Olympus is staffed with some system-integrated professionals on another level. Professionals with access to an entire drone assembly plant.
And those professionals, REALLY love their drone assembly plant. So when the team cracked open a portal to get Ian back in the game, Ian brought another seven dorsal cannon drones and seven juiced-up barrier drones with him.
“Ian, how are you?” Calvin asked.
“Great. Took a little nap, stopped by Ambrosia for a few drinks. I’m ready to roll. I brought gifts.”
“I see that. What did Seth send you with this time?”
“These big bastards are pretty much the same as the two previous ones. They’re kitted with kinetic cannons instead of plasma cannons. Each of them has ten special rounds stored in a magazine near the weapons. These ones aren’t spatial magazines though. Seth fixed them up with those special runes. We can channel energy into the magazine to infuse the rounds. I infused two with Combust, and two with Fissure. Figured Amy could load some toxins into the other three.”
Amy climbed up one of the nearby drones and tested channeling her Blight Bloom into the magazine.
“Looks like it works pretty well. I’ll get to work on these.” she said.
“The barrier drones should be beefed up a bit too. Maybe they might help the drones survive one of those beams from the monster.”
Calvin quickly examined their readiness. They had the new drones, several support casters from New Aspen to help keep Ian topped up, and a regiment of soldiers who stood at the ready with Harlon at the lead. That was mostly ceremonial though, the behemoth would stomp them flat in a second. They weren’t just going to sit around and let some other city fight their battles for them though.
The group discussed the final plans now that they had everything in place. Tank’s crew had been weakening the creature’s legs where possible and now it was time to make a stand. If they couldn’t stop the monster where it was, it would steamroll New Aspen.
The group had selected a spot several miles away from the settlement. It was high on top of a large hill overlooking the flatlands below where the behemoth roamed. They selected this location as their final stand simply because the behemoth wouldn’t have sight lines to New Aspen unless it crossed over this hill. This terrain was the town’s last line of defense.
The bots positioned themselves in a wide arc on the hill. From end to end, they were spread out just over a mile. This was done to limit the amount of destruction they would suffer in a single attack. The stage was set and now it was time to kick it off. Far away from the drones, Reaper readied his orbital strikes. As Calvin, Freya, and Amy flanked around the sides of the behemoth, he activated both skills.
Four massive projectiles burned through the atmosphere at speeds well-exceeding thousands of miles per hour. These are the types of projectiles that would have been fired by a capital ship in Earth Sci-Fi. Of course, Reaper didn’t have command of a capital ship and these were just constructs of a skill. Well, he didn’t have command of a capital ship… yet. Anything was possible in Systemville.
Moments before the kinetic projectiles struck home, superheated beams of plasma lanced through the clouds and pierced straight through the behemoth. The titan roared in defiance just as the projectiles punched through the remaining armor plating, through the creature’s flesh, and through the ground below before detonating. A bright flash of intense white light overtook the entire battlefield, washing out everything in a radiance that surely would have destroyed any pre-system human’s eyesight. The ground bucked beneath the creature and then shattered.
The behemoth stumbled forward, nearly losing its footing with the terrain upheaval. It just barely managed to right itself before the percussive staccato of armor-piercing, magic artillery boomed out from the hills.
BOOM
BOOM
BOOM
BOOM
BOOM
BOOM
BOOM
The targeting of the drones was strategically chosen by Calvin before they kicked off the fight. Two of the toxin-infused shells slammed home into the creature’s wide open mouth, driving deep into the back of its throat before exploding in a toxic payload.
Two more shells punched into each of its front legs. One fire attuned and one earth attuned.
The earth-attuned shells struck first. The attunement gave them incredible durability, allowing the rounds to punch a deep hole into the limb before exploding shards of stone shrapnel within the wound. With extreme precision, the fire-attuned rounds followed the path straight into the wound and detonated. The explosive pressure blew the hole completely out the rear of the leg. The behemoth’s flesh seared and melted as jets of intense fire escaped the gaping wounds.
The final toxin-infused shell slammed into the wound on the front left leg. This was the leg Calvin and Amy had done the most work on in the first encounter, and the one that had the runic pathway destroyed. The detonation pushed compressed toxic clouds deep into the creature’s leg. The effects of the toxin were almost immediately apparent as large black flowers began blooming from the hole.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
As Calvin and Freya sprinted in toward that heavily wounded and poisoned leg, Freya howled up a storm. Calvin had his spear stored inside his spatial belt and withdrew it now. It was infused with storm-essence which would amplify the effects of his Resonant Charge.
When he was just 100 feet from the wounded leg he summoned six spectral spears in a circle around it. Each of them carried the storm essence and the windblade enchantment of his spear. Mentally, he commanded them to begin rotating around the leg rapidly, swishing back and forth to generate wind blades and fire them straight into the leg. This was incredibly expensive in the MP department and he would only be able to keep it up for a few seconds.
The spears worked like a saw blade. Each blade of wind that struck the leg, carved deeper and deeper into its flesh. The behemoth stopped moving now and shifted its weight to its hind legs. The damage it was suffering was clearly having an effect. Calvin let the spears go through five more rapid rotations before he commanded them to fire forward and slam into the wound, releasing their built-up Resonant Charge.
Intense arcs of lightning shot from the wound and struck the behemoth in various places on its body.
Like clockwork, seven more massive booms sounded from the hillside and all seven rounds smashed into the wounded leg.
The Tarrasque wailed in agony with such ferocity that visible shockwaves temporarily dispersed the storm clouds above. With a sickening snap, the bones holding the leg together broke and the massive lumbering creature toppled forward. This was their chance.
The group retreated to the sides as the mountain-sized creature slammed face-first into the dirt. Its head dug a small canyon into the ground as it struck.
Amy and Freya had waited for this moment. The pair’s feet dug trenches in the ground as they advanced on the creature’s open mouth. Amy withdrew a handful of grenades and lobbed them into its throat just before Freya activated Howling Gale right on top of them.
The toxin-infused canisters detonated in the titan’s throat and Freya’s small tornado picked up the shrapnel and toxins alike. The vortex of destruction raged inside the behemoth’s mouth. The shrapnel carved deep wounds into the flesh, allowing the toxins to seep in and begin their work. For good measure, Amy followed up with all 12 of her shadowthorn-infused Stinging Swarm blades.
The behemoth began pulling energy from the air again and redirecting it toward the spikes on its back. Seth’s drones answered in kind with seven more rounds to the rune covering its right shoulder, which promptly shattered into dust, interrupting the skill.
The behemoth still had one more devastating trick up its sleeve. Its tail. One would think that a monster with a weaponized tail would do something like shoot spikes, or lasers, or just swish it around and smash the enemy into goo on the battlefield. One would be very very wrong in this case. The tail itself detached from the behemoth and rooted itself in the ground. It pointed straight up into the sky as the spikes began lighting up like a nightmarish Christmas tree from system hell.
So many things happened at once that it was hard for anyone in the group to keep track of it. Of course, the spikes began creating the same web of laser beams like before. The scales on the tail detached and began speeding across the battlefield like small, bladed behemoth drones. The base of the tail poured energy into the earth below, causing massive shockwaves to destabilize the ground for miles, and then the tail itself curved the tip down toward Calvin and charged a massive superheated beam. He sprinted for his life as the beam carved a deep trench in the ground behind him.
Stormwalk activated and placed Calvin right at the base of the tail. This was practically the safest place on the entire battlefield as long as he could avoid the bladed scales. He stabbed a fully charged spear into the tail and set off his Chain Fury. Lightning bolts arced their way up the tail destroying spikes as it went. He needed to get out of there so that Ian could call in the big guns. Although Ian’s skills wouldn’t directly damage Calvin, the effects of the skills, like shrapnel and deep fissures certainly could cause a problem.
He marked the tail and activated his Plasma Cage. He wasn’t quite sure what would happen but he really didn’t expect this.
The plasma cage enveloped the entire tail in a tower-sized cage of sizzling white plasma. He couldn’t hold the skill longer than a fraction of a second, considering the size of the cage, so it immediately collapsed. Then, cubes of behemoth tail flesh rained down on him as the tail fell apart into thousands of diced-up segments. Each of the falling pieces was large enough to squish him flat, so he activated the second charge of Stormwalk and bailed.
The entire time, the massive titan was attempting to stand upright and it had nearly gotten its footing underneath it by now. Calvin ordered Amy and Freya to retreat. He looked up toward the hill and Tank’s crew were fighting madly to keep the scale drones away from being able to swarm them.
Now that Calvin’s squad was clear, it was Ian’s turn to go to work. Again, he tore a rift between dimensions, summoning incredible power from within. His spells began weaving together and Harlon’s support staff worked to buff him with everything they could. Marshall had both hands on Ian’s shoulders as he channeled every last bit of energy he had into keeping Ian healed.
This time, right before Ian fired the spell, he juiced it up with his nanite capacitor. Everyone on the hillside got to witness the true power of an early-stage Echo of Ragnarok.
Hailstones and Meteors again blew massive chunks off of the creature. This time though, it was on the ground. This meant the fissures created by the meteors striking the ground threatened to swallow up the massive behemoth in their fury. Burst of hellish beams fired out of the creature’s mouth as it desperately fought to cling to life. The lancing beams were chaotic and fired in random directions as the titan’s head thrashed about. One such beam narrowly missed Ian and vaporized two of Harlon’s casters.
The assault continued. Flaming bolts of lightning rained down and struck the creature. Hundreds, then thousands of times. The hurricane-force winds picked up debris and steam, whipping it into a destructive frenzy that cooked and shredded the behemoth. Ian finally ran out of juice completely and fell to his knees. Blood ran from his nose and mouth as he’d completely overtaxed his body.
Seven more shots boomed out from the cannon drones.
The Minor Tarrasque Titan was a shredded, bloodied mess of wounded, decaying flesh. Amy’s toxins had sowed absolute devastation as the blooms formed and were destroyed, spreading throughout the creature. The scale drones seemed to lose power as the behemoth below them weakened, and they dropped out of the sky.
Seeing that the creature was not going anywhere at the moment, Calvin met up with the rest of the team.
“Nice freakin’ work everyone.” Calvin said, then he turned to Harlon, “I saw what happened to your men. I’m sorry.”
Harlon’s eyes showed his grief, but his words showed his resolve. “They served New Aspen. If it wasn’t for you all, every one of us would be dead. We’re eternally grateful for you.”
Harlon looked down at the behemoth below. “So, what’s next?”
“I was thinking target practice. It might still be dangerous down there, but all of your combatants should follow us down there and get some hits in. It should count toward their participation in the fight and they’ll all get some experience and rewards from it if I know the system.”
The next several hours were a gory, bloody slog. The behemoth died slowly, unable to do anything about the assault happening on its body. Before long, the rage-filled eyes went dark and finally, the titan died.