Slev rolled his shoulder and took a few deep focusing breaths, shoving the fear aside and buckling down for the task at hand. The audience filling the arena around him rose to a frenzied, thirsty fever pitch. Drinks and hats were being thrown against the stand shields, causing ominous purple strobes of light. That contrasted with the almost laughably dystopian, blood red holographic banners flashing along the battlefield walls. Slev chuckled. The last thing he would see before he died would be a fucking beer advertisement.
He crouched down slightly as a countdown began. Ahead were the scattered, weathered stone blocks. Witnesses to hundreds of battles before this moment. The corpse of a large hover-tank, half melted and fused to the arenas left wall, sat alone, a grim reminder of the power of his opponent. Directly across from him the war machine he had to face, eagerly revved its axe blade. Slev cringed as the timer hit five and his opponent reached over its left shoulder. With a disturbing grace, a two-meter Spider like drone crept onto the stone floor from its perch on its parent's shoulder. It's eyes locked onto him, and the eight bladed legs began to glow a dull purple as plasmic energies coursed along them.
The start was signaled by a brilliant green flare that descended over the battlefield, adding to the dizzying array of light sources. Slev flashed to his left, making for the closest stone pillar. A cluster of slugs from his opponent's shotgun blazed across the arena and blasted a crater where he had been standing. Slev peeked from cover, shouldering the massive Icarus rifle, praying it worked as advertised. He could just see the edges of its right side through the stone pillars.
Slev thumbed the ammo to tracking, whipped out of cover, and took one well aimed shot that lazily launched from the magnetic coils, igniting in the air a foot from him and aggressively accelerating forward. The sheer power of the ignition knocked Slev half a step back before he could scramble back into cover. Right as a second shot gun salvo hammered into the pillars around him. He dashed to the next pillar and fired on the move, the full magazine of nine rocket-powered shells, straight up. All of the shells cut thrust two meters in the air and course corrected secondary ignitions, compelling the explosive shells to join their tracing shot companion.
Slev was rewarded with a brutal, ripping drumbeat of explosions. He rounded the farthest left pillar just as the final shell detonated, hammering through the last bit of armor holding the Exosuit napalm thrower together. Everything went orange and white as hundreds of gallons of napalm were ignited at once. Slev was blasted backwards, end over end. Rolling to a stop in arms reach of the tank. The small spider drone kareened a dozen meters in the air, landing out of site among the stone pillars. His massive opponent rocked hard on its three legs, tipping unsteadily for just a moment. It slammed its arms down, forcing the sheer mass to stabilize, then began a skittering charge towards him, covered in flames.
Slev scrambled to his feet, seeing the spider drone right itself, and clamber up a pillar to get sight of him. It was covered in a bit of smoldering metal and missing one of its legs, but appeared fully functional. He pulled free another fist-sized Icaurus magazine while he ran back towards the cover in the center. He had just slammed the magazine home when the massive shotgun flash blanketed his vision. Desperately, he fired manurvering thrusters, roughly tossing himself forward, but not fast enough. One of the oversized slugs hit his shoulder plate. Completely shattering the armor piece and flinging him to the ground. Slev crawled the last few feet into cover. He could hear the rising screams of the crowd as the chain axe revved nearby.
Slev Rolled still prone from behind a bit of chest high stone work. And he desperately fired off ten shots from the Icarus, aiming for that accursed cannon masquerading as a shotgun. Each shot resoundingly roared forward, most exploding inches deep into its right arm and hand. One shell made its way straight into the top of the shotgun and, blessedly, fragmented its entire barrel apart. Slev didn't have a chance to celebrate this small victory. The spider drone had clawed its way down from the pillar and was racing towards him, its bladed legs sticking into the stone itself with every loping step.
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Slev painfully hauled himself to his feet, stumbling towards the drone. With one hand, he pulled free his sidearm, and the other grabbed the large hilt on his back. The sharp barks of the sidearm sent nauseating waves of pain through Slev his shoulder was probabably shattered. The armor penetrating rounds whizzed of the spider repeatedly until one finally landed near it's 'eyes' penetrating deep into the circuitry beneath in a blossoming shower of sparks.
Slev kept going forward in his pained shuffle. The spider bot appeared stunned, defensively whirling its blades in front of itself. Like a blind man warding off mosquitoes. Slev ignited the energy hilt with a deep, purring sizzle, the pure crimson of the blade casually letting tiny tendrils of plasma escape its confines. Immediately, Slev could feel the searing heat coming off the weapon, threatening to overwhelm his suit's protections completely.
Slev closed the gap and took the blade in both hands, a diagonal slice shearing through the spider's front legs. He stepped in closer and thrust the blade into the center of its mass, course black smoke and melted metal gouted out from the wound. He breathed a slight sigh of relief as it froze in place, reared back and smoldering. Then the world turned black for a moment as the Exo suit behind him successfully heaved the remnants of its shotgun at him. The blow lifted him up and tumbled him over the top of the smoldering drone.
Slev came to consciousness seconds later, his legs still on top of the drone and his back placed on the stone. Above him, the tattered, burning behemoth raised its one whole arm, victoriously revving the Axe priming it for the decent. Slev desperately activated the magnetic gauntlets Crix had installed into his armor during the match delay. Reaching his mangled left arm out towards where the Icarus rifle lay, it sailed through the air towards him. He barley managed to grip it properly and swiftly loaded a magazine in while his opponent loomed. Aiming for the axe arm joint, he fired carefully.
One shot at a time. Shot by shot, he worked his way to his feet in between the pounding recoil. As the smoke settled, he could see the axe arm hanging limply by dangling cable's. Slev summoned the sword hilt from the nearby ground with a wave of his good arm. Struggling for every inch, he clambered over the top of the smoldering drone.
He set his eyes on the massive armored chest directly ahead of him, with a pained cry he threw the plasma blade as if it were a javelin. It sank half a foot deep into the armor, not enough. Slev pushed to stay conscious. He guided the flow of magnetic energy forward as it were a piston pushing the hilt farther and father into the behemoths chest. With one last violent shudder the beast finally hung limp the controls deep within its chest nothing more than burnt slag.
The burning hulk still stayed balanced on its three useless legs as if to voice defiance. Blazing fiercely in the miasma of smoke and sparks. Slev weakly lifted a fist in victory, unable to see the arena around himself anymore. Slumping unconscious and flopping off the drone hulk in two undignified bounces. The crowd's roars had grown to a fever pitch never before heard in the Repository.
Orima-Tansental- Vip Booth Repository
Orima threw her glass against the ground in a wrathful huff.
Fuming at the crime lords next to her, "Fucking how! How did he manage all of that?” she gestured widely at the absolute carnage scattered around the arena: shattered stones, flames spewing everywhere, and even one of the audience shield emitters had failed, causing a small evacuation.
Polub, a rather portly Axtorian with grand feathered robes, shrugged. "We told you not to best against him, so far, hes proven to be effectively immortal and kind of an asshole, a rather..... problematic combination.”
Helitot, a vast sluglike being nearby, chimed in, “You were insane to take on The Madams bet she hasn’t lost in something like nine games. Not to mention. He's a fucking human, Orima, who somehow managed to gain access to the Repository, and if my spies were right, Was shopping for Exosuit weapons because he wanted something with more oomf.”
Polub filled his glass. "I still think humans are a bioweapon the ancients made and tried to stuff in the darkest reaches so even they didn’t have to deal with it.”
Helitot sighed with a deep, gargling sound. "Please no, not this again. There is no evidence to back that up.”
Orima's hate drowned out her companions voices. How was he not dead yet? The ancient was somewhere on world she knew that much. He had already followed the breadcrumb trail she painstakingly laid out for him. Thankfully, working his way completely through two of her competitors as planned. Where was that abomination! She needed one monster to hurry up and kill the other so she could settle into the fallout and grow fat on the lack of competition.