James Osiris Baldwin
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I Am Legion: Chapter 66 (the actual one this time)
🕑 Added 2024-06-06 16:53:44 +0000 UTC"UU GOOVE YOO HUUMAN TRUUSH!" Lulu squeaked with rage as she hauled Kaban into a pool of slime, folding up over him as he struggled and swore. His stealth, his fancy fuck armor, none of it helped him as he was efficiently engulfed. He managed to hold onto his gun, emptying the remaining three rounds into Lulu as she swelled up around him like a deadly gumdrop. They did a lot of damage. But her HP pool was bigger.
Kaya and I clashed in the middle of the arena while the Anzu winged around us, trying to get behind me. The Runtina's blazing antlers spat with plasma, so hot the scales on my face began to curl. I wrestled him at neck-height to keep them from goring and branding into my flesh, the pair of us spinning and bucking like a pair of fighting bulls. The deadly tango kept Guinevere at bay as she flitted around us, trying to find an opening. Above us, the Anzu dived, only to be repelled by a blast of toxic gas and a cloud of fine needle chaff.
Behind Kaya, Clive looked like he wanted to run. But for all his failings, the guy had guts. His face was a ferocious mask of concentration as he fixated on the battle-link. But the fact he had to focus was a terminal weakness. No sooner had he gotten his bearings than a precise shot from behind me took him in the arm, causing him to roar with pain. And as soon as his concentration faltered, so did Kaya.
"Kaya! Listen to me!" I shoved the stag away, the pair of us tottering and spinning. He closed the distance in a flash, but I was faster. I wove under his antlers and backhanded him across the muzzle, snapping his head to one side. A blast of soporific powder from Guinevere burst over me. Poison. I was immune. "I know neither of you want to fight for this asshole! Resist!"
Kaya honked as he staggered away, glowing white-gold blood spattering from his nose. There was a wild, unfocused look in his eyes. Desperation. He struggled against himself, prancing and bucking backwards toward the edge of the circle. Guinevere also relented, halting mid-spell to whisk away toward her Brute. But then the Anzu saw his opening. He dove from the air and latched onto Lulu, tearing and shrieking. His halo-like Cute split away, shocking the Limne while the Anzu blasted her with a stream of fire from his open beak. She let out a bubbling cry of pain as her liquid mass began to char and boil.
[Anzu uses Flamethrower. 0.5x damage. Lulu HP: 6001/17,000]
Even at half damage, the Anzu's attack power was crazy. Lulu's HP plummeted. I whirled and sprinted at them, drove a spike of Psionic force ahead of me as I leaped and tackled the Brute from the air. But it was stronger than it looked. Even my full weight wasn't enough to take it down.
"SCREEEEEEH!" The Anzu screeched and twisted in my grip, powerful wings carrying us into the air. It got its back feet against my belly and began to kick, raking away scales, skin and meat with berserk strength. I hung onto it, winding my tentacles around its wings as it hurtled us toward the highest of the niches, the one with the stairs. I swung my tail down like a rudder and sent us hurtling at the edge of the marble recess. The Anzu's spine crashed against it with a dull crack. It threw its head back with a cry of agony as its wings faltered.
[Lulu is Burned! HP: 1022/17,000]
"Noodles! Lulu is getting trashed by that fucking electric halo thing!" Angel's telepathic sign pushed into my head in a burst of visual snow.
"I'm on it." The other Brute and I bit and kicked and slashed on the way to the floor. We hit the ground hard, tumbling across the floor in a snarling, snapping tangle that ended up with me on top. Two tentacles wove under the Anzu's wings and rammed deep into its ribs.
[You have used Soul Drain! You absorb 100 Str. Choose from the following attacks:]
· Flamethrower
· Hydrocannon
· Tempest Slash
· Nova Burst
· Exponential regeneration
"... The fuck is Nova Burst?" Anything titled 'nova' in a combat RPG was guaranteed to be a high-powered, long-cooldown move. It was a rule. I made use of the dilated time to quickly scan its description.
[Nova Burst: Deal three radiating rings of Holy damage emit in a concentric blast, each ring dealing more damage than the last.]
Holy damage? Ah, shit. The Anzu and Kaya were both immune, or at least resistant. But not the Electrosprite.
I selected it and kicked off the struggling Brute, pulling my tentacles out in a wash of blood. The Anzu flopped to the ground with a croaking snarl, and I left it to struggle while I turned and bounded back to the ongoing struggle. Angel was dueling Clive from a distance, harrying him to keep Kaya and Guinevere out of the game. But that meant Lulu was left alone with the Electrosprite and Kaban. Kaban's struggles were weakening, but he was somehow still alive inside of Lulu while she tried and failed to dodge the four-foot ring of electrified metal chasing her around the arena.
"I KNOW THE SLOW REVENGE THING IS REAL SATISFYING, BUT YOU MIGHT WANT TO KILL HIM FASTER." I channeled Nova Burst as I closed in on them, roaring to distract the Cute from Lulu. A shockwave of pure white energy exploded out from me in a ten-foot ring. The edge of it caught the Electrosprite and pushed it back. Before it could zip back in, the second shockwave rolled out, and the thing contorted in a way that suggested pain before the third and final wave rolled out from me and slammed into it.
"Absoob nuu woorkin!" Lulu, badly wounded and trailing ruptured slime, shook from side to side before she tried to tense up around Kaban. The man briefly locked eyes with me through wall of translucent gel. Dark, impotent, full of hatred. Then Lulu finally figured something out, flexed around him, and turned him into a bloom of bright red pulp.
Across the room, the Anzu wailed. Its collar flared with pinkish light, slipped from around its neck, and crashed to the floor.
Angel left off hassling Clive to join us. Panting, bloody from several glancing hits of buckshot, she jammed a Legion healing potion into Lulu. It only healed 500 HP, but it was enough to keep her alive. "Lulu! Come on! We need to get out of this circle!"
"Uuwwoo..." Lulu groaned, slumping forward. She paused for a moment, and then spat Kaban's rifle from herself. Then his pieces of armor, which clanged to the ground, and a stack of ammo and other items.
"Hell yeah." I watched Angel pick up the rifle and expertly load it. "They're done for it now."
Across the arena, Clive seized on the lull. He ducked around cover, patching up his blasted arm with a medicated bandage as he shrieked at his Legions. "THE FUCK ARE YOU DOIN'? YOU'RE MINE! MINE! YOU FUCKIN' BELONG TO ME! GET BACK IN THERE AND FUCKING KILL THEM!"
"The two of you need to get out of the ring and hound Clive. Do everything you can to push him toward this boundary," I said. "And Angel... I'm gonna need my collar back. Get yours ready, too. Both of 'em."
Angel's pale eyes flicked between me and the Anzu as the beautiful golden bird-like creature struggled up to its feet. Then she darted toward the edge of the ring, firing a covering shot and sending Clive back behind the corner of the entry hall. She reached up to grasp my collar, unsnapped it, and threw it across the ground to me.
"Thanks. Good hunting." I snatched it up and ran.
Guinevere and Kaya closed in from the side as I sprinted right for the Anzu. I sent spears of Psionic force rupturing up through the floor to my left. They erupted right under Guinevere as she cast a buff of some kind on Kaya, skewering her woven wooden body and sending her sprawling. The stag veered away and thundered past me instead of colliding, foaming at the mouth as he thrashed his head from side to side, fighting - and partly succeeding - against Clive's command. The Electrosprite had rallied from its confusion and swooped in, shocking me ineffectually as I closed in on his old partner.
"Hold still just a second, buddy!" I blasted the words on a wave of White Noise, the brute control collar clamped between my teeth.
The Anzu glowed as it spammed its healing ability, clearly shell-shocked. It wasn't a sentient. At least, I didn't think so. But the majestic Legion was struggling with its innate sense of loyalty for its dead trainer, and as I closed in on it, it shook itself out of its shock and refocused on me. The brute shrieked with sudden rage and blasted a plume of fire right into my face. I soaked the damage and closed with it anyway, blinded, snarling and drooling around the collar. I barely felt the pain, too busy keeping the Anzu's beak just out of my freshly-regrown eye. "Fucking... hold... STILL!"
Gunfire rang out behind me. Angel, using Lulu for cover while the pair of them pressured Clive deeper into the entrance hall. Now that bodies had passed over the challenge circle, the gates to the temple were locked until either Rachini was summoned or a ten-minute timer ran out. He was trapped there, returning fire as he could while snarling at his rebellious legions. When he could concentrate, they did what he wanted. But Angel was very good at breaking his concentration.
"You'll never take me, you fuckers! Never!" he yelled, blasting around the corner of the doorway and mostly missing Lulu. "I'm Clive fucking Magazine!"
The Anzu beat its wings with desperate power, jabbing at my face while the Electrosprite whirled around us, buffing the Brute's reflexes and electrifying his metallic feathers. My HP was sinking, the burns deep and oozing, but the prize was so close I could smell it over my own cooked flesh. We wrestled until I had the gryphon-like creature pinned against the wall, almost a bear hug. It kicked and blasted gouts of fire and water past me, then pulsed with Holy energy. The first wave of it racked me with bone-deep pain, but as he tensed for the second Nova Blast, I darted in and snapped the collar around its neck.
HIS neck, I realized, as the connection took hold.
"AIIIEEEE!" The Anzu let out an oddly human-like cry of surprise, but as the bond formed, I knew for sure he wasn't sentient. He had animal cunning, for sure. A human mind? Not at all. His personality was powerful, though: strong, brave, good-intentioned... not particularly bright. My new legion was a goddamned himbo.
"Oh boy," I thought. "Okay chief: fly over there, grab the human male, and drop him right on that fucking altar."
"SCREEE!" The Anzu suddenly stopped flailing, and eagerly scrambled away from me before launching itself into the air. I turned on the Electrosprite next, intending to bring it to ground, but before I could reach it, the weird metal-and-energy ring boiled up in a flash of blue-white fire and disappeared.
"Damn. Son of a bitch." So that’s how Kaban had pulled his disappearing act.
"Everything was fine before you fuckers came along!" Clive roared, firing up at Chief the Anzu as he ducked around one of the Rachini statues. "The island was balanced, everyone knew their fucking place, the economy was great! Who the fuck do you think you're helping with this bullshit!?"
"You think the slaves felt that way?" I taunted him, finally exiting the circle myself. I didn't hurry - there was no rush. The door still had three minutes on the timer before it unlocked. No one who had died in the challenge circle had respawned. “Bet it was real great for them.”
“Who gives a fuck about slaves!?” he yelled back.
Angel went to one knee, using Lulu for cover while the injured Limne defiantly stood her ground. She braced her new gun, gazing calmly through the scope. Then she fired, once - over Clive's head, at the sharp kabuto crest arcing from the statue's helmet. It cracked and tumbled onto Clive's head. He cursed and twisted away. For a moment, his shoulder came into view. Angel put a round right through it.
"Give it up, Clive." I wove around Kaya as he came to a standstill just outside the circle, flanks heaving. Guinevere drifted over to him, half-hiding behind his dirt-and-blood spattered legs. "Kaban's gone, the Maroons are slaughtering what's left of your men, your Legions can barely be fucked to fight for you even with your collars on. Angel here can shoot a fly off the tip of your nose. You're outgunned and outmatched. Surrender, uncollar your Legions, and we'll let you go."
"Get fucked!" he spat, his voice full of strain.
"All we want to do is leave this fucking island, man," I drawled back, telepathically translating for Angel. I silently padded in a slow half-circle to the other side of the entry hall. "Drop your weapons and surrender, and you can still come out of this like a hero. Kaban's out of the way. You can just... step in."
"He's right," Angel voiced. She sounded a little over-loud, unable to regulate her volume from fatigue. "We didn't go back on our deal. Kaban's old commander helped us prepare, and she never mentioned it. That tells me that Kaban never even fought Rachini or even summoned her. He probably had a supply of the mandalas from his Sponsored buddies on the outside. He was weak, right? But you don't have to be."
With one eye on Kaya, I kept circling in with that slow stalking walk. Silently, I called Chief - I guess that was his name now - to land outside of the circle beside Angel and provide protection.
"Fine! Alright, fine." A sound of disgust tore from Clive's hiding place. "I fuckin' surrender. Now put your damn gun down."
Angel glanced at me with a slight smile. I nodded.
"Call your Legions back," she ordered, dipping the rifle down. She kept her finger beside the trigger. "Take your collar off the Runtina."
Clive peered out at her. His face was scarlet, ugly. More baby than man. He didn't say anything aloud, but Guinevere and Kaya suddenly both relaxed. They ambled over to their trainer. My shiny new Brute flared his wings and let out a raspy, jagged screech. His eyes were fixed on Clive, gleaming with bloodlust.
"Hold it," I thought back to him. "Patience."
"Tank. C'mere." Clive beckoned toward Kaya. The Runtina nickered, lips pulling back over neat cervine teeth before he put his head down and obediently stepped closer.
"This guy belonged to your old girlfriend, huh? The girl Razor ninered a few weeks back." Clive shot Angel a level, shrewd look while he reached up to grip Kaya's collar. "You know you can't collar two Brutes, right?"
Angel smiled thinly. "Wow, what a revelation. Any more basic shit you want to mansplain to me?"
His eyes darted toward my neck. He frowned when he finally noticed it was bare.
"Well, I'll be damned. You fuckers outplayed everyone." Clive sighed, and some of the tension drained from his rangy shoulders. "Don't know how the fuck you three ended up like this, but I tell you what... I wouldn't want to be in your shoes, Mister Reaper. The Solonovs are gunnin' for you now. Like our good Imperator noted, they aren’t full-timers. They jack in and jack out. They ain't afraid to die."
"They will be.”
"Right, right..." I watched his every move as he paused to pet one of Kaya's long ears. A grim little smirk curled the corner of his lips as he touched his collar - then slapped the stag on the side of his neck and in a firm, confident voice, issued him a single order.
"Kill yourself."
