A/N: Stuffs happening here and I don't feel like going back to check if I said this already so I'll say it here.
I'm going to go back through the previous chapters and get rid of the spaces I put between the paragraphs. This'll probably get rid of the comments so I'm saying this now before someone goes back and sees that their comment is gone.
I don't want someone thinking I deleted their comment and getting upset over something I didn't do. If I could keep all of your comments there I would, but I don't think that's possible, but I'd like for everyone to be able to comment on the paragraphs since the mobile users can't do it with those spaces there.
That's all I wanted to say, I'll let you get to the chapter now.
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Sitting on one of the billboards that was used as a fast travel point in the game, I looked at an energy drink I had gotten. It was called Beast Energy and had four claw marks across the label. The drink itself was an almost neon yellow. Shrugging at the coincidence I crack it open–
*Crack–FISSS!*
"FUCK!" I shout as the liquid inside spews out, forcing me to sip it quickly so it doesn't get everywhere.
As the fizzing dies down I pull it away, the tips of my fingers being the only things touching the can as I use the other to wipe what had gotten on my clothes. Groaning at the sticky substance clinging to my clothes I look up.
Seeing Delsin duck under a concrete blast coming from a soldier before leaping, whipping out the chain around his wrist and wrapping it around the man's neck. He yanks the chain hard enough to pull him off balance before jumping and delivering a drop kick into the guy's chest, sending him across the parking lot they were fighting in.
The soldier slams into a car, making its alarm go off for an instant before it dies. I winced slightly, feeling a little bad for him.
Delsin kept doing that, only getting hit a few times here and there. Once in the shoulder, another in the waist. The worst one was across the side of his head, Delsin actually stumbling from that one.
He was about to get back up before he was hit by a concrete blast, sending him back a few feet. Before he could fall he swung his chain out, wrapping it around a street sign and pulling, making him dodge a volley of bullets.
I fully winced this time, getting shot in the head wasn't pleasant, even if we could survive it. And those concrete blasts have a lot more of a punch than you'd think, despite coming from what's considered the worst of the soldiers the DUP have.
Even if he's getting beat up a bit he's doing well for himself. Better than most of the people Augustine tried to train before just dropping them back into the hellhole she calls a haven.
I'd almost call him a natural.
Part of me kicked myself for being the reason he didn't get some powers on his way here, the other just shrugged knowing that if I didn't force the DUP to pull back then I'd need to work a lot harder.
Shaking my head and finishing off the energy drink, I stood up on top of the billboard and ready myself to intervene before he could destroy the communication relay.
"Slightly more effort." I say and step off, dropping onto a powerline. Transforming into energy for an instance before slingshotting myself back out and towards the parking lot.
As I reached the apex of my leap I saw Delsin finish off the last soldier and turn to the relay, looking like a kid ready to break something because it just looked breakable.
*Thwip! Thud!*
Shooting wires out and onto the relays roof, I land in a super hero pose.
"DUCK!" I shout and throw the empty can, Delsin doing so without thinking.
*Thunk!*
"Ack!" The soldier who regained consciousness groaned as it slammed against his head, falling back unconscious. The can falling to the ground and making a noise that sounds more like a metallic brick than an empty can.
Delsin looked back before straightening up and looking at me, giving me the stink eye before speaking,
"Gee, thanks for the help." He said sarcastically and I puffed up dramatically, like I did all the work myself.
"Why you're incredibly welcome!" I say cheerfully, trying to lighten the mood a bit. He snorted, shaking his head before stepping forward.
"Alright, well, unless you're going to stop me from destroying that thing–"
"I am actually," I interrupt. Seeing him scowl in confusion I continued before he could draw any wrong conclusions.
"I guess it would be more accurate to say that I'm going to dismantle it, so I need it to be intact." I explain and he looks at me strangely.
"How the hell are you going to 'dismantle' that thing?" He asks, gesturing vaguely at myself and the communication relay before speaking his observation, "I don't see any tools on you to even pull out a bolt, let alone take the whole thing apart."
I chuckle and shake my head, placing one hand on my waist and the other on my forehead before speaking condescendingly,
"Ah~, youth and simplicity~, so little imagination when it really counts." I say, flicking my hand and extending wires into the entire relay, beginning to pull it apart.
I could see Delsin's mouth fall open as he watched, the same look he had when he first saw me returning as he watched me work.
"You might want to focus on the Doops coming this way, they don't seem too happy that I'm doing this and I can't move once I start." I say airily, hearing the communications coming into the relay and the responses coming from the two still inside.
"What do you mean–"
*SCREECH!!! Clunck! Thump thump thump thump!*
Five armored transports had pulled up to the parking lot's entrance. Glancing over I saw the soldiers leap out and rush into a sloppy formation, then they parted as several louder thumps came from each of the armored transports.
They were the heavy units. Blank conduits that could handle taking in more concrete than most and being fitted with the conduit tech that lets normal people use the same powers. That's what the regular soldiers have and why they're so weak, since none of that power is natural.
Then there are the advanced soldiers who could naturally absorb the powers but couldn't handle the equipment being added.
Next were these guys, the ones who could absorb the powers and partially handle the equipment, though they couldn't do so to an acceptable degree.
There are more, but they aren't important right now and I need to focus on what I'm doing.
"Delsin," I shout, getting his attention before continuing, "you need to keep them off me until I can get these things out!" He looked at me like I was crazy, his head darting between me and the hunks of concrete holding miniguns before shouting,
"Are you crazy, how am I supposed to beat those roided out freaks with just a smoky chain!?" I'll admit he made a good point, so I decided to help him this time.
"That's the neat part, you don't," I grin, watching him blanch at my statement before continuing, "you just have to make sure they don't interrupt me, so just don't get hit and you'll be fine!" I finish, watching him sigh before jumping into the middle of them all.
He kept himself in the center of them all, making sure that if he wasn't close enough to someone he'd be between a few people, causing them to hesitate at the thought of shooting their friends and getting shot.
He also jumped on top of the heavy units, dodging their attempts to bludgeon him with the barrels of their miniguns and punching them in the head with a smoke infused chain around his fist, making them disorientated before jumping off into the frey again.
Nodding in approval I completely divert all my focus to pulling the power cores out of the relay.
My mind delves fully into the relay's systems, looking like a landscape of circuits and glowing structures. Looking around quickly I found the source of power–my instincts flared.
*KZZZZ!*
A creature made of ones, zeros, and glowing circuits slammed into the 'floor' in front of me. It looked like a centaur like chimera of different insectoid creatures.
The body looked like a turanchila tapering down to a tail with a centipede attached, where the spider's eyes should've been a praying mantis' torso was placed. The mouth of the spider still, somehow, being there.
The head of the praying mantis had little arms that seemed to be used to force still 'living' things down it's throat, each of them twitched in seeming anticipation of devouring me whole.
"So you upgraded your defences, huh?" I asked rhetorically, watching not just the praying mantis and centiped 'heads' 'look' at me, but the turanchila 'looking' at me as well. As my knees bent and readyed to lunge at the synthetic creature, it spoke…from all of its mouths.
"You've been a real nusence as of late," it said, the voices overlaping in different volumes and pitches in the same, gratting voice I remember to be Augustines, "you didn't think I'd let you run around and keep breaking down all of the things I built without anything to stop you-"
I got tired of hearing her voice, deciding that a surprise attack would be a prudent approach to this.
Swipes from the things bladed upper limbs followed by piercing strikes by the body forced me to abandon my advance, the praying mantis' body ducking threw me off for a moment before the centipede tail came screaming at me, making me leap backwards.
Sliding to a stop I feel one of my 'feet' slip, falling off a 'ledge'. Glancing over my 'shoulder' I see the landscape just end, nothing but void for as far as I can see before looking back at the creature.
"How rude~, you used to be so obedient before." It crooned, sounding like it had already won, "even when you had your little 'tantrums' you would always become obedient all over again~." It stopped, moving in a way that conveyed someone tilting their head and rolling their hand.
Like someone miming the whole process with a single gesture and being annoyed with having to go through it again.
"Look," It said, looking at me like a disappointed parent readying an offer a kid couldn't refuse, "if you bring me the 'sponge', I'll let you and your 'friends' go with a head start."
It offered, a screen forming into existence next to its head showing a live feed of Delsin when it said 'sponge'. The screen shifted to mugshots of Eugene and Fetch as it said 'friends'.
'Of course it's a "head start" and not "let go", she couldn't fathom letting anything she thinks is hers go!' I thought, my eyes darting around as I tried to find a way to defeat the creature.
"So~," It started, sounding like it's already won everything, "what will it be~?"
I stood there, my eyes closed, my mind racing for things I could do to get out of this.
"Heh," I chuckled, raising my hands and opening my eyes to see the thing—somehow—looking confused, "Nah, I think I'll go with the idea from the 'sponge'!" I say and see the thing–again, somehow—look panicked as I reached down and 'grabbed' the 'floor' before I wrench myself out of the system, and like a surgeon in the middle of an operation deciding to just yank on what he's holding, I pull on the heart of this system as I come out.
*KERTZZZZ! SPLURT! POP!*
The whole relay let out sparks and pops, completely destroying the whole thing from the inside. I didn't come away from that ordeal unscathed though, something ruptured in my head as blood spewed from my nose and poured out of my eyes.
I couldn't see out of my left eye, not knowing if it was just closed or if something broke in my head, all of it compounded by a constant lancing pain becoming omnipresent across my mind.
Despite all of that, I was smiling. Knowing that Augustine had to be raging at my complete denial of her in every way.
I didn't agree, I didn't argue, I didn't even fight. I just said "Fuck it!" I shouted, my thoughts becoming audible as wires in my head crossed. Laughing at my unintentional joke, I lean forward, barely catching myself before I could fall and reach out for the wires in the communication relay.
Nothing…I felt nothing, not even the wires inside me. I knew they were still there, I just couldn't 'reach' for them.
I should've been scared, I should've been absolutely petrified by the fact that I couldn't defend myself properly now but, "HEHEHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHEHA~!~!~!"
I laughed, feeling an odd sense of excitement at the prospect of being in mortal danger.
"Maybe more–HEHE–than just my vision is fucked–HEHAHAHA!" I said as laughter spilled into my words. My head turned skyward as I closed my eyes.
"–y! –ey!!! HEY!!!" My eyes drifted open as I heard someone yelling at me.
My head flopped towards the source of the voice, my one good eye locking with Delsin's two wide ones.
"HOLY SHIT! Are you ok!? ARE YOU GONNA DIE!!!" Delsin rambled, his voice sounding like it was underwater, a mile away, and echoing all at once.
I just smiled, my vision rising a few feet before stopping. I tried to understand why, my head flopping around and tilting down, my eyes finding my legs standing straight.
Forcing my head to tilt back into place, I turned towards where Delsin was. Finding him and all of the DUP soldiers staring at me, all of them looking like they just saw a corpse stand up.
"I guess they kinda did," I thought–no…spoke…I said that "out loud…"
"Oh…I said what I was thinking again, didn't I?" I thought/said, watching Delsin and the soldiers flinch back as I spoke/thought.
My body seemed to fall forward before my muscles tightened, my hand wrapping around something before my body launching forward like a ragdoll. I flipped and flailed through the air before landing on something.
"ARG!" The thing I landed on groaned and the thing I grabbed wrapped around its neck before I jumped again. My arm getting yanked back as the thing I wrapped up didn't want to move, my body jerking back slightly before landing on something else.
"GRAA!" It let out a similar sound as the first and my body moved on its own again. I planted my feet on what felt like a pivot point, my legs pushing as I leaned back fully. A synchronized sound of gurgles and groans came as I felt an impact.
More feeling comes back as my head hits the ground, then my head clears a bit and I do a kip-up. Landing wobbly on my feet as I finally take in what's happening, realizing what happened while I was just moving, also realizing that I had probably blanked in the middle of all of what happened.
There were half of the people there were at the beginning, only a few having been taken down by Delsin. I knew this since they were still wafting smoke from where they were struck.
I was still slightly tipsy, feeling my balance still being fucked and just adjusted for that problem. I looked out of the corner of my eye to find that what I had grabbed was a cord from the command relay. Its rubber wrapping stripped off somewhere in the fight.
Taking a few glances around to get my bearings fully, I lept again, back into the fight at my weakest since I first entered this body.
[Line Break]
I panted, feeling exhaustion seep into my joints and telling me to just lie down and sleep. I didn't let myself, feeling my body try and protest before relenting slightly, my legs finally becoming steady under me. As they did I heard steps coming from behind me.
"I guess you are ok…" Delsin said, trailing off as he looked me up and down before bringing his statement to an end, "...maybe?"
I couldn't blame him, I felt like shit. Seeing my reflection in a window I could see that I looked just as bad as I felt. I looked like I just came out of a fight with a yao guai mother and got put back together by a security bot.
My head dropped as I sighed, making myself answer his rhetorical question.
"Yeah…just let me recover enough to–cough–to actually absorb some wires and I'll be just peachy." I said, coughing into my fist a bit before straightening up.
Delsin didn't look like he believed me, I didn't believe me either, but he let the topic drop. Turning to what was left of the communication relay, he asked me a question.
"What did you even want out of this thing anyways–AGH!" His question got cut off as he reached out, his hand lighting up in a glowing white and shooting up his arm before enveloping him in a glowing radiance.
"…man, he really does look like he's having a seizure…" I said in my shock, the memory of Fetch saying something similar to Delsin popping into my head…then, unwanted, the memory of the last time I actually saw her and Eugene popped into my mind and I immediately stopped that line of thought.
'I'm gonna get back at them somehow, I just gotta find out how…' I thought as my plans started wandering, not noticing a pair of dark eyes watching me without a mask to cover them.
The owner of said eyes was rubbing her thighs together vigorously, trying to find out why she was feeling this way before moaning–GRUNTING, as she turned away.
[Chapter 16 End]
A/N: I feel like this chapter came out really good. I don't know how but I felt like I was in a flow state, like all of my ideas were just pouring into a mold rather than onto the floor like they usually do.
I'll try and keep this up but I make no promises. This feels great but I don't think it'll last for long.
And if you've read this far and are still reading, then I hope you have an incredible rest of your day/night.