Wasteland Warlords Episode 4: Chapter 12 - The Final Countdown

When the spell smoke cleared, Clay dropped onto his hands and knees on scorching hot concrete, the M4 bouncing on its tactical sling. Hissing, he jerked his hands free of the sunbaked parking lot surface. It had damn near melted the palms of his gloves.

Thermal vision wasn’t doing him any good out here. The heat waves bouncing off the ground were causing too much interference. He blinked back to regular vision, then had to squint while his eyes adjusted to that bludgeoning afternoon light.

The Temple of the Dew rose up behind them, the ocean stretched out in front, sunlight glinting off the waves. At the far edge of the parking lot, too far away to throw them any shade, stood three silos painted like cans of Mountain Dew—Code Red, Lightning Fury, and MD Classic. In the opposite direction, just behind a concrete baffle, lay the shantytown of slave shacks they had seen during their recon phase. Looked like they were all deserted at this time of day, maybe because everybody was out trying desperately to find something they could bring back to their douchebag overlords without being murdered.

This “random location” wasn’t as far away as he’d expected given that Haphazard Cast promised to send them somewhere within a fifteen-mile radius, but he guessed being moved a few hundred yards to the left was pretty random.

Beside him, the Madlad Incant climbed to his feet. Clay backpedaled away from him, trying to find a good range.

“Cute trick,” Rhett sneered as he dusted off his designer skater jeans. “What, did you just think you’d pop a cap in me and game over, you get my powers and this gorgeous empire I built?”

“Not quite.” Clay downed a health potion. While the gunshot wound in his thumb gooch repaired itself, he traded the M4 for the Ace of Spades. It was time for something more final than the Spelled Ammo he had in the carbine.

“Think just because you took out Flynn that you can step to me?” Rhett laughed. “Tell me, were you born a fuckup or did you just get into the business lately? Because this is a fuckup of epic proportions. True prodigy level. I’m worth a hundred Gearheads. And Cass? Cass thinks he’s such a badass, but he doesn’t have half my brains. You chumps couldn’t beat me six-on-one—there’s no way you’re going to beat me mano-ee-mano.”

That unexpected line of text flashed through Clay’s brain: you knocked the wyrd of the day cockeyed.

“We’ll see. And it’s mano a mano.”

“Whatever, nerd. Check it.” Rhett held up his left arm and pushed back the ripped, bloody sleeve. Before Clay’s eyes, the skin healed over without even a scar. “No potions necessary, because guess what? Acid Drop’s over. You get the full Madlad experience, up close and personal. No Fakies, no posse, just you and me. Sk8magic versus whatever dumb little training wheels came with your newbie Incant starter pack.”

“If we want to do this showdown today, you’re gonna have to wrap up the monologue,” Clay said, squeezing off a shot.

“Quiver Tailblock!” A dozen semi-transparent aquamarine boards fanned out in front of Rhett like a time-lapse video. They caught the bullet, which shattered on impact. “Now watch a real wizard work.”

He grabbed the fan of skateboards out of the air, making it coalesce into a single board. He threw that down and jumped onto it, rolling at Clay.

“Plasma 360.” Rhett kicked his board onto a parking bumper, ramping and spinning the board impossibly beneath his front foot. As it started to come down again, a line of crackling aquamarine fire shot toward Clay, dripping globules of flame onto the concrete.

Clay dove out of the way and rolled to his feet.

Before he could take off again, Rhett yelled, “Frigid Air!”

An icy blast of blizzard slammed into Clay’s back side. Ice grew out of the scorching concrete to encase his boots. Trapped instantly, he wheeled his arms to stop his forward momentum.

The sound of a rolling skateboard was coming up behind him, getting closer every second. Rhett would be winding up for another trick.

Desperately Clay grabbed a bottle of Rattlesnake’s Kiss from his drop pouch.

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Rattlesnake’s Kiss (Poison)

Effect 1: Does 15 points/sec Hemotoxic Damage; duration 1 minute

Effect 2: Increases Piercing Damage by 50%; duration 10 seconds

Uses: 1

╠═╦╬╧╪

It was one of the poisons he’d learned from Principles of Bootlegging. Not the most deadly—that went to Prin’s Bite—but it still packed a punch.

The Madlad’s Plasma attack crackled again. Clay threw himself backward, wincing at the pain in his calves and a spine totally unused to backbends. It seemed like he watched the plasma stream shoot over him in slow motion, right through where his heart had been just a second before. Little gobbets of blue-green flame dripped onto his chest, eating through the Obsidian Glass mail like acid.

Gritting his teeth against the burning, Clay winged the Rattlesnake’s Kiss at Rhett. Without waiting to see whether it would hit, he emptied the revolver, squeezing off shots as fast as he could think.

The potion bottle caught the Madlad still coming down from his spin trick and shattered against his knee. An ugly wound spread from the spot, blackened and ragged, and his health bar flashed sickly green. Less than a second later, four of Clay’s six shots slammed into Rhett’s chest, doing extra damage thanks to the poison.

“You little bitch!” Rhett spat, flecks of blood flying through his teeth. “You think that makes a difference? I’m about to fry you like a Kentucky chicken. Nuke Grab!”

Clay bucked, trying to break free of the ice. It was melting fast, but not fast enough to kick loose yet. The Wyrd West Quickdraw Set gave him a boost to reload speed, but even that wouldn’t be fast enough to shoot Rhett again before his next attack.

He had to disrupt the caster, not the spell.

Clay cast Sludge Slick. This time, on the Incant’s translucent board.

Rhett grabbed the tail with his back hand, but his fingers slipped in the oily sludge. The board shot out of his grasp like a wet bar of soap.

His designer skate shoes slapped the pavement hard as he ran out of his fall. He took a breath like he was winding up for either another rant or another cast, but a ball of red light slammed into him from the side, sending him cartwheeling ass over teakettle toward the Dew silos.

“How glad are you right now that I lo-jacked your boots without your prior knowledge?” Joe called to Clay across the parking lot. His rockets roared as he shot toward them.

Clay scowled. “We’ll talk about it at the next squad meeting. Help me out of this ice.”

Joe dug out his Phillips screwdriver and gave it a twirl. It came to a stop as a heat gun big enough to shrink-wrap the Louvre’s pyramid for winter. The oversized hairdryer screamed through the last of the ice locking Clay in place.

“Where’s everybody else?” Clay asked as Joe pulled him to his feet.

“On their way. We ran into more Triple S on our way out, so they sent Big Damn Hero Lumberjack Joe on ahead. Lucky they did, too, huh? You almost got cooked.”

Clay shot a look toward the giant Mountain Dew cans. The Madlad was stumbling back to his feet in the shade of the silos.

“Yo!” he yelled. “Buttclowns, the god of Malibu’s right over here. Or are you hoping you can sneak out of here before I open a can of whoopass and plant my size eleven so far up your ass you choke on it?”

Clay checked the shacks and the concrete baffle separating them from the Temple parking lot. It looked just high enough.

“Listen, I’ve got a plan, but I’m going to need your help distracting that self-important skate punk.”

“Distractions are my specialty,” Joe said. “Just ask Mrs. Henderson.”

Clay gave him a quick and dirty rundown, then they split up.

Joe kicked off the concrete, and his rocket boosters shot him toward Rhett Cameron.

“You like half-pipes?” Joe yelled, leveling his arm cannon at the Incant. “Then let’s see how you like full bores!”

Rhett threw up another Tailblock and dove out of the way. The boards shattered and the cannon blast slammed into the parking lot, leaving a smoking crater in the concrete. In retaliation, he kicked a new translucent board up out of nothing and launched it at Joe with a cry of “Nuclear Grab!”

While they were locked in battle, Clay swung around the outside of the lot, legs eating up the distance. As he ran, he downed a Supersonic Speed Boost potion. He really hit the gas then. His stamina drained like it had sprung a leak, but he’d made a ton of stamina potions while he was leveling his brewing. He kept dumping them down the hatch.

A stray shot from either Joe or the Madlad smashed into the concrete in his path. He jumped over it, concrete debris slamming into his back as he went. Unlike the Incant’s Plasma attack, these didn’t even make a dent in his Obsidian Glass mail.

A silo ladder hung from the side of the Code Red. Clay took the wall at a run, leaping and kicking off the metal siding. His hands locked on the bottom rung, and he yanked himself up the ladder toward the roof.

Out in the lot, Rhett ramped off an abandoned car and crashed into Joe midair. The pair of them tumbled to the ground, switching from distance attacks to savage slugfest in the blink of an eye. Despite his bulky armor, Joe was taking the worst of the damage. Even though he was just a caster, the Madlad’s strength was boosted through the ’roid roof from years of Gearhead’s stat potions.

Clay yanked himself up onto the roof of the silo and paused just long enough to line up a shot with the M4. He cleared his mind, breathed out, and squeezed the trigger. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. The crack echoed across the parking lot. The bullet landed high on the back of Joe’s thigh. He let out a pained yelp as Friendly Fire refilled his health.

“Can’t you aim somewhere other than the butt?” he hollered over his shoulder.

Clay didn’t bother answering. He left Joe to deal with Rhett and pulled the Wand of Lesser Inferno. With the first of his Lances for the day, he blew the hatch off the silo. Pink carbonation fizzed up out of the hole, spilling over and soaking him to the knee before it receded.

The rooftop made that sticky peeling sound beneath his boots as he jogged to the jagged tear where the hatch had been moments before.

Thank God he’d shoved the last of his brewing ingredients into his ruck this morning just in case. He dug out a bag of Defcon Level 5 Warheads and a handful of black flowers called Crow Tidy. Working as fast as he could, he stripped out the proper Affinities and dumped them both into the vat.

This was the part he couldn’t rush. He prayed Joe was holding his own down there, then shoved his hand down into the Code Red and started channeling Magicka into it. His knees gave out, but he hung onto the ripped metal and kept going—kept pouring everything he had into the brew. His head spun. If this didn’t kill him, he was going to have one helluva Magicka hangover.

Just when he thought his brain was going to boil inside his skull, the potion finished.

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Blood on the Scarecrow, Blood on the Dew (Ultra-Rare Contact Poison)

Effect: Turns any organic matter to blood on contact.

Uses: 1

╠═╦╬╧╪

With the last reserves of willpower he had left, Clay dragged himself to the edge of the roof and looked down.

“Now, Joe,” he sent via Beguiling Call.

In the parking lot below, Joe reared back a fist. Glass caught the light, clenched between the fingers of his metal gauntlet. The bottle of Prin’s Merciless Bite that Clay had slipped him during their brief huddle.

“Gleam this cube, asshole!” Joe snarled, smashing the poison bottle against Rhett’s skull.

“Oh, more poison?” Rhett feigned a yawn as he wrestled with Joe. “Big whoop. Do you even get how powerful I am? Look at this.” He slammed Joe’s mech-arm against the concrete like it was nothing. “I’m a rottweiler. You’re a newborn kitten. On your best day, you never stood a chance.”

Clay fired off the second Inferno Lance. The blinding blast of light ripped a ragged tear down the side of the Code Red silo. Fresh poison gushed out like a blood tsunami, rampaging across the parking lot.

Rhett heard the warning roar and looked over his shoulder. Sudden panic twisted his features as he realized he was about to die.

“Fly us out of here,” he yelled at Joe. “Before we’re both dead meat.”

“Yeah, no.” Joe smirked. “Do you even get how powerful I am?”

The second before the wave crashed into them, a brilliant green glow filled the battlefield, threatening to outshine the sun.

Joe’s Body By Dew.

The bloody poison covered the parking lot, crashing against the retaining baffle in front of the shantytown, then it rolled back and found the path of least resistance, slowly pouring onto the beach. The poison soaked into the sand, turning it scarlet for a hundred yards in any direction. Clay made a mental note to break that down as soon as he could move without vomiting.

The thought vanished as a sound dinged in his ear and a notification swam across his vision.

[LEVEL UP x 6!]

[You have 60 undistributed stat points!]

[You have unlocked the following Mystic Fateslinger Abilities:

Heat Haze (Arcane Spell – Lv. 1): The Mystic Fateslinger’s appearance blurs to all enemies, making the caster harder to hit at distance.

Tether Shot (Weapon Spell – Lv. 1): Shoot a spot, any spot. Now shoot another. Presto! A tether forms connecting the two and reducing movement, just like magic!

Fast Hands (Physical Ability – Lv. 1): When activated, time seems to slow down, allowing the Mystic Fateslinger to reload at a supernaturally enhanced pace.]

Clay’s jaw nearly hit the floor as a wave of golden light washed over him and lifted him into the air, healing his myriad of wounds and mending his blood-soaked gear. In the blink of an eye, he went from feeling like a hungover bag of ass—just two steps away from projectile vomiting all over his armor—to feeling like he was on top of the world. There wasn’t an ache in his body, and every ounce of exhaustion had been whisked away. He supposed leveling up six consecutive times might have a way of doing that to a person. The sudden advancement could only mean one thing… They’d done it. They’d killed Rhett Cameron. And he must’ve been a helluva high level to give out that kind of experience.

Down below, the parking lot was coated in a sticky film of blood and Rhett’s corpse was nowhere to be seen. All that was left of him was his designer skate clothes.

Joe stood up, still in full glow-stick mode. There wasn’t a scratch on him, which could only mean that he’d leveled up too. Still, he was standing ankle-deep in a pool of red.

“Ew!” Joe said, examining one boot with disgust. Carefully he tromped over to a slab of concrete jutting out of the goo and made for higher ground, leaving bloody footprints in his wake. Once clear, he snapped his fingers. With Pact of Armor, his mech suit disappeared, leaving him in his trusty jorts, flannel, and work boots. “That’s better.” He waved at Clay and gave him a wide, shit-eating grin. “Way to go, bro! We won!”

Clay shot him a weary thumbs-up as he surveyed the damage. He didn’t see any other immediate threats, and though he knew Cassidy was still out there somewhere, he was just happy to have a moment to breathe. Chances were good that if Cassidy was lurking around Malibu, he wouldn’t stick around for long. So far the Jager squad had managed to take out two of the three members of the Incant team. If Cassidy was smart, he’d make a tactical retreat and reassess before engaging.

That’s what Clay would do, were he in Cassidy’s boots. But there was time to worry about all that later. Right now, he needed to find the rest of his team and make sure everyone was alive and kicking. Celebrating could come later…