Invent ~ 9!

The day was sinking into late afternoon by the time Joe and Major Cleave were approaching the main entrance to the Shoe. In a bid to take their time slowly getting to know each other better, they had taken the long route home. Joe had found that even though she seemed cold and distant, that was simply the veneer that had been put in place over the years of service in the Legion.

She had a certain gallows humor that made him chuckle, and the military bearing she kept up at all times had eased as the travel day stretched on. Joe was about to make a joke that he was sure she would appreciate, when he caught a whiff of schnitzel and gunpowder. His stomach began rumbling at the same moment that he dove at Major Cleave with a full-powered Omnivault and sent both of them rolling.

The ground they had stood on erupted from the impact of what seemed like a wall of metal shards slamming into it, followed shortly by the sonic booms of shots fired. As the echo came, so too did a deep German accent. “What a terrible shame to make me waste all of my precious babies! Shame on you!”

Joe had his Ritual Orbs out and flying as soon as he had a line of sight on the unfortunately impressive assassin. Herr Trigger was prepared for his attacks, and simply began moving to cross the ground between them, his larger weapons set aside in favor of more close-range pistols. Joe forced the man to shy away as he activated Cone of Cold through his Orb and caught the man’s legs from an unexpected angle. “Why are you still coming after me? Don’t you have better things to do?”

“You have an impressive bounty on your head. Once I got a taste, I felt the need to dine again and again at my new favorite restaurant.” Herr Trigger had a wide smile gracing his lips. “Now I must know, how did you escape our first volley?”

“Our…?” Now that he was looking for them, Joe found a half-dozen people dropping rifles and closing in on his two-person group. “Well, that’s not good.”

“Finally.” Major Cleave snarled as she whirled her axe around, charging as soon as it settled in her palm. “Assassinate me once? Shame on me. Show yourself before I’m dead…? Prove yourself a fool!”

In the next few moments, Joe realized that he may need to spend a whole lot of time increasing his physical ability. All the Dwarf did was run at the assembled humans, nothing fancy or wild. Her attack was also very simple and straightforward, but the power behind it was at a level that Joe hadn’t really been able to experience up close. At least, not with this kind of level discrepancy.

When he had attacked the Shoe, the Elves had been ready for the Dwarves, and centuries of practice fighting them. Direct blows were turned away by spells and summons, meaning combat had looked similar to what Joe had seen against the Wolfmen. Here? There were assassins and fighters, humans that had gotten good at killing… but they were nowhere near ready to be exposed to Major Cleavage.

As her namesake suggested, a single attack traveled through multiple enemies, but Joe hadn’t really known what that meant. ‘Cleave’ sounded pretty basic. The reality was… disturbing. If an axe hit multiple enemies, that meant it had gone through them.

Three humans dropped to the ground, sent to respawn by the time Joe managed to flinch away from the ranged blood splatter in shock and disgust. The Major’s axe swept back and forth like a human whipping a twig around, dealing maximum damage to the human’s gear before finally taking them down. Joe had no doubt that the repairs for all that gear would be extensive and expensive.

His mind returned to the battle at hand, and he performed a backward handspring with Omnivault, barely managing to escape a flare that shot from Herr Trigger’s pocket and blazed where his head had been a moment earlier; likely a combination of a flashbang and intense flame damage.

Joe’s hands swept around, directing his mana into a Dark Lightning Strike that lashed out soundlessly, catching the assassin even as he dodged. With the minor paralyzation that took the man, the Reductionist sprayed out a wash of acid that he tried to direct at the weapons in the man’s hands. His aim was good; but his actions utterly infuriated the man.

“Do you have any idea how long it takes to create firearms and individually enchant every bullet?” Herr Trigger bellowed as he tossed his guns into the air above him. Joe landed on the ground, thinking he had a moment before the assassin would be able to attack. His assumption was that the man was throwing away the damaged weapons: he was wrong.

Herr Trigger pulled out a second set of handguns that looked like oversized six shooters, and tossed those in the air as well, finally pulling out one last pair. “Thirty-six Six Shooter!”

The last pair of handguns were fired at Joe, then tossed up as the first pair came and landed in his hands. Those fired, and were tossed. Just going by the speed of the shots, there was clearly a skill involving a spatial inventory at work, but Joe didn’t have time to examine the technique. He simply broke it down to the most basic level. Six handguns, six shots a pop, which apparently reloaded when they were tossed up.

Bullets flooded against his Exquisite Shell so rapidly that he barely had time to think. He dodged around, back and forth, jumping and rolling; but no matter the action he chose, bullets were constantly clipping him—if not directly smashing into his defenses. Joe hit the ground, blood pouring out of his minced body.

Damage taken: 10,406 (121 penetrating damage x86 hits.)

Exquisite Shell: 0/9,842

Health: 1,300/1,864 (bleeding. -34 health per second!) You’ve got holes in you!

If there was one saving grace, one thing that kept him from getting hit perfectly with each shot, it was the fact that with every bullet Retaliation of Shadows went to work; slapping the absolute abyss out of the bounty hunter. The eighty-six rounds had pinged off Joe until his shield failed, but the same number of little slaps of enhanced darkness eventually sent Herr Trigger flying, his weapons following him as he tumbled.

Damage dealt: 3,731 dark damage.

“That hurt, you bounty.” Even with the sheer amount of damage he had taken, the man was on his feet a moment later, rolling with the force and looking to see how his team was doing. Coughing blood, his eyes wobbled back over to Joe, “Oh, we are doing poorly. Here’s today’s Trigger Warning: next time, I will be prepared for you… and for him.”

“That’s a female Dwarf.” Joe snorted as he directed his Orbs to slam into the sides of the assassin’s head from either side; pumping a Cone of Cold into the man’s ear on one side and simple, pure, concussive force into the other. “One win for each of us, next kill decides the winner.”

Damage dealt: 541 (158 x2 blunt, 225 cold).

“It’ll be my victory.” Herr Trigger managed one last predatory grin before being sent to respawn with the rest of his team.

Joe dropped to the ground, heaving for air as he pumped healing spells into himself. A slew of messages tried to take over, but he only had eyes for the wildly expanded usefulness of Exquisite Shell. “Double mana means more placed in the spell, and I haven’t found its upper limit for mana usage yet. How had I not even thought about how much damage that blocks now? Have I been so busy that I haven’t even considered my combat spells? What’s wrong with me?”

“Physically? Nothing except your lack of any identifying hair.” Major Cleave informed him after considering the human for a moment. “I do wonder how you survived that series of shots. That skill the strange human used was clearly an Alpha Strike, and must have had a massive cost to use. Without permanent defenses of a certain level, I’m having trouble remembering another time I’ve seen someone survive one. Skills such as that tend to end lives when they are as single-target and point-blank as that one was.”

“Alpha Strike?” Joe blinked owlishly as he thought over the words. “I’m learning that I may be further behind than I thought I was, Major. What’s an Alpha Strike?”

“The… torrent of destruction you just survived?” The Major looked into his eyes with concern. “Did you take a brain damage debuff? You must have some form of ability… oh! I have also heard them called an ‘Ultimate’ by your race?”

“An ulty? People have ultimate abilities?” Joe glanced at his skill list, not seeing anything that could count toward that. “How do you know what an ulty is? I mean, how do you know if you have one?”

“How do you know?” Major Cleave huffed in surprise and shook her head. “If you don’t know how to rank skills and spells, I suppose you would know them by their massive cooldowns? A day, or twice a day usage, is at the lowest level of an Alpha Strike. Once you see week long, month, year, or even longer… that is when you know you have gained a truly powerful strike. I heard a rumor that you saw two of Major-General Havoc’s known Alpha Strikes. His golem form is one?”

Joe’s eyes went dull as he recalled the horror that his mentor had turned into with the full knowledge that he wouldn’t survive. Somehow the knowledge that that particular skill couldn’t be called on at will gave him a sense of intense relief. “I see… I suppose I have something that might count. I have an ability called Resurrection which can only be used once a day before cooldowns.”

Major Cleave held his gaze for a long moment, before slowly nodding. “Yes, the ability to return someone to life with only a cost to your mana is… fairly ultimate, as you say.”

“Yeah. But… how do you get them?” Joe tapped on the ground in thought, then remembered that his Exquisite Shell was broken. He dumped his entire pool of six thousand, seven hundred and eighty-eight mana into the spell. For a long moment, the spell crackled and sparked like lightning, before settling into what looked like a glitter bomb gone wrong. He was so used to it that he didn’t notice anymore, but the Major only rolled her eyes.

“How indeed.” She shook off her attitude and tried to give a proper answer, “While there are people that may be able to teach them, Alpha Strikes are usually gained through a combination of class levels and class quests. At some point, you will either learn or be granted one.”

“Oh.” Joe looked at his level, which had remained near twenty-one for several weeks at the minimum, and his other classes, which hadn’t really progressed in months. “So there are still reasons to level up. I had kinda stopped worrying about that in favor of grinding skills.”

“Yes, Sir.” Major Cleave informed him drolly. “You’re correct. Levels aren’t just numbers that stop having meaning as you get stronger. That would kind of defeat the entire purpose of having a quantifiable system of advancement in the first place.”

“Huh. I figured that at some point it just wouldn’t matter anymore.” Joe smiled and hopped to his feet. “Nothing for it! Let's get awesome!”

“He’s just been using basic abilities this entire time? What kind of imagination does he have that lets them work like this?” Major Cleave watched as Joe skipped down the road toward the Shoe, shivering lightly. “This man is a monster.”