Awaken Online: Armageddon, page 51
Alexion motioned at Jason, and he took his meaning. They moved to the nearby line of buildings, putting cover between themselves and the tower in the distance. Neither of them had forgotten about Pewpew. Right now, they had the element of surprise. Jason seriously doubted anyone had noticed Brodie’s insane landing, not at the speeds they’d been traveling.
“Like he said, a lot has changed since I suspect you were last outside your… err, your capsule?” Jason offered weakly to the faerie, who was now sobbing uncontrollably. He looked to Alexion for help, but the angel just shrugged. With a sigh, Jason returned his attention to Brodie. “Either way, you need to be careful. If you help us and stay inside this cage, I promise I’ll assist you in finding the rest of your, um, coworkers.”
“You-you will?” Brodie asked, suddenly wiping away his tears. It seemed his crying episode was already over. Perfect. Now they were stuck with an overly emotional faerie.
And here Jason had just been thinking that the one upside of Armageddon was that he didn’t have to listen to Pint’s nonsense…
“I will. But first, can you tell me what you can hear?” Jason asked, leaning forward. His eyes darkened as he channeled his mana. Perhaps they could use this little faerie.
“Oh, well, it sounds like a man is talking to himself… or maybe to someone else? It’s hard to tell,” Brodie explained, cocking his head as he listened carefully.
“What direction?” Jason asked, swiping at the air to open his map.
Brodie pointed off to the northwest.
That matched the location of Eliza’s icon. However, it looked like Finn had wandered off. Had the two been split up, or had they decided to part ways? Either way, Jason supposed it didn’t matter. If Brodie was picking up a man’s voice near Eliza, that could only mean that
And with the way her health was shifting erratically, she must already be in the middle of a fight. Judging from the scowl on Alexion’s face, he was thinking the same thing. If she died, it was only going to be harder to get off this floating prison.
Jason placed a waypoint marker and then swiped away the map. “Alright, we need to get moving,” he declared. “Eliza needs our help.”
Alexion nodded, pulling his sword and shield free as the pair started forward.
Jason just hoped Eliza could survive until they arrived.
Chapter 46 - One-Man Band
“What the fuck are you?” Bard gasped, his chest heaving.
She certainly wasn’t an ordinary girl – or water mage.
Even now, Eliza remained mute, only glaring at him with those glowing blue eyes. Each gust of wind caused the mold that made up her body to contort and twist, resettling back into place moments later.
Around her was pure carnage. Broken rocks, half-collapsed structures, and piles of dust – the remains of the scrap timber and trash that blew through the club, the mold devouring anything that had even a trace of organic material.
Bard wiped at the sweat on his brow. Even with his exceptional physical conditioning and endurance – a product of Dom’s intensive training – he was starting to run out of gas. His stamina pool was slipping below half for the first time in a long, long time. Sure, he hadn’t taken a hit, and his health was still full. But that was because he couldn’t afford to get hit. Not even once. He’d seen what she’d done to Queen.
A lance of mold darted through the air, a sharp whistle scattering the particles as Bard sped to the side – his skin infused with a bright yellow glow – only to slide to a stop in the nick of time. Eliza had feinted, encircling him with more mold that crept along the walls of the ruined structures. He tried to backpedal, but Eliza was waiting for him – her body breaking apart and rematerializing only a few feet away. A wave of mold rose around him, boxing him in.
Under normal circumstances, Bard could have jumped – leaped to safety.
But the club’s safety protocols were still online.
He raised his hands. “Uh, maybe we should talk about this—”
More mold lanced forward, blasting away with a hasty whistle.
“Okay, or not,” Bard muttered.
He hadn’t wanted to use his Plan B—had been hoping to save that ability for later. For the grand finale he’d planned – one fantastically dressed rockstar facing off against four avatars at once. He’d dreamed of that moment for days and weeks now as they’d planned and schemed and prepared. All cameras pointed at him as they faced off in a ruined coliseum. His monologue was already prepared and practiced. Hell, it had taken him days just to pick out the outfit…
Bard heaved out a sigh. This wasn’t the way he’d imagined it at all.
A grown man – fighting a little blue-eyed demon girl.
Losing to a little blue-eyed demon girl, he corrected himself.
However, the camera was still rolling, the blue orb hovering at his shoulder and taking in the growing wave of mold. It now fully encircled him, radiating out from Eliza, and spreading across the stone. There were legions of adoring fans watching him get wrecked by this little water mage. And his reputation couldn’t take a hit like that; Bard couldn’t take a hit like that.
He refused to go back to what he once was. Back to being just… Adrian.
That simpering, weak, scared man, always thumbing at a broken old guitar in a backwater shithole. And no, he wasn’t just talking about AO. In-game and out, he’d been that person. Washed up. Listless. Terrified at taking a risk and putting it all on the line. At chasing an impossible dream.
Yet Dom had changed that. Had changed him. Had shown him he didn’t need to be afraid of anything. That he could endure anything. That he could stare death in the face and laugh.
Even if it happened to be the face of a little girl.
So, Bard took a page out of Dom’s book and stopped hesitating.
He pulled the case from his back, thumbing the catch even as the mold toppled in toward him in slow motion, a rolling wave of living, blue death. He flipped the switch at the base of the guitar, a bright yellow light blooming into existence. He raised his instrument – another gift from Dom. Ignoring the mold that drifted ever closer, his fingers stroked the gleaming wood tenderly.
Then he looked up at the camera, a mad smile painted on his mask – matching the expression lingering just beneath. He pointed at that blue orb – at the millions of people watching.
“This one is for you, Smiles.”
The first chord rippled out from his guitar in a wave, causing the mold to undulate, but failing to halt its advance. Bard just kept playing, his voice soon adding to the song as air mana flared out from his body in a brilliant explosion of amber. That energy condensed into phantom-instruments. Drums. A bass guitar. A wind section adding to the strings. An ethereal orchestra that encircled him protectively.
Those instruments all began to play, a rising melody lifting into the air. At the same time, a prompt appeared before him, glowing with a soft blue light.
System Notice: One-Man Band
You have pushed your musical talents to the limit, summoning the band you’ve never had. For the duration of the performance, you will be empowered with all your currently known auras and buffs, and your instruments may be weaponized. This comes at a considerable cost, swiftly draining both your mana and stamina.
Duration: 2 Minutes.
“You are now both the maestro and the orchestra. Play on, brother!” – The Gambler
The song hummed through the air, the drums entering with a thunderous boom and another flash of yellow. Air mana slammed the mold back into the walls with a wave of force, sending it crashing out across the stone in a puff of glimmering blue dust.
Bard reveled in the sensation. Power practically sang through his veins. His movement speed, stamina, health, mana regeneration, and physical stats had all skyrocketed. His skills had all been empowered, gaining multiple levels, notifications cascading down the corner of his vision. Even if it didn’t last long, for just a moment, he rivaled even Dom.
Which meant he could handle an avatar.
His guitar pealed, a concentrated cone of air slamming into Eliza. Her form began to break apart—motes of mold streaming away from her arms, her shoulders, her legs. Her body was destabilizing—trying vainly to stitch itself back together but failing. Another blast of sound, and she simply blew apart, her form swirling into motes of mold, a massive blue cloud that slammed against the building at her back before washing out across the stone.
Bard used the respite to suck in air and refill his protesting lungs as he scanned the ruined courtyard. Mold floated there in a haze, his instruments creating a protective dome of air around him. Eliza was gone. Vanished into the mist of mold.
But he had a feeling she wasn’t dead—
Mold erupted from beneath his feet, sneaking through cracks in the rock.
Bard moved in a blur, neatly dodging each tendril that darted at him as he danced around the courtyard. His instruments let out blasts of focused air which held back the mold and deflected Eliza’s attacks. She soon rematerialized near one of the structures, no longer covered by the adjacent line of buildings to the north. A grin tugged at Bard’s lips.
A bolt of lightning suddenly struck the building at her back, smashing through the reinforced rock, and the structure began to crumble, caving inward toward Eliza. Yet her eyes were simply focused on Bard, fixed on his face – no trace of concern or fear reflected there. She maintained that stare even as the structure crushed down upon her, burying her under several tons of rock and her body vanishing from sight.
Bard tipped his hat at the tower in the distance. Pewpew had come through.
And another timer in the corner of his vision had just struck zero, which meant—
“What the hell happened here?” Blaze demanded, sliding up and out of the stone. Tombs, Smokes, and Queen were with her, each member taking a deep breath and shaking their limbs. Traveling with Tombs was unpleasant, to say the least.
“Looks like Bard is having some trouble,” Smokes observed, pulling another cigarette from his case, and lighting it languidly. “Are you losing to one girl?” he asked.
“Nope,” Bard gasped, trying to refill his aching lungs, his clothing torn and covered in dust. “Just buying time for you losers to show up.” Bard’s UI dinged. The duration of his One-Man Band was still ticking down swiftly, and his companions were suddenly infused with the same bright glow. Bard suspected they would need it to handle Eliza.
Speaking of the devil herself, Bard grimaced as he saw motes of sapphire drifting out from under the rubble. “We don’t have time to chat. You need to finish her before her allies arrive, or my buff wears off.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll take care of her. I have a score to settle now,” Queen announced, stepping forward and glaring at the rubble. Frost bloomed among the pile of debris, the mold freezing in place and falling back to the ground, adding to the chilly aura that Eliza maintained around herself. The cold no longer stabilized the mold. Instead, it rendered it inert. Dormant. Eliza – or whatever she had become – was contained under that mountain of frozen rubble.
As she continued channeling her spell, Queen nodded at Blaze, and the older woman stepped forward. Fire mana cascaded out around her staff before encircling her body and rippling away from her skin.
“Scale of 1 to 10, how hard do I need to blast her?” Blaze asked over her shoulder.
“20,” Bard grunted, earning him a surprised look.
Then Blaze let out a cackle. “I haven’t gotten to go all out in a while.” As she finished speaking, her mana flared. But Blaze kept pouring more energy into her spell, giving it her all, while Bard’s buffs only enhanced her spell further. A glowing spot of light soon appeared in the sky, another Meteor growing overhead.
“Jason and Alexion?” Bard asked, side-eyeing Smokes.
He tilted his head… then shook it.
Bard knew what that meant. They hadn’t respawned. Damn it. That means they’re still alive and out there somewhere. And Finn still hadn’t made an appearance.
“Keep an eye out then, and stay close,” Bard instructed Smokes and Tombs. They nodded and stepped back, Tombs Phasing them into a nearby wall as they repositioned. There was no sense in the pair standing out in the open. There were other avatars still out there somewhere.
They needed to finish off Eliza quickly before the others could reinforce her. The worst-case scenario was allowing the four of them to regroup. Alone or in their shitty pairings, they were manageable. Together? Well, Bard had been having this recurring nightmare where those four crazy assholes brought the entire club crashing down to earth – with him riding front in center on that rollercoaster of death.
He might not be afraid to die, but that didn’t mean he was looking forward to it.
The meteor overhead kept growing until it shone brightly, a new sun blooming in the sky. Blaze poured every ounce of mana into her spell, not holding anything back. They couldn’t afford to take Eliza lightly – not any longer. Those fires grew until the heat was oppressive, pushing against them even at this distance and sending off tufts of steam from Queen’s ice as she maintained her own channel on the pile of rubble where Eliza was trapped.
Then the ball of fire began to descend, and Blaze’s laughter mixed with the triumphant boom of Bard’s song. She stared at the majesty of flame and destruction she had conjured, making no attempt to run or flee the impact radius. It plunged down, down, down, the heat rolling across them in waves now. So hot that Bard’s skin began to sear. Acting fast, he redirected his instruments, creating a protective wall of air around his group that blocked the worst of the heat as the meteor plunged down upon Eliza.
100 yards.
Then 80.
Then 50.
The Meteor was a thing of glory. Nearly fifty feet wide. Molten flame tumbling and snapping along the surface. The center had condensed down into a sludgy, white plasma. There was no way that girl would survive the impact.
Yet just before it struck, the Meteor slowed and then stopped, hanging suspended in the air. It hovered only a few feet away from the stone, and the ice was melting away swiftly now – forming puddles of water along the rocks. Those shimmering blue motes began to lift away from the stone once more as Eliza began to recollect herself.
“I can’t keep up my spell,” Queen ground out, gritting her teeth and her mana surging against the heat that wafted across the ruined courtyard.
Bard wasn’t able to do much either. He couldn’t even speak – not now as he tried to maintain the barrier of air to blunt the flames and protect himself and his guildmates. He could only look at Blaze, his expression confused and demanding. He knew she was nuts, but what game was she playing here?
“It’s not me! What… what’s happening to my precious Meteor?” Blaze demanded.
Then the roiling ball of flame began to shrink rapidly, the fire flowing away toward the opposite side of the courtyard. A new figure stood there – his head wreathed in a flaming crown and his crystalline arm held aloft, draining the fire mana into its depths until the limb glowed with a terrifying, blinding light.
“He’s stealing my mana?” Blaze shouted. “I’ll flay you—”
She never got to finish that sentence.
As he finished draining her spell, Finn pivoted, that arm so bright that it left spots in Bard’s vision if he looked at it directly. He could only see that it was pointed at them. Bard dropped his spell instantly, snatching Queen as he raced away in a blur – the timer on his One-Man Band ticking down to zero. He hit the ground and slid as the spell ended abruptly, just barely avoiding the massive beam of molten energy that speared from Finn’s arm.
It obliterated Blaze, her body burning away to ash in a mere second, leaving only a pile of smoking embers in her wake. Then it carved into the rock of the platform, eating away at the warded stone at an incredible pace. A blast echoed in the distance, a flash of lightning cutting through the air.
Thank god, Pewpew—
Bard cut that thought short, gaping in shock as he saw Finn pivot, his movements far too quick and flames rolling across his body. Haste, he realized belatedly. That beam pivoted at the same time, arcing up toward that projectile. It evaporated the missile in an instant, but the beam kept going. It cut across the length of the club, stretching nearly a quarter of a mile, before striking the tower in the distance. It cut into the stone, then through it, slicing the spire in half.
Bard could only stare as the beam sputtered out, a dark line now cutting a diagonal across the tower. He held his breath. Had Finn damaged the generator? Had he destroyed the tower? Then he felt his stomach lurch as the stone began to crumble and crack, collapsing in on itself as the top portion of the tower began to give way…
“Oh, shit,” Bard muttered.
“What are you—” Queen began, freezing as she followed his gaze.
Not that they had time to appreciate the destruction Finn had just caused. He might have just inadvertently undermined all of their plans. Mold was streaming out from beneath the nearby pile of rubble. Then, all at once, it rushed forward. Bard tried to move, but he was too slow. The distraction cost him. The mold barely touched his ankle, just a few motes against a slender patch of bare skin.
But it was enough.
A searing pain bloomed in his leg, the mold rapidly expanding as it ate into his muscle, worming its way toward his circulatory system. He had just a few seconds before it would reach his bloodstream, after which he was doomed.
He looked up and saw the same realization in Queen’s eyes. He had less than a minute at most. No more. “Don’t worry, I’ll make this death count,” Bard grunted. He felt her lean forward and touch that leg, ice coating the skin – supporting the leg and slowing the infection.
Then Bard was on his feet, leaning on Queen for support. At the same time, Smokes and Tombs phased out of the nearby wall and entered the fray, the smoke hovering in the air from Finn’s spell suddenly collecting and condensing, forming a gray wall that encircled the area, boxing in Eliza where she was pinned under the rock.
