by Jeff Sproul
Saros pulled in all the smoke until there was nothing but a tiny stream of it coming from the other street. Its head reared back, higher into the sky. Then, it plummeted back down and without warning, a gray smoke spewed out of its maw. The smoke harbored what looked to be purple electrical streaks running throughout it. The attack billowed out into the right street. Riley didn’t have any good vantage to see into the other street, but there was a lot of the gray and purple smoke being spewed into it.
“That other side doesn’t have a healer!” said Riley, over the sound of the monster’s attack. “Can Brenda help them out? They’re gonna be hurt!”
“Brenda!” Seth called out, his head turning to the right, where Riley followed and noticed Brenda had taken a position on the far side of the street, in a doorway. She was still launching red bolts at the monster.
“What?” she yelled back.
“Other street needs healing! Can you get over there?” Seth called.
“Sure! I guess!” Brenda replied.
Riley’s eyes widened. “Get down! Take cover!” he shouted as the monster’s head moved towards the street they were in, casting that gray smoke over the middle structures and then their part of the street. Everyone in the center of the street was scrambling to get behind something, as the heavy gust of smoke washed over the street.
Riley ducked behind the stall as best he could, with Seth beside him. The stall offered some protection, but the purple-energized smoke still caught them to some extent. Riley’s eyes vision flashed red as he realized he was taking damage. Everytime he saw a streak of purple, his vision flashed again. He was losing five percent of his health at a time.
“You holding up?” Riley asked, turning his head to Seth.
“Yeah, hopefully it ends soon though!” he said.
The smoke ran through the street and finally broke against the structures at the far end of it.
The smoke cleared and Riley lifted his head to see. The monster’s jaw was slowly lowering back into place. The stream of smoke from the other street had ended. Riley figured that maybe the player was regaining his strength. The people on the other side should still have his empowerment buff for several more minutes. He then stood up and threw his cord to the nearby hand. He needed to buff everyone in the street up, as fast as possible.
“Brenda, get to the other street! Riley will hold things down over here!” Seth shouted.
“I’m going!” Brenda called back, as her footfalls sounded across the street as she headed to the other side.
“Wait!” Riley called to Brenda. “Let me buff you first!” he said as he didn’t waste any time in sending the cord out. Brenda lingered in the street for just long enough, before the spike detached.
“Thanks!” she called back and then darted off.
Riley’s next target for empowerment, was Seth. He stole more essence from Saros and then sent his other cord to Seth, and began the process.
“Why are you empowering me?” Seth complained. “I’m barely causing any damage!”
“Can’t have you going and dying again, not with that item I gave you!” he said with a smirk, as the transfer completed. “And every little bit helps!”
Yellow discs cut into Saros’s arm. More green jets fired up from the other street, along with a renewed hail of red blasts.
Riley saw Todd, near someone he didn’t recognize. “Todd! Who’s that with you?” he called over, only able to see the back of the person. He needed to know their powers, so he could determine his next target. As he waited for a response, he went and stole more essence from the monster.
Todd turned his head. “This is portal guy,” he said, gesturing to the guy beside him, who had blue hair on one side and red hair on the other. His clothes were equally as split. He wore a red shirt, with a pair of blue pants.
“The name’s Parviz, actually,” Parviz made a point in correcting, as he looked over to Riley. “You’re the one with the cords?” he asked in return.
“That’s me!” Riley said. “Incoming buff!” he said as he threw his spike over and stuck the guy’s arm.
Parviz looked down and watched as the dark purple essence rushed into him. His eyes took on the dark purple tone and he looked down at his hands as the spear-tip detached. “I don’t feel any different,” said Parviz.
“You’ll resist Saros’s attacks a bit better, and sometimes your powers are improved,” he said. “Todd, your next,” Riley threw the cord again, where the enormous arm and hand continued to rest on the rooftop.
“Set me up, portal guy!” Todd instructed, as he stood in protection from direct line of sight from the monster, as he was on the left side of the street. Saros’s head eased around, but it seemed more concerned with the other side of the plaza, than their own.
“It’s Parviz!” he corrected the stout man, yet again.
“Parviz, portal!” Todd reiterated.
Parviz groaned and began to move his arms around.
Riley looked over to watch a red portal open up about ten feet into the air. It was the same size as the blue one he’d seen earlier.
The moment he siphoned another portion of Saros’s essence, he tossed his left cord to hook Todd’s arm. The cord filled with the essence, transferring it to the earth-mover. Todd’s health was restored to full as the liquid ran into his arm. His eyes went dark and without hesitation, he swung his arms up.
Another concrete-based spike rushed from the street and into the portal. The stone itself took on an almost dark aura as he moved it.
Riley turned to look at the interdimensional monster, but his gaze was drawn to the new blue portal just above the monster’s arm. He watched as the concrete lance drove out of the blue portal and down into the monster’s hand. He heard the soft squishing sound of it entering the creature’s flesh, and the grating of stone as it drove into the structure’s roof below.
“C’mon, c'mon!” Todd goaded Parviz.
“Working on it!” Parviz responded. He moved his arms and the two portals vanished. A new red one appeared nearby. The original concrete lance had become a pillar-like outcropping, jutting from the ground.
“Go go!” Parviz said.
Riley glanced around to see where the ‘out-portal’ had appeared. He looked up to the monster, as its head swung to the side, as if it was looking over to its impaled hand. It was then that Riley noticed he could see a blue glow from above one of the buildings in the opposite street. The hand itself wasn’t visible, but he could see Saros’s arm going down to one of the roofs. Seconds later, another concrete lance descended from the new portal and drove into the monster’s other hand, impaling it just as it had done to the one on their side.
“We got it!” Parvis called.
“Let’s go for the neck again!” said Todd.
“Right!” Parvis replied.
It looked as though Todd and Parviz had their combo worked out. Riley returned his focus on pulling essence from the monster, as Seth unleashed the energy of the clasp he’d given him.
Riley noticed the yellow-disc thrower was active as ever. He set his sights on him and threw the cable over. Upon impact, the guy turned his head. “Thanks!” he said, before continuing his assault on the interdimensional creature. Riley figured that he’d picked up on what he was doing by now, so he didn’t need to warn him ahead of time, which he was forgetting to do at this point.
Once the disc-thrower was empowered, he looked around. “Where’s Erica?” he asked.
Seth paused his firing and pointed back behind them in the street. “She’s setting something up with the other woman back there.”
Riley turned around and had to look a bit, before he noticed numerous vines coming up out of the concrete. The vines formed a sort of ‘catapult’ mechanism, which Erica stood nearby. She was with another woman, with long black hair and silver highlights. She had on a black pair of pants and a silver zip-up jacket. The woman’s arms were a few feet apart and she seemed to be creating some sort of glass-like orb with silv
er lightning within it.
Riley put his hands around his mouth in a circle, to increase the chance they would hear him. “Buffs incoming!” he said, then shot his cord up to steal more essence. He noticed Erica throw a thumbs-up to him. She then turned and it looked as though she was speaking to the orb creator.
When he was ready, he threw his cord over to them and snagged Erica first. After transferring the power, he went and shot that cord back up to take more from the monster, whose hands were still impaled on the rooftops. Its eyes seemed to be scanning the area.
With another helping of essence, he threw the spike to the woman with the orb. The spike caught in her shoulder, but it didn’t stop her from holding onto the orb she held. Once she was empowered, the orb took on a dark purple aura. The spear-tip detached and she placed the orb in the divot at the end of the vine-catapult. He saw her lips move, and a second later, Erica swung her arm as if she was throwing something. The vines reacted and launched the orb into the air.
The world boss’s mouth was opening again. It drew lower and lower, as it looked into the other street. It didn’t seem to be aware of the several-foot wide orb soaring towards it.
Instead of smashing into its face, as the two women had surely intended, it went into the monster’s gaping maw. Upon impact, the orb exploded in a bright flash of silver lightning, shooting out in all directions. The monster’s head reeled back and swung from side to side.
“Wooo!”
“Yeah!”
Riley could hear the cheering from behind him, as the two had managed what had to be a critical-hit on the monster. He looked at the creature’s health, and saw that it was now somewhere around ninety percent. The battle had been dragging on, sapping everyone’s stamina, but they still had a long ways to go.
It wasn’t long before the monster recovered from the orb attack. The orb-creator needed more time to create another large ball of stormy energy.
The serpentine neck and head rose up into the sky, gaining even more height on the area, and visibility on all the street’s inhabitants. Its jaw lowered once more and a purple light emanated from its throat. Seconds passed slowly as Riley watched behind cover. Then, similar to the monster’s first attack, a torrent of purple streaks of energy rained down on the entire plaza. The beams seemed random, but there were too many to keep any track of. Both streets were peppered with powerful energy blasts, creating small flashes of dark exploding energy upon impact.
The stall that had fallen over, that Riley and Seth were using as a barricade, took numerous hits and even cracked in half, separating it down the center. Riley scrunched up as best he could, to avoid the impacts happening all around him. His eyes flashed with that subtle red hue, as he took bits of damage from the nearby explosions.
The attack lasted for an entire minute. Then, silence fell around the plaza.
Chapter 17: Lightning
Dust had kicked up from all the explosions. Visibility had been hindered, but it wasn’t hard to make out the dark shadowy mass of the monster still in the sky. Riley coughed into his arm, trying not to breathe in all the dust, which could potentially give him a debuff to his stamina if he wasn’t careful.
“You good?” Seth asked from beside him.
“Yeah, you?” Riley asked.
“Make sure everyone’s health is up, we gotta keep up the pressure,” said Seth. “We can’t abandon this fight, else all the progress we’ve made will be lost if that thing manages to heal.” Seth leaned up and took aim, firing a beam of white energy from his palm. The beam cut through the smoke, vaporizing some of it as he renewed his assault.
Riley looked around and then heard another voice. “Riley! They need you back on the other side!” he recognized it as Brenda’s. He looked to her, making out her faint silhouette in the entrance to the mid-street. He stood and ran over to her. Her appearance became more apparent as he got closer.
“Can you heal everyone over here?” he asked.
“Yeah, I got this side, but everyone’s buffs have worn out over there. I healed the people I could see, but you've got to keep up those buffs, else we’re not going to survive these attacks,” she said. “We don’t have any damage mitigation, other than your buffs.”
“Right, I’m on it,” he said as he turned and rushed down the center street. He coughed again into his arm. His footfalls felt slower than usual. The more the battle went on, the lower their maximum stamina would be. A character’s stamina limit could only be renewed after eating and drinking, and he didn’t have anything on him. They hadn’t gotten around to grabbing food, before Saros appeared. Right now, his max stamina was at about seventy percent. So every time it filled-up from inactivity, he was still thirty percent lower than his maximum stamina output.
As he ran through the two streets, he heard the shotgun blasts renew. But as he paid attention to their frequency, he realized that there was more time between the attacks, than there had been originally. Red’s stamina was being affected just like everyone else’s.
When Riley reached the other side, a shadow rushed overhead. Some of the dust had settled, but not much. He looked into the sky and saw the enormous head of the monster. Its mouth opened, and those sizeable teeth clamped down on the concrete lance impaling its hand. Its head eased back and pulled the spike from its hand, which sent purple blood dripping down into the street. The monster’s health took a minor hit when it pulled the concrete out, but now its hand was free again. Those teeth parted further and the concrete section plummeted to the street below, just barely missing the blue-smoke-creator.
“Brenton! Do something about this dust!” Red Shotgun shouted.
“Working!” the smoke guy said. Apparently his name was Brenton. His arms waved around, but all Riley could see was his outline as he moved. He whipped-up new mist, which turned into a localized tornado. It sucked in all the nearby dust, increasing visibility dramatically. Then, he thrust the smokey tornado up into the monster’s face, right into its eyes. Saros waved its head around, trying to get away from it, but it was having difficulty with its slow movements.
“Help the other side!” Red said. “They’re going to need their dust cleared too!”
“On it!” Brenton said, releasing his hold of the smoke, letting it expand around Saros’s head, as he turned and dashed towards Riley. He gave him a brief nod, before running by.
Riley took a quick account of the players nearby. He quickly set himself to work. He’d steal some essence from the nearby hand, and then give it to a nearby player. He started with Red.
“Thanks kid!” she said to him.
Next, was Green Melter. “Appreciate it!” she’d respond.
He then got to the orange tentacle user, who was still on the rooftop. But he didn’t seem to respond after being buffed.
Riley pulled his spike back to himself, retaining a single helping of essence. He looked around to see if anyone else had joined the fight, but his attention was seized as he watched a series of orange lotuses fly through the air up at the monster. One was purple. It exploded in a purple mist against the creature’s face. A minimal purple aura appeared around the monster. Then, all the orange ones exploded against the serpentine head, which couldn’t have even seen the attack coming, since it was still in the smoke Brenton had created.
Riley turned to look behind him, but before he could even see her, he heard, “you just going to stand there, or are you going to buff me?” asked Laura, standing there with her hands on her hips.
Riley stared with wide eyes, half-expecting Carla to be standing there, after seeing the lotuses in the sky.
“What’re you doing here?” he asked.
“Stupid question to bother with right now,” Laura chided. “Buff me! I want to see if all my copies will get it if I start with it.”
“Right!” said Riley as he threw his cord out, then took a quick glance over his shoulder to see if the monster was preparing for a new attack, but it was still dealing with the smoke and even more lotuses. Green acid
sprays, red bullets, yellow discs, everyone’s attacks joined in again. The monster took a heavy pummeling before another orb was launched from the other street. It rolled through the sky and smashed into the monster’s face.
“People are broadcasting the fight,” said Laura. “We came over as quick as we could. We were about to go hunting. Looked like you all needed some backup.”
Riley turned back to Laura, as his spear-tip detached from her and returned to him. Then, she began to create copies of herself. One by one, a copy would pull away from her and materialize a weapon in its hands. Each one bore the purple eyes of the buff he’d been sending out.
“How’re you going to reach the monster?” Riley asked. “I think we’re going to need more than just you three, to turn this fight in our favor.”
The original Laura smirked. Then, the twenty Laura’s that were behind her, smirked as well. “Oh, we’re not your only reinforcements. But, I’ll need you to tell me where the portal guy is.”
Riley’s eyes were still raised, as he was still surprised by the arrival of Laura and her two companions. “He’s um...” Riley lifted his hand and pointed out towards the other street. “That way, other side of the plaza. He’s near all the stone outcroppings.”
All the laura’s behind the original, turned and ran towards the mid-street.
“Where’s Chase?” he asked, as Laura stood before him, holding her new pistol in her hand.
“Helping the catapult, then coming over here to boost Red Shotgun,” she said. “Don’t you have people to buff?” she asked. Her gaze then lifted to the sky. “Crap, what’s it doing now?”
Riley turned back around, watching as Saros’s head had pushed through a portion of the smoke. Its eyes peered around the streets again. Its right hand lifted from the nearby rooftop in their portion of the plaza.
The tentacle-user kept attacking it until it got out of range. Then, he backed up and kept an eye on it as it rose into the sky.
Then, it descended.
Riley’s heart sunk in his chest. The hand plummeted towards them, faster than it had moved before. Much faster.
