by Vowron Prime
Nova giggled, then withered under the siblings’ combined glare.
“My apologies,” she said, “but there truly is a simple explanation. The Resistance already knows that you were teleported here to become an Ultimator candidate. They know of my rebellion, as well. What they do not know is what became of you after. We can simply tell everyone that my meddling disabled the parasite, subverting the Legatus. We can tell them that our ponds mutated you, giving you these powers. It is not entirely a falsehood. The only reason you have those powers is on account of the mutagenic water.”
“You think they’ll buy that?”
Nova nodded. “They should, yes, for now. Besides which, Krar’eaks and the others have already witnessed your abilities numerous times. They will start asking questions sooner or later.”
Nina wasn’t convinced. “Magnus, we need to think this through. Trust is everything right now. If we lose that, we lose the Resistance. Are you sure you want to keep such an important detail secret? This is the kind of thing that can come back to bite you in the ass, you know. Badly.”
“I hear you, princess. I’d love to come clean about this, personally. But what the hell do you think would happen if they discovered that I had a ticking timebomb in my head?”
“They… yeah, you’re right. They’d probably turn tail and flee. Especially if they knew that the parasite made you vulnerable to the Dyn’s orders.”
“Right. Too much of a risk. When we’ve built up that trust, when we have a solid Resistance, then I’ll think about sharing that secret. Until that time, not a word to anyone. Understood?”
The girls nodded.
“All right. So, do we announce this, or should I go out there and start clearing the crater?”
“Oh, I’ll handle all that. You just go do you. Shock and awe. Kick some ass like a badass,” his gelatinous amoeba of a sister said, chuckling. He made a note to ask Nova for an update on his eyesight issues, now that they had Resistance medical tech at their disposal.
“Remember, we’re selling you as much as we’re selling Sanctuary. I’ll make sure you have a fully stocked gallery out there, so milk this publicity for all it’s worth. Just get them to love you enough, and they won’t give a shit if you have a parasite that’s slowly turning you… into a…” She paused. “Uh, go get ’em, tiger?”
“Thanks, princess. Just rub it in, will you?”
To their surprise, Nova interjected, “W-we shall!”
Silence.
Nova’s eyes grew as wide as saucers. “W-was that inappropriate? I apologize, I did not mean—”
The siblings burst out laughing. “Nova made a joke? Seriously? Magnus, we’ve reached the end times.”
“Right? I think hell just froze over. Armageddon is upon us.”
Nova blushed a furious red. She huffed and stomped off by herself.
“You’ll have to apologize to her later, you know…”
“Yeah…” MC sighed. “Well, guess I better go get ready for this.”
The X42 powered suit’s triangularly arranged eyes activated, its preflight checks complete. The gargantuan hangar bay doors opened to admit the nine-foot-tall behemoth through the dark tunnel. The suit’s head swiveled, scanning the darkness through its advanced night vision.
Decorating its back were dual old-school Vulcan cannons. In its hands was an oversized napalm flamethrower. With the stealth field active, MC teleported himself up to the angled tunnel he’d hollowed out for the gunship.
A handful more teleports put him atop the small platform he’d erected before, several hundred feet above the sea of abominations that covered the lava-rock floor. That small platform had grown into a fully operational forward base that teemed with Resistance Dyn. Elevated walkways ran all along the crater wall for hundreds of feet to smaller outposts embedded into the crater wall. Evidence of the extent of Sanctuary’s growth. Several of those stations even had direct access to the hangar’s tunnel from inside the rocky walls.
MC’s arrival did not go unnoticed, but it was only when he jumped off the platform that he got the undivided attention of the several dozen onlookers.
The titanic suit plummeted to the ground; its Vulcan cannons opened fire with a maelstrom of depleted uranium. They auto-targeted enemies, gunning them to shreds. A torrent of spent casings rained like a waterfall of brass.
MC hit the ground. The X42’s proximity-impact bombs deployed, decimating all within a twenty-foot radius of the frame. Would it have been smarter to stand atop a midair energy platform to relocate the monsters below from a position of safety?
Absolutely.
But that would be boring, and what crowd was ever enthralled by boring?
This was a show of force. A display of firepower so overwhelming, it’d leave his onlookers’ mouths agape. And onlookers there were. True to her word, Nina had amassed a gallery of Dyn atop the platform. More continued to pour out of the tunnel with every passing moment.
The X42 appeared through the smoke in the aftermath of its explosive landing.
But showing off his full power right off the bat would be a tragic waste of such an opportunity. Because the only thing more impressive than a feat of military prowess was following up with an even better one, of course. And then, when your opponents think that nothing could possibly beat that… you do it again.
Start small. Show them the power of human military tech.
MC sighted the nearest biomechanical scorpion hybrid and ignited the napalm flamer. Fuel surged into its oversized ignitors, dousing the hapless abomination in a twenty-foot-long column of azure flame. The beast writhed in agony as it burned.
The gruesome display failed to dissuade the nearby creatures, who promptly swarmed the suit.
The Vulcan cannons roared again, laying down a barrage of destruction that kept the assailants at bay. At least, until the guns clicked empty. Six barrels smoked from the heat of sustained fire. The deafening roar of supersonic rounds collapsed into an insuppressible silence.
Now go tactical. Show them power beyond measure.
MC reached out with the relocator, fusing a six-legged lizard-centaur into a scorpion. That mass then merged with an oversized scarab before MC launched the amalgamation of flesh high into the sky. Enemies closed in all around him.
Time to switch things up.
Teleporting from one location to another, he flitted across the battlefield in a cruel dance of death. Relocating. Fusing. Burning. A veritable god of destruction. Where he moved, nothing lived. All that remained in the aftermath was a tangle of flesh adorned with far too many arms, legs, and heads.
He switched his attack pattern yet again, stowing the flamer to retrieve an oversized dagger edged in a viciously oscillating chainsaw. Teleporting behind the creatures, he sawed them to pieces before they’d even had a chance to register what had ended them. Always moving, never remaining in one place for more than a single breath.
Like a virtuoso painting martial art upon a canvas of blood, MC was unstoppable.
He paused.
The abominations descended upon him like a swarm of angry bees. The crowd hushed: Did they get him?
But then MC emerged, walking steadily as the beasts futilely scratched his Energy Dampening bubble. The onlookers broke out into cheer. The same attack that had ended Vorien’s armored Ryzel proved entirely ineffective against this one man. Some of the monsters’ attacks were even deflected, though with less efficacy than a projectile or energy weapon attack.
Go strategic. Show them power that rivals an army. That laughs in the face of overwhelming odds. All condensed into one man.
To the shock of his gallery, he teleported into midair... and stayed there.
Untouchable by the throngs of foes below, MC ended entire swaths of abominations. Soundless, instantaneous death. The abominations disappeared by the dozens. MC walked in midair atop an invisible platform, from one end of the crater to the other. Where he trod, enemies died—deleted out of existence.
W
hen he neared the lava pools, the molten liquid dropped on his adversaries, melting them from the outside-in. When the lava moved out of reach, he used rocks, alternating between relocating his enemies halfway into the ground and relocating the ground itself above the abominations to crush them all. Sometimes he did both.
Dozens of magma lances appeared out of thin air. They fell, skewering their marks, burning them from within. Enormous boulders rolled across the crater floor as if having been hurled by a trebuchet.
Decimation.
Of the thousands of abominations, only a mere handful was left. They scrambled to flee from his onslaught.
They failed.
The god of destruction split their bodies into sections, relocating part of one into another, sometimes swapping their heads. He teleported every downed enemy onto an accumulating pile of corpses in the center of the crater. One that grew taller with each kill. How long had it been since he’d let loose like this? Too long. His ability spheres agreed. The long-awaited relocator’s upgrade finally came, but so too did several other transformations on his parasite HUD. He dismissed them. Now was not the time for such distractions.
MC took his time to ensure that none of the creatures still lived. He walked over to the pile and climbed it, ascending to its very peak. He raised an armored arm, pointed the flamer to the sky.
A column of napalm erupted.
The crowd reciprocated, raising their arms and mechanical appendages skyward. Shouting, roaring, yelling with glee. For they had just witnessed the acts of a being who had transcended mortal limits, and for the first time in a long time, they felt a flame of hope. A tiny thing built upon the sacrifices of an uncountable number of their kind. A flame that heralded something more.
A flame of victory.
“Peace, through superior firepower,” a Zevan-type Dyn whispered as he gazed upon Magnus’s awe-inspiring performance. Torneus may have spent decades with the Resistance, but he couldn’t hold a candle to MC’s performance. No one could, not even Krar’eaks. Not even an Ultimator.
“Well, Father? I wonder what you would say if you could see what I see. Even you could not hope to match this performance. Would you still say that I was wrong?” Torneus’s words were lost in the din of cheer.
When the crowd began to disperse, he stood rooted to his spot, staring at the slaughtered beasts below. Would he ever manage to attain that kind of power?
Would he ever command the boundless respect that MC did at this very moment?
Would he ever prove his worth to this demigod?
He did not know, but a fire had been lit somewhere deep within. What he did know was that he would give his all to try.
Thirty-Six
MC had been swarmed by Resistance Dyn after his “show,” but like a sports manager, Nina had quickly intercepted and deflected their questions as MC returned to Sanctuary. Now in his room, he finally had some peace and quiet while Nina arranged a press conference.
As he changed into his military dress uniform, he took the opportunity to see what the parasite HUD’s changes were all about.
The relocator’s upgrade looked like it had updated the HUD itself. The Energy Dampener, Midar, Rapid Language Development, and the Deflector’s bubbles were unchanged, but bloody ligaments now connected three smaller spheres to the primary Relocator’s bubble. Never staying in one place, the freakshow wobbled and jiggled as he moved his head. Luckily, the smaller bubbles only appeared if he focused on the HUD and maximized it in his field of view.
Perhaps the parasite had realized that one sphere was insufficient to track each skill’s progress. MC agreed.
Midar was half full, while the energy dampener and deflector were stuck at barely a third. It looked like it would take some concerted effort to level those. He focused on the primary relocator bubble, which was now about two-thirds full with blood. The vid that played out was as expected, though the scene had updated to reflect his most recent battle, showing him in horde of mutated beasts, relocating about twenty at a time into space.
What the relocator lacked was initiation distance. He could only hope that the next upgrade brought some improvements in that department. If what Nova said was true, his own desire might be enough to influence the parasite’s progression.
The first ancillary sphere belonged to the teleporter, whose bubble was almost full. The ability had leveled a couple of times during his flight from Kyron, but progress had slowed greatly after that. He hadn’t really stretched the ability either, thanks to the access to human weapons he now had.
MoVINg, diSaPPEarING, WArPing, sMearinG! ThE OnES wHo kIll us sHould quAke iN FEar! THey mAy jUst diSAPPEar!
BuT THerE IS rooM to gRoW! KILL! feed! GrOw! KIlL! feeD! GRoW! yOu CoUlD MOvE FArTHer fAsTer
Maybe it was just MC’s imagination, but the description seemed more eloquent than the last time he’d looked at this gibberish. He wasn’t too happy about that.
The parasite is growing.
In more ways than one.
The teleporter’s vidsphere showed MC in the X42, repeatedly disappearing and reappearing among the throng of beasts. Except in this video, his only weapon was the suit’s momentum. The avatar teleported in succession, accelerating with each invocation as he flitted around the battlefield. He then slammed head-on into a beast, mashing it against its friends. Before the suit could come to a stop, the avatar teleported again, squashing enemies with reckless abandon.
It wasn’t a bad tactic, though there was hardly any need to risk damaging the frame with such brutish moves.
The next bubble represented the relocator’s fusion capabilities and was about half full. Predictably, the parasite chose to display the goriest usage of the power, fusing Zevan bodies together until a tangle of arms, legs, and heads writhed from their common torso.
cOLlEcTIng! coMPacting! COmPRESSINg! cONsUMinG! wITH MORE kILLS CoMeS MoRE DEnSitY! DeNsEr, hardeR, juiCIEr!
YoU only nEEd To FEed me! FEEd me mORE!
The parasite was definitely getting more coherent. It even had a sense of self now.
Great.
At least the ability’s deranged description gave him a hint as to what was coming. Fusing flesh was always the easiest, with rock being a bit harder. He’d experimented with metals, but it always took more time. A single fusion was all he could manage.
Finally, there was the Teleportal, and it was empty. This was the one that leveled during his battle, which made sense. His persistent headache had lessened significantly as soon as it had. In fact, he felt better than he had in weeks.
SuCKiNg! sLICInG! diciNg! PuLLiNG! keep moRE aCTiVE to GREaTEn tHe EFfectS!
BIGGer aND FAstEr. mORe And moRE. tHeRE cOMeS So muCh MorE!
The vidsphere showed him creating a portal on a thin slice of rock the size of a door. The avatar sent one portal into space—as evidenced by the suction effect on the other. When he’d done that before, the best he could manage was a tiny portal. The increase in size was very welcome to his overtaxed mind.
Hapless Zevan were pulled through the portals like a vacuum cleaner. MC chuckled at the innovative tactic, but his amusement turned into panic when the avatar killed the portal. A Zevan had been halfway through when it shut. Only the Zevan’s legs remained. He’d never tested what would happen if a portal shut while an object was in transit.
If it closed while the girls were using it…
“Damn, lookin’ fly, bro!” Nina barged into his room, interrupting his thoughts. MC had just finished donning the full dress uniform from his military days, medals and all. Pressed, prim, and proper.
He dismissed the parasite HUD before replying. He’d have to take a deeper look at the other ability descriptions later to see if anything else had changed.
“I haven’t worn this in a very long time. Brings back a lot of memories. Good memories... and the bad. But I’m guessing you didn’t come here to discuss my wardrobe?”
“Right. Magnus, we need to talk.”
“Now? Can it wai
t after the speech?”
She smirked, looking every bit a diplomat in her business suit. “What, is Maggie MagMag getting his panties in a bunch?”
MC glared. “Only Ma ever called me that. You better not—”
“Yeah, yeah,” she said, waving her hands dismissively. “Anyway, I have a small adjustment to make to your speech.”
“I’m not gonna like this, am I?”
“I… I’m not a fighter, Magnus, not the way you are. I always daydreamed about what it’d be like to join you on one of your missions...”
“But?”
“But, I don’t know if I’m cut out for that stuff. As much as I want to be there fighting by your side, I feel like I’d be more of a liability than anything. Especially with all your new powers.”
“Well, I’m glad we agree about that. The battlefield is no place for you.”
“So I want to lead our recruitment campaign. I know Nova’s going to be the face of the rebellion and all, but I can support her. I can help her build the political network we’re gonna need to make this happen.”
MC narrowed his eyes. “That was the plan. Why do I get the feeling that we’re not talking about the same thing?”
“If I’m going to be effective at this, I need to be out there,” she pointed, “in the field. On extended missions, talking to foreign royals and nobles, establishing rapport. I can’t do anything from here.”
“That’s out of the question, Nina. You’re safe here. We can protect you. But out there? Who the hell knows what can happen? Especially on long trips.”
She looked up at him. “Magnus, don’t be an ass about this. I’m not that helpless, and you know it. Just give me a portal and give me some guns. I’ll never be more than a few steps away from home.”
“I can’t just—” MC cut himself short. With the recent upgrades, giving her a persistent portal was actually viable.
“I’m a big gal, I know how to defend myself. And you know how I said I needed a goal? Well, now I have one. So, are you going to let me live my life or what?”
