1.16 Devil Part 5

The scaly monster grabs Gears from behind with its claws as the dragon dives down on him and Bolt.

Gears tries to break free of the dragon’s grip, but the monster’s hold on him is too strong. Even his KEPs at full blast lack the force necessary to overpower the dragon.

Bolt blasts the dragon, but his powers aren’t strong enough to overcome armoured hide of the dragon. The dragon responds by swiping at Bolt with its tail, the razor sharp barbs tearing into Bolt’s chest.

Heck! Is he okay?

Can’t tell.                 

Gears doesn’t see Bolt’s fate as the tumbling superhero is blocked from his view as the dragon swoops down.

Is that a building?

It is a building.

Swooping down lower, the dragon goes down far enough that Gears is smashed into a building. He averts his eyes as he smashes through the wall at high speed and crashes through the furniture, items and walls inside the building whilst still being held by the dragon.

Stupid beast! This is just annoying, not harmful.

As he comes out the other side of the building, the dragon lobs the disoriented Gears at the ground.

Gears tries to shield himself with his arms as he spots up and coming ground. He plows into the street, tearing up the road and pavement in addition to losing his grip on his halberd. He comes to a halt face down and grunts in irritation

Freaking dragon! I am so taking it down.

That’s the spirit! Give him what for!

As Gears starts to get up, a massive claw slams into him, tearing across his back. The blow knocks him to the side so he lands face up. Gears snarls as damage alerts pop up on his HUD in addition to a warning message.

Just great. Most of the outer armour on my back just got torn up in addition to losing most of the KEPs on that section of the armour. Which has the extra result of losing my ability to fly effectively.

You still got enough KEPs to manoeuvre on the ground and air in addition to the KEPs on your boots if you really need to fly.

I still lost a major function of my armour and we haven’t even reached Apocalypse yet!

Gears rolls to the side as the dragon strikes again. The claws rip into ground where Gears just was as the vigilante scrambles to his feet.

I’m not going to go down without a fight.

As Gears begins to summon his halberd to him, he is bathed in a blast of fiery flames. He yowls in pain as his left arm flares up in pain again and a multitude of damage alerts flash up on his HUD.

Aarrgh!

Stay in there!

Unable to summon his halberd through the pain, Gears drops to his knees. Through the burning pain, Gears glances at the message briefly. The outer armour plating is being superheated, causing the Gardium to become brittle and his eye pieces to being to crack. Even his heatsinks are being overwhelmed.

While strong, lightweight and flexible, Gardium is set in its current form once it has settled, unable to be moulded or changed. And while extremely resistant to heat and cold, at certain temperatures, Gardium becomes brittle. At that point, it can’t be conventionally fixed and needs to be replaced even if it retains some of its effectiveness.

Gritting his teeth, Gears mentally fights this way past the pain with the aid of his companions and focuses on summoning on his halberd.

I really-ugh-got to think of a name for it.

Reinkal?

Why not?

The flames stop as Gears finally summons Reinkal. He looks ahead, ready to fight the dragon, only to see a wall of solid ice between him and the dragon. Out of the corner of his eye, Gears spots Draugr standing off to the side with ice spires and shards around her as she fends off a pack of cat beasts.

I owe her one.

She did just save our lives.

Gears takes a moment to look at the dragon. The monster is roughly twenty metres long according to his HUD with motley black and grey scales and leathery wings. It looks like your average western fantasy dragon with its massive horns and long spikes running down its spine and tail.

As the dragon slams into the wall of ice, denting and cracking it, but not quite breaking it entirely, Beowulf leaps at the dragon from the rear with a wild battle cry and both of his swords in his hands.

The Norwegian vigilante stabs his swords into scaly hide of the dragon, but only one pierces the armoured scales as the other glances away. Holding on firmly to the sword lodged into the dragon’s back, Beowulf slashes with his second sword.

But the blade just scrapes off of the scales.

Those scales must have B class, possibly A Class toughness.

Reinkal can do the job.

Ready to slay a dragon?

As ready as I’ll ever be.

As the dragon turns its attention to Beowulf, Gears leaps forward, using his KEPs to boost onto the ice. Glaring at Beowulf, the dragon jerks its wing towards the hero. Beowulf yelps in pain as a razor sharp barb on the wing pierces his shoulder.

As Gears dashes across the top of ice. The dragon stretches its wing out again, yanking Beowulf off of its back and tossing him away. To Gears’ horror, the dragon unleashes a fireball at Beowulf as the vigilante flies through the air.

1.16 Devil Part 3

Remembering how Tar’garieth hit him even after he dodged, Gears won’t let Apocalypse get off so easily either. He swings the halberd towards Apocalypse and the beam slams into Apocalypse.

Got him!

Good shot.

The Harbinger howls as unnatural energy tears into his side, ripping through the outer flesh of the arm, leaving the limb hanging loosely at the side.

Almost instantly, the wound begins to regenerate and Apocalypse turns his head to look directly at Gears.

Not good! So totally not good!

Run!

“Run!” yells Gears to Beowulf as he takes off into the air.

Gears doesn’t make it far, barely reaching the buildings again when he slam into the ground. He cries out in pain as he feels his left arm crushing inwards, the armour doing nothing other than resist for a couple moments before breaking and tearing into his flesh and bone.

As Gears grits his teeth in pain, the crushing suddenly stops and Gears looks up to see several figures standing over him.

“Gar det bra?” asks a voice and Gears hears Beowulf reply in Norwegian

Gears calls up his armour status on his HUD.

That...that is pretty nasty.

I am unable to heal it in this realm.

Gears’ upper left arm has been compromised with broken armour, internal and external bleeding, bruised and torn muscles and a fractured bone. The lower half of the arm and the hand are...missing, simply torn off by whatever Apocalypse did.

The Harbinger must have used his telekinesis.

That is the most probable answer.

How good are you with your right hand?

Good enough given I’m left handed. At the very least, I am good enough to last this battle.

“Father,” says a familiar and welcome voice via his internal speakers.

Jaylyn? I am so glad to hear her voice again.

We missed her.

“Sentinel,” mutters Gears as he remembers to turn his external speakers off, “What is the status at home?”

“The Slaughter Seven have been sent in full retreat,” replies Sentinel, “Friend and most of their lackeys are dead while Necromantress and Aquiline have been captured. Demonica has taken over leadership for the survivors. Less than three hundred people were killed. We got lucky. Very and extremely lucky Father.”

Aquiline got captured?

“And our casualties?” ask Gears.

“Other than Guardian, nobody whom you know was killed or injured beyond the ability to heal,” answers Sentinel, “Other than that, some interesting things happened in the aftermath. Oh, Mother is fine and completely unhurt by the way.”

Good. That is one less thing to worry about.

What about Guardian?

She’ll be fine.

“So what interesting things happened?” inquires Gears as he feels the pain in what is left of his left arm begin to fade away.

“Well, Grandma Danica manifested and is A Class,” replies Sentinel, “She, Grandpa Cecil and Mother’s family found out your secret identity after DSA revealed it to them. They themselves found out after Mother let it slip. Secretary Scott himself showed up and it turns how he is Sentry’s brother! Other than that, when they tried to retrieve you from the other dimension Demonica sent you to, they accidentally got an alternate version of you instead. So now you have a twin sister! The DSA is currently in the process of sorting out the paperwork. I should also inform you that you have suffered severe damage to your arm? Should I begin to fabricate a replacement?”

Well that is a lot to take in. Shouldn’t all of that seem weirder?

Meh.                                                                                                 

Weird is relative to us these days anyway.

“Yeah,” mutters Gears as he sits upright and looks around.

Beowulf is there along with a brown haired Adonis in a brown and dark green costume. Standing next to him is a red-white spandex clad Aphrodite with flaming hair while to Gears’ other side is person wearing thick and bulky grey armour. Next to the armoured person is hovering Bellator man in dark blue spandex with white boots and gauntlets and glowing mane of hair.

To the front of Gears is a white-haired female in Viking armour whilst tending to what remains of his left arm is another person in Viking armour, this one an Adonis.

“Are you okay now Helt?” inquires the man tending to his arm in heavily accented English.

“Yeah,” replies Gears as he gets to his feet, “The pain is gone.”

“Good, my potion has done its work then,” says the man, “I am Ragnar. You are the fabled Gears right?”

Beowulf must have-wait, fabled Gears?

He must have heard of us.

“The one that scares Darkness right?” inquires the woman in front of Gears in a deathly cold hiss.

Ah, that will explain it.

So both Darkness and we are known here in Norway. Not bad for a couple of Americans.

“That I am,” confirms Gears as he picks up his halberd with his right hand, “Who are you guys?”

They all take a few moments to explain their powers to each other as the Viking woman keeps up a telekinetic shield around them.

The man in green and brown is midlevel brick called Bjorn while the flaming hair woman is Pryokinetic called Flamevinge and the armoured man is a low level brick and Gadgeteer known as Jernside. None of them speak English, but all of the rest do.

All of them are local government heroes led by the hovering man, a specialised energy projector at lower upper levels called Bolt. The two in Viking armour are both supervillains and part of Darkness’ international Syndicate.

Ragnar is a Norse enchantment tinker at B Class while the woman is an undead Abnormal at A Class level called Draugr with half a dozen A+ Class powers.

“Super Strength, Nigh Invulnerability, Regeneration, Telekinesis, Cryokinesis and Phasing,” Dragur had said, “I am the leader of Scandinavian Syndicate Division.”

“Okay guys,” says Gears as he looks at wear Apocalypse is now hovering over the city, “Let’s go and hurt this guy.”

1.16 Devil Part 2

As the beast rushes them, Gears zooms at its head and slashes away at its gaping maw and fanged mouthpieces. He quickly makes quick work of it, but almost instantly it begins to regrow.

Realising this head on approach won’t work with this creature, Gears hack his halberd into the chitin and leaps onto the back of the head. Using his KEPs and activating the energy of his halberd, Gears slides down back of the centipede, his halberd tearing through the armour plates and the energy coursing through the blade sears the flesh beneath.

I’m starting to really like this new halberd.

It is impressive.

Who thought a tinker power could be so useful

But what about the sharpness? Won’t the blade be getting dull after this amount of use?

No. What Tar’garieth did to halberd has made its sharpness permanent.

Nice.

The centipede howls in pain and Beowulf chops its head off with his blades. Gears prepares to finish it off, but it seems to be dead as its wounds don’t begin to heal like they did before.

“So what is your plan?” asks Beowulf as he twirls both of his swords.

“Hurt Apocalypse until he is forced to leave and then deal with the creatures once he isn’t around to create more of them,” answers Gears, “First we need to find some folks capable of hurting-”

Once again, Gears is interrupted by another one of Apocalypse’s creations.

A massive fiery creature forms over the ocean. It has a burning orange sun at its core with four glistening rings with shining gems circling it. Around rings are tendrils of golden-orange light, each one full of charged energy.

Thin beams of bright light flash from the gems at Gears and he dodges out the way, barely spotting the lasers let alone avoiding them.

I can barely keep up with all of these inhumanly fast attacks even with my C Class Bellator reflexes. Heck, I wouldn’t be able to dodge them if it weren’t for my armour. I don’t even want to think about what it would be like for somebody with normal reflexes.

Powers do render things very unfair to normal people. Not many ways out there for mundane people to hold their own against parahumans let alone win.

Or we could just be facing off against the more powerful ones out there.

What are the chances of that happening?

Pretty high. Statistically speaking, we get involved in situation containing a disproportionately large amount of top tier parahumans.

Grand Rapids has more A Class parahumans than any of the states do and more than some countries do. Quite a few actually.

Ignoring Beowulf, the sun-sphere creature focuses its fire on Gears, unleashing about a dozen laser beams per a second. Gears does his best to avoid being hit, dodging those that he can and block those he can’t with his halberd.

Gears is trying to figure out a way to best this latest foe when several chucks of rubble fly at it. The sun-sphere fires it laser at the creature, destroying two of the five chucks. The remaining three continue onwards, dodging the laser beams.

For them to get out of the way like there somebody must be actively control via terrakinesis or telekinesis rather than just throwing them using super strength.

The tendril lashes out to intercept pieces of rubble, but only catches one, disintegrating it on contact. The remaining two zoom towards the mini-sun in the centre of the sun-sphere creature.

But before the chucks of rubble hit the sun, a bolt of lightning smashes into the sphere. The electricity blasts away a large section of the sphere allowing glowing wisps of orange energy to escape.

A mere moment before they hit the damaged sphere, the two surviving pieces of rubble freeze over. Slamming into sphere, the two chucks of rubble take more of the sphere, leaving only a third of it left.

As the tendrils and rings flicker and the sun begins to reform, Gears tosses his halberd at the mini-sun. It almost makes it, but begins to fall short.

Darn it! I was so sure I would make it!

Nobody is prefect.

Suddenly the halberd moves again, strike upwards at the sphere. The halberd smashes into what is left of sphere, the red blade absorbing the sun into it.

Using his magnetic recall, Gears summons the halberd back to his hand.

You know, you could have just made it reappear in your hand.

Hey! I’m just getting use to all of its new abilities!

As he tightens his grip on his halberd again, Gears feels the massive amount of power coursing the halberd.

“You’re a Tinker right?” asks Beowulf as he joins Gears again.

“No, I’m a Bellator Gadgeteer,” replies Gears, glancing over at the teenager.

“Really?” asks Beowulf, “So am I with a few extra powers on the side. All D Class. I think so at least. You American use a different rating system to the Nordic ones. So how did you make that halberd?”

“I made it and it was recently enhanced by a Tinker,” explains Gears, “Now it does all sorts of cool things. Just watch this.”

Gears aims the halberd at Apocalypse and fires off a large beam of black energy at the Harbinger. Crackling beam of energy spears towards Apocalypse, but as it gets within a few metres, the Harbinger suddenly dodges out of the way.

1.16 Devil Part 1

His upgraded halberd in his left hand, Gears strides out of the portal into the midst of an ongoing battle. He looks up to see a thin man with torn black leather wings in the middle of the sky. Red energy emits from the crevices in his body and his entire body is bathed in a crimson glow.

A Harbinger...                                                            

That must have been what Drakvar was talking about.

Yes, Niltoc must be what he calls the Harbinger.

Speaking of which, which one is this one?

Apocalypse is beheld before us.

What can he do again?

Fast A Class flyer with a relative weak physical prowess at C- levels. Telekinesis and regeneration both at B Class.

Doesn’t sound that tough. Somebody like somebody like Atlas, Lightbringer or Darkness could take this guy down. What’s the catch?

He is an Infinity Class Spawner.

Wait, Infinity Class? I thought that class was still theoretical.

Officially it is, but we have access to data otherwise.

Such as Guardian’s data on the Dozen Harbingers of the End Times.

Yeah. So what does he spawn?

Organic life. Generally brutes up to A Class levels, but he produce specialists at B Class. Intelligence can be up to sentient levels, but he generally sticks at the borderline between a smart animal to barely sentient at most.

And once he has spawned a creature, Apocalypse can’t unspawn them.

Sounds tough. So what do we do?

The best tactic would to be to try and drive off Apocalypse whilst fending off the creatures that he spawns. Then once he is gone, finish off any remaining creatures.

Trying to take out the creatures won’t work as Apocalypse has no upper limit on how many he can spawn and will just continuously make more as you take them out.

Okay. Let us get a handle on the situation and then try and drive off Apocalypse with whatever forces we can muster.

Gears runs forward through the ruins of a destroyed building as he charges towards the shore. He does his best to ignore the bodies, both those of civilians and those of two massive dog-like beasts, both of them having been frozen to death.

Must have been a powerful cryokinetic to do that.

Could have been a Tinker or Magician.

Gears spots a hydra-like creature fighting a figure on the beach. The hydra is a roughly ten metres tall with a scaly lizard-like body, two barbed tails and five fanged heads.

The figure on the hand is obviously a parahuman, but he is a superhero, a supervillain or vigilante is not so clear. He also appears to be in his late teens at a glance, but with the Enhance rating and shapeshifting, that could easily be wrong as well.

The parahuman is wearing black clothing with some plates of armour. Furthermore, he appears to be wearing an exoskeleton suit and has a pair of grey swords in his hands.

The parahuman jumps at the hydra and it snaps one head at the boy. The boy blocks with a sword and is forced away. As he lands, another head fires a beam of concentrated fire at his feet.

The parahuman moves fast, his feet barely touching the ground before he leaps away again. But the hydra is also swift, firing at the boy with another two heads.

At this point Gears decides to intervene. He jumps forward at the distracted hydra, flying forward with his KEPs.

In a series of rapid motions, Gears flies past the front of the hydra, hacking away at the heads. He easily cuts off the first two before slicing off the third and fourth, but the fifth jerks back, avoiding the fate of the others.

Landing on his feet with a slight skid, Gears steadies himself with a slight blast of his KEPs before aiming his halberd at the hydra. He feels the blade charging up and unleashes it, just enough to take out the hydra.

The beam of black energy strikes forth from the spike of is halberd and tears through the neck of the fifth head and into the body. Seizing the moment, Gears stabs forward with his halberd, piercing the hydra and draining its dying body of its energy.

Yanking his halberd out of the corpses, Gears turns to face the parahuman.

The boy looks impressed and starts to say something in what Gears assumes is Norwegian, but Gears cuts him off with a wave of his hand.

“I don’t speak Norwegian,” states Gears bluntly.

“Lucky I speak English then,” replies the boy with an abnormal cheerfulness given their current situation, “I am Beowulf.”

“Gears,” replies Gears, “I’m an American vigilante who just came out of a transdimensional portal. At the moment, I’m not even sure I’m sure on my Earth because the portal home got mucked around with by someone else.”

“So do you know this guy?” asks Beowulf, indicating Apocalypse with a wave of his hands.

“I know of him,” answers Gears, “And I fought another.”

“So can he do then?” inquires Beowulf.

“A Class flyer and C Class physical prowess,” replies Gears, “Telekinesis and Regeneration at B Cla-”

Gears falls silent as he and Beowulf turn to face a massive centipede that rises out of the ocean. Covered in shiny black plates of chitin with a flurry of barbed legs, the monster rushes at Beowulf and Gears.