Elsewhere

In the time since Duke had come to Teldin, he had taken his basic military fighting instruction and his bar fighting skills to a level far beyond where he had been by learning how to truly fight with practical martial arts. He was confident he could win any fight that he had walked into so far. Right now, he knew he was losing. And losing badly.

The only things going for Duke in this fight were that he was physically stronger than his opponent and his REGENERATION kept fixing him back up because his Strength didn’t make much of a difference. The problem he was consistently running into was that the demon was so much faster than he was and was a far more technically efficient and effective fighter. Every move Duke made, every punch or kick he threw was blocked, slipped, or countered before it ever landed. Even with his XENOGLOSSIA giving him warnings, he was always an instant too late. It prevented him from receiving any “mortal” blows, but he was constantly being beaten and torn down.

“You are good for a mewling human, but you must sense the inevitability of this fight. I’m just better than you.”

“You ready to give up? I can do this all day.” Duke knew the lie of his statement. He could fight like this all day without tiring or taking any permanent damage, but the remaining mechs were still hammering away at the fortress’ defensive shield. Without the titan mech’s firepower raining down, the fortress could hold out for longer, but time was still ticking down and he needed to end this.

“Although I admire your fighting spirit, even I grow bored of toying with you. It’s time to end this farce of a fight.” The demon launched into a sustained flurry of attacks that Duke just could not keep up with. Every few seconds, a claw slipped past his guard and tore another slice into his body. The claws now burned with a black fire that reminded Duke of soulfire but definitely was not, and it hurt. A lot. His REGENERATION was losing ground to the assault and injuries were starting to compound.

Duke pushed the demon away from him with a full-power wave of FORCE that swept everything away from him, tearing catwalks from their mounts and crushing them against the armored walls of the mech’s insides. “OK, you’ve had your fun, but it’s time to be serious.”

The demon didn’t respond with anything but a wave of what Duke was calling hellfire that burned through his FORCE construct, coming to a standing stop just before Duke’s nose. It then smiled with unrestrained malice. “If you want to take this to the next level, I am fine with that, but I assure you that you are completely outclassed. By now I’m sure you have figured that you are hopelessly out-Tiered. And you have foolishly put way too much emphasis on your Strength. Speed kills, and I am going to show you just how much!”

The hellfire dissipated as the demon charged back into range with Duke. If I have to keep this melee, then I’m going to have to wear this asshole down somehow. Time to OVERCHANNEL DEVOLUTION and see if it can work when the fucker hits me. Duke OVERCHANNELED the Ability by a factor of 50. Since the Ability was at Untrained, Level 1, it carried such a minor effect and initial Mana cost, this only increased the cost to 5,000 per activation, but it increased the effect from 10 Characteristic points to a full 500 per instance. Even though the Ability activated at the speed of thought, he barely had the Ability combo in place when the first strikes made it past his defenses.

Over the course of the next five seconds, the demon struck Duke fifty times, tearing open as many new wounds for his newly ranked-up REGENERATION to close. After that time, however, the demon collapsed to the floor of the mech gasping with exhaustion. Using his Abilities had drained more than 25,000,000 Mana, cutting Duke’s reserves significantly but it seemed to have been worth it.

Duke jumped down next to the struggling demon, staring it in the eyes, “Always so arrogant. Always so sure of yourselves. The only reason to let you live would be to spread the word that you Do. Not. Fuck. With. The Duke!” He had placed his hands on either side of the demon’s head and began to MANA DRAIN and DEVOLVE the demon continuously. The Mana coming in was fueling the DEVOLUTION and Duke could see the demon’s Health plummeting rapidly as its physical Characteristics had already bottomed out. With nothing more to take, the Ability was pulling from the demon’s Health. Duke OVERCHANNELED the Ability just enough to match the MANA DRAIN, allowing his own Mana to naturally regen as he literally sucked the life from the demon. It took a full minute, but as the withered corpse collapsed in on itself, Duke received the notifications he craved.

*** You have slain Carlyle the Eater of Souls. This was a Tier Eight outer demon. You gain 1,700,000 experience for this remarkable accomplishment. You are now level 137 and have 234 Characteristic Points to spend.

Your Abilities have increased.

TELEPORTATION has increased to Grandmaster 71

REGNERATION has increased to Master 6

OVERCHANNEL has increased to Adept 99

FORCE has increased to Initiate 36

SPELL RESISTANCE has increased to Initiate 39

INVENTORY has increased to Practiced 47

ARMOR SKIN has increased to Adept 70

MANA DRAIN has increased to Initiate 11

FLIGHT has increased to Practiced 75

COMBAT SENSE has increased to Practiced 36

DEVOLUTION has ranked up to Novice 11

Your Dodge Skill has increased to Adept 12

Your Martial Arts Combat Skill has increased to Adept 75

***

Duke went to pull the demon’s body into his corpse collection in his INVENTORY, but it collapsed into red dust before he could do so. He pulled the dust in anyway and performed a CLEANSE and RESTORE making certain to only target himself and his gear. He did not want to repair the mech and in some crazy quirk of his Ability power it back up. He activated the comms crystal that Gro’nok had given him.

“The titan is out of the fight. How is your clanmate holding out?”

“He is holding his mech in reserve for our signal. The infantry is running low on ammunition and Mana while keeping the remaining two dozen mechs from charging through the shielding. The Steel Tusks must enter the fight and soon!”

Duke TELEPORTED to the top of the titan’s head to get a good vantage point of the field. He kept himself low to the top of the titan’s head to cut down on his exposure and activated his LASTING DISGUISE Ability to try and blend in as much as possible. He HeThe terrain reminded him of Monument Valley back on earth. There were mesas and buttes scattered around the red desert of the area. The fortress was built into one of the mesas, providing some natural shelter. Against the weaponry of the surrounding mechs, the natural formations would not last long. As he scanned the area, Duke saw the fortress’ shielding starting to show the strain yet again as mechs poured fire onto the fortress.

“There is a butte that I can place the three of you on that will get you a nicely elevated firing position. It will create a good cross-fire with the fortress’ forces. Getting down might be an issue though as the walls are sheer.”

“We’ll take it. Place us there and move to phase two.”

“Roger. Transition in three…two…one...now!” The trio of Steel Tusk mechs appeared on the mesa Duke had selected. He watched as they took a moment to orient themselves before firing down on the mechs below. The surprise attack from above swept chaos through the mechs as they had shifted the majority of their shielding forward, facing the fortress. In the initial salvo, seven enemy mechs went down before they shifted their formations.

Duke wished the Steel Tusks luck as he no longer had time to watch – he had his own tasks and targets in this phase. His DUNGEON SENSE spread out over the area, taking in everything. It took him a full minute to find what he was looking for. In the midst of a battle being fought around him, it seemed like an eternity, but he was now locked-in on the fortress’ Mana Core. It was easy for him to see that it was near depletion. One quick TELEPORTATION put him next to it where he could quickly pour Mana into it. Which he did. He poured half a million Mana in every second, returning it to its full twenty million Mana capacity in under a minute. He TELEPORTED back to his vantage point before anyone came to investigate.

From there, he could see the fortress’ shield renewed and solid. Next, came the part he wasn’t sure would work. Mech shielding was something different and seemed to interfere with his TELEPORTATION in some way that he hadn’t had time to experiment with just yet. No time like the present. He scanned the field and saw that Ter’fald’s mech had already descended from the butte and was fighting a trio of other mechs in close combat. His mech’s axe was glowing with power and seemed to be frighteningly effective up close. None of the other mechs were able to keep up with him. Duke continued to scan.

He stopped scanning when he spotted a pair of mechs land on top of another butte. These mechs each had what appeared to be massive missile packs mounted on them and were turning towards the remaining two Steel Tusks on the butte where Duke had dropped them off. Not so fast, assholes. Duke pulled with all his will and his Grandmaster-ranked TELEPORTATION Ability and with the added concentration was able to grab hold and remove the Mana Cores from each of the mechs. He placed them in his INVENTORY and paused to recover. The effort had cost him nearly his entire remaining Mana pool, but the pair of mechs were out of commission for now.

Unlike the titan, these two mechs did not have back-up cores. Duke did not know if that was a space consideration, some form of expense control, or just an unusual set-up for the titan mech. Either way, he was happy with the result but knew he needed more than a minute to regen his Mana. He considered how he should approach things now that his part of phase two was complete. They had not really gone into detail on what phase three would be other than to keep attacking.

He looked back down to see Ter’fald’s mech still attempting to run amok but showing heavy damage. The axe was no longer glowing and was missing the top quarter of its blade while there was a pair of considerable holes in his left leg, causing the leg to drag and slow his mech’s movements. Clearly, the berserker’s mech was in trouble as a four mechs stood a dozen meters back from him and poured damage down upon him. Duke’s Mana had only recovered to about quarter, but he knew he had to act. With a combination of REMOTE CASTING and RESTORE, he repaired Ter’fald’s mech.

The response was immediate as the suddenly restored mech launched itself at the mechs that had been cutting it down, closing the dozen meter distance in a second. One mech was decapitated by the once-again glowing axe while the remaining three scrambled to open up some distance where they could once, again, effectively fight. Ter’fald did not give them a chance. Duke watched, fascinated as Ter’fald slipped past awkward swings of arms and kicks of legs, slicing pieces off as he went. It was an art form in how quickly and smoothly he moved his mech as opposed to the slowly responding mechs that seemed only able to operate with projectile and beam weapons.

By the time Duke’s Mana had regened, Ter’fald had wiped out all the mechs near him and the tide of battle had completely shifted in the Steel Tusks’ favor. The remaining nine attacking mechs had begun running for a descending dropship. Both Duke and Gro’nok shouted over the comms, “That’s a Syndicate ship!”

“Take cover, they are going to hit us hard with covering fire!” Tukka called out as both his and Gro’nok’s mechs scrambled down the far side of the butte. It was just in time as the ship opened up over the heads of the retreating mechs. Lances of energy struck the area sending geysers of dust and rock projectiles flying in all directions. Duke slid behind the head of the titan for cover but was still pelted with countless fragments which his ARMOR SKIN contended with.

Thirty seconds of barrage later, the area was completely covered in rubble as half the butte had been blasted apart. The fortress’ shield still held but the Syndicate ship was already rocketing for orbit. Duke called over the comms to the Iron Reaver, “Mira, you have a Syndicate dropship heading up your way. We still have some cleanup to take care of here. Are you ready to come down here for pickup?”

“I’d rather not encounter the Syndicate ship on the way down. Ship-to-ship combat in atmosphere is always messy.”

“Roger that. I’ll bring you down. Let me know when you are ready.”

“Born ready. Go for it.”

Duke TELEPORTED the ship down to an area free of debris and waited for the main ramp to lower. He had not really ever noticed the perspective of the ship before. He knew it was a large ship, but it stood more than twice as tall as the mesa the fortress was built into. He idly wondered if he could actually fit the titan mech into the ship. That quickly became a secondary thought as cheering troops boiled out of the fortress accompanied by the most beat-up mech Duke had ever seen that could still move. Time to meet and greet and figure out why the fuck everyone is in this desolate place anyway.