Havok Bringer

The Aether Witch screamed maniacally as I slammed the top of my helmet into her grotesque, open mouth. She clawed at me, trying to find purchase in mid-air without success.

"Ses, hold for now. If I need you, I want to make sure I have you. I don't want to waste your power until I am absolutely sure I need it."

"I shall wait."

A slight buzz ran through my head at the words. The piercing pain that initially accompanied Ses's words was gone. I had grown accustomed to having him as a sort of passenger, and our bond had deepened over the last several months, which was good since I didn't need to have a piercing migraine every time he spoke to me.

The Witch floated back, giving herself some space before she held her grey, rotting hand to her mouth, analyzing her injury. She spat out several black teeth and smiled as black blood oozed from her mouth.

"That is not making me feel all warm and fuzzy," I muttered.

"Understandable, Captain. It seems this wench is rather intrigued by the injury she sustained." Sherlock replied.

"You mean Witch, right?" I asked.

"I mean what I said, Captain. This monstrosity before us is quite the disgusting wench."

"Alright, Old English verabage for the win, I guess."

The Witch threw her arms in my direction as ribbons of tattered black material shot from her back, quickly ensnaring me in mid-air.

"Captain, we seem to be restrained by the wench's dirty rags," Sherlock announced.

I grunted against the mysterious ribbons, to no avail. "Anything valuable to add, Sherlock? Or are you just gonna announce the obvious?"

"Churlish rhetoric does nothing to change our predicament, Captain. I suggest defensive measures."

"Now?" Ses said.

"Not yet, Ses. Let me see if I can get out of this on my own." I replied. I flexed my arms, trying to rip the ribbons, but was unable to even move them. I looked at the Witch to see that she had closed her eyes and began chanting as a black miasma began covering the ribbons on her end and moving in my direction.

"That does look ominous, Captain," Sherlock said.

I shook my head in frustration. "Not helping, Sherlock."

"Now?" Ses said again.

"No, not yet, Ses. Hold until I absolutely need you."

"I warned you about this, Ses," Sherlock said. "He has a modicum of talent, but the Captain is a bit bullheaded to say the least."

"Agreed," Ses replied.

"Hey, what the actual fuck, guys. Can we please focus on the task at hand?" I chided.

"Captain, Shield of Solaris should do the trick. With the boost you were given by C.J., it should be more potent than normal." Sherlock offered.

"Good call, I just have to worry about the damage I might take. Why don't we kill two birds with one stone here?" I grunted as I continued the tug of war against the witches' cursed ribbons.

"Whatever do you mean, Captain?"

"I mean that I think this bitch needs a good hug." I swung my arms, wrapping as much of the ribbon around them as I could.

"Captain, I don't recommend that cour…" Sherlock's words were cut off as I fully engaged my boosters and shot toward the Witch, who screamed and looked panicked as I slammed into her once again.

I wrapped my legs around her waist and clenched my arms around her neck as tightly as I could manage as she thrashed and screamed. I felt the miasma finally reach me, causing a power-draining effect that made me feel lightheaded.

I mentally activated my Shield of Solaris ability while at the same time morphing my armor so that spikes protruded from my entire body. The witch screamed again before embracing me in return as the miasma grew, fully engulfing my body.

"I do believe this was a bad idea, Captain," Sherlock said.

I focused on the Shield of Solaris ability as my arms became nothing more than glowing plasma. I continued to push power into the ability and felt the effects as it spread up my arms, to my shoulders, before finally engulfing my torso.

"Just gotta hold on now," I grunted as the pain began to emanate through my entire body. I glanced at the Witch, expecting to see that she was fully engulfed in flames, burning, screaming, anything. Instead, she simply endured my ability with little more than a look of discomfort.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Oh, shit. It's not working!" I panicked.

"Andy is in trouble!" C.J. announced over the comms. "We need to help him!"

"Hold position, C.J.!" Matty replied. "Cap has his battle, we have ours. If we don't stay on task, these wraiths are gonna overrun us and go straight to the witch. If you think he is fucked now, add a hundred of these wraiths to the equation and see how he handles it then."

"That Witch is taking everything he is throwing at her. We gotta do something!" C.J. replied.

"C.J.!" Tiff barked over the comm. "Stay on task! Andrew knows what he is doing." Tiff lied to the crew, as internally she was panicking at what she saw. I was struggling with the level 59 Aether Witch. my attacks were proving to be little more than a nuisance, and the witch had deployed some sort of power-draining attack. She noticed that my Shield of Solaris ability was burning off a large portion of the miasma as it tried in vain to engulf me completely, but I had stupidly played right into her trap by closing the distance and allowing her to pump out more of the stuff with less of a gap to travel to get to me. In short, it looked like I was well and truly fucked.

I screamed as the superheated plasma continued to burn. My intention was to injure the witch; instead, I was the one taking all the damage. I considered deactivating the ability before I took too much damage, but I noticed the miasma from the witch was burning away as it came close to the plasma that now covered the entirety of my torso.

I focused through the pain and extended the spikes from my armor. The witch screamed in pain again, her head reeling back in pain as the spikes fully penetrated her body. I tightened my grip with both my legs and arms, feeling the pop of bones breaking under the enhanced strength of my armor, but the Witch endured. Suddenly, her mouth opened, expanding unnaturally as a river of black miasma shot out directly into my face.

"Andrew! Disengage! Disengage now!" Tiff shouted.

"Andy! you gotta get outta there!" C.J. added.

The words were fuzzy as the miasma began to block out even the signal from my comms. I felt cold, and my heart rate slowed dramatically as warning lights and alarms began sounding in my helmet.

"Captain, I am registering a significant drop in blood pressure. I suggest disengaging from the witch," Sherlock warned.

I began to fade away before hearing Ses once again. "Now?"

"Now!" I shouted as bolts of purple energy shot through my body, followed by a jolt of energy that felt like lightning had entered my veins. The purple bolts coalesced with the plasma and caused it to expand, not only covering my torso but spreading until it covered the entirety of my armor.

"Combine abilities." Ses offered.

I instinctively understood. I realized I was no longer feeling pain from the Shield of Solaris ability; whatever Ses did when he helped me seemed to override any of the adverse effects I received from using my abilities. Realizing this and understanding what he wanted, I pushed more power into my Shield ability and tightened my grip on the witch once again before I closed my eyes, clenched my jaw, and activated Big Bang.

"Get down!" Michael shouted as the crew all jumped for cover.

A bright light exploded from my position before retracting into itself and exploding with the force of a mini nuke. My body went rigid, my arms to my sides and legs extended as I screamed at the overwhelming amount of energy emanating from my body. Variations of white, orange, and purple energy consumed the sky as the witch in front of me disintegrated into charred ash.

My boosters malfunctioned as seemingly every alarm and warning light in my armor went off simultaneously. Surprisingly, my armor didn't deactivate, though, as I fell limply to the ground, cratering in a cloud of dust as I landed.

The remaining Aether Wraiths shrieked in unison at the sight of the Witch being destroyed, then all began running in my direction.

"We gotta protect Andy!" C.J. shouted as the crew all broke position and ran to create a perimeter around me.

C.J. shouldered his plasma rifle and began screaming into the wave of approaching Aether Wraiths as he fired repeatedly. Waves of red energy shot from his body as every member of the crew began receiving buffs. Matty's rounds grew larger and exploded on contact. Kaj's scythe shot waves of deadly energy into the crows with every swipe. Tiff was encased in a shield of electrical energy, and Loren's arms began glowing green as every swing of her fist left devastation in its wake.

Michael looked on, eyes wide as a red figure rose from C.J.'s back, towering over him and firing round after round of devastating energy into the crowd of rushing wraiths. The utter devastation being created by the crew of the Bloodhound was breathtaking. Michael couldn't believe what he was seeing as he picked targets and dropped them as they ran. He heard Kinthragor muttering between shots and nudged him questioningly.

"What are you saying, Kinny?"

"I am offering a prayer?" Kinthragor replied.

"I think he will be okay. We just need to get through this." Michael grunted as he continued squeezing off rounds.

"I am not praying for the Captain, Michael. I am praying for his enemies. I am praying that whatever gods they worship will bless them with a quick death, for I do not envy those who would bring the wrath of his friends down on their planets."

Michael smiled as the last few wraiths fell and skidded into the pile that now lay surrounding the makeshift defensive circle formed around me. C.J. fell to his knees, his plasma rifle glowing hotly and hanging limply from his hand. Tiff rushed back to check on me as I came to.

"Did I get her?" I asked, confused.

"You got her, you did it the hard way, but you got her," Tiff replied as she helped me lean up.

"Is there any other way?" I asked with a chuckle.

"Yes, you ass. Believe it or not, there are other ways to win. You don't always have to nearly kill yourself in the process.

I dismissed my helmet and tried to shake the fog from my head as I stood up and saw notifications flooding my interface.

Experience earned!

Level 59 Aether Witch defeated!

Shared experience earned!

Summarizing details…standby.

Summarizing details…standby.

203 Aether wraiths defeated – levels ranging from 39 to 47. Calculating experience points earned. standby.

Level up!

New grade achieved. Planetary grade achieved. Standby for details.

"System administrator message – User Andrew Dawes had transcended the Planetary Grade power matrix. User Andrew Dawes is no longer subject to system administration regarding skill point and experience point distribution. User Andrew Dawes is no longer subject to the rule of duplicity.

Addendum – System Administrator R.A.N.D.I. has requested that user Andrew Dawes be made aware that while he is no longer subject to system administration, his crew is still subject to the rules and regulations set forth by the System Administrator and will be managed accordingly.

I smiled a toothy grin as C.J. ran up and threw his hands up in frustration. "Let me guess, you almost kill yourself again, and in return, you get some kind of massive power up!"

I put a hand on his shoulder and smiled again. "Seems like I am now a P-grade. Gonna need to dig into my stats, but this day just got a whole lot more exciting."