Monday 1 August 2016

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 comment:

  1. First of all, I want to apologise for the delay. Despite the fact I should be having no problem sticking to my schedule, I am having the most trouble sticking to it.

    Secondly, I have attempted to use a bit of Norwegian for the Norwegian characters so they don't just speak English, but as I don't actually speak any Norwegian, I have had to rely upon online dictionaries, translators and guidebooks. As a result, I apologise to any Norwegian speakers if I made any mistakes.

    Otherwise, I want to say that while Leo is able to hurt Apocalypse, it is only because he caught the Harbinger by surprise and even then, Leo is still horribly outclassed and is only still alive because Apocalypse hasn't chosen to kill him. Speaking of which, Leo isn't going to recover from the loss of his arm straight away. Oh, I am still he will at some point because he lives in a world full of various types of healers and there really isn't a valid reason for Leo to not get his arm replaced.

    As for the bit with Jaylyn, I want to inform Leo and the readers about the situation back home for Leo. This is mainly because I am throwing problems at Leo to make life harder for him as the story comes to a close and I don't want them to come out of the blue. So several problems Leo will have at home are being briefly mentioned now so they appear in-story before they have any actual impact. I like to do that so I don't have things coming out the blue. Or at least coming out the blue when they are about to have meaningful impact on the story.

    So next time, Gears fights another of Apocalypse's creatures, but with only one arm.

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