Benjamin Vryce

They hadn’t gone more then a mile, when they ran into trouble again. The service tunnel had ended at a new level and when they dropped down into the corridor below, they were almost instantly swarmed by a battle between imps and personal combat drones. It was chaos, the two and a half foot tall imps and the three-foot-long P.C.D.s buzzed around like flies over a corpse.

Bullets flew everywhere, bodies dropped from the sky, blood and bits of machinery littered the ground within seconds of the fight starting. Best Benjamin could figure, they had been in a moving battle through the corridors. The sound just hadn’t reached them before they had dropped right into their path. Hunching his body down to protect Jade, he waited while his creations went to work.

The idea of summoning Ice flitted through his mind, now that they had reentered a corridor there was room for her after all. he dismissed the idea however; she was working on his forest world and that was more important. Besides, she didn’t handle swarms of smaller enemies well. So instead, he left it to the red women to deal with. While he hid Jade under a pile of scrapped drones to keep her safe from attack, before joining them himself.

The King’s Blade manifested in his hands; he went to work on the swarming enemies. Benjamin didn’t worry about who he hit, both the demons and the drones were fair game. With so many of them clogging the corridor, he didn’t even have to aim, instead he just swung the blade again and again connecting with at least one foe each time. He grinned, wondering if Nyx would scold him on his lack of form while he fought.

Kali was making a good showing for her first combat, but he noticed a problem right away. She didn’t have any armor and her scales weren’t doing an adequate job protecting her from the imp’s stingers. Already she was slowing down, and probably wouldn’t last the whole battle. Damn, how had he overlooked that. Without a connection line he didn’t know if he could heal her with essence or not either. Well, all he could do was try.

Reaching out with a braided line of creation and chaos energy he tried to push it into her body. He remembered, only when it was too late that she was a creature of only creation essence. The connection had been made already however and it was too late to stop now. Her body drank in the blended essences, healing rapidly and also starting to change. Her scales grew thicker and horns protruded from her head. The transformation reminded him of what happened when he poured blended essence into Ice.

Fully recovered and with her scales reenforced kali’s effectiveness doubled. She moved through the swarms, slashing with four, foot long, daggers and blocking incoming attacks with the two shields she carried in two of her tentacle like back arms. He would still need to make her some armor, but at least he wasn’t worried she would keel over in her first fight anymore.

Looking over to Nyx, he wasn’t surprised with her performance at all. she moved like a dancer, despite the added bulk of her new muscle. Each movement fluidly blended into the next as she cleaved her foe, be it metal or demon, in half. Her shield was used to block and redirect incoming attacks as well as to bash enemies with. Unlike before, when she had smiled and laughed hysterically, her face had a calm expression of concentration on it.

They both looked so much more well suited to this than he felt, standing in place and swinging his blade around like a baseball bat. He was killing his share of imps and P.C.Ds. but he didn’t have the same flair as the two women. At least this battle was going to be an easy one, they could kill these weak opponents all day. No sooner had he spoken, the situation changed.

A large crashing resounded from the direction the swarm had come from, and Benjamin squinted, trying to get a better view. he didn’t have to wait long to learn what had caused it however. A huge black body came tumbling through the air, landing only feet from him. Another huge body, one constructed of metal this time landed next to the first. he could hear more crashing sounds coming down the corridor too; along with several howls, it sounded like the big players had finally arrived.

The gargoyle was rising to its feet, when the juggernaut landed beside it. The pair of giant combatants pounded away at one another, fists and other stranger appendages colliding with the ringing sounds of metal on stone. The imps and P.C.D.s that hadn’t moved away quickly enough were smashed between the press of huge bodies. Benjamin groaned; the easy battle he had envisioned just got a lot harder.

* * *

Jade Benz

Jade reentered reality with a confused jolt. What the hell? Was she laying under a pile of broken drones and bloody imp bodies? Oh, hell no, Vice was going to have some explaining to do. Sitting up, she discovered the battle raging around her and the two huge combatants that were duking it out right in front of Vice. Well, what a perfect time to put Drake through his paces.

Ah man, she thought as she pulled on the grey essence to call the dragon man forth. Am I really going to do the clichéd ass routine of showing up right at the perfect time to save everyone. How lame, that was supposed to be the man’s job, wasn’t it? She really needed to find a more capable traveling companion. Looking around the crazy conflict, she spotted the demon woman and another red scaled dragon lady with six arms going to town on the enemy.

Damn, Vice. You really need to step it up, surrounded by women and they are all kicking your ass in fighting ability. As she was thinking, Drake materialized next to her. After scanning the battlefield, he looked to her and spoke.

“My lady, what is your will?” it was a little sweet to hear him talking like that, and also a little creepy. Come on now, who talks like that these days.

“Don’t hurt the guy with the blue sword, or the two red women…or a big white wolf if she shows up, I suppose…but if you could just kill everything else for me that would be great.” She answered, already crouching down behind her force shield and readying her essence pistol.

When the normally translucent shield sporting a pink tinge manifested in front of her, she got a shock. It was huge, covering most of her body and the pink tinge had changed into streaks of the color floating around the shield. The effect reminded her of when the sun hit a soap bubble and reflected the light strangely. She frowned, trying to figure out why it had changed. Finally realizing it was because she was using her combined grey essence in its formation.

With a shrug, she raised her essence pistol and shot a bolt of grey energy at the closest imp. It promptly exploded in a rain of gory bits that made her thankful she had put her shield up first. she stared openmouthed at her gun for a beat, then looked into herself. The grey part of her essence, the portion that was the combination of creation and chaos, had already shrunk by more then half. Between summoning Drake, activating her shield and now firing her gun she was burning through it fast.

“Ok, so super bad ass, but only for a little while…got it…guess it’s up to you, big boy.” She said the last to Drake’s back as he launched himself at the swarming enemy.

She resolved, again, to have Vice help her combine the essence faster. If she was gunna be this bad ass she should at least be able to keep it up for more then a few shots. The thought made her snicker as Drake reached the gargoyle and juggernaut. It was likely to be one hell of a show.

* * *

Nyx

Nyx had been on a steady killing spree since the battle had begun. She was slashing drones and imps apart with each stroke of her sword, and breaking bones and mechanical bits with every impact of her shield. It was hard for her to maintain her calm expression when she thought about how proud her master would be with her when she killed the most enemies.

Thinking that she should check on her competition, she looked over at the kobold woman with the four flexible metal arms in her back. Only to find that she had grown more powerful, and was scything through the enemy like a hot knife through butter. The line of her master’s essence that she saw connecting with the kobold explained the performance, but still, she wasn’t about to be outdone.

Before she could kick it into high gear, the gargoyle and juggernaut’s arrival put a wrench into her plans. They were big monsters, each nearly twice her size and were doing nearly as much damage to the smaller units around them, as they were to each other. Now, that was the fight she needed to get into. If she could take down those monsters, then she could pull ahead of kali.

Again, before she could move another fighter entered the scene. It was a big lizardman, with wings and a giant tail. Standing at least a foot taller than her, and with more bulk, it smashed into the two giants with a resounding crash. Knocking them all to the ground, where it proceeded to pound its two powerful fists into the combatants, chipping stone and denting metal with each blow.

The momentary distraction the newcomer caused, left her open for attack, and an imp stinger buried itself into her neck. The venom stung as it was pumped into her bloodstream but with her regeneration it wasn’t a fatal attack. It did help her to focus on her own battle however, reaching up with her shield hand to grasp the tail, she pull the imp to the ground. Where she crushed it under a booted foot.

She couldn’t affect how powerful the other combatants were, all she needed to worry about was following orders. She could take on the bigger foes, but then who would handle all these smaller ones. No, she didn’t need to worry about outdoing anyone; she just needed to kill her master’s foes…and do it better then kali.

Goal set firmly in mind, she set to carrying it out. Sword and shield working in tandem to rend the flying units from the air in droves. The corridor was still too small for her to take flight herself, but like before, her wings could be used as shields and line of sight blockers. If she was willing to accept the pain if them being torn apart again and again, at any rate. As much as that hurt, she could fix the damage with time, and the tactical advantage the tactic gained her over these smaller units was too good to pass on.

“Nyx, come on we’re leaving.”

She heard her master’s voice over the din, calling out to her. She stopped her attacks long enough to spot him, in front of another service tunnel access panel. He had gathered up the now awake Jade, and held a badly wounded kali in his arms. The grey lizardman was standing in front of them all, ripping his claws through the enemy as quickly as they swarmed in to replace those he killed.

Without a word, she kicked off from the ground and used a few half strokes of her wings to propel her towards him faster. They had littered the passage with bodies, hundreds of them clogged the narrow corridor in huge piles. They just kept coming though, and until the rift was closed, there would be no end to them either.

She arrived as Lord Benjamin had ushered Jade and the wounded Kali into the service tunnel. he motioned for her to proceed him inside, but she shook her head. it wouldn’t be proper for her to go into safety leaving him in danger. With a shrug, he entered the tunnel, leaving her alone in the corridor with the lizardman. With a final look at him, she realized that he was best suited to the rear-guard role and dove into the access panel.

Benjamin was waiting, and when she passed inside, placed a big sheet of metal over the entrance. It must have been the panel he had removed to open the tunnel, and, no sooner had he raised in in place, several small spider shaped repair drones began welding it back into position. Helping him hold the sheet in place she caught the wistful expression on his face as he watched the little drone’s work. She didn’t understand the expression, but there wasn’t time to ask about it.