Chase
'Something doesn't feel right…' I thought as I looked out at the crowd of people surrounding my company's exhibit.
I had decided to take a break between the semi-final and final round of my tournament mostly for traditions sake but now I was feeling that it was a blessing in disguise. Keeping an eye on everyone in the center and the area surrounding it was a enormous job and Bone-lasher was reaching his limits with trying to keep track of the tens of thousands of people inside his nine mile field of vision.
However despite Bone-lasher's and all my evo's surveillance of the island I felt like I was missing something. Like some shadow hidden inside the island was about to swallow everything whole.
"Penny for your thoughts."
I looked towards the direction the voice came from and saw Alberto standing next to, also watching the crowd. His expression was relaxed even though I could tell he was searching the crowd for something.
"I'm on edge. I haven't heard from anyone in a while and it's starting to worry me." I admitted. Alberto nodded and narrowed his eyes at a group of American soldiers walking past our area. They looked at us with their lips upturned into a snarl.
"I know…I was beginning to wonder if I was the only one that noticed." Alberto said. He glanced over towards the Justice Technologies area and frowned deeply. "The center feels different now. Electric…"
"The calm before a storm?" I offered. Alberto nodded then glanced over at The containment cages where Haws was.
"I want to end this tournament early. Or at least get Haws out of here. Something about the center's bee bugging me for a minute now."
"I agree with you on that…" I said then looked at the people still hanging around our area despite the break, wanting to see the end of the tournament. "We can at least get Haws and the orkands working on packing the containment cages up."
"Whew! Jane's contacting me. One worry out the window." I told Alberto. His expression softened slightly at the news.
I was panting from rage, visibility clenching my fists and gritting my teeth. Alberto, who was standing next me already had a clue that something was wrong but now he looked worried. I took a deep breath to calm myself but it didn't help.
"Reagan, Bo and Indy are missing. Gargesh is dead. Take Haws and get him out of here now!" I ordered. Alberto nodded and started to walk over to Haws when Sin rushed over and stopped in front of me.
"Boss, Astrid went to talk to her father about something but that was a while ago and she hasn't come back. I also can't find Damon." Sin said.
"Oh for the love of Hades!" I growled then looked to Alberto.
"Grabbing Haws!" Alberto immediately rushed over to Haws and started leading him towards the door without another word.
"Sin, get with Iris to look for Reagan, Bo and Indy." I ordered.
"What about Astrid and Damon?" Sin asked.
"I'll find them." I said. Sin nodded then rushed off towards the Sadamas center's front door.
My vision blurred as Bone-lasher fused his senses with mine. I felt a wave of nausea wash over from pure sensory overload. My brain wasn't geared to use this form of vision already but with Bone-lasher taking most of the mental load when we linked senses it made things manageable. If I was feeling this overloaded then that meant Bone-lasher was feeling this overload worse. After a second the overload passed as did the nausea.
Bone-lasher, Empress, and Mzazzi all jumped from their hiding places in the center and landed in front of me as a response to my summons. This caused a little bit of a panic in the area around Sho'lajah's but I was ignoring it.
All three evos rushed off immediately without a word spoken. I looked around at the dozens of eves all looking at me and that feeling of something being wrong intensified.
"Master Kingston, is something wrong?" A woman asked. She was a Egyptian soldier, from the navel branch judging by her uniform.
"Yes but nothing to worry about. Small problem involving enchanted item storage." I lied and flashed the woman a smile. "Needed to send some people to deal with it and my evos to deal with the rodents that caused the problem."
The woman's eyes widened a bit as she understood what I was insinuating. She nodded meekly then quickly turned and walked away. I was about to turn around to walk over the containment cages when I saw something fly past my head. Without thinking I channeled void attribute mana into the air from the right side of my body, opening up a series of small black holes around that side. A split second later a explosion engulfed the space around me in fire and sending a concussive wave knocking everything away from the point of detonation. Everything except me.
The black holes created by my mana channeling devoured the flames as well as the concussive wave as it tried to reach me, creating a single safe spot from the explosion. I stopped channeling mana and turned around to look towards the Egyptian soldier and saw that she was laying several yards away, her body covered in burns and deep lacerations all over her body. Thankfully there was nobody else close enough to get hurt by the explosion at the time.
"HEY!" I yelled and ran towards the woman, already biting my finger to write runes on my arm for a healing spell when a bright flash caught my attention. I turned my head slightly and saw several fireballs flying towards me.
"Fuck…" I muttered as the fireballs closed in.
"STAR SHAPER!" Jiggles roared and crashed down in front of me.
He shielded me with his own body, taking the brunt of the explosions when the first fireballs hit. I felt the temperature rise drastically and my body channeled frost attribute mana as a gut reaction. The temperature stabilized around Jiggled and me, while louder and numerous explosions echoed the space around us. When the last of the explosions rang out I could see nothing but smoke and ash.
I opened my mouth to scream after Jiggles but his larger mitts covered my mouth and prevented me from making a sound. We were still shrouded by the smoke and ash though our cover was slowly dispersing.
Jiggles comforted me.
I gritted my teeth as I got worried mental messages from the rest of my evos asking what was going on. Thankfully Fours quickly reminded them that talking all at once could distract me. They all shut up then and waited for my orders.
I patted Jiggles comfortingly on the arm then focused my senses on my connection to my evos.
With that the communication went silent just as the last of the thick smoke started to clear away. I looked at Jiggles, he'd taken to a defensive position in front of me with the twin crystal claws in his bracers fully popped. I drew Dia Caos and held it at the low ready.
"Chase Kingston! Stop hiding! I know that alone wasn't enough to kill you!" A voice called out from beyond the smoke and ash. I felt my vision blurred as Bone-lasher lent me his vision, what I saw did not fill me with confidence.
There were at least fifty splicers standing in rows about forty yards away. In front of them dozens of evos ranging from titans to thrads, and even a few of the newer ones being peddled by Justice Technologies. Behind those splicers were American soldiers, I could tell thanks to the guns they all had trained in my direction. There were at least a hundred of those.
Instead of answering the splicer, I aimed Dia Caos at the center of the group of evos and pulled both triggers. Three lightning bullets fired from the triple barrels, splitting into six before hitting the tallest titan and and the titan standing next to it. Lightning arched down the line, hitting almost all of the evos, outright killing about forty of them and dropping five to their knees. Only five remained untouched.
In response to me shooting the Americans all fired I'm my general direction. I stomped my foot and channeled freeze attribute mana, directing it into a wall shape in front of Jiggles. A ice wall about three feet thick sprouted from the ground. I heard bullets bounce off of the wall and ricochet around the surrounding center.
"Stop firing!" A voice called out and the hailstorm ended a few moments later.
The smoke was gone at this point, diffused by the sudden eruption of the ice wall from the ground. I looked up to the ceiling where I knew that Fours was waiting for my command to attack but I had another idea.
"How long are you going to cower Kingston! Come out and fight like a man!" A voice, a woman's this time called out. I saw the woman had to be a splicer sin eyed American's didn't allow women to join their military.
"You want to talk about cowardice? You just ambushed me with a fucking grenade and about a hundred fireballs!" I snapped but refused to give into her goading.
"Oh come on now?! Where is all that brash wit and rakish audacity? Are you just going to stay there and hide while you wait for your employees to come save you?"
"Its been replaced by an unyielding rage!" I spat back and pulled the crystal genesis dagger from my holster. I started channeling mana into the dagger and started casting the axiom spell sigil. "Before I make what's left of your miserable lives hell on earth I am going to give you once chance to tell me who is attacking me and why!"
"Who are we?" The splicer huffed in indignation, rising to the bait I laid out. "We are the nations you slighted! The people you insulted and dare to think you are better than! I am Avanlea McEwin of the Scottish Army, linked in arms with the French, the Divine Chinese Army, The English, and the American's! Your time parading around as a so called genius is over!"
"That's all I wanted to know…" I said as I shattered the Star shaped crystal that had formed from the spell. Fours took that as the sign and jumped down to me, snapping his wings open just before he crashed into me. "…CRYSTAL GENESIS ACTIVE!"