Pinneedle's message faded as I closed out the chat box and I felt my brow scrunch in confusion but did my best to push it to the side knowing that we still had our own situation to deal with. What Swansong had thought was only one person was actually, in fact, two separate forms that became far more clear the closer to the island that they got.
We had considered waiting for them by the token on the torch, but we found, much to our surprise, that I was able to pick the token up and move it without the beacon feature turning off. In fact, the moment I picked up the token a giant warning flashed across my screen, only fading when I finally set it back down. None of us wanted to let it get too far away from us, but Duskbreaker pointed out that the larger open lawn of the island definitely provided for room for us to spread out.
“WARNING: This Ascension Token and its Associated Phase Points are not claimed until inserted into a qualifying Ascension Upgrader, until then it’s just a shiny gold coin. This item CAN be Pickpocketed from your B.E.L.T.”
“Hey Codex, work with Angie and see what kind of options we can find for protections against that pickpocket feature…” I said, focusing on the actual squad chat as we settled down on the main lawn, only a dozen feet away from the water’s edge.
“On it,” Jon replied. While we certainly could have let Duskbreaker know about him and Pinneedle did already know about him, we had quickly agreed that keeping him a secret was a good idea. At least if only for just the rest of the evening until we could see where things fell with the other Augments in the city.
We moved the token down and set it up only a dozen yards away from the head of the statue, still resting on its side. The moment I released the token, it rose up and into the air and began spinning just as it had when we first found it. While it was certainly something we would take into account when the tokens really were our primary concern, for now it just added to the effect as we gathered around it and watched the approaching spouts of water.
Duskbreaker and I stood just ahead of the token, with Swansong hovering in the air just a bit behind it, just in case someone managed to sneak up behind us. I glanced over at Duskbreaker, sizing up the darkly dressed Augment. We hadn’t exactly had time to go over any sort of plan if this did take a turn to hostilities but I assumed, almost solely based on how he had appeared, that he had some sort of shadow related powers, though I wasn’t quite sure what else would fit into his powerset with a name like Eclipse Leech.
“Are you uh… Are you a fighter?” I called over to him and he looked over in my direction.
“I can hold my own… though I’m better when no one can see me coming, and I’ve got some decent support capabilities,” he admitted. “You uh… you hit things hard right?”
Swansong let out a laugh and I looked up over my shoulder at her to catch her covering her mouth.
“What? You do hit things hard,” she said with another laugh and I just rolled my eyes. She coughed almost as suddenly as she had started laughing, stopping our conversation in its tracks. She straightened up and gestured back toward the water.
I turned just in time to see one of the two spouts disappear before a large burst of water sprayed directly up and into the air as a small form burst up and over the lip of the island. The water spout that hadn’t disappeared continued toward the island before a small wave of water came lurching up and deposited a man onto the island.
To say the pair that was standing before us was strange would have been an understatement if we hadn’t been in the middle of a robotic siege on the city. The man that had rode a wave onto the island might have looked normal… if he were on a beach. He had shaggy blonde hair that was pulled back into a messy man bun and the only thing that really marked him as an Augment was the ocean blue mask that he wore over his eyes. Past that he only had on a floral shirt and, unfortunately, a black speedo that left his rather hairy legs exposed to the air.
The other Augment looked… well… more like an Augment. While he couldn’t have been much more than five feet tall and overall had a rather thin figure, his skin was a leathery, grey color and his eyes were wide but sharp. But it was his mouth that left me the most unsettled. He had a wide, large mouth with dangerous looking teeth. He didn’t wear a mask, but his outfit was nearly as casual as his friends, with a dirty tank top, a pair of jeans torn at the knees and flip flops that matched his friend’s. I highlighted them both, one after the other.
“Skim. Level 12 Jetstream Striker. Squad: Ocean Bros.”
“Barracuda. Level 13 Torrent Predator. Squad: Ocean Bros.”
“Well shit, shoulda expected we’d have some company,” Barracuda said and I had to resist the urge to laugh. Jon did not succeed. He had an accent that would have fit in in New Jersey and he straightened up as he took in the scene, reaching up with a webbed hand to scratch at the side of his head. “Think wes can take ‘em Skim?”
“Uh… Barry, that’s Loophole…” Skim replied. He sounded quite literally exactly how I expected him to, like Keanu Reeves in the 90s. Barracuda shook his head out as a hand moved to rub at his eyes before he stared directly at me. His eyes glossed over only briefly before I saw what I thought was a frown in his fishy features.
“Well fuck, wes came all the way out here for no damn reason,” Barracuda groaned as he began to turn around, “Come on, Skim, wes don’t wanna be messin’ with them.”
“Wait,” I said, stepping forward before they could move, finally finding my voice as the absurdity of the situation finally began to settle. Barracuda looked back over his shoulder toward me with what I thought was a raised brow. “Aren’t you guys like… at all curious why we were just standing here waiting?”
Skim hadn’t moved an inch and looked over at Barracuda who looked from me, back over to his squadmate and back before shrugging.
“Honestly no, not really,” Barracuda admitted. “Youse guys are way outta our league. We figured you’d all be busy dealing with all those clockwork thingamajigs and we’d be able to just come and picks it up for ourselves.”
“Okay, are we positive this guy isn’t an NPC? I mean, what the hell is that accent?! And what the hell is with the surfer bro?!” Jon asked, still laughing.
“I… I admit I’m a bit confused too…” Swansong said. “Could it be an act?”
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“If they are acting, they deserve a damn Oscar,” Jon said with a laugh and I rolled my eyes, trying my best to ignore them and focus on the task at hand.
“Are you saying you guys haven’t had to deal with any of them?” I asked, taking another step forward as I looked between the two. Skim looked at Barracuda again who sighed before turning all the way back to face me, crossing his arms in front of his chest, revealing two sharp looking fins that I hadn’t actually noticed on either of his elbows.
“Yeah, wes had to deal with some of those things. Theys been wrecking up a whole lot of the city so of course wes were gonna run into them,” Barracuda explained, “Me and Skim here musta broken what, a couple dozen into lil pieces?”
“Maybe eleven of them…? I guess twelve if you count the little mechanical dude with the gloves hanging out in the kangaroos pouch,” Skim said as Barracuda shot him a look.
“Okay, maybe just a dozen then, but wes been doin’ our part,” Barracuda shrugged. “Theys were all of them big ones too. Wes fought, what Skim, a giant raptor and a few bears, right?”
“Do you mean the koalas that broke open the jewelry store? That haul was epic,” Skim said with a chuckle as Barracuda reached up and pinched what should have been the bridge of his nose.
“Gahd damnit Skim, youse can’t be goin’ round just announcing that we, uh… liberated… a few choice items from the establishments that wes were so kind to lend our spectacular skills to,” Barracuda said, looking over at us nervously.
“Look guys, all things considered, I’m not exactly going to focus on you guys stealing some jewelry right now, that’s kinda a tomorrow issue. Given the announcement Axio made and the obvious shitstorm he just dropped on our collective heads, I figured if there was ever a time for all of us to talk, this might be the most likely time we’d all be gathered up, ” I said and Barracuda looked at me with what I thought was curiosity, it really was difficult with his shifted features.
“Ohs yeah? And whys exactly should we all be talkin’, ain’t you lot on the Guardian side?” Barracuda said. I just gestured toward the city and he glanced toward it curiously.
“This isn’t a Miscreant or Guardian thing. This is a human thing,” I said, feeling my jaw set as I stared at them. “Are you trying to say that you’re okay with our city being under siege?”
Barracuda raised his webbed hands defensively, waving them every so slightly. “Whoa, wes definitely ain’t sayin’ that. I said that wes been doin’ our part, didn’t I?”
“Have you? Or have you just been taking advantage of the situation to go around looting?” Duskbreaker said, finally breaking his silence and I looked over at him cautiously. I could see his hands were rolled tightly into fists and the shadows beneath him were actually shaking ever so slightly.
“Whoa whoa whoa there leatherboy, wes ain’t been goin’ round just lootin’, tell ‘em Skim, we made sure that family-”
Barracuda was cut off as the ground erupted underneath him. A pair of large, metallic teeth engulfed the small fishman and crunched downward before a spray of blood squirted out from the teeth of what looked like a moray eel. Skim’s eyes were wide with shock for only a moment before he barely moved to get out of the way as another mouth came erupting from the ground.
I didn’t hesitate as I activated Timekeeper’s Control, only rewinding by a few seconds.
“Have you?” Duskbreaker started, but I didn’t listen as I lunged forward, activating Echo Step and jumping directly in front of Barracuda.
The small fishman’s eyes widened as I shoved him hard out of the way and looked down at the ground. I hadn’t exactly tried this before, but it was worth a shot and I punched straight downward. The moment my fist hit the ground, I added a 30% Gravity Punch. Unfortunately it didn’t do what I was hoping it would, and the attack didn’t rip through the ground toward the approaching attacker and the moment I felt the ground start to shake I rewound things again.
“Have you?” Duskbreaker started.
I once again lunged forward, stepping through the air and knocking Barracuda out of the way as I focused on the ability I needed, dropping it right in place of Spectrum Veil as soon as it generated.
“New Ability! Bypass. Well well well, that’s some real creative thinking. This ability utilizes several different fields of study, focusing mostly on the principles of Quantum Tunneling and Quantum Probabilities, both things at this point you technically are quite well versed in! After activating this ability, the next strike you throw will bypass any singular, continuously connected solid surface within your local area to strike a valid target. You must know where the target is in order for this strike to land. This ability costs Stamina equal to the distance, in feet, your strike traveled times 10 points of stamina. This ability has a 5 minute cooldown.”
With Barracuda knocked out of the way, I planted my feet and let my Area Sense surge outward. Thanks to the passive Mechanical Knowledge enhancement to my area I could immediately feel four different forms surging around in the dirt underneath us and much to my surprise, their description boxes manifested. I actually saw as their levels changed from ??? to Level 14 and I felt a small bit of relief as I punched downward.
I activated Bypass and followed it up with a 25% Gravity Punch at the Clockwork Ground Moray that was starting to rush up toward me. This time I could feel the ground shake as my attack reverberated through the earth before smacking directly into the rushing droid.
I hadn’t expected this attack to take the ambusher out, but as I held still and let my Area Sense spread back out, I could feel the Moray vibrating as smaller things tried and failed to disconnect from it. I moved just in time before the ground collapsed and the area around it shook as a handful of explosions went off underground.
“It’s an ambush!” I shouted at the others, just in time.
Duskbreaker was the first to move, sliding off to the side just before one of the Morays burst through the ground and tried to clamp down on him. He whipped his hands to the side and several shadows lurched up from the ground and began to wrap around the exposed neck of the droid. The droid seized up as a purplish glow started to envelope it, pulsing down and into the shadows.
“Ey what the fuck!” I heard Barracuda shout and looked over in time to see Skim standing on top of the nose of another one of the morays. “Is thats a gahd damn eel!? Those things are ‘spose to be in the water!”
Skim made a motion with his hand and a sudden rush of water that had coated the ground behind him came blazing inward. It had all just jumped up from the ground in a single motion before it fired in a sharp torrent of drops that peppered the Moray’s neck. Unfortunately, it only barely left a dent in the droid’s shield bar. The water didn’t just evaporate though, instead bouncing off of the metal one by one and joining a large ring of water that started to rush in a circle around the droid.
“Ah fuck it,” Barracuda cried out and he rushed forward, jumping up and onto the rushing ring of water and quite literally riding on it in a circle as he started to slash forward with the sharp edges on his elbows, slowly, but effectively, chunking down the Moray’s health bar.
“Holy shit! You lost 10 seconds, guessing that ambush did not go well for us the first time?” Jon called out as I sprang into action, moving toward the last of the Moray’s that had come bursting out of the ground, trying to snap its jaws at Swansong who floated overhead belting out her Song of Hercules.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see as an icon disappeared off of my mini-map and the steady glow that had been coming from the Ascension Token vanished as a large wave of water crashed over and onto the island. I hadn’t been paying attention, but assumed that either Barracuda or Skim must have found a way to scoop it up in the chaos. While part of me wanted to be annoyed by that and even wanted to rewind things just to make sure I pocketed the token, I decided against it, instead focusing on the task at hand.
“Barracuda got turned into eel food,” I said simply, getting in close to the neck and starting to hammer away with blows.
I had kept moving in a circle as I struck the metal plates covering its body, just in case it had a way to counter and I could see that the Moray that Barracuda and Skim had been attacking was laying on its side defeated, the two nowhere to be seen. I didn’t want to immediately blow through every last bit of my stamina in case there was another part of this ambush that I hadn’t seen just yet, but for this, I really didn’t have to.
With Swansong’s song boosting the damage of my strikes, the passive upgrade on my Sting Like a Bee proccing more often than naught, and the Target debuff slowly stacking onto the Moray, each one of my strikes chipped more and more away from the shield until it was nothing more than a sliver only a few seconds after I had begun attacking it.
If this was an ambush, the lack of mobility for the morays made it a rather lackluster one, but I certainly wasn’t about to complain if it was going to be easy. Almost as soon as the thought had entered my head though, it was as if the world was listening. The moment my strike burst the Moray’s shield away, panels on its neck sprang to the side, releasing at least a dozen small Clockwork Spiders in a way that hadn’t seemed to happen with the droid that Barracuda and Skim had taken down.
That one began to shake, letting out an explosion that might have sent me off balance if I hadn’t jumped into the air just before it happened. Duskbreaker wasn’t so lucky and I saw him stumble as the ground shook beneath him. He had a purple glow surrounding him now and as he stumbled, he snapped the fingers on his right hand. Almost as quickly as he snapped, the purple hue surrounding him rushed down into the ground, flowing up through his shadows and into the caught Moray. The droid’s form began to quiver before it froze up entirely and the entire thing simply dismantled piece by piece down and into the hole it had burst through. Each piece that fell off of it dematerialized in a flash of light.
I was almost distracted by it just long enough to realize that I was the only one dealing with the extra spiders and I immediately got to work. They weren’t difficult to take care of, each only taking a handful of strikes to eliminate. But they still let out small explosions that probably could have removed a finger if I had normal levels of durability.
My stamina hadn’t taken that large of a chunk of damage, and I could see the two spouts of water as Barracuda and Skim raced away from the island. I was just about to take off to chase them down, just to get them to come back to talk when I heard a loud, BANG, and in a wave that quickly spread throughout the city, every light still turned on went dark.
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