I wasn’t sure who shouted it, but I was thankful for the yell all the same. I had found my jaw clenching as I stared at the fish-man and had just about rushed for him, the other droids be damned. I jumped up into the air, activating my flight just in time before a large set of arms could close around me.
My stamina had taken a beating from yo-yoing on top of the first round of enemies but I oddly felt relieved of all things looking at the small horde of enemies that Barracuda had apparently been put in charge of. Even with the challenge laid ahead of us, it felt good to have somewhere to direct a bit of the fury I had had to bury since Clockwork Tyrant’s announcement.
I turned my attention down to the gorilla that had attempted to grab me and dropped, immediately throwing a 20% Gravity Punch right into its head. I followed it up with a few more quick attacks that chunked its health down with a disturbing amount of ease.
The moment the gorilla’s health hit zero, without even a moment of warning, it exploded and I was sent flying backwards as nearly 70% of my health bar vanished with the shockwave. My head was ringing and my vision briefly became hazy as I tumbled down to the ground. I managed to keep myself upright, but still stumbled as I landed. A moment later, I could feel the ground shaking as more of the droids came charging toward me. It took me a solid few seconds to reorient myself before I rewound, this time darting higher into the air as the Gorilla attempted to grab me.
“They are rigged to blow once they hit zero!” I called out, feeling a sudden relief as the haze of the explosion evaporated in an instant. While Swansong generally wouldn’t be getting close enough to get into the fight, I didn’t want her to risk getting hit if the droids were going to self-destruct so easily.
The Clockwork Gorilla reached for the nearest hunk of its destroyed predecessor and almost lazily tossed it up toward me. I wasn’t necessarily sure why the initial wave of gorillas I had destroyed didn’t explode, but I also wasn’t going to try and take too much time to figure it out either. As the hunk of metal neared me, I was able to dodge it with ease, only to find myself getting smacked sharply in my back when I moved over to the side. The force of the impact was coupled with a sharp pain as I looked down, my eyes going wide as I saw a long, metal shaft sticking through my side and-
I dodged the hunk of metal by darting higher into the sky this time, looking over as a pair of smaller versions of the Clockwork Pterodactyls went buzzing on either side of where the gorilla had been aiming. I was just about to turn and move toward the droids on the roof, hoping to at least change the battlefield when I came face to face with a Kangaroo barrelling toward me.
I kept dodging, rewinding time each time I nearly collided with one of the oversized animals and trying to find a rhythm in taking them down. I couldn’t risk dropping one of them to zero knowing that they would immediately explode next to me, so with each dodge I jabbed at the passing droids, landing a few solid blows on them but decidedly not going for the immediate kill.
Swansong kept close enough to me, singing her Song of Hercules, that even my basic strikes were enough to tear through the relatively low leveled droids. When I was high enough above the droid army, I looked over toward Barracuda and grew annoyed to see he was just leaning against a wall.
“Barracuda. Level 14 Torrent Predator. Squad: Droids R’ Us.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t just rewound and jumped at him the moment he appeared,” Swansong said in our internal chat without ever skipping a beat of her vocal song.
“It’s not like that would stop the droids from appearing so I kinda get why he hasn’t gone that route, and that’s not even accounting for the fact that we haven’t seen his buddy Skim yet,” Jon suggested and I nodded. I had been hovering for only a moment when I heard a whistle coming from above me. I dodged the small flock of Falcons as they dived, watching as they turned in a sharp arc before they got too close to the ground. “I thought these attacks and events were only supposed to happen every 5 days… isn’t that what Axio said?”
“I don’t know if that accounts for a citizen uprising,” I said, dodging as the falcons finished their arcs and came hurtling my way once again.
“Yeah…” Swansong said, her voice trailing off for just a moment. “But… how did they know to come here of all places?”
“Feels like the million dollar question, doesn’t it…” I replied.
“I thoughts youse were some strong guy!” Barracuda called up at me, his arms held out to the side. “I seens youse take down these things likes it was no big deal, why are youse being such a lil pansy? Come oooon, destroy ‘em!”
I dodged again as the flock of Falcons made another pass and a burst of inspiration hit me as I rewound to right before the dodge. I nearly had to rewind a second time as I reached out and barely managed to catch the wing of one of the Falcons as they attempted to crash through me. The rest of the flock continued forward as the captured droid struggled against my grip. In a single, quick motion I turned, rushing downward toward Barracuda before throwing the struggling droid as hard as I could at the fish-man.
His eyes went wide and he jumped to the side as the bird exploded on impact with the ground.
“Whoas there! What’s the big idea! I told youse to attack the droids, not me!” He shouted up, but I didn’t stop, instead rushing in and throwing a 10% Gravity Punch right into his sternum. He let out a sharp OOF and before I could follow up my strike with another, a Clockwork Gorilla burst through the entrance, crashing into my side-
I wasn’t keeping a close eye on my Time Bank, but I knew even these short rewinds would dig into my reserves. Even still, it was hard not to rely on the skill just a bit as I rewound time, turning on my heel immediately after delivering the punch to Barracuda’s sternum and threw a 35% Gravity Punch, hitting the Gorilla head on just as it crashed through the entrance. The large droid went hurtling backwards and knocked over several smaller droids that had been lined up behind it.
“Why are you working with him!” I demanded, looking over toward Barracuda and throwing another punch his way.
He rolled along the wall to escape the attack, whipping his arm my way. The sharp fin on the back of his elbow grazed along my cheek, actually leaving a cut along it. While I easily could have rewound again, the attack barely took even a few points from my health bar, and I already had him in my reach.
I immediately started ramping up Center of the Universe, forcing Barracuda back toward me as he tried to scramble away. When he was sure that he wasn’t getting away, instead of trying to continue his escape, Barracuda turned my way and lunged. While he certainly had a lot to answer for, at that moment, I just wanted to put him down for the count while I figured out where the hell all of the droids were coming from. His jaw actually unhinged and his mouth went wide as he quite literally swallowed my extended arm down to the shoulder. There was a sharp sting of pain that nearly caused me to let out an actual shout of pain the moment he clamped his jaws down. I wasn’t about to find out just how hard he was able to bite.
Barracuda was just rolling out of the way when time resettled, and I felt a small wave of nausea pass through my stomach. While I hadn’t experienced it yet, the sudden rolling feeling reminded me of the warning that came with the ability to rewind time. It hadn’t exactly come with guidelines for just how “Temporal Sickness” worked, but I had to hope it wasn’t so limited that this small use of the skill set it off. There was no “turning around” with this, because even if I did rewind back to my warning to Swansong, the mob would have still been marching toward the museum and these droids would have still been waiting for them.
Stolen story; please report.
Knowing I couldn’t keep shutting her out forever and that Jon could only dig things up as fast as a human could, I took the briefest of moments to turn my internal attention directly to Angie.
“Do you have any information you can give me on the limits to this ability? I don’t want to risk “going catatonic” in the middle of a fight here.”
“Thank you for asking! I was surprised that Codex didn’t actually dig into this too far, but to be fair with everything going on last night it was easy for the little details to slip through the cracks,” Angie chirped up. “To put it simply, you’re feeling the initial effects of that sickness. Temporal Sickness will start to take effect once you have utilized Timekeeper’s Control more than 20 times in a concurrent 5 minute period. These effects will include the nausea you are feeling as well as a 10% decrease to your Dexterity stat. Each further use of the skill increases that amount by .5% for each use and resets the time until this sickness falls off. If this decrease reaches 25%, you will immediately fall into that catatonic state for 24 hours. If you do not reach 25%, the Temporal Sickness will fall off after you go 10 minutes without utilizing Timekeeper’s Control.”
“Damn… might have been nice to have known that when I first unlocked the ability,” I muttered, quickly doing the mental math as I realized that meant that if I was going to keep using the ability as a method for dodging, I could only use it thirty more times before the full effects would hit me.
“Might have been nice if you would listen and actually ask me when I clearly leave you something for you to follow up on,” She replied. Regardless of how little I wanted to trust the system or even her, I couldn’t do it forever and I needed to use all of the resources I had available to me. So as much as I had the urge to roll my eyes, I resisted it as I stared over toward Barracuda because I knew she was right.
This time, instead of activating Center of the Universe, I let him put some distance between us and I planted my feet to let my Area Sense activate and sweep the area. Barracuda had his eyes locked on me, his body slightly crouched as he prepared for my next move. The two fins on his elbows both seemed to grow and gleam as the lights embedded in the building above us gleamed off of him.
“Youse should gets with the program Loophole,” Barracuda said, his voice grating at my nerves. “Looks at the armies Mr. Tyrant has alreadys put together. Wes ain’t strong enough to fight it, so whys not just go with the flow? Wes can all gets stronger and run this whole place tog-”
A tendril of black shadows wrapped up Barracuda’s leg and before I could react, it yanked backward, pulling his feet out from under him and dragging the struggling fish-man away from me as he let out a quick string of curses. A wave of purple energy flowed up the black tendrils and I watched as the fins on Barracuda’s elbows visibly shrunk. I followed the wave of purple energy down, right toward the crowd of onlookers.
Duskbreaker was standing ahead of them, a single hand raised into the air as the purple energy pulsed outward from him. He seemed to be breathing heavily, but he gave me a sharp nod the moment he caught me looking his way.
I set the message alongside a Temporary Team-Up request that he immediately accepted.
“Did you get the same Crime Alert?” I asked and he just shook his head.
“Yeah, I saw the crowd in the distance and was going to try and intercept them when you and Swansong showed up… I had to run to get over here because my shadow jump would have taken too long,” Duskbreaker said. I couldn’t see his face behind the full black mask that covered it, but there was a shake that came with the purple energy pouring through the shadows off of him.
Barracuda was resisting and while I wanted to help, I still hadn’t moved and I could feel as the droids that had paused in the destroyed doorway started to move for me. There was something that clicked as I looked past the half dozen Clockwork Monkeys creeping their way toward me and I looked at the main building. To my surprise, it didn’t highlight and I clenched my jaw.
“Swansong, can you go up higher and see if any of the surrounding buildings are Forges?”
“On it!” She called back. I materialized a Superior Stamina Injector and jammed it into my side, filling my bar back up to nearly full once I realized just how low it had gotten.
“Keep an eye out for Barracuda’s friend, I haven’t seen him anywhere just yet,” I called back as I rushed forward.
If the monkeys were like all of the other droids so far, then they had been modified to explode with ease and I had to take that into consideration. Luckily, since none of the droids seemed to be above level 13, probably a side effect to Barracuda being the one that had been leading them, I was relatively certain I could take them out and get them away from me in a single strike.
As I met the charging monkeys head on, I punched the closest of the and in rapid succession activated Quantum Echostrike alongside a 35% Gravity Punch. The wave rippled through the six monkeys as they were all tossed backwards and, as expected thanks to the Temporal Afterstrike that came with it, the second wave of damage did just enough to zero out my initial target’s health bar.
It exploded and, just as I had anticipated, created a chain effect as it damaged its surrounding cohorts. They destroyed the entrance to the museum and debris was falling down as I looked past them, expecting to see more of the droids and coming up empty.
“It’s the building on the corner across the street on 88th! Platinum Level Droid Forge,” Swansong reported as I turned back away from the lobby, catching just in time as Barracuda forced his way from Duskbreaker’s binds.
He looked noticeably tired, breathing heavily as he scrambled away, only stopping as he realized he was heading right for me.
“Whoas whoas whoas there fellas, we’re all on the same side, ain’t we?” Barracuda said, holding up his hands in supplication.
“There’s still some on the roof, I can handle him,” Duskbreaker said, throwing a hand forward as another set of black tendrils sprang from the ground near Barracuda’s feet. He cut at them with the fin on his elbow, actually managing to slice it to pieces as he skipped away.
“You sure?”
“Swansong can’t handle them by herself and they aren’t going to sit around forever!”
Almost as if responding to his inaudible alert, I noticed as the smaller Clockwork Pterodactyls turned their way toward the crowd that Duskbreaker had separated from. I knew the droids on the roof were still a problem, but I put them out of my mind as I lifted from the ground and went rushing for the two divebombing birds.
I quickly ramped Center of the Universe up as I went barreling past them only 20 feet or so above the crowd. The force of my ability immediately grabbed the droids, something I wasn’t entirely sure would happen, and dragged them after me as I turned sharply back toward Central Park. One of the park’s reservoirs took up a big portion of the park directly opposite of the museum and I considered diving down into the water to drag the droids after me, but I knew from the eels and various aquatic Clockwork droids around the city that that probably wouldn’t do anything.
Instead of aiming for the water, I went low, only looking over my shoulder to confirm the two pterodactyls were still trying to force their way free from the full effect of my ability. I darted down and into the loose scattering of trees, not wanting to get too far from the museum as I weaved between them as fast as I could. Sure enough, it only took a few quick turns before I pulled both droids directly into a pair of trees, overwhelming their defenses and causing them to explode.
“New Achievement! “Nature-al” Death. Is this actually the first time you’ve use plant life (that you weren’t controlling directly) to destroy something? That doesn’t feel right but as far as my notes say, it is. Well if saving that group of civilians stupidly not running from this big fight wasn’t satisfaction enough, just know that I thought it was pretty darn cool. This is a Silver Level achievement. Reward: You have received a C:Tier loot box.”
The trees went up in fire and I knew the park rangers probably weren’t going to be happy with me, but I put the thought far from my head as I rapidly turned back and darted toward the roof of the museum. Just as I cleared the trees and started to make my way for the small line of droids I could make out standing atop the large spiral building though, a quick series of explosions went off as lightning jumped from one to another.
There was a small part of me that groaned, already knowing exactly who I would find as I rushed my way to the top of the building. Sure enough, four Hydramentals were standing atop the roof, looking at the piles of burning wreckage that now littered the ground around him.
“What, you think there was gonna be a party without me?” he asked, four identical versions of his voice speaking with just a small delay between the variety of his clones. Three of them suddenly dissolved into light and they all merged back together as a smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. He nodded toward the building Swansong had pointed out almost casually. “Now are you fuckers gonna help me take that place down or are we just gonna sit back and let this Tyrant fucker keep pumping out droids?”
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