by Aer-ki Jyr
Paul threw one of his sticks at the Knight’s back, but his impossibly fast blade whipped around and knocked it aside and into Brian’s shield, where it discharged, sending a tiny pinprick tingle through the barrier and into his hand. He thumbed off his own stick and tossed it to Paul, then picked up the live one the floor, hearing the crackle/pop as it recharged once the blade broke physical contact…a safety mechanism to keep the stick from emptying its power source uselessly.
A moment of calm resumed, with the Black Knight stepping across Dan’s unconscious body and continuing to pace around the short perimeter.
Jason signaled the remaining 6 trainees, realizing that their odds of success went down with each team member lost, so they had to maximize their chances now.
Paul moved first and swung wildly with alternating arms at the Black Knight, who deftly parried each, almost toying with him as all the others rushed forward a split second later.
The Knight battled Paul’s blades aside easily, then swung about and knocked Megan’s shield side, inverted his sword, and brought it behind his back catching Brian in the knee, knocking him down less than a meter away from the Pedestal.
A whirlwind twirl of the intimidating black blade knocked Kip and Randy back, but they managed to hold onto their shields and avoid being stunned. A quick flip of his wrist brought the blade around again and down on top of Jack’s head as he clumsily rushed the giant. He fell to the floor, accidentally hitting Jason in the knee with his stun stick, taking him out of the fight.
A silver stun stick flew through the air and hit the Black Knight in the back, bouncing off his armor and refusing to so much as make him twitch, but it did prompt him to turn around and slash at Paul, who barely managed to be able to duck underneath.
Kip and Randy charged forward shield first and dove into their opponent, attempting to knock him off his feet. They felt like they hit a stone wall on impact, with Kip ricocheting off and Randy succeeding in buckling the Knight’s knee, but he didn’t go down. Instead he ignored them and jabbed out at Megan as she tried to hit the challenge end button on the pedestal.
His blade caught her in the neck, and she fell face forward, her arm brushing against the button but not forcefully enough to press it down.
Randy wrapped himself around the Knight’s legs, trying to take him to the floor or at least pin him in place, but he was too close to the pedestal and slashed at Paul as he tried to make for it, hitting his stun stick parry and forcing the trainee back a step. The Knight’s blade then twirled around and slashed down on Kip as he was getting to his feet, then came down on Randy, rendering them both unconscious.
Paul made one last leap for the pedestal, but the Knight freed himself from Randy’s grasp and stepped forward, catching him by the throat and stopping his arm from reaching the button. Paul jabbed his stun stick into the Knight’s arm, but his grip didn’t slacken, so Paul hit him again and again, with the third time resulting in a buckle at the elbow, but then the pommel of his sword came down in front of Paul’s face and the base of the blade tapped him on the head, knocking him out.
On the floor below Emily heard the sounds of combat, but no turret fire, wondering what the hell was going on. She got to her feet and meekly walked across the room to the bottom of the stairs, her head so awash in disorientation that she had trouble walking in a straight line, just as the Black Knight stepped out in front of her.
She froze...less from her numbness and more from the fact that she had no weapon, only her shield.
The Black Knight didn’t hesitate and batted away her shield with his armored fist, then slashed down diagonally from overhead with his blade. The force of the blow knocked her aside, where she dropped to the floor unconscious.
The armored warrior deactivated his sword and reattached it to his belt, walking off and leaving the bodies where they lay in testament to yet another promising challenge run thwarted by the mysterious nemesis that had become the trainees’ bane.
6
Seven days later…
“Run!” Paul yelled at Megan, who stood holding the Black Knight’s heavy sword awkwardly, unsure of how to use it against him. From past experience they knew a single strike from their stun sticks wouldn’t take him down, but who knew about his own sword.
Megan twitched with sudden understanding and wheeled about, running away to the nearest stairwell in the tower and headed back up, getting the Black Knight’s weapon as far away from him as she could.
Paul leapt forward and slashed at the black armor with his stun stick, getting in two quick hits before he was kicked out of the way, flying back a good two meters as the Black Knight struggled to regain his footing as Dan and Brian had him half pinned to the floor. Jack and Jason were already down, but the four of them had managed to knock the Knight off his feet and luckily his grip on his sword hadn’t held, with it flying away on impact.
Megan had promptly snatched it up and, if she had any smarts about her, would take it all the way back up to the top level, where this inverted version of the tower run had started, with the team having to fight their way down through the levels and turrets…which in some ways was harder than going up.
The Black Knight had jumped them on level 6 and taken out Emily, but missing Dan in his first strike. He’d called out an alarm and everyone had retreated up a level. When the Black Knight followed the four of them had tackled him coming up the staircase, but his superior strength was showing through as he tossed the trainees off him one by one.
Paul lay on the floor with the wind knocked out of him…and maybe a cracked rib…watching as Ivan, Kip, and Randy stunned him repeatedly on the arms, legs…whatever they could reach with their stun sticks. As soon as he got to his feet the repeated blows finally got to him, dropping him back down to a knee, but he wasn’t out of the fight.
With his left arm, which hadn’t taken many hits, he caught Kip’s stun stick when the trainee swung at his head and pulled him off balance. Kip fell with the Black Knight holding the ‘blade’ and shirking off the stun charge, claiming the weapon for himself until Randy landed two quick hits on the arm holding it.
The Black Knight’s grip slipped as his arm numbed and the stun stick dropped to the ground as Ivan slashed at his back yet again.
Suddenly the bulk of black armor leapt up and forward, knocking Randy down and getting the Knight momentarily away from Ivan’s reach as Paul climbed back onto his feet to help his teammates. This was the best opportunity they’d ever had of taking the bastard down and he wasn’t going to let a little injury rob them of the chance.
Stumbling, but still quick as ever, the Black Knight retreated a few steps to get clear of the downed trainees and set himself, wobbling slightly, but after a moment it faded and he was rock solid as ever. Ivan and Paul ran towards him as Kip picked up his stun stick and rejoined the fight, jumping over Randy who was just clearing the stars from his spinning head.
The Black Knight waited for them to come to him, crossing his arms and touching the inside of his wrists together. Paul thought he heard a crackle/pop and realized a split second before he lost consciousness that they hadn’t completely disarmed their enemy.
Paul’s blade landed on the Knight’s shoulder, which he let hit in order to punch at Paul’s chest before being batted at by the other two. Paul fell to the floor unconscious as the giant turned on the others and delivered quick blows to body and arms, surviving Kip and Ivan’s stun hits long enough to tap them out. Belatedly Randy came at the Knight, not seeing what had just happened, and swung hard towards his midsection which, with the height difference, was just in front of his face.
The Black Knight caught the blade with a distinctive electrical crackling sound typical of stun blade charge trying to discharge on stun blade, holding it steady in between the two as he brought his left fist around and lightly punched Randy in the head, dropping him to the floor alongside the others.
A flying stun stick hit the Knight in the chest, causing him to stagger a bit. Anoth
er followed it before Dan and Brian came at him after picking themselves up off the floor. It hit as well, missing his too numb hand as he reached to knock it aside. Dropping to a knee again, awash with stun energy, the Black Knight fought to stay on his feet as the remaining two trainees swatted at him with more of the stun sticks that were now littering the floor.
In a move that was half inspiration, half desperation, the Black Knight leaned forward off balance and jumped towards the pair with outstretched arms, one each toward the two trainees. They collided and all three fell in a tangled pile.
Several long seconds later the Black Knight slowly pulled himself out of the mess of bodies and stood, shaking off the stun charges he’d been absorbing. He took a moment to clear his head then walked off towards the staircase, gaining strength with each step, as he went to hunt down Megan and retrieve his sword.
“Heard you came close,” Greg asked Paul and Jason as they came into the lounge area late. Jason had stayed with Paul after the challenge while the medics had repaired his six cracked and one broken rib, and as a result had been last in line for the showers.
“Not really,” Paul said, appropriating a nearby chair and spinning it about to face Greg’s. Jason likewise grabbed one.
“I heard you took him to his knees,” Greg went on, “after stealing his sword?”
“Don’t ask me, I was unconscious at the time,” Jason said after a questioning glance.
“We succeeded in stunning him enough to make it show, but we didn’t hit him enough,” Paul said, thinking back through the brief, but intense fight for the 6th time since being revived from his stun-induced coma. “But I think we have another problem.”
Greg stiffened. “What?”
Paul and Jason exchanged glances. “I think he might have stun gloves.”
“Gloves?” Greg asked.
“I don’t remember being stunned, unless I accidentally hit myself after he punched me,” Paul explained. “I also think I heard him activate them.”
“Which, if true,” Jason added, “means we can’t disarm him.”
Greg thought hard. “How would gloves work? Did you see him turn them on?”
“I think there’s something on his wrists…it all happened so fast I’m not really sure.”
Greg shook his head in dismay. “He’s never lost his sword before, which is probably why we’ve never seen him use them.”
“Still,” Jason said, “we’ve got some idea of what it takes to disable him. What’s the ratio of stinger to stun stick?”
“I don’t think they’ve ever said,” Greg noted, glancing at Paul for confirmation. “But I’d guess 4 to 1…maybe 2 to 1 for the shotgun.”
“Something like that,” Paul agreed.
“Well, what’s that put us for a shot count?” Jason asked Paul.
Paul mentally recounted the approximate number of hits the Black Knight had taken. “Best guess…50+ to visibly weaken him. I’m scared to think how many it will take to knock him unconscious.”
“Still, it’s some valuable intel,” Greg said, nodding appreciatively.
“Given the right situation, I think we can amass that much firepower,” Jason said, already thinking through their options. “It’d have to be on one of the park courses, where we can keep our distance. So far we haven’t seen him with any ranged weapons.”
“But he is quick,” Paul pointed out. “We can’t hit him fast enough to keep him from getting at some of us.”
“Depends on the terrain,” Greg countered.
“Blood gulch?” Jason suggested.
Greg nodded. “That’s what I was thinking.”
“Problem is,” Paul said, “he picks when and where to hit us.”
“That doesn’t mean we can’t plan ahead,” Jason reminded him. “Anyone feel like a little extra practice time?”
“I’ll grab a few guys,” Greg said, getting up, then looked down at Paul. “We’ll get this figured out.”
“You…stay and rest,” Jason told Paul as he started to get up out of his seat. “I’ll fill you in later.”
“Will do,” Paul relented, sitting back down in the lounge chair. He leaned back and closed his eyes, trying to bleed off the mild stun headache. He licked his lips reflexively, then caught himself and stopped. The damn regenerator always left him tasting metallic coconut.
7
The Black Knight continued to harass the trainees at random for the following three weeks on varying team challenges before he finally got around to hitting them again on the ‘blood gulch’ park course. The 8s were running a ‘gauntlet’ scenario, in which they had to make it from one end of the park to the other past an undisclosed amount of hidden snipers, when the Black Knight showed up again, appearing from behind one of the large boulders in the center of the park and taking down Nik without warning.
“Knight!” Rafa yelled out, aiming and firing off three quick rounds from his stubby rifle as he backtracked. “Scatter!”
The others trainees, save for Vic, took off for cover, hoping that the snipers would leave them alone until this was finished. That hadn’t always been the case, but more often than not when the Black Knight arrived the trainers were content to sit and watch.
Vic was the Knight’s next target, and the mass of black armor was on top of him in three quick lunging steps. Trainee 086 was fast enough though to drop his rifle and unclasp the stun stick attached to his belt that the team leaders had encouraged them all to wear when the challenge allowed, just in case the bastard showed up again.
Vic didn’t have time to turn it on, as he immediately had to deflect a long reaching slash from upper left. He twisted with the direction of the hit and backstepped in a graceful spin that bought him another meter of distance. Had he wanted to strike at the Knight he never would have been able to reach him, the stun sword he carried had too much length, as did the man’s arms, but fortunately that wasn’t his mission…buying time for the others to set up was.
Vic danced around as much as he could, deflecting and dodging the furious blows from the black sword, which the Knight swung far too easily for its weight and size. He knew he didn’t have long before his luck would run out, but he did hold on long enough to see the first few stingers begin to coat the black armor with spots of green.
He ducked underneath one wicked lateral slash, but lost his balance in the process and landed on his back, quickly trying to roll out of the way but knowing it would do no good. The Black Knight was faster than any of them and Vic knew in a moment he’d feel the tip of the stun sword dig into his chest or back just before he blacked out.
But that didn’t happen this time, as a wave of incoming stingers prompted the Black Knight to disappear behind the nearest rock. Vic just caught sight of the back of his armor as it disappeared around the boulder and wanted to count himself lucky, but he knew better and quickly looked around for his rifle.
Rafa pelted the Black Knight with six shots, missing twice more as the Bastard ran for cover. On one level he was glad they’d scared him off and kept Vic in the fight, but Rafa would have traded that minor victory for a chance to shoot him up in the open. Right now he had to reposition to higher ground.
The others were doing likewise, climbing up on top of boulders and atop of ledges…using the terrain to put some obstacles between themselves and the Knight to give themselves a chance to retreat if and when he came after them. Mark took a position atop a pancake-looking angled ledge then immediately jumped off it, completing a full forward twist to awkwardly land on his feet and fall to the ground as the Black Knight raced up the backside of the ledge and jabbed forward with his sword.
Rafa didn’t wait till his black armor came into view and started firing at the sword as soon as he saw it extend from behind the boulder blocking the rest of his view. By the time his first stinger arrived the Knight had moved into range and it hit him square in the head, splattering a bit of green over his faceplate. Four more shots from other 8s hit him in the torso as he distractedly s
wiped at the paint partially blocking his vision and jumped down off the ledge in pursuit of Mark.
Rafa’s next two shots missed the moving target, but a few of the increasing number of paintballs zinging his way hit the Knight, but they didn’t slow him down. Mark had gotten to his feet and ran towards a group of boulders on which three of his teammates stood firing, but the Knight quickly tracked him down and knocked his legs out from under him with one quick flick of his wrist, accepting the dozen or so hits on his chest to make the kill before darting off again in search of cover.
He didn’t completely find it, trading the firing lines of five trainees for two others, who quickly retreated back behind cover when he rushed them, which then brought him into the firing lines of four more of the ever-repositioning trainees. The 8s had practiced this sort of cat and mouse harassment many times with the other teams and knew which spots in the rocks made for good firing positions, as well as where to run when they needed to get out of the way.
The Black Knight wasn’t confused, however, and picked one target to track down, knowing that the trainees were trying to distract him long enough to rack up a lot of hits. Rafa recognized this immediately as the Knight jumped up on top of a boulder with stunning ease and height, exposing himself to a hail of shots to chase down Andy who’d dropped off the other side.
That took the Knight out of sight for the moment, but Rafa held his spot, perched atop another boulder, knowing that the Knight would either reappear on his own or one of his teammates would draw him out. Even so, as he waited, Rafa could see and hear several of the others shooting down into the rocks at the target. A muffled groan preceded Oni jumping back off her perch and the Black Knight appearing on top of the rocks in pursuit, suggesting that now Andy was down too.