We encountered little to no people as we made our way through the space station’s rooms and corridors. Most of the people must have already hidden in their living quarters. It was a good thing. I was not keen on having some of the civilians caught in the crossfire.
As we jogged through one of the corridors cast in a red glow of the emergency light, my Passive Ability suddenly kicked in.
You are in danger, the mysterious voice whispered in my mind.
Half a second later, I saw a small section of the right-hand wall slide aside. Then a mini-turret slid out of the hidden compartment. The turret whizzed around to point the muzzle of its machine gun at us. We spread out and simultaneously opened up on the mini-turret. The barrage of bullets we fired at it caused the turret to explode. We continued on.
Echo was doing his best to stop us. He activated mini-turrets hidden in the walls and ceiling. Only we did not have much trouble dealing with them. They hardly slowed us down.
Every now and then, Echo locked the doors we needed to get through. It did not stop us either. I had lots of various skills at my disposal, so when we encountered a locked door, I either blinked through the wall to open the door from the other side or placed a teleportation tunnel that my teammates could use to get through the wall, which was possible due to the Phasevision skill that allowed me to move through walls and other solid structures while my Ultimate Ability was active.
There were also hidden traps scattered here and there all over the main space station. They were typically in a deactivated state, but now that we had attacked the space station, Echo remotely primed them. However, thanks to the Spectral Protector skill for my Passive Ability, the voice warned me about nearby traps beforehand, so we had enough time to locate and deal with them.
We encountered our first major obstacle when we got into a huge chamber, which served as a storage room.
There were four of them, a full team of warriors. All of them were level 100, of course, just like our team. I could see their stats hovering above their heads.
Name: Lisa
Level: 100
Affiliation: The Weaponized
Status: Hostile
Name: Daud
Level: 100
Affiliation: The Weaponized
Status: Hostile
Name: Roman
Level: 100
Affiliation: The Weaponized
Status: Hostile
Name: Marina
Level: 100
Affiliation: The Weaponized
Status: Hostile
They stood in the middle of the huge storage room, waiting for us to get closer.
I recognized Lisa. It was the same girl that I had encountered on the wandering planet with my previous team. She was not a very good person, that was for sure. I had never met her teammates, though.
Lisa was a Front Line. She wore a heavy, powerful exosuit.
Daud was probably a Flanker, just like me. He was dressed in a light leather body armor that did not slow him down at all. Roman probably was a Damage dealer because he was armed with an assault rifle with an under-barrel grenade launcher. Marina probably was a Healer. She held a submachine gun in her hands.
Out of the four of them, only Marina looked like she did not want to get in a fight with us. The other three persons eyed us angrily. Well, at least Daud and Roman. As to Lisa, her face was hidden behind a solid faceplate, so I could not see the expression on her face. Still, it was not hard to guess her demeanor.
“It’s you,” she said, recognizing me when we got closer to them. “Looks like you got yourself a new team.”
“You got a new team, too,” I replied.
“Do you know them?” Roman asked, not taking his eyes off us.
“I’ve met this guy once,” Lisa replied, pointing at me. “Only he was with another team. Don’t know what happened to his previous teammates.”
“Is he your friend?” Daud asked, glancing at Lisa.
“No,” the girl replied. “I met him once but never even talked to him.”
“Good,” Daud said. “‘Cause you know what we have to do.”
“Look, guys, we don’t have to do this,” I said. “We’re not your enemies.”
“Sorry, pal,” Roman said. “We have our orders. We don’t know what exactly you did to antagonize Echo, but you obviously crossed him, and he didn’t like it one bit.”
“Maybe we could handle this in a peaceful way,” Marina said, though her voice lacked confidence.
Roman shook his head.
“No way,” he said. “We’ve got to deal with these guys whether we want to or not.”
“If we disobey Echo, he’ll take care of us just like that,” Daud added, snapping his fingers.
“They are right, Marina,” Lisa said. “It’s either us or them. We don’t have much choice here.”
“Actually, you do,” Thomas said as he took a small step toward the team.
“What do you mean?” Roman asked as he and the rest of his team eyed Thomas suspiciously.
“You said you didn’t know what we did to antagonize Echo,” Thomas said. “I can tell you that. I found a way to cut him from the nanotrites in our bodies. He now has no control over us at all. The four of us can now do whatever we want and go wherever we want.”
“How did you do that?” Roman asked.
“I’m pretty good at programming,” Thomas replied. “And hacking.”
“Believe me, he’s an ace,” Maya said. “Echo can’t do anything to us now.”
“But you still have control over your nanotrites, right?” Roman asked.
“That’s right,” Maya replied.
“It sucks,” Daud said quietly, but we still heard them. “Dealing with them would be way easier if they were just regular people.”
“Guys, we don’t have to fight them,” Marina said in a pleading voice. “You heard him, right? We can hack into our nanotrites and free us from Echo.”
“I don’t believe him,” Daud said. “And I don’t trust them. They’re messing with us. Don’t let them bamboozle us. ”
“I agree,” Roman said.
“We’re not trying to bamboozle you,” Maya said.
“Whatever you say, sis,” Roman replied.
“Guys, please,” Marina began speaking, but Lisa interrupted her.
“Enough of that bullshit,” Lisa yelled. “Kill ‘em all!”
Roman, Daud, and Lisa immediately brought their weapons up and opened up on us. I used my Active Ability to blink out of the line of fire. Nadia employed her Active Ability as well, deploying a rectangular energy shield in front of her and the other two teammates of ours.
I materialized a few meters from Roman who was a Damage. He was firing at the energy shield Nadia had created a moment before, weakening it.
Thanks to the Hidden skill I had recently learned for my Active Ability, I could become invisible after blinking. So I used it and became invisible. I then took a couple of seconds to assess the situation.
I decided to take care of Roman first because he was a Damage and could deal more damage than any of his teammates.
Roman noticed me out of the corner of his eye when the Hidden skill wore off and brought his assault rifle around to point it at me. He pressed the second trigger, launching a missile from the grenade launcher in my direction.
Thanks to the Unstoppable 1 skill, I could blink two more times before my Active Ability would go on cooldown.
So I blinked again, getting out of the blast area. The grenade detonated somewhere behind me, dealing no damage to me. I opened up on Roman, hitting him in the upper torso. Some of my bullets flattened as they hit his body armor. Some of the others drilled into the unprotected parts of his body. The guy yelled in pain as he turned around and began to flee. Marina dashed after him, healing her wounded teammate on the run.
Before I could finish Roman off, Lisa turned to face me and opened up with her two mac
hine guns attached to the forearms of her exosuit. I blinked for the third time, and my Active Ability went on cooldown.
Lisa spotted me and continued to track me with her dual machine guns. I used my Hidden skill again to become invisible. Lisa was no fool, so she continued to spray heavy-caliber bullets in the general direction in which I had been moving before disappearing.
I ran as fast as I could as the heavy-caliber bullets zipped past me. Nadia came to my aid, pointing her own akimbo machine guns at Lisa. Her bullets smacked into the enemy opponent’s exosuit with such force that Lisa had to take a step back to prevent herself from toppling backward.
Nadia continued to fire at Lisa. Yelling in rage, the latter switched her attention from me to Nadia.
We continued to fight the enemy team for several more minutes. It was the first time that we had engaged other warriors with nanotrites at their disposal. The enemy team was as powerful and experienced as we were and had similar abilities and skills. Hence, we did not have any particular tactic in mind. We were fighting them, trying to come up with a plan of action on the fly.
The same held true with the enemy team. Each of them was attacking the nearest foe. All of us were playing it safe, not taking any unwarranted risks or dangers.
I was using my Active Ability every now and then to get out of the line of fire, constantly attacking our enemies. My Passive Ability always warned me if somebody aimed at me when I was not aware of that, which aided me in staying alive a great deal. Moreover, Malicious Whispers 1 was a great help too. When someone fired at me, thanks to this skill, the mysterious voice whispered into my attacker’s ears, confusing them and messing up their aim. A few times, this skill even made my attackers turn on their allies instead. So far, none of our enemies got killed yet though.
Roman was probably the most dangerous opponent. Not only he dealt lots of damage to us, but he also deployed his flying battle drone every now and then. The small flying robot was really annoying. It could fly pretty fast, and it always deployed mini-traps near us. My teammates were doing their best to destroy the drone as soon as possible only to have to deal with it again after Roman redeployed it.
The opponent I wanted to deal with first, however, was not Roman but Daud. He was a Flanker, so he had the same abilities and skills that I had. It was really annoying too. He constantly used his Active Ability to blink out of harm’s way and used his Hidden skill to become invisible for a few seconds. If I dealt with him, their team would be without a Flanker, which would put them at a great disadvantage over us.
So I did my best to keep Daud in my line of sight, constantly keeping track of his movements and uses of his skills and abilities. At some point, I realized I got my chance to deal with him. He had employed his Active Ability three times, causing it to go on cooldown. Moreover, he had recently used up his Ultimate Ability, which still was on cooldown as well. So for the next several seconds, he would not be able to use either his Active Ability or Ultimate one. He was totally vulnerable at the moment.
He was not stupid, though. Being well aware of the fact that all his Abilities were on cooldown, he stayed behind Lisa and the rectangular energy shield she had recently employed. It was my chance to take care of the Flanker. I could not let such an opportunity to finally take him out go to waste.
So I used my Active Ability to blink toward the enemy team. I instantly employed the Hidden skill to become invisible to our foes. I then blinked right through Lisa’s energy shield and materialized next to Daud.
The effect of the Hidden skill gone, Daud’s teammates spotted me and whipped their weapons in my direction. Before they could take aim at me, though, I employed my Going Supernova skill that I had recently learned for my Active Ability. It could be used only after using the Active Ability. This skill temporarily blinded my enemies.
I then used another skill I had recently learned— Phaselock. Just like Going Supernova, it could be used only after using the Active Ability. Phaselock created a wave of dark energy that shot toward Daud. As soon as it touched him, a sphere of dark energy was created around the guy, locking him inside. He was stuck in another dimension and could not get out of the sphere. But he could still be killed.
I pointed my gun at him and began to put pressure on the trigger.
Daud was about to die, and he knew it.
“No,” he cried out in a pleading voice. “Don’t do it, man. Don’t kill me, I’m begging ya!”
I suddenly felt bad for the guy. He was doing what he was told. He was fighting us only because Echo was forcing him to. He had no other choice in the matter.
I hesitated. I did not really want to kill him. I wanted to kill none of them.
Suddenly, my Passive Ability kicked in.
You are in danger. An enemy is aiming at you from behind.
I did not have time to turn around and deal with whoever was behind me. So I used my Active Ability to blink out of the line of fire and instantly used my Hidden skill to become invisible.
I then wheeled around and saw that it was Roman who had been aiming at my back. Now that he lost sight of me, he began firing at some of my teammates. I glanced at Daud in time to see the sphere of dark energy he was locked in disappear.
He was now able to move again. However, before he could run for safety, his head suddenly exploded in a spray of gore as bullets pierced his skull and detonated inside. It was Thomas who killed him. He had a skill that turned her bullets into mini-grenades.
A message from Thomas popped up in my field of vision.
Thomas: Don’t feel bad about it, David. If you have the opportunity to kill one of them, do it immediately. As one of them said, it either us or them. We have no choice but to fight them.
Upon seeing Thomas kill Daud, Roman freaked out. He yelled in rage and used his Ultimate Ability, activating berserk mode. He then looked around for the nearest enemy. I was the closest to him, but he did not notice me, because I was still invisible. So he ran toward Maya.
Nadia saw him coming at the blue-haired girl and stood in front of her. She immediately pointed her dual machine guns attached to the forearms of the powered exosuit at Roman. The heavy-caliber rounds Nadia fired ripped into his body, taking chunks of flesh out of him.
“No,” Lisa screamed to him. “Get back, Roman!”
He realized he would be dead before he could reach Nadia, so he wheeled around and darted back. He got behind the energy shield Lisa had deployed before Nadia would have finished him off.
Now that it was four warriors against three, the enemy team was way more careful. We continued to fight Lisa, Roman, and Marina for a few more minutes.
At some point when the right opportunity presented itself, I decided to repeat my successful tactic. I used my Active Ability to blink through Lisa’s energy shield and materialized next to the three enemy warriors. I immediately used my Hidden skill to become invisible.
However, my tactic failed. This time, the enemy warriors were ready. All of them opened fire on where they last saw me. I darted to the side. Yet before I could get to safety, Lisa employed her Ultimate Ability to form a powerful dome-shaped energy shield around the four of us. I could not get through it.
My invisibility skill wore off, and the enemies could see me again. I used Phaselock on Roman, enveloping him in a sphere of dark energy, temporarily paralyzing him. I then used my Active Ability to blink through the wall of the dome-shaped shield. Yet despite my expectations, I materialized next to it, still trapped inside the shield. Even my Active Ability could not get me out of the shield. I was trapped inside it with three foes. One of Lisa’s skills totally prevented me from getting out of her shield.
I fucked up a great deal.
I used the Dark Energy Bomb skill that I had recently learned for my Active Ability. A sphere of dark energy appeared in my left hand. I wasted no time hurling it at my foes. Lisa stepped into its path to protect her teammates from the blast. The dark energy ball hit her in the chest and d
etonated. The powered exosuit Lisa wore took some damage and one of her machine guns got destroyed, but other than that the girl was fine.
The three enemy warriors were firing at me, keen on killing me. Roman’s drone was also inside the shield, sending a spray of bullets in my direction. My teammates were firing at the dome-shaped shield, but to no avail. Their bullets hit the wall of the energy shield, dealing little to no damage to it.
I used my Active Ability to blink out of the line of fire. I used the Going Supernova skill to temporarily blind the three enemy warriors. After a few seconds, they regained their sight and continued to fire on me. Some of the bullets drilled into my body, and I yelled in pain.
I could not blink any longer since my Active Ability still was on cooldown. But my ult was ready to use, so I employed it.
The three enemy warriors continued to fire at me, but their bullets went right through me because I had entered the void space and my body become spectral. I tried to run through the wall of Lisa’s shield, but even with my ult active, I could not get through i.
As soon as I activated my Ultimate Ability, the Regeneration skill kicked in, healing my wounds. In a few seconds, the slugs were pushed out of my body and my wounds healed up. I remembered that I had recently learned two useful skills for my Ultimate Ability: Phaseattack 1 and Phaseattack 2. The former allowed me to attack my enemies out of the void space, and the latter infused the bullets I fired with dark energy, turning them into mini-grenades exploding upon impact.
So while the three hostile warriors could not hurt me, I could deal damage to them. I opened up on them with my weapon. Since Roman was the most dangerous opponent, I pointed the weapon at him, sending a spray of bullets toward him. Roman darted out of the line of fire and took cover behind Lisa. I had no choice but to fire at the girl, my dark-energy-infused slugs exploding on impact with her, taking pieces out of her powered exosuit.
The Weaponized: The Complete LitRPG Series Page 50