by R H Nolan
Max’s head felt like it might split under the screaming shriek of Saris’s attack.
But even though Saris’s blast lessened Max’s energy blast, it didn’t completely dissipate it.
A diffuse beam of crackling energy hit Saris and threw him backwards onto the sand. He was immediately swallowed up by a crowd of panicking soldiers and angry Bloodletters fighting hand-to-hand, ax-to-rifle.
The sonic blast ended, the agony in Max’s head stopped, and he was able to briefly take in the chaos around him.
Neo Angeles guards fired their rifles at Bloodletters and Chaotix, blasting them to the ground—
But the roaring Scavengers cut down just as many guards with their clubs and machetes.
Up above, the Bloodletter archers had withdrawn out of sight, probably to reload their crossbows. As soon as the archers reappeared, though, Neo Angeles soldiers shot at them, killing them or driving them back.
Max took advantage of the chaos to turn back to his friends.
“Lyra, stay back and heal us if we get hurt!” he yelled. “Ayla, clear a path to Saris and protect Lyra! Herk, you good?”
“I’m good!” the big guy shouted as he scrambled to his feet.
“You and me are gonna take out Saris! Trox, when Saris attacks us, teleport behind him and harass him! LET’S GO!”
Ayla swung into action.
Her metal arm whipped to one side—
A soldier was flung out of their path.
Herk blasted forward and took out another two, mowing them over.
Max dropped into a squat and dissolved as much sand as he could.
They had to get through the crowd and find Saris—
But the Governor did the job for them.
A shimmering, distorted column of air blasted up towards the sky as an unearthly screech filled the air. Bloodletters, Chaotix, and even Neo Angeles soldiers went flying in every direction.
The sound was the same horrible shriek as before, but since it wasn’t aimed directly at Max, it only hurt his ears instead of making him feel like his skull was going to crack open.
Saris stood up in the center of the newly cleared area, his face and uniform dirty, his expression furious. He must have been nearly trampled underfoot when he was thrown into the crowd by Max’s attack.
“Chaotix!” Saris screamed at the top of his lungs. “Fight for me, kill the Bloodletters, and I’ll give you everything outside the Neo Angeles walls—plus powers of your own, like mine!”
There was a slight pause as every Chaotix looked around at every Bloodletter, and the guards stopped firing their rifles.
“He’s a liar!” Oryk yelled from where he stood on the bottom of the ravine.
The ugly (and cowardly) Chaotix chief, whom Max recognized from the raid on the Peacewind settlement, laughed up on the top of the canyon ledge. He’d apparently stayed up there when the fight began.
“Kill the Bloodletters!” Invok roared.
“Invok, NO!” Oryk bellowed, but it was too late.
The Chaotix turned on the Bloodletters.
Clubs bashed in skulls, machetes cleaved flesh in retaliation—
And the tide of the battle turned.
The Scavengers had at least been holding their own against Saris and the guards.
Now it all fell to pieces.
“Kill Invok!” Oryk screamed up at his men with crossbows.
The remaining archers took aim at Invok as he scrambled for cover on the other side of the trench.
“Kill the archers on the ledge!” Saris yelled.
The Neo Angeles guards fired at the crossbow wielders and killed half of them in seconds.
Saris let loose a couple of sonic blasts at the rim of the canyon, which blasted apart in an avalanche of sand and stone.
The remaining archers tumbled to the canyon floor below, where they were quickly bludgeoned to death by Chaotix.
“Invok, you fool!” Oryk roared, just as he was dragged down by four Chaotix all at once.
A brief pang of grief shot through Max.
Oryk was a vicious brute who enslaved women and children, and had conspired with cannibals to destroy Max’s entire tribe—
But when Max was about to die, Oryk had come through. The chief was the only reason Max and his friends were still standing.
And now Oryk had sacrificed his own life to take down the Governor.
Max wasn’t going to let that sacrifice be in vain.
“Get Saris!” Max yelled at his friends, and fired off a bolt of energy.
He was too far away from the Governor for the shot to be accurate, but the blast still took out a couple of guards along the way. The grey orbs of their soul energy flew to Max as he dissolved more sand for another shot.
Herk blasted his way through the crowd, slamming Chaotix and guards against rocks.
Suddenly a blaster went off thirty feet away. Ayla spun sideways and fell to the ground.
“NO!” Max screamed, and killed the shooter with one blast.
Max ran as fast as he could towards Ayla, fearing the worst.
But Ayla turned over and looked up at Max, her hand pressed against her shoulder. She winced.
“Are you okay?” Max asked.
Ayla pulled her bloodied fingers away from her shoulder, then stared blankly at him. “I…”
Suddenly, a soft yellow glow emanated from the seared flesh of her wound. Max looked over to see Lyra touching Ayla’s foot.
Ayla’s Health jumped back up to 70%.
“Better?” Lyra asked.
“Much better. Thank you,” Ayla said gratefully as she struggled to her feet.
“Just go get your uncle and we’ll call it even.”
Max turned back towards the battle. He used Energy Storm to take out soldiers from above. He tried to hit Saris with Energy Blast, but the Governor had retreated safely to the very farthest edge of Max’s Accuracy range—so Max did his best to help the struggling Bloodletters he encountered on the way. Souls flew to him in a flurry as he kept disintegrating and firing, disintegrating and firing.
Herk raced back and forth, body-slamming guards and Chaotix, cracking skulls and breaking necks as his green flames protected him.
Ayla started using her powers to fling projectiles into the air: rocks as big as a human head, and machetes whose Bloodletter owners had been killed. She wasn’t super-accurate, but every so often a machete would slice a guard’s throat, or a rock would slam into the skull of a Chaotik.
Trox started teleporting over to the bodies of fallen Neo Angeles guards, grabbing their rifles, and firing indiscriminately into a crowd of Chaotix and guards. He would only stay a couple of seconds. When a guard started to aim at him, or as soon as a Chaotix rushed him, he would disappear and reappear thirty feet away by another fallen corpse, where he would pick up another gun and fire it again.
Even Lyra was getting into the act. Black bolts of energy fired from her hands and slammed into Chaotix. The cannibals would stagger and scream as though in agony. If they were already severely wounded, their faces would suddenly wither like they had aged ten years in a split second, and they would pitch face-first onto the ground, dead.
As Max was making his way through the swarm of fighters, a cracking sound came from up above. Another shower of rocks fell from the top of the canyon and bashed in the heads of several Chaotix below.
At first Max thought Saris had repeated his avalanche-producing attack, but he didn’t hear a sonic shriek—and it made no sense for Saris to attack his allies.
Then Max glanced behind him and saw that Ayla had taken a page out of her uncle’s book. She was waving her arms around, concentrating on the edge of the canyon—
Suddenly her eyes bugged out, her mouth opened wide, and a slight glow covered her entire body.
Max knew that look.
She had leveled up.
Ayla gasped, blinked, then kept fighting.
When she swiped her hands at the soldiers, she telekinetically flung four of them through
the air at the same time—more weight than she’d ever moved before.
Two Chaotix raced towards her. She effortlessly swept their feet out from under them, then slammed their clubs into each other’s faces.
One by one, his friends reached the necessary number of kills and began to level up.
After plowing a guard into the canyon wall and crushing him, Herk roared in surprise. His green flames took on a yellowish glow, just for an instant. A second later, he was able to fly a foot above the ground for seconds at a time, plowing through even more soldiers, slamming his outstretched arms into their faces.
Trox fired a discarded rifle and suddenly yelled. Seconds later, both he and the rifle disappeared—something that hadn’t happened before. He reappeared on top of the ridge, fired down into the crowd of Chaotix and guards, then teleported down to the canyon floor and fired again without having to scramble for a new weapon.
Max plowed through the crowds as best he could, using Energy Blast on single targets farther away, Rapidfire on smaller groups, Energy Storm on larger ones, and Electrical Current on anyone within arm’s length.
Suddenly a heavy blow SLAMMED down on the top of his head.
Max turned around, momentarily dazed, and looked into the face of the Chaotik who had just tried to bash his brains in.
The man’s blood-painted face contorted in confusion and then fear. There were plenty of Neo Angeles guards who were wearing helmets, but Max was the only one with Qirinian himirini.
The Scavenger snarled, raised his barbed-wire-wrapped club again—
Max reached up, grabbed the man’s wrist, and disintegrated it.
The Chaotik screamed in pain as his disembodied hand and the club it still clutched fell to the ground.
With the extra energy, Max slapped his hand against the Chaotik’s chest and let loose with an Electric Current.
The Chaotik was flung onto his back, his body visibly smoking as an orb of grey light flew out of his chest and into Max.
Just for an instant, Max glanced at his stats.
HEALTH: 1087/1400 (77%)
STRENGTH: 89/117
STAMINA: 197/255
AGILITY: 93/118
ENHANCEMENTS: Level 5
Energy Reserves: 1500/4000
Disintegration
Efficiency: 24 units per cc
Energy Blast
Intensity: 4000
Base Range: 60 feet
Accuracy: 49%
Rapidfire
Intensity: 5 rounds of 800
Base Range: 60 feet
Accuracy: 43%
Lightwave
Intensity: 500
Focus: 50
Electrical Current
Intensity: 500 volts
Base Range: 8 feet
Accuracy: 50%
Energy Storm
Intensity: 4000
Base Range: 40 feet
Accuracy: 47%
Diameter of Attack: 10 feet
SOUL POINTS: 2360
ARMOR: 195/300 (58%)
Chest 60/100 (60%)
Back 55/100 (55%)
Helm 60/100 (60%)
His much higher Soul Points momentarily stunned him. Had he really killed that many people so quickly?
Max glanced around the battlefield, now littered with bodies—Dweller soldiers, Bloodletters, Chaotix. So much blood and destruction, and the end wasn’t even in sight.
Suddenly something appeared out of nowhere in Max’s peripheral vision. He whirled around, his hand still glowing—
“It’s me, it’s me!” Trox yelped in fright, then a second later shouted excitedly, “I can teleport with stuff now!”
“I saw,” Max said. “Can you teleport people?”
Trox shook his head. “No, my stats say only things. Maybe next Level.”
Max looked out over the battlefield. Saris had retreated far behind enemy lines, over a hundred feet away from Max.
Time to finish this if they could.
Max turned to Trox. “Teleport across the cavern and try to get a clear shot at Saris if you can—but don’t take any stupid chances.”
Trox nodded and disappeared, then reappeared thirty feet across the canyon. He kept making relatively short jumps, until he teleported up onto the canyon’s ledge high overhead the Governor.
Trox steadied his rifle… aimed…
Fired—
And missed. Sand shot up in a cloud ten feet behind Saris.
Max realized that Trox wasn’t a marksman. He’d probably never held a rifle before today. Neither had Max, so he couldn’t fault him for lack of practice.
The only reason Trox had even hit anybody before was because he was firing wildly into a crowd of ten bodies, so there had been no way he could miss.
But this time, he’d missed badly.
As soon as the sand exploded behind him, Saris quickly figured out where the blaster fire had come from, found Trox on the top of the ridge, and raised his arm.
Trox teleported out of the way just in time. Saris’s sonic blast ripped apart the cliff where Trox had stood just seconds before.
Trox appeared briefly on the canyon floor about thirty feet away from Saris, then teleported again—
Right next to the Governor.
Max watched in shock as the smaller kid aimed right at Saris’s head—
But Saris was expecting it, and let loose with some form of omnidirectional sonic boom that flattened everybody within twenty feet.
Trox got thrown into the air and landed on his back. He lay there, stunned… helpless.
Max knew there was no way he could hit Saris with an Energy Blast at a hundred feet out, not with any hope of actually hitting him—and not with the crowd of guards and Scavengers between him and the Governor.
But he had to try.
“Ayla, lift me up in the air!” he screamed. “Herk, go get Trox!”
Max suddenly felt his feet lift off the ground until he was dangling five feet above the sandy floor of the canyon.
Now he had a clear line between him and the Governor, over the heads of the shooting guards and brawling Bloodletters and Chaotix.
Rather than fire directly at Saris and waste his shot, he hedged his bets and used Energy Storm. All he needed to do was distract the Governor until Herk got there.
Saris turned and saw Trox on the ground, then angrily raised his hand—
Max fired off Energy Storm.
Blasts of energy rained down from the sky and hit ten feet in front of Saris.
It was enough. The Governor whipped around, afraid that Trox was just a diversion, and another attack was about to take him out.
It gave Herk just enough time to plow all the way through the enemy soldiers and get to Trox.
With his back to Saris, Herk grabbed Trox in his arms and took off back through the crowds.
Saris whipped around and saw him go—
But his eyes settled on Max still levitating at the other end of the canyon.
The metal-faced man grinned malevolently as he raised his arm like a gunfighter.
“AYLA, PUT ME DOWN NOW!” Max screamed.
Rather than put him down, she just dropped him.
Max fell five feet and thudded to the ground as a screaming bolt of sonic energy ripped through the air where his body had been just seconds before.
Max’s feet burned with pain, but he kept his wits about him and disintegrated more sand in case of attack.
Just then, Herk blasted over, slowed down, and laid Trox at Lyra’s feet.
The smaller boy had no armor, and Saris’s close-range sonic boom had taken off a good chunk of Trox’s Health. With all the other minor hits he’d absorbed, he was sitting at 41%.
“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Trox wheezed, though he obviously wasn’t.
“Shut up and let me do my job,” Lyra growled as she put her hands on him.
Trox looked over at Max, then past him—
“LOOK OUT!” the small kid screamed.
Max
whipped around to see a group of nine Chaotix bearing down on them, charging them in a suicide rush.
Their health was fairly low, but there were nine of them.
Ayla flung four out of the way with her telekinesis, but there were five more.
Herk simultaneously blasted towards them at full-speed, arms out like a T, snapping two men’s necks as he clotheslined them.
But three more raced at Max, Trox, and Lyra. And they were only twenty feet away.
Max fired an Energy Blast from each hand. At this range, it was impossible to miss.
The blasts blew off the two men’s heads on the right and middle.
But the man on the left slipped past him—
And Max was out of energy reserves.
He watched in despair as the Chaotik tore past him towards Lyra and Trox, both of them staring up at the cannibal in horror—
Without thinking, Max jumped and tackled the Chaotik around the waist.
He disintegrated as soon as he hit, and felt the sick sensation of his arms sinking into flesh.
The Chaotik screamed and toppled face-first onto the ground.
At least the upper half of him did.
The lower half managed to keep running for a few more steps before it keeled over, spilling blood all over the sand.
Max looked down at his glowing arms in horror.
He had disintegrated the man’s belly and spine, cutting him in half.
As soon as the Chaotik’s grey energy orb flitted into him, white light encompassed Max’s entire field of vision. A brief jolt of pain coursed through his body—
And then it was gone.
A split second later, Max saw Lydia and Trox staring at him wide-eyed.
“Whoa,” they both whispered at the same time.
Ayla and Herk had taken care of the four Chaotix Ayla had tossed aside earlier, and they both turned back to Max in surprise.
“You okay?” Ayla asked.
“Yeah.”
Trox scrambled up into a sitting position. “You Leveled up, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“What Level?”
“Six,” Max said, and glanced at his stats.
HEALTH: 1500/1500 (100%)
STRENGTH: 120/120
STAMINA: 260/260
AGILITY: 120/120