Collide Gamer

Inkaryl cut through the air, the weapon of the now declared king beating in anticipation of the impact. All it hit was a blur, an afterimage left behind by the speed at which the Mire King pressed himself to the ground. He skittered forwards on all fours, then twisted around Eliana’s falling foot. The ground burst under the impact.

A tail emerged in a squall of bright green, blue-tinged energy from Devos’s upper back. The additional limb slammed into Eliana’s midriff, flinging the failed goddess away. Immediately thereafter, Devos extended his digitigrade legs, launching himself at incredible velocity.

The ground beneath him opened. Magma gushed into the air in a condensed stream, catching the Mite King in it. Nathalia pulled her raised hand inwards. The stream bent in accordance to her command.

The stream inflated, then burst. Wings wide open and buzzing, Devos hovered in the air.

For a moment, there was no movement. John managed to take stock of the situation. “Why are you still here?!” he shouted over to Lee.

“Because he has control over the barrier!” the young Fateweaver shouted back and gestured at the mess now next to her.

Yoshua had collapsed to the ground. Hands on his ears, elbows and knees in the gravel, he screamed his lungs out in pure, unadulterated panic. ‘Ah, fuck!’ John thought. He had become used to having the supreme power over barriers. ‘So much raw power can overpower even her skill, huh?’

One bad news was conjoined with another. While Eliana and Nathalia kept their eyes on the Mite King, while Nahoa shielded the non-combatants with her body, Moira and Nia remained by the portal. They kept their eyes locked on the portal, having worked out the same rule that John had: as long as the creatures remained observed, they did not move.

John had a feeling they wouldn’t keep to that once they were through the portal.

While John was taking in the environment, Devos did the same. Their eyes met at the end of their individual analysis. They both knew what would happen next.

“Nathalia, all out!” John shouted.

“I know!” the dragoness barked back, her humanoid form turning incandescent as she crouched down. As she leapt, she transformed. Molten rock expanded as the core of her being moved. The tall woman turned into a monstrosity of lava streams and obsidian bones and scales five times her size. Giant yet thankfully tiny compared to what she used to be. Even with this size, Nahoa, Lorelei and Lee would have a difficult time getting the Realmbreaker out of there.

Devos did not meet the ascent of the goddess. He turned, gained in altitude, then swerved suddenly. Nathalia’s cataclysmic breath attack spread through the air like an aimed eruption, rocks and molten stone spreading through the air.

The Mite King emerged from the other side, his carapace covered in a second layer that broke moments later. ‘Biomancy?’ John theorized and launched an Ice Bolt at the enemy sovereign. A minor contribution to the battle, but he would do everything he could.

Devos gave the attack enough respect to shorten his dive towards the portal. It was that singular second of hesitation that gave the other contributor the room for her re-entry.

“TREACHEROUS FUCK!”

Covered in armour of bone, Eliana slammed fist first into Devos’ midriff. The Mite King buckled around the impact, his exoskeleton rattling before he was sent flying. Lifeless winter trees turned into scattering debris as the Mite King crashed into the Appalachian ground.

“For the sake of those that I hold dear, I will immolate all I am – Bloodburn!”

Sounds akin to electrically distorted violins filled the air with their shrill proclamations. Butterfly-like wings of flaming and crystalized ichor spread behind the blood mage. Hitting the ground running, she crossed the distance between herself and Devos again.

The Mite King was barely up. Eliana hurled her punch. Devos caught it. The dust in the air rippled from the meeting of their forces. Roaring, the failed goddess followed with her second fist. It, too, was stopped by Devos’ palm.

The two became locked in a classical struggle of raw, physical power. Initially, Devos stood much taller than her. The yielding of the earth beneath them soon turned them almost level. They were both pushing and pushing, creating an entirely new ravine around them.

Raw aggression and disbelief mingled on Eliana’s face. Soon, it was hidden by the mask of bone. Covered in white bone and chitin, the two figures were oddly similar, yet so wildly different. Bloody crimson and turquoise highlights brimmed with their individual magical power.

Eliana suddenly gave. The attempt to trip Devos failed. Taking a lunging step forwards, he caught himself, then lifted the failed goddess up, all to slam her back to the ground with enough force to splatter her on the ground, hardened by the wayward magical energy of their confrontation. What started as a forest was rapidly soaking up their supernatural energies to become a battlefield of gods.

Devos had no chance to enjoy this small victory. Bone shards and scattered gore were reversing in their flow already, turning to blood that would return to the momentarily stunned originator swiftly. Nathalia and John were charging into the gap.

“I am sorry, little one.” The words of the Mite King were not for any of them, but the spherical egg he pulled out of his dimensional pocket. “For our promised garden, will you make this sacrifice?”

“Yes, my King!”

The entity within the egg responded in a firm, powerful voice. It was the only and last decision the unhatched Throthaxen would make. What hatched was no longer a sapient being.

Biomantic mutations turned the sphere into a larva into a gargantuan creature within seconds. Like its originator, it had a pale white carapace, the gaps marked with green lines. Arms extended from the thick ‘torso’ that sat near the upper end of a plated, elongated body between snake and caterpillar. The underside was lined with teeth-like legs, supporting its slithering movement as it swung its car-sized head around. Between stag-beetle pincers sat a multi-toothed maw. Between spine spikes and that chewing mouth were the empty, blue eyes of a beast.

[Throthaxen Martyr Morph AI: https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/6cea5cf3a21a.png ]

‘Shit, shit, shit!’ John left Nathalia to slam into that creature and hastened back the way he came. The Creator Puppet was fast, but it was no equal to an enemy genuinely specialized in physical ability.

While the Martyr Morph clashed with the dragoness, Devos flew overhead. His aim was not Yoshua, not yet. There was too much in his way still to extract the Realmbreaker reliably. John knew that he knew that. He also knew what the Mite King would call upon in this situation. Either he could sacrifice more of his subjects to this situation, or…

John was too far away to do more than let out a warning shout, before Devos landed between Nia and Moira. The duo stoically held their gaze on the portal, right up until the Mite King grabbed their heads and took to the sky with them. He spiralled upwards, utterly confounding their senses, before sending them flying.

John kept his eyes locked on the portal.

He heard the whistle of the descending enemy.

Impact. Confusion. He knew exactly what had happened, but he was all the same a bundle of confounded senses. He was tumbling. There was the dull, removed pain signal that informed him the golem had taken damage. It did not matter. All that mattered was catching himself and witnessing what was happening now.

Hand on a shattered tree trunk, John came to a still. Devos was just a few metres removed from him. Both of them stared back at the portal and the tide of black, white, green and gold that spilled from it.

The creatures were racing into the world, spreading out, exploring their new environment with their dancing tongues of light. Some held sleek, needle-like weapons, others only had their bodies to arm themselves.

[Masked Thing AI: https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/6744f5e98472.png ]

John tried to use Observe on one of the creatures. Just like the last time, the creature ceased to be there the moment he did it. Feeling a moment of hope, his gaze snapped to the next one as it moved at ludicrous speed towards Nia. Another Observe, another immediate disappearance from the world. A third, a fourth, and then…

The Creator Puppet’s eyes shattered outwards. There was no pain with it, no announcement or other factor. One moment he could see, the next the vessel’s eyes lay in the snow. ‘What just happened?’

Blind but not without sight, the Creator Puppet launched a bolt at Devos. The attack struck the Mite King in the back, but went largely ignored. Through Nahoa’s eyes, John saw the Throthaxen approach.

Eliana was giving chase, but the masked things, aspects of the Tzitzimimeh if John’s hunch was correct, were moving at a rapid speed. Three of them were suddenly upon the failed goddess, gripping her and dragging her down into the snow. Nathalia was still bogged down with the Martyr Morph. Nia and Moira were beset by the downpour of creatures in equal measure.

There were too many of them. Their capacity was entirely unknown. John found one charging at him as well, barely managing to bring Inkaryl up to block. That was the last freebie John got, after that Nahoa’s line of sight was occupied. Fully giving himself to combat instincts, John defended himself poorly while following what happened with her. The tearing away at this body hardly mattered.

Devos landed in front of the trio of haremettes and the still panicked man between them. “You cannot stop me,” the Mite King said with regal sorrow. “Step aside. I do not seek your death.”

‘…Oblige him,’ John gave the mental command to Nahoa. The demigoddess was not built for this type of combat and he was not willing to risk either Lee or Lorelei dying in the crossfire. With everyone else bogged down by the creatures, there was only one reality. ‘He wins this one.’

Gritting her teeth, Nahoa stepped aside.

Wordlessly, Devos filled the gap. Lorelei and Lee understood what the surrender of the maid meant. “Forgive me, seneschal,” the Mite King said to the cowering, crying, screaming man. “I will repay you for this violation with a lifetime of luxuries.” Crouching above Yoshua, Devos reached into his pocket space.

A tiny object the colour of a clear, cloudless sky emerged. Nahoa only had a short view of the brilliant blue, before its light hue disappeared beneath the skin at the back of Yoshua’s neck. The veins in the area were highlighted in the same, intense colour, as if the blood had been replaced with the purest Mediterranean waters.

The screaming stopped.

“Take us away from here,” Devos ordered.

Like a zombie, Yoshua rose to his feet. There was a peace on his face that did not match the snot and tears staining it. With a tranquil smile that did not reach the eyes, he made a singular gesture, opening another realm break with the ease that John would have employed to open the fridge.

“I hope this is the last time we meet,” the Mite King said.

“It will not be,” Lorelei promised.

Devos and Yoshua made their exit through the dimensional gap. It closed behind them, leaving the group to contend with the mess that the Mite King had saddled them with.

John forgot about everything else and focused his senses on the enemy that had been ripping him apart. Enough of his wide mind had been tracking his own fight to employ that knowledge now. There was a preferred pattern to his attack. Left punch, swerve to the right, circling around him, going for his back, then a kick of the hooves, that was how the creature preferred to assail him.

The moment he began to act on that pattern, the fight drastically changed… too drastically.

It was as if the very act of being predicted sapped the strength out of the monster.

John thought it was a ruse, until a wide swing of Inkaryl caught the creature and turned it into a scattering of rock. The pebbles disappeared as they landed on the soil, every bit of the creature fading out of existence.

“Lee, do we have control over the barrier again?” he asked.

“Yeah,” the Fateweaver responded. Her voice was strained, flat from the annoyance at her own failing. They would have the conversation on what she could have done later. “We can leave whenever we want.”

“We are not. Not yet, I would like to learn more about these enemies. Reinforce the others,” John told Nahoa. “I’ll stay back here with Lee and Rel, we would just get in the way.”

“Yes, you would,” Nahoa tried to joke, but it fell on deaf ears.

The Creator Puppet dropped down where he stood. The combat unfolded around him. Where they fought the masked things, there was always an initial burst of damage taken, then a gradual decline of their power. Was their power that intensely frontloaded? That would explain some matters, but not why Observe seemed to delete them. Also, when multiple of them fought one of his haremettes, their power decline was far from uniform.

‘Do they decline as they are figured out?’ the Gamer theorized. “Lorelei, what do you make of these creatures?”

He could afford asking in a casual tone. Without Devos around, the true threat was removed. Yes, the clash between Nathalia and the Martyr Morph was shaking the entire landscape, but it was not immediately lethal to anyone around. The masked things, as well, were dealing only moderate damage. Since Nahoa had spread awareness that they could all exit whenever, as long as Lee remained in the barrier, there was no more true threat to this fight.

They had already lost the objective, now they were just trying to squeeze some intel out of it.

“They are an enigma to me, a fog my sight does not pierce,” Lorelei answered.

John sucked on his gums. He was tempted to ask her to try, but given what had just happened to his eyes… better to not push that envelope without reason. “Lee, can you tell me if the sky is in any way unusual?”

“Nope, just winter clouds, perfectly correct for the hour,” the gamer girl responded. “No missing sun or early night here.”

“I see…” John muttered, thoroughly uncertain what he was dealing with here.

At least the fight progressed predictably. Nia weakened the portal until it closed. With reinforcements cut off, they mopped up the remaining masked things, then all came down on the Martyr Morph. As a united front, they had the enormous beast killed within ten minutes. After that was the regular, odd quiet that followed battles like this.

They returned home to lick their wounds.