Shovels In Spades

Fear had a funny habit of finding the smallest insecurities, the tiniest of concerns, the most unrealistic of imagined scenarios and it made them... real.

One after another the encirclement of armed-guards lowered their weapons and their arms trembled while their eyes shook.

Former-mayor Aston Rickley spun his head around and wore a furious expression on his face. "What are you all doing?! He can't keep that barrier up forever, and I've already identified it! It is solid, so while we can't break it, he also can't leave it! Keep your guns trained on him and blast him to pieces the second that stupid barrier falls!"

Daz smiled in amusement. Nothing really mattered here. It would be nice to get the soldiers on his side, but even if they didn't agree with him, he had already become the new ruler of Las Vegas at absolutely no cost to himself.

"What the..." Daz glanced down at his little sister who had suddenly spoken in confusion. Her face was filled with uncertainty and she was clearly puzzled by something on her laptop.

"You okay?" Daz asked.

"I... I don't know." She began furiously typing then added, "Wrap this up quickly. Something or someone has blocked me from accessing certain information. It's gonna take me a few minutes to rip the code to pieces and find out who exactly is paying the system to make me blind to... something."

Daz, aware of the gravity in his sister's tone, nodded. "Don't look up no matter what you do, and Mr Barrier, if you wouldn't mind, could you only protect Rose? I need to leave your barrier for a moment."

"As if I have the time to look away from my laptop right now," Rose snapped.

As for Mr Barrier, the furry blue blob floated up from Rose's head of platinum-blonde hair and brushed against Daz's cheek but it didn't move the barrier like he had asked it too.

"I'll be fine, trust me. I know Maddy told you to protect us both, but really, it's unneeded. I'll give you a shout if I need your help, 'kay?" Daz offered.

He was lucky that Aston Rickley was still trying his best to pressure his men to continue to point their weapons at Daz, so he hadn't been listening to him nor to Rose, though Jim Tucker and Lizzy had been intently absorbing every sentence to see if they could somehow use any information to help them out of what was - in their opinion - a situation that could go either horribly or rather well, especially so for Jim since he'd already indirectly attacked them with his coin flip.

Mr Barrier purred strangely then rubbed against Daz's face again before floating back to Rose's head. The creature then instantaneously withdrew the existing barrier and created a new one around only Rose.

Daz was tempted to use his Archreaper's Aura here, but he couldn't target specific people with that skill of his, and hence, Rose would be affected too. He had no doubts that Mr Barrier was either at the pinnacle of whatever species he was or he simply wouldn't be affected by the aura since he was technically an item, but regardless, if Daz could avoid it, he would ideally not force Rose to get the urge to treat him like a god.

With himself no longer being protected by Mr Barrier, naturally, neither was Hamson. The shovel had been peacefully floating behind him ever since he'd gotten out of his car, and while most people in the room had lumped it in with his retinue of gems as a simple harmless decoration, it was still perhaps one of the most powerful weapons on Earth. Daz raised his hand and brought it down like a general signalling for his troops to attack.

Hamson cut through the air like a bullet. Not a moment later, a loud snapping sound could be heard.

The shovel's razor-sharp edge which could easily cut through Crusher's skin or even steel had stopped at Aston Rickey's neck and he was now wearing one less ring on his fingers.

The portly man had a golden ring on every one of his digits, thumbs included, and one had snapped clean in two and clattered onto the floor.

Rose, without looking up from her laptop, said, "You never checked his items? Each ring gives him an extra life. They're consumables though so if you're gonna kill him, just try another ten times. It's as simple as that."

"I see," Daz replied then raised his hand again.

"E-Everyone! Attack him!" Aston Rickley yelled with no small amount of dread in his tone.

He hadn't even seen the shovel move let alone see it approach his neck. Aston hadn't invested into physical stats but into stats of the mind and into stats that boosted his luck and ability to persuade others. He was certain that if his soldiers kept hesitating, Daz would slowly eat through all of his protective rings and then kill him.

Aston Rickley had met many people in his life and he was confident that Daz was not one that he could ever convince to do something that he had no interest in doing. Call it intuition, but he could feel it. No matter what he said or tried, he would never be able to convince the reaper to not end his life, and thus, his only remaining option was to kill the young man before he had his own life cut short.

'I knew I should have bought some teleportation talismans! If only they weren't so expensive then maybe I would have gotten them along with my rings! Fuck!' Aston hated himself for being such a miser.

'A good solid show of force should be enough to convince them that resistance is futile,' Daz decided. "Death Energy Manifestation, Crystallisation."

Eight deep grey arms that were twice as long and twice as thick as Daz's own arms grew from his spine and wrapped around his body like spider legs. The next moment, the astral arms and his entire body turned into the same material that GriD CrosS was made out of.

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Well, almost his entire body. Daz had been talking to the massive purple crystal whenever he visited Fort Sky and he had also been consulting with the system and his sister in regards to what both the dishonest crystal and Rimmy actually were and what they were made out of, with limited success.

Rimmy remained a complete mystery while Daz knew enough about Grid now to not be embarrassed should a pop-quiz about Fort Sky's core ever come up.

Every visible part of his body had been transformed into a deep shade of reflective purple. His hair, his eyes, his face, his neck, his hands, his right leg, and, luckily, all eight of his death energy arms.

'So long as they think I turned into a ten-armed crystal man then that's all that matters. They're already starting to freak out,' Daz thought.