2.51 Still Some Fight Left

51 – Still Some Fight Left

The elevator opened and Hector ran out; Mae had already confirmed the corridor was empty. Apparently, most of the security personnel loyal to Balus on the loading deck had run to challenge Flint…and were now dead. Hector had a plan, but it wasn’t a sure thing, and it all hinged on Flint still having some fight left in him.

Hector needed forty or so aura, and he was slowly getting there—current reading: 22/56—thanks to having scraped a substantial amount of potentia from Balus. Potentia didn’t translate into usable aura, not on a one-to-one basis, but it did boost recovery for a short while. In the meantime, he had work to do—a way to give Flint and himself a little more time and, hopefully, weaken Lux.

His mini-map had his course plotted, and Evie estimated he’d arrive in just over a minute and a half. Mae, you’re sure about this cutoff switch?

//*Yes. They activated the fail-safe when they first came aboard.*//

Hector slid around a corner, sprinting for the maintenance access shaft that would take him into the tunnel beneath the central loading bay. The fail-safe Mae was referring to was designed specifically to deny the ship’s AI access to the point-defense cannons and batteries. The idea that a rogue or compromised AI could turn the guns on friendly targets was something that Imperial shipbuilders wouldn’t abide.

The panel was locked, but even as he contemplated summoning his Aura Blade to slice through the latch, it beeped and the bolts clicked open. Thank you, Mae. He yanked the door open, slid down the yellow plasteel ladder, and then charged through the narrow, pipe-and-cable-lined corridor toward a tech station at the junction ahead. His mini-map flashed; this was it.

At the station, he found a physical breaker the size of his arm, locked by a security panel. Fingers stabbing against the screen, he punched in Gladia’s command code, and when the panel flashed green, he grasped the breaker handle. “Mae, don’t shoot Flint.”

//*Understood.*//

With her agreement, Hector threw the breaker. It snapped closed with a resounding clack, and then thunder rumbled through the bones of the ship.

###

Flint gasped as another concussion rocked his skull. His helmet was in pieces, and he was bleeding from his ears, his eyes, his nose—hell, he was bleeding from pretty much every damn hole in his body. Even so, he could still see, still feebly lift an arm to try to block Lux’s next blow.

He hung from the other man’s fist; he’d long since tried to fall, but the bastard wouldn’t let him go. Lux held Flint’s scorched, bloody armor while he pounded him again and again. Flint could see the red alarms flashing all over his AUI; his nanites were depleted, his blood pressure was spiking, his heart was hammering out a rhythm that wasn’t something a human heart was supposed to do, and those were just the readings his battered armor was transmitting.

Tom had other warnings for him, chief among them giant, flashing red letters reading AURA OVERLOAD. Flint didn’t have the luxury of caring; he’d burned the hell out of his pathways—his whole body felt like he’d been mainlining battery acid—but that was a problem for another day. Another life.

As the fist came down, and his vision flashed white only to come back loaded with dancing, sparkling stars, Lux taunted him again, “How’s that fancy name working out for you, Tenebrix?”

Flint spat a mouthful of blood at the taller man, his swollen eyes widening as it burst into pink steam before touching Lux’s smooth, hairless face. The black flames of his aura ensconced him, warping the air with waves of heat—scorching Flint’s blood- and sweat-soaked face. It felt like he was standing too close to a ship’s drive cone while it spooled up on the launch pad.

“Well enough,” he said, though his words were mushy—too many missing teeth. “Kept you from answering your dog whistle.”

“Kept me? Just a minor diversion, old boy.” Lux lifted his fist again, and this time it flared with crackling black aura. Four gleaming obsidian blades stretched from his knuckles. “Goodbye.”

Flint closed his eyes and pushed, trying to send aura into his Amber Shell again. It burned, and he knew he was doing more damage—Tom knew better than to delay him with a warning in the middle of a fight—but it worked. Just as the blades were about to impale Flint’s face, his blazing orange barrier snapped into being, sizzling and smoking as it pushed the flame-wreathed warrior back a step.

“Just die!” Lux roared, and his eyes became depthless voids as he channeled more aura. Flint figured that had probably been his last hurrah; he couldn’t muster an attack—nothing that would get past Lux’s aura sheath, anyway. He braced himself, hoping his barrier, weakened though it was, could withstand another onslaught. Lux’s blades faded, and a point of black energy began to coalesce just beyond his fist, and then…the world exploded.

Flint had been around long enough to recognize the sound of a ship’s guns. He saw the first explosive round hit Lux. It slammed into his torso, and though it knocked him back, the effect was muted. Lux took two stumbling steps as the shell bloomed into orange flame, rolling over and around him, channeled away from him by the sheath of black flames he wore. Still, it distracted him enough that he dropped his fist, and the attack he’d been powering up faded.

Lux looked away from Flint, focusing on the ship some fifty meters distant, and then more cannons fired. Lux blurred, flickering like a glitch on a crystal-glass display, and the ground where he’d been standing exploded. Flint stumbled back as the concussion washed over him—fire, dirt, clots of blasted grass. He fell, sliding and tumbling over the hard-packed ground, and then he heard the shrieks of incoming rockets.

The booms were like a maniac giant’s drumroll. He could feel them impacting his Amber Shell, could feel it weakening and cracking; he just hoped Lux was suffering worse. The ship’s point-defense cannons rumbled, and the air filled with dirt and smoke as they churned craters out of the ground, chasing Lux as he moved. Lux could fly; Flint had known that. He hadn’t realized how damn fast the son of a bitch was, though—nor how he could phase, skipping through space when he really wanted to make you feel slow.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

As he thought about how Lux was avoiding most of the attacks, it dawned on Flint what those attacks meant—Hector had either freed the ship’s AI, or someone loyal to Gladia had control of the guns. Did that mean Balus was dead? Lying on his back, bleary eyes looking up into the smoke and dust, he coughed out a blood-choked laugh. Looks like my fancy name worked just fine, you bastard.

As fate would have it, his mental gloating seemed to be premature; the guns stopped firing, and the rockets stopped screaming. He turned his head toward the ship, and between columns of smoke, he saw Lux drifting up the ruined ramp toward the bay—he’d gotten inside the ship’s arc of fire. Tom? Any connection to Hector?

//I’m sorry, but one of Lux’s blows ruptured the implant in your left ear—your antenna is non-functional.//

Beautiful. Flint rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself to his knees, then, allowing himself to scream with the agony of the movement, he lurched to his feet. He took two staggering steps toward the ship, then screamed again, this time forming the cry into words: “Lux! You piece of dogshit! Don’t you fucking walk away from me!”

To his delight and dismay, the killer turned, still floating some fifty centimeters off the twisted plasteel ramp. He pointedly looked up to his left and right, eyeing the hump-like cannon installations. When he refocused on Flint, who was staggering toward the ramp, he called out, “Come here, then, Tenebrix. I’ll put you out of your misery.”

The words sounded like a simple taunt, but Flint wondered—how much aura could the son of a bitch have left? He’d flown there from the rift, and who knew what he’d been doing before receiving his summons. He’d fought Flint for several brutal minutes, and then he’d just deflected and dodged dozens or hundreds of rounds of explosive ordnance designed to destroy light fighters and incoming missiles. Flint glanced over his shoulder, looking at the blasted landscape—even some of the nearby buildings had collapsed walls.

The fact that Lux wasn’t powering up some kind of beam attack to annihilate Flint where he stood—did it mean he was running out? Flint snorted, continuing to advance; it didn’t matter. Lux might be running low on aura, but Flint was tapped. He glanced at his readout: 66/425. The number surprised him; he’d expected to see a big fat zero.

//It’s not that you’re dry, old friend—your pathways are burned to cinders.//

Lux called out, “Should have run, dog. I might have forgotten you.”

Flint spat a mouthful of blood onto the ramp, running his tongue around the new gaps between his teeth. He took a step and stumbled, struggling to find his balance on the twisted plasteel. “Yeah, I guess I’m a dog, too.”

Lux chuckled, the sound disturbingly rich in its mirth.

Flint looked up, blinking blood out of his burning eyes. “At least I was a loyal one. At least I loved my master.”

Lux floated toward him, his smile turning grim. “Don’t worry. I’ll kill her too.” He held out his fist, and it crackled with black aura as his wicked obsidian claws slowly stretched forth again.

Flint tapped his ear, feigning a knowing smile. “Your leash holder is already dead.”

The aura that had wreathed Lux had faded somewhat; he was still limned in weird, black energy, but it wasn’t as hot. Still, his eyes were like pools of pure void as he slashed his blades at Flint, shattering the last of his Amber Shell. Flint staggered, his entire body alight with the molten state of his pathways. It was all Flint could do to keep his feet as his muscles trembled and twitched.

“The thing about a dog like me, Flint,” Lux said, stretching out his left hand to grasp Flint’s charred, torn chest armor, “is that I can find a new master pretty damn easily.” He lifted his right hand, claws gleaming…and then a crimson rip in reality appeared above the killer.

Flint’s eyes widened, and Lux probably thought he was staring at his claws, but he was staring at Hector—the crazy bastard came out of nowhere, falling onto Lux’s back, throwing one arm around his neck, and lifting the other, a hissing red Aura Blade clutched in his fist.

Lux immediately flared with black energy, his aura sheath blasting Flint with heat and sizzling Hector, burning his clothes and his flesh. Incredibly, Hector didn’t so much as cry out. He stabbed his blade down, burying it in Lux’s chest—right through his aura sheath! Lux screamed, thrashing left and right, trying to throw Hector off, but no matter how he burned, the fighter didn’t let go. In fact, he tightened his arm, choking Lux as he hacked him again and again with his blade.

Lux fell to his feet, no longer able to float as the wounds mounted. That won’t kill him. Flint knew it was true; Lux was Praetorian-tier; he’d regenerate. He barely needed to breathe. The bastard could probably live without a heart for a little while! Meanwhile, Hector burned. Flint hesitated, lifting his arm, flexing his fingers. What do I—

“Do something!” Hector screamed, even as Lux’s aura sheath blazed to new heights. At last, Hector cried out in pain, and Flint saw the flesh on his arms and face turn black, flaking away—ash lifted by the updraft of Lux’s aura. Still, the crazy bastard didn’t let go.

The sheer dogged determination shook something loose in Flint, and he stepped forward, pushing twenty aura into a Strength Boost. His muscles and bones screamed at him; he almost collapsed, but he fell forward, driving his fist with all his might into Lux’s chest—into the flesh tenderized by Hector’s blade. Black tunnel walls closed in on him, but he wasn’t done. As all three men screamed and as Hector and now Flint burned, Flint poured every drop of his remaining aura into his alpha strike: Sunset of the Broken God.

He’d used the attack on Lux earlier to little effect; the man had shrugged it off, deflecting it with a shield that swallowed all light. Flint’s fist hadn’t been inside him then, though, had it? At last, Flint’s pathways utterly collapsed, and he felt his arm come apart, blasted to ash by the power flowing through it. Still, he smiled because it meant the ability had fired. As the potent aura poured out of his ruined arm, it coalesced into a pinpoint that would have blinded them all if they could see it.

Lux’s scream cut short, and he stopped thrashing. His aura sheath cooled noticeably, and he looked down, locking eyes with Flint, who, despite his agony, managed a grim smile.

Then, a beam of pure aura the color of a fading sun erupted from Lux’s shoulders, utterly annihilating his entire head and scoring a twenty-meter groove in the ship’s armored hull. Lux collapsed and Hector’s body rolled off him, flopping limply to the side. Flint lowered the remnants of his arm, and he, too, dropped, falling to his knees.

“We did it, you crazy bastard,” he said, looking at Hector’s broken body. Most of the man’s clothes were burned away; most of his visible flesh was blackened or gone. In places, Flint could see his bones glinting with a metallic sheen—some kind of reinforced bone treatment, no doubt. He looked past the man, up the ramp, watching to see if anyone else was coming—if there was another shoe to drop.

All was still, though, and he couldn’t blame the remaining soldiers. He looked over his shoulder. Even the base was on lockdown, and that made sense.

You don’t get in the way when someone like Lux is having a battle.

Something moved in the corner of his eye, and he looked back at Hector. He narrowed his eyes, frowning. He couldn’t see his bones any longer, and, what was more, he could see new flesh—new vessels, tendons, and muscles taking shape along his blackened arms.

“What the hell?” Flint looked at the man’s face and saw the blackened, ruined flesh sloughing off, pink, vein-filled meat beneath. Even as he watched, new skin began to grow in—fresh and unscarred.

//It would seem he has an incredibly potent regeneration ability.//

Flint looked at Lux’s corpse—still dead, no new head taking shape. If any of the three of them could heal like that, Flint would have put his money on Lux.

Praetorian-tier healing.

//So it would seem.//

Of course, not all aura users at that level could regenerate to that degree, but Flint had heard stories—some could.

Suddenly Hector spasmed and coughed—like his heart had just kick-started itself.

Maybe it was just too much for Flint, or maybe his blood loss, aura drain, and sheer mental exhaustion finally caught up with him. Whatever it was, the world tilted onto its side, and then everything went black.