Mission Accomplished. Target Neutralized. (CnC would be greatly appreciated)
“Rather cozy around here,” Erik Karv
er commented before taking a sip of hot coffee from his mug. His eyes wandered around the small shop, quaint and homey. Walls painted light brown and wooden furniture to match. Behind the counter was a lone employee currently rubbing the sand out of her eyes. Currently, there were no other patrons around save for Erik and the two people at the table with him. Considering it was still four-thirty in the morning that was not much of a surprise, for a small town around three hours from Sierra Pines.
“Yes, I quite like the atmosphere here. So what is it you wanted to discuss Erik?” The man, Jerome Silver, to the puppeteer’s left began. Short, slightly spiky, ashen gray hair covered his head, while two mismatched eyes, the left faded earthen brown while the right a muted jade, stared back at Erik. A solid black shirt was underneath an open brown coat, off-black jeans and boots of the same shade and a short sword hanging on his hip, finished his ensemble.
Meanwhile the woman beside him, Alrisha Zent, drank some of the tea from her cup. She looked around twenty-four but was actually in her late twenties, about the same age as Jerome; she had faintly pale skin and two-tone colored irises, the area around the pupil was a fiery red while the rest was a frosty blue. A white beret adorned her head and waist length light blue hair tied into two long tails, a white band wrapped around them around halfway. She wore an immaculately white jacket with dark blue frills at the ends, underneath she donned a sleeveless white shirt a single golden line running down the center. Rounding everything off was a long skirt reaching mid-calf, it was a three-tier skirt alternating between blue with white frills, white with blue frills. She gave the puppeteer a gentle smile as she waited for his response.
“About this,” The puppeteer took a white envelope from the bag beside his seat and handed it over to his boss, “I received this two days ago. This person, Sencarn, is asking me to hunt down the thing described in the letter. While I’m sure I could do it, I wanted your opinion first.”
The ashen-haired man nodded then quickly scanned the letter’s contents. “Hmm, it’s worrying that they seem to have a profile of your capabilities but this was likely to happen when I asked you to join the Gladiator circuit. As much as this Sanctuary group seems to have good intentions, I think we should be a bit cautious with this, I’ll handle this thing.”
“I think you mean
we, right Dear?” Alrisha gave the man a glance as she rubbed the silver ring around her fourth finger.
“Ah, yes, Ali and I will take care of this, Erik you head home and rest, you have a battle coming up in a few days right?” The leader of the Menagerie corrected himself as a ray of light glinted off an identical ring.
“Well, it’s just a minor fight, should be over with quickly so I can help you two, but if you say so boss then I’ll abide,” the puppeteer nodded and chugged down the rest of his mug. He got up and after taking his bag left the couple, Jerome emptying his own cup of joe while Alrisha busied herself with the letter.
*~*~*~
Later that night a small beat-up automobile cruised down the desolate freeway. It was old and beat up, signs of it changing hands several times clearly visible, despite this the four-seater still had quite the life left in her. “I heard the stories and creepy pastas, but I never really expected this ‘Road Stalker’ to be anything more than some internet myth or conspiracy theory,” Ali spoke from behind the wheel.
“Every legend has a grain of truth in it somewhere, it just happened that this one happened to come in the form of a hulking monster,” the swordsman retorted while glancing at the dashboard clock, it read five minutes to one AM.
His fiancé giggled, “This feels kind of nostalgic, just you and me going off to fight some dangerous fiend.”
“Yeah, it was kind of a rough start after we left home…but we made it work someh-” He abruptly stopped and turned to his love. The two nodded as they simultaneously opened their doors and jumped out onto the asphalt, not long after a bestial roar filled the night.
From the couple’s view, the vehicle continued on its way now devoid of passengers when it suddenly careened to the side, launched into the air by what now stood on the roadway. A giant of a man, easily eight feet in height, its skin strangely colored a dull crimson. The Road Stalker lumbered towards the automobile wreckage, the two mercenaries approaching it silently.
Thankfully the full moon was out tonight giving good visibility to the two. Now that they were closer more discerning qualities of the monstrosity came to light, it was wearing a ragged pair of trousers, and its upper half was wrapped in some brown cloth like some effigy of clothing. Not only that multiple bone-like spikes jutted from its torso, as if that was not enough the head belonged more to a beast than man, the lower jaw protruding outward likely to make room for the two massive tusks that extended upward akin to a wild boar. Most worrying was the two blades in the beast’s hands, they looked like two oversized meat cleavers yet the jagged edges on top of them seemed to suggest the once longer blades had violently snapped off some time ago. The Stalker eyed the wreckage, sniffing around looking for its next meal. Not having found anything, it growled angrily before it began to assault the vehicle carcass, its blades easily digging into the metal, destroying it even further.
The two mercenaries inched closer silently, Jerome pulling out his short sword while Alrisha took stock of her arsenal, two semi-automatic CZ 75B pistols, a Model 625 revolver, and her trusty longsword. She took a pistol in each hand when the beast’s thrashing stopped, her heart nearly stopped when it slowly turned to face them with its bloodshot eyes. A blood-curdling scream bellowed out before the Road Stalker began charging at the two mercenaries.
Jerome wasted no time leaping forward positioning himself between the Stalker and Ali. The moment he landed his brown left eye began to glow with energy, a network of charms and enchantments made their presence known looking like luminescent brown circuit board across his entire body; he felt slower but also aware of the massive boost to his strength and defense. The final change was his weapon, gone was the one-handed short sword instead replaced with a massive
zwei-hander as big as the man holding it. From her position behind her love, Ali began unloading bullet after 9 mm bullet at the giant, her extensive training combined with her target’s size meant nearly all the projectiles found their mark on the Road Stalker’s body yet the beast powered through the barrage appearing no worse for wear.
Having closed the distance, The Stalker raised its left blade for an overhead slash, the mercenary swordsman smiled and swung to meet the blade head on. The two blows clashed stopping the other in its tracks, the behemoth’s eyes widened surprised that his prey stopped his attack. It roared and raised his right to swing only to be stopped when pain flared in his side. Ali nodded when the giant reacted to the six hollow point rounds she fired. She began to reload the revolver as the beast changed targets and turned to her.
“Oh no, you don’t!” Jerome shouted as he swung at the distracted Stalker, while it was fast in a straight line, maneuverability was not its strong suit. The blow opened a medium sized cut in the beast’s side. It screeched in anger, refocusing its attention on the swordsman. This exchange went on, Jerome distracting the beast, matching its strength blow for blow, while Alrisha slowly whittled it down from range, should the beast attention shift the swordsman took the opportunity to wound the Road Stalker, bringing its attention back.
The Stalker howled in annoyance, blood leaking from the multiple wounds on his muscular form along with several bony protrusions broken, it lowered itself in preparation for a powerful leap away from the two mercenaries, survival instincts telling it to get away from this losing battle.
“Ali!” The swordsman called. The gunslinger was already moving; she reached for a metal sphere on her waist. It was small enough to comfortably fit in one’s palm, bronze-colored save for three white rectangles evenly spaced horizontally around the sphere’s center. At its top, a single button, beside it was a small dial, three colored indicators placed around the dial, red, blue and white respectively. Ali moved the dial indicator pointing towards the blue option, the rectangles changing to the appropriate color.
“Frozen Metropolis,” Ali announced as she pressed the button just as the behemoth lifted off. For a second space around them twisted in on itself before her vision was covered by a white blizzard. Soon the snow storm abated, Jerome was still standing a ways away from her, the giant however was nowhere to be seen. The gunslinger returned the sphere to its place on her hip, the three rectangles now releasing an azure glow. The Phantasm Engine did its job wonderfully as it always did. The scenery had changed from an abandoned roadway in the middle of the night to a sprawling cityscape in the middle of daylight, except each and every aspect of it looked to be carved from massive chunks of opaque ice.
Jerome marveled at the frozen urban wonderland, no matter how many times he’d seen it, Ali’s “Frozen Metropolis” had a timeless beauty to it, the way the light glinted off the icy structures, the sheer craftsmanship clearly evident in each aspect. He tore his eyes from the frosty marvel to gaze on his fiancé; she looked no worse for wear, if slightly winded. What did change was a pair of transparent angelic wings now attached to her back, a visual clue to her ancestry, just too bad she was unable to fly with those.
“Same plan as before?” Ali asked while reloading her revolver with normal ammunition.
“Yes, lucky for us it’s driven not by Intelligence but by the desire to feed.” Jerome hefted his massive blade onto his shoulders and began walking.
It took less than thirty minutes to find the spot where the Road Stalker had landed, the area completely decimated, chunks of ice scattered everywhere, the glacial architecture all but ruined. From there it was a simple matter of following the trail of destruction. Coming upon a four-way intersection the two mercenaries found the beast currently bashing in a four story commercial building. Jerome had hunted many beasts before, large and small, ordinary to mythical, and to him this behemoth was panicking, panicking big time. It was likely spooked at the abrupt change of scenery, not to mention the likely nocturnal creature being caught in broad daylight.
The swordsman stepped forward again positioning himself to act as a meat shield. He let out a worry as loud as he could, The Stalker froze and turned and rebutted with a bestial roar of its own, again speeding towards the couple and for a second time, Jerome and the Stalker stopped the other’s first strike cold. Alrisha wasted no time and took aim and fired twice as if she was a cowboy straight out the old Wild West. The bullets found their mark, the Stalker’s two eyeballs. The beast staggered back and released a pained howl as it seemed to cry tears of blood.
Even with both its eyes shot out, The Road Stalker trudged forward its other senses sharp enough to compensate. The giant strode forward swinging with wild abandon, Jerome blocked the strikes all the same while getting peppered with shards of ice when the Stalkers attacks went wide and struck the buildings beside them; Ali tried to damage the Stalker but it merely shrugged off the hits it was taking from standard ammunition, so instead she began firing icicles at the beast, they seemed to have a moderate effect, some digging into the flesh but the monster was still going strong despite its injuries.
The beast raised both of its blades high, Jerome instead of blocking chose to back step out of reach of the vertical strike that was his mistake. The blow came down hard on the ground, so hard the tremors radiated outward destabilizing the two mercenaries footing. Sensing the break in its prey’s assault the Road Stalker swung its jagged cleaver right into Jerome, flinging the swordsman into a nearby building. The Stalker breathed in and catching the scent of its other target ahead of him charged.
Seeing her love get batted away like a rag doll made Alrisha freeze in panic, her immediate response was to rush to his side but the thundering footsteps of the very beast who struck him drew closer and closer. She only had time for one move, her guns were pretty much ineffective now reduced to typical ammunition, she could try and fight it in melee range but she was not as hardy as Jerome, one mistake and she was done for. So she used the only thing she had left. The mercenary moved her hands, a shield of ice forming in front of her. Except this was not normal ice, instead of frosty white it was jet black, appropriately called Black Ice, it was a much stronger variant of Ali’s usual frost but it drained her much quicker.
The hulking mass of flesh collided with the darkened frost; while the shield did not break it was launched back colliding with its creator, sending them both down the street with the Stalker following close behind. Ali dispelled the shield and hacked up a ball of blood, her back flat on the ground. She could feel the giant’s footsteps shaking the ground, at the speed it was going the behemoth would be on top of her in a second. Reacting as fast as she could, she covered herself with a dome of Black Ice.
The Stalker approached the dark dome drawn by the sound of its creation then brought down its two cleavers onto the barrier with all its strength. A web of cracks exploded from the point of impact. The beast tried again, this time shattering the icy dome in impact only to find a second smaller version inside. The behemoth growled in annoyance and once again smashed its blades down, the ice creaked as cracks ran through the surface. The smell of blood wafted through the cracks almost immediately entering the Stalkers nostrils. The beast began drooling at the prospect of its future meal and again attacked the protective wall of ice. It shattered apart like its predecessor revealing a surprised Alrisha, shocked that her Black Ice was so quickly destroyed. The Stalker smiled sensing the end to its hunt. It swung its left blade, ready to cleave the woman in half and gorge on her flesh when that very blade clattered to the ground along with the beast’s entire left arm.
The Stalker howled in pain dropping the other blade and clutched the remaining stump. Alrisha turned to see her love beside her, blade ready to swing and a large gash in his side. Without exchanging a word the ice user slammed her palm into the ground tendrils of Black Ice snaking their way under the Road Stalkers feet. Not a moment later, large spikes of ice shot out impaling the Stalkers legs and rendering it immobile. Following up Jerome rushed forward jumping high to deliver a powerful dropkick to the creature’s chest, sending it toppling to the ground. Again black tendrils snaked across the ground this time erupting beneath the Stalker’s shoulders and remaining arm, effectively pinning it to the ground. Jerome walked towards the beast’s head, despite its current state the giant still snarling in defiance trying to free itself.
“The bigger they are, the harder they fall,” Jerome muttered the phrase under his breath. With a deep breath, he raised his
zwei-hander over his head and, with a wet thump, severed the Road Stalker’s boar-like head from its massive body. With that problem finished he walked over to his fiancé,
“You alright Ali?” He asked gently wrapping his arms around her.
“Yeah, a few bruised ribs and pain in my left arm,” she responded and returned the hug. She reached for the Phantasm Engine and pressed the button atop the metal sphere again. Once more the world went white before instantly ret
