Stormblade 4 C36: Hellfire (1)
I forgot to give this to free Patreon readers yesterday! Sorry!
36 - Hellfire (1)
When the battle started, Angelo Lawrence wasn’t with the other Phoenix delvers.
Instead, he stood a hundred yards in front of the West Coast force, directly between them and the Carlsbad portal break. His eyes panned across the glassed desert. In some places, it was cracked from massive footsteps or scratched to a dull gray by sand or traffic—or both. In others, the glass was thicker, reflecting the late summer light into the boiling air. The entire chosen battlefield shimmered from the heat.
The Light of Dawn was here for a few strategic reasons, and one personal one.
First, he was a known quantity. Only a handful of the Carlsbad Fortress delvers had been in contact with the portal’s monsters for longer than he had, and none of them had made quite the same impression as him. The boss inside knew what he was capable of, and it had no choice but to try to remove Angelo Lawrence from the battlefield. His presence was a challenge that had to be answered, like a queen in the center of a chessboard.
He was also more well-suited to fighting in the open desert than in Carlsbad’s streets. That was a well-known fact, and one he couldn’t have argued, no matter what he tried. He didn’t even attempt to override Councilwoman Harriet Myers’s plan in that regard.
And, more importantly than anything else, he’d demanded this.
The Light of Dawn and Depth of Midnight insisted on it. He wanted to shut down the portal break that had threatened his city and guild for so long. He wanted to go back to dealing with A-Rank portals, with a dedicated strike team.
But mostly, he wanted to inflict incredible, immeasurable violence.
“Attention, Texas and West Coast, this is the Light of Dawn. The first portal monsters have appeared. They are approaching the glass,” he said into a radio. “I am beginning a full-power barrage. Use whatever defenses you deem necessary to survive the friendly fire. Phoenix, begin your assault. Nothing will get through.”
“Copy that,” Harriet’s voice came in scratchy over the radio. “Strike team, launch.”
Angelo closed his eyes.
Fission. His core started to roil as massive energy built up inside him. He poured a tiny fraction of that Mana into defensive spells—ones aimed inward, not outward, to contain what was about to happen—and let the rest boil inside of the shields and barriers. His knuckles strained as he gripped his palms. This would be enough—as an opener.
The Light of Dawn didn’t want an opener, though.
He wanted to kill, and destroy, and take revenge.
He activated his Unique skill. Demon Core. The light around him collapsed inward as his core stopped containing energy and began absorbing it instead. The Demon Core hungered. In seconds, midnight fell on the desert. It lasted almost twelve seconds this time; Angelo was many things, and this was a situation where patience paid off.
The Demon Core opened as it vibrated inside him, and radiation surged out of it. He applied Power Plant and Supercritical.
His defensive spells began burning out, and he poured the excess Mana the reaction was dumping into his body into refreshing and reinforcing them. This time, he didn’t bother dumping it into explosions. His core strained.
He activated his fifth skill.
Fusion.
Everything ended.
The reactions stopped.
And a rippling series of mushroom clouds shattered the glass in front of Angelo Lawrence, then melted it into brand new shapes as it flew through the air and dripped onto the ground below, decorating the desert like the art exhibit at the botanical gardens that he was so fond of.
◄▼►
The Craftsman had been busy.
Ever since his failure at the city in the desert and the destruction of his latest prototype, he’d been hard at work upgrading his designs. There had been two elements he’d neglected in his compulsion to defeat the atom mage, and his constructs had paid for that hyperfocus.
The first was shadow.
The second was lightning.
Both of those had caused incredible problems to his automatons—especially to his Brass Titan. He’d built it to defeat the known quantities defending the city, not to handle lightning. That had been, in retrospect, a mistake.
But instead of punishing him, the Placid King had given him a new toy.
She’d been incomplete. A weak, fleshy body that reminded him of his own, so long ago. Before he’d perfected himself. Pathetic, despite her rank rivaling his. How could she consider herself his equal? She wore armor. He was armor.
They debated the nature of perfection, and of power. It got…heated. A small part of him enjoyed the conversation. She was the first sentient being to enter his Workshop in a long, long time. Even when their discussions turned violent, it was refreshing.
In a small way.
The rest of him despised her weakness. Her imperfections. She wouldn’t submit to perfection, though, and after days of fighting, the Craftsman stopped trying to convert her. Just like his family, she didn’t understand. Perfection was worth the sacrifice. It had been so when he’d sacrificed them at its altar. It would be so for her, too.
Instead of perfection, though, she demanded half-measures.
Fine. If the woman wanted to go halfway, he’d oblige. The first step was the hardest.
It took two days.
First, he built the absorptive layer. It was silk—layered silk, almost an inch thick, with thinner spots at the joints so she could still move. When he’d finished the first layer, he encased her within it like a spider with a fly. Then the first layers of brass bolted into place. They were frameworks around those same joints, with thick mail layers stretched between them.
The woman waited patiently as the Craftsman gradually built his latest masterpiece around her muscular, powerful, weak body. It wasn’t the same as steam and silk and magic, but it was enough to move the armor—and then some. As the brass plates bolted onto the metal framework and silk straps tightened to lock them into place, the woman who’d called herself Deborah Callahan disappeared beneath the armor.
The Craftsman forgot her name almost immediately. It wasn’t relevant. When he was done, all that was left beneath half a ton of brass and silk was the Warmaiden.
“Warmaiden,” his voice cracked from tangled vocal strands. “Warmaiden, your enemies are outside. Will you let them besiege you, or will you go fight?”
The brass helmet shifted slightly. Anyone else wouldn’t have noticed the hulking mass’s twitch. But the Craftsman wasn’t anyone else. He was a god in this world, its creator—her creator. The Warmaiden was no longer a gift from the Placid King. He’d rebuilt her. She was better than before. Faster. More powerful. Tougher.
She was as close to perfect as she could get while still flesh.
Her head moved again. No voice came out. That was the way the Craftsman liked his portal world, though the woman had been a talker and would be again. Silent except for his tools.
“Very well, Warmaiden. Go now. End this farce.”
◄▼►
Out in the desert, Angelo Lawrence pushed himself to ninety-five percent, then ninety-six.
Spells, arrows, and crossbow bolts rained down in front of him. The delvers to his back were engaging anything that survived his kill zone. That wasn’t the only reason he was still holding anything back, though.
He rippled another three explosions across the desert, forming another three inverted domes of glass as the sand kicked up, melted, and solidified in the span of a few seconds. Inside, his Demon Core burned brightly, and Fusion continued to run unchecked. He had more to give.
But there weren’t more targets.
Only one in a hundred of the B and A-Ranked monsters arrayed against him survived the hellstorm, and those found themselves outnumbered by the archers and mages Texas and the West Coast had brought to bear. It was too easy. There weren’t enough targets. The force they’d brought could almost certainly push to the mouth of Carlsbad Caverns right now, and that was without the Phoenix contingent. They’d probably entered the fortress by now, though.
Whatever was going on, it felt wrong.
Where were the S-Rank monsters?
This was the same portal that had pushed Angelo Lawrenceall the way to a meltdown twice. The same portal that had besieged Phoenix, then broken the 303 Wall. There was no way it had expended so much of its firepower that it couldn’t even rally a proper defense.
Once portals broke, they rarely gave up access easily. Portal monsters were driven by the need to kill, yes. But they had a single, secondary instinct that was universal: the overwhelming compulsion to protect their portal’s boss. To continue existing—as a portal, if not as an individual.
The current defense, if it didn’t firm up, would break without the strike force getting involved. Angelo couldn’t see the helicopter. It was circling well over his expected damage range and far to the south. But if this was the best the portal could—
He jerked back instinctively.
The reflex saved his life. Blood poured from a slash to his cheek; if he’d been any slower, it would have caught his neck, and with Fusion running, he might have lost control of the Demon Core. He ended up in the dirt, on his knees and one hand. His battle robes were filth-covered and blood-soaked, and the suit below would need dry cleaning when this was done.
An armored hulk stood in front of him, a long, brass sword with serrated edges and a double-guard in one hand and a round shield that hummed with magic in the other. Her armor shone gold in the half-dozen suns rising behind her and the one slowly setting to her left. It was almost Valkyrie-like. Vaguely feminine, in a twisted way. Under the brass plates were layers of chain, and under that was silk. The full helm covered the woman’s entire face, obscuring her identity completely.
But Angelo knew exactly who it was. “Hello, Deborah. I see you have failed to answer the question of responsibility correctly. That is a shame.”
Before she could reply, he let the Fusion reaction run full-bore and brought his full, one hundred percent power to bear on the woman who’d been his second command and bodyguard.
◄▼►
Deborah Callahan hadn’t submitted to the Craftsman’s will.
She hadn’t even submitted to the will of the Placid King, except inasmuch as he’d forced her to remain calm and collected with his aura.
She’d never serve again. Never bow to a superior. She was S-Rank now—one of the top fraction of a percent of the most powerful beings on Earth. The armor she wore was supposed to be her prison. The Craftsman had made that clear when he’d sealed her inside of it. But it wasn’t a cell. It was a weapon, just like any other—a vehicle for her fury.
The Placid King’s gifts were just that—gifts. She owed him nothing. How could she? She hadn’t promised him anything, not with any intent to deliver. Deborah Callahan wouldn’t even bow to the SS-Plus-Ranked Paragon who’d given her the gift she’d always wanted.
She’d come too far.
Failure was no longer an option for Deborah Callahan. She’d gotten too far to turn back now. Done too much digging. Turned over too many stones the rest of humanity refused to check under. Only one person could rival her potential now. She was on the path to whatever came beyond S-Rank.
And she’d kill Kade Noelstra soon. After she ended Angelo Lawrence’s life.
It wasn’t about the fear she’d had the first time she’d encountered him. It wasn’t about the rejections as she’d climbed the Roadrunners’ ranks, or the humiliation when he told her she was a fool and an idiot for her fight in the GC building’s sparring room. It wasn’t even about the careful plans he’d dismantled.
The old man in front of her was the past, and she was the future. That was all that mattered.
It was time for the ascension of Deborah Callahan. Her revenge on the Light of Dawn came first. After that? Kade Noelstra, the Governing Council. Terrance. Councilwoman Harriet Myers. Carter Richards. The list went on and on.
She raised her sword and shield and squared off against Angelo Lawrence.
◄▼►
Ellen’s arms shook as she lay on the bench, back arched and legs bent under her. The barbell wasn’t bent quite as far as her back, but it had a very noticeable warp to it from the four hundred pounds on each side. Her shoulders and biceps screamed in agony as she slowly pushed the weights off her chest and upward. Jeff’s knuckled left her chest as they moved up with the weight, providing a catch but no help.
She could do more, but without tapping into her core for more Stamina, this was close to her max—and she didn’t want to risk setting herself back.
“Twenty,” she hissed through gritted teeth. “Done.”
“Good job. You sure this isn’t hurting your core at all? You’ve been in here every day—sometimes two or three times a day,” Jeff asked.
She shook her head and pulled the scrunchie out of her hair, letting it fall loose. Sweat dripped from her pits and covered her forehead. It stung her eyes, and she could taste it on her lips. “No. This is fine.”
“You say so,” he said doubtfully.
“I have to do something to stay ready. At some point, I’ll either heal or let Kade’s sponsor break and rebuild my core. When that happens, I need to be ready to catch up.”
“Just, don’t kill yourself doing it, okay? And keep texting me when you need a spot.” Jeff headed for the dumbbells to start his own workout. He wasn’t going as hard, and he wouldn’t need a spot at all.
“You got it.” Ellen hobbled to the elevator and rode it up to the top floor, then showered quickly to rinse off the sweat. Her hair dried quickly, and she spent ten glorious minutes braiding it into one long tail that rested on her shoulder and hung down to her stomach.
Then she flicked on the TV.
It stayed on all of fifteen seconds before she turned it off, a lump in her throat that only grew by the second.
Today was the day. Kade would be entering Carlsbad Caverns soon. And after that, the portal. Whatever happened in there, he’d come out different—stronger, more powerful, and ahead of her. The braid hung over her shoulder as she slowly undid it, then re-braided it on the other side, all while she stared at the black TV.
Kade Noelstra had a promise to keep. He’d do it—or he’d die trying.
And it was the second part that worried Eleanor Traynor.