Stormblade 4 C41: Workshop (2)

41 - Workshop (2)

The Steam Hulk’s shoulders shoved brass and portal metal aside with a horrific screech as we burst into action. All six of us fanned out, forming two wide, spread-out ranks. Bernard’s shield lit up with dozens of blue hexagons, a mirror of Jeff’s Split-Second Shield. He thundered straight toward the massive, gorilla-shaped machine as its eyes locked on him. To the flanks, the Portal Tyrant and I dashed in, hammer and sword flashing.

Against the Hulk, we might as well have been flies.

My Rain-Soaked Blade lashed out in a perfect lunge, all my weight and A-Rank strength behind it. The blade sank into the machine’s brass arm all the way to the hilt, but its tip didn’t erupt out the other side, and the S-Ranked automaton didn’t even react except to flail its arm upward, flinging me toward the ceiling. The Portal Tyrant’s hammer rang its other shoulder like a bell, but the Hulk didn’t even turn to face him.

It finished ripping its way into the room, and its massive knuckles dented the brass floor as it thundered toward Bernard the Wall. Arrows rained down on it as the Falcon’s Eye used a skill to duplicate his attacks. None of them so much as pierced the thing’s armor.

Both fists shimmered. A coat of superheated water covered them, and they slammed down onto the hexagon wall as I rolled and recovered off to the side. The magic barrier shattered. Bernard’s portal metal shield shook and gouged two jagged lines into the ground as the blow forced him back. A gout of superheated flame washed over the Steam Hulk from the back line.

“Watch out!” Sarah called.

Lines of steam shot from the metal gorilla’s two shoulders. They cut through the air, slicing into the Phoenix Reborn and splattering blood across the room behind him. Sarah was already moving even before Nathan hit the ground, healing magic forming around her, but the blasts ripped toward them in a second pass, and she leaped aside, then rolled in behind it. “Keep that thing off me! I’ve got work to do!”

I nodded. “Got it!”

Nimbus Edge erupted in my hand. I stayed in Thunderbolt Forms’ one-handed stance; the extra power from a second hand wouldn’t matter against this thing’s armor. But my eyes locked onto the Steam Hulk’s chest—and the thick, heavy plate of armor protecting it. Behind it was the machine’s core. That had to be what the Craftsman had added to bring the S-Ranked monstrosity to life.

The moment I locked in on it, though, a wall of steam billowed out of vents in the automaton’s sides, filling the room with burning-hot vapor that cooled almost instantly and formed an inch-thick puddle across the entire empty space. When it cleared, a shield just like Bernard’s and Jeff’s hung across the thing’s chest like a breastplate.

“It’s reacting before we even move!” I shouted.

Terrel’s hammer thumped against the monster’s armor again. He backed off; dozens of dents covered its right flank, but he hadn’t made it through. “Thoughts!?”

“I got nothing,” Sarah called back. “Just buy me time!”

My sword-arm lashed out. A massive fist tore the air, coming down and shredding the brass floor with fast-moving channels of water across its knuckles. It blocked my attack; I shifted to Mistwalk Forms and tucked my body in behind my blade. The next hammer-blow of a punch came in from the right. I blocked it, but it still pushed me off-balance, and I barely ducked a follow-up that would have taken my head off.

This wasn’t like fighting a normal enemy—not even an S-Ranked one. The closest I’d gotten to this kind of dance, with these kinds of consequences, was my fight with Deborah. She’d been this fast, but not nearly this strong—and her attacks were more delayed, with a clear tell.

Against the Steam Hulk, every blow was more than I could handle.

Bernard’s shield lit up again, and the next two impacts cracked against it instead of Nimbus Edge or the floor around me. I used the second delay to move, rotating to try getting behind the Steam Hulk. It let me, but one of the steam emitters on its shoulder followed me. That gouged a line across the brass floor, then hit the Stormsteel pauldron on my armor. The maelstrom inside sucked up the steam greedily, growing weaker by the instant as it did, but the blast didn’t rip my arm off at the shoulder, and I dove toward the monster.

“Idea!” the Falcon’s Eye called from the far side of the room. I ripped Nimbus Edge across the Hulk’s thinner back legs, to even less effect than Rain-Soaked Blade had bought me on its front. The Portal Tyrant’s hammer kept up its rhythm of slamming, smashing blows, and Bernard kept retreating, step by step.

“What?” Sarah asked.

Another arrow hit the automaton dead center; the machine’s magical shield took the blow instead of its armor, flickering for a split second. Hugo nocked and loosed two more times. The arrows ricocheted off the hulk’s armor, and he spat. “Little door here. We open it with Terrel’s hammer and keep moving. Buy us time to get a good hit in!”

“Sure, do it! Terrel, you’re first!”

The Portal Tyrant turned, hammer mid-swing, and rocketed toward the door almost faster than I could follow. His hammer slammed against it three times in less than a second, and the brass hinges gave. It ricocheted around the room beyond, just like the Falcon’s Eye’s arrows had off the gorilla’s metal body. “Clear to enter!”

“Go!” Sarah called. She lifted the Phoenix Reborn’s body over her shoulder, slapped him when he tried to reform into a firebird, and ducked in behind the Portal Tyrant. Hugo Martinez followed, still firing.

“Kid, go! I’ll bring up the rear,” Bernard the Wall shouted.

I went. But as I slipped through the door, I threw a Stormfire Lance into the gigantic monster’s body. The lightning spear ripped into its armor, and it started burning.

I grinned, then kept retreating as Bernard backed through the door.

It was something.

◄▼►

The room wasn’t empty.

Dozens of A-Rank Steamsmiths were swarming Terrel, whose hammer rang almost in time with theirs as they fought. The brass machines were almost nothing but hammer, in fact; their bodies were little more than tension-based propulsion for the thick, heavy mallets they were built around, and they’d succeeded in breaking something in one of the Portal Tyrant’s arms.

I switched to Thunderbolt stance and fired off a pair of Cutting Storms, one after the other, and half of the A-Rank monsters fell. Whatever they were, they weren’t as tough as the typical, battle-line A-Rank monsters I’d been fighting.

That didn’t make them weak, though.

And the Steam Hulk’s massive fists were already wrenching the wall between the chambers open, tearing the doorframe wider by the second.

I went into mop-up mode. Nimbus Edge flashed, and lightning ripped across the room. Terrel Young’s hammer kept singing. Arrows whipped inches from my head as the Falcon’s Eye opened up on the Steam Hulk, firing as quickly as he could in an attempt to slip a shot into the monster’s core.

No luck. Every shot either slammed into the hex-shield armor or bounced harmlessly off the brass plates.

But we did clear the room, and unlike the first one, this one had something we could use.

“Try luring it into that,” I said, pointing my sword at the gigantic vat of molten brass in the corner. The Steamsmiths had been casting hundreds of parts, and the liquid metal was just sitting there, waiting to be used.

The wall tore apart, and the brass gorilla’s fists slammed into Bernard’s shield just like before.

This time, though, Bernard pushed back, side-stepping to the left. And, even better, the monster turned with him.

I piled in. Cyclone Forms. Darkness over the vat. Polarity Shift with Rolling Thunder. The combo built, then broke in a massive spike of lightning that rippled and arced across the Steam Hulk’s body.

And in that moment, a whirlwind of fire erupted along the monster’s left side, and Terrel Young’s hammer slammed into its right.

The Steam Hulk staggered for the first time. Bernard noticed. He threw his shoulder into the back of his shield and shoved. For a long time, the Steam Hulk looked like it was going to recover. Then it tipped, stumbled, and put a fist right into the Darkness.

There was nothing under the Darkness but molten brass, and the monster followed its arm into the vat. Steam erupted from it in a massive column that reached all the way to the ceiling, then spread out across it. Then it died down.

“Did we win?” Nathan Anders asked blearily.

“I think so,” I said. Then I paused. “Or not.”

A new sound filled the room, and I braced myself. It sounded like boiling water—or boiling syrup. Too thick for water. I took one step toward the molten brass tank, which had overflowed and hardened in a dome like a metal volcano. Then I leaped back as a massive arm exploded from the tank and gripped the edge, and the Steam Hulk pulled itself up and out.

◄▼►

Angelo’s body was burning.

His defensive spells had collapsed, and his internal temperature was redlining as he pushed his build far, far beyond what it should have been capable of surviving. Meltdown had been achieved, and the desert around him was a solid sheet of glass three feet thick—except where it was still molten from his most recent barrage of Fusion explosions. He’d isolated himself in a field of radiation that rippled outward for a solid mile in every direction.

The Texas and West Coast S-Rankers had tried to help, and he couldn’t have that. The plan was far too important. They needed to pull back to Carlsbad Fortress and hold it. If everything went according to plan, the portal would shut down, and they’d be able to push in and clear the monstrous brass machines out.

His job was to buy time for that to happen, and he’d succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. The sheets of glass around him were tainted by lines of molten brass that ran through them, and the stench of burning silk filled the dome that covered everything from the fortress to the caverns. He hadn’t used all his power on his opponent, and the leftovers had been enough to force the portal to keep its attention on him.

Speaking of which…

“You’re not paying attention, Light of Dawn,” a familiar voice taunted.

His attention snapped back to his fight, but it was too late. Another deep, bleeding wound opened across his tattered suit’s sleeve. Deborah Callahan was taunting. “You only ever taunted when you believed you were winning, Deborah.”

“I don’t believe shit. I am winning.”

The sword and shield blurred as it sliced through radiation-filled air, and Angelo backpedaled. “You believe you are winning. But you have believed that in the past, and it hasn’t played out that way, has it?”

“Shut up!” Deborah dashed at him, sword coming down, and Angelo’s power ripped across her. Her body heaved from the force, and bile filled her metal-tasting mouth. It wouldn’t be enough, though; the monsters inside the portal had made her armor well, and she hadn’t faltered despite his best efforts.

Angelo took a breath as the former Roadrunner dashed toward him. Then he sidestepped. “I told you, this will not play out how you expect it to.”

“I’m more powerful than you’ll ever be! I made a deal with a monster, just like that fucking kid! You can’t beat me!” The sword shot toward him in a wide arc, and the shield swung in from the other side.

Angelo smiled as the blow hit him, and his Supercritical Demon Core shut down.

◄▼►

Deborah’s body was burning.

She’d fought harder, and she’d been hurt worse, but she couldn’t remember a single fight even close to as brutal as the one she’d just won. Her armor flaked away in massive sheets of brass and portal metal as the Light of Dawn’s radiation rippled across it, and every inch of skin was sunburnt even through the thick metal. Her muscles screamed, too. They’d been fighting for hours.

But she’d won.

She stood over his body.

In a field of half-molten glass, the stink of its radioactive cooling rising all around her, she stood victorious. The insults. The terror. All of it, in the years since Wickenberg. She’d wanted nothing but to be his servant, and he’d denied her at every turn. Even when she was strong enough, she wasn’t controlled enough. Wasn’t disciplined enough. Wasn’t responsible enough. It was always something.

Deborah had been scared of Angelo Lawrence even to the end. But she’d hated him even more than that—and now, she was the stronger of the two.

“So much for your trials, old man,” she said. Her sword slid into its scabbard, she hung her shield on the armor’s broad back, and her eyes washed over the rippling desert around her and the fortress in the distance. With Angelo fucking Lawrence dead, there was nothing stopping her from conquering it, and Phoenix, in the name of her new patron. And from there…

No, there was one thing. One thing she had to take care of before she did anything else.

The kid.

Kade Noelstra. He was out there somewhere. Deborah’s mind spun; if he’d been on the battlefield, she’d have noticed him. There was only one man Deborah hated more than Angelo Lawrence—the one who’d humiliated her in front of the entire city of Phoenix.

And…

Where was Angelo’s healer? Where were the other guild leaders? They hadn’t made an appearance. Something was wrong.

“Fuck.”

Deborah’s sword flashed into her hand again, and she whirled on one peeling, decaying sabaton and sprinted south, toward the Carlsbad portal. If she was wrong, it’d be a minor setback.

But if she was right, it was up to her to stop the so-called ‘Unbroken Storm’ and the other S-rankers from ruining everything.