Star Force: Trials (SF68) (10 page)

I feel the heat
comin
’
off of the blacktop and it makes me want it more.

Jace
twirled his stun sword as he flicked the power switch
back on, stepping up alongside Sara who had a metallic bar the length of a
doubleblade
sword and linking up with her to form a swords
pair as Greg ran over to group up with the other 7s.

Because I’m hyped up out of control.
If it’s a fight, I’m ready to go
, played as a giant holographic clock appeared over their
heads with 20:00 gleaming in bright blue, then twelve man-sized doors opened up
around the perimeter of the room with bright white light shining out behind
black silhouettes of Arc Knights as they casually walked out together.

I wouldn’t put my money on the other
guy, if you know what I know that I know.

Then a thirteenth door opened up, revealing another silhouette of black
armor with a stun sword…except when this one stepped out into the open his
armor had no golden trim. It was full black.

It’s been a long time coming, and the
table’s turned around. ‘Cause one of us is going down. One of us is going down.

“Fuck,” Morgan said, her ponytail flicking up as she sent out a Jumat pulse
in anticipation as the clock flicked over to 19:59 and started to count down.
“He’s mine. Paul, Jason, help me!” she said as all thirteen of their heavily
armored opposition started running towards the unarmored trailblazers at the
center of the room at Archon speeds, indicating that there was no more
theatrics or holding back. They were going to beat the crap out of them if they
could.

“Don’t get cocky,” Jason warned as they joined Morgan into their personal
battlemeld, forming a trio that jogged towards the juggernaut sprinting towards
their group. Morgan took the lead and came to a halt with Paul and Jason
fanning out to either side as she summoned up a huge Jumat blast and held it
contained in front of her, waiting until he was close, then flicking it towards
him in the hopes that he wouldn’t dodge the invisible Kamehameha.

She caught him with a partial hit, for he was so fast even in armor that he
twirled to his right in a moving sidestep that got exaggerated from the blow.
He got tossed off balance but found his feet easily enough until the trio
forced him to the ground with a Lachka wall that formed over his head and
crushed down on top of him.

That wall melted as he activated his Rentar and jumped up, closing the gap
with them and swinging his
stunsword
down on top of
Morgan as she staggered backward in her casual shoes, which weren’t the best
for quick movements, but Paul yanked her to the side with a Bataf conduit so
that the sword blow missed by about a foot. Vermaire pivoted and went after
Jason but another conduit pushed him clear of the next blow, then Morgan yanked
him towards her in another redirect that left the Black Knight whiffing with
each hit.

There was no way they were going to take down the thirteen of them in
armor, and the countdown clock made it clear that their objective was to
survive until completion…with the Knights doing their best to take out as many
of them as possible and needing only a single hit with a stun sword or gauntlet
to disable them enough to make a quick takedown, even if that blow fell on a
finger or toe.

Vermaire knew this too, so as soon as he saw that this trio was merely
diverting him he made another lunge at Paul as a feint and sprinted through it,
crossing the next twenty meters and coming up on Greg from behind. Rex saw him
coming and threw a Lachka wall at him, which barely slowed him before melting
into nonexistence. Greg was dodging an Arc Knight’s sword at the time and only
had time to accept a Bataf link from another nearby Archon that tried to pull
him away from the Black Knight in time, but failed.

That big stun sword came down on top of Greg’s shield, bathing it in stun
that numbed his arm a bit with the bleed through, but the physical power behind
it knocked the Archon to the ground and a swift boot kick tore the shield from
Greg’s grip. He tried to pull himself free with another Bataf from Rex, but
Vermaire brought a fist down to the ground in an overhead punch that caught him
in the foot as he slid away, numbing his entire lower body.

The next thing Greg knew his momentum stopped as his midsection crumpled in
a telekinetic grip that held him in place just a split second, which was more
than enough for Vermaire to dash forward and smack his sword tip across Greg’s
head, knocking him out instantly.

10

The Black Knight turned and went after
Nik
as a
slew of Lachka fields wrapped him up, but aside from a slight hesitation they
didn’t stop him, for he melted through them all and closed on the Archon
rapidly, jumping up and coming down with an overhead strike as an Arc Knight
stopped
Nik
with his own Lachka grip onto the
Archon’s ankles.

Nik
tripped up and turned it into a somersault to keep his
momentum, then the Black Knight’s sword came down on his back and he was out,
but just as the sword blow fell Paul came flying into the back of the Black
Knight’s legs as Morgan and Jason mutually hurled him towards their target.
Vermaire went down and Paul scurried away, sending a
Saven
flash into his mind to temporarily overload his Ikrid and hopefully distract
him. He could still see with Pefbar, but the locations of all minds around him
would be momentarily lost during the sensory overload.

That and a Bataf yank from Jason got him clear as the Black Knight snapped
around on him with a kick/punch combo just before Morgan got up to him and did
a full Kamehameha into his chest. That was something he couldn’t block with
Rentar and Vermaire went flying through the air as a pair of Arc Knights came
to his aid and went after Morgan…which was a mistake.

She balled up pools of Jumat on her arms and ducked under the first sword slash,
dipping down to the floor then jumping horizontal in a Yetu flash to land her
left palm into the Knight’s abdomen. He went flying off to the left as Morgan
rolled under the other Knight’s sword and quickly reversed her momentum, soon
to do the same thing to him.

Jason and Paul knew they had to stay on the Black Knight at all times or
he’d wreck them all, so they’d followed him through his tumble and added to it
with a few Lachka pushes midair before Bataf yanking Morgan back towards them
like a slingshot. With the help of Mark coming in behind the Black Knight as he
was standing up and hitting him with as strong of a Fornax blast as he could,
Vermaire stuttered ever so slightly, which was just enough of an opening as
they needed.

Both of them yanked on his sword telekinetically, freeing it from his hand
an inch before he grabbed it again…just as Morgan slammed into him as she put a
shoulder into his chest and released another Jumat blast from her own torso.

Mark ducked down and turned himself into a log, catching the Black Knight’s
legs as he flew backwards and using the man’s momentum to flip him head over
heels with Morgan eventually ending up on top of Mark. He telekinetically pushed
her up to her feet so she could keep hammering on Vermaire, but as soon as she
was off him and moving forward an Arc Knight came in and jabbed Mark while he
was still on the ground, cleaning up the bodies that Vermaire was dropping and
taking another Archon out of the equation.

Paul and Jason ripped the sword out of his hand as Morgan hit him, momentarily
disabling his Rentar. Paul let Jason have it, with the Archon immediately
taking off towards the Arc Knight that had downed Mark. They went through a
slew of blows and counterblows, but the Knight was no match for Jason’s skill
with a sword and he slipped a blow in on the man’s upper left hip. The stun
soaked into the armor and did little to slow the giant, but every little bit
made him slower and slower with the small hits adding up and allowing Jason to
make bigger and bigger ones as the other trailblazers covered for him.

It didn’t take long before the Arc Knight went down and Jason
telekinetically kicked the sword out of his hand and into Megan’s as he
delivered one more stun blast into the man’s helmet before running off towards
another Arc Knight…but only a few seconds later this one stirred, his head
clearing as the armor soaked the lingering stun energy up, but he wisely stayed
on the ground until he was ready to fight again. Waiting for the proper moment,
he let one of the Archons get close to him, running away from Vermaire, then he
jumped up and tackled Andy around the left leg, stunning him with his armored
glove and taking him to the ground as Vermaire finished him off with a punch to
the chest.

Then Morgan was on him again, knocking the Black Knight 10 meters away
where he rolled onto a knee and got back up again, not even trying to engage
the top Archon and going for the weaker ones instead as the Arc Knights made
plays to set him up with kills. It was clear to Paul and Jason what they were doing
and it was working, with 8 of the trailblazers already unconscious.

But they had his sword, and two of the others, with the dynamic duo
deciding that’s where they needed to focus their efforts as others helped
Morgan. With Jason taking the lead the pair headed towards the nearest Arc
Knight with a sword and Jason engaged him while Paul used his psionics to
disable or disrupt him enough that Jason didn’t need more than 10 seconds to
take him down…then Paul got his own sword.

Both of them got a prompt from Kai, then after linking him into their
battlemeld he pulled both of them across the room as if they were on skis and
up behind two other Arc Knights that were chasing down a group of 5s. Paul took
the one on the left and Jason the one on the right, with Tyr throwing the
metallic ball he’d brought with him into the back of Jason’s, knocking him
forward and into the sword tip of his opponent. A few more quick disarming
slashes and the trailblazer was able to kick his sword loose, then proceeded to
stun him up enough that he eventually went down.

Tyr let the basketball-sized metallic lump of junk bounce off the Knight
then telekinetically picked it up and threw it towards the other one, but he
saw it coming in time to evade both the ball and Paul’s blade. Tyr stopped it
midair once past the Knight and redirected it back towards him, catching him in
the right leg and knocking him off balance…which was all Paul needed to disarm
him as well.

Then the lucky bastard telekinetically grabbed Paul’s leg and yanked him
towards him, getting a feather’s brush of his armored fingertip on the
trailblazer’s leg.

Paul jabbed the sword down into him multiple times as he fell, his leg
completely missing from his mind’s eye and his head more than a little wobbly.
Someone else yanked him away from the Knight and he gave up his sword to Kerrie
as she swooped in beside him and finished off the Knight, albeit temporarily.

A prompt from Olivia ended up with her dragged Paul across the room and
over to her, where she administered the
destunning
serum a moment before Vermaire got over to them, intent on not letting them
undo the damage inflicted. Morgan reacted instantly, letting others fling her
like a weapon through the air towards him before he could get to Paul…but
that’s just what he wanted. Expecting the attack he turned into it, head down
so that Morgan flew over his head. She battered him into the floor with her
Jumat as she did so, but he got a hand on her and she rolled uncontrollably
when she landed on the ground, now unconscious.

“Damn,” Paul said as his leg returned to working order, then he saw the Arc
Knights all coming towards him and he realized it was Olivia they were after.
“Run!”

Kerrie stepped in front of Paul and flicked him his sword back while
linking with him, then they both grabbed and threw one of the Arc Knights so
fast that he didn’t have a chance to break the Lachka hold. After that she was
off elsewhere and Paul was exchanging blows with another Arc Knight, parrying
each and knowing he could own one of them if he just had a few seconds to work
with, but Vermaire was headed directly for Olivia and two Arc Knights were now
standing guard over Morgan’s body so that no one could wake her up.

Then Rio pulled an insane backdoor move, sneaking up on them using Kgat
until he was so close that he Yetu jumped the last few meters in between both
of them, stepping on Morgan’s bare abdomen in the process but knowing she
wouldn’t care afterwards. With only a moment to use before they twisted around
and took him out, he surged his Lachka as quick and as forceful as possible,
forming two ‘crash bags’ and expanding them off of each of his hands as he
touched the armor on both Knights.

The result from Brad’s perspective was a sneak jump in on top of Morgan
with Rio blowing both of them off and away from her, then pushing her body even
further away. Brad grabbed it with a Lachka hold and dragged her over to him
where he got hold of her wrist and picked her up, running her across the room
to a safer area where the ‘hot potato’ of the
destunning
serum was eventually going to end up as the Archons passed it from person to
person after Olivia chucked it away just prior to going down.

Rio took three sprinting steps away from the Knights as others with swords
came in to counter them then he froze, not because of anyone doing something to
him, but because of what was happening inside him. It took him a moment of
hesitation to be sure, then he was suddenly knocked to the side by Scott as
another Arc Knight lunged for him with his stun gauntlets.

“What’s wrong?” Scott asked, grabbing him by the shoulder and pulling him
away as others intervened seeing that Rio wasn’t fighting anymore.

“Ascension trigger,” Rio said, fighting a huge surge of instability that
made him trip once and Scott had to catch him again.

It took all of a tenth of a second for Scott to realize what was happening,
for all of the trailblazers had shared all of the known triggers, meaning that
whatever Rio was getting was going to be a new ability and they couldn’t
squander that, so he pulled him into a telekinetic hold just above the ground
and moved him like an anti-
grav
cargo crate away from
the center of the room.

Seeing an opportunity to down a weakened opponent, an Arc Knight shot after
them at full sprint with Scott putting out a mental ‘help’ call to all the
Archons along with a priority marker on Rio. Within 3 seconds four bodies flew
across the room to hit the Arc Knight. He stunned one of them, but the others
knocked him down and away from Rio, trusting in Scott’s judgement even though
they didn’t know what was going on just yet, though that would change shortly
as he transmitted to everyone in the room what was happening.

The Black Knight stopped instantly, raising an arm and calling off the Arc
Knights. The trailblazers stopped when he did, then Vermaire ran over to Rio,
pulling off his helmet mid sprint. Scott stepped aside as Rio was kneeling on
the ground trying to focus on the instability, letting Vermaire get to him. The
giant pulled the tiny
biomonitor
off his own forehead
and put it on Rio, then stepped back and watched.

“I could use some help,” Rio asked. “This is worse than I’ve ever had.”

“I’ve got you buddy,” Scott said, grabbing his wrist and linking to him
mentally and feeling the huge storm surging throughout his entire body, meaning
this was going to be tissue growth in more than just his brain and those were
always the nastiest ascensions to go through. He gave Rio a firm point to
center himself on and he felt Rio latch onto it desperately. He needed to let
this go and try again the next time it manifested, but there was no way the
trailblazer was going to let a brand new trigger get away, for there was no way
to know when or if it would come again.

“Hang on to it,” Kerrie pressed, with Scott transmitting to all of them so
they knew what was happening internally. “3 red.”

“Oh this is going to hurt,” Rio said as it bumped up to 4 red and he laid
himself down flat on the floor in anticipation. 18 seconds later it went to 4
flashing red and the pain of tissue growth suddenly exploded inside of him.

He yelled, both mentally and verbally, suffering through an insanely
painful 8 seconds before he went limp and nearly passed out.

“You got it,” Scott said, trying to numb up some of the residual pain for
him as well as clear the whirlwind from his mind. “Easy now,” he said, looking
up at the others. “He is cooked head to toe.”

“Worth,” Vermaire said, pointing to the wall that opened up with a doorway.
“Challenge over. We’ll call it a draw, but it looks like we all just won a new
ability.”

“Well said,” Jason agreed as Scott picked up and carried Rio towards the
exit, then he looked up at
Vermaire’s
helmetless
head. “So whose brilliant idea was all of this?”

“You needed a real challenge. It was Wilson’s plan, though I made a few
suggestions.”

“I’ll bet you did,” Morgan said, walking up behind them with a slight limp
after getting
destunned
and still having a few pins
and needles working through her right leg.

Vermaire raised an eyebrow and looked at her standing there in her
underwear, as were several of the others. “For what it’s worth, he never
expected you to be able to get through the swarms on your own. That was
supposed to be something all of you had to work together to defeat, which was
why he amped it up so much.”

“You saw?”

Vermaire nodded. “I didn’t think you could sustain the effort that long.”

“Was this the end of the challenge, or did we have something more to do?”

The Black Knight looked up at the clock that had 1:32 remaining. “This was
to be your finish line, though you weren’t going to get there. I had you down.
The rest were just a matter of time.”