Mask of Humanity

‘The paintbrush is there,’ Nicolai told Beth over Link, indicating the spot, keeping his eyes on the two armoured knights across from them. ‘These things are very hard to kill, but that’s not our goal. We get the paintbrush, we get out, and we win.’

His Node was near empty, and he reached out a hand as he spoke, his rapier which was only a second from losing its charge snapping back toward him. He sheathed it and pulled two crystals, drawing on them to refill his Node, just before it reached empty and ceased sending Oma to his unfinished lung Nodes. He needed to keep supplying Oma to those, then recharge his shield and keep the Blue Hornet charging up as his first priorities, and lastly the rapier.

Meanwhile, Beth slotted fresh rounds into her shotgun, and there burned a bright fire on her arm. It moved over her body along with the movements of her Soul Sense, ran down her leg and out onto the floor. A faint rustling was audible as it crawled rapidly over the stone, drawing a half-circle as it streaked left and right in front of her.

She nodded. ‘Got it.’

Nicolai had finished recharging his shield and he reached a hand for his rapier, but across from them the one with the greatsword was hefting its weapon, and its legs began to shimmer. ‘That one’s mine,’ he told Beth, while warning her of its imminent attack.

Nicolai had no time to charge his rapier, forced to dash forwards in time to meet the rush of knight, getting between it and Beth as it swung its greatsword in a great humming blur. He intercepted the blow it aimed at her, knocking it upwards in a crash and blast of Oma and metal. Forced to take it more fully on, the blow smashed his shield in a single hit, even as the sword was deflected away.

He drew in close before the Cultivator could recover and strike again, pressing close enough that it couldn’t use the sword, shoving Oma into his shield to recharge it.

The undead Cultivator was beginning to raise its sword into position when it realised he’d be on it before it could complete the move, and instead it released the blade with one hand to punch at him. Not a bad strike; decent form, and the undead was faster than a regular human. This knight was pretty good.

But “pretty good” wasn’t good enough, not against him. Nicolai ducked his head aside so the fist slipped by him, and he lanced out in a counter punch with his hand-talon extended, looking to cut one of the straps on its helmet. It twisted aside and the strike glanced off, but Nicolai kept close and the pressure up.

His Soul Sense was slamming and slicing at the undead’s own in the meantime, but he wasn’t having the quick success of last time; without the rapier, he and the undead were more evenly matched. Nicolai was a quick learner, but he could tell the undead had been using Soul Sense a long time. It employed tricks he and Beth hadn’t thought up. He observed them closely, soaking it all in like a sponge, and where its experience outclassed him, raw talent, prediction, and slipperiness gave him enough of an edge to hold his own.

But he needed more than that, if he wanted to bring this fight to a close. He’d need to buy himself a moment to charge the rapier, which was difficult when he was forced to keep the undead under pressure lest it start swinging that sword around again.

He feinted with the hand talon, and the undead raised its arms to block. That left it open to the powerful kick he slammed into its armoured side. But where he’d hoped to knock it to the ground and buy himself the necessary moment, he merely made it stumble. It had some weight to it, and it was strong. Nothing like the weaker undead he was used to smashing apart with ease.

Nicolai moved quick as it attempted to use the distance to bring its sword to bear. He went low and shoulder barged into it at the midsection. As he bulled it back he took a heavy thump from one of its gauntleted hands to his back. It broke something. A sudden snapping sensation, a moment of numbness, then his body realised it was hurt and sent the appropriate pain signals.

The pain only fed more fuel to what was growing within Nicolai. The thrill was climbing through him, writhing and burning, and the world was shifting around him.

He let out a happy shout as he set his legs and shoved forward, hurling it away. The undead tumbled and clattered onto the ground, dropping its sword. It was quick to right itself, drawing a dagger from its hip as it raised its limbs like an upside-down turtle, ready to defend.

Nicolai put one hand to the pommel of his sheathed rapier, and the other into a pouch where he touched on an Oma crystal, and he pulled-and-sent powerfully, Oma streaming through his body, charging and recharging.

Threat Analysis had been utilising his Soul Sense and the two drones in the room to keep an eye on Beth and the other undead. She was having a difficult time. Where Nicolai could just about match his opponent in Soul Sense, she was found wanting by her own opponent.

On top of that, where his opponent had a method of launching itself a distance, which it seemed to struggle to use in the middle of combat, her undead had a different Art available. It threw regular blasts of force at her, and it was able to redirect these blasts after launching them with its Soul Sense. Beth was forced into a defensive position, using her Soul Sense tendril to clash with its own and disrupt its attempts to guide the blasts right into her.

But, struggling to match its Soul Sense, Beth’s work to disrupt the attacks were turning increasingly feeble, and its blasts were drawing closer and closer. There was also the fact that those blasts, even unguided, were still being aimed. They moved quite slowly, but a single wrong move would get her into trouble. She was forced to run and duck and dodge, and was entirely unable to use her Crawling Fire as she needed her Soul Sense to send it out, and the undead outranged her with its force blasts.

The two had drawn close enough to Nicolai that his own Soul Sense was almost in range of them. Lightning ran up and down his arm, and a pulse rang through him from the Blue Hornet. The Blue Lightning was finally charged.

He dove at the undead he’d knocked to the ground, as though intending to fall on it and grapple. It did as he’d expected, kicking at him with one of its heavy, metal-covered legs.

Nicolai skittered back at the last moment, and the Blue Lightning crawled down his arm as he grabbed its foot and held tight. He immediately felt the undead, now close enough for Soul-on-Soul contact. With that, he no longer needed to break its Soul Sense to mark it for the Blue Lightning; he could apply the mark directly, and he did so.

The Blue Lightning vented in a screaming blur down his arm and onto the undead, sending jagged, zig-zagging lines of crackling light shrieking its armour. It spasmed and shook, limbs seizing up as the lightning wracked its body. Nicolai immediately poured more Oma into the Blue Hornet, starting the process of charging up another strike, and reached for another Oma crystal. All the Imbued and Symbiotes he was using were rapidly depleting his Node.

Before he even turned away from the stunned undead, he was seeing the situation with Beth was about to go bad, using his Soul Sense and Threat Analysis to maintain awareness of it.

Her Soul Sense had been broken, and the undead facing her raised its arm and sent a blast of force out at her. She turned to run away, looking to get out of its range, but he knew she wouldn’t be fast enough.

With a flick of his finger the now fully charged rapier slipped out of its sheath to hover beside him, and he darted towards them, legs pumping as he closed the gap between himself and the undead, his Soul Sense reaching out before him, the rapier shooting out with it at the tip.

He caught the undead’s Soul Sense tendril as the force blast was halfway to Beth, and a single slice from his rapier bisected the tendril, the severed piece turning into a cloud of Soul Sense that flowed back toward the undead.

Now unguided, and with Beth veering to the left—as he’d told her to do—the force blast passed her by.

He could feel Beth’s anger as she joined him, and as they pressed the undead together. The rapier was very effective. The undead became unable to guide its force blasts as he simply severed its tendril every time, and fell back into simply firing unguided blasts. It did still aim these when it launched them, however, and managed to hold him and Beth back.

For a time. They could strike from a distance with Soul Sense, and two on one, with the addition of the rapier, they overwhelmed it rapidly.

‘Burn you piece of shit!’ Beth crowed as with the breaking of its Soul Sense, she sent her Crawling Fire out and it leapt at the undead, catching it in the head. It poured through the eyeholes in the undead’s helmet and smoke and fire roared out a moment after. The undead staggered, dropped its weapon, put its hands to its head and wrenched at its helmet, but it was too late.

It toppled to the ground and blue light vented along with smoke.

The thrill pulsed with its own burning satisfaction within him, and Nicolai grinned and drank at the sweet air. ‘Get the paintbrush, over there,’ he told her. She nodded and moved off. As she began to move off, he looked to the undead he’d hit with lightning. It was was recovering from its stunning and struggling to find its feet. He started moving towards the downed undead, intent on its Imbued.

However, at this moment he saw a large number of undead pouring toward the tower outside, through one of the drones posted there, and received panicked communications from the others. They were still holding the gatehouse, but more and more arrows were raining toward them as the undead pressed in through one of the other gatehouses. John said they would soon retreat.

Time enough to take the Imbued from the dead one then kill the remaining knight, Nicolai had thought. But the undead’s legs twinkled and it launched itself through the air.

Nicolai shied away, forming his shield, but it didn’t come for him. It landed beside the corpse of the other, and stood between that and him, defensive.

He sneered and approached, his Soul Sense and the rapier extended and ready, but as he did so he saw undead arriving into this very room.

Two knights who looked very similar to the pair they’d been battling, a fat wizard, and a rank of spearmen.

Nicolai grinned at them all, hungry. The thrill demanded more.

‘This is a losing situation,’ spoke Threat Analysis. ‘Watch within.’

That was all it said, but Nicolai understood immediately. His gaze moved inwards, and he saw how the dark had spread and was reaching within the thrill. His eyes narrowed as he clamped at the cage.

Almost trouble, there. Now he saw the situation with clearer eyes. Threat Analysis was right. These undead were difficult to kill. Three of them, and the wizard, and many, many more arriving outside and soon to come in here. The time available to him was rapidly slimming. He doubted he could kill the undead with the greatsword before its friends arrived; his Blue Lightning was not yet charged, and Beth would also need some time to reform her Crawling Fire.

The dark whispered that with its help he would fight even better, that he could overcome and destroy them all, and as it pressed through him Nicolai almost gave in. Reaching the peak of combat was his deepest desire. But the cold hard facts told him that even with its aid, he would only win for a while. It would be brutal, and bloody, and glorious, and a last stand.

Even if there was a small chance he would successfully kill everything, Nicolai was risk avoidant by nature, the product of long experience. This was simply too great a risk. Such wonderful excesses would only be possible when he was stronger. But he assured himself, and the thrill, and even the dark for he was not immune to its persuasions, that in time he would be stronger. Cyberwarfare and the Mask aided him as he gripped the cage tight and kept himself under control.

The wizard raised its staff, circling wide to get a better angle on him, and bolts of ice formed, shooting toward him. Nicolai shaped his shield and juked left and right, blocking them as necessary. The other two knights jogged toward him, soon to come to the aid of their friend.

‘Got it,’ said Beth.

Nicolai sighed regretfully as he forced the thrill and the dark down. It would’ve been fun. But fun wasn’t worth dying. The knights armour and Imbued would have been worth taking. But his Soul Sense had examined the dead one and he’d found its Imbued was a necklace, tucked beneath its breastplate. That would take some time to remove, especially if their armour remained so tough in death. With the other blocking him, he simply didn’t have the time to get it free. In fact, he had no time at all.

‘Get to the exit,’ he told Beth as the knight’s legs twinkled. It launched itself at him, and the fight resumed.

Nicolai knocked its heavy blow aside with the shield, which popped instantly yet again. He dashed away, using a Pegasi ring to speed his movement as bolts of ice came at him. His eyes focused intently on the wizard, and the rapier danced before him as the air became like soup, everything slow and heavy. He flicked the ice that came on a collision course with him aside with the rapier as he fled with Beth.

They reached the exit almost together, as he’d caught up on her. Now it was over and the thrill faded, the pain from when the knight had smashed him in the back was pulsing through him. Paying more attention to it, he didn’t think it too bad; no broken rib. As he jogged into the tunnel he threw a pair of grenades by the wall beside the exit, where there would be no risk of their shrapnel getting into the tunnel and ricocheting off the walls.

The grenades exploded after a moment, and through a drone he saw the greatsword wielding undead, who was pursuing faster, thrown into the air. The others were well behind.

The delay would be enough, and though there were lesser undead outside, they weren’t likely to pose much risk. He and Beth would be getting away.

Beth held the paintbrush high, victorious, grinning at him. ‘We fucking did it!’ she cried with crazed joy. Her face was flushed, an expression it took him a moment to identify, and then he did when he realised she reminded him of himself at times, high on the thrill of combat. Surprising. Useful. His Mask smiled back while Nicolai wrestled with the dark.