Here Comes a New Challenger!

The silence of the world was interrupted by that pattern in the Dream, that twisting of color and song, that lit up the battlefield in the dying wake of the flare above. The terrorist abandoned the stolen arms and left them to clatter to the ground nearly in sync with her first kill’s dead thud on landing.

[MM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uHgo7_ZtXs]

The visible Dream subsided, but its residue seemed to ooze from the one named Miles: the flame atop her head shifted more vibrantly in colors, her face now glowed like the moon, and her wrappings, tightly-fitting and outlining a paragon figure, glowed neon blue. It swept out and away from her to set the dirty floors and dusty walls alive with coursing lights, and the gold of her enemies took on an unnatural luminescence. The world, even John’s own hands, came alive as Miles did... and her first order of business was made plain by the first body she left disgraced in the dirt.

“C’mon then!”

“Miles!” came the excited cries of soldiers; a rally by fear, none fled their despised enemy.

The Brave by John spun to strike John again, but the latter activated his displacement field in time to mislead the swing. “Buzz off!” The one that fell upon him was the toughest of his kind yet, but it only meant three blows knocked him down instead of two; with his attention back down to the melee below, John watched as the woman leapt into her victims.

The reports came fast and loose, scrolling on a single pop-up as if to further add to the fighting game motif: the Lawmen swung with their clubs as they tried to give her space, but the distance only ensured that one would be attacked without a unified front. Light, heavy. Light-light-light. Medium-medium. Her attacks flowed as John hesitated to pick a side; her fists, knees, and feet hit fortified armor that John’s fingers had bypassed with the power of his style. When John felled his enemy, he knocked out the warrior inside; when Miles struck, the armor and warrior both shattered.

Two soldiers twisted their weapons and split them in two, now dual-wielding mace and club as they rushed in to aid the third fellow just before the latter died. Miles jumped between them as she split-kick both, stunning one but not the other. Both clubs of the competent one bashed Miles’ shoulder; she grunted, and her health bar shrunk slightly, but the offending warrior met his end with a rebuking elbow into his armored neck. Even her off-balance blow rent steel like cloth.

“The Bitter Nines! Look, one on the roof!” The voice echoed from on high as it shrieked its best imitation of a klaxon. John followed the sound to another squadron of Lawmen drawing near, the lot of them having chosen John’s side for him. “And… Miles! You will finally pay for your host of sins!”

“Come here and make me,” laughed the madwoman as she killed another with two jabs and a knee through golden steel.

John was quickly finding himself in a familiar place: misidentified as an enemy by some powerful, law-enforcing agency. Gone was his bravado in challenging it this time; now Tricia and the others were relying on him to find food, water, and some way out of this city. They can’t know I knocked those other two out, so I just need to try and defuse this. “I just came and watched-” John started.

“That’s-! Another human imposter?! Accomplice to the **** of Lawmen,” spat the Brawler as his descent became a direct line to John, “and taking the guise of the Humans: your sentences shall all be ****!”

“I’m not with her!”

Windows all around had been lit as the curious and afraid watched and worried... and in one John caught sight of a couple of goblin-like folk watching him with comically large eyes. Their fearful gazes seemed unconvinced of John’s innocence, as did the Brawler who had barked his sentence. The latter charged down and ahead of his fellows, his club already reared back for when he reached John. Striking the man **** before his arrival would seal John’s status here as the aggressive, resisting criminal, but he couldn’t well stand and take the sentence given; he readied to instead open a tunnel at the point of contact, thereby shunting the Brawler across the city for long enough to perhaps explain-

CRIT! Miles’ heavy air attack deals 646 damage to Lawman Brawler!

The screaming helm, and its contents, were shoved inward by Miles’ knee some ten feet above John.

Lawman Brawler slain!

The stranger, and John’s alleged accomplice, had jumped two stories to deliver that blow and deny John another spared, if stranded, victim. She landed near the other, slumbering Brave by John; as if instinctively aware of its survival, her foot slid to the side and cracked the Brave across the helm. A sick crunch confirmed that a Dorani’s neck bore something like the noisy bones in that of a human.

Miles’ light kick deals 89 damage to Lawman Brave.
Lawman Brave slain!

“What the fuck are you doing-?!”

“What are you doing?!” she hollered back, turning away from the stunned enemies above to face John. Up close, she was startlingly alluring: adult and curvy, and about as tall as John, her outfit had been torn up. Her hands and feet wore the ruined remains of gloves and shoes, her wrappings were loosening with gashes over her joints and sides, and her sultry shape could not hide in their folds. But her face, beautiful as it was...

“They chose their side, now shut up and get out of here! I don’t have time to defend weaklings!”

... was somehow vulgar.

... Weakling?

Miles’ anger broke like a wave on rocks; she looked, wide-eyed and stunned, at John as if he had struck her as surely as she had the dead around them.

Three Lawmen flew up from the alley at them both, their clubs ready to take advantage of the distraction as they cleared the threshold of the rooftop-

John’s hands rapidly swung in the space between him and Miles, causing the latter to raise a guard... but she was left gawking as she watched his hands reappear behind him, striking the Lawmen and leaving them limp. Their suits, detecting **** fighters, fluttered safely and away, obstructing the surviving members who attempted to fly up the same path.

Miles met John’s darkened gaze... and grinned with her perfect teeth. “You should’ve told me that from the start.”

John blinked, unsure of her meaning. The conversation was shelved in favor of defending themselves as the Lawmen came in real numbers to kill them both.

The enemy was too numerous to teleport away, and John couldn’t keep track of Miles long enough to try and spare the ones Miles wanted dead. He could only continue knocking out the ones he had to fend off, yelling as they fought. “Do you have to kill them?” he demanded as two more squads screamed through the sky towards them.

“Now or later, yes,” was her frustrated response, “and you’re an idiot for letting them live!”

Three Lawmen, armed with smaller pairs of clubs, flanked Miles and battered her. For two of them, she presented a simple guard; blue sparks flew from an invisible **** field to those she faced, but her back and her outfit started to fall to pieces as she was lashed by the one behind.

Lawman Hammer deals 2 damage to Miles.
Lawman Hammer deals 0 damage to Miles.
Lawman Hammer deals 34 damage to Miles.
Lawman Hammer deals 0 damage to Miles.
Lawman Hammer deals 1 damage to Miles.
Lawman Hammer deals 29 damage to Miles.

Her health bar shrinking couldn’t kill the wild grin on her face as she waited for the opening. It came as the Lawmen all wound up for an overhead strike. She ducked low and kicked behind herself high, punting the helmet away and breaking the jaw of the Dorsin once masked by it. The third Lawman down, the other two cracked the soft roof below their feet as Miles leapt from all fours. With a quick tear, she tossed her ruined outfit over the left, blinding him, while she worked the right.

John knocked out another Brave when he finally let himself grow distracted: her alabaster body was freed from her clothes to far barer undergarments: a knot of shimmering blue cloth over her crotch and ass and naught else to contain pale flesh, heavy Ds that flicked with her hook into the remaining Lawman’s head, and a body that was more pornography than war.

“EX LEVEL ONE!”

That announcer again-?!

“Just in time,” Miles spat as a new clutch of ten Lawmen came near the rooftop battlefield. With a dozen of their fellows killed or ****, the remaining eight flew up to join the reinforcements… and John’s eyes followed them to find that the clutch approaching were of a different caliber.

Of the ten, nine wore armor that glimmered in silver instead of gold, each one ranging from level 18 to 26, and all nine wielded black staves lined from tip-to-tip with a single, massive axe blade of glittering azure energy. Their armor was not bulbous or clumsy, like the Braves and other company faced thus far, but lean and form-fitted for what the Dorani appeared to be and with helms shaped like screaming, humanoid masks and black visors. Dorani were they all, as well; no Dorsin, and no story of struggling rank or Plate living was to be noticed in their descriptions. Each carried a new rank for John: Lawman Shaper. Each wielded mana.

But it was the tenth, and their leader, who gave John pause.

Lawman Purifier
<The Lawmen of Vantage>
Level 30 Cryomancer
HP: 5,400/5,400
MP: 4,730/1,010
Stats: Str 80 (120), Agi 40 (80), End 70, Int 30, Wis 20, Cha 18, Lib 7
Status Effects: Galgan Barrier (5,000HP), Galgan Mana Battery, Galgan Nerve Network, Galgan Vision, Lawmen Network (Access: Purifier)
Qualities: Galgan Bone Fortification, Galgan Skin, Galgan Tech Conditioning
The Dorani son of Galgan, a Third Plate industrialist, Daedro the Faultless grew up as all his brothers and sisters did: as experimental material for the magical technology his mother developed. Though he was the only survivor of these trials, Daedro nonetheless grew up thankful for his mother’s gifts: it enabled him, a fanatic in service of the Peak, to easily crush the state's enemies and enforce the law. Daedro ascended to the Second Plate for his volunteer work in patrolling the Plate and exterminating several notable gangs. A ruthless cryomancer, wrestler, and worshipper of Humans, Daedro more than proved his worth for the rank of Purifier. He allegedly turned down a promotion to Lawman Champion, a comfortable detective position near the Peak, for fear that the Plate would become lawless without his presence.

This “Daedro” wore a similarly sleek armor, cast in black and bulkier as if to house a more impressive body than his fellows, and flew on ethereal blue wings. He wore no helm as if to show his twisted features almost proudly: his eyes gleamed silver, for the natural ones had been plucked out some time ago and replaced with enchanted orbs; his skin was a molten red that featured glowing crags along bands of silver that orbited his head and neck; and his mouth, held wide open and letting golden metal teeth gleam, let a serpentine tongue flick out as if to taste the air.

“Thank you, weirdo: my timing might’ve been off without your little distraction.” John took a moment to realize she was talking to him, even as her eyes remained fixated on the fleeing, lesser enemies. She walked forward, and John was sure something glinted blue on or around her right eye, out of John’s sight but so vibrant as to set her silhouette to glow even in the neon world they occupied. Her vibrant hair, real or false, suddenly shifted to a steady range of blues. Her fists glowed as she raised them like cannons to the enemies above.

She’s… she’s not going to-

Miles uses Brawler Barrage!

The EX bar drained as her fists pumped at the fleeing remnants. As if shunted from her hands, fists of blue fire blasted off and, in rapid succession, filled the air to chase the Lawmen. Like anti-air rounds, the fists would burst whether by striking a target or exploding near them, each time the explosion being sufficient to shatter armor plates and make it rain bits of metal, flesh, and vibrant blood of various colors. The attack cut the blackness of the night and announced to anyone and everyone, in a torrent the color of sunlit oceans, exactly who was here, laughing, and killing Lawmen trying desperately to escape with their lives.

Unknown to John was the intent to signal others far and away. “With Tinhead here, things ought to go smoothly,” Miles murmured. She audibly cracked her knuckles as she stood her ground; she showed no signs of retreat from the oncoming threat, despite the fair chunks of damage on her life-

“ROUND TWO!”

Miles’ health bar suddenly refilled to full, and her hair drifted back into its prismatic waves.

She’s... she’s really a fighting game character?!

Daedro and his elite unit showed no hesitation as they flew through the smoke left by their dismembered underlings.

John walked to stand by and look over Miles… and for the first time noted some bit of apprehension in her face and stance. A suspicion grew in John enough to ask, “Can you… tell how strong he is?”

Miles shrugged. “He’s one of the strongest. If we’re going to win, I have to take him down sooner or later.”

More direct, then. “I mean… can you see his stats in the Game?”

Miles scoffed. “Some game this is. Look, he means business, so either get on out of here or help me tear his ugly head off that stinking-”

“FIGHT!”

They had at least a few more seconds before the group would arrive… but the Purifier didn’t need to get near. Miles’ words fell away as Daedro’s hands rose before him, and the Purifier’s words came in a foreign tongue… but one John didn’t know and, based on the few foreign films he consumed, sounded a whole lot like human French.

“Coupé de l'hiver, né mort et en apesanteur,” came the booming, cracking voice of their enemy, “vient la tempête glacée que pas de vie respire.”

John and Miles readied for an attack... and were met with the air becoming naught but snow and flying shards of glass.

-294HP
-193HP
-201HP
-109HP
CRIT! -404HP
-265HP

Knives of frost had so rapidly manifested that John was already in critical condition by the time he was able to act. He couldn't even see Miles enough to touch her and jump away; unwilling to surrender her to save his own skin, he quickcasted a makeshift bubble of tunnels large enough to engulf them, temporarily bringing an end to the nightmare blizzard around Miles and himself. John didn’t even see the attack; instead of emanating from the Purifier’s hand, it was as if a dome of white energy had temporarily surrounded them before spewing snow and sharpened ice inward. His armor had gashes to prove the lethality of the Purifier's spell, but his Gamer's Body had held up just fine.

John’s suspicions, that perhaps Miles was also some kind of “Gamer” as well, fell with his heart as he looked at her: with her health bar now mostly red, he watched it shrink slowly down to the few blips of yellow she had left. Tiny slices of that remaining lifebar began to tick away along with her vitae. A spear of ice through her torso had entered her back through her shoulder and exited just above the band of her underwear; her blood, vibrantly red by the effect she seemed to emit, slowly dimmed with the world as it froze on the solid ice. Gashes and stuck shards marked her body everywhere, and it stung to catch her bloody form as she fell. Her EX bar had suddenly filled blue and was now most of the way green, though she showed no sign of being capable of another one of her special attacks.

John clutched her as she shivered with either damage or cold. The floor beneath them began to crack, and rumblings indicated the reason: the dome of shooting ice had been perfectly round, and whatever was inside the top story of this building had been shredded by more ice aimed upwards at Miles and John. Nearby, John spotted a Lawman he had knocked ****, accidentally included in the dome; the armor was now a pincushion of icicles that grew a puddle of navy blue blood beneath it.

“Grrgh,” Miles gurgled as red leaked from between her bloody teeth, “old man… wasn’t ki…kidding…” The end of an icy spike poked through the rooftop near John’s hand, and more of the roof began to crack apart beneath them both. The vibrant color of Miles’ fight had vanished, leaving a pale, trembling teenager in John’s arms.