139 Council Banquet IX : Take Fligh

I shot off the wall of the stairwell, flying towards one of the gold armored soul beast. I was too fast, even for myself, so I could not slow my momentum down as my sword went through his body and my own weight slammed him against a wall, splattering him into a cloud of soul energy.

Malek let out a grunt as he was jostled from my rough movements, and with the injuries he has sustained, my extravagant love for close combat is bound to make things hard on him.

I sighed in annoyance as I replaced my sword and shield for two hand guns, it felt foreign to me, but this was a better alternative.

I ran down the stairs, guns in front of me, pulling the trigger and killing bad things. With a superior speed and reflex, I already ran past the Pabs and Gabs before they died completely. We got to the end of the stairwell and went through the door to the basement.

There was a tiny hallway that sloped downwards for about fifteen meters, it was dimly lit and guarded by another two Pabs. However this guys were different, they were thee meters tall and a meter wide.

This guys were freaking giants if you ask me. It looked like it would take a harder hit than normal to bring them down, and it looks like they were shrugging of the power of my handguns.

The bullets were not hurting them at all, it was a very upsetting discovery as each bullet bounced of their armored bodies letting off sparks in the process.

I did not want to drop Malek to fight this guys as I was not sure our rear was completely clear, so I had to deal with them as we were now. I shot forward, leaving a sonic boom in my wake, rocketing towards the first of the guards.

I threw a straight punch to his chest, and watched in abject fascination as his entire body literally blew apart. It was then I realized I was worrying too much, with the amount of soul beasts I've killed, I was way to strong for even gods to be my match.

Of course it was just an exaggeration, but it was still strong enough to slap the head off the shoulders of the last guard, and so I did just that, and moved on ahead until I came up to a balcony that overlooked massive underground parking lot, my dead heart, stopped.

The vehicles in here ranged from hover bikes, quad hover bikes, cars, jeeps, tanks, helicopters, and what looks like a massive space ship, or maybe it's just a jet. There were about a dozen airships around, and right beside them were a variety of fighter jets.

Those were going to be my target. Seven massive pillars, reminiscent of the towers in the pit rose upwards, serving as the prime foundational support of the building, without a doubt, those were what I have to get rid of to bring the building down.

But they're so big it's going to take me a little too long to bring one of them to pieces, much less all seven of them. Besides I don't think I would be able to get myself and Malek to safety in time if I decided to take the pillars out one at a time.

"The only way you can bring this entire building down is by causing a chain explosion of epic proportions." Malek said to me.

I shook my head, I knew he had a plan, and he wanted me to ask what it was all about. I don't know if its because of his eccentricity that he was like this,forgetting the fact that we're in danger in favor of showing off his superior intelligence, it was wasting precious time and Pissing me off. But I really had no choice but to just bite the bullet anyway.

"So how do we set off such an explosion, do we have to find explosive charges and set it alongside the pillars or something. If that's the case then we're both going to die, because we have no idea where such charges are kept of if they even exist, and it would waste way too much time." I explained to him.

"I know that, so rather let's just hop into one of those fighter jets, and go around bombarding the pillars with laser strikes. And when we've got their attention, let blow up the big ship over there and get out fast. The energy that serves as a fuel source for the vehicles is extremely volatile, especially when exposed to air. So in case of an accident, their containers were made in such a way that delays its exposure for as long as ten minutes so that whoever survives a crash would be able to get out and away from the ensuing blast range. And with a ship as big as that, it won't just level the building, it will take out more than twenty blocks of the city, and that's on it's own. After it's explosion, a chain reaction would start and every other vehicle, ship or bike in here would go boom."

It was a sound plan, and as if the world was in agreement, there was a huge groaning sound, and a part of the basement opened up to let in the light of the outside world. The bay doors were opened, and I had no idea for how long so I had to get a move on.

I grabbed Malek and jumped over the balcony we were standing on dropping ninety feet down to the ground. In the seal I had absolutelyno control over my strength, so the ground was cracked by the impact of my fall.

I had no time to admire my handwork and I heard a click behind me. I turned around and saw something that made my blood run cold. This were not the Pabs or Gabs I've been fighting for the past hour or so.

I could not even begin to wrap my head around the image of what I was seeing that it left me so shocked I couldn't move. It was Malek who broke me out of my reverie and surprise.

"So they have mechas, I think this is the part where you start running."

Safe to say he didn't have to say it twice. I took of with all of my strength, running and weaving between cars, jeeps and bikes, dodging the hail of laser fire that was never too far from my tail. Explosions rocked the underground hangar, throwing me off my feet a few times, and leaving Malek with even more bruises.

But slowing down would mean certain death, and to be honest I did not want to know what it felt like to be crushed by a twenty foot tall Mecha.

We made our way towards the area that housed the jets, the first one in front of me was shaped like an arrow head, and had deep red coating.

Massive laser turrets hung from both of it's sides, and another laser cannon hung snugly underneath it. Thankfully all of thejets parked were open, so I wasted no time in jumping in and securing Malek in the seat behind me.

"Red is such a dull color, let's change ships." He said to me.

For a moment I almost thought he was joking, but the serious look in his dilated pupils told me he was not. But either way it also showed me that he was getting delirious from blood loss. We've been through quite a lot and Malek did not have the insane cheat I had of getting stronger with every soul beast I killed.

I strapped him in, making sure his seat belt was secure before I sat down too. As soon as I did, there was a hiss, and the windshield of the jet slid over our heads.

But it was at that moment I realized that the dash board in front of me was empty, it was just a simple dashboard, there was no steering, no buttons, and most especially no on button.Then Malek mumbled behind me.

"It's probably voice acti.....… voice acti..."

He didn't need to complete the sentence for me to understand what he meant. A simple "start engines" got me the reaction I wanted as the jet began to hum and vibrate softly.

The transparent windshield suddenly turned black, as holograms covered its surface, running diagnostics and showing the current state of every function the jet had. The darkened windshield spilt in two at the front, giving me a full and proper display of the hangar.

There were three Mechas standing in front of the jet, and before I could say anything, they opened fire, pelting the sleek frame of the jet with a hail of lasers. Light rapidly coalesced in both my left and right hands, as two virtual holographic control sticks appeared.

They felt real to me even though they seemed to be made of data. Under the cover of the Mechas assault, one of the jets display hud flashed in front of my face.

[SHIELD AT 70% CAPACITY AND DROPPING]

The controls of the jet were made in the form and shape of the butt and trigger of a gun.

And even though they seemed really light, I felt a little resistance when I tried moving them. The moment I placed my hands on both of them, the jet rose up, I've never had any flight lessons, but at this point I don't think it mattered.

I pulled the triggers on both controls, and a hail of laser fire shot out from the laser turrets mounted on both sides of the jet. Unfortunately for me, the Mechas also had shields of their own which intercepted the lasers I shot at them.

I might be able to break through eventually, but my own shield would run out of power long before I even get halfway to winning a battle of attrition with three Mechas.

I pulled back on the controls, and the jet shot forward, I was so shocked that I couldn't react when the jet slammed into the frame of one of the Mechas, knocking a second one to the ground, while the third managed to evade.

The first Mecha was helpless as the jet carried it all the way to one of the foundational pillars lf the building. No matter how surprised I was, if we both hit that pillar, it would result in our mutual destruction, so I pushed forward bringing the jet to a screeching halt.

The sudden stop pushed the Mecha off the jet, but the inertial still carried it backwards until it's back slammed into the pillar, the shields on it's body lighting up, as a force field made with green hexagonal boxes came up and cracked under the hit. Most of it was still intact, but it was obvious a well placed and hard hit can reduce the integrity of the of the shields.

I took advantage of it, and fired, two targeting circles appeared on the windshield, calculating speed, power, wind velocity, gravitation and magnetical pull, with red dots highlighting weak points on the mecha.

It left me really surprised, but it was still a helping hand, that I could really use.

I squeezed the trigger, and barely under three seconds of laser fire, the shield burst apart into a shower of light releasing a shockwave that was nothing more than a tickle from the distance I was flying at. After that it was just really painful to watch.

Everywhere the lasers touched, the metal frame of the mecha would be melted into slag, pouring molten liquid all over the hangar floor. Ten seconds later, a well placed shot to its chest hit the core of the mecha and it exploded in an impressive display of flames and shrapnel.

Almost immediately I heard alarms ringing as a display shot up warning me of an incoming projectile, the warning was timely, but not fast enough that I could dodge what was shot at me. The jet shook, and I fought to get it under control, a display hud came up in front of my eyes.

[SHIELD AT 21% CAPACITY, SHIELD ENERGY CRITICAL, LIGHT DAMAGE TO LEFT POWER ENGINE AND WING.]

The warning came again, and this time I paid heed, as I banked left, heading towards the open bay doors, only to stop in my tracks and shoot upwards as I dodged another hail of laser fire.

I now understood why the bay doors were open in the first place, apparently other soul beasts who had went out on patrol with their jets and airships had returned to base. It was a lockdown, I couldn't go forwards or back, leaving me trapped.

But escape was the last thing on my mind right now, there was another cannon under the jet, and it needed a little time to charge. It's own trigger was big red button on the right control stick of the jet. A hologram showed up in front of me, giving me the description of the cannon.

It was an Ion Pulse Cannon (IPC 01A) And apart from firing a concentrated burst of energy with the condensed heat of a star, it also served as an EMP, knocking out navigation and communication controls of any vehicle within three hundred meter radius for a period of five minutes. I don't really care what it could do, it was a big gun, and I needed to use it.

So I made a beeline for my assigned target, the huge ship that was parked, and completely offline. Which meant it would not be able to mount any defense under my attack. I fired.

VOOOOOMUK!

BOOOM!

At first there was a little charge, it was a ringing, humming sound, that was quickly followed by a dull sound that signified the discharged of the cannon.

Relying strictly on the displays showing me the position of the ship's power cell, I took a gamble, and it paid off as an explosion lit the ship up in purple flames that were flaring and pulsing every five seconds.

If that was not warning enough to get out of here, then I don't know what is. But leaving would be easier said than done, I was still being chased by the other soul beasts, and at this point, they were drawing closer.