Jace patted his messenger bag that was slung alongside his duffel bag. "Right here," he lied. "Got some left over from that animal attack."
"I don’t want you, just the goods." She kept her palm raised, "Throw the bag to me." Her voice was harsh and demanding. Gruff and coarse, as if she had spent years screaming orders.
Good thing it’s filled with water, Jace thought as he knew the shifting form would make her think it was filled with the ferrofluid. He used his prosthetic arm to remove the bag from around his shoulder and held it over the ledge. "Not a step closer."
She lowered her hand, "Terms?"
Jace put the bag back on his shoulder, "You want the bag? Slowly walk towards me, and I’ll give it to you." He spotted a shark Wayfinder hovering just behind the person.
Ollie flew behind him and whispered, "He is querying the system! You have to get within ten feet so I can stop him. Xera’s restrictions can only keep him out for five minutes, tops. But that timer resets if I can get close."
The woman nodded and began to slowly approach. Jace whispered back to Ollie, "If we can get out of here, I think it’ll be fi-"
"If he finishes the query, then people will know your Cosmic Power, Class, Tier, and if enough time is spent querying, he could even find out your real name and faction. He does not need you to stay in line of sight for it."
Damnit. Jace knew that if all that information got out, then he would not be as useful an asset to Xera. That would lead to less rare rewards, and a loss of progression pace. "Ten feet?"
"Ten feet," Ollie confirmed.
Jace nodded. Thankfully, he still had his sword in his left hand – and it was completely invisible to his opponent. "What’s your name?" he asked.
"Henrietta," the woman replied as she got closer.
"Flicker," Jace replied, and he began to walk toward her. "I was going to deliver it, you know. I just got caught up in the whole Cosmogenesis thing."
She shrugged, "You’re on the blacklist as a courier. Took too long. Also, they want your feet repo’d."
"Closer," Ollie whispered.
"The feet got shredded," Jace replied. "I got new legs from a Quest, want to see?" He poured as much enthusiasm and naivete as he could into his tone.
"Sure," she stated plainly without interest as she moved closer. "Give me the ferrofluid, and you can lea-"
"Otter punch!" Ollie flew forward and slammed into the mako-shark – who up until that point was just hovering behind Henrietta. Ollie’s paw smacked into it, and it writhed before the two began fighting with each other. It was almost humorous, as they could not hurt each other. But Jace knew that neither would be able to interact with The Cosmic System while engaged. He could focus on the threat in front of him.
Henrietta raised her left hand. A cascading icy-blue mist exuded from her palm and rushed towards Jace. "I should’ve guessed you’d try something sneaky."
Jace ran to the right in a tight circle – keeping close enough for Ollie to do his thing – and got out of the bulk of the misty cone-shaped Skill. It did touch his left side, and he felt himself grow more tired as his Dark Matter Shield sapped his energy to prevent the bone-chilling frost from reaching him. Raising his prosthetic, he thumbed the release. It shot right past her, and he activated the retraction as it planted into the wall behind her.
Shooting forward, he released the cable as he got into range with her and swung his still-invisible weapon. He caught her by surprise, and the blade did not cut into the armor but did carve a gash across the front. The purple miasma began to spread, and she let out a scream of rage. The icy shell around her exploded, and Jace felt extremely tired as he took the point-blank effect head-on, his shield draining even more energy. Dark Matter Shield (Rank 1). The barrier shifted, and he had the heater shield on his right forearm.
She swung her frost-laden hammer at him, and he could feel the cool rush of air streaming off the weapon, setting his teeth to chatter. He put his shield up and caught the blow. If not for the magitech prosthetic, he was sure that the force of the blow would have broken his arm. But it held firm. Almost faster than he could react, the woman drew a stockless shotgun from her back and aimed it at Jace’s torso.
Nope! He moved in close to her and sliced at the shotgun, cutting it in two at the breach, disabling the weapon. She let it drop to the ground and brought down the hammer once more. To both of their surprise, he was able to duck under her blow as his legs bent in the opposite direction; as if his body was guiding itself to safety thanks to the Swordmage Stance Skill. Oh, that’s useful.
She tried to turn to get at him, but Jace just let go and pulled his foot back – she could not find it and failed to grab anything. She followed the grab with a shoulder check – and this pushed Jace out over the edge of the skyscraper. He began to fall and felt gravity take hold.
Ollie was tugged away from his Wayfinder combat and shouted in alarm at the sudden jerking of his tether tying him to stay within ten feet of Jace, "This isn’t good!" he shouted in panic.
Jace aimed his prosthetic arm at the edge of the building and fired out the grapple. It sank into the metal building, and he swung in towards the side of the structure, stopping his momentum with his feet. Thumbing the retract button, he ascended, kicking off to build some side-to-side momentum.
Henrietta’s head appeared over the edge of the building, and he slammed into that with his clawed foot. Releasing the grapnel with a button press, his momentum carried the two forward and caused the armored woman to fall flat on her back. Jace jammed his other clawed foot down into her torso – using the gash carved by his sword to get deeper. He opened and closed the foot claws over and over – shredding her organs as blood spurted up and out of the wound.
The mako-shark that Ollie was fighting vanished as the woman ceased moving. Jace let out an exhausted groan as he stepped out of the woman’s torso and shook the viscera from his feet. "Damn..." he sat down and took in deep breaths.
Ollie flew over to him and landed on his knee. "You beat a hostile Aspirant. Excellent job. Second one you have dealt with."
Jace felt the adrenaline fading and the need to sleep crept up on him with even more strength. "Dust her," he muttered. Ollie nodded, raised his little paw, and the corpse vanished into glimmering starlight.
<<<<<>>>>>
[Stardust Acquired: 100.]
<<<<<>>>>>
Ollie nodded, "She was worth a good amount. It makes sense, since Earth is a Tier 2 world."
"Sword?" Jace asked weakly.
Ollie pointed to it, and Jace pushed himself to his feet, walked over to his sword, picked it up with the prosthetic arm, and sheathed it. "Those fingers look like they’re in rough shape," Ollie commented.
Jace nodded, "I have bandages to set the breaks." He opened the duffel bag and pulled out the medical kit. Inside he found a bottle of pills that were the equivalent of painkillers. He popped several into his mouth before dry swallowing them.
Next, he set to work pulling the bones back into place. This was the worst part, and he bit down on the one shoe he still had in his gear to muffle his cries of pain. Just do it! Get the worst of it over!
The bones were definitely broken, but Jace had dealt with that before and was able to get them into the right position where they could heal up. After splinting each finger, he bound them all together with clean bandages before refitting the glove to hold everything in place.
As the painkillers set in – faster than he expected – he felt himself drifting off to sleep. "Don’t let me fall asleep," he muttered. "Not safe." He felt himself slipping from consciousness despite trying to fight back against it.
Ollie flew in front of his face and nodded, "Time to make the most annoying sound that you will not be able to sleep through." He took in a deep breath and began...screaming.
It was an odd noise to hear, as it came out at a very deep pitch, and the absurdity of the situation made Jace weakly laugh. "What the hell was that?"
Ollie stopped and frowned, crossing his arms. "The most annoying sound I could think of."
Jace kept laughing – perhaps out of exhaustion, or the sheer stupidity of the situation, or the elation of living through a near-death experience. It kept him wide awake for a few more minutes. "Thanks." He got up and made his way back into the skyscraper, holding his breath as he walked past the roof entrance.
Descending to the top floor, he found the penthouse suite, shut and barricaded the door, and then collapsed onto the luxurious bed.