Chương 37: 33: Divided Struggle

I was slammed to the ground hard by a larger, uglier monster than any I'd faced till then, twelve-plus feet of muscle, pebbly skin the color of heated iron, claws and fangs that sizzled with green flames. That it managed to grab me out of the air like that was bad. The temperature spiking all around it until the ground was smoking and my face felt dry was bad and the less said about its disregard for personal space and its bad breath the better.

Beams from Jerry's guns thundered through the air and pelted ugly's hide with enough firepower to melt through a tank but the beast didn't even react. Its weight pressed down on me more than it should have for its size and a few quick attempts at flight fizzled out. Enormous hands gripped my own with bruising force and holding them back became a struggle; I was still stronger, barely, but for the second time since the invasion began a monster knew how to use leverage to its advantage.

Then a deafening clang of metal on metal came from Jerry's position and the laser fire on my opponent's side cut off. OK, smart monster almost as strong as I was, apparently immune to fire. But was it immune to being sliced to bits? This needed further testing. The second rank of Forcefield Creation allowed for making one large, complex geometric shape or two smaller simple ones to apply other powers within; I went for two narrow cylinders starting at my eyes because tradition.

At only an inch wide, the narrowest I could make them, the volume of one cubic yard stretched out to about a mile long, turning Proximakinesis into a beam weapon that would pierce straight through its target. On the assumption that what the overgrown imp couldn't see would hurt it more, Proximakinesis was adjusted to only apply to enemies, not the intervening air. Then I glared up at the big ugly.

A few dozen tons' worth of force were applied to two thumb-sized areas of its horned head, seeking to remove the eyesore and fulfill the dream of girls everywhere of having an actually lethal glare. Unfortunately, the ten-foot-tall lump was barely knocked back a little; either it was a lot tougher than it was strong, or something weird was going on. So I blasted it again and again, aiming at softer targets than its overgrown forehead.

Trying to rip its heart out resulted in the attack fizzling after slicing an inch into its barrel of a chest, but a blast to the neck made a fountain of red-black blood and another blast managed to get one of its eyes. The glowing orb burst like an oversized zit full of pus, leaking green flames and the overpowering stench of rotten eggs, old unwashed socks and rotting garbage. The demon roared in pain and rage and out of its fang-filled maw spewed an inferno of green and black.

Every plant within forty feet died by mere proximity and the already churned ground dried out, blackened and withered. Lying at ground zero of the unnatural conflagration, the beast's breath hit me like a punch to the gut. Instead of searing pain on my skin my lungs burned and aches spread all over my body. I grew dizzy, muscles burning with every struggle as if I'd been holding my breath the whole time. My chest heaved, gasping for air that wasn't there, involuntarily taking in more of the foul exhalation.

Speed didn't help; even as the demon seemed to stand still in relation to me the effect got worse and worse, somehow keeping pace with Forced Acceleration. Muscles seized in painful cramps, my arms getting easily pinned over my head as they lost strength. Feedback from my enhanced senses disintegrated into a confusing mess and my physical eyes could only see blinding flame and encroaching darkness...

xxxx xxxx The goat-faced humanoid's claws clanged against Jerry's arms for the third time, sparks flying as inch-deep furrows were dug into the thick exterior plating of his armor. Rolling with the force of the blow, he shifted from a high parry into a low lunge, a diamond-fiber-reinforced inconel spike stabbing against the monster's pebbly skin. His opponent leaped back but not before the spike drew sizzling, red-black blood.

Not for the first time, Jerry was thankful for all the realistic, grueling medieval reenactments he'd taken part in over the years, and his decision to invest in more than just Intelligence for his build. In retaliation, the monster exhaled green-black fire all over his armor. Almost immediately, the gasoline-powered secondary generator in the armor's back choked and died.

Choked being the operative word; the sensors tracking the device's operation noted a complete absence of oxygen in its air intake, the gas being replaced by a dangerous mixture of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulfur and nitrogen oxides as well as corrosive substances the system could not identify. Not just on the air intake but within the engine itself the air mixture was magically transformed.

And then funny things started happening to the gasoline and Jerry forwent further data in favor of jettisoning the generator. It flew a mere ten feet on its compressed air charge before exploding into more of the green-black flame. If the demon expected the attack to cripple Jerry, a quarter-ton armored fist smashing into that ugly face disabused it of the notion. It hurled several spears made of what looked like solid shadow, which passed through the armor's arms and head harmlessly.

Well, not quite; there was considerable degradation to everything organic in those areas but fortunately, Jerry had shifted to fully ceramic insulation during the recent overhaul. Also, Jerry himself was entirely enclosed in the armor's torso. Not only would a hollow design majorly weaken the battlesuit's arms but the new helmet had been intentionally designed to draw enemy attacks rather than house anything important.

Charging at the enemy, Jerry accepted a double-clawed slash at the suit's heavily-reinforced chest plate in order to get close. Once there, he stepped on the monster's foot, simultaneously extending the metal spike built into the suit's right heel. A much younger, cheerier Jerry had been an enthusiastic Robocop fan - both of the movies and the series - and seeing the Cyborg detective stop a fleeing truck cold through the use of heel spikes for extra traction had stayed with him.

Now it would stay with the monster too, or at least the new hole in its foot would. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Then the big ugly surprised him with a punch that was also a fireball and Jerry's world became pain. He didn't notice the suit being hurled off its feet instantly. He didn't notice flying a good hundred feet, digging a ditch through the park as he went.

He failed to pay heed to the dozens upon dozens of damage notifications and malfunction warnings as he got hit by the equivalent of a weak artillery blast point-blank. That's because the battlesuit's buckled chest armor had dented dangerously inwards, crushing him against the control seat tightly enough the brunet teenager was sure a few of his ribs were cracked. Worse still, he could not breathe; he simply didn't have the room any more.

Then the bulk of his demonic foe towered over his prone form, one arm reduced to a slowly healing stump. The other however was already charging another fireball. Jerry burned mana into Instant Repair, racing his opponent into what would come first; a fixed armor he could punch the demon in the face with, or a second point-blank explosion that would probably kill him... xxxx xxxx Trying to counter the demon's magic was a lot tougher when they weren't limited to hurling explosive fireballs, Amanda mused.

The young sorceress could understand why the invaders would have not wanted their pets free to wield their powers in any form they desired; more than just explosions and immunity to fire, they could also magnify entropy, snuff out mundane fire and chemical reactions by magically messing with oxidizers, magnify heat within their targets strongly enough to kill anything non-magical, or deny fire to their enemies in its 'power' aspect making overt magical effects fizzle uselessly.

They also seemed capable of shifting from one to the other as quickly as she could with her own magic, which made dealing with them a bitch. When the redhead tried to leech a demon's fire, the other counter-spelled her. The moment she shifted to shutting down that one, the first cast something deadly at her friends. She was barely keeping up second to second, and the dozens of imps trying to blast through the shield Maya had raised around her did their annoying best to distract her.

In the end, she realized either demon would eventually manage to force through something lethal and one of her friends would die. She refused to accept that, so she split her magic in two, constantly weakening both opponents enough they couldn't gather power for a big working but being unable to prevent their smaller attacks. The demon that had surprised and grabbed Maya out of the air was trying to dispel the blonde's active powers by denying their power aspect.

The teenage sorceress smirked; while her best friend could not build up power over time to lay down major and lasting effects, at the moment neither could the demon... and Maya's baseline power exceeded Amanda's considerably, let alone that of those two banal incarnations of evil. The demon was all but sliced apart for its troubles, a new application of the blonde's force magic piercing through all attempts to shut it down only slightly diminished.

The sorceress focused a bit more on stopping the other demon from blasting Jerry apart, reducing it to only weaker dispels, entropic attacks, and its fire-choking black flames. Except the only bit of actual fire Jerry's armor used was a secondary power supply, Jerry had almost talked her ears off about all the low-entropy alloys he'd used in the armor's construction, and the armor bore no active, overt magic. Jerry seemed to be holding on for the moment so he left him to it and checked the other fight.

What she saw made Amanda hiss in anger and fear for her friend; in what seemed the blink of an eye, maybe a second or two it had taken to ensure Jerry didn't get blown up, Maya had gone from maiming her opponent to being on the ropes, worked over and unable to respond. While the other girl had not revealed anything about it in their talks, evidence from prior fights pointed towards her having a measure of magic or at least alteration resistance.

Her best friend had been understandably reluctant to give details with Verity around and being her very suspicious self, so Amanda only now realized Maya's resistance was not that strong, and the demon was exactly the wrong opponent for the blonde. It was slowly choking and draining the blonde's body and her friend's superspeed was speeding up the attack as well. Frantically, Amanda pulled power for a bigger spell... realizing she'd fallen into the other demon's trap a split second after the jaws snapped shut.

The moment she was not focusing on draining its magic, the demon redirected an attack that had failed to affect Jerry and three spears of shadow, empowered by its second casting, homed in on the teenage sorceress. The first slammed into Maya's shield, making it shake. The second buckled it, attacking the magical construct's power directly, and the third made it wink out temporarily. Then more than a dozen imps swarmed the redhead.

Caught in the middle of casting, Amanda didn't manage to raise a defense against the swarm. Directed by an outside intelligence that had learned over the course of the battle, the imps didn't try fireballs; they just mobbed and mauled her physically. Her magic gave her strength, more strength than any human, let alone a girl her size could possess. But she was still a sorceress, a non-physical combatant, and two dozen stone fists rising and falling like clubs knocked her down on the ground.

A blast of fire melted one imp, then another. Two more fell inert, their animating enchantments stripped of their stone bodies. A desperate blast knocked half the remainder off her, some in pieces to boot, but the few left were still enough to hold her down long enough for more to arrive. They kept coming faster than she could pick them off with quick blasts and they didn't let her focus on any bigger spells. Shouting in defiance, Amanda reached out not at the imps but at the magic beyond them...