SEPTEMBER BLEEDS #7: DENTON ACES
There was indeed a ka-boom. Not the one they intended, reaching towards the store-houses and works of CLEAR. But it did blow a much bigger hole in the dome than anticipated, so you win some, you lose some, Faust thought.
They summoned a portal. Gotta get close enough to evacuate people. As they jumped into the vortex, they thought. They had a few gadgets on them, but he was a sitting duck outside of his portals, so he'd have to work carefully with the others.
They wished they could have brought some of their big guns to the fore, but with the tubes, you gotta travel light. It's not a dump truck after all. It's a series of tubes.
"Holy shit," The Arm thought "the old cobol somehow managed to do it and to fuck it up at the same time. I'll be..."
Shit. The bomb was her cue, she's gotta get there! She scrambled off the hill downwards.
The battling was fierce between Maiden Heaven and Marian. Marian was a bout to redirect one of Heaven's bolts back at her turbocharged when the bomb shook the ceiling.
"The fnord was that?!" Heaven responded, both wishihg she was able to swear, and hoping the question would distract from her reaching for the switch for the big cannon that had fallen, pointed right at Marian's head.
"My signal ya big doofus!" she said, looking around for a spare pipe. Heaven was still shuffling around. Where was that damnable switch?!
Found it! The pipe that is. Marian found the pipe. But the danged sphere she was holding in her non-off-hand. She tossed it idly at Heaven. Heaven rolled backwards and...
...Click.
So there was that switch.
Heaven started scrambling out of the way as Marian warped the pipe into a whistle, the midi-winds swirling her off as the cannon began to glow.
KER-CHOW!
At this moment, more than any other time, Maiden Heaven wished she was able to swear.
Meanwhile the civillians looked on at the hole in awe. The thing that replaced the sky had been wounded, and replaced with freedom, for the first time in a long time.
For the first moments, nobody moved. What if the Electroshocks attacked? What if one of Clear's general came for them. The moment of fire was held in ice for one moment, until a green courier stepped forward.
"C'mon, let's go!" she yelled "You wanna die here forever, or you wanna live out there today?" She started running towards the hole. The rest followed, more and more taking her lead as she went. She looked like she knew what she was doing.
Unlike, of course, The Arm, as she got there. Turing knows what CLEAR had prepared for a moment like this. And as if to answer, tunnels beneath the city groaned and shifted as she reached the broken barrier. Creaking wounds yawned from the digital earth as shaking limbs were vomited from a great pit in the earth.
A thing of scrap code and repurposed digital corpses, the Denton Ace. Not a machine of war, for war implies a challenge. It was a machine of death.
A feral howl released from its gun-barrel head as the first blast rocketed towards The Arm. The arm retorted in kind, firing of volley after volley, half-charged, full-charged.
Yet, there was no damage. Not a scratch, The blasts were consumed, and the beam kept upon its course towards her. Even as it recharged, It seemed to be getting stronger yet. And the color seemed to be shifting to that of her own beam...
Oh no.
"Heads up!" Sister Marian came from the top, leaping off the Midi stream and firing a volley of magnetic bolts at the creature, right before The Arm could warn her. And now the beam seemed to be a lovely shade of violet. Curving towards Marian.
She barely dodged the latest blast. "Hey, it's a power absorber, why didn't ya warn me!" Marian said to The Arm. The Arm said nothing. She was always one to tease at a time like this. They ran, bolts useless. Marian looking for anything around them that could help, The Arm charging her beam, looking through that shuddering mass for any sort of weak point. But nothing clicked, nothing hit, until...
A simple little bomb, a garish thing marked with an old-school emoticon, sailed in a curve through the aether, into the place between the neck and the center of its back. Click, click, click.
Boom. Overloading with energy, the thing did not so much explode as it imploded, code melting into slurry, light dripping like wax. And then it exploded. And Kolorbarr walked out near the hole.
"Well, it isn't killing a god, but I'd say killing a dragon is quite the acchievement, no?"
The Arm gave them a dirty look.
"Well, eh, I didn't mean our dragon, I meant it as a matter of speech, I-"
He was cut off by the sharp sounds of creaking earth. A cracking executeable for execution, as seven more tunnels emerged from the earth. And with them, seven more of the Denton Aces.
"...How many of those bombs do you have?" The Arm asked.
"Not enough." Faust responded...
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...CLIFFHANGER! It's neat I was able to do a chapter that was more giving a focus on the characters I'd introduced, and this format is pretty fun!
BTW, how y'all liking them? Any favorites? Tel me in the Comments!
Also, for the record, the Denton Aces are named after the songs Denton and You're Looking at an Ace from Shock Treatment, both fitting with the theme of the Electroshocks and the general conformity vibe of the CLEAR faction. Tho, huh, I wonder who leads it. That's gonna be an interesting answer...
...Also, not quite sure what to put for the anticensorship org today, given this is on a bit of shorter notice, so for this one, why don't you give me the ones you find most notable in the comments! I'll add them to my next post/posts!
As per usual with my narrative work, this story, character and all narrative elements are under a CC-BY 4.0 license, as long as I, Thomas F Johnson, am credited as their creator…