Chapter 580 (1/2)

Hank looked up at the school in front of him. It was silent, as it was only a scant few minutes past dawn. But it bore the signs of recent use; this school would be in session in a few hours. And yet his feet insisted this was where he needed to be.

It was in a rich suburb in the South of East Providence. Hank turned to his two companions. Thaddeus’ expression was serious. Ezekiel looked like he had just seen a ghost.

“This is it,” Hank grunted. “Say your prayers and check yur ammo. We are going in-”

“No…. no, not here,” Ezekiel said, shaking his head. “Please… this place…”

“Both of you, quiet,” Thaddeus interrupted, squinting at the school. “Something’s coming.”

And as if on cue, hatches on the ground flipped up. Out of the ground crawled monsters. They appeared humanoid, but they were covered in hulking black armor. As they stood, swaying in the sun, light glittered off of runes etches into the heavy black metal.

Thaddeus swore, and activated his exosuit. Instantly, the metal snapped out to encase his arms and legs. He pulled his plasma rifle out of his wristlet and trained it on the lead monster. There was only a dozen, but they gave off a heavy feeling. Hank’s instincts were screaming that these were dangerous. Dangerous on the level of Paolo, or Kayle.

Then, one by one, they light on fire. A dangerous, green, spectral fire. As the fire came alight, the runes slowly began to shine. These strange exosuits were powering on before their very eyes.

“Fuckin’ cheaters,” Hank muttered, drawing both the repeater and the revolver. He only had 36 revolver bullets at the moment. Why hadn’t he made more? While he was in Donnyton, it had just seemed like a waste of time to work on his bullets, but-

But he had gained a lot of Levels and PP and stats from his time there. With that edge, his bullets now would be quite a bit more powerful. Well, he would have to make do. But the problem was that they would each need to fight against 4 of them-

“Acid Arrow,” Ezekiel called, and Hank’s instincts screamed. If it had been him a month ago, the arrow would have taken him in the back of the head. Instead, he barely dodged rolled to the side. As he came up, he brought his pistol to bear on Ezekiel, but the exosuit monsters were rushing forward at such a speed that Hank couldn’t ignore them.

They were a bigger threat than Ezekiel.

It seemed that Thaddeus got the memo about Ezekiel’s change of heart because he leaped to the side, using his leg thrusters to get out of harm’s way. Bolts of hyperdense plasma smashed towards the monsters, but they moved with surprising grace for their size.

Grimacing, Hank raised his revolver and fired towards the leader’s leg. He used Trick Shot, speeding the bullet up past the point that it could feasibly be dodged. It smashed into its knee joint and sent it sprawling.

But it then straightened, standing on one leg. Seeming to glare at Hank, it raised its hand and shot a ball of green fire at him that he barely jerked out of the way of. This… would be tough.

Hank looked across the battlefield at Thaddeus. Their eyes met. When dodging, they had been forced away from each other. It normally wouldn’t matter, both faired well in a melee. But these opponents…

They loped towards them like wolves.

Rough.

“It can’t be here…” Ezekiel whispered. “I need this… I-”

“You are stronger than this,” Hank said aloud. He felt his Soul Skill singing as he spoke. This was where he needed to be. “You have a son, think about him. You can find another way. This whole month, you’ve resisted. You’ve only hunted-”

Hank paused. Ezekiel smiled helplessly. The monsters in their flaming exosuits rushed forward in a tight formation, separating the two combatants.

*****

“The runes you developed have been invaluable in my own research, by the way.” Father Foster commented as she strapped Randidly into the operating table. “The general utility… almost any form of energy can be used with them. And recently, I’ve discovered some very… interesting forms of power.”

Randidly didn’t bother to respond. Most of Father Foster’s responses were either to praise or insult Randidly’s intelligence. It was honestly rather tedious. Besides, Randidly was rather distracted with his own pursuits. But he couldn’t help but admit that he was rather impressed with the quality of craftsmanship of this room. It was clearly designed to contain powerful individuals.