Specter

Chapter 44 (Night 4): Attack On The Imperator's Armory

We last read Chapter 43, in which Imperator Barrows, Rogue, and a small group of at least five guards barely manage to evade the wrath of a massive angry mob that has successfully breached the Imperator's Armory following a tip-off from King Ryker himself revealing that Barrows and Rogue were behind the recent pro-Kingpin dissenter attacks. Though he and Rogue manage to drop a huge and transparent rectangle-shaped door between themselves and the mob—effectively separating the main area from the work and production area—they are then instead confronted by Specter, King Ryker, and the rest of the king's court instead, who are quick to confront them. Specter tries—and fails—to reach out to Rogue one more time regarding her loyalty to Barrows, but both she and Barrows dismiss Specter, emphasizing that Barrows won over Rogue with genuine respect and courtesy.....and that it's not something Specter can simply override with some "girl code". The chapter ended with Specter attempting to bring Barrows in peacefully by asking him to surrender.....only for him to pathetically attempt to impale her with the shaft of his newly-rebuilt long hammer-like weapon; an attempt that fails due to Specter turning her body intangible before impact. After returning the favor with a blow to his nose that sends him staggering back, she gives the official order for King Ryker's court to start attacking.

This time, Specter, King Ryker, and the rest of the king's court finally square off against Imperator Barrows, Rogue, and the forces of the Shattered Circle, in one of their biggest battles yet.....

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As Rogue and the recovered guards helped Imperator Barrows regain his proper footing, Specter couldn't help but taunt him a little more.

"Hmph. I really was expecting someone more impressive," she teased whilst advancing towards him. "No matter. I suppose this will all be over soon."

Ticked off, Imperator Barrows then reached down and pressed a button on a small pad attached to the hip of his purple, futuristic-looking suit.

"Shattered Circle! Attack!" he commanded while looking dead-on at Specter as an almost-innumerable amount of agents in dark clothes with the Shattered Circle logo emblazoned somewhere on them began streaming into the production area. "I'll show you 'impressive'!

Specter looked on at the rapidly-approaching legions not with fear, but with strength. With a confident smile, she bolted forward and leapt into the air as she approached the army, twirling her body around several times and cloaking herself during the second spin to make herself significantly harder to physically see. Then, while cloaked, she unsheathed some of her throwing knives from hidden slots within her power suit and sent them flying in all directions from her person in a sort of "flechette storm", stabbing almost every nearby enemy with her blades in the process and taking them out with remarkable speed.

Once she landed back on her feet at the end of her vault, she uncloaked herself and immediately began getting to work on the ones who survived her initial barrage.

She dove directly through a grunt's body thanks to her intangibility, turned herself solid again once she had completely passed through, then performed one combat roll before bringing her right knee forward and forcibly snapping backwards with it, selling the agent a strong kick to the back and making him stumble forward onto a workbench, shattering it in the process.

Two more tried to slam monkey wrenches directly onto her head, but Specter looked up and seized both of their wrists with her hands before twisting them—eliciting pained screams from her foes—and then effectively using them as "boosts" to return herself to a fully upright position, kicking both of them in their chins on her way back up and sending them flying away.