Beacons in The Dark

Chapter 11 - Dance of Death

"Always seek knowledge wherever you may be, learn what you can and never stray from the path of the Historian." - Loreseeker's Guild credo

It was nearly impossible to anticipate the attack - telecasters worked by breaking down a person to an atomic level and broadcasting the fragmented person to their place of destination. Some people said the person who goes into a telecaster is not the same person that comes out, but most people regard that as superstition.

As soon as their bodies were defragmented through the other gateway in a small sheltered caster terminal the air lit up around Nami and Blue as red and green slashing beams from three or four slashburner guns, which fired a slow beam of energy and when shot with your arm arcing downwards or upwards, the beams actually curved and arced through the air like fiery scimitars.

Nami's hereditary reflexes allowed him to arc his body to the side, tucking into a roll as the beam cut down at him; it slashed into his left calf, lacerating it nearly to the bone. Crippling blow or not, Nami's will alone was enough to keep him going for the fight.

There were four of them, dressed in matching hardplast armor which could absorb multiple blows from physical weapons as well as energy assaults.

Feeling a pulse of adrenaline, the fluid sacs under ther skin of Nami's arms began to glow and he reached up and over his head, pulling out his two ionized glass swords. This motion was performed while still in the roll, and coming up and out of it, blood spurting from his maimed leg and, he gave the first two attackers no time to fire a second shot.

Dazzling rainbow light flashed and blinded their eyes as Nami shot up at them, his twin swords each poking expertly into the joints of the armor where the helmet fit to the torso piece. Knowing the joints to be the weakest points in armor, he wasn't surprised when his blades slid through the men's necks like butter, and with a quick dash to the side, his blades pulled free, and both men falling to the ground, one sputtering like a clogged sink, the other already dead, both in spewing pools of blood.

The other two dropped their slashburners and pulled out handheld projectile weapons which fired physical ammunition. A crashing boom was heard as the gun went off, and then the man who had first shot was thumped backwards as Nami somehow pulled his sword up to not only deflect, but actually knock the bullet back at the man.

As he stumbled backwards, his partner rushed Nami, holding his hands out, electricity crackling between his gloved fingers and around his hand has he powered up a blasting charge that would fry circuits and flesh with just a touch.

But he wasn't going to touch Nami, and he should have known that, but the sight of his two companions dead on the ground and another one just knocked back stumbling by his own weapon sent him into a frenzy.

White teeth bared in an animal like snarl, with his injured leg, Nami jumped with all his might into the air, he had no leg augmentations, just true blue tissue, and he fully launched over six feet into the air, cutting a front flip over the man with the shock gloves, and as he reached up to grab at Nami, the ion glass sword was pushed down the same joint in the armor Nami had used to kill the other assailants, he was dead in an instant, the sword buried to the hilt, piercing his heart, lungs, stomach, kidneys, intestings, and liver by a subtle twist of the wrist.

But Name let go as he continued to flip, his other arm throwing his three and a half foot longsword like a throwing dagger. As he did so, his arms flared in bright red pulses, a feral roar coming from deep inside the lightman bladelord, making the man's next shot go wild.

And that was the last thing he saw, his muzzle flash, and then obliterating darkness as the sword crushed through the reinforced hardplast helmet he wore, through his brainpan and blasting out the back of the helmet as well. He stood there for a moment, and then toppled over.

Turning around, Nami looked to see what Loremaster Blue was doing and saw him crumpled in the telecaster terminal in an unnaturally large pool of blood, his decapitated head a full two feet away, sliced off by a slowbeam, a grimace of grotesque pain stretched across his face.

Nami's eyes went wide in shock and he started to rush forwards to his fallen leader, and more than that, his closest friend - but a pair of gnarled reptilian hands reached out from behind and grabbed him by the waist, just arms, with the air rippling around them, like someone was reaching through water.

The arms pulled Nami backwards into the rippling wave of air, and he was gone, the ripple disappearing after a few moments.