Funatic
patreon
Romulus Side Story 1 - To Fight Unabated 1 – Abstract Reality
🕑 Added 2024-12-10 00:33:35 +0000 UTC
Romulus sensed her presence all around.
Others that could differentiate the world from what it had been and what it was now were few and far between. One after another, they had died to age, each other, or the newcomers in this world. Now he was one of the few ones that remembered the old times when things were truly free. Back when the world had been much larger, mysterious, and untamed. Back when laws were agreements between men, enforced by might that could be revolted against. Back when… everything had been simpler.
Her presence was evident in the darkness before them.
A miniature sun hovered above Sol’s hand. The sphere radiated heat and light in a measure of the goddess’ choosing. A measure that failed to penetrate more than five paces fully. Beyond that, there was twilight for another five paces. Then, absolute darkness claimed the ship. It was darkness that not even the Godslayer’s eyes could pierce. His elemental senses did not manage to build a connection with that dark either.
Her presence made this darkness abstract, like she was making the steel hull of this industrial cargo ship they were inside of abstract. It restricted Romulus in his options, forced him to adhere to a set of rules. Here, he was bound to designs. ‘Feels like a metaphor for everything that I disdain about her world,’ Romulus thought and gave a nearby wall a testing slam with the side of his fist. It did not budge at all. ‘This trial, I did consent to.’
“One moment,” John spoke in an urgent tone and so Romulus stayed in his path.
“What is it?” Luna desired to know. She was ever the most inquisitive of the three of them.
“I believe we are about to enter the boss room.” The Gamer pointed at a marking on the floor. The yellow-black strip was often found on ships like this and other industrial areas, yet it was the first that they had come across so far. Further, it ran across the floor, up the walls, and across the ceiling of this wide hall, forming an upright rectangle.
“What can we anticipate?” Romulus had familiarized himself somewhat with videogames, especially since learning his rising rival had powers based on them. He had found most of them to be engaging, but not as engaging as working with his own hands. For that reason, he was still lagging somewhat on the gaming slang.
“An incredibly powerful monster with a set of unique or specific abilities,” John answered. “They will be able to take a lot more damage. Most of them transition strategies two or three times throughout a fight. We call those ‘phases’. Once the fight begins, the arena will also close behind us”
Romulus found that intuitive enough. “Then let us begin?” The statement turned into a question halfway. John appeared hesitant.
“Usually, we ask Lorelei for a vision first,” he revealed.
Romulus tapped his shoulder with the shaft of the spear. He had not named it yet and likely wouldn’t. It was a project he had made in pursuit of deepening his skills. Likely, it would break before this Raid was over. If it survived, perhaps he would send it to War’s collection.
“I would prefer my surprise unspoiled,” he stated.
“Alright then… doubt it’ll be a huge challenge to you. We will see.”
Together, this party that had been put together crossed the line into the barrier. The character of the darkness changed. No longer was there that all-encompassing neutrality. An artificial hostility took its place, not different from a golem that had been given the order to attack.
A sudden impact struck Romulus’ shoulder.
“”ROM!”” both of his women shouted, while his upper body turned. The projectile fell to the ground, flattened against the wooden plate that he had manifested on his skin in reaction to it.
Cling! Cling! Cling!
Three more projectiles bounced off the side of the spear’s blade in rapid succession. Each impact reverberated up Romulus’ arm. His fingers felt numb. Whirling his spear, he advanced step for step. Two of the attacks managed to get through the gap. Both were stopped by reactive armour.
The dull throbbing following the blocked attacks was testament to their strength. Romulus smiled. He was subjected to such attacks with some regularity. Sparring was one of his favourite pastimes. What was different between spars and this, besides the unnatural restrictions, was simple: he could fight to kill.
Romulus felt a simple smile on his face as he advanced further. A humanoid figure was revealed from the shadows. The Apex charged.
The figure was an outline – nothing more. Romulus’ spear swung on through, scattering the illusion. Turbulent air howled through the corridors of the industrial ship. A drop before him revealed the true scope of this hall. Stairs connected various levels of platforms with each other. Railings and lacks thereof were hidden by the darkness. The true labyrinthine nature of the level was hidden.
The attack had left Romulus open to more of the bullets – in theory. Charging into the gap, Sol shielded him with her body. Attacks evaporated before they could even touch the golden armour she had manifested. The solar halo that hovered behind the goddess’ back burned with plasma fire. The liquid tongues of flame licked at the air around, igniting it with her presence.
No words were necessary. Sol leapt straight upwards. She landed in Romulus’ large palm. The extra weight did nothing to stop the Apex’s throwing motion. His gold-eyed love sailed through the air, her radiance and blonde hair soon getting swallowed by the darkness.
A cataclysmic flash of light ripped apart the darkness. Romulus could see the labyrinthine, ruptured innards of the ship in over-exposed detail. Containers, barrels, walls, platforms, moving elevator platforms, hovering cranes, there was no practical sense to any of it. It existed solely to be the arena for this fight. This was one of the few agreeable things he could find in his ‘niece’s’ designs.
In the middle of it all was his sun, her burning fist rammed through the torso of something. It beat her back with explosive strength, then pulled the darkness back together before Romulus could do more.
Romulus took a step into the drop. He did not fall. His feet found a path of moonlight beneath them. Silver dress fluttering elegantly, his pale love followed him on the road she forged from her might.
Fresh bullets bombarded them. Romulus’ reactive armour caught them – and splintered. The wooden armour forged from his very own power was broken by the projectiles. Not without neutralizing them first, yet it was still a notable increase in the power behind the attacks. ‘We have entered the second phase?’
‘Are you thinking or asking?’ Luna responded, mild amusement in her tone.
‘Do you need to insult his intelligence by asking if he can’t figure this out for himself?’ Sol took a verbal shot at the other celestial.
Luna took a deliberate pause before answering. ‘Perhaps.’
‘You’re such a sassy minx.’
‘Is that an insult or a compliment?’
‘Take it both ways,’ Sol stated.
In the middle of this fight, in the middle of all of this, it occurred to Romulus that they had not bantered half as aggressively when they had both been pregnant.
Romulus kept whirling his spear all the while. The occasional attack went in a different direction, a streak of blue through the renewed darkness. A reminder that the Gamer was participating in this fight. ‘Shall I aid him?’ Luna asked.
‘I trust they can keep themselves alive,’ Romulus responded, then handed the spear to Sol. The moonlight path had brought the three of them back together. “I haven’t been able to test this in a while,” he said and crouched down into a starting position.
Romulus considered himself a novice in matters of elemental magic.
By nature, he was apt at shadow magic. It was not a strong preference and the magics most related to that kind were a bad match with his direct fighting style. Still, he had worked as much on it as he could. Earth and water were the next two he had a measure of talent for. It was them that he usually relied on the most. Growing armour and forest alike was within his realm of preferences. The remaining three elements of fire, air and light, he struggled with equally.
Electricity arced around his form. White, yellow and blue lightning danced around the surface of his tensing muscles. Quick. He filled his soul with the intent to be quick. Magic was the will stretching material reality. Lightning struck within his soul, because he willed it. Lightning was the fuel for his speed, because he willed it. Lightning was his very being, because he willed it!
The Apex moved.
Two and half metres of broad shoulders and power beyond gods darted through the chamber. His own speed blurred his senses, making him rely entirely on intuition. He leapt from surface to surface. Vertical, horizontal, diagonal, it did not matter. His feet never lingered long enough for gravity to assert itself.
The bullets flew around him. No matter how well the creature aimed, it was incapable of keeping up with his speed. Every bullet gave away its position. That it changed rapidly changed little. That it left illusions behind to confuse changed even less. Romulus tore through them. He ricocheted around the room until finally he met the thing itself.
He landed before it with a thunderclap. The boss monster, as the Gamer would call it, was an odd creature. The shoulders were too broad, the hips too wide, and the limbs just a tad too long, all of which were features that Romulus recognized from the Skinwalkers. What made this creature different were the layers of robes it covered itself with. A mask of leather and steel covered its face. Blue glowed hatefully from the eye slits. A variety of pipes and cables connected the creature itself with the large gun it held in its hands.
It knew no surprise, only aggression.
[https://i.imgur.com/fRN1riY.png]
Romulus slammed his fist through the chest of the monster. He had expected great resistance, but found it relatively easy to leave the grievous injury. He brought his other hand down on the monster’s shoulder. Before he could grab it, some invisible force stopped his palm. The boss took a step back, flowing off his fist like some kind of liquid. It wasn’t as much that it actually was one. Rather, the rules of this fight ordained that it could not be locked down like that.
‘Fine then,’ Romulus thought and let the monster slink back into the shadow. If Gaia decreed that it would only be vulnerable for a brief moment after being caught, then Romulus would just catch it again.
The lightning flared within his blood. The Apex turned sideways, dodging another bullet. That it was faster and stronger did not matter – so was he.
In an instant, he broke through the sound barrier. Darkness was no obstacle when he could practically be everywhere all at once. The illusions were mere annoyances. It took Romulus only a few more seconds to find the creature again.
He obliterated its head with a swipe of his fist.
The monster was sent to the ground. On impact, the body burst into a cloud of ash and dust. The explosion rippled outwards, rending the darkness within the ship like fat was cut from a slice of meat. Impenetrable black was replaced with regular shadow, shadows that the radiant presences of sun and moon goddess filled with light gold and silver.
Romulus zapped over with the last of the lightning energy before dismissing it. He rolled his shoulder, stretching it and the magical circuits he had not used in a long while.
“It really is impressive to watch a master at work,” John shouted up to Romulus. The trio descended from their elevated platform and joined the Gamer and his four women. They stood near an industrial chest that had not been there before. The steel lid waited to be lifted. “If I didn’t know better, I would assume lightning was your Innate Ability.”
“You flatter me. I have no talent for lightning magic.” Romulus took the spear back from Sol. “I practiced this for 30 years.”
“One of his many projects,” Sol boasted. She loved to boast with him and he could not tell her off. What little pride he had in this accomplishment, she turned into a display of adorable confidence. “Every day, for several hours, he would train, until even the greatest masters had to bow to his magnificence.”
“She is not embellishing either,” Luna added with a smile.
“Enough about me,” Romulus decided. He had little interest in talking about himself and he certainly did not need to get several minutes of compliments. That would be the actual worst thing that could happen that day. “I wish to see this… Loot, I believe is the word you use for it?”
“Yup,” the Gamer said and stepped away. “Customarily, the one who kills the boss opens the chest and pulls out the items.”
“A sound tradition. It reminds me of the way we distributed the spoils during the Germanic crusade.”
“The Germanic crusade?” the Gamer asked.
“The best approximate translation I have for the name of the conflict.” Romulus lifted the lid. “I failed to come to an agreement with the gods of the Germans and so I had to cut them down. It was the first time I mustered the armies of Rome in a large scale capacity. I required their aid to find the many enemies of that war. It ended with many of them fleeing to Scandinavia.”
“There is a lot of overlap between Norse and old Germanic deities,” the Gamer hummed, while Romulus pulled out the items.
There were many puzzling things that Romulus failed to entirely see the point of even after the Gamer had described them. A jar filled with slime that could take the form of a small object, for example. It would not mimic the actual magical aspects of said object, so it would just be a cheap, visual copy. Then there were a bunch of industrial bolts of incredible quality. Useful those may be, but not so that one would go through these hoops to get them.
“Ya take the trash with the awesome stuff,” Rave, as the Gamer’s first woman was known, stated.
“And this is pretty awesome,” the Gamer said, holding up a sniper rifle. It was made in the image of the weapon the boss had used, complete with all of the cables that would connect it to the spine and shoulders of whoever would use it. “Can’t believe we got a Legendary on our first boss of the run… Do you want it?”
Romulus looked at the armament with a mixture of emotions. For him, firearms were still a relatively recent phenomenon. He understood their usefulness for the mundane people of the world, but abhorred them at the same time. A bow or a sling was an instrument of skill. Using them was proof of dedication. To just have to pull a trigger felt… off.
‘You do not respect the power lying in preparation.’
Remus had always used to say that.
“I have no one that would make good use of such an armament. Keep it,” Romulus stated. He kept to himself the small stockpile of raw crafting materials that had come out of the chest. Why take these powerful items if he could forge more himself? ‘I suppose for the Gamer this is a kind of forging?’ he wondered, scanning the walls of the place that only existed because of John Newman.
Continuing on should prove to be interesting.
Comments
Nessa Bright
Fianna has a weapon now. She’s def getting haremed
![https://i.imgur.com/fRN1riY.png]](https://i.imgur.com/fRN1riY.png]){kind=link}