The security guard’s helmet tipped downward toward his leg. It was completely exposed from the front, displaying his brown jump suit. A pile of sparkling dust lay around his foot.
Lim aimed the gun toward the guard’s helmet, and the man pushed him backward and ran away. Lim landed on his back, but didn’t drop the gun. He kept it pointing upward at the security guards, not firing, but ready.
Larry, meanwhile had a security guard’s helmet in the Frog suit’s front claw. Since the guy had dropped Cheryl, he didn’t see any reason to keep hold, so he let go of the helmet, punching the guard’s armor in the abdomen at about the same time. The guard slid across the runway, and into the hangar’s open door.
Normally that would have been a mistake. By freeing Cheryl, he’d arguably challenged all of the security guards, but they weren’t paying any attention.
Armory pulled himself off the asphalt where Alexis’ shot had left him. He pulled himself up, but faced the spot where Larry had been standing before Alexis took his shots.
Larry knew he hadn’t turned invisible. He followed Armory’s gaze on the screen, and realized it was worse than he’d imagined.
The earth elemental had grown even more, and it wasn’t standing patiently as Sloan had ordered it to.
It had completely absorbed every bit of the runway in its reach in addition to the brown dirt around it. The creature’s tentacles extended into the ground, and were growing thicker.
Larry searched his screen for Sloan. The wizard lay unconscious on the ground, so it wasn’t under his control. He tried to remember what earth elementals wanted when they weren’t being controlled by sorcerers.
He couldn’t think of anything in particular. The last time he’s seen an earth elemental follow its own desires, it had set off a volcano for fun.
“Hey Armory,” he shouted. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this. Truce?”
Armory only said, “What, are you scared? It’ll fall apart without Sloan. Magic never lasts.”
That was when the second earth elemental came out of the ground. It appeared out of the dirt next to the first, but it was only nine feet tall.
The third and fourth appeared immediately after it, all of them reddish brown with bits of grey rock.
Larry said, “Yeah?”
A security guard screamed and began to run away, each footfall sinking deeply into the dirt. He got past the hangars, and hesitated as he began to run past where the elementals were growing out the dirt.
Larry wanted to shout at him, but before he could, hands reached out of the soil, and yanked the guard into the earth, power armor and all.
Armory held his arms parallel to the ground, and guns popped out. Larry counted at least four per arm.
Then Armory shouted, “No more running. Every one of you fires at the elementals!”
It looked good at first. The security guards opened up their armors’ forearms exactly the same way Armory had. At some unseen signal, they opened fire.
The sound of automatic weapons and the brightness of the explosions overpowered everything else. They were so loud that the screams weren’t obvious at first. Grenades blew pieces off the smaller elementals. Bullets tore chunks out of them.
Larry stood to the side of the main group, partly because he thought he might get a better view, partly because he wanted to be out of easy reach if Armory won.
He launched a missile toward the largest earth elemental’s torso. Amid all the other explosions, it didn’t seem to have any special effect, but it did blow a small hole in the creature’s asphalt body.
Deciding to move to a better vantage point, he began to lift up his leg—only to find out that not only wasn’t it lifting, but he was sinking.
He didn’t hesitate, he shot a missile into the ground near his feet.
The explosion blew him a few feet backward. Errors and damage reports ran across the bottom of the HUD, but he could move.
Armory’s team wasn’t so lucky. From what Larry could see at least half of them had been sucked into the ground. Armory himself fought hands that had grabbed his ankles.
Then painfully bright light shone around Armory’s lower torso, and the dirt turned partly into glass.
Armory twisted his legs and the hands shattered. Then he started to run, and what was left of the security guards left with him—or tried to.
Over the radio, Alexis said, “Where are you?”
“Still by the hangar, man, where are you?”
“I have been distracting the creature from above. Where are your companions?”
“Can’t say for sure, but I think they went back into the hangar.”
That was when the second earth elemental came out of the ground. It appeared out of the dirt next to the first, but it was only nine feet tall.
The second and third appeared immediately after it, all of them reddish brown with bits of rock
NUMBERS?
Sorry, Armory, there does appear to be Ontological Inertia.
Sloan needs a name. Something reflective of his tendency to conjure up earth elementals.
I know, The Soiler.
displaying his his brown
The second and third appeared , Shouldn’t that be third and fourth since a second one already appeared?
My first ever post on the Legion of Nothing…..
Correction in first paragraph:
It was completely exposed from the front, displaying his his brown jump suit.
(Not sure whether you want corrections posted – Wildbow usually does, and I see you lurking over there, so thought I’d post).
I think this may have been one of my favorite posts in this Arc.
However, another typo:
because he wanted to be out of easy reach if the won.
I’m guessing the = they, but even at that, I’m not sure which they he is more concerned about if they win – probably Armory’s they.
Perhaps he should offer to make a deal with the elementals – We’ll quit shooting if you’ll let us evacuate the people off the island. After that, you have permission to turn it into a volcano and slurp up any people who didn’t choose to evacuate.
Spudfather: I’m happy to receive corrections. It’ll save me bother when I edit it for publication, and generally makes the online version better too.
Roger/Jeff/Spudfather/Notto: Corrections made. Thanks.
Notto: Of course, the elemental may not be able to understand English… On the other hand, it might.
PG: If Sloan survives to appear in the main story, he’ll definitely be using a name. Probably not that one though (but it would be funny).
I know, he could go by Dirty Boy
Oh and I like that Lim’s gun seems to cleanly remove the armor without doing any real damage… I may be forgetting something about Lim, but it just seems to fit.
And maybe “Rock Scissors” for Sloan?
Oh look! Expendable crew member!
Hg
Something tells me that this island will not last.
Really, anyone that says: “I will give my technology to whoever pays best” usually does not end well.
A quick guess is Lim’s gun oxidizes any metal it strikes. But then you would have an incredible amount of heat generated from oxidizing that much metal that quickly. Maybe an energy that destroys or alters the molecular bonds of metals only? Dang it, you’re still talking about a huge amount of energy being released. I’ve got nothing!
Oh wait, specially programmed nanite emitter designed to only break down metals into dust and with a limited reproductive cycle to prevent them getting out of control.
Oh, and kudos to Lim for bringing such a weapon to a convention of armor wearers! 😀
@andrul: How about some kind of ultrasonic emitter, tuned to specific frequencies that are specific to the resonance points of certain metals. Wouldn’t take much energy to cancel out the loose bonds in the metals, and presumably without much energy release. I suppose it could be done with a magnetic field too.
Hg
@Hydrargentium: I just happened to read the first paragraph again, couldn’t have been accelerated oxidation because the dust is sparkly. I didn’t go with the sonics idea because the decibels necessary to generate harmonics strong enough to break apart the metal bonds would likely be deafening and possibly even lethal to organics. I’m thinking nanites is the most probable explanation although there’s always the old fall-back of an alien gun that fires N-rays which only affects metals in a manner that is inexplicable to humans.
Yeah, this was a nice escalation (and a nice little nod back to the volcano too, which I still can’t believe was actually a thing). In all honesty, Larry never really had the awe for me that he seems to have had for some other readers, so I was lukewarm coming into this arc… but the addition of Lim, and now the magic and other craziness has me enjoying it. I like how it all fits together.