Not Playing His Game

Avii held his ground as he watched Sebastian from afar, knowing well that he was in for a fight. With a brief glance down at the arcanzcore set into his chest, he stared at the thin band of yellow-green glow that let him know that it was three-quarters charged. Unlike the poorly crafted Kovika and Estaria designs, Maldainian cores built for MULEs were not exchangeable. Directly tied to a single suit, they worked by siphoning energy from the ambient magic of the world.

Even without looking at the glow of his core, Avii could tell that the courtyard was saturated with magic by the sharp scent that hung in the air. After all, it was one that he knew well from the mines. He always knew when he drew near to a pocket of arcana. In fact, every good miner did, as they always looked for any means to recharge their suits while on the job. And, thanks to the golems’ assault, he knew that the camp had become saturated in the last hour, meaning he would have plenty of energy to spare.

Plenty of magic to deal with the Butcher before him.

“MULE!” Sebastian screamed once more from across the courtyard. “Pay attention to me, you damn beast. I said I want to play a game with you.”

Turning his gaze back to Sebastian, he noticed that the man had taken a step closer to the center of the killing field. Closer to the grinder that continued to churn hungrily even though it had already fully fed on the mountain of corpses brought to it. This alone made Avii’s gut twist as his mind put together the game that the twisted man planned. The only question was if he could intervene before it was too late.

“Now that I have your attention, mule,” Sebastian continued with a twisted smile. “I was thinking we could play a game of—”

With a powerful stomp of the ground, Avii’s boot cracked the fragmented pieces of building beneath him, freeing an iron beam from the stone it once stabilized. Inside his gloved hand, Avii’s fingers worked the magic that he had once been a master of. With the press of a crystalline button within the gauntlet, Avii extended his grasp and activated the suit’s limited telekinetic abilities.

The metal rod flew into his grasp, and with a step forward, he threw the makeshift spear with all his might. Aiming for Ostave’s left side, the man watched as the object pierced the orc with ease, tearing through his body and spilling blood down his waist. But the knight had not been Avii’s intended target as the projectile continued through, tearing into the denser armour of Sebastian. It pierced cleanly through the weakened orc, lodging itself midway through the Kovik.

“You cheat!” Sebastian coughed as he stumbled back. “Dirty mule! Incapable of playing fair games. Fine, we don’t have to play a game with the filthy green blood.”

Predicting what came next, Avii was already moving towards the pair as he watched Sebastian throw Ostave to the ground. The frail orc bounced, coughing up blood as he landed at the edge of the grinder. But the Butcher was not yet pleased as he drew his armoured boot back and gave the knight a vicious kick.

“Knight!” Avii cried out as he neared the far end of the grinder and watched as the orc tumbled beyond the ledge.

With a powerful leap, Avii jumped towards the pit and for the first time set his eyes on the gore-soaked rollers. Stained black from years of blood, the rusty metal meant to pulverize bone and flesh to bits of meat slowly churned beneath him. It was not simply a pair of cylinders with blades, as Avii had suspected, but rather a narrowing pit that stretched down into the earth, holding dozens of tricone bits of different sizes meant to rip and tear.

Soaring overtop, Avii watched as Ostave’s feet became tangled in the topmost rollers. The metal bit at the remnants of toes snagging them first before hungrily eating up to his ankle. Crying out in pain, the orc’s eyes fixated on the machine of death that had begun to consume him before locking his terrified gaze up to Avii. The knight desperately reached out his hand, to which the mule caught hold the moment his armour collided with the opposite wall. There Avii plunged his fist into the reinforced ledge, taking hold of solid earth with one grip and the life of the knight firmly in the other.

Ostave cried out in agony as the crushers pulled at his legs, drawing him deeper into the meat grinder that now moved more easily as his fluids coated its gears. Avii knew that the man’s flesh was being ripped apart at that very moment. That every inch of bone in his legs was splintering. But even with that knowledge, he could only imagine the torment in his voice. This was because the hungry roar of the machine was deafening from inside the maw. Loud enough to quiet the most terrorized screams, making Avii once again wonder how many living souls had been fed to the beast in its time.

“Ostave!” Avii cried out, trying to overpower the groaning of metal. “Hold on to me.”

Though his voice could barely hold the focus of the man being torn apart, and if Avii didn’t have such a firm grip on his wrist, the orc would have already been gone. Would have already become liquid for the settling pond. So, Avii kept his grip locked, feeling as the man’s shoulder pulled and popped as it began to stretch beyond its limit. Ostave’s face twisted with both agony and terror as his legs vanished before his very eyes.

Something would soon change, and as the orc disappeared up to the knees, Avii took the chance to give him a forceful tug. With a rip, he was free, severed just beneath the knees but no longer at risk of being crushed. Though now a new problem arose as the colour drained from his green skin and he threatened to bleed out.

Luckily, Avii had something for that as well. Something in his suit that was perfect for quickly cauterizing the wound. And, as he leapt from the grinder back to the courtyard using a single, hard kick, he pressed another crystal inside the glove of his free hand to begin warming the gauntlet.

Landing hard atop the packed earth, Avii wasted no time getting to cover. As he found a nearby mountain of rubble, he slid behind the pile of rocks and rested Ostave down. The blood that flowed from his body quickly pooled beneath him, slickening the stones as Avii hastily lifted a leg. By that point, Avii’s hand had already begun to glow red hot at the palm. Initially meant to heat immovable boulders to their core before applying magical cooling and shattering them, Avii had more than once used the ability to cauterize the wounds of his fellow miners.

Ostave screamed out as the hand gripped at his stump. The sound and stink of sizzling flesh assaulted the air as Avii held tight. Squirming, the orc tried to escape, forcing Avii to brace him with his other hand. But he wouldn’t need to hold long, as the man soon fell unconscious, the pain far too much for him to handle. In Avii’s mind, it was likely for the best as he began to work on the next limb. After sealing the two legs and the puncture wound in his side, the mule stared down at the weak breaths of the knight.

“Stay with me, knight,” Avii muttered as he looked around, silently hoping for a miraculous potion to be resting within reach. "Come on."

That was when a whistling caught Avii’s attention. The sound of something destructive racing his way. Without a moment to lose, he slapped a hand to the back of his neck and took hold of the metal crescent-moon that made up his collar. Pulling it overtop his head, he latched the metal helmet that formed under his chin before curling his body down atop Ostave. A second later, a pair of arcanzcore-armed javelins struck his back with thunderous detonation.

But it would take more than that to damage a MULE meant for raiding ancient catacombs deep beneath the earth.

Standing, Avii turned in the direction the weapons had flown. He stared through the slits of his helmet, meant to protect the wearer from cave-ins in unstable shafts, and caught sight of him. Sebastian stood at a distance, half a dozen javelins driven into the ground beside him, their explosive cores primed. As he reached down, the man plucked one of the spears from the earth and, with a flick of his thumb over the core, threw it Avii’s way. But Avii was too quick.

Avii charged forward, deflecting the first attack and sending it skyward where it detonated a moment later. A second javelin followed, which he sidestepped with just as much ease, redirecting the spear once more away from Ostave. Finally, as the third arrived, he plucked it from the air.

Throwing it back with all his might, he missed Sebastian. The shot landed short of a decisive strike. But this had been his plan. He knew a direct hit on the Kovik armour would do little, so, instead, his javelin struck the mass of cores that rested beside the man.

As it hit, the primed arcanzcores erupted in a mushroom-shaped cloud of flames and smoke. The blast, significantly more powerful than a direct hit, threw Sebastian off his feet and to the ground. Continuing his charge, Avii watched as the man tumbled against the earth before rolling to a stop. And by the time Sebastian righted himself and prepared to stand, it was too late. Avii was already atop him with his fist primed.

It was time for the mule to end the Butcher.