Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 171: Interlude Outside

Polizeimeister Lukas Müller thought he’d seen everything. Literal terrorists, nutcases who thought the Federal Republic of Germany wasn’t real, that they still lived in the Third Reich and took potshots at the police, drug dealers, drug dealers who got high on their own supply and tried to go after armed and armored police officers with the weirdest “weapons”, and so much more.

Then, the [System] had arrived, and the whole world had gone to shit, at least for most people. Müller had just shrugged and kept going as normal because his situation was the same as it had always been. Him staring at dangerous criminals through the scope of his sniper rifle. Most of the time, he didn’t have to pull the trigger, just being on call in case things got violent. Hostage situations, ranged support when storming buildings with large windows, and so on, he’d done it al.

And when the [System] had arrived, he’d only gotten better at it. [Skills] that made his every bullet match grade. [Skills] that let him partially ignore armor.

And then there’d been those who’d been almost insulting, like the amazing superpower of detecting where and how the wind was blowing. He’d been able to do that before by paying attention to how it was affecting the environment, and that was before he’d reached levels of Perception that would let him track the movement of individual grains of dust in the air to account for the wind to a degree that the most sensitive of scientific equipment would have been hard pressed to match.

His latest deployment had seen him set up on a roof opposite a seemingly normal office building, with very loose orders that boiled down to “we expect trouble, but do not engage unless ordered to”. Between the precise targeting information available via the Party menu and his [Skills], non-lethally taking down people deep inside a building and around several corners. At least so long as the targets weren’t absurdly durable, that was.

But he hadn’t had to do anything but cool his heels lying on the roof with his Heckler & Koch PSG1 sniper rifle, three more identical rifles lying on the roof next to him. [Skills] tended to be rough on weapons that were, materially speaking, no different than they’d been before the [System], far too fragile for the new world. Of course, the various suppliers had been promising newer and better guns practically since the Initialization, but they were yet to deliver. Therefore, he had to bypass the issue by convincing the beancounters to throw money at it.

The day looked to go normally, like any properly planned out and executed operation should.

… then the fucking asshole in the supervillain costume had shown up. A blood-red ceramic-looking mask only marked by two thin slits for the eyes covered the face, a darker cloak, somewhat akin to the color of spilled wine falling down his back and covering his back in a way that spoke to a massively inflated ego. Rounding out the ‘look’ was rather generic set of reinforced fabrics somewhat akin to the tactical armor Müller was wearing, albeit in a similarly impractical shade as the rest of the outfit.

“The Pigs decided that people being people, exercising their freedoms in a way that the fat cats don’t like, was a little too much and decided to break out the jackboots.”

The declaration was as much an observation as anything else, something that Müller had heard slung his way a thousand times before, usually for similarly stupid reasons as “you arrested my friends/colleagues for the highly illegal shit they did”.

Müller was already moving before the man had finished his speech, the rifle he’d been cradling slung over his shoulder, the rest scooped up in his arms as carefully as he could, and was on the other end of the building in a matter of seconds. When the order came or if that guy did anything other than posture, he’d be ready to act.

“[AXIS MUNDI]!”

But when the blowhard, someone Müller had refused to call a supervillain in his mind, roared the [Skill]name like some damn Anime character, the world changed forever.

Looking at the area around the man, it was immediately apparent that something was wrong, but not what. Things seemed to be moving oddly, the very world flowing in a decidedly unnatural way, but in less than a second, the truth of the situation had become apparent.

Gravity had shifted sideways at a ninety degree angle, a massive pillar of altered gravity pushing everything away from the man in the center. Anything that wasn’t tied down and anyone out and about went flying immediately while buildings groaned and began to break. No matter how tough, how well designed they might have been, no one made plans for gravity to suddenly be pulling sideways.

And in the middle of the apocalyptic hellscape that an area at least half a kilometer across was become, the big crimson asshole floated serenely, arms hanging by his side, gazing out across the chaos he’d wrought.

‘I should have shot him the moment he started making threats.’ Müller cursed himself. [Know thy Target] told him that the man was either in the high nineties or low hundreds and someone like that would doubtlessly have been capable of immense destruction no matter the specifics of his [Class].

[Epic Blow: Threefold Power Shot], [Arcane Piercer], [Account for Insanity] immediately flowed into the bullet in the chamber, his standard enhancement [Skills] meant to bypass shields and compensate for preternatural interference.

Normally, that should have been enough. Would have been enough. He’d save his cooldown [Skills] for when he knew they were needed, and which ones to use. But now wasn’t the time to be picky.

[Hammerblow Impact], [Heartrender Shot] and [Unnoticeable Ambush] slammed home, the rifle bucking against his shoulder with enough force to send him sliding backwards across the roof, a pillar of flame and mystic energies blasting out of the barrel of the PSG1 yet hidden from anyone in sight, including the target, by his [Skill].

First, the bullet would automatically correct for the twisted gravity, then tear through the [Mage’s] shield through a combination of raw power and inherent anti-shield properties, speed up at the moment of impact, ripping through the terrorist’s heart while preventing all healing and regeneration for a few seconds. It wasn’t a survivable attack … had it hit.

Half a dozen layers of defenses shattered as the projectile tore through them before another gravetic snarl made itself known around the man, hurling the bullet skywards and past its intended target.

[Account for Insanity] tried had tried to compensate, to subconsciously adjust his aim so the shield flung the bullet right at its target, but the less he knew about his target’s defenses, the worse the [Skill] was and the less he was aware of what it was doing.

The end result saw the lead projectile, still glowing like the noonday sun, skim past the target’s face, clipping the mask and causing his head to snap back while cracks spiderwebbed across it.

And then, for the first time since his arrival, the [Mage] focused on a single target.

Müller let the now bent, twisted and useless rifle fall to the ground, slung the second one over his shoulder threw last two into his inventory, burning one of the rather pricey cores in the process, then legged it. Behind him, the first building keeled over and the mage laughed.

“Hey, you could have at least waited for someone to die before taking that shot, you know. Might not have looked like you’d shot a peaceful protestor.” The same megaphone-voice as before rang out, carrying with it an undercurrent of amusement.

Down below, countless guns spat their deadly payload skywards, but not a single bullet reached its target. The sideways-pointing gravity utterly ruined regular the ingrained instincts acquired after years or decades of firearms use, shots that would have otherwise been right on target being thrown utterly off-course.

The few that did come close were tossed aside by the vastly more chaotic warp of twisted gravity that protected the caster himself, uselessly falling back down to earth.

“You really think that could have hurt me? Pathetic, but nonetheless something I can let stand. [Warp Blast].”

It had been abundantly clear where this was leading so Müller had already been moving when the scintillating sphere of energy was hurled towards him.

Phasing, he dropped through the building while kicking off the very air itself using [Sky Step] to accelerate his decent well past what gravity would have provided. Even so, he was very nearly too slow.

When the orb hit the building, concrete simply crumbled away, being pulled into the center of the spell and seemingly vanishing, then exploding outwards once the energy had passed with staggering force, white-hot glowing shards of concrete tearing through what remained after a hole ten meters across had been ripped through the center of the unfortunate building. It began to crumble above him even as the big red asshole charged up another bolt of power, ready to demolish the still standing bottom part.

Müller just continued to run, plowing into the ground and continuing to move sideways, only phasing back into open air once he was under the next building over.

The lobby was utterly stuffed with panicking people, trying to decide whether to run and possibly draw the attention of the madman outside or stay and hope things didn’t get any worse.

“I’m Polizeimeister Müller.” He announced in a tone that instantly drew the attention of everyone in the lobby to him “Evacuate immediately and withdraw as far as you can. I’ll distract that guy, buy you some time. Take the back exit.”

The crowd immediately grew more worried and rowdy, when Müller followed that up with “Calmly. Panicking doesn’t help anyone.”

It was a statement that many a teacher or managed had given in an emergency, often in a squeaky voice that made it rather apparent that they were the most terrified person there, usually having the opposite effect of what was intended. But most police officers, Müller included had learned how to make it effective.

So while the crowd of terrified but no longer quite as panicky civilians left the building out through the back, Müller slipped out through the front, sending another couple of bullets into the mess of twisted gravity that passed for a shield. They missed, miserably. He could account better for the shield’s presence now but most of his hard-hitting [Skills] were now on cooldown.

This was exactly why going for a one-shot-kill was a risky proposition at best. If it worked, you ended the fight before it had even begun. And if it didn’t, you were faced with a long, drawn-out battle against someone who could tell where you were by looking at where your shot had come from with your biggest shots already spent.

“This is Brigadegeneral Horn. I have taken operative command of the Hamburg operation.”

The gruff, commanding voice rang from the Party’s “voice chat”, and its features suddenly expanded vastly. In many ways, the Seoul incident had been the first major [System]-based battle, and the whole world had learned lessons from that day. Coupled with half a year of Level growth and the tactics for a larger threat appearing near or even in a major metropolitan area had been vastly improved.

Immediately, Müller started to feed his own observations into the Party, the numerous layers of arcane shielding that had been broken by his first shot and hadn’t been repaired when his latest shot had hit, the exact adjustments needed to compensate for the gravity pillar and the redirecting shield he still didn’t know how to counter.

At the same time, others began to add their own knowledge, the results of their various [Inspect]-versions. Their foe was at Level 100 exactly, which was apparently the fourth Evolution threshold, and [Axis Mundi] was almost certainly one of the new cooldown [Skills], one clearly bought with banked points. This meant their foe had gained a little less from the previous [Classes] than most people, but with [Skills] that could level half a square kilometer with a single cast, did this guy even need more ways to spend his mana?

“The plan as it stands now is to retrieve the last few people within the affected area, then utilize the full ordinance at our disposal. Should attempts to outright kill fail, we’ll wear him down. Out of the potentially eightcooldown [Skills], that could be in play, the two fourth Evolution ones have already been used up.“

So, the shield was also a cooldown [Skill], then? On one hand, that meant it wouldn’t be draining his mana. On the other, it should time out soon enough.

Another presence joined Horn in the “command rank” of the Party. It was as though Müller had gained a second train of thought that could solely focus on what was happening there, letting him know what was happening on the command level without distracting him in his own fight..

[Instantaneous Redeployment: Typhoon Squadron], [Battlefield Adjustment: Esoteric Bulwark], [Mass Enhancement: Unnatural Compensation], [Summon Equipment: Climbing Gear] …

Countless [Skills] hit home, felt as much as heard, making the fight vastly more bearable.

Initially, they’d been ants scrambling to avoid the light cast by a cruel child’s magnifying glass. Now, they’d been upgraded to a swarm of wasps, still inordinately weaker than their foe but far more capable of fighting back.

Rubble shifted and were reinforced to deflect even the highly exotic nature of their enemy’s attack, climbing equipment appeared for several people, properly attached so they could start to climb up the street and into [Axis Mundi] to retrieve the last survivors within.

And everyone suddenly knew how to compensate for the gravity pillar just as well as Müller already did.

However, the greatest addition was the squadron of Typhoon fighter jets that appeared out of nowhere, flying straight into the mess that downtown Hamburg had become.

***

Normally, getting here would have taken eight minutes even under perfect circumstances. With [Skills] in play, that could be cut down to half that. But there were ways to top even that.

Oberstleutnant Maria Schulz was thrown against her harness as her Eurofighter Typhoon suddenly shifted locations. One moment, her plane had started to rise off the tarmac at the airbase as it reached the necessary speed to remain airborne. The next, she was rocketing through the air above Hamburg, a floating figure clad all in red floating in the air before her.

Explosives hadn’t been cleared for use yet, but her 27 mm revolver cannon had been made safe by someone’s [Protection from Bullets] that ensured that neither her allies, the nearby civilians or even the surroundings would get injured by stray shots.

The cannon thundered to life, every bullet glowing with arcane power as they left the barrel. Sadly, there was a hard limit as to how much she could enhance those as, unlike the groundpounders, she couldn’t afford to tear apart her weapons by tossing every [Skill] she had into them.

A burst of power she couldn’t define beyond “absurdly dangerous” tore towards her, but she rolled out of the way … and then it exploded into a starburst that looked like it an airburst shell straight out of hell. A normal [Pilot] of her Level, even with a rare variation of the [Class] would have been dead at this point.

But she wasn’t a [Pilot], was she? She’d managed to convince her superiors to let her try out a different path of growth, one vastly different than anything anyone had been on before.

She was the [Daughter of the Storm], closer to a [Mage] than [Pilot], epic, and vastly more useful than what she’d have otherwise gotten.

[Windshear] flung her clear of the attack with casual ease, [Move Like Lighting] flung her forwards in a straight line, passing close enough by her enemy to ruffle that ridiculous cape of his, while [My Own Personal Thunderstorm] dragged a coruscating line of power behind her, energy arcing off it and actually tagging the asshole, successfully lighting his cape on fire.

Another [Windshear] let her fling the jet around in an impossibly tight turn and the cannon spun up again, a few bullets somehow making it through the shield and tearing up clothing, but the cloth’s color prevented her from seeing if she’d managed to hurt the man underneath.

One of her squadron mates made an attack run of their own but was caught in a previously invisible wall of twisted space and gravity, plunging unexpectedly downwards with too little warning to compensate. Shit.

More and more rocks and chunks of roadway began to fly skywards, creating a floating ablative shield around her target, with several being hurled outwards at any target that presented itself.

“The last civilian has been retrieved, use of heavy munitions is authorized, I repeat, use of heavy munitions is authorized. An artillery unit is being but into position, fire will be coordinated using the party menu to avoid friendly fire.”

Schulz’s air to air missiles were launched the very instant the authorization had been given, overcharged to the point where they wouldn’t survive more than a couple of kilometers of flight. But they didn’t have to last even that long.

[Missile Control] had been earned during her last [Pilot] Evolution, and then, she burned her strongest cooldown [Skill]. [Thunderstorm’s Wrath: Kugelblitz], meanwhile, turned all her air-to-air missiles into a ball of lighting and her jet’s every hardpoint had had one of those attached.

***

As a literal swarm of lighting orbs swarmed away from one of the fighter jets, and for the very first time, that asshole was forced to actually move.

His body language radiating utter fury, cape ablaze, chest armor scorched and one arm hanging limp at his side from the one missile that had scored a direct hit.

Müller grinned savagely as he observed this, rifle slowly tracking the bastard as he considered how to follow that up.

High above, the gravity mage intercepted the plane that had hurt him, grasping it in some manner of arcane hold and began to crush it.

What happened next … he really should have thought that through better. A bright streak of energy burst from the cockpit, the pilot suddenly floating a kilometer away and trailing lightning while the plane leaped forwards, slamming into the gravity shield and exploding.

The shield deflected enough, but when the time the dust cleared, it revealed a welcome scene. The mask was gone, shattered into a million pieces, and a twisted piece of fuselage was stuck in his gut.

“You fucker’s dare?” the man roared, spittle flying, heavily bearded face so red is fit right in with the outfit “You’re nothing but insects. Useless. Useless! Useless!”

Every piece of flying debris hammered into the ground and the Party network shuddered as it was forced to reorganize around the loss of a dozen of the people who’d been maintaining it. Then, more [Warp Blasts] flew out, each gutting a building.

“… useless, pathetic fucks!”

The man spun once again, thrusting out a hand and bringing up another shield just in time to catch the close to fifty artillery shells that had been fired at him with pinpoint accuracy. It looked like he’d gotten away scot-free, but someone’s analytical [Skill] announced that it had taken two distinct cooldown [Skills] and over a thousand points of mana to block the attack. That bastard couldn’t have much left in the tank.

Then, the gravity pillar finally collapsed, leaving the only defenses the gravity shield and whatever was cast in the moment.

Müller’s [Flicker Shot] left the barrel like any other bullet, streaking right at the target’s leg and a split second before getting caught by the shield vanished.

Unfortunately, the teleporting bullets didn’t do too well moving through anything that messed with space, time, or gravity, but even reduced to splinters, a bullet could do damage if it hit right. And now, Müller knew the dispersal pattern.

He dropped the rifle, still intact but too warped for a precise shot, and burned his last core to retrieve his final weapon.

The sniper rifle’s stock slammed home against his shoulder, he exhaled to relax himself, the breath clearly visible in the dust that hung in the air.

Wind was whipping around at speeds that would have been considered a natural disaster at any other time. Gravity was back to normal except in a small area around the target. And there were other preternatural effects in place, utterly insane changes to the natural order, but really, those were just another thing to factor in, to compensate for.

[Flicker Shot], [Eternal Consequences]. This time, the rifle did break and Müller dropped it, scooped up the old weapon and ran for his life.

The latter [Skill] might not have the same “all healing blocked, you’re fucked” power of [Heartrender Shot], but making the initial penetration of the target a lingering injury that could only be fixed to the point where it stopped actively bleeding, but never fully repaired could be rather nice as well.

“GRAAAH!” the cry of inarticulate rage made the few remaining panes of glass in the area shatter and the building Müller had just stepped off of crumbled away.

He risked a single look back, seeing the man downing a healing potion after pulling the metal chunk from his gut. That injury healed, but the right eye was gone, replaced by a bloody mess of gore, metal fragments and goo.

Using a combination of his [Aura] and the Party menu, Müller ran into areas utterly free of people who were at risk of becoming collateral damage and directed them out of ones that he might have to fall back to.

For him, there were only two things left in the world. Himself, and the evil god hurling lighting from the sky to end his life.

Then, there was a tremendous explosion, followed by blessed silence.

“Direct hit from artillery on the target. Does anyone have eyes on them? Did he survive that?”

“I have a kill notification.” A different voice, not one of the officers, said.

“Has anyone heard from anyone in the building?” yet another voice, tinged with alarm, asked. It took Müller a couple of seconds to recognize Polizeirat Habicht.

What had they missed while fighting this gravity [Mage]?