Chapter 6

Sandy grabbed a handhold with one hand and hoisted herself up with the other. She jet boosted to the right, grabbing the next handhold. Sandy positioned both hands on this one and engaged the boosted while pulling herself up with both hands. She flew up and grasp the third handhold. Sandy lightly impacted the building’s exterior wall.

She was getting close to the top. Or at least, the lip. Sandy deduced there was an interior room or arena on top of the main building of the entrance complex. Hopefully she could sneak in and destroy the jammer before any alarms could be sounded.

That jittery feeling was coming back.

Sandy pushed it away for now as she climbed, clambered, and jet boosted to the top.

Another boost here. A clamber there. Up a ladder and across a small ledge. She was nearly there.

The final handhold and Sandy could feel the lip of the structure. She boosted herself up and over.

Sandy fell three stories worth onto a metal grate balcony.

Her gear took the impact of the fall. Sandy collected herself and surveyed the area. It was indeed an arena. A big open air arena. She was nervous. For what, or why, she did not know. Maybe five hundred feet by five hundred feet, the arena was a massive square shape with columns near the far wall. There was a circular shape in the center of the room. No cover was there. She hoped she wouldn’t need to go into it.

Sandy located the walkway to the jammer. Or at least, what she thought was the jammer.

The walkway was at the foot of a doorless entryway. Curiously, the doorway so to speak was about the size of an Avatar, if one needed to walk through it.

Sandy dropped to the main floor of the arena and moved to skedaddle her way to the jammer machine. She wanted to blow the machine and get out.

The walkway here was extremely sturdy. She had a bad feeling about this. It felt like something as heavy as an Avatar could stand on the walkway and it would support the Avatar’s forty-to-fifty-ton weight.

“Ahem.”

Sandy froze.

“I thought I smelled a rat demon crawling around the facility.”

Sandy turned. Two metal people were standing in front of the circular section in the middle of the arena. The one that spoke was on the left side. That one’s voice was feminine. The one on the right had a bit bulkier upper body, so presumably male.

Sandy contemplated making a break for the jammer and destroying it. But she only had a sniper rifle. She would need something closer to a grenadier weapon or a different anti-armor weapon. Her missile launcher required aiming at hostile armor, and the jammer was not hostile armor. She may not get another chance at this. Being a Spirit, Sandy wouldn’t die forever, but by the time she got back here with a different loadout or with reinforcements, the jammer might be protected by a significant enemy force.

She figured she would deal with that later.

“We shall cleanse the land of you demons,” said the other metal man, confirming it was a he. “Prepare for battle, foul Succubus!”

Sandy started things by snapping to Aiming Down Sights mode and and pulling an opening shot at the metal man’s head. She connected a twelve point seven millimeter bullet to the metal man’s head.

The metal man survived being nailed by the fifty-caliber sniper rifle, though he collapsed to a knee.

“My head!”

The other metal person did not wait for Sandy to go after her next. She jumped into the air, rockets ignited and flew over the arena, firing small blasts at Sandy.

“Galitilde Saquu! Saquu! Saquu!”

Sandy’s response to her was to rush forward, towards the pair, aiming for the man. She converted into a slide and put a second round into his face. He went into a full stagger. Sandy came up to him and shoved her combat knife down his throat. The man gurgled a bit. An energy shield took most of the knife.

“Mogrim! No!” screamed the metal woman. Mogrim was allegedly the name of the metal man.

Sandy pivoted to the side, using her jet booster to immediately change directions and kickstart her momentum. She ran towards on of the large pillars on the outside of the arena.

“It’s okay, Ruune! I’m fine! This little demon shall not be! Galoque Ahyesdadi!”

Sandy could feel the heat of something licking her heels. She felt her gear take damage. She hit the pillar and rocketed up it. At roughly fifteen feet, she turned and jumped to the next pillar, putting a round into the metal woman. Her airborne effectiveness was poor but the shot went through. It was a body shot, though. The metal woman was unfazed from the impact.

“Nothing you do will stop us! Galilde Desilda!” announced the metal woman.

The metal woman missed and hit the pillar.

“Saquu!” the metal woman yelled.

She didn’t miss. The metal woman boned Sandy’s head.

Sandy was reduced to half health. A couple more body hits or another headshot would end her. While marines were equipped with regenerating energy shields and armor and felt like a phalanx wall, Spirits like Sandy were closer to ninja. Ninjas with automatic weapons and space magic. But not fighters like the marines, who could take small arms fire. Larger attacks, however, like vehicular weapons, could defeat marines. Like that Desilda blast. Marines were better suited to absorbing lots of small attacks over an extended fight.

Granted, while Sandy was low on health, as soon as she exited combat she would start to recover it. Recovery was very fast. Defense and attrition was the name of the game for the marines. Speed and agility were for Spirits.

Sandy jumped to another pillar, hip-firing her rifle at the metal man. She was trying to finish him off to even the odds.

She missed.

But so did both of her adversaries. The metal woman fired rapid-fire Saquu bolts and the metal man tried a larger Desilda shot.

Sandy jumped to a fourth pillar but she changed direction to slide down the pillar. Her enemies missed again. Sandy lobbed a fragmentation grenade at the metal man’s feet, which blew up in his face. It was an easy shot because he didn’t seem to want to move much.

“Argh!”

The metal woman on the other hand kept trying to follow Sandy. That, and the metal woman flew through the air. She kept flying past Sandy as Sandy slid down the pillar. The metal woman tried to turn around but Sandy popped her head with a fifty caliber bullet.

“Oof.”

The metal woman staggered mid-flight, allowing Sandy to start running again.

“Galitilde Saquu!”

This time, the metal man attempted to pepper Sandy with smaller bolts. He kept holding his ground. Foolish man. Sandy reloaded as she sprinted around the arena. Sandy figured maybe one or two more rounds to the head would take her adversary down. There was no way he could survive five or more fifty caliber sniper rifle bullets and a frag grenade.

Sandy could potentially run them around forever and slowly whittle them down but she wanted that jammer dealt with. Sandy started to run up a pillar. A few seconds later, she activated her dimensional rewind. Time around Sandy erased her from existence and transported her a few second behind, on the ground, before she started running up the pillar. It completely threw both of her opponents off guard and Sandy was able to level and aim down sight on the metal man. Two bullets and his head exploded. Literally, too. Pieces of circuits and metal erupting from the top of his shoulders as his body collapsed and fell forward.

“Mogrim! No! Mogrim!” the metal woman shouted.

Sandy didn’t have much time to celebrate as the metal woman launched a big spell at her.

“Galitilde Equau!”

The spell connected with Sandy’s body and she was no more. Sandy died.

Sandy floated through the void. It was a feeling Sandy had not felt in a very long time. Years went by since the last time Sandy died.

Everyone had their own unique death void experience. Yeshua told them his was flashes and sounds of his memories. Hannah saw what-ifs of her life should she not joined the military. Amad had visions of his loved ones; updating him on their lives as if he was there with them.

Sandy saw faint twinkles in the darkness.

They were not stars.

Sandy was always unsettled by the twinkles. It felt like something was watching her. She avoided death as much as she could while the other three embraced the possibility of death. Sandy in her avoidance of death became strong. Today she was not strong enough.

Sandy was pulled back to reality.

She respawned on the balcony at the back of the arena, opposite of the jammer balcony. She took one of two opponents out. The other was damaged somewhat, though. She could hear that remaining metal person.

“I got that demon for you, Mogrim. Your sacrifice will not be in vain. The demons and their servants shell be cleansed from the world.”

Sandy didn’t stop to listen. She was moving, running on the balcony to get closer to the jammer. She had a feeling she would still need to deal with the metal woman, though, so she prepared her tactical. At the end of the balcony, Sandy mantled the balcony’s hand-rail and hefted herself over. She fell to the ground, the gear taking the hit once more.

“What the!? How did you survive!?”

Sandy didn’t hesitate. She took a device from her right side belt and tossed it to the ground in front of her. It activated and released an orange energy shield, shaped like crescent, giving moderate protection from threats in the front hundred-eighty-degrees plane and a little above and below the shield. More importantly, it accelerated projectiles going through it. Projectiles coming through from the front were slowed. Projectiles going through from the back had their speed increased.

Sandy crouched behind the shield.

Sandy leveled her sniper rifle and aimed down sights. The metal woman didn’t respond to her presence fast enough.

Sandy put the first round into the metal woman. Her opponent took the bullet to the face, head being thrown back violently.

Sandy put a second round into her target’s head. The metal woman staggered backwards.

The third bullet ended the metal woman. Like the metal man, the woman’s head exploded. Her body fell forward and hit the ground.

It was over.

Now to deal with the jammer.

Sandy recovered her shield device and started to walk towards the jammer. She didn’t have a free-fire heavy weapon on hand but she figured jury-rigging one of her rockets to explode would do the trick.

Just as Sandy was about to commence walking on the platform that housed the jammer, she heard something behind her. Sandy turned to see the circular object in the center of the arena open. The circular shape split into two half-circles. Its parting revealed a dark hole.

Sandy hesitated for a few moments. She should have tried to blow the jammer.

A dark shadow emerged from the gap.

“I see you have dispatched Mogrim and Ruune, Demon. They were good inquisitors and will be missed.”

A mecha emerged from the depths, carried upwards by an elevator. Once the elevator came to a stop, the mecha started to hover.

The thing was big. Bigger than heavyweight Avatars. Humanoid in shape with an exaggerated shape of a muscular athletic build, the mecha held a big tower shield in its left hand. It had a gun where the right hand would have been. Protrusions extended from its back and emitted a force field of some sort.

“Probably how it was hovering,” thought Sandy.

Energy pulsed on the top and bottom of the mecha’s gun, suggesting there was an energy blade mechanism attached to the gun.

And at the top of the mecha, where the head was, was an open cockpit housing a metal man. This guy had stripes on his shoulders, suggesting he was an officer of some kind. The “gun” that was where the right hand was located was peeled back to reveal a normal-looking, but still metal, hand.

“It is no matter. We shalt wipe thy filth from this place and taketh our crusade to thy homeland. It shalt only a matter of time.”

The metal man sat down on the cockpit chair and pressed a button that closed the cockpit hatch.