Industrial Strength Magic

Chapter 277: Goal number two

Chain Quest Advanced!

Establish a beach-head on Manita.

With Queen and Heirs present in the settlement, the foothold of your legacy in the land of Manita has been established.

Rewards: 10000XP, A stronger claim to the world Marigold Zauberer Abandoned.

ABOUT TIME! Perry thought, scowling as he slapped a hand down on the floor.

Gretchen’s Idyllic Manifestation.EXE

Perry was about halfway through turning the floor into a giant battery to store Solaris’s punches when one of the aforementioned punches sent him shooting out of the department store and through…

Three buildings? Probably? Perry was flying so fast the concrete was turning liquid as he blew through it. It also made it really difficult to perceive the separation between them.

Solaris was waiting for him on the other side.

Not that Perry got to see him. He felt it though. Movement through the fifth dimension. An intention to hit him in the back as soon as he passed through the wall, glowing like neon sign.

Perry used Spendthrift to increase the drag on one side of his body, flipping him violently around to face the direction he was flying, thrusting his fist forward and scattering patches of light-scattering air around himself to hopefully confuse the super long enough to land a punch.

Solaris’s cold blue eyes met Perry’s a moment before the super turned into a man-shaped being of pure energy.

Perry’s fist went through where Solaris’s face should’ve been, his armor turning white hot as it began siphoning the excess energy that would’ve vaporized it to the trucks.

Solaris walked through the punch and countered right in Perry’s jaw.

Considering Perry had been flying at supersonic speeds, immediately changing direction like that using his jaw as the fulcrum, should’ve instantly snapped his neck, superhuman Body be damned.

Thankfully, Perry had long since built Bullet Grasshopper Essence into his suit. The magic reinforced his body against hypersonic movements at the very last second, essentially putting him into targeted stasis a moment before the G forces could shear his spine away from his brain.

I wonder if this is what a ping-pong- ball feels like, Perry wondered as the sudden change in momentum, combined with the spin, sent him arcing off like a frisbee into a dense apartment complex.

Shit.

Perry desperately engaged his thrusters, stabilizing himself just in time to not crash through the residential building at the speed of a ballistic missile. A superhero does not pulp hundreds of innocent residents. Not even by accident.

A decade of Ethics lessons coming back to bite him in the ass.

He felt a flicker in the fifth dimension. It felt like…all of his trucks melting into so much slag and acrid goo, re-opening the possibility of instantly turning into ash.

Gretchen’s Idyllic Manifestation.EXE

Perry stuffed down the impulse to turn the apartment building into a battery and sent the pulse downward, changing everything a quarter-inch under the surface of the asphalt into more batteries to store and safely discharge Solaris’s attacks.

The instant Solaris took to destroy his trucks, Perry created a bigger backup directly beneath himself.

This can’t last forever, Perry thought as he felt Solaris’s intent to spiral up around him and punch him in the side of the head.

He tried to block, but Solaris simply changed the angle of attack and punched him on the other side, sending Perry hissing through the clouds.

What good is being able to predict his moves if I’m still too slow?

Any reaction Perry gave must appear to be trapped in amber compared to the speed that Solaris was operating at.

Perry could tread water, barely, by taking any momentary distraction to create another battery while Solaris uprooted the previous one, but there didn’t seem to be any way to get ahead.

Perry’s thoughts landed on the MRI machine he’d made with Lightshow.

Something that could stabilize slices of Solaris long enough for them to fall out of sync with each other.

In other words, reduce the super to chunks of meat.

Which would then explode with the force of a million nuclear bombs…

This is going to take a lot of work.

But…It might be possible.

If Perry could determine the direction Solaris punched him by calculated blocking, he could assert some form of control over the battlefield.

Lesson learned from Andre Demetre, the duellist.

The ‘Work’ in this instance, was getting Solaris to punch him all around the city, while using Gretchen’s Idyllic Manifestation to create laser infrastructure connected to his batteries.

If Perry successfully managed to kill Solaris, he would need to vent the energy in the form of an outlandishly powerful laser, shooting it straight into space rather than allowing the energy to be expressed as a vaporized North American Continent.

Somewhere out there, an unsuspecting planet might have a real bad day, but that was not Perry’s problem right now.

Paradox’s Probability dodge.EXE (256)

Perry felt his essence begin to bottom out for the first time since he’d hit level 15, The internal batteries pouring out Essence faster than Abun’zaul could refill them.

He drew on them harder and got to work making something that could withstand Solaris exploding.

Simplified progress report over the next 60 seconds:

61 versions dead.

48 versions unable to make any progress.

44 versions make inadequate progress.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

62 versions make adequate progress.

32 versions make significant progress.

8 versions make excellent progress.

1 version makes outstanding progress, but armor integrity is compromised due to lack of battery backups.

Weighing his options, Perry dumped every probability where his performance in setting up the energy dump had been below ‘excellent’.

All eight ‘Excellent’ performing Paradoxes tried to get Solaris to punch them towards Lightshow’s MRI machine, in the south side of town.

Two of them succeeded.

Paradox’s ‘Outstanding’ performer was smashed through the street, impaling a lung on some reinforced steel rebar in an abandoned Lair of some movie buff Tinker.

HP: 0

A death-trap triggered the instant Perry hit the floor sending a blade out of the wall that exploded into scrap against what armor remained around his neck.

Solaris flickered into existence in front of him.

“It seems like every time I hit you, it somehow turns out in your favor.” Solaris muttered, stripping the remaining living armor away from Perry’s body and vaporizing it. “You’ve got some kind of luck thing going on under the hood, don’t you? Or Precog?”

“I plead the Fifth,” Perry choked, invoking the Super’s right not to explain his gimmick to an enemy super, no matter how cool it would be, on the ground that it would get him destroyed.

Solaris grabbed the rebar going through Perry’s chest, lifted him up with it before he jammed the steel through the concrete wall behind him, pinning him to the wall of the lair like a collectible insect.

“Ow.” ‘outstanding’ Perry groaned while his other two ‘excellent’ performers attempted to reach Lightshow’s MRI machine.

Perry’s heart sank as Solaris seemed to grow wise to Paradox’s plan, kicking those possibilities away from Lightshow’s workshop and vaporizing the building.

Shit.

Only six ‘excellent’ performers were left, way out of position, and the ‘outstanding’ performer, who was pretty much doomed.

Although…he is taking his sweet time, Perry mused. Perhaps he’s going to try to get some information out of me.

It didn’t happen very often, but this particular probability had been damaged just enough to mostly disable him without killing him, which gave Solaris a chance…

While the other six versions continued fighting, Solaris was studying the pinned Paradox, head cocked curiously.

He IS! He’s gonna monologue! Perry realized, eyes widening.

“I don’t like the look on your face,” Solaris said. “What are you up to, mimic? What was all that you were doing just now?”

“Not a mimic,” Perry rasped. He weighed the possibilities and decided to tell the truth. Solaris wasn’t in a state of mind to believe him anyway, and he just needed to keep him talking to glean information.

“Making a laser,” Perry coughed, “To shunt the explosion into space when I kill you.”

“How magnanimous,” Solaris said, leaning forward.

“Stupid Ethics courses.” Perry muttered.

“There’s something odd about you, mimic.” Solaris said, peering at Perry in curiosity. “You remind me of The First. Do you know where The First is?

“The what?” Perry asked, his brain unpacking it the instant the words left his mouth.

That wasn’t something Solaris proper would ask. The mimic had instructed him..or was he getting his information spoonfed through the holes in his alzheimer’d brain?

“The first mimic!” Solaris said, grabbing Perry by the shoulders, jostling the rebar in his lung.

“Ow.” Perry coughed up some blood.

“You think you’re individuals, Solaris said, tapping his head. “but you’re drones. All working for the same…thing. It’s talking in your heads. After Truth… after you killed her, I figured out what wavelength you’re broadcasting on.

“I’ve been listening in,” Solaris said, his face reddened with rage. “I’ve heard the orders. I know. There’s a source of this infection. And the voice in their heads sounds like…you.”

“Are you The First?” Solaris demanded, grabbing Perry by the shoulders, “Do you know where it is? Are you an early offshoot? I can hear them talking about you…”

Solaris cocked his head to the side as if listening to something.

“Where is it!?”

A pair of piercing green eyes opened on the side of Solaris’s face and winked at Perry.

Perry blinked.

“You sir, are a very confused individual…and I apologize for that.” Perry said.

Solaris snarled and backhanded Perry, nearly tearing off his head.

“Of course he knows where it is, he’s a mimic!” Solaris shouted, turning away from Perry and snarling to himself. “I’ve been listening. I know what they want. They want me…they want him to…”

Through the pain and the white haze of brain damage, Perry saw an opportunity.

Seraphine’s ouchie corrector.EXE

Seizing the opportunity, Perry triggered his healing spell and his armor. His neck straightened out, spine reattaching instantly, a flush of cool healing flowing through his entire body, but it was unable to eject the foreign object from his lung.

Mark Ten.exe.

The next Mark 10 in reserve cut off the rebar sticking out of his front and back, sealing the remaining steel inside the armor with him.

Ow.

Solaris whipped around and immediately blasted Perry through the wall of the abandoned lair, sending him sailing through the concrete innards of Franklin City.

He’s sending me the wrong direction, Perry thought, scowling through the pain. His right arm wasn’t working so good and breathing wasn’t so great either.

At least it didn’t go through my heart.

“Where.” Punch “Is.” Punch. “The.” Punch. “First!” Solaris demanded, flickering into existence beside Perry and punctuating each word with a devastating blow.

Each time, Perry tried to surreptitiously angle the resulting ragdoll flight to land him closer to Lightshow’s MRI machine.

Reinforce a bit of concrete as he hit it to bounce in the right direction. Alter the drag of air just enough to buy him a couple degrees of angle as he flew through the earth and sky with equal speed.

Little by little, Perry was getting closer, and this particular Solaris wasn’t growing wise to his intention, because this particular Perry was getting his ass kicked.

He was selling the beating.

Honestly, not that hard a sell.

The hard part was breathing through all the blood in his lungs.

Finally, Solaris pinned Perry to a wall, which according to Perry’s mental model, was directly opposite the MRI machine.

Now all I need to do is get him to punch me directly in the face and not die from it, Perry thought, his labored breathing escaping through the partially torn-away faceplate.

“Why do you sound so much like the voice?” Solaris demanded, holding Perry up with one hand hooked into his shredded breastplate. “What’s your connection to The First? You a Minder? Is this all in my head?”

Solaris’s eyes flickered from side to side as he went through a series of mental exercises designed to break the control of a Minder.

“It’s my fault,” Perry said. “Professor Replica’s machine got a taste of the monster in my soul and tried to make a copy. I’m the reason all of this is happening.”

SCREEECH!

The carbon plating armor on Perry’s face screeched as Solaris reached up and tore it away to reveal the rest Perry’s bloodstained face.

“…Claudette’s kid.” Solaris mused, a hint of his previous regal composure leaking through the mania. “I guess I should’ve killed you.”

“Probably.” Perry croaked.

“And now everyone’s dead, and you’re one of them.” Solaris spat, shaking his head.

“I’m not the mimic in this equation.” Perry said. “Tom, I need you to think real hard about everything you’ve been doing today. Maybe listen to that voice in your head telling you what to do? Is it because you deciphered their wavelength or is it just there? Could you stop listening even if you wanted to?”

“Shut up. SHUT UP!”

Here it comes!

The world went white as Perry’s unprotected face was punched with enough force to kill a rhino, sending him tumbling backwards through the concrete wall into the same laboratory they’d used for Solaris’s MRI.

Mustering every ounce of power he could in his arms, Perry grabbed the top of the MRI machine as he flew past and pulled.

SCREECH!

The black material of the MRI machine screeched as the top of the machine was peeled away from it’s base.

It was made of the same stuff as Perry’s suit: Paradoxed carbon nanotubes.

Which was why the scraps of armor that remained on his arms were able to interface with the machine.

As Perry peeled the top up and away, it revealed row after row of lenses created by Lightshow before her unfortunate demise. All of them angled towards Solaris.

Perry dumped all the power keeping the remains of his suit going into the lenses, causing each of the dozens of lenses to flare to life, sending out a wall of chaotic light-stabilizing energy.

On the other side of the broken wall, Solaris’s eyes widened.

BOOOOM!

The nuclear explosion’s energy was caught by the infrastructure he set up around the city. Miles of city street evaporated as lasers buried directly underneath them shot white hot energy straight up into the sky, making the result of Solaris’s death someone else’s problem.

For Perry, it was a white-hot mess of tumbling chaos and pain, as some of the force transferred into him before his array could catch it, burning large portions of his suit and the skin beneath it away.

Look ma, I’m Professor Replica. Perry thought as he finally tumbled to a halt, clutching a hand over the shrapnel wound in his stomach.

Seraphine’s Ouchie Corrector.EXE

Not enough Essence. Please Try again Later.

Shit.

An iron hand clamped over Perry’s throat and lifted him into the air.

Double shit.

“You’re starting to piss me off, kid,” Solaris said, radioactive, white-hot blood oozing down the side of his face where his right ear had been sheared away.