Steckler saw Stu as well, and frowned at him. "You? I thought you were dead."
"Not quite."
"I underestimated you. You not only managed to survive, you managed to steal away some of my women as well." He glanced at Berly and the others. "Come back to the ship with me, and we'll forget any of this ever happened."
"I'd rather die," the woman from Delta shot back.
"That can be arranged," Steckler said. When one of his men lifted his rifle and aimed it at her, however, he placed his black-gloved hand on the barrel and lowered it back down. "Not like that. You might hit one of the other girls."
"Don't you have something a little more important to worry about?" Stu called out to him. "In case you hadn't noticed, your kingdom's being overrun by zombies."
"Are you the one responsible for that?" He shook his head. "I should have ripped your head off, made sure you were dead. Well, I won't make that same mistake twice." He climbed out of the truck, his black boots kicking up another little cloud of dust as they hit the ground. "I'll handle this," he told his men. "The rest of you concentrate on getting rid of these rotters."
"Yes, sir," the men responded. They got out of the truck as well and started to spread out, into the town, while Steckler approached Stu and the others. "This is your last chance," he said, speaking to Berly and the women. "You won't like what I'm going to do to you, if I have to drag you back to the ship."
"Bastard," Luna snarled.
He focused on her. "You're the new one, aren't you? We haven't even had the opportunity to get know each other yet. Well, there's still time. As I said, this is your last chance."
"Go to hell."
He shrugged. "I warned you." He took a step forward.
Eldon raised his gun and opened fire. The black gauntlet on Steckler's arm responded immediately, exploding in size and instantly enveloping his entire body. The strange, bristling black armor, which made him look vaguely insectoid, was evidently bulletproof, because Eldon's shots -- if indeed he managed to hit it -- had no impact on him whatsoever. He took another step forward, and a long, spider-like appendage burst out of him, flying straight at Eldon, knocking the rifle out of his hands and slashing him across the chest. He cried out and stumbled to the ground.
Luna opened fire as well, with the revolver, and Berly was shooting, too, but Steckler was suddenly a black whirlwind; those hairy spider-legs were everywhere, emerging from his back and torso. They were extremely fast and extremely long, some of them extending at least fifteen feet, but they were capable of growing even longer than that, making it difficult to guess their range. One of them knocked Luna off her feet; the woman from Delta was picked up and thrown roughly to the ground.
Berly, still shooting, tried to back away, but Steckler was unbothered by this; he simply marched up to her and swatted the gun out of her hands, as he had done to Eldon. "I'm disappointed," the Desert King muttered. His head was covered in black bristles, and there were eight spider-eyes spread across his face now, but his speech was normal. "I thought we had reached an understanding, at last."
"Get away from me."
"You heard her," Stu said, pressing the button to activate the chainsaw. "Get away from--"
One of the black, jointed appendages shot out of Steckler's body before he could even finish the sentence. Stu thought he could handle their speed, now that he knew what to expect, but even he was surprised by this sudden attack; Steckler hadn't even been looking in his direction. He tried to bring the chainsaw up to protect himself, but the leg, which terminated in a razor-sharp claw, slashed into his arm and hand, causing him to drop the saw. He was then forced to dive to one side, as the claw came at him again.
The pain in his arm was blazing, and when he looked at it, he saw that it had been cut all the way to the bone, and nearly sliced in half, lengthwise; his unusually durable skin and muscle tissue was the only thing holding it together, and probably the only reason it hadn't been completely split in half. Wincing, he clamped the two of halves of his arm together with his other hand, in order to make it easier for the Regeneration skill to sew them back together. The skill did begin to work, but it was slower than he would have liked.
Through all this, Steckler paid him no mind; he was still talking to Berly. "I struggle to understand this. What did you have before you met me? Nothing. What will you have if you leave? Nothing."
"I'll be free," she growled.
"Freedom is overrated."
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Stu picked up the chainsaw with left hand and switched it back on, preparing to attack Steckler. "Hey! Ugly!"
The Desert King, annoyed, finally turned to him, giving him his full attention. "Ah, yes. I was going to kill you, wasn't I? Let's take care of that."
Another spider-leg flicked out at him, impossibly fast. Stu jumped back a step, retreating from it, and for a second he thought he might have actually avoided it with his enhanced speed, but it was only a feint -- a second later, a second limb shot out, and this one caught him in the upper abdomen, ripping his shirt and slashing into the flesh just below his sternum. Blood flew.
Shit! Steckler's flailing limbs were as unnaturally fast as any speedy, but even more unpredictable; it was impossible to get a read on them. He tried to focus on one leg at a time, attempting to cut them with the chainsaw as they came close, but they were all working in concert, feinting and rippling and slashing through the air with such speed that it was impossible to fix his attention on just one of them.
He needed a strategy here, and he needed it fast; Steckler's limbs continued to hack away at him, cutting into his other arm and then into his upper thigh. Regeneration was healing those injuries, of course, but he couldn't keep this up forever; eventually Steckler would overpower him.
Would any of his skills be useful in this situation? Shadow King, Silence, and Sniffer were useless, and he had already used Dead Aim and Artful Dodge. He couldn't see how Brick Wall might help. He simply didn't have any good offensive skills.
But he could do something about that. In the midst of the fight, while trying to avoid Steckler's onslaught, Stu summoned up the ICON system menu, scrolled through the skills page with his eyes, and bought Chainsaw Ballet, the description of which read:
Become an unstoppable cyclone of chainsaw chaos, cutting down all those who oppose you.
There were other skills he might have chosen, but this seemed to be the most appropriate for him, given that he was actually wielding a chainsaw in this moment. As Steckler closed in, he activated it.
Immediately, a weird, alien force seemed to seize control of his body. Although he remained conscious of everything happening around him, he felt as though he was no longer in control of his arms and legs, which began whirling about on their own. He started to panic, because it really was a very strange and frightening sensation, but when one of Steckler's hairy tarantula-legs shot out at him again, his body seemed to know exactly how to respond to it; spinning on his heel, he slashed at it with the chainsaw, cutting off the tip, and causing green blood to spurt out of the wound.
Steckler recoiled, evidently surprised, but quickly composed himself and attacked with another leg. It exploded out of his body with such incredible speed that Stu panicked again, afraid that he could not possibly avoid it, and he tried to fight against the alien force that had taken control of him, but it was no use -- the ICON system had taken over; he was in the passenger seat now.
But the system knew what it was doing. To Stu's astonishment, he found himself throwing the chainsaw high into the air, ducking and somersaulting in order to avoid Steckler's attack, and snatching the chainsaw out of the air as it fell back to the earth. Then, as the black limb swept after him, he turned and lopped it off.
He couldn't see the expression on Steckler's face, but he could sense that the man was beginning to worry. He took a few cautious steps back.
The Chainsaw Ballet attack kept going, however. Stu raced forward, closing the gap between them and slicing off more limbs whenever they got close -- jumping, spinning, dancing, and sawing his way past the man's guard. He was aware of everything he was doing, but he had no idea how he was doing it.
He was now within five feet of a backpedaling Steckler, cutting off more and more of the man's unnatural spider-limbs in a wild, balletic fury. "What the hell are you?" the Desert King demanded, and Stu could hear the panic in his voice.
He might have answered, but he couldn't control his mouth any more than he could control his arms and legs. All he could do was watch, as his chainsaw severed the last two spider-legs and then, with a final flourish, cut off Steckler's right arm. Blood -- real, human blood, not the green blood of the spider-thing that had bonded with him -- spattered messily out of the wound, even spraying Stu in the face. Abruptly, the black "mask" covering the Desert King's face melted away, exposing his real face. His eyes were wide with fear.
"Wait!" he shouted.
But the ICON system was merciless. It cut off his head.
Steckler's headless corpse fell backward, landing flat on its back, while his head rolled away. The black monstrosity that had attached itself to him was still alive, however; it separated from him and gathered itself together, eventually forming into a vague arachnid shape and making a disturbing whimpering noise.
Stu suddenly realized that he was in control again. He stumbled away from Steckler's body -- satisfied that this evil man was dead, but appalled at the gory mess he had made. Quest "Vanquishing the Desert King" completed!Level Up! 37-39Gained 4 SP!
He had very little time to process this scene, however, because just a few seconds after Steckler's body hit the ground, a pair of vehicles came roaring in behind him. He got out of the way just as the first of the vehicles -- a big truck -- careened over Steckler's body and crushed the weird alien entity under its wheels. The creature was reduced to a greenish stain.
Afraid that these vehicles might contain more of Steckler's men, Stu rose to his full height and prepared himself for another fight...but then, in the dim morning light, he realized that he recognized one of the vehicles. It was Luna's glider, and Millie was behind the wheel.
The truck, meanwhile, was being driven by Lucky. He stuck his head out the window and grinned at Stu. "Ready to go?"
"Get in!" Millie shouted. "There's zombies all over! They came out of that hole you cut in the side of the ship!"
So that was what had happened. And indeed, Millie was right; the zombies were everywhere. Screams and gunfire were still echoing through the settlement. It sounded like a warzone.
But now that they had their transportation there was no reason for them to hang around. Stu, covered in green and red blood, helped the wounded Eldon into the truck, collected Luna and Berly, and waited for the remaining women -- there were only a few of them left now -- to pile into the pickup. And then they were off, smashing through the chain-link gate and barreling down the desert road that led out of the Vroom.