Trials of Shadow (An epic by DarkShadow1223)

~1~
I woke with a start. Who am I? Where am I?
Then I remember, I start to feel my memories returning. But something is not right, this is not me. Then the memory my mind was looking for comes to me, why I suddenly found myself as a ten-foot tall robot clad in silver armor. I was still in the factory; I don’t know where my real body is right now. Probably in some dumpster, or being turned into scrap metal. It doesn’t matter; I chose to leave that life behind, to become a hero. As I recount all my memories while watching other heroes being made, others who had made the same choice as me, a voice tells me to turn to a screen, which has suddenly appeared behind me. It tells me exactly what had happened, in case my memories were damaged during the transfer. It goes through the process; how I had arrived at the factory, how they had taken my memories and mind from my old body and put them in here. I ignored the rest that the screen told me, my memories were fine. I knew what this place was, why I was here, and what I needed to do. I walked into a long corridor, and left my old life behind forever.
I proceeded down the long hallway, passing the rooms of many others who had found themselves here, just like me. They would soon realize who they were, and do as I was doing now. When I reached the end of the hall, a door opened up and a mechanical voice said “Please, enter”. Inside was a large paneled room. I had read about this place, there was a deathtrap waiting for me in every inch of this room. A different voice filled all of the room, and spoke to me.
“Welcome to Hero Factory. You are very courageous to have given up your life to come to this place, to protect our world. In this room you will be tested, and ranked as Alpha, Beta, Gamma, or Delta. This will determine what squad you are assigned to. But first things first, what is your name?”
I hesitated, almost forgetting my name for a second. But soon I answered: “Drake. Drake Novos.”
“Good, now you must choose your weapons and armor, Novos. Please place any excess default armor in the disposal.”
As the voice said it, four of the panels on the ground lifted up to reveal armor and weapon storage cells. I walked over; there were weapons and armor of all sorts. Large blasters, small blasters, swords, shields, bows, cannons that would fit an entire arm; you name it, it was probably there. I picked out an energy sword and a shield, and then moved on to look at the seemingly endless rows of armor. After a few minutes, a picked out some decent armor in gold and red, and placed my old basic silver armor in the disposal area, where it was destroyed so that it could be used to make other things. Once I was finished, the voice continued.
“Now the training will begin. In a moment, you will be faced in every danger you could ever imagine. The training will stop when you have completed all the trials, or when you come too near to death.”
With that I heard things in the room shifting, and knew that it was about to begin. This was the beginning of my life as a hero, and I would look back at this moment many times later. Look back in remorse, wishing this day would never have happened.
~1~

~2~
“Appearing now are several drone-class trial bots. Defeat them to show that you know the basics of fighting.” The voice said to me.
I turned to the first place a heard noise, and charged the robot the emerged from the wall. It didn’t have time to register that the trial had begun before it was skewered on the end of my new sword. This was child’s play. I had practiced fighting of all types for a long time, and basic drones would not be a challenge for me. Soon more were rising, and more fell victim to my blade. They seemed to come in more numbers the more of them I destroyed, but they still could not stop me. None of their shots touched me; I barely even had to block any with my shield.
Slash, stab, and kill. Broken drones were everywhere now; I had not even realized how many I had taken down. Soon they stopped, and the voice filled the room again.
“Well done, now for your next task. This will test your basic agility and senses. Try not to die”
Thanks… I thought to myself reeaal helpful . Soon all the broken drones were gone, dropped into the ground by some automated program. Soon another threat was here, however, as the entire room in front of me turned into a death trap. There was a maze of small walkways with lava below it and hazards of all kinds throughout. There were moving floors and platforms, walls that had panels that pushed outward in an attempt to knock you off the path, walls of flame that only stopped for split-seconds, any kind of trap you could think of. This part of the training I would not do so well on.
I started my walk along the path, walking effortlessly at the wider parts, and having little difficulty where it thinned out. I tried not to pay attention to the fiery death that awaited me below, but I looked down and nearly fell once or twice. That was the easy part. I could see that ahead of me there where platforms that shifted up and down, side to side, and both instead of a solid path. I swallowed the bit of fear I had and jumped for the nearest platform. I wish I had timed it better, as I completely missed it when it floated away from me. Luckily, I somehow managed to land on a platform that had been moving up and down. I wonder if I was evaluated on my luck, because if I was I would pass with flying colors. I quickly regained my senses and stood up on the platform. I memorized the pattern of the nearest platform that was heading toward where the path continued, then jumped with a feeling of where the platform would be when I landed. Luckily, I was right. I landed firmly on the platform, but nearly lost my footing as it sped forward. When going up and down, I discovered, it was much easier to keep your balance then if you are going sideways. After I finally got the hang of it, I continued the process of working my way across the labyrinth of platforms, fearing for my life with every jump. It felt like a victory when I was finally on solid ground again, but I knew there was much more to go before I made it through the deathtrap.
I continued on through the twisting passage, avoiding trap after trap. By the time I reached the final few obstacles, I felt like I had spent an eternity in here, like I had spent my whole life jumping through fire and narrowly avoiding being crushed to death. I came now to a wide opening closed in by four walls. By now I knew that this was going to be another closing wall trap. But I was wrong. When I entered the area, the floor started opening. I had seen this before too, but it got even worse. Strange bug-like drones swarmed out of the opening. They flew around, about the size of a large dog, shooting small lasers at me from where their stinger would have been if they were bees. I blocked most of them with my shield, but several got through to me. I noticed the door on the other side was still open; I had to get to the other side without being swarmed by the drones or falling in the lava. This was not an easy task, I soon discovered, for attacking while sprinting away is not the easiest thing to do. But none the less I sprinted toward the now large opening in the floor, slashing at (and killing most) any drones that came near. I realized that the pit was now too large, I would never make it over in one jump, but I kept running toward it. When I got there, I did something that I never should have survived: I jumped. The timing was perfect, too perfect, as a drone rushed towards me just as my jump was beginning to decline. I sliced at it with my blade, and pushed it under me. I used it as a spring board, kicking off its head and jumping toward the ever-expanding edge of the pit. I barely made the jump, landing with a thud and tumbling several feet away toward the door. But the nightmare didn’t end there: as soon as I reached the door, it promptly closed in my face. I didn’t have time to be terrified; I had to find an exit. I saw that over toward the middle of the room, where there was now a pit of lava, there was a panel on the wall that was sticking out. I hoped that my trick would work twice, and I ran and jumped toward the pressure plate. Unfortunately, the drones had learned from their ally’s mistake, and backed away when I jumped. Desperately, I stabbed the wall with my sword when I was near a wall, nearly in the lava by that point. I managed to reach the pressure plate, and heard a click then the sound of a panel being removed. Sadly, at this point the drones decided it was okay to resume attacking me. I batted a few back with my shield, but I wouldn’t last long. I saw that my only chance would be to hope I could pull of what I did earlier, and tried it again; batting one underneath me with my shield, pulling my sword from the wall, and using its head as a place to jump from. It didn’t happen how I planned, but it worked. The drone fired at me the second it saw what I was planning, but I still managed to jump up off it, despite being injured. I used up too much of my momentum jumping up, and wasn’t anywhere near the edge of the pit and the now re-opened door. The drones where still swarming me, and I grabbed onto one’s neck. The thing went berserk. It flew all over the place in a frenzy, and I was barely able to hold on. After a few seconds it managed to throw me off its back, amazingly over to the side where the exit was. I slammed into the wall hard, but brought myself to stand quickly; only just barely able to get through the door before the entire interior of the room was a pit of lava. I cheered. There was only a small passage left before I was finished with the test. As I walked toward the end, the floor beneath me started falling. Figures, they can’t even leave the passage to the exit untrapped. I sprinted as fast as I could, barely making it, and nearly collapsing when I was finally through.
“Well done.” The voice said “Now we can move on to the hard stuff.”
~1~

~3~
“You have proven you can do well with survival and maneuverability, and managed to get through all of our traps. Well done. Now we shall further test your combat skills. The next test will include all of our levels of difficulty, slowly increasing in difficulty the better you do. Good luck.” The voice said.
With that, the deathtrap I had just narrowly escaped sunk into the floor and disappeared, as if it had never existed, and several panels in the wall opened, and drones began pouring out. They were not as disorganized as they had been the last two times I had fought any, they seemed to be in waves of organized teams. But it didn’t matter, I still blew through them. They would flank me, and I would bash one of their heads in with my shield, and slash the other ones arm off. They’d try and keep their distance; I would hurl my sword at them and quickly run to fetch it. But soon I began to notice an increase in power. The waves slowly got both smarter and larger. After a while, they started to have more firepower as well. I managed to fight it out, but slowly I began to come closer and closer to losing each time, whether it was because I was getting exhausted or because my enemies were getting harder and harder, I was not sure. The higher levels of combat I achieved, the more diverse the waves were. They ranged from giants with laser eyes to normal sized brutes that had flamethrowers as right arms. I finally managed to make it to the final stage of the training, exhausted and barely able to go on. I heard the horrid sound of the containment cells for the drones opening, and waited for what would probably be my demise.
Out of the panels stepped four brutes, one about twice as tall as me with two huge energy swords, one about my size carrying tanks of acid on his back hooked up to a flamethrower-like contraption, another with a huge pulse blaster on one arm that was also my size, and one with four arms, razor sharp talons in all of them. I managed to raise my blade to fight them, but I was far from prepared for such an onslaught. I nearly got my head chopped off by the big brute, only to roll away from him into a spray of acid. It stung, and if I was an organic being there would be nothing left of me. Desperately, I lifted my shield to block them, stabbing at full force when they came near me to pry the shield away. I managed to cut an arm off of the four armed one, but the strategy fell apart quickly. The cannon arm fellow managed to blast my shield right out of my hand, and I was immediately sprayed by another volley of acid. This was not what I came here for, to be beaten down by drones. This is not what heroes are.
Somehow with the thought of failing, I found a new burst of strength. It was enough to keep me alive against all of them at once, but I was doing very little actual damage still, just protecting myself. They kept me from my shield that now lay on the floor as long as they could, knowing that with this new strength they wouldn’t stand a chance if I could block their shots. We went on evenly matched for a long time, and I started losing strength again. I was exhausted from tumbling away from giant swords and vats of acid, and my armor wouldn’t hold up against cannon arm’s shots for much longer. I made a bold move and charged into them, knocking cannon arm over in surprise and impaling the four armed one with my sword. I took my shield in the moment of surprise they had, and was able to slowly advance on them. Several splotches of acid broke through my shield, but I didn’t care. I needed to beat them down before my strength failed again. When I finally reached him, the acid spewer was decapitated in seconds. Suddenly an unexpected shot blasted me full in the back. Blast, I forgot about him I thought. If Faceless robots could sneer, this one certainly was. Unfortunately for him, this ticked me off even more, and a charged him, despite the high chance that the brute with the sword would beat me down before I reached him. I was too fast, and I heard the brute’s blade crash down right behind me, just inches away. I kept up my charge, and the cannon armed drone could do nothing to stop me, as I charged into him with the force of a bull. My sword went through him like butter when I caught him, and I quickly dragged it out of his body and sliced his head off. Now there was just one left. One giant one left.
The giant held his swords at me menacingly. If I was in my right mind, I would have been terrified. Even if it was a drone, my swords could cut through steel nearly instantly, and who knows what it could do with 10x the power. But I had come too far, so I stood to face him. We stared at each other for a few seconds, before resuming the battle. He was strong. Too strong. He beat me back against a wall quickly, and managed to knock my shield away once again. I tried to stand, but he just beat me down again. I was too feeble compared to him; he didn’t even need his swords for this. In a final attempt, I threw my sword as hard as I could at him. It didn’t miss its mark. It hit him straight where his eye, well vision sensor, was. He was blinded, and could not see me. I took the opportunity and did all I could to dislodge it from his eye. I managed to get it out, and stabbed right down through his head. The blade struck right through him, sending gears, sparks, and circuitry everywhere. The brute fell to the ground. I retrieved my shield. The fight was over.
~3~

~4~
“You have done well. Please wait while your results are loaded and a rank is decided.” The voice said.
Then there was an awkward silence as my results were loaded. I anxiously waited for the voice’s return, so that at least I could get out of this place.
At last it returned: “Congratulations, you have been ranked as ‘Beta’. Please follow the escort drone to your new quarters and to meet your new team.”
Once again, the moment the voice mentioned something, it appeared. A section of the wall slid open revealing a hallway and a drone of some sort. I followed the bot through the complex, assuming it was the escort drone I had been told about. After taking countless turns around corners, I came to a door that the drone opened for me, with the words beta printed above it. It seemed as if the words were older than the facility, they were faded and scratched. I walked into the chamber behind the door, and saw four figures. It appeared that they were training, but all of them stopped what they were doing when I stepped in. The voice from the training facility filled the room, just as it looked like one of them was going to explode in my face for interrupting their work: “Welcome new rookie Novos to Beta team.”
Everyone seemed to become much less confused after that, but the one that had looked like they had wanted to kill me was still mad:
“My god, you’d think a super computer could give us a little advance notice when something like this happens!” He was clad in black and gold armor, and was slightly taller than me. I somehow sensed that he was the leader of this team. He had put away his weapon, but it appeared to be a bow of some sort when I first walked in. He seemed to have cooled down a bit, but he still seemed pretty mad. He glared at me with eyes that seemed they would kill me if they could.
“It’s been a while since a rookie achieved beta team on his first try; I think the last one was me. Luckily for you, you came right in the middle of training. I hope you’re not too exhausted.” It was obvious he knew that I was very tired. You’d think robots wouldn’t have problems with being exhausted, but you’d be surprised. Before I could respond, a bulky guy with a shoulder mounted blaster stood up. He had blue and yellow armor. “Cut the kid some slack, you know how grueling initiation is.”
“He seems fine to me. Heroes can’t go getting worn out so easily, now can they?” The other one replied, daring me to oppose him. Instead I simply responded “Fine. What exactly are we doing to train?”
He smirked. “Simple combat exercise. We’re just fighting against each other till either someone gives up or the medi-bots stop us from killing each other.”
Despite how funny he seemed to think it was, it wasn’t an idea that struck me as hilarious. But I acted as if I cared. “And who is fighting who?”
“The others can decide who they’re fighting on their own, but you get the honor of facing me.”
~4~

~5~
“Oh boy, are you this nice to all the new members you get?” I said sarcastically. The look on all the other members faces gave me told me that it wasn’t the best thing to say, but I didn’t care. I never handled well with people who thought they were better than me. I really hoped the medi-bots were paying close attention during this match.
“Teran, start the match!” He shouted to the blue and yellow armored one.
“Go easy on him Blitz; you know he’s already used up.” Teran said in reply. “Alright, begin!”
The instant he said begin, I got hit by a wall. Not literally, but a split-second after the fight begin, Blitz drew his crossbow and fired at me. I never even had time to react properly. I managed to draw my shield in time to block his next shot, but I had to get up. When he saw I had a shield he started inching toward me, still keeping up fire. I tried to get up, but my legs wouldn’t listen to me. Fighting a stronger opponent was too much after what I had been through for initiation. When Blitz reached me, he slammed into me full force with his crossbow. I could not stop it, and crumpled backwards.
“How did something like you end up in my squad?” He said angrily to me, advancing on me for another attack. I could tell by the look on the other’s faces that they were mad at Blitz for doing this, but knew it would not end well for them if they interfered. But I wasn’t worried about that, I was MAD. Something about the way that he said ‘”Something” instead of “Someone”, and how he was acting like there was no way I could even land a hit on him angered me, and I found that I had a burst of strength, just like when I was fighting the drones. I stood and held up my sword. He simply shot another bolt at me. But this time I was fully prepared, I charged forward as he fired, blocked it with my shield and uppercutted him with my sword as soon as he was within range. I caught him by surprise, and managed to push him backward. But soon he came to his senses and charged at me. He fired as he went, but I was ready for anything he could do now. I found out three seconds later that I wasn’t. As he got near me he jumped over me, fired at my back while he was behind me, then sidestepped behind me when I turned to where he was. I learned after that, and spun my shield when he tried to sidestep. Instead of blocking his hit, my shield collided with him, sending some sparks flying as he fell to the ground. He was shocked, but got up quickly. I managed to get another shot with my sword before he was fully up though, and it sent him back a few feet and once again to the ground. But this time he came to his senses and shot at me as he stood, then battered me with his crossbow. I stumbled, but did not fall. I immediately countered with a hit to the chest with my sword, and he too stumbled backwards.
“What’s wrong?” I asked “Can’t handle an insignificant rookie?” By this point, I was obviously too cocky. But Teran, and soon the others, began cheering for me as I managed to hold my ground against Blitz’s fury. But I soon fully realized that even with the burst of strength I had had, I still could not beat him. But I did manage to force him to use some of his trickier maneuvers on me. After a few minutes of us fighting evenly and holding our ground, he charged in one last time, a charge that would end our fight. He sidestepped when I sliced him, but when I blocked where I thought he would be, he wasn’t. I found out too late that he was behind me, and he slammed me with his crossbow, and then wrenched my sword out of my hands. He held it to the back of my head.
“How heroic do you feel now, rookie, with your own weapon about to kill you?” he sneered. At this point, the others had had enough of this. Teran intervened “He’s too much like you Blitz, he’s not gonna admit defeat. Let him go. Our team will still be a member short if you don’t.”
I felt embarrassed needing to be rescued like that, but the others seemed impressed with how long I had lasted against him. “Don’t mind old hot head. He’s like this with every rookie; he thinks they’re a disgrace to his power. You won’t come to like him, but you’ll come to tolerate him. Welcome to the team.” Teran told me when I went to sit down and rest. “Thanks” I replied. I may not have showed it, but I was glad I had at least one friend on this team. It was good to know that not everyone was as heartless as Blitz.
~5~

~6~
I watched the others battle for a while as I rested. Teran went up against a female named Artemis wearing silver and gold armor. She had a launcher in one hand that had some sort of scope on it and a small blade in a holder on her shoulder armor. I soon discovered that her gun shot orbs of some substance that exploded on contact with anything but air. She and Teran had a long fight; they were pretty evenly matched. Teran would almost take her down, but then she would pull some maneuver and almost knock him to the floor. It was pretty impressive to watch them battle it out. They eventually decided to call it a draw (Which was a decision Blitz didn’t seem to like). The next battle was Artemis and Destral, who was about two feet taller than everyone else, but not as bulky as Teran. He had dark metallic and orange armor and two small blades on his wrists. He was fast, and Artemis had a hard time keeping track of where he was throughout the battle. It took a while for it to end, but in the end Artemis admitted defeat. After that no one else was ready for more fighting (though Blitz didn’t admit it), so we just talked for a while; mostly just conversations with each other, and occasionally those with ranged weapons would do some target practice. I talked with Teran for a while, mostly talking about what the team had faced before and how initiation went. I also spent some time talking with Destral, who was pretty impressed by my fight with Blitz. Naturally Blitz never talked to me, and didn’t even come near me if he could help it. He was obviously still mad about how good of a fight I had put up in our match.
After a while, I went to my new private quarters, to really rest. I thought about all that had happened so far. Did I really belong in this place? Was coming here the right thing to do? I told myself that the answer was yes, but I wasn’t doing a good job of reassuring myself. Then I thought of those I had lost because of the evil that was out there, and how many more would be gone if it wasn’t for this place. I remembered why I was here, to make things better. Unfortunately my thoughts were cut short by an alarm. I rushed back to the main room for Beta team, and found that everyone else was already there. Was I really that slow?
“Hurry up rookie!” Shouted Blitz “We have a mission to get started on”
I kept going and grumbled “I have a name you know” Just loud enough for him to hear. He gave me a look of disapproval, then began our mission briefing.
“Just a few moments ago, a freighter carrying medical supplies to planet Ouranos was attacked, a planet that was recently struck by a massive meteorite. The atmosphere became poisonous due to materials blasted into it by this meteorite, and if those medical supplies don’t get there in time every living thing on it is endangered, not to mention everything injured by the impact itself. It is unknown who is attacking the freighter, but they are determined to wreck it. Two of the engines have already been destroyed, and only two members of the crew are left, being hunted down inside the ship. We are heading out now to rescue this freighter; Destral will rescue any survivors while the rest of us track down whatever is doing this. Got it?”
Everyone nodded, and we headed for our ship. Things didn’t turn out how any of us had expected.
~6~

~7~
I watched the others battle for a while as I rested. Teran went up against a female named Artemis wearing silver and gold armor. She had a launcher in one hand that had some sort of scope on it and a small blade in a holder on her shoulder armor. I soon discovered that her gun shot orbs of some substance that exploded on contact with anything but air. She and Teran had a long fight; they were pretty evenly matched. Teran would almost take her down, but then she would pull some maneuver and almost knock him to the floor. It was pretty impressive to watch them battle it out. They eventually decided to call it a draw (Which was a decision Blitz didn’t seem to like). The next battle was Artemis and Destral, who was about two feet taller than everyone else, but not as bulky as Teran. He had dark metallic and orange armor and two small blades on his wrists. He was fast, and Artemis had a hard time keeping track of where he was throughout the battle. It took a while for it to end, but in the end Artemis admitted defeat. After that no one else was ready for more fighting (though Blitz didn’t admit it), so we just talked for a while; mostly just conversations with each other, and occasionally those with ranged weapons would do some target practice. I talked with Teran for a while, mostly talking about what the team had faced before and how initiation went. I also spent some time talking with Destral, who was pretty impressed by my fight with Blitz. Naturally Blitz never talked to me, and didn’t even come near me if he could help it. He was obviously still mad about how good of a fight I had put up in our match.
After a while, I went to my new private quarters, to really rest. I thought about all that had happened so far. Did I really belong in this place? Was coming here the right thing to do? I told myself that the answer was yes, but I wasn’t doing a good job of reassuring myself. Then I thought of those I had lost because of the evil that was out there, and how many more would be gone if it wasn’t for this place. I remembered why I was here, to make things better. Unfortunately my thoughts were cut short by an alarm. I rushed back to the main room for Beta team, and found that everyone else was already there. Was I really that slow?
“Hurry up rookie!” Shouted Blitz “We have a mission to get started on”
I kept going and grumbled “I have a name you know” Just loud enough for him to hear. He gave me a look of disapproval, then began our mission briefing.
“Just a few moments ago, a freighter carrying medical supplies to planet Ouranos, a planet that was recently struck by a massive meteorite. The atmosphere became poisonous due to materials blasted into it by this meteorite, and if those medical supplies don’t get there in time every living thing on it is endangered, not to mention everything injured by the impact itself. It is unknown who is attacking the freighter, but they are determined to wreck it. Two of the engines have already been destroyed, and only two members of the crew are left, being hunted down inside the ship. We are heading out now to rescue this freighter; Destral will rescue any survivors while the rest of us track down whatever is doing this. Got it?”
Everyone nodded, and we headed for our ship. Things didn’t turn out how any of us had expected.
Our ship moved fast, so it didn’t take long for us to arrive at our destination. The ship was in worse shape than we had thought or were informed: there were several gaping holes in the hull; the ship had even been split in half. No one said anything, but it was obvious that everyone was concerned about what could possibly do that to a ship without a ship of its own. The docking bay had been ripped to shreds, so we were forced to land on a large open platform created by whatever had wrecked the freighter. Still no sign of another ship, yet the damage was caused by plasma or acid of some sort. How did this attacker board the ship? And how did it manage to do so much damage so quickly? But Blitz wasn’t the kind of person to figure out how something had happened first; he took care of whatever it was first. And in this situation, it probably worked out for the best. We continued with our plan; Destral set off to search for survivors while the rest of us hunted down the attacker. We headed down a nearby corridor.
It didn’t take long; it seemed our prey was hunting us as well. We had barely made our way down the first corridor when a sickly, horrible voice echoed through it: ” Ah…so the little heroes have come at last…… “ This was followed by a blast of some burning hot liquid from the wall next to us. I was quick to use my shield, but it didn’t look like everyone else had been so lucky. It was hard to see our attacker at first, who merely looked like a pair of glowing green eyes when he was in the shadows. But soon he emerged from this hiding spot, and we could see him fully. He was taller than most of us, only Destral if he were here would ride higher than him, and clad in lime green armor of some sort. He wielded two weapons, on one arm his entire forearm had been made into a flamethrower-like contraption hooked up to a vat of acid on his back. In his hand on his other arm was a blaster of some sort that seemed to function similarly to Artemis’ with its projectiles, except that his created an explosion of acid when it made contact with something. He seemed to be both biological and mechanical, with sections of his limbs seeming to be made of organic material, but others seemingly fully mechanical. His head was made of organic tissue, but a mechanical gas mask of some sort covered most of it. His head and back were hunched forward, so I imagined he was really much taller than he seemed.
“I suppose I should introduce myself……for you don’t seem to know who I am…..no matter, the master will be sure that all know of us in time…..but that’s beside the point, I am Inficio, and now your all gonna die…..”
With that he launched another volley of acid at us, which I again blocked with my shield as the others scrambled away from it. But this time he noticed me escape unharmed, and fired something out of his blaster at me. Standing in front of an explosive projectile, I soon learned, was not the smartest thing to do. The impact was deflected by my shield, but the force of the explosion sent me flying into a nearby wall. He came toward me to rip the shield out of my hands and blast me in the face, but a shot from Artemis sent him off-course. I quickly regained my senses and got up to aid in the fight, as I saw Teran rush at Inficio, blasting him with his canon. Another volley of acid came in retaliation from Inficio. I managed to block both Teran and myself this time, jumping in front of him with my shield in front of me. By doing this I once again infuriated Inficio, who snarled at me.

“You weren’t supposed to be here…….But I will not let you ruin my masters plot!”
~7~

~8~
”I don’t care what he says, you are going to die here and now!” he screeched at me and fired several blasts at me.
“What!?” I managed to shout, before being blasted to the ceiling by the explosion.
The freighter now looked like it was made of corroded Swiss cheese; anywhere that was not a gaping hole was corroded and covered in acid. But why was he attacking? He had not once mentioned the planet that the supplies were headed to, only that he wanted to kill us. I didn’t have time to dwell on the subject though, as the battle was still raging. The others were doing well, I saw several of Artemis and Blitz’s shots hitting their mark, but it only seemed to enrage him. I realized during the battle that Teran had incredible, unnatural strength. Bracers that were on both his arms glowed with power whenever he grabbed or hit something, increasing his strength tenfold when they did. I never landed a hit, but did a fairly good job of protecting the others from acid with my shield. Then it all went wrong.
The others made the mistake of grouping near each other. Apparently, this was what Inficio wanted. He sprayed the ceiling above them with acid, and it corroded and fell in on them. They had no time to react and were crushed.
”Finally, the pests are gone. He hissed “Now I can deal with you myself.”
“You can try” I replied, ready to avenge my friend and allies.
I charged him head on, but didn’t make it far before was dodging madly out of the way of an explosive, nearly over a large gap in the ship and into space. I quickly got up and began a more tactical approach. I sprinted circles around him, as it was seemingly the only way to avoid the wave of liquid death he kept spewing at me. How much of it was in that tank on his back? I didn’t have time to care. I managed to think up a crazy plan that would either work, or get me horribly maimed and killed. I abruptly stopped and used my shield to block the wave of acid that had been on my tail, luckily Inficio did not immediately realize that I had stopped. During the moment before the acid came my way again, I hurled my shield at him with all my strength. To both of our surprise, it landed on his face so hard it sounded like it had slammed into solid metal. He stumbled back a step, and I rushed forward and slashed diagonally down on him. He wailed with outrage as a deep gash materialized on his armor and skin following my blade.
”I will end you!”
~8~