Summoner Quest (Celestial Menagerie)

We continue our fight against the Butcher.
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Monday, 04/18/2011 (2 AM)

Her actions surprised me, I was wearing a set of heavy medieval-looking armor, including an impressive neck guard. And that was without counting my AT field that she saw in action multiple times. What did she hope to accomplish? She must be getting really desperate to try that.

Well, that was fine by me. I grabbed her arms and spoke up. "Sleep!" And of course, she was gone before I could finish the spell.

Carapace grumbled under my feet, not happy at being used like a wrestling ring.

I locate the frustrated-looking Butcher and apparate not too far away facing her. What could I do that would work? Damnit, I had access to so many options that I forgot some of them, among the lot there should be one that could apply here!

If we can't put her to sleep couldn't we just restrain her?/But she can teleport./Could we blind her?/I don't think we have anything that does that. Not directly anyway. Xaytorreth comes close but it's not true blindness./Wait forget about that, we have a much easier option. We have Mundane Equalizing.

There was a pause in all my Mind's train of thought at that suggestion. Yes, that was an option.

…I don't think we should. That's our ace against the Endbringer. I don't think we can afford to reveal it for anything less than an apocalyptic event./Yes, you're right. We can't risk the Winged Bitch getting wind of this one. We don't know how much she can observe from up there.

My musings were cut short when the saturation of my Harvest units on the battlefield started to give me a much better view of the actions. Strangely enough, the fight between the opposing gang members has stopped. In part, I think because at least half of them, on each side, are dead. Also from lack of munitions. And lastly, because they want to watch the show.

The stalemate was broken when the Butcher renewed her assault, this time by reshaping her bow into a metal spear and rushing in my direction. Instinctively, I resummoned Cressidus to defend myself.

To my surprise she didn't attack me, she targeted the Microbots hovering above my head and with a powerful thrust of her weapon destroyed one.

I jumped away confused. Why would she do that?

She must think that by destroying them she'll be able to overcome our AT field./That's great, let's lay into that, fight defensively, and try to protect our Microbots. That way we can gain some time. We have five, well four now, Microbots directly attached to our body, and the others are with our partners. We need to make them count.

And so when the murderous woman renewed her assault, I remained on the defensive while my Minds continued to brainstorm. Her first attack was another direct thrust, but this time I blocked it with the back of my left gauntlet and retaliated with my right.

She avoids it by the simple expedient of teleporting right above me already trusting with her spear toward a bot. A quick jump brought me some distance away, avoiding her attack entirely.

I got something, our trusty Raptor can do a blinding and stunning flash of light! That way we can finally immobilize her./I love the idea but we used Material Extraction this afternoon. It's not available./Of course, we have the perfect solution and we can't use it.

She was on me the moment I landed, using her spear like a vaulting pole she tried and succeeded in grabbing a bot with her right hand and crushing it.

Guys we're running out of time./We're working on it./Starro! We can summon Star and have it take control of her, Like with Othala. Even just paralysis would work./Let's try.

I whirled around to face her and summoned my alien starfish just above her head. I dared to hope when it made contact with the tip of a leg. But with an astonishing display of speed and dexterity, she reversed her spear in her hand and impaled Star through its eye before it could take control. My alien starfish disappeared instantly.

Fuck./I'm starting to get fed up with this bitch. Maybe if she dies inside Shadow's Dark Pool of Oblivion, her power won't be transferred?/It would be cathartic but too risky.

The Butcher laughed harshly after her success at destroying one of my Microbot and Star. I punished her distraction by charging in her direction and I unleashed my Buffalo Beat art, hurling her into an abandoned forklift.

From the corner of my eyes, I noted that Lung got bored of looking at our fight and moved to help Oni-Lee against Vex. His fire breath proved to be an effective counter against Vex's swarm of forcefield, forcing her to step back.

I'm running out of ideas here. We need to find a way to immobilize her, anything will do at this point./Maybe Hypno could catch her attention long enough, to use Dream Flower?/The effect isn't that strong, but it's worth a shot.

So when the Butcher charged me again, instead of blocking I jumped to the side, dismissed Cressidus, and summoned Hypno as a fan. When she slid to a stop and turned in my direction, I already deployed the fan and activated its hypnotic property.

As soon as she saw the fan she stopped on a track and began walking slowly and mechanically toward me. Finally some success. I open my mouth to cast my sleeping spell and finally end this fight. But before I couldn't even utter the first syllable, she shook her head and teleported again. This time on top of an electrical pole. My enhanced hearing allowed me to hear her snarling in anger and muttering a thank you in a sour tone of voice.

I think she is thanking the previous Butchers. They must have helped her shake off the effect of Hypno./Not being the only person to have voices in its head felt weird./At least the voices in our head are our own. And didn't drive us insane./That's debatable, but now is not the time.

My last attempt appeared to have angered her because she didn't wait long to come back. She teleported straight above me, with a stronger explosion than usual, and while I was protected it did knock out one of my microbots. I was forced to let go of Hypno's fan to protect the other ones with an uppercut with my resummoned gauntlets.

What followed was an intense exchange, I wanted to demonstrate my protectiveness toward my microbots and fight fiercely. A lunging thrust was parried by a punch, breaking the head of her spear. Which she reformed smoothly. Her pole vault trick was countered by crouching and striking the pole with a backhand. And when she teleported behind me I jumped away and retaliated with a Rock Bullet fired from my gauntlets.

She didn't manage to avoid it, double over, and let out a gasp. Not being able to feel pain doesn't help when the air in your lungs is violently expelled. She teleported away before I capitalize and we were back to a standoff. I grab Hypno's fan from the ground and hand it to Clank.

I'm getting really fed up with this situation, we could beat her so easily if we weren't forced to restrain ourselves. But no, we're playing with a quarter of our arsenal in fear that one wrong move could kill her./Complain later, think now. And by the way, new power. Copyright. It protects our partners against Master's effect and from cloning./Perfect timing, that means that Solar can't be taken over by the Butcher's Shard./Yes, but we still don't know how it works, so we can't be sure it'll protect us from it./Truth, so caution is still required.

By now I had eyes on the whole battlefield, so I used this respite to have a look around. It was clear that the situation was turning in favor of the ABB.

Spree was in dire straits, Bakuda was just toying with him by this point. I hoped that he didn't die, but I was in no position to save him. Well not save and restrain him at the same time anyway. Still, I had Massue flying overhead with orders to intervene if he saw Spree about to be killed.

On the other side of the battlefield, Vex was frantically backpedaling. Handling both Lung and Oni-Lee proved to be too much for her. I ordered Carapace to position himself nearby, just to remind Lung that I was here and that I wouldn't tolerate a murder on my watch. He didn't appear to care for my opinion because I saw no change in his behavior.

I spotted Velocity arriving on the scene and I saw him hesitate. The gang members weren't currently fighting, there was no civilian to save, and he would have a hard time helping me against the Butcher. His indecision didn't last long, he started circling around the area, targeting isolated gang members to knock them out.

I think it's time to try our new Random Summoning power. I think it's worth a shot.

General agreement resonated through my head and I nodded to myself. With some trepidation, I pulled on the power.

The Menagerie gave me barely a second to digest the knowledge concerning this creature before I was forced to choose where it would appear.

And so a circular mirror in a framework of stone, with the image of a beautiful woman on its surface and covered by a layer of transparent ice appeared facing the Butcher. I frowned, this Ice Doom Mirror was in no way what I needed. Hopefully, it would distract the Butcher a little. Mentally I ordered it to attack.

With surprising speed, it charged the woman by rolling toward her. She appeared confused by my new strategy, clearly expecting a trick of some kind. She remained on the defensive while fighting the animated mirror.

I got something! And it should work really well!/Go on./It might be a little tricky but I'm sure it will work.

As I listened to the voices in my head, behind my helmet a smile grew on my face. Yes, this could work.

Wordcount: 1730
Excess words: 506
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You wouldn't believe how tempted I was to cut the chapter just before Random Summoning. But I'm not a monster.
Sadly our random summon didn't turn out to be a game-changer, or even funny. But it will do for a short distraction.

For the roll, 850 points.

[] Creature

[] Power

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