Space Odyssey: Spectre

Chapter 605: Agnoso

"What the hell are you?" Jace asked as he landed on the ground. His eyes flicked over to his fighter as he could sense the reboot sequence was almost complete. He could run... or he could stay and finish this fight.

{In your language, I am Supreme Admiral Agnoso. I am the peak of Mortella evolution.} The mechanical mortella stepped forward, swinging a metal staff. {As for you, human variant, you are in the wrong galaxy.}

"I mean... you are not wrong." Jace chuckled as he manipulated his fighter remotely. The engine’s firing caught the Supreme Admiral’s attention. The moment he looked away, Jace launched forward. Attempting a quick draw maneuver like before.

But unlike before he was not dealing with simple enemies. His sword was blocked from being drawn by a string. Simple but it worked. Which was not good for Jace since he launched himself forward. Except now he was unarmed. Jace threw his sheathed sword at Agnoso while Jace moved to close the distance.

Jace only made it a few steps before his sheathed sword was batted away with Agnoso’s staff. Then it whipped around and hit Jace in the chest. Pushing him back, sliding across the ground. "But it is not like you are in the right galaxy either. So how about we both leave and let the locals fend for themselves?" Jace suggested as he gripped his fists and took up a fighting stance. When he did he could feel he could activate the enchantments on his gauntlets.

The enchantments on his gauntlets were different from any of the enhancements on any other part of his gear. His boots had movement enhancements that would give him mobility. His legs, chest, and shoulders had absorption enhancements. His helmet actually had strengthening enhancements. All of these enhancements were passive ones that were always active or could be active. The boots had an additional air burst effect but it also had a passive one.

The last component of his armor, his gauntlets were different from the rest, unless he was channeling the energy absorbed from other components it could not be activated. Meaning it took conscious effort to use them. For good reason too, because the enhancement on them was incredibly dangerous.

Jace dashed forward toward the Supreme Admiral while also splitting his mind so he could fly his fighter at the same time. He had it going out instead of helping him. If he flew it to help him, there was a good chance it would just get destroyed. It seemed like the strings the Supreme Admiral were throwing around were limited. But Jace did not want to press his luck.

So as the Admiral was distracted he recalled his sword and its sheath while also sending his fighter away. Jace saw him slightly turn his attention away again as he seemed to send an order to the other two Mortella that were standing. Jace activated one of the enhancements fully on his gauntlets.

When he did it let off an orange glow that pulled the admiral’s attention. Jace could feel as a bunch of strings seemed to wrap around his body. But it was only a moment before there was a flash of fire and the Admiral screeched in surprise and jumped back.

Jace’s fist slammed into the ground and then he jumped back as he let the enhancement fade. But the ground he hit began to melt as the heat from the strike faded. {Humans should not have figured out how to do that. Even the highest ranks of the Mortella do not know how to do that.}

Jace shrugged, "What can I say? I am a prodigy when it comes to stuff like this. Now are you going to come at me with that mechanical body of yours or should I finish this fight?" Jace mocked as he bounced on one foot.

Supreme Admiral Agnoso seemed to take that threat as an insult because he changed his stance and his staff glowed gold for a second before spikes grew off the top and the staff became a trident. {You humans are far too simple to stumble onto something like this. The only thing that makes sense is that you stole the technique from someone else. I will pry the truth from you even if I have to do so from your cold dead corpse.}

That was an interesting bit of information. It seemed that Agnosos was confident that he could interrogate Jace’s corpse if it came down to it. Disregarding that he would first need to take down Jace to get to that stage and Jace was not planning on letting that happen.

"So do you want to get a bit more serious?" Jace asked as he rematerialized his katana. "Because I have not really broken out the good stuff yet. How about you?" Jace asked as he jumped back, watching as the strings failed to grab him. Just barely missing but still missing as Jace channeled the energy from his gauntlet into his blade then did the same with the electricity in his body. Only tapping into a fraction of it as he let out a breath of air and expanded his senses.

The moment he did he could not just see in the area but the entire solar system. He had to relax his grip slightly so he would only cut through this ship and no farther. Looking at how to cleave the ship in half in the most beneficial method.

Jace swung his sword in an arc that quickly turned into a circle. A line of burning blue electricity hit the walls of the tube before disappearing. Seemingly not leaving a mark. But the Admiral growled in annoyance after seeing it miss him completely. {What’s wrong? Still can’t control your power?}

Jace jumped to one side of the slash he just did and the moment he did the world class ship began splitting into two parts. "Come on now, you should know humans better than that." Jace reminded the Mortella because he could tell that was one of Admiral Agnoso’s weaknesses. He seemed to underestimate Jace, which seemed to be a common trait among the Mortella. But the weakness he was thinking of was the fact that Agnoso could be easily provoked.

Which worked because Agnoso jumped toward him. Jace could suddenly feel gravity begin affecting the ship or at least the half they were on. Jace disabled his magboots as he could feel his fighter had made it out. He had it start doing strafing runs on the remains of the world class ship as it fell toward Prima Terra.

The debris would cause cataclysmic damage if it was all together. But if he managed to break it up, it would hopefully be lessened. While he distracted the admiral he could tell his fleet was being broken up while a contingent of human militia from Mars used the local slipspace tech to jump to Prima Terra and begin bombarding the ships in orbit.

The locals had the technology but could not fully utilize it. Especially since they did not have powerful power sources. So it was typically something they reserved for emergency situations. Which it seemed this situation qualified.

Jace parried a strike from Agnoso’s trident with his katana as he slid down the tunnel. Letting Agnoso chase him while Jace defended himself. Jace was buying time so he could figure out how to kill the Admiral. If he just breached the admiral’s suit he would not die. Nor would it work if he overloaded the electronics in the Admiral’s ’body’.

Thus he was stuck parrying the Admiral’s trident and using the electricity in his body to burn the strings he tried to use to restrict Jace’s movements. {When I capture you, I will take my time to enjoy dissecting you.}

"You know, I have only met a few of your kind, but each one seemed more confident and angrier than the last one." Jace pointed out as he ducked under Agnoso’s trident before dematerializing his sword and its sheath. Then he reached up and used his and Agnoso’s momentum to steal Agnoso’s trident with a flip of his wrist.

Agnoso looked at his empty hands while Jace hopped away with a chuckle. {How did you do that?}

Jace chuckled as he did a few practice spins with the trident, "what you never had someone steal your weapon?" Jace felt a pulse of power from the weapon and went to overload it with electricity. But the weapon disappeared in a bright light and reappeared in Agnoso’s hands before he could. "Then again, I suppose your people are far too new to having physical bodies to have ever needed the technique."

Agnoso stabbed forward and Jace went to jump back but his back suddenly slammed into a shielding barrier that blocked him. Before he could react the trident made contact with his chestplate.

For a moment, he actually forgot all about this shielding trick that Agnoso had done before.