Jordan

  The E class Pioneers reacted in tandem to deal with the Bonepiercer. The two vets, Scalia and Lao, stepped forward and unleashed their ranged attacks. Lao let loose a powerful Psionic palm strike, while Scalia lashed out with four thin, whiplike appendages that had sprouted from his back. Meanwhile, Jordan started shooting, and Gon started glowing, both rookies internally making plans as they did.

  The Greater Bonepiercer was totally unruffled by all this as it smoothly stepped around Lao’s palm strike. Its arms exploded into a flurry of movement, sprouting bladelike constructs from the ends and shredding Scalia’s tentacles like they were straw. The Kharnidd also deflected Jordan’s blaster fire with contemptuous ease, its limbs fluid and swift like waving tentacles. The creature hadn’t lost its predatory grin, and its eyes soon locked on Gon, sensing relative weakness. The Xenos pointed its arm toward the Dunid, the limb compressing hideously like a spring. But then, the Kharnidd hesitated. Before anyone could react, the creature was suddenly engulfed in brilliant, violet fire.

  MacNeil, pale as a sheet and still bloody, had miraculously stood up and aimed his hands at the Bonepiercer. The creature, taken aback, couldn’t completely evade MacNeil’s attack. It hissed as the Psionic fire scorched its flesh, arms windmilling around and trying to disrupt the attack. Nearby, Gon grimaced as more wounds appeared on his furry body, but he stayed strong. Pain Share was the Dunid’s second Psionic Capacity, recently purchased after the Pioneers’ defeat of the Khazari. It allowed Gon to accept much of the damage done to a compatriot in their stead, though that descriptor didn’t do it justice. Practically speaking, it created a miraculous healing effect for the Dunid’s targeted ally, allowing them to recover from nearly anything. In exchange, Gon suffered some recoil, usually in the form of physical damage that was distributed throughout his body. However, Gon’s defensive Capacity, Reinforced Body, boosted his natural defenses considerably. The hole in MacNeil’s stomach had almost closed entirely, yet Gon’s boosted defenses meant he only took an array of cuts and bruises as a result. A stim could never have healed MacNeil's grievous wounds, yet Gon was already pulling a stim of his own out from storage and jabbing it into his arm.

  The Bonepiercer, shocked at these new developments, turned its attention to Gon. As it stepped backward to avoid MacNeil’s blaze, it aimed its coiled-up arm straight at the non-human. The limb blazed with yellow light as it shot out, and Jordan activated Hypersight, yelling, “RIGHT!”

  According to the naked eye, the limb shot straight toward Gon, but Jordan knew better. He’d been watching the arm carefully from the beginning, noting a slight disturbance in the air before the weapon shot outward. Gon trusted his friend implicitly, raising his claws on his right side while ignoring the attack that was shooting straight for him. With a scream of cracking energy, a Psion-pointed spear flickered into existence and crashed into Gon’s defenses as the ignored spear disappeared into motes of light. The Dunid released a high, vibrating cry of pain, but his claws managed to hold off the Bonepiercer’s attack, forcing the Kharnidd to retract its arm in growing astonishment.

  Both Gon and Jordan possessed prior knowledge of the creature’s Veiled Pierce Capacity, and Jordan’s Enhanced eyesight had allowed him to see the minor disturbances produced by the real attack. It might have been more difficult if he were the target, but he he’d been able to see the enemy’s move clearly as an observer. The Kharnidd’s grin was long gone as it re-appraised its enemy. Some of the policemen were foolhardy enough to start shooting at it, and the Xenos idly lashed out at the offenders. Scalia jumped in front of the policemen as the creature extended its arm again and waved it toward them like a sword. The Pioneer held up a buckler shield of purple energy, which screeched and cracked as the Kharnidd’s weapon made contact. Scalia was not a defensive specialist, so the blade carved through his shield and cut into his body. As the man cried out, Lao called to the policemen, “GET BACK! GET AWAY!”

  He then turned back toward the Bonepiercer and let loose a barrage of more Shadow Palm strikes, body glowing with further enhancement as he fought to cover his fellow’s retreat. The Kharnidd retracted its limbs and destroyed the incoming attacks with a swift ferocity, before shooting out two more arm-spear strikes. This time, one of its arms dipped low, coming up for an uppercut while the other swept wide right in a horizontal slash. And yet, Jordan saw through the ruse once more, “DUCK!”

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  Lao, fighting his instincts, did as the younger man said. The illusory lower attack shattered against his face as the real frontal attack appeared, arching overhead. The visible sweeping attack was real, and it ruffled Lao’s hair as it passed harmlessly over his head. The man roared, seemingly enraged at the close shave, and withdrew a sword from storage. Jumping, his boosted body was fast enough to catch the arcing limb in the air before it retracted, blade slashing clean through the vulnerable limb. The Kharnidd hissed in pain, yet it didn’t have the opportunity to take its revenge before the rookies attacked it again. MacNeil shot his fire, and Jordan shot his blaster, forcing the Kharnidd to dodge as it retracted the remains of its limbs. Gon focused on using Pain Share on Scalia, and Jordan was heartened to see the vet stagger to his feet again, but he didn’t let his guard down.

  To an outside observer, the Pioneers seemed to be winning the fight. None of them had gone down permanently, and the Kharnidd appeared seriously damaged, but the soldiers knew better. Right on cue, the Xenos’s body was suffused with a yellow light of its own. Muscles twitched and skin rippled as the burn marks caused by MacNeil’s fire were erased. The monster’s bones crackled as they shifted slightly, a new arm springing from the stump that Lao had created. When the light faded, the Bonepiercer appeared as good as new, glaring at its enemies with renewed ferocity. Without another word, the Kharnidd sprang back into action.

  It targeted the rookies now, launching an arm at MacNeil as it fended off another palm strike from Lao with the other. The redhead was still pale as a sheet and in no shape to evade, so Jordan stepped in front of his friend, catching the stabbing attack with both knives in an astonishing display of dexterity. Sapphire crystal met yellow energy in a small burst of power, and Jordan was overwhelmed almost immediately. It was all he could do to knock the attack to the side, grimacing as he felt his knives shatter afterward. Elsewhere, the Kharnidd took the opportunity to shoot out a Veiled Stab toward Lao. With Jordan distracted, the man wasn’t able to see through the attack in time to dodge, and he let out a roar of pain as he was pierced in the side.

  Time was running out for the Pioneers, so it was time for the desperation play. Jordan watched through his Hypersight as the limb in front of him retracted, and he summoned his backup daggers. With a frantic leap, he managed to dig both weapons into the limb and allow himself to be yanked toward the Bonepiercer. The Kharnidd snarled as it tried to retract its other limb to defend itself. Scalia stepped up to the plate this time, catching the Kharnidd’s other limb with his Psionic tentacles as it pulled out of Lao. The duo strained against each other for a hot second as Scalia dug in his heels. The human wouldn’t last long, but he wouldn’t have to.

  Jordan let go of his knives mid-air as he flew toward the Bonepiercer, allowing his momentum to carry him on the last leg of the journey. The Kharnidd was unable to step out of the way, thanks to Scalia holding it down, so it could only watch as Jordan manifested two new items into each of his open hands. They resembled the high explosives the Pioneer had used earlier, only broken in half. Jordan wielded two black half-spheres as he crashed into the Bonepiercer, slapping the flat sides of each device into the Xenos’s exposed chest and teleporting away. Then, the beeping devices blew up.

  The fire and the concussive force send the Kharnidd flying backward into a nearby building. The creature’s body crashed through a concrete pillar and into the central dining room of a small restaurant, yet the Pioneers weren’t done. MacNeil unleashed everything he had, turning that dining room into a roaring inferno. Lao, healed up thanks to Gon’s Pain Share, absolutely showered the fiends’ last known location with Shadow Palms, causing the building to shake. The last straw was when Jordan tossed a spherical high explosive into the establishment. The ground shook from the explosion, and the building collapsed with a deafening rumble, kicking up an enormous cloud of rock and detritus in front of them.

  Adding to the chaos, another explosion ripped through the air from far away, a tremendous detonation of light painting the sky crimson before quickly petering out. Jordan realized that that was probably his father fighting, and he allowed himself a moment of worry for the old man before turning back to the task at hand. He tossed every explosive, every grenade, every weapon he could think of into the debris pile that the Pioneers had created. Stun grenades, incendiary grenades, and even a few flares, he threw all of them in. Scalia joined him in his bombing campaign while Lao ground the building’s remains into fine powder with his palm strikes. MacNeil continued to torch the place, and Gon, lacking the resources the others had, resorted to throwing rocks.

  MacNeil was the first to cut off his attack, the man heaving as he ran up against the limits of his mental energy. Lao stopped soon afterward, the vet running low on energy as well. Scalia and Jordan then ran out of explosives. The two men equipped their blasters and aimed at the pile even as the last of their weapons continued to go off. Gon threw rocks stubbornly, yet everyone else held their fire and looked for signs of life. A massive crater had formed where the building used to exist, the remnants of a collapsed basement, and the Pioneers ogled it with bated breath.

  Then, they watched in horror as a long, bladed arm slashed ruthlessly through one of Gon’s rocks.