Commander
Grave strode confidently into the throne room. In each corner of the room stood
a royal guard wearing gold-trimmed bronze armor and wielding a bronze shield
and an adamantine-tipped spear. Seated on the throne at the opposite end of the
room was King Argos the 5th.
“Your
reign is at an end, fool!” Grave announced.
“I
don’t know who you are or why you’re here, but I will not give up my throne!”
Argos boomed. The king stood from his throne and drew his exquisite royal
shield and his family’s ancestral spear, Stormspite. The weapon was made from
gold-trimmed bronze with a cyan, glowing spear head shaped like a lightning
bolt.
Three
of the royal guards charged toward the construct commander and the fourth
headed toward the king. Commander Grave caught the first royal guard’s spear
with his hand and hurled the man into the nearest wall. The second guard
stopped dead in his tracks with his shield in front of his face as Grave
unleashed a torrent of flames from his wrist. The warforged commander then dashed
forward and grabbed the man’s shield, tossing it aside. He hoisted the royal
guard into the air by his throat with one hand, and with his other hand reached
down and grabbed a laser pistol from his belt, blasting the helpless guard
right between the eyes. As the third guard approached, he was knocked to the
ground by the lifeless body of guard number two hurtling through the air.
As
King Argos the 5th strode purposefully toward Commander Grave, he
turned to see one of his guards sprinting toward him. Suddenly the guard
transformed, revealing himself to be Ferrum. The changeling threw down his
shield, drew a shortsword, and lunged forward, stabbing his spear at the king.
Argos blocked the attack with his shield and was surprised to find that the
weapon was now somehow adhered to it.
Ferrum used his sticky spear to wrench the king’s shield sideways,
leaving the monarch vulnerable to a short sword attack. The sword sliced across
Argos’ chest, but did little damage due to his enchanted royal armor. The king
tossed away his shield, yanking Ferrum’s spear sideways before the mimic removed
itself from the shield. The changeling retreated a few steps and went into a
ready stance.
One
of the royal guards got to his feet and ran toward Commander Grave. He charged
determinedly forward, blocking laser blasts with his shield as he went. The
brave soldier was hit by a few blasts that got around his shield and collapsed
to the ground a few feet in front of the construct commander. Grave finished
him off, caving in the poor man’s skull with his metallic foot. He then picked
up the guard’s spear, and impaled the last charging guard with the weapon.
Ferrum
sidestepped a strike from Stormspite and retaliated with a swing from his short
sword. King Argos knocked the attack aside with his spear, but his leg was
grazed by Ferrum’s mimic spear. Argos winced in pain as his wound was worsened
by the weapon’s acid saliva.
“I
will tolerate your presence no longer, assassin!” the king boomed, a bolt of
lightning shooting from Stormspite’s point.
Shifty,
Ferrum’s mimic weapon, reflexively morphed into a shield to block the bolt. The
rogue was unharmed by the blast, but the force of the impact launched him
through a nearby window.
Commander
Grave and King Argos the 5th stood alone in the room sizing each
other up. Grave shook the cape from his shoulders as his two arms split into
four thinner ones, with two fingers and a thumb on each hand. The commander’s
mechanical laugh echoed through the throne rooms as he drew his four swords.
The king retrieved his shield, then gritted his teeth and planted his feet as
the mechanical death machine barreled toward him. Argos thrust Stormspite at
Grave, but the commander batted it aside with one of his swords. The king was
forced to give ground as he desperately fended off his foe’s four blades with
his shield. In the process, he was struck painfully in the shoulder and slashed
across the side, narrowly avoiding being crippled because of his armor.
Argos
furiously bashed Grave with his shield, but the commander blocked the blow with
his quadruple blades. The two champions stood, locked in a shoving match.
Commander Grave soon proved to be stronger and pushed King Argos back before
blasting him with his flamethrower. The king interposed his shield and staved
off most of the flames, only being lightly singed in a few places. Argos thrust
Stormspite forward, its tip crackling with electricity as it lightning shot
from it. Grave activated a hexagonal energy shield from each of his wrists and
interlocked them into a defensive wall. The energy wall blocked the blast
entirely, but the commander was pushed back several feet. Grave deactivated the
shields and fired a harpoon from one arm. The harpoon was attached by a steel cable
and stuck into Argos’ shield. Commander Grave attempted to mechanically reel
the shield in but was stopped when the king severed the cord with his spear,
leaving the harpoon lodged in the shield.
King
Argos lunged and stabbed his spear through one of his foe’s arms, shocking the
commander with electricity in the process. As the monarch pulled Stormspite
from the appendage, the mechanical arm dropped its sword and dangled limply at
Grave’s side. The construct leader growled robotically and clamped his clawed
foot onto the edge of his opponent’s shield. Grave wrenched the item from
Argos’ grasp and hurled it out the same window Ferrum had sailed through
moments ago. The mechanical warrior pressed the attack with a vicious flurry of
blows. The king dodged several slashes and blocked several more with the shaft
of his spear, but was sliced across one knee and had the crown struck from his
head. Argos retaliated with a furious uppercut to Grave’s jaw using the butt of
Stormspite. As the commander recovered from the blow, the king stabbed him in
the chest with the point of his spear. “Die, you despicable construct usurper!”
he hatefully yelled, kicking Grave backward while yanking his spear from the commander’s
body.
Grave
fell to one knee as Argos’s weapon crackled once more and the king pointed it
toward the ceiling. A small blue light appeaered Grave’s arm as he activated
his communicator. “Now!” he shouted as a bolt of electricity shot forth from
the monarch’s spear and struck the roof, collapsing a sizable section of the
ceiling onto the commander.
What
was that signal for? the king wondered as he stood resting on
his spear and breathing heavily. He question was soon answered when a large
chunk of the floor disintegrated in the center of the room. “Hello Argos. I am
Blex, orchestrator of this invasion, leader of Imperium Cleptarum, and most
importantly, your doom!” the beholder crime lord imperiously boomed as he arose
from the hole in the ground, his central eye shut.
King Argos whirled around to see who was
speaking. Before he knew what was happening, the monarch was levitated into the
air and flung against a wall by the beholder’s light blue telekinesis ray. As
the king struggled to his feet amidst a torrent of colorful beams, he was hit with
an orange ray and his mind began filling with fear and dread. He struggled to
overcome the fright, and the moment he managed to snap out of it, he was hit
with another beam. This one was dark gray, and it seemed to set everything he
did in slow motion. He tried to hurl Stormspite at Blex, but his arm moved so sluggishly
through the air, the beholder easily predicted the spear’s path and moved out
of the way. In his slowed state, King Argos was barely able to dodge two more
beams before he was blasted by a sickly green ray and sapped of a portion of
his lifeforce. The enchanted spear flew through the air and returned to the monarch’s
hand. “You! I will destroy you and snuff out your guild!” the king shouted in
rage as he broke free from the slowness. He pointed Stormspite at Blex as its
tip began to electrify.
With
a booming laugh that reverberated around the room, the beholder opened his
central eye. To his surprise and dismay, King Argos’s spear suddenly lost its
electricity and failed to fire its bolt.
“Puny
human! Your silly relics are of no use under my gaze!” Blex shouted with an air
of extreme self-satisfaction and importance.
As
Argos the 5th stared disbelievingly at the beholder, he felt a sudden and
excruciating pain in his chest. The monarch looked down to find three blades
protruding from his breastplate. Behind him stood Commander Grave. The
construct commander was dented and scratched in several places, only one of his
eyes was lit up, and his damaged arm had been severed by the rubble. As the
dying king gasped for breath, Blex snapped his central eye shut and targeted Argos
with a deathly black ray. The king’s body disintegrated into dust as his armor
and Stormspite clattered to the floor.
“It is done!” Blex exclaimed as he lifted the king’s crown with a light blue ray and placed it atop his fedora.
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