You are dying? --55.8 Seconds Post-Integration.
Fear reared itself in Clark. He steeled himself, thinking of the times previously when he had to push himself past terror's edge. As the Dark Knight figure advanced toward him and his friends, he had no plan of action. "G-guys, h-help!"
Neither of his co-workers had a plan. Emotion gripped both of them; as the futility of their situation sank into them, a light reacted at the center of his being. The light was not like previously, when, in the atrium, a monumental explosion burst forth. This time, it was subdued and only lessened the anxious snare the Dark Knight had upon him. He used his new maneuverability to his advantage. He grabbed his friends by their shoulders and shook his them into action. "Come on, guys! Get with it!"
Theo and Hera both reacted. They moved, the group of them now taking steps away from the slowly advancing Knight.
"What do we do? SIMP! Are you seeing this? THIS is the Dark Knight I was talking about!" he shouted to the spiritual consciousness.
"I see it," SIMP replied. "It is a powerful entity, but I have good news. Its power is merely a shade of its true self."
"Huh?" he grunted. The Knight was getting closer to them and would be within striking range within another couple of minutes if they didn't retreat.
"I mean, it is not the actual knight. What you're seeing before you is a shade from the knight -- an imposter born of the original knight's dark aura," SIMP clarified. "Does that make things better?"
Knowing that the entity striding toward them was not the actual Knight, did, in fact, help. He passed to his friends yet another stamina dandy along with a defense and purification dandy. They drank the dandies down in grace, knowing they were going up against a foe who, realistically, was far beyond their level, even as a shade. "Hera, Theo. I will distract it. Hera, you try and peel off layers of its armor or restrain it. That's where you'll come in, Theo. Stab it without mercy. Got it?"
He would be the first to admit his plan had lots to be desired. None of them were drowning in 'special skills,' 'magical incantations,' or advanced dandies, so their options, he knew, were as limited as a bird in a birdhouse.
Readying the piece of rebar in his hand, he asked his team if they were ready. They nodded. That was it -- Clark bolted toward the knight, then pivoted and threw himself suddenly to the side. He was testing the Knight's reaction.
As he hoped, the Knight moved toward him. From darkness, the knight materialized a mace, which he used one-handedly. He came and reared his arm back, readying for a blow. Clark knew he had to time his attacks perfectly, or he would be smashed to bits. The knight felled his blow but, with careful timing, he dodged the attack.
"Now, guys!" he shouted.
Hera was the first to act -- she pushed her way into the knight, grappling the entity for control of his black mace. With her hands and feet emblazoned with holy flame, she was successful in her attempt as the mace was flung to the other side of the chamber.
Content in her grappling, Hera moved out of the way for Theo to act. He did so a second later when he jumped onto the Knight's back and began stabbing anywhere, he could insert his dagger. One, two, three, four stabs!
The Knight let out an anguished cry. Anger and pain shot from its throat. It was tempting to regroup on the other end of the chamber before launching their next assault, but Clark knew they had to press their advantage.
Theo bounded down from the knight -- that was when he went in for a smash and grab; a smash to the knight's shins, then a grab of a piece of shadowy plate mail. He succeeded only in loosening the armor, but that was enough for Hera to return to her grappling and tear off several more pieces.
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"We're doing well -- keep it up!" he encouraged his team.
If it seemed like they were doing too well, the Knight reassured them it would not be a downhill battle.
The Knight let lose a terrible war cry. In a haze of dark mist, the armor and weapon torn off from it returned. "Shet," Clark muttered. "SIMP. Help?"
"I don't have anything to tell you other than you are inflicting damage on it. Don't get discouraged!" SIMP encouraged.
Clark led his team in another assault. This time, they were less successful. Hera's grappling did not succeed while Theo's darting stabs only found purchase once.
Additionally, the Knight had landed several blows against them with its mace. Were it not for the defense dandies they drank, Clark was sure they all would be dead.
"Shet. What are we going to do?" he asked aloud, though mostly to himself.
Nothing in the large chamber looked useful to their struggle.
"What to do, what to do," he muttered as he desperately searched for a way to overcome.
"Guys! Go for broke!" he yelled. "Hera! Wrestle its helm off. Theo! Help me distract it!"
A chorus of panting came back to him. They had to end the struggle before the Knight's sheer endurance overwhelmed them.
A deep breath later, Clark ran at full speed at the Knight. When the knight swung its mace, he evaded by leaping toward and between the Knight's legs, causing it to overswing in an effort to compensate and try to land a hit. Clark skidded on the ground and cleanly dodged the blow. Theo came in a moment later and distracted it by running in circles, feinting here and there to set it off guard. Finally, with Theo playing interference, Hera came in for the final wrestling: she barged into the knight knocking it on its back, then pried its mace from its grip. Theo claimed its inky black helm then stabbed its deformed, skin made of shadow and darkness.
"Get it, get it!" he yelled over and over again, encouraging Hera to smash at its 'face' with her magically irradiated fists. He joined in, too, smashing it with his rebar piece when Hera wasn't smashing it with her fists.
How long the party smashed and stabbed and hit the Knight, he did not know. What he did know was his party wrecked the knight with a vengeance!
The violence continued until the knight de-materialized in a whiff of smoke, vanishing into the air much like a slime. Except when the Knight vanished, a truly terrible odor was left behind.
"Is -- that -- it?!" he gasped.
"I detect no more foul energy," SIMP chimed. "You did it, Clark!"
He couldn't believe it -- they had won!
At the Dark Knight defeat (well, its aura, at the minimum), also came the full destruction of the node. Any remnants left on the slime node withered away until the Interior machinery underneath had been freed; Clark saw a pedestal now in the center of the chamber, revealed by the defeat of the Knight.
Intrigued by the pedestal, he went to investigate. "It's a command console," he said to himself.
About to investigate the new machine further, a voice shouted for him to stop.
The group -- unable to even so much as catch their breath from the engagement -- now saw a group of Containment Guards rush toward them from across the room. 'Now what?' he moaned, stealing Theo's thunder.
"What -- how, are you people still alive?!" the leader of the Containment Guard contingent asked them.
"We're just like that," Clark shot back, his mind not exactly working to plaster over his rough edges with niceties. "What are you doing here?" His counter was stupid before it even left his mouth. 'They're Containment Guards. They here to kill monsters, of course!'
"We're Containment Guards! We're here to slay monsters!" the leader said, predictably. "So, as I said, what are you guys doing here? You're not Containment Guard or anti-monster league folk. Are you high-level Associates who happened to be in the area?"
Clark thought about lying. He wanted to say, 'yes,' they were high-level associates who happened to be in the area when the crevice opened up. How much of a lie would it have been, really? His wisdom won out, though, and he decided against it.
"We're new associates who know our way around a dandy and our fists. Monsters give good experience, you know," he said.
The Guard Leader looked him and his party over. "Okay..." he said, unsure. "One, that was extremely dangerous of you guys to do, running into a gaping maw like that. If you value your lives, I would not recommend doing so in the future. Secondly, I am going to have to ask you all to leave."
"Why?" he asked, suspiciously.
"I do not have to offer you a reason. You are an Augustford associate and must obey! Leave now!"
His expression hardened. "We are not going to leave," Clark said, standing his ground against the store's interference. "I'll forgive your ignorance, but it is I who must insist you leave. For I am the Dungeon Champion, and these interior passages and chambers are mine!"
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