in their armor that should not have put them at risk in any way.
M’k’n’zy drove the point of his sword forward, trying to stab deep into the vent.
He almost made it.
The armored being moved with a speed that belied its appearance. It brought up its hand and brushed aside M’k’n’zy’s blade just before the sword could strike home. The enemy’s weaponry had not recharged yet, but it didn’t matter. The soldier swung his fist around in a pile driver move that struck M’k’n’zy in the temple, knocking him to the ground. Scalding heat radiated along the glove and seared M’k’n’zy’s skin. M’k’n’zy cried out as he hit the ground and the sword was jolted out of his grasp.
M’k’n’zy twisted around and saw the bottom of his enemy’s boot driving straight toward his head. He rolled to the side, barely evading the attack, and instead the foot came down on his sword, shattering it.
Quickly M’k’n’zy got to his feet and tried to find a new direction from which he could come at his opponent, but the armored figure wasn’t giving him the opportunity. Instead it brought its hand up again, its weapon fully charged, and from this distance it seemed there was simply no way that it could miss him.
The armored figure fired.
And missed.
M’k’n’zy had dropped to the ground faster than would have seemed possible, and the air again fried over his head. The cliffside behind him exploded, rock fragments flying. Pieces rebounded around him, and he brought up his arms to shield his head. There was a series of rapid pok sounds as the debris ricocheted off his opponent’s armor.
Then M’k’n’zy saw several shards of rock within his reach. He grabbed them up, lunged to his feet, and collided with the armored figure even as he brought his hand up and around and shoved as hard as he could. The prolonged contact with the superheated armor was even worse this time, and M’k’n’zy wanted to scream in agony as he clutched on like a bat, pounding the rock fragments into the vent. But he refused to give his opponent the satisfaction of hearing his weakness.
Instead he punched his fist once, twice more against the vent, which was all he could do before his mind nearly went into sensory overload from the pain of being against the armor. Then he fell backward and hit the ground, rolling into a crouch. His battle-trained mind was already coming up with a new plan of attack.
As it turned out, it wasn’t necessary. The armored figure was staggering, clutching at the area of the vent access. M’k’n’zy was thrilled to see that there were fragments of rock wedged in, and they weren’t coming out anytime soon. The thick fingers of the figure’s gloves were unable to get any sort of grip on them.
The armored figure twisted and spun bizarrely, as if it were some sort of stringed puppet whose operator was completely inebriated. The legs began shaking, the knees buckling, and it was clawing at its helmet. For a moment, M’k’n’zy thought he might actually see the unprotected head of one of the damned things. He wasn’t entirely sure if they could survive without the helmet since he wasn’t certain of the environment that had spawned them. For that matter, he wasn’t altogether positive that—if one of them exposed its head—he wouldn’t be able to restrain himself from grabbing the nearest blunt object and using it to reduce the bastard’s skull to a bloody pulp.
The armored figure was shuddering even more violently, and then M’k’n’zy was sure that he heard a muffled explosion from within the armor. The soldier’s arms flew out to either side and his body trembled one final time. Then, like a newly chopped tree, he fell slowly forward and hit the ground with a resounding thud. He lay there, flat and unmoving, and it was obvious to M’k’n’zy that his opponent would not be trying to kill anyone else in this life.
He stood over his downed foe, knowing and regretting the fact that he didn’t have any tools that would have enabled him to crack open the armor. Then, before he even knew he was going to do it, he drew back a leg and drove a furious kick straight into the side of the armored figure. It tilted slightly from the impact but otherwise didn’t move.
It was a rare indulgence for M’k’n’zy, allowing anger to seize him in such a way that he would waste the energy on physically assaulting