「Punisher」Beams and Bullets

I whispered to myself, "Shit, I've gotta warn Ronan… You better be within range; I need you to pick up."

I pulled out my radio and slowly backed away from the mysterious bald man. Thanks to my high agility stat, I was confident that I could leave the area stealthily enough. After I got about twenty meters away, I called out on the radio.

"Hey Ronan, I'm not sure if you're getting this. In a minute, I might have to maintain radio silence."

The radio kicked on, and I heard Ronan responding. [Bzzt] "…unisher…" [Bzzt] "…are you at?"

I felt a wave of relief wash over me as I heard Ronan's voice. It's only been several hours since we were at the mall, but it feels like eternity. I needed to get to him so that I could understand more about what's going on here, but first things first. Ronan needed to know that he's being hunted by humans, not just the Veldans and Alorae.

I clicked the radio on to respond back. "I'm in a section of the forest with sludge beetles everywhere. And there was a branch monster, size of a bear. There's a guy here who killed it, and he's hunting you, Ronan."

I felt an odd sensation, as if I could feel the presence of people in the area. I realized, almost innately, that it was because of my mind stat. The people I felt were behind the tree that my back was against, so I pulled a mirror out of my back and angled it to give me a better view of what was behind me without revealing myself.

I saw the well-dressed, bald man start to float in my direction. A couple of other people were walking alongside him on the ground. Two of the people on the ground wore gray sweaters and looked like they could pass for twins. They were large men with thick black hair that fell about shoulder-length. There was one other person with them, a beautiful woman wearing a purple and white striped track suit.

My radio buzzed to life. I hurriedly brought the volume down so as to not draw attention from the approaching group. All I could hear was Ronan saying, "…stay right there."

I whispered on the radio, "Hey Ronan, there are some people nearby. I'll probably have to run. Don…"

An arrow sank through the tree I was leaning against. I turned my head and almost pissed myself at how close the arrow tip came to striking my head.

"Ah shit!"

I turned the radio off and started to run away from the approaching hostiles. I unholstered my pistol and shot backwards as I ran to provide cover fire. A couple arrows soared past me harmlessly, but a beam of red-hot energy cut into my back and blasted me forward.

"What the fuck!"

I started to zig and zag as I ran for my life through the forest. My Legendary Marksman skill was on cooldown, and I wasn't sure how well I'd do if I fought these guys. I was new to all of this, but I wasn't going to go down without a fight.

"Alright, assholes, if that's how we're gonna play this, I'm game!"

As I ran, I started to charge up energy in my gun. I was determined to blow the head off of the flying bald man because I was certain that he was the one who hit me with the beam of fire. He was floating about three meters in the air, and he was about ten meters away from me at this point. I could tell that he couldn't keep up with my agility stat, but one of the twins was gaining on me.

The bald man shouted at the faster twin, "Pin him down!"

The twin responded, "On it, boss."

I noticed a large flash coming from the corner of my eye. I turned my head just in time to see the twin disappear and reappear just one meter away from me. He then dove to tackle me to the ground. I knew that in this split second, I could do one of two things. I could either let him tackle me and go for a hail Mary shot on the boss, or I could try out something I had been dying to do for a while.

Midway through the tackle, I gathered the weapon energy I had stored and brought the butt end of my gun down on the twin's head. I felt all the weapon energy explode downward, and the man's head burst like a watermelon. A notification appeared, but I immediately minimized it so I could see clearly. 

"Holy fuck!"

His body tumbled on the ground, lifeless and headless. I had never seen a head blow up like that in all of my tours while serving in the military. There was a time I saw the aftermath of what a 50 cal. could do to someone, and this was a very similar sight.

From a distance away, I heard the woman shout, "He killed Martin!"

The other twin screamed in rage as he tried to catch up to me. Unfortunately for him, I had more points invested in my agility. He shouted at the bald man, "Fucking do something, Bane!"

The bald man slowed down, and I could sense a large amount of energy gathering. This was different from the aura I used, so I assumed it had to be what magic felt like. It was comparable to what I could output if I gathered energy in my gun for about half a minute, so it definitely wasn't something I could take directly.

I started to build up energy in my gun again, counting down five seconds. I turned and aimed at Bane.

"Three…"

He extended his hands, and I watched as a massive ball of fire condensed into a smaller ball, about the side of a lemon.

"Two…"

The ball condensed even further, until it was just a small, dense red light in between his hands.

"One…"

The magic energy exploded into a burst of red light that looked like he was firing a red kamehameha at me. The radius of this stream of energy was wide enough that it offered no room for me to escape, but I was not planning to.

"Zero…"