Pulse then removed the gauntlets of his light armor, exposing the hardened skin of hands. He activated his vibration powers, the air around his palm humming with invisible, oscillating force. The moment his fingers brushed against the small of Crystara's back, a shock of pure, unfiltered synthetic pleasure shot through her.
Crystara gasped, her breath catching in a ragged hitch. It was the same overwhelming flood as before, a euphoric resonance that bypassed thought and went straight to the deepest, most primal centers of joy. Her crystalized form seemed to sing under the focused kinetic energy.
"Oh, fuck," she hissed, fighting to keep the sound quiet, teeth grinding together. "I couldn't get enough of this feeling, holy shit."
Pulse remained focused, his eyes slightly distant, the vibration steady. He was not massaging with muscle; he was massaging with fundamental force, realigning and revitalizing her physical core. Even through the professional detachment he maintained, he could feel the intense, immediate physical response his touch elicited.
After several minutes of this exquisite torment, Crystara managed to steady her breathing, she whispered, her voice husky. "Can we do the other thing now? The resonance core expansion? That 'whatever it is' you found?"
Pulse withdrew his hand, the sudden silence deafening. "Not right now, Crystara. When I'm doing that procedure, I have to be extremely concentrated, absolutely no interruptions. In this place, there's a high chance that random creatures could attack us at any time. When we get back to our apartment."
Crystara sighed, the high still humming through her veins. "Okay then. Fine..."
In the distance, tucked into the shadow-eaten crest of a low rise, the three cloaked figures were still watching. The thermal vision of the telescope made the bodies of Pulse and Crystara glow like embers.
A1 leaned in, his voice muffled by his mask. "Are those two about to fuck?"
The sharp click of a camera shutter cutting through the night air beside him answered his question.
A1 whipped his head around, glaring at the man cradling the long-barreled sniper rifle. "A2, are you fucking serious?"
A2 adjusted the advanced scope, not looking away. "What? We are talking about Crystara here. And we could do whatever we want with her once we capture them. This is evidence. Market value and all that."
The Boss, cloaked entirely in black and trimmed with harsh red, simply watched, a predatory grin invisible beneath his mask. "Focus, you two. Playtime is over. A2, your introduction is on the mark."
Back at the camp, Crystara was now covering her mouth with her hand, suppressing the residual tremors of pleasure as she stood. "Your massaging skills and your vibration powers are just a heavenly combination," she murmured, eyes still glazed.
Pulse simply nodded. "Thanks, I guess." He stepped back. "That's enough. We should eat and rest. I'll take the first night watch."
After a quick, silent meal of rations, Crystara curled up in her bedroll, drifting into a deep, crystal-reinforced sleep.
Pulse took his post, his senses stretched taut in the deep gloom of the rocky chamber. These hours were never wasted. He stood silently, practicing. He focused his vibration power not outward, but downward, sending high-frequency seismic pulses into the ground.
Thrum.
He could 'read' the returning echoes, a rudimentary form of vibration echolocation. It was clumsy, perhaps ten feet in radius, but it let him see the texture of the rock, the indentations, and the subtle variations in density. This could be useful for searching for hidden rooms, he realized.
Thirty minutes more before sleep, he thought, checking the faint glow of the tactical watch on his wrist.
It was in that moment of concentration, focusing the vibration downwards, that his internal alarm shrieked. A massive, hot, dense object was moving fast from the high ceiling directly above.
Pulse didn't hesitate. "Crystara!" he screamed, already whipping his sword, a blade humming with potential kinetic energy, toward the descending darkness. He was ready to shunt a lethal vibration directly through whatever it was.
But before the sword could fully raise and align, a sharp crack echoed, followed by the metallic ping of a high-caliber bullet striking his blade. The impact wrenched the sword out of alignment, sending a jolt of useless kinetic feedback up his arm.
It was too late.
The object was A2, now revealed in a monstrous, chitinous bat form. He struck with the force of a falling anvil, its immense, scaled hand clamping around Pulse's entire body, chest, arms, and midsection are pinning him instantly. Pulse was lifted high, almost unable to move his sword or his arms.
Crystara was instantly awake, her crystal form activating with a sound like grinding geological plates. Shimmering, faceted armor snapped into place over her skin, turning her into a living, moving diamond. She charged, a roar of pure fury tearing from her throat as she saw Pulse captured.
"I wouldn't do that, Crystara, if you wouldn't want your friend to die."
Crystara halted mid-stride, skidding crystalline boots on the dirt. She scanned the gloom and saw them: two masked figures in the corner shadows. One, the sniper, A1, was reloading the massive rifle. The other, the Boss, stood slightly forward, radiating an unnatural stillness.
The Boss, clad in black and red, gestured toward a nearby wall of the cave. The rock, gray and ancient, instantly began to bubble. In seconds, it turned molten, running down the wall in searing rivulets of magma before cooling back into a twisted, obsidian structure. The heat radiating off the display was suffocating.
"I'll advise you to come to us peacefully," the Boss said, his voice deep and calm, "and do not bother fighting me, Crystara. You're powerful and tough, but you'll immediately break and melt against my power."
Crystara's face, usually set in a defiant smirk, was warped with sheer panic. Her eyes darted wildly between the Boss and the helpless Pulse, now struggling uselessly in the grip of the massive bat.
Pulse, however, was already adjusting. Trapped as he was, his right hand was positioned perfectly, pressed firmly against the slick, armored skin of the bat's immense, vice-like grip.
With a silent, furious surge of will, Pulse activated his power. He didn't just make his hand vibrate; he focused the kinetic energy inward, past the protective flesh, straight at the resonant core of the monstrous A2.
The Bat-Man screamed, a shattering sound of agony that tore through the cavern. His grip dissolved immediately, the musculature seizing uncontrollably. A2 shrieked, letting go of Pulse.
Pulse dropped six feet, twisting mid-air to land in a combat crouch, his sword already back in his grip. The blade screamed with residual kinetic energy.
Crystara didn't need a second invitation. She roared and launched herself, no longer worried about surrender, charging directly at the stunned, wounded monstrosity of A2.
The Boss moved just as fast, charging toward Crystara, his boots kicking up dust that instantly scorched and turned black around his feet. Meanwhile, A1, the sniper, re-aimed the massive rifle, pointing the advanced barrel squarely at Pulse.
Pulse knew he couldn't fight the Magma Guy at close range, nor could he let A1 get a clean shot. He slammed his free hand, armored gauntlet and all, onto the cavern floor.
He fed every ounce of kinetic energy into the rock beneath them. The result wasn't a rumble; it was an instantaneous, localized geyser of pulverized earth.
In a twenty-foot radius, the ground erupted. Gravel, boulders, and pulverized dirt burst upward with the force of an earth-mine detonation. The blinding, chaotic explosion of debris shook the entire chamber.
A1, the sniper, tripped backward, the heavy rifle flying momentarily out of alignment. A2, still reeling from the core attack, was thrown back, his wings flapping wildly to regain stability.
The Boss, however, simply melted through the chaos. As the dirt and rocks flew past him, they instantly became superheated slag, turning liquid and separating before they could touch his armored skin. He continued his charge, a living wave of incandescent heat.
Pulse shouted over the din. "Crystara! Deal with the sniper immediately! I'll buy time fighting this Magma asshole!"
Crystara, already airborne from the explosion, didn't respond with words, only action. She vaulted over the cascading debris, her crystal body reflecting the sudden chaos, and charged toward the retreating sniper. A1 immediately pivoted, trying to stabilize his aim, but A2 recovered quickly, dropping to block the attack, his massive frame shielding the sniper.
The Boss, still moving relentlessly, tried to pivot to follow Crystara, but a rock came screaming toward his face. Pulse had kicked it up and layered it with violent vibration, turning it into a hyper-velocity projectile.
The rock melted instantly, splitting into two sizzling halves that whistled past the Boss's head before they could even deform his mask. He stopped, looking at Pulse, his heated form radiating contempt.
"You motherfuckers sure are desperate," the Boss growled.
Pulse gripped his sword, the vibration field humming so loudly it sounded like a nest of angry cicadas. "Everyone is desperate to live, asshole."
The man charged again, closing the distance with unnatural speed. Pulse responded by continuously throwing everything he could find, small, sharp rocks, pieces of his own discarded rations, even handfuls of dirt. Every single projectile sizzled, turned black, and was either vaporized or melted into molten droplets before it could slow the Boss down.
Pulse knew if this man touched him, his light armor would cook his flesh in seconds. The heat rolling off the Boss was already searing his exposed hands. Pulse needed a weapon that couldn't melt.
Pulse dodged a sweeping motion, the Boss's hand passed an inch from Pulse's chest, and the air around it felt like a plasma cutter. Pulse's armor plate shrieked in protest, the metal instantly warping and turning red-hot where the heat wave passed.
"You're fast, drifter," the Boss hissed, his voice muffled but audible. "But you're running out of room."
Pulse ducked low, performing a seismic sweep. He sent a low-grade, hyper-localized vibration wave along the ground, aiming to destabilize the Boss's stance.
The Boss didn't fall. He simply turned the ground beneath his boots into two small patches of bubbling, black tar, effectively insulating himself from the kinetic shock. Then, he lunged again, his entire arm flashing toward Pulse like a white-hot poker.
Pulse spun back, narrowly avoiding the contact, then slammed his sword, still vibrating violently into the ground where the Boss had just stood. The focused vibration acted like a miniaturized earthquake, causing a precise fissure to shoot across the floor, aiming directly for the Boss's feet.
The Boss smirked, jumping clear of the crack, but Pulse had anticipated the move. As the Boss landed, Pulse activated his back-up daggers, pulling both from his back sheaf. He coated them in a massive, buzzing field of vibration and hurled them not at the Boss, but at the wall behind the boss.
The daggers sank deep into the stone wall, the wall then immediately started to shake because Pulse fed them with maximum localized energy. The wall began to shake violently, not breaking apart, but vibrating so aggressively that the impact zone became unstable. Chunks of rock, too large and numerous for the Boss to melt all at once began to rain down immediately.
The Boss cursed, momentarily forced onto the defensive, channeling energy into a localized heat shield to vaporize the descending debris.
Pulse used that precious second of distraction to retreat, turning and sprinting deeper into the shadows of the chamber. He couldn't win this fight while surrounded and unable to utilize his full power without frying himself.
Meanwhile, Crystara was engaged in a brutal dance of evasion and counterattack.
A2, the monstrous bat, was faster than she was, but her Crystal form was impervious to his talons and raw force. She had retreated briefly to gain distance, drawing her dual guns, two wicked, high-caliber pistols that looked tiny against her armored form.
"Come get some, bat boy!" Crystara yelled, unloading a sustained, explosive barrage at the flying A2.
The bullets struck the bat's chitinous armor with sickening thwacks, but didn't penetrate the thickest plating. A2 roared, swooping low and fast, trying to tackle her.
Crystara fired one last suppressing round, forcing A2 to momentarily veer, and then she turned her attention to A1, the sniper.
A1 had found cover behind a large, jagged column of rock, sighting her through his rifle. Crack!
The bullet struck Crystara in the shoulder. It didn't pierce the crystal, but the kinetic force was tremendous, slamming her into the ground and grinding the facets against the grit. She tasted blood from where her teeth had clipped her tongue.
"Cheap shot, asshole!" she spat, rolling instantly.
A2 used the opportunity to attack. He landed on her back, his talons gripping her shoulders, and used his sheer size to try and pin her down, attempting to crush the oxygen out of her lungs.
Crystara grit her teeth, the pressure on her ribs unbearable. Her crystal form provided incredible defense, but not infinite strength. She couldn't reach her guns, and the combined weight of the bat-man was suffocating.
Fine. If Pulse can hit the core, so can I.
Crystara channeled her own kinetic energy, not for vibration, but for brute force. She focused her crystal power to hyper-harden the facets currently pressed against A2's talons. Then, with a scream of adrenaline-fueled rage, she flexed.
The razor-sharp, diamond-hard facets of her shoulder armor instantly dug into A2's gripping hands like industrial-grade cutting tools. A2 howled, his talons tearing free in a spray of thick, black ichor, and backed off the damaged, bleeding limb.
Crystara sprang up, ignoring the pain, and charged A1.
The sniper, seeing A2 disabled again, panicked and fired wildly, missing his shot. Crystara was on him in two swift strides. She discarded her guns, relying on her fists. Her crystal fist, hard as a meteor, slammed into the column beside A1's head.
The resulting shockwave and the sheer force shattered the rock into a million pieces, burying the sniper up to his chest in debris. Before he could raise the rifle, Crystara grabbed his head, her crystal fingers finding purchase beneath his helmet.
"You like to kidnap us huh?" she snarled, then slammed his masked face repeatedly into the exposed, jagged rock of the cavern floor.
A2 shrieked and leaped toward them, trying to save his partner.
Ahead of the carnage, Pulse was pumping his legs, the heat of the Magma Guy still searing the air behind him. He didn't dare look back.