[John POV]
'Your wish is my command, Master.'
Through his HUD, John saw a humanoid shape floating up from the reactor waters.
"Oi, you old maniac! I do not have time to dilly dally with foreplay," John shouted.
He put his mechanical arms together, and the green nanites began to rapidly transform, shifting into a massive, heavy-duty energy cannon that was nearly as large as the suit itself.
Conquest roared and laughed as he flew up. "I knew it! I knew I could finally –"
THOOM.
He was cut mid-sentence as a blinding blast of concentrated energy encased him entirely.
The force of the beam pushed him violently back down into the reactor and punching his body straight through the lead base into the raw radioactive material.
Conquest, after taking a moment to recover, finally looked up as he began to fly at John again. "Was that just to warm me up, wor–"
THOOM.
He was cut short by another blast, halting his momentum.
He got up again, only this time he felt something warm leak from his nose. He wiped it with his thumb, looking at the red smear with absolute glee. "All this for a drop of blood–"
Another blast slammed into him.
THOOM.
"Hey! Let me–"
THOOM.
"— complete–"
THOOM.
"— my FUCKING SENTENCE–"
He was cut short again and again, each consecutive blast more powerful than the last.
Finally, the semblance of control vanished from his demeanour. Conquest let out a guttural roar.
"RRRAAAHHH!"
He flew straight up, facing another powerful blast from John's cannon head-on.
Only this time, he simply flew through the beam despite the small cuts and burns searing his flesh, the momentum of his flight overpowering the weapon.
Conquest reached out, grabbing the long barrel of the cannon and with a sickening crunch of metal, he crushed it under his arm, causing the cannon to violently detonate.
The catastrophic explosion sent both John and Conquest flying in opposite directions.
"Hey, buddy, how long till we get the right song?" John asked inside his HUD, wincing at the impact.
Ship spoke in a strained electronic whine. "Shhhip..." A battery icon on John's visor blinked a flashing red.
"What, already? Were you Mechamorphs not supposed to be all-powerful?" John complained.
The armor shifted to compensate, growing heavy missile pods from the shoulders. John sent a barrage to intercept the flying Conquest, using the explosions to dodge the Viltrumite's relentless pursuit.
"Stand still and die, you annoying little insect!" Conquest bellowed, his voice carrying over the explosions.
John ignored the taunt, "Quick, take my blood as fuel for your function!"
The Mechamorph worriedly squealed in refusal, "Shiiip?! Ship, ship?!"
"Just do it, Ship! That's an order!"
John focused his mind entirely on his Eternal Bleed and Blood Fuel traits.
As he was busy solving his pet's food problem, Conquest appeared right behind him.
The moonlight managed to pierce through the cracked ceiling of the reactor, painting the horrific scene like a classical Renaissance painting.
[Image here]
Conquest locked his hands together and smacked John squarely in the spine, driving him back inside the reactor core. The suit's nanites screeched in pain as the sound of "Shiiip!!!" filled the echoing room.
"Crying for mercy already, kid?!" Conquest bellowed, licking the blood off of his own knuckles. "Let's be honest, it was mostly your cyclops girlfriend that did the heavy lifting against Nolan. I can't wait to rip her apart. Again! Maybe slower this time. Really savor it."
But suddenly, the entire reactor glowed a sickly green,
"FLASH!!"
The intense light almost blinding the old Viltrumite, who had to block his vision from the light.
When the light dimmed, John's suit had shifted. The destroyed cannon had transformed into heavy-set gauntlets. John pivoted mid-air, catching the Viltrumite completely off guard and sending him knocking back down into the water with a brutal right hook.
And so, the agonising fight continued as the late night finally gave way to early sun.
Conquest and John were locked in a trance of smashing each other all over the county. Conquest was genuinely beginning to enjoy the thrill of the hunt.
But the old warrior did question one thing. How the hell did the boy have so much power when he was nearly dying just a few hours ago?
What had happened was ingenuity. Whenever Conquest threw John back into the reactor, John formed an endless loop of energy. This entire plan was set up in just a week with Cecil's aid, anticipating Nolan's return.
John's Glowing One trait allowed him to absorb ambient radiation. He was sucking up all the deadly radiation in America's largest active nuclear plant, using it to hyper-charge his body. He used that raw power to scale up his stats and fuel his Eternal Bleed trait, which in turn was consumed by Ship via the Blood Fuel trait to keep the Mechamorph armor operating at maximum capacity.
It was a perpetual motion machine built on pain and reckless desperation.
With careful planning, some acceptable body mutilation, and Nakime's portals shifting them from one nuclear site to another across the country whenever one ran dry, John was able to match Conquest and force a bloody stalemate. He was intentionally sucking up enough power to kick-start the Stone Age just to stay alive.
But John knew the reactors were nearly finished. The last site would soon dry up, and the ambient radiation would soon be drained to completely safe levels.
John planned to use his remaining cards and simultaneously slotted in Call to Arms and Fate Draw.
The roll for the temporary summon stopped.
Ship took over the suit's controls to keep Conquest busy while John looked at the result.
[Round Deer]
|Elite Familiar|
Jujutsu Kaisen - A towering deer shikigami that constantly emits a healing aura of positive energy. The Round Deer can focus its aura to heal a specific target faster. This aura can even recover limbs, but the stronger a target is, the slower the energy will affect them. Scales with user energy.
John, reading the description, smiled. He brought both his hands together, crossing his fingers to form the hand sign, casting a reindeer shadow on the walls.
A giant, majestic deer with four golden eyes, thick white fur and bulbous ends on its sharp antlers materialized from John's shadow in the ruined reactor hall.
As the Round Deer's rut' and began, using the Reversed Cursed Technique to rapidly heal John as a Tarot card suddenly appeared in his hand from the Fate Draw.
[IV - The Emperor]
|Elite Item|
Tarot Card - Creates immense mental pressure that can dominate a target or crush their minds. 72 Hour Cooldown.
'Why is it that whenever I need gambling to work for me, it always gives me garbage?' John thought bitterly. 'Well, it's not all bad.'
He felt his body, which was on the verge of collapse, littered with bruises and ruptured organs, finally beginning to knit back together.
He had actually been saving Greedy Healing since that was a finite resource based on his physical assets.
John brought out the rest of his arsenal. He consumed Scrap Iron Candy and Buffout, quickly ingesting the chems while activating XIV – Temperance card.
A green glow lit up in his iris as the cold, calculating numbness of pure logic completely took over his panicking and restless brain. He felt his stats, boosted by radiation and the True Hero trait, increase in a drastic margin, increasing the physical defense of his body.
"Alright," John breathed, finally in a steady voice. "How about a round two, you geriatric fuck?"
But before John could take manual control back from Ship, a mental voice interrupted him.
'Master,' Nakime whispered, her telepathic voice heavy with sorrow. 'I have been rescuing citizens nationwide as you ordered. But some of them are far too injured to be salvaged, and a few hundred were already dead before I could even reach them. Please forgive me...'
John clicked his tongue.
He remembered all the innocent civilians that died whenever Nolan, Conquest, Invincible variants or any other Viltrumite decided to view humans as mere ants.
'Fuck! I need to think clearly,' John thought, the Temperance card making it easy for him to detach from the grief and focus entirely on the logic of the battlefield.
"Polymerization!" John breathed in a cold voice.
But instead of focusing the spell on himself, the glowing orange symbol flew up and branded itself onto Round Deer. Simultaneously, a purple symbol glowed in another dimension entirely, marking Nakime's forehead.
He fused Nakime and Round Deer as the massive beast vanished from the reactor hall, its healing cut off abruptly.
'Master, why?' Nakime asked, confused by the sudden surge of energy.
'The stat boost from the True Hero trait is worth more than regeneration, I saved my assets just for situations like this', John replied coldly. 'The radiation plants we marked are all dried up. I need raw power just to keep this crazy bastard in a stalemate.'
Inside the Infinity Castle, Nakime looked down at her body.
A thick, ethereal white fur coat now draped over her black kimono; the same majestic antlers as the Round Deer grew from her head. And most surprisingly, another eye blossomed on her face, granting her perfect binocular vision that she forgot what it was like.
She embraced this new purifying power, completely opposite to the darkness running rampant inside her.
'I will make sure to save every human in need, Master. I will turn you into the greatest hero this world has ever seen! That is my word!'
John meanwhile, took control of the suit back from Ship.
He realized the grand plan to draw out the fight through attrition was no longer going to be successful. The plan was made with Nolan in mind, but Conquest was another being altogether.
And so, he did the only sensible thing and gambled.
John opened his system interface and saw he had 2 platinum and 1 gold.
'Well… 2 gold if I counted the ticket I'd saved aside for Sebas, he wouldn't mind, right? What's the point holding onto it if I die anyways?'
And so, he tore them all while his suit kept Conquest busy.
The first platinum roll came to a stop.
[Ace of All Trades]
|Legendary Skill|
You have Expert-level expertise in all basic trade skills(Expert Blacksmithing, Medicine, Mechanics, Cooking, Interfacing), granting you expertise comparable to the real masters of the trades. And if you choose to train them further, you are also far more talented in any Trade field.
John felt an incredible headache, made worse by Conquest kicking him squarely in the chest. He was sent flying for miles. The only thing that John felt was his previous skill, Jack of All Trades, elevating as more and more information and phantom experience got added to his already heafty base knowledge, inscribing everything on his neural pathways.
"Fuck! My first legendary pull and the only thing I could possibly use was the Nimble finger it gave me from the expert interfacing."
As he was about to see the result of his second platinum, Conquest came rushing in, grabbed him by the back of his head, and dragged him face-first to the ground.
Using his newfound knowledge of interfacing, John got out of the deadlock and kicked the back against Conquest, but the old man flipped in air and made way straight to him.
John could hardly spare the new ability a glance before Conquest made himself the center of attention.
"NO FUCKING WA- ACK"
BOOM!
Conquest made full use of his inactivity, delivering a devastating double fisted blow to John's stomach like a bat to a ball, sending him crashing through the reinforced walls of the reactor.
As he flew towards the open plains, metal tumbling around his flight path, the gold roll came to a halt
[Rule of Cool]
|Uncommon Trait|
You have the Rule of Cool, physics bends around you slightly to allow you to do things the "cool" way while ignoring the fact that it shouldn't work, Style AND Substance baby. Grab a bullet out of the air and send it back, walk with your back to an explosion without feeling anything, do tricks in the middle of a fight without incurring any disadvantages, etc. Doing things the cool way just comes naturally to you.(Does not affect your stats or level of skills.)
John felt something settle in his body or rather his soul, as he felt the universe itself wrapping around him, being goaded into making him cooler.
'Useless!'
As he flew away from Conquest, he saw another gold and his last ticket finally came to a stop.
[Mind Blast]
|Uncommon Ability|
Allows you to send a wave of shimmering psionic energy through your eyes. When hitting a sentient target, it will cause mental damage to them, confusing them and giving them painful headaches. The effectiveness depends on the mental and magical power of the target.
He felt the power settle in my mind as everything within his mental state, whether it be clarity or sharpness or something unknown, all got elevated.
"Not great but not bad either."
John muttered in relief as he flew towards an incoming Conquest. Ship no longer had to hold his own against the millennium-old fighter.
The two met in clash that shook the reactor and the surrounding earth for miles. Punches flew out, enormous yellow flashes lit the building, mingled in with their battle cries. John tried using Mental Blast to mess with Conquest's mind. At best, It allowed him to dodge his punches easier.
It wasnt enough.
He had to go for the final option and end this.
"I can't say this was fun, old man," John said, staring down the blood-soaked Viltrumite floating across from him. "Maybe in another life we could have been... no, you know what? I wouldn't want to know someone like you in any life. But this ends right now."
John finally slotted in his most risky yet rewarding ability.
[Limit Break]
|Epic Ability|
"Time to go all out." Upon activating Limit Break, for 4 minutes and 11 seconds all parameters and energy regeneration are massively increased. In addition, your ability Slots are removed, allowing you to use all Abilities at once. This places immense strain on your body and can kill you. 7 Day cooldown.
The air around John warped, shattering the concrete beneath his boots as unrestrained power flooded outward in visible waves, distorting the reactor hall's atmosphere.
"IT'S TIME TO GO ALL FUCKING IN!"
[A/N]: Dig we go ALL IN on the Hype!!
Drop Them Stones!! And push our Rankings to get me motivated!
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