Collaborative Connel post between mail-mi, Voidus, and Mailliw part 2 of 3.
The Architect glared at Maodun as he walked away with his orderly group of soldiers, then glared at his own soldiers, forming into sloppy lines and chatting to each other instead of listening to their commanding officer.
“Shut up you idiots!” The Architect yelled at his soldiers, who finally stopped talking and began watching him. “You are the most pathetic soldiers I’ve ever seen, you’re lucky I haven’t buried you all 5 feet under the street by now.” A steady ripple in the concrete streets spread from the Architect, the soldiers took noticed and began to straighten up, fear lining their faces. “We will now teach these invaders a lesson they won’t soon forget. Seargent! Send a runner to the Colonel and make sure he knows the situation. The rest of you with me.” One of the soldiers immediately ran off to find Kernel, the rest of the soldiers formed up around the Architect, creating an inverted ‘V’ shape with the Architect at the centre. The troop marched in the opposite direction to Maoduns, skirting around the Steel factory as the Architect became slowly encased in concrete, kept fluid enough at the joints to still allow movement the concrete could defend against most forms of ammunition. As they neared the sounds of battle the Architect send a ripple of his power forwards, momentarily liquefying all the concrete that it touched and trapping a few enemy soldiers in ankle-deep concrete. Bullets burst from both sides as soldiers began to fire, the Architect created some barriers for his soldiers to take cover behind.
Hawkwing flew above his troops in their armored Escalade as they assaulted the west side of the factory. A man came out, flanked by a V formation of soldiers, similar to geese. Hawk let loose with his guns, sending bullets flying quickly towards some of the soldiers with abandon. Three Commandos jumped out of the Escalade to fight the soldiers, but they found themselves suddenly sinking in the concrete. The man at the front of the formation had covered himself in concrete as well. He had been right. There was a concrete controlling Epic here. He flew closer and as he shot at the soldiers, picked one up in his talons and flew back up high. He dropped the soldier right onto the formation, knocking over others. His commandos in the Escalade, Mike and Juan, began firing from their grenade launcher and bazooka at the concrete barriers. The Epic kept forming his concrete as he yelled, "I am the Architect! I would know who leads you rebels so that I know what name to add to the list of Epics I have defeated!” Hawkwing fired at the weak points in the Architect's elbows as he answered back with control in his voice. "I am Hawkwing and we are the Destructors. We ravage towns and we aren't defeated."
A soldier screamed as he fell, ending with a sickening crunch of bone on bone as he collided with another soldier, snapping several bones in the process. An explosion from one of his barriers took his notice, even his armour wouldn’t stand up to one of those. The noises of battle were so loud he almost missed the flying Epics introduction. The Destructors eh? They wouldn’t be the first to name their cohort something grandiose and still come to failure. He would show them why Connel had no rival Epics. Eyeing of the grenade launcher which was steadily tearing through his barriers the Architect lobbed a ball of concrete at it, guiding it through the air and solidifying it as it entered the barrel of the launcher, the soldier wielding it seemed sharp enough to notice the change in weight and didn’t fire. More’s the pity, blowing himself up would have saved us some time. The Architect focussed on a patch of concrete near the rocket launcher, liquefying it and then sending it upwards in a spray and allowing the droplets to solidify. While not lethal they could at least cause a broken skull if they were large enough. His soldiers were dropping quickly, those at the rear of the formation were attempting to flee the field. Cowards. He thought sneeringly, encasing the traitors’ feet in concrete. He could deal with them later. He chose a soldier in a visible position for his next demonstration, keeping a wary eye on the sky. He focussed his power in a ring around the soldier, pulling concrete in from nearby he slowly built up it’s thickness and then launched all of it upon the unfortunate man who had drawn his attention. In an instant he was struggling in shoulder-high liquid and in an instant more it had completely consumed him, turning into a grey cocoon from which none of the Architect enemies had escaped.
