I Die to Rise: Resurrection System-Chapter 57: Braun Ironside: Stage Two!
The ground was still. Too still. Then Braun’s buried finger twitched.
Kra-KOOM!
The earth exploded outward in a violent geyser of rock, dirt, and molten slag. A massive silhouette burst from the crater like a demon clawing free from hell, and Braun rose in one fluid, terrifying motion. Knees first, then shoulders, then the full monstrous bulk of him straightening to his new height.
Twelve feet tall.
His skin had darkened to near-black, veins glowing with grey light beneath the surface. Steam hissed from every pore, and his shoulders were broader than a doorway, his chest a slab of armored muscle.
His eyes burned with the same furious grey as the cracks in his flesh, and the air around him warped like heat radiating off desert sand.
<STAGE TWO>
Cassandra’s breath caught, but it wasn’t fear. A slow, dangerous grin spread across her face, her blue eyes alight with something feral and thrilled.
"Stage Two," she whispered, almost reverently.
In the same heartbeat, she launched forward like a drawn blade, ice already spiraling up her sword, and closed the distance instantly. Her blade flashed in a diagonal arc aimed at Braun’s throat, the steel singing through the air.
Braun didn’t even flinch. His arm swept up in a lazy backhand, and Cassandra parried at the last second.
Clang!
Steel met flesh, sparks flew, and the impact drove her boots backward, carving twin furrows in the dirt. But she was already spinning, using the momentum to whip the blade around for a second strike aimed at his ribs.
"Crazy bitch," Emma muttered with a grin, already sprinting in behind her. Storm King twirled overhead in a blur, and Emma drove the spear downward in a brutal overhead thrust aimed at Braun’s collarbone.
He caught the shaft with one massive hand, then yanked Emma forward. She twisted mid-air, using the pull to spin and slam the spear’s butt into his knee.
The blow landed hard, but Braun barely staggered. He retaliated with a sweeping forearm strike, and Emma ducked under it, rolled, and came up stabbing again.
The spearhead grazed his side, carving a shallow trench through blackened skin, and the wound closed almost immediately. His regeneration, accelerated.
Cassandra was already back in, an ice spear forming in her free hand. She thrust low, aiming to pin his foot, but Braun lifted his leg and stomped down on the ice spear, shattering it into glittering shards.
He lunged, fist cocked for Cassandra’s head, and she barely rolled aside as his knuckles cratered the ground where she’d been standing.
Spoof!
Kurt joined the fight, blinking into existence beside Braun, Predator, Strength Aura, and Osteokinesis all active.
Reaching for his elbow, he pulled out a bone blade that extended out, gleaming white and sharp as surgical steel.
<Blade of Bone>
Kurt struck, but Braun twisted at the last second, and the blade skidded across his ribs instead of sinking deep, carving a shallow line that immediately began to heal.
Braun backhanded Kurt again, faster this time, and Kurt crossed both arms, Osteokinesis hardening them into reinforced bone-steel to take the hit.
The force still sent him skidding backward, boots gouging trenches in the dirt, but Lizzie’s green glow surrounded him, and the damage was already fading, keeping him still standing.
The three of them circled Braun now—Cassandra on the left, Emma on the right, Kurt in front. A perfect triangle of death, each one poised, ready, waiting for the opening.
"Hmm." Braun’s grin was slow and savage as he exploded forward.
Cassandra met him first, ice coating her blade as she parried a downward smash in a collision that rang like a struck gong, frost spiderwebbing across Braun’s forearm.
She spun away like a dancer, slashing at his calf on the retreat, and the blade bit shallow, drawing blood that steamed in the cold air.
Emma darted in from the opposite side, Storm King flashing in a horizontal arc. Braun blocked with his other arm, sparks flying as blue energy clashed against blackening skin.
She then used the block to vault over his shoulder, landing behind him and stabbing downward at his spine.
But Braun was two steps ahead. He twisted impossibly fast, catching the spear mid-thrust with both hands and yanked Emma forward, into a headbutt.
She took it on the forearm instead, bones creaking under the pressure, but rolled with the force and came up swinging, Lizzie’s healing already mending the fractures.
Kurt seized the opening, teleporting again—Spoof!—reappearing above Braun’s back. Predator claws extended, raking downward, aiming to carve through his neck. Braun reached back blindly, caught Kurt’s wrist mid-strike, and hurled him over his shoulder like a discarded toy.
Twisting in the air, Kurt landed on his feet, and skidded to a stop beside the others, breathing hard.
They regrouped instinctively, forming the triangle again. Sweat glistened on Emma’s brow, her chest heaving.
Cassandra’s ice was steaming off her blade, melting in the oppressive heat radiating from Braun. Kurt’s claws dripped with molten blood—his own and Braun’s mixed together.
And Braun was still smiling.
"I’d say run," Braun said, rolling his shoulders, "but we both know it’s pointless."
"Oh yeah?" Emma grinned and wiped blood from her chin with the back of her hand. She swung Storm King overhead, and the storm clouds that had been building finally answered.
A massive bolt of lightning tore through the sky, crackling with raw power.
<Calling Thunder!>
The bolt descended like the wrath of a god, aimed directly at Braun’s head. In response, he clapped both hands together.
An omnidirectional shockwave exploded outward, repelling the lightning bolt mid-strike and sending it careening harmlessly into the sky.
The shockwave didn’t stop. It rolled forward, slamming into all three of them and hurling them backward.
Kurt hit the ground hard, tumbling, and Cassandra skidded to a stop on one knee, while Emma caught herself with Storm King, the spear digging into the ground to anchor her.
Braun took a single step forward, the ground quaking beneath his weight. Then he stopped for a second. If Kurt was a betting man, which he probably was, he would bet that the minor hesitation he just witnessed was due to the strain of the fight finally getting to Braun.
"A little out of breath there eh, Brauny boy?" Kurt asked while his chest heaved like he just ran twelve marathons. The irony wasn’t lost on him.
Braun simply frowned and in an instant he was gone. One second he was twenty meters away. The next, he was behind Lizzie.
"You." His voice a low, menacing rumble.
Lizzie swallowed hard, her eyes wide. "Meep."
Braun’s fist rose slowly, deliberately, savoring the moment before the kill and slammed downward.
As lady luck would have it, two hands caught the massive fist, holding it back, and Kurt’s grin widened to see who those two hands belonged to.
Rook appeared right on time. Metal skin screeching against Braun’s blackened flesh as both hands caught the fist of the twelve foot titan.
The impact drove Rook’s boots deep into the earth, carving twin trenches as he slid backward five full meters, dirt spraying up behind him, but holding firm regardless.
Braun’s eyes narrowed, and his grin faded into something more serious. "You," he said... for the second time.
Rook looked up, his face calm despite the strain in his arms, the muscles in his shoulders bulging with effort. "Hope I’m not late."
"ROOK!" Lizzie’s face lit up like a child on Christmas morning and Kurt grinned through the blood coating his teeth. "Better late than never, mate."
Cassandra straightened, her blade still raised, and her grin returned. "It was just getting interesting."
Emma twirled Storm King, lightning crackling faintly along the spear’s shaft before pounding its butt against the ground. "About damn time."
Braun and Rook locked eyes, neither moving, neither blinking, and the air between them crackled with tension so thick it was almost suffocating.
