Chapter One Hundred and Sixty - Late Night lee Weapon Shopping
It was surprisingly hard to shop for lee weapons late at night. Sure, I might have been able to pick up sothing like a combat knife, or so bottles of pepper spray, but like, a proper sledgehamr?
Most hardware stores closed in the evening at a nice and reasonable ti.
It took so doing to find one that wasn't, but when I did, I didn't regret it at all. It was a few miles off-route, but the place was rather large. It was open 24/7, which was a little strange but whatever.
I found a rack near the rear that sold industrial-grade itinerant protection devices for job-sites. Basically, pepper spray launchers that could be used remotely or linked to motion detectors, and extra-large cans to hand out to construction workers to spray the holess away.
It was perfect.
More perfect was the small selection of regulation safety equipnt at the back. There I found a shelf with fire axes that made want to giggle with glee. Sure, I loved sword, but as I picked up and weighted an axe with an all-grey fibreglass handle, I couldn't help but feel a certain sort of glee. This thing was seven pounds of sharpened fuck-you with a rubberized grip and a pulaski head.
Plus it was only eighty bucks, which felt like a good deal to .
I bought three axes and a heap of pepper-spraying devices, along with so full-faced masks and gloves. I was probably in the top ten most suspect purchasers of the week, I bet, but the store also looked like it had do-it-yourself th lab kits in all but na, so I figured I was fine. I was mostly buying in 'bulk' to test the waters. This was what I'd need to bring on the final run.
God, that couldn't co soon enough. I was starting to feel a pinch exhausted. Not just physically from the post-OP bullshit, but ntally as well. I hadn't been keeping track at all. How many tis had I lived through this sa night already?
Well, whatever. I could do it, because I had... actually, I had plenty of choices. I could call it off at any mont, just take the night off to rest and relax. That'd be the sensible thing to do, but opportunities like this weren't at all common.
I rode out across the city and made it to the industrial zone without any issues. The weight of the axes was throwing off the weight of my bike a little, but it wasn't anything I couldn't compensate for.
This ti, I walked into the back courtyard feeling a little more confident even as I pumped myself up with a Soothe Minor Pain and a quick See Darkness.
I found my bussy, Many-Legs-Mc-Iceface patrolling the sa old beat. I tucked myself in behind a container, then waited for him... it? Yeah, that thing was definitely an it. Anyway, I waited for it to be passing by, then I launched a quick and weak Shadow Bolt at it. It thumped into the monster's side, and it paused before turning my way.
"Co here buddy, co, I've got sothing for you," I sing-songed.
The ice elental toddled my way, and then shot a blast of icy air in my general direction, but by then I was behind cover already.
When it ca around the container I was hiding behind, it was to et the business end of my axe, already mid-swing. I didn't know of any 'axe forms' for fighting, so I just treated it like a baseball bat with so extra oompf to it.
The axe head thumped into the monster's barrel, sending a deep reverberation through the axe shaft that had tightening my grip to hold on. The impact on the ice elental, however, was fantastic. The axe had buried itself to the middle, a solid three inches of penetration. Better yet, it had ford a long, horizontal stress crack that was about a foot wide branching out of the point of impact.
I ripped the axe out, then swung again, this ti more of an overhead.
And I missed as the ice elental leaned way back.
I felt myself panic for a mont as I tried to hold the axe back mid-swing. Nothing awful happened, except that I damn near chopped my own leg off.
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"Okay, more care when swinging this thing around," I muttered before resetting for another swing. The ice elental still hadn't recovered when I ca in and smashed the axe down near the top of its form. I didn't have my entire weight in the blow this ti, but it didn't matter. There was a loud crack, then a chunk of rock and ice crashed down next to , sheered off the monster's front.
The ice elental glowed, and I easily stepped aside, dodging its retaliatory ice blast. Then I got back to chopping. It was almost unfair how easily I dismantled it. Five more swings and there was a good third of the monster's mass just... scattered across the pavent and dirt.
The ice elental slowed down, then gently crashed onto the ground, dead.
I huffed, then swung my arm around. This was going to be one hell of an arm workout. The impacts sucked, and I was sure that if I kept this loop, my arms would be sore in the morning.
The axe had worked beautifully. Far better than my sword. Then again, it weighed three tis as much, and most of that mass was in a fat tal head that was sharpened for penetration. It wasn't too surprising that a tool made for a specific task was good at that task.
After giving myself a minute to breathe, I wandered over to the next ice elental. There were three of them grouped up near the portal, wandering around it, and not doing much except occasionally spilling out waves of cold air or blasting their icy wind at like, plastic bags caught in the wind.
I moved around so that I was coming in from what I figured was the 'back' of one of the elentals, then I jogged in and brought the axe down. This ti, I tried the other end of it. What I'd bought was a pulaski axe, which ant that the 'rear' of the axe had a sort of long, flat pick on it, for digging furrows or sothing.
That longer, narrower shape crashed into the ice elental like an ice pick through a man's skull, digging a solid six inches into the ice.
When the elental tried to spin around, I kept hold of the axe and fought against the motion, which only ripped a larger chunk out of the elental, a good third of its top half sheering off. The next blow, delivered after spinning the axe around, chopped into the guts of the elental and pretty much killed it dead.
The other two were alerted by then, but once I knew to look for a slight glow from their middle, it was easy to tell when they were about to use their signature move, and that made it very easy to dodge back and out of the way.
Using one ice elental to body block the other, I ran in and started chopping. Call Butcher Pete the way I hacked that thing down. Oh! Or what was the na of that one Arican folklore lumberjack? Paul Bunyan?
Hehe, Paula Bunyan, maybe?
I was giggling to myself when the ice elentals revealed that they didn't understand the concept of 'friendly fire.' The one at the rear blasted both his buddy and with an icy wind attack, and I hissed as I backpeddled away. Ri was already forming on my arms and gloves and the shaft of my axe, but I'd avoided most of it.
The elental that had been blasted didn't even seem to notice. In hindsight, that was obvious, wasn't it? Ice wouldn't harm an ice elental. If anything the icy blast was probably like a refreshingly cool breeze.
I was underestimating them, and that was just plain stupid.
So, focusing a little, I ran back in and cut down the first, then ran over to the second, ignoring the burn in my arms as I wailed into the elental and smashed it apart.
"Whooff," I exhaled as all three were nothing but chunks of lting ice and frozen mud spread out on the ground around .
I planted the axe in the ground, then just let my arms drop by my sides. I was a little worried about the stitches in my left arm. I was pretty sure that this kind of movent was pretty much explicitly what the doctor had ordered not to do.
A small break, then the portal. It was just sitting there, all pretty and blue, and if I wasn't just imagining it, a little cold as well.
Maybe I should have bought so winter gear while I was out as well?
***
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