The Enforcer swung the shock-baton with professional, heavy-handed malice. He wasn't trying to detain; he was trying to shatter Vanta's facial plating.
Vanta didn't dodge. He simply raised his left arm—the one forged from pure, nano-compressed carbon.
CRACK.
The shock-baton hit the Vanta-black forearm with full force. The blue electricity flared violently, illuminating the dark metal for a fraction of a second, but the current didn't travel up Vanta's arm. The dark matter didn't just insulate him; it swallowed the kinetic impact entirely, turning the kinetic energy into a localized gravitational weight.
[Skill Active: Kinetic Void]
[Energy Stored: 4,500 Joules]
"What the..." the Enforcer stammered, his arms vibrating from the sudden, dead stop of his weapon. It felt like he had swung his baton into the center of a dying star.
"Your momentum belongs to me now," Vanta deadpanned.
With a short, five-inch forward thrust, Vanta released the stored energy straight into the Enforcer's chest plate. The 4,500 Joules of inverted kinetic force erupted in a silent shockwave, tearing the heavy titanium breastplate clean off its rivets and launching the 450-pound soldier backward through the first layer of the blast doors.
BOOM.
The second Enforcer scrambled to raise his plasma carbine, but Vanta's right hand was already moving. He didn't use dark matter for this strike; he used raw, mechanical leverage. He gripped the Enforcer's plasma barrel, twisting it upward forty-five degrees just as the gun discharged.
A bolt of superheated blue plasma melted the ceiling ventilation shaft, sending a shower of sparks over their heads.
"Spike," Vanta said, his left claw sinking into the Enforcer's hip joint with a sickening crunch of tearing metal. "Hold the door."
"On it!" the drone chirped, jamming a heavy carbon-steel wedge into the closing hydraulic tracks of the blast door.
With a cold, clinical pull, Vanta ripped the servo-motor out of the second Enforcer's hip, leaving the massive exosuit to collapse under its own uncalibrated weight. The soldier screamed inside his helmet, but Vanta had already moved past him, stepping through the ruined checkpoint into the glowing, industrial heat of the forge.
[Target Neutralized: 2x Hegemony Enforcers]
[XP Gained: 14,000]
[Structural Integrity: 45% -> 48%]
[Scavenged Assets: 2x High-Output Hydraulic Servos]
"Excellent," Vanta murmured, tossing the heavy servos to Spike. "My knee will no longer whistle. Let's find the fabrication tank before the local garrison realizes their gate guards are currently embedded in the architecture."