Read Online Attack the Geek by Michael R. Underwood - Free Book Online

curses. The big question left was just how long the magic would hold out. It would take a huge amount of mojo to make Grognard’s store go crazy, but Lucretia’d had several months to weave the curse, in all likelihood. Ritual wasn’t Ree’s thing, but it seemed like with enough time, you could do nearly anything.
    “Anyone have any bright ideas how to stop this curse?” Ree asked at a shout to be heard over the din.
    Chandra spoke up. “High-grade counterspell ought to do it, but none of us are Hexomancers, so it’ll be tricky no matter what.”
    A fighting robot flipped forward into the bar, energy staff spinning.
    “Dibs,” Eastwood said, jumping forward and igniting his lightsaber. The robot spun and slashed so fast, Ree could barely follow the motion. The two went blow for blow for a few seconds, but Eastwood’s eagerness crumbled very quickly as he was forced to backpedal, gaining space to have the time to block the construct’s strikes.
    Ree fired off a shot with her phaser, but the killer robot blocked it, redirecting her continuous beam at Eastwood, who ducked and blocked with his own lightsaber, deflecting the beam into the ceiling, where it started to cut through the concrete. Ree cut off the beam and took up her own lightsaber.
    However, taking the robot on was not going to be as easy or flashy as a two-on-one usually indicated. Neither Ree nor Eastwood had the Force guiding their blows, except in the general spiritual sense. Though, maybe . . .
    Ree stepped forward with an upward cut, which the robot parried, responding with the other end of its staff. Ree ducked under the blow and sidestepped, trying to put the bad guy between the two of them without putting her back to the rest of the store. Which was pretty much impossible. But the robot was likely to kill her now, so she decided to focus on that. With the thing’s attention split, Eastwood went back on the attack.
    As the speed of the fight ramped up, faster and faster, Ree let years of martial arts training and lightsaber fights in the park take over, parrying, riposting, dodging, and pressing on instinct. Ree watched the fight almost from the outside, as if she were living a first-person fighting game. And it was awesome.
    Even a short lifetime of martial arts training wasn’t perfect, though, and Ree took a slash across her left arm from the robot as its torso spun around like a top, then pressed her.
    Her sword in one hand, Ree backed up, trying desperately to ward off a hurricane of deadly light.
    She found an opening in the robot’s attack pattern, so she dove forward through the gap and stabbed at its torso. The construct turned aside at the last minute, but her blade still punched through the metal close to the arm hinge.
    As Ree followed through with the roll, she heard another sound of lightsaber cutting through steel, and when she recovered, the killer robot’s head toppled to the ground. Its staff flickered off, and the machine’s torso collapsed beside the head.
    Eastwood offered a hand, but Ree stood on her own.
    The upside to lightsaber wounds, if there was such a thing, was that they were instantly cauterized (unless you were an Aqualish like Ponda Baba, apparently). But her forearm still felt like it had been doused in kerosene and then tossed into a bonfire.
    Looking around, the store had become even more of a disaster zone, though the chaos was mostly feeding on itself, with only occasional attacks making their way over to the bar. But at this rate, there wouldn’t be a single piece of merch left in salable condition. The store would be ruined, all so that Lucretia could have her stab at revenge on Eastwood for stealing back something that rightly belonged to him. Fuckin’ A.
    Grognard had taken a spot at the bar three seats down from a wobbly Wickham. He took a long draw from a bottle of his Adamantium Ale. The bottled versions of his brews were the real stuff, the ones with the magic. He served them sparingly, since