Vol.4 Ch.55 – Reborn V
Chapter 55: Reborn V
There has to be a better way to move an army, Abigail thought as she sat down in yet another Gospel.
The entire Project had been loaded into a swarm of Gospels, the little aircraft type used by Heaven to rapidly move troops. A single Gospel could fit a whopping ten people in civilian clothes, more like eight in armor. This meant that Project Divinity was currently spread over six Gospels. After taking Mariana away from Alejandro and getting Aurora on her team, Elaine's squad was no longer the smallest by far but it also meant that the flight was extremely cozy.
And Abigail couldn't help but wonder if maybe there wasn't a slightly bigger troop carrier they could be using instead. This had to be incredibly inefficient. But then again, with every team having been given different objectives maybe it wasn't that bad that they each had their own vehicles.
Either way, despite how much her life had changed last night one thing had remained the same: She was still the one in their team with the most experience piloting one of these things and so she was once again the one in the driver's seat. She knew there was probably a more appropriate aircraft term for the seat she was in but steering a Gospel felt so much like driving a car that could go up and down that to her it would always be the driver's seat.
She'd been worried that Elaine would huddle up with her harem during the flight but to her pleasant surprise Elaine decided to sit down next to her. Good. She'd wanted to ask a few questions about the Lacrima thing. But before she could even decide on a way to broach the topic Elaine did it for her:
“So, did Apollo tell you what you can do now?”
“He did,” Abigail said. “A lot of it I already knew from watching you fight but of course there's also a lot I can do that's different from you.”
“What about your wings?” Elaine asked.
“He couldn't tell me,” she admitted. “He said they manifested differently for every Lacrima he's ever been with.”
“But he's not denying you them?”
“No.”
“Anything else?” Elaine asked.
“I can apparently summon my M-skills just by grabbing them out of thin air now,” Abigail said. “Apollo didn't even mention that to me.”
“M-skills weren't a thing before the Professor's experiment,” Elaine reminded her.
“Right,” Abigail said. “So this is all new, right?”
“Not all, but we shouldn't take anything for granted. How is your stat sheet doing?”
“I haven't checked yet,” Abigail admitted. “And I don't think I should, now.”
“Yeah.”
“Why are you asking?”
“You should have gotten a huge boost to all stats,” Elaine said. “But I'm mostly curious if you got any skills. Or rather, skill upgrades. I'm sure you got all the skills I did.”
“What were they?” Abigail asked.
“Removed muscle limiters, increased cognitive function, ability to regenerate lost brain tissue.”
“I already know I got the second one,” Abigail said. “How do you keep the rest of your mind busy?”
Elaine chuckled. “Wow it's nice to talk to someone dealing with the same stuff. Mostly I'm programming larger spells for when I need them. You?”
“I've been writing songs in the back of my head,” Abigail said.
“You do seem to enjoy your music a little more,” Elaine said.
“I guess.”
“Or is this just because of Apollo's ultimatum?”
“Yes and no,” Abigail said. “I'm not forcing myself. The music flows a lot more freely now. I think having you rummaging around in my memories was a bit therapeutic.”
“You noticed that, huh?” Elaine asked with a wince.
“With all those memories coming back unbidden it was an easy connection to make, especially since you had help from Mariana.”
Elaine didn't say anything.
“I'm not upset,” Abigail said. “That really helped. But ever since then it's been way easier for me to just concentrate on my music. I doubt Apollo considers it good enough yet but for now I'm happy enough.”
“What's that saying? Rome wasn't built in a day?”
Abigail huffed.
“I'm just saying,” Elaine said, “for now you can focus on making it through this. You can worry about winning his favor later.”
“Yeah, you're right.”
“Alright, there's Buffalo,” Elaine said, loud enough that the rest of the squad could hear. “Game face on.”
They all got ready, checking their weapons one last time while Abigail tried to find a good place to touch down.
**
Their top priority was the Necromancer, except they didn't know where to find him. The only clue they had was that the Necromancer had something to do with the college library, except the library in question, the Silverman Library, was located on the University at Buffalo's main campus, which was aggressively far away from the city center. Therefore, if they truly wanted to meet up with the resistance, they had to put that library aside for the moment. The chances of finding those guys at the college campus was approaching zero.
And so they touched down in an empty parking lot near the McKinley monument. They rushed out of the Gospel as practiced, scanning the surroundings with weapons drawn. Then nothing jumped out at them immediately they disembarked properly and began securing the area. Or they tried, because just two minutes later a second Gospel touched down and Kaja and Omega joined them.
“Anything happen yet?” Kaja asked.
“Nothing,” Elaine said. “The place isn't as overrun as I had expected.”
“It only takes a few Outsiders to overwhelm a mortal city,” Omega grunted.
Yeah yeah, we're all weak and pathetic, Elaine thought. She had taken an instinctive dislike to the guy. But what she said was: “First priority is meeting up with the resistance.”
“Do you have a way to contact them?” Kaja asked.
“We were in contact with them up until a week or two ago,” Elaine said. “We're hoping that just means they were busy or someone's been messing with the comm lines, not that they're dead.”
“If they are being jammed, maybe it will work now that we're in the city.”
Elaine nodded, then looked over at Alexis. “Can you try getting in contact with them?”
“Sure,” Alexis said, then started waving her hands around in a way that indicated she was fiddling with her AR displays.
“For now we should start moving towards the hospital,” Kaja said.
“Agreed,” Elaine said. They got in motion and about five minutes later she asked Alexis: “Anything?”
“It's weird,” Alexis said. “It's like I'm getting a signal through but also... not.”
“Are the lines being tapped?”
“Possibly,” Alexis said. “But it doesn't feel that way.”
“Stop trying to contact them,” Elaine said. “Either we find them or we won't.”
“Okay.”
“Look alive guys,” Cassie said, then pointed down the road, where a group of cyborgs was approaching them.
“Oh good, we're in the right place after all,” Elaine said as she summoned a crystal sword.
**
Esther Silverspark was crouching on the roof of the police station when she saw the aircraft touching down. The rebels had asked her to raid the police station for supplies and she had only just gotten out, carrying a bag full of pistols and SMGs along with ammo to spare. She had no use for this stuff and neither had most of the mages in that little group but the straights felt much safer with a gun than without and while those things didn't do much, they were enough to deal with the thralls and for most of the rebels that was enough.
Either way, the moment she saw the aircraft she wove a camouflage out of light magic and hid beneath it, waiting to see what unholy abomination of the Vassal would come out.
Except... these combatants didn't look mutated. At all. They looked like a military unit.
Their leader was a tall brunette who immediately caught Esther's eye. She looked tough as nails and had broad shoulders but she had a pretty face and that hair looked much too fluffy for such a badass. But the reason she'd caught Esther's eye was because of the scent of power wafting off her. If these were Caulder's dogs they were a cut above.
One of the soldiers fiddled with some electronic device. A moment later her comm sounded.
“Did you just try to contact us?” asked Marco, the rebels' drone operator and overall tech guy.
“No,” Esther said in her thick French accent. “But I have eyes on a group of unknown soldiers, one of whom looks like she just tried to contact someone.”
“There was a military unit we were in contact with,” Marco said. “But they fell out of contact a couple days before you showed up. Could they be that?”
“Not sure who they belong to...” Esther said, then paused as she saw a group of Caulder's cyborgs approaching. “One of the patrols has spotted them. Let me see if they're on our side. If they are, I'll approach them.”
“Take care of yourself, yeah?”
“Of course.”