Vol.4 Ch.56 – Reborn VI
Chapter 56: Reborn VI
“May I?” Abigail asked as the cyborgs approached. She was desperate to find out just what she could do now, with the powers of a Lacrima. Apollo had given her some idea but being told what she could do and actually getting to try it in the field were two very different things.
“Go ahead,” Elaine said and made her sword disappear.
The gesture might have been upsetting to her once upon a time but now her heart soared at the implication. Elaine was demonstrating her confidence in Abigail's abilities, that she wouldn't even need to keep a sword in her hand because Abigail had this.
Well, at least one of us is sure I've got this, she thought to herself, but it was mostly out of reflex. None of the cyborgs carried those bullshit sniper rifles they'd used during the Siege of Ohio and everything else Abigail was sure she could defend against. The thing to remember, however, was that she still wasn't a front line fighter. She wasn't Elaine and she never would be. But at the same time she was no longer the timid supporter who had to hide behind the more capable fighters. She had options now. An entire dimension of options, to be precise.
And so she concentrated, reaching deep inside herself, feeling Apollo's hand guiding hers, and...
**
Not for the first time Elaine thought: She's breathtaking.
Abigail rose into the air until her feet no longer touched the ground and a glow began emanating from inside her, first dim but quickly growing brighter until it enveloped her entire body. The glow began as a stark white but gradually turned warmer, until she was covered in golden light.
From that golden light formed what looked like a ball gown, wide and easy to move it but also opulent and eye-catching. It made sense, both for her Higher form and as something at least somewhat sensible to wear into combat, but Elaine couldn't see any wings? Had Apollo lied to Abigail? Would he deny her his power?
But before she could even clench her fists in anger a stream of... musical notes manifested from the golden light, looking like solid gold and glowing faintly. The notes floated in the air, connected by glowing golden lines, and they circled around Abigail's body.
When the glow around her receded the notes stayed and Abigail hung suspended in the air, seemingly weightless.
Like Elaine's own hair, streaks of Abigail's hair were braided together and her hair had grown a couple inches. But on top of that her hair was no longer the chocolate brown it had been before. Instead it had bleached out to a golden color that was just a little too dark to be called blond.
She looked absolutely gorgeous like that, like the superstar meant to take center stage that everyone but her could see she was, but that was secondary to the fact that power hummed off of her. Elaine was strong enough that she didn't feel it as acutely as her girls but still.
Now to see if Abigail actually knew what to do with all that power.
**
Abigail felt like she was in control of her body for the very first time, as though before she'd been controlling a puppet rather than her own body. Everything felt clearer. Her movements were surer and her senses clearer. Even compared to the boost both had gotten from the Oath already, this was an order of magnitude stronger.
And those musical notes? She could feel them as though they were part of her body. She knew they were damn near indestructible, woven into the Musical Barrier skill she'd already had, and they evidently let her fly. Or rather, they let her hover. Now it was up to her to find out if she could actually soar like a songbird.
She pictured herself soaring high... and nothing happened. The notes danced around her in a lazy circle and that was it.
Okay, second try. They were musical notes, so maybe... She began humming something as she pictured herself soaring as high as the notes of the song could go and... Whoa! She sped upward until she was at about the height of the five story building behind her. She stopped humming and thankfully she did not immediately plummet. Alright, she could get the hang of this. Maybe not right away but using music to fly she could do. Music came naturally to her, much more so than flying.
From up here she had an excellent view of the dozen cyborgs coming toward her group. Two of them had followed her movements and leveled guns at her but to her it felt like they moved in slow motion.
She reached out to thin air and her hand closed around her magical bow. She summoned the Winds toward herself and fed them into a working of light magic. The first cyborg managed to beat her to it, firing something that looked like an assault rifle at her, but a single note interposed itself between the bullets and her and they all bounced off.
And before the second cyborg could pull the trigger she had nocked an arrow of light and fired it at the patrol.
Behind her four dozen identical arrows snapped into existence an followed the path of the first one, raining down destruction upon the cyborgs. The two gunners were torn apart first and of the other ten, two were ripped apart immediately and the other eight at least caught an arrow each.
Except this hadn't just been a hail of magic arrows. The arrows stayed where they were because the actual attack wasn't over yet.
Abigail had been experimenting with her magic arrows for the longest time, refining them in the training hall whenever she wasn't eating, sleeping or singing. Before becoming a Lacrima she'd been able to do three of these arrows, half a dozen if she didn't mind exhausting herself. Now shooting forty-nine of them wasn't just possible but it barely even tired her out. And why were these arrows so taxing? Well...
The magic holding the light magic in the shape of arrows went haywire, exploding and tearing apart the flesh and metal around them, resulting in a shower of metal scrap, gore and the distressingly black blood Caulder's cyborgs came with.
When she was sure the cyborgs were all dead she gave her surroundings another scan. If she'd been more used to this power she might have understood what the weird heat mirage she was seeing atop the police station meant but she didn't. And so, with no immediate danger on the horizon she made to... wait a minute.
Those white streaks shooting toward them from the distance. Abigail had seen these before, seen what they meant.
“Wendigo!” she shouted, then tried frantically to nock another arrow. She was strong and fast but nobody was faster than wendigo, those horrid, emaciated creatures of the Black Goat Elaine and her had fought before. She managed to shoot one down but before she could nock another arrow the beasts were upon her comrades. She hummed in a panic, trying to will herself downward to help her friends when a glint of sunlight on metal atop a roof caught her eyes.
A woman stood atop the police headquarters, holding an oddly shaped weapon, a sword with another blade where the pommel should be. She threw herself off the roof, the blade twirling in her hands, and before Abigail could even shout a warning the woman's blade decapitated one of the wendigo even as her feet dug into the creature's back to cushion her impact. Even with the rail-thin wendigo body in the way her feet should have snapped on impact but they didn't. Instead the ground cratered on impact, turning the wendigo into a reddish paste.
The woman, undeterred, fiddled with something on her wrist, then swung her arm through a half-circle and something she couldn't see but that glittered in the sunlight flashed out and a moment later the last wendigo fell over as its legs were severed. The woman flashed toward the hobbled wendigo and sliced it apart lengthwise.
“Good showing,” the woman said, her French accent very thick, “but these patrols always use these pests as attack dogs now.”
**
Elaine had barely managed to summon a sword when those wendigo rushed past Abigail. It wasn't as if either Abigail or her were slow, wendigo were just that fucking fast.
And then, before Elaine could even raise her sword to defend herself, a woman hurtled out of the air and carved apart the two Abigail hadn't managed to shoot down.
The woman righted herself and when her eyes met the woman's it was as if the world stood still.
Every woman in Elaine's team was gorgeous but this woman had a magnetism about her the likes of which Elaine had never felt before.
The woman wore techwear, that intriguing combination of streetwear and combat gear that was popular in Japan. Her canvas pants had too many belts and straps, her boots were high and thick, the long-sleeved black shirt she wore had a tribal design peeking out from under a tactical harness, and around her neck hung a rebreather. But what caught her eye the most was the woman's face.
She had a very pretty face, her features an enticing mixture of French Canadian and Greek, and her eyes were a striking golden color. But her hair was the most striking detail of all. It held all the colors of dawn, starting at a dark purple at the roots, then fading to a brilliant red, then a pleasant orange and finally the tips were an adorable soft pink. Elaine would have wondered how long this woman spent dyeing her hair like that but something gave her the impression that, despite all logic, this was the woman's natural hair color.
She was about to thank the woman for saving their asses when Omega shouldered past her and summoned what looked like a bar of iron into his hand.
“Back off everyone, this is a Lloigor,” he growled out, the bar of iron turning liquid and shifting into a wicked-looking scythe within moments, “one of the abominations conspiring with the Outsiders.”