Vol.4 Ch.76 – Final Preparations
Chapter 76: Final Preparations
“So,” Elaine said to Esther, “this Knight, Aquarius. What should we expect? You said their armor is unbreakable, but what else? How symbolic are their names?”
“Right, we should talk about this,” Esther said, loud enough to make sure everyone was paying attention to her. “The armor of a Zodiac Knight is nearly unbreakable. Anything armor-piercing you have will likely not even scratch it but feel free to try.”
“Then what are we supposed to do if we can't harm him?” Vitali asked.
“To be perfectly honest, I would appreciate it if you and the rest of the resistance could focus on freeing whatever civilians you can find in the building while we deal with this.”
Out of the corner of her eye Elaine caught the cute sound mage, Julia, pressing her lips together and balling her fists.
Esther clearly noticed it as well because she hastened to add: “This is not a slight against you. All of you are resourceful and capable and at the upper end of power as far as mortal mages go. But the Knights are...” she paused as she thought of an analogy.
“Saiyans?” Marco asked through a walkie-talkie.
“Beg your pardon?” Esther asked.
“Yes,” Elaine said before Marco could launch into an explanation. “Close enough. He's a Saiyan. So are Esther and me and my team. Except he's also wearing unbreakable armor.”
“Should I even come along then?” Aurora asked. “If they're too weak to join in?”
Elaine's lips pressed together. She hated that idea. But she would hate it even more if Aurora became a liability. But she wouldn't have to be. “How's your EXP looking?”
**
It should have sounded like a rebuttal but it hadn't, and it wasn't. If she could make herself strong enough not to be a liability, Elaine would let her come along.
And so she opened up her AR displays and was instantly hit by a flood of notifications.
“Oh,” Aurora said as she finished reading it. This sounded like it had the potential to turn her from a liability to a valuable asset. Never mind the infinite convenience that the wings could grant her. It would turn the wings on her back from a constant bother she had been forced to get used to into an afterthought.
And, after a quick bit of math, she realized she could buy all of these skills in order, without any need to strategize her spending.
It would be an exaggeration to say that Aurora felt twice as strong but even so she felt far, far more powerful. The air magic she had been fighting with somewhat now felt like it was right at her fingertips and her movements felt easier than they ever had. But now she had to know.
She reached behind herself, to her back, willing her wings to be intangible, and was able to scratch the spot where the left wing connected to her shoulder blade, the spot that had been itchy ever since Caulder had grafted those things onto her. It was insignificant in the grand scheme of things but being able to scratch that itch felt like she had been allowed to glimpse the face of God, soothing an ache that had been in the back of her mind for years. She knew she was letting out some undignified noises but she didn't care.
When she was done she looked back up at a flushed Mariana, who was looking at her hand in jealousy. Apparently the girl wanted to coax the same moans out of her. Well, once this was done Aurora would be happy enough to let her. Ideally with Elaine there to drive them both wild.
“Am I strong enough to come along now?” she asked.
**
Elaine very purposefully dismissed the notification that she had gained part of the runoff from Aurora's level up and simply looked at the girl's stats and abilities.
“Yeah,” Elaine said. “Your magic got stronger, you are tougher and you have more support abilities.”
“Wait, that's it?” James asked. “She fiddles around in the air, she glows for a moment, and just like that she's stronger?”
“Yeah, I want that, too,” Vitali said.
“No, wait,” Marco said through his walkie-talkie. “She was doing something there. Some data flow I could only barely sense.”
“Good catch,” Elaine said. “This is what our program does. Aurora and the others are what's called Shard Bearers. They each have a piece of some dead god inside them. Killing cyborgs and Outsiders feeds their Soul Shard. The CARD we're all wearing,” she tapped the device on her neck, “is an AR communicator. Among other things it allows them to visualize this energy as EXP and then lets them allocate those to grow stronger.”
“Turning Outsider killing into a video game,” Marco said. “Dream come true. But I guess that won't work for muggles like us, right?”
“No idea,” Elaine said. “Anyone can have a Soul Shard, it's not that rare. Once we make it out of this we can test all of you for aptitude. If your Soul Shards are compatible with what the Professor is doing, you could join us. You all clearly have what it takes.”
“Sign me up,” Marco said.
“Same,” James said.
The cute sound mage gave a deep and serious nod.
Elaine felt a strange mix of relief and worry at that. On the one hand they were mollified now that they knew they weren't passed over for no reason but on the other hand this would mean more people would be thrown into the fray. Then again, these people had already been fighting for months, hadn't they? Giving them the strength to do it more proficiently wasn't a bad thing. And whoever didn't want to keep risking their lives could still drop out and stay at one of the refugee camps. But instead of saying any of that she turned back to Esther:
“So, back to the topic at hand. This Aquarius. We know how strong his armor is, but what can he do? Are the titles symbolic or does he actually have water magic?”
Esther nodded. “Each Zodiac Knight wears a suit of armor styled after one of the Zodiacs. There is no rule that they have to adhere to their Zodiac but most of them do. The one I fought in Quebec was Taurus. His suit of armor had a massive pair of horns, he used earth magic and he kept charging at me with a huge axe.”
“Well that sounds pretty fitting,” Elaine muttered.
“Oui,” Esther said. “All I know about Aquarius is that he is very good at water magic, so that at least fits. But I know nothing of how he fights.”
Elaine nodded. “Anything else?”
“Oui,” Esther said. “When I fought Taurus, he used a Personal Reality.”
Elaine frowned. “What's that?”
Esther huffed. “At this point I'm no longer shocked at how little you know. A Personal Reality is a charm worn on one's person that can create a space based on the wearer's inner psyche.”
“Like a Domain Expansion?” Marco cut in.
“No, not like that,” Esther said, waving him off. Huh, so she had at least heard of that, then. “A Personal Reality is not a powerful attack, it is a space. The rules of reality can work differently in there but not too drastically different. The important part is that, wherever you fight someone with a Personal Reality, they can always move that fight into favorable terrain and they can stop their enemies from getting reinforcements.”
“And Aquarius also has one of these?” Elaine asked.
“I don't know,” Esther said. “I didn't even expect Taurus to have one. But if Dexter gave one to Taurus there is every chance he also gave one to Aquarius, so I wanted to bring up the possibility.”
“That was very thoughtful of you.”
“It was, non?” Esther said with a soft smile.
“Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“The random French,” Elaine said. “Your English is good enough so it's not because of that.”
Esther's smile grew wider and when she spoke again her French accent was much less pronounced. “I normally do a better job curbing the French influence, true.”
“Then why?”
Esther let the accent come out to play again. “Because you blush so prettily when I do, mon cher.”