Vol.3 Ch.20 – The Red Rider
Chapter 20: The Red Rider
“Almost there,” Prudence said.
“From one fight straight into the next...” Ophelia muttered. “I hope they've had an easier time than us.”
“I wouldn't bet on it.”
Ophelia sighed and leaned forward in her seat only for her eyes to go wide at what she was seeing. They'd gotten close enough to the fighting that a good part of the battlefield was in view and thanks to that she could see...
“That can't be right,” Ophelia said as she stared at the group of camp soldiers writhing on the ground with Abigail standing over them, casting a spell. “What the fuck is Abigail doing?”
Prudence stared as well. “Something's off here—“
Before they could start speculating a couple of the cadets, their bodies wrapped in red haze, began firing at some of the other cadets. Now that Ophelia knew what to look for she could see that same red haze twisting around the soldiers Abigail had flattened.
“I have to stop them,” Ophelia said, unbuckling her seatbelt. “Open the hatch.”
“Can you handle that fall?” Prudence asked, already opening the hatch.
“Absolutely,” Ophelia said, though she felt nowhere near as confident as she sounded. Oh, she was certain she could survive that fall. Hell, even before Project Divinity she would have survived that fall although it would probably have shattered most of her bones. But in this armor and with obscene amounts of magic at her disposal she hoped she would be able to make it unscathed.
So when the hatch opened Ophelia threw herself out of it, her arms and legs spread out to create as much drag as she could without a parachute, and cast her Sanctified Umbral Dominion.
A sphere of darkness snapped into place around her and once again she felt the absolute control over magic she had inside the sphere. Manipulating the Winds of Magic inside it was easier than moving her physical limbs and so it was the easiest thing in the world to use shadow magic to slow her descent while hardening the sphere enough to protect her from the impact of the ground. That last part was a tightrope. She had to both make the sphere capable of cushioning her impact but also make it soft enough that it wouldn't flatten the people she was hurtling towards. Working with magic normally this would have been an issue. Inside her Dominion, however, it was child's play.
**
A massive explosion shredded through the Yellow Wraiths and Elaine watched in awe. She was pretty sure the robot squad had decided to join in the fun but she hadn't expected them to be able to do that kind of damage. To a few big targets, sure, but to an enormous group of small enemies like this?
Granted, that group had been bunched up very tightly but still. Good old fucking technology was apparently not entirely useless against the horrors from the Outside. Although that didn't mean magic was in any way useless, either. Elaine would have loved to drop her spells and simply use her rifle but that would have been pointless. Her rifle was deadly but it wasn't good at killing entire swarms of enemies. Her magic, on the other hand, was more than capable of killing hordes. And so she drew on earth and air and fire once again, the battlefield yielding an inexhaustible supply of Winds to power her magic, full of emotions as it was, though she felt there was less there than there should have been. Was someone drawing vast amounts away for a spell? Ophelia and Prudence were dealing with the ritual circles so she was certain it wasn't anything nefarious. And so Elaine put it out of her mind and cast another spell, not as monstrous as before but strong enough. She created six crystal swords and filled them with as much air and fire magic as she could fit before hurling them at her foes.
All the power she'd shoved inside them had made the blades extremely fragile but that was what she'd been going for. On impact they shattered, releasing the torrent of heat and air they'd barely been keeping contained. The result was remarkably similar to a frag grenade, an explosion that flung out metal shards to pepper the area, except instead of hot metal it was razor-sharp crystal fragments that Elaine had at least a modicum of control over, allowing her to make them swerve just so in order to hit even more targets.
All around her others were hurling magic at the remaining Yellow Wraiths and, slowly but surely, their numbers dwindled until none were left.
“Sergeant Fielder,” she said into the shared communication channel, “it's your turn.”
**
The power of Umbral Embrace wafted out of Ophelia, healing the cadets who had been injured, focusing on the simple task to try and take her mind off of just how bloody close this had been. If Prudence and her had arrived a little later, if the stitched angel had taken longer to defeat...
She shook herself out of it. It was over now. She'd arrived in time and it had worked out.
When she was done mending the cadets around her she turned back to Abigail, who looked like she'd used the time to take deep breaths. She was centered again, at least for the moment. Ophelia was fairly sure she'd fall apart after this fight but that was a worry for later. Hell, if she pointed Elaine at Abigail it might actually be beneficial for their whole team. It was a callous way of thinking but Ophelia knew Abigail had the potential to be a force of nature, if only she could get over herself and put a little more trust in Elaine.
“You good now?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Abigail said, then took a deep breath and began singing again just as the super robot squad rushed past them, their weird roller skates surprisingly quiet on the asphalt.
**
Finally, Jacob thought.
“Eos, how are we doing?”
“Mana generator output all green,” the divine AI of his God-Machine said. “0% damage to shielding, weapons ready for use, no noticeable strain on the generator.”
“What about the red haze?” he asked. Seeing that stuff turning the soldiers kill-crazy had been a rough awakening. Even some of the Superhero Squad had succumbed to it and, unlike them, him, Faye and Elena weren't superhuman. They were just really good at piloting super robots. And they would be as vulnerable to the red haze as those soldiers had been.
“The haze cannot penetrate my shell,” Eos said, “and so long as the mana generator is online I can insulate you from it even in the event of a breach.”
“Is it the same for Zvezda and Flidais?”
“Naturally. You may focus entirely on fighting this mockery of creation.”
He snorted. Listening to Eos it was easy to think she was merely an AI but she was, at least in part, a millennia old goddess who very much had her own opnions.
But she didn't just have the personality of a goddess, she also had powers to match. And Jacob drew on that power as he pulled out his tonfas and went in to fight the abomination head-on. Just as he did, a woman's voice rang out in song and he felt power soaking into both him and his mech. Apparently the bard girl was back in action.
His mech sped up and moments later he found himself within reach of the Red Rider. The beast swung its left claw at Eos and Jacob carefully intercepted it with one of his tonfas. But the beast wasn't deterred and cast a Darklight spell, trying to blast Jacob at point blank range. Before he could worry about weaving out of the way a shot rang out and a bullet from Faye's rifle shredded the clawed hand, though the stump began bubbling and regenerating almost immediately.
He swung his other tonfa at the rider's head and the creature didn't even attempt to defend itself. Jacob's tonfa collided with the beast's creepy, blank face and turned the entire head into bloody pulp.
He blinked. He hadn't expected it to be that easy. And, sure enough, despite missing its head the rider raised its sword and swung it at Jacob.
“Eos, activate the shield.”
“Shield activated,” Eos said and a dome of blue energy appeared to his left, interposing itself between Jacob and the sword swinging at him.
Faye fired at the sword, trying to knock it back, but the bullet split into two upon contact with the blade and the blade swung down, undeterred. It felt as if everything was moving in slow motion and so Jacob could see the sword passing through his shield as though it wasn't even there.
That was impossible. That shield was strong enough to weather Darklight attacks. There was no way this thing's sword would...
Activating thrusters, Eos said in his head and emergency systems inside the mech activated without his input, accelerating the entire mech sideways in an instant, making the machine sprawl on the ground but keeping it out of the blade's reach.
The Red Rider made to follow Jacob, to finish him off while he was off balance, but both Faye and Elena laid into it with their rifles. The bullets barely hurt it and the wounds healed nearly as fast as they were created but the impact did rock the beast back enough that it couldn't attack Jacob.
“How the fuck do I beat this thing if I can't let it swing that sword?” he ground out, frustrated, as he did his best to get his huge mech to stand back up.
“Don't block the sword, block the arm,” a voice said on his communication channel. He looked up to see the brunette from the Superhero Squad on his display.
“What do you mean?”
“The sword goes through your armor so you can't block it,” she said. “But you can push against the arm swinging the sword.”
He slowly understood what she was saying. It would be risky to pull off but could lead to great results. But wasn't there an easier solution?
“Faye? Think you can snipe the sword arm?”
“On it,” the redhead replied.
Once again he charged in, this time not bothering with a shield and instead putting all available energy into his offense. Instead of blocking the creature's claw he cracked a tonfa into it, not only stopping it but slamming it out of the way. And when the creature raised its blade to cleave him in two a shot from Faye's rifle rang out. The sword arm exploded into chunks of gore and the sword went tumbling off, embedding itself in the ground twenty feet away.
The featureless head was already whole again and so this time Jacob didn't even bother swinging at the rider. Instead he rammed his tonfa into the point where mount and rider had melded together, into the disgustingly yielding flesh, and fired the shotgun bursts the tonfas were capable of. This, finally, rocked the creature in a way that suggested he'd dealt some actual damage. Clawed legs stumbled, perforating the asphalt they were so sharp, and the mount let out an unholy shriek.
Jacob wanted to pump his fist but just as he was about to he saw the creature's sword arm had finished regenerating and, just a moment later, the sword reappeared in its hand. Jacob was still completely off balance and wouldn't be able to bring his tonfa up in time. All he could do was twist around and pray he could aim a kick at the sword arm without getting Eos' leg sliced in two for his troubles.
I have to try, he thought, but just as he was about to give the command there was a flash of light and a dozen crystal blade slammed into the creature's forearm, rocking the sword back so far it jabbed the mount's flank.
He'd seen those swords before.
“Thanks for the save,” he told the brunette from the Superhero Squad and a moment later she appeared right next to him, hovering in the air with ten crystal blades arranged behind her shoulder blades like wings. A layer of crystal covered her armor around the hands and feet, giving the impression of jagged crystal talons.
“That was a bold move,” she said, and her voice reverberated with power. “Bit risky, though.”
“Should all work out with you at my side,” he said, and once again went in for the kill.
**
Prudence was watching the battle against the Red Rider from inside of her Gospel. In her opinion Sergeant Fielder was a hothead, too brash for his own good but competent enough and blessed with capable enough allies to get him out of most binds. Although the fact that the forty-foot tall mech had to be bailed out of trouble by a single woman looked pretty funny even if Prudence knew intellectually that Elaine was at least as powerful as one of those mechs.
She wasn't joining in on the fun yet, though. She'd recovered one particularly special ritual circle and it was currently gathering energy. She was rather grateful that most of the members of Project Divinity had stopped casting magic because this spell would take rather long to charge up even without anyone else draining away the Winds of Magic.
That last spell had been brutal. It would have utterly destroyed the camp defenders if left unchecked. But, now that Prudence had gotten her hands on it, it would be just as devastating to this Red Rider. Of course, she needed one last ingredient to make it stick but she knew just where to get it.