Chronicles of the Exalted Sun Child

Ptang! Crunch!

Lieutenant Phillip Keisinger winced as his own munitions returned with devastating consequences. His Azure Dragonfly Armour was tough, but no amount of metal, even once enhanced by multiple Occult Resonance enchantments, could hold against repeated impacts by ammunition meant to penetrate similar defences.

His heads-up display showed the targeting reticule, which was accompanied by a zooming function that centred on the Gold Flash. Reportedly, the woman was taller than most people, but he’d never actually come close enough to compare. The closest he ever got was when the Flash cast a sliver of death his way, and only by sacrificing his left arm was he able to survive the encounter. Now, his limb had been replaced by a wonder of resonance and technology, and while he couldn’t feel anything but slight pressure through the prosthetic limb, he could control it with his thoughts. It reacted a beat slower than his own limbs, but that only meant he needed to plan his actions over the delay.

It would have taken more than the scant few weeks to properly adjust, but the arrival of the Imperator and his demands meant that every resource, every soldier, was his to command, no matter their condition. Phillip wasn’t ready to return to duty, but the Imperator’s needs rose above everything. He and the rest of the joint forces rose to the occasion.

The Imperator desired only one thing. Capture of the target. A relatively unknown enemy combatant, one with special powers. The description felt trite and entirely unsuitable when faced with the actual person. Phillip had only faced the Gold Flash once and lost his arm in the process. Now, his own attacks turned against him, and that was something the Flash hadn’t shown before. Or rather, she had shown the precursor during the initial assault, but to think that it only took a few weeks to master the technique to this point… Frightening. To leave her alone to develop would mean a more powerful foe down the line. But even so, it wasn’t as if it was easy to track her down. At least, not without support and orders from the higher-ups.

That was exactly what they got once the Imperator arrived. A surprise, to be sure, and an even bigger one was how quickly a plan had been formed as well as the elements gathered to execute it.

He didn’t know all the details, just the generalities. Technomancers had been assigned to interface and infiltrate the opposing country’s electronic infrastructure. Those worthy ones took some time owing to the differences in foundational knowledge as well as the base technology itself. Unlike the Richmond Imperium, the Republic of Astoria didn’t use Occult resonance in their technology, but only mundane elements that didn’t require direct interference to function. Technology that worked the way it did, whether the user believed it or not, essentially. It was based on the underlying laws of the world, after all.

That made it so Astorian technology was widespread, but it also meant that direct intervention by a living mind could sway it. The difficulty lay in interpreting what was there rather than any inherent security they had.

So, with the Astorian communications compromised, pieces were moved into place, and a suitable ambush point had been set.

And therein lay the difficulty.

The Imperator’s wishes weren’t actually clear. What did he want with the Flash? Capture? Elimination? All of his directives had been to locate, and nothing further. He set his praetorian guards to the task, too, and that was the next phase in the battle now.

He refrained from shooting another void-touched bullet. Those things were expensive to produce, and they worked wonderfully against active defences. But evidently, they were worse than useless now. Normal bullets, though they barely did any harm as far as he could see, were not all reflected back at the shooters. The sheer volume of fire precluded that, and he supposed her attention was limited, though that was likely true for everyone.

He shifted to normal ammunition and opened fire with his light machine gun. He didn’t aim directly at her, and honestly, a longstride was a bit too far for the LMG to be accurate anyway. Thankfully, there were no friendlies in the area, so no chance of accidents. The Flash didn’t bother to parry the bullets. She simply allowed her light to absorb or stop it. There must be a limit to that, Phillip thought furiously.

No, no. It wasn’t his job to think of the solution. He and the others of his flight squadron were to distract and occupy, or pin down, the Golden Flash. So he just continued to spray bullets in her general direction, even if the projectiles didn't affect her. One of his wingmates alternated penetrative rounds with the normal bullets, but that backfired heavily when the Flash accurately identified that bullet and reflected it. The Azure Dragonfly should have been able to weather a single penetrator, but the Flash infused it with something, and it went through Lieutenant Wenz like a hot knife through butter. Wenz lost power to his flight unit and dropped. Phillip dove down to catch him and managed to do it a hundred paces from crashing to the ground.

And it was at that point that another penetrator bullet was deflected, and instead of returning it to the sender, the Flash aimed it at Wenz. The penetrator round severed his right arm, and he fell through the forest canopy. Phillip went into evasive manoeuvres and barely avoided getting dinged. He dropped towards the canopy and hoped to get out of line of sight. It worked.

Breathing heavily, he dove towards Wenz and found the lieutenant’s broken body tangled up in the roots. A quick check through his HUD told him the man was still alive, though it wasn’t sure if he’d remain that way. The Azure Dragonfly didn’t have a strong self-diagnostic suite. He moved to assist and stabilise, and hopefully, this would be the end of his participation in this godsforsaken operation. Just in time, too. The Praetorians had arrived.

_______

Yuriko growled as the projectiles from the flanking force proved to be more annoying than even the void shots. The bullets were of larger calibre, and each one dripped with Occult Resonance. The enhancements were rather simple, but no less annoying for it. Sometimes, simple was best, as the lack of complexity also meant a lack of complications. Simple also meant easier to find a counter for, but sometimes, that didn’t really help. Case in point, the large calibre bullets were enhanced with speed, penetration, and most troubling, indomitability.

That enhancement allowed the bullet to resist being moved beyond its original path. It meant no guidance enhancement, so Yuriko thought it was a fair enough exchange. It also meant that all she had to do to avoid getting hit was to move out of the way. Not exactly a problem if there was only one bullet, but the flanking squadrons spent their munitions cheaply. She either had to dodge or destroy each bullet with her sunblade. The one she allowed to hit her aura cracked it heavily, and she opted not to test her innate defences again.

They were too far away to scan with her perception aura, but they were steadily marching towards her. Unusual, considering they had the ranged advantage. They weren’t seeking cover and were openly attacking, despite the shrubbery and trees. In fact, the bullets penetrated through the vegetation and the sharp crack of supersonic projectiles was punctuated by the fall of heavy woods, and the acrid scent of sap and mulched leaves permeated through the air, mixed in with the sharp stench of gunpowder. The Irvallans used a different blend from the Astorians, though the difference was slight. It was enough to distinguish it, but she wouldn’t have noticed if Desire hadn’t pointed it out.

‘Therearemore of them, master. Thirty on either side.’ Desire’s mental voice rang in Yuriko’s head.

Yuriko hummed, then strode towards the east flanker group. If they insist on facing her head-on, then she would honour their resolve.

Behind her, the west flanking group continued to shoot their indomitable bullets, but she set one of her sunblades to destroy the bullets as they entered her range. She alternated the blades to recharge the Radiance, and each one could block a hundred or so bullets before half of their stores were consumed. She needn’t annihilate each one either way, just enough to distort the shape, and then she’d allow the wind to lead them astray. Even so, about two-thirds of each barrage wouldn’t have hit her anyway, since they weren’t aiming at her. That was the correct action; however, since they all aimed at her, the bullet paths would intersect. It would then be easier to knock them all away. If she were incapable of knowing the correct way to nudge things along, it wouldn’t have mattered, but ever since she began to train Bulwark, it was just that easy to perceive…or rather, foresee, the path each projectile would take.

The Irvallans up ahead were markedly different from the others she’d faced so far. Their powered armour allowed them to tower by half again as much as a normal man. They stood at nearly three paces tall and were just as broad. Their armour was slate-grey trimmed with golden lines. Those lines were probably runescript too small and fine to be discerned from a distance, but she could see Elemental energies and other esoteric sources gather and twist to empower the armour and its user.

They were armed with mini-guns, shoulder-mounted missile rockets, and what looked like ceremonial swords. She could see hints of their mechanical backpack attachments, mechanical arms that fed the guns their ammo, and probably held alternative munitions and weapons.

Brrrrrrrrt! Ptang! Ptang!

Parrying the bullets took some effort and concentration, and it was nearly impossible to stem the tide by simply using her sunblades. She already had three out, one in each hand and another protecting her from behind. Her limited Anima reach meant that the hex shields she formed out of them weren’t as strong as they normally would be. But then again, she didn’t need them to stop the bullets cold. All she needed was for the bullet’s path to diverge enough that they would miss. They still hurt her, of course, since her Anima and aura were parts of herself. The more annoying part of the process was that microfractures didn’t lead to Anima growth… or she didn’t think so, anyway. But perhaps the growth was also only a tenth of what they normally would have been, and she just didn’t notice?

Her reach—her true body’s Anima—increased by a pace each day, more or less. She dedicated a strand of consciousness to check her memories on how much farther they grew every day, and while she didn’t find any correlation, the fact that the growth was steady was quite telling. After all, for a sphere’s radius to grow by a steady amount meant that more volume was increased per increment. Expressed as paces in radius, the growth would be linear, but if expressed in volume, it would be exponential.

The squadron of special powered armour troopers eagerly closed in, and when they arrived at the threshold of her reach, she extended her perception aura to cover them.

Oh.

The alloy the armour was made of resisted her perception aura much like Ossifrum did, although she was sure it wasn’t made of that material. She experimentally thrust with an Animakinetic strike, and it skittered off to the side. The armour was still affected, but only at a fraction of what that blow would have inflicted.

Five of them rushed towards her, and it took only a couple of seconds to cover the sixty-eight paces in between. The lead warrior let go of his minigun, which swivelled to their back in the process, and drew their weapon. A two-handed sword that would qualify as a greatsword from sheer size alone, but looked more like a longsword in proportion to the warrior. Three of them did that, while the other two moved to surround her. The rest of their troop spread out, and instead of continuing their minigun barrage, they shot out their missiles.

Before those things could enter her range so that she could swat them out of the air, they exploded. And instead of concussive flames, the missiles released thick, yellowish smoke. And they burned when it entered her Anima reach.