Book 17-22.1: Escalation
The touch of the yellow gas cloud made Yuriko flinch. It hurt, and not in the usual way. Her Anima burned, and only the fact that her incarnation body’s Anima was thrice the normal density allowed it to weather the brief touch. As it was, the gas cloud seemed to pursue her, but thankfully, it wasn’t that fast. An inch every second, she thought, once she forced her consciousness strands to task.
The moment’s hesitation was more than enough of an opening that the next thing she knew, the vanguard armour’s sword was but a couple of inches from hitting her. The other two blades slashed horizontally from either side. With a growl, Yuriko sent a kinetic blast at the front, then parried the two at the side.
Her Animakinesis diverted the blade enough that it missed her by a quarter of an inch, and it helped that she stepped back, too. Her sunblades met the opposing sword's edge on, and rather than cut through the metal, the blades bound to each other. Both soldiers immediately pressed the bind, seeking to overwhelm her. They were quite strong, but it would take only a moment’s thought to shift her Anima from kinesis to body empowerment. It wouldn’t be the smartest move, however, so she slid back instead and let go of the sunblades. The other two soldiers weren’t in position to surround her just yet, and she used the third sunblade to release an Invisible Edge at the right-hand soldier.
With their blade in a bind, and from the sheer size of their powered armour, they weren’t agile enough to dodge. In fact, they made no move to evade, so it was likely they didn’t even spot the Edge. her attack struck the centre mass, which caused an eruption of sparks. The Edge wasn’t able to ignore the armour simply because they weren’t tuned against it. Nevertheless, it left a deep gash across the chestplate, roughly five inches across, and about three inches deep. The gash revealed layered metal plates, golden circuitry, and perhaps the outermost layer of underarmour.
The sunblades in the bind held against the two swordsmen, but with her third sunblade out of position, the bullets coming from behind her were now unimpeded. Thankfully, they were still the indomitable variant that only struck in ballistic lines, so it was easy enough to angle hex shields to deflect them away. The soldiers were similarly struck by their own allies’ fire, but something about their armour disabled the bullets’ penetration enhancement, so they simply bounced off.
She immediately noticed that the damaged armour’s friend or foe field wasn’t quite as effective, considering the bullets caused some scuffing. Yuriko grinned and moved to unleash another Invisible Edge with her sunblade, but aborted to parry the vanguard soldier, who had transitioned from whiffing the attack into a quick snap.
Unfortunately for them, she didn’t need the sunblades to launch Invisible Edges. If this was the first couple of weeks since she learned the Ennoia of the Bladeless Sword, the slipperiness of the armour to her senses would have stymied getting insight on the proper tune, but she’d worked out a lot of the kinks of that particular skill.
She previously visualised tuning her Invisible Edge using a slider. There were more dimensions to it than two, and the process was more like precisely positioning a dot in an x, y, and z axes. Just as importantly, the definitions of the variables could change as needed.
So. The first variable was the type of material. Steel and other metals were easily pinpointed on the map. The type of energy they used was the second, and she assumed the third would be the soldiers’ personal skill. The z variable didn’t need to be that precise, thankfully, and her method of hitting the correct tune was simply to send out as many Edges as she could without dipping her reserves to a dangerous level, and to see what sticks. Experience showed her that the first two variables, which were normally fixed, were shared across similar devices, so the last variable was the only one that really varied.
She guessed a position on the x and y axes, then pegged the z near the centre of the scale, then unleashed an Invisible Edge, which was rapidly followed by another three, with the x-y position in the scale at different, yet measured, points. Feedback allowed her to note that the correct tune for the x-y axis was in between the third and fourth attempts, and she soon released a sixth Edge, which sliced right through the soldier’s body.
Well, one down.
Curious. The rest of the heavily armoured soldiers didn’t react to that. Actually, a seventh and eighth vanguard used the falling body as cover. She danced between the bullets and sword strikes, and was unable to escape unscathed. She had to deflect a thrust using her reinforced palm, and the metal actually managed to slice through her aura. Her glove was cut through, though her skin proved tougher than the sword. Huh.
It seemed that he was caught by the nearest soldier, and that information was instantly passed to the rest of them. Now, there was a bit of hesitation, and Yuriko imagined what they must be thinking. If the swords didn't work and the bullets barely mattered, what else did they have to bring to bear?
All of six seconds had passed since the yellow gas cloud made her flinch, and she saw them realise that the gas was the answer. Missile racks unfolded and launched their payloads. The things detonated not a pace from where they emerged, and the cloud engulfed the powered armour as well. Yuriko swore under her breath and braced herself.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
More missiles, more gas clouds. Now she was surrounded by the noxious and burning fumes.
She condensed her aura around herself and pulled back her Anima perception. At the same time, she unleashed properly tuned Invisible Edges at the four vanguards. She leapt away from her initial position and used the clouds as cover.
Unfortunately, it seemed that their detection systems were able to penetrate the clouds. Her movement was followed by bullets and cloud missiles.
With her Anima aura tightened and condensed, the cloud didn’t burn as harshly. It was still annoying and distracting, though. She darted away, towards the south, and used as much cover as she could find. She darted around trees, down into a stream, and followed it for a couple of hundred paces. All the while, bullets rained and gas missiles followed.
When she emerged from the small ravine, it was to the sight of the western flanking soldiers roughly a hundred paces away. A vanguard squad lunged towards her, this time eschewing the swords and going for grabs.
Invisible Edges flew and cut them down. She’d further refined the tuning, and none of their armour could hold up to her fury. Their powered armour’s alloys were different from the lesser soldiers', but ultimately, they weren’t all that different. There were more layers, and there were more runescript enhancements, but those were things her Edge was made to counter.
Three sunblades orbited around her, and she grabbed hold of two. The third remained a mobile shield
She thought there were another twenty or so soldiers per squad, which left fifteen ahead, and about sixteen behind. With her perception withdrawn, she couldn’t detect what was behind her, and that was a vulnerability she couldn’t allow to remain. She expanded her perception aura and gritted her teeth as the gas burned through it. No choice. She thickened her aura and restrained it to ten paces around her instead of a full sixty-eight. That would be enough to note anything within her vicinity.
She charged towards the remaining soldiers and cut down another three. The remaining twelve spread out and continued firing their miniguns. Gas missiles launched off the racks every second, and she was forced to skirt around the area of effect. She condensed a sunshard with an unstable structure, filled it with several motes of Radiance, then flung it into a cloud.
BABOOM!
The cloud ignited, and what washed over the area wasn’t whatever poison they spread, but a burst of Radiance. Yuriko’s eyes widened as it washed over her. It wasn’t neutral Radiance that came from the Sun, nor was it aspected to her Anima. It was violent and aggressive, and it fought her Anima as she sought to control and absorb it.
Half of her available strands of consciousness were suddenly occupied with wrestling with the hostile Radiance, and she had to tap into her true body’s share. Even so, the separation barely gave her the advantage, and it took several seconds before she managed to tame the wild energy. Even so, it wasn’t as if she stood still. No, she continued the skirmish and launched several Invisible Edges at the enemy. By the time she regained control, the western flankers were all cut up, but her mind and body felt raw. Her Anima felt inflamed at taming the foreign Radiance, and the implications shook her aplomb. Who controlled the Radiance?
All thoughts of just leaving were pushed down. A powerful and morbid curiosity came over her mind, which suddenly made her aware of a subtle pull. She had started to move south to give herself a breather, but she found herself farther north than she expected. The eastern group was now to the south of her, and most of the suppressive fire came from the east and west rather than the north.
Then she felt it. Like iron filings against a magnet, she felt the pull. She felt her Anima tremble, and only the fact that this was only her incarnation body instead of her true body allowed her to keep her composure. The draw… it was desire and need. Like some missing part of herself was there, waiting for completion…
But there wasn’t anything missing from her Self. She was whole…well, sort of.
Ah, but there was a part of her that wasn’t her. Damien.
That familiar feeling solidified. It was the same thing she felt when Damien took over her body for the last time. Divinity.
She instinctively faced northeast. There.
The dusk had turned into dawn. A towering corona of Radiance painted the forest gold.
But…it wasn’t the pure gold of her Anima, or the purity of the Sun. The golden Radiance was…pale. Streaked with an off-white hue, and tinged with shadow and darkness.
The soldiers suddenly ceased firing. They ceased shooting gas missiles, and the pesky fliers flitted away. Yuriko strolled towards the other…a manifestation of Damien? Or perhaps, a puppet.
Tree trunks ahead of her burst into flames, then turned to ashes in the blink of an eye. And there, two hundred and fifty paces ahead, was the apparition.
She recognised the solidified Anima shape of her former teacher. The muscular upper body, the palazzo pants, and the bare feet. Fri’Avgi wasn’t there, thankfully, and…
The face.
It was his face, but one locked into a rictus snarl. Eyes blank, and features unmoving. The Anima shroud was opaque, so she couldn’t tell who was underneath it.
Yuriko swallowed. Was this what she would have become if her Damien hadn’t been benevolent? A fragment of the whole seeking to unite with the rest, and whatever host it possessed completely irrelevant?
Damien’s shadow floated a couple of paces above the forest floor, with his arms crossed. His posture was imperious but stiff. As soon as their eyes met…
There were no words exchanged. Nor were there blows thrown. Instead…
Ah!
A spike of pain in her head. It would have overwhelmed her, but again, her saving grace… she was not all here, and so, not all of her was struck.
Even so, her incarnation body faltered as a powerful Will sought to invade her consciousness.
And even with the separation, she felt the edges of her vision slowly…
Fade.