Chapter 43: Anomalies
"Elliot, barrier—now!" Fiona barked, her gaze darting to the crowd of onlookers still milling beyond the safety markers. Their wide-eyed stares lingered on the horizon, oblivious to the shadows seething beneath the treeline.
Elliot’s hands snapped upward. Earth tumbled as a translucent shield erupted from the soil, crystalline filaments weaving skyward like molten glass.
They fused at a single apex, sealing the dome with a resonant hum that sent vibrations skittering down Fiona’s spine.
"Barrier deployed!" Elliot reported, watching as Takashi dashed forward at the notice, the fists of his mecha tightening. William on all fours shot out towards him, its tentacles reaching for his limbs.
"Deploying thrusters!" He announced his mech sky rocketing to the sky for a mere instant, dodging the attack completely. For a heartbeat, it hovered—a silhouette against the sun— the rays shining past it’s cracked before plummeting like a comet toward the creature.
The Vaeltheir recoiled.
Its tentacles swiftly snapped back into place, its claws digging into the ground to brace itself as it sent them his way once more. Takashi quickly pushed the lever up on his control’s, the arm of his mech grabbing two of its tentacles as the other two grinded on his metal exterior shooting off bits and pieces of metal exposing the mech’s internal hardware
"Shit!" He cursed, his hands clamping tightly on one of the buttons on the lever, the Mech plummeting down onto the William, kicking up dust into the sky.
Fiona watched on, her gaze intense, in case something happened.
"Fiona! Above you!" Elliot cried.
Fiona’s eyes snapped to the sky. A second anomaly streaked downward—a jagged black comet—its carapace gleaming like oil-slicked armor.