Chapter 153: Smoke and Mirrors
"So, the hard way, it is then!" Syraleth barks before she snaps her fingers.
Hundreds of soldiers immediately rise up behind her in perfect, bone-chilling unison, armor clattering into place, spears, swords, shields and bows all leveling as one.
She flaps her mighty wings once, launching skyward in a single powerful beat that flattens the grass for a hundred feet around, the cloaks of the two hood figures behind her fly off their shoulders, revealing two kitsune twins, their twin details pointed as both of them are locked in deep concentration, chanting magical incantations.
"You asked for this!" Syraleth crows down at them as she hovers high above the field, daringly delighted, before throwing her head back and screams a single word into the reddening sky.
"ATTACK!"
With a roar of war-cries, the soldiers surge forward as one, a stampeding tide of armor and steel crashing toward the team, churning across the farmland, boots pounding in a rhythm that shakes loose dust from the very air, leaving a smoke trail of mud made under their wake.
Vuvi levels her Boombuster and fires at an approaching enemy, the recoil kicking hard against her shoulder. The soldier’s chest caves inward, and he bursts into a puff of harmless grey smoke, fading to nothing, where a moment ago, a screaming demon had just charged at her.
"That’s... never happened before," Vuvi says, staring at her own weapon in disbelief then at the fading swirl of smoke where the man had stood, "What kind of soldiers are these?"
Maribelle appears at her shoulder in a blur, her sword’s blade crackling with raw power. "Saw that... Nice shot. You okay?" she asks, breathless, already scanning the field for the next threat.
"Fine," Vuvi says, ramming another round home with shaking hands. "They’re... made of smoke or something?"
"Yeah, I’ll figure this out. Fall back and keep your friends safe." Maribelle tells her firmly, already turning toward the fray. Then she explodes through the approaching ranks, carving a bloody and smoke-filled path through them like she was born for exactly this type of massacre.
Bilorial tears his eyes off the unmoving shape of Eris, and up toward the Baroness, who was watching the carnage unfold below her. He teleports across the battlefield in a streak of crimson-black smoke, reappearing directly behind Syraleth moment later with one hand outstretched like a blade mid-thrust, coated in searing, demonic flames.
He strikes, but freezes a hair’s breadth from the back of her neck.
"Oh, now that... was too close." Syraleth sneers, her flaring eyes finding the gaze of one of the monks below. "Focus, you worms!" she snarls at them, before another monk collapses lifeless in the center of the group.
She turns back toward Bilorial, slowly winds back one fist, wreathed in fire and fury, and whips it forward, driving it clean across the jaw of the demon general. Her fist connects with an ear-popping crack, sending Bilorial tearing sideways through the sky in an arc trailing blood and embers, limbs flopping wildly as he tumbles through the air.
Mika appears in a flash of light, wings flaring wide, halo spewing sparks as she catches him mid-flight, but the sheer weight and crushing speed drags them both down, where they go crashing through a melon field together in a long, tearing fissure of smashed fruit and flailing limbs, ending in an unmoving heap of tangled bodies, singed feathers, and drifting smoke.
"Bilorial!" Xenara screams, watching her partner’s body twitch in a crater. "Raenly, Mysa! Go help them!" she screams to the two cat-kin clutching each other behind her.
"This is sooooo unfair!" Raenly cries, before Mysa pulls him by the collar toward their crashed colleagues. "I did not sign up for this."
"Shut up!" Mysa hisses, "Pull something useful out of her little magic bag. Bill’s hurt."
Xenara roars with unleashed fury and leaps into the battle, her eight limbs a blur of bladed motion, mowing down soldier after soldier, most of them dissolving into smoke at the barest touch of her blades, leaving nothing behind. "It’s illusion magic!" she yells out, staring at her own empty hands like they’ve betrayed her.
"I’ve noticed!" Vuvi shouts back, blasting another smoke soldier one into oblivion, "I kind of figured that part out already! What do we do!?"
Lula, in full dragon form, smashes across the field like a falling mountain given wings, tearing soldiers apart in great, smoking arcs of claw and tail and roaring fountains of flame, scattering ranks of them like discarded toys, her roar alone enough to shatter rows of them into pillars of smoke.
Until, a glowing group of massive magical glyphs blossom across the air above Syraleth’s clustered monks and mages, spinning faster and faster as great, glowing spheres of elemental fire, ice, and lightning gatherers in ever growing orbs before erupting skyward all at once, converging on Ka’Lula’s dragon form in a single, devastating impact that catches her broadside in a kaleidoscope of magical color and destruction. She’s knocked clean out of the air, crashing into a distant field hard enough to send up a massive fountain of dirt and shredded crops, reverting mid-tumble back into her humanoid form, limbs sprawled at angles that make Raikya’s stomach lurch as she watches the entire, undignified descent from atop her frosthound.
Raikya, who was still tearing through the enemy lines with Forstlick, claws slick with smoke and blood, pulls the hound back by the mane and they bolt toward their fallen dragon-kin friend without a shred of hesitation, both of them abandoning the fight entirely the moment Lula hit the ground.
Pip stands over Penelo like a one-man defense-system, jets of water lashing out from his palms in scalding, high-pressure bolts, vines erupting from the beaten soil to whip soldiers clean off their feet, boulders tearing free of the earth and hurling themselves at anything foolish enough to get too close. His whole body glows steadily brighter with every soldier he puts down.
Penelo clings to his side like her life depends on it, because it very much did, her paws white-knuckled in the seams of his plating.
"I definitely should have gone with Zora." she cries as Pip sends a boulder through another row of soldiers , turning them into a cloud of smoke.
Then one appears behind him out of nowhere, wrenches Penelo off his arm, and hurls her clean through a crate of bottled potions and elixirs, glass and glowing liquid exploding in every direction.
The same soldier lunges for Pip’s chest, some small metal contraption gripped tight in one fist, as he tries to restrain Pip with magical chains.
Pip fights him off with ease, tearing through the magical binding before grappling his enemy into the ground, and the demon-kin soldier drops unconscious instead of dissolving into smoke.
"Watch out!" Vuvi shouts, too far away to help. "Some of them are real!"
But before Pip can respond, three more soldiers appear out of the fog of battle at each side of him, slapping a device against his chest plate with a sharp, magnetic click.
[WARNING! SYSTEM OVERRIDE DETECTED!]
His whole body seizes, jerking violently, systems screaming static across his vision as every servo locks and spasms out of his control, golden light stuttering across his frame like a dying lantern, his own limbs no longer answering to him at all.