311: Cold Eyes

Through cameras in the back of his helmet he saw the crystals beginning to move toward him. Not fast, about a walking pace, but there were a lot of them.

He drew his pistol and shot one, wondering if they could be cleared as simple as that. It wobbled but didn’t break. He squeezed five more times and it exploded with a harsh snapping. A concussive blast burst out and slammed into him, knocked him back a step and put some small cracks in his Skin Shield, already knitting back together.

He stabbed the Blade into the ground and hauled the M99 through the lips of the Big Mouth. Backpeddling, he shot the nearest crystal and it burst. He was braced this time and rode out the wave of force like a heavy gust of wind.

He could have kept shooting them but he saw more appearing on the far side of the curtain. This was pointless. He had to kill the creator. And he had a weapon suitable for doing so in his hands.

Nicolai spun. The four Tier 2’s had followed at a distance, spread to pin him against this wall of crystals. Rain lashed down on them from above, but it didn’t seem to cause their spirit-enhanced wings any trouble.

He levered the M99 smoothly into position, peered between its iron sights at the one who’d created the crystals. Squeezed the trigger.

He fired three shots in only slightly more than a second, hammering them into the Tier 2’s shield. Already he was breaking through. As the fourth shot landed the Hornet burst apart, but not into blood and gore as he’d hoped.

It turned into a curling cloud of icy mist, and the bullet just passed straight through. Through Soul Sense he felt that Hornet, knew it was still very much alive. Using something like the Library Guardian had, back at the castle. If he could get close, the Blade or even the Claw would likely make quick work of that mist form.

He wouldn’t be getting close. The other three Tier 2’s finally chose to take more serious action, perhaps anticipating he’d turn the gun on them next.

From one, a series of strange ripples ran out and caught him. They passed through his shield and his Soul Sense, went straight into his Soul and body. His clenched teeth buzzed painfully, his eyes watered, his sense of balance disappeared and a strange nausea tried to bend him over. His Soul was twisting into painful knots.

He aimed at that one, fired once and saw a shield cracking, but before he could go for a second shot his sense of danger abruptly shot to the max, like a fire had erupted from the ground and screamed at him to move.

He heard a mortar shriek, saw a flash like lightning, barely managed to jerk his body out the way of a lance of brilliant white energy. It hammered into the ground where he'd stood with a tremendous crack. It left a deep, perfectly round hole, like something had used a huge drill to carefully bore through.

Looking back the way it'd come, he saw one of them had his hand raised, palm extended, and a trail of vaporised rainwater linked that palm to the hole.

Now that same Hornet gestured, and a gigantic spear of the same blazing white energy coalesced in his hand.

To the side of that one, another had risen high into the air and now swooped down, coming at Nicolai in a sudden dive. This one held a large mace, which he recognised as some kind of Artifact, Tier 2.

Nicolai slid back, thrust the M99 back into the Big Mouth and his trailing hand snatched the Blade from the stone into which he’d stabbed it. His other hand plucked a pair of grenades from his harness—he’d restocked in his brief visit to the Trade Link—thumbed the activator and tossed them towards the two staying back.

Just in time as the unarmed one was on him, and the spear user close behind. Still that strange painful knotting was assaulting his Soul and his body, but the Dark fought back, and the Modules aided him. With implants and Soul Sense he was able to control his body regardless of the strange effects.

As the dive bomber came close, he reactivated the Spectral Claw and gripped the Blade tight, shifted forward eagerly—glad that one of them was willing to get up close. He saw the ensuing moments perfectly, clearly. This Hornet had made a mistake and now he would kill it.

In the instant before it closed he activated the laser in his bionic, and the red light flashed out, aimed at the Hornet’s eyes. Green energy flared. He kept it on for the instant he was able, then was forced to deactivate it while striking out with the Blade.

The Hornet raised its mace but Nicolai predicted the movement, looped around the weapon and managed a tricky slash from the other side. The Hornet’s free arm snapped up to block it, but there was no chance—

A loud crack, and the Blade was deflected from a layer of spectral armour, pale-green, flashing into existence. The Hornet's flat, unburned eyes, like black glass, glared at him through the phantom shape of a heavy helmet. Two more cracks, more distant, and he saw the two further back Hornets flinching in surprise, shields cracked by the grenades, slowed just a tad.

The Hornet bulled through his strike, spun and struck with the mace. It was as fast as Xuejing even with the heavy weapon, but armour or not, laser or not, a close-up fight was where he was strongest. Nicolai felt it coming, felt the sudden flare of threat and ripples. He was sliding backwards, dodging out of range of the strike and already angling to stab back, but was then forced to lunge sideways.

Just in time as a blast of invisible force hammered out from the mace, passed only inches to his side.

He still managed to get into a good position, get his Blade right for a stab, and the Hornet was open.

But it wasn’t so simple. It attacked with its two-pronged Soul Sense, and so now did the approaching spear Hornet. A total of four barbed Soul Senses coming from all angles, each almost as dangerous as the mace. He felt the ripples of another blast coming, saw the white glow of the spear above.

Just about anyone would have been overwhelmed at this moment. But Nicolai read their Intents, the Dark and Thrill plucked meaning from the positions of bodies, the shape of Souls.

The Spectral Claw punched through two of the Soul Senses, the whirling Blade sliced through the others. He dropped low, leaves from a tree, tumbled beneath the blast of force then slid out the way of another brilliant crack of spear-light.

In the instant he’d gained he darted forward, worked the Blade in a great slash at the only Hornet in range, the armoured one. It raised the mace but he predicted the movement, shifted high and ghosted around the block, caught it a glancing hit to the shoulder.

A chunk of its spectral shoulder guard was smashed apart, bursting into a puff of Oma, and he saw that he'd left a ragged tear in the armour's arm-guard with his initial strike. The armour wouldn't stand up to the Blade for long. He needed to try and target the same spots. He angled the Blade for another swing, looking to keep the pressure on.

But the Hornet melted backwards into the rain, and now the spear of white energy stabbed down at him, radiating a sense of pure lethality. He wanted to lob a grenade after the retreating one but needed both hands to defend himself. He sliced the Blade up to meet it, caught it in the side and knocked it away with a crack like deep ice breaking, saw some shards of it knocked free, but almost instantly it was healing. He flashed the laser at that one the moment he got his hand at a good angle, and was delighted when it worked. A line of fire was drawn across its multifaceted eyes, and the Hornet let out a shriek of pain and fury, falling back.

The armoured one’s Soul Sense tendrils came for him but he sliced them away with the Claw, bent his legs to leap up after the spear one, but sensed another blast of force just in time to turn the movement into a lunge to the side. That lunge almost turned into a stumble as the waves of strange ripples from the further-off Hornet briefly intensified, and he struggled to find his sense of balance, gut stirring painfully.

But with the Modules he found a way, and mid-movement he went to aim the laser on the one above, get a bit more damage on it, but now a shield had formed before it. A shield made from big, solid ice, floating between it and him. The laser burned into the ice, sending out a tiny geyser of steam and water. Even a green one wouldn’t get through that.

He pulled two grenades and tossed them, thinking to get them behind the spear-holder, detonate them there—that way its body would protect him from the shrapnel. But the grenades had barely cleared his hand when a puff of concentrated wind slung them away. The Hornet sending those rays of disabling ripples was the culprit.

Through a distant drone he saw the spear Hornet now taking a pull on a Rejuvenating Orb, and then its Soul Senses joined the fight again. Once more there were four of them on him, looking to get a sting, and he realised that he’d lost the moment the laser had bought him, that he should’ve gone for the armoured one rather than focusing the spear user.

The Spectral Claw and the Blade sliced and tore, a single moment of rapid action that saw all four beheaded again, but it tied him up. He barely had time to slide out the way from another blast of force, then the armoured one was flashing towards him, wings blurring, spraying rainwater.

The Hornet went straight into a flurry of powerful spinning blows. Obvious attacks which Nicolai would’ve easily found a way around and through, except the other one had got a new angle, behind its shield of ice, and the spear was coming down again, and he was wary of the armoured one releasing another blast mid-attack, and their Soul Senses were recovered.

He fell back, lips drawn in a furious snarl, painfully buzzing teeth clenched tight, forced onto the defensive, reactive. Worried about his footing and his sense of balance. Trying to keep the nutrient bars he’d eaten that morning down. He tried tossing a few more grenades out, but that distant one knocked them away every time with precise bursts of wind. He gave up when his latest attempt at a nade almost got him stung.

Multiple attacks flashed at him every second, and every second he dodged and slashed them away. None of them got through but he had no time for anything but defending himself, and above him he saw the one who’d made all those crystals coming down lower, Soul Sense tendrils worming toward him.

Six Soul Senses struck at him, over and over, joining the mace and the spear. Through cameras he saw crystals coming his way from behind. It was when the armoured one came at him, threw a flurry of blows then sneakily transitioned into one of those blasts, meanwhile the spear was poking from behind it, and the six Soul Senses lunging, that he was caught out.

A stinger caught him and his Burst Shield exploded. He was forced backwards by a flurry of various attacks, pressed in the direction of the cloud of approaching crystals. He had no choice but to lash out at one that was dangerously close with the Spectral Claw, leaving his bionic free to keep working the Blade in desperate circles to defend him from the spear, and the mace, and the darting Soul Senses, and all the while that hideous destabilising nausea buzzing through him.

The Claw lanced into the crystal, burst it, but the moment it did so pain lanced through his arm. He saw the Spectral Claw tumble apart, broken into Oma. The Symbiotes that made it up emitted a painful buzzing into his Soul, slightly damaged. He immediately focused on re-activating them, and grudgingly they complied, the Claw reforming. There were many more crystals on the way. The endless attacks continued. The ray of ripples felt like sandpaper on every exposed piece of his Soul, sawing from there into his mind. He almost put his foot wrong, almost, for the first time in recent memory, stumbled.

He kept moving, kept fighting. Below his skinsuit, the Oma vest he always wore was gradually turning to dust. He’d been drawing on it continually to top up his Oma, flowing through him and out straight into Symbiotes, to reform the Burst Shield and every other purpose. The rate at which his Soul was being damaged was now too much for him to heal, and his Soul Sense was weakening. The one who’d turned into mist was back in its Hornet form now, hands working like a conductor as ever more of those crystals appeared.

But Nicolai fell ever deeper into the Zero-Twelve state.

No fight was won while staying defensive and passive. They’d put him in a corner and he had to get out. He felt the pulse of the fight, understood with a sudden crystal clarity. He needed to take some risks.

He threw himself forward into the impossible wall of attacks, reading the Hornet’s Intents, finding the best—the only—route. Took a hit as he wormed round the armoured one and his Burst Shield detonated again. He ducked and slashed between a tangle of stabbing Soul Senses, slid out the way of a blast from the mace but that took him into two of the tendrils. Together they broke his Skin Shield, but he was through, and found himself at last in a moment where he could act, past the armoured Hornet, in striking range of the spear and the crystal-caller.

He went for the latter, laser flashing out as he dashed in its direction. But he’d only touched it with the laser when it turned to mist and disappeared high into the air, and the one sending out that endless Soul-weakening, body-churning wave was keeping plenty of distance. He aimed the laser briefly at it regardless, though he knew that through the rain and from this far it would do little. He saw a sparkling shield appear around the Hornet, catching the laser, telling him that it was protected in any case.

He twisted, re-oriented, and the one with the spear was closest, drawing back the blazing white weapon for a throw. Rushing at it he gave it a perfect target, saw it set itself to hurl the spear. But he sent the Claw lunging out, grabbed at it, got a hold around its shielded foot and the sudden drag pulled it off balance, prevented it from throwing for that crucial moment. He snapped his arm back and launched himself up toward it, Pegasi rings active, part of his mind focused on reforming his Burst Shield.

The spear Hornet made no effort to dodge, staring at him with its cold alien eyes. It thrust at him with the spear.

The howling Blade rose to meet it, slammed home and the blazing white energy of the weapon released another great crack, but was not broken. He felt the sudden frustration of the Blade, a frustration directed at him. His Soul wasn’t strong enough to properly activate it. If a Tier 3 had held it, it wouldn’t have even noticed the spear. Even a Tier 2 could’ve broken through.

But a weapon didn’t need to be broken for him to get through it. He could read this Hornet’s Intent, saw precisely how to dig through its defence. He attacked half-a-dozen times in an instant, one move flowing into the next, and the Hornet’s stance was ruined, turned panicked, forced backwards. He was so close. Just one slash more and he’d be around or through that spear. To the sides, the scream of HK drones sounded. They’d been loitering all this time but now they came in, thrown at the reforming crystal-controller and the one keeping well back, distracting them and stopping them from attacking with Soul Sense at this crucial moment.

One more strike broke the spear into shards of Oma, flung away, and he stabbed out. Below, the armoured one was lunging for him, reaching, looking to grab his foot and sending Soul Sense stingers lancing up. But Nicolai felt the heat from below, pulled his foot away and gestured with the Claw, deflecting both attacks with a strange, perfect ringing sound, and the armoured Hornet’s Soul Sense recoiled as though shocked. Better yet, his Burst Shield had reformed.

His stab continued unopposed, right at the chest of the spear Hornet.

There was a faint whine, he caught a flicker of movement from the side. Something smashed through his Burst Shield and into his side, tore through the armour of his skinsuit, splintered ribs, punched him out of the air.

Nicolai tumbled, trailing blood, an awful pain digging through him. He landed hard but came up standing. The one who’d been firing that strange ray at him had one hand raised, and a finger was missing. The Hornet’s shield was cracked and a puff of smoke curled from when the HK drones had hit him, but this enemy was experienced and hadn’t let it distract him. Nicolai looked down and saw there was a hole in him, a thick line of blood draining out. Like a bullet, or in this case, a very fast moving finger could’ve made.

Wriggle wriggle, went the thing in his insides. He coughed blood, had to open up his visor with a hiss of gas as he hacked and spat, blood flecking his lips. There was a nasty sucking noise from that hole, which told him everything he’d need to know. The pain ripped through his chest like a tornado tearing into a house. It was in his lung and wriggling toward his heart. Blood was pouring into that lung through the wound it’d made. He gasped, struggling, staggering backwards, each attempted breath accompanied by a brutal stab of pain.

The Hornets were wheeling around to face him, spreading to enclose him once more, crystals on the move, Soul Senses extending.  They didn’t come quick and eager to end him, but slow and controlled, taking their time, no rush. Why? They had him. This was the moment, and they should seize it.

Desperate, he backpedalled away from them. Slashed a few probing Soul Senses out the air, moved faster to get out of range, driven in a circle along the wall of crystals. The armoured one flicked the mace, a lazy motion. He was slightly too slow staggering out the way and the blast of force clipped his unshielded form with the very edge, almost put him on the ground.

He found his footing and raised the Spectral Claw. It twisted on its line of Soul Sense, two of its talons stretched out, lengthening and thinning under his will until they were like long needles. The Claw looped around and those needles lanced into the hole in his side.

The thing in his ribs dug through his flesh, trying to escape, but the Claw’s shifting talons found it, seized it. The talon came out of his side with a spray of blood, holding a thrashing, severed insect finger. A flick of his fingers and the talon crushed it.

He realised he’d fallen to his knees, and that was all wrong. Through the rain dripping from the edge of his helmet he stared blearily at the one with the spear, feeling sure it would throw it and end him. It raised the spear, looking about to do just that, but the one who’d created the crystals grabbed its arm, stopped it throwing. Because, as was becoming obvious, they wanted him alive.

If it had thrown the spear the Dark and the Thrill would have roared through him and he would have fought to the end. But the fact they wanted him alive, that they weren’t even going all out, demoralised him more than anything else.

He sucked on the Rejuvenating Orb set into his helmet, emptied it, felt himself knitting, stood. Coughed more blood, wiped his lips. His visor hissed closed. He tried to reform his Burst Shield but the Symbiote wouldn’t activate, was damaged from when the finger attack had smashed it. He went for the standard Shield instead.

Even as the Modules thought desperately through every option, as the Dark raged, a calm part of him thought to itself that there was a lot he had yet to learn about Cultivation.

These were not your average Tier 2’s, and he supposed he was lucky they wanted him alive.

He didn’t know why they wanted that, but he was sure of the fact itself. Had they seriously been trying to kill him he would already be dead.

A Hornet plummeted from the air some distance away and broke on the ground. His drones and droids had managed some work on the Tier 1’s, but not a lot. One other had died some time ago. Plus the one he’d killed at the start equalled three dead Hornets, none of them Tier 2.

The last of his combat aids fell at that moment. One droid was blasted into chunks by a wave of dark fire, two drones were caught by the same bolt of lightning and fell smoking from the air. The numerous remaining Tier 1’s were now turning to look his way.

In the Zero-Twelve state, Simulations running hot and the Dark pressed tight, Nicolai once more glimpsed the future. He saw every twist and turn.

Three of the Tier 1’s were dead, and none of the Tier 2’s. His Soul was weaker and weaker, his Oma vest nearly dry. He was going to lose this fight.

But the battle need not end, only be put off. These creatures didn’t want him dead, at least not yet.

The Tier 2’s had reordered themselves. The armoured one at the front, the spear user summoning said spear with a lightning crack, one that was echoed by a rumble from the dark skies above. The other two either side. A wall of crystals crept up behind him.

They came for him, and he raised the Blade once more, sliced away Soul Senses and spear stabs.

When the time came, he’d need this perfect state again, and he couldn’t hold it forever. He let it fall, let himself slow, and the fight fell out of his control like a series of dominoes.

A stinger caught him, then another. He saw them coming but too late. His Skin Shield broke. Another hit him, and his Soul Sense fell apart.

With his Soul Sense broken and flowing back into him, for a moment he couldn’t make use of the Spectral Claw. His defence was weakened.

Another stinger landed, this in the leg. His Soul there spasmed, his leg burned and went limp. It sent him reeling sideways, feebly working the Blade.

After that it ended quickly. He was caught by another and then another right away. Again and again those stingers punched into him, each one feeling like a stab in the guts. His body collapsed in a boneless tumble, stung a dozen times more even as he fell. Distantly, the last of his droids fell with him, smoke and fire pouring from its chest. The fight had lasted four minutes and twenty-eight seconds.

His soul was paralysed. His body spasmed with pain. His Symbiotes stopped drawing Oma, stopped generating Arts. Stunned. The Oma in his Nodes transformed into useless sludge and his body tensed.

He could barely think. The fleshy matter of his brain was just as badly affected as the rest of his body, and even Mask and the Thrill fell silent, paralysed along with his Soul. But the Modules weren’t, and he felt their determination.

Captured again, came Nicolai’s fading thoughts.

He was sinking through a world underwater, the dappled sunlight on the surface above fading, blackness crowding at the edges of his vision, dimmer and darker every moment. Again again again…

Not for long, promised the Dark, and with it came something else. An endless hunger felt on the edges of awareness, bleeding into him from where his Soul touched the Blade, piercing through the tight wrapping of Angelic energy, emanating from its living core.

I haven’t yet tasted blood, snarled the presence. A hand lanced through the slurry of his mind, seized him, dragged him up through the sea of unconscious,

He broke the surface, and he saw. One of the Hornets was stepping toward him. The spear wielder. Even in his state, Nicolai was able to see what drove this Hornet. Its eyes were on the Blade, still gripped tight in his bionic hand.

The Blade that was pulsing and writhing in his grasp, pouring its murderous needs into him, blending together with the Dark like a mixing of oils.

The Hornet thought he was beaten at last. Couldn’t contain its eagerness to steal what was his. With a flick of its hand the spear flashed into Oma and was gone, and that hand stretched out. But the spasming of his Soul and flesh had no effect on his artificial parts. He was able to move the bionic just fine.

As the hungry, murderous urge poured through him, the Modules worked to calculate the risks—Would the others kill him?—Would he be giving up something hidden? Wou—

The Hornet bent down, reaching for the Blade, and Nicolai realised he was already moving.

His arm jerked and the Blade tore a laughing line through the air. It passed clean through the Hornet’s Skin Shield, clean through reaching arm, shoulder, chest, neck.

One arm, a chunk of shoulder, and the Hornet’s head went spinning into the air, trailing pale goo.

The others reacted with belated shock. Stingers came in a barrage, so many and so continuous that he couldn’t stop a fall into darkness, mind knocked under by the wave of spiritual venom.

He lost consciousness with the comforting feeling of his enemy’s pale blood at last where it was supposed to be.

On his hands.

[ Author note: very long chapter, decent odds I chop this into two for RR lol so Patreon may be another chapter ahead. Tho I'd feel kind of cruel cliff-hangering RR on this particular fight but, well... they have the option of subbing >:D ]