Chapter 129: Old Friends

They flew the Wing back to the Marriott in silence. The warmth of the whiskey faded quickly; the alcohol simply couldn’t get a grip on James’s enhanced system. The afternoon was darkening. Storm clouds were rolling in, and a fitful wind tugged at them.

The bodies lay as before, strewn across the streets.

Would anybody ever collect them? Bury them? Give them last rites?

The avenue outside the Marriott was alive with activity. The abandoned cars had been cleared away and military vehicles were trundling by, heading toward the closest Pit.

But most arresting was the new mech that was striding into the open, rounding the corner of the Marriott and moving with alien, insectile grace.

If the Castrum had been a medieval castle come to life, this was a slender humanoid, five stories tall and gazelle-like in its grace. Its full-body enameled armor was a green so vibrant it seemed to glow, with fluted spirals of gold rising up over its legs and narrow chest. Slender pipes rose from its shoulder blades to frame its head like a fan, Aeviternum-exhaust flaring from their openings.

In one massive fist the machine held a sword, its length curved and organic, easily eight yards long and with a burning-bright edge, while its other fist was a double-barreled Vault Cannon.

Its helm was massive and stylized, bright gold and alien, elongated and crested, twin emeralds as large as basketballs serving as eyes. No mouth, no nose, just the smooth expanse of subtly contoured gold that gave a hint of feminine beauty.

“What is that?” whispered Serenity, leaning forward. “I want it.”

The mech picked its way with refined elegance over the cars and trucks, its movements precise and smooth. James couldn’t pinpoint why, but he got the sense of great athletic potential, as if at any moment the mech could leap high, bound effortlessly over buildings, twist and contort like a dream.

It sensed them on their Wing and ceased its advance, turning its golden helm to train its emerald gaze on him.

“James! What do you think?”

And it spread its arms wide as if presenting itself.

James blinked. “Jessica?”

The whole street had come to a stop. Soldiers leaned out of hummer windows, operators brought their Wings to a halt, and a couple of War Hounds ceased trudging to turn back.

“Yes! Well, within my Omni. Just how you piloted the Canis Bello.” She sounded nervous, which was intensely weird, coming from a fifty-foot mech. “Kimmie’s still unconscious and if you’re to succeed against the lower levels Crimson Hydra’s going to need its synergy bonus. So I thought I could present myself as a temporary ninth member.”

James grinned. “That’s brilliant. But - what are you driving? I thought you were going for another Castrum Mortis.”

The mech crossed the street so that it towered before them, and the military traffic resumed its course, people watching still even as they moved about their business.

“It’s called a Finem Somnia. The End of Dreams. I’ve more schema unlocked than I know what to do with, and this apparently is as potent as the Castrum, though with different strengths. Much higher mobility, and it comes with a Divisor blade.”

She held up the sword. Despite its immense length it seemed a surgical instrument in her hands, all curves and burning blade.

“Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight,” called Serenity.

“Normally I’d agree. But this… well. I believe you’ll see its potential soon.”

“Awesome.” James tried to take in the entirety of the Somnia and could only shake his head. “Hot damn. Add in the Castrum waiting for us below, and the ninth level won’t know what hit it.”

“And getting our synergy bonus back is fantastic.” Serenity sat back. “This way Yadriel will get to quit his whining.”

The rest of Crimson Hydra flew out from behind the hotel on their own Wings, six in all, Kerim looking tense but alert. They’d clearly already seen the Somnia as they didn’t react to its standing there, but flew up to join James and Serenity. Olaf had Serenity’s Wing in tow, her autocannons strapped down on either side.

“How are you feeling, Kerim?” asked James.

The man tried to find the right words. “Alive? Filled with hubris? Unable to comprehend the power I now command?”

Denzel grinned. “He went with Resurrection, Word of Slaughter, and Refill the Cup. And we all got Anima’s, though they’re embedded in our Wings right now.”

James raised an eyebrow. “Kerim, you went with Word of Slaughter?”

Kerim inclined his head. “My return has filled me with a great need to lay low our foes. I couldn’t think of a more direct method.”

“That makes three Words of Slaughter,” said Serenity. “I like that.”

“And three Resurrections,” said Jason. “I like that even more.”

“Excellent. How are the Animas?”

Jason frowned. “To be honest, they lack Jelly’s personality.”

“Jelly was imbued with Gloria,” said Jessica. “He’s unique.”

“Not complaining, though,” said Jason hurriedly. “Just… yeah. They’re a little more basic.”

“Good to have in the Wings, though.” Denzel raised both hands. “They can steer while we nap. Plus the stat bonus and Aeviternum reserves are nice.”

“Good to hear,” said James. “Then I think we’re ready to make our descent. Colonel Hackworth?”

Jason nodded back at the hotel. “He and the rest of command are going to monitor from here. No real reason for them to be by the Pit’s edge.”

“Fair enough. Anything we need waiting on?”

“Good to go,” said Olaf, giving him a thumbs up.

“I’m ready,” said Jessica, her Somnia enhanced voice less the boom of the Castrum but still resonating with power. “And glad to be descending within this armored form.”

“Ah, you’ll dig hell, it’s pretty chill,” grinned Yadriel.

“Then let’s head on down to the Pit. Jessica, before we go, have you set up any defenses around the hotel? See if you can't lower your voice so no-one overhears us."

The Somnia's voice sank to a muted rumble. "I've put almost all of my efforts into creating Castrum's, harvest drones, and Cornucopia Seeds. Structuralists can create embedded weapons, like gun turrets or architectural defenses. My schematics are all for mobile machines. You expecting trouble?"

"I am. Can you see what you can get out here? I think we'll be visited by traitors while we're gone."

"OK, sure. I'll get a Castrum out here on the street. One's nearly finished. I've been sending them out into the boroughs to help with defense. Should we be going if there's going to betrouble?"

"We'll be back almost right away. Do you think the Somnia can use our teleportation circle?”

“I don’t know. I can probably place a foot in it, but that may not be enough.”

“True.” James tongued the inside of his cheek. “We’ll get you down there the old fashioned way. Something tells me that Miracle wasn’t designed with fifty-foot tall mechs in mind.”

Olaf brought Serenity’s Wing alongside and she hopped neatly over onto it. The crowd on the street cheered as they flew up the avenue, the Somnia easily keeping pace, and then made their way across Brooklyn to the Pit.

The army had encircled the Pit with bunkers and artillery. James couldn’t quite figure out why; there were dozens of Pits close by without such build-up, and it wasn’t as if the armor and emplacements would hold up against something like the Jormungdr worm if it ever got out.

Guess some people just needed things to do while waiting for the end of the world.

More cheers trailed them as they flew over the lip of the Pit.

The Somnia paused, studied the depths, then simply hopped forward and dropped. On that signal the rest of Crimson Hydra fell into a dive, and chased the falling mech into the swirling mists.

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They punched through at roughly the same time and emerged into that world of rusted desert and lurching ruins. No new demons walked the sands, and the great central tower that housed the means to descend remained quiescent.

The Somnia fell neatly into a crouch, the dunes beneath it blasting out in a shockwave. “I…” It stood slowly. “I hadn’t expected it to be this vast.”

“Wait till you see what’s coming,” called James. “We’ll leave you to rejoin the Castrum while we teleport back.”

They descended cautiously, the Somnia leaping down into the Pit to fall lithely to the desert floor far below. A huge cloud of dust flew up, and the others parked their Wings next to it once the air cleared.

"We're heading back right now to wait in the hotel," explained James. "We didn't warn anybody about our return. We'll stay out of sight with Jelly on the lookout. When the traitors appear, we'll be ready for action. Head on toward that leaning tower there, and then make your way down ever level till you get to the Sinister Blockade. We'll catch up with you once we've safeguarded our people."

"Besafe," said Jessica. "The Castrum should be in place bynow."

James spent the Aeviternum and opened the teleportation circle. “Go in ready for trouble. Everyone raise your Circles of Protection. I’m putting us inside a third story hotel room. Ready?”

Everybody activated their Angelic Armor, summoned their Aureate Bucklers, activated their Blessings, raised Shields around their perimeter, and blazed forth with Empowering Light. Serenity finished strapping on her autocannons and raised those monstrous guns in preparation.

At her nod, James led the way, the Circles spinning to form eight rotating bands around their group.

They passed through the Teleportation ring and left the vast desert behind, to emerge inside one of the hotel rooms where James had spent a night. They crowded in as James moved to the window. The Castrum was massive outside, a stationary monolith.

"All right, Jelly? Head out but don't let yourself be seen. Let us know when you see trouble."

"Affirmativo." The Anima flew in a tight circle then zipped out the front door.

They settled in to wait.

"Shouldn't take long," murmured James. "Becca's going to want to get started right away."

Perhaps twenty minutes passed in silence. Then: Here they come, James. Several hundred coming down the street, fast. Sounds like trouble inside the hotel, too.

Outside the Castrum roared to life, guns immediately blazing.

"With me, everyone! We're headed outside!" James activated the teleportation circle and they appeared before the Marriott in the bleak late afternoon. The storm had broken while they were in the room, so that rain lashed the streets in hyper-extended needles.

Gunfire tore through the sound of the storm. Muzzle flashes lit up the interior of the lobby.

The Castrum was being assaulted by scores of people firing Infernum-laced bullets. But as many as they were, the Castrum easily had the situation in hand.

James turned to the hotel's glass doors. They were spiderwebbed with countless cracks from a dozen bullet holes.

Throwing open the door he saw a dozen Blue Light Operators assaulting their own teammates. They held machine guns and rifles and had signs of mystical powers of their own: one reared up in the shape of a Nem6, crimson-skinned and fearsome, while another was a demon of living shadow. One was laying down Terror so that it filled the lobby like icy water, while another fired nonstop from their rifle.

James didn’t pause. He blurred, racing in behind the enemy and clubbing them as he went.

Faster than they could react he took them down, his prodigious Strength and Power making it so that each punch was enough to send them sprawling.

But he wasn’t the Flash.

He dropped three of them before the others recovered and turned on him. One opened fire, but his Buckler tracked the shots and stopped them cold. The Nem6 demon-formed foe leaped at him, roaring, but they were slow, terribly slow, and James ducked under a swung arm and uppercut the demon in its huge jaw. Its head snapped back and it collapsed to the ground.

The rest of Crimson Hydra was spilling in behind him, casting healing on the fallen and moving to intercept the other enemies.

A woman reared up before him, turning to face him at the last second, and James cuffed her over the head, intent on dropping her and moving on.

But she caught him by the wrist and stopped the blow cold.

James jerked to a stop.

For a second they stared at each other. A thick braid fell down over the woman’s shoulder, and she was fit and hardy, her features strikingly handsome, her gaze flinty and cold.

Becca.

His shock was his undoing. She leaned back and front kicked him square in the chest. It was like being hit by a swinging girder. The blow lifted James off his feet and sent him flying back, crashing through one of the glass partitions and out into the rain, to hit the asphalt, bounce, and fetch up on the far side of the street against a truck’s flat tire.

Becca was only a second behind him. She bounded through the air, knees drawn up to her chest, braid whipping in the wind as she came at him like a hurled thunderbolt.

James jerked aside. Her fist punched through the tire where his head had been, and then for a furious second they exchanged blows, the quarters too tight for anything neat, just a flurry of elbows and blocks, both grunting as flesh hit flesh.

Frustration boiled within him. Nova, Heavenly Assault, Aura Mastery, none of it could help him here.

Becca unleashed Terrify and her power fell upon him like a tsunami, but his Remove Fear left him untouched.

She kept raining blows down upon him. He reacted on instinct, but she was as fast if not faster than he was. In moments he was reduced to blocking, twisting from side to side as he sought to avoid her fists.

Enough.

He surged up into demonic form, choosing the huge Nem8 form he’d used what felt like a lifetime ago when first cleaning up the city. Becca let out a yelp as he became huge, filling up the avenue, his massive hand closing around her torso and binding her tight. Wings burst out of his back, obsidian erupted up his forearms, out of his shoulders, swept back from his brow in the shape of huge horns. In seconds he was twenty-yards long from claws to brow, his wings furled on his back and pressed against the truck and building, windows shattering, stone crunching beneath his weight.

“Enough,” he said, rising to his feet, asphalt breaking beneath his heels. He was just over two stories high, and he held Becca in his right fist so that he could stare her in the face. “This is over.”

“Over?” She was panting but grinning. He immediately guessed what she was going to say before the words came out of her mouth. “We’re just getting started.”

And she changed into a Demonic form of her own.

Her face withered, her nose shriveled away, her lips receded from her fangs, her ears became little more than nubs. But her braid split open to form a shifting mane of midnight, lustrous and tinted blue, even as her form doubled in height. Her skin took on an olive green and gray tinge, but all the vitality her body had lost seemed to manifest in her eyes, which had become large orbs of virulent green.

Fuck. She’d taken on the form of a Monitor.

With a cry she burst free of his grip and spun around, her heel catching him across his lantern jaw with such power that he felt it shatter even as his head wrenched around and he collapsed backward into the building behind him, demolishing the partitions between the windows and shoving an elbow into an office to keep his balance. Pain exploded in his head, but even as he healed it with Healing Grace she came at him again, punching him in his broad chest to shatter ribs and fracture his sternum.

James leaped straight up, wings snapping out to carry him aloft, but she pursued him regardless. He sought to get away, but though she was half his size she was now twice as fast. She clutched him by his ankle, turned, and somehow whipped him around, his wings beating futilely, to hurl him down into a building a block over.

He flew from her grasp and smashed through the flat roof, bricks and rebar exploding around him, through a living room and partially through the floor below, to end up on his back, head hanging out over the street six stories below, his huge demonic body encased in the upper floors of the edifice.

James healed immediately, looked up, and saw Olaf rise into view. His Miracle of Flight made it so that he just ascended like Superman, his blonde hair streaming in the wind, his powerful frame dwarfed by Becca’s Monitor-form.

“Enough,” boomed the Viking. “This ends now!”

Becca laughed, but then Olaf intoned a word of terrible power, the Word of Slaughter, and every sound seemed to smear and turn into a sudden cacophony as he released his destruction upon her.

Only for a sphere of burning green to appear about her withered form, the flames writhing and spitting.

The peals of the Word faded and Olaf gaped at Becca, who let loose a bark of laughter and grinned horrifically at him. “You think you’re the only one with Miracles? You shouldn't have settled for just the one Cube. Try this on for size.”

And thrust forth her hand and unleashed a wall of green flame which broadened as it flew. It flashed over Olaf and burned away his Protective Circle, scoured his Angelic Armor to scraps, and reduced him to a cindered skeleton which fell in pieces to the ground below.

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