Chapter 14: Chapter 14

It was only a day later when things heated up substantially. While it was a Saturday, any hopes of a quiet weekend were completely and utterly dashed by Gartho dashing into the living room of the Kendrick household, completely breaking up the casual atmosphere. “The Emperor’s magical energy signature has been detected! Meaning his ‘minions’ are gathering in one place in the open, specifically the shopping district.”

The Sisters, Tharen, Jay, Sonia and Florrie were there, enjoying themselves in the middle of the day. When the news came, the mood shifted immediately and frantically. No words were needed, everyone knew exactly what this meant.

Estella took a deep breath. She had been preparing for this. “Right. Anja, Nat, we’ve got a job to do.”

Her sisters nodded without a word. Anja seemed cool as a cucumber, but Natalia looked tense. Considering what happened the other day, who could really blame her? Things were going to be tense, especially since they had to rescue people as well as fight off bad guys.

“Es… Be careful, alright?” Jay asked, as she made eye contact with him. “They’re going to be ready for you this time, too. The enemy might be stronger.”

Estella just smiled, and winked. “Yeah, we’re taking that into account, but don’t worry, Jay, we’ve got this.”

Jay’s expression told her he wasn’t so sure. Well, it was her job to prove he had nothing to worry about, so it was time to get right to it.

“Wish we had more help, but we’re just gonna have to rely on you five to save the town,” Sonia nodded. “Give ‘em hell.”

“We’ll cheer you on! From a distance, of course,” said Florrie with a nervous laugh.

“We’ll take the ship, and then drop you off with the LUV,” Tharen said as they headed to the backyard. “We’ll have a lot of ground to cover with this one.”

Estella did a quick nod as the boarding ramp opened. “Yeah. Let’s get to it.”

❖

The LUV rolled off the boarding ramp and landed wheels-first in the middle of the road. There were screams and the sounds of gunshots echoing through the air as the shopping district was filled with panic, as civilians tried to flee and police tried to do what they could to fend off the black mimicries of the human form, but it was clear that even with firearms they were completely out of their depth. It was unlikely that any Tactical Operations Unit would arrive within the hour, and any government mages were likely to not get here as quickly as the four of them did.

Natalia was in the back on the machine-gun, and started blowing away nearby monsters, her aim indicating that she was staying mindful of civilians potentially in the line of fire. She and Tharen would be driving around and thinning out the enemy’s numbers, as well as chasing down stragglers trying to escape. Anja leaped out of the LUV and charged for a nearby group of enemies, hacking and slashing away at them with her organic blades. She would probably do fine on her own… Maybe. Estella was concerned about the potential of another panic attack, but if that happened Prometheus would help her out.

Estella leaped out of the LUV as well, sending out bolts of lightning that shocked the dark soldiers as they were struck. This time, however, they did not go down quite so easily - they were better-armoured this time, and more numerous. She actually needed to put some effort into cutting them down this time around. On the other hand, they weren’t any more capable in terms of martial ability, which made some sense - they knew how to use weapons, but aside from that it was easy to deal with them them, due to her practice with the sword and her superior reach.

With the first group of enemies down and a couple of cocoons ripped open, Estella’s attention was drawn to the sounds of growling. A trio of black, armoured hounds with glowing red eyes - likely mimicries of kidnapped pet dogs warped into war hounds. Lovely.

Estella stood her ground as the hounds charged her all at once, trying to attack from multiple angles. She successfully struck one, but the second attempted to dig into her arm with its teeth, while the third leaped onto her back to try and go for her neck. They had limited success, fortunately, due the protection of full magical plate. Thank God for this armour, she thought to herself as she sent a pulse of electricity through her armour, subjecting her attackers to a rather nasty electrical shock, before driving her sword through the second beast, and then took hold of the third, amping up the electricity to fry it into oblivion. Electricity was just such a useful element when non-lethal methods weren’t needed on organic targets - made it risky to try to touch or grapple her, and it wasn’t prone to collateral damage like fire was.

The first hound wasn’t quite dead, however, rising to its feet and barking as it fled. Estella immediately gave chase, seeing as how all the other shadow monsters in the vicinity were slain. It would likely lead her to more adversaries to slay, which was more than fine by her.

She chased it down a couple of turns, and while it did lead her to another small group of shadow creatures, including a couple more hounds, they did something unexpected. The group began to merge together, forming two larger entities that resembled armoured werewolves, causing her to stop in her tracks. They were roughly two and a half metres tall, and wielded large, nasty-looking swords in their right hands. “Well, this is definitely new.”

The two ‘werewolves’ snarled, beginning a cautious approach. Estella stood her ground, both hands on Galowye as she pondered how she was going to fight two of these enemies at once.

The beast-men charged, swinging their blades at her wildly, forcing her on the defensive as she deflected and blocked each strike. This would be far more manageable if it was just one, but the two of them attacking so relentlessly gave her little opportunity to do much more than act defensively, striking a few times as she tried to counter, but she found that a couple of times her attempts at counter-attacking with her sword or magic just resulted in a blade slicing into her armour.

She winced as one of their swords caused her to suffer a minor cut on her arm. She probably could win, but she’d probably wouldn’t come out of this fight without further injury.

One of the beasts suddenly howled as a sword went through its chest. Someone had landed on its back - a figure in resplendent silver armour from head to toe, with a magnificent blue cape adorned with a coat of arms that Estella didn’t recognise. The sword itself had runic symbols carved into the flat side, much like Galowye, but was thinner and had a golden, more traditional-looking basket guard.

As the beast struggled to deal with the sudden attacker, Estella was able to refocus on the other one, its feral blows far less troublesome to deal with. She stood her ground, deflecting incoming attacks until she had a perfect sword angle for a counter as she sent the beast’s sword arm towards its left side, bringing her blade down to sever its forearm. The monster howled in pain, right before Estella drove her sword straight through its chest, piercing the heart, and destroying it entirely.

Estella took a deep breath as she turned to the mysterious knight engaging in battle with the second ‘werewolf’. The knight was fighting entirely offensively, effortlessly parrying incoming strikes as they forced the beast back. The werewolf snarled, charging the knight with a furious flurry, but the knight dodged and deflected, and with strikes so fast that Estella could barely keep track, easily severed the beast’s knee and elbow tendons before decapitating the monster outright, causing it to disappear into blue flame.

Estella walked over to the knight, with a smile. Truth be told, she was jealous of this person’s skill with the blade. “You were amazing just then. Thanks for the hel-”

The knight suddenly took a swing at her, forcing Estella to block the blow. The knight spoke with a magically obscured voice that made it difficult for her gender to be identified. “Good reflexes. But not good enough.”

Estella immediately found herself on the defensive again as the knight came at her with swift, adept sword strikes, forcing her to take steps backwards just to avoid being overwhelmed. She grit her teeth, “what’s the big idea, huh?!”

“The fact that you had so much trouble with those beasts is very concerning,” the knight chided as they pressed their offensive. Estella felt like they were holding back, and even then she had trouble keeping up. “Why is an Arcane Arm in the hands of someone so green as you?!”

“I had a feeling when I first saw her, but now I’m certain of it - this person is an Arcane Knight like yourself!” Galowye warned in her head.

Estella took a step back, moving out of reach and firing off multiple bolts at her, “fine, I’ll show you what I’m made of! Don’t say I didn’t warn you!”

The bolts just fizzled out when they made contact with the armour, however. Estella was briefly puzzled, only to see that the knight was now floating in midair just off the ground. Electricity had its downsides, of course - if the target wasn’t grounded, it required a lot of energy to induce a shock.

Estella switched out the Electricity rune for Fire, and started launching fireballs instead. “Okay, nice trick, but-”

“Projectiles are simple, efficient and practical, true, but you’re far too direct in your approach to magic,” the knight remarked as they deflected incoming fireballs, and held out a hand towards Estella’s feet, the hand itself lightly but visibly glowing. “Observe.”

Estella suddenly felt the ground beneath her give way, and she tried to backpedal, feeling the ground around her feet melting away before rapidly re-solidifying, causing her to take off chunks of the ground as she leaped. She tried to keep moving as the ground kept melting, but soon she found herself landing right in part of the ground that was already semi-liquid, freezing her legs in place. She realised what the knight had done - likely used ‘Change Earth’ to liquefy the concrete and tarmac. She switched in both runes, and used the same spell to free herself, shooting herself back up onto solid ground.

However, the knight was on her immediately, slamming their sword’s pommel right into her head, stunning Estella, who barely deflected another incoming strike before a third knocked Galowye out of her hands. The knight held the sword at her throat. “Self-taught, no proper training with both the blade and magic, very little practical experience… I’ve sparred with squires more skilled than you, girl! And you call yourself an Arcane Knight?!”

“You’re an Arcane Knight too, asshole! Why are you getting so hung up with me when innocent people are at risk?! We’re in the middle of a crisis here!” Estella snapped back. The fact that this person could easily kill her sent shivers down her spine, but her fear gave way to frustration easily.

That gave the knight pause. “You are correct. Your heart is indeed in the right place. Fortunately, I didn’t come alone.”

Estella heard footsteps to her right. Another figure was approaching - a man with a simple golden face mask covering his features. He wore a golden tiara that brought to mind a laurel crown, a white shirt with gold trimmings and rather extravagant gold and purple adornments, and purple pants and shoes, also with gold, that did not seem to have any kind of delineation between them. “Lady Leigh, all targets in the vicinity have been exterminated.”

“Excellent work, Aurelius,” spoke the knight, as she took a step back with her sword. Her helmet disappeared, revealing the face of an older woman - Estella figured her to be in her fifties or even sixties - with greying red hair and sharp blue eyes. “While you have a shameful lack of experience and training, you have good martial instincts, and you demonstrate quite a bit of potential. I am Arcane Knight Clarette Leigh, of the Order of Sir Renaud. Retrieve your weapon, young lady. Once this crisis is resolved, we have much to discuss.”

“Aurelius Kruse, Magister of the Order. A pleasure,” spoke the young man with the mask, as said mask disappeared, revealing a rather handsome face, purple eyes and neck-length pale purple hair. He was definitely a pretty-boy.

“Estella Kendrick,” Estella said, feeling very much humbled as she retrieved Galowye, her own glamour’s mask disappearing. “And uh, this is Galowye.”

“Galowye, one of the ancient ones?! It is an honour, sincerely,” spoke a feminine voice from Leigh’s sword. “I am Naolin. I come from a newer generation of Arcane Arms.”

“It is a pleasure to meet another of my kind after so long,” said Galowye, with a pleased tone. “But yes, this can wait. There are doubtlessly many more enemies to slay.”

“Indeed, let us move,” Leigh said, as all three of them re-masked. “It seems investigating this disturbance was indeed prudent after all…”

❖

Anja was casually ripping and tearing through the shadow beasts. Even the surprise of the dark hounds didn’t slow her down much. The soldiers were tougher than before, but she was more capable of busting heads than she was previously, so it mostly evened out.

Unfortunately, another problem reared its ugly head when she found herself coming under fire from what looked like dark duplicates of police officers, using replicas of pistols. They seemed to be able to fire dark bullets that left smoky trails without the need to reload, meaning she was immediately dealing with multiple enemies attacking with semi-auto fire. And the bullets were actually sinking into her ‘suit’ and causing her to bleed - nothing serious, but she couldn’t keep this up for long.

She took cover in an alleyway so she could recover, but the ‘cops’ pursued her. Just as they came around to start firing, a barrier formed in front of her, blocking the incoming shots.

“Guess you need a bit of a hand after all. Magic darkness guns with unlimited ammunition, now that’s just kinda cheating,” spoke a male voice from behind her. She didn’t need to look behind her to see him, but she did anyway out of courtesy. He looked Asian, and had clothes that screamed ‘government agent’. He briefly pulled out his ID, which she noticed was certainly not from any police agency she had heard of. “Nice to meet one of you ladies in person. Name’s Agent Lim Yang, Australian Paranormal Activities Commission.”

Then she remembered his face - he was the guy going around with the police, making people believe there had been a gas leak on campus. “Oh, right, you’re the government spook cracking down on the paranormal stuff. You gonna arrest me?”

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“Not really, unless you give me a damn good reason to,” Yang said, as he kept the barrier stable, “this anti-projectile barrier is a bit taxing, though, you might wanna do something about those monsters badly masquerading as cops.”

“No problem,” Anja said, her ‘suit’ forming a hardened, super-bulletproof layer. She would be less able to form weapons, but sharp deadly spikes on her fists would hopefully be enough. She charged through the barrier, smashing the first soldier’s face in as her suit withstood the incoming shots, and she started smashing soldiers repeatedly with her fists, using them as bullet shields as she barrelled through them one by one.

Even if the flesh and bone was ersatz, and these certainly were not real people that she should be agonising over, she wasn’t sure how she felt about the way her fists just smashed through them with meaty crunches. She took no pleasure in it. It reminded her too much of that sickening moment that haunted her through her nightmares that felt more like movies than reality at this point - familiar enough for her to take it in stride, but not comforting.

“Nice work,” Yang said, clapping in a way that was surprisingly sincere. “I’ve heard the witness testimony about what you did at the university, but seeing it for myself is a different matter entirely.”

“These things seem to know how to use guns more effectively than swords, apparently,” Anja noted, watching the last one burn away, “I suppose I should thank you, at least.”

“Just doing my job, Miss.”

“Why aren’t you in a hurry to arrest me?” Anja asked, turning to him, “I’m a vigilante who might expose the paranormal either deliberately or by accident.”

“The Commission has its reasons to treat you four as a low priority, Miss,” Yang said. The mention of ‘four’ indicated to Anja that he counted Tharen as part of their number as well. “We’ve got bigger problems right now. Besides, the veil of secrecy might not survive. We know at least one of you is of an alien species, and with the planetary shield, that cat is out of the bag. Of course, this would be much easier if you and your companions were to work with the Commission officially.”

Anja shook her head. “We still don’t know if you can be trusted yet. No offence.”

“None taken, I suppose that’s understandable,” Yang said, “have you thought of a superheroine name we could call you by, or…?”

“‘Prometheus’ works just fine,” Anja said bluntly. “Don’t care to think of anything better.”

“It’s something. You should get moving, I’ll see if I can’t locate the mastermind,” Yang nodded.

Anja broke into a sprint, zooming down the street. She wasn’t sure what to think about Yang. Sure, he seemed pretty nice and affable, but for all she knew it could be a mask.

No, that wasn’t a big deal right now. She had much bigger fish to fry. Hopefully her sisters were doing alright.

❖

Natalia had the easiest time partially due to the fact that she was behind a machine gun turret that was mowing down soldiers like nobody’s business.

Of course, normally the most challenging part of that was not shooting innocent people, but the machine gun had a dynamic friend-or-foe identification system that prevented it from firing if there was a chance that a friendly or a civilian would get hit. That was no excuse for Natalia to just fire without thinking, so she used the machine gun relatively judiciously.

The most surprising part of the whole drive, however, was when she and Tharen encountered a firefight between some ersatz cops and what looked like a Tactical Operations Unit that had arrived in the district.

“They arrived rather quickly,” Tharen noted.

Natalia nodded, and noticed that the floating orbs that would normally cocoon the TOU police instead were fried when they made contact. “And they’ve been warded. Looks like the government prepared them for this. Let’s go help them out.”

Tharen nodded, and began driving up, as Natalia proceeded to rip the ersatz cops apart with the machine gun. She took some shots, but her personal shielding held up. It was hard to tell how the TOU cops were reacting to the sudden assistance, but the fact that they hadn’t started shooting at her was probably a good sign.

“They’re definitely spawning much faster this time!” Tharen called out, pointing to a few nearby cocoons, which were starting to spawn in new copies.

“Explains their numbers in general,” Natalia frowned, taking note of all the nearby cocoons, “but not all of them are doing that…”

The TOU’s commanding officer was already calling out orders. “Take out the spawning monsters and extract the people in those cocoons, on the double!”

“I’ll help!” Natalia called out, as she leaped off the back of the LUV and started rushing the spawning monsters, cutting them down with her blade rifle before starting to rip the cocoons open. This was less suited for the high-powered vehicle-mounted gun, really.

One of the officers pointed out Tharen, “sir, I think he’s an alien.”

Tharen snorted. “What gave it away, the muzzle or the tail?” He had his helmet on, but the fact that he wasn’t human was plain as day. He raised a hand, making some kind of awkward ‘V’ sign with his claws, “uh, we come in peace? Live long and prosper and all that! Look, I’m a soldier, not a diplomat.”

That got a laugh out of a few of the officers, but the mirth was short-lived, as a horde of shadow soldiers started coming around the corner. Natalia cursed, rushing back towards the LUV.

“You ladies and gentlemen need some additional firepower,” remarked Gartho, who hovered down from above, deploying his portable sentry turret in the middle of the street. The turret unfolded by itself into full standing form, revealing four energy barrels, which immediately opened fire on the incoming soldiers. “Don’t stand in front of it, but worry not, it won’t target anything that isn’t one of those things.”

One of the officers was gawking. “That’s a centaur bug alien.”

“Alien or not, we’re not gonna say no to that kind of firepower, mate,” said one of the other officers, “we need to keep moving up to clear out these things, though.”

“We need to make sure the bad guys don’t make off with some of the cocoons, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover,” noted Tharen, “Private, you go on ahead and take on the head honcho, we’ll mop up here.”

Oh, right, Natalia was technically just a Private as far as GDF rank was concerned, even if she technically wasn’t an officer herself. Better than just blurting out her name, though. “Yes, sir!”

She deployed her personal hoverbike - a sturdy, sleek and aerodynamic vehicle that also had wheels as a backup in case the hover functionality failed. She got on, starting it up, and was most thrilled as the simulated engine roared to life. It was the little things like this that helped make all of this so, so worth it.

But in any case, she started driving down the street. The sooner they could locate their nemesis, the better.

❖

The Tenebris Imperatoris watched the chaos unfold from the roof of a building. If nothing else, his troops were efficient when it came to their orders, cocooning and gathering up the citizenry for transport.

Of course, it was not all smooth sailing. His troops had reported that the ‘heroines’ were in the fray, and they weren’t alone, accompanied by government mages, a Tactical Operations Unit that was likely stationed in the area specifically to respond to situations like this, and other unknown adversaries. This, however, was entirely expected, even if more enemies popping out of the woodwork was frustrating.

Of course, he could accelerate spawning from certain cocoons more swiftly, but that was somewhat more taxing on him, so he had elected to choose the captured cops, as they had firearms. And he had elected to merge some of his soldiers to create stronger ones. While he knew that he needed more troops, he also knew numbers meant little if his adversaries could cut them down with ease. Quality as well as quantity.

“We need to get the cocoons transported out of here before those fools can interfere,” he grumbled under his breath. “A second total failure would portend badly.”

“You lack patience, friend,” spoke the dark, ghostly figure to his right. “We are still far from our full potential. We need time to gather strength, and besides, we are still covertly capturing people between our raids. It doesn’t matter how many times our raids fail, as long as we continue to grow in power.”

The spirit had been an invaluable partner throughout this entire endeavour. It was only weeks ago that he had stumbled upon the entity by happenstance, and they had made a deal. Of course, he wasn’t an idiot, he wasn’t willing to trust it that much, but he also knew the entity was dependant on him for its freedom, and he intended to leverage that for all it was worth. But so far their partnership was at least amicable and mutually beneficial, and in all of this he had received tremendous power and knowledge beyond his wildest dreams.

The Emperor nodded. “True, but with mages sniffing down our necks, the sooner we gain a greater foothold on this town, the better. With every new captive, temporary or otherwise, our power growth speeds up.”

“Your ambition is admirable, but we need more time. You should not unnecessarily risk yourself,” the spirit warned him, circling to his left side, “swallowing your pride for a while will allow you to get what you want in time. Do not risk our triumph by trying to reach for an early victory.”

The Emperor grit his teeth. The spirit was right, of course. He was eager to prove his superiority, but the spirit had been around for longer and knew how things worked. Deferring to his advice was the smart thing to do for the time being. “If our enemies start considering us a joke, o ancient one-”

“-they will underestimate us and fall prey to our power. Perception is a powerful tool that can be used to manipulate our adversaries, young emperor. Better to play the part of the fool than to be one.”

“Would you manipulate me to your own aims if you we weren’t mutually bound to act in each other’s best interests?” The Emperor asked. It had been the first thing they did upon establishing their partnership - a magical contract that was intricately hashed out to ensure neither side would betray each other. The contract could only be broken without repercussions if both sides agreed to it.

The spirit just cackled. “Of course I would! And I still am, you know that! But I am happy to share power just fine, especially with someone like you. Stabbing you in the back would be so trite and would not benefit me in the slightest. I’m amused that you still don’t fully trust me.”

“Oh, when you say things like that, of course I wouldn’t fully trust you, but you are correct. So I will trust you just enough,” said the Emperor.

The sounds of magic and gunfire in the distance were getting closer. “Our enemies are getting closer. Seems I will have to buy time, after all.”

“Good. Still… There’s no harm in toying with them for a while as well,” the spirit cackled darkly. “Let’s see how prepared these ‘heroes’ are for what we have in store for them.”

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