<u>9</u>
And then, far distant in time but almost on top of each other in space, all three at once were attacked.
As Val and Filimar drifted like spiraling leaves from Majesty’s bulk, time slowed to a cold-pudding crawl.
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While Miche-not was still fighting to master his own pounding head, that thundering hatred and rage, his chest armor parted, streaming away like black water to reveal most of his bare, shining torso.
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In mid-transit, a horde of draugr diverted V47’s traversal, surrounding the giant battle mech, Block-World and Long Spar with millions of strafing units.
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Val and Filno found themselves trapped in an eerie half phase, between times. Everything changed, turning wavery-dark. Reality bent, there amid smoky docking platforms, stalled patrol craft and statue-like workers.
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Startled, reeling, confused, the former elf turned away from the Cloud’s melted railing. He was under attack, but his instinct was not to call out for help. Just to strike back. A glowing red spiral appeared on the flesh of his chest, streaming up from within him to pulse and swirl like a searing-hot cattle brand.
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V47 Pilot threw a shield over Block-World and Long Spar, for those transported creatures were defenseless against surreal, gritty blackness and hurtling draug. But a Titan was meant to shield or take planets, and <u>that</u> strength was something to conjure with.
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Val and Filimar went reflexively back-to-back, landing on one of those floating, blurred dock platforms. Meanwhile, that rift in space disgorged a tall and red-robed imperial justiciar with three of her black-clad underlings. The justiciar ignited a fiery lash. The shadowy acolytes spread out to surround Val and Filno, launching an orb of crackling force between spindly, outstretched hands.
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Miche-not staggered, barely hearing the cries of those all around him, as the mark of Chaos burned, shone like sunset, then projected itself. Bloody red light shot out of the former elf, forming a negative, black-and-red doppelganger there on the deck before him. Smiling broadly, the sending stalked forward.
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They’d blocked transit. Now, taking long ages and no time at all, the draug units streamed together, forming a vast, craggy warrior. Blurred and constantly shifting, the draug mech was armed with ionic cannons and fanged with unstable, dark-matter teeth. It lunged at V47, firing cannons and particle beams, filling null-space with shrapnel and flame.
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“You are arrested and summoned,” began the justiciar, in a crackling, distorted voice. “You shall appear at the Court of Jus…”
Only, neither young elf was inclined to just stand there and wait to get served. In for an egg, in for a whole ratching dragon, right? Valerian summoned wards and then hurled a firebolt directly at the face of that looming justiciar. Filimar hauled out Joker, his crossbow.
“Ice,” snapped the lordling, converting its quarrels to biting-cold javelins. Next an owl plunged out of the sky to sink its curved talons into the justiciar’s lash-wielding hand. Cinda, gods blast her, once again not staying safe.
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“You have boasted and cursed me,” leered that reverse former elf, circling Miche. “You have threatened to find and destroy me. Well, little boy, here I am, sent through the data wall. Come and make good on your threats, child.”
The wings, that long, pointed tail… Somehow, they streamed off, leaving <u>him</u> to add to that chuckling mirror-self. He felt them tear free, ripping skin, shredding muscles and twisting out bones. Somehow, Miche drew and ignited his energy blade. Still smiling, his image did almost the same, forming a sword of pure, hungry darkness.
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The draugr spoke. A million, ten-million shells buzzed and rattled to scritch,
“There will be no treaty. No ceasefire. Yet, there shall be peace… for us, the calm of cleansing and victory. For <u>you</u>, that of death.”
Dissidents. Had to be. Some splinter group, unhappy with bargains and handshakes. Not representing the entire collective, maybe, but still plenty dangerous, here. Meaning to stop the accord and keep fighting.
V47 Pilot seized the first opening. As that colossal draug-mech closed tight around its vast power core, he fired a trio of missiles straight into the sunlike orb.
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The justiciar’s bony, blade-fingered other hand shot out to strike at that owl. Val’s firebolt nailed the masked figure, mostly spattering against powerful shields, but cracking that impassive white mask and setting the edge of her hood ablaze. At his back, Filimar fired and fired again. Filno’s quarrels struck and killed one of the acolytes, causing the fellow to hang in midair like a limp, broken doll. Threads of blood leaked away from the black-robed apprentice, looking like trickling sawdust. Filno turned, missed the second shot, trying to cover Val as a hurtling orb smashed into them, <u>hard</u>.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
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Miche leapt and he struck. There was nothing to say in reply. No threats or bargains to make. Instead, ducking a swing of that seething black sword, he drove his own blade at the flickering red-and-black simulacrum…
…Only to have its bright point cut through <u>him</u>, pushing out through his own back and ribs with a sickening wet, meaty <u>crack</u>.
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V47’s missiles hit home just as the draug closed tight. His shots got through to the blazing draug power core. One… Two… Three. They erupted together, unleashing pure anti-energy, draining, imploding. Tendrils of blackness lashed out to seize and consume thousands of scrambling units. Next, V47 folded null space. Vanished, to reappear behind that juddering draug mech.
It had twin pulse cannons in back. Both of them blasted at once, sending beams of nuclear hellfire across folded space and into/ at V47. Their searing blast half-chewed off the Titan’s right leg, but then Pilot flattened his mech completely along the X-axis, spreading the Titan very far out along Y and on into Z, ducking most of the enemy’s shot by just turning flat. That might have been what caused the connection, bringing him back into touch with his other two selves.
That wounded young elf-lord… the wandering, Chaos-marked warrior… were all at once there and in danger, together with Pilot, who…
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The psionic orb tore directly through Filno and Val, attacking their minds and their souls. That was pain on another whole level, where there were no nerves to be cut or flesh to grow numb. <u>Inside</u>, where nothing at all blocked the sheer, frenzied torment.
Sawyer (stupid, dumb griffin) had escaped its pen. Now, the cub launched itself from an upper deck. Meanwhile the justiciar’s lash curled around in a fiery, glittering arc. She used mage-hand to pierce and pin the young elves. Held them still while the lash bit deep, rasping,
“You shall appear before His Majesty’s court of jus…”
The griffin’s wobbly, unsteady flight ended in collision with the acolytes’ energy ball. The orb had just emerged from inside the young elves, when Sawyer crashed into it. For the baby griffin, that energy-ball was as solid as stone. Sawyer’s left wing and shoulder deflected the orb, which ricocheted off to strike the justiciar’s chest.
Turned nearly inside-out, Val felt and saw… not just Filimar’s mind and spirit, but those <u>other</u> two selves: the construct and wanderer.
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Miche staggered backward. Managed to jerk the sword out of that grinning mock-elf at the same time, hauling himself free of the blade with a desperate lunge. It burned and tore, coming out. He smelled smoke, felt blood running hot down his back. Then, came a sudden presence. Firelord, stirring too soon, trying to help him… But also, the ones that he’d brushed in the witch-gate. This “Val” and the clockwork warrior. Miche bent double, barely deflecting a cut from the sending’s dark blade. It rebounded from his with a screeching hisss. Bit into the deck. Stuck there a moment, which was all that Miche needed. Still vomiting, he forced himself upright, casting out toxin and Chaos. Cut at the simulacrum’s sword arm, sketching a sigil that rained blazing darts at his laughing reflection. The creature hurled them away to shred the planking and lines, starting fires all over Dark Cloud.
But the mirror image was suffering, too. He’d hit it, only his blows caused twice as much damage to Miche. There were the others, though. Contact with them spread and smeared pain, blunting what ought to have been his death-wound. Right. He was not Val, and he wasn’t V47… but with them, Miche was strong.
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Alarms blared and electrical fires raged all through the Titan, but V47 Pilot continued to fight.
“I won’t let you derail the treaty!” he snarled over comms, reconfiguring the battle mech’s world-shielding forcefield. Like a cosmically powerful fist, the energy field clenched tight around millions of struggling draugr. One was golden and swarmed by the others, who were trying to hide and defend it. Target acquired, but how to get through, when the other units kept shoving it deeper? Pilot was distracted by a cloud of tiny, chemical missiles launched from Block-World and Long Spar. They were too slow and weak to do any good, of course. The aliens might as well have blown bubbles and fluff, but they were trying to help him, and Pilot valued their aid.
Their aid…? Getting a notion, he reached through and borrowed the energy blade. Didn’t <u>take</u> it. But just for a moment, all three of their hands wielded the sword together. Enormous in V47’s neutronium grip, that light-weapon pierced the writhing dark swarm to nick at a large, golden draug.
<u>Chik</u>! It sliced off part of the unit’s right blade. Then,
“Have I got your attention?” boomed the Titan on every available frequency.
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Miche stood upright again, feeling wounds heal and strength come flooding back. Marget, Glass-cat, Brass Monkey and Nameless raced over the deck, dodging force blasts launched by the Chaos-spawn. It would not let them reach him, but Miche wasn’t alone. Not just <u>his</u> hand, but those of a powerful construct and mage-lord were suddenly tight on the hilt of his sword.
Maybe he ought to have said something noble. Didn’t. Instead, Miche roared like an orc, echoed by Marget, his sister. Springing forward, he slashed down with magical fire and some kind of dimensional trick. Reached in, downward and <u>through</u>, striking the actual Fallen One, there on his rusted steel trap of a throne. Straight through the iron crown riveted onto that bare, grinning skull slashed Miche’s blade. Split bone and crashed onward, as all three of them saw a confusing jumble of glaring witch, floating arm, kneeling goddess, and…
“Hana!” screamed Erron, glimpsing the shade of his wife.
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“Willing to bet you’re important,” growled Pilot, driving the point of that borrowed energy blade into the draug-master’s golden shell. “Bet if you die, the rest of these bugs will just drift apart. Willing to take a chance? Gold Flight’s credit balance, against <u>your</u> shiny head on a pike?”
“Stay your hand, meat-sack,” rattled the draug-master. “We have other units, but nothing would be achieved by wasting this one.”
Score, sort of. He was only half listening, because V47 could see through those <u>other</u> selves, too. Worse, the AI had sensed an elf-woman’s memory ghost. Long since copied but never decanted again, she was fading. Losing signal strength and coherence.
‘Pilot,’ sent V47… his brother. His friend.
“I see her, Vee.”
More than that. From the data packet, he’d <u>known</u>. Knew who she was, and just why she mattered so much.
“Get me a shielded transmission line. A micron-tight beam: boosted and private. Hurry, Vee”
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Valerian might have been propping up Filimar, or maybe the other way around. He was too gashed and seared inside to stand up alone. But there was this “Shorty” and whatever might be a “V47 Pilot”. There was a blazing sword in his hand, and three of him holding it. He levitated, bleeding manna and psionic gore like a slaughtered prize bull.
Filimar crashed to one knee, but picked off a second acolyte, firing Joker again and again. Valerian shielded his friends, and then hurled himself at the justiciar. Brought the sword down and around with the added force of a wandering hero and towering mech pilot. Split the justiciar’s lash, her shielding and armor, slicing her nearly in half at the shoulder.
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It hurt. Holy gods, holy <u>fire</u>, it hurt to his core as the sword cut down through the Fallen One’s skull and into withered, dry flesh.
Miche recoiled, feeling a fiery lash… a leg torn nearly off… sensing swarms of black, biting flies and the witch’s vile hex. Then Marget’s axe whistled across like a meteor, slicing into the vision and right at that rusted dark throne. Hana flickered and vanished as Miche crashed onto the spinning deck, still casting out Chaos and blood.
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Just like that, their contact was ended, leaving V47 Pilot with no sword at all and a frantically busy AI.
“Vee! Have you got her? Talk to me, Vee! Were you able to bring her across?!”