Idly, I pulled out a Beretta M92F from my trenchcoat. One of many weapons I possessed but never used much, it was still a dull black, used in order to aid in night stealth. The gleam of metal had killed more than one idiotic bounty hunter. I passed a corridor on my right, leading to a horizon of scarlet carpet and doors upon doors.
"Old houses are in a class of their own." I said, stopping to look up at the braziers on the wall, blazing flames in every one of them, ten feet above my head, my neck straining to look up at them. The corridors were long, and they gave the impression of never ending, the wavering light from the fires serving to enhance the feeling of being in an antique, a relic of the past.
"Or a prison." I said out loud. I sensed a presence nearby.
It is said that some people have a sixth sense, that they know things without necessarily knowing things. Without looking around, straining my ears, or even thinking about it, I knew someone was there. The closest thing I could say about it was that it was a hunter smelling his prey.
Or a deer smelling a tiger. I thought. The presence was in the corridor I had just passed, the perfect spot for someone coming from behind for an ambush. I stopped holding the pistol lightly and gripped it.
Come on, I'm ready for you. I thought, keeping myself facing away from the corridor, feet and waist poised to snap towards it if anything happened. Here we go. I thought.
My left foot moved to the side to step on the naked wood of the floor, to the side of the carpet, next to the wall that concealed the object of my suspicion. Following my right foot in a stalker's gait, landing as light as a cat, I stepped below the brazier I had been admiring a second ago, my pistol aimed at the corridor. I held my breath, not daring to make a single noise.
"Target situation uncertain." It was a voice, female, but monotone and robotic. "Calling for backup to investigate and eliminate target."
That line told me two things; the first was that I was being hunted. Nothing new there, I had been hunted for at least three years now, and I had evaded those pursuers.
The second, and by far the more dangerous, was that the enemy was coming for me in numbers. In long corridors like this, only rapid movement, staying concealed and uncertain, and quick elimination of the enemy would save me. I put power into my leg, the muscles feeling like pistons when I launched off the floor.
Without hesitation I rounded the corner, coming face-to-face with the enemy. She looked like a girl, blonde and wearing a long blue dress, and surprised in the instant before I swung my right arm, pistol gripped in it acting as a club and smashing her face in.
And then it exploded into ceramic porcelain, revealing green mists blasting out of the ruin of a head. Only my training stopped me from being rooted to the spot, keeping me running even as my mind locked up, wondering only one thing.
What the hell was that?
"Levant, why is it that the first floor of the East Wing is cut off today?" Flandre asked the boy stretched out on the lawn next to her, outside the shade of the oak tree she was under. The blonde vampire with the crystal-and-iron wings raised her arms, stretching them to their fullest extent before returning them to her lap.
"Patch is testing her new design for the guard dolls." Levant replied, his voice gaining some of the depth and assurance of age. A year in this strange world had done his maturity and confidence well, and although his clothes were just as they had ever been, simple collared shirts and slightly baggy pants, he no longer gave off the vibe of a completely helpless teenager. Hands behind his head, his entire body in the sun and looking up at the day's clear blue sky, he had learned to enjoy as well as agonize. "That's just how she is."
"She doesn't do anything but read books, so something like this should be great for her!" The vampire under the shade of the tree responded, shifting the parasol at her side a little to match the angle of the sun. "It's good to get fired up once in a while." She gave a smile as Levant turned to face her, shaded by the leaves of the oak on the lawn.
"I guess you'd know how great it is to get fired up," Levant said smugly, "seeing as you end up getting into fights and forgetting about me all the time." He said, feigning hurt. "And to think we had a ceremony, too."
"Oh, that's just cruel!" She squealed. "You're so unfair!" She shouted. "Come over here under the shade so I can teach you a lesson!"
"And what if I don't?" Levant asked, his true grin breaking out from under the façade of a straight face. "Then what?"
"Then I come out after you!" The girl replied, getting up and spinning her parasol into a perfect covering position. "Even if I'm running with this, I can still catch you!"
And as the playful chase on the lawn began, a far less merry game of cat-and-mouse continued inside the corridors of the mansion.
"Good worksmanship really makes a difference!" I whispered to myself as I waited, back flat to the wall. On my right, a bookcase, on my left, a wooden door, the one that I had just shut silently. "Took me this long to shake them!" I continued, raising the M92F up to my eyes, training it on the door. On the wall opposite the one I was flat against was a rack full of maces. Why there were only maces I couldn't tell, but there they were.
I've been chased around by a lot of people. Soldiers, paid ruffians, police, but never had I seen pursuers who could fly, had near-perfect coordination, and all looked the same.
As to be expected from a line of guard dolls. I thought to myself. That's what the future of perimeter defense looks like. So far, their only real flaw's that they telegraph their moves, but that's probably a fail-safe if they're around any actual member of the family. It also looks like they've got three types; a black-and-white laser shooting idiot type, a dollmistress type that goes crazy if you blow up a single one of her scouts, and a purple librarian type that shoots out lots of magic.
I stopped thinking and strained my ears again. The little sound that had triggered my total mental stop was small, soft, easily looked over, but it was there.
And the step of little shoes on the wood could only mean that one of the little doll-drones was headed for the door I was hiding behind.
Yep, they're much more thorough than any human patrol would be. I thought, nodding silently. I had been able to run away from them simply because they had thoroughly searched every room and corridor. They had the twin advantages of time and numbers, the two things that most undermined special operations.
I need to end this. Right now. I thought, and so I waited.
I waited for the little doll tottering outside to open the door and come in after me, so that I could crush it with the heel of my shoe.
"Game over, Leopold." She said. "That doll's found him, and he has nowhere to run." The purple librarian said, but instead of having a book in front of her as when we left her, she was watching the chase in the East Wing through a crystal ball, one of nine lined up in front of her. Each showed a different viewpoint from the different doll squad leaders, through which the librarian could control every action the dolls took. They had sealed off every corridor from the room they had ascertained the enemy was in with numbers, preparing for the final push. Although their faces remained impassive, there was a sense of impending victory here, the certainty that they would prevail.
Across her, the special operative merely smiled. "I suppose you do have him in your trap." He replied. "The boy was a fool to fall for it, no matter how well you played your part."
"Such faith." She replied, with only a hint of a smirk on her face. "Well, we'll yet see if any surprises await us."
"Yes, well, 'who dares wins'." Leopold replied.
"I thought you didn't like the SAS." The librarian said.
"Paying your opponent proper respect is what wins battles." Leopold said, smiling. "You'd do well to remember that."
He pointed towards one of the crystal balls, where the feed from one of the dolls had been cut off completely.
"I didn't hear anything happen!" Patchouli shouted, genuinely shocked for the first time in a while. "Dolls, report!"
"Target is escaping corral. Through unknown means he wiped out an entire squad at once."
It was a good thing I slammed the door into that doll, because when it hit the opposite wall it proceeded to explode with a deafening roar.
For the love of God. I thought. If I had anything like that I could…
Wait.
Maybe I do.
I looked up and saw the maces, the simple straight iron rods with a deadly ball at the end, meant for crushing. I didn't question why they looked so well-maintained. What did I know, having only been here a day?
Luck is on my side today. I said, and began to stuff them into my coat, putting them wherever they would fit. I knew that after the shock of the doll exploding, they would take advantage of the moment and rush in immediately, using the weight of their numbers and strength to take me down. I took one of the maces and positioned myself directly opposite the door, pouring power into my arms and legs.
"Come and get me." I said. As if on cue, I heard the twang of the dolls using their magic, like a distortion that rippled towards the caster, like the world was feeding them with power. Although today was the first time I had ever experienced it, it was already a familiar opponent. Without thinking about it, I recited my personal credo, the one thing that had remained with me my whole life.
"In risks, death. In victory, risks. In death, victory. To live is to sacrifice; to preserve our sacrifices requires risks, and there we see death."
Hefting the mace in my right hand, I threw it at the door, one-handed, using only enough power to make it fly straight as a dart. I didn't need the throw to be strong.
I only needed it to distract. Using the strength in my legs, I kicked off of the ground, rushing right after the weapon I had thrown. The weapon hit the leader, who had been standing smack in the middle of her squad, and sailed through the scorched hole left by the explosion that had happened just before.
Now they had to worry about me, following on the heels of the mace, with a left hand full of iron ball bearings. Swinging my hand in a wide arc and splaying my hand to spread out the bullet, I blasted the squad with a cone of pellets that smashed through bodies, pierced heads, and released more magical energy in the air, energy that revitalized me as I breathed it in.
"Right." I said, smiling slightly. "Time to move."
Reaching into my coat for another mace, I started running. I remembered that the corridor I was had windows on the right, three intersections away.
There was no time to waste. I kicked off, taking the right ten meters down the hall. I heard it then, coming from the direction I was going as I started to get into the pace of the run.
"Target is escaping corral. Through unknown means wiped out entire squad at once."
That'll be "target has escaped" soon enough!
Using the energy in my right arm, I hurled the mace down the corridor and started to run after it, taking out another one with my left arm and pulling out my Beretta with my right.
"Let's dance, ladies!"
Leopold indicated the fourth crystal ball from Patchouli's right, Squad 5's. Assigned to the southeastern corridor perimeter, they were the closest roadblock to the window.
"Keep an eye on this one." He said. "If there's one thing this guy's good at, it's getting out of sticky situations." Patchouli looked at which one he was pointing at, and then smirked."
"He's not going to get away from there." She had intentionally reinforced Squad 5 to include twelve dolls rather than the standard eight. They were also veterans of the last combat action against Leopold, and so their self-learning magical circuit would teach them how to deal with both guns and melee weapons. Smiling, she leaned back in her chair and gave Leopold a glance that practically read "I win".
Leopold shrugged and they continued to watch the feed. After a few seconds, it began.
The dolls, previously lined up across the width of the corridor, moved to accommodate the mace, which flew like a blur right above their heads. Patchouli brought up the images from the surveillance sigil on the corridor onto the crystal ball for the knocked-out squad. The dolls were spread out in three diamonds, no two sides being right behind one another, each diamond smaller than the last.
It was only a second before a pair of braziers flew towards them but hit the carpets, setting the scarlet rug ablaze.
"Target acquired!" One of them yelled before a black blur approached it and smashed its head off. The black shape changed direction as a silver blur split itself from it, flying wildly into the corridor. Without wasting time, the remaining eleven began to chant magical spells.
"It's over, Leopold." She said, smirking. "He's trapped."
"We'll see." He said evenly.
"Yes, that's it." I said. After knocking out the first one, I was sure that they would train all of their attacks on me. Being magical opponents, they would not dare run into melee with me.
Perfect. I thought, and stopped in the middle of the corridor. Closing my eyes, I waited.
"He's given up." Patchouli said. "You picked the wrong man for the job."
"We'll see." He replied.
The magical barrage blasted the corridor. Torrents of fire that burned the wallpaper and scorched the braziers, beams of light that burned all they came into contact with, spikes of earth that rose from the floor, and myriad other spells blasted the small space into oblivion.
And now, we move.
With my eyes closed I could sense the moment they would blast me. There could be no hesitation in this movement. Power surged through my legs and arms.
They fired. I had no hesitation. I poured all of my strength into my legs. The moment the deafening roar of the numerous spells I didn't see began I jumped.
And while in midair I used all the power I had, kicking off and accelerating horizontally.
The boom behind me told me that my plan had been a complete success.
The crystal ball linked to the leader of Squad 5 went black. The last things that were recorded were the jump and the deafening roar, and then it was all over.
"That's the kind of monster I gave you." Leopold said. "He's clever, he's crazy, and he's damned good at his job." With that, he finally allowed himself a smile.
Patchouli just stared.
Yes, flying at supersonic speeds and not dying of G-forces, all the blood rushing to my head, or getting my skin flayed off by the speed of my movement is nice, but I think I should put on the brakes now!
Not a second too soon, I stopped in front of the window. Popping myself back up with a bit of magic, I saw the green fields and blue skies right outside, and it was breathtaking, a lot like a postcard. My right hand had already reached for the handle on the four-segment window that was actually a double door of glass.
"It's a wonderful day." I said, climbing out of the tall window to see the sunshine. Closing the window behind me, I decided I'd take a stroll.
They were both under the shade of the tree now, tired and done with running, but with grins that stretched from ear to ear.
"I hope… that teaches you… not to mess with me!" Flandre said indignantly, between huffs and pants.
"No…" Levant replied, similarly tired. "This just… proves… my point… that you get fired up too much!"
"Mmm!" The girl puffed out her cheeks and sat up. "Fine!" She said, taking the parasol lying to her right and opening it. "I'm going home!"
"Too… much… energy…. Hey, why'd you stop?" Levant asked, slowly getting his lungs full of air again.
"I just saw someone come out of the house and I don't know him." Flandre replied matter-of-factly. "He's just looking up at the sky now." She said, wondering what staring up at the sky would do.
"Let's go talk to him." Levant said, standing up. "Wonder who he is."
"Yeah, let's." She said, her voice suddenly sinking. Although she was usually the relaxed one, she still had some trouble dealing with people who she didn't already know. This left most of the out-of-house interaction to Levant and the other inhabitants of the house.
Taking her hand in his, Levant led the way towards the relaxed stranger.