Disclaimer: I don't own either of the two intellectual properties that have been melded into one here today, those being Macross Frontier and the Fate Stay/Night franchises, and certainly don't have the intent to make money of this piece of work, only the intent to make some people smile.
Chapter 10: Belligerent Repulsion
"We've just folded," Saotome stated over the comm, his voice rising in a questioning tone - he clearly didn't quite believe the evidence his eyes were presenting him with.
I ignored his well thought out observation briefly in favour of trying to open my magic circuits again - I had recovered my mental balance enough that I judged it was safe to try to open them, and to be honest, I was feeling kind of naked without access to my odo in a battle. I guess being suddenly 'mortal' was an unusual thing for my mind to adapt to, which in an of itself was probably more worrying than not being able to access my circuits. As soon as I had begun the process to open my circuits however, it became clear that I wouldn't be able to rely on them in the foreseeable future - the backlash from trying to draw even a trickle of odo made my head spin. Disregarding that endeavour, I turned my attention back to Saotome's earlier remark.
"Well spotted," I replied with a groan, dropping my face into the palm of my hand at the same time. The action was partly an attempt to recover my composure after trying to access my circuits, but mostly an outburst indicating that my patience with the situation in general had reached the end of it's tether. "What tipped you off?"
The holo of Saotome bristled a little bit at that. Perhaps I could have been a bit more diplomatic, but at this point hiding my exasperation wasn't likely to hurt our situation. Saotome's eyebrows furrowed and his eyes narrowed as he went to respond in what I assumed would be the typical loud and unconstrained Saotome fashion.
Instead, I watched as the blue haired pilot took a deep breath and let the anger drain from his face, to be replaced with a superior grin. "Nice to see you drop the mask for a change," he said.
Internally I cursed the young pilot for being so perceptive when it came to reading me. The situation we were in certainly wasn't one of the most life-threatening I'd ever been in, seeing as I was still wearing all four limbs and my vital organs were still residing where they belonged, but I was shaken a bit - just enough to prevent me from stifling my innate sarcasm. Saotome must have realised that, although how he picked that for me being 'normal' I have no idea.
"You got me," I replied deadpan, rolling my eyes as I did so. At this point it didn't matter that Saotome could see through the lies I'd hidden my true personality behind - the main thing was to determine where this Vajra ship was going, and how to get the three of us out of here safely. Maintaining my public face was distinctly a secondary priority now that our resident rookie pilot had seen through it. "Now hurry up with that gunpod."
The snap in my order immediately brought Saotome back to earth. The holo of his face became distracted as he played with his controls, then a pair of markers appeared on my HUD that encompassed both Messiahs - Saotome had slaved Luca's green RVF-25 to his own VF-25, a process which would in effect make the RVF-25 mimic the motions of it's master unit. In response, the RVF-25 immediately transformed to match the battloid mode Saotome was currently using and the blue haired pilot quickly liberated the gunpod from the metal fingers of the green Messiah, sending it bouncing onto the floor.
I scooped the weapon up in the left manipulator arm of my variable fighter - the damage caused by my own gymnastics less than a minute ago had damaged the right hand, destroying the weaponry interface contacts in the process. After using all my missiles, losing my knife in an insignificant scuffle and having my gunpod ripped apart in a failed surprise attack, it was felt somewhat relieving to get my hands on a weapon again. The on-board computers interfaced quickly with the scavenged gunpod and linked it into my remaining ammunition reserves as I scanned the room for any new threats. It came up clear.
"So where are we folding to?" My companion asked.
"Saotome, you're not asking the right question," I replied quickly, my mind whirring. "Not only don't I know the answer to that, but it's completely irrelevant to our current situation. Try again!"
I shouldn't have snapped there, but Saotome's general inability to grasp the situation and his dismal skill at grasping strategic and tactical realities had just pushed me to breaking point. We were stuck in an enemy battleship, I'd just been through a battle that felt as completely unexplainable as my opening skirmishes in the Grail War, my unit was damaged and almost out of ammunition, and he's asking where the hell we're going!
Focus, Shirou. Getting upset isn't going to help at this point in time. Deal with the hand you've been dealt. I took a deep, calming breath.
Even as Saotome's face screwed together in concentration, I was regathering my wits and running through the realities of our situation in our mind - receiving an ammunition count from my readout (very low), double checking Luca's status feed (still unconscious), attempting to place our location within the Vajra ship (we were definitely somewhere on it), basically the kind of useful information that would help us think our way out of here.
"How do we escape?" The kid offered, and I nodded in reply.
"That's a better starting point," I told him curtly, "but that isn't the whole question we need to answer," I continued thoughtfully. Now that I had some semblance of knowledge of our situation, I was allowing myself to do my thinking by guiding Saotome's thought processes. I could almost see the cogs whirring in his mind as he tried to extend his line of thought.
"How do we escape and make our way back to Frontier?" he asked.
"Much better," I confirmed for him. "Thoughts on how to do it?"
"We~ell," the boy began, "our last plan of holing up and waiting for our backup to open up this ship so we can get out is kind of moot now," he mused.
I dropped him a level stare. "Talking out possibilities will help, but stating the obvious is pretty pointless," I told him. I was trying to introduce the kid to thinking for himself in a combat situation, an ability that would be useful for him to have, yet incredibly difficult to learn in situ as it were. As he was constantly proving, I reminded myself.
Saotome shot me a withering glare in response.
"The way I see it, we've got three options," the blue haired rookie began. "Firstly, we just wait it out until we get broken out by SMS or the N.U.N.S."
"And the reason we're not going to go with that plan is?" I asked Saotome.
"No-one knows where we are or where we'll de-fold," the kid said, a touch of exasperation entering his voice. "Look, I'm just listing the possibilities, I never said this was the best way to escape!"
"Carry on then," I said, emphasising my displeasure at his neural skills with a grunt. "But we're on a tight schedule, so try to stop beating around the bush."
"The other two options involve leaving this room and searching the ship for an escape method. The only question is timing - whether we wait to de-fold before we go exploring or not," the boy elaborated.
"Good thinking," I allowed neutrally, having already come up with those ideas. "Which do you consider to be the best?"
"We should start looking now," Saotome replied confidently. "Sure, it's not entirely wise to eject from a folding ship, but if we find a place to breech the hull, we can get out as soon as we've de-folded We're just wasting time here."
The kid had a point, but as usual he still wasn't seeing the entire situation. While moving would keep us busy, and Alaya knows staying in a dead end chamber wasn't really the most sound idea for a defensive posture (no matter how good you are, I had learned early in my abortive career as a magus, always have a backup escape route), the cons were stacked too heavily against that course of action.
"Actually, the better plan would be to wait here," I replied laconically, knowing that my casual dismissal of his idea would likely turn his anger up a notch or two. "Luca is currently nothing but a liability in an extended scouting sortie, as we'd either have to split and leave someone here to defend him, or slave his unresponsive unit to ours in combat. Secondly, we're so deep in enemy territory we may as well be wearing re-breathers - this location is secure and defensible, which is more than can be said for blindly wandering around an unknown enemy ship."
True to form, Saotome took the bait, his patience now entirely worn. "Well if you were going to shoot down my opinion, why did you ask me for it?" he raged, the volume of his voice rising in anger.
"To see if you could actually use that brain of yours for purposes other than pulling off some decent piloting," I told the kid with a grin. When the blue haired rookie began to splutter in rage I cut him off again. "Relax, you aren't that bad at it. Strategic thinking really only comes with practice. Now keep your eyes on the entrance."
Now that our course of action had been decided, it was simply a matter of preparing the chamber defensively and waiting out the fold ride. As it turned out, the effort we put into our defence was entirely wasted - despite the fact our location should have been known to our Vajra hosts, not a single unit made it's way through the door during our eighteen minute fold ride, and my new friend in his red variable fighter decided to leave us alone. The de-fold itself happened rather unceremoniously - the purple glow bathing the room receded without warning, and the reality overlay snapped back into place. Instinctively I went to open one of my circuits and thankfully found that I was free to do so without any major repercussions.
I quickly opened a few more.
The question of where we'd folded to was easily answered as well. Barely a second after completing the de-fold operation, I.F.F. signals collected by the scopes on-board my Messiah were piping location and tag information of several human ships in the area onto my HUD, despite the fact all I could visually see were the walls of the chamber we were defending. There were several I recognised as belonging to NUNS cruisers and carriers - but the tags that really caught my eye were the ones in a neat little line of tags labelled Island-One all the way through to Island-Thirteen.
The Vajra had folded us to Frontier.
"Well, that's not good," I muttered, raising an eyebrow. "Saotome, slave Skull-Three to your unit, it's time for us to get out of here."
Saotome's response died in his throat as the ceiling of our little room began to lift up, slowly opening us up to the void of space. I turned the cameras of my battloid form Messiah towards the tags on my HUD and sure enough I spotted the Frontier convoy powering steadily through space. A quick glance at the disposition of the NUNS defensive forces confirmed for me that the Vajra de-fold had been somewhat expected - the defensive fleet was mostly in escort position, and several larger ships were starting to come around to face the threat. Well, no time to worry about that - the ceiling had by now halted it's expansion, and if I had to guess, I'd say from the outside this ship would look like a giant maw.
Saotome and myself both knew what that meant.
"Time to get out of here," I roared through the comm, transforming into fighter mode as I did so.
"You don't have to tell me twice," came Saotome's reply, and the two of us hit the thrusters hard, bursting out of the ship on tails of nuclear fire, with Luca's RVF-25 mimicking Saotome's every movement. I threw a glance over my rear shoulder just in time to see the Vajra ship we were just in vomit out a massive beam of yellow particles, effortlessly punching a sizeable hole through the flagship of the 3rd defensive fleet, the Damocles. The shot thankfully appeared to have missed any critical areas - apart from a few rapidly dying flickers of fire around the massive wound that threatened to split the Damocles in half, there was no indication of any secondary explosions, thank Alaya.
That wasn't the end of it though - another four beams erupted from an area in space behind the Vajra ship we'd hitched a lift in on, and with a trill of anger I realised that our Vajra ship must have had a rendezvous with a small fleet in order to attack Frontier - it must have been making an attack of opportunity on the remnants of the Galaxy fleet on it's way here. The damage from the opening salvo from other ships in the Vajra fleet (I could clearly see now that all the Vajra ships were of the same type) was considerable. Three N.U.N.S. frigates had been caught by the salvo, the fourth shot narrowly missing a carrier. With those three ships out of commission, the defensive fleet line in the sector of the Frontier fleet would be seriously compromised until the escorts were reshuffled.
It was at that moment that the Vajra ships, capitalising on their opening alpha strike, began to disgorge swarm upon swarm of the red and white forms that I was much more familiar with dealing with. I checked my scopes again, comparing the vector Saotome and myself were taking to the opening scramble from the Vajra units - they were on an intercept vector for us, although whether that was because we were deliberately being chased or the Vajra were simply heading for Island One, which was also on their course, was something I couldn't answer.
"Battle Frontier to S.M.S. Skull squadron: status report."
It was the crisp voice of a female operator who was demanding a report through the comm, accompanied by a 'sound only' holo. I fought down the urge to shoot back that there seemed to be a bit of a Vajra problem in the local neighbourhood, and instead simply began listing the significant events that led up to our current situation.
"Skull Four, reporting in," I began, checking my thruster power and fighter velocity. "Skull Three was captured by Vajra during the attempt to rescue the Galaxy survivors. Skull Five and myself effected a rescue but were unable to exit the enemy ship before it folded. We were holed up in the ship for eighteen minutes until it de-folded and we disembarked while it was firing it's main gun. Skull Three is currently unconscious and slaved to Skull Five - I request that you bring him to a safe zone by remote control so we can more effectively join the defence."
There was a brief silence on the other end as my information and request was digested, a silence that was effectively broken when my unit was patched into the N.U.N.S. battle network, suddenly spamming my HUD with targeting data from every defensive ship in the convoy space.
"Request granted," came the operator's voice. "Taking control of Skull Three."
I glanced over my shoulder again, partly to have a proper look at the advancing Vajra swarm, and partly to see if they'd taken control of Luca's green RVF-25 correctly. Luca's green bird began to peel away towards Battle Frontier, which I noticed was beginning it's city disengage sequence, and with more than a little relief I also noted that the protective dome was coming down over Island One - it looked like the N.U.N.S. were learning from their earlier skirmishes with the Vajra. Before I could get back to deciphering the targeting data though, a holo of Saotome popped up in my cockpit.
"What's the plan?" The kid asked, with a touch of anxiousness in his voice. It was justified - we were out in the open, with waves of Vajra bearing down on us from behind, and the flimsiest of defences immediately ahead of us to hide behind once we got there.
"Keep going kid," I replied. My response was punctuated by a number of beeps from my HUD, the computer indicating to me that the thin line of N.U.N.S. defence directly in front of us was firing. I fired the manoeuvring thrusters of my Messiah, pushing me above the plane of defensive fire, avoiding the defensive barrage of the three frigates remaining between us and Island One. Seconds later five yellow beams lanced out underneath us, three of which pierced the N.U.N.S. ships, ending their barrage prematurely. The remaining two struck the protective shell of Island One, which thankfully held.
"Well, how about now?" The blue haired rookie asked, pulling his Messiah up tighter into formation with me. I frowned briefly as my circuits began to beat lightly, but pushed the frustration away. The N.U.N.S. forces were converging on the heavier Vajra ships, and through reinforcement of my eyes I could spot several squadrons of VF-171 Nightmares closing in from further down convoy space. The numbers were surprisingly against the Vajra in this confrontation, the only problem being that the N.U.N.S. were caught flat footed and had to spend precious time to bring their superior numbers to bear on the threat.
Which begged the question - why the hell didn't the Vajra get out while the going was still good for them? And the answer to that was reasonably simple, I figured - because they still thought they could achieve their objective. The amplitude of the beat in my circuits picked up, and I recognised the beat as another Sheryl Nome song - Obelisk, to be precise, and then rolled my eyes, telling myself it was a side effect of my research on her that allowed me to identify the song, not my affinity with current popular culture.
"Keep heading towards Island One. Whatever the Vajra objective is, it's happening on or to it," I replied. It had to be, or else their pattern of advance just didn't make sense. Sure enough, my gut feeling was vindicated (and not in a particularly good way) when another salvo of four beams split the void to blast a chunk out of the protective dome.
I dropped a tag over the breach in Island One's hull. "That's it! Get in there and defend the city," I ordered, even as I subtly fed odo into my engine lines to allow for a more serious acceleration and adjusted my own vector towards the hole. Quickly I spun my head around to try and determine why only four beams were used in the previous salvo and was somewhat gratified (and a little bit surprised, I'm not going to lie) to see the N.U.N.S. getting off their arses and doing their jobs - one of the Vajra battleships was missing a large chunk out of it's engine-like appendages.
The Vajra battleships ignored their stricken compatriot though, instead opting to power up for another round of beam shots. That was not going to be good - the self repairing gel was currently closing down the breach already inflicted in Island One's shell, and sure, while Saotome, myself and no doubt a few Vajra drones would make it in at the current repair rate, it wouldn't be that many drones. More holes in the hull would allow in a lot more of the creatures, and had the potential to seriously ruin the biological stability of Frontier.
Even as I was contemplating that wonderful possibility, a lime green shimmer coated the shell of Island One. Good. Someone had raised the energy barrier, and not a moment too soon - the Vajra ships had fired again, concentrating their firepower around the already formed hole. The four beams slammed into the energy barrier, causing the shell of Island One to glow bright green as energies were directed and dissipated by the clashing particles. Perhaps if a pinpoint barrier were used the defensive barrier might have held completely, but the net result wasn't too damaging - the shields had overloaded after dissipating most of the attack, and the remaining energy from the attack had only widened the breach in the hull by a few metres.
I used the manoeuvring thrusters to adjust the orientation of my Messiah so that I was now facing the swarm while travelling backwards, rapidly closing in on the hole. "Saotome: be ready for anything on the inside. Power is most likely out in the colony, so be prepared to engage your infra-red scopes."
"Roger that," the blue haired kid replied, perhaps a little wildly.
Travelling backwards is an unusual sensation in space. By all rights, it's exactly the same as moving forwards and is subject to all the same manoeuvres, the only difference being which way your back is facing, which as Sir Isaac Newton will tell you matters not a whit to any observers in the external frame of reference. Having said that, human beings have evolved under gravity, with eyes facing forwards and instincts that say going backwards at high speeds usually doesn't bode well for your immediate future, so it takes a lot of training and time to get pilots comfortable with the idea of travelling backwards in combat.
I had gotten over those issues nigh on forty years ago.
I scanned the swarm as Saotome and I closed in on Island-One. They were hovering just outside my effective gunpod range, and with no missiles left I simply didn't have any options to whittle them down at the moment. That worked both ways though, as although imitation cannon shells were whipping past Saotome and myself, none of them were close to being on target. My HUD had picked up several biological missiles heading towards us however, which would be more of an issue.
"Saotome: you get in first, I'll cover our rear," I ordered.
There was a grunt of acknowledgement over the comm, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Saotome put on a touch more power and pull out of my sight. I briefly entertained the idea of switching to battloid to shoot down the incoming missiles, but threw it away – I'd never transform back to fighter mode before I was in Island-One, and trying to bleed speed in battloid mode wasn't going to end well. Instead, I simply ejected the now useless components of the Super FAST Pack my Messiah was equipped with as the missiles closed in – whatever they had that passed for proximity detonators went off as they passed by the FAST Pack components, buffeting my ride but otherwise leaving me unscathed. I quickly glanced over my shoulder, played the thrusters lightly to make final vector adjustments and shot through the hole in Island-One.
While travelling backwards in space is perfectly fine for fighter mode VF's, it's a different story in atmosphere – fighter mode VF's, and the Messiah more so than other recent designs, are first and foremost designed to work aerodynamically in an atmosphere. At higher speeds, this means they rely on aerodynamics to keep them in the air – and the rear profile of a variable fighter isn't typically designed with aerodynamics in mind.
This was a point that entered my mind at the very last second before I sailed through the breach.
My Messiah immediately tried to flip end over end as soon as it transitioned into the atmosphere, a process that wasn't helped by the gale winds caused by the outrushing atmosphere. Try as I might though, I simply couldn't regain control of my bird - and fighting with my controls all the way, my momentum and the buffeting winds threw me haphazardly across the city. My fighter tumbled end over end until I regained enough control over my flight path to transform into GERWALK mode, where the extra main thruster control quickly brought me to a halt.
I glanced up at the hole in the protective shell – Vajra were now pouring through it, even as it closed, to be met with sporadic lines of cannon fire from destroids on the ground. I was well out of range of the fight, which clearly wasn't going well for the N.U.N.S. mecha – the small number of units that had been scrambled were quickly isolated and wiped out by small groups of the Vajra swarm.
I quickly took note of my surroundings. I was currently holding position some five hundred metres or so above the ground, somewhere above one of the nondescript outer residential areas. The city was mostly dark, indicating some kind of power outage, barring the ruddy red light used for emergency lighting. The one clear exception to this was the Griffith Park Stadium, the site of Sheryl's concert providing a veritable beacon of light in all the colours of the rainbow. I took one more look at the almost closed hole in the protective shell, and just as it closed a wash of yellow fire momentarily illuminated the inky void – indication that the N.U.N.S. were beginning the clean up of the swarm outside, a indication backed up by the dozens of tags of individual VF-171's my HUD was throwing up everywhere.
I quickly squelched tagging from units outside of the colony ship – they were irrelevant now. Suddenly the number of friendly tags on my HUD almost disappeared, revealing a handful of destroids moving into position. Saotome's tag was a couple of kilometres from me and considerably closer to the Vajra swarm, the kid presumably having an easier time making it into the city than I did.
That left the Vajra – my tags counted six of the larger red types and twenty of the smaller white creatures, all making a beeline towards...
Griffith Park Stadium. It was hard to see them possibly going anywhere else – the stadium was lit up like a futuristic bonfire.
I swore quietly before transforming into fighter mode and pulling into an intercept vector with the swarm. My ammunition reserves wouldn't be enough to take out all of them, so I opened my comm. "Skull Four to Battle Frontier: Requesting fire support in the city."
I was expecting an immediate reply, but not of the form that I received. Saotome's voice reverberated down our squad comm, an incoherent roar of rage and anger. On my HUD, yellow targeting tags blanketed the swarm, and I watched on impassively as the air around his Messiah filled with smoke trails.
At that point, Saotome took to the comm, letting out a explosive shout. "Eat this!"
The missiles danced across the darkened interior of Island One, the sheer number of them briefly reminding me that Saotome had spent almost none of his payload in the earlier battle. As one, the swarm scattered slowly, utilising evasive manoeuvres to try and mitigate the damage as much as possible. The firefly points of missile thrust would not be denied however, the missiles mercilessly hunting down their targets to light the dark sky up with red-yellow flower-burst explosions.
I had no time to enjoy the fireworks though, and even as that was happening I was pouring odo into the frame of my Messiah. The quick Structural Grasp magecraft I began with indicated minor damage to some of the electromagnetic locks used for transformation, probably caused as I was struggling to regain control of my bird when I entered Island-One, but otherwise the only damage to my bird was superficial. Following that, I poured my essence of magecraft into the engine lines and control surfaces, the reinforcement allowing me to operate my Messiah beyond it's rated levels – which I then took advantage of by opening up the main thrusters and rocketing towards the stadium.
With that done I went back to the scopes to check the results of Saotome's handiwork.
I was impressed.
"Nice job Saotome," I said with a whistle of appreciation. Saotome's barrage had wiped out the smaller escort Vajra creatures to a man (bug, insectoid, whatever) and left three of the larger creatures as smoking husks of burnt-out carapace. The remaining three red Vajra pulled into formation again, continuing their vector out to the stadium, although they were definitely sporting a few impact injuries and one was definitely blackened enough that it could possibly have hidden in a poorly maintained fireplace. "Good initiative and positioning on that barrage."
It was good to see that even during the heat of battle Saotome was able to think on his feet and learn by tagging along with Ozma and myself. While it had been nearly all he could do to simply keep up with us, that move was almost a carbon copy of the missile strike Ozma used to clear us a path to the Dulfim about forty minutes ago. The kid's timing and approach was incredible close to perfect as well, getting in the blind spot of the swarm (how on earth they left a blind spot is beyond me, but their slow reaction to the barrage meant it had to have been there) before unloading everything he had, turning a potential disaster inside the city into a vastly more manageable threat.
And as much as badgering the kid when he screws up is fun, it's very important to make sure he knows when he's doing something right too.
"Thanks," came Saotome's gruff reply, although I definitely detected a thread of pride in there. Baby steps.
The Vajra had a large lead on us, and even with my reinforcement I was going to be hard pressed to catch up. Saotome was decently ahead of me, but there was no way he had the munitions now to take on three of the red Vajra, having used all his missiles in the previous barrage, but he fell into fighter mode and began to chase hard anyway.
"That doesn't mean you can get cocky though," I admonished deadpan over the comm. Saotome's holo had the grace to look slightly put out.
"We can't let them hurt anyone!" he complained back to me, and I sighed. Good intentions, but his brain had lapsed back to it's usual tactical fugue.
"We won't," I told him, a touch of exasperation in my voice.
"But there's only three!" he shot right back, his voice rising in anger.
"Just set your velocity so we reach the stadium in formation – two against three gives us a lot more options than one against three," I told him, wondering if he'd accept the logic behind that or whether I'd just have to out and out order him into line.
"Roger," the blue haired kid said sullenly, and his thruster wake reducing slightly in intensity as he reduced power.
With that potential problem solved I turned my attention to Griffith Park Stadium. The configuration of the stadium had been changed to an open top arena, with a large fake cathedral erected on the stage, opening out to the wide seating area. I immediately fed odo into the lenses of my eyes, filling the imperfections of their existence with the stuff of pure magecraft, increasing the sharpness of the images my eyes were sending my brain. At the exits of the seating area the dregs of the crowd were attempting to make their way out of the emergency exits in an orderly fashion (and failing miserably – even as I was looking on I saw a teenage girl fall over backwards with blood spraying from a broken nose courtesy of a sharply thrown elbow), but of most interest to me (and my incredible disbelief) was the fact that Sheryl was still on stage, full costume with her microphone out, and apparently still belting out whatever she was singing now!
The pink haired songstress turned towards the incoming Vajra without any apparent surprise or fear, spreading her arms to continue in her choreographed dance for the song. That set some alarm bells ringing in my head - either she was actually in league with them (which contradicted the previous reaction she'd had when we were trapped in that emergency escape tunnel), or she had nerves of steel. Or she was just dedicated to maintaining her professionalism. The last two options had all sorts of nasty implications for the state of her mental faculties - lack of self worth (incredibly unlikely based on our previous interactions, but I was definitely no psychologist), suicidal, or more likely she was just flat out stubborn and unwilling to stop the show for something as minor as an attempted kidnapping by hostile aliens (incredibly likely based on our previous interactions).
Still, it was clear she wasn't going to run, so I now had to factor a (possibly unwilling) civilian 'rescue' into our plan for taking down the remaining three Vajra. I continued to scan the building, hoping to find some way of using the terrain to our advantage - and the only way I could see of doing that was to drag the fight somewhere else. There were just too many people trying to escape to safely fight in the stadium.
It was then that in the darkened pit of the main seating that I spotted Ranka Lee. The younger Lee sibling was wearing the yellow sundress (although the limited lighting muted the tones so much it was pretty much grey from this distance) she was so fond of and was making no effort to join the rapidly vanishing mob of people at the emergency exits. Rather, she was holding something that looked suspiciously like a microphone up to her mouth, which was opening and closing in time with Sheryl's.
I swore violently then keyed the comm. Just my luck that neither Sheryl nor Ranka had the good sense to get out while the going was good. "Saotome, your girlfriends are in the stadium singing themselves up a storm," I told him, my frustration at the situation and the implications of it expressing itself through my tone of voice, which was slightly more vehement than I'd intended. Just for good measure, I tagged the two girls on my HUD and transferred the tags across the comm.
Saotome's holo quickly morphed from confusion to an interesting shade of red as he determined who I was talking about. "They're not my girlfriends!" he insisted testily, which in no way clarified for me whether he was embarrassed or angry, although if I had to guess I'd say it was a bit of both.
"There's no helping it now," I began, dismissing his denial and preparing to explain my earlier sudden surge of frustration. "If Ranka gets killed in there, Ozma will kill us. If Sheryl gets killed in there, the population of Frontier will kill us. We have to catch up to the Vajra before they reach the stadium." The comment about Sheryl was a rather convenient explanation to cover my true motives - any possible doubts I had about Sheryl having some connection to the Vajra were completely dispelled now, and figuring out if that connection was harmful or benign, or even better, figuring out how to abuse it to rid us of the Vajra threat suddenly seemed like the kind of thing to put at the top of my priority list. That was entirely reliant on Sheryl living through the next two minutes though - something that was entirely debatable at this point.
The comment about Ranka, on the other hand, well lets just say I didn't think it was too far off the mark.
I squeezed the last ounce of power out of my engines to coax just a touch more extra speed out of my bird, which responded with a worrying shudder as the frame was pushed to it's limits. At this velocity even the slightest nudge on the ailerons could set up a horrible oscillation throughout my Messiah, so I was taking extra care to keep myself straight and level.
"So what's the plan then?" Saotome enquired.
"Don't let them get to the stadium," I replied grimly. The only problem with that idea was that I basically had only one option to do just that. There was no way I could reliably use my gunpod at this velocity, and there was no way we'd catch up if I cut power, so it looked like we were going in at full power - and hoping we'd make it in time.
"We're not going to make it," the blue haired kid warned me, frustration threading his voice. I double checked our relative velocity compared to the Vajra, and was forced to conclude the kid was right.
"Well lets hope they're not aiming for the girls," I muttered under my breath, as forlorn a hope as that seemed to me at the time.
The Vajra began to slow as they approached the stadium, a cue for me to raise my eyebrow in confusion. Surely the Vajra understood that it would be just as easy to use their weapons to level the stadium at high speed and that slowing down would allow us to reel them in. As they approached the perimeter the one of the Vajra (the soot blackened one) turned in the air to face us down, while the remaining two pulled up in front of the stage, their carapace masks staring down at Sheryl. The diva stared back, a look of pure defiance etched onto her features as she continued her song - a song I could feel beating across my circuits as I finally closed the gap between Saotome and myself.
"Saotome," I roared, "rescue Ranka!"
There was no time for him to argue – we were simply travelling too fast. Saotome immediately transformed into GERWALK mode and flung the legs of the half fighter/half mecha forwards, bleeding speed at a prodigious rate. I waited another split second longer before copying his manoeuvre, trusting that my reinforced ride would hold together long enough for me to come to a halt.
Without wasting a movement, both of us levelled our gunpods at the hapless soot blackened creature trying to hold us off. The injured Vajra tried to match us, bringing it's wrist mounted imitation cannon up, but it hadn't even completed the motion when twin streams of cannon fire ripped gaping holes in it's carapace and shredded the flesh beneath.
We rocketed past the falling corpse, the I.S.C. meter in my HUD rising at an alarming rate due to our rapid deceleration, and I realised then, as I looked past the insectoid speed bump we'd just rolled over, that I'd made a mistake. I had assumed as soon as I saw the pair of remaining Vajra over the stage that their target was Sheryl. That was actually the reason I'd sent Saotome after Ranka – I needed to know what Sheryl was doing to the Vajra, and for that I definitely her alive, which was something I wouldn't trust to anyone but myself at this point in time. Also, it meant Saotome wouldn't have to deal with the two creatures or get in my way.
In the time it had taken us to clear the path though, one of the Vajra had circled around to hover in front of Ranka, of all people! Ranka looked more than a little worried as the creature stretched an arm out towards her (hell, she looked downright petrified), but I couldn't waste any more concentration on that. Ahead of me, the remaining red creature had levelled it's wrist mounted imitation cannon at Sheryl, who was still trying to stare down the creature, although my reinforced eyes could pick the worried frown that betrayed her nervousness. It looked like I didn't have time to stop to deal with the Vajra anymore, so I brought the GERWALK's leg thrusters down to a neutral position.
By now I had closed to within thirty metres of the creature and had all but run out of time – I couldn't possibly bring the gunpod on target with the distance I had remaining to me, which left me with one option for dealing with the Vajra that was examining the pink haired diva with all the interest of a bratty kid staring at an anthill with a magnifying glass. I flooded odo throughout my body and the EX-gear suit I was wearing for good measure, while making final adjustments to my relative position, sending my VF-25 rolling to the left.
I was pretty sure the frame of my Messiah would paste that thing just as well as a barrage of micro missiles.
Even with the reinforcement and my heightened reflexes though, there was barely enough time to finish my preparations for ejection. I was halfway through the process when I risked a glance at my target - my eyes widened involuntarily as I realised I was now metres away from collision. The next moment three things occurred simultaneously; the Vajra's wrist mounted imitation cannon boomed; Sheryl's dress erupted in a flare of glowing compressed gasses; and I hurriedly pulled the ejection lever on my Messiah.
For the merest fraction of a second confusion assailed my brain as I tried to process exactly what had happened. Then I smashed head first through a cinderblock wall at Mach-one.
Dazed, I forced myself upright from where I'd been driven through a pile of debris - the collapsed remains of the fake cathedral that had been erected for the concert. I had tried to angle my ejection such that I would have been heading towards where Sheryl had been standing on the cathedral's roof, but my misjudged timing had instead launched me into a spire - one that was in the middle of a collapse courtesy of the spray of imitation cannon fire that had ripped through the cathedral a split second before I'd made my grand entrance. With a grunt I absent-mindedly forced my dislocated right shoulder back into place, which sent pain flaring up my right arm. Uncomprehendingly I stared at the arm I'd just shoved back into place, and the still functioning part of my mind (the area run mostly by my sarcasm) noted that despite my fine application of first aid that the arm was still broken in two other places. I shook my head to clear it and immediately regretted the motion - not only did my brain feel twice the size of my skull, but pain blossomed down my spine.
Belatedly I tried to force back the fog in my mind, collapsing back into a half crouch as I did so. With a start I realised I had already opened my circuits, pulling odo from one and using it to probe my body - even in my dazed state, it appeared that my decades of experience had taken over. The diagnosis wasn't favourable - I was heavily concussed (as if I couldn't tell that already), my spinal column was compressed pretty much all the way down and my left arm was bruised and had a deep cut along the length of the forearm. My right arm was thankfully only broken in those two places, and my internal injuries were limited to a little internal bleeding around my lungs and a bruised kidney. Everything else were fairly superficial scratches and bruises.
My conscious brain took a back seat as my instincts took over. It was an unusual feeling, almost as though watching someone else run my body. Now that my lower thought processes had decided my injuries weren't immediately life threatening, they moved onto confirming the objective. That was fortunately quick to resolve - a loud whine heralded the arrival of one Sheryl Nome from above, looking more than a bit worse for wear in a purple form fitting dress that was billowing on compressed gasses. Gas-jet cluster. Nice work by the diva, I noted clinically - clever use of that stage prop had prevented her becoming a greasy stain on the floor.
Through the clearing clouds of concrete dust I saw her face morph into a picture of concern. "..rou, ..re yo.. …right?"
I felt myself slam my left palm into my temple a few times, sending my brain bouncing off my skull a few times and pain shooting up and down my spine. Way to go, instinctual me. The gas-jet cluster cut out thirty centimetres above the ground, dropping Sheryl into an awkward fall that she graciously recovered from. Well, that might go some way to explaining how she managed to land safely after jumping into the emergency tunnel a week or so ago, I noted in a detached fashion.
"What?" I heard myself say, with all the emotion of a brick wall. Idly I wondered if this detached feeling was representative of what it would feel like when Alaya deployed me as a fully fledged counter-guardian.
That thought renewed my effort to throw the fog from my mind - I did not want to know what it would be like to be Archer, nor did I even want to think about what it would be like!
"Are you alright?" Sheryl repeated as she closed in on me, the percussive maintenance I'd just performed on my eardrums apparently having the desired affect on my hearing. I looked the galactic fairy up and down as she approached - the purple dress was singed around the hem, probably having caught the very edges of my Messiah's thruster wash as she took off. Her eyes were wide with concern, and widened further when she spotted my broken arm.
"I've been better," I said with a forced grin, having regained control of some of my mental faculties. I certainly wasn't going to admit to her that I had been more afraid of what I would become if I let my consciousness shut down while my body was active than of the injuries I was bearing. "What happened to the Vajra?"
Some of the worry left the diva's face as she convinced herself that my businesslike tone indicated that I was better than I looked. "Over there," she said, pointing off to the right. I followed her finger and saw the mangled wreckage of my VF-25 half buried under the rubble near an emergency exit, and under that was the tell-tale red carapace of the Vajra I'd been aiming for, thankfully leaking purple ichor and not moving. There must have been some casualties there, but if I hadn't saved Sheryl, there'd be more than a handful of dead civilians further down the track - an acceptable loss. I slowly turned towards the seating section, ignoring the pain blossoming down my back as I did so.
I was not happy with what I saw.
Saotome was extricating his Messiah from a pile of rubble, while a petrified Ranka let rip with an ear splitting shriek as the Vajra that Saotome had completely failed to take out in the slightest grabbed her and took off. I watched on with a sense of bewilderment as the green haired girl was stowed away in some sort of sealed bubble pocket. The Vajra were after Ranka as well?
"Saotome," I roared into my helmet comm, recovering quickly from the surprise. "If you don't get Ranka back I'm going to kill you! And that will be sweet, sweet mercy compared to what the squad commander will do!"
Seriously, I gave the kid one job to do, and he'd been doing so well for the rest of the day, so why on earth did he have to screw it up now! Sure, I wasn't expecting him to actually have to deal with one red Vajra creature, but it's not like he had a particularly poor track record at taking care of them.
I watched on for a few seconds as the blue haired kid unfolded his Messiah, then abruptly realised something.
"Saotome?" I queried, tapping my helmet. "Saotome?" I tried a final time, slightly louder.
Nothing.
I pulled the minimalistic straps of metal that composed the helmet of my EX-gear off my head and violently hurled it away in disgust, drops of blood scattered loose from the cut on my good (relatively speaking) arm splattering over the ground as I did so. The Alaya-damned helmet comm must have broken at some point during my high speed floor insertion through several cinderblock walls, leaving me out of the loop with everything going on in the battle now. Furiously I began gesticulating at the cockpit of Saotome's variable fighter with my good arm, and thankfully the kid appeared to get the gist of my message, as he swiftly took to his thrusters after the fleeing red Vajra.
"So what now?" asked the songstress standing beside me, regaining some of the haughtiness I was used to from her. I spared her a look - a more thorough assessment than my quick glance as she landed earlier. The dress she was wearing I now belatedly recognised as actually being a skinfitting holo suit - there was no way that combination of tall black heels and tight, full length purple dress could have possibly allowed her to land safely when she cut the gas-jet cluster. Not for the first time I was able to see what it was that gave her the legions of teenage boy fans she had - her body filled out the dress nicely (although that was partly because that was what holosuits were basically designed to do, you still needed to have the body to pull it off at the level Sheryl could), and even in the modest dress she was wearing and the current circumstances she was radiating a refined sort of sex appeal.
I shrugged. "I'm pretty much out of this fight now," I said simply. While I could technically carry on if required, I'd be on the receiving end of a fair few questions I wouldn't like to answer if I did so, especially if I made it somewhere where I'd actually be useful. The fight seemed to have moved on from here for now though, so it looked like I wouldn't have to flex my circuits for anything more than healing. I started walking towards the wreckage of my Messiah, suppressing the urge to limp. "I'm going to check my cockpit to see if the comm is somehow still working in there," I continued, slowly channelling odo into my healing process.
An itching sensation ran up and down my right arm as the broken bones slowly began to pull themselves back into position - a process that was rudely interrupted as the ground shook slowly. It was a steady wobble, but keeping balanced wasn't the problem - whatever was strong enough to shake several tonnes of concrete definitely was the problem.
A big, red problem that I thought was already dead, to be precise.
The Vajra buried under my wrecked Messiah pulled itself upright in a shower of debris, flooding the area with concrete dust. The accompanying shudder from that final effort lashed the earth with shockwaves, throwing Sheryl off her feet and sending me stumbling, although fortunately for us Vajra used too much force to bring itself upright, sending it staggering backwards and buying us precious seconds to regain our footing in the process.
"What was that about being out of this fight now?" Sheryl asked sarcastically as she pulled herself off the ground.
I felt considerably put out. Considerably. "It should be dead," I muttered petulantly. "I crashed a Messiah into it at just below Mach one."
By now I had regained my balance, but the effort was painful – being jolted around had ruined the tender beginnings of my healing process.
"Well it's not," Sheryl pointed out, completely unnecessarily. I glanced around, looking for cover and finding nothing that would seriously stand up to a swipe or two of the Vajra's claws. "You can do something about it, right?" The pink haired diva asked, a touch of nervousness entering her voice.
"Let's see," I mused, backing away slowly. "I have no variable fighter, no weapon, I'm injured and the opponent is a three storey tall pissed off giant bug. We might be out of luck." I wasn't entirely sure whether it was pissed off or not – the carapace was holed seriously in three places, the places that weren't holed were covered in spiderweb cracks, and it's left arm was a shattered mess of chitin and ichor. I couldn't read it's expression, but it's a fair call that it was pissed off.
"There's no way I can die here," the songstress informed me, her voice still containing that thread of nervousness. "I'm Sheryl Nome!"
I glanced at the woman in question, who was attempting to stare down the red creature the was now striding towards us. She'd done well to hold her nerve as long as she had, and she held her head high even though she'd clearly come to the conclusion that we were pretty much done for now.
I grinned ferally.
"Well said, Sheryl Nome," I told the young woman, pulling deeply from my circuits as I did so. "Start running, I'll distract it while you escape."
"No," she shot back imperiously, having regained control of her tone. "I won't leave you here to die while I escape as a coward."
"Who said anything about dying?" I asked her rhetorically. Before she could reply, I opened the door into my soul, allowing myself to dive into the wasteland of fire and ash that housed the very essence of what it was to be me.
Swords, thousands of swords, perfect replicas of every sword I had even laid eyes on in my life.
"You can't possibly think you're going to beat that thing," the diva gasped, apparently finally figuring out my intent.
The part of myself that I allowed to remain in the real world ignored that comment. "If you insist on staying, could you do me a favour and close your eyes? It would also help if you got behind some cover," I told her in a detached manner, waving my hand aimlessly behind me. By now I was deep within my soul, and staring straight at a weapon I knew would bring me victory.
The Vajra had taken two unsteady steps towards us by now, but I was retreating from my sanctum, carrying with me the image of a weapon that would bring me victory. I was ready for the counter attack. I poured odo into my body, bracing it for the manoeuvres that would carry me to the weak spot I had identified on my approaching enemy – the highest hole in the carapace was close to a bundle of nerves that I recalled controlled the motor functions of the red creatures.
I glanced at Sheryl, who had her eyes shut, but otherwise stood as though she was commanding a losing battle. Upright, regal, and expecting to die with good grace at any minute. I spared one more glance around the ruined stadium, searching for security cameras and witnesses - and finding none.
From the depths of my soul I brought with me an ancient weapon once wielded by the Norse hero Sigurd. The sword itself seemed rather unremarkable, a three foot Viking sword with an iron hilt and a leather bound grip that terminated in a semi-spherical pommel. Just on looks alone, I had several dozen that could have replaced it in my personal armoury, but none of those had the history that this sword had.
"Trace on," I murmured quietly as I began the Tracing process. Through the first steps of reproduction I could feel nothing but a simple steel sword forming in my hands, but as I began to sympathise with it's history and reproduce it in the blade itself I could feel a power of Noble Phantasm levels surging forth. A power that had once slain the great dragon Fafnir, a power that I now wished to borrow for use against my dragon-sized foe.
Gram, sword of Sigurd materialised in my left hand as I finished the process, faint blue flames infusing the air immediately around the blade. Without a word I activated the thrusters on my EX-gear, throwing myself towards the giant red creature bearing down on us. Clearly the Vajra wasn't expecting something as small as me to try a straight up charge on it, and awkwardly swung it's good claw at me. I adjusted my orientation by changing my centre of mass, easily dodging the strike and planting an armoured boot on the lower forearm of the Vajra. My body was screaming now, the effort required to maintain my balance with the momentum I was travelling with having ripped tendons and muscle far beyond breaking point. I shoved aside the pain, forcing odo into my leg muscles in order to hold them in position for the few extra seconds required to finish the job.
I leapt one more step along the Vajra's forearm, using the purchase on the upper forearm to launch myself towards the hole in it's carapace that I was aiming for, flooding Gram with prana as I did so. Gram itself was an anti-unit type Noble Phantasm, one specifically designed to deal with large, heavily protected creatures. It's release was dual stage; the first would force out a sharpened layer of prana to slice through whatever defences it was facing (hide, dragonscale, carapace, whatever); and as soon as the sword tasted flesh the second release would trigger, releasing the flames surrounding the blade to incinerate the flesh of the creature, burning it from the inside out.
The Vajra itself reared back as I closed in through it's guard. An unusual reaction, I noted in a detached manner. Surely such a creature would dismiss a human such as myself as not a threat - too small and squishy to care about, even injured as it was. Perhaps it recognised the power I was holding in my left hand and was reacting to that. Regardless, the reaction was meaningless - I merely corrected my angle with the thrusters on my EX-gear (sending fresh pain searing through my broken arm), bringing the sword around into the cracked carapace as I did so.
"Gram," I invoked crisply as the Phantasm met resistance, triggering the first stage of release. A wave of concentrated prana surged forth from the sword, cleanly slicing through the already weakened carapace. The resistance I felt through Gram disappeared, allowing the sword to continue on it's arc into the creature's flesh. I buried Gram deep into the nerve bundle I was aiming for, showering myself with purple ichor as I did so. The second release triggered at that moment, and I quickly pulled prana out of the sword, mindful that I needed to keep the injuries that I had dealt to the Vajra drone minimal to avoid questions, and also mindful of the fact that if the Vajra went up in flames, then it would be very likely that I would as well.
I quickly let the projection fade, and peered into the wound to determine the extent of the damage. The creature was very clearly dead this time, slowly toppling backward as gravity took over what it's earlier flinch had started. The wound that Gram had caused had barbecued a metre or so past where the blade had dug deepest, turning the nerve bundle I was aiming for into soot and causing severe burns on deeper flesh and organs. If I had the strength remaining I would have nodded in satisfaction - the wound would look as though a cannon round had fortuitously gone off close by when the creature had collapsed under my Messiah. As it was though, I augmented my remaining physical strength with odo, using my reinforcement to hold my torn muscles and tendons in place as I pushed myself off the toppling creature. A quick flare on my thrusters later and I was on the ground, where I finally allowed myself to feel the pain I'd been fighting through.
Sweet Alaya!
I'd barely let the first swear word fly when I heard Sheryl ask from somewhere behind me if I was alright. I ignored her in favour of unleashing a tirade of curses at the darkened sky, continuing on for a good minute or so before I got back to her.
"I'm alright," I replied testily, turning to face her and letting rip another curse at the world in general as pain flared fresh through my body. "You can open your eyes again now," I told her once I'd eventually finished my verbal barrage.
The songstress did so, her eyes widening as she took in the scene. I let my body reinforcement fail and immediately collapsed to the floor as my legs gave out underneath me. Rolling onto my side was painful but I managed it somehow, pulling odo from a circuit and redirecting it into my healing function. I could tell I had no immediately life threatening injuries, but the muscle and arm damage could take months to heal normally, so I wanted to get on with the process as quickly as I could. It helped that those injuries were mostly internal, with the exception of the arm - it would make bluffing through Sheryl's inevitable questions easier.
"Are you alright?" she asked again, wasting no time now that she could see my situation for herself. I was semi surprised to see her face change to concern again. I guess I was just used to the more forthright, self confident image that defined her personality every time I'd met her until now.
"I'm fine," I lied through gritted teeth. "Just a bit tired." It was a reasonable excuse to stay on the ground, and hopefully Sheryl wouldn't lower herself to bother to check that - I was sure any external stimulus would just set off more pain triggers in my body.
"If you say so," she said quickly. "How did you kill it?" The pink haired songstress continued just as quickly, her rising tone betraying some sort of expectation of my answer.
That was the million dollar question now, wasn't it. What was going to be the best way to answer this one?
I could feel my right arm beginning to tingle as the bones came back together. "I didn't," I answered slowly. "It keeled over as I reached it. Must have been in some sort of death spasm, like a last gasp attack or something."
Sheryl looked at me intently. "What about that fire I saw just before you fell? And the sword? Where'd you get that from?" She asked.
My eyes narrowed.
"You looked," I stated flatly, my tone low.
Sheryl had the grace to look embarrassed, but didn't back down. Great. Now I might be forced to kill my best lead on the Vajra in order to protect my secrets. "So what if I did? I could have been in danger standing where I was," she pointed out, but with the demeanour of a con-man whose fifth ace has just fallen out of his breast pocket.
"Firstly," I said, using a firm tone, "I did suggest you find cover first. Secondly, and I'm asking this politely as one professional to another; if anyone asks about what happened here, please tell them you had your eyes shut the entire time." I needed to compromise - I needed Sheryl alive in order to chase down what was bringing the Vajra here, but at the same time I needed to maintain the secrecy of my magus skills and true employer. Despite my initial plan to just lop her head off there and then, I was fairly sure I had enough of a handle on Sheryl as a person to be able to satisfy both of my objectives.
Sheryl opened her mouth, presumably to question why she should tell people that, but I kept talking - straight over the top of her. "You are well within your rights to ignore my request," I told her reasonably. "But I have secrets to preserve, secrets which I may be willing to entrust you with later, provided I know you are trustworthy," I told her, with no intention of ever following through on that. There was no way in hell I'd let her know about magecraft and the counter-force. "Of course, if some of my secrets got out, I'd be forced to deal with the leak, and that's always unpleasant."
To be honest, the list of expressions that crossed Sheryl's face during that little speech was priceless. Wide-eyed disbelief morphed into petulant indignation as I interrupted her, which then became a willing-to-please smile as I hinted that I might eventually tell her my secrets, and finally she settled on red-faced shock as she figured out what I was implying would happen if she broke my trust.
"You know," I said, changing my tone entirely to something cheerfully conversational, "normally I'd just skip to the last part if people found out about my secrets."
"W-well, why are you giving me a choice?" The diva stuttered, having been completely shaken off her usual haughty and in control perch.
"Because I think I can trust you," I told the girl, suppressing a wince as my legs cramped up - a sure sign my muscles and tendons were pulling back into position. "I'd like to trust you, so I'm giving you a chance."
I honestly couldn't care if I could trust her or not, and neither did it matter - all I had to do was appeal to her sense of curiosity and honour and she wouldn't dream of telling anyone about 'the fire' and 'the sword' she saw today, and she'd do it voluntarily, no less. The net result would be that she wouldn't tell anyone, and she'd still have a head on her shoulders which would aid greatly in tracking down the cause of the Vajra attacks.
I'd get what I wanted - that's how it had to be in my line of work. Eventually it all came down to the bottom line.
"You didn't have to threaten me though," Sheryl tried to point out, straightening her shoulders and lifting herself upright to regain some of the usual Sheryl Nome imperialistic splendour.
My eyes narrowed. I didn't want her to get the idea that she had too much leeway with the line I was offering her. "That wasn't a threat. That was simply a statement of fact," I told her intently, dropping my tone yet again.
Sheryl narrowed her eyes straight back at me, clearly refusing to be browbeaten now that she'd regained her composure. We locked eyes for more than a moment, and during that time I was certain I spotted true steel in her eyes - the stubbornness, the inherent knowledge that no matter what she would always be correct, and the unshakeable belief in her own justice that all truly great people have - I know I spotted them in her gaze just then, hidden deeply in a coolly feigned disinterest.
"I suppose I can do that for you," she informed me in an offhanded manner.
An odd thought struck me as Sheryl coolly asked if I was alright for the third time in as many minutes. That steel in her gaze - maybe I could genuinely trust Sheryl with my magical secrets. Maybe I could simply have told her exactly what I did in the fight and asked her to not talk about it and she wouldn't have - without me having to manipulate her into it.
Yet... The idea of trusting anyone with the knowledge that I was a magi was such an alien concept to me that when Saotome (with Ranka safely ensconced in the cockpit with him, thank Alaya), Mikhail and Ozma landed next to the stadium five minutes later to extract us, I was still pondering it.
Authors note:
Well that was a long time between drinks. I had a list of things to blame, but I can't remember them now. Video games and holidays mostly. I'd quickly like to thank my brother who I badgered into proof reading for me, so hopefully there won't be as many little mistakes as you're used to seeing!
Thanks heaps for the reviews guys! I was picked up on my poor application of physics in the previous chapter for several things. I was very definitely wrong on the 'top speed in space' thing. I know at the velocities we're talking about the acceleration will just pile on and pile on if the thruster are still going, but at 2am in the morning I was reading a VF-25 fact sheet on the net and it listed top speed. My immediate thought was that's bullshit, how can it have a top speed in space, but I threw it in anyway, figuring it was canon. After being accused of screwing it up, I went back to that page, this time not half falling asleep and saw the not-so-small print in front of it – at 10km height in an atmosphere. So, my bad. The other parts were victim of my poor writing – when I put finger to keyboard I thought the frames of reference were fairly straight forwards, but after re-reading the trouble parts, I can see that there might have been a few issues with it.
The other thing was how scarily well some of you can figure out parts the story before I've even gotten around to writing them!
As for this chapter, action, action and more action. Shirou gets a bit complacent, and it costs him. But in his defence he was pretty out of it, having been launched through a couple of walls. Only time will tell if Sheryl will let slip to someone who can figure out what Shirou was doing or not, I guess. He also pays for assuming that Sheryl was the sole cause of the Vajra attacking Frontier, by almost having Ranka lost to the Vajra. I wonder what he'll make of that.
Take it easy guys, and thanks for reading!