Disclaimer: All Warhammer 40,000 and Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha concepts belong to their respective owners. No challenge is intended.
11: Numina
Atlas went over the waterfall backwards. Mask came with him in a cape of hissing steam, sword outstretched. But the Tertius shield-armour didn't have the flexibility of his opponent's fields. The yellow figure crashed into an artful rock arrangement below the falls. Atlas fed the water into his fields and jetted out, skidding to a halt atop the lake.
The impact hadn't rattled the monster. He stalked out of the waterfall, spilling rivulets of boiling water from his shoulders and chest. "You are a canny foe," whispered the silver mask. "I almost wish you had retained your weapon, that we might battle on more even terms. I am eager to test the arm that felled my battle-brother."
Atlas laughed. "You actually think I disarmed?" He skipped back. The draining lake was only waist deep on the Tertius, and his massive muscles parted the water effortlessly, but Atlas would take any advantage he could get. "The knuckles are my sidearm. This is my weapon."
The field emitters in his boot flared. He flashed across the surface of the water, banked off a force field, and put his knee into the back of Mask's head. The helm fields spat yellow sparks into the water. The Tertius cursed and spun, but Atlas was away across the water, weaving between mooring posts and gondolas abandoned in the evacuation.
"Very clever, but it will avail you little without the strength to pierce my defences. And I promise you, I have no such weakness!" The green-eyed blade whipped out and pared a gondola in half in a shower of green embers. "The first mistake you make will be your last. Run while you can."
Atlas decided against another rebound attack. The water gave him a speed advantage and kept the Tertius from using his full height, but without the knuckles he couldn't use his offensive spells to full effect. He'd have to do things the old-fashioned way, and that meant he needed solid ground for maximum leverage.
A flash of white in the waves alerted him, and he jinked sideways as a gondola smashed into splinters in front of him. The Tertius was actually throwing boats at him. Was Mask enjoying this?
His mistake.
In the distance, Lance flew by beneath a struggling Tertius. Golden light burned over a hill. Atlas grinned. Vivo was in the fight. Cleave Reno had made a terrible mistake picking him out as a potential hostage.
The lake was draining into a parking lot. The paving was dangerously slick, but it would give leverage. Atlas slalomed towards it.
Where was the Tertius?
Just before the shore, Mask burst out of the water, sword rising into Atlas' gut. Damn. Those jetpacks must double as aquajets. This was going to be uncomfortable.
The blow ran from hip to shoulder. Shields shattered and the sword plowed into his robes, throwing him high into the air. He crashed bodily into the windscreen of an abandoned aircar, sheared through the door well, and tumbled to a halt face down in the middle of the parking lot amidst a shower of glass and flight instruments and green sparks. A steering wheel bounced past his head.
"Unexpected," hissed the Tertius as it strode down the incline towards him. "The technology of this age must be fragile indeed if one little man can shatter it so impressively."
Atlas put a fist to the pavement and pushed experimentally.
"Ah, still alive. The water must have slowed me more than I thought – you should have landed in two pieces. Still, you won't last long with a wound like that. Let me put you out of your misery."
The green-eyed blade folded back along his arm. He reached under a nearby aircar, secured his grip, and heaved the entire vehicle over his head. "At least it's got some heft to it. I'll make this quick."
The aircar took to the skies and came down blaring alarms.
It didn't touch the ground.
Atlas was on one knee, one fist to the pavement. His other hand grasped the aircar's chassis, fingers crumpling the metal. He held the vehicle overhead one handed.
"Looks like your weapons are no match for modern armour," he said, and rose to his feet in a swirl of white robes. Fields unfolded across the pavement. Blue fire rose about his feet. "Your turn." He tossed the car overhand.
Mask brought his weapon up and blasted the vehicle apart in a screaming column of green flame. He was already moving when Atlas burst out of the explosion shoulder-first. The Tertius learned quickly, but sometimes that wasn't good enough.
Mechanisms whined. Fields gripped the pavement. Atlas straightened and put his fist into the silver mask.
The parking lot jumped and caved in. Atlas rose a meter off the ground. Mask went his own impressive height into the air before crashing back into the rubble settling a storey below, shields reduced to yellow sparks. He rolled and came to his feet as Atlas kicked off a fallen aircar and rocketed towards him.
The Tertius caught his fist and held it in a mighty gauntlet, then looked down in what might have been alarm. He was forced back, one step, then two. He lowered his shoulders and planted his boots in the rubble. The jetpack flared. It didn't help. Atlas was pushing him back one-handed.
"Impossible," he whispered. He aimed his weapon across his torso. Atlas twisted and sent him arch-backed to his knees; the shot went wild. "The strength of the astartes is unmatched! What sort of daemon are you?"
Blue flame spat from Atlas' eyes. "Haven't you noticed? Haven't you wondered why I've got language files for historical astartes? Didn't you wonder when I caved in a car's engine with my own weight?
"Astartes development didn't end with you, not by a long shot. My brothers and I are a bleeding-edge model. I'm heavier than you. I'm stronger than you. I'm faster than you." He pushed the Tertius to the ground. "Say hello to the Numen Astartes."
Mask tried to roll away, but Atlas was over him again. His bare fists blurred. The Tertius bucked, limbs contorting as blow after blow smashed into his ribcage. The shield shattered. The ground below him shook. Silver metal buckled and split.
The floor gave way again, and the pair crashed into a sub-basement in a shower of gravel and spitting cables.
Atlas rose to his feet, brushing dust and mud from his robe. The armour cloth was self-cleaning already.
Mask didn't move.
"I'm going to need a second lunch after all that," sighed the big man. The blue fire flickered out.
The crater was starting to fill with water and mud. Atlas grabbed Mask by his fizzling gorget, kicked aside a slab of fallen road, and dragged him to the nearest stairwell.
"Ow," said the building. "That really hurt!"
"Sorry. You're doing great, Eifast. I'm proud of you."
The rainbows in the walls swirled bashfully.
"I've got to stash this guy some place safe – he'll be a witness in the investigation. Any suggestions?"
The building was silent.
"Eifast?"
The world erupted in green fire.
Atlas recovered his senses rolling down a steep incline. A tilted gravity elevator shaft, he realised, and flailed desperately for a handhold. His fingers caught a prominence and he gripped for all he was worth.
His robe was gone. His black singlet was in tatters. His left arm had been badly gashed; he could see artificial muscle fibres gleaming below his skin.
Jetpacks howled. Before he could react, green chains unfolded around him, pinning the wounded arm to one side. Another coil wrapped his gripping hand and pulled him dangling into the middle of the shaft.
Kamath hovered above him. Left-Hand was rising up the shaft, weapon trained on his head.
They'd shot him, he realised fuzzily. Two of those building-piercing green beams from different directions. Maybe that had saved his life. The force of the combined blast had pushed him out of the intersection of the beams, through a couple of walls and into the elevator shaft.
"Divide and conquer," said the commander. He noticed that one of her shoulder plates had been reduced to a sparking mess. "An effective tactic. You're powerful enough to win one-on-one. And even I can't take that golden monster alone." She shuddered. "But it leaves you vulnerable if your opponent brought reserves. Which I did."
Atlas thrashed, but the chains were a proper binding spell. The raw force of Kamath's mind was enough to hold him indefinitely.
"Seismic tracking led us right to you. Such strength is a liability when you're trying to hide."
"He's taken down two of our men," said Left-Hand. "Do we kill him?"
"No. He's helpless now – my binding magic is strong enough to keep him from causing any further trouble, and our jammers are keeping the building off our backs. These people may be devious, may have mastered weird technologies, but they still respect their comrades. I may be able to hold off the – the clone with a hostage." There was a wild look in her eye. Atlas almost laughed. The kid had Kamath running scared. "Check on Six, see if he's still alive."
"Yes sir," said Left-Hand, and ascended with a roar to the gaping rent whence Atlas had entered the shaft.
"Now would be a good time for support," sent Atlas.
"We're having some difficulty finalising the ritual." Was Vitus ever not annoyed by something? "The shield locus keeps moving."
"Probably Kamath herself. She's got me in a bind spell – like the stuff Sapphire and Eunos throw around. She must be a heck of a shield mage."
"Understood. We'll be there ASAP. The kid will help you out in the meantime."
"Ha," said Atlas out loud. Kamath looked down.
Above her, Left-Hand slammed out of the rent, ricocheted up off the walls of the shaft twice, and accelerated upside-down towards the commander. The jetpack put him into a spiral. Kamath flattened herself against the shaft wall. The Tertius scraped sparks and shards of glass past Atlas, and vanished below still flailing for control.
"No, no, no," growled the commander. She gunned her jetpack up, but came to a halt just as quickly when a great golden hand reached out into the shaft.
Atlas was used to the kid's keyform. He'd watched Vivo training with his Numen brother Nove back home, even sparred a little with the lad himself. But the war body was a psionic construct beyond all but the most talented magi, terrifying in its potency. Little wonder the ancient Emperor had used it on the battlefield. Little wonder that the Project had been so proud and so afraid of their clone.
Vivo heaved his whole body into the elevator shaft. He braced his knees against either side. The hulking war body filled the entire shaft, blocking the ascent.
Kamath howled and dropped, whipping Atlas behind her like a toy. She ducked into a lower opening, down a hallway, and didn't cut the jets until she reached a corner, planting her feet in the wall in a shower of masonry to brake.
Behind, the golden giant dropped three stories and caught the rim of the elevator door. Atlas caught a glimpse of the clone climbing into the corridor as Kamath tossed him over one shoulder and made for the stairs at a run. She wasn't going to do battle in an enclosed space so easily controlled.
There was a scream of hornets biting air and stone below. Left-Hand must have regained control of his jetpack. Not that it did him much good; staccato bursts of golden light flashed up the stairwell, followed by the clatter of falling glass and masonry. Moments later the stairwell shook far below Kamath's pounding feet.
"I'm coming, Atlas."