Buffy raced from ship to ship. These things were state-of-the-art for modern Creation, but that just meant they had fancy multiple masts and reinforced firedust-artillery pads. They were made of wood pretty much all the way through, which meant Buffy was seriously capable of one-shotting ships bigger than her house. Just punch a hole near the waterline and the stupid things were, at best, paralyzed while all hands raced to patch the breach. If there hadn't been so freaking many of them, she'd have put the Water Fleet out of work for the day. It was barely even worth her time.
Bolts of crackling energy shot by, smashing holes in ships or setting them aflame. Firedust charges arced the other way, but in much smaller numbers. Honestly, she was thinking her work might be done here already.
Go find some storms to eat, she told her radeken self. Next time we can be all charged up, at least weather-wise.
Suits me, radeken-Buffy responded. I've been having to just use claws and teeth.
Buffy gave her a mental shrug. She was past it. Mnemon had been right. She'd been confusing morality with humanity, when they really were separate things. At worst, there were some moral problems from having power other people didn't, and those had mostly stopped bothering her. She just had to use her powers the right way.
She raced past the ship that Dawn and Xander were on. Maybe Xander was right, too. She'd learned not to blame Dawn, even if she didn't feel like a sister any longer. Radeken-her still reacted as if the wound were raw. Buffy gave the Admiral the olly-olly-in-free sign. He leapt overboard, and Dawn dematerialized to follow.
Hmm. Next they should probably go after that second fleet. Something was too easy about this.
"Are there any other Exalted aboard?" Anya struggled with the gauntlets. They had to seal, damnit!
Towers of Azure responded, "Five Dragon-Blooded are in sickbay. Two are in critical condition. Three are stable but comatose. Recovery expected by late tomorrow morning. No other Exalted are aboard so far as sensors can detect."
Crap, crap, crap! Gloves were sealed. That just left the helmet. Wham! "Airlock seals breached on deck thirty-eight."
"Seal the deck off and flood it!" Why didn't Sidereals get fancy armor-donning magic?
"Yes, sir! Sealing."
The helmet locked and Anya took a moment to poke at the hearthstones set into the breastplate. Whose idea was the aesthetic on this stuff, anyway? Indestructible armor might not fail at the boob and butt creases, and Anya was about as sexually-open as it got. But why would you design a tin can that was meant to stay on for the duration with sex appeal in mind? She dashed down the corridor. "Towers, anything on these hearthstones?"
"The clear, reddish-orange teardrop is an ignition gem. It can light non-magical fires."
"Crap. The other?"
"The polished iron nugget is a memorial iron. It amplifies your willpower by helping you recall positive memories."
Sigh. "At least it works underwater." There was an airlock. She dashed in and cycled it. Who'd socketed these damn things?
"They do provide motonic renewal via your armor attunement." Towers' voice was growing fainter outside.
"Better that than nothing." The exterior door opened, and Anya found herself amidst a swarm of three- or four-person submersibles. Not great. She was going to have to crack at least one open, disable whoever-or whatever-was inside, and then use it against the others. At least she had that much of a plan in mind.
Wait. If they'd busted an airlock, they'd have to abandon that sub to get inside. That was a little better. Anya spun in the water and kicked on the thrusters. "Level 38, here I come."
Chapter 82-The Curse in a Dead Man's Eye
The invaders looked none-too-healthy, which was no surprise considering their submersible wasn't actually docked and they were completely waterlogged. Zombies. No, worse than zombies; nasty materialized specters. Anya narrowed her eyes at them; she didn't have long, and just busting open the ships wouldn't help against things like this. They were just sunken weapons platforms, not protection.
High stakes required high risk. Anya didn't have her bow, but she still knew Wood Dragon style. She stepped forward, hands raised, feeling the flows of mystic energy. Her hands burned green-black.
The specters sneered, and one of them surged entirely black. Tendrils of purest shadow rolled out of its body and seized at Anya. "That's right," she said. "Make it easy." And she grabbed one of the tentacles with her glowing hand. The ghost in question burned briefly with green fire, then crumbled away beyond dust. The remaining specters pulled back into a semicircle. "Oh, please," Anya said, forcing a laugh. "You're dead men walking." If Buffy could pun, so could she.
Rattling echoed from the busted airlock, and the specters began a hollow laugh. Anya glaced behind her to see a skeleton crawling up. No, the first skeleton ended at the rib cage, followed by a seemingly endless chain of more rib cages skittering in like an undead human centipede.
Anya aligned herself with the flowing strands of essence that made up Fate. This was going to be a long fight, but this stance would empower her every time an enemy failed to hurt her. Running out of energy was the last thing she needed now. And...the alignment promptly failed. It was the damn armor! She groaned and set herself to meet the undead monster's attacks. "Towers, why haven't these subs been blown away already?"
"Armaments are still not at their full original level. Only one in ten subsurface weapons are active due to lack of materials, leaving gaps in coverage."
Which the evil dead were exploiting. Great. And both the Luthean fleet and the Imperial fleet had been lured away from the city, the latter to fight two enemy forces that were just short of harmless. Hey, wait a minute. No, she didn't have any demon-luring magicks. What about-? No, her powerbow was useless underwater. Maybe-ack! She narrowly dodged a shadow-tentacle.
Meanwhile a second centipede was crawling into the city-ship. Soon they'd be here in overwhelming numbers. Why had she bothered with this stupid armor? She could've just done the Kostchie thing and been immune to drowning and...other stuff.
City...ship? No, surely that wouldn't work. Oh, what the hell, it couldn't hurt. "Towers, nearest galley or food storage?"
"Deck 35. Also, this deck is sealed off."
Anya facepalmed. "Where's the ship get its fresh water? Desalination plant?"
"The desalination plants are on deck 27. However, purified water is pumped throughout the ship."
Anya took a moment to punch a skelepede in the face, shattering its skull. The front rib cage dropped free, exposing another skull. "Where's the salt go?"
"Salt is expelled back into the sea, but relatively small quantities are sent to the galleys and hydroponics bay."
Anya sighed, smashing another skull and hurling the rib cage into the nearest specter. She was gonna regret this. "Towers, unseal the deck. Run the bilge pumps. Rotate Luthe evasively. I have an idea."
Shadow threw fire at Moray, who wasn't expecting it. But he dropped and rolled under the gout of flame and came up with sword swinging. "Why do you not accept your destiny, Unconquerable Shadow? You were made to rule the dead, not the living."
"You didn't," Shadow pointed out. "Willow tricked you and you ran off to the Silver Prince to get turned into a Deathknight."
"Life is holy," the pirate said, "but death is eternal and therefore holier still." His sword cleaved Shadow's crossbow in two.
"Funny," Shadow said, "seems like whenever I meet something dead, it dies again in a few minutes." She spun and kicked Moray in the face. "Also? That was a gift. I'm going to be ticked off when I find out I wrecked that crossbow so fast." The pirate looked confused, so she kicked him in the balls. Unfortunately he didn't drop.
Instead Moray hurled his sword at the door, activating the latch and spilling zombies into the room. "Destroy her," he growled.
If they'd been vampires, throwing fire at them would've been a good tactic even at close quarters. Here it was more likely to get her burned alive. She didn't have any zombie-controlling powers, either, other than the immunity she'd used to get in. Not a lot of options on hand, really. Shadow plunged into the mass of undead bodies.
"Leave the picket boats," Buffy said. "Help the sailors. Most of them are just here to get paid. If we're nice to them, they'll second-guess their leaders."
Dawn missed her sister so much. That was the real Buffy there, whatever had happened to her. She killed when she had to, but she did it to save lives.
"We need to circle around and take on another fleet," Mnemon warned as the Terrestrial officers glared at Buffy and Xander. "We can't risk dividing up our forces. They've cut us up too much already." Was Dawn the only one who saw what a bitca Mnemon was?
"Excuse me if I'm speaking out of turn," Xander said to a host of glares, "but what is that thing?" He pointed to a looming black thing like a giant cactus in a canoe, closer to Luthe than they were now.
"Not one of ours," Aramida said uneasily. "Not something that could come from Coral or even the Lintha. That leaves Skullstone." The remaining officers began to argue quietly among themselves.
Mnemon scowled. "Do you really believe this half-grown Blasphemer can create the illusion of a giant ship in my mind? Nor do we have any other assets in the area he could simply disguise. Something is here to assault us, or our siblings of Luthe." She stretched out her sword at the craft. "This is our target, whatever it is. A pair of Anathema can wait, as can even a Lintha pirate fleet."
"I still say we can leave someone here to help the people whose ships I wrecked." Buffy's tone was strained. She must want to kick some Terrestrial butt.
A man with a shaven head raised his hand. "Pardon, worthies, but even an Anathema may sometimes speak small truths. Sparing one or two boats to aid these mortals, who may have been beguiled by a more vicious Anathema, is an act of compassion worthy of Sextes Jylis. Only let it be no more than that, lest we fall into a trap." A troubled frown creased his face, and those of several other Immaculates, but no one dissented.
Mnemon raised an eyebrow, as if to ask, "And you too?" Then she sighed and shrugged. "Very well, two picket boats will stay and give aid. The rest of us will deal with that monstrosity."
Xander gave Dawn a nudge. "Cops," he said softly. As in bad cop and good cop? And Mnemon was letting Buffy be the good cop?
"Huh. Maybe there is still good in Darth Statuary." Who'd have guessed?
Anya raced away from the lifts toward the galley. She didn't need much...she thought. If size mattered, she might have a problem.
She was halfway there when a skelepede shot out of a maintenance duct and grabbed her by the arms. Anya kicked up and out, smashing its skull, but a second set of arms seized her legs. Just then the city's spin halted, jolted backwards, and halted again. The arms clung to her, but dislodged from the rest of the monster, and she darted ahead and into the galley. Salt packets. She grabbed a handful. "Towers, how many undead in the city?"
"Two more spine chains, fifteen zombies, and five more specters." That would be hard to deal with, but not impossible.
"Nearest lock?"
She was on her way out of the galley when Towers responded, "There is a waste vent here for biodegradables. On your immediate right."
"Here goes nothing," Anya said, and tossed the packets into the trash. The vent flushed noisily. Had it worked? She couldn't see out.
"Warning to all inhabitants," Towers announced. "This vessel is dematerializing. Do not attempt to disembark. Repeat, do not attempt to disembark." In a more fragile tone, Towers whispered nearby, "Where are we? Everything is white."
Anya shook her head. "You're just going to have to trust me. Full reverse thrust."
It wasn't fair that she couldn't take on demon shapes. Fred had ripped who-knew-how-many infernal worms to pieces by now, and had to fend off eristrufa to boot, but they kept coming. The Lintha ships were taking more damage overall than the demons, or at least that was how it seemed.
A radeken winged in overhead. Buffy had arrived to help. Clouds rolled out of the demon and giant hail began to fall on Fred. No, not Buffy after all. Shoot! Fred dropped beneath a ship, flipped it over, and surfaced, using it like a shell. The water grew choppy as focused winds tore up its surface. A second radeken dissolved into black vapor as it arrived, bringing a frozen chill and a gush of snow.
Fred was out of the direct path of this...war-weather stuff, and squid were clearly adapted to the cold of the benthic depths. Now, though, there were Lintha in the water, stabbing and slashing at her with their curved swords and mostly not drowning. She really had tried to broker a deal. Stupid unreasonable Lintha!
Gathering her anima around her, Fred jetted backwards through the water, vanishing momentarily from sight. Nelumbo had had an awful time trying to teach her that, but it came naturally now in any shape. The Lintha were swirled around as the water churned, and the radeken lost track of her.
Fred had a moment of double vision or something as a translucent presence passed over her, too.What the heck was that? Then it was gone, leaving the Lintha just as disoriented. She sized up the situation. There were more Lintha in the water than still in ships. The only real threat that remained was the demons, and Luthe could handle them. Except...where was the city? It seemed to have evaporated into nothing. Towers of Azure? Can you hear me? Only silence echoed in her thoughts.
"Where the heck did the city go?" Alexander wanted to know, but no one had an answer for him. Even Mnemon's face bore a blank look that said she was hiding confusion.
Dawn murmured in his ear, "I see it. It's gone immaterial, like me. Don't ask how, but it's moving off fast."
"Okay," he whispered, "but how do I tell th-?"
"The city has dematerialized," a monk said to Mnemon. "I don't recognize the magicks it used, but I don't believe they come from the city."
"So what makes an entire-" Memory struck him, and he sidled up to Mnemon. "It's a Sidereal thing. Anya probably did it."
"Your wife?" Mnemon said uncertainly. She rubbed at her left temple. "Well, I'll presume she has good reason."
"She's escaping from something," Xander said. "Either that juggernaut ship or something hidden underwater."
"I'll check it out," Buffy said, and leapt over the railing. Several of the soldiers glanced at each other and, to Xander's surprise, Aramida gestured at them to follow. About a dozen dove into the water, followed by a monk clad only in robes.
"She shouldn't go alone," Aramida said simply.
"I'd appreciate if you remained to assist us in fighting the juggernaut," Mnemon said to him. "I know you're close friends."
"I'm used to letting Buffy take care of herself," he agreed readily.
At that moment, a second Buffy burst out of the juggernaut's uppermost club; it took him a moment to recognize Shadow at this distance. She was clearly audible, though: "Hey! Some help over here?"
Alexander put his hand to his face as Mnemon shouted, "All hands! Full speed!" and the fleet accelerated.
Buffy sighed as the crossed swords flared on her forehead. She'd gone so long without realizing she could even dig this deep. It was reassuring to know she could; it was creeptastic being reminded her powers were rooted in darkness. But she made them her own.
Serpentine monsters with a dozen or more human rib cages swarmed around her. Undead. Well, she was in her element now. Between her speed powers and her newer swimming powers, she could outmaneuver anything natural down here and most things that weren't. She seized the nearest skull-serpent and began to spin, whipping it around her like a streamer. Not even the Terrestrials who had followed her into the water could match this. The creature, contraption, or whatever you wanted to call it tore apart under the strain, sending half-skeletons flying in all directions.
A monk left facing her as she crushed a skull between her hands gave her a simple nod of respect, though it was marred by a sad, stern frown. The soldiers were tearing apart another one of the rib chains, wrestling with it component by component. Oddly, though this man was surrounded by a Water Aspect's anima, he had the craggy face of an aged, powerful Earth Aspect. "I am Ragara Myrrun," he said. "You have fought well. In spite of everything, you are not yet a monster, and I am sorry." She couldn't follow his fluid motions, but she could see this much: he moved like a black belt...of something. He performed a kata of some sort and brought his arms together. Then a burst of orange light exploded out of him, flash-boiling the water around them into foam.
Most people would have been scalded, as he clearly expected of her too. She took the opportunity to sucker-punch him in the face, and...
It didn't work. He swept her fist aside as if it were a buzzing fly, then shifted his motions fluidly into something light and graceful. A second punch missed as he floated casually to one side, then brought around a chakram from his back. That was ludicrous; he couldn't- The chakram slammed into her as if flying through the air, and hit her with a jolt like a jillion volts on top of that. Stunned, she floated limply in the water as he moved in for the kill.
His hand jabbed for her throat, and she caught it easily. "Nice try," Buffy grumbled. "Keep trying, and you might even hurt me."
Myrrun's cheeks cracked as he acknowledged her with a faint smile. Then he shifted to a spinning roll and locked his arms around her waist. She was disoriented for a bare instant, then recovered just in time to see his face as her spine slammed into his knee with a sickening crunch.
Buffy felt her legs go slack.
Xander landed atop the juggernaut carrying a spare crossbow, and Shadow took it gratefully as the zombies began clawing at him. "Remember Moray Darktide?" Xander nodded. "We've lost him. He thinks we betrayed him. He let the Silver Prince make him a Deathknight." She began to drive bolts point-blank into the zombies' heads, which sagged in true death. But there were hundreds of the things grappling at their legs.
"Willow's going to blame herself," Xander said, shaking his head. "It's not her fault there were other things we needed her for." He began casually beheading zombies, severing them from the framework. "Breaking anyone away from the Silver Prince was always a long shot. He may not believe his hype, but his people do."
"What're we going to do with Skullstone when we beat him?" Shadow frowned at the crossbow. "Kinda shoddy. Best you could get?"
"On short notice, yeah." Xander leapt aside as a zombie began trying to bite through his boot. "Honestly, I thought we might set you or Willow up as ruler. He's done as well there as he has because his system isn't all evil. I figure some of it has to be lies, but you could make them true."
"Somehow," Shadow agreed. "All we have to see..."
Xander stared at her for a moment before bursting into laughter. "Right. But, you know, you're a Moonshadow. And Will's a Midnight. Either of you could manage it."
Blasts of energy began to rain down on the juggernaut thing. Xander flicked his sword whenever they came too close, diverting them down into the mass of zombies. "Willow's been gone a while. If she's still missing when we need someone to step in, I'll do it. What can it hurt?"
Xander smiled his old goofy smile. "That's my girl. Same as always."
Shadow grinned back. "Thanks." She'd needed that.
Anya dropped down the shaft like a thrown spear, feet shattering the vertebral column of the last spine chain. Sure, it split the thing in two, but the monster was already pretty short. The automated defenses had gotten it a time or two.
More importantly, she had gotten ahold of her powerbow. She ripped a cable out of the wall and drew back her bow with the sparks that flew from it. The specter eyed her, its malevolent gaze uncertain. "Obliviate this," she said, and lightning shot from the bow. The monstrous ghost dissipated in a shower of energy.
The remaining undead turned to face her,those that were capable of fear displaying it plainly in their wide eyes and open mouths. "Let's clear the deck," she said, and went to work.