Owl's movements were slow and careful. He had to constantly check over his shoulder. Ana seemed to grow distracted by ever last little thing. Her veiled gaze would flick between the tall tombs of nearby skyscrapers. Then she would stop to gaze down at the frozen corpse of a civilian that had moved too slowly. Time and time again Owl would gently take Ana's hand with his frozen own and pull her onward. The Galaxy Ladder was close and soon they would have what they wanted.
The snow was thinner on the third level of Coral City. It felt in soft waves from the twisted grey clouds high above. The weather obeyed the will of the Herrscher of the Ice, the normally tropical climate now Antarctic. The buildings were dusted in white. The temperature wasn't as cold on the third level, the wind off the still warm ocean helping moderate the atmosphere. Ironically the area had seen less destruction. It was a beautiful graveyard. A frozen image of what life had been like on a day earlier. Honkai beasts are drawn to Humans. But those on the third level had little chance of escape. If they fled below the radiation or more intense cold would get them. And the Valkyrja of Schicksal were unable to fight their way to the top level due to orders from Schicksal High Command. Encircle the city, evacuate what refugees you can and give the World Serpent space to do what they needed. As such those on the third level, including the Schicksal Offices of Coral, were abandoned to Honkai radiation and cold.
It was an open-air tomb. The dead huddled inside buildings clutching each other in their last moments. The final failure of Schicksal for a city of millions.
"Not far now, Ana," Owl would constantly mutter, "Not far at all."
The sight of the two of them moving was a strange one indeed. Owl with a curious insistence and Ana a serene princess of ice.
"Just a bit further to the Galaxy Ladder. Then we can—"
A distant roar carried up from below. The ground beneath shuddered. Owl felt the surge of Honkai energy, the upswell of Herrscher energy and then…
Nothing.
"Durandal found Mei."
Owl permitted himself a brief smile. Perhaps Raiden Mei had been captured. Maybe she had been injured and slunk off. It didn't matter to him. Their fight bought him all the time he needed.
"Not far now, Ana."
This mantra Owl continued to whisper as their trek continued. A memetic impulse that was seeping into his bones like a slow chill. All the while Ana trailed close behind. Hand clasped in hand. One leading the other.
Who led who?
Mei sprang from building to building. She relied on latent physical power rather than her Herrscher talents. Durandal matched her pace, not requiring her Godsbane battlesuit to make the mighty leaps. The two were making good time, heading towards one of the primary transport gateway towers between levels. Mei could feel the faint traces of the two other Herrscher. They had taken much the same path as her, though they kept to the streets below.
With a concrete crunch Mei landed atop what had likely once been a busy shopping mall. An open-air garden with small food stalls and a children's playground topped the commercial structure. Mei leant forward just enough to confirm what she thought was huddled at the bottom of a children's slide. She tsked and strode to the lip of the building. Closing her eyes made it easier to read the residual traces.
'Even I would draw a line at that,' Mei mused as she pushed the image of the playground to the back of her mind. 'Still the Honkai hold no candle against the harm humanity inflicts on itself constantly.'
The clack of metal heels announced Mei's unwanted partner.
"Would it not be easier to fly?" Durandal asked.
"No," was Mei's clipped response.
"Are you incapable of doing so yourself?" Durandal pressed. "Do you need your Honkai beast companion to assist?"
The thump of the third arrival interrupted the Valkyrja. Kurikara had been watching the rear in case they had any unwanted followers. At least that was what Mei had told Durandal. In truth she wanted the Valkyrja flanked at all times in case she turned rogue.
"My Lady has her plans. We shall abide by them."
Mei heard Durandal approach. She felt her approach. Felt the minor permutation of localised electromagnetic fields. Felt the shift in the air. Felt the energy held within the Bright Knight: Excelsis Honkai reactor module. The Valkyrja stood beside her, no doubt looking out over the dead city.
"You are apparently a Herrscher now. Yet I have seen you do even less than when we fought in Arc City. Your appearance, in red and block, feels muted. Your aversion to wielding Honkai energy or Herrscher energy. What are you—"
Mei's eyes flicked open. Her gaze bored into Durandal and stole words. Not out of fear. Durandal was beyond such emotions. She was, however, curious and wary. Mei's actions made little sense to her.
"If I determine the enemy's disposition of forces while I have no perceptible form," Mei quoted, "I can concentrate my forces while the enemy is fragmented. The pinnacle of military deployment approaches the formless: if it is formless, then even the deepest spy cannot discern it nor the wise make plans against it."
A curious shrug was Mei's follow-up.
"Oto-sama wanted a broad and cultured education. You were very predictable, Bianca, and eventually lashed out. The sort of noise will have been heard by Owl and Ana. They will move a little more confidently. And a little less cautiously. After all, everyone knows the stories of the no #1 S-rank Valkyrja of Schicksal that nobody has ever defeated. Right now, you are obviously dragging my unconscious form back to Schicksal Forward Command. Owl will assume that the two the two remaining World Serpent Cadre are lurking. However they don't stand a chance and Rita is now out of the picture. Nothing poses a threat to them short of the Hyperion getting involved. And they are several hours away assuming that the Overseer decides to go begging to them for aid. Everything is going according to Owl's plan."
Mei didn't give Durandal a chance to respond. She vaulted the perimeter fence of the mall and landed atop a nearby building. The trio returned to their sprinting broken up by the leaps between buildings. The distance to the gateway shrank rapidly. It looked like an enormous glass and lights encrusted steel pillar. Leisurely civilian elevators spiralling around the circumference, interspersed with observation bays and transmission aerials, the insides a knot of complex service, supply and transport elevators of all shapes and sizes. Mei didn't give the other two a chance to slow, leaping toward an aerial before twisting mid-air, grasping it and swinging in a parkour between several other protrusions, skipping across projecting balconies and sliding across glass windows before landing beside a service door. When Kurikara arrived Mei turned to Durandal and prodded her once in the chest.
"I led you on a merry chase for how long with just one Spectre? The No #1 S-rank Valkyrja tricked by a simple matrix of Honkai energy with a partial mental connection to me. This entire time we have been dancing in Owl's hand. If we are to stop him then we have to be smarter than he is."
Mei reached for the door, gripped the handle and… paused.
"Which isn't hard lately."
"Pardon?"
A niggling doubt tickled the back of Mei's mind. She sighed and gripped the handle tighter.
"Up until this point everything Owl has done has been tactically sound. Even if events had not played out the way that they did, I can see he had other options running concurrently to fall back upon. But his latest choices do not mesh with the previous tactician."
Durandal walked past Mei and barred the door.
"What do you mean?"
"Why head upward? What's up there that serves the purpose of escape? It would be better for him to launch a broad indiscriminate attack on an entire segment of the island. We know what his gravitational abilities are capable of. He could just grab multiple pieces of debris and launch them upward, let the chunks fall amidst the Valkyrja. Meanwhile Owl has Ana call in a winter squall. In that fog, dust and destruction the two could make their final escape. Once on the open water Ana is honestly unstoppable. The Ocean is a weapon and a bulwark for the Herrscher of Ice. Sink to the bottom in a cage made of ice, propel it across the seabed and reinforce it to withstand pressures at depths no human vessel can withstand. The average depth of the Pacific Ocean is 4000 m. I don't care how strong you are, Bianca, the pressure—"
"—At 4 km is roughly 385 atmospheres," Amarant's digital voice announced. "Nobody could pursue them. Better yet they reappear anywhere on the planet they want."
Mei tapped her earpiece, activating the holographic display and projecting an image of Amarant wearing a sly grin.
"Apologies for the delay, dear Customer. The customs officials at the border wanted to check very deeply in every cavity."
"The two Cadre?"
"Mostly intact. Rita is getting the medical attention she needs. That being said, I'm still impressed at how little she actually required. The 6th Divine Key really is something else."
Amarant's hologram turned to Durandal and smirked at the raised eyebrow she was being given.
"Information Broker. It's my job to know. Besides, I've worked with Schicksal before. Should be in your sealed records section."
Amarant tapped her chin thoughtfully.
"Though that isn't much of a clue. I wore a different face, fingerprints and walking gait each time."
"Stop wasting time," Mei purred.
"I'm not wasting time, dear Customer. I'm buying time for the last calculations to be completed."
"And?"
"None of the perimeter sensors you deployed have picked up even a trace of Herrscher energy. Hard to reconfigure from Honkai energy tracking. It's a proper skunkworks job but should suffice."
With a gesture Mei conjured up a holographic projection of Coral City. A blinking icon indicated where they at the transport gateway. Scattered throughout the city were the sensors Mei had previously seeded. Those that ringed the city perimeter blinked a different colour from the rest.
"I do not like it when I am right," Mei muttered.
"Anything else?"
"Was Rita forthcoming when you spoke to her? Does it align with any footage you recovered?"
"Owl did his best to scrub everything. But rushed work leaves gaps. Reflections in glass, timestamps that don't match up, audio out of sync. Long and short, Ana is mindless. That corroborates what Rita told me. Your Herrscher of Ice has the power to turn the planet into an ice cube and the brain of an ice cube left in the summer sun."
"And my operatives?"
"Received your earlier orders and are currently on mission. I passed on your instructions to be messy."
"Get yourself off the island. But maintain a standby connection in case I need further information."
"I've already left. Sorry, Durandal, but you may want to demote some of your people on perimeter."
All the holograms winked out. Mei stared at empty space. Her mind poured over various possibilities and tactical options. None of them made sense. What was Ana? Why return? Why box yourself in? What was the point?
"Everything that happened on the lake you planned out?" Durandal interrupted the train of thought.
"Finally, a good question."
"The chemical weapons. The World Serpent Cadre. Myself. Kurikara. Even Rita. Having your operative escort everybody out was part of your objective. You used all of us."
"And I will continue to do so. I'm not a blind fool stumbling along to someone else's orders. I will never be someone else's puppet again. I give the orders, Bianca. I make the decisions. I am the one with plans."
Mei ran a hand through her hair.
"Which is why I am having difficulty understanding what Owl's plan is. This is the first decision he has made that makes no tactical sense."
"Does it matter, my Lady?"
"If I cannot see the form of the plan then he is turning my tactics back on me. Truthfully, the idea of a tactician with the capabilities of the Herrscher gives me pause for concern."
"Are you certain he is up there, my Lady?"
The tingle that wound through Mei's spine was confirmation.
"About the only truth I am certain of."
Durandal grabbed the door and pulled it open.
"Our goal is to quell the two Herrscher. Do not assume that they are all thinking entities. They are Honkai in the end. They will give in to their Herrscher nature and destroy everything around them."
Mei snorted.
"I should point out that I am a Herrscher and," Mei gestured with a thumb over her shoulder toward Kurikara, "She is more of one than Wendy ever was."
The air stilled. Durandal's expression was neutral. Mei readied for another barb before the words died on her lips. It fell into place. The plan. The Herrscher looked up toward her opponent and smirked at being played. She respected the danger.
"Horse and cart," Mei cursed, "It's always horse and cart with me. It wasn't his plans I was seeing. For once, Bianca, you actually said something intelligent. Herrscher nature. The unseen will."
Mei pressed past Durandal and strode into the service stairwell. Steel stairs spiralled upward until the light was a faint pinprick above. Mei called on a flicker of Honkai power and leapt toward a railing several metres above. Once her boots made contact, she kicked off against it and toward a railing on the opposite side several metres above. The dark-haired woman zig-zagged through the air, closing the distance to the service door for the third level at frightening speed. Durandal flew up the stairwell on her Light Wings, Kurikara at the rear mirroring Mei's movements.
"We'll find them at the Galaxy Ladder," Mei shouted as she jumped. "I want you to fight Owl, Bianca. Leave Ana to me. Kurikara will provide assistance for you."
"I will not require any aid."
"I gave you the weaker Herrscher," Mei replied mockingly, "Kurikara is there just in case you underwhelm me."
The air around the Herrscher began to smell of ozone. Mei's excitement was bleeding off.
"Besides, it makes tactical sense. I need to bind the more powerful of the two and tangling someone's connection to the Imaginary Tree takes time."
Durandal zoomed up to match flight speed with Mei's nimble leaps.
"How much time?"
"That depends on the three-way connection between the manifest sentience, the core and the Imaginary Tree."
"Manifest sentience?"
"Remember when your boss decided to let the Herrscher of the Void loose for a laugh? That may have been K423, Kiana's, body. But the manifest sentience was the Herrscher. She had a perfect connection to the core and to the Tree. Tangling up her connection would have been incredibly difficult. On the other hand let us look at Wendy. You never made it to her. Theresa had you busy dealing with other things. But her manifest sentience was weak willed, her connection to the core was weak and the connection to the Tree even weaker still. Back when I was still pathetic I still fought against her. Sealing Wendy would have taken seconds. In the middle would be someone like Bronya. The Core isn't her own so the manifest sentience connection to it would be weak. But the Core of Reason has been around for several decades so it's connection to the Tree would be strong. Likely so strong it would prove dangerous to the user. Tangling it would be moderately difficult. Taking it from Bronya would be an easier method."
"I wasn't aware you knew so much."
"Just musing, Bianca. Your role is to keep the weaker of the two distracted. I will fight and seal Ana first. I need to assess her connection and feel it out before striking. She also needs to be weak enough for me to properly knot up the connection rather than just give it a jostle. If I make a mistake Ana will be on guard and flood herself with enough Honkai and Herrscher energy that nothing short of death will stop her."
All three women ascended the stairwell. As they moved Mei laid out the finer details of her plan, it's reasoning and necessary contingencies. Durandal had to admit, Raiden focussed on unconventional tactics when she applied herself.
An enormous garden of beautiful snow lotus surrounded the entrance to the Galaxy Ladder. Icy white trees, now devoid of their leaves, were planted amidst the sea of white flowers that gently rippled in the cold breeze. A large central stone thoroughfare bisected the garden where it led from the main street to the Galaxy Ladder's main public access. At the end of the thoroughfare were several flights of tall stone stairs giving an impression of scale and importance. The stairs were broken up by large terraces that gave a wide view over the gardens and greater surrounds of Coral City.
By now the cold had killed everything. Owl looked up and marvelled at the Galaxy Ladder. The structure, several hundred metres in diameter and over a kilometre high, was a planned and partially constructed equatorial planetary elevator. Though only early in construction, it was still a marvel of human engineering, the top end tethered to artificial gravity buoys. It looked like a giant circular tower, though Owl knew that idea was an extreme bastardisation when compared against the incredibly complex and technical engineering that was involved.
"We're here, Ana," Owl whispered.
Ana gave a low moan. It was becoming easier and easier for Owl to understand what Ana was saying. In some moments it felt as though she making intelligible sounds. Ana chose to remain a short distance back, hovering near a tree and running her fingers over the frozen bark while Owl climbed up to the first terrace, deep in thought.
"But what to do now. I know I had a plan. This was where we—"
A several tonne metal dumpster flew out of the mist. Owl caught the object in a gravity well, clenching one hand to focus the force before propelling it toward its origin.
"Pity," someone called out. "I was really hoping to catch the fire in that thing. Good reflexes mind you. Colour me impressed"
A woman dressed in red and black clothes, with white tights and black boots strode out of the heavy fog. Her hair was done up in a ponytail, black gloved hands hovering close to a blade at her hip.
Raiden Mei. This wasn't what Owl had planned for. But he would recover. If his opponent gave him such a gaudy opening he would use it. Owl drew on the power in his chest more than before, projecting a 100x gravity well on Raiden's location. She attempted to dodge. But her reflexes couldn't account for the intense gravitation pull. The Herrscher was drawn into it, face in clear agony as she struggled against the impossible force that bound even stars. Then the woman shattered into fragments of crimson light. A lance fell from the sky and slammed into the steps, shattering the area before Owl and sending him stumbling backward.
"Mitsukete," Mei whispered behind Ana.