After perhaps an hour of running, poking over the treetops, Eleanor could see a huge pyramid, perhaps four thousand feet wide, and five hundred feet tall. Seemed that that's where they were headed, but there was still quite a bit of running to do!
Despite his size, the creature was quite fast on his feet. But so was Eleanor, and she had no problem keeping up with him. He often trampled over shrubbery and small trees, suggesting a lack of agility and manoeuvrability. He stopped to look behind, Eleanor already standing behind him. He briefly growled while rearing.
"Oh, I can run fast," Eleanor assured with a small smile. The beast nodded, then darted off, Eleanor running after him, the two moving quite fast.
Cannon fire and rocketry screamed in the skies, shells exploded midair and rained down fiery debris, and the airships' naval guns bombarded the area below them. The artillery batteries fired both at the air and across the landscape, clearly a battle of land and air. Soon, Eleanor heard the echoes of gunfire, fire and smoke building around her as well.
"Yarsto vrau'hn' pextnu, favi!" the beast grumbled, jumping through a wall of vegetation and breaking through it, Eleanor jumping through the hole he made.
Up ahead was a graveyard-like series of ruins. He lowered himself as he sprinted, body rippling into translucency. Eleanor also lowered herself as she ran, hearing loud gunfire off to the sides.
Perhaps a hundred feet to her left, she saw, apparently, men wearing medieval armour, taking cover amidst ruins. Each man wore a steel cuirass, great helm, greaves, vambraces, and demi-gauntlets, metal armour worn over padding. Over their armour, they wore the hide of a jaguar, wolf, spectacled bear, crocodile, anaconda, some sort of giant predatory bird, or for a few soldiers, the hide of a feathered dinosaur. The heads of the animals were worn over the helmet.
The anachronistic soldiery were armed with firelocks of varying length and size: muskets, arquebuses, carbines, pistols, a few blunderbusses, and a few wall guns placed over short cover. The soldiers also had backswords and daggers at their sides, daggers have a ring at the cross-guard. Their musketry created thick curtains of smoke, concealing them.
Meanwhile, far to Eleanor's right, seemed to be the entrance to a mausoleum. A huge pyramid towered after the mausoleum, and mounted atop it, a big airship that had yet to take-off, looking rather damaged.
Various soldiery took cover amidst the ruins towards the mausoleum and pyramid, but these soldiers were different. They were armed with more modern-looking guns, reminding Eleanor of firearms of the First and Second World Wars. They wore a mix of formal clothes, working clothes, bullet belts, and military pouches on their clothes. Many had half their faces painted red or wore red bandanas or leathery masks. A few even wore goofy red hoods with cloth horns. These more modern-looking soldiery consisted of white men and African-Americans.
The prospect of soldiers using ramrods to reload their guns, compared to soldiers using magazines or clips, seemed like pretty hopeless odds. Nevertheless, the anachronistic soldiery stood their ground.
"Where the hell is she goin'?" one of the black men exclaimed as Eleanor followed her companion.
"Get ou' a' deh way!" one of the white men shouted, having an Irish accent, reminding Eleanor of Cathal.
They speak English... Eleanor thought to herself as both sides stopped fighting, as if letting her run through the crossfire.
"Mar'e! Verda, pirimmur gar kal!" one of the anachronistic soldiers shouted, one donning the hide of a feathery dinosaur, probably a commander. Many of the plated soldiers withdrew their daggers and inserted them over their barrels, whilst some dropped their firearms and unsheathed their swords.
"Ke serim, y bikadinir!" another shouted, and taking the advantage of Eleanor's distraction, many of the anachronistic soldieries jumped over their cover and charged forth with bayonets or swords, emerging from the thick smoke caused by their firelocks while screaming like bloodthirsty animals.
The sudden war cry caused the modern soldiers to hesitate, beholding blades and armours glinting in the sunlight. Suddenly, the charging warriors spread out, running from cover to cover just as the modern gunfire commenced. Some charging warriors fired their firelocks while running, then threw down their guns and unsheathed backswords, clearly indicating their next plan of attack! The modern bullets pierced their plate armour easily enough, poking clean holes, but those shot continued charging. It appeared that modern bullets failed to penetrate their padded armour with enough force to kill, but blood gushed out the holes in their armour at every heartbeat.
"Here they come! Get ready!" a black man yelled, emptying his sniper rifle rounds on a few charging warriors with headshots.
"You better not get me killed!" Eleanor shouted, mostly to her guide, but also to those who could speak English.
"Wha deh hell are ya doin', lassie? Get yer ass outta 'ere!" an Irishman screamed, shooting his machine gun at her direction to suppress a few warriors moving into cover. One of them fired his musket, hitting the Irishman in the chest. He staggered and then slumped behind cover.
Eleanor continued following her friend, the sounds of gunfire, clicking armour, war cries, and bombardment echoing in all directions. She was surprised to note that, despite their heavy medieval armour, the warriors sprinted with great speed, catching up to their modern foes within a few seconds. A short exchange of gunfire at point-blank range rook dozens of warriors down, armour ripping apart and blood erupting, but firelocks used at point-blank range also took out some soldiers.
Once able, the warriors rammed their bayonets into their enemies, but those with swords grabbed their foes' guns first, then proceeded to cut the head or arm off, or repeatedly chop. The modern soldiery relied on bats, cudgels, or clubbing with their guns, but against such armoured foes, stood little chance. The few soldiers who wore blast armour and devil-like helmets fared better, one launching a rocket and hurling a dozen warriors into the air. However, the charging warriors jumped upon the armoured soldiers, bringing them to the ground, pulled their helmets off, and thrust their swords into their faces or headbutted their helms to bust open skulls.
A portion of soldiers ran away, but their medieval-armoured pursuers caught up with them, jumping on their backs, bringing them down to let others finish them off. Other pursued and simply bayoneted fleeing foes in the back.
Eleanor's big friend trampled over warriors and soldiers in his way, Eleanor skipping over them to follow the glowing nervous system.
"Prudii verda!" one of the anachronistic warriors shouted, sounding like a warning. Several other warriors spun around, but only saw Eleanor running between them.
"Iba'..."
"Tion'ad?"
"Sur'ar bat te akaanir!" one of the warriors shouted, smacking the helmet of the previous one who spoke, to get everyone to focus on the battle.
Eleanor could not possibly know what they were saying, but she figured they were exclaiming surprise. They spoke some form of Mando'a, a language that did not exist in Eleanor's world, unsurprisingly.
"Prudii verda!" another warrior shouted, he and a few others turning around and firing their flintlock muskets at Eleanor's friend as he darted across their path. This subsequently meant that they fired at Eleanor's direction, but fortunately, they missed.
"Hey! Don't shoot me!" Eleanor yelled, but the warriors charged the beast anyways, gripping their muskets in both hands by the barrel and swinging them like clubs.
The beast swung his spear like a bat, the shaft hitting one warrior across the helm and staggering him. Upon being hit by the heavy firelocks, the beast grunted but did not seem hurt. He bashed the middle of his spear into a warrior's helm and staggered him, and a push kick took him off his feet. The beast then dropped his spear and grabbed one of the men who was repeatedly hitting him with the stock of a musket, lifted him overhead, and slammed him headfirst into the ground. The man was not killed, but quite dazed. Swinging his big paws, the beast's mighty blows shook armour, and knocked two other warriors off their feet.
A few other warriors noticed something amiss, so they turned, dropped their spent guns, unsheathed swords, and charged the beast. The beast growled at them, but they reached him and began cutting at him, edges sliding off his hide without doing much.
The beast swiped his claws powerfully and repeatedly, knocking aside incoming swords and hitting helms, but then his foes suddenly were blasted back by some force. The beast turned around, seeing Eleanor amassing a man-sized ring of purple. She unleashed her Plasmid, the wave of anti-gravitational power knocking back a dozen warriors into ruins.
"We better be close to wherever you're taking me!" Eleanor yelled at her guide, and then following him around the corner of a giant head statue. After that, she joined running with several other warriors who happened to be running in the same direction. She and they saw a rather huge man who looked like a wooden Abraham Lincoln, wielding a big crank gun.
"No negotiation, no surrender, no forgiveness!" a hollow-sounding voice exclaimed from the wooden man, accompanied by mechanical noises. His crank gun began ripping, unleashing a rapid stream of gunfire, bullets hitting the ground and kicking earth and bits of rubble at Eleanor.
"Woo-whoa!" Eleanor squeaked, skipping out of the path of bullets; the construct was not aiming at her?
The warriors near her fired their muskets and continued running, but were nonetheless gunned down before reaching cover. About two dozen other warriors kept their heads low behind various ruins and rubble, suppressed by the crank gun which did not seem to ever aim at Eleanor. Their firelocks were useless against the mechanical entity.
"Cuun gaid shuk'yc contra ibac tracy'uur! Vencuyanir hukaatir!" one of the warriors screamed, waving his hand downwards, his platoon keeping their heads low as the crank gun suppressed them.
"Hide if you must, but there shall be no mercy!" the mechanical construct warned, jogging forth to seek out his enemies. Other soldiers appeared off in the distance, snipers and riflemen, who took cover and fired at the suppressed enemies. "You are wheat, and we the scythe!"
A spear suddenly rammed into the construct's arm, pinning it against its body, preventing it from holding its weapon with both hands; the crank gun lowered, firing into the ground. Eleanor saw her guide leap upon the wooden man. The translucent creature's weight brought the construct down, then had its head promptly ripped off. The beast then ripped its spear out the construct's body and arm, then darted off.
"Te beskar'ad ru'naastar! Ram'or val taap!" one of the warriors shouted, and he and his fellows leapt over their cover and charged enemies further up the isle of ruins. Gunfire and a few rockets showered the incoming warriors, ruins sometimes blowing apart, but they kept charging.
Eleanor had no choice but to follow her guide through the chaos with just her one eye. She could have used her Plasmids to cause some real mayhem, but she did not know who was friend or foe, especially since no one was intentionally trying to kill her. For now, she would be patient.
Looking up, Eleanor could see a few airships floating by, people atop them firing rockets and guns downward. Since they could shoot overhead, the warriors in cover were left vulnerable.
"Me'sene laam!" a nearby warrior warned, and then a rocket sent he and a few others through the air.
One airship was hit by an artillery barrage of some sort. Eleanor saw large metal balls thudding against the hull, splintering it open here and there, but the airship remained flying without much trouble. A few more cannonballs simply bounced off the balloon.
Cannonballs? Eleanor thought to herself, seeing some rockets screaming towards the airships as well. She figured the artillery batteries were perhaps a thousand yards away, but it was impossible to see them through the jungle.
The rockets fired from ground level appeared to be quite old-fashioned, essentially oversized iron-cased rockets that served as explosive incendiary weapons. Soon, shells exploding midair hurled some fiery debris into the airships, causing small fires. However, the artillery was unable to down any of the airships, at least so far. The largest airships, the ones equipped with naval guns, appeared to be immune to the artillery, and continued bombarding ground forces far away.
The bombardment caused more fires farther into the jungle, Eleanor seeing pillars of smoke rising here and there. Things were getting crazy, though airships near rising smoke were forced to fly away from it. She assumed that forest fires were deliberately started to drive off the airships or hide the positions of ground forces. Against technologically superior foes, craftiness was the only option, after all.
Up ahead, the beast began to crawl up a steep ridge of rubble with a tiny waterfall going down it. Eleanor simply teleported up there, beating the creature to the top. He looked up at her with a snort.
"Come on, slowpoke, let's go," Eleanor teased.
More trees up ahead, with a growing forest fire a few hundred feet to Eleanor's right. She could see what appeared to be a walled city, surrounding the giant pyramid the two headed to. The echoes of gunfights and bombardment were much louder here.
Placed against the wall were several siege ladders, made crudely but strongly, simply consisting of tall, narrow trees with horizontal beams nailed into the trees. So far, there was no one on the ladders or walls. The creature jumped, using two adjacent ladders to scale the walls, but once again, Eleanor just teleported up to the top.
Atop the walls, Eleanor could see more of what was happening. The Mesoamerican city was overgrown and in ruins, but some of it had been converted into a makeshift military compound. Various muzzle-loading cannons were positioned along in the walls, towers, and even on the surfaces of pyramids and temples, operators equipped in padded armour and morions. Some of them were rocketeers, launching large Congreve rockets.
Despite inferior technology, the cannoneers used their hopelessly outdated weapons efficiently, firing at airborne enemies and bombarding, apparently, other sections of the ancient city beyond large sections of wooded areas. It seemed that opposing forces were both besieging and defending various parts of the city, which was quite oversized for them, considering that there probably were no more than a few hundred combatants in total. Most combatants seemed to have taken refuge in various ancient buildings or moved down overgrown streets in squads or platoons.
The giant airships caused great havoc amongst the anachronistic warriors, shells blasting cannoneers and their equipment off their own walls. Sections of various walls, towers, and temples had already been blown apart, though the giant pyramid seemed to withstand modern shells without too much trouble.
"Has'hn' ras ooto," the beast said, pointing at the giant pyramid. "Venri jas xesq tova'viv nin venri."
"Right..." Eleanor remarked, growing a bit fond of this big guy.
Machine gun fire took the two off-guard, several bullets simply bouncing off the beast's translucent body, his hide as strong as a crocodile's. A few soldiers fired out the windows of an ancient building, probably mistaking Eleanor for an enemy. Instinctively, she threw an explosive fireball at the structure, the explosion ceasing their gunfire.
"Hey! Don't shoot me!" Eleanor yelled, but more machine gun fire came back, as well as a rocket. Eleanor used her anti-gravitational Plasmid to loop the rocket, sending it flying away somewhere as bullets hit the road around her feet. She teleported around the corner of a statue.
The creature ran towards the building, throwing his spear into one of the windows, one of the men shouting aloud. The beast then clawed up the building's wall, grabbing one of the gunmen and pulling him out the window.
"Ahhhh!" the fella shouted as he fell, a large man wearing blast armour and a helmet shaped like a bull's head, landing hard on his shoulders, his rocket launcher landing nearby.
The creature crawled into the building, two men shouting aloud as the beast growled, accompanied by thrashing and wet thudding. Eleanor grimaced. She could only imagine what the beast did to the men, but they were soon quiet.
As the beastly-looking soldier picked himself up, he lifted his rocket launcher up as well, but a big spear was thrown out the window and bounced off his helmet, leaving a dent in it. Regaining his footing, the man raised his rocket launcher again, and the real beast leapt out the window. Eleanor teleported beside the man, grabbing and pulling his rocket launcher out his grasp; her friend promptly landed atop him, pinning him to the road.
Grabbing the man's helmet by both its horns, the creature repeatedly smashed the helmet against the road, until the helmet loosened and he was able to pull it off. Eleanor's eye widened when she saw her friend snap his jaws over the man's head and pull him up with just his jaws. As if a dog thrashing a chew toy, the creature jerked his head to and fro, and the man's heavy, heavily-armoured body flailed side to side. Placing his reptilian hands on the man's shoulders, the beast pushed the man downwards while the beast pulled his head back, keeping his jaws locked, and literally ripped the man's head off.
"Done and dusted for sure," Eleanor remarked. She kept her rocket launcher, and then the two continued their run towards the great pyramid.
It was not long until Eleanor saw another surprise. This time, it was huge, and fast. She saw what appeared to be a giant primitive cyborg, wearing a red hood, red straps around its torso, and huge trousers. It was moving along the ancient buildings like a gorilla, using it's massive and greatly elongated arms to propel himself. His arms were longer than his height, and his huge hands covered with blood.
The giant mechanical thing was smashing open buildings, grabbing anachronistic warriors and throwing them great distances or slamming them into structures. Their firelocks did little against the massive mechanical monster. Even Eleanor's friend seemed nervous, going on all fours and hissing as the cyborg very quickly approached.
"Hahn-dee-man!" the creature bellowed.
"Hm? Handyman? So, you do know a few English words after all!" Eleanor remarked, but the creature was clearly spooked. Eleanor gently placed her hand on his shoulder, and he looked at him. "I'll handle this, you stay safe!" Eleanor said. She, surprisingly, tossed her rocket launcher aside and approached the giant cyborg.
"You wanna feel like me? Smash you into bits!" the giant cyborg shouted as he noisily trudged toward the girl.
Eleanor was not afraid, galring at the mechanical thing with her one eye. She began by throwing large, explosive, fireballs as Big Sisters tend to, one after the other hitting the giant thing. He soon caught fire and roared, so Eleanor did him a favour and threw more fireballs at him.
Raising his gorillian, mechanical arms, the Handyman slammed them down, but Eleanor easily dodged them, skipping to the side. So, the cyborg swung his arm sideways. Eleanor jumped in the air, placing her hands atop the incoming arm and flipping over it. She then unleashed a powerful electrobolt, shocking the Handyman with such force he reared and shook wildly.
"RRRAARRRR! Get you big! Grind you into pieces, like how my body feels!" the cyborg roared, and once recovering from his electrocution, began a series of smashing his arms at Eleanor. She dodged each and every single one without any trouble, but she also used her psychokinesis to slow down the monster's hands. "Coward! Stop! Fight!"
"What was that? Make it last? Good idea!" Eleanor replied, and as the Handyman swung his arms down upon her, she teleported away, reappearing as sitting on his own shoulders! Hugging the big guy's neck with her legs, Eleanor placed her hands on his ears, then unleashed her fiery Plasmids, sending them into his huge skull. Smoke and flames flowed out the Handyman's nose and mouth, and he screamed with such force, his voice echoed down the city block.
"Get off from me!" he howled, but before he could grab her, Eleanor rolled backwards off his shoulders, flipping onto her feet. The Handyman spun around, slamming his arms down, head still burning from within. "Break you, little Comstock! Break you False Prophet! I BREAK YOU, FALSE PROPHET!" he continued, smashing his hands like crazy everywhere Eleanor was, breaking bits of homes.
"What are you talking about?" Eleanor shouted, skipping and leaping out of the cyborg's massive hands. "I am not some bloody messiah! You're about as smart as a Brute Splicer!" she continued, performing a backwards flip, then lobbing a fireball at the Handyman.
"My head, hurts! Heart, hurts! Skin, hurts! I do all to you! RRRUUURRR!" he roared, and Eleanor chuckled as she teleported behind him. The Handyman grunted from confusion, then slowly turned around.
"I can see the ugly one trying not to cry! Don't worry, you only live once, so I'll make this last!" Ms. Lamb taunted.
Roaring again, the Handyman propelled him with his hands with great vigour and anger, Eleanor unleashing big fireballs in one hand, and electrobolts in the other. Her Plasmids broke the cyborg open, a circular plate bursting open and revealing some sort of mechanical heart. Eleanor sighed.
"A girl gets all worked up, just over a big, dumb, broken toy..."
"URRRRAAAHH!"
Eleanor used her telekinesis to slow down the Handyman's movement, then raised a chunk of broken masonry, and hurled it at his head with great force. It bounced off with a satisfying crunch, and the cyborg reared from pain, forehead cracked open.
"Ow! Hurts so much more! I do to you, little False Prophet!"
"Oh my, the False Prophet is getting bored!" Eleanor teased, dodging the brute's attacks, but then he actually grabbed her. She lightly gasped.
"Ah-hah! Got you! Now chew brains out!" the Handyman yelled, gripping Eleanor tightly and lifting her to bite her head off. On the last moment, she teleported away, and the Handyman bit his thumb instead. "Uhh!? But nothing outrun me! Where go? Make me angry!? Fight, noisy coward!"
"Over here!" Eleanor called down the street, so the Handyman turned and charged her. He leapt at her, now slapping his mighty hands together to crush her. Eleanor flipped backwards, the cyborg's hands smashing together nothing.
Eleanor quickly jumped atop the closed hands, running along an arm and dropkicking the Handyman in the face, each heel ramming into each of his eyes. She then teleported midair behind the Handyman, and cast several explosive fireballs at him.
"UHHHRRR! Not fire again!" the cyborg wailed as his body ignited again.
"Don't worry, I promise to keep you toasty!" Eleanor said, "What was that, dear Papa? Teach him how to dance? Certainly, Papa!" she continued, unleashing Incinerate that engulfed the Handyman. He roared in agony, flames eating away at his mechanical body, the glass covering his heart slowly melting.
While on fire, the cyborg swung his arms with wild abandon, moving around randomly and attacking buildings at times. His efforts were all for nothing, Eleanor dancing amidst the hands and flames, casting more and fierier Plasmids to blacken the Handyman, and rather enjoying herself! The Handyman's head burned away, leaving behind a charred skull, eyeballs melting.
"Aww, that's too bad... I wish you still had your eyes, I want to watch you...slip away."
The Handyman raised his arms and waved them while screaming, flailing his arms with such force his mechanical parts loosened, bolts flying out. Eleanor blasted forth two electrobolts, one in each hand, electrocuting the Handyman into a reared position.
"RRRRAAAGGGHHH! Coals everywhere! Everything hurts! Everything so hot!" he howled as he shivered from electricity and fire.
"And you were doing so well..." Eleanor lamented, and then she extended her arm, and made a fist. Her telekinetic Plasmid focused on the Handyman's heart, slowly pulling it out his chest, cables and sparks erupting. She did not rip the heart out, but just let it hang, still beating outside his chest.
The Handyman looked down at himself, staring at his still-beating heart. Then, he felt his jaw being pulled, as if from within. Feeling his teeth and jaw cracking, it gradually separated from his skull, soon popping off, leaving his tongue to dangle. Eleanor smirked, then jerked her hand forwards, and the jawbone shot backwards, the sides stabbing into the Handyman's eye sockets.
The electricity ended, and the Handyman slammed his hands down, heart dangling lower, the cyborg unable to see and talk.
Eleanor calmly walked forwards, hip sway generous. Once able, she grabbed the hanging heart with both hands, feeling it pump, then ripped it out the Handyman's chest. He fell into a sitting position, then slowly fell backwards, landing with a crash as a heaping pile of flaming junk. Eleanor tossed the heart onto the fiery pile.
"Didn't mean to break your heart, hun," she commented, then turned around. She saw the creature standing a short distance away, his natural stealth systems off, mouth open, eyes big. "Now, where were we?"
The creature pointed at the giant pyramid.
"Oh, right, yes... Giant pyramid, how could I miss that?" Eleanor chuckled to herself. She used psychokinesis to pull the rocket launcher into her hands, and the two moved on.
A while later, Eleanor heard galloping, and turned her head. Sure enough, galloping down a street, were perhaps eight horsemen, three at the front wielding lances, the others carrying carbines. All the cavalrymen wore rusty steel cuirasses and open-faced helmets over padded garments, but their equipment was plain.
One of the lancers pointed his lance at her direction, clearly indicating to attack the translucent beast. The lancers couched their lances and charged, spurring their horses, whilst the beast growled while retrieving his spear.
At first, Eleanor considered firing her rocket launcher into the cavalry, but did not want to kill the horses, and there just was not any time to form Plasmids. So, she fired her rocket launcher into the ground ahead of the horsemen, the blast and debris scaring the horses and causing them skid to a stop. The whiplash hurled the riders over their horses' necks, their steeds then rearing and neighing.
"Haar'chak!" one of the lancers shouted as he tumbled to the ground, dropping his lance as well. He sat up and looked at Eleanor. He and the other men reminded her of the facial appearance of Latinos.
The beast was about to jump upon the downed men, but Eleanor grabbed his arm and pulled him to the side. The creature faced Eleanor silently, certainly surprised by how strong she was!
"We don't need to fight everything that comes our way! Let's just go!" Eleanor said, gesturing at the creature to move on, so he nodded and darted off. Eleanor dropped her emptied rocket launcher and ran with him.
The horsemen with carbines sat up and aimed, but then lowered their guns, wondering why a girl was running off with a beast. They looked at each other, dumbstruck.
Later, Eleanor and her guide neared the giant pyramid, an airship's naval guns shooting at it while the bombardiers positioned on one side of the pyramid fired back at the aircraft. Eleanor felt the ground shaking underfoot.
"Was'hn' lupo bnashiro," the creature bellowed, heading for what appeared to be a giant entranceway leading into the pyramid.
Eleanor could only see blackness in there, and the bombardment made the ground shake again. She skidded to a stop.
"Wait! We're going inside the pyramid? Don't you feel the whole place shaking?" Eleanor asked. The beast went on all fours to stop himself running, then spun around, huffing aloud.
"Joth tau'hn' o! Has'hn' azd iyo'carco!" the beast growled, sounding desperate, then placed a hand on his forehead, as if thinking hard. He stood up, looking at Eleanor. "Eh, eh, ell...elzbeth, elabath, ela, ela, elithibith, elkbeth..." he was trying to say something. Eleanor furrowed her eye.
"Elizabeth?" Eleanor suggested, then he pointed at her for a moment.
"Elizabeth!" the beast exclaimed.
Eleanor furrowed her eyebrows.
This cannot be a coincidence, he clearly wants to take me to someone named Elizabeth, Eleanor thought to herself.
"Alright, let's go see Elizabeth," Eleanor said, the creature nodding again, "whoever she may be."
The creature nodded again, then ran up the steps, heading for the entrance. Eleanor walked after him, but had a bad feeling. The echoes of gunfire, explosions, rockets, and humming of the aircraft made everything feel so unstable.
Eleanor heard the echoes of galloping, and turned to look down the highway. Sure enough, perhaps a thousand horsemen had entered the city via the gatehouse a few miles away, the many hooves thundering against the ground and shaking the entire city. The horsemen were firing into buildings and receiving gunfire and even rockets, literally charging their way through the city and whatever opposition was in their way.
Eleanor's eye widened and her mouth dropped. However, it was not because of the numerous horses, but what was running with them. There was a fucking triceratops part of the cavalry charge, the rider mounted on a saddle on the dinosaur's neck. On the dino's back was a wooden platform with swivel guns mounted at each corner of the railings.
Sure enough, some airships targetted the cavalry, firing shells at them and wrecking havoc amongst the horses. Nevertheless, the horsemen continued galloping toward the pyramid, whilst the remaining cannoneers on the pyramid fired at their airborne enemies with greater vigour. The charging cavalry spread apart, to lessen casualties from incoming fire, but also so that some pursued fleeing soldiers.
Eleanor faced the entranceway, and sighed.
"If this pyramid collapses over my head...I'll kill you."