What Time Has Wrought
A tortured wail faded quickly into the morning mist as a curved dagger fell against the dry, frozen mud just outside of Ruben village as a pair of disarmed and disorganized bandits fled into the forest. As they ran away clutching their wounded limbs, Lowe glared absently into the great shadow of silence that still surrounded every crevice in the streets and every corner of the fields. It had been more than two months since Elsword left with Aisha and Rena to recover the forest's El and the only news anyone had heard since was that they were on their way into the desert after chasing Lord Wally from his castle. As Lowe walked back toward the tavern, a faint chill brushed against his brow, the weary sigh of a weak winter breeze. Though frost still clung tightly to the trees, it would only be another two weeks before the start of spring. If the El wasn't back by then, this village and all of the others within the forest's reach would be too late for their yearly planting, too late for their autumn harvest, and too late to continue living in this ruthless world.
Scowling as he sheathed his blade, Lowe closed his eyes and scoffed. "I should've taken their El while I had the chance. If they're using it to prey upon a village like this, they don't deserve it." He chastised himself immediately, well aware that he would have never done such a thing even if those 'bandits' had been real criminals. Like almost everyone else who prowled about the village gates these days, the greatest crime in their past was likely along the lines of lying about eating the last dinner roll or forgetting to tie up their horse. As the winter wore on, more and more of the forest's residents took up arms, ambushing travelers on the road and taking their El in a vain attempt to bring some sort of stability to their home. Their efforts often came to naught, like a child trying to patch a fatal wound with a bit of gauze and tape. Realizing this, Lowe could do little more than let these 'bandits' keep their lives and run them off, though the very act of protecting a village languishing in the absence of El was beginning to lose its meaning.
Over the course of the past six weeks, seven villagers had died as a result of accidents involving their El crystals. A child forgot to tie her pendant tightly and it fell into the river when she went to fetch water for the tavern, her breath stolen as her El floated to the bottom of the murky blue. Two men set out to gather supplies from Elder and were robbed on the road, left for dead and found days later, their faces still frozen in dismal fright. Three others died simply by tripping along the street, their crystals falling away and leaving them to suffocate in the eerie silence. Even without losing their El, there were still people on the verge of death. With firewood running scarce and almost all medicine out of reach, three more villagers succumbed to the bitter chill of the endless winter nights and still more were sick, hungry, and exhausted from enduring the long siege against them. With the sun nearly set and the forest welcoming the night, Lowe returned to the tavern where Chief Hagus greeted him with a warm, weary smile.
"Ah, Lowe... welcome back."
A quick nod was the only answer Lowe gave. After the first month, Hagus's familiar greeting became little more than reminder of the stagnation around them; his words were always the same, and his voice only grew more disheartened by the day. As he bit into a tough, crumbling clump of bread, Lowe sighed and folded his arms onto the table before him.
"How many times will the people from the other villages come here looking to steal our El? It can't do them any good if the whole forest stays dead like this."
"Well, you may be right... but we could very easily be in their position..." Hagus slowly sipped a stein of lukewarm water, "In fact, we may be foolish not to be that desperate. Your presence here, and the thought that someday soon, Elsword and our guests will return with the El are all we have to give us the tiniest sliver of hope that we'll survive, and by now... it isn't certain that the boy will make it in time. If we didn't have that tiny fragment of hope, though... we would be worrying about how to save our friends and our families, and when those things are in danger, people do the most reckless things to protect them."
Hagus raised his cup to his lips and his hands trembled, falling away as he broke into a fit of ragged coughs and painful gasps. Before Lowe could move to pat his back, the Chief's throat was clear and he breathed easily and shook his head. "Oof... I'm alright, I'm alright... though if spring doesn't come soon, this cold will be the death of me..."
"Just don't strain yourself... We've got to be ready to plant everything in a single week if it comes down to that."
Returning to his seat, Lowe finished off his bread and folded his hands together, staring quietly into the fireplace as the warmth finally returned to his bones. What Hagus had told him was nothing shocking; he knew very well that they had placed all of their trust in two entirely unknown travelers and a young knight who had yet to prove himself outside of the village grounds. As unreasonable and unlikely as their success appeared, the alternatives were far more certain and far less palatable. At present, Elder was awash with refugees and turning away everyone at the gate, their surplus of food dwindling rapidly as hundreds of starving villagers from the forest poured into the city looking for food and shelter. While the younger villagers might be able to make their way to the coast and forge a new life somewhere far away, that would leave dozens of children, families, and elders waiting at their fireside with the silence wrapped tightly around their shoulders. Their choices were grim; stay and die in silence, or leave and die in hunger. With all other possibilities lost to them and the veil of winter slowly falling away, the villagers of Ruben weathered the siege of stillness and anxiously awaited the return of the El, the return of spring, and the return of life to the breathless world.
Across the sea, as the morning fog rolled away from Altera's shores, Eve waited within the shadows of the mountainside, staring down at the grand gates of the nasod foundry and its stalwart guards. Despite having spent all of the previous evening repairing herself and constructing Oberon, her feet felt light and her hands were steady as she ran a final check of her newly modified systems.
"System check... all functions normal... engaging broad spectrum cloaking."
A faint glimmer brightened the cliffside for just a moment as Eve's body faded into the wind and she stood invisible before the dawn. Just a hundred yard away, no fewer than a dozen armed nasod stood watch over the foundry's towering facade, their faced flat and empty as they searched the horizon for any sign of intruders. As a strong breeze rustled the reeds at their feet, a sharp metallic clash shattered the morning calm and two nasod fell to the ground in a fuming heap of mangled steel. By the time the other guards took notice of the attack, three more of them lay lifeless against the foundry walls. Almost immediately, the guards stood paralyzed by their rigid programming, unable to declare themselves under attack and unable to identify any errors that could lead to spontaneous maiming. Within seconds, a bright flash of silver rushed toward the gates and sliced cleanly through the remaining nasod, breaking through eight inches of steel and throwing aside the foundry doors as if they were ragged curtains whipping about in the wind. Revealing herself at last, Eve threw her hands out to her side and sent Moby and Remy crashing into a pair of massive boilers, spiraling rapidly and tearing through a half dozen assembly lines as Eve spun her arms and folded them together in front of her.
Now standing in the faint glow of the rising sun as their shadows poured across the factory floor, Elsword, Aisha, Raven, and Rena raised their weapons and surveyed their surroundings. While they stood staring at the countless whirling pumps, presses, and machine mills that produced an endless stream of circuits and sheet metal, a small group of assault model nasod rushed out from the back of the room with their bladed arms glistening ominously. Glaring coldly at the approaching enemies, Eve's eyes narrowed and she pointed sharply.
"Oberon."
In a slick stream of silver, Oberon sliced through the charging nasod, spinning back to face his opponents as sparks and fire burst from their shredded chests. With his targets destroyed, Oberon returned to Eve's side and awaited her next command. Breathing sharply as the cacophony of pounding metal and hissing steam flooded the air around her, Eve stepped forward and opened her console.
"The elevator to the core is on the bottom level of the foundry. Do not hesitate to destroy anything you see on the way there. The nasod have no use of weapons."
"Are you sure?" Rena glanced aside at Eve as she shot a slew of arrows into an oversized electric lathe. "Can't you use all of this to help you rebuild once this is all over?"
"No..." Eve shook her head as she swept her hands out and her drones tore through a row of half-finished nasod miners. "This factory... it has caused too much harm already." She stole a quick glance over at Raven as he slashed through a conveyor belt with a single stroke, keeping the casual pace of his companions as they crushed, pierced, and torched everything in sight. His eyes were cold and focused as they moved forward, reflecting the powerful resolve that had tempered his spite and rage into a solemn, unwavering purpose. Though she did not fully understand Raven's fierce determination, Eve was at least able to recognize that he, as well as many other humans, had suffered greatly as a result of the weapons and machines produced by the nasod foundry. Though it would take even longer to rebuild Altera with the foundry in ruins, she accepted it as a necessary sacrifice, both to win back the possibility of peace with humanity and to wash away the brutality and strife that had been forced upon her people.
Though the air around them bristled with flames and nasod soldiers piled into the corridors to block their path, no one seemed to be in any sort of a hurry. It wasn't exhaustion or overconfidence that had Elsword and Aisha smashing and burning equipment as they sauntered slowly through the foundry but rather a calculated reserve. With the Core almost upon them and an army of thousands stationed somewhere on the island, they knew they'd need every ounce of strength possible. For Raven, however, their pacing and progress were among the least of his present concerns. Now that he was inside the factory that had made the Black Crow, now that he had in his hands the machines used to create his arm, he felt an overwhelming, incomplete sense of relief. Finally, after falling from the sky and crawling out of the earth, he could remove the menace that threatened this world and, after that was done, perhaps he could go back to doing what he hadn't been able to do for Five* years now: Living. The more he thought about the scar torn through Velder, the wound ripped open by his own hands, the more certain he was that atonement and absolution were things that he could never hope to receive. More than that, he didn't think it would be right for him to be forgiven when he hadn't completely forgiven himself. Instead, he swung his blade in a smooth, swift arc and cut a clear path through the nasod and their weapons, removing any chance that another would follow the course that had brought him here. Although he had moved beyond anguish and self-loathing, Raven wanted to keep the memory of his crimes close at hand, to bear their weight with every step he took and every strike of his blade. If he could prevent even half as much harm as he had caused in the past, then, as he saw it, even his life would be one worth protecting. Still, he had a lingering, nagging worry on his mind, the result of what Chief Adel had told him just before he left the Ponggo's village, but for now, he was focused firmly on dismantling as much of the nasod war machine as he could.
As Rena mowed down the last active nasod in the narrow passage where they now stood, Eve opened her console and connected to the foundry's security systems. The moment she gained access to the unremarkable steel door at the end of the hall, her eyes went wide and she opened it immediately. As it happened, the door's security code was completely accurate: The vast, dimly lit chamber before them was the foundry's hangar bay.
"...Whoa." Elsword stared in awe at no fewer than three hundred pristine, fully armed airships, each an exact replica of the Black Crow.
"They're planning an invasion, aren't they..." Rena's voice sank and faded to a whisper as she moved into the shadow of a colossal warship. "With this many ships, Velder would be forced to surrender inside of an hour."
"No." Raven glared darkly at the grand gallery of cannons above. "Surrender would do them no good. I don't know why, but this arm of mine really wanted me to destroy the entire kingdom. For some reason, the nasod want Velder completely ruined."
His words sank in slowly, though no one could find any fault in them. With three hundred warships roaring across the sky, Velder would become a burning shell of sulfur and ash after just a single round of artillery fire.
Leaning against the rails and studying the ships intently, Aisha suddenly stumbled across the solution to one of their most persistent problems. "Wait, Eve, are any of these ready to fly?"
After a brief consultation with her console, Eve nodded. "Yes, all ships are fully operational. Do you mean to use them to transport your El?"
"Ah, yes, that would be the best way." Rena placed her finger on her cheek and pondered. "Well, really, it's probably the only way. We don't exactly have options here."
"I will commandeer one ship and send it to wait at the Ponggo village." Eve entered a few commands into her console and a single ship at the head of the fleet growled and grumbled as its engines burst into action and the hangar bay doors opened onto the endless sky. By the time they had reached the end of the hangar and arrived at the next corridor, their stolen airship was well on its way to the other side of the island. When Eve moved to open the next door, however, Raven stayed back and eyed her suspiciously.
"You're not going to just leave those ships there, are you?"
"The high concentration of volatile fuel in each vessel would make destroying or even disarming them a fatal exercise." Eve closed her console and the door ahead opened with a grating moan. "We will have to dismantle them separately when we have more time."
"Hm..." Raven kept his gaze on Eve, his stern scowl set firm as he stepped into the next chamber. As they left the hangar bay, a relentless curiosity plagued his thoughts; though he had little understanding of nasod technology, he was certain that Eve had sent some sort of command to the fleet in the hangar. With a new wave of nasod soldiers approaching from the end of the hall, he breathed in slowly and tried to shake the lingering doubts from his mind. Leaping forward, he pushed past Elsword and Eve and thrust his blade into the nearest nasod, piercing its gut and pinning it to the wall. As the next nasod approached, he reached forward and seized its head with his left arm, pulling it down toward his sword and severing its neck in a burst of sparks and fire. As he ripped his blade from the wall and bounded forward, he crossed into a wide intersection with nasod rushing toward him from both sides. Stepping back quickly, he pressed himself against the wall and glanced back.
"Rena!"
Nodding swiftly, Rena rushed forward and knelt down, filling the air with arrows and tearing through the nasod as they rounded the corner. In the following calm, Elsword grimaced slightly.
"Hey, leave some for us to. It's kinda boring back here."
Raven glanced aside and gave a faint, wry smile. "Don't be so slow next time."
Grinning, Elsword scoffed lightly as he reached the end of the hall. "Heh... what was that, old man?"
"If you two don't hurry up, we'll leave you both behind." A smug grin painted Aisha's face as she passed them and headed on toward the center of the foundry. Before she could gain anymore ground, Rena called a halt to her march.
"Wait..." She stood at the intersection and stared quietly at the small, flashing letters that ran across the wall. "Eve, what's in this direction?"
"..." Eve hesitated, shifting her eyes uncomfortably as she read the crawling text. When she finally turned to answer Rena, she lowered her voice to a thin whisper. Although Aisha couldn't tell exactly what Eve had said, the effect of her words was immediate, capturing Raven's attention and freezing his feet in place as his breath caught in his throat. Without a moment's pause, he turned around and headed back toward Eve and Rena. "Fine. We'll go this way then. "
Rena stared softly as Raven passed by, a delicate, graceful severity in her eyes. "...Eve, do both of these paths lead to the Core?"
A quick check of her console brought confirmation."...Yes. Both paths will lead to the Core elevator."
Rena nodded. "Then, Elsword, Aisha, you two should go that way. We'll take care of everything on this side, and there shouldn't be as many nasod in your way if they have to split up and fight us on two fronts."
Aisha frowned, but accepted almost immediately. "Alright, just be careful, okay?" She turned and scoffed as she caught sight of Elsword's face, his eyes blank and his mouth wrinkled up in confusion. "Hey, pay attention! Come on!"
"Ow, hey!" Elsword winced as Aisha grabbed his shoulder and tugged him along down the hall, disappearing around the corner and leaving Raven, Rena, and Eve to navigate the frighteningly sterile passage down to the Human Subjects Test Facility.
Secreted away from the mechanical clamor of the factory floor, a slender, pallid doorway marked the entrance to a grisly vault of silenced screams and synthetic horrors. With a whole platoon of maimed nasod soldiers littering the ground outside of the lab, Raven pulled open the smooth steel door and stepped into a realm of blinding light and frigid shadows. With tall, thick windows on every wall, each room along the nearly endless hall stood in clear view and each an immaculate, seemingly untouched masterpiece of callous precision. As Eve and Rena walked along ruining every surgical suite and supply room they came across, Raven stayed his blade and searched for something that he knew he would never find. These sterile rooms, these pristine floors, these clean and unscathed tools, they were nothing like the bloodied knives that had cut into his side or the fearsome saws that had torn away his arm. Nothing in the entire lab remained as a testament to what Raven had suffered and, far more importantly in his eyes, nothing remained to testify to the suffering of the countless others that had been captured, cut open, and then discarded as failures.
The very thought that hundreds of lives could be lost in a place so far from the battlefield and then all evidence of death and decay erased so neatly and so thoroughly set Raven in a mood more foul than any he had known in the past year. As he reached the end of the hallway, he stood before a large storage chamber, the only room in the entire facility with no windows and no obvious surveillance. With a quick punch, he broke through the heavy lock and peeled back the door. Inside, amid clouds of mist and blasts of icy air, over three hundred jagged, disembodied mechanical arms hung down from the ceiling, their claws clattering anxiously against one another as Raven approached. Standing in their midst, it felt as though a great crowd was calling out to him, shouting, screaming, and drowning in its own overwhelming discord. Regret, rage, spite, sorrow, guilt, and disdain bubbled up through Raven's consciousness, spilling over onto his face and painting it with a firm, bitter scowl. After a moment of clutching his sword and glaring fiercely, he closed his eyes and scoffed, not at the nasod arms but at himself.
All of this spite and bitterness over a pile of metal and wires? Heh... now it makes sense. If I can get so worked up about something petty like this, it's no wonder I was such a wreck. Remember Raven, you didn't come here to feel sorry for yourself, to get revenge, or to take out your frustrations. You came here to do just one thing... Don't screw it up.
Holding his right hand steady, Raven stepped back and held his blade down at his side, ignoring the nasod arms and focusing on the edge of his sword and the weight of his feet. In a single, fluid surge, Raven moved from the front of the room to the back in the breadth of a second, sheathing his sword calmly as every nasod arm burst open and fell to the ground in a crumpled pile of broken steel and severed circuits. When Raven returned to the hallway, Rena greeted him with a smooth, gentle smile.
"All done here?"
Raven closed his eyes for just a moment and nodded. "Yeah, let's get going."
Eve and Oberon destroyed the last of the test chambers and joined Raven and Rena at the end of the hall, leading them down a flight of stairs and into the large, open cavern that housed the elevator to the Core. While Raven and Rena stood guard, Eve hurried to override the elevator's control scheme, preparing it to ferry them to and from the core at her command. As soon as she was finished and the path to the Core was open to them, three faint shadows rose from a narrow corridor and quickly descended upon them.
The roaring thunder of bursting steel rang out through the heart of the foundry as Aisha and Elsword continued their rampage through the factory, unfettered and free to tear through the ranks of the nasod with a bold abandon. As thick, caustic smoke and howling flames filled the air, Elsword pushed through a pair of shield-bearing nasod, sliding around behind them and blasting them with a sharp stream of fire. A low, tortured groan rained down from the roof and Elsword looked up just in time to see a massive girder falling prey to gravity and plummeting toward him. When he tried to roll away, his foot fell into a nest of broken pipes, holding him fast and causing him to fall gracelessly to the ground. As the shadow of a three ton beam enveloped him, Aisha dove forward, grabbed Elsword's hand, and teleported away with him just as the girder crashed to the ground with a deafening boom.
"What are you... doing...pay..." Aisha huffed and panted, more from panic than exhaustion, "...more attention."
"I- Yeah..." Elsword turned away, his chest tight and tense for reasons unknown to him, "Thanks."
With his safety confirmed, Aisha leapt down from the pile of rubble where they had landed and continued pelting the maze of assembling lines and machine presses with a shower of crackling dark energy. For a moment, Elsword stood, stunned. Aisha had saved him dozens of times before, and he'd done the same for her as well. Feeling her reach out and pull him to safety way was nothing new or unfamiliar, but just recently, it was getting harder for him to look at her afterwards. Somehow, when she grasped his hand pulled him away from the rubble, his concentration shattered and he couldn't focus himself for a few seconds after. As he finally gathered himself and dove back into the fray, a quick glimmer of steel caught his eye and he turned to see a pair of nasod snipers taking aim at Aisha. Jumping up onto the tattered shell of a ruptured boiler and running along a narrow pipe, he swung his blade out swiftly and smashed both nasod into a monstrous pit of molten, bubbling iron. Whether he knew it or not, he was keeping an eye on her throughout every battle since they arrived on Altera, watching her back and following her movements, and for every time that death was nearly upon them, she somehow made him feel like it was still miles away.
Fighting furiously to break through the hasty barricades that blocked their exit, Aisha hurled a pair of dark, jagged stones through the air and sent them burrowing through the mound of metal bars and overturned barrels. With every step and every strike they drew closer to the Core and closer to Ruben's El, but even though her legs felt lighter now than ever and confidence was high, Aisha felt the slightest of worries scratching at the corners of her mind. In the middle of the crumbling, collapsing foundry, she paused for just a second, for just the smallest fraction of a moment and began to wonder just what she would be doing after they retrieved Ruben's El.
Gah, what a pointless question! I don't have time for that now! Shaking her head out, Aisha raised her wand and tried to regain her focus only to lose it for another half second as she wondered just why she would be worried about what happened after they were finished rescuing the El in the first place. Unfortunately, in just two tiny moments on the battlefield, things can change quite drastically. While Aisha brushed aside her concerns, a spinning drone circled in blades darted through the air toward her, closing in far too quickly for her to react. In the instant before the nasod's blades cut through the wispy strands of her sweat-stained hair, Elsword raised his blade in a wide arc, launching the drone through the air and out of a small gap in the ceiling. As soon as Aisha turned around, Elsword admonished her.
"What're you doing? Don't worry about what's behind you, I'll take care of all that." He turned quickly and clashed against a pair of assault soldiers, holding them off while Aisha finished clearing the barricade ahead. Somehow, she felt strangely safe and reassured. No matter what she was doing or how busy she was dealing with a dozen nasod and a walls that were on the verge of collapsing around her, she could always see Elsword out of the corner of her eye, darting across the field and covering every gap in her defense. Whether she knew it or not, she was keeping an eye on him throughout every battle since they arrived on Altera, watching his back and following his movements, and for every time that he had saved her, she had also been there to pull him from the fire.
Just as a new wave of nasod poured into the room and moved to surround them, Aisha finally broke through the barricade and grabbed Elsword by the arm, dragging him along as she dove into the hallway. As she tumbled to the ground, Aisha threw out a sharp burst of dark magic that ripped through the ceiling's final supports, sending it crashing down onto the nasod and sealing the corridor behind them. Before they could catch their breath and drink their last skins of water, a violent clash and a ferocious shout echoed through the hall and settled in their ears. Both of them immediately identified the owner of that voice.
"That's Raven!" Elsword climbed up to his feet as the fierce symphony of scraping steel filled the air. "Come on!"
Dashing frantically through the narrow hall, Aisha and Elsword followed the sounds of a desperate struggle until they finally emerged into the vast chasm carved into the mountain's feet. At the back of the cavern, they could just scarcely see Raven and Oberon locked in combat with a pair of shadowy nasod as the lights overhead flickered off one by one. The moment Elsword stepped out into the open, a blur of red and silver bolted from the shadows and bowled him over. He rolled aside and just barely pulled his face from the edge of a heavy blade, pushing himself off the ground and hopping to his feet. Before he could even catch a glimpse of his attacker, a savage claw sped through the air toward him, stopping just short of his throat as Aisha blocked it with her wand. Another quick flash of silver cut through the shadows just as the last of the cavern's light quit the field and Elsword hurried to raise his blade, stumbling backward under the force of a powerful blow.
"Elsword, we need some light!" Aisha shouted over her shoulder as she struggled to wrench her wand free from the vice grip of her attacker. Twisting quickly, they each conjured a massive fireball and hurled it into the ceiling, each colliding with glistening stone and splitting into a hundred tiny torches that hovered in the air overhead and bathed the cavern in a spectral glow. With the firelight stripping away the shadows, the alien form of a slender nasod emerged from the darkness. Painted in scarlet and jet, the unrelenting soldier spun its arms wildly and threw Elsword and Aisha up against the wall, raising its left arm and firing a roaring burst of flame toward them. As they dove aside and scraped their arms on the rugged cavern floor, Aisha was finally able to survey the rest of the cavern. In the far corner, standing atop a massive elevator platform, Rena and Eve dashed across the field in a rush to evade two nasod identical to the one attacking Aisha and Elsword and, in the midst of the chamber, Raven and Oberon traded blows with two more nasod as the air resounded with the echoes of sharpened steel.
Gasping for air and dripping with sweat, Elsword stumbled up to his feet and charged toward the dreaded nasod, putting all his power behind a single swing as he and his opponent passed one another. A firm weight against his blade told Elsword that he had made clear contact, but as he turned around to fire off a cloud of flame, an agonizing pain shot through his right arm as a thin gash opened along its length. Standing firm and in the open, the nasod cast the blood from his blade and looked down at the pathetic scratch Elsword had made in its side. Although Aisha stepped in to intercept a barrage of frenzied slashes, Elsword could already tell that everyone was losing ground quickly. Fighting each of these monstrosities one on one, or even two on one, was bringing them all dangerously close to an untimely death. As the nasod jumped back to launch another burst of flame, Elsword sprinted across the cavern and grabbed Aisha by the waist, picking her up and pulling her along as he ran toward Rena and Eve. As soon as they were clear of the fireball's path, Elsword noticed Raven and Oberon approaching from the corner of his eye and he quickly realized that they were all being pushed back into the same sunken corner, the perfect place for a row of nasod to pin them down with a merciless rain of fire and ash. With their backs flush against cold stone, everyone searched their surroundings in a desperate attempt to revise their tactics.
Laying out a faint magic shield to buy precious time, Aisha held her wand steady as the five nasod slammed their claws into her barrier. "What are these things? They're way worse than any of the other nasod so far! And why do they look so much like Raven?"
"They do not simply look like him." Eve breathed heavily as she scanned their enemies for any sign of weakness or defect. "They were created using the data gathered from Raven's nasod arm when it was still acting on its own. Their fighting style is based on an algorithm of his most effective techniques."
Rena smiled awkwardly as she dug her feet into the ground. "While I can think a few situations where having six Ravens might be useful, we could really do without the extras here. Does anybody have any ideas other than bashing them over the head till they die?"
Eve shook her head and closed her console. "They are heavily armed and extremely fast. Physical force would likely be deflected with minimal damage."
Elsword scowled as he grabbed a hold of Aisha's wand to help her reinforce the fragile barrier. "Then how the hell're we-"
"Wait." Raven stepped forward and glared sharply at the vicious nasod. "If they're built to fight just like me, then they've got a huge weakness that they won't be able to cover."
"Oh?" Rena glanced aside at him deviously. "You have such an obvious weak point?"
Raven grinned faintly. "They're based on the way I fought when I was commanding the Black Crow. Back then, whenever I was in the line of a powerful attack, I'd freeze up on purpose in the hopes that it would kill me."
"That..." Eve blinked, confounded. "...is not a very efficient tactic."
Raven chuckled faintly. "Humans have their foolish moments."
"Can you guys hurry it up?" Aisha shouted rapidly between labored breaths as broad cracks opened across the barrier's surface. "We've only got about eight seconds!"
"Alright, ready?" Rena looked over to Raven and Eve as they nodded back to her. The moment the barrier shattered, Rena raised her bow and unleashed a tiny pocket of compressed air that exploded in the midst of the nasod, bombarding them with thousands of piercing gusts. Just as Raven suspected, the instant Rena attacked, every one of the nasod froze in place and their arms went limp. With barely a half second before the razor wind exhausted itself, Raven and Oberon rushed forward, standing side by side as they dashed across the row of nasod, their blades reflecting the warm firelight as they sliced through each of their opponents more than a dozen times. As they reached the end of the line, they each straightened themselves up, lowered their blades, and glanced back over their shoulders as each nasod fell to its knees and then collapsed in a pool of oil and battery acid.
"Oh, you're right." Rena blinked and stared at the defeated nasod, only slightly surprised. "That was pretty easy."
Raven winced slightly at her words while he sheathed his sword. "That was just the way I fought in the past. I'd never do something that stupid now."
"Are you sure you don't have any other weaknesses though?" Rena smirked slyly, "Like tripping on wrinkled carpets or losing arguments against old ladies?"
"That-" Raven looked away indignantly. "That was just once. I didn't think you were even paying attention when I told you..."
Aisha turned to Raven and shook her head. "You shouldn't tell her anything thing like if you don't want her to use it against you then."
"Exactly" Rena grinned broadly and latched her bow onto her belt. "Well then... I guess there's no point in putting it off. Is everybody ready?"
In the fading firelight, everyone nodded slowly and they all made their way to the grand elevator and waited while Eve powered up its massive, rumbling engine. Gradually, the creaking rust crumbled from the elevator's rails and its gears began to spin as loudly as a cannon's report. Gathering their strength, the Queen of the Nasod and her entourage sank slowly into the shadows as they descended into Altera's Core.
Please see rhblithely. tumblr. com for my author's notes, there are a few for this chapter.