Endless Waltz
By: Daishi Prime
-09 – Shanghaied-
"I didn't think one of them would blow up this soon," Yussef commented as he climbed the trail beside Signum, both of them once more in armor. "Eventually, yeah, but this soon? It's barely October."
"The twins have had a bad weekend," Signum replied, "bad news from home, of some sort. Laura merely had the misfortune to be the first trigger they found. Though I will admit, it was a rather more colorful tantrum than I expected."
It was early on a Sunday morning, technically still during breakfast, but the two of them were already heading out. Uriel's time-table for Shanghai was due to kick off in a little over half an hour, to catch as many Revenants as possible during the morning shift change. The morning had already been exciting, however, thanks to Rhys and Saeryn. Laura had come barreling into the dining hall with her usual exuberance, dragging the twins with her and already apparently going on about something or other she was going to have them do. She had been talking too fast and too low for Yussef to make out what, but everyone had heard the result.
The twins had already been manifestly unhappy with Laura's manhandling of them, and one – Yussef still could not tell them apart – had shifted from grumbling to outright yelling as Laura reached the buffet table. She had wrenched free of Laura's grip, shouted a surprisingly long string of insults and complaints in several languages, before devolving into Latin as her volume rose. Then she bolted, taking her sister out the dining hall's doors and disappearing into the woods. It had not taken long, Aria and Lotte had barely been out of their chairs to intervene when the girls ran, but it was very public.
"Laura's dragooning them into whatever it was probably didn't help," Yussef commented.
"No, but something of this sort was inevitable, especially with those two. We, including you and Laura, have been pushing them to be more sociable than they are used to, in a very short period of time. It is necessary, in my opinion, but not easy, especially for them. Noriko and Shamal will sort them out before we return." Signum shrugged, then told him, "Now is not the time to be worrying about them, however. Despite my assurances to Thorngrave yesterday, it is very likely that we will be attacked by the Revenants."
Yussef nodded, but he was less concerned with the Revenants than with the possibility of a double-cross by Thorngrave. "How far are we allowed to respond to an attack?"
Siggnum gave him a long look before answering, and he was fairly certain she was contemplating his suspicions. "As far as necessary to guarantee our security," she replied after a moment, "but in the event of deliberate attack, we are to fall back, rather than sustain any battle. If a combat response is required, Hayate-sama will lead it with Vita and I. Understood?"
"Understood, ma'am." Yussef was actually rather glad of that. The sense of exposure he had felt the day before at Kansai was worse today. This would actually be the first time in his life when he would go into battle – and he fully expected to be involved in the battle, one way or another – without his boys at his back, and he silently promised himself he would push the Myrmidons to get their devices done sooner. The sooner they have devices, the sooner I can have them watching my back on these missions, he reasoned, and the sooner I can relax.
When they reached the overlook, Signum brought out a cell phone, dialing the number they had been provided to reach Schuster. The resulting discussion was short, to the point, and abruptly terminated when she snapped the phone closed. "They've already begun," she told him shortly, "almost an hour ahead of schedule. Stay close, the teleport will be tight and fast."
Yussef did not answer, but lifted Zulifqar into his hand, settling with his back to Signum's. The teleport was fast, too fast for him to get much detail, as he had hoped to do. The transition was abrupt, enough to unsettle his stomach, but not as bad as the teleport into New Delhi had been. Finding himself suddenly in mid-air was worse, though Zulfiqar brought up Desert Wind automatically, keeping him from an ignominious plummet.
Signum brought them out at five hundred meters, well above any local buildings and clear of the combat, but almost directly above the target building. Looking down, Yussef could see that, as she had said, the strike had started early. The roads surrounding the office building were cratered and collapsed, the result of demolition charges placed in sewers and service tunnels during the night to cut off underground access. Just outside of those, a variety of vans and light trucks were parked haphazardly, blocking the streets and surrounding the building. Yussef counted at least fifty people on or just behind those vehicles, watching the building's ground floor and waiting for anyone trying to break out.
The building itself was nondescript, a normal office building. Four floors, spread out over a small suburban block, white facing and a lot of narrow windows. A pair of civilian helicopters were hovering over the roof, having dropped the Black Dogs just after the demolition charges blew. The roof access door was laying on the roof a meter or so to one side of its housing, the only obvious sign on the building of anything untoward.
"Damn," he muttered, "I wanted to see them breach."
"So did I," Signum muttered. "Stay up here, I'm going to go express my displeasure to Schuster."
Yussef watched her go, then set himself to slowly circling the area, descending to a hundred meters or so above the helicopters. He turned most of his attention inward for a moment, settling into a half-trance, before initiating a basic scan of magic in the area. While Laura was apparently capable of detecting anything without even trying, Yussef and Noriko still needed to enter some level of trance to perform deep scans. They could detect gross magical events without that level of focus, or things in close proximity, but not at this range.
Almost immediately, he found something very disquieting. He could detect several circles, building strong, complicated rituals, that were unpleasantly familiar. Shaping another spell, he said, "Signum-sensei, I'm detecting wolfpacks forming. Outside the Dogs' containment ring."
She did not respond for a second, then asked, 'How many?'
"At least six, but I haven't made a full circuit yet." Another one appeared in his mind's eye, so he added, "Seven, now. At this rate, we're looking at about a dozen." What is it with the Circles and the number 'twelve', he mentally complained? Everywhere the Circles were involved, that number always popped up.
'The plan didn't call for wolfpacks,' Signum said, more thinking aloud than talking, 'and Schuster says that plan has not changed.'
"It's an ambush," Yussef stated, "but aimed at who?"
'It doesn't matter. Lock on to the ritual circles and give me their locations. We'll wait to see who they go after, and react from there. If they come after you, fall back. I'll rejoin you and extract us then. Until then, I'm going to monitor from here.'
00000
Even ten minutes later, Rhys was still jittery, quivering with anger, embarrassment, and fear. Laura had barged in before she and Saeryn had even finished getting dressed, rambling on about processor cores and redundancies. She had given them just enough time to get decent, then dragged them off to breakfast, insisting they get moving immediately. "You two're so far behind, I'm ashamed of you! Slacking off this last month, I swear everyone's going to think I've been neglecting my minions! Now come on, come on, food first, then fun."
Simple shock and Laura's unrestrained energy had them in the dining hall before Rhys finally managed to wrench herself free of Laura's grip, and by then her temper had been frayed beyond recovery. She knew Saeryn had been almost as angry, but her sister's self-control was legendary, so it had been Rhys who blew up. In itself that was embarrassing, singling her out from her sister as it did, but the situation made it so much worse. The fact that she was certain she was going to get yelled at by the teachers, when the whole intolerable situation was so clearly Laura's fault, just made it worse.
It was not until they were well into the woods that Saeryn managed to calm her down enough to stop running, and even then Rhys refused to let go, or stop moving. Part of her was thinking that, if she just kept moving, maybe they could run away home. Mostly, though, she just needed to get away, from everyone and everything at the school, even if only for a little while. Once her headlong flight abated, she and Saeryn just walked in silence. They did not need to talk about it, since they already had, repeatedly. Their father's call Friday had made it clear just how precarious their situation was, how precarious his situation was, and now they had to worry about him as well as their mother, on top of Laura's shenanigans.
They found Noriko in a small clearing, shortly before they reached the crest of one of the passes. The scars of February's battle were still there, overgrown somewhat but obvious given that they knew what they were looking for, and the princess seemed to be studying one such site, where the rocks were bare, stone and surrounding trees covered in hash-marks. She turned when they came into view, and beckoned them over. Rhys would have turned and walked away, but Saeryn reversed their earlier roles, dragging her forward by the hand.
Noriko watched them approach before asking, "Are you two all right?"
"We are calming down," Saeryn told her, "but not all right. I do not believe that will be possible so long as we are here."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Noriko replied, which made Rhys start. That simple apology was the first time someone had not told the twins 'it'll get better'. "Especially given what your father told Hayate-sensei yesterday."
Both of them froze at that, remembering what their father had told them about what the Circles now believed of their presence at the school. "We are not spies," the two of them stated bluntly.
Noriko smiled at them, shaking her head. "Not what I meant. He told Hayate-sensei that, due to circumstances in America, he won't be able to bring you home any time soon. He even doubts if he will be able to bring you home for Winter Break. Given that you are so uncomfortable here, that is very bad news, for which you have my sympathies."
"We do not..."
Rhys, not at all interested in this line of conversation, cut off her sister to demand, "How did you know we were here?"
Saeryn gave her a dirty look, but Noriko merely shrugged. "You crossed two lines of wards on your way up here, with a third line about here and a fourth up in the pass itself. Also," she gestured behind them, "Megan was following you all the way up here. We're worried about you." Rhys whipped around, only to find a wolf half hidden behind a tree, watching them steadily. Noriko said from over her shoulder, "Go ahead back, Megan-chan. I'll bring them along in a little while." The wolf nodded once, then turned and vanished silently into the trees.
Anger rising again, Rhys turned on Noriko, demanding, "Is there anywhere we can get some privacy?"
"Your rooms," Noriko replied, ignoring Rhys' tone again, "and almost anywhere you can arrange to be alone. Not the workrooms, of course, those are continuously monitored for safety, but we aren't watched all that closely. We know where you two are because you caused quite a stir this morning, and Aria-sensei was concerned you might try to leave campus. I talked Shamal-sensei and Hayate-sensei into letting me talk to you first, so here I am."
"Why you? I should think one of them would be better, given their greater experience," Saeryn sounded significantly calmer, but Rhys could tell her sister was just as angry as she was at being tailed.
"You will talk to them, eventually," Noriko answered, "but I thought you might find it easier to talk to someone closer to your age. Even I get intimidated, sometimes, talking with the teachers."
"You did not seem so eager to help when we asked for it," Rhys muttered.
"Of course not. You did not want help, you wanted to escape a lesson in socialization. You will not always be able to work only with people you like, only with each other, and Laura's mentoring will show you that. We did not anticipate things going this poorly so quickly, however."
"It would not be so bad, had she not stormed into our room without permission, before we were even up," Saeryn countered.
Noriko frowned a little at that, "Did she at least tell you why she's so excited?"
"No," the twins answered together, before Rys continued, "and that is immaterial."
Noriko gave them a small smile, "Is it? She probably forgot, in her excitement, a habit which is one of Yussef's justifications for always referring to her as 'the ditz'. Hayate-sensei told us last night that she has decided to allow the two of you begin designing and building devices. You'll do it under close supervision, and you'll have to convince all the teachers you're ready before they will let you proceed with construction or activation, but you can make the attempt. Laura was given the task of getting you started, and keeping an immediate eye on you, which is actually a good thing. She understands the design and construction side of things much better than Yussef or myself. Though, after this morning..."
Noriko cut off abruptly, head whipping around to stare up to the pass, eyes narrowed. A moment later, she muttered, "Senbonzakura, set up." The jewel on its chain over her forehead flared once, then Noriko disappeared in a bright pink flash. When that cleared, she was clad in red armor, fans in hand as she turned towards the pass. The sheer speed of it shocked Rhys, the abrupt shift from comfortable clothes to battle-ready taking less than a second. It was surprising enough that she did not register Noriko's order, and the princess had to repeat it. "Twins, I said go back to the campus, now." There was no friendliness in that, just command plain and simple.
Rhys was never one to take orders, and Saeryn was, in Rhys' opinion, even worse, especially given such abrupt commands. So Rhys was not surprised when Saeryn glared back and demanded, "Why?"
Noriko's expression became annoyed, "Something tripped the outer Deva wards, but they aren't reacting normally. Get back to campus, now!" She was cut off when something lunged out of the woods.
Rhys registered only a huge hulking gray mass before Noriko vanished in a cloud of pink petals that reeked of magic, cutting off her view of whatever it was at the same time. Still, it had obviously been attacking, and Rhys moved out of pure habit, squeezing Saeryn's hand a little tighter and bringing up her magic. The two of them had been combining their magic for years, even before their parents had thought to show them how they had puzzled it out, and now that combined power wrapped the two of them in the strongest shield they could produce.
"We have to go," Rhys muttered, starting to back up, but to her surprise, Searyn merely stood there. Looking at her sister, Rhys was surprised to find her frozen in fear, until she followed Saeryn's gaze. Just at the edge of the woods, a second gray figure stood, and like her sister, Rhys recognized it. "Seed," she whispered, in shock and fear, just as it lunged at them.
It slammed head-first into their shield, and barely slowed, physically plowing into both of them. Rhys lost her grip on Saeryn's hand, and then the thing back-handed her, sending her tumbling over the ground. She landed in a painful heap, but worry for Saeryn pushed to her knees. She saw her sister, a couple meters past the Seed, also struggling upright, but the Seed was facing her. Rhys watched it step towards Saeryn and panic flooded her. Seizing on her linker core with mental fingers, she dragged as much energy as she could and, even as the thing took its first step, focused that power into an attack. Voice high and harsh, she shrieked at it, "Not my sister! Zeus Buster, strike!"
The crackling bolt of energy that left her hands was far stronger than any spell she had ever attempted, a yellow lance of power surrounded by a crackling chaos of excess energies. She was, she knew, pushing beyond the edge of safety, risking burnout in that single strike, but could not have cared less if it saved her sister. She put all the fear, all her earlier anger, every ounce of power and feeling into that strike.
Only to watch it vanish as it struck the scaled hide.
But the Seed paused, turning its head to stare at her for a moment. When it turned fully towards her, she actually relaxed. Saeryn is safe, was her only thought, she can get away, now.
00000
Arlain slid around the corner of the door on one hip, rather than take the time to slow down, curling into a ball as he squeezed the safety release, and thumbed the detonator's trigger. The short sharp crack of the breaching charge was loud, even muffled by the wall, and the back-blast sent dust and debris billowing down the hall Arlain had just exited. He did not move even as two men lunged over him to go back out into the hall, listening to their boots thudding on the carpeted floor as they charged the now-open lift shaft. Early and Law would handle securing the shaft, now that the welded doors were out of the way.
That had not been the first sign of trouble, but was the most worrisome. The first sign had been the utter lack of Revenants on the above-ground floors. So far, thirty-five minutes into the strike, the only Revenants the entire force had encountered were two six-man security teams, mages but lower ranked. The Dogs had not even had to test their new rounds against the security teams, old-style magic and modern tazers fixed under their rifles had sufficed for the guards.
As he got back to his feet, shaking his head to try and clear the ringing, Arlain caught Uriel's gaze, and held up two fingers. Uriel shrugged, "Team Two's having the same problem we are with the stairs. They had an easier time getting in to the stairs, but the doors are secured on the far sides. I ordered them to hold at the first floor. We'll carry on from this way, they'll hold for any break-out..." Uriel cut off with a twitch, then his head whipped around to glare at a wall.
Glancing in the same direction, Arlain saw nothing but blank wall, and looked back. "Sir? Something wrong?"
Uriel snarled something Arlain could not make out, then shook his head, "Something I just remembered. Let's get down there before Early slaughters everyone we're here to capture."
Confused, but focused on the moment, Arlain settled for nodding his head, then shoving to his feet and out the door. The two of them exited the small office they had used for cover, to find Gershaw and Bogdanovich at the lift, Early and Law already gone, descending ropes anchored to the lift's frame. They took up station behind the rest of Team Three to wait their turns, and Gershaw was just about to go off the edge when Schuster interrupted over the main broadcast channel. "Black Dogs, hold position. We have a situation. Three One, quick report."
Uriel cursed once, then keyed his radio, "Sir, we're just about to drop down the elevator shaft. We'll probably have to breach each floor in turn. This will slow us down, but no worse than we expected. I suspect the Revenants have withdrawn to a secure floor underground. They're expecting a siege, but we can still get to them. Minor variance from plan."
There was a moment of silence, then Schuster ordered, "We're canceling the plan. There are twelve wolfpacks out here pushing our positions. Fall back on surface extraction points. The helos are already gone."
"Sir, we can still pull this off," Uriel protested, visibly upset at the order to retreat. "Your containment teams can hold for half an hour, even against wolfpacks, which will give us plenty of time…"
"Negative," Schuster shot back, sounding irritated but not actually angry at Uriel's questioning. "it's not worth the risk. The prisoners you've already gotten us will suffice. Fall back."
"Sir...!"
"What do you hear, Uriel?"
"Nothing but the rain," Uriel snapped, then blinked and froze. Both the response and Uriel's visible reaction confused Arlain, mostly due to the whipsawing from one extreme to the other.
"Want you come in out of the storm," Schuster said, "bring your boys with you. It's over, Uriel, we'll try again somewhere else."
Uriel snarled again, the angriest Arlain had ever seen him, then triggered the team-frequency. "Team Two, fall back on the main door. Team Three, out of the shaft and get moving. Team One will bring up the rear."
Arlain put a hand on his shoulder, leaning in to ask, "You all right, sir? Seem a little..."
Uriel shook his head. "I hate losing," he admitted after a second, as Gershaw helped Law out of the lift shaft, "especially like this. No real losses, just the possibility of loss. If we don't take the risks, how are we ever going to win?"
Arlain found only partially able to sympathize. He was not exactly happy to be falling back, but hardly worth getting angry over. 'Shit happens', as every soldier knows, and better to slip out of a trap than push too hard and get caught in it. At the same time, "Know what you mean, sir, but like Schuster said, we'll get to try again later. Attacking in another direction and all."
"Still not something I'm happy about doing," Uriel countered. Then he shook his head, "get your team moving, we'll be right behind. If we're leaving, let's not leave anyone behind."
00000
Yussef tracked all twelve wolfpacks as the focus mages came out of hiding. The circles themselves were set up in buildings two blocks back, but equally spaced around the target building. To his relief, the wolfpacks immediately set to attacking Schuster's containment forces, rather than rising to meet him. Two moved into blocking positions above the battlefield, but seemed content to let him be once they had chased off the helicopters.
Signum flashed past those two mages too quickly for them to react, slowing to join him, and for a minute, the two of them watched the battle unfolding. The wolfpacks were patently obvious, plowing through vehicles and mages with wild abandon. Signum shook her head, drew Levantine, and began building the teleport to take them back to the school.
Yussef interrupted her, "Sensei? Do you think Hayate-sensei would object to us scoring a favor with the Moderns?"
She gave him a questioning look for a moment, then a slight smile. "You want to join in, don't you?"
"Not directly," he replied. "I was thinking, though. While the focus mages are dangerous, the circles generating the wolfpacks are vulnerable. There are probably guards, there were back in February, but those proved less than effective against us."
"Do you have a plan?"
"One of us distracts these two on over-watch, the other starts disrupting circles. We probably won't do enough damage to break the counter-attack, not unless we want to start killing people, but we can buy Schuster enough time to withdraw safely. Break up one circle to eliminate the wolfpack, then move on to the next. They'll probably be able to reform the ritual, but Tai-yu-sensei told us the focus mages have to be in the ritual circle to start with, so…"
"Good thinking," she said, then dissolved the half-formed teleport, "Do you remember which circles are supporting these two?" Yussef nodded, but she continued before he could say anything, "Leave them for last. I'm curious to see if these vaunted wolfpacks can live up to their reputation, since I never got to fight one back in February. Go start breaking up the circles, but don't sit still for long."
Yussef almost laughed, seeing in that comment how Signum could so easily influence Laura. "I'll see what I can do, sensei," he promised, then bolted sideways. The two over-watch mages attempted to react, but Signum was on them in a heartbeat, spells striking at one while a vicious swing of Levantine almost caught the second. Yussef watched the fight only in part, to make sure they were not coming after him. He focused primarily on reaching his first target.
I can go in after them, he thought, but that would make it very easy to get stuck in close combat. On the other hand, I can bombard them from up here with relative safety, switch targets fast. Lot of property damage, though. A glance behind, at the fighting around the target building, proved that a moot point, and Yussef decided for speed over precision.
Picking the first building he had noticed, he scanned it rapidly. Finding it, indeed even its neighbors, unoccupied, he shook his head at Schuster's predicament, and the Revenant's connections. "They set him up from the get go," he muttered, "I'd bet against Chen-chi, they dangled the target like a carrot on a stick until the Hughes bit. Tricky, but they waited too long to follow through." He reached firing position, roughly above where the wolfpack circle was, and aimed Zulfiqar at the building's roof. "Buster Cannon, full charge." He had extended the spell over the summer, drawing out the charge time to a full five seconds. His device was actually quivering in his hands as it reached full charge, and he ordered, "Fire!"
The blast crashed through the building's roof, then the floors below, until it hit a shield protecting the first floor. The shield liberated the energies of the buster, causing a massive explosion which rocked the building, loosing cohesion even as it absorbed the blast. Yussef was duly impressed, both that the shield had turned his initial spell and sufficed to absorb the blast, but there was no follow up defense when he dropped a second Buster Cannon, this one time to detonate at ground level, down the hole left by the first.
He was moving before the blast went off, aiming at his next target. An odd drawn-out rumble drew his attention back momentarily and he actually flinched in sympathy as the building began to collapse inwards. A little too much power in that second strike, he reprimanded himself. It was hard to feel guilty, though, given the Revenants' stated plans for him and his classmates. So he turned back to his next target, and grimaced. Soldiers were appearing on the roof, quite obviously preparing for him.
They opened fire at range, and he rolled to one side and arced upwards. It made him a slightly better target, but would put him at an altitude they would have trouble reaching, by the time he was overhead. Another quick glance as he climbed showed Signum still mixing spells and sword-work to keep the two wolfpacks busy, and he shook his head. I hope Signum remembers to break off once Schuster's people are clear.
00000
Saeryn had to struggle past her terror to get back to her feet. She had recognized the Seed on sight, remembered it from the tales their mother told them. Those tales had filled her mind as the thing charged, the very embodiment of childhood fears almost paralyzing her. Only Rhys' reactions and a lifetime of habit had let her share in building their shield. When the Seed crashed through it, she had been thrown to one side, tumbling hard over the rocky ground, but the impact shook her loose of her petrified state.
She managed to look up and was partly aware of the Seed moving towards her, but all her attention was on Rhys, and for a second she thought her sister would be able to escape. Then she felt the power, saw her sister's spell launch, and wanted to scream at her to just run, especially as that spell did nothing but attract the Seed's attention and doom her own chance at escape. She struggled to her knees as the Seed started charging Rhys, shaping her own spell to try and distract the Seed again. Simultaneously, she was praying silently, for any intervention, even random chance, even an Atlantean direct from Hell, anything to save her sister.
Her prayers were answered, by a shadow plummeting out of the sky. It struck the Seed's head, sending the creature's lunge plowing into the ground. Saeryn watched in shocked relief as the shadow bounced upward, resolving into Laura's armored form as she flipped in the air to land a meter beyond the Seed. She looked back and forth between the twins for a second, before commenting, "I'm hurt. You two came out here to play with these critters, and didn't invite me? I'm hurt, deeply hurt."
A shift of motion, and Saeryn choked out, "Watch out!"
The Seed was fast, though, swiping Laura's feet out from under her. She did not fall all the way to the ground, but the Seed came up after her, raking at her back with its other claw, carving five parallel grooves in the back of Laura's armor, snapping of a pair of vanes. It brought both claws back around for another pair of strikes, but Laura was aware now, and rolled with the second blow, blocking the follow on attacks. She lunged forward, landing a rapid series of blows to the Seed's side just below its arm, only to backflip away as it tried to backhand her, then lunged at her.
The construct was quicker to recover than Laura, though, seizing her ankles in one massive hand. It jerked her around as she yelped in surprise, spinning her around its head once, then flinging her sideways towards a tree with vicious force, far more than it had used against Saeryn. Who could only watch in surprise as Laura not only did not impact the tree, but landed in a three-point crouch on nothing but air.
Laura looked back at the Seed, and Saeryn saw a light in her eyes, something she could not recall ever seeing before, and a grin that was totally different from any of Laura's wide repertoire of expressions. For a moment, Saeryn was not sure what was more frightening, the Seed, or Laura. "Wow, fugly," Laura drawled, "You're almost as tough as Hayate-sensei promised."
"Stop goofing off, Chibi-ko!" The shout drew Saeryn's attention to the side, in time to watch Vita slam Graf Eisen into the other Seed's chin, sending it stumbling away from Noriko's flickering shields. "Get those two out of here!"
"Yeah, yeah," Laura called back, "gimme a sec."
She lunged forward off whatever she landed on, as Saeryn finally began to regain her usual quickness and stability of thought, letting her recognize what she was seeing. She saw Laura's lunge, felt the magic enhancing it and recognized the speed boost. She watched Laura block the Seed's slash and flip into a kick, first foot missing but the second catching the construct's chin hard enough to snap its head back, and realized the only magic the older girl was using was to maintain her flight.
Now upside down, Laura snagged the Seed's ankle as it rocked back from her kick, jerking it off its feet. It slammed into the ground, but tried to roll upright again. Laura did not let go, but extended her pull, even as she rose in the air, dragging the Seed along the ground, then arcing it into the air. She let go finally, when the Seed was airborne and traveling at an angle that sent it flying into the tree-tops. The Seed flailed, even as it crashed into the tree branches, struggling to control its flight and landing.
Saeryn was jerked out of her stare when Laura grabbed her arm, hauling her to her feet. "Come on, Wrack, get it together," Laura muttered, then pulled her into the air, moving both of them towards Rhys. She grabbed the other twin just as the Seed came crashing back out of the woods, and then the three of them were spiraling upwards, out of its reach.
Saeryn was partly aware of Noriko joining them a few meters above the tree tops, and that Laura let go of them without somehow dropping them. Despite the novel experience of free flight, all of her attention was on Rhys, who was swaying slightly, staring at her with oddly vacant eyes. Saeryn took hold of her, wanting to yell at her for being so stupid as to attack a Seed with magic, but something in her sister's face worried her too much. "Sister? Rhys?"
"Saeryn," Rhys whispered happily in a strange spaced-out tone, "you aren't hurt?"
"No," Saeryn reassured her, "what about you? What's wrong?"
"Little much power," Rhys muttered, reaching out to pet Saeryn's hair, "worth it."
"Let me check her, Saeryn," a new voice ordered.
In response, Saeryn pulled her sister tighter to her, at first. Then she saw it was Shamal, and very reluctantly let the blond woman take her sister, though she refused to relinquish Rhys' hand. Shamal held a glowing hand to Rhys' forehead, then down to her chest, and Saeryn shivered at the cold feel of the magic that echoed through her hand. "She'll be fine," Shamal told her after a moment. "She's pushed too far, but she's not burned out. She'll have to be careful for a couple weeks while we make sure, though."
With that, Saeryn was finally able to relax, taking her still semi-coherent sister back from Shamal. She curled around Rhys, but turned her attention outwards to finally take stock of the situation. Noriko was hovering nearby, watching her and Rhys. Further away, Aria and Lotte were also airborne, to either side of Hayate, watching the clearing. Looking down, Saeryn saw Vita and Zafira tag-teaming one Seed, pinning it in place while white light flickered and flowed around it. Laura was circling the other Seed, making fast raking strikes, not so much attacking it, as frustrating its attempts to escape the clearing. It was apparent, even to Saeryn, that the two Seed were no longer attacking, but attempting to escape, lunging at openings rather than at mages.
Despite her strikes, Laura still managed to shout, "Hey, Hayate-sensei, look what followed me home! Can I keep it? Huh? Huh? Can I?"
"No, Laura," Hayate called back, "not even if I can hold them, which is proving surprisingly difficult."
Shamal moved closer, pulling Saeryn and Rhys with her, asking, "Their magic resistance extends to Deva magic?"
Hayate shook her head, "Not entirely, no, but they are... slippery, for want of a better term. The bindings don't form like they should, and slide off to lock on nothing. I'll get them, it's just going to take me a few minutes. Vita, Zafira, Laura, how long can you hold?"
"This is getting boring," Vita protested, "But a while yet. Not much magic, not against these things."
"Take your time, sensei!" Laura's response was much more exuberant, "I haven't had this much fun since June!"
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New Spell: Zeus Buster. An on-the-fly creation of Rhys', this combines a traditional buster spell with some basic electrical effects. Rhys created it from instinct and panic while striving for greatest possible hitting power.
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Author's Note: I was so, so, so tempted to post this chapter short, put Rhys' section at the end and stop there, leaving the resolution until next chapter. I haven't posted a good cliff-hanger in forever, and it was so tempting. But I didn't, because I'm just that nice, aren't I?:) It's a little short, because the responses to both attacks will flow better as a new chapter. Since I know someone's going to ask, the differences between this Seed attack and the one in Egypt are three-fold – preparedness, devices, and experience. The wards and standing response plans (plans generated in response to Egypt) gave Hayate, and even Noriko and the twins, more warning than the Egypt guards had, and thanks to Egypt Hayate and Company are aware of the Seed & their capabilities. The devices give the campus' defenders far more raw power, which is still useful for physical enhancements and flight to evade, even in the face of the Seeds resistance to magic. Finally, Hayate and her Knights have faced 'magic immune' foes before, and have more experience in magic combat than any ten Circle mages. Laura's just that crazy. I tried not to totally 'Worf' the Seed, but how successful was I in that?
Also, a note on timing – most of my chapters take place in a single day. Last chapter 'Before the Storm', took place over a Friday evening and Saturday morning. This chapter occurred the following Sunday. I'll update the timeline on my profile page in a couple weeks.
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pfeil: yep, I'm still making payments to Gates. I could switch to Linux, but I'm not that much of a tech-junkie. After fifteen years and six versions (seven counting DOS!) I've got Windows wrapped around my little finger, Linux would take too much work to get used to. As for AMD, Intel's always struck as too full of themselves, similar to Mister Jobs' devoted followers, though not as bad.
Kell Shock: Oof, that was an embarrassing mistake, given how often I've called other people on it. All fixed now, though, thank you! Last chapter was a lot of set-up, I'll admit, but for more than just this chapter. I'd argue that Zafira and Hayate have also 'taken students under their wing', but you are right that they haven't been as fully-involved as Signum was with Laura. On the other hand, that's because Laura's a double handful by any standard. The bullets are an experiment, and it will take a high rate of fire even against a non-device mage. By Uriel's calculations, against a non-device non-wolfpack mage's shields, it would take a full clip from most pistols to get a single round through to the shielded mage. Not a good rate of return, but infinitely better than the usual rate of 'zero'. You are also correct in the potential for shield variations, but that would depend on knowing precisely how the bullets react to the shield, which may take quite some time, depending on scale and scope of use. As for the Circles' opinion of their wolfpacks's chances versus Hayate, that would depend on who you talk to. Most Moderns would say 'little to none, overwhelming numbers are necessary'. Most Revenants would probably say 'fair to good, depending on tactics'. Both of which are right and wrong, just as Yussef's predictions are right and wrong. Given how personal magical combat is, a lot of it would depend on just how skilled the individual mages involved are.
Taeniaea: hope you liked this one, too.