Giddyup, cowboy.
Beta'd by… just me, this time.
Arclight hadn't really expected the Morlocks to really be able to bring anything to bear that could stand up to the best muscle that Mister Sinister could pay for.
Sure, Callisto had a history record as the de facto Queen of the Mean Streets, as the Maggia liked to call their network of underground fight rings and back-alley bookies, and some of them had some weird powers, but they didn't actually have the kind of mindset, the bloodthirst to really make use of them, and for those few of them who were strong enough to overcome that on the back of their mutation… well, Sinister had thought of that too.
As such, she was surprised when Blockbuster, the brawler she'd sent off after a child who'd fled down a side tunnel, came scrambling back, dusty with concrete powder and all but covered in deep stab wounds, to the point where she was surprised that he was even moving.
"Fuckers…" he panted, blood trickling down from a gash on his forehead and forming a trail maybe half an inch away from his eye. "There's a… a group of people here, wannabe hero types, they stood up for the kid and the old lady who she found. A couple of them look like the X-Brats, but there's two that I don't recognize, who've got… weird magic shit going on, I think."
The fact that they'd managed to hurt the man was… unusual, if not particularly unexpected- these test subjects had some potent powers distributed among them, and even if it had been someone from outside the Morlock tunnels… well, New York City was a pressure cooker at the best of times, and for all that Spider-Man seemed to be only barely able to keep a lid on his collection of costumed criminals, he was perhaps the humblest superhero in the city relative to his powers and his brain, especially when compared with the likes of Stark or Strange. Either of them were easily capable of the level of response that would be needed in order to drive Blockbuster off so thoroughly.
That said, if it had been either of them, he would have recognized them, and the fact that he hadn't mentioned any names implied that they were either one of the more minor groups of do-gooders in the city, which was entirely possible, or that they were from out of town.
The former, she thought, was unlikely- for as much as he didn't like attending the briefings that Sinister assembled, he did attend them, and for as much as he preferred to think with his fists, he wasn't dumb. As such, if they'd come up in the briefings, he would have mentioned that, and thus they were clearly not locals… and probably new to the scene, too, since Sinister had made sure to mention major groups headquartered outside New York, like Alpha Flight or Magneto's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, and for anyone powerful enough to do that kind of a number on Blockbuster, within such a presumably short time… well, that kind of power drew attention.
"Hm." Almost absently, she smashed her fist into the concrete of the wall, driving another shockwave out down her arm and into the solid structure under New York. For a moment she was tempted to see just how big a shockwave she could make, if she could bring down the whole city around them, before she mastered the temptation and only brought the roof down on the Morlock she'd "let" run.
After enjoying the sight of the idiot crushed under a pile of rubble, she turned back to the remaining Marauders she had with her and assessed their strengths and weaknesses against the situation. "Scrambler, go with Blockbuster. You two are finding the Cajun and making sure he handles Callisto properly once Blockbuster is back to full readiness, then spread out and go hunting for any stragglers. Vertigo, Prism, you're with me, we're going to go show these new people why you don't fuck with the Marauders. Any questions?"
As the fighters in front of her shook their heads or otherwise denied the possibility of questions, a concern started to gnaw away at her- Greycrow was out of contact, which may have been typical of the man and his almost fanatical devotion to experiencing the hunt, that he'd picked up from Harpoon and spread to Riptide, but the longer he was out of contact, the more worried she grew, despite knowing just how much of a tough bastard he was and how capable the two with him were.
Sabertooth being out of contact was one thing- the man was half-feral at the best of times, and she wouldn't be surprised if he'd broken the earpiece on accident specifically so he wouldn't have them "holding him back"- but being without Greycrow's incredible adaptability and his keen tactical mind was all the more impactful for how much she'd come to depend on the man.
Still, she was a Marauder, handpicked by Mister Sinister through the best thief to come out of Louisiana specifically for her ability to fight beyond what mere muscle like Blockbuster could muster up- with Vertigo and Prism on her side, what did she have to fear?
Using a forge while under the influence of the Crest of Flames was a distinctly unusual experience.
Obviously, I didn't have very much experience with blacksmithing- I'd only come into the art recently, and before that hadn't even dabbled in anything closer to raw materials than assembling a circuit board, but I'd like to think that, for all that I was new at it (at least in this world), I had a relatively strong grasp on how the process normally worked: heat metal, beat metal, repeat as needed.
Trying to keep the Crest active for long periods of time was like… honestly, the closest I could come to describing it was like trying to sprint a mile. It was impractical, tiring, and for all that I did technically cover the figurative ground faster, it wasn't something I could afford to keep up forever.
Thankfully, even without bending the fabric of spacetime around me, my upgraded Speed Ring still made me pretty damn fast, and as it turned out my ability to put any normal craftsperson to shame also extended into the speed with which I could craft.
Even so, I was only barely able to complete the transformation of the cheap crystal that had been until recently a part of one of the cheap rings into something much more powerful before the level of stress I was putting on myself through riding the Crest of Flames so hard started to translate to actual physical damage, not least of which was through oxygen deprivation from literally breathing faster than the air around me could re-oxygenate itself.
Complete the transformation I did, though, and as I held up the ring that had been made of cheap, low-carat gold that had had the heavily enchanted crystal directly embedded in it, transformed into a stripe of faceted material in the center of the now brilliantly gleaming band, and prepared to run raw Essence into it for the first time, I became abruptly conscious that I was completely alone in the corridor.
It took a moment to remember why- Tommy had heard something from deeper in the tunnels, either a rumbling of some sort or a scream, I couldn't quite remember, and as she had gone charging off to rescue whoever it was, everyone except for Rachel, who had decided to accompany the old woman and the girl back to the Castle in Limbo to try and keep order with the Morlocks we'd already rescued.
Before I managed to fully finish the item, I felt the Forge blaze to life, discharging an oddly melodic-sounding mote of flame with a seconde trailing behind it, and abruptly I understood the nature of growth.
Not growth as a property of life, or growth as expressed through fire, but the kind of growth that you'd expect out of a full symphony. By combining many disparate parts, and bringing those parts into closer alignment over time and concerted use, I could in essence reveal entire new avenues that I hadn't even thought to build in, like an endless sequence of new chords in an infinite orchestra.
An ordinary craftsperson would have had a rough time translating that decidedly artistic sentiment into their work.
For me, it took maybe thirty seconds to apply it to Geirskögul, my personal Speed Ring, and the new ring, and then I slipped it onto my right thumb.
The crystal unfolded, drawing the raw essence of the world into itself as it changed from cheap quartz into smooth lapis lazuli streaked with what wasn't quite orichalcum but would probably end up as the magical material once I'd exposed it to the light of the sun. The mystically hardened stone seemed to almost flow up my arm, seeming to almost be probing me to figure out my exact dimensions before it solidified, leaving me clad in what looked like someone had taken plate armor and decided to blow the whole budget of Industrial Light and Magic on making it look like a cross between far future and high fantasy.
As impressive as it looked, from the inside, it was a lot less so. It was basically just a suit of armor with a magical sensor suite and physical enhancements slapped on it instead of the cut-down warstrider that I'd been hoping to put together, and I'd basically had to disassemble the suit that the me who specialized in armorsmithing had managed to piece together for herself over the years in order to do it. It didn't have any fancy gadgets, no real ranged weaponry, and I wasn't even sure the infusions that had been attached to the armor before reforging it had carried over. Even so, it fit in the ring, and more importantly, it would fit me no matter what size or shape I was now that it was properly attuned to me, and with that handled I could afford to rely on Protect less.
With the craftswork done, I dismissed the Blacksmith's Forge back to its place in the castle and started running.
Immediately, I almost overbalanced as my feet outraced the rest of me, and instead of bracing myself against the wall with my hand, it dug a groove of concrete out of it, showering me with chips of the material as I flinched away and toppled over.
After a moment of just laying on the ground, head spinning dizzily after almost reflexively trying to activate the Crest of Flames again and running face-first into how hard I'd already been working the mystical force, I managed to get my limbs under control enough to roll forwards, and that was when it clicked.
This time, as I started to run off, I kept my balance, almost leaning forwards in what wasn't quite gyroscopic stabilization but something similar, driven by the enchantment I'd worked into the stone of the suit, and I belatedly realized that my "basic physical enhancements" were the equivalent of any other artificer or wondercrafter's most heavily enchanted equipment.
Despite the speed at which I was moving, or perhaps because of it, my feet seemed to almost be glancing off the floor, making it almost look like I was skipping or skating along.
I even managed to take a handful of steps on thin air, although that was admittedly more because I'd almost overshot the corridor that Morgan and the rest of the group had turned down before the cut-down PokéNav in my sensor suite managed to pick her up, and I wasn't sure I'd be able to replicate that kind of feat in this iteration of the armor, at least not intentionally.
As I started down the corridor, I could hear the sounds of lightning, arcane discharges, and a basso rumbling that, in other circumstances, I likely wouldn't have been able to tell from lightning.
That was probably the sound of fighting, and so I sped up, really pushing the armor to see what I couldn't do with it, and as I emerged into the room, I only had a moment to assess what was going on.
Most of the small-ish room was full of scattered people, a handful of battered Morlocks including Tommy interspersed with the group I'd brought with me, and facing them were a trio of people who looked just plain more dangerous.
One of them, a heavily muscled woman who looked vaguely familiar, was advancing on Morgan with her fist raised like she was about to swing a hammer, or perhaps an icepick, down, who was, at the moment, staggering around dizzily, and so my next course of action was relatively simple.
I didn't even try to stop, hitting her with all the runaway momentum of a freight train.
And that's that!
Perks earned:
Heretical Adaptation (Senki Zesshou Symphogear, 200 CP): Symphogears are, in essence, a Relic adapted into a combat system for it's ability to generate massive amounts of energy that can be formatted into a certain kind of matter through a generic mass-energy converter. However, they also have the ability to 'evolve' overtime, gaining additional armor and improvements to features such as onboard thrusters. With a bit of study, it might be possible to apply this adaptive behavior to other materials, encouraging them to improve themselves over time.
Calling Card (Senki Zesshou Symphogear, Free): You spent a lot of time coming up with your combat techniques. It's only fair to name them! When you make an attack that's above par, time almost seems to freeze for a second, and all those onlooking instinctively recognize the name and intended theme of the technique. This effect can be toggled.
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