Ravens of Eternity

201 Ice Queen, Pt Eva scrambled out of the Spirit of Amelia in a mad hurry. Concern was etched on her face for her friends – the words ‘entire settlement’ greatly alarmed her. At first she believed Miko was simply being either a little silly or melodramatic. But her concern skyrocketed when she saw dozens of colonists all running towards the mansion as well.

As she observed the colonists all around, a feeling of dread filled her. Not only did they have the exact same expression – that of unbridled determination – but also they all moved uniformly. They ran the same way, breathed the same way.

It didn’t matter who they were – short, tall, fat, skinny, old, young. They all moved the exact same way, and that unnerved her greatly.

She adjusted her armor and broke into a sprint herself, determined to dash past the growing horde. Getting to the mansion before them was obviously necessary.

And unfortunately for her, the moment some of the Hallowed noticed her, they changed their direction and ran straight towards her instead! In their hands were the tools of their trade – various multitools and ice-encrusted shovels and well-worn crowbars.

The Hallowed raised them in the air as they charged towards Eva with fervor, faces unchanged.

Eva drew her Ra’ventrii blade, lunged at the closest Hallowed, and cut him down before he even realized it. Then she spun into a dance and took down the advancing Hallowed one by one with every step that she took.

Her razor-sharp blade cut through skin and muscle and bone and cybernetics with equal ease.

The Hallowed’s simple movements were no match for Eva’s precise dance. They never even got the chance to swing back before they fell, one after another.

.....

She took one more step, slashed her weapon gracefully, and cut off a Hallowed’s head. Its body fell to the ground as its head tumbled in the air. Just as it hit the cobble, Eva noticed that more of the Hallowed had spotted her, and were already running in her direction.

No way can I stay here, she thought, they’re just gonna be in my way the whole damn time.

Her face settled into a grimace when she saw a couple of Hallowed in the distance, both with rifles in their hands, and both aimed at her.

Without any hesitation, she ducked away just as they began to fire on her. Bullets struck the cobble all along the streets and the walls, and caused cracks and fractures to spider out in their wake.

And as Eva ran in a wide circle around them, their bullets also struck the Hallowed in between them. They were cut down as their own kind shredded them from behind.

She narrowed her eyes as she realized that their simplemindedness made them uniquely dangerous. They were free of all morality, but at the cost of undying loyalty. That gave them the ability to destroy everything in their path merely to achieve whatever goals they were imprinted with.

Eva ran halfway up a building then launched herself towards the roof on the other side of the street. As she soared through the air, she drew her Handcannon, lined up her shot, and obliterated the two Hallowed that were firing at her.

Their upper bodies were reduced to chunks, paste, and mist as her slug powered right through them. It even punched a meter-wide crater into the cobblestone brick behind them.

The gun’s recoil propelled Eva the rest of the way, and allowed her to land gracefully on the roof across. Without skipping a beat, she kept on running across the rooftops towards the mansion.

And as she leapt between rooftops, she realized that many of the Hallowed on the streets below had rifles. Their uniforms showed them to be guards and police and garrisoned soldiers. And though their rifles weren’t the most up-to-date weapons in the Federation’s arsenal, they still had enough power to get through their C-ranked Dryden Defense Skirmisher Armor.

These could deal with sidearms and simple melee weapons without a problem, but rifle ballistics? Minimally, at best.

She really meant the entire damned settlement, Eva thought to herself. Amal would probably wanna save ’em... But I can’t let ’em gather up and reach us...

Left without recourse, Eva leveled her gun at one of the many that carried rifles, and fired. She tore the Hallowed, and one or two around them, into pieces. One less gun to deal with later in exchange for a little bit of regret now.

Then she fired again and again, until she was just about empty.

~

Callie shot another bullet at Miko as she ran around her flank. To her frustration, Miko caught her bullet again. It floated alongside her first shot in the buckler’s antigrav field.

But not for long.

Miko’s buckler spun to the side at great speed and launched both its captured bullets at a Hallowed that ran through the open doorway. It, and two other Hallowed behind it, were all torn to pieces from the impact.

The buckler spun back in front of Miko protectively within the blink of an eye.

“Yes, keep feeding me more bullets,” taunted Miko. “That is certainly a wise choice made by a superior foe.”

She waved two of her drones forward, and they flew straight towards Callie with determination in their tiny eyes. Once they were in range, they didn’t hesitate to blast her with charges of electric bolts.

Slight CRACKS erupted in the air as they discharged their blasts. Despite their calculations, they were hardly able to hit the Prophet. Instead, their bolts struck nothing but the wooden floor and left scorch marks in their wake.

In fact, Callie moved and evaded with such alacrity that everyone was in shock. She sidestepped or twisted away from each blast with an almost preternatural speed. Miko realized that she was far faster than Colviss, the Reborn Anti-Justicar, and had to rethink her strategy.

Even her ball would be useless, except maybe defensively. She instead withdrew her drones and played it that way. They weren’t going to be helpful offensively, and she knew she wasn’t going to be fast enough to catch her with her Lightning Cage.

She needed to goad the Prophet into making a fatal choice, somehow.

As she calculated her possibilities, the Prophet encircled the room, reached the wall of weapons, and grabbed a rifle off its pegs. It HUMMED as she activated it, then aimed down its sights at Miko’s head.

“You want bullets?” she screamed. “I’m happy to give you as many as you want!”

Miko’s drone quickly slid her aside as Callie’s full-auto barrage peppered the area with rounds. She dented and tore into the sleek sheets of metal that decorated her walls as she swept across and tracked the little girl.

The smile etched on her face was that of pure delight – the act of destruction was something that filled her with joy and purpose. Her heart beat rapidly from the excitement, and she had never felt so alive in her life.

This Enthralling Bloodlust was embedded deep in her blood.

While Miko’s buckler caught as many as they could, Miko herself waved her baton at Callie’s rifle. While her drones kept her out of harm’s way, she hacked past the gun’s meager security intelligence and issued a full shutdown command across its logic circuit.

“Your generosity is most welcome,” replied Miko. “But unnecessary. I do not need bullets to destroy you.”

The rifle whined as it powered down and refused to continue working, which irritated Callie to no end. She tossed it at Miko angrily, but was caught by one of her drones.

“You and your irritating drones!” she cried.

“Are you angry that they are perhaps more effective than yours?” Miko replied.

She punctuated her question by having her buckler throw back the half dozen rounds it had captured. They blasted outward in a tight cone, like a shotgun, and slammed into the space where Callie stood a fraction of a second ago.

The Prophet sped towards her desk, ripped it free from the floor, and flung it at Miko. While the little girl caught the table with her drones, Callie sped back to the weapons wall, grabbed a war hammer, and charged Miko at full speed.

Right when Miko tossed the upturned desk aside, Callie leapt up with the hammer above her head, ready to smash the girl to a pulp.

“Gotcha!” she cried.

But the moment never came. Instead, Callie was caught by Miko’s buckler and two drones. She squirmed helplessly as they held her down with multiple antigrav fields.

Her eyes went wide for a moment as Miko blasted Callie with pure force, and slammed her into the large bay window. Cracks spidered out all over the thick glass.

Miko hovered over to Callie as her buckler held the Prophet in place.

“You cannot defeat me,” she said.

“You can’t kill me, either,” Callie retorted.

Miko harrumphed, then increased her buckler’s antigrav pressure. It pressed Callie further into the window, painfully. She cried out as she felt her ribs strain under the sheer weight. The cracks on the window widened further and further until the entire thing shattered.

Callie was flung out into the cold, and slammed onto the cobblestone two stories below with a heavy WHUMP.

“I have better things to do than deal with you,” said Miko.

“Raijin! We need support!” cried Claire.

Claire, Max, and Amal had taken up behind the heavy metal desk and faced off against the Hallowed from their position. Claire and Max both shot at the incoming Hallowed with their pistols while they were ducked down behind the desk, which had tipped over on its side.

The Hallowed ran in blindly, as though possessed by some great need to reach them. Claire shivered as she realized Callie was serious about them being torn apart physically. She did her best to keep calm, but that thought gnawed at her over and over.

What was worse was that she only had another dozen or so rounds left in her pistol. Once she and Max were out... Well, that was something she really didn’t want to think about.

“Use this,” Miko said.

Miko waved her baton at the rifle, powered it back on, and had her drone bring it to Max. At the same time, one of her other drones pulled a B-ranked Myrmidon Beamlance from the wall and handed it over to Claire.

“I-I don’t have the training to use this,” Claire stammered.

“Point weapon, pull trigger,” retorted Miko.

“Wait,” said Amal, “we need to find a way to help these people – we can’t just kill them wantonly like this!”

“I’m sorry Azrael,” said Miko. “I believe they are already dead.”

“Well I refuse to believe that!”

Max cut down another oncoming Hallowed with a burst of fire, then turned to everyone else.

“Doesn’t matter what any of us believe,” he said. “If we don’t take them down, they’re going to tear us apart! Didn’t you hear what that lunatic said?!”

“We’ve got no choice,” added Claire. “If we had nonlethal weapons, maybe, but even then... I don’t think they’d wanna be alive. Just look at them!”

Amal glanced down at the piles of bodies on the ground and in the doorway, and sighed. Their greying skin and dead faces should have been all the proof she needed. But something inside her refused to accept that they were all already dead.

Perhaps it was better than coming to terms with how easily their corpses were desecrated. Or rather, how easily the Prophets of Gaea looked down on humanity, and treated them like property.

Amal grasped her chest as the emptiness of the Hallowed dug right into her soul.

“Can we at least ease their suffering?” she pleaded. “Undo their brainwashing? Somehow? Then we can at least put them to rest properly! I can’t stand to see them suffer like this... I can’t bear their pain.”

“Leave the system to me,” said Miko. “I will try to stop it. My drones will do their best to support you while I am under.”

She walked up between Max and Claire, and sat down while protected by the desk. Then, she waved her baton at one of the few surviving terminals that hung on the walls, and invaded the settlement’s network.