“This here’s quite the reception,” Anza observed, looking around at the forces brought to bear against her. “I’d have been happy to come up to your office, y’know,”
“Anza Black, I presume,” Lahlee cordially greeted her, not showing any trace of levity.
Anza’s hackles were raised, but she knew that she gained nothing by letting the local Branch Head know how on-guard she was. So she smiled and confirmed, “That’s me! I’m sure y’all’re wondering why I’m here,”
“I think I already know,” Lahlee shook her head.
Anza quirked an eyebrow, because there was no possible way that word had spread about the purpose of her visit. Well, unless a faerie had been monitoring her talk with Wujing, but that seemed implausible. So she decided to test the waters. “Really? Who told you that somebody broke into Astralia’s Spear?”
Lahlee looked surprised for just a moment. She recovered quickly, staying silent, but Anza had seen it. Lahlee had not, in fact, known the reason for her visit. Which meant there was something else going on in Cliffwatch that she had expected someone to come and investigate. There were a lot of possibilities there, and Anza didn’t like any of them.
“Actually, no. That’s news to me. It seems I received bad information,” Her voice dropped at the end of the sentence, and Anza suspected she was already planning to rake someone over the coals. “I see. Astralia’s Spear itself? Treasure hunters have been poking around there for decades but never managed to breach the inner sanctums. It’s impressive just to reach it, considering the calibre of Kaijus that inhabit that area,”
“Yeah. The top brass is very interested in knowing what was in there, so I came by to ask if y’all’d heard anything and for y’all to keep an eye out,” Anza nodded. “But, say, I’m curious now. What’d you think I was talking ‘bout?”
“Oh, nothing important. Just a small matter of internal affairs. Rest assured I’ve got everything under control,” Lahlee brushed the question off, already starting to step away. “If that’s all, don’t let me keep you -“
“No, hang on,” Anza took a step forward. “Internal affairs, you say? Because I couldn’t help noticing that this place is pretty quiet. Just a few guards, no civilians, no rangers in sight. I was looking forward to catching up with some of my buddies. Where’s Chesham? Or Tierno? Everyone, really,”
“We had an incident earlier today. All the civilians are still down in the bunker, and the rangers are out, either on patrols or chasing down the Kaiju that assaulted us. I’m the only one that stayed here,” She was lying. Anza could tell from the slight quaver in her voice. Interrogations weren’t her forte, but being a decent Goliath Guardswoman meant you needed all kinds of tricks up your sleeve.
“That so?” Anza forced herself not to tense up. She didn’t have time to investigate what was really going on here, her actual mission was too time-sensitive. But that didn’t mean she was okay with just leaving whatever all this was to fester. Lives could be at stake. It was possible that Lahlee had already killed whomever among their colleagues wasn’t on board with whatever she’d cooked up. “Well, as long as you’ve got everything under control. I’ll just use your Ataraxia Node to check in and report my progress, then I’ll head out again. The ruins of Balmwind are days away still,”
Lahlee’s fake smile dropped. “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,”
Anza cursed mentally as she realised she’d been seen through. It wasn’t unexpected; all this cloak and dagger bullshit was not her forte at all. “Look, I don’t care ‘bout whatever antiquing racket y’all’ve got going on as long as no one’s getting hurt. I’m not here to audit you or anything. Sun Archiver knows, I cain’t wrap my head around that many numbers even if I cared to try. I’m in the business of protecting people,”
“Nonetheless, I’m going to have to ask you to take advantage of our hospitality for a few days. I insist,” Lahlee snapped the fingers of her remaining hand, and suddenly there were a dozen warriors clad in active Amber Sentinel armour concentrated around the exits of the chamber.
“What is all this, Lahlee?!” Anza demanded, looking at the score of guards encircling the door. “This ain’t just some profiteering scam. You’re betraying the Goliath Guard!”
“I received a better offer,” Lahlee shrugged. “Please don’t resist. I don’t need to kill you. The project is two weeks at most from completion. It’s no bother for me to just keep you comfortable and under guard until then. This doesn’t need to get violent,”
“Oh, really?” Anza pretended to mull it over as her mana channels came alive. “The thing about that is,” Her Core Controller erupted with golden light. “The violence is my favourite part of this job!” She threw a punch, not at any of her foes, but at the ground beneath her feet, at the same moment a barrel-like gauntlet burst into existence around her hand.
The projection that had enveloped her fist exploded on impact, and the recoil launched her into the air, sending her flying past the guards and into the doors. By the time she was crashing into the main doors of Cliffwatch, her Amazonian Aegis had formed around her body.
The doors were reinforced with the purpose of keeping everything out. They had not been built to keep things in.
So she smashed straight through them and caught herself on her growing legs in the kill box, watching the ground fall away as her armour, the Amazonian Aegis, finished swelling to size ten. Distantly, she heard Lahlee shriek, “Stop her!”
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Her preparations were evident, as four more Amber Sentinels, these ones at full size, appeared to her sides and rear, and two more led the charge through the slowly opening gates, followed by Lahlee herself. Deciding that was enough of that, Anza wound up a Technique in her left arm and threw a Concussive Phantom Punch, a projected blow that shot between the Amber Sentinels, slammed into the top of the bastion, sending out vibrations and caused the main doors’ frame to start crumbling.
She grinned. The rest of the reinforcements were cut off. She just had to deal with these six and Lahlee herself.
Lahlee’s own Armour Core grew to full size, still dusting itself off. Her purple projection was unusual, with an engorged left arm wielding a spiky club and a right arm that seemed partly fixed in place and carrying a tower shield. Its helmet was sharp and triangular, with two dull red eyes peering out from a boomerang-shaped brow. Anza had always heard that it was hard to use Armour Cores with missing limbs. She looked forward to finding out how much of that was reflected in Lahlee’s fighting style.
“So this is the Amazonian Aegis? I thought you’d be taller,” the traitor mocked her. Anza’s own armour was unusual; it looked more like a massive wooden statue of a woman than the more traditional knightly design. It had barrel-like arms and legs, and statuesque muscles. She bore no weapons, instead wielding mighty yet mismatched fists. The left seemed like it was made of obsidian, while the right was a swirling nexus of earthy power. Each of those was a Core all its own, named Bismuth Knuckle and Splinter Striker respectively, and she’d gone to great expense to improve them.
“At least y’all know the name of mine. Whaddya call that thing? The Traitor’s Trashheap?”
“For your information, this is the Artefact of War,” Lahlee broadcast back to her. “But you’ve had enough time to think, I say,” She raised her tower shield and put her shoulder behind it, then an eruption of pink energy came from her heels and she shot forward in a crippling shield bash manoeuvre.
Anza brought her fists together, swivelling on her heels, and met the charge with a powerful double punch. Explosions of different colours and types erupted where her strikes met the shield, one releasing a powerful concussive blast that forced the Artefact of War to stumble and stop in place, while the other span into a maelstrom of stone shards and drilled right through it, striking Lahlee’s chest.
The spiked club came around to punish her for the blow, but the Amazonian Aegis slid backwards, removing the Bismuth Knuckle from the shield and adjusting her footing to direct her mana in the way that let her conjure a momentary rectangular barrier to tank the blow.
“What are you just standing around for, get her!” Lahlee shrieked at the Amber Sentinels encircling them both. With shouts of acknowledgement, they moved forwards as one, extending their spears to hold Anza in place as though she was herself a wild Kaiju.
“Oh, Lahlee, Lahlee,” Anza drawled, looking around at the identical yellow colossuses that were encircling her. “Do y’all really think that a half-dozen Amber Sentinels will be enough to give you the edge against me?”
“Stand down. This will go much easier if you surrender,” one of the guards tried.
“Easier?” Anza parroted with a derisive scoff. Her helmet swivelled to give each of the traitorous soldiers a full glare of her displeasure. “If you chumps knew the first thing ‘bout me, y’all’d know that I never take the easy way out!” She swept her leg out and crouched, then kicked herself into the air. The mana in her veins sang with the activation of one of her favourite techniques, erupting into geometric fractals like crystals of bismuth around her right gauntlet, and she backflipped before coming down in a handstand that slammed her fist into the ground.
The earth quaked, shockwaves of golden energy erupting from the point of impact that bowled over the Sentinels. Only the watch captain managed to retain his footing, so Anza paid special attention to him. She twisted her armour to hook her legs around the neck of his avatar and sent him crashing into the side of the kill box, then sprang back to her feet with agility that should have been impossible for such a massive armour projection. The Splinter Striker dug into the earthworks above him, making it collapse into a shower of debris that buried the upper half of the Amber Sentinel.
Straightening up and looking around, she saw a series of yellow flashes as the other five Amber Sentinels disappeared. “Huh, giving up already? That’s a new low, I’d have expected better from even the lowest rank of . .” She trailed off as a couple of puzzle pieces clicked into place. “These ain’t real guards, are they? Y’all’ve replaced them with some F-list hired goons who have no real training,”
“How insightful,” Lahlee’s voice had turned spiteful, and Anza grinned to herself. She’d been underestimated, Lahlee hadn’t expected her to be able to so handily dispatch the Amber Sentinels. Well, it helped that these chumps were clearly below even the most lax standards of the Goliath Guard. Even she herself hadn’t thought they’d go down so easily.
“You and I both know that if you were strong enough to beat me, you wouldn’t have needed to call those losers for backup. But go ahead and keep fighting. Beating y’all up sounds like a fun time,” Anza mimed cracking her knuckles.
The Artefact of War squared up against her. “I think you’ll find that my new allies have made me more powerful than you can comprehend,” Lahlee’s voice rang in her ears, and Anza scrutinised her. Something wasn’t right.
Her right shoulder exploded. The shield fell away and dissolved into purple dust, as the crippled right arm of the Armour swelled and writhed, blowing up like a balloon as it was overtaken by something unnatural, something wrong. Whatever Lahlee had unleashed, it was no Core. It looked more like some grotesque, writhing tentacle of mottled black flesh, with spikes emerging along its length and a malformed hand at the end with scythe-like blades for fingers.
“What in the hell is that . .” Anza whispered.
Twisting the entire torso of Artefact of War, Lahlee sent her monstrous arm flying forward, and it stretched like rubber. Anza, still caught off-guard, didn’t manage to properly deflect the strike, and the serrated claws wrapped around Splinter Striker, gripping her arm fast. With a snarl, she yanked on the offending grip, but Lahlee held firm as the extended limb retracted and dragged Amazonian Aegis towards her.
The spiked club in her left hand came around to meet her, smashing into the pugilist projection’s chest with enough force to knock Anza straight out of her own armour.
She groaned in mid-air, but then hit the ground and everything went dark.
The next time she opened her eyes, only a moment later but still much too long, Lahlee was standing over her. The woman’s metal arm had split open, revealing more of that awful monstrous flesh and a matching hand of serrated talons. “I was going to kill you. But perhaps I don’t need to,” A cold and cruel smile split her lips.
Anza peered blearily up at her, working her lips but unable to form words.
“Oh yes. I think you’ll make quite a useful resource,”
Lahlee brought her monstrous arm down, and everything went dark.