The nexus of the chaos was a roundabout in the centre of the district, where the remaining cocoons were being gathered together, apparently for transport. It was crowded with dark soldiers, far more than it would be on any given day.
“There’s way more goons than there were last time,” Estella frowned as she saw the crowd of soldiers in the area, as she ran towards it. “The ‘Tenebris Imperatoris’ is certainly more prepared for us this time…”
“Surely he could’ve picked a more original title than simply ‘Dark Emperor’ in Latin,” Aurelius noted, his mask now back on.
“I know, right?!”
“That’s irrelevant. Right now our objective is to rout the enemy and free their captives,” Leigh said, her helmet also back on. “We will likely encounter this ‘Dark Emperor’ here. Get ready!”
Estella nodded. The soldiers up ahead had spotted them, and were preparing for combat, forming defensive lines - melee fighters in front, and the cop copies in the back, taking aim. Switching runes quickly, she formed an anti-projectile barrier in front of her as the bullets went flying. Swords formed of light shot out in front of her as they were cast by Aurelius, piercing the shadow cops immediately in front of them as Estella and Leigh tore straight into the defensive line with their blades.
As they did so, Estella heard the sounds of heavy footsteps coming towards them, and turned to spot Anja barrelling through another portion of the defensive line with an armoured carapace, withstanding bullets and smashing soldiers left and right. The roar of an engine came next, as Natalia drove right into the other side of the line with a hoverbike, the front of which extended energy blades that tore right through anything in their way as Natalia opened fire with her blade rifle.
As the first line of defence was routed and forced to retreat, a barrier suddenly formed, cutting Estella and her allies off from the enemy.
The Tenebris Imperatoris stepped forward from the crowd, his cape billowing in the wind, a dark aura emanating from his body as he glared at his adversaries. “I expected the ‘henshin heroines’, but the knight and the mage is another matter entirely. I suppose I’ll need to put in a little more effort for this.”
“You say that like you stand a chance,” Estella snorted, gripping Galowye firmly, “we beat you down the last time we fought, and we’re much more prepared for you now.”
The Emperor seemed completely unphased by the boast, shaking his head, “you assume that I haven’t gotten stronger or prepared for you this time. If I didn’t give you a proper challenge last time, then allow me to rectify that!”
Several nearby soldiers suddenly transformed, merging into a set of five copies of their leader. All six instances of the Tenebris Imperatoris spoke in perfect synchronisation, “I seek a world without suffering or conflict. And yet you wish to stop me?”
Anja snorted. “What a load of crap, pal. We’ll beat down as many of you as we need to.”
Natalia nodded, revving her hoverbike, “this isn’t right, even if you claim your goals are noble, the means are just… Abhorrent!”
“What these people you’re kidnapping are going through isn’t ‘living’,” Leigh declared, “in the name of the Lord, we will put an end to this lunacy! Magister, if you would?”
“Of course, my lady,” Aurelius said, as he dispelled the barrier.
Before Estella could ponder how they’d deal with the numbers disadvantage, the sixth Emperor suddenly came under fire from Natalia’s LUV, driven by Tharen and the machine gun manned by a TOU officer. The rest of the unit was moving in, and opening fire on the rest of the soldiers, assisted by Gartho and his turret, forcing that instance to focus on Tharen and them.
Estella charged forward, engaging the ‘original’ Emperor in combat, locking blades with him. “Let’s see how strong you really are, pal.”
The Tenebris Imperatoris grinned, “if you insist, then allow me to provide a demonstration!”
❖
Natalia had decided to skirt the entire fight entirely and chase down the small fry on her bike, speeding away, running and cutting down soldiers trying to escape with cocoons while she was trying not to harm the innocent people inside them. She figured the others could hold out against a slight numbers disadvantage - she felt bad about leaving them to fight the copies, but someone needed to stop the enemy from making off with cocoons, so that was her first priority.
However, someone cut her off - one of the Emperor’s instances had formed some kind of hellish magical hoverbike of his own, clashing its blades with her bike’s, forcing her to take a different path as she evaded his sword swings. Needless to say, this was more than exasperating for her. “Oh, come on, you’re seriously gonna be a copycat?!”
“If it means keeping you from interfering with my plans? Yes, yes I am,” he said, as the two bikes circled each other, “you have so many interesting toys. Did the aliens give them to you?”
Natalia revved up the bike, and charged, “go jump off a bridge, creep.”
Her blade rifle clashed with his sword as their bikes also rebounded off each other, and they circled back around to clash again, before they started racing down the road beside each other, clashing blades.
The Emperor chuckled, as they separated again, and launched fireballs at her, “jousting like knights, how delightful!”
Natalia deflected the fireballs with her weapon, before stopping, forcing him to turn around. She switched to her sniper rifle. “If you really want to joust…” She took aim, and fired.
The Emperor snarled as he barely evaded, the shot nicking his arm. He changed his sword into a rather jagged lance, and grinned as he went at her at high speed.
Natalia took a deep breath, matching his speed as they raced towards each other. She took another shot for his head, which he blocked, and prepared her rifle’s spear mode - the sniper rifle was called a ‘Spear Rifle’ for a reason, using a telescoping energy spear.
The two bikes passed as the pair struck at each other. Natalia’s spear ripped into the Emperor’s side, but she grit her teeth as his lance pierced her personal shield, ripping into her suit and cutting her waist. As she turned around for another go, she knew he could take more damage at this rate. She needed a plan.
She switched to another weapon of hers, her Shotgun Mace, and accelerated. As it happened, there was another weapon this bike had - a frontal energy cannon. As the two bikes got close, she charged it up and then opened up its compartment at the front, firing a large energy burst immediately at the Emperor’s bike.
“What the-” The Emperor was sent flying off the bike, before Natalia unloaded a full blast of the shotgun into his chest as she veered away from his lance. However, the lance changed to a whip, which shot out and grabbed Natalia’s arm, pulling her off her bike with intense force. “Clever girl! But you’re not winning that easily!”
“He’s more durable and capable of losing more body mass than a normal human being. He likely doesn’t have organs in the traditional sense, as long as he can still get up, it doesn’t matter if there’s a gaping hole in his chest,” NIA advised.
Natalia groaned as she tumbled to the ground, and as she got up, the Emperor was already on his feet, charging at her with his sword. She blocked the incoming attack, redirecting the blade away, and formed an energy mace on the shotgun that she used to club him in the head. “Just…” She clubbed him again. “Freaking…” And then charged up the shotgun, firing it almost point-blank at his head, “DIE!”
The emperor’s head exploded into black matter and blue flames, as his body burned away. Natalia panted as she checked her vitals. “Ugh, that was a pain in the ass…”
❖
Anja had went straight for one of the Emperor’s instances, with the intend to just beat him into a pulp. When he saw her armoured up and fighting with her fists, he seemed to take the same approaching, forming more armour and a pair of deadly-looking brass knuckles on his gauntlets.
As they came close together, they began a brutal slugfest, neither side willing to give an inch as they punched, ducked and weaved around each other, taking blows that would probably either brutally injure or outright kill normal people. The Emperor laughed as he shrugged off another powerful blow, “you honestly think you can outlast me in a battle of raw, unrefined power?”
That gave Anja pause, as she stepped back. What was she doing? Atsuko taught her to fight better than this. Sure, raw power worked just fine for the regular soldiers, but against this guy? She needed to step it up.
Anja took a deep breath, as she took on a Karate stance. Ever since she and her sisters were young girls, their parents had insisted on them learning self-defence via Karate. Especially Atsuko, who seemed to be an even more skilled practitioner than any of their teachers. “Okay, then. I’ll just style on you.”
“Oooooooh, are you finally gonna use those Karate moves? Kept me waiting a while, babe!” Prometheus laughed eagerly.
“Are you trying to hype yourself up? It won’t work!” The Emperor snapped, advancing as he delivered a quick jab. Anja just blocked it deftly with her arm, countering with a shift punch of her own straight to the head.
The staggered Emperor quickly recovered and tried to punch her again, but she redirected the blow with her arm and slammed her fist into his gut, following it up with a swift roundhouse kick to his side. He tried to kick her, but she side-stepped it and slammed a spiked foot into his face via a spinning back kick, following up with a back fist to the head and a double fist strike to his torso, knocking him down.
It was easily apparent that this guy was not a martial artist. Maybe he had done a bit of boxing, but beyond that his technique was lacking and his ability to anticipate her attacks and deal with them also had something to be desired. She was very unimpressed. “Is that it? I actually take this seriously and you fold like a house of cards?”
The Emperor chuckled, as he got back up, forming two large battle-axes, “I will admit, in terms of just our fists, you are the better fighter. No more games, then.”
Anja was forced to thin out her armour in order to form larger blades capable of blocking them, as he started swinging at her. Unfortunately, trying to block two large axes at once as they came at her was a different kind of challenge, and she was starting to take damage, as the blades started slicing into her suit and drawing blood.
So she stuck to the fundamentals. She waited until he attacked with both axes at the same time, deflected both of them to force him to recover as he dealt with the resulting momentum, and moved into striking range, delivering a reverse punch that ripped into his torso by not only stabbing into him, but twisting the blade, and then ripped the blade across his chest. As he stumbled back, she performed the strongest reverse punch that she could muster to the face that ripped through his face, including tearing through his eyes.
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She felt Prometheus wince at the brutal sight. “Yikes, brutal. And yet he still ain’t going down.”
“Don’t you dare underestimate me…!” The Emperor snapped, spikes forming all over his body as he charged Anja, swinging wildly. “I can still sense you!”
Anja dodged and ducked away from the incoming strikes, staying well away from him as she waited for an opening. Once again, he missed a double axe strike that she side-stepped, and before he could recover, she formed a sharp blade on her leg and foot and performed a spinning back kick straight to his neck.
She winced as the spikes stabbed into her leg and foot, but with a mighty blow, she ripped his head straight off, sending his body crashing to the ground, burning away. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t.”
❖
Electricity and fire went flying as Estella and the Emperor exchanged a volley of magic, in-between striking at each other with their swords.
Frustratingly, they were evenly matched. Neither of them evidently had formal training with the blade, which put them on even terms regardless of the amount of practice she had done. And he didn’t seem to be slowing down, tiring out or even running out of Aether. It was extremely difficult to tell what exactly his limits were, so Estella assumed that, in a battle of attrition, she was at a disadvantage. That was not good at all.
“Surrender now and I’ll consider making you one of my concubines,” the Emperor said matter-of-factly as he launched another fireball.
“Excuse me?! No thanks!” Estella snapped as she blocked the spell with Galowye, moving in to strike at him again multiple times, which he blocked and dodged with superhuman agility.
He just made that smug grin that pissed her the hell off. If only she could do something about his speed - it seemed like he had deliberately enhanced his agility just to give himself an advantage. That wasn’t something she was experienced at doing.
She took a step back, and her eye caught sight of someone off to her side. She could see Leigh, watching her, the remains of the instance she had defeated burning by her. Why wasn’t she coming to help?
“Ah, I see what she’s doing. She’s using this as a test of how well you can handle yourself,” Galowye advised. “She wants you to prove you are worth training to become a true knight.”
Then she had to defeat the Emperor entirely by herself. That meant she had to treat this as a problem-solving exercise using her blade and her magic. Just projectiles and wild swings won’t cut it.
Then she recalled what Leigh did earlier during their brief duel, and that sparked an idea in her head. She started switching runes.
“Giving up, girl? You look completely lost,” the Emperor taunted. “I expected more of a challenge from you.”
“Nah, just rethinking how I’m gonna deal with you, asshole,” Estella remarked, as she aimed her palm towards his feet, her hand glowing. “You’re no pushover, but you’ve still got feet of clay.”
“What are you on abou-” The Emperor’s eyes widened as he looked down, his legs sinking into the concrete, via the same ‘Change Earth’ spell Leigh used on her. He was too late to get out before the ground solidified around him. “Damn it! You clever bi-”
Estella didn’t let him finish, slashing at him. He blocked the blow. Time for the second part of the plan - ‘Bond Metal’. Not a literal fusion, but rather magically connecting the two swords together like a powerful magnetic force. “And now that you’re completely grounded and our swords are connected… I wonder how insulated your sword’s handle is?”
His eyes widening told her exactly what the answer was, as she unleashed a furious surge of electricity from her hands, sending it through the two swords, and right into his body, causing him to groan in agony as the shock fried his body.
Once he was suitably damaged and stunned, Estella de-bonded the two swords, and swung, bisecting him in one go, causing his body to burn away. “Yeah, I thought so.”
Leigh clapped as she approached Estella. “Well done, young lady. My expectations of your potential were not misplaced. You are still a mere squire in my eyes, but with some proper instruction, you may become a fine knight, yet.”
Estella felt the need to kneel in response. It just felt appropriate. “Thank you, Lady Leigh. Um… I guess we should probably finish off the other copies or chase down the other soldiers…”
“Might be a bit late for either of those, unfortunately,” said Leigh, as she looked out across the battlefield, “the ‘Emperor’ did this as a pure delaying tactic. He was fighting me fairly defensively. He was trying to enable his troops to escape with as many cocoons as he could get away with.”
Estella looked out as well, and noted that the other copies were either destroyed or being finished off - her sisters had beaten theirs, Aurelius had rushed off after defeating his, chasing down the soldiers, and Tharen had apparently run his over with the LUV right before the officer on the gun and Gartho’s turret ripped the copy to shreds.
“Go home, young lady, and lick your wounds,” Leigh advised her, putting a hand on Estella’s shoulder. “Aurelius and I will handle the formalities with the local government. We will rendezvous later.”
Estella nodded, and took off, “right. Thanks for the help!”
Time to go grab her sisters, their alien allies, and split before things got messy in a very different way.
❖
“Good news is, we routed the enemy once again and rescued almost all of the citizens taken captive. Unfortunately, there is a very good possibility that the enemy escaped with some kidnapped citizens,” Gartho sighed. “We can’t confirm numbers as of yet, however.”
They had regrouped back at the Kendrick household, and it was about an hour or so later after the battle was over. Their friends had been quite relieved to know that things had gone relatively well, at least. Estella felt utterly relived that big fight was over with, but the fact that it wasn’t a total victory didn’t sit well with her, either.
“At least the government isn’t coming after us,” Anja noted. “Agent Yang seemed pretty chill.”
Sonia sighed, “I don’t know about that. We should still be wary of ‘em for now.”
“And an actual Arcane Knight from Thaumia showed up? Why?” Jay asked.
“Hell if I know,” Estella shrugged. She was still wondering how Leigh intended to rendezvous with her. Then again, the pair knew her full name, so they probably could easily just find out where she lived.
“Well, we gotta wait until they shot up, I guess,” Tharen nodded.
And right on cue, the doorbell rang. Everyone except the sisters rushed to hide from plain view. Estella went to go answer the door, checking the doorbell camera. She recognised the two faces at the door, and opened it. “I… I didn’t expect you to show up this soon.”
“We were not inclined to waste time, Miss Kendrick. May we come in?” Lady Leigh replied. She wore a lovely but simple purple dress. She had aged rather gracefully for someone at her age. Estella spied a gold ring on her finger.
“Apologies for the sudden arrival,” Aurelius said. He wore a nice suit, and damn did he look good in it. He looked like he was Leigh’s butler or something.
“Sure, and no problem, I guess,” Estella said, stepping aside and letting them in, closing the door behind them. “We’ve got other guests as well, including our allies, and, well, my sisters. They’re all in the know.” She gestured to Anja and Natalia, “these are my sisters, Anja and Natalia.”
Leigh noticed them both, and nodded, “ah, I see. The girl with the biological ‘suit’ and the girl with the advanced technology. The pieces fit together quite well.”
“Geez, figured us out right quick… Uh, nice to meet you, ma’am,” Natalia gulped.
Anja just waved, looking utterly unphased, “yo.”
Her friends started poking their heads out to see. Estella spoke, “and that’s Jay Hayward, Sonia Mata, Florrie Ashword, and also our two alien guests, Tharen Valitar and Gartho Beathwe. The aliens are the reason I have Galowye.”
Jay waved, “pleasure to meet you, I suppose!”
“I pictured someone looking a bit more regal,” Sonia mused.
Florrie elbowed her, “she’d stand out like a sore thumb in public if she was, you doof!”
Gartho stepped out, “ah, so you’re Lady Leigh and Magister Kruse. Agent Gartho Beathwe of the Galactic Defense Force.”
“Captain Tharen Valitar,” Tharen chuckled, also coming out, “thanks for the help back there.”
“A pleasure to meet you all, then,” Leigh nodded, and turned to Estella, “where are your parents? I assume you live with them?”
“We do, but they’re overseas for God-knows how much time,” Estella sighed. “Why are you two here? Aren’t you from Thaumia?”
Aurelius nodded, “ah, a pertinent question. That is true, but we also keep track of paranormal happenings on Earth - we learned of the planetary shield around Earth, and we received word of the attack of the ‘Emperor’ happening at around the same time. Seemed awfully coincidental.”
“And I mistrust coincidences,” Leigh frowned.
Tharen laughed, “funny thing is, it was entirely a coincidence! But it also meant we had to scramble to supply the girls with the stuff they needed to save the town, so, uh, not ideal.”
Leigh continued, “so we received permission from the Grandmaster of the Order, Princess Avaline Noëlla Halothine, to perform our own investigation.”
Before Estella could speak up, Galowye spoke indignantly, “Halothine?! That podunk duchy run by that imbecile duke who couldn’t keep it in his pants became a KINGDOM?! What on Earth did I miss in the last few centuries?!”
Leigh just chuckled. “That’s another matter to discuss later. Now, then… Estella. Now that Aurelius and I have a better understanding of the situation on the ground here? We need to do something about your lack of formal training.” She gave Estella a smirk that sent a shiver down her spine, “and considering the potential you showed me today? I see no reason to put you through a proper crash course.”
“Wait, I have studies to do when university resumes-”
“-that is no excuse, young lady, my training when I was your age was intense and rigorous. I’m quite sure you can juggle your training and studies,” Leigh said sternly, her expression going cold. “From now on, you will be my squire. You will learn the ways of the blade from me, and the depths of magic from the Magister. I expect you to give 110% in your efforts. Am I clear?”
Estella gulped. “Y-Yes, ma’am.” What had she gotten herself into now?