Chapter Forty-Four

Lydia and Charles freed the last of the bound soldiers who had been pressed in to the first magazine. There were thirty of more of them, all in uniform, but without their weapons of effects. Each was simultaneously attempting tell his own tale of how they had been captured by a group of gifted assailants, creating such a clamor that Lydia could not form any coherent understanding of what they were trying to say. Overhead they could hear the sounds of conflict punctuated by occasional explosions.

“Everybody be QUIET!” she raised her voice at the last to be heard over the cacophony. “We have to get your away from the powder. It could go off at any moment. Follow Mr. Bingley out the door ONE AT A TIME!”

To her utter astonishment, the men listened and obeyed. Charles moved, and the others followed. Lydia hefted one young man who seemed incapable of walking on his own over her shoulder. She winced at his moan of pain, but carried him out behind the rest of his comrades. She was thrilled at this small success. She felt like she was making a real difference, rather than just being Jane and Lizzy’s troublesome tagalong little sister.

A green light flared in the night sky just as the soldiers reached the wall of the encampment. Only forty or so yards away, Lydia saw a dozen men and women, some armed and some with obvious gifts pour out of a covered trench. They were running towards Sir John, who seemed to be fighting another half dozen or so armed men. Two took off into the air. She saw them moving towards Darcy, but could not immediately think of a way to reach them.

She looked to Charles, who seemed to be hesitating, looking between the soldiers they were saving, his friends in the air, and the newly uncovered enemies. She shoved the man she was carrying in to the arms of the nearest solders. She saw her brother-in-law standing, seemingly overwhelmed, mired in indecision. She was almost astounded that she was able to maintain her own presence of mind. She barked an order to Charles. “Find weapons and arm these men. They’ll be more help in the fight with muskets!” Then she ran towards the enemy approaching Sir John.

Several of the armed enemy turned towards her. They must have heard her ordering Charles. They started firing at her. Suddenly time seemed to slow down, just like it had when she was practicing with Wickham on Oakham Mount. She was able to step or spin around the incoming balls, ducking and dodging, taking advantage of carts and walls for cover. She grabbed an empty cart, probably used for hauling barrels and supplies and swinging it in a full circle off the ground, she hurled it at the attackers who had stopped to engage her.

Her aim was true, and the cart bowled over four of the assailants. “Yes!” she expostulated, then continued into the fray.

# # # # #

Darcy watched as the battle expanded below. He saw the familiar giantess, growing to her fifteen-foot height, along with a man carrying several swords and pistols, a dusky woman shrouded in mist, and two flyers, a man and a woman. The flyers proceeded in his direction. Darcy had extended his gravitic shield to create a dome that encapsulated the five magazines. Unfortunately, this was taking the preponderance of his capability and concentration, leaving only enough for him to maneuver to avoid the anticipated attacks form the aerial duo.

The woman seemed to be crouched low on a glowing golden platform that she propelled through the air. The man rode at the head of a dazzling trail. Both were attacking with energy burst which Darcy managed to slip between. He could not counterattack without removing the dome and there were too many ways the magazines could be detonated without his shield.

Below he spotted the forces clashing. Richard was engaged with the well-armed man, both were moving faster than humanly possible. The man drew and fired two pistols. Richard managed to avoid both shots, procuring a loaded musket for himself from one of the villains Miss Lydia had bowled over. The man avoided Richard’s return fire with a spinning leap that ended with a blade in both his hands. Richard fenced with him, bayonet against saber. Scarlet blossomed on both men’s raiment. They traded powerful blows that reverberated across the battlefield.

Just as loud were the clouts exchanged between Sir William and the giantess. They battered at each other with fists, the knight’s even larger than the behemoth’s. Each blow rocked the earth around them. Darcy saw the woman was stronger, but the Mayor was more experienced and use his greater reach and momentum to his advantage. The Derbyshire man was certain that Sir William would eventually prevail

Sir John was engaged with a battle of shifting environments with the Indian woman. She would eject plumes of noxious vapors or spew jets of acidic fluids, which he would freeze solid, or cause them to condense into a dirty snow. She was able to take a gaseous form to avoid his spears of ice and other attacks. But each time she flowed around a strike her form became less viscous.

Miss Lydia and Bingley were assisting the soldiers in their assault the mortar teams and enemy gunmen. Bingley raced around the musket-men, slicing through their belts holding their ammunition pouches and powder horns. Whilst Miss Lydia took a more direct route, moving into close quarters with the non-gifted assailants. Darcy though that with training she might prove equal to Richard. She used her extraordinary strength and speed to batter her opponents into unconsciousness.

Darcy was drawn back into this airborne game of evasion as the two assailants attempted to box him in. The man projected bursts of flaming energy that speared towards him. The woman created giant golden hands that attempted to either grapple him or swat him from the sky. He manipulated the force and direction of the Earth’s pull on his own body, causing him to flit about the sky. From what he had glimpsed on the ground, he determined that if he could only avoid his attackers and maintain his protections on the gunpowder, the others would soon be able to assist him.

# # # # #

“No, No! NO!” LaFontaine shouted. He watched as his carefully planned, three-layered trap fell apart under the assault of a vastly outnumbered enemy. “How can he do this? How! He is the devil himself!” He pounded his fist on the trunk of a nearby tree.

“We should take our leave while we still can. Make our way to the ship,” MacDill suggested.

“No! We can yet turn the tide. I will not let him beat me. I will prevail! Take us there.”

“But …”

“Now!” MacDill opened a portal to the wall behind where the bulk of the battle was underway. They both stepped through, LaFontaine in the lead. He stood for a moment, taking account of all the combatants, especially marking the six English gifted. It had taken him years of practice to be able to utilize his somatic manipulation gift to instill temporary powers in others, and during that time he discovered a number of ways he could impact the gifts of others. He reached out and felt the energy of the gift flowing through the nearest enemy, the one-armed colonel. He felt it pulsing in the man’s body. And, with a simple twist of his own power, LaFontaine suppressed the man’s gift.

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The effect was immediate. As the colonel tried to block Rao’s acid attack, the cold barrier refused to manifest, allowing the corrosive jet to score on the soldier. The Frenchman relished the man’s agonized scream as his flesh began to dissolve. Tuning to another colonel, LaFontaine again reached out to cancel the colonel’s gift. It was less effective on purely physical enhancements like this man’s. But he did slow noticeably. This allowed Greene to score several hits, leaving the soldier bleeding with his regeneration greatly reduced.

MacDill was also attacking, opening a micro-portal to the lava chamber of Mt. Vesuvius. This caused pressurized lava to spew forth, burning the soldiers organizing to fire at the Frenchman’s forces. Their former hostage barely managed to push two men out of the way of the jet. Several of the men turned to fare at them. MacDill opened a portal to the space above the soldiers, causing the fire at themselves.

“No!” the dastardly Derbyshireman cried out. LaFontaine exulted at the despair in his enemy’s voice. He turned towards the flying magistrate and reached out with his gift. Once he had disrupted the gravity shield, they could destroy the magazines.

Suddenly, MacDill lurched back, blood spraying from a massive musket wound in his shoulder. This distracted LaFontaine enough that he lost his connection to Darcy. Turning he saw that it was the horrid Bennet chit with the smoking musket in her hand. She dropped it and reached down for another. He gestured, and her gift was suppressed.

She staggered for a moment, then raised the musket to her shoulder. “Mary was right. I don’t need my gift to stop you.” She fired. He dodged, but the ball still cut a crease along his ribs. He concentrated, and the wound healed almost instantly. He raced towards her. If he could touch her, he could inflict tremendous damage to her.

“Leave her be. You will not hurt another of my sisters, LaFontaine.” Elizabeth Bennet landed in front of him.

“You think you can stop me? I will tear apart everything you hold dear!” He reached to suppress her gift, only to find that once the channel was open, she could employ her own gift through it as well. With an inarticulate cry he launched himself into the battle.

# # # # #

Elizabeth saw Darcy was facing multiple aerial adversaries while he was locked into maintaining the shield. He managed to avoid most of their attacks, but inevitably, some succeeded in finding their target. Her fiancé was absorbing the damage, but she did not know how long even a man as powerful as he could endure such punishment. She needed to help him, but her winged foe was giving her no opportunity to render assistance. After repeated attempts to touch him long enough to use her abilities to render him unconscious and finding him too elusive, she decided on a different tactic. She carefully maneuvered such that, after another failed strike, she was left in a vulnerable position, just under his taloned feet. The self-styled RazorWing took the bait and grasped onto her shoulders, painfully digging his sharped claws in to her delicate flesh.

This was connection enough and Elizabeth was able to use her gift to render her foe paralyzed. They plummeted towards the ground. Elizabeth saw LaFontaine and the red-coated man step through a portal onto the battlefield. She wrenched her attention to the rapidly approaching ground and used her cat-like agility to reposition her attacker so that he was between her and the onrushing cobblestones. At the last possible moment, she leapt off the man, transferring some of her momentum, and flared her wings to slow her decent. Her landing was hard, but she was able to absorb the impact and redirect it into a roll.

As she regained her feet she saw Lydia shoot the red-coated man. This caught LaFontaine’s attention and he rushed towards her sister. Elizabeth could not let that happen. She bounded towards the pair and landed so as to interpose herself between her youngest sibling and the man who was responsible for so much of her family’s recent pains.

“Leave her be. You will not hurt another of my sisters, LaFontaine.” Elizabeth stated, falling in to a combat pose.

“You think you can stop me? I will tear apart everything you hold dear!” He waved at her and she could feel his somatic manipulation gift reach for the seat of her own gift. She instinctively knew what he was attempting. Their gifts were similar. She had channeled her efforts into healing and personal enhancement. He had specialized in the manipulation of the gifts of others, even at range. But their powers were effectively the same. This meant that the channel he opened to Elizabeth was also open for her to reach him, giving her range she would not otherwise have.

So she reached. When the Frenchman felt her enter his system, he screamed in rage and frustration. Their battle was fought at a level invisible to others. Each tried to gain control of the other’s body. Elizabeth felt him reach for her heart. She blocked him and tried to cut his nerves at the spine, paralyzing him. He redirected her probe back to her own nerves. She felt her legs go numb, and had to spend a precious second healing the damage.

This moment of distraction allowed LaFontaine to attack her gift. As a true gifted, Elizabeth had no core to affect like the ExtraOrdinaries. Instead she could sense how he targeted the portion of her brain that controlled the essence of her gift that was distributed in every portion of her body. His attack was precisely targeted, and therefore slow. Realizing what he was doing, she struck first. She sent a brute force attack at the same portion of his brain. It was not subtle, but it was fast and, ultimately, effective.

Her assault burnt out the entire portion of his brain, eradicating thousands of nerves and leaving destruction equivalent to that of a severe apoplexy. LaFontaine grasped his head and fell to his knees wailing in anguish. Elizabeth followed with a spinning roundhouse kick that put him, temporarily at least, out of his misery.

“Lizzy!” Lydia cheered as she ran up and embraced her. “You got him!”

“There’s still more left to do,” Elizabeth said pointing the ongoing conflict.

“But what should we do?” Bingley appeared. The tension in his voice showed he was nearing a state of panic.

Elizabeth took a moment to gain a better sense of how the battle was progressing and where her allies were in greatest peril. Darcy and the two colonels seemed to be in the most desperate straits. The vaporous woman seemed to be the greatest threat, and one she was not likely to be able to subdue herself.

She turned to her new brother. “Can you cause some sort of wind or vortex to blow the Indian woman’s cloud away from Sir John and the others? She needs to be contained until she can be defeated.” To Lydia she said. “Direct the soldiers to focus their fire on her. Wait until she has reformed to a corporeal state, then fire. After she is down, direct their fire towards the flyers attacking Darcy.”

“Right!” Bingley said and moved off, procuring a large board form the wreckage to use as a fan. Lydia just saluted and ran back towards the gathered Army men.

Elizabeth took one more look at the aerial battle and saw that Darcy was still holding his own. She instead raced silently towards the well-armed man slowly whittling away at Colonel Fitzwilliam, her claws extending. Just as the man kicked the Colonel into a stone wall, she slid under the insurgent’s outstretched leg and sliced at his Achilles tendons. He sprang into the air, leaping over her attack. He riposted with ahis blade, stabbing for her heart, She slapped the side of the blade, moving it just far enough to cause him to miss and render him momentarily off balance. She spun, almost rolling along the extended blade, to grab his wrist. He responded with his dagger, stabbing for her back. She batted his blade away with her wing as she sent her senses in to his body and caused his consciousness to shut down. He slumped to the ground.

“Well down, my Lady,” Colonel Fitzwilliam lauded as he stepped forward, saber at the ready. “How long will he be out?”

“Long enough.” She replied. “Go take over the soldiers. Send Lydia to help Sir William. I’ll help Darcy.”

She launched herself into the air before he could reply. As she approached the airborne enemies, she once again cursed that she had so few ranged options. She almost returned to the ground to scrounge a musket or pistol. But she decided she had no time.

The woman riding the golden disc had just knocked Darcy into the path of one of the other assailant’s energy blasts. Elizabeth shuddered at Darcy’s cry of pain. She reached out and sent a pulse of nervous energy that caused the woman’s left leg to spasm. This was as much as she could achieve at such a distance, but it was enough to cause the woman to lose her balance and slip from the disc.

Her receding wail attracted the attention of her comrade. This distraction was enough for Darcy to close and deliver a powerful clout to the man’s head. He plummeted, unconscious, to the cobblestones below. The woman managed to create another disc which stopped her decent inches off the ground. But before she could rise to renew her attacks, Sir William’s giant hand grabbed her and slammed her into the ground.

Slowly the firing subsided and the other sounds of battle stilled. Elizabeth could hear ragged breathing and moans of anguish, but a quick inspection found none of the insurgents remained conscious.

“Darcy, darling, we did it!” she shouted, not caring who heard.

“We did, my love.” He flew to her and took her into his strong, comforting embrace. “Together we did.”