“Let’s hear it,” Cadenza said to Sera while she waited for her shoulder to be healed. In the background Layla continued trading blows with the golem knight to little effect while Rinnie continued to snipe at its joints.
“That thing only reacts to things it thinks can hurt or slow it down it. It blocked your first attack and has been focusing on Layla, but it never paid any attention to Rinnie or your slashes. That means your railgun attack could have hurt it, and it thinks Layla is strong enough to do the same,” Sera explained, having been watching the entire fight from the rear and thus having the luxury of analyzing it.
“It knew exactly where I was when it went to kick me, though. Knowing I can damage it isn’t much help if it’ll just deflect the attack again,” Cadenza pointed out. But Sera wasn’t done.
“I’m counting on that. If it thinks the same attack is coming it’ll dodge or block it- but what if it doesn’t do any damage? It’s a golem, not a person. I’ll launch illusionary swords and lightning at it until it starts ignoring them- then you launch the actual attack from behind me,” Sera continued. She’d been using her illusions a lot down here and on a fairly large scale, so she thought it might be doable. They didn’t need to be perfect- at the speeds they’d be moving, they’d be little more than a blur anyway.
“…it could work, but only once. The instant it takes a hit it’ll probably realize the fakes have real projectiles mixed in and adapt,” Cadenza responded gravely, eyes distant as she thought the plan over. “I’ll have to hit it with all my remaining shots at once just to be sure. I’ll need time to prepare that, though. Rinnie?”
“Yeah?” the scout replied, backing off from the golem. Cadenza hadn’t bothered speaking up; Rinnie’s hearing was somehow better than Sera had thought, and she already had a high opinion of it.
“We’ve got a plan, but Layla’s flagging. I need you to take some of the heat off of her,” Cadenza told the smaller woman. Rinnie scowled in response and shook her head.
“Don’t know if you’ve noticed but it’s not exactly concerned about my arrows,” she replied.
“I did- but that’s not you’re only weapon, is it?” Cadenza asked. “You’re a warrior. I bet that bow isn’t strong enough to take your full strength, but your dagger is another story.”
“That’s suicide! One hit and it’ll turn me to paste!” Rinnie responded, not denying the implication that she could damage the golem if she tried.
“Then don’t get hit. I know you have the skill to pull it off. If you don’t relieve Layla soon we all die, you included,” Cadenza riposted mercilessly. Rinnie was silent for a moment.
“I could use the distraction to escape instead,” she said weakly. Far from being angry at the idea, Cadenza merely smiled.
“You wouldn’t, though.”
“…no. I wouldn’t. Fine. Just be quick about it,” Rinnie agreed after clicking her tongue. “I don’t plan on dying today but I can only buy you so much time.”
“Done!” Vivi announced, backing away from Cadenza. Sera didn’t have a baseline, having never seen Vivi use her powers for actual healing before, but she looked like it had taken a lot out of her, so the injury must have been pretty severe.
“Let’s get started. Tiriana, prepare a lightning bolt as well, please,” Cadenza requested as she took her position behind Sera. The mage called up her swords and positioned them in front of Sera- all she would have to do is obscure them after each ‘attack’ and generate a false projectile.
“I’m on it, but it won’t be as strong as the first,” Tiriana confirmed.
“You can do this,” Sera said to herself as she started gathering mana. Having the swords right in front of her was a big help- she didn’t need nearly as much effort to hold the image steady in her mind. Her plan was going to take several steps: form the fake swords around the real ones, launch them, obscure the originals at the same time, and produce a sound to simulate a real launch. Since Cadenza was holding all her swords out as she charged them, Sera would alternate the starting point as well.
As the mages prepared, Rinnie charged at the golem knight, drawing her misericord. The golem delivered a mighty swing to Layla that the warrior ducked beneath. Then Rinnie was in close, spinning for momentum. She stabbed her dagger into the side of the golem’s knee joint, planting her feet at the last moment to avoid simply pushing herself backwards. The golem was so much larger than her that she was essentially at knee height already, so Rinnie was able to apply her full strength to the thrust from an ideal stance.
The tip of her weapon connected and pierced right into the golem knight’s metal knee, a feat unimaginable had she possessed even the strength of Earth’s strongest man. Even then, she was unable to penetrate all the way through the thick metal, managing only to sink her dagger deep enough for it to stick fast. Instantly the golem reacted by swinging at the tiny woman, but Rinnie was already rolling towards its other side.
“Layla, drive it in!” Rinnie called out as she easily dodged another swing, then a shield bash. With the pressure off of her, Layla, armor battered and dented, stepped in close to the golem knight and dropped the bottom half of her weapon, settling into a wide stance, low stance and twisting her body back, one fist clenched and positioned for a punch.
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“Hrrrrmph!” Layla grunted as she threw her fist forward with the entirety of her weight and strength behind it. Her target was below her waist, but Rinnie had factored that in, driving her misericord in at an upward angle. Layla’s descending fist, protected by solid, mana-infused metal, collided with the pommel of the dagger and drove it in like industrial machinery punches holes in sheet metal. The tip emerged from the other side of the golem’s knee and it staggered, no longer able to properly control its leg.
That didn’t make it less dangerous, though. It quickly swung around and whipped its sword back at Layla, aiming to strike her with the pommel. Midway through, though, it broke off its attack and spun, interposing its shield between itself and Sera as she fired off the first of her fake projectiles. The golem knight nearly lost its balance when the expected impact never came. With the time that bought them, Rinnie and Layla were able to recover their balance and back off, bringing the fight back to a more advantageous distance for themselves.
“Twenty percent,” Cadenza informed Sera as the melee resumed, giving her a rough idea about how long they needed to hold out for. In terms of seconds it hadn’t been all that long since she began to prepare, but in a fight a few seconds could be akin to an eternity. To stay consistent, Sera waited about as long as Cadenza took to charge up a shot herself before firing off the next false sword, leaving Rinnie and Layla to deal with the golem in the meantime.
Now having determined Rinnie was a greater threat than expected, the golem was no longer going to allow her to get close. She didn’t have another weapon she could use in the same way, but the golem didn’t know that, making her an excellent distraction. Still, the golem knight fought like a veteran warrior, expertly wielding both its sword and its shield to prevent either of its opponents from closing the distance. Layla was no longer being overwhelmed, but with her weapon damaged and her reach reduced by half, she was still on the defensive.
Last time Sera had seen Rinnie in action, she’d been waist-deep in water. Now the little scout was entirely unencumbered and able to display the full extent of her agility as she dodged and weaved around swings so powerful they produced bursts of air. She ducked under a slash and then rolled backwards to avoid the follow-up, regaining her feet while Layla parried the next attack and sidestepped a shield bash. Taking an unsteady step forward, the golem brought its weapon down towards Rinnie’s head, forcing her to hop out of the way, then redirected its sword into a diagonal slash in Layla’s direction.
Exchange after exchange took place at a pace Sera could barely even follow, inertia and momentum hardly even a factor in the movements of these enhanced beings. She wasn’t sure how many attacks the two warriors had avoided by the time she launched the next illusionary sword, prompting another attempted deflection from the golem, but it seemed to have anticipated the possibility of a feint this time and avoided losing its balance. Instead it spun back around and delivered a horizontal slash that warded off Layla and Rinnie before they could get close.
“Forty!” Cadenza shouted, sounding slightly more tense than before.
Sera was feeling the strain herself. She wasn’t just making the swords, after all; to produce the sound effect she had to compress air with a cage of concentrated mana, and she was obscuring the position of the sword she’d just ‘fired’ each time with mist. It was complicated and required somewhat precise timing, but so had the illusions she’d been using to cloak Layla up to now. She had the practice. Now she was just putting it to use in another fashion.
Layla and Rinnie worked their way around to opposite sides of the golem, making it more difficult for it to alternate its attacks. It adapted rapidly by adjusting the way it wielded its shield, utilizing the edges for slashing attacks instead of the bashes that would have required a forward motion. Even with only one good leg the golem retained excellent dexterity, and it could hobble forward fast enough to keep up with Layla in the moments she tried to open the distance, so she and Rinnie pulled away in opposite directions, forcing it to choose.
“Sixty!” Cadenza called out as Sera fired another shot off. This time the golem ducked, letting the ‘sword’ pass over its head while it charged after Layla, deeming her the greater threat. The instant it caught up, though, Rinnie threw herself just barely into range and the golem knight thrust its sword behind it to force her to force her to back off. As she did so, Layla caught the edge of the golem’s shield in both hands and heaved, discovering that the armament was in fact part of the golem’s arm but managing to make it stumble nonetheless.
The armored warrior took a punch to the chest in response that forced the air from her lungs, but she managed to catch herself before she could topple over. Sera took the opportunity to launch her next feint while the golem was leaning forward and this time found her distraction ignored, a mixed blessing under the circumstances.
“Eighty percent!” followed shortly after, Cadenza now sounding strained. But now Sera was freed from her responsibility- the next attack would be the real one. Instead she faked a clap of lightning and a flash of light that momentarily made the golem knight believe Tiriana had launched another magical attack its way, which gave Layla enough time to recover again.
Rinnie and Layla entered the final stretch by initiating a deadly game of cat and mouse, entering into and retreating from the golem’s reach in succession, keeping it from focusing fully on either. It worked for several long moments and Sera had almost begun to think the fight was over when the golem changed tack abruptly by kicking off the ground, launching itself in Rinnie’s direction backwards. Suddenly the scout found herself close to her opponent than expected, forced to decide which direction to dodge in when the golem twisted at the waist, swiftly caught itself on its good leg, and delivered closely timed attacks with both arms.
She’d just barely avoided the golem’s shield when its sword came flying in and sliced straight through her left arm. The severed limb dropped to the ground as Rinnie shakily backpedaled away, stump dripping a clear fluid instead of blood. Layla, for all her faults, charged in to take the heat off her least liked party member, but she needn’t have bothered this time.
“Ready!” Cadenza screamed an instant before the world exploded. Five swords streaked through the air in a fraction of a fraction of a second, impacting the golem’s limbs and back with a force Sera couldn’t begin to calculate. Made of pure metal, it managed to not fly apart, but its limbs were badly warped and one sword was buried in its back.
Which provided a path directly through its armor and enchantments for the lightning bolt Tiriana followed up with, reducing whatever it had for a core to slag.