Chapter Seventy-One
Nigredo and Albedo
The team, consisting of Granger, Lizbeth, Jade, Natsuki and Ryuuji advanced in formation, covering each other as they dismantled the resistance. The drone, several meters ahead of them, was providing the information with the enemies they would encounter. However, the deeper they went into the complex, the more evident it became that the place was prepared to face an incursion of that magnitude. More and more mercenaries in synthetic bodies began to emerge from the bowels of the facility, heavily armed, along with the tactical droids.
“Katsuragi, Kayabuki, rear guard!” ordered Lizbeth, as she ducked behind a makeshift barricade and then used her shout to eliminate a droid that had come dangerously close to her partners.
[Understood!] Natsuki replied over the Neurowire, generating an electromagnetic pulse with one of her weapons that disabled the mercenaries' weapons in her line of sight, and then Ryuuji finished them with his sword. Natsuki had the upper hand in that scenario due to her curse. She was completely invisible to the droids and mercenaries, as they were not equipped for a case like hers, that required a device to pick up the magic residual radiation from her body.
Granger, smiling with a mixture of defiance and excitement, launched himself directly at a group of mercenaries, deflecting their attacks as if they were mere nuisances, while hitting them with devastating force. Jade not too far away had just taken a shot at one droid while launching another into the air with a kick.
“There's more of them ahead!” announced Ryuuji, tracing a symbol in the air that detonated in a small burst of fire near a droid. The fight was short, but it was too annoying that they had to stop every so often.
None of them knew that the scientists were no longer there and that only the droids and mercenaries were offering resistance.
Finally, the team reached a machine control room, an almost ruined space filled with blinking old and dusty monitors and glowing consoles. In the center of the room, a platform with several new pieces of equipment loomed above the floor, surrounded by a pulsating energy field.
The last defenders of that section of the complex, a group of elite mercenaries armed to the teeth, stood in front of the equipment, their gazes cold but determined to stop the intruders at all costs.
“Go!” shouted Lizbeth to Granger. Granger nodded and, followed by Jade, continued their journey out the exit on the other side of the room.
Lizbeth and her small team were already only a few meters away from their target, which should be only a hundred meters away going out from another hallway.
Lizbeth threw complicit glances to Ryuuji and Natsuki and they engaged in a new fight against the mercenaries and droids. They had a few minutes to spare, but nothing they hadn't trained for in close combat.
***
Jim Stuart had left for LC2 while Shin had to go to LC1.
But that had not happened as they had planned.
Only Stuart had left for his target.
An unforeseen fight was taking place.
The concrete and steel in the structure of the tunnel, seemed to vibrate with every impact. The ground shaking under the weight of the blows of two entities that should not have met in that conflict.
Shin, clad in his symbiotic armor, advanced towards the woman who had begun to attack him. The clothes he had obtained were destroyed when the particle cloud appeared through his skin. Only the reinforced turtle backpack was still on his back.
The woman was dressed in her white symbiotic armor, flashing with a cold, calculating gleam,, which contrasted with the almost animalistic rage with which she threw herself at Shin.
https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/42dd80f9-5ac6-42d5-8ccc-bcea020b6152/di8w3tc-8be92caa-f397-443e-8a0e-8a751a3526e3.jpg/v1/fill/w_1063,h_752,q_70,strp/nevermore_enygma_vol_5_chapter_71_by_hasegawakein_di8w3tc-pre.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9OTA2IiwicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvNDJkZDgwZjktNWFjNi00MmQ1LThjY2MtYmNlYTAyMGI2MTUyXC9kaTh3M3RjLThiZTkyY2FhLWYzOTctNDQzZS04YTBlLThhNzUxYTM1MjZlMy5qcGciLCJ3aWR0aCI6Ijw9MTI4MCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.DY31wXlITFht8uHS3rB56zZk2Gz3w4krTSxBx0KOa5s [https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/42dd80f9-5ac6-42d5-8ccc-bcea020b6152/di8w3tc-8be92caa-f397-443e-8a0e-8a751a3526e3.jpg/v1/fill/w_1063,h_752,q_70,strp/nevermore_enygma_vol_5_chapter_71_by_hasegawakein_di8w3tc-pre.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9OTA2IiwicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvNDJkZDgwZjktNWFjNi00MmQ1LThjY2MtYmNlYTAyMGI2MTUyXC9kaTh3M3RjLThiZTkyY2FhLWYzOTctNDQzZS04YTBlLThhNzUxYTM1MjZlMy5qcGciLCJ3aWR0aCI6Ijw9MTI4MCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.DY31wXlITFht8uHS3rB56zZk2Gz3w4krTSxBx0KOa5s]
He did not see the point of the fight. That girl had attacked him as if she were possessed by something, or under the effects of some drug. Had he done something to her? Did he know her from somewhere? Certainly something told him that he knew her, but he couldn't pinpoint where or when. Some old quarrel perhaps? Could be. He had made many enemies over the years but it had been centuries of that. Could hatred last more than two centuries? Or was he simply her target in that madness?
Well, that could last, Shin thought, remembering his studies in history, although that was not the time for academic or philosophical ramblings. On the other hand, that girl was not the only problem he had.
While it was against his moral code to raise a hand against a woman, it was very different when the person in question was trying to kill him. He had to stop her, or shake her off with a blow that would put her out of combat.
Guns had not worked.
Traditional bullets and magnetic projectiles proved to be inefficient. The girl's armor protected her. Even when her armor showed revealing some bare skin, the bullets bounced off the white armor, or in liquid parts that flowed and floated and then return them with the same kinetic force with which they had been fired.
Weapons were useless against her, but the same was with the sword.
The girl caught the blade of the sword and for some reason the structure twisted as if it were scrap metal. The blade had been bent and rendered useless, while it was heard to be having some trouble in the configuration to restore itself to normal form. Shin discarded it to the side. He had one in reserve but would not use it.
It was a curious effect, Shin had found it himself when he tried to use his particles on some object. In particular when they interacted with some electronic device those particles ruined it to the touch, as well as the fabric of the clothes he was wearing. Not to mention that in the case of living tissue could generate cuts if the particles formed more solid parts. But the consistency was different in that woman.
In the exchange of blows that followed Shin realized it and so did the woman. But the girl was so focused on her target that she didn't seem to notice.
Shin even though he was trying to control his particle armor it moved around him revealing parts of his body. The chaos around the two of them had intensified when they met body to body.
But it was the same with that girl.
Where they tried to hit each other, or when they made physical contact, the armor of both of them moved and they both hit each other's bare skin. It was not his imagination. Both armors were running as if they were opposite poles of a magnet. The white material of the woman's armor with liquid consistency, as well as Shin's armor in the form of a cloud of particles did not touch each other.
Shin, despite being two meters tall, found it difficult to fight against her. That girl was fast enough and short enough that she seemed to move like a whirlwind around him.
He had tried to hit her several times and had succeeded, but the same thing happened with her. The thuds and destruction sounds of the fight must have reached the ears of almost everyone.
Although they made contact with their bare skins in that gale of kicks and blows, both were still unharmed, apart from the fact that they were dirty with dust due to the collisions against the walls of the structure.
She was incredibly strong. Shin thought that even someone like Granger wouldn't have stood a chance against that girl.
Walls were breaking and debris was flying in all directions due to the speed and superhuman strength of both opponents. There was no need for armor, that fight had something primitive in its fury, but at the same time it was made so that neither side would give each other a truce.
The woman gritted her teeth and launched a kick against Shin's head. He saw how at that precise moment the armor of her was removed, from the parts of the body that were about to make contact, and revealed the girl's leg skin as well as Shin's face.
Shin had to admit that she was quite athletic and, under other circumstances he would have found her beautiful, but that kick would have blown the head off an ordinary person.
She advanced with violent precision, her blows slicing through the air with deadly speed. Shin reacted quickly, raising a particle shield with part of his armor to block the first attack, but it didn't work. The impact was blunt on Shin's forearm. As soon as she touched the shield with her foot the dark particles dispersed and moved around Shin again. The same happened to the girl's leg armor, which quickly floated to another part of her body, almost as if it were a liquid in zero gravity but with a consciousness of its own.
Stolen novel; please report.
Shin used his other hand and caught the girl's bare foot and threw her against a nearby wall with a demolishing effect. The entire structure in that sector shook and the sound spread through those tunnels and rooms for several hundred meters. Columns fell and parts that had been recently remodeled cracked, when the older parts could not absorb the violence of the collision which was already deteriorating the place too much.
The girl fell on the debris that had just been produced by her impact and looked at Shin with fury.
He hoped that the blow would have been enough to put her out of action, but Shin saw that she barely had a scratch on her cheek.
Red blood.
A feeling of uneasiness was invading him and a suspicion was growing in him. The stinging sensation on his back.
The white armor. Blows that had no effect. Was that girl like him? Did she have reinforced bones?
Could she also recover like him? If that were even remotely true, the only chance he had was to give her a surprise blow. It was the only thing he knew that affected him. But would it work? It was remote but, in the few minutes of the fight, he had been discarding ideas and memories that would allow him to know who she was. He felt he knew her, but it could well be that her target was him and nothing else.
“Whatever I did to you, I apologize. Do we know each other from somewhere?” Shin didn't know what to say to her. He had to get her off his back, but it wasn't easy. That blow against the wall should have been enough to knock her unconscious. She crouched on the rubble like an animal and Shin's expression changed.
He spun in the nick of time. A black and yellow flash passed near his neck and stuck into the wall behind him. Shin turned around. He had run out of instinct, but the armor was protecting him again when he had thrown her several meters away from him. Still, that had been close. That girl had thrown a rusty Radiation Danger sign at him, with enough force to drive it into the concrete.
She again thrust forward, using the strength of her symbiotic armor to throw a punch toward Shin. The punch was fast and direct, but Shin deflected with a swift movement and grabbed her arm and spun around to grab her from behind.
The armor of both of them moved away from their owners. Particles and that white liquid were left floating around. Shin at that moment noticed the ears that had been hidden in the hair.
Pointed ears, but they were somewhat smaller than those of the common feys. Almost human if they weren't for the extension at the top.
Almost similar to mine, Shin thought. But no. Something felt different.
“Are you going to stand still now?”
She struggled like a rabid dog and at that moment Shin saw her face. He hadn't noticed because the armor had barely slipped off her face during the fight. She had green eyes and a young face. A beautiful face even in that violence.
But Shin did not have time to study the girl's face any further.
With their naked bodies in contact she put the full weight of her back against Shin's abdomen and Shin curved back a little as he watched the girl lift her legs up and forward.
Oh, shit. Shin thought as he let her go. He knew that move was weird, but given the girl's strength he couldn't rule out that it would achieve her goal. That upward thrust was meant to hit him in the knees and break them with both feet. It hurt like hell.
He released her and in one foot Shin jumped a couple of meters away from her. The girl landed from her missed attack on the ground and Shin looked at her naked body as the armor gathered around her again.
But he had no doubt. He had seen it.
That girl had a mark somewhat similar to his, but on her shoulder blades.
Before Shin could ask anything, the girl put a crooked smile on her face and launched herself at him with enough force for both of them to produce a new rumble. The force was enough to smash Shin and her against another pillar of the place that seemed to be more and more destroyed.
***
EVE's body took distance in the next moment from that attack. She jumped backwards but at that moment she lost her balance.
Her body fell backwards and hit her head.
Had she stepped on the wrong foot? No. Had she stepped on something?
When she landed she felt as if her foot had stepped on something that moments before was not there.
She stood up, but out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw a small dark-colored lump, scurrying down the path where the companion of the man she was fighting had taken.
What was that?
She had to take control of her body at once. That blow to the back of her head had awakened her in some way.
EVE felt dazed, but she didn't want to give up. Why give up? Why was she fighting that guy to begin with?
Stop it! Damn it!
Run away. No. Fight.
Run away. No. Fight.
Run away. No. Fight.
Run away. No. Fight.
Run away. No. Fight.
The conflicting feelings inside her were like the whirlwind of particles around that man.
Chaotic.
Meanwhile the man had responded to her blows with precision, but with just the right speed. Yes. The man's blows somewhat resembled the way the compound of her own armor moved. It flowed gracefully all around.
Run away. No. Fight.
Who was he? Why was one part of her telling her to face him, while another part was telling her to run away? Did she know him? From where? When?
EVE couldn't remember seeing the man anywhere, but she couldn't shake the feeling that she had seen him before. And the idea that she couldn't remember him made her even more upset.
Someone from her past before she came to earth? Could it be possible?
Run away. No. Fight.
Was it possible that he really was a piece of her past? What did Benjamin know about it? Whatever it was, that bastard was going to be in trouble, EVE thought. She was going to give Benjamin a good spanking until he told her the truth. What was this secret meeting with Janus that she hadn't been able to attend?
But now was not the time to worry about it, she had other more urgent problems.
She didn't know why, but she felt that of the two feelings she had inside her, one should take priority.
To hell with all that.
Run away. No. Fight.
Run away. No. Fight.
Run away.
Run away.
Run away.
She had to suppress her instinct to fight and obey what her inner self was telling her. She had to run away.
She felt fury, a rage she could not control and it frightened her. She had always been proud of her control. She had never lost it. Her body was attacking almost as if it was in automatic mode for some reason.
She had started the attack. She had nothing to say if that man decided to grab one of her legs again and slam her repeatedly against the walls of the room, until she became a red stain on the floor.
But it wasn't like that. She knew something was telling her that the man was controlling himself and that he wasn't using enough force to kill her. No. He didn't want to kill her. He simply wanted to knock her out.
On the other hand, she was impressed. She was sure that she had rarely in her life fought like that. She knew she was strong. But could her body withstand so much even with the armor that did not cover her parts?
That was another question? At what point had it started to malfunction? Was it because she had lost control of her body?
No. That was not possible. That man was also showing parts of his body.
How was that possible?
It was different, but she could not shake off the feeling of familiarity and fear, but at the same time as if she were up against a natural enemy of hers.
That was stupid.
She didn't know him. She was sure of that. Then why had her body moved in automatic mode to attack him?
No matter what, she had to escape from there.
She was slowly trying to regain control and was almost there.
After that last blow she had thrown, she had almost feared that the whole place would collapse beneath them, but the walls had held.
Control. Control.
Run away. Running away is the most important thing.
EVE looked at the rubble and searched the place. While her body was still fighting, for a split second she saw how she would escape from that place.
The roof of the place where they were fighting. It was very deteriorated and could collapse at any moment.
She could bury that man and get him off her back.
She didn't want to risk ending the fight by simply running away.
Who knows what the man would do if she suddenly stopped. She had started it all. It was only natural that he would take revenge. On the other hand, she had the feeling that the only way she would regain complete control of her body was if she defeated him completely. She would have time in the future to find out why her body had reacted that way to him.
Yes. Slowly but surely she was regaining control and her blows were more her style and not so uncontrolled.
She could do it. She could drive him to his own doom and then run away from that place.
***
The pug was angry.
Damn creature!
He had come out of those stairs and on his way he had run into debris and pieces of junk wherever he went. It was easy to follow the trail of contention. It was the same path where he was going.
What was driving him was an enigma to him, but he knew where he was going. That familiarity was calling him.
Destination.
Perhaps it would be more delicious food... It seemed like hours since his breakfast, but it had only been minutes since he had left that camp full of soldiers. Although in dog time that translated to hours.
Where was he going? Why?
He couldn't answer that, but he knew he had something important to do. He had his share too. The words of that skinny, ghostly man, he had met days before he met Sil Moore flashed in his mind.
It was at that moment that he stopped.
He had reached a place where it looked like a tornado had passed through. Debris and dust everywhere. Two figures, one in black and one in white, were moving like a whirlwind. They looked like two people engaged in some kind of fight. Or was it something else?
What kind of mating ritual is this?
The pug jumped over the debris, ignoring the strange spectacle and continued on his way.
It was at that moment that he felt that something had stepped on him.
One of those people had moved close to him and landed on top of him.
The little dog moved with lightning speed and shot off in the direction his instinct told him to go.
He didn't stop to look back, but the sound indicated to him that whoever had stepped on him had fallen.
However, he continued on his way, but he was angry.
Couldn't they see where they were walking?
The pug continued his mad dash as he began to feel a new sensation inside him.
No. It wasn't new. He knew it.
He had felt it.
He had felt it before he was freed from his prison, along with that girl with the pointed ears and big breasts.
Slowly, and almost without noticing it, his body was changing once again.