Seal 4.10

Bryce Kiley

2010, November 27: Damascus, Syria

The dragonfly bastard rammed me, shoulder-checking me as I climbed into the sky. I twisted around the blow and created a platform of condensed air perpendicular to the ground. I kicked off it, skating ust fine despite the impossible angle, before flipping into a kick that had Crown Chimera grinding futilely against his wind wall.

He turned and cursed me out in Arabic before dodging a Thunderbolt from SAINT. Then he rushed me, diving horn-first so that SAINT wouldn't be able to aim properly. I kicked off at a steep right angle, avoiding the strike but unable to retaliate meaningfully.

I glanced at my UI. Shield integrity: eight percent and climbing, but slowly.

It wasn't enough. I'd noticed that Flygon's wind barrier got stronger with his speed. My hypothesis was that his Shard converted momentum into a force field masked as a spiraling air current but it wasn't like I could pause and ask him to test it out for me. His blows weren't anywhere near as strong as that first strike without the time to build momentum and use gravity in his favor, but I didn't have my shield module either. I didn't think my Protect alone could stand up to repeated hits from him and wasn't in any hurry to confirm.

He was on me again in an instant, either overly confident that he could take me or unwilling to give a tinker time to plan. Unfortunately, no matter his reason, it was the right move.

Flygon was as agile as I was. It felt impossible, I was the only one standing with my feet, but his dragonfly-like wings gave him a maneuverability that boggled the mind. No matter how I tried to turn or juke, he was on me, trying to gore me like the world's most obsessive marlin.

"Mirage Road: Fogbank," I whispered, tossing out a thick cloud before vanishing into thin air. He rammed right through, sailing past and missing me by mere inches.

Thinking quickly, I hopped onto his back, clamping my legs around his waist and my arms over his wings. He yelped in surprise but quickly tried to buck me off. Forget a bucking bronco, I now felt an inordinate kinship with Pecos Bill and his tornado-rasslin' ways.

I'd thought the enhanced strength of the Germa Suit would be enough to clip his wings. To be fair, it was, but he had two sets of those and a miniature cyclone raging around him.

I grunted, more in annoyance than anything as the pair of wings I wasn't pinning with my thighs beat me over the head. He wasn't comfortable to sit on, especially with that raised ridge of spine that his horn jutted from. Now that I was closer, I saw that his spine actually formed a squat, dome-like shield over the junction where his wings met. It kept me from stabbing him in the joint and ripping the damn things out.

With the wind barrier constantly buffeting me and my head slapped around like a volleyball, I wasn't sure how long I could hold him.

He swore something in Arabic. No matter the words, the death threat was easy enough to understand.

"Yeah? Fuck you too, buddy," I swore back, my voice lost in the howling wind. "Thunder Wave! SAINT, Psychic!"

We lit up like a Christmas tree, but he didn't go down immediately. He spasmed in the air, rapidly slowing but managing to buck me off. Did his biology make him resistant? I didn't know, but he clearly had physiological adaptations of some sort.

He turned to face me with a hateful snarl as a coat of blue aura surrounded him. He lunged towards me, but was stopped in his tracks by the best duck in the world.

"Great job, SAINT," I called down to him.

"Pory!" he cried back in obvious strain. Porygon weren't natural psychics, not like alakazam. They had a natural proclivity for self-levitation and often learned psychic moves, but that wasn't quite the same thing.

Panicked, I whirled back and applied my own, only to feel the problem: Though we'd immobilized him, Flygon's secondary power was still active. I could feel the wind swirling faster and faster against our combined will, grinding at our minds like a sander. Flygon was like a car that had been lifted off its wheels; he might not be going anywhere, but the engine, his power, was still very much on.

I had to decide quickly. "SAINT, let go. Lock-On into Thunderbolt!"

"Gon?" I heard, our bond pulsing with clear worry.

"Do it!"

I felt the pressure on my mind double as SAINT dropped his share. Slowly but surely, like rope snapping twine by twine, I lost control. Until finally, I was forced to let go. My mind reeled; it felt like someone had smashed a sledgehammer into my brain.

That pent up gale launched Flygon at me like a missile. What little training I had in capoeira kicked in and I tried to sway out of the line of attack, but I wasn't able to fully evade with my head ringing like a drum. I did manage to get my right arm up in time, but that was cold comfort. His horn made contact with my forearm, spearing the space between my radius and ulna.

"GAH!" I screamed in pain. He tore into me with twisting force, dragging me along even as his twisting wind barrier ripped the bones out of their sockets. It felt like someone took a carjack and split them apart.

White hot pain shot up my arm and I blacked out a little. I would have lost then and there, had not SAINT's mind reached out to mine with utter fury.

The external shock was enough to bring me back to consciousness. Through bleary eyes, I saw that my suit had remained in one piece. My arm looked a lot like a ruptured sausage link, kept from ripping apart completely by an absurdly durable casing. I felt Flygon's hand around my throat.

The shock had passed and with the pain came clarity. SAINT couldn't fire despite the Lock-On because I was skewered on Flygon's horn. He feared the bolt conducting over to me. I clenched my teeth to bite down the pain and began forming a trail of mist beneath my feet.

I built up enough friction and, with a howl of agony, twisted myself free of his horn like a bottlecap.

Then SAINT's Thunderbolt hit with the vengeance of an angry god.

Flygon roared in pain before rushing down towards SAINT. His charge was met with a Protect, one much stronger than my own. He skidded off with a trail of sparks but knocked SAINT off balance, leaving him to teeter like a roly-poly toy.

I had to interfere; Protect wasn't meant to be used consecutively. I tucked in my mangled right arm and dove. The pressure on my exposed wound was immense, but I flipped upside down and kicked the air anyway, my concern for my partner overriding the pain.

The mist built up as I ran, mounting like a snowball that turned into an avalanche. No longer harassed and harried by Flygon, I could feel the water calling to me, reminding me of the open ocean where I first truly touched my Road. I remembered all the pain and suffering I went through, twisting my own spine apart repeatedly as I tried to turn a capoeira martelo into Ringo's supersonic thorn.

I'd been wrong then. The water could pierce, but only rarely. It could slice like Agito's fang, but almost never. No, most of the time, the sea was an unrestrained, crushing force. The breaking waves swept away everything in their path, eroding and grinding until it wore down and overwhelmed even the strongest defenses.

Crown Chimera had never felt like this before. It always ran smoothly, but now, it truly felt like mine. My regalia. My Road. I gathered the mist within, compressing it with the pressure of my dive. The force compacted more and more water inside the regalia, enough that had the frames not been made of seastone, they would have surely shattered to pieces, taking my feet with them.

I paid my UI no mind as the pressure readings climbed higher and higher. SAINT was my partner, my pokemon. It was only fair then that I copied a familiar name.

"Mirage Road: Crush Claw!" I roared. I contorted myself in midair, cleaving down in an ax kick that could have ruptured steel beams. A road made of condensed, superheated steam formed beneath my feet, allowing me to build ever greater momentum. It was no thorn, nor a fang. It was a hammer, the pressure of a breaking wave focused into a single, overpowering kick.

Flygon's eyes widened in horror as he realized his mistake: I could use gravity too. Our roles were reversed now, a perfect mirror of his earlier shieldbreaker dive.

He tried to maneuver out of the way. His wings strained and beat wildly, becoming four sets of blurs on his back. Avoiding my strike wasn't possible, not at this distance and with zero warning, but he might have parried it, twisting until he took the blow on his horn where the wind barrier was strongest and the rotation fastest.

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Whether he could have or not, I'd never know, because a sheen of azure light enveloped him once again. Now, it was SAINT's turn to hold him for me. Not long, even a fraction of a second would do.

As always, my partner delivered beautifully.

My heel met the protective dome that rose above Flygon's spine. I took vicious satisfaction in feeling it crunch beneath my heel. Where my foot stopped, the water rushed forward, flooding the wound like a burst dam and rupturing it from within. He let out a horrific shriek of pain as he plummeted to the ground.

A plume of smoke and dust announced my victory, adding to the already hazy scene.

I looked around to take stock of the broader conflict. I was happy to see that the civilians had cleared out by this point. Either they were fighting or they'd fucked off by now. Or dead, but glass half full and whatnot.

I hadn't been the only one to keep busy. Now that the heroes had a unified mission and a fallback point, they'd acquitted themselves well. Prism had managed to lob several confoam grenades, coordinating with her clones to create a huge mass of replicated foam that regular soldiers couldn't escape. It didn't get everyone, but about half of Arsalan's unpowered forces were unable to take aim. She also proved to be a capable combatant up close, reabsorbing her clones in a flash of light to deliver crushing blows against Arsalan's lion-men.

Last I checked, Ursa Aurora was using her bears to corral civilians and coordinate with her team. Now that the unpowered were largely out of the way, she'd stacked her three bears into a phalanx of muscle, claws, and teeth and was straining to keep Rhyhorn in place. As I watched, the mover-brute's force field visibly diminished as he could no longer build momentum. When it had thinned enough, Jouster ran in and thrust a crimson, glowing lance from between the bears like an actual phalanx.

A massive explosion of fire bloomed from the point of impact, throwing yet more smoke and debris into the air. Most of the blast was directed conically outward, sparing the leader of the NY Wards. The blast shattered what was left of Rhyhorn's force field and sent him soaring away, smoke trailing from his badly burned body. I wasn't sure whether he was alive or not. It also cracked one of Ursa's constructs, but she merely replaced it with a wave of her hand. Those two made for a dangerous combination.

Flechette too had found her resolve. She still wasn't eager to shoot people dead, but she'd taken it upon herself to provide as much covering fire as possible. I could see bolts sticking out of cover as though they'd been fused to whatever they hit. Several men ran around screaming in pain as arrows that had been strategically lodged into their shoulders exploded in confoam, not enough volume to fully encase them, but more than enough to take them out of the fight.

The rebels and plainclothed capes weren't doing nearly as well, though whether that was because they weren't as well-trained as the Protectorate or because no one wanted to piss off Legend by murdering one of his Wards was anyone's guess.

A plainclothed cape that had been generating ribbons of power from his fingertips went down in a shower of blood and gunfire after gliding towards the line of soldiers as if on an ice rink. I had to assume he was a fresh trigger. His ribbon-blades remained in the air even after his death for several seconds, acting as hazards for the unwary.

Then, as I watched, a small squad of lion-men rushed into the group of rebels. They clawed at anyone in arm's reach, gouging out deep, perfectly even furrows into whatever they struck, whether that be flesh or stone. I shot a few Thunder Waves their way, but it seemed to do nothing to slow them.

A cape next to Deadeye stood to meet them as the rebel leader fell back. Sand swirled around his arms, forming dense hammers out of quartz crystals that battered the lion-men away. His counter allowed most of his allies to retreat in time as a hail of gunfire peppered their position, but that left the sole rebel brute alone and exposed.

Two lion-men collapsed onto him and tore him apart even as their heads exploded from Deadeye's curving bullets. It was a messy shower of stone and blood that made me queasy even after a day in the medic tent. There was a lot of blood I could see even through the smoke, more than there should be in the human body.

Johnson's words hit me like a hammer and I knew why Arsalan was so feared.

"They're alive," I spoke into the mic. "Ursa, the lion-men are only stone on the outside!"

"Are you sure?"

"I saw two lose their heads so yes!"

"Fuck. You heard him. Subdue"

I swore under my breath and continued to scan the field. The SRG mover was a blur, racing around the field and trampling people underfoot while using the chaos to his advantage to break line of sight so no one could draw a bead on him. It wasn't just that he was fast enough to make aiming difficult. The smoke hindered everyone but affected the rebels who had the least training the most. And unlike me, they couldn't climb into the air for a better view, as limited as that was.

The fire also burned long and hot despite the dusty sand, likely fueled by his power more than any mundane fuel source. It inspired a primal sense of panic in people and I could see him trying to circle the shelter to entrap the Wards and cut off Flechette's vision.

With Flygon down, I decided taking him out and putting out the fires should be my priority. "SAINT, Lock-On. Thunderbolt the one with fire steps. Don't let up. Make sure he stays down."

"Gon!"

I left SAINT to take aim and landed down behind Shelter. My arm was throbbing and adrenaline could only do so much. A gaping hole had been torn between the bones of my forearm, made wider by Fygon's tearing wind. I'd lost a lot of blood.

A medic rushed over. He took one look at my arm and swore. "Fuck. Creed, right? Clench your teeth; I'll set the bone."

I grunted but kept my arm curled into my hip. "Go see someone else. I'm fine. I have self-healing. Recover!"

I immediately felt nauseous as power poured out into the wound. At the same time, I put weight into my left arm and pressed the bones back in place. My dislocated ulna popped into its original socket, drawing an agonized groan from me. Tears stung my eyes and my vision became shaky but I did my best to stay conscious. I'd healed my spine before, but never in an environment like this, never after working most of the morning and fighting for my life.

When I drew my hand back, it was to find the bone in place and free of fractures. I finished the rest of my healing with alchemy. Whereas Recover relied solely on my own aura, alchemy drew energy from tectonic movements. It was slower, but I could save more energy this way. A combination of the two let me get back in the fight relatively quickly without exhausting my already strained reserves.

I watched as SAINT sent Rapidash scrambling. Lock-On turned Thunderbolt into a beam of electricity that followed him in a swerving arc. He took a blast to the side that sent him rolling. SAINT wasn't pulling his punches. I knew from personal experience that those things, while not outright lethal, hurt like a bitch. The attack left him smoking and scorched. Bloody tracks could be seen where he scraped violently against the ground as he was thrown about.

To his credit, Rapidash got up and stumbled away before SAINT could charge his next attack. He kicked up a plume of dust and smoke before avoiding the next bolt by interposing a car between them.

"Porygon-gon," he muttered unhappily.

"Stay behind the bunker. Snipe him as soon as he shows. Keep him pinned, okay?" I told him. "Switch to Shock Wave. It's faster than Lock-On."

"Gon."

I checked my UI while the last of my skin knit itself closed. My shield's charge was crawling up but it still sat at a meager forty-nine percent. I trusted my armor, but the flying bug-man showed me it was far from invincible.

Still, I was better armored than just about everyone and was the only one who could put out the flames. So long as I kept away from Arsalan and the lion-men and their weird claws, I'd be fine.

I dashed out of the bunker again, this time headed for the biggest fire I could find. There were half a dozen people trapped inside and although the fire wasn't collapsing in on them, they'd run out of oxygen quickly. One was dead and another was injured, but the rest had the sense to keep their heads down to avoid stray gunfire and smoke inhalation.

I ignored the gunfire aimed at me and turned my dash into a front flip. Crown Chimera ground itself against the road of vapor that formed beneath me and I could feel the water inside pressurizing more and more. Halfway through the flip, I swiveled onto my side until, for an instant, I sat parallel to the ground.

Twisting in midair, I brought the Mirage Regalia down in twin ax kicks, sending a plume of pressurized bubbles spraying out over the flames. "Lather Road: Bubblegum Crisis!"

The rain of bubbles collided with the flames. Each bubble was formed from pressurized water, condensed and spun at ridiculous velocities and held in cohesion with the help of the regalia and One Piece pyrobloin. They didn't pop like normal bubbles. They held so much pressure inside that they detonated with the force of hand grenades, creating vacuums of air that starved the fire of fuel.

"Everybody out!" I yelled. I immediately felt like a dumbass when I realized I didn't fucking speak Arabic.

I was lucky, ridiculously lucky. Or maybe the rest of the world placed a greater emphasis on foreign language education. Either way, one of the crouching men, a young man in his mid-twenties, raised his head.

I reached out a hand to help him stand. He said something in Arabic but I shook my head. He then switched to heavily accented English. "Out. Hero?"

"Hero," I nodded. "We need to leave."

I took my time freeing the people stuck in Rapidash's fire rings, doing my best to interpose myself between the civilians and the nearest source of gunfire. Once I reached the fallback point, the brave paramedics who hadn't abandoned their posts took over.

I ended up leading twenty-three men to safety. The trial by fire yesterday helped me to ignore the bodies of those I couldn't reach in time.

Sometime during my self-assigned mission, SAINT had nailed Rapidash with a well-placed Shock Wave, sending the shitty arsonist to la la land.

Good. That left just Arsalan.

Author's Note

For those curious, Pecos Bill is an American folk hero like Johnny Appleseed or Paul Bunyan and is every cowboy stereotype rolled into one. One story says he needed more rain on his land so he lassoed a tornado and rode it up through Tornado Alley.

I meant for Flygon (Arabic name unknown) to be the equivalent of Cinereal or Rime, a top-tier cape who, in America, would've been considered a city's ace. I hope he came off as that strong.

Bryce isn't a fighting savant like many shonen protagonists. He's not like Luffy who could win most fights by relying on instinct. He makes a lot of mistakes and takes hits he doesn't need to. Even when he stops playing around, he lacks that "killing intent" that a lot of action heroes have because he's a 21st century medical professional.

Thankfully, he's got SAINT to back him until he can stoke some of that shonen mojo. Having a defensive tank and mobile sharpshooter who also happens to be a respectable psychic is honestly unfair. He's about to get even more unfair with an Upgrade that I think he's earned by now.

Related animal fact: Dragonflies have an insanely high success rate when it comes to their hunts, sometimes estimated to be as high as 95%. This makes them the single most successful predator alive, at least by this metric.

Their success is due partially to their incredible speed, capping out at 33.5 mi (54 km) in some species, and maneuverability, with wings that even allow them to fly backwards. Flygon's agility wasn't exaggerated at all.

The second reason for their success is their eyes. They have a near spherical range of coverage with ~30,000 ommatidia per eye. Yes, their brain is the size of a grain of rice. Yes, most of it's dedicated to processing visual cues and hunting instinct.

Thank you for reading. To reach a wider audience, and because I enjoy a more forum-like setup to facilitate discussion, I like to crosspost to a wide variety of websites. You can find them all on my Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/fabled.webs.