Augustus heard how the wall behind him cracked. Diving to the side, he has narrowly dodged another slash that threatened to bisect his shoulder. The slash moved past him, cleaving through the entire house before disappearing into thin air. This Mendal woman has a spatial-based superpower. Most annoying.
First. A power like that bypassed most objects, utterly ignoring durability. If it hits a part of his body, it’s going to get cut. Judging by her attacks, Mendal could only use her power during the slashes, only using her blade as a conduit, but he wasn’t willing to bet his life on this presumption. No option for blocking her attacks via vambraces.
Second. I need to keep her away from the rest of the team. He spent a second asking Elirob to support Kayleen and Elisa from afar and to keep Smar safe. For this mission only, Artificer gave him an exact replica of his sabers, only with the addition of a special alloy capable of withstanding dimensional anomalies. At least in theory. In practice, he could see a dent on both of his sabers.
Without a single thought about reaching for his guns, Augustus closed on the Naturalborn, noticing a surprised look on her face. In a battle between two abnormals, speed would often be of the essence. Unless you are absolutely sure that you can reach and down an enemy with a shot, it is wiser not to keep switching weapons.
The compound eyes of his helmet have actually fully replaced Augustus’ own eyes for now. Several teeny appendages ran from his helmet, all the way under his eyelid, merging with his ocular tissue and overrating the images that were sent to his brain. Where before he could have potentially blocked two or three bullets fired from a machine gun before the sheer number of projectiles overwhelmed his optical zoom, now he saw each participle, each drop of greenish blood falling from Mendal’s body in slow motion. In a second, she and he had exchanged eleven strikes before he forced himself on the offensive, understanding that her speed matched his almost perfectly. Augustus grimaced, seeing the guides step into the house from behind. Just what he needed: more allies to protect.
Mendal jumped, evading his low kick, and brought both of her blades down, aiming at his shoulders. But only one reached his raised saber. The second blade weaved past his weapon to block the thrust aimed at her belly. Augustus found himself locked in a contest of strength with Mendal and did the only reasonable thing. He head-butted her before her legs touched the floor.
With a disgusting crunching sound, Mendal’s nose ended up being caved in in her face. Shrugging off the shock, the Naturalborn found the floor with her toes and retreated, enduring two quick cuts on her arms. Augustus followed her, and both ended up in a never-ending dance of blinding slashes, where a single mistake could cause a loss of limb or life. Neither refused to retreat, engulfed by the desire to win.
Augustus soon caught himself noticing that Mendal’s strikes grew in power. The woman aimed to force him back or beat him through the floor and into the cellar at any cause. With her nose broken, Mendal was getting out of breath, but not soon enough for him to flash past her defenses. On his HUD, he saw Elisa’s and Kayleen’s minor wounds.
“My son.” Mendal caught both of his swords with her own blades, locking two fighters in place. “Is… Stronger than me.” She breathed heavily, sweat mixed with blood ran down her neck.
Augustus froze. He had foolishly assumed that out of the two Naturalborns, Mendal was the stronger one. For this reason, he engaged her in person, leaving everyone else to deal with Reben. Based on everything he knew about Naturalborns, it should have made sense…
Once more, my prejudice led me to a fault. Naturalborns were not a hive mind that always behaved in one way and one way only. There may be some reason why Reben left Mendal in charge, be it pragmatic or sentimental. And now, because of his foolishness, his team might be in trouble.
Augustus steeled himself, enduring a push that was meant to throw him off balance, his feet breaking into a wooden floor. Half-laughing, half-sighting with relief, Mendal raised her right arm for an overhead strike…
And an arrow scratched her back. Raaji shot her, standing in the ruined entrance. Mendal howled from this indignity, and the blade of her right shamshir trembled. In her pain, anger, and shame, the Naturalborn pushed past her limits, focusing only on the so-called ‘cattle’ who had dared to wound her. She planned to turn around and slice the young man in two with her spatial arc. Augustus used this very moment of her distraction to make a thrust with his left saber. The blade sliced across the woman’s fingers, going all the way to the sword’s grip. Mendal gasped, seeing her fingers falling down and the dimension anomaly from her blade harmlessly hitting the wall as the blade fell.
“Damn you!” With a desperate howl, she kicked him in the chest, sending Augustus across the floor. “How?” she wailed, advancing after him. “How can I fix my mistake now? Damn you, damn you, damn you…” Another arrow pierced the skin on her back, and Mardiyya leaped closer, burying her dagger in the Naturalborn’s left armpit.
Mendal yelped, a mix of disbelief and shock filling her eyes. She moved her left arm, intending to pop Mardiyya’s head like a balloon, only to find Augustus cleanly cutting her arm just above the elbow. Gulping, she looked down, witnessing the second blade piercing her belly. Augustus tore the weapon free, dodging before she could vomit green blood in his face. His two following slashes cut straight through her legs.
The Naturalborn fell to the ground, wrapping her ruined arms around his thighs to lift herself. Mendal looked up, blood bubbling at her lips. Below her, a small pool of green blood started gathering, getting wider with every passing moment.
“Choke on my meat…” She coughed up another lump of blood.
“Get lost.” Augustus kicked, sending the woman flailing in pain on the floor. Giving a nod to both youths, he stopped for a second, noticing the disturbance outside. “The Dominion will be alerted to this village’s involvement, one way or another. All bets are off, our people will evacuate everyone in a week. Kill her or allow our agents to pick her up. I don’t care which.”
“You… you wouldn’t dare…” Mendal hissed, crawling after him. Her bleeding had already slowed down, but the Naturalborn’s superior physique fought hard against hemorrhaging. “Cattle… Mere livestock doesn’t deserve my blood and flesh! They haven’t earned this kill!”
Raaji came closer, reaching for a dagger on his belt. His sister stopped him with a hand before delivering a straight kick into Mendal’s broken nose, forcing the woman to gulp down her own blood. Reaching down, Mardiyya grabbed the Naturalborn by the hair, forcing the woman to look into her eyes. Mendal’s purple eyes twitched. From what Augustus knew, the locals had covered their blades in some sort of animal poison, which caused a normal human to experience irrational horror. And now Mendal, however superior she could be, felt a creeping fear, adding to her panicked state.
“Yesterday, there was nothing more I’d like than to end your miserable life here and now, Merciless,” Mardiyya smiled, slamming the other woman’s head into the floor and forcing eye contact anew. “But tonight, I learned something about Iternians,” she told the broken lips. “They won’t kill you. They’ll let you live, a defeated cripple at the mercy of livestock. No chance to regain any honor, just wasting away, day after day, unable to do anything, until a day you finally go mad. But even madness won’t be a salvation for you, oh no. Mendal, Iternians will change your very mind, far better than any drug of your misbegotten son can. And you will live through it all knowing that even cattle have refused to end you. Just imagine yourself reduced to a husk, thinking, ‘Just yesterday I was normal.’ A year to live in misery for each life you had taken from us. I think this fate is much more fitting to your ilk.”
Augustus allowed the lies to go on. Elirob’s influence, no doubt, the man whispered to him that Mardiyya acted a bit off. If taken captive by Iterna, Mendal will have her limbs restored and eventually will be released, once psychologists confirm that the woman is no longer a threat to herself or others. Some of the former warlords, raiders, and slavers even enrolled in the military. Skulltaker, Eugenia’s prime champion, was one such example.
He made a mental note about Mardiyya passing the test of trust. From this point forward, he could leave her alone with Elisa and Kayleen without being overly concerned about discovering a dagger at Elisa’s throat or discovering Kayleen eating their guide. Sure, the girl was not as mentally stable as her brother… But he’ll work with what he has. She only needs to be reined in occasionally from risking her life and educated about the world at large.
“You…” Mendal coughed, focusing her eyes once more. “Fucking cusacks. My son… Reben is unconquerable…”
“He is not,” Augustus told her before leaving the building.
****
Ratcatcher cursed, falling to the side and spitting out blood. Reben’s punch felt as if an actual car had rammed into her face. His punch reverberated all the way to her brain, leaving her legs wobbly and darkening her vision. No taking any more of these. She decided, blowing her nose off the blood. Her visor, capable of blocking bullets, was left in broken remains, protecting only her right eye. Her HUD readjusted, shrinking itself for her convenience.
Jumping on her feet, she and Kayleen came at Reben together, trying in vain to land a hit on him. The damned Naturalborn toyed with them! He dodged every swing of her mancatcher and weaved around Kayleen’s claws like a silk rope, barely bothering to even look at them. The game soon grew boring to him, and he soon struck with the right arm, aiming to completely shatter Ratcatcher’s visor.
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Kayleen blocked the incoming strike with her paw, earning herself a grip on her neck with his left hand. He slammed the Wolfkin into the ground with enough force to make Kayleen groan from pain, despite her armor. Reben lifted his leg to stomp at the downed woman and immediately changed the direction of his attack, flashing a quick low kick across Ratcatcher’s legs and throwing her to the ground.
She rolled to the side, evading a stomp that was meant to crush her shoulder, and jumped right back, bringing the mancatcher on the Naturalborn. With almost contemptuous ease, Reben beat aside the tip of her blades and frowned when Ratcatcher shifted her grip and locked his left hand between the blades, a length too far to use her injector.
“In need of my hand? My fair lady, you should have only asked! I would have added my heart too,” Reben chuckled, uncoiling his lash.
“Funny g…” His slash cut off her words, and she leaped to the right, evading the coils that almost wrapped around her legs. Hearing a sound behind her, she glanced back, seeing how the skulls pierced through the side of a building.
An opening! She released the mancatcher’s hold on his arm and made a thrust forward, aiming to close the blades around his waist and inject him with poison. Seeing his smile widen and hearing the chaos behind her, Ratcatcher felt dread.
Kayleen saved her life by pushing the explorator aside and leaping down, evading the lash’s strands that pierced the building side as easily as if they had passed through water. Reben swung his deadly weapon above his head, hesitating for a moment to avoid hitting a few locals who were hurriedly trying to get away from the fight. And then he cast all eight skulls of his lash at Kayleen.
Ratcatcher returned the favor, showering Kayleen aside with a kick and making a thrust with the lower end of her mancatcher, aiming at Reben’s leg. He dodged her hit, bringing the coils of his lash just in time to block a shot from Kayleen’s shardgun. Armor-piercing shards fell harmlessly, unable to break the strange lash.
“I do enjoy having a good spar,” Reben jumped away, bowing to them. “However, this is getting repetitious. I’d hate to see such beautiful ladies disemboweled. Surrender, and I’ll find mercy in my heart to treat you gently.”
“Same offer to you, pal,” Ratcatcher spat, noticing Kayleen’s paw movement and standing before her.
Restrain his right arm for a moment. A message from Elirob came onto their HUDs. Ratcatcher took a nervous breath, unsure how exactly they were going to do it. Still, if Kayleen is planning to do what she thinks she is, then they may just stand a chance.
Albeit a faint one.
“A pity.” Reben’s lash moved.
Ratcatcher went on the offensive, turning her weapon and making a thrusting feint into his face with the lower end of her staff. Reben caught her weapon, smiling, before attempting to kick her. Had she planned to go for real, his leg would have broken through the armor and most likely ruptured her stomach. Instead, she leaped to the side, and in this moment, Kayleen fired her weapon.
Reben blocked it, unsurprisingly. What he did not expect was a flashbang that Kayleen threw right after her shot. The Naturalborn groaned at the blinding light that blinded him, and the loud explosion has deafened his hearing. At this moment, Kayleen and Ratcatcher leapt at him, the Wolfkin aiming her claws at his neck, and the explorator fired an armor-piercing into his chest, shattering the armor and leaving the dart stuck in his flesh.
“Most amusing!” Reben croaked, lashing out blindly with his weapon and leaving a deep cut on Kayleen’s leg.
The Wolfkin only howled in his face, hiding her approach behind a wave of sound, and wrapped both of her palms around his right hand. Both of her legs let out claws that sank into the flesh of his legs above the ankles. Reben immediately responded with a punch to her side, sending the Wolfkin away from himself like a football. His eyes blinked, barely regaining vision, but just before he could cast down his weapon, he shouted in pain after his elbow exploded in blood and bone.
Reben retreated, evading another shot, bleeding from the wounds on his legs. His eyes looked at the ruined building into which Mendal had charged after Augustus. Hearing a roar from inside, Reben licked his lips, reaching out for his lash with his left hand.
Oh no, you won’t! Ratcatcher sprinted at him, picking up her mancatcher and coming up with a plan based on a few simple facts. Reben was in pain. He was stronger and faster than her by a large margin. Even with his wound, any attempt to take him down fair and square on her own is suicide.
So she cheated. Grasping the mancatcher with her left hand, she made a fake feint before punching with her right hand, right into his incoming counterattack. Before their fists connected with each other, she dropped on her left knee, allowing her weight to carry her forward, and felt his fist, with lashes wrapped around it, tearing away her armor on her shoulder, along with her skin. Her fist went underneath his hand, opening into a straight palm strike that struck into the hole in his chest armor. Needles came from her fingers, injecting Reben with the power-suppressing drug, and his pupils dilated in shock. For the first time in his life, the Naturalborn’s senses were reduced to those of a normal human.
It caught him off guard. Hardly surprising. A person with an active power, like Ratcatcher, can potentially be injected with the power-suppressing drug and never know of it until she tries to use it. For a person with a passive power, it was the entire thing all together. They lived with their power every second of the day, getting only a modicum of control through true gruesome self-control, and even then, they’d be shocked at losing their power. For any untrained person, losing one’s passive power was a feeling akin to having their mind shut down for a few seconds, leaving them with a horrid void in a place where something existed just a moment ago.
“Most exquisite,” he whispered, stupefied long enough to miss how the blades of the mancatcher closed around his waist.
Ratcatcher showed him no mercy. Taking the shaft of her weapon with both hands, she brutally lifted him into the air and cast him right into the ground, landing him with the sound of an explosion, sending stone and sand into all directions and beating all the air out of the bastard. The injector within her weapon came to life, filling Reben’s bloodstream with the paralytic agent and robbing the Naturalborn of all movement.
Reben blinked, finding himself unable to lift even a finger. Ratcatcher stopped, uncertain how to proceed.
“My fair lady,” he said with a genuine surprise in his feminine voice before changing it to the male voice, “it seems you have managed to hunt me down. I surrender, and my life is yours. Do with me as you will.”
“Accepted.” Ratcatcher replied, understanding a moment too late just what she said to the Naturalborn.
Where can they keep the prisoner?
****
“Sure, I don’t mind.” Reben nodded, acquiescing, purposely ignoring the metal Kayleen was placing on his legs.
He sat in the cellar that was supposed to serve as Augustus’ room, but after the attack, none of the fighters had any intention of going to sleep. Smar worked overtime, checking the wounds of her team members. Ratcatcher suffered a minor fracture below the nose. The crack in her bone reached the upper jaw, ending up with one of her front teeth falling out. Smar treated Ratcatcher’s injured shoulder and covered it with bandages. Kayleen’s rib cracked beneath the bulging metal, and now Elirob was busy fixing her armor.
Augustus had to give the Wolfkin an order to allow Smar to treat her wounds. Angry and annoyed, Kayleen refused all Ratcatcher’s offers of help and got herself busy piling on metal chunks, normally used to restrain cusacks, on Reben. Smar even had to stand up to the Wolfkin, worried that the excessive weight might collapse Reben’s bones, although Naturalborn himself invited Kayleen to keep on going.
Now Reben sat, fully immobilized, with several tons of metal on him, all locked down with a good dozen locks. His mother lay on the floor next to him. Smar forbade locking Mendal in metal, doing her best to treat the Naturalborn’s horrendous wounds, while Reben easily answered every one of Augustus’ questions and finally agreed to not attempt to cause problems, much to Ratcatcher’s ease.
She saw how her leader held a hand on a saber’s handle and the look in his eyes. If Reben would try to play coy, or if Augustus would even think that he was lying… One more Naturalborn would’ve lost his limbs... or his life outright.
“You can’t…” Mendal groaned, trying to turn to look at her son. “They are cattle! Below us! You owe them nothing!”
“Mother, this is the most sensational thrill I’ve experienced in years!” Her son beamed. “Ah, I can’t wait to see what’ll happen in the upcoming week. Will Izzaddeen’s men kill us? Maybe they’ll torture us first? Or will they keep the word given? There are so many different outcomes! Doesn’t the anticipation simply kill you?”
Augustus turned around, gesturing for the team to follow him. Kayleen followed them last, checking chains and metal one last time before slamming the door behind herself. Augustus looked at his battered team and sighed, sitting on the stairs.
“I have already spoken with the elder. He will contact Artificer, and Iterna’s high command will evacuate the village. This means,” He looked at Raaji and Mardiyya, “you owe nothing to us anymore.”
“We volunteered to lead you across the desert.” Raaji bowed. “And this is what we will do. But I have a question. Your wounds and armor, are you still in condition…”
“Just give me a few hours, and I’ll be fine,” Kayleen growled, breaking a crate and grabbing a piece of dried meat. Noticing Smar’s look, the Wolfkin moved her ears in annoyance. “What? The elder said: Take whatever we want as thanks for getting rid of this Merciless bitch. I ain’t missing out on the offer, and neither should you, Smar.”
“As for armor, don’t worry.” Ratcatcher clapped her hands, showing her damaged shoulder. The edges of her armor moved, restoring the damaged structure piece by piece. “Most of our armor can restore itself. And my shoulder should heal soon, too.”
“Then it is settled,” Augustus said. “We are leaving for our destination in the morning. Have a couple of hours of sleep while you can. I’ll monitor the prisoners.”
“I’ll go with you,” Smar declared. “The woman is still in need of medical attention and help to feed herself. I doubt the locals would bother to care for them.”
“Just like her rot, friend Smar.” Raaji put a hand on her shoulder. “Not everyone deserves your…”
“This is for me to decide, Raaji.” Smar threw off his hand. “Think whatever you want of me, but the battle is over and s…” she stuttered for a second before rubbing her eyes and eating another pill. “I took the oath. If I can help, I will.”
Boy, Smar is really stressed out. Ratcatcher decided, waltzing closer to the medic and wrapping an arm over her shoulder.
“I’ll go with you too, Smar. It’s time for me to refresh my skills, and I do enjoy seeing them cringe.”
****
Mardiyya woke up an hour before sunrise, hearing footsteps. After the battle, Elirob requested one house for his workshop, and the locals gladly obliged. The family that owned this small abode moved in with another family for the night. Mardiyya heard whizzing and scraping metal against metal, along with flashes of light. Not wanting to distract the man, she simply sat next to a door, nodding to rest and save her strength before the morning’s journey.
“Thanks for saving me and my brother,” she smiled, standing up after Elirob left the building, easily carrying the Wolfkin’s power armor over a shoulder. The youth looked at her, and she scratched behind her head. “Um, we didn’t start on the right foot, and I am sorry for that.”
“This operation hardly went as expected,” Elirob agreed with a sigh. His keen eyes locked on her face. “Why are you going with us? You’d be much safer here and far happier later in Iterna…”
“Well, I don’t know about the last part,” she showed him with an elbow. “There is a certain someone who promised to teach me about Iterna. And who knows? Maybe he can grow up to be endearing to me in time.”
Elirob was startled, raising a single finger in the air, before smiling.
“I would love to show and teach you more. And learn from you about local culture, fauna, and flora. As for the last part… It’s simply not biologically possible.” He whispered, walking past her and leaving Mardiyya confused.