A shot burned through his shoulder, severing the upper arm.
The teenager continued to convulse.
“Help—” he managed to get out.
She reached for him only to take a flame blast to the face.
It was a lot weaker than he was capable of.
That was the thing with the worms. They could use most of the abilities of the host, except not as well or to the same potential. At least, until they grew in both familiarity and levels.
Another chilling thought.
A parasitic sapient species.
That had not been one of they things she had imagined she would encounter across the multiverse when she had been younger. Oh how naive she had been.
Yuta’s arm dropped, punching the ground as if he was trying to bury it.
He stepped on it with one foot, while the other tried to take a step toward her.
Tears filled his eyes as he looked up at her.
She thought she saw something swirling in his sclera.
“I’m sorry, Yuta.”
She placed an incendiary bullet in his forehead.
Her fault.
She had tried to be conservative for future fights when she should’ve understood that there was no future, like for Yuta, if she didn’t win this one.
“Dashing! Now!”
She leapt 10 meters straight up with one hand stretched out.
The blue spandex, red cape wearing plushie zipped down to grab her arm between its fuzzy and surprisingly hard paws.
The thing had the physical strength of a 200 kilogram yokozuna while only weighing about 2. An impressive strength to weight ratio.
It carried her above the fray, out of the grasp of hands and claws.
A tiny hammer swept through a cluster of flying yōkai in their path.
The other red cape wearing plushie with its cute winged helmet joined them.
A third flying plushie zoomed down in its red and gold power armor, blasting away and using energy shields to protect her from assorted projectile fire from below.
Red eye beams, hammer and lightning, force blasts and tiny missiles bombarded the mother worm as they circled its bloated body like a pod of orca hunting a blue whale.
Marloes added her bullets to the barrage.
The mother worm’s magic shield lasted for what felt like forever before it finally shattered with a burst of bright light.
“.50 Caliber Burial Coffin!”
Marloes didn’t waste any time. She had fixed the bloated monster’s position in her mind. Temporary blindness wouldn’t stop her.
Two in one night was pushing it when she was at her best.
She couldn’t be further from that.
She had been battered and burned.
Her broken hand and wrist had never stopped throbbing, sending pain shooting up her arm with every movement. Her heart hurt for Yuta.
He was a brave boy that didn’t deserve his fate.
But then again they never did.
That’s what made this world garbage.
What made her hate it so much.
She almost blacked out.
Would’ve fallen had the plushie not kept its vise-like grip on her wrist.
She came to with a snap.
“Wake up, Sparkle-sama!” Dashing Bandit Celebration’s voice pierced through the fog.
It sounded much closer than it should’ve been unless Marloes was losing it.
Yup… they had descended to platforms closer to the ground.
Too close for her tastes.
“Now!” Dashing Bandit Celebration urged.
Faintly rainbow-hued barriers had been erected across their battlefield.
Kekkaishi Endo must’ve been a once in a generational talent to be capable of creating so many at once.
The mother worm was a burning corpse. She was definitely dead judging by every single worm-ridden having fallen listless, allowing the yōkai to savage their bodies.
The chime confirmed it.
That left Erika.
The summoner girl also seemed to be approaching her limits.
There were fewer portals opening up around her to disgorge small and weak-looking yōkai.
It was time for the distraction.
A plushie in a red and blue costume, jumped and flipped its way through the yōkai surrounding Erika.
It seemed to have a sixth sense for avoiding hits as it contorted its body out of the way like an impossible acrobat. It fired webs from its hands, trapping yōkai… until it finally ran out of luck when they managed to swarm it.
Cotton stuffing flew as they tore into it.
Dashing Bandit Celebrations wailed, but an opening had been created.
A red not quite-blur dashed through the gap.
The plushie ran in a circle around Erika’s feet, landing a dozen punches that were harder than they should’ve been.
She kicked out on instinct and cursed.
It had been like hitting a brick.
The red-clad plushie tumbled across the barren dirt like a ball.
The last one appeared on Erika’s back.
This one was clad in black and had luscious, striking red hair for some reason.
It shot tiny darts, thumbtacks really, into Erika’s neck.
The shocks of electricity were only enough to annoy not disable.
That was the final confirmation Marloes needed.
Erika had no magic shields.
She shot the girl in both knees, blowing them off.
Instinct told her that was acceptable.
The girl shrieked.
The remaining yōkai vanished.
“Quickly! Barrier her!”
Kekkaishi Endo complied.
The flying plushie dropped Marloes to the ground.
“I’ll make sure there aren’t any worms wriggling around,” Dashing Bandit Celebration said.
“Thank you and please find Hiromi-sama’s hand.” Marloes saw meat and bone in the girl’s severed wrist. The kamaitachi’s ability to cut without shedding blood might actually be a boon in this case. She pulled out her phone and put in an urgent request for medic support and prisoner extraction.
She hoped that they would be available.
It wasn’t a guaranteed thing judging by the distant booms and flashes of light in the growing dawn.
They were spent or close to it, yet fights still raged too close for comfort.
They needed to get Erika to a cell.
Questions needed answers.
None of them could look at what remained of Shinigami Yuta.
The teenager shouldn’t have died for nothing.
----------------------------------------
Beneath the Imperial Palace grounds lay a network of tunnels.
Some for sewage, some were dungeons, some were for air raids.
The newest ones had been built after the spires.
The entire place had been turned into an encounter challenge before they had managed to reclaim it.
The new tunnels were meant to provide ingress and egress as needed.
Either to escape danger or mount a rescue.
Neither had been possible with the barrier that had cut off the entire location for close to six hours judging by estimates.
Much longer than that had passed from the sights the elite JSDF special forces team had passed.
Ritual torture.
The kannushi had been adamant about that. The key point about his preliminary findings was that some of the rituals weren’t finished.
Though nothing remained except Kanji and symbols that hurt the eyes to look at carved into stone and written in long-dried human blood the priest had seemed to think that magic was still flowing into the ritual circles.
They tried to disrupt it.
Naturally, they failed completely.
The stone and writings proved impossible to destroy or erase with the means they were willing to expend.
Regardless, they were there for the emperor, so they had decided to try again after the situation was under control.
The priest had died at the next intersection
A dark horror had leapt out of nowhere to cleave the man in two.
The rest of the team had killed the monster.
Cybernetic and biomechanical modifications made them dangerous in spurts. Especially when they got the jump on their enemies.
Half the soldiers were of this variety.
The rest remained unmodified, relying on their classes.
JSDF military doctrine was too schizophrenic for the old hands’ tastes.
They were stuck in the traditions they knew.
Some classes were easier to swallow, since they mostly enhanced not altered completely. After all, a soldier was just a soldier, but better. The same went for classes derived from traditional positions, like the kannushi, miko, kekkaishi and others. The only difference of those was that their magic was now observable, real.
Classes like mahou shoujo, shinigami, shinobi and the rest that arose out of a more modern cultural consciousness were more difficult to accept.
Still, the government was not one to ignore every tool in their box.
Hence, the modified soldiers.
They lost their classes, but gained quicker strength.
A blend of magic, technology and even spirituality went into their creation.
The strongest of them could fight at around Level 40 until they ran out of energy. It was a good trade in the JSDF’s eyes.
It took decades for a dedicated fighter and no small amount of luck to reach Level 40.
They could build a soldier into the equivalent in a handful of years.
Captain Ritsu Kanamoto was one such soldier.
They had replaced his eyes with cybernetic implants that made the darkness irrelevant.
He held up a closed fist.
Something shambled roughly 30 meters down the long tunnel.
He couldn’t quite get a fix on its readings, which meant magic bullshit.
“Big monster,” he said through their secured comms channel.
Direct link through infrared beam.
One quirk of the team was that rank didn’t technically matter.
He was a captain that took orders from another captain.
“You got anything more than that?”
Captain Karen Nakata’s voice echoed in his head.
They never could get rid of the mechanical warble.
“Sorry. Magic.” He added the mental equivalent of a shrug.
Captain Nakata gestured to the rear of the formation. Through hand signs she communicated what she wanted to their kekkaishi.
Ritsu could hear the young woman nod.
Much too loud.
The slightest sounds could kill them at this level of danger.
The Quest details had hammered that in if the briefing hadn’t.
No choice.
Command had determined that a mixed team was their best chance at getting to the emperor and getting him out.
Well, that’s why they trained with all manner of combinations, after all.
Captain Nakata explained the plan.
Ritsu moved back as the other two took his place.
The kekkaishi was a young woman, a girl really.
There was too much of that going around for Ritsu’s taste. It made him feel ancient at barely 30 year’s old.
The plan was simple.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
One barrier goes up behind the monster.
Captain Nakata fires the rail gun.
Another barrier goes up in front of the monster, but behind the projectile.
Big boom!
Everyone goes home alive and intact… well, most everyone… er, after they grab the emperor and any other royals nearby.
The barrier lit up the darkness with bright light and his cybernetic eyes with all manner of different colored ones.
The rail gun fired with a dull thump.
Timing had to be near perfect.
Captain Nakata’s augments were on point as always. She tapped the kekkaishi to put up the second barrier.
The projectile’s rocket fired near impact, giving added thrust to drive the tungsten into the flesh.
Tip went in followed by the explosive charge.
Much too powerful to be used in an enclosed space.
The subsequent flash and boom were muffled.
The worst the team got was a bit of dust shower as the tunnel shook for a moment.
The girl kekkaishi was strong, but they all had to be to get pulled onto one of these teams.
Ritsu stepped up to peek around the corner.
“It appears to be dead.”
“Appears? I need specifics, captain.”
“Hard to say, captain. Readings are all over the place.”
“Well—”
Captain Nakata’s words vanished in a tremendous crash that dwarfed the previous one.
If Ritsu hadn’t known better he would’ve thought earthquake and a bad one at that.
Dust choked the tunnel.
It didn’t matter to his eyes.
He saw the form crash down from the tunnel’s ceiling and into the monster.
A motorcycle of all things.
Well… the monster was definitely dead.
Fine-honed soldier’s instincts roared in his head that this was the real threat.
Subdue and capture if possible, he thought. “Contact,” he said.
“What is it?” Captain Nakata said.
“One of those tokusatsu weirdos.”
“We’re not supposed to have any in the area and the palace didn’t have any on station at the time.”
“Do we engage?”
“Capture if possible.”
The rest of the team on the channel signaled their comprehension.
“Let’s do the same trick.” Ritsu tapped the kekkaishi on the shoulder.
She had optics for the darkness, but not the dust, so he broke silence to quickly explain the plan.
It would be a shame to waste all the nice, thick dust in the air.
He hurled an incendiary grenade around the corner.
The kekkaishi immediately created a barrier.
The tank jumped in front of the tiny girl with a titanium shield bigger and heavier than she was.
Ritsu could hear the motors in Lt. Ogawa’s exoskeleton whine as the power source hummed.
The muffled thud hit the barrier.
The girl let out a small sound.
Ritsu winced.
It was his idea after all and though she was a soldier, she was, like, 11, which was messed up any way he looked at it.
Still, the barrier held.
“Good job!” he whispered.
“Close quarters, go!” Captain Nakata said.
Ritsu activated active camouflage.
He waited a beat for the other two close combat specialists to round the corner first.
Lt. Morales was a foreigner that had gotten stuck by the spires apocalypse. Made a home. Had a couple of kids. Decided to stay even with the offers from those people to take her home. A feral-type, she was strong and fast with animal senses and fast healing for some reason.
She hit 50 KPH within a few strides.
Maj. Nitta was just a half-stride behind her. Like Ritsu, his body had been modified with magitech and biological enhancements. Speed, strength, agility, reflexes, extra organs and few other surprises.
Ritsu ran after them at a reasonable 37 KPH. The active camouflage needed the power and operating his body at its peak generated way too much heat to conceal.
Bullets whipped past both sides of his invisible head, to the left of Lt. Morales and to the right of Maj. Nitta.
Pvt. Noguchi could shoot the wings of a fly at any range. The old man’s mods meant he never missed unless some weird magic or Skill effect was in play. He was as accurate with single shots from a sniper rifle at long range as he was in close quarters with automatic fire. Oddly, he was the oldest on the current squad, yet was the lowest ranked. By choice according to him.
Even without the private’s shooting expertise friendly fire wasn’t likely thanks to Captain Nakata.
Her command and control suite integrated sensitive sensor hardware and predictive software.
Those linked up through her moved as if they were one body.
Shooters just knew where front line fighters were positioned in space regardless of the surrounding chaos. While the latter knew the angles of fire the former took or intended to take.
Bullets bounced off the masked rider’s armor.
They were more of a distraction and information gatherer anyways.
“No pen,” Pvt. Noguchi said.
“Level 30 minimum,” Captain Nakata said. “Waiting on visual to confirm ident.”
The rider stepped off the motorcycle.
Ritsu didn’t have a full visual due to the smoke and dust choking the tunnel. He only had heat signatures and a silhouette.
A lot of power, but much too big for the rider to turn with the way it had fallen through the ceiling perpendicular to the tunnel’s direction.
“No hole in the ceiling,” he said.
There were small pockmarks and craters from the explosions, but nothing nearly large enough to account for the masked rider and the motorcycle.
Which was impossible, he remembered seeing it open up like a— well, it had looked strange now that he thought about it. He’d review the footage later.
The interplay between the squad and Ritsu’s ruminations only took a second.
They had covered half the distance to the masked rider.
She— as suggested by her silhouette— crossed her arms in front of her in an ‘X’ shape.
The motorcycle vanished.
She slashed her arms down.
Bright light shot forward in an ‘X’ shape that grew large enough to cut into the tunnels sides.
It wasn’t at light speed because they’d already be hit.
It was slower than a bullet, which gave them a chance.
Lt. Morales and Maj. Nitta dived forward, going completely horizontal.
Right and left, they shot through the gaps in either side of the beam like an arrow through an iron ring.
Ritsu hit the deck, going prone, letting the beam pass over him.
Heat warnings blared in his head and flashed in his cybernetic HUD.
He pushed himself up and dropped the camouflage.
The motorcycle was back and this time he was looking at its ass end.
Heat readings suggested that it had something akin to a miniature jet engine just about ready to fire.
Maj. Nitta pointed his mechanical hand. The dark composite material split open to shoot a grappling line.
The masked rider took off like a shot.
The major turned into a kite.
Lt. Morales was left behind.
Ritsu caught up.
His modifications leaned heavier into speed and stealth.
And the masked rider wasn’t the only one with a jet engine.
In fact he had several in his legs and back.
The microthrusters pulsed with each pump of his legs.
Bio implants injected additional adrenaline, widened his arteries, increased blood cell production and oxygen intake. The additional heart-like organs in his limbs sped up the process of getting what his body needed to where it needed to be.
His internal temperature spiked as miniature power sources fed energy to the thrusters and readied the weapons concealed within.
He dashed around the swaying Maj. Nitta and up the side of the wall.
A leap powered by one full power burst from his thrusters put the motorcycle's rear tire within reach.
He struck with his left, deploying the ceramic mantis blade mid slash.
The motorcycle wobbled, losing enough speed for Maj. Nitta to get his boots back on the ground.
He leapt, accelerating with a pull on his line to tackle the masked rider off her bike.
It was a her.
Ritsu was sure now that he was close enough for a visual.
Maj. Nitta detached the wire, releasing a second one to use as a garrote while he grappled with the masked rider as they rolled across the cold stone floor.
The material over the masked rider’s neck was thin, flexible, yet the monofilament barely managed to scratch it.
The armor was a garish mix of reds, whites and yellow. All topped off by a long blue scarf that had loosened to lay on the masked rider’s small chest.
The armor was shiny making it look like cheap plastic.
Which couldn’t be further from the truth.
It was pretty much as strong as thick steel plate once over Level 10.
“Running ident,” Captain Nakata said. “Miki Reon. Age 15. Level 27 Masked Rider. Ward 9, Tokyo.”
“Seems a lot stronger than that,” Maj. Nitta said.
His words were robotic, monotone as always on the comms channel, but he conveyed rising alarm.
“Identical color scheme. Rest of visuals don’t match her file. Scarf doesn’t match. Motorcycle doesn’t match.”
Ritsu slashed at her helmet-covered face.
They’d need to get through the armor before trying to apply the gas.
The helmet’s mouth suddenly came to life, opening up to catch the blade between razor-sharp teeth and mandibles.
Reon bit down, snapping the tip of his ceramic blade like a brittle cookie.
Ritsu recoiled, instinct and enhancements saved him from the scarf at the last minute.
The shit moved on it’s own!
It lashed out at his face like a cobra before turning to wrap itself around Maj. Nitta’s helmet-covered head.
Reon’s hands went to Maj. Nitta’s.
“Some he—”
The words were drowned out by the sound of metals and composite materials being crushed.
“Strength level above metrics on file,” Captain Nitta said.
Lt. Morales dived in and grabbed one of Reon’s hands while placing a knee on the small girl’s chest.
Ritsu retracted his broken blade to go for her other hand.
“Shit! She’s much stronger than she should be.”
The masked rider’s small fingers barely budged despite him pouring all his energy into his physical strength.
Warnings blared in his HUD.
His mechanical fingers were approaching the limit of their structural integrity.
Reon bucked, nearly dislodging both him and Lt. Morales.
“Hold her. Ogawa is on his way to assist.”
“I suggest barriers, Captain Nakata, in case we can’t,” Ritsu said.
He abandoned the girl’s fingers to deploy the cutting laser in his index finger.
“Careful.”
Multiple people warned him.
The bug-eyed lens over the girl’s right eye laughed at a laser capable of cutting into a bank vault door.
“I’m scratching it!”
His father had always said victories were worth celebrating, no matter how small.
Father’s last victory had been his greatest.
Ritsu still couldn’t bring himself to celebrate it despite the long years since the worst day of his life.
She bucked again, getting a boot under his chest.
His vision turned into static.
When it came back he was eye level with the floor and things were sideways.
Literally and figuratively.
Reon’s was on her feet, trading strikes with both Lt. Morales and Maj. Nitta.
The latter had deployed both ceramic mantis blades from his arms.
He struck from multiple angles at speeds that were impossible to follow with the normal human eye.
Reon was even faster, parrying and blocking while landing quick, snappy punches.
Each blow dented Lt. Morales’ chest plate.
Lt. Morales jabbed with her combat knife while firing with a modified big bore pistol.
Reon ducked a ceramic blade, parried the knife, kicked Maj. Nitta into the wall and took the bullet in the shoulder.
It was the sort used to kill huge animals.
The small, slip of a girl went spinning.
One. Twice. Thrice.
She turned the last into a jumping spin kick that clanged off the side of Lt. Morales’ helmet.
The lieutenant stumbled, but Reon grabbed her by the back of her neck and between her legs, lifting her up and bringing her back down on a knee with a resounding crack.
She did this all before Ritsu, whose enhancements made him really quick, could draw his own pistol.
He shot her in the face as she dumped Lt. Morales to the floor.
The bug-eyed helmet rocked back— then forward.
Pvt. Noguchi stitched bullets into the back of Reon’s head from a hundred meters down the tunnel.
She moved her head out of the firing line and grabbed Lt. Morales by the collar, lifting her up as a shield.
The lieutenant’s legs dangled loosely, but she continued to grapple and stab.
Ritsu rushed forward, firing.
Reon blocked with one arm without even looking in his direction.
The plastic-looking vambrace merely got smudged.
He went low, deploying his ceramic blade once again, aiming for hamstrings.
She took the blow, ignoring it.
Fortunately, it had been a feint.
He got up in her face and spat.
One of his mods was a gland underneath his tongue that shot an inky substance with a mildly acidic and strongly soporific effects. The mad doctors got it from a squid monster that lived in the bay. Rather, they developed a much smaller version that wasn’t nearly as potent.
It was a long shot, but he hoped that there were cracks in her helmet that his cybernetic eyes couldn’t see.
Reon cracked him in the face with Lt. Morales, sending the two of them tumbling in a tangle of armored limbs up the tunnel.
They clattered into the motorcycle.
Maj. Nitta re-entered the fight with a dazzling strobe effect from the lenses of his helmet.
The sequence was designed to essentially short out a person’s brain.
Naturally, Reon wasn’t affected.
Fists and feet met ceramic blades.
The latter lost after a dizzying exchange.
Dozens of blows in less than second.
Both blades snapped.
Maj. Nitta deployed shock darts from a small launcher in his left shoulder.
Reon snatched the wires out of the air.
Electricity surged from the major to the masked rider.
She ripped them out of his shoulder.
He deployed a stub shotgun from his right shoulder.
Four barrels.
One volley.
Forty iron pellets sprayed her.
She blurred even to Ritsu.
The one-inch punch thrust Maj. Nitta into the tunnel wall with a thunderous crack.
She was on him in an instant.
Lefts and rights pummeled the major’s midsection, destroying armor rated to take up to .50 caliber bullets.
She cracked the major’s faceplate with three punches before tearing it from his face.
The major’s once handsome face was hamburger.
Somehow he opened his mouth to spit a thick glob in her bug-eyes.
She paused.
He deployed the mini flame thrower from his right palm.
She stepped back ablaze.
He ran out of fuel.
Helmet on fire, she shuffled back into striking range on light toes, bouncing like she was in a ring rather than in a life or death fight in a dark, dank tunnel.
A jab snapped Maj. Nitta’s head back. A straight to the gut bent him over. An uppercut sent him back. A low kick snapped his mechanical lower leg off at the knee in a shower of sparks and mixed liquids.
Seconds was an eternity in a fight between blazing fast people.
Lt. Ogawa thundered into Reon.
Too late.
Much too late.
She pushed against his shield.
His exoskeleton whined in protest.
So much heat in the tunnel.
Ritsu and Lt. Morales finally managed to extricate themselves from each other.
“We’re retreating,” Captain Nakata said.
Pvt. Noguchi ricocheted bullets off the walls, ceiling and floor to get around Lt. Ogawa’s bulky form.
The shots were impressive, but useless as they continued to bounce off Reon’s colorful plastic-looking armor.
“On our—”
Static.
Again?
The disorientation of going from one hundred to zero, then from zero to one hundred sucked.
Ritsu was flat on his back.
His limbs felt off… lighter, wet.
He glanced down at his body.
Both mechanical legs were gone.
The fleshy parts started at the knees, but those were gone too.
His legs had been sliced off above knees.
Left arm at the elbow.
Automatic life-extension systems were already working overtime.
Pain dulled, not completely cut, because pain was useful. If he couldn’t feel pain then he might do something dumb like continue to move and fight with a blade in his gut cutting his insides up with every move without him realizing.
Blood clotted at his stumps.
Vital arteries slowly sealed.
Mods taken from some kind of river salamander.
They could grow lost limbs back.
He wasn’t quite at that level, but if he got out of this alive and with his legs, it’d only take a few weeks recovery after reattachment.
Lt. Morales kicked at the metallic monster holding her up with the two scythe-like blades it had for arms stuck in her shoulders.
Shit!
Went right through her armor.
Made their mantis blades look like toothpicks.
The lieutenant’s healing made his look like shit.
Though he was pretty sure she couldn’t heal getting her head bitten off.
Metal mandibles snapped at her, trying to get around her combat knife.
Where had it come from?
Double shit!
The motorcycle!
It was also mantis-like robot the whole time!
This was unprecedented!
He pointed an IR beam at its eyes.
A robot had to have an OS… probably.
He got nothing.
The tunnel shook.
Reon had slammed Lt. Ogawa.
Well… shit…
“Captain Nakata. I’m disabled. Time for you to get out of here.”