Crow met the first of them midstep, bringing his shoulder to crash against its chest like a ram falling upon castle gates. Magic gave him solidity as much as speed, and strength even more than that. The impact tore creased steel boots from the ground and sent its recipient sailing backwards to break against the wall. It clattered to the floor as a score of disconnected segments.

Light enough to move in after all. No wonder they can’t stop bullets.

Crow almost surprised himself with the ease he found in accepting the armour’s emptiness. Utalis, as always, proving a sturdy pillar.

Another replaced the first, giving even Crow’s hastened heart time enough to beat only twice. He ducked a grab and brought a fist against its head.

Mundane metal proved less stubborn than the knuckles of a mystic, and the helmet buckled inwards with a deep and hollow thrum. Surface marred by a dent almost as broad as the fist that had made it. Somehow, the suit advanced all the same.

Crow threw it back with a second strike, then cursed as three more charged to replace it.

Gauntlets lunged for him from all sides. He avoided all but one, shrugging the feeble blow off and lashing out in retaliation. Two more suits reached him as his target met the floor.

Crow spun as he fought, trying to defend and attack at once. His strength was greater than any two of the suits, and the veneers of steel from which they were composed made a petty obstacle for him, yet their numbers seemed only to swell.

And with the each new set of armour to join the melee came a new pair of metal bludgeons for Crow to contest.

He felt them strike no matter how he moved, standing all around him, leaving no direction free to dodge to. One, five, a dozen blows fell upon him, bruising his flesh and leaving his teeth rattling. One fortunate impact shook his wits from their magic, almost stripping away his prowess before he could swiftly grasp it anew. Twenty came after, fifty.

Crow realised his resilience would be countered not by a guillotine, but by the prick of a thousand needles.

Focus, they’re just strips of steel.

Yet the knowledge seemed ephemeral even in Crow’s mind, for what kind of steel could move by itself? The same kind, it seemed, that might coordinate to strike from four sides at once.

Spinning, Crow raised a hand and caught a sluggish punch unguarded before pulling the suit responsible off-balance. His boot left a print in its breastplate before the automaton could right itself, flattening the armour against the ground.

The gap in their masses was all he needed. Crow tore through it and leapt ahead, rolling to his feet three yards from the rest of the suits and turning as they hurried to re-engage.

Once again he darted forward to meet the nearest of them mid-charge, his boot catching it with a jolt to fly back as if hurled by a sling. Three more fell beneath it, caught by splayed limbs, and Crow didn’t waste the opening.

He ducked and dodged, weaving in and out of the metal men and letting loose fists, feet, knees and elbows whenever they neared. No form constrained his motions, nor did his countless hours of practice refine them. The fight was too hectic, panicked and chaotic for any such precision.

There was time enough only for instinct, not thought.

A fist shook Crow’s jaw, and he retaliated with a punch of his own. Then another sunk deep into his side and sent spears of pain to torment the flesh below. Anger sprouted to bury it.

His fingers hooked inside the mask as Crow spun to the sound of another scraping footfall at his back, dragging the first along with him. Armour screeched against armour, and two more suits lay flat against the ground.

There was no time to celebrate his victory. Even as he stood and panted to refill burning lungs, all of the armour sets he’d left strewn across the stone of the floor were stirring. Clumsy, slow and, unless wishful thinking were fooling him, enfeebled by his blows. Yet undeniably coming to stand.

Glancing over one shoulder, he caught sight of his teammates as they struggled against enemies of their own.

Shining white energy coiled about Ethi’s body like smoke wafting around a fire. Pure and unbroken as clouds, intrepid and unconstrained as a hurricane. It trailed behind her as she moved. Seeming to mingle with the blurred shadow left in her wake.

What speed. Crow thought, and his awe was well founded. For the girl moved as though to race the very sound her steps and strikes sent ringing across the walls.

Scraping drew his focus back too late. He whirled to see four suits already within paces; the plates of their epidermis crumpled and dented by fist and fall alike, yet their vigour unsapped even as mangled legs dragged behind them or ruined helmets lay twisted across throats.

Crow met metal with magic again, first blow not even landing before more foes reached their feet.

Empty suits. They’re just empty suits.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

The realisation chilled him, even coming as late as it did. He’d felt his fingers sink into empty space behind that visor, seen for himself how bereft of mass the automatons were.

Somehow, though, it was only upon seeing them move heedless of the greatest ruin he could muster that Crow truly came to understand the nature of his enemies. Mindless, soulless. Fleshless.

They came on like a row of pistons, arms shunting with the force to splinter wood. Crow’s retreat turned to a stumble, his defence to a flail, and all the while they continued without hesitation or error.

Crow was not so mechanical, nor nearly as calm. Panic gave him pause as haste gave him error, and both were punished with pain time and time again.

Skin darkened with bruising, air escaped him in gasps, bones rattled and bloody spittle ran down his chin from burst lips while his head swam from a dozen batterings.

More suits stumbled forth, their clumsy steps serving as a warning of what was to come.

If Crow remained on the backfoot, he would lose.

The thought galvanised him, and when the next blow came he abandoned all defence to grip it. Pulling back, he dragged the armour towards him and ducked as it sailed over his head. Rose to bring knuckles ringing against another’s helmet before any could interfere.

He ignored a punch, then threw another suit back with a kick as the rest finally reached him.

Once more Crow fought the mass of them, yet now he relinquished any attempts at protecting himself.

A crack reached his ears from somewhere behind, yet in the madness of battle Crow barely even noticed. Only when the sound rang out again, twice as close, did it capture his focus.

Jagged crimson arcs seemed to dance across the air, as if tongues of lightning were bleeding. Crow turned to see the forked energies convene about a pair of figures- Unity and one of the suits.

Steam hissed and metal quivered for a moment before being torn asunder and scattered in all directions as a thousand smouldering shards of debris.

The boy’s blue eyes stilled to meet Crow’s greens, then a sharp bark escaped his lips.

“Behind you, idiot.”

In his wonder at the destructive power of Unity’s magic, Crow had let his guard down. The suits seemed to notice it just as his teammate did and stormed forwards like a landslide.

Left, right and straight ahead. Attacks came as if he were amid a den of vicious snakes, and Crow stopped perhaps two of every three. His heart sank and his blood boiled as despair and frustration alike flooded his thoughts. Advantage lost to hesitation.

But when he gave another step to their unrelenting attack, he heard again the crackle of power and saw the twisting of red lightning.

Unity gripped another suit; filling the chamber with a light great enough to boil air and melt shadow. When it cleared another enemy had been reduced to scrapped and blackened shrapnel.

Smoke had barely begun to wheeze from the remnants when the boy spoke.

“You can down them, I can kill them. Hurry up and give me another opening.”

And so he did.

Crow soaked more blows and returned them in kind, though he found the automatons almost a triviality with Unity at his back. It took only one pull to cast their insubstantial masses off balance, then a single grab from the black-haired boy to reduce them to sludged air and detritus.

It took minutes to thin the attackers; perhaps only one, or even mere seconds. Time was difficult to gauge as it passed in a world slowed by magic. The beat of Crow’s heart was the only constant measure he could use.

However long they fought, he and Unity soon reduced their enemies to piling scrap.

The taste of victory was sweet on Crow’s tongue for only a moment before he turned to Ethi.

The girl dodged still, weaving between the attacking armour with no less speed than she’d shown before. As Crow neared he studied her battle more closely, baffled that she would struggle so long while controlling such power. Curiosity overwhelming his instinct to help.

She struck the suits as vigorously as Crow had, moreso even, but her blows seemed shallow and feeble. Bouncing harmlessly where his had left dents, staggering rather than launching. The truth became clear in moments.

Ethi’s speed was far greater than Crow could hope to match, yet magic’s tie to physics was of the ficklest kind. Moving faster meant nothing for the force of her strikes, and hers were clearly too light to get the better of metal.

Crow resolved to substitute them with his own.

He crashed into the crowded automatons from the side, scattering and flooring one half as the other was sent stumbling. Before they could recover he leapt for those that still stood.

Hands and feet darted between them like cracking whips, and a deep, harsh ache sank into Crow’s knuckles. He remembered it from his preparation at home, stifling it just as he had when striking bags of sand had drawn it on.

Cracking lit his ears from behind, telling Crow that Unity had turned his magic against this new mass of enemies. The thought was reassurance, but an irrelevance.

It took little time to destroy the remaining automatons.

Crow looked at the scattered ruins as the magic left him. His lungs heaving from exertion, body buzzing with exhilaration, yet still he studied what was left of the foe. Better to be cautious, he thought.

But it was hard to muster any suspicion as he gazed upon the graveyard of artifice. Charred and bent, blackened and buckled, there was no more threat to be found.

Reluctantly, Crow stemmed the flow of his magic. The twin spheres that flowed through him left an aching absence; surge of ferocious vigour from Cutaris and the unflinching steadiness of Utalis both being poorly replaced by fear.

More than the discontent of his natural emotion, Crow feared that very attachment. To use magic was to invite thoughts and impulses born from whichever spheres were touched. Such things could balance a mind when needed, but every mystic was warned against the dangers of relying on them.

Feeling such thoughts was one thing, but it unnerved him to be left yearning in their absence.

“I think that went quite well.” He said, speaking for no reason at all save a distraction.

To his surprise, the words were met with assent.

“Let’s hurry up and leave before something else happens to roll that dice again.” Unity cut in, looking pointedly at Crow.

He didn’t answer, merely fell in behind the black haired boy as he hurried out.