Kid walked a step behind Daniel. His armor was switched to stealth mode so that the ground bore the weight of the armor surprisingly well, considering its size. Most people often wondered how suits of armor so large and heavy were able to move so quietly, but anyone who’d spent enough time with one of them knew it was all runes.
Each VHF suit of armor was a combination of mana infused metals and scripts of runes. For the stealth function, the armor had a rune situated in each limb and at its back. Each one was a variation of sound runes designed to keep sound held in or dispersed, depending on which function the armor deemed more efficient. They also had gravity runes worked into the armor’s steel so that they didn’t weigh so much, leaving foot prints when they moved.
These runes only came alive when Stealth mode was activated.
As for the latest function that allowed them slip undetected by aura senses, Jabolla, one of the rune mages back at headquarters, claimed it was a rune that functioned like a core’s veil. Just as any mage worth their weight in gold knew how to conceal their core so that those weaker and some of their peers couldn’t determine their strength, the rune functioned to keep the mage’s aura internalized, concealed into the armor away from external senses. How? Kid had no idea.
Kid and Daniel walked through the forest with the tag-along mages following behind. Daniel was a sturdy rock, pushing through leaves and bending low hanging branches as they moved.
One of the first things they’d learned of the forest was that the colors of the trees weren’t the only magical thing about them. They were also sturdy, unnecessarily so. Even with the size and strength of the juggernaut armor, the amount of damage Daniel could impart on a tree was almost superficial. Their branches, while sturdy, were not rigid. Cutting them worked, but breaking them was futile. Each attempt only led to bent branches that flapped back like objects with obscenely high elasticity, at best. At worst there were no effects.
Daniel had been leading the team in silence for the past few hours, giving out commands in basic hand signs that Kid had no choice but to interpret into words for the benefit of the others. Though it seemed Chris was often a step ahead. Chances were she’d had a military dad before the second awakening, or some form of military training, even if it was of the lowest caliber.
They’d encountered combat only once in their time so far. They had run into a flock of large birds that looked like flying dinosaurs if they were half the size. The flock had swooped down on them from high among the trees when they slipped into their territory and Daniel and Kid had been forced to fire off a few rounds just to play their part.
The battle had been short lived, however. The mages had fallen into quick movements, disorganized but effective, and Kid had triggered his armor’s recording function to catalogue their new team’s skills for possible references or analysis. It was never a bad idea to study a mage’s capabilities.
Hillary had proved himself to possess a specialization in earth magic, blasting rocks from the earth straight into the flock without chanted spellforms. All of Jim’s spellforms were chanted and he blended earth and fire, birthing molten rocks. His attacks were slow but powerful, requiring time to use.
Chris proved herself to be a more versatile version of Jim. Her chanted spellforms came quick and in multitudes. For every blast of lightning she summoned, a wave of water spellform followed, only to be usurped by a blast of concentrated heat. At some point, she executed a combo on a pair of the flying monsters much unexpected of the untrained. She stalled them in the air with a blast of water, displaying her speed with a ball of lightning that ran through them before they hit the ground, only to encase them in a dome of raised earth when they did.
They’re exit from the battle had been swift. The VHF often taught such a pattern to their recruits for times when they were faced with superior opponents. Slow, stun, execute.
It was a quick combo, deadly if executed perfectly. And Chris had executed it as perfectly as could be expected from someone who hunted out here in the middle of nowhere.
Whatever was left of the creatures trapped beneath the earth, Kid wasn’t sure he’d wanted to see. Unfortunately, someone had to claim the cores.
Jason used light magic like a hero from a comic book. He fired orbs of light at monsters so concentrated that they burned where they came in contact. Orbs were not his only weapons, he had beams of light that inflicted burning damage as well, but while he was a powerful Rukh mage, Kid found watching him fight to be nothing but boring. Oliver was similar but he at least had the entertaining decency to mix up his apparent gravity specialization with a few chanted spellforms, ripping the flock apart when he felt it was necessary and pulling them together for the sake of their own inconvenience.
Ash was undoubtedly the weakest member of the team, so while she fought with more vigor than the others, she fell considerably short. Kid wondered why a Beta mage had been sent along with Rukh mages but did his best to contain his curiosity. After all, he, too, was a Beta mage, even if just a category three.
Kid and Daniel stood off to the side after the first few shots they fired, watching their cobbled team work with the teamwork of unrelated species. It was only when the entire round was over that they realized Big Man Desolate hadn’t been a part of the fight.
Going through the logs as they gathered up the monster cores showed that, like Daniel and Kid, he’d simply stood idly by and watched, standing off in the distance like a child unwilling to play with the new children. But unlike Daniel and Kid who’d dissuaded the monsters from approaching them with bursts of focused gunfire, Desolate had simply stood where he was and the monsters had ignored him as if he was one of the trees.
Whatever specialization the mage had, Kid was more than certain captain Ven would want to find out.
It had taken a few hours but their exploration was coming to an end, one more stretch of the forest and they’d circle round to regroup with Ronda’s team. Kid was imagining how annoyed Ronda would be having to take command from someone who wasn’t a part of VHF, especially someone she detested, when his armor set off a small beep.
Kid froze, turning to Daniel.
“Did you get that?” he asked through the armor’s com-link.
Daniel’s response was a small grunt and a nod.
“Monster or mage?” Kid asked.
“Mage,” Daniel said softly, his helmeted head tilted up as he waited for the next beep. When it came again, his head turned in the direction of the source. “Rune magic.”
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Kid could hear the frown in Daniel’s voice.
“What’s going on?” Ash asked, stepping up to them. “Why have we stopped?”
“We’ve detected mana signatures,” Kid told her. “Might be worth checking out.”
“Or it might get us killed,” Hillary said.
“Yea,” Jim agreed. “I say we complete our search and move on to the next phase.”
“The next phase involves…”
Kid’s words trailed off at the sounds of footsteps. They were frantic and uncaring of stealth. Whoever was running through the forest wasn’t just running, they were fleeing.
Guided by instincts honed at VHF headquarters and time on the road under captain Ven’s command, Kid moved into ready position, gun raised and aim ready. He itched to switch his armor setting to combat mode but Daniel was the leader today, he was also more experienced and hadn’t given the command.
The forest around them grew eerily quiet save approaching footsteps. Motes of dust danced in the air, illuminated by dying lights as the world slowly descended into the night. The colors of the plants remained vibrant and some let off soft glows bright enough to see with.
Kid remained unfazed, gun at the ready, aimed down a straight path as the pitter patter of footfalls filled the air in frantic steps.
A child burst out from a bush nearby no older than seventeen, legs carrying her in a frantic charge. She did not turn back to look at what was chasing her and she seemed ignorant of what was in front of her.
Kid let her run past him, noting her eyes were half-closed in fear. His aim was still trained on the path she’d burst out of when his armor beeped a second time. This time he took a step forward as a roar filled the air.
Behind him the girl ran into Big Man Desolate.
She bumped into him without effect and fell to the ground. She lifted her head up, shaking it as if confused. When her attention landed on Desolate, Kid felt the fear rise from her. That was when he paid the girl the briefest attention.
His armor catalogued the information it gained from the momentary distraction and he stared at the information displayed in translucent numbers, confused.
What the hell is a normie doing out here? He scowled as his armor beeped again and a crashing sound shook off in the distance.
“You’ve got to help him!” the girl begged one of the mages, frantic. “He’s your friend, right? He’s in pain and I don’t think he can keep fighting. You’ve got to help him.”
“Help who?” Kid asked.
His gun remained focused on the distance but he turned his head slightly to afford the girl a touch of his attention.
He found her holding on to Oliver’s shirt, pleading. The height distance was significant so that she had to look up to meet Oliver’s eyes.
Oliver’s face bore a horrid expression, like a man on the verge of despair, terrified that the slight ray of hope in the distance would prove false.
“H-help him?” Oliver stammered.
“Yes!” the girl pleaded. “Please.”
Daniel took one look at Oliver’s face and uttered off a single command: “Switch to combat mode.”
Kid smirked as he obeyed.
Daniel wasn’t necessarily good with people but he was a sucker for kids. There was a standing joke in the team that if he ever betrayed the VHF, it would be over a child.
Kid felt his armor come alive like a hunting dog let off its leash as he triggered combat mode. The armor breathed in a sigh as the functions that were deactivated to ensure stealth mode remained intact activated. It drew energy from the mana stone secured in place just between its shoulder blades and his armor lit up. Soft blue light filled the black highlights of his armor and he felt the mana course through the metal body.
He heard the power and activation speed was even better in the latest models and couldn’t wait to get his hands on one of them.
[All Functions Ready], a robotic voice informed him, deepening his smile.
It was neither an AI nor anything magical. It was a simple programed voice designed to give him updates, but he thanked it anyway.
“Now let’s see who’s in trouble.”
Kid readjusted his aim and the armor did its duty. His auto-aim system kicked in so that his armored arm moved slightly to the left and steadied.
Kid’s enhanced vision came alive and he saw the forest around him better. In front of him, the shrubberies eased into transparence as he activated the armor’s mana sight, picking out living things through mana points, glowing blue against his vision as infrared targets tended to glow red.
“There you are,” he muttered.
Kid dropped to a heavy knee that made a depression in the ground. With stealth no longer active, the world was left to suffer the full weight of the armor.
Kid moved his trigger finger and slipped it within his assault rifle’s trigger guard. The tech-42 was a weapon with a boring name but a considerably large firepower, designed to stop simple Beta rank monsters in a few shots.
In his mana vision Kid watched a distorted mana signal, odd but Beta ranked, formed in a human shape as it turned and let out a blast of mana towards a monster as the person took the force of another beast’s charge. It battered into the mage, throwing him into the ground. The mage reacted quickly, getting up only to stagger and fall back to a knee.
Kid assumed this was who the girl wanted them to save.
“What’s the delay, Kid?”
Daniel’s voice rang inside Kid’s helmet and Kid realized he’d spent too much time watching.
He moved his already adjusted aim, taking it off the monster that had been impacted by the mage’s technique and focused it on the one that was proving a threat. His suit gave him an update he already knew.
[Target Acquired].
“Buckle up, guys,” he announced. “We’re about to have two tangos hot on our tail.”
He squeezed the trigger and three shots rang out. The rifle bucked in his hold but his aim remained true, his grip steady. The Olympian armor did not succumb to the strength of its own weapon.
Kid watched all three shots make contact. They struck the monster’s side but did nothing. In actuality, it did something, just not what kid had expected. It drew the attention of the mage and the monster, and they turned their focus in his general direction.
In Kid’s mana sight, the monster seemed unharmed.
Without warning or hesitation, the monster acted. It turned and charged in Kid’s direction. As for the mage, he acted, too. He turned and blasted the second monster with what showed up in Kid’s mana vision as a blast of force mana, rings of light purple blasted forth.
The second monster took the blow and was flung through the air.
“Tango incoming!” Kid announced.
His auto-aim readjusted his aim, his arm moving to compensate.
[Target Acquired. Mana shot advised].
“Not yet,” Kid said, discarding the advice.
Finger poised, he was about to squeeze the trigger when Oliver stepped past him with a soft chant on his lips.
Purple mana gathered to Oliver, the color of force mana affected, but deeper, as gravity mana tended to be. It pooled to his hands like metal shavings to a magnet, and crackled along his fingertips like electricity. A magnetic pulse roared around his hands and Kid felt the pull of gravity against his armor. Without the armor, there was no doubt he would not withstand the force.
Oliver stopped three steps ahead of Kid and the monster burst through the shrubbery. It looked like an overfed bison with fangs for teeth and purple eyes with purple veins running through its sclera. It had only one horn sticking out from the left side of its face and blood dripped from it. There was also a massive groove along its side like what would be expected of a rock that had suffered the full effect of erosion, and it moved with more force than a Beta rank should.
It bounded towards Oliver, its footsteps shaking the ground beneath it. And while it was merely a Beta ranked beast, there was no denying its strength was certainly no longer of its rank.
Oliver clapped his hands in front of him, his face angry, and his spellforms combined. They formed a single spellform as large as a man was tall that shot out of his hands.
In an instant the spellform emptied the distance between Oliver and the beast and swallowed it. The effect let out a rondo of cracks then a pop and the monster was a mess of blood and bones before its next hoof hit the ground.
The air around its now broken body crackled with the effects of activated mana and Kid watched the now brutalized beast as what was left of it twitched on the grass, limbs hanging oddly in places they had no right being.
Force magic, Kid thought with a restrained shudder.
Each type of magic was capable of grotesque results. But spellforms under force magic left the worst kind of blunt force trauma. Then again, it was in the name.
“That’s one,” Kid muttered.
He squeezed his trigger, a burst of three shots filled the air and a monster whined its last off in the distance.
Kid pulled his cartridge free of his Tech-42, checked it and found he still had more bullets to go. He slid it back into place and got up.
“That’s two.”