According to what Ash had learned, there are four main classifications of Jotun. Troll, Ogre, Giant, and then Titan. At first he had assumed that they had just been divided by how big they were, but now that she stared down the malicious eye of a Giant… Well, it wasn’t just its size that had earned it that title. Its presence was overwhelming, dwarfing the valkyries as it’s expanding form came into view through the mist. Big and bulky, dragging itself around by slamming arms thicker than the skyscrapers it demolished into the air and pushing itself forward causing the ground to shake. It’s eye twitched rapidly, taking up the near entirety of its face that was otherwise void of features. However, what [Dark-Rider] lacked in sight it made up for in hands.
At first glance, there was something odd about the giant, but It was hard to make out through the mist and jet black material the Jotun’s body was made of. However, once it began to expand it became all the more clear as hundreds- no, thousands of mechanical human arms all unfurled themselves to cover the skies. And when Ash looked closer, she saw that [Dark-Rider]’s entire chest was made from an interlocking series of these hands all weaved together in a mockery of human cooperation. From the front and the back they shot outwards, mist pouring from the palms as they furiously swiped through the air, tearing apart the ruined remains of the city.
Something inside of Ash stirred at the sight. A conclusion born from the twisted edges that looked to be ripped straight out of the earth, the slimy way the metal glistened in the mist as if it were wet. The Vintrkind knew that they were rather uneducated on a lot of things, but this was a conclusion that nobody could disagree with.
The Jotun was not natural.
Such a creature was unmistakably, identifiably impossible.
And yet, here it was.
Ash had no words. Instead, all she could do was once more take a deep winter breath to keep her cool- And she could only feel it at the edge of her consciousness. Shit.
“...Damn,” Kyouko let out, for once breathless. “That’s going to be a pain to take out.”
“P-Pardon me?!” Liesa exclaimed. “Did you not hear what I just said?”
“Oh I heard you.” Ash couldn’t see her but she just knew that the black haired girl was smirking as she cracked a knuckle. “But this is just a simulation right? It won’t actually hurt for us to try it.”
“Physically your wellbeing is secured, but your mental state is a different subject entirely!” her handler protested. “Do you not understand what ‘hyper-realistic’ means? When all five of your sensory systems are engaged your brain can’t tell the difference between reality and fiction! While there are measures in place to prevent long term trauma, a great enough shock could affect your performance for months, perhaps even the rest of your careers!”
Ash glanced into her friend’s helmeted covered face and a small smile crossed her lips. She knew that look. There was no talking Kyouko out of this now. “Liesa, sweetie, just trust us okay?”
“Being given the moniker of sweetie is a bit-”
“What would you prefer then? Honey? Or perhaps, Darling~?”
The Alfheim girl sputtered on the end of the line causing Kyouko to roll her eyes. “Can’t believe I have to say this to you but… Vargr, stop flirting and focus more on Handsy over there. Oh, and relax, Liesa.”
There was a familiar harsh bite to her voice, one Ash hadn’t heard since they arrived in Valhalla. “It’s going to take more than a Giant to break me.”
Liesa remained silent for a moment before sighing. “...Very well then. But I will be monitoring your vitals in real time. If your stress levels exceed safety guidelines I’ll be pulling the plug on the simulation immediately, loss of points or no.”
“Gotcha. Let’s go Vargr!” Kyouko shouted before the two valkyries in training dashed up through the sky, wind blowing against them at high speeds as they approached the Jotun in the distance. [Dark-Rider]’s sole eye turned to face them, causing a chill to crawl down Ash’s spine but his partner only grinned. In a burst of light, she pulled out what looked to be a sword and shield combo. Both of them seemed too large to be practical, the sword more a vibrating chunk of metal and the shield deployed a large energy field reminiscent of the riot shields deployed by the Midgar Police, but Kyouko held the weapons with no trouble at all. “You came in with a weapon too, right?”
“Give me a moment…” The back of Ash’s mind raced as she searched through the Valkyrie Gear’s equipment before suddenly she was holding a large sniper rifle. The weight of it was heavy in her hands as she adjusted her grip on the weapon. “Well, this is a first.”
“Tch, I’m the brain and you're the brawn so why the hell am I in the front?” the black haired girl grumbled, annoyed. “Whatever. You can shoot a pistol so you can use a sniper rifle, right?”
“Well, I can guarantee that I’m not a quick shot.” Ash replied before looking into the scope. A deep breath filled her as she tried to use the winter to sharpen her instincts only to get feedback that made her nauseous. The white haired girl shivered before stopping that. Luckily the hyper sensors of the Valkyrie Gear still applied to the virtual world, so she wasn’t just an ordinary human but it still made her nervous… The Vintrkind stopped her thoughts in its tracks as she noticed the shifting of all [Dark-Rider]’s arms to turn and face her. There was a faint frost forming in front of them before- “Incoming!”
Moments later the thousand hands of the giant all unleashed a hail storm of ice upon them. Both girls instantly began weaving through the barrage of ice and frost, Kyouko using her shield and sword to batter some away as they tried to find a way through the blinding assault. Ash didn’t have any time to breath or get a good shot in as she grit her teeth and dived through the swarm. Chunks just barely graze her armored form, causing her to feel the familiar chill seep into her arms like a poison. Idly in the back of her mind she couldn’t help but think: So this was what it was like to be on the other end of that attack.
“Wow, I hate this!” Ash screamed over the comms, a sentiment her partner must have felt as Kyouko let out a growling thought of rage in reply. It was, to put it bluntly, the most vivid emotion she had ever felt even as her Valkyrie Gear took a load off the winter inside of her. Come on, think. What was the most basic tactic of dealing with a Jotun again? First you gotta take out the vents that lead to its Cloud Heart, which in this case would be… All of the creature’s hands if the mist she saw spewing out of them earlier was any indication. Fuck. “We’re supposed to try and take out the Jotun with just a sniper rifle and a sword?!”
“Well it is a Giant-Class mission that ended in catastrophe after all?” Liesa offered weakly, only for Kyouko to cut her off with a hum.
“No, Vargr’s got a point. There’s no way Yggdrasil wasn’t expecting to deal with upper class Jotun on a mission to reclaim a city.” She countered. “Well, I highly doubt they just sent two Phase Zero Valkyries either… That’s it! Liesa run me a scan for other Valkyrie Gears in the area!”
“Very well, pardon me for a moment.” The Alfheim girl went silent as the hailstorm barrage began to settle down. “Got it! The first assault squadron who perished in [Dark-Rider]’s opening attack should be straight Northeast! Can’t guarantee an Einherjar is available in this simulation, but it appears the leader’s gear was installed with an Anti-Giant weapon!”
“There we go!” Kyouko shouted excitedly as she began to blast off in the indicated direction. “Knew they wouldn’t make an impossible to win simulation!”
“Hate to be the bearer of bad news kitten-”
“Ash what did I just say.”
“-But it looks like Jotun's arms are bunching up together.” Ash continued, more concerned with simulated actual death then how she was going to be roasted alive after this was all over. “Gut feeling says it’s probably bad news so we should probably speed up- Ah!”
It was only by the sudden maximum speed of the Valkryie Gear’s engine that they were able to dodge the silent, thin beam that shot out of the Jotun’s hands. There was a nanosecond of pure silence before the air exploded against the two trainees, knocking them through the sky. A rumble reached their ears and the building behind them suddenly began to collapse as the beam sliced it in half.
Ash’s hands clenched the rifle in her hands tightly. “...I think we need to focus on not dying first before we can celebrate our victory.”
“Riiiggghhhhht. You watch my back then,” Kyouko let off before blasting into the sky. “And- Gogogo!”
Fast as they could go, the two Valkyries ripped through the sky. Soaring through the ruined city of a civilization long fallen, that to this very moment continued to be carved into by the rider of the dark’s sharp slices. Ash grit her teeth, Spinning around to face the creature as she leveled her weapon, adjusted the bullet type, and coldly took the first shot. A bolt of energy roared through the air as it shot forward before promptly exploding into chunks to rain down on the creature’s hands. Groups of the black, metallic hands were blasted apart, reduced to mangled scrap metal. But it was merely tens in a sea of thousands. [Dark-Rider] didn’t even flinch, the assault nothing more than a mere scratch.
Before she could even blink, a shadow had begun to loom over the two girls. Instantly Ash blasted her rifle into the sky before flying off just before a giant fist of Ice appeared in the sky to slam into them. Her partner however, was not so lucky as she vanished under the giant mass that swung forward and crashed into a nearby building. A loud crack rumbled through the Vintrkind’s ears as she reached out. “Breaker!”
“I’m… Alright!” Her voice came over the comms before in a burst of light and a muffled roar could be heard before Kyouko burst out of the chunk of ice. Her sword carving it’s way through the glacier as the midgard girl rocketed herself forward into the sky and gave a shiver. She held up her arm, her energy shield flickering before fading out entirely. “This took most of the blow, but my Valkryie Gear’s shields still got a bad chunk taken out of it. One more hit like that and I’m a goner.”
Kyouko shook the now useless junk off her arm before turning to face the Jotun and promptly flipping it off. “You can form shit out of the mist as well?! Goddamn cheater!”
“A Jotun’s classification not only includes its size but it’s mastery of its own abilities as well.” Liesa informed the duo in her usual lecturing tone. “While Trolls are like mindless brutes, strategy is a necessary requirement as the Jotun grow more and more intelligent and craftier.”
“So you’re saying this fucker knows I’m insulting it.” Ash’s partner smiled. “Good. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“That is not… incorrect I suppose.” Their operator let out a tired sigh. “But please keep the vulgarity to a minimum. While you won’t be docked points from it, it is poor showing.”
“Girls, as much as I love to hear you two talk, we need to get a move on.” The vintirkind interrupted. “How much closer are we to the first squadron’s remains?”
“Five minutes, give or take. You’re in close enough proximity now that your own Valkyrie Gear’s should be able to register it.” There was a soft sort of tickling notification in the back of Ash’s brain as a map appeared on her HUD, a glowing red spot just ahead. “There. That should do it.”
“Uh, yeah. About that.” Kyouko gestured to the area around them as the two girls flew into the area. “I can’t see jack shit!”
The place could no longer even be called the ruined remains of the city. It was a giant crater, completely covered and frozen by ice. Nothing remained of the civilization that once stood there, or even what remained of the Valkyries they were supposed to search for as it was all crushed under the overwhelming might of winter. Still, they quietly descended downwards before gently hovering off the ground. Ash’s feet practically skated on the ice as her crystal blue eyes scanned through the area, following the marker on her HUD before stopping right above it. Even with the hyper sensor of the Valkyrie Gear, she couldn’t see through the ice, more densely packed than anything the vitnrkind knew that she could create.
Kyouko landed next to her and they shared a glance. No words needed to be exchanged as she took out the slab of metal she called a sword and activated it. A soft glow formed through the edge as it began to vibrate, the soft hum turning into a piercing sound as her partner began to cut into the ice below them. Chunk after chunk flew into the air as Ash clutched her rifle, turning to try and find the Jotun only for her eyes to widen as it seemed to have vanished into the mist that seemed to grow thicker with each passing moment. The low mechanical howl of the beast mixed in with the sound of the grinding ice until eventually- “Found it.”
Ash looked down to see Kyouko approaching the body that had been buried underneath the ice. No, it couldn’t have even been called a body anymore. It had been crushed, pulverized, barely any of its original human form still holding together. There was a certain instinctual disgust at the sight that twisted Ash’s gut. It was not the first time either Midgardian had seen a dead body, so they could both tell that the simulator was living up to it’s name of ‘hyper-realistic’.
“...Part of the reason the Sydney reclamation failed was that the commander was one of the first to fall.” Liesa spoke softly. “Most of the forces fell within a matter of minutes. Back then, there weren’t nearly as many Einherjar as there are today, so only the higher-ups had access to them. According to what we could conclude in the aftermath, shortly thereafter the chain of command quickly broke down, leaving the Phase Zero survivors as easy pickings for [Dark-Rider].”
“And in this mission, that would be us huh?” Ash muttered to herself.
It was a harsh reminder that this wasn’t just any random simulation. This was history, a tragedy that had happened long in the past. It was something that could not be fully experienced with paragraphs of text in a data entry. Only by fully immersing themselves in the moment, could the full weight of the event make its way into the present. Passed on to the next generation. And if the simulation was to be believed, then somewhere out there in this very spot, two centuries later, the corpse of the woman in front of her was still buried deep within the ice. Another soul claimed by the eternal winter.
Was this what Odin was trying to show her when she woke up on the top of the world tree they called home? She couldn’t pull herself away by saying that this was just a false reality, for she knew it to be true. Ash had become one of the rare few who had truly seen beyond the walls of Yggdrasil. The gray sky and the endless expanse of snow that stretched on all the way to the horizon. And now, beyond the safety of her class, could she fully understand just what the threat the Jotun faced.
The weight of the mission that Valkyries carried on their shoulders.
“Well then.” Kyouko spoke as she activated the remains of the commander’s valkyrie gear. A giant mechanical cannon manifested itself in front of them, heavy in weight but the trainee could still lift it up with ease. This was the weapon that they had come here for, the one that could potentially kill [Dark-Rider] and alter the course of history, even if it was only a fantasy in the end. “Let’s change that shall we?”
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
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The mist from [Dark-Rider]’s cloud heart burned through the shields of the Valkyrie Gear at a slow but steady pace, so they couldn’t waste much time on learning the ropes of their new weapon. Of course, that didn’t stop a certain Alfheim student from spouting off as much trivia as she could off the top of her head. “The Anti-Giant Weapon, named the Elliot Canon, was in service through 070 to 113 of the Yggdrasil Calendar. One of the few attempts at converting Jotun Mist into energy to fuel weapons, though the technology was eventually phased out for the newer, more practical-”
Kyouko clicked her tongue as the two Valkyries in training continued setting up the immense machine at the very top of the few remaining skyscrapers left in the city. “Yeah, we get it. It got phased out because while it’s easy to carry, the stability is shit right? It’s why we have to waste time doing this instead of firing from the air.”
“...That would be correct, yes.” Ash couldn’t see Liesa, but she could practically feel her blink. “How did you know?”
The breaker of all things gave a smirk. “Gut feeling.”
“I don’t like this,” the vintrkind muttered as she stared down the scope of her canon. Not that she needed to. They had taken camp in the ruins of the city at just the right position so that the Elliot Canon would have a clear firing line at the thousand armed ape. It was only the instinctive shiver down her spine that made her observe the Jotun as carefully as she could. “[Dark-Rider] hasn’t made a move since we approached the remains of the first squad. Think it’s planning something?”
“Without a doubt. But!” her partner cheered as she stretched her arms, “I’m all done here so whatever it’s planning, I’ll be able to get one shot in at the least.”
“Sure you don’t want me to operate it?” Ash asked. “Of the two of us, I’m the one who’s the better aimer.”
“Uh, hello? Have you seen this thing?” Kyouko knocked her fist on the canon. “It doesn’t exactly do ‘precise’. No, we're going to do this the same way as usual. You distract grab-hands over there and prevent it from killing me while I try to break it with this giant laser cannon.”
The white haired girl snorted. “Easier said than done.”
“Eh, you have a way of pissing people off.” Frankly, Ash thought that applied more to Kyouko, but she wasn’t going to say that outloud. “If you really need insurance though, catch!”
There was barely any time for her to snatch the oversized sword her fellow Midgardian decided to casually toss her way. “If you somehow lose your rifle or, Odin forbid, I bite it, put your life on the line and stab the bastard with that for me alright?”
“...Yeah, alright.” Ash ran her fingers over the handle, feeling all of it’s grooves and edges, including the switch she presumed activated it’s vibrating function. The Vintrkind didn’t even know how to use a sword but placed it into her Valkyrie Gear’s equipment slot anyway before taking a deep breath. It wasn’t filled with the usual frigid frost she normally used, but the current situation cooled her off regardless. “Let’s get hunting.”
“Now you’re sounding like the Vargr I know!”
“Detecting movements from [Dark-Rider].” Liesa informed them from above. “It appears our leisure time has reached its conclusion.”
Which meant there was no time for Ash to say goodbye huh? Well, not that she needed to. The two partners in crime reached a silent conclusion before giving each other a nod. Her feet began to sprint forward, and in a wild leap Ash fearlessly jumped off the edge of the high rise. The wind whipped at her helmet, and while the mist obscured the ground below she knew it was fast approaching. A normal human would have resigned themselves to their fate of turning into a pink splatter on the ground.
Ash Whitelund had never been a normal human.
Timed just right, the wings of her Valkyrie Gear ignited themselves. Natural physics and human technology turned the girl into a comet as she maneuvered herself back into the sky and blasted through the ruins of the old world with a bang. With a whip of her hands, she leveraged the sniper rifle in her grip and aimed it directly at Jotun's sole eye.
Ash pulled the trigger and the bullet punched through the air, smashing directly into the glowing orb that might as well have been a target. [Dark-Rider] didn’t blink, she didn’t even know if it could blink, but it reacted all the same with a mechanical howl that rumbled through the battlefield. The giant beast turned towards her, all thousands of its human arms deployed as it used it’s main arms to bulldoze its way through the city at shocking speeds.
“Attention is on me,” Ash reported over the comms as she began to fly off in the opposite direction from her partner. Now all she had to do was keep it on her. “Time until the Elliot is ready to fire?”
“2 minutes, 26 seconds,” Liesa stated. “Caution is advised. The Jotun should have the intellect to detect which of you is more of a threat the closer to firing the Anti-Giant Weapon gets.”
“So, somehow, piss it off even more,” Ash muttered as [Dark-Rider]’s arms snatched away at the ruins around it only to launch the thousands of rocks directly at her. It wasn’t nearly as fast as the hailstorm barrage it had launched earlier, merely slightly larger, The valkyrie in training didn’t even sweat as she swept past the blows before returning the fire. Explosions rang through the air as patches of the field of arms were ripped to shreds. “And stay alive while I’m at it.”
“Shouldn’t be too difficult. The bastard almost looks angry at you for some reason.” Kyouko commented, prompting Ash to stare into the blue orb of hate and malice. It stood undamaged by her shot, so the Jotun’s eye probably wasn’t its weak point. Still, Ash got the feeling that it’s gaze was focused entirely on her. A sharp, frosty wrath that couldn’t be communicated with the language of humans as snow began to fall from the gray skies. “Pretty temperamental for a machine of iron and ice, isn’t it?”
“It’s an unusual phenomenon, I will admit.” Their operator nodded. “There is the possibility that this is just the Jotun’s personality, as there have been recorded cases of odd behavior from Giants and above, but perhaps… This is just a hypothesis, but perhaps it has something to do with Ash’s status as a Vintrkind? N-Not that I mean any offense by that!”
“None taken,” Ash grit out as she blasted away at [Dark-Rider], the heat from her weapon being the only source of warmth in this cold wasteland. “Would that actually affect anything though? This is only a simulation.”
“I admit that I am partially, well, uneducated on how the hyper-real simulations affect Vintrkind. Nor am I aware of any studies that have been done on the matter.” Liesa admitted, though Ash barely heard her as she was suddenly forced to dodge a barrage of shockwaves, the Giant punching the air itself at her. “While I can quickly do a cursory glance through Alfheim’s archive, that would mean my attention would be diverted from the current situation. As the person you’ve entrusted with operating the simulations, such an action would be-”
“If you’re going to take a glance, now would be a great time to do it!” Kyouko interrupted with a wild yell. Despite the fact that the Jotun probably couldn’t hear her shouts, it’s cyclopian heard twisted on its neck to stare in her direction. It was already too late though, as the sinister eye came to stare directly down the barrel of the Elliot Canon, which glowed with a burning heat that blazed bright in this winter wonderland. “Have a little payback for earlier! Full Power Elliot Canon, Breaker Special!”
[Dark-Rider] tried to get out of the way, but Kyouko was faster. A white beam of light cut through the mist, crashing directly into the thousand armed giant’s side with the force of a thousand suns. It was blindingly bright, radiating an intense heat that threatened to roast Ash alive as she tried to shield herself from the blast. The Jotun’s mechanical roar grew louder and more unhinged as the entire left side of its body was ripped right off of it. By the time the beam began to die down, thousands of the Jotun’s hands had turned to nothing more than charred metal, it’s internals exposed to reveal-
“Jotun Core Exposed. I repeat, Jotun Core exposed.” Liesa declared before leaning back and letting out a sigh. “Although, that was a lot more power then I remember from the Elliot Cannon’s specs.”
A lot more power- Wait what had Kyouko said?
Ash narrowed her eyes. “So by ‘Breaker Special’ you wouldn’t happen to mean…”
“Haha, you caught me.” Her partner laughed without a tinge of nervousness, though it was a bit weak. “I spent most of the setup time modifying the machine for maximum output.”
“You what?!” Kyouko’s handler exclaimed. “What did you even- No, upon analysis I can comprehend where you tweaked things to bolster performance, but the Elliot Canon has been rendered unusable! And, not to mention the recoil! Your shield levels are at 3%!”
The revelation caused Ash to grip her weapon tightly and whip her head towards Kyouko’s position. “Should I come over there?!”
“Nah, I’m fine,” Kyouko protested with a cough. “Hurts like a mother fucker… And the Jotun Cloud is probably going to burn through my shields in a few minutes anyways. I’m dead weight for now, so just ignore me and go rip into the bastard, Vargr.”
The Vintrkind was lucky she couldn’t actually see what condition her friend was in because otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to keep her cool. Intellectually, she knew that Kyouko was perfectly safe inside of her pod, but the sensations that the simulations provided... well, It was hard to believe she wasn’t actually standing inside of the city with the air in her face and the mist… pulsing?
At the edge of her consciousness, the winter began to seep in through her body. It was like the winds of an intense blizzard trying to batter down the sturdy gates. Ash could feel the Jotun Cloud around her begin to pulse, almost like the beat of a heart. The mist was coming in rapidly at full force as all of [Dark-Rider]’s remaining arms squirmed like worms, twitching with an electric intensity. It was doing something, but what? A last ditch barrage attack in a random direction? No, Ash couldn’t explain why but she knew that wasn’t it. A wintry chill sharpened her senses as she stared down her rifle’s scope. Frozen hands kept her steady as instinct guided her towards… “There.”
It was near impossible to spot. One arm amongst thousands, but it was the only one standing perfectly still as it reached up towards the sky. Firing- No, calling something. Ash let out a low growl before pulling the trigger. Faster than ice melting in an oven, the charged bolt shot through the sky as the offending arm quickly attempted to dodge the strike, leaving it as only a barely functional piece of junk. Unfortunately, barely functional was still functional, as with the last of it’s remaining strength the arm clenched a fist before falling limp.
Ash blasted off, desperately avoiding the tug right behind her as mist rushed into the sky, condensing into a single point before becoming a vortex of ice. Everything in the next city block over though, from the sky scrapers to the concrete covered earth was ripped up into the sky. Nothing could escape it. Not even-
“Woah woah!” Kyouko cried over the comm lines and in the distance Ash could see a squirming form being sucked into the sky. “That is so not good!”
“That’s an understatement! In your current condition, if you take such a blow then the mental shock will- Never mind!” Liesa shouted in a panic. “I’m ejecting you from the simulation right now!”
“Well hurry dammit because it’s getting closer by the second!” his partner screamed as she braced herself. “This looks like it’s going to hurt- agh!”
A short but chilling scream came from the other end of the line before it quickly cut out. Ash could only watch as Kyouko vanished into the ice. The sphere itself grew bigger and bigger as it consumed the world below it until eventually, once it was the size of a basketball, there was nothing left for it to swallow. For a moment it hung into the air before quickly dropping onto the ground and shattering. Like an infection upon the earth, the ice quickly consumed everything that once stood below the ground turning it into an arctic wasteland exactly the same as the one the first squad was buried under.
From the minute that they got their hands on the Elliot Canon, no perhaps the moment they had first arrived at the previous remains, this was what the Jotun had been preparing for. This was why it had given them the time to set up their new weapon. Why the mist had continued to grow in intensity as time continued to pass. Why it had… Why it had…
“That looks so cold I can almost feel it from here…” Liesa let out a sigh of relief, though it sounded faint to Ash’s ears. “Ah, don’t worry Mister Whitelund. I ejected Miss Kyouko fast enough that she should be in good health. But with her defeat and the loss of the Elliot Canon the simulation will only do you more harm than good, so I’m going to be ending it shortly-”
“Bastard! Bastardbastardbastardbastard!” The child of winter knew she needed to keep her cool, but all thoughts of it only being a simulation was buried under a frigid rage as she repeated the heated words like a mantra. Soon Ash wasn’t even speaking words as her lips descended into a bestial, animalistic howl. The winter inside her broke down the gates, chilling her heart to the bone as she let it wash over her. She pushed past the dysphoria she felt from the reality she felt inside and the one before her eyes not aligning as in a fit of rage, she tossed her sniper rifle to the ground below before whipping out the giant sword that Kyouko had left her. Ash gripped it tight in her hand as the words came to her.
“Freeze your tears, snuff out your anger…” The wolf whispered in a frosty breath as the winter centered her, sharpening her senses. “And give your loyalty to the dead.”
In this sunless world, that was the only way to live.
Kyouko had told her to do something if she died hadn’t she?
“Take the sword and stab the bastard, even if you have to put your life on the line.” Ash eyed the exposed core of the Jotun before gritting her teeth. It was staring back at her, eyes a mirror to the frosty glare she was giving it. This would be damn near sucide, with it still producing a jotun cloud from it’s remaining hands she wouldn’t’ last long especially as she drew closer. A few seconds at most. Still, there was only one answer that she would give at the moment. “Gladly.”
“Wha- Gon- On!?” Liesa’s voice was faint, constantly cutting in and out. “I can’t- He’s not respon- Ah!”
Ash blasted off directly at the Jotun. Pushing the Valkyrie Gear to the limit as her shield began to plummet with every passing second. The closer she got to the Jotun, the harder it became to breathe. The more it began to push herself. The more she needed to ramp up.
She needed to be faster.
She needed to be sharper.
She needed to be stronger.
She needed to push the winter more and more and more and more and more and more- “More more more more more more!”
Ash’s vision began to dim, narrowing to exactly the exposed core as she rocketed close to the Jotun. It was freezing, and she was consumed by the winter both inside and out as she clicked the switch to let her sword roar freely. [Dark-Rider] attempted to shoot her out of the sky but like a predator descending upon her prey, the Vargr let out a howl and demolished the icicles with her blade. Her shield was plummeting to rock bottom, she wouldn’t last long now. She didn’t need to.
The core glowed with an eerie blue light, sparking with power and energy beyond her comprehension as it sat in the middle of the ribcage of arms. Ash let out a painful cough as she ramped up as far as she possibly could. Faster and faster until the beating heart of the Jotun was breaths away from her face. With all the strength she could muster, the vintrkind plunged the vibroblade directly into it.
She screamed.
The Jotun screamed.
Reality itself seemed to scream as the world around her glitched, a painful shock coursing through her body. Nausea overwhelmed her as the sight before her eyes began to fade. It was cold. So, so, cold. But she needed to go deeper, to…
Ash Whitelund opened his eyes to a prison of ice. His head was groggy, and the soft winter inside of him tried to lure him back to sleep. At the edge of his consciousness, he could hear a muffled voice of anger with words he could barely make out.
“Who the hell let out a Vintrkind into the simulators?!”
“I-I didn’t-”
“Get out of my way! I’m getting the kid out of there!”
The ice began to churn.
The last thing Ash saw before sleep reclaimed him was a streak of white.