Shock and confusion ran through the group - not.
Ash, as always, kept his cool. The glowing red dot that flashed mockingly on his minimap merely caused him to let out an annoyed grunt. Kyouko let out a very audible groan, but other than that her emotions quickly shifted into resignation. Even with the helmet covering her face, the boy could see the signs of her brain recalculating and adjusting to the new situation. It was a skill they had both trained, back when being unable to do so would've gotten them killed, or worse.
No. It was only Magnolia who seemed to be particularly expressive at that moment, and even that was more of a burning hot wrath as she glared a hole into the Midgard girl who devised the plan. His handler looked like she was about to blow her lid at any moment, only the occasional flickering towards an invisible gaze keeping her in check. The fact that she had very explicitly made it a plan ‘she had approved’ was lost on her at the moment. Or was it? Ash never really knew what his handler was thinking, and he didn’t particularly care right now. All that was necessary was getting the first word in edgewise before Magnolia said something that caused Kyouko to blow back up at her. But what?
The blonde’s mouth began to move. Ash quickly said the first thing that came to mind, coldly cutting her off. “I’ll handle it.”
“Got it.” Kyouko nodded instantly. “Guess that means I’m taking care of your doppelganger up in the sky?”
“We are nothing alike.”
The helmeted trainees shared a silent look before nodding to each other. An unspoken agreement of ‘I’ll leave it to you’ that could only be shared between those who had long since fought side by side. Which, of course, Magnolia was not. The Asgardian girl blinked in confusion, and of course she wasn’t alone.
“Pardon me, but wasn’t Mister Ash supposed to deal with Miss Mimosa?” Liesa questioned. “My understanding is that Miss Kyouko is primarily a melee fighter. She would have to maneuver herself into combat range, and that would leave her vulnerable to another sonic attack—”
“Eh.” Kyouko shrugged. “Given how she’s not blasting us with that again, there’s probably some sort of drawback. Recoil, cooldown, limited use; whatever it is, if I can knock her out of the sky then that’ll take care of things.”
“I was supposed to be the one to take care of the nodes behind us anyways,” Ash continued before turning towards Magnolia. “Make sure that this doesn’t happen again.”
“Who do you think that you’re talking to?” The blonde kicked up into the air before giving a flourish with her spear. “The first time was our plan’s folly but the second would be no fault but my own. Rest assured, you will not be disturbed in your mission… If you can carry it out that is.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve gotten used to fighting Valkyries untransformed.” Ash tapped his chest. “I held out against you didn’t I?”
“...So you did.” Magnolia turned away before nodding. “But even a C-Rank is still a Valkyrie. Undue arrogance will just lead to you getting burned.”
“Speaking from experience?” Kyouko shot, causing blue eyes to flare up at her.
Ash sighed. “Move out. Now.”
“Yeah yeah.” The black haired girl gave a cocky wave before blasting off into the sky. “Don’t worry about me, I’ve got something up my sleeve!”
Ash covered himself with his arms as the wind blew behind her, and before he could even blink she had already begun to fade into the distance. The Vintrkind shook his head before turning in the opposite direction and taking a stance. An ice cold chill shot through his veins, gathering up in the calves of his legs. With a loud crack, a sheet of ice exploded underneath his feet, rocketing him forward into the forest. Winter had already seeped into every fiber of his body, the piercing ice enhancing him as Ash sprinted forward. Sharpened senses allowed him to navigate through the mess of rocks and bark. It was no different than a particularly trashed backstreet alley. The only thing that had changed was himself.
“Liesa,” he began as he vaulted a fallen log. “How does this suit work in particular?”
“For one, it minimizes the harm to your physical wellbeing your powers cause as they ‘ramp up’.” The Alfheim girl explained. “While Vintrkind do experience enhanced capabilities, when you push yourself to the Valkyrie Threshold, you’re actually causing slight harm to your body due to the extreme cold. Nothing major, merely on the end of your tolerance levels, but it was still worth taking measures against.”
Ash nodded. The first time he became a Valkyrie was the first time he had pushed his abilities that far after all. To say it had exhausted him was an understatement. Still, the more he had pushed himself to that point the easier it had gotten. Almost as if he was working a muscle. Knowing that he didn’t have to worry about giving himself frostbite was nice, but it wasn’t exactly what he wanted to hear. “Anything else? It’s supposed to make using my power easier right?”
“Miss Kyouko you shouldn’t-!” Liesa shouted before addressing him in a hurry. “Ah, apologies! That is correct! To be more specific, it helps manage the efficiency at which you use your ability!”
“If you need to focus on Breaker that’s fine—”
“You need not worry about me, Mister Ash. Multi-tasking is well within my abilities and this is trivial enough!” his operator replied. Ash believed her, but he was still definitely worried. “The main feature in your suit is the fact that it ‘stores’ the excess frost you exude from your body!”
Ash blinked. “Excess?”
“Surely you must have realized that the temperature around you drops when your ability is active.” Well yeah, but it wasn’t something he really paid attention to. “While you may have, for example, a blast of frost from your hand, that is only just where the power is ‘concentrated the most’. A lot of your energy is thus wasted as it disperses from your pores, which is where this suit comes in! The frost that would simply be thrown into the atmosphere is instead stored inside the fabric, allowing you to disperse it whenever you please!”
Liesa paused before meekly speaking up again. “...That is, in theory.”
“As long as it doesn’t explode while I’m wearing it, then I can handle what it throws at me.” Wouldn’t be ideal, but as Magnolia had said, they needed whatever edge they could get. “Is Shizuka still on your cameras?”
“Miss Shizuka has already moved from the node and is en route towards our home node.” The green haired girl hummed something to herself before the sight in front of Ash suddenly changed. Laid out in front of him was a bright arrow that shot through the forest “Calculating your speeds, if you head in this direction then you should be able to intercept her. Be careful though, even with whatever speed gear installed on her that lets her move so fast she’s still heavily armed.”
“Of course she is.” Ash muttered, quickly shifting course. He wouldn’t have expected anything less from a Valkyrie. The Vintrkind had already begun to ramp up, but he needed the blizzard to pick up speed. With a growl, frosted ice began to cover his limbs as Ash built up momentum. The path on his HUD changined in real time as he followed the trail. Soon he could hear it. The sound of someone bulldozing their way through this holographic forest only growing louder as he approached. It was in his vision now, a Valkyrie so bulky and heavy it was a miracle of jet fuel that she wasn’t crashing directly into the trees- Oh no, she was. They just tended to break before she did. Entire body tensing up, Ash leapt towards a branch of the tallest tree he could find as an ice claw formed around his arm.
The instant he saw his chance, the wolf pounced. The living arsenal swerved out of the way as he ripped directly into the dirt below before leaping back his feet. “Going somewhere?”
Shizuka’s response was quite reasonable, all things considered, in that she silently pulled out two huge metal clubs before trying to utterly crush every bone in his body. The sound of heavy mass crashing into the earth pounded in his ears. Ash quickly kicked off the ground, jumping through the wide swings before diving directly towards the Valkyrie. Ice collided with her energy shield as he unleashed a ferocious swipe. Shizuka merely let out a short grunt before rapidly spinning her entire body, slamming her massive weapons the Vintrkind and sending him flying backwards. Instinctively, the winter in his body began to numb the pain as Ash pushed through, making sure to land back on his feet. It was a heavy blow to be sure… But Magnolia hit harder.
A thought occurred to him as he pushed his claws of frost to match the size of her own weapons. “Just to check, is Anemone bankrolling you or do you actually have a sponsorship deal with Fron Corp?”
“...I just like the brand,” Shizuka muttered as she flew up into the sky, her voice barely audible beneath the sound of the wind. That, and also the mechanical clank from a boxy pod on the back of her armor opening up to launch a barrage of missiles into the air. The amount of firepower wasn’t even just for show either. Ten, no maybe twenty of the explosive weapons shot away from her suit, all aiming directly at him.
The Vintrkind quickly began to move, only for them to chase after him through the trees. Homing, huh? That was annoying. Ash raised his claws into the air, only to feel the sensation of frost emanating from the suit around his body. The chill of frosty nights cooled down his heart, centering himself as he stared down the approaching barrage. “Liesa, this better work…”
A mechanical whine blared in Ash’s ears as the suit began to light up. The white haired valkyrie could feel power and energy begin to surge through the material. Winter was his to command and it was time that he proved it. With a loud roar, he unleashed the blizzard inside of him. Sharp ice ripped through the missiles, creating a cascade of explosions that filled his surroundings. Dirt, dust, and snow covered the scenery before ultimately giving way to reveal a devastation that had been claimed by frost.
Ash didn’t even spend a moment to catch his breath as ice exploded from his feet, a pillar forming beneath him as he rocketed into the sky. Shizuka slammed her weapons together, creating a barricade shield that did little to stop her from being smashed right back into the ground. He dived in after her, only for the girl to quickly stow her weaponry and blast the ice away with the heat of jet fire. Her hands flashed, and her clubs were replaced with two sleek tonfas.
“How many weapons do you have?” Honestly, with the way her helmet exposed none of her features and her sudden change of combat gear, she really did remind Ash of a hyped up Midgard Enforcer. Of course the last time he saw his home realm’s law enforcement was when the C-Rank Valkyrie had utterly beaten him into the ground. “Why do you follow Anemone anyways?”
She spoke about raising Valkyries up, but Ash frankly bought into none of that bullshit. If Shizuka was from Midgard as well, then she should’ve known better. Perhaps it had been a case of a naive girl getting tricked, but considering the way she answered his question by unhesitatingly charging straight towards him, Ash really had to doubt it. Especially considering the way her tonfas blurred into black lightning, hands blitzing into a rapid fire assault that pushed Ash back.
Of course she would be the silent type. The Vargr of the backstreet countered with blows of his own, the fight turning into a brawl as ice reclaimed the world around him. She was good, Ash would admit, but with every second that passed he ramped up a little more. He was getting closer to the threshold, now it was only a matter of holding out until then.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
He just hoped that Kyouko was having more luck than him.
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There were no such things as fairy tales in Midgard. Oh she could remember the stories her parents used to tell her, back when they were still alive. Aesops, fables, warnings for children to not lurk where they shouldn’t lest they get eaten alive by the concrete beast that was the city. But they weren’t fairytales, not as what fairytales used to be anyways. The word itself was only used as a term used to describe Einherjar or rarely, the fantasy schlock that Vargr read. It only made sense given that in the artificial world they lived in, there was not a single drop of the natural world that remaining.
Kyouko had come across many such words in the dictionary during her self-studying marathons. The old world was so filled with chaos and mystique that she concluded it was only natural that such mythical stories were created as a response. But she had never known rain, or even a cloudy day. Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall, the seasons themselves had long since rotted away under the constant artificial sun that warms them. Never once was something out of line. It was all manufactured to be livable. The only thing she had growing up was cold, man made reality.
There were no such things as fairy tales in Midgard. Instead the lessons learnt were ones written in scars. The real wolves, she found, didn’t huff and puff and blow you away. They lurked in the shadows, in the gaps between pearly white smiles and the space between every digit of cash. Waiting, hidden, but ready to bite and tear through you at any moment.
That’s why—
This Asgard girl claiming to use The Big Bad Wolf—
“Really pisses me off!” Kyouko hissed under her breath, biting back a curse as she dodged, retrorockets flaring to push her out of the path of her opponent’s attack. Instants later a beam of sound powerful enough to distort the air lanced through the space she had just occupied, accompanied by Mimosa’s loud howl of “Awooooo!”
It wasn’t even a proper howl, the Asgardian girl was literally just saying the word “Awoo”. It was insufferable.
The main thrusters in her ‘skirt’ finished orienting, and she blasted forward like a rocket. Closing the distance between herself and the Vargr-knockoff in an eyeblink, she took a swing with her vibroblade, only for her target to dodge. Moving with agility far beyond what a normal phase zero armor could match, Mimosa bounded away, taking a retaliatory swipe at Kyouko’s face as she did so.
Diamond-tipped claws skittered across the face of the Midgardian’s barricade shield before her opponent once more put distance between them.
To say that Kyouko was angry was like saying sticking your head in a burning oven would mildly warm you up. She was pissed beyond belief, the fact that one of the white nodes turned Red once more only serving to tick her off more. With a quick mental thought, she threw a jab at their ‘leader’s’ way. “And how’s the situation over there going?”
“...Fine.” Magnolia replied in the bare moment between Mimosa’s lunges. “Anemone may have claimed the last remaining node on her side, but she hasn’t made any attempt to sneak by me.”
Yeah, because getting into a fight head on with Magnolia was practically suicide. That was a risk even their flashy antagonist of the day wouldn’t take. It was why Kyouko had positioned her in the middle of the field, even if she would’ve preferred to not work with the girl who didn’t seem to have the word ‘stop’ in her dictionary. And wasn’t that just a real punch in the gut. She would’ve preferred working with some corporate sleazeball then Magnolia. At least then the public face-saving would’ve been bearable rather than whatever half assed shit that Asgardian was working off.
Then again, not just Magnolia, but everything about this situation was just the absolute worst. The fact that Vargr, bless his idiot soul, actually agreed to this asine ‘duel’ already made the following week dogshit even before their training from hell. This was not how Kyouko would’ve preferred to handle things, and of course her plan blew right the fuck up in her face moments after it actually started. Some of it was out of her control, some of it was directly her fault, and even if she understood logically the risks she had taken, it still rankled. Anger was, after all, irrational. She could neither hold it back nor did she feel the desire to. But right now, in this very moment, the thing that had her most ticked off was that this bitch was really good at melee.
Mimosa pursed her lips as if blowing a kiss, forcing Kyouko to raise her shield to block a short blast of sound that hit like a sledgehammer.
What exactly was the main difference between a Phase Zero and a Phase One Valkyrie Gear? The answer was obvious: Individuality. An Einherjar provided specialization, unique abilities and equipment, and a shit load of other things that she didn’t even want to think about. If a Phase Zero was like a blank canvas then a Phase One was a completed painting. The only way Kyouko could close the gap between the two was through her equipment. It was hard finding a similar model to the sword and shield combination that she used back during the [Dark-Rider] simulation. That was literal centuries ago after all, but the basic principle of the weapon stayed the same even if it had evolved over the years. Now the only thing that she had to worry about was the skill difference.
Powerful at range and close in, Einherjar really were bullshit. In melee, Mimosa had the advantage in maneuverability, and those claws of hers could take a big chunk out of a valkyrie’s shield if they landed a solid hit. Whenever the two broke apart, Kyouko found herself constantly harassed by blasts and beams of sound. She hadn’t used that huge blast from the beginning again, but their skirmish had been going on long enough that Kyouko wasn’t sure how long that would hold true.
A red alert flashed through the screen. Something a certain someone didn’t fail to notice as her handler spoke up. “Your personal shield has reached dangerous levels.”
“Yeah, I can see that!” And the knowledge that she’d officially be declared out of the match once it had reached 0 loomed over her. “Focus more on figuring out a way to get past her-”
“I’m moving in,” Magnolia declared, and Kyouko could feel the girl approaching on her sensors.
“What?! No!” The black haired girl shouted. “You’re leaving us open, dumbass!”
“I’ve had enough standing around. Simply watching you make a fool of yourself would shame me.” Shame?! Honor?! Who gave a shit!? “As a Hale that is not something I can allow!”
“If Anemone takes all our nodes, I know who to blame…”
“If Anemone dares to strike at us again-” Magnolia came in like a wrecking ball. A blue blur crashed in between Mimosa’s claws, skillfully catching them with her spear before knocking them away. “Then I’ll just put her down myself.”
Ah yes. Her savior. Ugh, at least she wasn’t the only one finding this turn of events a pain, given the way the bubble-gum haired girl rolled her eyes.
“Two?” Mimosa let out a sigh. “Annoying~”
“You’re about the same as ever, Mimosa,” Magnolia sighed as she readied her spear. “Can’t you even give a proper greeting?”
“We’re all Valkyrie Trainees here.” Kyouko grinned as she hefted her sword. “I think pain sends more of a message than words ever could.”
Mimosa snorted derisively, before suddenly taking off in a blur. Ricocheting off the air itself, the wolf-girl attempted to charge Kyouko from an unexpected angle, only to be intercepted by the streak of light that was Magnolia’s spear. Bouncing backwards from the clash, Mimosa spat a cone of violent sound at the blue-clad Valkyrie, only for Magnolia to bull through it like it wasn’t there as she chased after the fleeing wolf.
Kyouko, in no mood to sit back and let the Asgardian girl take all the credit, revved her armor’s engines and shot after them.
As much as she hated to admit it, this was far more manageable with Magnolia’s assistance. The invincible girl took up most of Mimosa’s attention as both an unstoppable force and an immovable object, which left her vulnerable to strikes from the Midgardian Valkyrie. She was still annoyingly slippery, what with her gear’s apparently arbitrary relationship with things like gravity and the solidity of air, but between the pair of them they started to pile on the grazes and glancing blows to wear down their quarry.
Kyouko couldn’t help the slightly feral grin as she landed a solid blow between Mimosa’s shoulder blades. A slip of her fingers, and victory was within her grasp— And then a freight train hit her in the back of the head.
“Ah ah ah.” She had never heard the voice before, but from the tone alone Kyouko could guess who it was. “Can’t have you ganging up on my poor Mimosa. That’s just rude.”
“A Hyper-Velocity Gauss Cannon?!” Liesa shouted. Kyouko however, had no clue what the hell those words meant. Only that it rattled throughout her entire body and sent her shield careening all the way into the single digits. “But- When did she-”
“Montague!” Magnolia yelled. “So you didn’t go for the central node?”
“Come now, do you really believe I’m so short sighted?” Amethyst eyes flashed under her heavy makeup. “If that’s how things were, I would’ve gone bust at the dealer’s table a long time ago. I can claim nodes any time I like. But this is a Domination Battle, and there’s only one resource worth fighting over.”
Before anyone could even react, Anemone lifted up her arms before unleashing a barrage of missiles that just so happened to be in the shape of snarling wolf heads. They blasted forward at sonic speed, smashing into the Midgardian girl and shattering the last of her shield. Wind whipped throughout her body as she crash-landed on the forest floor, pain shooting through her body as she bore the full brunt of her impact.
“Manpower.” Anemone smiled. “Something you’re lacking as always. Here, allow me to demonstrate. Mimosa?”
“Awoo~” The girl gave that stupid cry of hers before flying off into the distance, directly towards the open middle node.
Magnolia’s eyes flared with burning wrath as she moved to chase her down, only for her flight to be blocked by Anemone stepping in with a strike of her own. “You—”
“You’re the one who wishes to demonstrate your ability,” Anemone chided with a smile. “Shall we demonstrate a clash between Asgard Wing Candidates?”
“Don’t think you’re going to get away with this for long!” The invincible warrior declared, already turning to strike. “This is my specialty!”
On the ground, staring up at the sky ignoring the message to vacate the arena, Kyouko sighed. “...And she’s already caught up in her flow. That’s just great.”
With a heavy groan, the defeated Valkyrie picked herself up before beginning to walk off. “I’ll leave the rest up to you, Vargr.”
Hopefully he noticed the little trick she pulled. Just in case though…
----------------------------------------
“...Confirming, Miss Kyouko has been eliminated from the match.” Liesa’s voice was heavy as she spoke in the Vintrkind’s ear. “She did entrust me with a message, but it’s a bit peculiar.”
“Just tell me.” Ash replied as he kicked Shizuka back, his legs already strong enough to knock the Valkryie several feet away.
“ ‘Remember how you had my back when we became Valkyries?’ ” Liessa quoted. “ ‘Now I’m finally paying you back.’ ”
“...What did you do this time?” Ash sighed as he reached into his pocket. Well, whatever. He’d surely figure it out when the time came. For now though… “Record Open. Deploy - Loptr!”
There was a war to win.