The door to Meifang’s room burst wide open, and a storm emerged from within.
The Mistral soldiers who’d been stomping around in the halls outside, preparing to plant bombs on the doorways of the cabins were devoured by this storm — a sequence of rapidly-spinning kicks thrown by Meifang.
One, two, four, six, eight Mistral soldiers were sent flying backward down the corridor in a heap of bodies, some unconscious, others just barely managing to resist it.
When Tyger emerged from the room, he turned and went the other direction, where two more soldiers stood, both raising their firearms to blast at Meifang from behind.
Tyger’s fist clocked the first across the jaw, rendering the Mistral grunt’s body completely inert. Tyger then grabbed hold of the crumpling villain’s jacket and spun around, bashing the body up against its unprepared companion.
“This is a lot more than I was expecting,” Meifang commented as she kicked at the face of one of the grounded soldiers who’d tried reaching for a fallen weapon. “You kids sure you can handle this?”
“Tch! Course we can!” Tyger practically spat, although doing so indoors would not be fitting for a hero, so he ultimately refrained. “These chumps are nothin’.”
Meifang turned back down her hallway, her ears picking up on gunfire and brawling further ahead. “Tyger! This way! There’s more of ‘em!”
But Tyger did not follow her. A part of him wanted to; there wasn’t much in life more satisfying than putting the beat down on villains.
Screams from his own hallway were what kept him from following her. Not screams of Mistral soldiers in the heat of battle, but screams from innocent civilians; passengers on board the airship who were now under threat.
“Nah, I’m goin’ this way,” he stated, already in the midst of turning around.
“Huh? Why?”
“There’s people in danger over there!” he replied, kicking off into a sprint. “A hero’s job ain’t to fight, it’s to save the innocent!”
As he disappeared around the corner, Meifang shook her head with a smile. “You kids really are something….”
The hall he turned into was similarly being terrorized by Mistral soldiers, but rather than simply planting bombs on the outside, it appeared this squad was in the midst of actually breaking into the cabins themselves.
Approaching the first soldier in view, Tyger yelled out, “Hey, scumbag!”
The soldier turned to face him, but all he saw were Tyger’s knuckles smashing through the visor of his helmet before he hit the floor with a heavy thud.
Tyger frantically stuck his head inside the cabin, trying to locate any more Mistral soldiers. There didn’t appear to be anyone within other than an older married couple huddling in the corner. “You guys alright?!”
Now, while Tyger was not a member of the terrorist organization threatening the lives of the passengers on board the airship, he was still quite a dangerous-looking young man, especially when he was covered in sweat, his shoulders were heaving, and his fist was stained with blood, not to mention his signature furrowed brows.
And so, it was somewhat understandable when the couple instinctively threw a shoe at his face, screaming at him to get away.
When the shoe fell from his face and hit the floor, he backed out from the doorway, his face reddening. “S-sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you! I’m not gonna hurt you!”
He shut the door behind him as he returned to the hall.
In that moment, a thought struck him. If Mistral were going so far as to terrorize passengers inside their cabins, that meant that Annabelle was potentially in danger, no?
She’d mentioned earlier that she was going to sleep back in her room. Cain had also returned to his room, but Tyger wasn’t that worried about him; at least not right away. Cain could handle himself, even with injuries from his matches in the tournament.
But Annabelle would be helpless against Mistral. She wasn’t a fighter, after all.
His feet began to carry him towards her room, but he came to a stop almost immediately after.
She doesn’t need me….Zeo’s the hero, not me….I’m just some thug….
He slammed his fist against the wall, clenching his jaw. To hell with that! What kinda quitter thought was that?! A hero doesn’t doubt himself! And a hero certainly doesn’t make excuses to not rescue someone in danger!
He took off running.
* * * *
ULTRA PULSE
* * * *
The security office was, to Kiria’s surprise, nearly devoid of Mistral soldiers. There were only two present, both trying to break through the locked doors, and no signs of any nearby soldiers either.
That was fine by both Kiria and Reina, as taking down two was no sweat for them, especially since they had the drop on them.
ICE!
Reina flung her ice discus at the pair of Mistral grunts. The projectile jabbed right into the ribcage of the closest one, causing him to collapse to his knees.
The second soldier spun around, his stun rod held ready.
Kiria charged in towards him, but couldn’t get to him before he was able to swing. It was no cause of concern to her, however, as she was prepared for it.
She raised her Cyberizer arm at the ready, taking the heavy stun rod swing directly. She felt almost no pain from the attack; nothing more noticeable than a gentle bump, like were one to lightly punch their own forearm.
The Mistral soldier, on the other hand, felt a sting shoot up his own arm. For him, the contact had very much not been akin to lightly punching his own forearm, but instead to strongly punching a bowling ball.
Before the soldier could release his grip on his weapon, however, Kiria flipped her hand around and grabbed hold of the far end. The metal casing around her fingers opened up, revealing small machinery that connected to the stun rod.
From the complete opposite side of the weapon’s trigger, her cybernetic arm was able to activate the electric shocks, directing them into the Mistral soldier’s hand.
The man fell to the floor in a twitching heap.
Reina skipped forward until she was side-by-side with Kiria, her eyes staring at the latter’s metal arm. “Your arm is so cool, Kiria! What else can it do?!”
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
Smiling, Kiria held her hand out to the security door. “This.”
The door unlocked, and she pushed her way inside.
Their weapons had been stored in lockers at the back of the office. Finding them was easy, although it did take some time to re-arm themselves, as Reina struggled a bit with actually remembering how to put both her bow-bracer and her grapple-greave back on. Kiria even had to help her with the latter, and she’d never seen the thing before.
Just as the girls finished, a flash of green light lit up the room, and in a cloud of smoke, Zeo manifested. “Fancy meeting you two h-”
Reina yelped in surprise.
“Are you alright?” Kiria asked.
Zeo nodded as he stepped past the two girls towards the lockers. “Yeah, I’m all good.” After locating them, he strapped the scabbarded blades behind his back. “But Mistral’s completely taken over the ship.”
“It’s okay!” said Reina. “Kiria and I are kicking all their butts!”
“Their leader’s on board, too,” Zeo continued. “Guy named Gael.”
Kiria sighed. “That’s a little on-the-nose….”
But Reina seemed to have enjoyed the revelation. “Oh they have themed code names! That’s so cool! Can we get some?!”
While Zeo made his way over to the computer systems, Kiria asked, “What kind of theme would we even have? We’re pretty much just an elementary school class.”
“Hm….What about our favorite subjects?”
“I don’t think ‘History’ would be a very cool codename.”
Giggling, Reina then said, “I’ll be ‘Lunch!’”
There were security monitors lined up on the wall over the computer systems, each one tied to a specific camera on board the airship. Zeo’s gray eyes moved over the monitors in a hurried pace, in one part to get an overview of the situation, but more specifically to find Gael.
The girls joined him soon after. “They really are positioned all over the place,” Kiria noted. She leaned forward to better inspect one specific monitor, which depicted Mistral in one of the cabin halls. He appeared to be interacting with the outside of the door for some reason….Was he trying to break in, or….
She then noticed the brief glint of orange light flicker across the surface of the device in his hands. That’s right, the forcestones, she reminded herself. They’re setting explosives all around the ship.
Reina’s gasp caught both Zeo and Kiria’s attentions, and their eyes moved to her finger as it jabbed into one of the monitors in the bottom corner. “Guys, guys, look! There’s a giant robot there!”
“It’s similar to the one we fought in the pulse,” said Kiria.
As the mech threw out a heavy punch, a blue streak dashed across the camera’s view. It was too quick to make out any details, but it incited a feeling of familiarity within Reina, having just watched the tournament in Radecross. “Guys, that’s Cain! He’s fighting the giant robot! He’s hurt! We should go help him!”
“And where’s An-?”
Zeo’s eyes shot wide open as streaks of green wind coursed across the length of one of the central monitors. “There! Gael!” He bent down low, and his fingers shot down to his ankles.
« ART! »
〚 RIDE THE LIGHTNING! 〛
In a brilliant flash of emerald, Zeo disappeared from the security office.
Kiria paid his departure no mind. Though her question had been interrupted, she focused on finding its answer herself, searching for the camera closest to Annabelle’s cabin.
It was just in time, too, as mere moments later, the door to the cabin opened, and out came a Mistral soldier, holding Annabelle in his arms. She kicked and swung her arms around as best she could to try and break free, but he was much too strong for her, and had no effect on him.
“Reina! Let’s go!”
“Yeah, yeah! Go, go, go!”
* * * *
ULTRA PULSE
* * * *
Cain’s first instinct had been to retreat back into the hallways, as the mech was far too large to both enter and navigate through them.
That plan had not worked, though. As soon as he tried to step through the doorway, a heavy gust of wind pushed into him, causing him to stumble backwards even closer to the giant robot.
He barely managed to duck beneath the incoming swing, racing underneath the robot’s legs and over to the other side of the room.
The room was quite large, but the robot took up much of the space, leaving Cain with not much else to work with, especially in his condition. What little tools and devices there were that could be used as weaponry had already been amassed into the giant mech’s hulking figure.
Cain hurried past the next swinging arm, but was caught by the second, which sent him flying into the wall.
There was also the issue of the mech’s composition. From what he could tell, the robot had bizarrely been constructed with some kind of wind. Was it some strange type of golem, or an elemental?
Regardless, the one thing about it that was clear was that it didn’t have a pilot. Whether it was being controlled remotely by those winds, or was simply some kind of automaton, it left Cain at a huge disadvantage.
If the mech had no true mind piloting it, then Cain couldn’t figure out how to outsmart and defeat it.
That was the true crux of his fighting style. While he absolutely honed his physical abilities and condition, what allowed him to defeat opponents ordinarily much more experienced and powerful than himself, was his ability to break their thought processes down — to figure what their strategy was, to read the movements of their muscles and pinpoint the techniques they were using, and to take advantage of their emotions.
And that just wasn’t going to work against the giant pilot-less mecha.
Still, it wasn’t like he had many other options. He lifted his hands to his forehead, fighting against the pain in his injured arm and creating a triangle shape with his fingers.
SUPERCHARGE!
Though he couldn’t mentally download his opponent’s thought processes, he could at least enhance his senses and observe. The problem was, even though his senses could slow down the mech’s movements and analyze the machinery within….
Cain didn’t know a goddamn thing about mechs. Let alone mechs crafted by random tools and machines through the power of wind.
He’d always found mechs to be stupid; impractical for the uses of war, and unbefitting the art of true, man-to-man combat. Only children liked the things. Like Tyger, for example.
As he maneuvered around the room trying to think of what to do, the mech changed its strategy. The green winds that flowed in and around its body suddenly converged at its stomach, weaving through the screws and bolts it had fastened together there.
The metal came loose, revealing a giant metal drill, which pointed outward towards Cain.
The weapon burst forward like a spear, ready to skewer through its prey’s body.
Cain’s eyes went wide as the sudden attack came flying in. He wouldn’t be able to dodge it. The mech had locked him in the corner, and he didn’t have the space to move in closer and cross underneath it this time.
All he could do was close his eyes, brace for impact, and do his best to try and fly off to the side when struck, rather than simply be impaled all the way through. At least then he would have a chance of surviving.
But neither scenario was what played out.
Cracking his eyes open, Cain looked down towards his chest, level with the incoming drill. The drill had closed the distance between the mech and himself, and the spinning tip had nearly found its mark.
But two shadowy, inky black hands had emerged from Cain’s sides, and grabbed hold of the drill.
The drill still spun rapidly, trying to spiral its way through its target, but the two hands, despite appearing as though they’d been painted into the world with brushes, held it in place, preventing it from moving forward.
Cain took that moment to jump away. The instant he did, the black hands vanished, as did their grip on the drill. Now able to barrel on through unimpeded, the drill pierced through the wall of the repair room.
The wall exploded into pieces, each of which went flying in all directions, opening a new exit to the rest of the ship, this one unobstructed by the green gust barrier.
While Cain’s face painted clear his frustration at the circumstances of his saving, he knew to bite his tongue in that moment, and ran off to safety.
* * * *
ULTRA PULSE
* * * *
Three airship staff members burst through the doors of the cockpit. One was covered in blood from wounds generously bestowed upon him by a Mistral soldier, although he’d been able to survive the encounter thanks to the sudden appearance of a woman who seemed to be battering the terrorists left and right.
Two of them hurried to where the pilot was, while the other got to work shutting the doors and locking them tightly.
“Sound the alarm!” one of them called out as he himself maneuvered the communication system. “I’ll contact the base at the Chateau!”
Despite numerous frantic button presses, the alarm system did not activate. When questioned as to why, the crewman couldn’t offer up any answer.
“What the….?! The comms aren’t working, either!”
A cold wind swirled around the room, sending shivers through each crewman’s spine. Commander Gael manifested at the center of the room, looking down upon the one attempting to call to the Chateau. “Afraid that ain’t gonna work, pal.”
Off to the side, one of them called out, “Who are you?!”
But his question went unanswered. Gael kept his eyes locked onto the first’s, an act which seemed to inflict a deep paralysis. “The winds have taken the sound from all of your communication devices. Can’t have you calling for help, now, can I?”
They all watched as Gael slowly turned away and back towards the door, listening to each slow, dry word that expelled from his masked lips. “No radio, no alarms….If I wanted to, I could even take your voices away.”
He stopped once he reached the door, glancing over his shoulder and staring at each petrified member of the staff. “Relax. I won’t.”
His entire body broke down into nothingness, carried away by swirls of green wind. Though he vanished from the room, his voice could still be heard, as though it had stayed behind, separated from its owner.
“I am gonna take your oxygen, though.”