Having turned the tables on the ambush, the armies of the five nations turned on the Fortress with their entire muster. The Fortress however was not without it's own recourse, as countless enemies sprung forth from the Fortress in response.
Having kept a distance from the Fortress, not knowing exactly where it would land, even in the time when their massive alliance started to close on the Fortress, it had already set loose a vast armada. Each of the drop pods had also opened along the outer sides, ejecting the forces it held in an expanding circle. Rushing from every exit were even more forces, swarming forth endlessly. Khaexyn's army wasn't small, he actually had them outnumbered with just his mechanical forces. This was why it was fortunate that not all of his forces were in the shape to fight, after the substantial damage taken by the Fortress.
However, the four girls weren't doing so hot at that point either. Qheria returned to where the other three were still resting, having finished warping anyone else already to the front lines. Mhyl had been pushing herself, first with healing, then with reshaping the ground, finally with her deep freeze. None of that even remained anymore, not with everyone being this worn out, the giant pillar having broken apart, and the Fortress restoring it's normal temperature. Even so tired, she was still pushing herself, trying to heal Thanrie. Using herself to craft a chain, to fuse with a jet engine, both of those had actually harmed her in the process. This trick Thanrie had discovered didn't just steal from her stamina, it also bled her very vitality. Mhyl had however diagnosed that Thanrie had gotten sick and had already taken care of it too.
Between the two of them, they weren't even in the worst of it. Lwyn was still fast asleep, having lost consciousness after her nuclear fusion.. a fusion of concepts from both Earth and Celese into a result that was in fabrication of either. Mhyl knew all the signs, there was far too many concerns and ideas invested into the weapon Lwyn had used, too many details, too many complications, and it had tried to do too much at once. She had been told that her focus would put her in advantage of Lwyn, which then only implied that Lwyn had to supplement the loss with even more fabricated details, spending even more Stamina. She knew it was a costly decision, but one which had done them really well so far. If only Lwyn could recover quick enough, they could make their next move.
Qheria sighed, coming to her own decision. "Things are going to get rough out there, and the four of us are still the most essential of our forces. Having half is better than having none. I'll bring you two out there, and return here to bring Lwyn when she's back on her feet." Qheria guided Thanrie and Mhyl to a spot where she could warp from and set off quickly. Lwyn stirred momentarily in the silence, and returned to deep sleep after they were gone. Soon after, Qheria returned again and sat with Lwyn patiently, making sure first she was okay. She concluded that it might help to assemble some nutrients, and worked on getting a snack together.
Mhyl turned on her headset, looking over the sea of enemies. The expanse before her was much like a surging tide, forces and conflict everywhere. She was startled momentarily as Thanrie dashed forth to lay into the melee. She smiled softly, taking appreciation of how Thanrie was always Thanrie like this. Thanrie wasn't alone, she quickly found all five friendly power armor on the field, though she had no idea which was which. All five were crushing into the enemies nearby, taller than most of the other forces there around. The clashes of war dominated the sound of the field, that is until an excessively loud echo reverberated through the field, coming from the Citadel. Mhyl was impressed just how efficient Yuxzn's weapon was, though she couldn't even figure out which enemy had fallen as a result.
Chyurae showed up, to stand beside her as she continued reviewing the field. Mhyl was certain Qheria and Lwyn would want information, even if this was more their area than her own. She would just do her best. The five armies mixed together completely, a blend of forces that even she couldn't figure out. What did stand out was some of the gift usage, things she had grown familiar with. The hazy mist of Qheria's family, the arctic chill from Thanrie's brothers. That chill though, she might have stepped on their specialty, introducing her deep freeze from earlier. Looking further, she found it a bit harder to figure out gifts, as the Pillars had such a vibrant display of the gift through their students. The Pillar of Frost would actually be working with something similar to Thanrie's brothers.. and actually, with just considering it elementally, she wasn't totally sure if the Pillar of Gust couldn't do something like Qheria's family. Some of the Warden's tricks in combat even seemed similar to things the Pillar of Dust did.
What was familiar was their enemy, all of the same old tricks. Mhyl was thankful there wasn't anything like the Colossal or even the advanced demon assassin they had to deal with. She was still furious that Sxeiva's death had been tainted like that. In her moment of respite, she almost missed telltale signs of another threat. Atop the Fortress itself, slight red sparks were generating from numerous individual beacons, building electrical force rapidly. It still bothered her, the use of steam power to actually cause electrical buildup, there was something very wrong with that principle. Still, it was all too obvious what was about to happen, Mhyl still had no time to react.
Massive surges of electrical energy emitted from the Fortress scoured over the field. The surges though looked highly unnatural, not bright at all, and actually seemed to darken the sky with a faint red hue. The bolts also neglected everything metallic, surging after anything organic explicitly. Mhyl scowled further at this blatant theft of ideas, it was her idea to reverse the principle of how things worked to make it work for her. Khaexyn was not allowed to reverse how electricity works just to make everything convenient for him, especially if he was hoping to default to Terran physics. You just can't do this kind of thing with Terran physics.
Thanrie found herself suddenly injured slightly, the dark bolts surging around her not having missed her either. That was a really nasty weapon Khaexyn had, totally unfair. She herself could tell how it functioned just by looking at the casualties around her. She had been lucky that she had been deep in power armor at the time, and thus insulated from most of the attack. She was pretty certain that only two people could deal with this situation, and she was one of them. Mhyl would be the other, but Thanrie wasn't inclined to just depend on their mass-area expert for everything. Far too many things in this fight could be helped by Mhyl, Thanrie wasn't of the mind to just do nothing. She was also aware how far away this was for Mhyl, trying to get clear details at this distance visually would be pretty rough, so she would either have to get a lot closer, or do something even more dramatic.
As Mhyl watched the towers light up once again, she pondered what she would have to do to deal with the situation. It was only Thanrie and herself, and if she waited much longer, Thanrie would probably get injured in the process. She motioned towards the field to Chyurae, who nodded silently and helped Mhyl advance. Mhyl pondered a suitable way to deal with this threat, to overcome this problem. There was only one real idea she could consider, another massive EMP burst, knocking out all the machines in the area. However, there were a lot of enemies, she wanted a better vantage point. She moved forwards with Chyurae, although she had lost track of him in the mess. She suspected the power armor near her that had just failed was entirely his doing, as she dodged the other more minor attacks by her own merit.
Getting into position, she setup another massive spark surging over the battlefield like a tiny electric sun. Moments after, the pulse unleashed, passing through everyone in the battle. The Fortress's shield shimmered faintly in response, but everything else went down. Mhyl was mostly disappointed to notice that the Fortress's weapon did not power down in response, but that paled compared to what happened after it fired again. This time, the shimmering pale blue bolts surged only towards anything mechanical, revitalizing every machine, including those that had fallen before her EMP as well as any that had been destroyed by the others. Mhyl was not impressed, Khaexyn playing as a mechanical necromancer like this was not sitting well with her.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Thanrie finally reached atop the Fortress as the spark shifted back to it's previous red. She knew she had seen Mhyl's attempt foiled, having been herself too slow. However, it had spoken deeply about what she was up against. The shield was still on, so she couldn't hack anything here, and it was also fully capable of re-calibrating it's own functionality to fit the situation. However, power was something she understood, that those who dance with it often find it too much for them. She continued her approach, climbing up the weapon itself as it charged. Even she knew this was crazy, but sometimes you fight fire with fire.
She focused upon her bracelet again first, revelling herself in her blade. Instead of projecting a blade from her, the liquid metal enveloped her. This did no have much function as armor, but it did make her effectively mostly metallic. As she climbed up the weapon, she could visibly see the sparks were avoiding her, as if repelled. Perfect, exactly what she wanted. For the most part, she had been scaling the shield itself, unable to even touch the weapon behind it. Her goal was however at the very top, where the weapon discharged from. Once in range, she launched her weapon up at it, and hung from it as low as she could possibly go. Then, through the chain, she focused on the tip, which quickly started to emit a haze. It wasn't water, it was almost infectious, a swarm cluster of bacteria in almost solid density that hovered over the weapon as a concentrated bio-weapon. The electric weapon was not affected by such a thing, unable to get sick, but that wasn't the objective. Thanrie built up the bio-density at her target point, a massive cloud of bio-mass, with the intent it was as biological as possible.
Fully charged, all the weapons fired. However, instead of flying out to the field, all of them surged towards the one point, a super dense biological mass attracting all of the energy into a single location instead of anywhere else on the field. The shield itself suffered the blow, but had problems dealing with such a serious degree of power all in one location. The shield at that spot went down, giving Thanrie access to it. Time froze for a moment, as Thanrie hacked into her target. All of this energy would need to go right back where it came from, it didn't belong here. Once returned, it would have to attract energy to it, any kinds of energy, all kinds of energy. It was just a magnet for energy.
Thanrie let go of the weapon as bolts surged in reverse, with no visible impact. The shield quickly restored it's functionality, but Thanrie was still confident in her results. With such, it was time to go, very very quickly. Thanrie was on full speed dash right over the edge, trying to put as much distance as possible from the Fortress, just in case. Along the way, she spotted Mhyl and slowed down to guide her away at Mhyl's pace. Right, there might be other people to warn. Thanrie tossed her weapon due straight into the air and locked the chain stiff, her weapon thus floating in the air. She focused her intent into the weapon, a microphone to loud speaker.
"Evacuation warning, a high power explosion is about to come from the fortress! Pull back as far as possible! I repeat, evacuation warning, a high power explosion is about to come from the fortress!" The boosted sound echoed loudly across the field, louder than even the fighting. It was so loud, even Qheria heard the message clearly. As people recognized the voice and recognized the one causing it, a mass surge departed away from the Fortress in due haste. Their enemy was the only one to ignore the message, pressing in for their new advantage. Meanwhile, sparks continued to gather above the Fortress, intent on striking upon the fleeing enemy. The energy gathered in more and more density, even surpassing the amount it had typically gathered in the past.. and kept going. Red cracks gathered everywhere above the Fortress at it started to surge with more energy than it could contain, the shield going on full intensity trying to futility defend from an attack from within. Systems put everything it had into enduring the power buildup, which only allowed for even more power to be gathered in the process. A dark void begin to gather over the Fortress as the dark electricity reached a critical volume, overcame the last security measure, and detonated violently.
Mhyl felt a moment of remorse as all twelve spires fell in reaction to the buildup of power at the top of the Fortress, remembering a couple of fond memories with two of the spires. She did feel this was probably for the best, now there was nothing to force Lwyn to return to. Across the upper section of the Fortress was serious destruction, the shield barely capable of holding on at all. However, even with the Fortress in such a bad shape, their enemies kept coming, numerous beyond count. Having pulled away to escape the blast, even with some of their enemies falling to the onslaught, they had actually lost ground overall.
"Holy F~~k this is insane. I know Khaexyn is all 'for the swarm', but this kind of rush is insane. I probably couldn't make a more apt metallic flood if I filled the whole area with liquid metal." Thanrie felt almost insignificant beside this sea of metal, even her best speed made it rough to pierce through this density, and it really only got worse the closer you got. Mhyl pondered the statement herself, herself having missed the idea in marvel of Thanrie's accomplishments. Turning the electricity against itself was wonderful, especially after it had tried to steal her way of thinking. Reversing things was her idea.. and now Thanrie's maybe. She could share with friends. Brought back to reality though, Mhyl noticed that the flood was it's own problem. Or.. was it the same context...
Mhyl looked around, considering their situation. She'd always had nightmares of floods, of drowning. This situation wasn't the same idea, but it was just as dangerous. It would actually be better if something as friendly as Thanrie's liquid metal replaced the current hoard, and for someone so afraid of drowning, that said a lot. Such was still well beyond Thanrie, her gift took from her vitality to supply the liquid metal, the area was so large it would kill her. However, Mhyl had done wide-area moves before, it would be up to her to provide a counter-flood, a surge that would support them. In the process, she would reverse all of Khaexyn's own reversals, just to show him up.
Mhyl focused upon her book once again, causing Thanrie to be alarmed. She knew what this meant, there was nothing specifically nearby Mhyl would be targeting, this was going to be big again. However, she couldn't see where Mhyl's gift gathered, what idea Mhyl was employing. Instead, she stood guard with Chyurae, making sure Mhyl's location remained safe. There wasn't anyone who noticed the slight distortion of light above them, light bending slightly as it enters and exits the growing body of clear liquid forming above them. Once enough had gathered to amass an area large enough to cover the entire battlefield, she let it go. As Thanrie noticed the release, she noticed the ripples of moving light below her, and looked up as the sky fell onto her. Panicking for a moment, she quickly discovered that the water was fully breathable, did not slow down her motion, and yet she could jump much higher within. The water was also staying still, like formed jelly. Looking around further, she noticed most of the machines surging violently, suffering within the liquid they were submerged in. While looking around, she noticed her own wounds were vanishing. Mhyl had set a liquid that healed wounds while it disrupted AI systems. Even their power armor was fine, not having an AI pilot, though it wasn't repaired either.
Thanrie was about to set off into their now seriously debilitated enemies when a hand took her shoulder from behind. "Hold on, what's going on, what did you both do here while we were away?" Qheria had finally caught up with Lwyn, having then missed out on all the fun. "Oh F~~k, where to even begin." "Actually, guys, maybe we should act now, talk later." Thanrie turned to Lwyn, who was trying to support Mhyl. Lwyn could tell this was Mhyl's work, but such a formation should disperse somehow if left to it's natural state. If everything was still here, Mhyl was sustaining this by bleeding her own stamina. Thanrie and Qheria picked up on Lwyn's urgency and set off into the field, intent on reducing numbers with this advantage as quickly as possible. Lwyn gave Mhyl to Chyurae as she took up her own crossbow. Not more than moments after waking up, and she already had to get into action.
Mhyl held on as long as she could, and when she felt she was at her limits, she chose to have the liquid resolve as having a boiling point equal to when water freezes, to have vapours lighter than air. All of the liquid thus faded into the air and vanished, leaving no lingering problems. Mhyl collapsed into Chyurae's arms, taking a moment of rest as Lwyn returned. Lwyn was about to turn around and keep going, giving Mhyl time to rest, when instead Mhyl stood up. She just needed a short break, and maybe to take it easy for a bit more, but she had been working on her stamina so that she wouldn't be caught in these situations sitting down. Lwyn was gap-jawed at Mhyl still standing after something was certainly more than even Lwyn could have stayed conscious for. As Mhyl wasn't seeming inclined to stop, Lwyn moved to keep pace with her while keeping an eye out to locate Thanrie and Qheria.
The way into the Fortress was clear, but none of them were deluded into thinking this trip through the Fortress would be as casual as the last. This time, they would bear witness to just how much internal security Khaexyn had actually prepared.