Queen's Gambit (Lilith's Shadow Book 6)

by Benjamin Medrano

  Then a flurry of attacks hit her in rapid succession, and her shields weren’t the only things that failed.

  One of the suits of power armor fell as they concentrated their fire on it, but the amount of damage that it’d taken to bring it down worried Warden, especially since the number of suits present startled her.

  “Are these the clones?” Warden demanded, throwing up a shield in front of Shade as the barrier around the compound fell at last, and plasma blasts slammed into her own shield. Each individual blast wasn’t that bad as far as she was concerned, but with the better part of twenty suits firing at them, it was much more of a strain.

  Out of the corner of her eyes, Warden could see Archon chasing one suit of armor that was dodging frantically, its thrusters blazing with every movement, and a few scars marred the surface of its armor. Bolts of purple energy lashed out from the suit of armor with no apparent source in addition to the weapons built into the armor itself, which indicated to her that it was Shadowmind herself. At least Archon was dodging the majority of the attacks.

  “Most likely, yes,” Circe said, taking a precise step to the right just before a plasma blast slammed into a bench she’d been standing in front of, reducing it to wreckage. Warden added a shield around her and Blooming Orchid, and the android spoke calmly. “Thank you. I will attempt to ground a few of the suits. Be aware that they have heavy armor and increase the wearer’s physical strength dramatically.”

  Warden opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, firing ports on the android’s arms opened, and several bolts of blue energy lanced out with pinpoint accuracy, hitting the exact same point on the shield of one of the evading suits. The bolts punched through it, and right through the tiny vent of one of the suit’s thrusters. An explosion rocked the suit, and it plummeted from the air with a startled feminine shriek.

  “How…?” Morgan gasped.

  “Circe Prime sent me her analysis of Shadowmind’s combat patterns,” Circe replied, smiling coldly. “Orchid, I believe an opponent is now where you can reach them.”

  “I noticed,” Blooming Orchid said, drawing her sword as she added. “Cover me, please.”

  With that she dashed out of the barrier, moving low and fast. Warden threw several more golden spears at one of the flying suits while Circe gave covering fire. They were drawing a lot of attacks in response, Warden noticed, a little amused and annoyed at the same time. Just what she needed.

  Morgan hit one of the suits hard, but without the concentrated fire of everyone targeting it, the attacker managed to shrug it off with minimal damage, and Shade was dodging now, conjuring shadow creatures that were being blown apart almost as quickly as he created them, at least until he surrounded himself in a swarm of shadow ravens that blocked sight like a black tornado. In the meantime, Spark was flickering back and forth as she dodged a startling number of attacks, the sizzling of her electricity echoing as she returned fire.

  Several of the weapons on the base had been destroyed in the clash so far, but not all, as Decarin’s defenses continued to suppress the attacking suits. Somehow Warden suspected the building wouldn’t be in as good of shape if she and the others hadn’t been outside to draw fire.

  Warden lined up another attack and threw a magical spear at the same suit she’d been targeting, one which she’d mostly kept track of because the armor across its waist had been scratched, then she flinched as a flash of purple light lit the sky and she heard a scream of rage.

  “Damnable pigeon!” Shadowmind snarled loudly, and Warden saw Archon staggering back from the purple flash that’d hit her, allowing the villain to level her long cannon at the heroine’s face. Warden tried to throw up a shield around Archon, but she just didn’t have time. The magic was only beginning to reach out when the villain pulled the trigger.

  Plasma flared, and Archon rocked backward as it struck her, her wings charred around the edges but otherwise she appeared mostly intact, aside from what looked like a nasty sunburn to Warden. Yet it was only when Circe spoke that Warden realized she’d allowed herself to get distracted.

  “Incoming!” the android warned, causing Warden’s eyes to snap back forward just as a pair of suits charged them, thrusters blazing. The one Blooming Orchid was facing had fallen, but another had engaged her from above, sending the woman scampering to avoid attacks.

  Warden’s distraction with Archon had weakened her shield slightly, and before she could reinforce it in time, the two suits slammed into it, firing all their weapons at the same time. Her barrier buckled, then shattered like glass. Warden backpedaled, trying to reform her shield, but one of them reached out and grabbed her, a gauntleted fist closing around her arm like a vise, and her eyes crossed as electricity ripped into her body, causing her to convulse slightly… and then she hit something hard.

  It was an odd side effect of inertial sumps that being thrown or slammed into a wall protected by them didn’t hurt as badly as it did to be thrown into a building which didn’t have one. Warden knew that the kinetic energy that hit the building was absorbed, which made it a good deal less dangerous, but that didn’t mean that it couldn’t be deadly. Especially when a suit of power armor grabbed your throat and started applying pressure against your neck.

  “You’re too pretty to kill, but you’re just a little too much of a pain in the—” the woman in the suit began, her voice an unnerving copy of Shadowmind’s, but she was cut off when Morgan threw a bolt of purple magic into the side of her helmet, her friend’s dress now dotted with char marks where it’d blocked several shots. Warden was thankful that they’d had time to properly enchant their outfits again, but they wouldn’t take much concentrated fire.

  Which reminded Warden that she really, really needed to move, and with a surge of magic she focused on a spot near Blooming Orchid, and disappeared from where she’d been in a flash of light, reappearing and throwing up a barrier again, reinforcing it heavily as she did so.

  “Thanks!” Blooming Orchid said, inhaling sharply, and Warden winced, seeing a few cuts on her friend’s skin and dress that looked like they’d come from shrapnel.

  Back where she’d been, Warden saw Circe dodge the attacks of one of the suits that’d been attacking Morgan, the brown-haired android moving with an easy grace that was completely unnatural, in Warden’s opinion, and as she did so she fired several blasts into the suit’s back. The suit seized up, and she quickly retreated toward Warden with Morgan, the latter flying quickly, a purple shield now surrounding her.

  “No problem, but we’re not… this doesn’t look good,” Warden said, glancing around and flinching. There were four suits down that she could see, but that left roughly fifteen more, which didn’t bode well. Not since she now realized that they were trying to divide and conquer. That was bad.

  “Duh?” Spark replied, darting up next to her and stopping for a moment to wipe her forehead. “It’s Shadowmind! She’s a complete, utter—hah, better luck next time!”

  The speedster just barely dodged a plasma blast that slammed into Warden’s shield, and Warden threw a spear at the armor with a soft curse, though she allowed Circe and Morgan in when they reached the shield, with an armored opponent right on their tails. The suit bounced off the shield, swearing loudly.

  “They’ve realized I can disable their flight systems, and are endeavoring to keep me from being able to target them,” Circe reported. “Furthermore, if I’m not mistaken, they’re also concentrating fire on Archon, which could mitigate our ability to face the original version of Shadowmind.”

  “Do you have any suggestions on how to beat this onslaught?” Morgan demanded, and Warden nodded in agreement, throwing more magic into her shield to resist the attacks. The blasts might not be overwhelming individually, but they were adding up.

  “Focusing fire on the opposition one at a time would remove them from play and improve our odds,” Circe said simply. “Otherwise, I believe that we’ll be in a battle of attrition that we may not survive and will regret survivi
ng if we are taken intact.”

  “I can agree with that,” Warden muttered, then called out. “Spark, mind lighting up our next target?”

  “Sure!” the woman replied, and taunted. “Come on, Shadowmind, can’t you aim?”

  The barrage of energy in response indicated that she was about as good at getting under Shadowmind’s skin as she was at irritating Warden.

  Chapter 41

  Saturday, December 6th, 2031

  Guardian Compound, Paragon City

  Archon was being hammered by the suits, and there wasn’t much she could do about it. The one she’d been trying to pin down had finally managed to get farther away after momentarily stunning her, and now there were at least ten of them firing on her. No matter how resilient her body was, there was only so much damage she could take in rapid succession, and she could feel her regeneration working as hard as it could, re-knitting burnt flesh and repairing feathers, but when her armor was growing so hot that she could feel it, that was a problem.

  Another pair of shots slammed into her back, and she spun, swinging her sword at the nearest of the armored suits, but it recoiled out of range, barely managing to avoid it.

  “What’s the matter, Archon? Can’t you hit me?” Shadowmind taunted from somewhere behind her.

  Archon growled internally, concentrating… and then spun, unleashing a wave of her anger and rage in a torrent of fire that seemed to cover half the sky. The fire blazed brightly, but Archon had no illusions that it would do much damage to the armor the woman was wearing, at most it would damage some of the components and possibly blind her. Which might be enough to gain the upper hand.

  She charged in the wake of the flames, her gaze seizing on one of the suits that was nearby, and before it could recover from covering its faceplate, she was on it. Her sword sheared through the cannon’s barrel, and she slammed a fist into the stomach of the armor, driving it back with a large dent where she’d struck. She started to follow, but before she could get far, Archon grunted as multiple shots slammed home on her back, hammering the base of her wings. She half fell, which allowed the figure she’d been attacking to escape.

  Spinning again, Archon managed to block most of the fire, her expression stiffening as she realized how poorly the others were doing. Perhaps if other heroes arrived, like Knight Fire and Astral Core… no, most of them would be putting themselves in even more danger if they faced Shadowmind and her clones in close range.

  “Alright, you did decently, that much I’ll admit,” Shadowmind said, her scarred armor hovering just behind two other suits of armor, their cannons aimed at Archon as she stabilized. “I’ll make you an offer, though. Surrender, and I’ll make sure that you’re at least comfortable for the remainder of your life.”

  Archon snorted, glancing around at the ten suits in the area, and she spoke derisively as she straightened as much as she could. “And be your puppet, like all of these clones? I think not.”

  “Fine,” Shadowmind spat, and the tips of the cannons held by the other suits began to glow, while a purple glow began to grow in front of the villain. Archon tensed, preparing to dodge as best she could. “I’ll just beat you into submission.”

  A flicker of golden light flashed in the corner of Archon’s eye, then something hit her like a freight train, sending her flying off to the side just as the cannons fired. Archon couldn’t help a grunt of pain, her wings flapping frantically as she tried to recover from losing altitude. Then she froze as she heard an odd humming sound along with heat from above and to her right, prompting her to look up… and gawked.

  Lilith’s hair was rippling in the wind, yet it shone as if it was the source of some internal light, and she wore a suit of scarlet and gold that stood out against the cloudy sky… but more startling to Archon was how her eyes seemed to blaze from within, and she was holding a large orb of brilliant blue plasma in each hand, plasma which perfectly matched the color of the beams that Shadowmind had been firing.

  “Hello, Amber. I have something that belongs to you. Here, have it back,” Lilith said, and threw the orbs of plasma at the nearest two suits of armor. The suits tried to dodge, but they weren’t fast enough, and the plasma destabilized, unleashing massive explosions.

  As the explosions cleared, the two suits were staggering backward, cracked and scorched, and Archon’s eyes widened still more, as she murmured, “Lilith?”

  “You’re flying. How?” Shadowmind demanded, staring at Lilith in shock. Her creation looked different, not just because of the outfit, and something about her put Shadowmind’s teeth on edge. Likely the way that she was glaring at her and her clones.

  “Carefully. Very carefully,” Lilith replied, smiling coldly. “Now, leave my friends alone.”

  “You refused the deal I offered, you little brat, so I think not,” Shadowmind spat, her anger and headache spiking at the same time. “So good of yourself to deliver yourself, though. I’m going to deal with you once and for all, just like I did that traitorous—”

  Shadowmind caught a glimpse Lilith’s eyes flaring with light, just as her hands began to glow as well. The girl interrupted with a violent column of brilliant light that hit Shadowmind hard. The impact sent her spiraling backward as the energy flattened what was left of Shadowmind’s shields and caused alarms to begin blaring throughout her armor.

  The blast cut off as some of the clones attacked, and Shadowmind gaped as her creation deflected the plasma beams seemingly effortlessly, then threw light back that hammered into the armor hard. And as she did so, Lilith spoke.

  “Don’t you dare talk about Circe,” Lilith hissed angrily, dodging backward as one of the clones took a swipe at her, her voice steadily increasing in volume as she spoke. “You killed her, the one person who was always there for me. She was more of a mother to me than you could possibly have been, and I’m going to make you pay for what you did to her!”

  Shadowmind considered for just an instant, then growled, shoving aside her astonishment at Lilith’s new powers. How and why didn’t matter, the important thing was to just get rid of her, and she snarled. “Change frequencies, she can’t block everything!”

  As she tried to do so, the hair on the back of Shadowmind’s neck suddenly stood on end, and she barely ducked before a sword could hit her neck. Archon was right on top of her, and she swore.

  “Much like you,” Archon said grimly. “Lilith, I expect an explanation later.”

  “You’ll get it!” Lilith said, moving out of the way of an energy beam with speed that Shadowmind almost couldn’t follow, her hands glowing with energy as she slapped them against the flight unit of the suit, half-melting it in a moment and dropping the woman out of the sky.

  “Are you seriously still trying to fight?” one of the clones finally snarled over the network. “We’ve lost half the suits, the others are about to break out, and there are more heroes incoming! Retreat, already!”

  “Don’t tell me what to do!” Shadowmind snapped, throttling her thrusters to maximum, and she glanced over at where the other clones had been containing Morgan, Warden, and the others, then cursed.

  Three more of the clones were down, as were five of them that’d been helping her with Archon, which was far more than she’d anticipated. If it hadn’t been for Lilith, she’d have dropped Archon from the sky, which would’ve made things different, but… no, the clone was right, at least this time.

  “I’m going to turn you and all the others into ashes, Lilith!” Shadowmind snapped and activated her emergency recall beacon with a thought as she called out to the clones. “Recall!”

  A whine filled her armor, and then she vanished with a flash of light, but not before catching one last glare from Lilith as she caught a plasma bolt in her hands. And Shadowmind realized at last what irritated her about how Lilith had looked at her.

  There had been absolutely no fear in her eyes, and that sent a hint of fear through Shadowmind. Fear that was quickly drowned in rage. How dare she? Shadowmind would figure out wh
at had happened to her, but first she was going to end this, with a full orbital bombardment if that was what it took.

  Chapter 42

  Saturday, December 6th, 2031

  Guardian Compound, Paragon City

  “Lilith! What happened to you? You went all fwoosh!” Emily exclaimed, and Lilith smiled at the speedster briefly, then turned her attention to the suits of armor on the ground, those that hadn’t disappeared with the thunderous sound of imploding air. She thought there were ten of them, but she couldn’t be absolutely certain, since she hadn’t been here at the start of the fight… which caused a flicker of shame to wash over her, looking at the minor injuries that most of the others had taken.

  “While I don’t mind explaining, shouldn’t we take care of them first?” Lilith said, nodding toward the nearest of the suits of armor, which she saw twitch slightly. “I’m pretty sure that there are people inside them, and I’d rather not risk having Amber eavesdrop on us through them.”

  “A point which I had not considered,” Tania said, inclining her head, her charred feathers slowly changing from black to white, starting with the ones nearest her torso, and her skin starting to take on a healthier sheen.

  “True! So, who wants to unshell the clams?” Emily asked brightly, a near-evil glint in her eyes.

  “I believe that I would be the best one to remove their armor, as I have the rough schematics and can do so without damaging either it or the occupant excessively,” Circe Beta said, and a lump caught in Lilith’s throat at the sound of her voice. The android looked up, meeting Lilith’s gaze as she added, her voice a touch grave. “It is good to see that you’re well, Mistress Lilith, even if you have changed.”

  “Just Lilith, please,” Lilith replied, swallowing hard as she tried to blink back tears that welled up, along with grief that threatened to paralyze her. She refused to let it, though. Not right now, as she allowed herself to drift to the ground. “I think that you calling anyone mistress is something for the past. I… hearing your voice is good. Even if it isn’t the same.”