Forged by Battle (WarVerse Book 1)

by Patrick J. Loller

  Despite being over-the-top, the armor could move. There was none of the delay that came from recognizing an obstacle and twisting a stick or pressing a rudder to avoid it. A fallen tree was in his way—he jumped over it, simple as that. A gap too small to run straight through—he twisted and leapt, firing the thrusters so he passed sideways between two trees. He hit the ground in a tumble, and was back up on his armored feet in seconds.

  He landed close enough to Rodrom's signal that it was a short run, and within a minute Vincent saw the wreckage of the Duchess's ship, and the hellish creature that was crawling out of it.

  Vincent had seen a lot of strange and impossible things come out of the portals, but he stopped dead in his tracks now. The thing was the size of a man, only covered in blades, and had impossibly black skin. It was carrying a female elf colored all over in black and white, and it was absolutely terrifying.

  It was the same kind of terror Vincent had felt when he thought a member of his team was in danger, or even the kind when he had watched his father die. This terror was so overwhelming, so uncontrollably strong, that his mind fractured under the strain of it. He tried to reach for his father’s knife, to find some comfort in the familiar, but his hands were cannons. He was trapped inside the metal body of his fighter.

  The only thing that saved him was the meld. It wasn't just Vincent controlling the craft. His AMI unit was just as involved, and as much as he hated to let the computer do his work, in that moment he was glad to have it step in, and let loose with everything the Chimera had.

  Missiles streaked from his shoulders; their payloads were smaller in the atmosphere but no less deadly, and they blossomed into violent fireballs all around the monster. His Gatling cannon roared, spitting out thousands upon thousands of armor-piercing incendiary rounds, each of which could obliterate a main battle tank. His laser cannon blinded him with its ferocity as it ignited the air between them, producing an unending stream of light as it fired continuously.

  The AMI held nothing back, acting upon Vincent's irrational fear and firing until the barrel of the Gatling cannon melted to slag, the missiles were emptied, and the laser cannon had fired through every frequency.

  Smoke curled up from his arms and spent missile pods, and he shook against the fear. Nothing could be left of the monster, not after that.

  The smoke was too thick for Vincent to see the body. A part of him wished he had been more in control. He was helpless now, with all his ammunition and weapons spent. If he had to, the best he could do was try and punch it. The gnomes had been vetoed when they’d suggested adding a sword.

  All of Vincent's scanners focused onto the Shadow. In the back of his mind the clock still ticked. He only had... eleven minutes left. He needed to get Rodrom and get out. His AMI was still blinking in the tree behind where Vincent had leveled.

  And what about Ele, who would demolish everything if she passed close enough?

  His sensors couldn't pick up anything. The smoke was too thick. It clustered around where his missiles had erupted, and wasn't dissipating, even in the wind.

  Vincent took a few tentative steps forward, and set his feet against the ground. Kneeling slightly, he braced himself with his arms and rotated his wings so the turbines were facing ahead of him. He poured on the juice, blowing gusts strong enough to lift his suit over the smoke. He needed to see that the thing was dead, destroyed.

  Still, the smoke didn't move.

  The fear started to creep in again. Vincent poured more power into the turbines, digging long furrows in the dirt as he was pushed backwards. But no matter how much wind he generated, the smoke stayed in a strange lump, almost as if it were...

  The thing uncurled.

  It was shaped like a bear, with a large bulky body and squat legs, a low-hanging head, and no tail. That was where the normal stopped, and the impossible took over.

  A man made seemingly of pure darkness had been the most horrifying sight he could imagine. That man had now grown several times in size, taken on the proportions of a violent beast, and was covered from head to toe in what looked like swords.

  Had Vincent’s lungs not been full of fluid, he would have laughed. The fear was too much, and he couldn't handle the strain. For once, he took a page out of Rodrom's book, and just laughed.

  The thing turned towards him, opened its mouth, and let loose a roar so loud and violent that Vincent was thrown backwards. When his back collided with a tree, he slid down to the ground, and felt one of his wings snap from the blow.

  Before the monster could take his life, however, the universe decided to add insult to injury, and Ele, in all her flaming glory, slammed into the ground in a cloud of ash and dirt. The Shadow turned on her, and let loose another roar. The wave of pressure pushed aside trees and managed to dim some of her flame, but only for a second before she became too bright to look directly at again.

  His chance of escaping gone, and with ten minutes left on the clock, Vincent laughed silently in the goo of his cockpit.

  Only you can prevent forest fires.

  Chapter 62

  The Exile

  Exile lay in the mud, clutching the pieces of dagger in her hand. She had done it, had done the very thing her people had cast her out for. She thought she could control it, that she had been strong enough, worthy enough to wield such power.

  She was wrong.

  And now countless people would pay for her mistake. The Shadow was no mere elemental that would run wild until destroyed or contained. It was a calculating, devious mind wrapped in a force of nature.

  How could she have been so naïve? Without the Shadow in her mind, the idea of trying to control it seemed like a child's thought, not one of a skilled assassin.

  How long had it been powerful enough to corrupt her thoughts? To turn her away from the convent she’d spent her entire life serving and into a tool? She had played right into its hand. Given it everything it wanted. She might have very well ushered in the end her people so greatly feared.

  They shouldn’t have just taken her arm and cast her out; they should have killed her. Their own misguided refusal to step away from their religious teachings had allowed Exile to usher a demon into their realm. And now that demon would destroy it.

  A thunderous noise ripped through the trees, pulling her out of her head and shaking the ground. Explosions followed on its heels, and Exile took to her feet.

  She pulled her Shell over herself and forced her legs to carry her with all the speed she could manage. With each footfall, she felt another of the precious internal capsules break under the strain. Her reserves ran lower and lower. She would have no warning when she ran out. Only a vague notion, and then a sudden end. But she threw all thoughts of self-preservation away and sped towards the sight of the crash.

  She pulled up short before she burst into view, and located the source of the noise. A single Chimera was standing a hundred meters back from the smoking wreck of the Shadow's fighter, its form changed into the shape of a man. This was the research she had learned of on the back of psykin she murdered.

  Every weapon on the Chimera fired until nothing was left, but Exile could see that it had done no good. The Shadow had absorbed a new host, one that could shapeshift on its own, and between the elven magic and the Shadow's power, it would be unstoppable. The armored, bladed titan rose up and roared at the Chimera pilot, throwing it aside like a leaf on the wind.

  Then Exile saw something. The monster had been crouching over a prone figure in the mud. An elf with pure white skin and tattooed with Shadow. All was not lost. The Shadow would never protect something it didn't need. There was no sympathy or compassion in that creature, only a lust for power. The elf must have been the power source the Shadow demanded; there was absolutely no other reason it would have gone out of its way to protect her.

  Out of nowhere, a fire elemental landed at an angle between the Chimera pilot and Exile, and its sudden arrival drew the Shadow's attention. Exile saw her chance. When the Shadow moved
to face the new threat, she would kill the elf, and destroy whatever power the Shadow was so intent on protecting. She pulled her weapon from her shoulder and braced it against her ethereal arm.

  The Shadow charged the elemental.

  Exile lined up her shot.

  Then Derek Rodrom, the human she had come for, ran out from the wreckage and crouched over the elf.

  Chapter 63

  Rodrom

  Lorelei was still breathing. That was the first thing Rodrom checked. Crouched in the mud over her limp glowing body, he barely registered the battle occurring just behind him, or the mech suit leaning against a tree. All his focus was on ensuring that Lorelei would survive, his own injuries and safety be damned.

  "Come on, Lorelei, I need you to wake up now," he said as he shook her.

  He pulled up one of her eyelids, the one covering the kaleidoscope eye. Her pupils were slow to constrict from the light. In a human that meant they were good and out, and he figured it was the same for her as well.

  "How can you sleep with all this ridiculousness behind us!" he called.

  Shouting didn't make her any less unconscious. Good job, Doc, he thought. Next you should try a bucket of water.

  He needed to move her. The shadowy knife monster had seemed intent on taking her, and he had no reason to think that would change just because he was dancing with what looked like a girl on fire.

  Problem was, he was running low on blood, and his lungs were already painting their picket signs and refusing to work. Rodrom didn't think he had the strength to get her as far away as they needed to be.

  a voice cried out in his head.

  Oh, good, more problems.

  Rodrom turned to a see a Psykin wearing a formfitting fleet uniform. He noticed a few things all at once. She was missing her right arm, or rather, had some sort of hologram in the shape of one. She was wounded, and bleeding from a dozen or more of the wounds. Most importantly, she was aiming two pistols at him.

  "Whoa there," Rodrom called with his hands raised. "I am a doctor."

 

  "Pretty sure I am more qualified to make that judgment," Rodrom quipped. "Maybe lower the weapon and we can talk."

 

  Rodrom believed her. This Psykin seemed half out of her mind.

  "Now wait just a—" Before Rodrom could finish his reply, a metal arm slammed into the Psykin and knocked her a hundred or so meters away.

  He looked up at the mech and called, "Thanks, I think. Unless you also want to shoot me."

  The voice in his head was too familiar to be real.

  "Nope." Rodrom shook his head. "I am hallucinating."

 

  Rodrom continued to shake his head back and forth. "You came to rescue me, alone, in a cheap robotech knockoff? As far as plans go, Vince, this has to be one of your worst."

 

  The two monsters were still duking it out. Rodrom watched as the flaming woman flared out her wings, and the woods all around her caught fire. She seemed to draw strength from this, and leapt forward to punch and claw at the Shadow. Wherever her burning hands touched, the black mass turned to gas, but by the time she pulled back, the wound had already healed.

  The Shadow swiped a compact car–sized paw with swords for claws into her wing. An explosion of sparks and super-heated air burst forth. The woman staggered back, lifted her arms, and blasted a column of flame as wide as an operating table into the center of the Shadow.

  Vincent told him.

  "What the hell are they?" Rodrom asked, glancing back at Lorelei.

 

  "Really, Vince? Even for you, a girl made of fire is a bit much."

  Vincent growled as best he could over the mental connection.

  "I will not leave Lorelei." He bent back down to check that she was still breathing.

 

  "That is awfully sweet, Vince, but I am not leaving her. She saved my life, and I think the Shadow wants her alive."

  Vincent lunged forward, and Rodrom scrambled over Lorelei to protect her. When rifle shots rang out and the sharp pang of them hit Vincent's armor, Rodrom realized this was foolish."How is she still alive?"

  Chapter 64

  Vincent

  Vincent's enhanced senses warned him of the Psykin’s intentions barely an instant before she started firing. He managed to get his armored side between her and Rodrom, and the blasts slammed into him. Without his own weapons to retaliate, he was helpless until she stopped shooting. Any movement on his part would open up Rodrom to attack.

  She would have to reload, and when she did, Vincent would charge. Even without his wings, his jump jets could bridge the distance in a single jump. If hitting her didn't finish her, maybe landing on her with all the weight of his armor would.

  he called through his AMI.

 

  The two titans were still battling it out diagonally across from them. The Shadow’s claws burned down to the wrists as it stabbed blades into Ele's side and threw her into the air. Ele flared her wings and hovered, throwing down handfuls of fire bright as stars towards the reforming darkness.

  Vincent gestured with the arm he wasn't using to protect Rodrom.

  the Psykin screamed, and fired more blue blasts uselessly into Vincent's armor. Some of the shots hit near his cockpit, but it was protected by metal panels. She was only wasting power.

 

  "Damn it, Vince, just stop her," Rodrom snapped. Vincent's rear-facing sensors showed Rodrom crouched over the fallen elf doing something, but what he couldn't see. If he wasn't making jokes, then he was dead serious. Vincent shut the sensors off; it was disorienting to look in both directions.

  Eight minutes.

  Vincent called, spying her rank on her uniform.

 

  In opposition to her own words, the Psykin threw down her weapons. One of her arms, which Vincent had only just noticed was some kind of hologram, disappeared.

  What in the void?

  Her remaining hand shot to her horn, and just as Vincent was about to charge, she started twitching. Her skin bulged around the joints like her muscles were trying to tear their way out, and within seconds, the attractive female had become a grotesque monster.

  Vincent cried.

  But even as he said it, he could tell something was wrong. He thought he was seeing a monster claw its way out of the lieutenant, but his mind was not only human, and his machine senses told him otherwise.

  The monster she had become slashed her arm at him, and Vincent stumbled back. It looked so real, and he had just seen two other monsters destroy women he trusted. Could his machine mind be wrong? If he charged in and tried to attack the psykin the AMI unit was so convinced was still standing there, would he be sacrificing his own life as well as Rodrom's?

  Seven minutes.

  "Vince, we do not have time for this. The Shadow's pulling ahead."

  Ele looked hurt—as hurt as a being composed entirely of fire could look. Her massive wings were gone, and only a woman-sized spark of flame remained. The forest around her was burnt to the ground and smoldering, and as the Shadow pressed in on her, no more flames leapt to her aid.

  The massive bladed monster swung blow after blow down onto Ele, who
had her arms thrown over her head as she projected a flaming shield between them. Vincent felt a sharp pang in his chest.

  He was out of time, out of options, and gave into the senses that told him what he saw wasn't there. He had already broken every rule in his book when he activated the machine meld. To throw away what he could see to trust the AI… How could he? Then he looked back at Rodrom, and knew he had no choice.

  He charged into the growing monster, reaching his hand down to grab onto the Psykin.

  The illusion broke. It was all in his head. She had used some Psykin magic against him, and the AMI had seen right through it. She was finished, and Vincent had her at his mercy.

  He couldn't kill her, though. Not like this, not when she was helpless in his hand. She was struggling against the metal claws wrapped around her, and Vincent could think of no way to contain her. Save one.

  He cocked his hand back and threw her as far as he could. She had survived when he’d hit her the first time. He was sure she could survive this time. At least it would give him enough time to grab Rodrom and his new girlfriend and get out of there.

  The relief was short-lived. A roar erupted from behind him, so loud it shook him inside the suit, and he saw Ele collapse under the power of the Shadow. Blue sparks lanced from her rapidly dimming flames, licking over the ground and the Shadow. Whatever was happening was doing nothing to it, however, and before his eyes, Ele was crushed swallowed by the abyss.

  Thunder cracked, and the Shadow was forced back. The fire was gone, and in its place was a crackling ball of lightning.

  What is she? Vincent wondered, right before she twisted and shot straight for him.