Instead, the swing stops abruptly, spitting out plasma energy having met another shield in front of Znuul’s open hand.
“There it is,” he says smiling at her.
Ahzna knows that he expects her withdraw. That’s why she barrels into the shield and actually pushes Znuul’s arm back. Pressed against the shield, pushing, she starts to roll along its small width, following it around the corner of its edge. Once past the shield, she leads with a wild strike from her left hand with the regular knife, aiming for his throat, but catching on the tip of one of Znuul’s ram-like horns instead as he dodges. Now inside her larger foe’s defenses she drives in with the plasma sword.
Znuul sidesteps and grabs her wrist. The suit complains immediately.
“Integrity loss, force applied exceeds…”
“Shut up!” she yells mentally back at the suit, followed by “Left force cannon full.” She turns her arm towards Znuul and smiles as she sees the recognition in his face. She commands it to fire.
He's blown back a good ten yards by the impact. Her face is an ear-to-ear grin, though nobody would ever see it for the helm. Point blank range, full power, no armor - he has to be partially eviscerated. Finishing him will be easy. She spins the plasma sword quickly and turns to the humans to give them pause.
She turns back to her prey and stops. He's getting up. He's not eviscerated, though his clothes appear to be smoking. “Assess target,” she commands the suit via their neural link.
“Target's nether energy building, level 78 and increasing. Target healing and shielding. Detecting increased hyper neural activity. Onset of anti-animus noted.”
She looks at Znuul, and something almost like a dark cloud is roiling from him and around him. His horn grows back. He looks at her, his eyes now glowing red. An energy pulse emanates from them that she is able to block it with the plasma sword. She smiles, knowing he's used that ability and a Baalig needs at least 15 minutes to recharge for it.
What she hears next though, wipes the smile from her face.
“You insolent, insignificant, waste of life. You are going to beg me for death and I am going to deny you that pleasure!”
She lets loose with the cannon again and again. All volleys explode off that damn shielding he seems to bring up so casually. The look he is giving her is hateful and he is no longer grinning. His hand comes down and his eyes flare red again.
The blast from his eyes hits her in the shoulder.
He can't do that! Baaligs can't do that. She panics for a moment, and in that time he is atop her in a blur of movement, grasping the arm with the sword. He twists her wrist and she acrobatically flips in a cartwheel with the twist to keep her arm from breaking. Landing, she tries to reverse the leverage and pull him towards her. Successful with that, her other hand flies out as she whirls partially around him. The dagger finds home in Znuul's ribcage.
Ahzna doesn't see the punch to the back of her head that was Znuul's response, but she feels it. He hadn't let go of the hand with the plasma sword and she knows she can't hold it much longer.
“Nanite rigidity at 100%, failure imminent at right arm,” warns the suits AI.
With what strength she can muster, she flips the sword out of her hand using only her wrist, towards the arm Znuul was using to break hers.
It works.
Znuul releases the grasp to avoid the plasma-energized edge of the falling sword. She rolls quickly and flips herself up, arm cannon at the ready and fires a volley of shots to allow her to create some distance.
All blocked.
“Tricky girl,” Znuul says, “But you're still going to beg for death.”
“Suit resources at twenty percent.”
Not what she wants to hear.
“The legends are true,” she mutters to herself. Her thoughts swirl. The Baalig that is not Baalig. A magic caster, a psionist, and fighter of extraordinary skill. The Destroyer of Hope. What hope does she have against this thing that looks like a Baalig but is something much darker?
She growls, recognizing the onset of the mental attack and flips the dagger over to her right hand. “Come to, Ahzna,” she yells to let him know she will not fall prey to his suggestion.
His eyes flare red again and the energy strikes her dead in the chest. Then again, and again, and again. On the fourth time, the suit is breached and she feels the pain. He's atop her now, and she swipes with the dagger for his throat, but that strike is casually blocked aside and she's graced with a backhand. She hears the crunch of her failing armor as she smacks into the wall of the school.
Ahzna opts for tactical retreat, leaping up and taking to flight - almost.
She feels him grab her tail, and she grits her teeth in preparation for the pain. He tugs her back down to the ground violently, causing her spine to scream in response. Before she can get back up she is greeted by more energy blasts from his eyes - too many to track.
She barely registers the forearm blow to her head. But she did register him saying, “Let's have a look.”
She feels his fingernails rake across her cheek, through the failing nanite armor. She hears the crack of the suit breaking, and the blast shield is cast aside. Another rough grasping and he's torn off part of the helm.
She looks up into his eyes. She sees the eyes of her mother. She sees the eyes of her father.
That really pisses her off. She jabs her knife into Znuul's chest and is thanked with a head butt. Her world goes fuzzy. It comes back to clarity as she feels herself being picked up by one of her horns. She slams her palm into the dagger still stuck in Znuul's chest and commands her suit to produce a spike from her chest.
He laughs. Then his tail curls around her neck. She thinks to do the same, but the bastard is standing on her tail. She hears the armor crack and feels the pressure of the coiling tail. This shouldn’t be; it can’t be.
“I think a taste is warranted about now,” he says to her in a rich almost melodic tone.
His eyes flare again and he jams his fingers through the holes the energy blasts created into her armor.
“Your animus is being drained. No countermeasure available,” says the A.I. through their telepathic link.
She spits in Znuul’s face, telling herself he cannot take me. But, he is.
Znuul's face changes to one of surprise and he stops.
“I know that flavor. Oh, my… You're family.”
Ahzna takes advantage of that moment, reaching down to a compartment off her leg. She pulls out the disruption grenade, turns her head, closes her eyes, and pushes the button. She counts to three while trying to fall to training and deaden her hearing. She drops the grenade
Despite her best efforts, her ears still ring as the Dzemond equivalent of a flash-bang grenade goes off. She feels Znuul’s grasp on her let go. The flash now over, she opens her tightly closed eyes to see Znuul stumbling backwards, obviously blind and most likely deaf.
“All power to cannons,” she commands the armor’s AI. Then she cuts loose with both arms firing into Znuul with both arms over and over, each blast sending Znuul reeling and careening backwards. She follows, screaming in hate until the barrage stops.
“Suit resources expended, use wearer’s life resources?” the AI queries.
“No.”
Breathing deeply, she looks out at the humans behind their insignificant barriers. She trains one arm towards them, knowing her suit’s energy is expended – but also knowing they don’t know that.
“Now to find that sword and take my prize,” she thinks to herself. That is until she sees the figure of Ahtsag Znuul raise himself up from the ground. His dark purple skin has been burned and damaged, but that dark aura roils around him and the wounds start to heal at a startling rate.
“No,” she screams at him. “Can’t you just die? Go back to the damned pool of black you came from!”
⁂
Znuul reaches deeply down into the dark well of power that is his and his alone. He brings it out, enveloping himself, healing himsel
f. He opens his eyes to see that this Ahzna Luunz is yelling something at him. She’s quite frustrated.
This is good. Frustration is another step in the destruction of hope.
He focuses his power on his ears, so he might better hear her lament.
He considers himself for a moment – that waste of flesh destroyed his custom body armor. Not that he expected it to hold up against Dzemond weaponry. But it did look cool.
He sees her run over to the entrance of the school. “Damn,” he mutters, figuring she’s going to take a human shield.
“Time to make your choice, traitor. Me? Or them?”
She produces another grenade, engages it and tosses it into the school, then takes to wing.
Znuul, somewhat overwhelmed by a battle he wasn't quite prepared for, hesitates, then is glad he did when he hears the tell-tale “weeeeeee-ump” of a singularity grenade.
“My, my, tricky girl,” he murmurs standing there motionless.
The middle of the school begins to collapse, being sucked into what is basically a very tiny black hole. He watches as the glass breaks, and then the metal superstructure of the building moans and bends. Screams pour out through windows away from the center point of the singularity. The building collapses at the center.
“Choice indeed,” he thinks to himself watching her fly away.
Znuul’s startled out of his contemplation by the sound of the voice near him. He looks over to see a Russian soldier standing almost to his side.
“Go after it. It’s getting away.”
For a brief, sharp moment, Znuul wonders who this flea is to tell him what to do. Then he relaxes - it’s just the power talking. He looks down on the soldier and forces a smile.
“She’s going to get what she deserves, just not right now,” he says calmly. “I think that getting as many survivors out of that wreckage as fast as we can is the best course of action. Don’t you?”
⁂
Znuul releases the camouflage spell as he touches down on the roof of the hotel. He walks over to the bundle of clothes he left for himself. He sits down, his back against one of the large HVAC units and considers how tired he is.
And how much he dreads the transformation back to his human form. Hasn’t he endured enough today? All the same, he goes through the process as he has so many times before. The transformation is followed by summoning glyphic tattoos to keep from being found by magical means.
He dresses himself, puts his wallet in his back pocket and picks up the mobile phone he brought with him. He dials Kitten’s number and falls back against the air handler.
“Master are you all right?” is the first thing she says. That makes him quite happy.
“I am, thank you.”
“Good, because on the television it looked like you got your ass kicked.”
“Yes, I think I under-estimated this one. Please put Red on the phone.”
That thought percolates within him for a moment – “my ass kicked on worldwide television. How embarrassing…”
Red’s voice stops all of the mental ruminations, “I am so proud of you for choosing to help get those children out instead of chasing that bitch down. I know you wanted to. Are you all right? It didn’t look good.”
“It was exactly as you saw it. She is… talented; she improvises. I am going to need you to come here after all; I’m not sure I can take her alive. Very sure I can kill her without issue, but then, we learn nothing.”
He takes in the pause on the line. Normally, he would not care to ask for help, but this is different. This is his soul mate.
“I’ll get a car immediately.”
“When you get here, remember, we can’t interrogate a corpse… And I love you.”
“And I love you, too. You sure you’re all right? You sound weary.”
That makes Znuul smile. She knows him so well.
“I am all right. But our adversary is family. A direct line from my own loins, though who knows how many generations passed down from parent to child. I tasted of her soul. This fact I know for sure. I know the taste of my own family.”
“Well, that settles it,” she says back, “I can’t have you killing your own… anymore. And I’m still proud of you for what you did at that school. I know it couldn’t have been easy, especially with the reporters.”
“The reporters were not fun, but the rest… it was the right thing to do. Please get here as fast as you can. I’ve got to go - tell Kitten to hold tight in Helsinki.”
They part ways on the phone and Znuul sits there for a moment, before getting up.
“I did do the right thing,” he affirms to himself. “I did, Father, didn’t I?”
Chapter 30
Korinthos, Greece
The young man opens the sliding door out to the pool area. His master relaxes on a lounge in front of the blue water. He gathers his courage and says, “Sir, the call is for you.”
Exsikis, the flesh and blood Dzemond that sits at the head of the Gracia Potentia, sighs in disappointment. “Damon, I am not taking calls. You know this is my reflecting time.”
“But it's him,” Damon says covering the mouthpiece of the phone, “and you know how he gets.”
Exsikis glares into the young man's eyes, causing him to look down immediately in subservience. “Bring me the phone,” he says to the young man He takes the phone but does not put it to his ear. Instead, he pats the lounge invitingly for the young man to sit.
“Mr. Burningwood, to what do I owe this honor?” he says after raising the phone to his ear.
“Do not take airs with me, Mr. Essex,” snaps Alistair back at him, using Exsikis' human name. “You know damn well what the issue is. What have you done?”
“Ah… Russia,” Exsikis says back coyly, “I assure you, I, nor any of ours, have anything to do with this mess. It appears to be a family squabble. But from what I can see, the tide turns in our favor.”
“And how is this turning in our favor? I understand the ambassadors now have to answer for this mess and their integrity is being questioned. Our progress in China has stalled and talks in the Middle East have ground to a halt. The Emperor will not be pleased.”
Exsikis sighs, knowing the Emperor already has to be upset that this Baalig was able to breach this world without authorization.
“Alistair, calm yourself. Do you not see the opportunity? We have given our potential partners a demonstration of our technology; something our earthly patrons have been so eagerly wishing to see. And also, Ahtsag Znuul gives us good P.R. He is the embodiment of the kindness of our collection of races. No?”
The silence on the other end of the phone makes Exsikis smile. He takes a moment to run his fingers absently through Damon's curly hair with his other hand.
“This situation is still unacceptable. We need The Protectorate focused on Znuul as an adversary, not as some public relations darling. I need you, and as many others as you can muster to go to Russia and kill that bitch. Do not forget, it is I alone who reports directly to Emperor Zbelbuub on the matters of this realm.”
“After we do that, I suppose you wish we hold a press conference and out ourselves too?”
“Do not test me,” Alistair shouts in the phone. “I am the central appointed authority for this realm and its integration into Dzemond hold. Must I apprise the Emperor himself of your insubordination?”
Exsikis seethes. To be ordered around by this human - mage or not.
“Well, Mr. Essex? What will it be? Do you disregard my authority?”
“Of course not. Calm yourself, Governor Burningwood. I will see to her timely demise.”
“Personally,” Alistair adds.
“I will personally coordinate the matter, I will not promise that it will be I who ends her life.”
“Fine. Get it done. Now!”
The line goes dead. Exsikis throws the phone into the pool in disgust. His hand, which has been gently teasing Damon's hair, clenches a handful of hair and pulls him backwards to look at his face.
“You have ruined my reflection time little… pretty… Damon. What punishment must I have for you? What torment befits the crime?”
Chapter 31
I sit back down and await the next series of whatever kind of other tests they are going to throw on me. The last few days have been productive for Dr. Bart and Christophe. They have a brand new phenomenon to study - what happens to the host when a summonling is removed.
I'm about sick of it. They've tested my healing rate, which was no fun, as that meant they had to harm me first. They've done different kinds of scans which tell them something, but nothing I can comprehend - except that the red strand of spirit that was Sil is no longer there.
I get that.
She did leave us with a mess. In addition to Mr. Patterson's corpse, she knocked Gunter clean out and broke his jaw. It was a sucker punch, so I've been told. Sheyliene was trying to get her back in the room, and apparently Sil used her as a distraction. Arix told me it looked like she was going to feed on Gunter and not in the nice way. It would have been more like that death coil spell that Arix had taught me. But Paetricius started glowing in what he called a “hurtful way” and it backed her off. Shey tried to help and also got laid low. Vets got herself harmed too, trying to stop her from leaving.
Arix didn't do at thing. He just watched her go. “My job was to ensure she wasn't harmed by the Paladin, remember?” he told me. Fucking demon word games. Asshole, he could have rooted her in place. He could have done something. What a dick.
Today's my last day here. Last day. Period. The family vacation in Orlando has been bought and paid for. We're all going to converge on the mouse and try to leave reality behind for a while. Silithes was really looking forward to it. Heck, she about planned it.
Maybe she'll find her way down there. I can hope. I’m worried sick about her.
“I think you should take your medicine twice a day Arthur,” says Christophe, breaking me from my ruminations. “We calculate your energy density is about 20% less with the departure of Madam Silithes, so best to be careful.
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