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Origin of Ego (Honkai Impact 3rd SI)
- Thread starter Snowfire
- Start date
- Mature
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
You're thinking of K423, the "Kiana" of the main games, who doesn't exactly exist in this story. She doesn't exactly not exist, either; she's still here, she just answers to the name of Sirin.
Kiana was born the normal way.
- Location
- West Michigan
The author messed with the timeline so that all the girls would be present (in one form or another).
Chapter 20
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
The flight wasn't a long one. Scotland, after all, was never far removed from Scandinavia – it's why there are so very many places on the former's coasts with names drawn from old dialects of the latter's languages. And AE's shuttles were far, far faster than the aircraft I'd known. Our destination this time was a particular fjord in Norway, where there'd apparently been a substantial buildup of Honkai Beasts over the last few months.
We'd have done something about it ourselves, but it'd been seen as wiser to not intrude into Schicksal's territories for a while after taking Shenzhou – and everything else – away from them. But now we had to. What had been done to Wendy couldn't have been consensual, and I owed it to the girl I'd forgotten to somehow see her safely home.
Who I'd been before might have found the air biting, but who I was now had walked through the heart of Siberia with no cold weather gear without shivering once. This was barely a challenge.
We'd landed on one of the sheer walls of the fjord, far enough from the nascent Honkai wave to not set it off. And once we'd unpacked, the shuttle had been sent away. It would be too obvious to someone with power over the air. Theresa, Hua and Cecilia had taken the other side of the jagged canyon, one that had retained a goodly amount of living forestry that would give the two close range fighters more ability to hide.
Welt and I had the rockier side, with only scraps of scrub and bowed trees battered flat by the winds. Not the best of positions if you were aiming to fight a Herrscher of Wind, but we had a considerable amount of side to play with. And Wendy or Otto, whichever was actually running the show, might have some issues handling shots coming at her from over a mile out.
Yes, I could make my arrows home. No, I didn't consider that cheating. And it wasn't as if I couldn't just jump the gap. I probably would before the end, too. In the event of a fight I expected to be needed to untangle Wendy's ego from Otto's controls – and the Will's influence.
But for the initial meeting, our goal was overwatch. Ensure that nothing interfered with Theresa and Wendy's conversation. And, for me, watch the girl herself to try and get a picture of where she was in her own head. Assuming she still was a resident at all. For all the tests we could run, that was still one big question mark.
So we went to work, setting up the active camouflage that the shuttle had carried for us. Fancy stuff, designed to counter our best guess of Wendy's sensory capacity. In the story I knew she'd been surprised by a slightly modified AE mecha under cloak, but I wasn't willing to risk that. This Wendy seemed far more powerful, and none of us wanted to take risks with that. We'd all prefer a peaceful resolution, and that meant giving Theresa the chance to talk to her pupil.
Cecilia and Hua had their own shelter that they erected within the trees close to the lip of the fjord. But being so much closer just increased the odds of discovery, hence Hua's presence. I felt the ancient woman laying down a few feathers around their hide, and hoped it would be enough. Meanwhile, I helped Welt set up the last of our observational gear – cameras, distance mics with the sort of performance people back home would've killed for, and a set of internal walls that could be reconfigured to turn the structure into a temporary firebase.
Not a massive one, given Welt and I would be the only weapons in it, but then… Welt. Operating well under maximum output, the man had fought Sirin to a draw. Now he had most of that capacity back, and in a way that wouldn't kill him to use it.
He spent a bit of time on several odd technological devices that I didn't recognise, but I trusted him to know what he was doing. In fact, he had to, didn't he. That was the basis of Reason's power. It made me wonder what the three hundred thousand thought of me, but surely it wouldn't be anything bad. I was just too cute to be seen poorly.
But once all of that was dealt with, all that was left to us was the waiting. Welt had taken us out here a day in advance of Wendy's expected arrival, in the hopes of hiding our presence from Schicksal's eyes before they moved. It made for a boring night, with equally boring food, but I persevered. And as the sun rose the next morning, I saw the first signs of possible success. A small group of boats rushing up the fjord, preceding a larger hovercraft in Schicksal colours.
"Looks like you called it right," I said to Welt. Neither of us exactly needed sleep, so we'd handled the watches. I tapped a key next to me and spoke into the mic.
"We've got company." My words were passed by a laser-comm to the shelter where Cecilia, Hua and Theresa had spent the night. It was a tiny extra to our covert setup, but one we'd all agreed was a good one. Anything else would be too easy to detect. For a moment there was silence, then Hua replied.
"We see it," she said steadily. I heard Theresa yawn in the background. "We're getting ready now."
"Understood. Remember, let Wendy wipe the horde first."
"We got it, Ely."
And then it was… back to waiting.
It was oddly anticlimactic. The hovercraft stopped a few hundred metres short of our position, the smaller boats holding a watchful corridor between it and the Honkai Beasts deeper in. I watched the deck through one of the scopes as various press and news cameras took up places in a traditional press conference circle, facing an elevated cabin. They milled around for a few minutes, then focused on the impromptu stage.
Then the door opened and Wendy stepped through. The girl wore the same battledress she'd had in Lisbon, white and black with green trim. Milky-white air formed the crest of Schicksal behind her, keeping pace with every step. And behind her came two figures that my brain told me I should recognise, but simply didn't.
One was a long-haired redhead, dressed in a black and red sweater-dress, thigh-highs and a jack so abbreviated it could give mine lessons in how to minimise footprint. Her yellow eyes watched the world past a fringe held to one side by a hairpin of the same colour, and her mouth was set in a manic grin. Her companion had blue hair, darker than Einstein's, pale skin, and clothing cut from the shades of her hair.
She was shorter than the redhead, and her clothes had a decidedly more military bent to them, apart from the near shoulder-length gloves in deep blue. The lighter jacket-robe over the quasi-military uniform was held up by a band of twisted white fabric held together by cutout butterflies. She had a larger, fully filled butterfly affixed to her hair with a pin.
Valkyries, no question. But who-
"Salome and Shub-Niggurath," Cecilia said across the comm, clearly aghast. I could almost see her lips twisting into an unhappy line. "They were…they were members of my squad, part of Schichsal. I know them, they were good girls, my friends. Maybe a little too fiery in one case and coldly pragmatic in the other, but smart. Solid A-class at minimum."
She didn't sound happy with the last two sentences, how it was closer to a threat assessment than a description, and I winced. I wouldn't have been happy either. Otto was one thing. Wendy was another. These girls…
"Should we abort?" Welt asked, moving to action faster than my thoughts. "I don't want to put you in a position where you might have to fight your friends, Cecilia. We'd never ask that of you. There's at least one more concentration within Europe, we can set up another intercept there."
I forced my attention back to Wendy whilst the silence dragged for a long few moments, watching her posture shift as she interacted with the press. I doubted any of the questions weren't pre-prepared, Otto was very good at what he did after all. But there was something about it, I just could quite-
"No," Cecilia replied, her voice resolute. "But I think we need to change it. I'll go to them while Theresa and Wendy talk. They deserve at least that much."
"Any objection?" Welt asked. Silence answered again. "Consider it changed then."
"Good luck," I added softly, to Cecilia. "I hope you don't need it."
"Thanks, Elysia," I said, stepping back from the comm with a sigh. Theresa was staring up at me with worried eyes, so I reached out, squeezing my all-but-sister on her shoulder. "It'll be okay, Teri. I know them."
"I thought I knew my grandfather," she replied stiffly. But it lacked any real weight - my friends weren't Schicksal's Overseer, and Theresa had always known that Otto had his own share of skeletons. And unmarked graves. ""Just be careful, please. "
"Of course." It was an easy promise to make when I had at least three compelling reasons for it to stick. I leant forward to swap views on the footage streaming to us from Elysia and Welt's hide and felt my lips twist unhappily again, looking at the two guards Otto had given his new weapon.
The last few months had been…it was hard to find the right words. Challenging doesn't seem enough to describe the shifts to my reality that I'd faced. And if someone had told me six months ago that I'd have fled Shicksal two months later, spirited away by a pink-haired elf of all things, they would've been reported to medical. But I was here now, and the world gave no slack to people who couldn't face it as it was.
So when I looked away from the images that I couldn't do anything about right now, as Wendy exchanged questions with the press, I did so only to check my gear. Any change in plan warranted that, but nothing about it meant I had to completely ignore what was in front of me.
I'd believed that restricting what I focused on within the world was a good thing, once. Then I'd met Siegfried, and he'd shown me everything that existed beyond the gilded towers of Schicksal. The experiences, tastes, sights, all the beauty denied to me that I'd never even realised was there. And then, instead of letting me go as I'd clearly told him to do, the person who'd given me all that had given up his own freedom to make sure I'd never forget.
Given all that, I wasn't sure I could do anything except go down to talk to two of my former squadmates. I'd no idea what Otto might have told them, Anti-Entropy's penetration of Schicksal didn't go nearly that far. But I owed them the truth and, if that couldn't make it through, a goodbye.
On the screens I saw the questions come to an end, but my gaze lingered on the display as Wendy stepped back. For a moment I saw something familiar in her smile, and the lazy, royal wave she gave in parting. But only for a moment, before winds gathered and launched her into the sky, Salome and Shub-Niggurath following in their own ways. Salome lifted herself on subtle, subtle manipulations of the planet's own electromagnetic field through the mono-edged blades of her weapon. Shub was, well, I couldn't help the small smile. She was simply herself, her hair turning her into a crimson blur as she darted up into the lightening sky.
Her method of simulating flight had actually served as a foundation for my own, though I'd taken full advantage of my superior reserves and control. Most of the energy manipulation used by my impetuous subordinate was dedicated to creating short-lived platforms that she used her monstrous strength to bounce from.
The trees around us whispered as Wendy shot up through the fjjord's centre. I could feel the power radiating out from her like a miniature star, just like Welt and Elysia. In only a few months Otto had created a weapon capable of challenging a Herrscher. All it had cost had been a young girl's soul. For me that would've been too much, but Otto's focus had always lain elsewhere, on a future only he could see. A future that he would give anything, and anyone, to make real.
Part of me wanted to just make it that simple, but it was difficult. Otto had taught me so much, and as part of that apprenticeship I'd come closer to him than anyone since Reanna. Maybe sacrificing Wendy to this pain had been as easy as sacrificing Sirin and all the rest for him. Sirin and Bella were absolutely victims, forced to slaughter their way out of a nightmare. And yet… and yet it didn't remove what they'd done.
I'd known some of the Valkyries that had been sent to Babylon after the alert sounded. They'd been colleagues, some of them friends, and they were gone now. The horrors Babylon's scientists had inflicted on a child had led to that moment, but Sirin had still been the instrument of those womens' execution.
Theresa shared some of my uncertainty, and in her case it wasn't lessened by the strength of a mother's need to protect her child. It hadn't been Elysia's warning, or Siegfried's words, that had decided me at Schicskal's headquarters. It had been Otto's drawing of Shamash, and his willingness to point it at my daughter.
I wondered sometimes if he could even understand that. Then I remembered something he'd told me before – of his willingness to sacrifice anything, even himself, to the task he'd dedicated half a millennia to completing. That knowledge had helped me recognise the inevitable reality that Otto wouldn't be able to leave us alone long before Elysia. Welt, I thought, had guessed, but Elysia had still hoped for something better.
And some part of her still did, somehow. For all the women's secrets, one thing she absolutely couldn't hide was the way she loved and believed so deeply. I wasn't sure she herself was truly aware of it, but she wanted Otto to be better than what she believed he'd become. The same way she wanted herself to be better than she was, and tried to drag the world along in her wake.
A howl of gathering winds tore me from those thoughts, and I checked the monitor to find what I'd expected. Wendy had risen up past the fjjord's razor-sharp points, and I watched in silent awe as the greenette called forth a tempest of lethal blades and pure force. Her movements were calm and utterly refined, again in a way that I found familiar. Otto's elegance, I reminded myself a moment later.
"Can you feel her in there, Miss Hua?" I asked quietly. Trying to hide the conversation from Theresa would have been an exercise in futility, but I could at least be polite. The ancient martial artist, who I knew was at least as old as Otto, grimaced through the soft glow that had centred itself on her hands.
"I can," she said, equally softly. "But there's something wrong in her perceptions." Her eyes snapped to Theresa. "I'm not sure if she'll be able to hear you, Lady Theresa."
"Then I'll just have to shout loud enough," Theresa said, in a voice of chipped steel. Your diminutive cousin had held a reserve of utter focus since finding out what had happened to her student. But you'd been there at night when she hissed and cried for the impossibility of helping immediately.
She wasn't going to stop now, not when she was so close.
"What about Shub-Niggauth and Salome?" I asked, unable to completely hide the fear in the question. Hua refocused for a moment.
"They're both fine," she said, past a sad, gentle smile. My confusion must have shown, as she shook her head. "Deceptions can be far more difficult to break than control, Lady Cecilia." Her eyes shimmered with old pain, scattered reflections of some ancient tragedy that cut her still. "Good luck."
The trees shook around us, the barest echo of Wendy's power unleashed against a horde of Honkai beasts clawing their way into the sky. A glance showed what I'd expected; not one of them had reached her. Then I looked away, back to two women who I hoped could still be my friends.
"Thank you." I reached out to half-hug Theresa, a gesture she allowed. "Luck to you, Teri."
"And you."
I stepped back and my battlesuit shimmered into being around me, overlaying my clothes and transforming them into armour that had defeated all the claws, blades and speartips that Honkai could bring against me. And yet it felt somehow fragile, untested for the challenge to come.
Abyss Flower sprang eagerly to my hand, ready to strike or defend, and I ducked out of the shelter around us, moving quickly but carefully. I walked for most of a minute, then leapt upwards, bouncing between tree branches until I was high enough to launch myself onto a glide path for two of Snow Wolf's veterans.
Their reactions were still excellent, I noted, as they turned in response to my breaching the treeline. The trainer and commander in me, still assessing years after I'd stepped back to care for my daughter. Salome swivelled in place, the readjusting blades of her Halo of Twelve making a frame that Shub's quick movements completed.
The redhead came to a stop with the jagged lance of Murmuring Carnage ready in her hand, resting on a platform of hardened air. That was new, I noted, like the lightning curling around Salome's Halo. Their reaction, though?
"Cecilia!/?" One questioned, the other exclaimed. Entirely as expected. I twirled Abyss Flower in my hands then jabbed it down into the air below my feet. Energy swelled through the Divine Key, and I came to a halt before two Valkyries I'd trained and led for years. Long enough to recognise a threat response, but also a certain hesitance in how they held themselves. Not knowing my status here really wasn't helping, but I'd make do.
"Hi Salome, Shub-Niggurath," I greeted them. I tried to smile, but only tried. This was difficult, and I wouldn't try to hide that.
"Cecilia," Salome said, hushing Shub as the redhead tried to burst into questions. "We did not expect you here. Did something in your assignment change?"
My… assignment? The thought only lasted a moment, until I realised what Otto must have done. I hoped Theresa was listening as I replied. "You could say that."
"Do we need to recall Tempest Angel?" the short bluette asked immediately, her eyes darting around the area, searching for possible threats. "The Overseer warned us that she's not to face unscheduled conflict for now, and-" I shook my head.
"Can we talk, just us girls?" I asked. Shub opened her mouth, a grin spreading across her face, but Salome stopped her again. Her dark eyes were heavy with concern and calculation, because I'd just asked something incredibly out of protocol.
It had been a code for Snow Wolf, to give us time in the field to unwind and share. No transmissions, no recording. Just us girls. Asking for it in the middle of an operation was decidedly unusual. I sighed. "Please, Salome? It's important."
"C'mon Sal, it's Cecilia," Shub called, ever boisterous. She reached up to her transmitter and touched a few keys. Salome hesitated for another moment, one that I took to disable my own microphones, then reached up and tapped a concealed button at the hollow of her throat.
"Alright," she said, not retracting her arm. "But I must insist that we report this to the Overseer as soon as possible."
And where was I even meant to start with that? Only one way to find out.
"What did the Overseer tell you about my assignment?" I asked. The two girls looked at each other.
"He said you'd be away from HQ for a while," Shub said. "Didn't care to tell us anything else, so we guessed it was something big. Had to be for Siegfried and Theresa to be sent out too. Told us to report any sighting though, why Sal's got her tights all twisted."
"Shub!" Salome admonished. She didn't smile, but that had never been her way. Her eyes were where you needed to watch. "But I suppose you're not wrong," she heaved a sigh. "Any sighting was to be reported to the Overseer on priority channels. Interaction was to be allowed, but…" she trailed off.
"I understand," it made sense why Otto had kept the two together. Not just for their combat potential, but for how they balanced each other's worst traits. I'd put them in a difficult position, and only years of trust had gotten them to ignore it for now. But it wouldn't last without something more concrete.
"It's about Wendy," I said, extending my free hand to point at where the young quasi-Herrscher was, I assumed, still ripping through Honkai beasts. "I'm going to guess he didn't tell you much about her, either."
The two shook their heads.
"Typical," I muttered, though in this case it could actually help. "Theresa needs to talk to her, and I need you to let her do so." No lies still, but it didn't help the uneasy feeling in my gut.
"She's fine to finish dealing with the Honkai here," I added quickly, before either of them could do anything. "But after that she needs to stop before going back to the ship."
"Theresa's here?" Shub asked, eyes a little wide.
I nodded.
"But…what about the Overseer?" Salome asked. At that, I actually found the ability to smile.
"I have no doubt that the Overseer will know about it. Any frustration he has on the matter he can take up with me." I meant that, too. It made the two relax a little, though I wish it hadn't. My reasons for wanting to settle with the Overseer were very different to the ones they'd assume.
For the most part, I just wanted to keep the two out of the line of fire. Keep them safe, from whatever happened when Wendy and Theresa-
"Ah, Tempest Angel's done," Salome said, much more brightly. "I can go tell her to meet Theresa-"
"She's here," I said, and fought to hide a wince as the words came too quickly. This really wasn't what I was good at. I'd been taught to be charming, to shape the truth into something that could inspire. But never to lie. "We chose the assignment together."
They looked at each other, or more precisely Shub looked at Salome, expectant. Making it her choice, the poor woman. Despite her competence, she'd never believed herself capable of effective leadership and here she was now, forced to act the part.
Still, credit to her, she took her time before nodding slowly. Shub, on the other hand, wasted none of it. The redhead leapt forward towards me, landing much closer with that grin of hers on her face.
"So… what can you tell us, Cece?"
Oh dear…
We'd have done something about it ourselves, but it'd been seen as wiser to not intrude into Schicksal's territories for a while after taking Shenzhou – and everything else – away from them. But now we had to. What had been done to Wendy couldn't have been consensual, and I owed it to the girl I'd forgotten to somehow see her safely home.
Who I'd been before might have found the air biting, but who I was now had walked through the heart of Siberia with no cold weather gear without shivering once. This was barely a challenge.
We'd landed on one of the sheer walls of the fjord, far enough from the nascent Honkai wave to not set it off. And once we'd unpacked, the shuttle had been sent away. It would be too obvious to someone with power over the air. Theresa, Hua and Cecilia had taken the other side of the jagged canyon, one that had retained a goodly amount of living forestry that would give the two close range fighters more ability to hide.
Welt and I had the rockier side, with only scraps of scrub and bowed trees battered flat by the winds. Not the best of positions if you were aiming to fight a Herrscher of Wind, but we had a considerable amount of side to play with. And Wendy or Otto, whichever was actually running the show, might have some issues handling shots coming at her from over a mile out.
Yes, I could make my arrows home. No, I didn't consider that cheating. And it wasn't as if I couldn't just jump the gap. I probably would before the end, too. In the event of a fight I expected to be needed to untangle Wendy's ego from Otto's controls – and the Will's influence.
But for the initial meeting, our goal was overwatch. Ensure that nothing interfered with Theresa and Wendy's conversation. And, for me, watch the girl herself to try and get a picture of where she was in her own head. Assuming she still was a resident at all. For all the tests we could run, that was still one big question mark.
So we went to work, setting up the active camouflage that the shuttle had carried for us. Fancy stuff, designed to counter our best guess of Wendy's sensory capacity. In the story I knew she'd been surprised by a slightly modified AE mecha under cloak, but I wasn't willing to risk that. This Wendy seemed far more powerful, and none of us wanted to take risks with that. We'd all prefer a peaceful resolution, and that meant giving Theresa the chance to talk to her pupil.
Cecilia and Hua had their own shelter that they erected within the trees close to the lip of the fjord. But being so much closer just increased the odds of discovery, hence Hua's presence. I felt the ancient woman laying down a few feathers around their hide, and hoped it would be enough. Meanwhile, I helped Welt set up the last of our observational gear – cameras, distance mics with the sort of performance people back home would've killed for, and a set of internal walls that could be reconfigured to turn the structure into a temporary firebase.
Not a massive one, given Welt and I would be the only weapons in it, but then… Welt. Operating well under maximum output, the man had fought Sirin to a draw. Now he had most of that capacity back, and in a way that wouldn't kill him to use it.
He spent a bit of time on several odd technological devices that I didn't recognise, but I trusted him to know what he was doing. In fact, he had to, didn't he. That was the basis of Reason's power. It made me wonder what the three hundred thousand thought of me, but surely it wouldn't be anything bad. I was just too cute to be seen poorly.
But once all of that was dealt with, all that was left to us was the waiting. Welt had taken us out here a day in advance of Wendy's expected arrival, in the hopes of hiding our presence from Schicksal's eyes before they moved. It made for a boring night, with equally boring food, but I persevered. And as the sun rose the next morning, I saw the first signs of possible success. A small group of boats rushing up the fjord, preceding a larger hovercraft in Schicksal colours.
"Looks like you called it right," I said to Welt. Neither of us exactly needed sleep, so we'd handled the watches. I tapped a key next to me and spoke into the mic.
"We've got company." My words were passed by a laser-comm to the shelter where Cecilia, Hua and Theresa had spent the night. It was a tiny extra to our covert setup, but one we'd all agreed was a good one. Anything else would be too easy to detect. For a moment there was silence, then Hua replied.
"We see it," she said steadily. I heard Theresa yawn in the background. "We're getting ready now."
"Understood. Remember, let Wendy wipe the horde first."
"We got it, Ely."
And then it was… back to waiting.
It was oddly anticlimactic. The hovercraft stopped a few hundred metres short of our position, the smaller boats holding a watchful corridor between it and the Honkai Beasts deeper in. I watched the deck through one of the scopes as various press and news cameras took up places in a traditional press conference circle, facing an elevated cabin. They milled around for a few minutes, then focused on the impromptu stage.
Then the door opened and Wendy stepped through. The girl wore the same battledress she'd had in Lisbon, white and black with green trim. Milky-white air formed the crest of Schicksal behind her, keeping pace with every step. And behind her came two figures that my brain told me I should recognise, but simply didn't.
One was a long-haired redhead, dressed in a black and red sweater-dress, thigh-highs and a jack so abbreviated it could give mine lessons in how to minimise footprint. Her yellow eyes watched the world past a fringe held to one side by a hairpin of the same colour, and her mouth was set in a manic grin. Her companion had blue hair, darker than Einstein's, pale skin, and clothing cut from the shades of her hair.
She was shorter than the redhead, and her clothes had a decidedly more military bent to them, apart from the near shoulder-length gloves in deep blue. The lighter jacket-robe over the quasi-military uniform was held up by a band of twisted white fabric held together by cutout butterflies. She had a larger, fully filled butterfly affixed to her hair with a pin.
Valkyries, no question. But who-
"Salome and Shub-Niggurath," Cecilia said across the comm, clearly aghast. I could almost see her lips twisting into an unhappy line. "They were…they were members of my squad, part of Schichsal. I know them, they were good girls, my friends. Maybe a little too fiery in one case and coldly pragmatic in the other, but smart. Solid A-class at minimum."
She didn't sound happy with the last two sentences, how it was closer to a threat assessment than a description, and I winced. I wouldn't have been happy either. Otto was one thing. Wendy was another. These girls…
"Should we abort?" Welt asked, moving to action faster than my thoughts. "I don't want to put you in a position where you might have to fight your friends, Cecilia. We'd never ask that of you. There's at least one more concentration within Europe, we can set up another intercept there."
I forced my attention back to Wendy whilst the silence dragged for a long few moments, watching her posture shift as she interacted with the press. I doubted any of the questions weren't pre-prepared, Otto was very good at what he did after all. But there was something about it, I just could quite-
"No," Cecilia replied, her voice resolute. "But I think we need to change it. I'll go to them while Theresa and Wendy talk. They deserve at least that much."
"Any objection?" Welt asked. Silence answered again. "Consider it changed then."
"Good luck," I added softly, to Cecilia. "I hope you don't need it."
"Thanks, Elysia," I said, stepping back from the comm with a sigh. Theresa was staring up at me with worried eyes, so I reached out, squeezing my all-but-sister on her shoulder. "It'll be okay, Teri. I know them."
"I thought I knew my grandfather," she replied stiffly. But it lacked any real weight - my friends weren't Schicksal's Overseer, and Theresa had always known that Otto had his own share of skeletons. And unmarked graves. ""Just be careful, please. "
"Of course." It was an easy promise to make when I had at least three compelling reasons for it to stick. I leant forward to swap views on the footage streaming to us from Elysia and Welt's hide and felt my lips twist unhappily again, looking at the two guards Otto had given his new weapon.
The last few months had been…it was hard to find the right words. Challenging doesn't seem enough to describe the shifts to my reality that I'd faced. And if someone had told me six months ago that I'd have fled Shicksal two months later, spirited away by a pink-haired elf of all things, they would've been reported to medical. But I was here now, and the world gave no slack to people who couldn't face it as it was.
So when I looked away from the images that I couldn't do anything about right now, as Wendy exchanged questions with the press, I did so only to check my gear. Any change in plan warranted that, but nothing about it meant I had to completely ignore what was in front of me.
I'd believed that restricting what I focused on within the world was a good thing, once. Then I'd met Siegfried, and he'd shown me everything that existed beyond the gilded towers of Schicksal. The experiences, tastes, sights, all the beauty denied to me that I'd never even realised was there. And then, instead of letting me go as I'd clearly told him to do, the person who'd given me all that had given up his own freedom to make sure I'd never forget.
Given all that, I wasn't sure I could do anything except go down to talk to two of my former squadmates. I'd no idea what Otto might have told them, Anti-Entropy's penetration of Schicksal didn't go nearly that far. But I owed them the truth and, if that couldn't make it through, a goodbye.
On the screens I saw the questions come to an end, but my gaze lingered on the display as Wendy stepped back. For a moment I saw something familiar in her smile, and the lazy, royal wave she gave in parting. But only for a moment, before winds gathered and launched her into the sky, Salome and Shub-Niggurath following in their own ways. Salome lifted herself on subtle, subtle manipulations of the planet's own electromagnetic field through the mono-edged blades of her weapon. Shub was, well, I couldn't help the small smile. She was simply herself, her hair turning her into a crimson blur as she darted up into the lightening sky.
Her method of simulating flight had actually served as a foundation for my own, though I'd taken full advantage of my superior reserves and control. Most of the energy manipulation used by my impetuous subordinate was dedicated to creating short-lived platforms that she used her monstrous strength to bounce from.
The trees around us whispered as Wendy shot up through the fjjord's centre. I could feel the power radiating out from her like a miniature star, just like Welt and Elysia. In only a few months Otto had created a weapon capable of challenging a Herrscher. All it had cost had been a young girl's soul. For me that would've been too much, but Otto's focus had always lain elsewhere, on a future only he could see. A future that he would give anything, and anyone, to make real.
Part of me wanted to just make it that simple, but it was difficult. Otto had taught me so much, and as part of that apprenticeship I'd come closer to him than anyone since Reanna. Maybe sacrificing Wendy to this pain had been as easy as sacrificing Sirin and all the rest for him. Sirin and Bella were absolutely victims, forced to slaughter their way out of a nightmare. And yet… and yet it didn't remove what they'd done.
I'd known some of the Valkyries that had been sent to Babylon after the alert sounded. They'd been colleagues, some of them friends, and they were gone now. The horrors Babylon's scientists had inflicted on a child had led to that moment, but Sirin had still been the instrument of those womens' execution.
Theresa shared some of my uncertainty, and in her case it wasn't lessened by the strength of a mother's need to protect her child. It hadn't been Elysia's warning, or Siegfried's words, that had decided me at Schicskal's headquarters. It had been Otto's drawing of Shamash, and his willingness to point it at my daughter.
I wondered sometimes if he could even understand that. Then I remembered something he'd told me before – of his willingness to sacrifice anything, even himself, to the task he'd dedicated half a millennia to completing. That knowledge had helped me recognise the inevitable reality that Otto wouldn't be able to leave us alone long before Elysia. Welt, I thought, had guessed, but Elysia had still hoped for something better.
And some part of her still did, somehow. For all the women's secrets, one thing she absolutely couldn't hide was the way she loved and believed so deeply. I wasn't sure she herself was truly aware of it, but she wanted Otto to be better than what she believed he'd become. The same way she wanted herself to be better than she was, and tried to drag the world along in her wake.
A howl of gathering winds tore me from those thoughts, and I checked the monitor to find what I'd expected. Wendy had risen up past the fjjord's razor-sharp points, and I watched in silent awe as the greenette called forth a tempest of lethal blades and pure force. Her movements were calm and utterly refined, again in a way that I found familiar. Otto's elegance, I reminded myself a moment later.
"Can you feel her in there, Miss Hua?" I asked quietly. Trying to hide the conversation from Theresa would have been an exercise in futility, but I could at least be polite. The ancient martial artist, who I knew was at least as old as Otto, grimaced through the soft glow that had centred itself on her hands.
"I can," she said, equally softly. "But there's something wrong in her perceptions." Her eyes snapped to Theresa. "I'm not sure if she'll be able to hear you, Lady Theresa."
"Then I'll just have to shout loud enough," Theresa said, in a voice of chipped steel. Your diminutive cousin had held a reserve of utter focus since finding out what had happened to her student. But you'd been there at night when she hissed and cried for the impossibility of helping immediately.
She wasn't going to stop now, not when she was so close.
"What about Shub-Niggauth and Salome?" I asked, unable to completely hide the fear in the question. Hua refocused for a moment.
"They're both fine," she said, past a sad, gentle smile. My confusion must have shown, as she shook her head. "Deceptions can be far more difficult to break than control, Lady Cecilia." Her eyes shimmered with old pain, scattered reflections of some ancient tragedy that cut her still. "Good luck."
The trees shook around us, the barest echo of Wendy's power unleashed against a horde of Honkai beasts clawing their way into the sky. A glance showed what I'd expected; not one of them had reached her. Then I looked away, back to two women who I hoped could still be my friends.
"Thank you." I reached out to half-hug Theresa, a gesture she allowed. "Luck to you, Teri."
"And you."
I stepped back and my battlesuit shimmered into being around me, overlaying my clothes and transforming them into armour that had defeated all the claws, blades and speartips that Honkai could bring against me. And yet it felt somehow fragile, untested for the challenge to come.
Abyss Flower sprang eagerly to my hand, ready to strike or defend, and I ducked out of the shelter around us, moving quickly but carefully. I walked for most of a minute, then leapt upwards, bouncing between tree branches until I was high enough to launch myself onto a glide path for two of Snow Wolf's veterans.
Their reactions were still excellent, I noted, as they turned in response to my breaching the treeline. The trainer and commander in me, still assessing years after I'd stepped back to care for my daughter. Salome swivelled in place, the readjusting blades of her Halo of Twelve making a frame that Shub's quick movements completed.
The redhead came to a stop with the jagged lance of Murmuring Carnage ready in her hand, resting on a platform of hardened air. That was new, I noted, like the lightning curling around Salome's Halo. Their reaction, though?
"Cecilia!/?" One questioned, the other exclaimed. Entirely as expected. I twirled Abyss Flower in my hands then jabbed it down into the air below my feet. Energy swelled through the Divine Key, and I came to a halt before two Valkyries I'd trained and led for years. Long enough to recognise a threat response, but also a certain hesitance in how they held themselves. Not knowing my status here really wasn't helping, but I'd make do.
"Hi Salome, Shub-Niggurath," I greeted them. I tried to smile, but only tried. This was difficult, and I wouldn't try to hide that.
"Cecilia," Salome said, hushing Shub as the redhead tried to burst into questions. "We did not expect you here. Did something in your assignment change?"
My… assignment? The thought only lasted a moment, until I realised what Otto must have done. I hoped Theresa was listening as I replied. "You could say that."
"Do we need to recall Tempest Angel?" the short bluette asked immediately, her eyes darting around the area, searching for possible threats. "The Overseer warned us that she's not to face unscheduled conflict for now, and-" I shook my head.
"Can we talk, just us girls?" I asked. Shub opened her mouth, a grin spreading across her face, but Salome stopped her again. Her dark eyes were heavy with concern and calculation, because I'd just asked something incredibly out of protocol.
It had been a code for Snow Wolf, to give us time in the field to unwind and share. No transmissions, no recording. Just us girls. Asking for it in the middle of an operation was decidedly unusual. I sighed. "Please, Salome? It's important."
"C'mon Sal, it's Cecilia," Shub called, ever boisterous. She reached up to her transmitter and touched a few keys. Salome hesitated for another moment, one that I took to disable my own microphones, then reached up and tapped a concealed button at the hollow of her throat.
"Alright," she said, not retracting her arm. "But I must insist that we report this to the Overseer as soon as possible."
And where was I even meant to start with that? Only one way to find out.
"What did the Overseer tell you about my assignment?" I asked. The two girls looked at each other.
"He said you'd be away from HQ for a while," Shub said. "Didn't care to tell us anything else, so we guessed it was something big. Had to be for Siegfried and Theresa to be sent out too. Told us to report any sighting though, why Sal's got her tights all twisted."
"Shub!" Salome admonished. She didn't smile, but that had never been her way. Her eyes were where you needed to watch. "But I suppose you're not wrong," she heaved a sigh. "Any sighting was to be reported to the Overseer on priority channels. Interaction was to be allowed, but…" she trailed off.
"I understand," it made sense why Otto had kept the two together. Not just for their combat potential, but for how they balanced each other's worst traits. I'd put them in a difficult position, and only years of trust had gotten them to ignore it for now. But it wouldn't last without something more concrete.
"It's about Wendy," I said, extending my free hand to point at where the young quasi-Herrscher was, I assumed, still ripping through Honkai beasts. "I'm going to guess he didn't tell you much about her, either."
The two shook their heads.
"Typical," I muttered, though in this case it could actually help. "Theresa needs to talk to her, and I need you to let her do so." No lies still, but it didn't help the uneasy feeling in my gut.
"She's fine to finish dealing with the Honkai here," I added quickly, before either of them could do anything. "But after that she needs to stop before going back to the ship."
"Theresa's here?" Shub asked, eyes a little wide.
I nodded.
"But…what about the Overseer?" Salome asked. At that, I actually found the ability to smile.
"I have no doubt that the Overseer will know about it. Any frustration he has on the matter he can take up with me." I meant that, too. It made the two relax a little, though I wish it hadn't. My reasons for wanting to settle with the Overseer were very different to the ones they'd assume.
For the most part, I just wanted to keep the two out of the line of fire. Keep them safe, from whatever happened when Wendy and Theresa-
"Ah, Tempest Angel's done," Salome said, much more brightly. "I can go tell her to meet Theresa-"
"She's here," I said, and fought to hide a wince as the words came too quickly. This really wasn't what I was good at. I'd been taught to be charming, to shape the truth into something that could inspire. But never to lie. "We chose the assignment together."
They looked at each other, or more precisely Shub looked at Salome, expectant. Making it her choice, the poor woman. Despite her competence, she'd never believed herself capable of effective leadership and here she was now, forced to act the part.
Still, credit to her, she took her time before nodding slowly. Shub, on the other hand, wasted none of it. The redhead leapt forward towards me, landing much closer with that grin of hers on her face.
"So… what can you tell us, Cece?"
Oh dear…
"Well, Otto threw a nuke at me and my family.
Didn't work.
Then he was liberated of a divine key he kept hidden for himself.
Then he turned Wendy into an incomplete Herrscher and sent her on a likely suicide mission, planning to kill me again.
Did I mention he's been trying to kill me?"
Interlude - Theresa
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
It's hard to explain what it's like to know that you were made, not born. As a state of being, it was one that Theresa Apocalypse had often found herself considering from time to time across almost thirty years of life. There'd been a time, once, when she'd not have given that much thought. She'd been given respect and a life, all for refusing to become a murderer, and from there… found a family.
That last one had been unexpected, and she wondered sometimes exactly how much it had changed her from what her grandfather had wanted her to become. He'd wanted to protect her from battle at first, but then it had become something else, and she was still trying to put it together. Here and now, though, the task was simple. Wendy had been a wonderful, bright girl, a student that she'd seen so much potential in for the future. And now she was… The diminutive nun stared down the windswept fjord, and more than human eyes examined her once-mentee.
Otto hadn't held back with the imagery, but he'd always been good at turning people into the image of a hero. White, gold and green had been wrapped around the child's form, turning her from barely a teenager into a vision of youthful grace and uncommon serenity. It was there in her clothes, topped off by a set of golden 'wings' that formed the crest of Schicksal on her back, and in her movements, though much of that was her grandfather's work.
Everything until that point, she could have accepted. He'd done similar things to her in her creation, and Wendy would have…she'd have to have volunteered, right? A small part of her pointed out how utterly unlikely an indoctrinated child would refuse the honour of the Overseer's personal attention, but it was hard to hear.
The world needed Schicksal, she still believed that. She loved her grandfather, she still believed that too. There'd always been darkness behind the ancient man's burning passion to overcome every challenge he faced, but she'd loved him in spite of it. The brightest lights cast the most terrible shadows, after all. Yet in replicating what he'd done to Reanna on a child, Otto had visibly crossed a line that she wasn't sure she could accept. Her time with Cecilia and her family in Elysium had never been certain to be forever, there'd always been something niggling, drawing her back.
Part of her still felt that the idea was too perfect, doomed to fail for how it refused to accept reality for what it was, and tried to drag the world into becoming somehow better than it was. And yet.
And yet.
She shook her head as Wendy swept up from her obliteration of the Honkai horde that had taken root here. No time anymore. Would he be able to forgive her for this, she wondered. Would she want him to? Questions for later.
She saw Wendy's eyes, once so bright, widen in shock as she saw her. The beginnings of a smile followed, blooming across her face like the tremulous petals of a delicate flower, but only the beginnings. The petals were crushed and withered away moments later, though something of them remained in Wendy's eyes as she altered course. She landed a few short steps away, at the edge of the barren peak.
"Hey, Windy." She tried to be casual, she really did. But the old nickname, the name that had only been for them, a joke from their first proper meeting, felt hollow somehow as she spoke it. Still, she tried to rally. "I suppose it's a little more literal now, ne?"
"It's… yes." Wendy nodded, her eyes trying to smile. Difficult through all the pain she must be in. "I suppose it is, Teri."
"I'm sorry I've been away." She really, really was. Though not perhaps for the same reasons Wendy would expect. "But I wanted – needed to talk to you. Make sure that everything's alright. That you're okay."
Something flickered across the girl's expression for a moment, her eyes slanting away as it happened. Sparks of green and gold swirled in her eyes, and for a moment Theresa held her breath. It had been a stupid thing to say, but what else could she do? Her only chance was knowing Wendy, she wasn't the gentle presence that Cecilia was.
"I've missed you," Wendy said at last. "Everyone else sent cards. Why didn't you?"
"I couldn't," Theresa said quickly. "I wish I could've, Wendy. I do. I wish I could've been there for you in person, not just with a card. And through everything."
"Why… why weren't you?" Wendy's voice was terribly fragile. "The Overseer, he said you were on a mission, something important. But I don't understand, you've always been able to make time for me before."
"I didn't know that he was intending to go ahead with the procedures so quickly." Teri knew how that would sound, but it had the virtue of being the truth at least. She hadn't known. She hadn't even known that procedures like this were even possible until recently.
"And if I had, I'd have demanded to come back sooner. But by the time I found out, I…" she shook her head. "The assignment I had wasn't something I could just drop. I had to make sure that I could leave, without putting anyone in danger."
"It was dangerous, then?" Wendy asked, her lips a moue of concern. "I thought the Overseer didn't like you going on missions like that."
"He doesn't," Theresa agreed. "But there wasn't a choice in this case. I came as soon as I could after seeing you in Lisbon."
"Were you proud of me?"
"Stars, yes, Wendy," Theresa nodded enthusiastically, her white hair bobbing. "So proud of you for the lives you saved. Everything you saved. You were amazing."
"You mean that?" Wendy asked, stuttering a little. "You were proud? Really?"
Something flickered in her eyes again, but was lost as a few lonely spits of rain splashed down just above Theresa's eyebrows. She wiped them away, though it was odd, there hadn't been a forecast for rain today.
"Of cour-"
"Then why weren't you there?" Teri grimaced as the demand she'd been worried about landed. "Did it have something to do with that new threat we've been hearing about, in the British Isles? A new Anti-Entropy base."
"He told you about that?" Theresa asked in surprise. No, of course he would, in case Wendy had to deal with any of the people her grandfather would admit were staying there. "It… well yes. It did. And-"
"I can see how that would be dangerous," Wendy said carefully. And that was wrong. Wendy had never talked to her like that. And in a horrified flash of insight she realised. Otto had been able to listen and see through Reanna, and control her if necessary, though that had been the limit of her enhancements. They'd know that he'd likely refined the techniques since, but what if… What if he'd found a way to talk to her, without anyone knowing.
Which would mean… she felt her blood freeze.
"And now that you're done, you come back to find me again," Wendy continued, in the same tone. Something in the clouds above rumbled. "Now that you can, of course."
"Wendy, I-"
"I'm not an idiot, Sensei," something crumpled in the girl's voice as she spoke. "You… you needed to do something else. Something that wasn't with me. Was I… was I that bad? That you wouldn't even say goodbye?"
"No. It wasn't like that."
"But now that I'm more important, you come back from spying on that elf? Now that-"
"That's enough." Theresa stepped forward as she spoke, and Judah hissed around her wrist, coiling golden chains ready to lash out. "Wendy, this isn't you. You aren't-"
"This powerful? This able to protect the world?" More spits of rain came down, making tears impossible to prove. But she stepped back from Theresa's advance, maintaining the same level even as her foot landed on empty air. The smaller woman's heart sank.
"I'm sorry," she said, stepping back to resting. Something in her soul screamed for what she was about to do, but she forced it back under the weight of resolution. She couldn't win this, not when her grandfather was rigging the game. Which only left only one option, but oh it was going to hurt.
"I'm so sorry, Wendy. But it'll be alright now." She snapped forward, calling out to Cecilia, Judah uncoiling, unleashing golden chains that shot in blinding spirals towards the wounded and lonely girl in front of her.
The air howled. A personal tempest tore into being around her old student and Judah's chains went spinning away from her, unable to penetrate. Wendy shook at the centre of it, colour rising in her cheeks even as the chains reoriented, began a second run, all in moments. It had been a rigged game from the start, but maybe they could still-
"Yes," Wendy whispered, directly in her ear. "It will be."
There was a fury in the girl's voice that could've shredded steel. Maybe that was what made Theresa look up, just in time to see something in the girl's eyes change. In time to see crackling amethyst sear the gold from her eyes, and arcs of blue-white energy curling from the girl's skin, boiling away rain as they reached into the clouds above.
In time to feel the atmosphere of the world change around her, in a way she'd only ever felt once before. And to try, futile as it proved, to call Judah back to her to form a shield.
Rose light exploded from the other side of the narrow fjord, but Elysia was entirely too late this time. Blinding white seared the sky, ripping away Theresa's vision and her hearing went with it.
Banished in the roar of ear-splitting thunders.
That last one had been unexpected, and she wondered sometimes exactly how much it had changed her from what her grandfather had wanted her to become. He'd wanted to protect her from battle at first, but then it had become something else, and she was still trying to put it together. Here and now, though, the task was simple. Wendy had been a wonderful, bright girl, a student that she'd seen so much potential in for the future. And now she was… The diminutive nun stared down the windswept fjord, and more than human eyes examined her once-mentee.
Otto hadn't held back with the imagery, but he'd always been good at turning people into the image of a hero. White, gold and green had been wrapped around the child's form, turning her from barely a teenager into a vision of youthful grace and uncommon serenity. It was there in her clothes, topped off by a set of golden 'wings' that formed the crest of Schicksal on her back, and in her movements, though much of that was her grandfather's work.
Everything until that point, she could have accepted. He'd done similar things to her in her creation, and Wendy would have…she'd have to have volunteered, right? A small part of her pointed out how utterly unlikely an indoctrinated child would refuse the honour of the Overseer's personal attention, but it was hard to hear.
The world needed Schicksal, she still believed that. She loved her grandfather, she still believed that too. There'd always been darkness behind the ancient man's burning passion to overcome every challenge he faced, but she'd loved him in spite of it. The brightest lights cast the most terrible shadows, after all. Yet in replicating what he'd done to Reanna on a child, Otto had visibly crossed a line that she wasn't sure she could accept. Her time with Cecilia and her family in Elysium had never been certain to be forever, there'd always been something niggling, drawing her back.
Part of her still felt that the idea was too perfect, doomed to fail for how it refused to accept reality for what it was, and tried to drag the world into becoming somehow better than it was. And yet.
And yet.
She shook her head as Wendy swept up from her obliteration of the Honkai horde that had taken root here. No time anymore. Would he be able to forgive her for this, she wondered. Would she want him to? Questions for later.
She saw Wendy's eyes, once so bright, widen in shock as she saw her. The beginnings of a smile followed, blooming across her face like the tremulous petals of a delicate flower, but only the beginnings. The petals were crushed and withered away moments later, though something of them remained in Wendy's eyes as she altered course. She landed a few short steps away, at the edge of the barren peak.
"Hey, Windy." She tried to be casual, she really did. But the old nickname, the name that had only been for them, a joke from their first proper meeting, felt hollow somehow as she spoke it. Still, she tried to rally. "I suppose it's a little more literal now, ne?"
"It's… yes." Wendy nodded, her eyes trying to smile. Difficult through all the pain she must be in. "I suppose it is, Teri."
"I'm sorry I've been away." She really, really was. Though not perhaps for the same reasons Wendy would expect. "But I wanted – needed to talk to you. Make sure that everything's alright. That you're okay."
Something flickered across the girl's expression for a moment, her eyes slanting away as it happened. Sparks of green and gold swirled in her eyes, and for a moment Theresa held her breath. It had been a stupid thing to say, but what else could she do? Her only chance was knowing Wendy, she wasn't the gentle presence that Cecilia was.
"I've missed you," Wendy said at last. "Everyone else sent cards. Why didn't you?"
"I couldn't," Theresa said quickly. "I wish I could've, Wendy. I do. I wish I could've been there for you in person, not just with a card. And through everything."
"Why… why weren't you?" Wendy's voice was terribly fragile. "The Overseer, he said you were on a mission, something important. But I don't understand, you've always been able to make time for me before."
"I didn't know that he was intending to go ahead with the procedures so quickly." Teri knew how that would sound, but it had the virtue of being the truth at least. She hadn't known. She hadn't even known that procedures like this were even possible until recently.
"And if I had, I'd have demanded to come back sooner. But by the time I found out, I…" she shook her head. "The assignment I had wasn't something I could just drop. I had to make sure that I could leave, without putting anyone in danger."
"It was dangerous, then?" Wendy asked, her lips a moue of concern. "I thought the Overseer didn't like you going on missions like that."
"He doesn't," Theresa agreed. "But there wasn't a choice in this case. I came as soon as I could after seeing you in Lisbon."
"Were you proud of me?"
"Stars, yes, Wendy," Theresa nodded enthusiastically, her white hair bobbing. "So proud of you for the lives you saved. Everything you saved. You were amazing."
"You mean that?" Wendy asked, stuttering a little. "You were proud? Really?"
Something flickered in her eyes again, but was lost as a few lonely spits of rain splashed down just above Theresa's eyebrows. She wiped them away, though it was odd, there hadn't been a forecast for rain today.
"Of cour-"
"Then why weren't you there?" Teri grimaced as the demand she'd been worried about landed. "Did it have something to do with that new threat we've been hearing about, in the British Isles? A new Anti-Entropy base."
"He told you about that?" Theresa asked in surprise. No, of course he would, in case Wendy had to deal with any of the people her grandfather would admit were staying there. "It… well yes. It did. And-"
"I can see how that would be dangerous," Wendy said carefully. And that was wrong. Wendy had never talked to her like that. And in a horrified flash of insight she realised. Otto had been able to listen and see through Reanna, and control her if necessary, though that had been the limit of her enhancements. They'd know that he'd likely refined the techniques since, but what if… What if he'd found a way to talk to her, without anyone knowing.
Which would mean… she felt her blood freeze.
"And now that you're done, you come back to find me again," Wendy continued, in the same tone. Something in the clouds above rumbled. "Now that you can, of course."
"Wendy, I-"
"I'm not an idiot, Sensei," something crumpled in the girl's voice as she spoke. "You… you needed to do something else. Something that wasn't with me. Was I… was I that bad? That you wouldn't even say goodbye?"
"No. It wasn't like that."
"But now that I'm more important, you come back from spying on that elf? Now that-"
"That's enough." Theresa stepped forward as she spoke, and Judah hissed around her wrist, coiling golden chains ready to lash out. "Wendy, this isn't you. You aren't-"
"This powerful? This able to protect the world?" More spits of rain came down, making tears impossible to prove. But she stepped back from Theresa's advance, maintaining the same level even as her foot landed on empty air. The smaller woman's heart sank.
"I'm sorry," she said, stepping back to resting. Something in her soul screamed for what she was about to do, but she forced it back under the weight of resolution. She couldn't win this, not when her grandfather was rigging the game. Which only left only one option, but oh it was going to hurt.
"I'm so sorry, Wendy. But it'll be alright now." She snapped forward, calling out to Cecilia, Judah uncoiling, unleashing golden chains that shot in blinding spirals towards the wounded and lonely girl in front of her.
The air howled. A personal tempest tore into being around her old student and Judah's chains went spinning away from her, unable to penetrate. Wendy shook at the centre of it, colour rising in her cheeks even as the chains reoriented, began a second run, all in moments. It had been a rigged game from the start, but maybe they could still-
"Yes," Wendy whispered, directly in her ear. "It will be."
There was a fury in the girl's voice that could've shredded steel. Maybe that was what made Theresa look up, just in time to see something in the girl's eyes change. In time to see crackling amethyst sear the gold from her eyes, and arcs of blue-white energy curling from the girl's skin, boiling away rain as they reached into the clouds above.
In time to feel the atmosphere of the world change around her, in a way she'd only ever felt once before. And to try, futile as it proved, to call Judah back to her to form a shield.
Rose light exploded from the other side of the narrow fjord, but Elysia was entirely too late this time. Blinding white seared the sky, ripping away Theresa's vision and her hearing went with it.
Banished in the roar of ear-splitting thunders.
I collided against the cliff at speed of a CAT4 hurricane.
Interlude - Wendy
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
Onto the beaches of Lisbon they came to destroy. And on the beaches of Lisbon they died, to a girl wielding power that had only seen a match in this era thrice. Wendy Barbatos hung above the city, untouchable to the Honkai's assault and when her hands moved, the winds gathered to strike her enemies from the world. That was what the people of that city saw, an angel of the tempest, unleashed in their hour of greatest need. But what of the girl herself?
Honkai energy far beyond the limits of normal human control scorched across her nerves, layers of Soulium enhancements the only thing holding back a short-lived career as a human candlewick. But they were holding and that, here and now, made her the most powerful defender of humanity on the field.
Also the only one that the Overseer could deploy right now, so she'd overheard. Cecilia and Theresa were both on extended covert assignments, each too delicate to disturb at this time. The other Valkyries were doing what they could, but there was only so much the soldiers of Schicksal could do. But Wendy?
She flexed the fingers of one hand, the motion agonising yet entirely irrelevant to the girl compared to the result. Dozens of Honkai Templars tore apart as the sky itself rebelled against them, pieces of silicon flesh raining down into the strait below.
"That was easier," she murmured, not entirely to herself. "Was that you, Overseer?"
You're adapting to the surgeries quickly, Miss Barbatos, he replied. It wasn't exactly an answer, but for a young girl, it was enough. She'd done something. Something entirely by herself! It made her smile, but only for a moment. The Overseer's voice came again, inside her thoughts.
We've another wave coming in, though. Let go of your arms for me, I'll guide you.
"Of course." She didn't have to speak out loud, but just…thinking the words felt somehow improper. As if it would be disrespectful to the man who'd already given her so much. She only wished he wasn't forced to help her like this. It wasn't that she would ever reject the aid of his experience, but she was still too weak to properly wield the power he'd given her.
None of that now, he scolded her gently. You'll get better. For now, we save this city together.
She surrendered silently, clenching her teeth together for a moment as pain surged through her arms. They rose with a grace she simply couldn't command, but she did know what to do. Energy roared from the pulse of fury at her breast and she forced it into shape with her mind, gathering furious air into the world around her, enough that its presence alone halted the charge that her Overseer had so easily picked descending towards her.
They quivered there, impossible flesh and power held immobile by her mind as she fought to shape the next set of actions to the movements she could already feel taking shape. Her eyes fluttered in concentration, aligning and shifting the winds. Then her hands flicked out and she let the tempest free.
Moments later, there were no Templars in her immediate airspace. And the landing force on the beaches below had been ripped apart or pummelled into the sand. Flickers of movement around the beasts showed the presence of Shicksal's Valkyries, taking advantage of the sudden chaos in Honkai's assault to reap a deadly toll. Not enough, the girl thought, not yet. But it was a start. And that felt easier…
Another wave, lower. Otto's voice pulled her from the dangerous introspection, forcing her back into the necessary focus. It was difficult, so difficult, but she repeated her performance, feeding on the lightest touch of praise that Otto Apocalypse fed her even as the world beyond stared in awe – and horror in a few places – at what Shicksal had created to defend humanity.
Already her new name was being spoken into microphones, praised by the public far below, whispered and typed by awestruck fans. That had been something Otto had told her to prepare for. When becoming a symbol, her own name wouldn't be enough. The people would need something else to see her as, something that they could make their own.
The Tempest Angel, they called her. She'd actually had some part to play in choosing the name, or so she'd been told. But it was only when she descended after the Honkai had been driven back that she understood the truth. Not of the name, no, but of what being a symbol truly meant.
Whilst the Overseer handled the matters of her introduction, she descended to the wreckage of the waterfront to help with a task she actually knew. Search and Rescue was one of the first things Valkyries learnt, and she found herself much more capable of it now. Moving still hurt, she wasn't sure when that would stop. But the thanks that the survivors gave her as she lifted tons of wreckage away from them with her powers made it feel like nothing.
She'd joined Schicksal to save lives, after all, to protect humanity from the Honkai. Sadly, her Overseer wasn't able to let her stay there, but perhaps that was a good thing. She'd lost her focus when he returned to her mind, and it was only his steady presence that kept several tons of debris from crashing down on the small family she'd just unearthed.
She'd been horrified.
We need you at the address, he told her moments later, as she urged the group into the waiting arms of the SAR Valkyries.
"But I want to help," she murmured. The beach was still strewn with wreckage, and she struggled to imagine how many people might still be trapped beneath it. Alas, the Overseer was firm.
This is part of being a symbol, Wendy.
He'd told her that before, but it was harder to accept now, with the power to actually make things better. Was that so wrong? His tone softened.
Helping the people here is good. But there are millions out there who are desperate for reassurance, who need to see you because you'll make them feel safe.
That was unfair, she protested inside. But it was also true. And she'd promised.
"Alright."
Her smile didn't flicker though. That was one thing the Overseer had been like iron about. Nothing projected calm like a smile, so long as the people watching felt it was real.
Good. Sending you the coordinates. And don't worry about the talking points. I'll take care of everything.
"Oh," she said thankfully. "But I thought you wanted me to get used to that?"
I do. But you're exhausted, and we can't have you making a poor first impression, not when there's no reason to. Leave it all to me.
"Okay." She lifted into the air, ignoring another surge of pain. "Thank you, Overseer."
It's my job to support my Valkyries.
That made for a comforting thought, made only more so as she found herself stumbling to keep up with the press conference that the Overseer had directed her to. Flashing cameras, quick voices in accents she struggled to recognise, she'd have made a total hash of it on her own. But he'd been there to have it all go perfectly.
"You did so well!" Shub-Niggurath, one of her new bodyguards, told her. They were off-mic, thankfully, heading for the roof and the executive shuttle that had been their ride to Lisbon after the alert had sounded. "Cecilia would've been happy with that performance, right Salome?"
"Given Wendy's youth," the bluette replied in a long-suffering tone, "I would imagine so, Shub."
"See!"
Wendy just ducked her head, mumbling something. The tiredness really was starting to get to her, and with it came even more pain. That had been something she'd been warned about, and made her glad for the suite of diagnostics and painkillers on board the shuttle waiting for them.
The praise helped too, but it felt unearned. She hadn't done any of the speaking. And even the fighting…how much of it had really been her? She resolved to ask the Overseer during her debrief. It was the only way she'd be able to properly measure herself or eventually improve.
She hoped she could.
The days that followed were much the same, though far less complicated by the presence of civilians in need of rescue. No one sane would ask for daily assaults on the scale of Lisbon, so instead the Overseer set Wendy to a new task; culling the grounds that those assaults might come from. Usually Schicksal wouldn't risk that, poking the nest and failing would unleash the swarm. But with Wendy, their Tempest Angel?
She struck the source of Lisbon's wave first. The archipelago of Madeira had been part of Portugal before the Honkai overwhelmed it, and now it would be returned. She arrived at the heart of a literal tempest and for six hours, the islands knew nothing but the storm of her presence. She was more comfortable in her skin now, more capable, yet still not fully grown into the strength. Yet the Overseer's presence saved her whenever her focus faltered, and she welcomed that despite the pain.
A few times she found herself frustrated by that lack of control, at the way her body betrayed her. How it was easy to let the winds simply play, to summon them and shape them around her. Yet directing them at the Honkai remained more difficult, and she couldn't understand why. Getting angry didn't help, it only made it easier for the mistakes to bleed through, forcing her to repeat her work.
Still, when she cleared the skies and let the sun peer down on the islands she'd hidden away from it for a quarter of day, it was hard not to smile. Oh, she hurt, hurt in places and ways she hadn't thought possible. But it was a pain that came with victory, and she'd descended back to the Schicksal carrier that had followed her from Lisbon with a triumphant smile at her lips. Flights of A and B-class Valkyries were launched from the command ship, final hounds to ensure the islands were fully cleared as she made her way down to attend the second press conference of her short life.
This…was a harder one. The Overseer had been busy coordinating other matters, and six hours of combat had made it difficult to keep to the talking points Salome had given her to take to the podium. Exhausted and hungry did not make a good combination, but she rallied, did her best. It helped that so many of the reporters were clearly in awe of her. Helped…mostly.
Lisbon had been her entrance onto the world's stage, they'd been surprised, uncertain of what to make of her. Now they'd had time to talk with editors, gauge viewer interest, and that made her second media appearance far more stressful as they started asking about her. Not Tempest Angel, not the protector and hero that Otto clearly needed her to be, no. They asked about Wendy Barbatos, the young Valkyrie from New Zealand who'd been a personal student to Theresa Apocalypse and now seemingly an apprentice to the Overseer himself.
The pressure beat down on her. Where was she from, what did her parents think - that one at least easily laid aside - how did she feel about her new role, what would she do next? She knew some of the questions had been asked before, and some she could defer to the Overseer. But the more personal the question, the harder it was to reply.
She was certain there were better ways to reply, but what else could she do? She was only a teenager, barely one at that, with no real media training. So she let go, let herself be what she'd always been told Valkyries should be at their best. Let her Overseer speak through her to the masses, trying all the while not to question it. And trying not to feel guilty, again, when she was praised for a performance quite entirely not hers.
There'd been a celebration later that evening, and she'd wanted to mingle, she really had. But it had just been too much for her battered, exhausted body to handle. Shub had needed to carry her from the press conference to her rooms, where she promptly devoured a hot cheese and chicken roll before crawling into bed and progressing immediately to the next morning.
That became the pattern of her days. Yet the evenings, as her energy levels started to stabilise, could have become something else. Yet there were always other things. Tests, more press conferences, nothing that let her be near anyone beyond her bodyguards, who left her at the entrance to her quarters to make sure she wasn't disturbed. By anyone, no matter their status. If they weren't the Overseer, they weren't seen.
The brief moments of time among those she rescued were all she had, and she devoured those moments with frantic abandon. But they were only that, only moments, and as the days passed in a blur of combat missions and flickering media lights, she felt herself start to slip. In front of the press, Otto spoke, Wendy too afraid of damaging the example of perfection he laid down in those meetings. Upon the air, her motions were as much his as her own.
Just helping, he said. Just helping, she told herself. But somewhere beneath it, a question started to congeal and take shape. Over a vicious cocktail of complex, competing emotions, it grew.
It was towards the end of that crazed first week that she met with the Overseer again. He'd called down to inform her that some more tests were needed after one of the final rounds of surgery, conducted that morning. It interrupted a dinner she'd wanted to go to, but he'd brought something from his personal chef down to lighten the blow.
She wasn't anything approaching happy about that, but this was the life she'd promised to endure, wasn't it? The cost of saving the world. She asked him about that, as they ate and he checked readouts on a small tablet. She'd been so terribly afraid of doing so, that it might sound ungrateful, but he'd just smiled.
"I know we've been having you grow up very quickly, Wendy," he said kindly, laying the tablet down. He'd gotten what he'd needed from it at this point, anyway. "But it's alright to not have time for now. You'll be able to enjoy the peace you're making once it's finished."
"Really?" She asked, uncertainly. "That's…you really think that's possible, Overseer?"
"With you, Wendy." He smiled confidently. "I think almost anything is possible. There are still adjustments to make, optimisations to make sure you can act fully independently."
"Sorry," she muttered. "I know I've been taking time to-"
"None of that, my dear," he interrupted calmly. "Mistakes will happen. That's what you have me here for, to make sure I can catch them."
She wasn't sure how to respond to that. It was a great comfort to know that he was there, that the Overseer would keep her right. But there was something….that question in the depths of her thoughts that she couldn't quite hear but was still there. The same question from Lisbon, repeated across every battlefield since.
How much of this is me?
She pushed the thought away, taking a bite of the wonderful meal the Overseer had brought down with him, trying to hide the sudden concern. She needn't have bothered. The ancient man's eyes were sharper than any of his Valkyries knew.
"What about," she ventured after swallowing. "What about Theresa? Has she said anything?"
"I'm sorry, but she's still on her assignment," Otto said brusquely. "If you'd like me to send her another message, I can pass that on as soon as it's safe to do so."
"I…" Wendy sighed, feeling her hands go limp despite the delicious food in front of them. "I just want to know if she's alright. She was, well," she trailed off, unsure.
"She was your teacher first." Otto nodded, his voice surprisingly gentle. "I understand what it's like to feel left behind. I'm sure that's nothing she intended."
Wasn't it? After so long, it was hard to be certain. Just like with her actions.
"I hope so."
"Come now," Otto said encouragingly. "Finish your dinner. You'll need the energy for tomorrow's action. And don't worry, I'm sure Theresa's fine. She's my granddaughter, after all."
The morning a week later began as it usually did. Breakfast and a briefing, followed by dressing for her appearance in front of the press and the following suppression action. It was much colder that morning, with the faintest remains of ice on the windows as she chewed on a filled roll through the briefing. This was the second to last of the major European centres of Honkai activity, and the farthest north of the bunch; a fjord in Norway with a name she still couldn't pronounce.
The sky above was grey, but that was something she was becoming used to. Wherever she went now there were storm clouds, unless she deliberately focused on clearing them. Today was no different. The press had been arranged outside, for a mercifully short conference, and Salome and Shub walked her there.
"Here are the talking points from the Overseer," the petite bluette said, offering the girl a palmtop the same rough size and weight of a notecard. "He'd like you to focus on how this is a one of the last steps to bringing safety to Europe, and how you're hopeful that the world can come together in support of Shicksal's valiant actions."
"I, yes," Wendy nodded quickly. She wondered sometimes why he bothered giving her these, it wouldn't be her speaking. Just stepping out to speak in front of millions was stressful, the idea of talking to them terrified her. "Of course."
She wiggled the fingers on her right hand, orchestrating a breeze to adjust the projectors for the wings of light Otto had insisted on being part of her battlesuit. She'd come to like them, though the process hadn't been anything approaching easy.
Adjustments like that are always difficult. Otto's voice came in her head, brushing against her thoughts. But today should be easy.
She nodded, looking over at the smaller of her two handlers. "Salome, are you sure you're alright?"
"I told you, Miss Barbatos," the bluette replied. "The doctors gave me a clean bill of health. You didn't break my guard, I'm fine."
"I..yes, okay. I just wanted to be sure. And you know," Wendy swallowed. "You know that I'm sorry?"
"I do." Salome nodded. "It was an accident. No harm done."
It hadn't felt like an accident. Two days ago, after a stop in Germany, Salome had politely told her that no, they couldn't ignore the rule from the Overseer on there being no visitors allowed. Even for friends. Orders were orders, that was how Shicksal worked, and Wendy needed her rest for the next day.
Salome hadn't meant anything cruel by it, she was certain. But it had just been the wrong time, and Wendy had found herself lashing out before she could even grasp the thoughts that had led her there.
The A-rank Valkyrie had managed to bring her weapon around in time to block that attack, but the aerokinetic blast had almost killed her, and terrified Wendy for how effortless summoning it had been. She'd begged Otto to try to find a way to make sure it didn't happen again, almost worshipful in her thanks for his quick action in stopping her from gathering another strike after Salome survived the first one.
Which reminded her -
Nothing so far, Otto replied in advance of the question. I've got the appropriate teams trying to work out how it happened and once we have that we can work on a fix. For now, I'll stay with you whenever you're in public, make sure nothing goes wrong.
It only made sense. Next time it might not be someone as quick or durable as an A-rank Valkyrie. She'd tried unsuccessfully not to think about what might have happened if it had been her friends. Or, god-forbid, her parents. That had been the nail in the coffin to the request from the latter to visit later in the month.
The sad thought brought her to the end of the hall opening onto the top deck of the carrier, where the press had assembled. And that was where her focus on the exact situation vanished, as Otto slipped into place within her body. At least the pain was better now, something he'd told her would get better given time.
"Good morning," she smiled at them under the Overseer's direction, floating up to the podium. It was set to adult height, but that didn't trouble her anymore. With Otto here, she could be confident in using her powers for little things like this. And it saved her the embarrassment of standing on a box.
She didn't really remember the rest of it, except for the last question of the conference, a minor tangent asking how she planned to handle the Honkai presence without damaging the fjord's natural beauty. She was honestly confused by it, as wouldn't the Honkai do more damage than she ever could.
But it was a local correspondent, and apparently the beauty of the fjords was a matter of import to the Norwegian people. She wasn't sure she could've answered politely, but Otto did so easily. And then called an end to the affair by the simple expedient of having her leap from the podium straight into full flight.
"Seriously," she muttered, relaxing a little in the comfortable embrace of the flowing air as it carried her out of earshot, control of her body returning. "Who asks that sort of question?"
It's important to his people, Otto chided. But I agree that it was a little odd. I'll look into it while you handle the Honkai.
Salome and Shub had trailed her to a narrowing of the fjord's high walls, stopping there as she passed through in a flicker of rushing winds. That left her free to engage, and her notice of assent to the Overseer was a barely noticed thing as she reached into the sky to craft the weapons that would shatter the beasts ahead. She brought up her hands, setting the air boiling around her as her mind determined the forging of hundreds of blades from the wind itself.
She loosed them with a twitch of her fingers, accelerating the constructs well past the sound barrier into a lethal fusillade that would leave no trace but the broken remains of Honkai beasts. And now around her rose the storm, the terrible winds that she'd used from the very beginning, but following at her beck and call. Still sometimes too eager, still prone to misbehave if her attention slipped. But there, whenever she needed them.
They swept down on the spits of flat land where the Honkai had made their nests, the opening volley ripping through unsuspecting beasts in a racket of shattering silicon. That was the picador, the jab into the soft flesh to enrage. And as the Honkai rushed to respond with the full mass of their numbers, enraged by the singular human who'd assaulted them, they found their expectations tragically unable to keep up.
Wind howled beneath clouds of iron grey, drowning out the faintest echoes of rumbling from far above, and beneath their obscuring gaze the Honkai died.
These ones far more quickly than normal. Instead of the hours that she'd sometimes needed, this assault took barely ten minutes. Wendy spun in the air, ecstatic for the new record and curiously devoid of any pain. She'd noticed that early on, how if she acted on her own, if she could do her duty by herself, she didn't hurt. The Overseer had explained it was an issue in some of the supporting surgeries, and that it should readjust with time, and it was getting slowly better.
But doing it all by herself was better still. But turning away from the annihilated Honkai revealed a surprising sight. Cecilia Schariac, the most powerful Valkyrie of Schicksal – or perhaps not, something in her mind whispered – was stood in the air talking with Salome and Shub. That was unusual, the Overseer hadn't mentioned anything about her being here.
And yet for all that, Wendy was very young, and Cecilia had been a childhood hero for as long as she could remember having one. She didn't stop to think, or ask, she simply assumed all to be well and raced across the air to meet Shicksal's shining idol.
Until someone even more important to her stepped from the spare treeline on one side of the fjord's towering walls. The newcomer wore an ornate battlesuit of white, red and gold topped by a veil trimmed in purple, and though there was no cross of gold on her back, there didn't need to be. Wendy recognised her teacher.
And yet…she recognised her teacher. The woman who had just vanished, without a word, and that thought struck away the smile that had been building on her face, crumpling it down to nothing. She reached towards Otto, searching for the hope of answers. He'd told her almost nothing about Theresa's assignment, as expected really, but now…didn't she deserve something?
She found nothing.
The rest of the smile died there, as thoughts and worries congealed and mixed, forming a caustic cocktail of doubts. But it was too late to stop now. Wendy set down on the edge of the canyon, a few short steps from her former mentor. And hoped for there to be a reason. For there to be something.
"Hey, Windy." Theresa said with a little wave, smiling at her. Wendy had missed that smile, but there was something wrong in Theresa's eyes. Like she was worried about something. "I suppose it's a little more literal now, ne?"
"It's… yes." Wendy nodded. It was difficult, through a sudden surge of pain, but she tried to return the smile. Joking like that, that badly, that wasn't like Theresa. Which meant something had to be wrong, but what? The confusion mixed with that cocktail of doubts and fear, and the question she'd wanted to ask died. "I suppose it is, Teri."
"I'm sorry I've been away," Theresa said, her blue eyes sad. "But I wanted – needed to talk to you. Make sure that everything's alright. That you're okay."
Did she? That was all Wendy had wanted. But she knew her mentor, and something was off. Something was behind the sympathy, the care that her mentor was offering, robbing it of truth. Making her wonder.
Does she really care?
She dropped her eyes away to the side, not seeing the sparks swirling in them. How did she reply to that? That she'd been through pure agony and come out the other end to find her dearest teacher gone? Without a word. Or maybe that was just the right thing to ask about.
"I've missed you," she said at last. "Everyone else sent cards. Why didn't you?"
"I couldn't," Theresa replied quickly. "I wish I could've, Wendy. I do. I wish I could've been there for you in person, not just with a card."
What are wishes worth if they come to nothing? The voice asked again. It was Otto's voice, but why would he say that? What is any of it worth?
"And through everything."
Then she'd have been there. I've never been able to refuse my granddaughter, everyone says that. So why wasn't she there as you suffered?
"Why…why weren't you?" Wendy asked, struggling to put the words together. "The Overseer, he said you were on a mission, something important. But I don't understand, you've always been able to make time for me before."
"I didn't know that he was intending to go ahead with the procedures so quickly." Teri said. She hadn't known.
Hadn't she?
"And if I had, I'd have demanded to come back sooner. But by the time I found out, I…" she shook her head. "The assignment I had wasn't something I could just drop. I had to make sure that I could leave, without putting anyone in danger."
"It was dangerous, then?" Wendy asked. "I thought the Overseer didn't like you going on missions like that."
"He doesn't," Theresa agreed. "But there wasn't a choice in this case. I came as soon as I could after seeing you in Lisbon."
She did? This was as soon as she could. But the thoughts weren't fast enough to get past something much more primal, the question all children ask parents or teachers after they've done something worthy.
"Were you proud of me?" Wendy asked hesitantly.
"Stars, yes, Wendy," Theresa said. Her white hair bobbing with enthusiasm as she nodded. "So proud of you for the lives you saved. Everything you saved. You were amazing."
And yet she wasn't able to call to congratulate you? Does that sound like someone proud?
"You mean that?" Wendy asked, stuttering a little. "You were proud? Really?"
Why couldn't she believe it? Rain was splashing out the sky now, and she welcomed the cold spits of water. It let her believe that she wasn't almost crying, even as she brushed the drops away from her face. When had her fingers started trembling?
"Of cour-"
Let me show you. Ask her this.
"Then why weren't you there?" Wendy demanded thinly, her child's voice struggling not to crack. Yet she wondered, how much of it was her? Was she just being a mouthpiece, and if so, why? Otto would have known all of this, he was the Overseer. "Did it have something to do with that new threat we've been hearing about, in the British Isles? A new Anti-Entropy base."
"He told you about that?" Theresa asked, clear surprise on her face. "It…well yes. It did. And-"
I never sent her there. She went herself.
"I can see how that would be dangerous," Wendy said carefully, just as she was asked. And she saw something change on her mentor's face, a flash of something like fear. Fear was very like guilt.
She'll try to deny it.
"And now that you're done, you come back to find me again," Wendy continued, in the same tone. She felt something in the clouds above, a flickering presence around her heart as thunder rumbled. "Now that you can, of course."
"Wendy, I-"
You'll have to push.
Here, let me help.
"I'm not an idiot, Teri." She felt her face crumple, but it was a poor match to the feelings of loss ripping through her. Enough that she didn't notice how Otto's voice had suddenly twinned, as she came to the worst of all possible conclusions, all by herself. "You… you needed to do something else. Something that wasn't with me. Was I… was I that bad? That you wouldn't even say goodbye?"
"No." Theresa's face twisted in pain and, below that, guilt for the child she'd left behind. "It wasn't like that."
What is thi-
Guilt that was all too easy for insecurity to pounce on. "But now that I'm more important, you come back from spying on that elf? Now that-"
"That's enough." Theresa stepped forward as she spoke, and Wendy saw Judah's chains hiss around her teacher's wrist, coiling gold ready to lash out. "Wendy, this isn't you. You aren't-"
She left.
Left you.
Left Schicksal.
All because of the elf.
The word bounced painfully inside her head and she fought to push them back by holding onto what she believed she was. She clung to that purpose she'd been given even as her vision blurred.
"This powerful? This able to protect the world?" She snapped. More rain was falling now, and she couldn't deny the tears now. Hot and cold on her cheeks, mixing as she stepped back from Theresa. She didn't notice how she was shivering, that her back foot landed on empty air, or that it held her unquestioningly.
She saw her teacher's face flicker through sorrow, pain and fear. Then it smoothed to nothing, and she fought not to flinch because she knew that face. It was the expression Theresa made when she was about to do something she didn't want, but had to.
Why was she wearing that face looking at her? She'd only done everything she'd been taught to do!
"I'm sorry," Theresa whispered.
You never had to be this.
If she hadn't been stolen.
Hadn't left you alone.
We've seen it all. Know the truths.
I'm a hero! She clung to the thought in her mind, trying to throw it back at the voices - were any of them Otto now?
Are you?
Theresa said something else, but Wendy didn't hear it. Her eyes were blind, staring across memories that she'd no right to remember so clearly. Moments, words, but actions most of all. The greatest measure of truth.
Whispering to herself through the pain, that the changes Otto had made were to make her able to save the world. To make her a hero. But who had actually been the hero to the world? Had it really been her? Or was it the perfect picture Otto had shown to the world?
You know the answer.
"But it'll be alright now." Her mind caught the words from her once-teacher as the tiny woman shot forward, impossibly quick for someone so small. She felt the air to her right flicker as Cecilia started to move as well, but was more focused on Judah. The ancient weapon was uncoiling, golden chains unleashed into blinding spirals towards their target. Towards her.
It's not fair!
No.
But it can be.
That's enough. The voice in her mind this time was definitely Otto, and she felt her body lock up, pain searing her thoughts as control after control took hold. You are a hero. You are Schicksal's champion. You-
Shut up! She howled back at him. A tempest's winds erupted around her, launching Judah's strikes away from Wendy. But it was only a sideshow to what was happening inside the girl's mind. I'm only what you made me!
I will not let you do this! Otto protested stridently. She could feel why: he didn't want his granddaughter to die. But then, neither did she. I am-
Dead. The voice that had twinned itself to Otto whispered back.
Power erupted at the centre of her chest, seething energy that tore up and out and through reality, ripping into the controls that had been placed inside of her, and then into the one holding them. Otto's words aborted into a scream of pure agony that terminated abruptly half a second later in a crackling screech of electronic static.
Enough for now. But only a start. Theresa had told her it would be alright, hadn't she?
"Yes," she whispered, casting the word directly into the tiny woman's ear. Her face snapped up, and Wendy saw fear in her teacher's blue eyes. Not enough to pay for the suffering she'd left her to endure. She'd change that.
Blue-white lightning arced from her skin, boiling through the rain as they lanced into the towering thunderhead above. Feeding them until the air hummed and shook beneath the weight of an unfurling storm.
"It will be." Wendy Barbatos closed her eyes.
The world turned white.
And opened them as the Herrscher of Storms.
Honkai energy far beyond the limits of normal human control scorched across her nerves, layers of Soulium enhancements the only thing holding back a short-lived career as a human candlewick. But they were holding and that, here and now, made her the most powerful defender of humanity on the field.
Also the only one that the Overseer could deploy right now, so she'd overheard. Cecilia and Theresa were both on extended covert assignments, each too delicate to disturb at this time. The other Valkyries were doing what they could, but there was only so much the soldiers of Schicksal could do. But Wendy?
She flexed the fingers of one hand, the motion agonising yet entirely irrelevant to the girl compared to the result. Dozens of Honkai Templars tore apart as the sky itself rebelled against them, pieces of silicon flesh raining down into the strait below.
"That was easier," she murmured, not entirely to herself. "Was that you, Overseer?"
You're adapting to the surgeries quickly, Miss Barbatos, he replied. It wasn't exactly an answer, but for a young girl, it was enough. She'd done something. Something entirely by herself! It made her smile, but only for a moment. The Overseer's voice came again, inside her thoughts.
We've another wave coming in, though. Let go of your arms for me, I'll guide you.
"Of course." She didn't have to speak out loud, but just…thinking the words felt somehow improper. As if it would be disrespectful to the man who'd already given her so much. She only wished he wasn't forced to help her like this. It wasn't that she would ever reject the aid of his experience, but she was still too weak to properly wield the power he'd given her.
None of that now, he scolded her gently. You'll get better. For now, we save this city together.
She surrendered silently, clenching her teeth together for a moment as pain surged through her arms. They rose with a grace she simply couldn't command, but she did know what to do. Energy roared from the pulse of fury at her breast and she forced it into shape with her mind, gathering furious air into the world around her, enough that its presence alone halted the charge that her Overseer had so easily picked descending towards her.
They quivered there, impossible flesh and power held immobile by her mind as she fought to shape the next set of actions to the movements she could already feel taking shape. Her eyes fluttered in concentration, aligning and shifting the winds. Then her hands flicked out and she let the tempest free.
Moments later, there were no Templars in her immediate airspace. And the landing force on the beaches below had been ripped apart or pummelled into the sand. Flickers of movement around the beasts showed the presence of Shicksal's Valkyries, taking advantage of the sudden chaos in Honkai's assault to reap a deadly toll. Not enough, the girl thought, not yet. But it was a start. And that felt easier…
Another wave, lower. Otto's voice pulled her from the dangerous introspection, forcing her back into the necessary focus. It was difficult, so difficult, but she repeated her performance, feeding on the lightest touch of praise that Otto Apocalypse fed her even as the world beyond stared in awe – and horror in a few places – at what Shicksal had created to defend humanity.
Already her new name was being spoken into microphones, praised by the public far below, whispered and typed by awestruck fans. That had been something Otto had told her to prepare for. When becoming a symbol, her own name wouldn't be enough. The people would need something else to see her as, something that they could make their own.
The Tempest Angel, they called her. She'd actually had some part to play in choosing the name, or so she'd been told. But it was only when she descended after the Honkai had been driven back that she understood the truth. Not of the name, no, but of what being a symbol truly meant.
Whilst the Overseer handled the matters of her introduction, she descended to the wreckage of the waterfront to help with a task she actually knew. Search and Rescue was one of the first things Valkyries learnt, and she found herself much more capable of it now. Moving still hurt, she wasn't sure when that would stop. But the thanks that the survivors gave her as she lifted tons of wreckage away from them with her powers made it feel like nothing.
She'd joined Schicksal to save lives, after all, to protect humanity from the Honkai. Sadly, her Overseer wasn't able to let her stay there, but perhaps that was a good thing. She'd lost her focus when he returned to her mind, and it was only his steady presence that kept several tons of debris from crashing down on the small family she'd just unearthed.
She'd been horrified.
We need you at the address, he told her moments later, as she urged the group into the waiting arms of the SAR Valkyries.
"But I want to help," she murmured. The beach was still strewn with wreckage, and she struggled to imagine how many people might still be trapped beneath it. Alas, the Overseer was firm.
This is part of being a symbol, Wendy.
He'd told her that before, but it was harder to accept now, with the power to actually make things better. Was that so wrong? His tone softened.
Helping the people here is good. But there are millions out there who are desperate for reassurance, who need to see you because you'll make them feel safe.
That was unfair, she protested inside. But it was also true. And she'd promised.
"Alright."
Her smile didn't flicker though. That was one thing the Overseer had been like iron about. Nothing projected calm like a smile, so long as the people watching felt it was real.
Good. Sending you the coordinates. And don't worry about the talking points. I'll take care of everything.
"Oh," she said thankfully. "But I thought you wanted me to get used to that?"
I do. But you're exhausted, and we can't have you making a poor first impression, not when there's no reason to. Leave it all to me.
"Okay." She lifted into the air, ignoring another surge of pain. "Thank you, Overseer."
It's my job to support my Valkyries.
That made for a comforting thought, made only more so as she found herself stumbling to keep up with the press conference that the Overseer had directed her to. Flashing cameras, quick voices in accents she struggled to recognise, she'd have made a total hash of it on her own. But he'd been there to have it all go perfectly.
"You did so well!" Shub-Niggurath, one of her new bodyguards, told her. They were off-mic, thankfully, heading for the roof and the executive shuttle that had been their ride to Lisbon after the alert had sounded. "Cecilia would've been happy with that performance, right Salome?"
"Given Wendy's youth," the bluette replied in a long-suffering tone, "I would imagine so, Shub."
"See!"
Wendy just ducked her head, mumbling something. The tiredness really was starting to get to her, and with it came even more pain. That had been something she'd been warned about, and made her glad for the suite of diagnostics and painkillers on board the shuttle waiting for them.
The praise helped too, but it felt unearned. She hadn't done any of the speaking. And even the fighting…how much of it had really been her? She resolved to ask the Overseer during her debrief. It was the only way she'd be able to properly measure herself or eventually improve.
She hoped she could.
The days that followed were much the same, though far less complicated by the presence of civilians in need of rescue. No one sane would ask for daily assaults on the scale of Lisbon, so instead the Overseer set Wendy to a new task; culling the grounds that those assaults might come from. Usually Schicksal wouldn't risk that, poking the nest and failing would unleash the swarm. But with Wendy, their Tempest Angel?
She struck the source of Lisbon's wave first. The archipelago of Madeira had been part of Portugal before the Honkai overwhelmed it, and now it would be returned. She arrived at the heart of a literal tempest and for six hours, the islands knew nothing but the storm of her presence. She was more comfortable in her skin now, more capable, yet still not fully grown into the strength. Yet the Overseer's presence saved her whenever her focus faltered, and she welcomed that despite the pain.
A few times she found herself frustrated by that lack of control, at the way her body betrayed her. How it was easy to let the winds simply play, to summon them and shape them around her. Yet directing them at the Honkai remained more difficult, and she couldn't understand why. Getting angry didn't help, it only made it easier for the mistakes to bleed through, forcing her to repeat her work.
Still, when she cleared the skies and let the sun peer down on the islands she'd hidden away from it for a quarter of day, it was hard not to smile. Oh, she hurt, hurt in places and ways she hadn't thought possible. But it was a pain that came with victory, and she'd descended back to the Schicksal carrier that had followed her from Lisbon with a triumphant smile at her lips. Flights of A and B-class Valkyries were launched from the command ship, final hounds to ensure the islands were fully cleared as she made her way down to attend the second press conference of her short life.
This…was a harder one. The Overseer had been busy coordinating other matters, and six hours of combat had made it difficult to keep to the talking points Salome had given her to take to the podium. Exhausted and hungry did not make a good combination, but she rallied, did her best. It helped that so many of the reporters were clearly in awe of her. Helped…mostly.
Lisbon had been her entrance onto the world's stage, they'd been surprised, uncertain of what to make of her. Now they'd had time to talk with editors, gauge viewer interest, and that made her second media appearance far more stressful as they started asking about her. Not Tempest Angel, not the protector and hero that Otto clearly needed her to be, no. They asked about Wendy Barbatos, the young Valkyrie from New Zealand who'd been a personal student to Theresa Apocalypse and now seemingly an apprentice to the Overseer himself.
The pressure beat down on her. Where was she from, what did her parents think - that one at least easily laid aside - how did she feel about her new role, what would she do next? She knew some of the questions had been asked before, and some she could defer to the Overseer. But the more personal the question, the harder it was to reply.
She was certain there were better ways to reply, but what else could she do? She was only a teenager, barely one at that, with no real media training. So she let go, let herself be what she'd always been told Valkyries should be at their best. Let her Overseer speak through her to the masses, trying all the while not to question it. And trying not to feel guilty, again, when she was praised for a performance quite entirely not hers.
There'd been a celebration later that evening, and she'd wanted to mingle, she really had. But it had just been too much for her battered, exhausted body to handle. Shub had needed to carry her from the press conference to her rooms, where she promptly devoured a hot cheese and chicken roll before crawling into bed and progressing immediately to the next morning.
That became the pattern of her days. Yet the evenings, as her energy levels started to stabilise, could have become something else. Yet there were always other things. Tests, more press conferences, nothing that let her be near anyone beyond her bodyguards, who left her at the entrance to her quarters to make sure she wasn't disturbed. By anyone, no matter their status. If they weren't the Overseer, they weren't seen.
The brief moments of time among those she rescued were all she had, and she devoured those moments with frantic abandon. But they were only that, only moments, and as the days passed in a blur of combat missions and flickering media lights, she felt herself start to slip. In front of the press, Otto spoke, Wendy too afraid of damaging the example of perfection he laid down in those meetings. Upon the air, her motions were as much his as her own.
Just helping, he said. Just helping, she told herself. But somewhere beneath it, a question started to congeal and take shape. Over a vicious cocktail of complex, competing emotions, it grew.
It was towards the end of that crazed first week that she met with the Overseer again. He'd called down to inform her that some more tests were needed after one of the final rounds of surgery, conducted that morning. It interrupted a dinner she'd wanted to go to, but he'd brought something from his personal chef down to lighten the blow.
She wasn't anything approaching happy about that, but this was the life she'd promised to endure, wasn't it? The cost of saving the world. She asked him about that, as they ate and he checked readouts on a small tablet. She'd been so terribly afraid of doing so, that it might sound ungrateful, but he'd just smiled.
"I know we've been having you grow up very quickly, Wendy," he said kindly, laying the tablet down. He'd gotten what he'd needed from it at this point, anyway. "But it's alright to not have time for now. You'll be able to enjoy the peace you're making once it's finished."
"Really?" She asked, uncertainly. "That's…you really think that's possible, Overseer?"
"With you, Wendy." He smiled confidently. "I think almost anything is possible. There are still adjustments to make, optimisations to make sure you can act fully independently."
"Sorry," she muttered. "I know I've been taking time to-"
"None of that, my dear," he interrupted calmly. "Mistakes will happen. That's what you have me here for, to make sure I can catch them."
She wasn't sure how to respond to that. It was a great comfort to know that he was there, that the Overseer would keep her right. But there was something….that question in the depths of her thoughts that she couldn't quite hear but was still there. The same question from Lisbon, repeated across every battlefield since.
How much of this is me?
She pushed the thought away, taking a bite of the wonderful meal the Overseer had brought down with him, trying to hide the sudden concern. She needn't have bothered. The ancient man's eyes were sharper than any of his Valkyries knew.
"What about," she ventured after swallowing. "What about Theresa? Has she said anything?"
"I'm sorry, but she's still on her assignment," Otto said brusquely. "If you'd like me to send her another message, I can pass that on as soon as it's safe to do so."
"I…" Wendy sighed, feeling her hands go limp despite the delicious food in front of them. "I just want to know if she's alright. She was, well," she trailed off, unsure.
"She was your teacher first." Otto nodded, his voice surprisingly gentle. "I understand what it's like to feel left behind. I'm sure that's nothing she intended."
Wasn't it? After so long, it was hard to be certain. Just like with her actions.
"I hope so."
"Come now," Otto said encouragingly. "Finish your dinner. You'll need the energy for tomorrow's action. And don't worry, I'm sure Theresa's fine. She's my granddaughter, after all."
The morning a week later began as it usually did. Breakfast and a briefing, followed by dressing for her appearance in front of the press and the following suppression action. It was much colder that morning, with the faintest remains of ice on the windows as she chewed on a filled roll through the briefing. This was the second to last of the major European centres of Honkai activity, and the farthest north of the bunch; a fjord in Norway with a name she still couldn't pronounce.
The sky above was grey, but that was something she was becoming used to. Wherever she went now there were storm clouds, unless she deliberately focused on clearing them. Today was no different. The press had been arranged outside, for a mercifully short conference, and Salome and Shub walked her there.
"Here are the talking points from the Overseer," the petite bluette said, offering the girl a palmtop the same rough size and weight of a notecard. "He'd like you to focus on how this is a one of the last steps to bringing safety to Europe, and how you're hopeful that the world can come together in support of Shicksal's valiant actions."
"I, yes," Wendy nodded quickly. She wondered sometimes why he bothered giving her these, it wouldn't be her speaking. Just stepping out to speak in front of millions was stressful, the idea of talking to them terrified her. "Of course."
She wiggled the fingers on her right hand, orchestrating a breeze to adjust the projectors for the wings of light Otto had insisted on being part of her battlesuit. She'd come to like them, though the process hadn't been anything approaching easy.
Adjustments like that are always difficult. Otto's voice came in her head, brushing against her thoughts. But today should be easy.
She nodded, looking over at the smaller of her two handlers. "Salome, are you sure you're alright?"
"I told you, Miss Barbatos," the bluette replied. "The doctors gave me a clean bill of health. You didn't break my guard, I'm fine."
"I..yes, okay. I just wanted to be sure. And you know," Wendy swallowed. "You know that I'm sorry?"
"I do." Salome nodded. "It was an accident. No harm done."
It hadn't felt like an accident. Two days ago, after a stop in Germany, Salome had politely told her that no, they couldn't ignore the rule from the Overseer on there being no visitors allowed. Even for friends. Orders were orders, that was how Shicksal worked, and Wendy needed her rest for the next day.
Salome hadn't meant anything cruel by it, she was certain. But it had just been the wrong time, and Wendy had found herself lashing out before she could even grasp the thoughts that had led her there.
The A-rank Valkyrie had managed to bring her weapon around in time to block that attack, but the aerokinetic blast had almost killed her, and terrified Wendy for how effortless summoning it had been. She'd begged Otto to try to find a way to make sure it didn't happen again, almost worshipful in her thanks for his quick action in stopping her from gathering another strike after Salome survived the first one.
Which reminded her -
Nothing so far, Otto replied in advance of the question. I've got the appropriate teams trying to work out how it happened and once we have that we can work on a fix. For now, I'll stay with you whenever you're in public, make sure nothing goes wrong.
It only made sense. Next time it might not be someone as quick or durable as an A-rank Valkyrie. She'd tried unsuccessfully not to think about what might have happened if it had been her friends. Or, god-forbid, her parents. That had been the nail in the coffin to the request from the latter to visit later in the month.
The sad thought brought her to the end of the hall opening onto the top deck of the carrier, where the press had assembled. And that was where her focus on the exact situation vanished, as Otto slipped into place within her body. At least the pain was better now, something he'd told her would get better given time.
"Good morning," she smiled at them under the Overseer's direction, floating up to the podium. It was set to adult height, but that didn't trouble her anymore. With Otto here, she could be confident in using her powers for little things like this. And it saved her the embarrassment of standing on a box.
She didn't really remember the rest of it, except for the last question of the conference, a minor tangent asking how she planned to handle the Honkai presence without damaging the fjord's natural beauty. She was honestly confused by it, as wouldn't the Honkai do more damage than she ever could.
But it was a local correspondent, and apparently the beauty of the fjords was a matter of import to the Norwegian people. She wasn't sure she could've answered politely, but Otto did so easily. And then called an end to the affair by the simple expedient of having her leap from the podium straight into full flight.
"Seriously," she muttered, relaxing a little in the comfortable embrace of the flowing air as it carried her out of earshot, control of her body returning. "Who asks that sort of question?"
It's important to his people, Otto chided. But I agree that it was a little odd. I'll look into it while you handle the Honkai.
Salome and Shub had trailed her to a narrowing of the fjord's high walls, stopping there as she passed through in a flicker of rushing winds. That left her free to engage, and her notice of assent to the Overseer was a barely noticed thing as she reached into the sky to craft the weapons that would shatter the beasts ahead. She brought up her hands, setting the air boiling around her as her mind determined the forging of hundreds of blades from the wind itself.
She loosed them with a twitch of her fingers, accelerating the constructs well past the sound barrier into a lethal fusillade that would leave no trace but the broken remains of Honkai beasts. And now around her rose the storm, the terrible winds that she'd used from the very beginning, but following at her beck and call. Still sometimes too eager, still prone to misbehave if her attention slipped. But there, whenever she needed them.
They swept down on the spits of flat land where the Honkai had made their nests, the opening volley ripping through unsuspecting beasts in a racket of shattering silicon. That was the picador, the jab into the soft flesh to enrage. And as the Honkai rushed to respond with the full mass of their numbers, enraged by the singular human who'd assaulted them, they found their expectations tragically unable to keep up.
Wind howled beneath clouds of iron grey, drowning out the faintest echoes of rumbling from far above, and beneath their obscuring gaze the Honkai died.
These ones far more quickly than normal. Instead of the hours that she'd sometimes needed, this assault took barely ten minutes. Wendy spun in the air, ecstatic for the new record and curiously devoid of any pain. She'd noticed that early on, how if she acted on her own, if she could do her duty by herself, she didn't hurt. The Overseer had explained it was an issue in some of the supporting surgeries, and that it should readjust with time, and it was getting slowly better.
But doing it all by herself was better still. But turning away from the annihilated Honkai revealed a surprising sight. Cecilia Schariac, the most powerful Valkyrie of Schicksal – or perhaps not, something in her mind whispered – was stood in the air talking with Salome and Shub. That was unusual, the Overseer hadn't mentioned anything about her being here.
And yet for all that, Wendy was very young, and Cecilia had been a childhood hero for as long as she could remember having one. She didn't stop to think, or ask, she simply assumed all to be well and raced across the air to meet Shicksal's shining idol.
Until someone even more important to her stepped from the spare treeline on one side of the fjord's towering walls. The newcomer wore an ornate battlesuit of white, red and gold topped by a veil trimmed in purple, and though there was no cross of gold on her back, there didn't need to be. Wendy recognised her teacher.
And yet…she recognised her teacher. The woman who had just vanished, without a word, and that thought struck away the smile that had been building on her face, crumpling it down to nothing. She reached towards Otto, searching for the hope of answers. He'd told her almost nothing about Theresa's assignment, as expected really, but now…didn't she deserve something?
She found nothing.
The rest of the smile died there, as thoughts and worries congealed and mixed, forming a caustic cocktail of doubts. But it was too late to stop now. Wendy set down on the edge of the canyon, a few short steps from her former mentor. And hoped for there to be a reason. For there to be something.
"Hey, Windy." Theresa said with a little wave, smiling at her. Wendy had missed that smile, but there was something wrong in Theresa's eyes. Like she was worried about something. "I suppose it's a little more literal now, ne?"
"It's… yes." Wendy nodded. It was difficult, through a sudden surge of pain, but she tried to return the smile. Joking like that, that badly, that wasn't like Theresa. Which meant something had to be wrong, but what? The confusion mixed with that cocktail of doubts and fear, and the question she'd wanted to ask died. "I suppose it is, Teri."
"I'm sorry I've been away," Theresa said, her blue eyes sad. "But I wanted – needed to talk to you. Make sure that everything's alright. That you're okay."
Did she? That was all Wendy had wanted. But she knew her mentor, and something was off. Something was behind the sympathy, the care that her mentor was offering, robbing it of truth. Making her wonder.
Does she really care?
She dropped her eyes away to the side, not seeing the sparks swirling in them. How did she reply to that? That she'd been through pure agony and come out the other end to find her dearest teacher gone? Without a word. Or maybe that was just the right thing to ask about.
"I've missed you," she said at last. "Everyone else sent cards. Why didn't you?"
"I couldn't," Theresa replied quickly. "I wish I could've, Wendy. I do. I wish I could've been there for you in person, not just with a card."
What are wishes worth if they come to nothing? The voice asked again. It was Otto's voice, but why would he say that? What is any of it worth?
"And through everything."
Then she'd have been there. I've never been able to refuse my granddaughter, everyone says that. So why wasn't she there as you suffered?
"Why…why weren't you?" Wendy asked, struggling to put the words together. "The Overseer, he said you were on a mission, something important. But I don't understand, you've always been able to make time for me before."
"I didn't know that he was intending to go ahead with the procedures so quickly." Teri said. She hadn't known.
Hadn't she?
"And if I had, I'd have demanded to come back sooner. But by the time I found out, I…" she shook her head. "The assignment I had wasn't something I could just drop. I had to make sure that I could leave, without putting anyone in danger."
"It was dangerous, then?" Wendy asked. "I thought the Overseer didn't like you going on missions like that."
"He doesn't," Theresa agreed. "But there wasn't a choice in this case. I came as soon as I could after seeing you in Lisbon."
She did? This was as soon as she could. But the thoughts weren't fast enough to get past something much more primal, the question all children ask parents or teachers after they've done something worthy.
"Were you proud of me?" Wendy asked hesitantly.
"Stars, yes, Wendy," Theresa said. Her white hair bobbing with enthusiasm as she nodded. "So proud of you for the lives you saved. Everything you saved. You were amazing."
And yet she wasn't able to call to congratulate you? Does that sound like someone proud?
"You mean that?" Wendy asked, stuttering a little. "You were proud? Really?"
Why couldn't she believe it? Rain was splashing out the sky now, and she welcomed the cold spits of water. It let her believe that she wasn't almost crying, even as she brushed the drops away from her face. When had her fingers started trembling?
"Of cour-"
Let me show you. Ask her this.
"Then why weren't you there?" Wendy demanded thinly, her child's voice struggling not to crack. Yet she wondered, how much of it was her? Was she just being a mouthpiece, and if so, why? Otto would have known all of this, he was the Overseer. "Did it have something to do with that new threat we've been hearing about, in the British Isles? A new Anti-Entropy base."
"He told you about that?" Theresa asked, clear surprise on her face. "It…well yes. It did. And-"
I never sent her there. She went herself.
"I can see how that would be dangerous," Wendy said carefully, just as she was asked. And she saw something change on her mentor's face, a flash of something like fear. Fear was very like guilt.
She'll try to deny it.
"And now that you're done, you come back to find me again," Wendy continued, in the same tone. She felt something in the clouds above, a flickering presence around her heart as thunder rumbled. "Now that you can, of course."
"Wendy, I-"
You'll have to push.
Here, let me help.
"I'm not an idiot, Teri." She felt her face crumple, but it was a poor match to the feelings of loss ripping through her. Enough that she didn't notice how Otto's voice had suddenly twinned, as she came to the worst of all possible conclusions, all by herself. "You… you needed to do something else. Something that wasn't with me. Was I… was I that bad? That you wouldn't even say goodbye?"
"No." Theresa's face twisted in pain and, below that, guilt for the child she'd left behind. "It wasn't like that."
Guilt that was all too easy for insecurity to pounce on. "But now that I'm more important, you come back from spying on that elf? Now that-"
"That's enough." Theresa stepped forward as she spoke, and Wendy saw Judah's chains hiss around her teacher's wrist, coiling gold ready to lash out. "Wendy, this isn't you. You aren't-"
She left.
Left you.
Left Schicksal.
All because of the elf.
The word bounced painfully inside her head and she fought to push them back by holding onto what she believed she was. She clung to that purpose she'd been given even as her vision blurred.
"This powerful? This able to protect the world?" She snapped. More rain was falling now, and she couldn't deny the tears now. Hot and cold on her cheeks, mixing as she stepped back from Theresa. She didn't notice how she was shivering, that her back foot landed on empty air, or that it held her unquestioningly.
She saw her teacher's face flicker through sorrow, pain and fear. Then it smoothed to nothing, and she fought not to flinch because she knew that face. It was the expression Theresa made when she was about to do something she didn't want, but had to.
Why was she wearing that face looking at her? She'd only done everything she'd been taught to do!
"I'm sorry," Theresa whispered.
You never had to be this.
If she hadn't been stolen.
Hadn't left you alone.
We've seen it all. Know the truths.
I'm a hero! She clung to the thought in her mind, trying to throw it back at the voices - were any of them Otto now?
Are you?
Theresa said something else, but Wendy didn't hear it. Her eyes were blind, staring across memories that she'd no right to remember so clearly. Moments, words, but actions most of all. The greatest measure of truth.
Whispering to herself through the pain, that the changes Otto had made were to make her able to save the world. To make her a hero. But who had actually been the hero to the world? Had it really been her? Or was it the perfect picture Otto had shown to the world?
You know the answer.
"But it'll be alright now." Her mind caught the words from her once-teacher as the tiny woman shot forward, impossibly quick for someone so small. She felt the air to her right flicker as Cecilia started to move as well, but was more focused on Judah. The ancient weapon was uncoiling, golden chains unleashed into blinding spirals towards their target. Towards her.
It's not fair!
No.
But it can be.
That's enough. The voice in her mind this time was definitely Otto, and she felt her body lock up, pain searing her thoughts as control after control took hold. You are a hero. You are Schicksal's champion. You-
Shut up! She howled back at him. A tempest's winds erupted around her, launching Judah's strikes away from Wendy. But it was only a sideshow to what was happening inside the girl's mind. I'm only what you made me!
I will not let you do this! Otto protested stridently. She could feel why: he didn't want his granddaughter to die. But then, neither did she. I am-
Dead. The voice that had twinned itself to Otto whispered back.
Power erupted at the centre of her chest, seething energy that tore up and out and through reality, ripping into the controls that had been placed inside of her, and then into the one holding them. Otto's words aborted into a scream of pure agony that terminated abruptly half a second later in a crackling screech of electronic static.
Enough for now. But only a start. Theresa had told her it would be alright, hadn't she?
"Yes," she whispered, casting the word directly into the tiny woman's ear. Her face snapped up, and Wendy saw fear in her teacher's blue eyes. Not enough to pay for the suffering she'd left her to endure. She'd change that.
Blue-white lightning arced from her skin, boiling through the rain as they lanced into the towering thunderhead above. Feeding them until the air hummed and shook beneath the weight of an unfurling storm.
"It will be." Wendy Barbatos closed her eyes.
The world turned white.
And opened them as the Herrscher of Storms.
thelordofmango
may be stupid
- Location
- under a rock
Is this supposed to be threadmarked?
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
That'll teach me to post things whilst tired and multitasking.
MWKillKenny84
Lurking from the Trauma Switch.
- Location
- Vado Ligure
Cue everyone wanting a piece of Otto when the scope of his opoopsie will be discovered.
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
Something much closer to that then Honkai ever got with her.
In fairness to Otto, his plan should have worked. But this Otto still doesn't know about the Will, and the resultant miscalculation is going to have some extended consequences.
Not least his personality server farm having just been mostly slagged. He is not a happy intelligence right now, and this day is only getting started. And speaking of which...
Chapter 21
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
"Oh fuck." I whispered, blinking away the scattering flakes of pink light that must have covered my eyes and ears moments before Wendy unleashed her strike. It had protected me from the lightning bolt's devastating flashbang, but that just let me see the situation for what it was. And all things considered, I felt like the words were rather accurate.
Cecilia was still diving down from where she'd been talking with Salome and Shub, Abyss Flower fully extended in a jouster's charge, but her angle of attack was shifting. I wasn't sure if she'd closed her eyes or simply flash-healed the visual damage using her Divine Key, but the shift was definitely controlled and under normal circumstances completely understandable. These just…weren't.
Theresa had been standing on a spit of rock more than ten metres thick. But Wendy had hit her, and consequently everything around and beneath her, with a lightning bolt that would've comfortably swallowed a small aircraft. It had shattered the ancient stone of the fjords' south edge, and sent Theresa tumbling into hundreds of metres of empty air. Normally that would've presented few problems, but once in the air Theresa was nothing more than an object in motion. She couldn't fly. And Cecilia was still Cecilia.
Which left the matter of containing the furious girl, a girl who my senses were screaming was somehow far more than just a single Herrscher, to Welt, Hua and me. Two Herrschers and one of the only Moths who'd truly survived the fall of the Previous Era. You'd think that would've been enough.
You'd be wrong.
The Cores liked to work together. I'd held to that belief ever since I'd seen them do so for the first time, in a universe that I'd decided would never be. Putting them together wasn't additive, it was exponential, and Wendy didn't have the horrible hole of Ana's empty heart dragging her down. She was hurt, alone, and utterly furious, but she also had the object of that fury right in front of her. And after what I'd done with Sirin, I couldn't imagine the Will would let me be far behind.
I knew all of that, some felt, some known thanks to the knowledge of another future. I still would have died if not for Elysia's instincts. Ribbons of furious light swirled around Wendy, laced through a veil of air that I somehow knew only my most powerful arrows would be able to breach. Behind Cecilia, Salome and Shub were still turning in shock towards the display of awful power that had rocked the fjord.
Wendy didn't take a step. She might have raised one foot, just a little, but all I really saw of was a surge of lightning enveloping her before she was simply there in front of me, driving a hand wreathed in blue-white fulmination towards my throat. I felt sparks burn against the pale skin of my cheeks as I spun desperately away from the attack, the lightest echo of the fury the young girl in front of me had called to her hands.
A moment later she was simply gone, yet my body kept moving. Ely had fought and defeated speedsters before, and Wendy was still inexperienced enough to be predictable. Rose light surged around our right hand, spreading into a shield of brilliant crystal that caught Wendy's followup perfectly, our left hand positioned to brace it fully. And if I'd been on the ground, that would've been enough to stop the blow.
Unfortunately, I was in the air. And the Staff of Origin was in our observation post, too far away to be called to hand. Wendy's expression twisted with inhuman glee, and then all the kinetic energy of her attack caught up with me. She added a lightning bolt for good measure, though it was smaller than the one she'd hit Theresa with.
An instant later I slammed into the cliff behind me hard enough that the top layers of stone converted straight to powder. In an example of truly mixed blessings, the rock dust actually disrupted the thunderbolt bearing down on me. It came apart in a riotous burst of relatively harmless electrical discharge, that probably looked very impressive to anyone watching.
For some reason, part of me regretted not asking Welt to make me a fidget spinner in the lead-up to this catastrophe. The rest of me was too busy scrambling into a position to leap back into the air, narrowly avoiding a trio of aerokinetic blades that slashed into the faint imprint I'd made in the solid rock.
It was only as I caught the haft of the Staff of Origin in one hand, twisting around it to land on my feet atop the implement, that I realised I wasn't really hurting. The only point of impairment had been the initial shock of impact, and any pain from it had already faded near to nothing.
Why had she hit me then? I wasn't who Wendy seemed maddest at… But that wasn't the only thing to consider. I was pretty sure that Otto's briefings on the matter of my own cute self would be a case of vilification on the scale of Satan. Wendy had been a Valkyrie in training before my arrival, a truly gifted one for Theresa to take her on as a personal student. That wouldn't have just gone away.
Emerging from the sparking cloud of dust showed me exactly how right I'd been. And how big a difference it made for a Herrscher candidate to have been a combatant pre-awakening. Salome and Shub were simply gone, fleeing back towards the Shicksal command ship in an act of good sense that I hoped would save lives. Salome's weapon was spinning constantly around her, working overtime to absorb or deflect incoming lightning strikes.
Closer to the epicentre of the sudden eruption of lethal power, things weren't going much better. Welt had managed to dodge Wendy's attempt to use me as a projectile against him, but one of his sleeves was scorched from the blast of lightning she'd hurled after me. Red light twisted in the shadows of his billowing scarf and trench coat, spiralling out from a point of total absence that hovered above his right hand: the Star of Eden, unleashed in full.
The air around him was cluttered with the wreckage of strange devices, remains that I recognised from Elysia's memories. Previous Era technology, the details shared by Einstein in the week since I'd finally remembered to pass the Void Archives to her control. None of them seemed to have made it to completion.
The air shook as my eyes tracked past him, locking onto the suddenly and no-doubt temporarily paused connection of blows between Wendy and Hua. The faintest layer of orange light burned around the ancient master, sending rippling highlights across her currently white and red hair. Wendy was certainly an S-rank candidate, with more power running through her veins right now than anyone on the planet, even me. But power wasn't everything, skill mattered too, and for the first time in our shared lives I saw Hua using it all.
Blow after blow rained down on the newborn Herrscher, compensating effortlessly for her target's movements, the product of millennia of combat experience. Hua had had all that time to grow in strength, refining one of the only arts truly passed down from the Previous Era into a weapon that could humble the Honkai. It wouldn't be enough, but it bought us time.
"What's wrong with your creations?" I asked, trying to find a safe angle for an arrow in the furious melee. There wasn't one, not with Wendy moving so fast.
"She's moving the air around as I build them," Welt replied, frustration battling with awe in his voice. "All the larger creations are coming out riddled with flaws. It's impressive as hell."
"That's enough!" Wendy screamed ahead of any answer I could give. With direct strikes proving ineffective against a defender who knew exactly how to use her strength against her, she'd chosen a broader spectrum response. It took the form of an immense concussive blast, drawn from the swirling tempest around her, strong enough that it shook the very cliffs.
"Get away from me!" Her voice almost did too, and I winced at the volume. My ears were meant to be pampered, not bullied like this!
Hua went hurtling away from the newborn Herrscher, but she'd been ready for the move. In the edge of my vision I saw her spin in the air to catch herself short of direct impact. I never saw the result, however. Welt and I hadn't felt safe shooting into the furious melee, not with Hua so focused, but now there was nothing in the way. I could feel the presence of Cecilia shooting upwards, tightly controlled Honkai energy rippling around her as she charged, but she wasn't there yet.
"Hem her in!" Welt snapped. Sonnet sang in my hands, loosing three arrows of radiant crystal in less than a second. One of them shattered into dust as Wendy struck it asunder with a blast of purple lightning, but the others did what they needed to do, breaking into thousands of shards as they hit the barrier of air around the green-haired girl.
Wendy stared down at me, hate burning in her green eyes. I just smiled sadly as points of rose light spread out from each corner of those shards, all of them still as radiant as the arrows they'd been before.
"You can't run," I called out. "You have to accept my feelings first!"
I plucked Sonnet's string once, and Wendy's eyes vanished from my vision, locked away behind a sphere of pristine crystal. Three more arrows flashed out, splitting like light through a prism as they touched the sphere's edge, but I could already see cracks taking shape in the construct as Wendy slammed her power against it.
"Anytime, Welt," I said. Or said most of, to be exact, as the world bent next to me.
The Star of Eden blazed, feeding energy to Welt's core, and I felt hundreds of weapons suddenly manifest inside the dome I'd just filled with scattering energy. None of them were all that much larger than a pistol, but I saw the sudden increase in light level as every one of them opened fire at once.
I doubted that any of them were even capable of hurting Wendy on their own, but she didn't know that, and one of the very first things Valkyries learned was to dodge incoming fire. That, just like her more useful combat knowledge, hadn't magically gone away. She'd dodge on pure reflex, and keep doing so even as she tried to fight her way free of my construct. I just had to hope it would take her long enough.
Cecilia shot upwards towards the sphere, Theresa leaping from her hold onto the lightning-blasted remains of the rocky summit she'd been blasted from. There weren't words to describe the expression of pain on her face, and I could tell how conflicted she must be. I was the same. Wendy was a child. She didn't deserve this fate, and we all wanted to save her. But she… She didn't care about that. She just wanted Theresa to suffer.
White light gathered around Abyss Flower's tip, a pure and gentle radiance that again, I recognised from Elysia's memories. One of the most powerful weapons ever created by humanity, discarded for not being cute enough. But-
Wendy's fist crashed through the side of my sphere in a howl of fury. Cracks erupted from the hole, and air and lightning lashed into them, tearing them wider. I could've tried to fight it, but there was no point. The structure's coherency was gone, and trying to hold onto it would just be a waste of energy and effort.
"Bringing it down," I snapped through suddenly thinned lips, firing three more arrows in the time it took to do so, these ones similar to the seeds I'd used to trap Otto's combat form. Then I snapped my fingers and the dome vanished.
Wendy looked pissed. My arrows and Welt's indiscriminate weapons fire had ripped through her old battlesuit, destroying sections of it wholesale. And for a single, precious moment, it seemed that all of her attention was on us as Cecilia closed the last handful of metres to bring Abyss Flower into play.
'Seemed' could be such a painful word.
One moment Wendy was exactly where we needed her to be, raising one hand towards Welt and I, amethyst sparks building into a full-on blast of power. The next she was suddenly behind Cecilia's strike path, and the same hand she'd been pointing towards us closed like a vice on the join of Cecilia's neck and shoulders.
Wendy ripped Abyss Flower from Cecilia's hands, prying them open with a ruthlessly precise application of wind. She looked up, very deliberately locking eyes with me, and her face twisted into a smile of unholy glee.
"Thank you." Her voice came from everywhere, and no child should be able to speak with such poisonous malice. "For helping me. Now I know how to make my dear Teri," she spoke the name like it was a curse, "hurt properly."
She hefted Cecilia as the woman wasn't almost twice her height and struggling madly against her grip, and lightning crackled across the Valkyrie's body. Cecilia didn't quite scream, but I saw the clench of her jaw as the pain came down.
"Why don't you help me show her," Wendy's voice whispered in all our ears. A blast of wind slammed into the woman's stomach, folding her in the air and sending her crashing down towards the rocks at Theresa's feet. I was already in motion, blurring forward to try and stop what I could somehow see coming. I might as well have been a hundred miles away.
Abyss Flower floated into the air before her, arcs of power taking hold of the weapon, lining it up on Cecilia's rapidly descending body. Wendy flickered into place behind it, teeth bared and voice a hateful cry. "And take your filthy toy with you!"
Lightning screamed from her hand down onto the weapon, completing the circuit on the makeshift mass driver she'd created. Welt hurled power out into its path, trying to twist it off course with gravitational manipulation, but Wendy just poured more energy into the blast of power she'd welded around Abyss Flower.
Cecilia crashed down onto the hard stone, choking back a cry of pain as the stone deformed under her impact. My ears heard at least one bone break, even through her armour, and none of us were close enough to block her weapon's oncoming return.
"Unravel, Gleipnir!"
Then Theresa stepped past Cecilia's sprawled body and wrapped a single, immovable hand around Abyss Flower's haft. She rocked in place under the strain of that much force suddenly brought to a halt, but grit her teeth and pushed on. Lighting surged down the weapon into her body, ripping at her battlesuit and into the vulnerable body beneath.
Except that wasn't what happened.
"Vishnu! Release!" Golden light blazed up through the holes ripped in Theresa's clothes in response to her shout, and where it touched the lighting around her died. No, that wasn't quite right. It didn't die, it just became more gold. Wendy's face twisted in shock as the lethal, Divine Key-tipped bolt of punishment vanished.
Wendy had put enough Honkai energy into that strike to completely burn out any Valkyrie, even Cecilia. But there'd been one thing she hadn't known: her mentor had never been a normal Valkyrie. She was something far more.
Teri's body started to shift, shredding through her utterly ruined nun's habit as she grew taller. The lightning around her was almost completely gone now, swallowed by the purest form of consumption. Yet as she stared up at her former student, there was no anger there now. Just sadness.
For a moment the entire battlefield paused, everyone on it struggling to adapt to the sudden shift. It wasn't what we'd expected at all. Instead of a monstrous battleform, Theresa simply stopped looking like a child. I found myself hoping that Otto wasn't watching, because she looked almost exactly like Kallen. Golden light radiated from her skin, twining down through her hair and forming a searing beacon around the bracelet that was Judah's Hunt configuration.
Only Teri actually stopped moving, though, and I heard Hua reach into my thoughts, directing me towards a new angle.
We need to hit her all at once, she said. It's the only way we've got a chance. None of us can do it alone.
Given how things had gone so far, I couldn't exactly disagree. Cecilia was hurt, badly, and Abyss Flower had deformed whilst acting as a conductor for Wendy's last major strike. I had no idea if the Divine Key was still functional, and I knew none of us could repair it if it had taken serious damage.
"Wendy," Theresa said softly. "You need to stop."
"Not until you've suffered!" Wendy hissed, lashing out with the storm to dismember the final set of weapons Welt had been using to keep her dodging. "You cheated! Cheated on me! Cheated on the fight! Cheats and traitors, that's all you are!"
My heart sank as I felt the undercurrent of pure madness in the accusations. I wanted to help, I truly did, but there was only so much Elysia's powers could do in this scenario. And I needed at least somewhere to start with either of them. Wendy was giving me nothing.
"But if you're not going to play by the rules," she added, vitriol dripping from every word. "Then I don't see why I should do differently." I saw her eyes flicker between us, counting. Why? What was she planning?
"Ah, good," she nodded, the vicious smile from before overtaking her expression. "Only the one. I'll have to remember to thank you for leaving your precious home so utterly defenceless."
My heart went into freefall.
"Stop her!" I gasped, my own hands moving on suddenly frantic instinct. Sonnet blazed with sudden power, all thoughts of peaceful capture banished by a mother's terror for her children. A short-lived star of magenta light tore the air between us apart as I struck without care for consequences, or cost.
Hua blasted forward, blurring orange, white and red as her flames accelerated her onto a collision course with Wendy. Judah's chains lashed up, flickering gold running across every link of chain. Space itself twisted around Welt, as he sought to hobble our target with gravity itself.
None of it was fast enough.
Wendy dipped into a mocking little bow, green eyes alight with malice as she met my gaze. Green and purple light gathered around her like a mantle, a cloak, an aura of pure power that eclipsed even my blazing arrow. Then she vanished down the fjord in a crackling explosion of lightning, mad and vengeful laughter echoing from the ancient stones.
And I knew exactly where she was going.
"Elysia." Welt was suddenly beside me, his face lined with concern. "She's-"
"She's going after everyone we love," I whispered.. "She's going after Elysium."
MWKillKenny84
Lurking from the Trauma Switch.
- Location
- Vado Ligure
... so basically Wendy is already dead, she simply has yet to become so?
Interlude - Elysium 1
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
Frederica Tesla stared at the abruptly blank screen in front of her, the live feed having been ripped away by a massive surge of Honkai energy and a truly devastating electromagnetic pulse. The satellite Anti-Entropy had swung into an orbital path to cover Scandinavia whilst Yang and the others went to try and talk Wendy down had been rendered utterly blind at best. Einstein was running a diagnostic from her position next to her, but she didn't seem to be getting far. Which more likely than not meant that the satellite was dead.
First things first.
"Swap to Watch 4," she ordered. That would take a few minutes to come into proper observation range, but it was better than nothing. They couldn't do anything blind. "Nothing?" she asked the bluette beside her.
Einstein raised her hands away from her panel with a sigh of disgust as the final connection attempt failed, then shook her head. "It's gone."
"Worst case?" Tesla tried to keep the question calm, professional. Einstein seemed to understand, at least.
"Confirming," Lieserl murmured. She pulled up the last few seconds of Watch 3's transmission and ran a finger along the sharp spike that the satellite's sensor package had recorded. "Our team should be fine. Any baseline humans in the immediate strike would've been fried, but no one we sent was baseline."
"What about the people on the ship?" Siegfried asked. The Kaslana scion was in what counted as full armour for the man, the twin pistol-forms of Shamash resting easily under his coat. He looked tense, and no wonder with his wife out there. And yet, he asked about the ship, the civilians, first. Perhaps the reputation that AE Intelligence had gathered on the man from Schicksal really was wrong.
"They should be alright," Einstein replied. She flicked a hand and new imagery replaced the blank screen. "That wasn't a civilian transport and there was an EM surge around it in the last few moments of Watch 3's coverage. Either it had a shield system or a Valkyrie who could do that aboard."
"The latter," Siegfried said firmly. Both scientists turned to stare at him for a moment, to which he just shrugged. "One of the women Cece was talking to, one of her old squadmates, was Salome Jokanaan. Her entire combat style is built around EM manipulation. A right nightmare in a spar, too."
"That," Tesla trailed off, then shook her head. Consider that reputation binned, but they still had more important things to do. "That's good, at least. But we've-"
"Watch 4 coming into echo range," a tech called. Tesla's focus snapped back to the screen as new data started to flow in from the satellite. Echo range wasn't much, enough to make guesses, but it was still a whole lot better than nothing.
The satellite had been swung away from its usual position covering the Atlantic, something that they'd have to sort later. But as the data started to filter in, the decision started to feel more and more like the right one. Vast surges of electromagnetic distortion, paired to equally enormous bursts of Honkai Energy. The second of those two had been expected in a mid-to-worst case scenario, with the energy levels at present trending towards the high end of the maximum risk profiles. But the first…that was more troubling.
Nothing in the mission profile had implied any potential for electromagnetic manipulation, certainly not at the sort of scale required to burn out a satellite in low orbit. And from the projections flowing onto the screen as Einstein absorbed and processed the new data, that had been an incidental effect. One thing was clear, however: the plan to rescue Miss Barbatos peacefully had failed. A terrible clash was playing out between whatever the girl had become and the AE team sent to rescue her. And all they could do was watch the echoes of the battle.
The redhead's lips twisted up in a snarl, exposing grinding teeth as she thought furiously. This wasn't right. Everything they knew pointed to Wendy being an immensely powerful aerokinetic, with some scattered comments about dominion over 'that which flows' having come from their resident Herrscher expert. Exactly what that meant, Elysia didn't seem to know. Which meant-
A conclusion flashed through her head and she turned to Lieserl a few fractions of a second before the mophead matched the motion.
"Something happened." she said.
"Something we didn't expect." her long-time colleague finished.
The imagery shifted, flickering as another wave of electromagnetic fury roared across them. And then the Honkai energy levels, which had been fluctuating madly in jagged lines, abruptly went into freefall.
"She used it," Einstein gasped. She didn't need to explain who, at least not to Tesla. They'd both been involved in that project, if at different ends.
"She did," Tesla agreed, unusually hushed. It was one thing to know what Theresa should be capable of, thanks to Elysia. But it was quite another to see the noticeable drop on Honkai energy that came with Theresa's unravelling of her restrictions. "It must be bad, Lieserl."
"Ye- what the hell?" Einstein's agreement aborted into a shocked curse as interference patterns washed across the main screen, energy readings exploding upwards again in a way that just shouldn't be possible. And yet it was still happening, reality bearing out the defiance of what both geniuses believed should have been. Watch 4 finally slid into range of the confrontation, and its primary sensor cluster focused swiftly on the figures hundreds of miles below its vigilant eye.
Siegfried's breath hissed in through his teeth as he took in the image of Cecilia, sprawled on a jaggedly cut shelf of ancient granite behind a very differently-shaped Theresa. She actually looked older than Cecilia, but more complex sensors textured the image with her effect on the Honkai energy around her – the shape of a vast whirlpool.
Theresa was one point of a triangle around the furious energy source that had to be Wendy. Fu Hua, Elysia and Welt made up the other two, the two allied Herrschers holding one point together. The shape was partially collapsing, however, Hua blurring forward as rose light blazed from the arrow loosed from Elysia's bow. If there'd been time for the resolution to clear up, they'd have been able to see the gold of Judah's chains looping in on the newborn Herrscher.
Alas, all they had was the moment. White light swallowed the screen's output, ripping the image away for a second time in as many minutes, and when it cleared there was only static.
"Are you kidding me?" Tesla swore, stabbing at her tablet's controls to bring up a diagnostic. "Those satellites aren't cheap, damnit!"
It wasn't quite as bad as the last one, thankfully. Watch 4 responded fitfully to the diagnostic, and though its primary array was half-dead, there was enough left to get something back. No visual imagery, but scan patterns from the satellite's threat array. Enough to track Honkai energy levels, and where they were in Watch 4's area of observation.
Wendy was no longer present at the fjord. The young woman was in stunningly swift motion, Honkai energy pouring into the world around her in quantities that - Tesla swallowed hard - that were only reached during an Eruption. With that and Watch 4's sensors, building a vector path was child's play. It was a straight shot, scorching across the waters of the North Sea, which would intersect with exactly one settlement this side of the Atlantic. The one Tesla was currently standing under.
Her hand crashed down on the relevant alarm, and a wailing cry cut through the bustling morning activity of the town. "Get everyone into the shelters," Tesla ordered harshly. "Now."
A chorus of affirmatives flickered back, but she barely heard them, turning to Einstein. The mophead's face was pale, but her blue eyes were steady, fingers flying across her tablet. "Can you get the defences online in time?"
"I can." The bluette genius nodded. Her gaze flicked to a running timer as it flicked down several minutes in a single second. "She's still accelerating, past Mach Five now, but I can do it. Siegfried, I need you t-"
The man was already at the elevator that led back to the surface, the fingers of one hand drumming steadily on the butt of a Shamash. A steady, focused motion very unlike the man, but that was before he turned to face the two Anti-Entropy Enforcers. His eyes were ablaze with an implacable emotion that wasn't anger, though it shared a zip code.
"I'll hold her back," he said simply, the door to the elevator hissing open behind him. "Look after my daughter."
For a moment, Einstein considered trying to get the Kaslana knight to stay long enough for her to explain what was coming. That it wasn't just going to be Wendy, that she was bringing an Eruption down on them, with everything that implied. But looking into the man's steady eyes, she recognised the futility of it.
"We will." There was more she could've said, but again, what was the point. He knew the capabilities of Elysium's defences. The only question worth asking would've been who would be fighting beside him, and Einstein couldn't answer that yet. Her and Tesla, in their own ways, but they weren't the only possibilities. "Be careful."
"Don't you worry." Siegfried barked out a laugh, flashing a cocky grin at the room as he stepped back into the elevator. "For my daughter, my dearest ones, I'll do anything."
Then the doors slid shut, and he was gone.
"Who else has reported?" Einstein asked Tesla, her fingers moving on autopilot, running through the activation sequences for the vast array of defences that had been built into the valley around Elysium.
Tesla looked up from her gauntlet, flicking her fingers once to check the device's feedback. She made an appreciative sound, then replied: "Lixue is on her way to the eastern perimeter, she'll meet Seigfried there. Sirin is coming here, with Kiana and the other primary candidates. Bella…"
Einstein's heart made an odd, rabbit-like motion of alarm. "She's going to fight as well, isn't she."
It wasn't really a question.
"She's a Herald, and she can feel the danger to her sister," Tesla replied regardless. Einstein knew her colleague didn't like that statement, but it was also the truth. And nothing else but that truth was going to matter to the young girl that Elysia had saved in the fields of Siberia, and taken to be her daughter.
Einstein winced. "She's never going to forgive me if Bella gets hurt."
There was no need to elaborate on who 'she' was.
"I'll do what I can to shield her with the mechs," Tesla offered. Given how much she cared about her newer creations, that wasn't nothing. "But I'm not sure how much good that will do if she's going to be in the centre of the fighting. Which, well," she trailed off.
"Which she will be," Einstein nodded, her voice pained. She glanced down at the bracelet of softly glowing golden fractals around her right wrist and sighed. "Do what you can. I'm going to leave primary defence control to Eins. I would've done that anyway once things got busy enough, this just expedites the process."
"What will you be doing, then?" Tesla asked, concern clear in the question. "You can't go out there, mophead. What Reanna did stopped us ageing, but it didn't make us any stronger. You know that."
"I know," Einstein sighed. "I won't go outside the shields, Frederica, I'll stick to the forward command posts like you. But this thing," she touched the golden fractals, marvelling again at how they moved around her fingers, "it's not just knowledge. It has ways it can help in this fight, and I'm going to find them."
"What about Sirin?" Tesla asked. "There's not many people here she trusts, and if you're not here."
"I'll talk with her before I go," Einstein replied quickly. "But if I'm going out to help protect her sister, she won't ask me to stay. She'll tell me to go."
There was a long moment of silence, then Tesla threw up her hands in defeat. "Alright, mophead. Alright. But if you go even a step outside of the forward posts, I'll task a mech to drag you back here. You understand?"
Einstein's blue eyes blazed defiance at her colleague, but the redhead didn't give an inch, her own gaze just as piercing, just as sharp. "Do you think Elysia would forgive you for getting yourself killed, mophead?"
And just like that, the fire vanished.
"No, she wouldn't." The bluette slumped, defeated. "I'll stay inside the command post shields. I promise."
"Good enough for me," Tesla gave her a smile that was all teeth. "Now, let's go show the Honkai why you don't attack a scientist in her lab!"
It didn't take long for Siegfried to reach the edge of Elysium, and what he'd seen on the way was a balm to his churning soul. The streets were completely empty but for the rumbling motion of mechanised walkers pouring out of underground hangers, bunkers having swallowed the town's entire population. Tesla's creations were everywhere but they were, he knew, also only one part to the settlement's defences.
He'd felt the odd ripple of electricity against his skin of shields flickering to life around the place, more than a dozen times. Layers of shielding, and as he left the township behind to pass through the countryside, he saw panels sliding back to reveal turrets and other recessed weaponry. Aerial drones laden with munitions took to the sky, buzzing towards the shield perimeter in glistening swarms.
He'd not needed Einstein to tell him what Wendy being on her way here, as she'd clearly been, must mean. He wasn't exactly book-smart, but he knew enough about humanity's great enemy to recognise the signs of an oncoming Eruption. It was part of why he was so happy the streets had been empty. This was going to be bad enough without having to worry about civilians.
Bad for who, he wasn't really sure yet. Normally he'd be a little worried to face someone who'd fought five equivalent fighters to a standstill, but there was a little thing that made it all quite irrelevant. Whatever Wendy had become, it had hurt Cecilia, and was now threatening Kiana's life by coming here.
What wouldn't you do to protect your family? For a man who'd never had one until Cecilia, the answer really was quite simple.
"Sir Siegfried," a voice interrupted his thoughts, and he looked round to see a young woman with dark blue hair keeping pace with him. Neither of them were doing anything that a normal human would call walking. He knew her.
"Lixue," he greeted her with a nod. "Wasn't sure you'd be coming out here."
"This place is dear to my master," she replied, her grey eyes hard. A moment later her cheeks coloured, and she admitted, a little more humanly. "And it is my home now, too. There are those behind us who I would protect."
"Good enough for me," Siegfried said. "Any help's welcome." He didn't miss the pained motion that statement prompted, and he cocked his head, wondering what he'd done this time.
"That may not be the wisest of things to have said, Sir Siegfried," she said, with careful diplomacy. Her eyes shifted to a point ahead of them, near the edge of the shield. Siegfried followed her gaze and almost tripped on the next arcing leap of a step. There was a girl there, waiting for them inside the shield. And he knew her, too.
Her long silver hair was usually up in an arrangement, kept clear of grabbing hands of her younger sister's friends. But today, here, it was down, sweeping around her slender frame in an echo of vast wings. Her blue eyes regarded the two approaching Valkyries calmly, and there was an implacable quality to her gaze that Siegfried recognised in his own.
She'd been Sirin's Herald before Elysia stepped in to deny the two girls their doomed fates. Now she was just a girl, or that was what he'd thought. Looking at those eyes, though, he had to wonder. A normal girl wouldn't have eyes like that.
"Sir Siegfried, Cousin Lixue," she greeted them both with polite nods of her head.
"I did say any help, didn't I," Siegfried sighed to Lixue, before turning his full attention to the girl before him. "Bella, you know what's coming, correct?"
"I do," she replied calmly. Her eyes glittered with flickering lights for a moment, and her voice came out dreamy. "I can feel her coming. She has no Herald, no second like my Q- my sister, but she's so much stronger. My sister can't fight her, can't protect herself. But I can."
"You're sure about this?" Lixue asked the girl, to Siegfried's shock. What didn't he know that she did, for her to take the girl this seriously.
"For everything my mother gave me, this is still my purpose, cousin." Bella shrugged, the motion oddly helpless despite the resolution in her eyes. "I can't abandon it. And I won't let her have my sister."
"I understand." Lixue bowed her head to the girl, reaching out a hand to lay it on her shoulder. "I won't deny you that."
"Wait, wait a second," Siegfried said, tripping over the words in clear confusion. "Lixue, you're okay with this? She's a child!"
"Master Hua would allow her to be here," Lixue replied, as if that was everything that needed to be said. "She's still what she was, Sir Siegfried. And you said it yourself: we can't afford to refuse help."
"But-" Siegfried broke off, struggling to form the proper words.
"Sir Siegfried," Bella said quietly. "I can do this. Sirin wouldn't have let me come here otherwise."
"And what am I meant to tell your mother?" he asked. That gave the girl pause, but only for a moment.
"That I'm following her example," the silver-haired girl replied. "That I love my sister, and that I will protect her."
Siegfried looked at LIxue, gaze begging for answers. The other Valkyrie just shrugged, as if he should know the answer already. "She can help, Sir Siegfried. Let her."
"I can't believe I'm actually considering this," he muttered, shaking his head. "Cece's going to kill me for this."
"Assuming we survive the coming hour, I'm sure you'd be happy for her to," Lixue pointed out. And that had been something Seigfried had been trying to avoid considering. But it did bring the situation rather effectively back into focus, and with it, the memory of what he'd seen before leaving the command centre.
The wind had been rising as they talked, clouds boiling in from the east, silent lightning flaring in the grey depths. Now they were close enough for the first peals of thunder to ring out across the valley, a harsh and terrible call to battle.
"We shall survive," Bella said, as if it could only be self-evident. "We shall protect our home."
"On your head, then," Siegfried grumbled. He drew Judgement of Shamash, both of them, the weapons a comforting weight and warmth in his hands. If he'd had more time, he might have wondered how Bella had been able to feel Wendy coming, but as the wind grew stronger any chance of consideration found itself blowing away.
The clouds continued to boil, but now there was more sound than just the rumbling thunder. Stomping, churning footsteps, thousands of them, coming from beyond the shields. The foot soldiers of Honkai's assault, their beasts. He didn't see any zombies, but there were enough beasts to make that a small thing to be thankful for.
They churned forward across the landscape, pouring down hills and over meadows in a relentless tide of white, pink and violet silicon flesh. Behind him, he heard the first lines of Tesla's mecha come to attention, the drones and other fixed systems of Elysium's defences humming with power as they prepared to engage. Ammunition canisters and charge packs cycled, clicking into place in their mechanisms with comforting surety. He only hoped there'd be enough to handle a horde this huge, and this wasn't even-
The sky split above them in a deafening bellow of thunder, and lightning crashed down onto the edge of the shield. Blue-white light arced in all directions from where it hit, cutting furrows in the ground that the Honkai were advancing along. A few of the deadly spits of electrical fury simply dismembered particularly unlucky beasts as they approached. Siegfried shaded his eyes against the glare, and when it cleared, Wendy was there.
It wasn't the Wendy who he'd seen before, talking or training with Theresa. It wasn't even the Wendy he'd seen on the broadcasts, working to shore up Schicksal's wavering reputation and smite the Honkai wherever they might appear. This was something different.
Streamers of lightning flowed around her like ribbons, constantly reshaping the shadows of the world. The wind was a constant presence too, wrapped around her in a tempest of purely personal proportions that he knew could deflect most weapons, and hinder all but the most powerful. The face beneath it still seemed very young, like the girl Siegfried had seen come to Theresa for training. Except for how she was looking down at them, through the wavering fields of Elysium's layered shields. Wendy's once gentle green eyes burned with a pale emerald fire, and her smile was a wicked thing of razor-sharp edges and lethal fury.
"Still sure you want to be here?" Siegfried murmured the question to Bella. The girl didn't bother answering out loud, just nodding.
"Well," the man said, heaving a sigh. "I can't say I didn't give you a choice."
"Knight." Wendy's voice echoed out across the valley, shaking the walls with the echo of thunder. Behind her, Honkai assembled in ranks and flights, matching the defences of Elysium as they rose to defend the home Elysia had demanded the place become. There was a strength in that, Siegfried noted in a calm place somewhere deep beneath the combat instincts rising to the fore.
"Wendy," he said, bringing up the two halves of Shamash. Anger burned beneath greeting in the memory of Cecilia's body strewn across uncaring granite, the smile of his daughter, the feeling of a warm, loving home. "Don't suppose I can convince you to come down and talk about this?
He waved a hand at the horde of Honkai creatures, more still descending from the rumbling clouds. "Without all the… unhappy visitors?"
"I think not." She raised a hand and lightning gathered there, the world shivering as the winds around them died to nothing. Lixue and Bella shifted their stances beside him, the younger Valkyrie flowing into a blade kata, the wavering blade of Water's Edge leaping to her hand. She held the blade at eye height, her other hand extended with palm out, two fingers extended up towards the hateful sky. Bella's posture was more animalistic, arms out to her sides, fingers clenched into claws as she lowered her centre of gravity. Brilliant white and gentle blues streaked her skin, and the ground under her feet was shifting as if under far more pressure than a girl her size could create.
Kinetic force and electricity wove together above Wendy's palm, the light intensifying until it was almost painful to look at. She sank her fingers into the eye-tearing radiance, lifting it up as if examining it with a critical eye. Then she swept her hand down in a flash of motion, unleashing the gathered power in a bolt of blinding power.
The air roared, and the Honkai howled answer to their general's power as it crashed against Elysium's defences. The shields flared as the assault slammed home, before the first layer shattered in a crackle of overload. The bolt continued on, hammering against the next layer as Wendy poured on the power.
"I'm going to rip your walls down," Wendy told them, peals of high, hateful laughter spilling from her lips. "There's nothing you can do to stop me. Not a lone Knight, a broken Herald and a girl who should've stayed home."
The second layer of shielding came apart in a howl of overloaded generators and the third cracked, straining against the furious power of the Herrscher. ""I'll take you apart, just like your walls, and then take away everything that those cheaters you sent to 'save' me," she spat the words, "care about forever."
In another place, another time, that crazed rage could have made Siegfried hesitate. Made him worry for the girl beneath the terrible power she was acting as a channel for, especially now that he knew more about what it meant. But this wasn't that time, or that place. He was still worried for the girl, hoping that she might be saved, but it was a whispering breeze blowing against the hurricane of his resolve.
"Perhaps," he called back, having to shout to be heard. "But you'll have to make good on your first threat to get there, Wendy. Let's just see if you can."
"Step back, please," he told the two beside him. And his hands moved, bringing the two halves of Shamash together. The guns shifted, flowing together and extending a long hilt of dark metal, their grips lengthening and warping into a straight crossguard.
Above him, the lightshow faded as Wendy took note of the change, the Cleaver of Shamash rising to answer the call of its bloodline in their endless battle against Honkai. She gathered more power to the crackling orb in her hand, and sent it scorching down a second time. This strike smashed through the final outer shield layer, and bore down on Siegfried like the smite of some forgotten god in a roar of thunder that shook the valley walls.
The Kaslana scion smiled, shifting into a defensive guard. A burst of fire flowed up from the Cleaver's guard, thickening into a long blade in the same colours, tracking a gradient from brilliant yellow-white to a rich, forge-metal orange. Siegfried caught the bolt of force and screaming lightning on the edge of his weapon and fire surged from the weapon's radiant core, building with impossible swiftness to challenge the Herrscher's assault.
Flames leapt forth into the blast of power, the energy easy kindling to the Key of Destruction, and Siegfried let out a roar of his own as he swept the blade around, casting the remains of Wendy's attack into the army of Honkai beasts she'd called to her aid. It ripped through the horde like some giant's vast, crackling scythe, and Wendy cried out in fury as she saw her own attack turned back from her goal.
Siegfried reset his guard, an entirely too cocky grin replacing the confident smile on his lips. Heat radiated out from Shamash, ribbons of flame spinning from the weapon to criss-cross his body. It wouldn't protect him in the same way as Wendy's aerokinetic armour, but it did have its uses – beyond looking cool.
He looked up at the Herrscher floating above him, cracked his neck, and called out to her. "That wasn't so tough. You sure you've got what it takes?"
"Entirely," Wendy hissed. She raised an empty hand, pointing past the defending Valkyries and Anti-Entropy mech to the sprawling houses of Elysium in the distance. She didn't speak, she didn't have to. The motion was command enough to the obedient creatures she'd called to her side during her slow crossing of the North Sea.
They roared their compliance and charged forward, their footsteps shaking the earth. The small army of mecha Tesla had deployed opened fire immediately, spewing death into the advancing horde. Bella and Lixue moved forward too, preparing to engage in their own ways, but Wendy paid them no mind. They weren't important.
Lightning enfolded her in a seething corona, claws of blue, white and purple extending from her hands to match the blade that dared challenge her might. And she dove upon the heir of House Kaslana like a stooping falcon.
Ah, jeez, and I thought the last update was a cliffhanger.
It's interesting imagining this from the perspective of the people manning the desks while these fighters that are basically forces of nature try and gut each other. They're still working like professionals to contribute, they aren't just watching hopelessly. But at the same time they must be keenly aware of the power differential; if a killing blow is struck, they won't be the ones to do it. The support staff around there definitely deserve a raise.
It's interesting imagining this from the perspective of the people manning the desks while these fighters that are basically forces of nature try and gut each other. They're still working like professionals to contribute, they aren't just watching hopelessly. But at the same time they must be keenly aware of the power differential; if a killing blow is struck, they won't be the ones to do it. The support staff around there definitely deserve a raise.
Profound appreciation, Frederica-chan.
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Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
In fairness, this is often the case for a lot of settings. Sure, you have your walking nukes, but they'd be far less effective at their jobs without all the support structures they're given. Never underestimate the importance of your support team, or how much damage a bad one could do through simple and sincere incompetence.
It's similarly worth noting that whilst Welt helped build a lot of Elysium's defences, all the technology making up those defences came from the scientific minds of Anti-Entropy. It's not that Yang is in any way a slouch in technical matters, of course. Einstein and Tesla are just...in another league.
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Chapter 22
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
You might be surprised to know that I didn't immediately spiral into panic in response to Wendy's cackling exit. In another time or place I probably would have – this was neither. Elysia's instincts had woven deeply enough into my own for me to recognise that I actually could change the outcome of events. Being powerful enough to matter on that scale was, to put it lightly, terrifying. Having everything I held dear in this fragile world suddenly placed under threat, however, was indescribable.
"Can you warn them?" I demanded, staring at Welt. I needed to check on Cecilia, see if Abyss Flower hadn't suffered too much damage to heal her, but this was first on the list. Yang checked his earbud, then cursed.
"Dead the same as yours. Everything left of our two redoubts will be too after a pulse that strong." He tucked the Star of Eden away, letting the Key's presence fade as he drew on the vastly increased ambient Honkai energy around us instead. "Check on Cecilia, I'll see what I can do"
"Of course," I nodded, watching the beginnings of a transmitter take shape before diving away from the Herrscher of Reason. I really hoped the Fourth Key hadn't been dismantled to give Wendy her power, even if it meant Otto had somehow worked out how to create pseudo-Herrschers. Cleaning up this mess without it was going to be a nightmare.
Hua had already dropped down next to Theresa and Cecilia, and a medical kit lay open next to her, retrieved from the folds of her qipao. She was checking the latter's bones with the steady surety of a medic, a skill hard-won from millennia of battles. Cecilia hissed in pain as those hands brushed across where I was somehow certain there should be an intact rib and I saw Hua's face tighten. Not good, then.
I landed next to her a few seconds later, and she looked up thankfully at my presence. There was definite concern there in her eyes, but nothing immediate to the specific situation. Bad, but not life threatening then. It was very odd being able to just know that from a look.
"How is she doing?" I asked, more for Teri and Cecilia's benefit than my own.
"At least two ribs, one entirely broken," Hua replied instantly. "There will be internal damage to her organs, potentially bleeding. She needs Abyss Flower or a hospital, and I'm not sure the first one is an option."
"Why?" I began, only for Theresa to hold the weapon out to me. The once-elegant lance of Vii-V's creation was battered and scarred by the energy Wendy had subjected it to, but appeared intact at first glance.
Trying to explain the feeling of connecting with a Divine Key was impossible to put into words. The memories we shared painted a picture of perfect connection, a resonance with the wielder and their expression of Honkai energy that defied description until you'd actually felt it yourself. Wielding energy through Sonnet came to me easily as breathing, but Divine Keys were just more. They took the power of their bearers and transformed them into something infinitely greater, a strength that could challenge a Herrscher in their own domain.
For all that we'd rejected the weapon in the past, the memories of how to wield it remained clear as day. Elysia had rarely been willing to be seen taking anything seriously, but she'd listened to the safety briefings for Vii's most dangerous weapons. That was, after all, how we'd taken the Void Archives from Otto. But this time what we knew wasn't nearly so helpful.
Rose light pulsed across the scarred white of Abyss Flower, and I winced as the symphony I'd been hoping for lashed at me in jagged discord. It hurt, twice. Once for the wild, disrupted energy raking against my core and second for the wound Wendy had inflicted on one of Vii-V's only surviving creations. Einstein would be able to fix it, especially with access to the Void Archives, but we didn't have time for her to do that.
"The links to the core are half-shredded." I replied, shaking my head regretfully. I wasn't sure how I knew that with such certainty, but I'd stopped bothering to second-guess it. It saved time. "Where's the closest hospital?"
"Our ship has one," a voice I hadn't expected to hear again offered. I spun on my heel, dropping my foot to the ground an instant later to bring me to a halt facing a grim-faced Salome. Electrical discharge arced from the enormous chakram supporting her in the air and her eyes were fixed on Cecilia.
"I'm not," I began, only for the petite bluette to snap across me.
"She needs help. We can give it to her. Don't you dare deny me that!" I blinked. That was out of character for her. "Our communications are utterly shot, anyway. The medical bay only survived because I was shielding it."
"But what about Otto?" I only got halfway through.
"I won't let anyone hurt or tamper with her," Salome told me harshly. "Not even the Overseer, if he could contact us. Neither will Shub."
There wasn't a great deal I could say to that. And at the end of it all, it wasn't my choice, it was Cecilia's. Her face was twisted with pain, but she managed to muster a fragile smile as our attention shifted back to her.
"Why, Salome?" She asked, pain turning the question into a hiss. The younger woman's face crumpled a little.
"You were - are - my friend, Cece," she replied. "You taught me that friends never leave each other to suffer in pain."
Ow.
I didn't have to be an empath to feel how hard that hit Cecilia, the broader realisation of what her departure had meant for those closest to her. How much it had to have hurt them, the lies Otto must have told after her departure notwithstanding.
"We don't have time for this," Welt said, landing behind us. He held out a hand and a standard communicator took shape there in moments. "Take this, Valkyrie Jokanaan. We'll contact you once the Herrscher has been contained.
A shuttle hovered behind him, a supercruise model like the one we'd used to get here, with an oddly elongated propulsion unit. Our old one must have been knocked out by Wendy's parting gift. The message there was clear: we needed to go.
"You'll be okay?" I asked Cecilia. I didn't like the idea of leaving her here, even with friends.
She gave me a pained smile. "Better here than walking wounded in whatever battle's coming next." Her eyes flicked across us, a mother's determination pushing through the pain of her wounds. "Go save our daughters. I'll be fine, won't I Sal?"
"I used the ship's engines and transmitters to help shield more critical systems," Salome said blandly, taking the communicator from Welt. "We won't be going anywhere or calling anyone for a while."
A more suspicious person would have called that a convenient coincidence. Almost as if…my eyes narrowed. Had she really- questions for later. Trust Cecilia and save my family now..
"I've tried to warn Elysium," Welt said, moving on. The shuttle he'd created dropped to a hover next to us, the ramp whining faintly as it extended. "But I've no idea if the transmission got through, there's too much interference. I can try to punch a signal to a comsat on our way back, but I'm not hopeful."
"Einstein and Tesla will have noticed something," I said firmly. If that was meant to reassure me or tell Welt something, I honestly couldn't say. We made our way into the shuttle. "Wendy isn't being quiet with her power. And Elysium, Elysium will hold. We built that place strong, and they've got Siegfried."
"And Lixue," Hua pointed out, brushing past us to take a seat. There was fear hiding behind that statement, but Hua the mother wasn't here right now to feel it. "She'll be no match for Wendy 1-on-1, but she can run support. Make sure everyone gets to the bunkers."
"And your children," Theresa said, very quietly. Part of me wanted to scream at her for saying it. For adding that fear to all the others crushing down on my soul. But that would've been the easy way out.
"I was trying not to think about that," I whispered. It physically hurt to keep talking, to admit it, even as I moved into the shuttle's cabin. "But you're right. Bella will protect Sirin, that's who she is. And if she…if she gets hurt, I'm not sure Sirin will be able to stop herself."
"They're your daughters." I felt Theresa sit down next to me, one hand gripping my shoulder as she spoke. She was tall enough now to look at me straight on, and I could see the gentle curve of horns peeking through brilliantly white hair. They reminded me of Kosma, and definitely hadn't been there before.
"I know," I sighed. "I know. I just wish they could've…I don't know."
"Not learnt the lesson that saved them?" Teri shook her head, her tone welling with compassion. "The only way to stop that would've been lying to them, Ely. And that isn't you."
"Part of me wishes it was right now," I admitted wearily. "I made a promise to protect them, Theresa. I can't break that."
The shuttle's engines whined below our words, lifting us away from the cliff. Glancing out the window, I saw Salome floating back into the air with Cecilia in her arms. The younger Valkyrie held her former commander in a carry I wouldn't have believed possible for someone so much smaller, and I saw her mouth moving in quiet questions.
"You won't," Welt said firmly. "We'll get there in time."
"How?" Hua asked, the flames around her dimming as she settled into a meditative pose. "We all saw Miss Barbatos move. I mean no disrespect, but there's only so fast these things can go."
Welt only smiled. "Theresa, if you'd be so kind as to restrain your appetite for a moment?"
She bent her head in a nod, eyes flickering closed in focus. And my eyes flew wide as I realised exactly how much Honkai energy she'd been draining from the space around us. The ambient levels of something very close to an Eruption flooded in, but what would be lethal to a human and dangerous to a Valkyrie only strengthened me.
And I realised suddenly why Welt had asked Theresa to stop.
"Thank you." The Sovereign of Anti-Entropy withdrew his Divine Key once more, kindling to life in the image of a darkling star. Matter flowed out of nothingness around the ancient weapon, forming links to tap the power of a caged singularity. I didn't recognise the device at all, but I could guess what it was.
My first thought was a drive system, but space didn't twist or warp around us as I'd have expected. Instead, light spread from the Star out across the shuttle itself, power guided by the Herrscher of Reason soaking into every piece of the delicate craft. Power poured into the shuttle's engines, their steady hum rising towards a scream.
"What are you doing, Welt?" Theresa asked, looking around curiously as red light flowed over the internal surfaces.
"Making sure we don't come apart in flight," he replied, dropping his left hand down onto the Star of Eden as he keyed a sequence into the console in front of him. "None of the standard shuttles would get us there fast enough, the best supercruise tops out just past Mach Four. This is an Anti-Entropy prototype that we could never bring to production due to structural issues. But with me here, those don't matter."
"And how fast is it?" I asked, looking up at the man with sudden, fresh hope.
Welt hit the final key of the sequence, and the shuttle's engines howled, the internal frame shrieking under the sudden pressure before the strain was abruptly wiped away by the greatest and most unique strength of the Herrscher of Reason. The ability to create.
"Oh," Welt grinned, in that way that just never failed to make me shudder. "You'll see."
If we'd not been steadily rising out of the fjord as Welt did his final preparations, the multiple sonic booms might have caused serious damage to the walls of the sheer canyon. As it was, they only shook the ancient stones as our shuttle leapt forward, streaking after our quarry.
I could only pray that we'd make it in time.
"Can you warn them?" I demanded, staring at Welt. I needed to check on Cecilia, see if Abyss Flower hadn't suffered too much damage to heal her, but this was first on the list. Yang checked his earbud, then cursed.
"Dead the same as yours. Everything left of our two redoubts will be too after a pulse that strong." He tucked the Star of Eden away, letting the Key's presence fade as he drew on the vastly increased ambient Honkai energy around us instead. "Check on Cecilia, I'll see what I can do"
"Of course," I nodded, watching the beginnings of a transmitter take shape before diving away from the Herrscher of Reason. I really hoped the Fourth Key hadn't been dismantled to give Wendy her power, even if it meant Otto had somehow worked out how to create pseudo-Herrschers. Cleaning up this mess without it was going to be a nightmare.
Hua had already dropped down next to Theresa and Cecilia, and a medical kit lay open next to her, retrieved from the folds of her qipao. She was checking the latter's bones with the steady surety of a medic, a skill hard-won from millennia of battles. Cecilia hissed in pain as those hands brushed across where I was somehow certain there should be an intact rib and I saw Hua's face tighten. Not good, then.
I landed next to her a few seconds later, and she looked up thankfully at my presence. There was definite concern there in her eyes, but nothing immediate to the specific situation. Bad, but not life threatening then. It was very odd being able to just know that from a look.
"How is she doing?" I asked, more for Teri and Cecilia's benefit than my own.
"At least two ribs, one entirely broken," Hua replied instantly. "There will be internal damage to her organs, potentially bleeding. She needs Abyss Flower or a hospital, and I'm not sure the first one is an option."
"Why?" I began, only for Theresa to hold the weapon out to me. The once-elegant lance of Vii-V's creation was battered and scarred by the energy Wendy had subjected it to, but appeared intact at first glance.
Trying to explain the feeling of connecting with a Divine Key was impossible to put into words. The memories we shared painted a picture of perfect connection, a resonance with the wielder and their expression of Honkai energy that defied description until you'd actually felt it yourself. Wielding energy through Sonnet came to me easily as breathing, but Divine Keys were just more. They took the power of their bearers and transformed them into something infinitely greater, a strength that could challenge a Herrscher in their own domain.
For all that we'd rejected the weapon in the past, the memories of how to wield it remained clear as day. Elysia had rarely been willing to be seen taking anything seriously, but she'd listened to the safety briefings for Vii's most dangerous weapons. That was, after all, how we'd taken the Void Archives from Otto. But this time what we knew wasn't nearly so helpful.
Rose light pulsed across the scarred white of Abyss Flower, and I winced as the symphony I'd been hoping for lashed at me in jagged discord. It hurt, twice. Once for the wild, disrupted energy raking against my core and second for the wound Wendy had inflicted on one of Vii-V's only surviving creations. Einstein would be able to fix it, especially with access to the Void Archives, but we didn't have time for her to do that.
"The links to the core are half-shredded." I replied, shaking my head regretfully. I wasn't sure how I knew that with such certainty, but I'd stopped bothering to second-guess it. It saved time. "Where's the closest hospital?"
"Our ship has one," a voice I hadn't expected to hear again offered. I spun on my heel, dropping my foot to the ground an instant later to bring me to a halt facing a grim-faced Salome. Electrical discharge arced from the enormous chakram supporting her in the air and her eyes were fixed on Cecilia.
"I'm not," I began, only for the petite bluette to snap across me.
"She needs help. We can give it to her. Don't you dare deny me that!" I blinked. That was out of character for her. "Our communications are utterly shot, anyway. The medical bay only survived because I was shielding it."
"But what about Otto?" I only got halfway through.
"I won't let anyone hurt or tamper with her," Salome told me harshly. "Not even the Overseer, if he could contact us. Neither will Shub."
There wasn't a great deal I could say to that. And at the end of it all, it wasn't my choice, it was Cecilia's. Her face was twisted with pain, but she managed to muster a fragile smile as our attention shifted back to her.
"Why, Salome?" She asked, pain turning the question into a hiss. The younger woman's face crumpled a little.
"You were - are - my friend, Cece," she replied. "You taught me that friends never leave each other to suffer in pain."
Ow.
I didn't have to be an empath to feel how hard that hit Cecilia, the broader realisation of what her departure had meant for those closest to her. How much it had to have hurt them, the lies Otto must have told after her departure notwithstanding.
"We don't have time for this," Welt said, landing behind us. He held out a hand and a standard communicator took shape there in moments. "Take this, Valkyrie Jokanaan. We'll contact you once the Herrscher has been contained.
A shuttle hovered behind him, a supercruise model like the one we'd used to get here, with an oddly elongated propulsion unit. Our old one must have been knocked out by Wendy's parting gift. The message there was clear: we needed to go.
"You'll be okay?" I asked Cecilia. I didn't like the idea of leaving her here, even with friends.
She gave me a pained smile. "Better here than walking wounded in whatever battle's coming next." Her eyes flicked across us, a mother's determination pushing through the pain of her wounds. "Go save our daughters. I'll be fine, won't I Sal?"
"I used the ship's engines and transmitters to help shield more critical systems," Salome said blandly, taking the communicator from Welt. "We won't be going anywhere or calling anyone for a while."
A more suspicious person would have called that a convenient coincidence. Almost as if…my eyes narrowed. Had she really- questions for later. Trust Cecilia and save my family now..
"I've tried to warn Elysium," Welt said, moving on. The shuttle he'd created dropped to a hover next to us, the ramp whining faintly as it extended. "But I've no idea if the transmission got through, there's too much interference. I can try to punch a signal to a comsat on our way back, but I'm not hopeful."
"Einstein and Tesla will have noticed something," I said firmly. If that was meant to reassure me or tell Welt something, I honestly couldn't say. We made our way into the shuttle. "Wendy isn't being quiet with her power. And Elysium, Elysium will hold. We built that place strong, and they've got Siegfried."
"And Lixue," Hua pointed out, brushing past us to take a seat. There was fear hiding behind that statement, but Hua the mother wasn't here right now to feel it. "She'll be no match for Wendy 1-on-1, but she can run support. Make sure everyone gets to the bunkers."
"And your children," Theresa said, very quietly. Part of me wanted to scream at her for saying it. For adding that fear to all the others crushing down on my soul. But that would've been the easy way out.
"I was trying not to think about that," I whispered. It physically hurt to keep talking, to admit it, even as I moved into the shuttle's cabin. "But you're right. Bella will protect Sirin, that's who she is. And if she…if she gets hurt, I'm not sure Sirin will be able to stop herself."
"They're your daughters." I felt Theresa sit down next to me, one hand gripping my shoulder as she spoke. She was tall enough now to look at me straight on, and I could see the gentle curve of horns peeking through brilliantly white hair. They reminded me of Kosma, and definitely hadn't been there before.
"I know," I sighed. "I know. I just wish they could've…I don't know."
"Not learnt the lesson that saved them?" Teri shook her head, her tone welling with compassion. "The only way to stop that would've been lying to them, Ely. And that isn't you."
"Part of me wishes it was right now," I admitted wearily. "I made a promise to protect them, Theresa. I can't break that."
The shuttle's engines whined below our words, lifting us away from the cliff. Glancing out the window, I saw Salome floating back into the air with Cecilia in her arms. The younger Valkyrie held her former commander in a carry I wouldn't have believed possible for someone so much smaller, and I saw her mouth moving in quiet questions.
"You won't," Welt said firmly. "We'll get there in time."
"How?" Hua asked, the flames around her dimming as she settled into a meditative pose. "We all saw Miss Barbatos move. I mean no disrespect, but there's only so fast these things can go."
Welt only smiled. "Theresa, if you'd be so kind as to restrain your appetite for a moment?"
She bent her head in a nod, eyes flickering closed in focus. And my eyes flew wide as I realised exactly how much Honkai energy she'd been draining from the space around us. The ambient levels of something very close to an Eruption flooded in, but what would be lethal to a human and dangerous to a Valkyrie only strengthened me.
And I realised suddenly why Welt had asked Theresa to stop.
"Thank you." The Sovereign of Anti-Entropy withdrew his Divine Key once more, kindling to life in the image of a darkling star. Matter flowed out of nothingness around the ancient weapon, forming links to tap the power of a caged singularity. I didn't recognise the device at all, but I could guess what it was.
My first thought was a drive system, but space didn't twist or warp around us as I'd have expected. Instead, light spread from the Star out across the shuttle itself, power guided by the Herrscher of Reason soaking into every piece of the delicate craft. Power poured into the shuttle's engines, their steady hum rising towards a scream.
"What are you doing, Welt?" Theresa asked, looking around curiously as red light flowed over the internal surfaces.
"Making sure we don't come apart in flight," he replied, dropping his left hand down onto the Star of Eden as he keyed a sequence into the console in front of him. "None of the standard shuttles would get us there fast enough, the best supercruise tops out just past Mach Four. This is an Anti-Entropy prototype that we could never bring to production due to structural issues. But with me here, those don't matter."
"And how fast is it?" I asked, looking up at the man with sudden, fresh hope.
Welt hit the final key of the sequence, and the shuttle's engines howled, the internal frame shrieking under the sudden pressure before the strain was abruptly wiped away by the greatest and most unique strength of the Herrscher of Reason. The ability to create.
"Oh," Welt grinned, in that way that just never failed to make me shudder. "You'll see."
If we'd not been steadily rising out of the fjord as Welt did his final preparations, the multiple sonic booms might have caused serious damage to the walls of the sheer canyon. As it was, they only shook the ancient stones as our shuttle leapt forward, streaking after our quarry.
I could only pray that we'd make it in time.
This makes me wonder if Welt doesn't secretly have a huge library of wild-ass ideas that no one was ever able to make work, but that he can pull off courtesy of Space Magic Bullshit. Maybe he spends his afternoons poking through the records of the patent office, looking at schematics of a steam-powered moustache trimmer that can also transform into a submarine and a crime-fighting robot. "Eh, already got one..."