Chapter 39 - Expected outcome.
The knights of Waldruhm stood in ready stances, each wrapped in a yellow shell of magical energy that clung tight to their bodies and blades. Numerical superiority gave them confidence that two Aisengardians could not overturn such odds, and that confidence showed in their tightly raised blades and each man's readiness to hold the line. The moment Fray and Schtance lunged forward, a thunderous battle cry swept through the ranks, and the knights charged to meet them, breaking formation in a single surge.
Aurey moved after them, but before his legs could find their stride, sharp pain drove through his body and buckled his knee, dropping him to the ground on his one remaining hand.
"Take it slow. Regenerating a severed arm burns a colossal amount of energy…and so your other injuries I could only slightly restore." Kyle said, standing at his back.
Aurey grasped this in full, feeling how the lower left portion of his skull refused any command, and how any attempt to shift his jaw returned as a blunt, hollow spasm along his cheekbone and ear.
Meanwhile Fray launched himself into a high jump over the erupting clash, leaving the ground with a sharp push. At the peak he clenched his mechanical fist, driving energy into it to its limit, and rapid electrical discharges gathered across the prosthetic's plates while steam began seeping between the joints under mounting pressure. He struck directly into the thick of the advancing knights, pouring everything he had built during the ascent into the strike, and from the point of impact an enormous dome of concussive force spread outward in all directions, combining electrical discharge, kinetic force, and steam pressure into a single burst that scattered the knights to every side with their screams.
The knights thrown by the impact were beginning to rise, unaware that Schtance had already positioned herself at their backs by that moment. The nearest of those rising she met with her mechanical arm at full force, and he flew sideways with a short exhale and crashed with his full weight directly into two others, knocking them down again.
Hart drove into the space before Schtance, attacking with both swords on different planes. The right blade came in a wide horizontal arc toward her neck, the left drove low and diagonal at her thigh, forcing Schtance to meet both threats in a single instant. She leapt back with a pivot, letting the right sword pass over her shoulder while catching the left on her transformed forearm, the steel grinding along the plates without finding its entry point.
Schtance answered with a straight mechanical fist to his body, driving all her accumulated momentum into it, but Hart rotated his torso right, taking the blow glancing off his left shoulder. The energy shell absorbed most of the force, but the shoulder itself was driven back by the impact, forcing a short exhale through his clenched teeth. Without breaking tempo, he opened the fingers of his left hand and let the sword go forward.
The weapon hung suspended in the air, held by his concentrated magical energy, and Hart guided it in a wide arc around Schtance's right flank while coming directly at her with a driving blow of the second blade, opening a threat from two directions at once. Schtance caught the movement of the flying weapon in her peripheral vision and stepped left off the main line of its trajectory. Hart's direct strike she received on the plates of her transformed forearm, angling them to shed the blade aside, but that maneuver narrowed the space available to avoid the second sword so sharply that it reached her right shoulder in a sliding motion, shredding the fabric of her uniform together with a deep gouge in the metal beneath.
Seizing his right wrist at that same instant, she twisted her torso sharply and pulled Hart across her center of gravity, throwing him into the ground with a force that made the earth beneath him let out a dull thud.
Hart landed on his left shoulder, rolled across the ground, rose in tempo, recalling the flying sword with a yellow pulse directly into his palm. One of his bracers had split his lower lip in the fall, and blood tasted like metal on his tongue.
He changed his grip, shifting the right blade to a reverse hold, then entered the next attack from a different angle. The left sword he sent in a rising arc toward her midsection, and the right, in its reverse grip, swept backhanded toward her collarbone.
Schtance moved left, letting the left blade pass, but took the right on her shoulder, dropping under the angle so the blade skidded off the mechanical shoulder with sparks. In answer she seized his wrist before he could pull the right blade back, yanked it downward with a sharp lever that forced Hart to bend forward, then drove her mechanical elbow up into his descending face with all her accumulated kinetic charge behind it. The protective flow absorbed part of the impact, but his head still snapped sharply back, and a white point flared before his eyes from the blow, lasting a fraction of a second.
Hart stepped back three paces, swallowing the blood from his split lip, while the left blade traced a wide arc in the air, held by his magic.
Schtance extended her arm forward, transforming it into a weapon, and fired a low-power charge at Hart. Hart raised both blades in a cross-guard, but the hit still threw him backward, and he went into a back roll, bleeding off the inertia through rotation, then arrested his retreat with a sliding drop to one knee and drove both points into the ground.
Schtance was already turning her weapon for a second shot, but other knights moved in on her from the flanks at once, swiftly tightening the ring.
Meanwhile Fray stood at the center of a ring of seven knights, and the blue glow in his eyes remained absolutely still as he tracked all seven at once, never letting his gaze linger on any one of them longer than necessary. Two attacked first, rushing from different directions in a single instant, aiming for his shoulder and his side. Fray stepped sharply backward, and both blades parted in the air directly in front of him, finding nothing. While both were recovering from their momentum, he drove his mechanical fist into the left one's ribs with a loaded charge, folding him sideways with an exhale, and the right one, regaining his grip and raising his sword again, met a slightly shifted position in which Fray slipped past his movement and struck him behind the knee with a charged kick. Between the thigh and shin the impact threw a flash of steam with a sharp crack, sending the knight face-first into the ground.
In the brief gap between strikes, Aris released a directed, compressed, dense stream of wind straight into the center of his position, and Fray swayed his torso to the side, letting the stream pass within centimeters of his ear, while two more knights were already coming in on his flank. The first launched a feint high toward his head, counting on forcing Fray back and opening his side for the second, but Fray read the bait and held his ground, answering with a straight punch to the body of the first at the moment of his lunge. The second received the mechanical forearm, transformed into a blade, across the line of his movement, the edge driving at an angle into the shoulder segment of his armor, wrenching the foundation from his charge.
The remaining three regrouped, taking a more cautious distance. Two came from the front with a step between them, the third circling to the rear, counting on the moment when Fray would be occupied with the first two. Fray felt the third knight closing immediately, and in one sharp pivot transformed his arm into a weapon and fired a short aimed burst backward, the concussive wave throwing the knight to the ground.
He answered both front attackers at once, meeting the left one with a charged knee to the ribs that blew steam along his thigh with a short burst, then seized the right one's sword arm at the wrist with his mechanical fingers, ripping away the sword and sending the knight aside with a sharp shove.
Aris intensified her attack, releasing a horizontal gale along the ground, powerful enough to flatten the grass across the full width of its path. Fray dropped below the main layer of the air strike, letting it pass over him, while two of the rising knights were caught in the stream and thrown backward, and Fray drove forward, entering the resulting chaos at full speed.
The nearest of those knocked down again he lifted by the chest plate with his mechanical arm, used him to strike the next man, then added a charged kick into both at once, steam bursting along his shin with a crackling blast that sent both bodies in different directions across the ground.
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The last still on his feet raised his sword high, pouring the full charge of his magical energy into the blow, but Fray stepped under the arm in motion, meeting the blade from below, then seized the knight's elbow with his mechanical fingers and broke it across his own forearm with a dull crack in the joint, forcing the weapon loose, and a mechanical fist to the center of the face finished the fight, sending the last of the seven into the ground.
In the next instant Fray took a short step to the side, silently letting past an unexpected black blade that arced at his left shoulder. Aurey stood at his back, gripping a sword made of dark shadow matter.
Fray spun and threw a charged kick, and the contact with the defending blade threw a flash of steam, and Aurey slid backward across the ground several meters, absorbing the force.
Without leaving the slide, Aurey charged energy along the blade, then released a dark-violet arc from it straight at Fray. Fray launched himself into the air with a sharp push, clearing the line of the discharge, and in the next moment was already flying toward him with his arm building its own charge.
Aurey drove the black blade into the ground point-first, and a dark shadow ring spread at his feet several paces across, and with a sharp final press of the hilt deeper into the earth, two-meter shadow blades erupted vertically from that ring, encircling the full perimeter in a single barrier.
Fray reacted fractions of a second ahead, placing his mechanical forearm before his midsection. The tip of one of the shadow blades drove straight into the plates and sank into the metal core of the prosthetic, and with his teeth clenched he pushed himself sideways, tearing his arm free of the blade, and landed.
At that same moment Aris struck him in the back with a compressed stream of air, and his body was thrown to the side. Giving him no moment to recover, she continued, releasing a powerful, wide stream of wind that drove his face into the ground with such force that the earth cracked around him. Aris poured everything she had into the stream, holding it with building pressure, and his body was pressed deeper with every second of force. Her voice rose, breaking into a long, tearing scream, her hands shaking with effort, while the ground beneath Fray heaved from the unrelenting pressure. Aris held the stream until her strength gave out, then the wind cut off and she fell to her knees, pulling heavy breaths.
At the very moment the stream cut, Aurey was already coming from above with the black blade point-down, directing it straight at the prone figure, ready to drive it through with a single strike. Fray pushed off the ground with an aggressive snarl, releasing a concussive energy wave from his mechanical limbs that shot his body straight up in an instant, pivoting crossways to Aurey's trajectory, letting him pass within centimeters. Aurey reacted mid-motion, spinning a hundred and eighty degrees to send the blade in a wide arc, but Fray had already drawn his torso back, slipping clear of the trajectory, then extended his arm, its transformation lagging, and fired at Aurey before the maneuver was complete.
The charge burned through his shoulder, throwing him sideways with a spin from the impact.
Then three risen knights threw themselves forward in support, attacking Fray, who in that moment began to act with even greater aggression. He slipped the first attacker with a torso pivot, transformed his arm into a blade, and with a hard horizontal strike sheared off the knight's arm above the elbow. The severed limb hit the ground, and the knight immediately received a steam-charged kick that sent his body flying several meters before it crashed into the earth.
The second received a mechanical fist brought down with momentum directly through the top of his helmet. The metal caved inward, crushing into his head, and from the eye sockets, under the pressure of the deformation, blood and flesh and eyes were forced out, spilling across the armor and the ground around him.
The third Fray met with a pivot, driving his mechanical arm straight through the chest plate and the body behind it, the steel fist emerging from the other side with the dull crack of a breaking spine. He drew his arm slowly back and released what he held, and the knight's body settled and dropped to the ground.
Fray stood among the fallen, covered head to foot in the blood of others, while his breathing moved through his body in uneven pulses.
He swept his gaze across what surrounded him, seeing Aris kneeling a few dozen meters away, her hands pressed into the ground, watching him with open horror, without strength and without movement.
A short distance away, three knights lay around Schtance, and she stood breathing heavily, covered in cuts and the blood of others. Hart held himself before her, barely on his feet, both his blades broken, and covering himself in an energy shell was beyond him even in theory.
Turning, Fray saw Magister Kyle standing over Aurey, withdrawing his palm from his back, and dropping immediately to one knee, blood running from his nose. Aurey straightened slowly, rising to a ready stance before Fray.
Fray stood side-on to him, eyes fixed on Aurey, and without turning his head raised his mechanical arm toward Hart and fired. The charge knocked the knight to the ground before he could react, and Schtance looked at Fray, then turned toward Aurey.
In the next instant Aurey made a sharp lunge forward, closing the distance. Fray and Schtance fired at him at once, but he dissolved into a billow of black smoke, sinking into the ground in shadow form. The dark shadow slid across the ground beneath the feet of both Aisengardians, swept around behind them, then began to rapidly solidify, taking on the outline of a body.
Fray sharply retransformed his damaged arm with a crack, its plates resisting, failing to open fully. The blade locked in a half-jammed position, but he drove his arm through by force, cutting straight through the forming body. The body dissolved into dark smoke, an empty shadow shell.
Suddenly he felt Aurey's real body take shape on the other side, already bringing the black blade up for a strike, but Schtance caught his wrist in her mechanical fingers at full force and drove her knee toward his midsection. From Aurey's shadow on the ground a shadow blade erupted, sweeping in a single arc, and Schtance's mechanical arm was severed in an instant, followed immediately by Aurey's kick to her midsection that sent her into the ground several meters back.
Fray pivoted sharply, throwing a charged kick at Aurey's wrist that knocked the sword loose, and with the next kick, steam charge driven through his leg, sent him sliding backward across the ground.
Aurey threw a straight punch at Fray's face, but Fray caught his wrist, twisting it with a turn, then drove his elbow into Aurey's cheekbone, exactly where the lower part of his skull had not yet healed. A pulse of pain ran from his jaw to his ear, and his legs lost their footing for a moment.
He tried to seize Fray's collar with his free hand, pulling him in close, but Fray dropped his body downward, slipping out of the grasp, then came up with momentum to drive his knee into Aurey's ribs with a wave of charged steam, and a crunch went through Aurey's left side as he bent forward.
Aurey began dissolving into dark smoke from the left side of his body, trying to shift into shadow form, but Fray seized his right shoulder before the transition could complete, the grip pulling him back into solid form, keeping the shadow from finishing the shift.
Keeping hold of the shoulder, he turned Aurey and drove the back of his mechanical fist into the already-damaged cheekbone, then followed with an upward strike to the chin that sent Aurey's head sharply back and left him disoriented for a moment.
Fray gave him no second to recover, moving from one strike to the next at a pace Aurey couldn't read. A kick to the load-bearing knee knocked out his footing, dropping Aurey to one knee, and Fray came around behind him, bringing his sole down onto the left shoulder from above with momentum, driving him lower.
Aurey attempted a roll to escape, but Fray had already met the movement, seizing him by the neck and driving his face into the rising knee. The crunch of Aurey's nose was clearly audible, and blood flooded his upper lip and chin at once.
Aurey rose with a final effort and threw a desperate punch at Fray's body, but Fray only shifted his torso slightly, letting the fist slide off his ribs, then seized Aurey's outstretched arm, wrenching it sharply behind his back, forcing him to bend, and a knee to the lower back drove him forward, sending Aurey face-first into the ground again.
Fray stood, drawing heavy, uneven breaths, while Schtance was barely rising from the ground, leaning on the remaining stump of her right prosthetic arm. He attempted to transform his damaged arm into a blade, but it jammed again in its half-locked state, unable to open even halfway.
Fray sharply turned his torso, letting a compressed stream of air pass directly before him, then turned toward the source. Aris sat on the ground a few meters away, her arm extended toward him, barely holding on to consciousness.
Fray exhaled slowly, bracing the jammed blade against his mechanical knee, then wrenched it hard, breaking off a fragment of metal from the prosthetic. He snatched it up and hurled it straight at Aris, but Ulrich managed to throw himself toward her, shoving her clear of the throw at the last moment, and the metal drove into the ground.
Fray straightened, exhaling slowly, then shifted his gaze to Ulrich, standing a few dozen meters away, slowly drawing his blade.
"You're fucking serious?" He said, shifting his gaze to the Hand standing before him.
From below, directly at his feet, came the sound of quiet, ragged breathing. Fray looked down at Aurey, lying in the ground with blood on his face.
He took a deep breath, then slowly, with visible effort of will, stepped away from him.
"And what's the result?...Hm?....All of this…one way or another led to the expected outcome." He said.
Aurey exhaled in a rasp, staring at the ground beneath him and offering no reply.
Suddenly, at Fray's very shoulder, before his mechanical sensors could register anyone's presence, a voice came.
"Is that so?" It came right at his shoulder, swift and quiet.
In the next instant Fray's eyes went wide, and before his head could turn toward the source, a hand struck him in the face with such force that his body flew to the side and hit the ground with a crash five meters away.
Schtance, Ulrich, and Kyle watched with identical bewilderment, their gazes moving from Fray, who had slumped into the ground, to the one standing beside Aurey.
It was Aren, in torn clothing, runic tattoos showing clearly through the rents.
Aurey turned slowly and with difficulty, looking at the person standing beside him through doubled vision.
"Y…You…" Aurey breathed in a rasp, then fell face-first into the ground, unconscious.
Aren slowly lowered himself to one knee, placing his palm on Aurey's back. The runes on his right arm lit up, sending a stream of energy into the body below, then he withdrew his hand.
"Rest. I'll take care of the rest." Aren said, without lifting his eyes.
He rose slowly from his knee, turning to face Fray, who got up with a snarl, shifting his gaze to Aren with taut wariness, while Aren's face was calm and cold, empty of any emotion.