33 Chapter 33: Endgame (Last Chapter of first book)

As a standard military procedure, the personal shields are usually turned on in confrontation scenarios by any trained personnel, and that is the case in the arena as well.

Everyone that came through the Absolute Academy would have went through basic training and knew to do so. The moment Dolon started charging up her artifact and the dazzling display of energy started to startle the soldiers, there is only one response.

Almost all of them reached for the shield generator near their hips and flicked them on. With a light buzzing sound in the background and a opaque layer of nothingness existing in front of their own eyes, they are now somewhat secure, to a certain extent.

A quick refresher course into how the shield generators work in this age. Shields are divided mainly into two categories according to the kind of attacks that they counter against: physical and energy. Physical attacks referred to projectile attacks with significant amount of mass and damage through impact and trauma. These are countered with force shields that are designed to withstand and absorb or dissipate the forces of the attack. The exact mechanics is currently unknown to the writer, but goes along the lines of a thin layer of carbon fiber webbing with electricity running through it to keep its form.

The energy shields are designed to counter against energy blasts that consists of highly concentrated packets of energy. The damage are done through the intense release of heat, sound or other forms. Shock wave weapons in atmospheres are a great example of such attacks, another one of them is any sort of standard energy blasts.

Another common characteristic for both shields is how there are always two limits being imposed onto the shield governing its security rating. There is a transient component and a steady component. The transient part means it mostly concerns itself with an instantaneous action, like being run into by a truck or hit with a lightning. The effects are drastic but the time frame of which the actions happened in is short comparatively to the steady state counterpart.

For each of the shield generators, the safety ratings on them typically indicate the amount of transient and steady state stress it can handle, and for the personal level shields, it's typically sufficient for any sudden gun or sniper shots. The steady state stress allowed by personal level shields typically covers anything from a brief skirmish to a full on attack. However, the limited use of the shields means one should not give up the common sense of combat and rely on shields, as they could get shorted out in a variety of ways and became non-existent.

A way to work around the problems of transient VS steady state stress is to redistribute the available resources within the generator to favour a higher intensity for a shorter duration or vice versa. This is what happened.

Despite the soldier's instinct telling all of them to switch on the shields immediately, the intense concentration of eletrical energy made some of them adjusted the intensity of their energy shields up before Dolon turned around and opened fire.

The web of electricity shot through the air in an instant and destroyed the energy shields of the first line of soldiers without any significant resistance. The spiraling twisting path of the lightning make it seem like a snake sliding through the grass looking for its next victim. It bounces away from the frontline soldier after demolishing his shields and went on to demolish yet another whiling jolting then backwards due to the interference of the electricity with their neuromuscular system.

Then the lightning snake caught onto the second line. Their shields did slightly better, resisting long enough for all of them to see the deterioration of their shield, and the next thing they know, they were thrown back also.

The third line barely had any time to react to the absolute chaos, and they were crushed equally as quickly when the wave came.

The only ones that are left standing are the trigger happy ones who switched the shields to maximum intensity. What that did is simply rebounded the lightning and lead it straight to Lady Lily and her two guards standing at the back.

Since the two guards carrying the pseudo-artifact are already equipped with a large amount of gear similar to the size of the astraunauts spacewalk suit, it was agreed upon for them to also carry a shield generator of larger capacity, since the mobility of those people will be severely handicapped.

With a steady step, the two guards moved in front of Lady Lily and swifttly turned the shield intensity to maximum while overlapping the two shield radii to double the protection. The electricity splattered onto the shield upon impact and spreads around like drops of rainwater onto a window. Finally after sweeping through all of Lady Lily's forces in one go, the lightning snake was stopped dead in its tracks.

As the lightning dissipates and everything began to settle down to normality, a strong stink of Ozone is what's left alongside a pile of moaning soldiers, yet again.

This time there are a bit more twitching.

'This is ridiculous.' One of the guard shook his head and looked down at his shield capacity-meter to see the extra large shield only had thirty per cent of its reserves left. And that's the two of theirs combined plus those of fifty or so soldiers.

'Well, this is an energy-based artifact for you. Pray you don't run into more of them.' Lady Lily shook off their doubts, 'but usually after such exertion, one will not be at an optimal state to really do anything.'

'Oh yeah?' Dolon heard what Lady Lily said and yelled at her and what's remaining of the forces of Absute Being. Everything felt heavy and drowsy, it's almost like bedtime for Dolon when she laid down in her incredibly comforting Aquarian soft beds, but now is not the time to doze off.

Dolon bit into her lips and let the teeth sink deep into the soft tissue. The shot of pain acts as a brilliant kick to keep her alert and ready. That was the single most intense shot of electricity that she has ever generated using the Lightning Rod, and she is certainly feeling the effect of it.

Things will get easier from now on, but it's actually kind of a shame that she will no longer get such a willing crowd to be her targets.

'I won't be able to do anything, is that what you said?' Dolon looked up at Lady Lily and breathed heavily. She is shivering, out of insanity, out of thirst for blood. There is nothing left in her mind except pure aggressiveness. She rarely tapped into this side of her subconscious, but in cases of high level stress, it occasionally slips out.

Seeing things as they are, being a bit primal might not be such a bad idea.

Lady Lily wants to play a game of hunt, then she must be ready to face the wounded animal coming at her with its guts hanging out.

'What makes you think I need anything to take you down myself!' With two short but decisive steps, Dolon staggered her feet and drew out all four of her blades, pointing all of them right at Lady Lily, 'what makes you think this is merely a diversion strategy?'

'Have you ever considered that I just wanted to let it all out sometimes?' Dolon slammer one of her blades into the ground as demonstration, but also to partially support herself as the consciousness began to slip away once again.

'Go.' Lady Lily seemed unfazed by Dolon's seemingly empty threats and ordered the two pseudo-artifact users to attack. They nodded and pointed their mini-mass projectors at where Dolon and Dan is standing.

Energy began to be drawn as magnetic fields are created and spun within their devices. The air began to feel rough and heavy as the work of the artifacts started to interfere with the physics of the space around Dolon and Dan, and the time to attack is now. Dolon knee it, Dan knew it, and they both changed forward with shields fully activated to its maximum intensity. The fate of the battle will be decided in the next few seconds!

'Mass projection...ACTIVATE!' One of the soldiers yelled as his sphere of dense matter was created at the point of projection, which is right behind Dolon. A small sphere the size of a pin ball appeared out of thin air and began to suck the air and smoke right into it. Dolon felt a jolt behind her as if she is being grabbed from behind by someone, like a tackle in Rush, the Aquarian Rugby.

'Go! Take them!' Dolon turned around to see behind her, and found her in a strange sense of De javu.

'You will never play for us.' The captain of the Rush team told her cold at the beginning of the season, 'we were the reigning champions, and we do not need the distraction of a country girl.'

The season went passed, and Dolon never saw a minute in the arena. But she hit hard in practice, like there is no tomorrow, like her life depends on it. There may not be a chance this season, but Aquarians live long. But that's not the reason, because she doesn't give a shit.

She is angry, that's why she hit hard.

Every time she put on the light shell armor, a rush of adrenaline flow through her Aquarian veins, and it will not stop. She is primal, and she is fearless. The captain made a 3D manuvre through the water, avoiding the tackle and leaving the defender in the dirt. Dolon was all the way at the back between the edge of the ellipsoid Rush Arena and the captain.

He is coming at her with all his force, but Dolon came at him even harder. She had always been fast, but never this fast. This is the very last thought that went through the Captain's head, and the next thing he knew was how everything was turned upside down, and the ball is gone.

The pain of impact has not been registered by him, but it will, seeing how he missed the next day of practice. Dolon didn't stop, however. The arena is sixty meters long, and she had ten defenders ahead of her. She had zero defenders in front of her, really.

When she finally slowed down to realize what she actually did, what she saw were ten floating Aquarians complaining about the force of impact Dolon gave them.

The next game, she went in as a starter, and the very first Aquarian female that played professionally in the Rush league. The post season approaches quickly and in no time and the reigning championship team made their dominant return to the finale. Standing in between them and glory and a lot of money is an upcoming team. Their rise to glory is almost unprescedented, and some suspect the use of a moronoro grass derivative formula to enhance their performenace and numb the pain.

The opponents don't speak much, and they are bigger and faster than anyone the reigning champs have met. With skill, teamwork and precision, they kept up with the opponents overwhelming physicality, but it was not easy.

By half time, injuries had forced six of the players to be subbed out, and Dolon had taken a rather strong hit herself as well. They were indiscriminate, and she liked them for it. Everything was tied up at thirty a piece with literally seconds left in the clock. The defensive formations were by the absolute strongest guys that they could muster, but their best is not good enough. The line is constantly pushed back and before anyone knew it, they were swarming onto the captain and Dolon, two of the best attackers they had.

'Get ready, Dolon.' The captained said as he grasped the ball firmly within his arms. The two looked on at the absolute monsters charging at them, they waited patiently until the last point and executed a flawless twist and turn, avoiding the two tacklers. With that little bit of space, the two shot through the water and charged ahead. They are going straight from the side in an elaborate outside curve to circle around the defensive lines.

'Stop them!' The coach yelled, and everyone in the opposing team turned and chased after them, but four of them were pinned down by Dolon's teammates.

'Go! We may not be strong enough to stop them, but we can slow them down for you!' The two never looked back and sped ahead. Dolon, being the faster swimmer went ahead but the captain was quickly caught on by two of the defenders. They grasped firmly onto the captain, slowly him down significantly but to complexly still as he struggled on. Two more came and started to drag him backwards. Then, with all the strength he had left, he slung the ball towards Dolon.

'Go! Take them!' He yelled with all his strength, and his outreached arm grabbed onto one of the defenders that went to tackle Dolon. She caught the ball, twisted and turned and took off.

'I will not lose!' Dolon shouted out loud to herself, and she took three of the remaining defenders head on.

'I WILL NOT LOSE!'

Dolon didn't look back anymore as Dan yanked her forward and pushing her out of the influence of the gravity spheres. With the next two steps into a take off, she flew through the air, blades activated and cutting inwards, the first pair disabling the shields and the second pair connecting with the outer shell of the pseudo-artifact, but it didn't cut through.Aquarian blades are one of if not the sharpest weapons in the whole of Aquaria, and Dolon made sure to always sharpen them when ever she can.

The blade holder also performs this role every time she drew the blade, but they couldn't even penetrate the simple thin metallic shell of the pseudo-artifact?

Dolon looked down at her hands, and the blades she held were no longer...blades. They were turned into rods, though from the colour of it it seemed to be the same material.

'You are certainly impressive, Aquarian.' Lady Lily stepped out from behind the two with the Pen of Rearrangement in her hand and glowing, 'I hope you don't mind me fiddling with your prescious baldes.'

Dolon glared at her, pulled her weapons back and went for a strike on the head of the soldiers, Lady Lily knew exactly what she planned to do, and pointed the tip of the pen at her weapons, and gently turned it. All of the blades weight changed drastically in Dolon's hand, and when she looked down she only saw four loose bouncy metallic coils that jumped up and down like a little girl's curly hair or a slinky, the children's toy.

What kind of terrifying power is this?!

Dolon head's filled with anger and confusion, she dropped the weapons onto the ground and went ahead with a hand-to-hand attack, but before any further movements, she was fixed in space. There is something wrong with her exoskeleton!

Damn that Lady Lily! She must have locked up the joints in the exoskeleton and prevented any further movements for her.

Lady Lily still had that signature smile as she continued to make adjustments to Dolon's exoskeleton, melting up and locking down all the mobility joints.

Her very outfit soon became her own prison.

Dolon was taken completely out of the equation, and the seemingly only thing she can do is to use her artifacts, but Lady Lily knew that too. By redistributing the materials from her exoskeleton, she enclosed the Lightning Rod within it too, and if Dolon were to attack, she would only electrocute herself.

Somehow...she has lost, utterly and completely.

Lady Lily, the victor walked towards her with the very same smile she always had, 'I cannot change your mind, as the risks will be too high. But do not worry, with the help of our master, you will be on the right side of history in no time.'

Then, she walked away and gestured towards her guards.

'Alert the ship, get the medics and everyone. We are done here.'

'Yes, ma'am!' The soldiers obeyed her orders while picking up the now immobilized Dolon and carrying her on their backs. They have started to walk out of the cave, and on their way out, Dolon caught a glimpse of Dan, or at least what's left of him. Living beings are fragile after all.

When Dolon reaches the outside of the cave, she felt a needle penetrating through her exoskeleton armour, and what must have been a sedative is injected into her.

It's not like that's really necessary, Dolon can fall a sleep at this moment whenever she wanted. It's just that the nightmares for her are just beginning.

'Damn...my War Games account though...all that hours grinding...'

Is this it? Is this my end?

Or is it a new chapter for the kid.....

Survive out there, and do your best, Rydel.