Fifty-Eight

[A Few Moments Prior]

Often, the hardest step of taking down a slum lord is tracking and planning.

Two orbs floated in front of the dark elf and she placed a hand upon each, mana lines connecting with them. A shudder rang, two drones flew from behind her, and she smiled.

"Well well," She said, the sight of the weapons entering her mind as they hovered over the battlefield.

A few had been destroyed before. A needed strategy to make the man send out Rose, but now she controlled the remaining two the city had given them. Pulses rained from the sky under her control and soon a man came to view, three rings glittering upon a hand as he directed his men.

The pulses of the barrels drilled onto him but dissipated upon a mana shield on his body. He turned, quick within that suit of his, and grasped into the air.

A pressure came and alarms resounded back from the machines and into her brain. The drones removed themselves from her control, barrels filling with energy but not firing, dragging through the air with his grasp and coming closer to him.

"Fire!" He ordered and the drones aligned together through his whim, anger upon his face.

A turret's laser shot through both, an explosion taking them from the sky and shearing the weapons into pieces of useless metal.

Lucy didn't care, however.

She smiled, kicking a rectangular box before her and watching as it opened. A sniper rifle laid within, smooth, silver, and cold. She gripped the weapon and laid upon a roof, yards away from the chaos ahead as an eye aligned with the scope. Mana shield or not, a sniper rifle would pierce through.

"Found you," She said, mana rolling through the weapon with three taps, "Let's end this, shall we?"

She pulled the trigger as Walker turned.

— — —

The girl moved through the thick of the battlefield, her legs carrying her away from raging flames. She took a breath as a pulse met and dissipated against the mana shield that covered her body, then her right hand flashed, aiming her pistol and shooting as she ran.

The soldier dressed in black maneuvered with his rifle in tow, hefting the thing and disregarding her pulses. He watched them hit and he fired back. They exchanged rounds and she found herself a poorer shot than him as her shield quickly dropped to 60%.

'Shit, why are you targeting me of all people?!' Elsa rolled to the side.

She sprung back up, tackling a soldier before he had time to swing his blade upon her. Their bodies hit the ground at the same time and she used him as a cushion to her fall. Straddling, she punched with blue upon her fists, her strike shattering through his shield with a small explosion that strained her eyes, until his head shook and his vision blurred and she jumped away.

Her surroundings were filled with enemies, but speed was in her favor. She was athletic and she was fit, muscles toned her skin and her belly showed with abs. Still, her left armament only gave her slight awareness of the surrounding chaos and dodging pulses was out of the question for her non-geared and non-advanced self.

In the end, she merely ran wildly across the battlefield, her eyes focusing on a hunk of metal as she weaved through men and her mind upon helping her friend. She remembered the time she first met the girl, and how she had teased her about her lateness. She remembered how she looked down on her and thought, 'The hell is this kid doing here?' Because Rose really did look 15 at the most to her eyes. The girl was freakishly strong, but she wondered if she could take Lilias again, someone she had already lost once to. To Elsa, it was important the two brutishly gang up on the dragonian.

A group came for her, swords slashing and she reached for the pouch strapped to her right hip. A second later and a ball of iron clicked upon the floor as she rolled away.

An explosion rocked the ground, sending blue into the air along with the flinging bodies of dark suited soldiers. In seconds, her right hand shined and she leaped to punch.

'Fuck you and your shield,' She cursed, mana running through her glove as she pummeled another combatent.

The shield of the person broke under her fist and her strike reached skin. The man slammed against the floor and her leg struck out—though she was more a boxer than a martial artist—and tripped another.

She raised her fist for a third man but only a crackle of mana shot through her glove. Great, she thought, perfect time for faultiness. Wielding three low-grade armaments at the same time was a sure fire way to send their mana spiraling and instructions faulty.

She gritted her teeth, 'I don't have time for this.'

Fire spewed behind her, clashing with a distinct blue and she dodged the man, running through the rest as her lungs called her to stop and she refused.

Soon, she had hurried through the battlefield to find the thing laid down and bare, some men in a bit to take her mecha for themselves even when they could not hope to ever pilot it. A clink of a mana bomb was enough to send them flying, a circling trap of weight assisted bombs kept the rest from her as she entered the construct. The gunshots that pounded her from all sides as she scurried to enter the beast took what was left of Rose's shield-emblem.

Deep breaths rang within the pit of the suit of iron, her hand quickly flashed to make mana lines and she connected to the Mecha Core and the rest of its body.

Her eyes snapped open and the thing rose, towering a head taller, and bulkier, than the soldiers around her.

Memories ran through her head at that moment. A past battlefield. Her sister her shield. A small child unable to do anything but watch her surroundings be destroyed. Once there had been a time when she hid behind another. In a previous battlefield, in a slum engulfed in war much like this one, her sister had been the one that shielded her and protected her.

This war was different.

Elsa grinned as her heart beat accelerated and she left care to the wind.

"Fucking worth it!"

Barrels came from under the hand of the mechanical beast as she took a step. Pulses came her way, clanking off of metal and she turned her weapons to her surroundings.

"Sorry," She said with the slightest hint of pity, "But Rose is waiting for me."

The blare of pulses rang louder than those around her and blood came in her wake as she ran through the battlefield, anew and back.

Piloting a mecha for battle was a much trickier subject than it looked, especially one which was not form-fitting. Elsa's construct and repairs worked around an old model, a relic of years past scrapped from the dump, and she essentially sat inside a suit of armor without any life support systems in place.

There was no emergency eject in her plate of armor, no life-line, healing-chamber mod, and certainly no tech gadgetry that may allow her to pull off the auto-targeting of newer builds, mapping, or their AI assisted fighting.

The mecha was clunky. It was much slower than a human—even if most of its control came from her connection with the core—and there was absolutely no way it could function well in close combat. Essentially, as Elsa maneuvered the thing and fired the pulses that scattered into the air in rays of blue, hurling towards her targets, it was the first time she spun the dated armor of war to battle but she still wreaked havoc enough for men to run at her sight.

Merely hearing the blare of the barrels beneath its arm filled her with power. Mana shields upon soldiers mattered not when twenty rounds fired in under three seconds.

Her eyes widened moments later, however, as the turret of a truck ahead turned towards her, mana packing within the barrel of the thing as it moved and tracked her across the battlefield.

"Shit, I'm too slow to dodge that," She cursed, sweat rolling from her head, the heat within the thing killed her, and her dry mouth did not jinx the worry within her that the mecha could not take the shot of a laser blast.

Her worry became nothing as a man with waving hair of azure leapt upon the truck. Three swords attached to his waist, the person took one and slashed.

A chunk of the barrel of the turret dropped off as the male leapt away and slashed once more. This time, a mana blade condensed and struck forward, slicing through the truck itself.

Two halves fell, blood pooling, as feet touched ground.

The figure turned, her eyes widened.

'Samuel—'

The strength of his armaments shocked her. How tough were the blades? How strongly did it compress mana and send it out? How strong was he? She shivered under her suit and wondered how it would fair.

His eyes narrowed across to stare at the clash of two groups of two figures tearing through the battlefield. To the left was a deserted area where lightning quaked and explosions rang from fists alone. Ahead was raging flames and a sword meeting against two.

He gripped his blade and walked.

"Wha—what did you do that for?!" Men clad in black surrounded him, guns pointed with shaking caution.

He frowned.

His hand slashed.

A mana blade sprung forth, flying low to the ground, which the men remarkably dodged with a well timed jump. However, what met them within the air was a net of sharp mana, vibrating and tearing through their shields. Screams came but the swordsman merely walked. At some point, two swords now appeared in Samuel's grasp and chunks of meat fell behind him.

'Is he. . .fighting against his own team?' She tilted her head as she continued her path.

Her eyes scanned and her mouth opened agape.

A wolf ran through the battlefield and a male with a sword chased after, slices of the Gear the person wielded tearing through his opponents, but his speed far behind the spirit amplified Mare—a Hollow deep within her shell.

'The hell?' Elsa cursed and she brought her mecha to maximum speed.

They all made their way towards the same location.