Banquet In The Stars VII : Cease-Fire

With the air going cold, a loud explosion echoed out to the entire upper floor, ice shot out through all of the hall's intersections, shooting into the lift and swallowing most of the soldiers and stabbing through others in the entire process.

The ice that shot into the lift had cut Nizael's cheek which was soon covered in a small patch of ice, and there was a slightly audible gasp coming from the other side of the ice, where Helia was.

– "That was dangerous, General. It would have been better had you gotten a different bomb, these Cryo bombs always have a big blast radius." Helia let out her annoyances while looking at the ice.

Helia had stayed in the corner while Nizael had to get closer to the edge to throw the bomb at them, so she was relatively safe, and Nizael had just a mere scratch. So they were able to deal with the surprise attack quite easily.

– "That is exactly why I used it. Extra blast radius means extra enemies dealt with, this cut is only a slight injury." Helia spoke out, feeling the ice that appeared on her cheek.

– "Wait. Did you get cut? Has ice appeared on the wound? We must deal with it at once, melt the ice carefully, General, or it will continue in the cut and freeze your blood and organs." Helia informed Nizael of what was going to happen to her cut.

– "Don't worry, I know how to deal with it. I'll melt the ice in a second and we can continue and deal with the rest of those in control." She said.

She raised her hand to her cheek and it started to glow with her white light that released heat, the ice quickly melted and was halted from affecting her blood and insides. Pulling out a pink bunny that held mini pictures of bunnies with eight beady red eyes – It was a bandaid she held for Lulu. Placing the bandaid on the cut, she started melting the ice spike that separated her and Helia.

There were now small puddles filling the lift and Helia could see the cute bandaid on Nizael's face. Helia's cheeks puffed up as she tried to hold in her laughter, seeing a cute bandaid on Nizael's stiff face.

– "What are you laughing at, Lieutenant General?" She asked curiously.

– "N-Nothing, General. It's just that the bandaid is cute, pfft- Sorry. You just look even more menacing with it." She said, almost bursting out into laughter.

– "What?! These bandaids are for Lulu, they were supposed to be cute. I'll have to have a word with Boss Tili when I get home." Nizael was seriously contemplating what to do with the bandaids now.

Not bothering to correct her misunderstanding, Helia chuckled to herself. Nizael began to melt the ice blocking the lift's entrance, the soldiers in the ice were already dead as the insides were also frozen; So she didn't worry a bit about melting the ice at all. The frozen bodies along with the ones that held giant holes in their bodies fell to the ground after she melted the ice.

– "This could have happened to you, General," Helia commented while looking at an unfortunate body that was missing the upper half of its head

– "You jest, I'm far too careful for such a thing to happen," Nizael scoffed at the mere that, showing her confidence.

Marching through the halls they made their way through several more Kritol squads, leaving a trail of bodies in their wake. Bullet holes, puncture holes, puddles of water, and bundles of ice were littered all across the top floor. They came to the hall that held the only door they didn't check and came into contact with a large mass of metal.

There was a large Frame that was also covered in armor that was standing in the middle of the hall, taking up most of the hall and only leaving enough room to move around. It held the appearance of a heavily geared Kritol soldier, except for the fact that it held no wings on its back; And its head was a large dome of glass, in the glass was a regular soldier that was controlling the Frame.

It held no weapons in its hands that were stretching themselves, but the stocks of several weapons could be seen going higher than its head. Fortunately, it couldn't use those weapons due to the limited space but it soon clenched its fist and had two long blades stretching from out its arms.

This was yet another new model of Frames that the Kritol had invented during the long years of peace.

Nizael clicked her tongue, she couldn't help but display her disgruntled mood; She could get the gist of the situation with just one glance. Even though the halls of the Dreadnought were tall and wide the Frame took up a majority of it, and it held long and large blades. They would never be able to get into the steering room without going through this Frame.

Helia decided to test it, she quickly drew her handgun and fired five shots at it. And at surprising speeds, to Helia's dismay, the large Frame blocked three shots with one of its blades, while the remaining two were lucky enough to hit the glass straight on – which did nothing. The shots didn't crack, no, as a matter of fact, it didn't even scratch it.

Helia looked at the Frame with a blank stare, the only other weapon she has is the Air Canon and if the handgun did nothing, the Air Canon would just be a passing wind. Swerving her head to Nizael, she waited patiently for her to come up with. Nizael didn't want it rushing them so it could attack, so she had the both of the go back around the corner they came from to come up with a plausible plan.

– "So what do you think we should do, General?" Helia asked as they both peeked over the corner.

"Our guns won't work in it, the Cryo bombs might freeze it, but there's a chance it could break out, and if it doesn't break out we can't melt the ice that would block our path without unfreezing it as well."

"I also don't have enough energy to burn through its armor and that glass... it's most likely unbreakable glass, it would tank through our hits.

Pointing out how all of their options to use against the Frame went null, Helia gazed at Nizael waiting for her to form a plan and give her orders.

– " Well, there were two windows next to the Frame, correct?" Nizael asked.

– "Yes, and there were also blue flames that were shooting past it while I was looking at them." Helia replied.

– "Hmmm, that'll work, that's most likely the upper side thrusters. We'll have to push the Frame out of the ship, I want you to use your flames to melt the glass off. It's also quite heavy, so we'll need to get it off the ground, I'll deal with that but we'll only have a few seconds before the safety screens fall over the broken window, so you'll also need to grab onto something." She communicated.

After getting a nod from Helia, Nizael had one of the metals on her arms slide down her arm, once more in the shape of a sharp stick. Handing it to her they prepared to start with the plan.

Nizael rushed first, she had to attract its attention, and that's what she did. Getting up close and personal with the Frame she dodged one of its blades before moving to dodge the other — right as she dodged it the other came right back, slicing at her neck, maiming her. The Frame was moving with a strange ferocity, perhaps because there was a Kritol soldier piloting it.

This was a far more stressful fight due to her weapons not assisting against it, and her not being able to get close enough to attempt to melt it. The same series of events continued – Nizael continued to evade a majority of its swings that were leaving large sword cuts in the walls, while the ones she couldn't completely evade left cuts all over her body.

– "I almost got it!

Heating the shout Nizael looked over the Frame's shoulder and spotted Helia giving her a thumbs up, but the Frame also looked back at Helia, noticing what she was attempting to do it aimed one of its arms at her, and the blade launched at her at a high velocity.

Nizael quickly fired her gun at the flying blade and was able to knock the blade off its path and into the upper part of the glass, logging itself into it. Nizael almost sighed but she soon spat out blood – although she attempted to dodge it, the Frame was able to tear its blade through a good amount of her skin.

Backing up from the Frame a bit, Nizael chuckled under her breath while holding the wound with one of her hands, It was targeting her, and it honestly almost got her there. Her blood was clopping onto the white floor, staining it red; The hand on her wound began to glow with a white-hot light and the smell of skin burning permeated her nose.

Having cauterized her wound, she looked at the Frame that seemed to not be bothered by Helia at all. It now had a singular blade so now lost its advantage, Nizael could see a way she could take it down.

Bending down she charged at the Frame, this time both of her hands were glowing and they were giving off much more heat than the previous time; When the Frame swiped its blade at her she weaved under it, and then a punch at the incoming fist — Upon contact nothing happened, and the Frame attempted to pull its first back, she sent a barrage of punches at it as she had now hopped on its arm.

It sent another swipe at her but this time she automatically swung herself under the arm she was standing on and swiped at one of its legs, her hand blaring in heat as she yelled at Helia.

– "Now! Do it Now!"

And like that, the sound of glass breaking rung out and it felt like everything in the hall was being sucked out of the hall. Helia held her breath as she stabbed Nizael's stick into the wall, keeping her from being pulled out, while Nizael had managed to stab her other stick into the floor.

The Frame's foot was melted off and separated from the rest of the foot, the Frame was soon pulled towards the glass, but not before swinging its blade several times — nicking Nizael and cutting off a small clump of Helia's hair while also nicking her neck. The Frame was pulled out of the glass and the safety screen fell, covering it, not before showing the Frame being devoured by the blue flames of the upper side thrusters.

With the safety screens down the two women were no longer being sucked out of the ship so the dropped to the floor and let out their held in-breaths. They had left themselves slumped on the floor to catch their breaths, Helia got up first and grabbed the stick from out of the wall as she walked over to Nizael and took the stick out of the floor.

– "That was easy, General." Helia made a sarcastic remark as she held out her hand for Nizael.

– "Haaaa~, yeah it was." Letting out a chuckle, she took the hand and stood herself up.

They checked their wounds as they were preparing to finally head into the steering room but before they could, the Dreadnought began to shake as the sound of a large object moving could be heard all around them. At the same time, a familiar voice coming out of the ship intercoms entered the two women's ears.

— "General Bavel, and Lieutenant General Urnfox. What a pleasure to meet you two again, I heard of the mess you're of my soldiers you're leaving on that ship."

"You know what? For old time's sake, I'll let the two of you off the hook, after all, you two are the star guests."

The man's voice and presence alone brought a look of distaste to the women's faces. they knew the man was messing with them purposely to get to their nerves, but the mere gaudiness leaking out of his voice infuriated them to no end.

"I'll get straight to business then, I know you two like that. I don't like fighting, you don't like fighting, let's have a cease-fire. What do you say?"