The District Page 15

  "Reinforcements inbound," said a voice over the comm.

  Through Sylax I still had access to the city systems. Airships were jumping in. Four of them overhead.

  Why did every single thing Wolf did have to be a trap.

  44

  Sylax was still gripped by pain but that didn't seem to have hit Hot Stuff or any of the others. That meant that the nerve disruption was probably a targeted effect generated by one of the implants. I had no way to communicate directly with Hot Stuff so communicated my plan to Anna via a comm burst.

  The way to deal with Wolfson seemed straightforward enough, it was more or less his own idea after all. Hot Stuff stepped behind him and wrapped her arms around him as she kicked her temperature up to it's upper level.

  At that heat the stone floor beneath couldn't remain a solid and she began to sink taking Wolfson with her. Before the liquid metal could reach her skin it would vaporize, but that just meant she had to operate quickly.

  It didn't take long for her to be walking her way out of that pit of molten stone, Wolfson nowhere in sight beneath its surface. I didn't know if Wolfson was alive or dead, but for the moment he was most completely out of commission.

  The pain gripping Sylax stopped and she pushed herself back up to her feet giving a tiny nod to Hot Stuff,

  The ships above were releasing shuttles. I was at this point well familiar with Wolf's fleet, I'd helped to destroy a fair bit of it after all. These ships were new.

  I sent the details to Sylax's visual overlay.

  "Wolf's reinforcements. I don't recognize the vessels," Sylax said.

  "He was expecting to take the city. Would he have already allied himself with a new power?" Anna asked.

  I thought we already had the answer to that. Wolfson's unusual upgrades and now these new ships gave proof that he had. What I didn't understand was why. Wolf had proved himself to be a capable, intelligent enemy almost always a few steps ahead of us. If he entered into negotiations with a foreign power for the cities aid after taking the city he would be in a far stronger position than doing so before it had fallen.

  That might be a position to take if he were already in a position of weakness, but despite the damage I and others had managed to do to him he'd been in a dominant position quickly after Sylax's disappearance.

  More alarming still if he had revealed the position of this city we were now far more vulnerable to attack. These ships needed to be neutralized, quickly.

  "Or he was already aligned with one. I can take one of the ships. Are you capable of handling one of the others?" Sylax asked.

  Anna lacked any sort of visual upgrade, she had to lean out the doors to look up at the sky. "Three others. We've got them."

  Sylax arched a brow but didn't address Anna's confidence. Instead the world dimmed around us as we teleported.

  The bridge of the ship was a majestic affair, stations sporting large screens showing scientific and tactical scanners from the ground below.

  "Teleportation trace from below," said one of the ships bridge officers that looked like nothing so much as a giant humanoid tree. They were all giant humanoid trees.

  "Track it," said the tree that must have been the captain.

  "Let me help you with that," Sylax said delivering a punch that sent the captain soaring across the room to crash into a display.

  "Alert! Intruder on the bridge!" shouted another officer. Sylax picked up the Captain's chair and threw it at what would have been the head on a human being.

  "Can you give me any sort of tactical data on where to hit these things?" Sylax asked.

  I almost replied that I wasn't a botanist but of course, I am one. I'm every kind of scientist, I'm just that good.

  Their design was quite unlike anything I'd seen before and I didn't have any real scanners to properly analyze. Still, a basic visual analysis could serve to identify joints and breaks in the bark.

  I brought up a targeting overlay for Sylax who began to set about to slaughter with mad abandon. I didn't mind, I appreciated the chance to be present on their bridge where I could try to infiltrate their systems.

  They were an interesting people people who called themselves the Paraxins. They were vassals of the Parali alliance which wasn't currently involved in any of the scholar wars. Interestingly they didn't have or utilize power crystals themselves, although they'd all formed a symbiotic relationship with a sort of powered moss.

  This was neither here nor there. While interesting I needed to focus on what they knew. Fortunately, it wasn't much. They'd been ordered to assist Wolf who had sent his own people to active their jump engines for the journey. They didn't have the coordinates.

  There wouldn't be more reinforcements if we could kill them and killing them was just what I had in mind. I brought up a diagram of the ship for Sylax and highlighted engineering.

  If the first few murders had been clumsily done, Sylax was getting far more skilful by the time we made it down two decks. She had taken to snapping off a branch that I'm fairly sure served as their version of a sex organ and then driving it through a weakness in the trunk that was roughly equivalent to a nostril.

  Engineering turned out to be field of flowers, spores fluttering in the breeze and forming tiny whirlwinds in the air.

  "Tell me I am not seeing this. Tell me these pathetic creatures aren't trying to power an airship with plants," Sylax said.

  "We're powered by crystals, I'm not sure we're in a place to judge," I said.

  "I'm judging. I'm really really judging. How do I burn this place down?" Sylax asked.

  I highlighted the third and eighth pipes running through the nearby wall. Sylax put her fist through each and gasses escaped. On ignition they burst into a geyser of flame that began to ignite the room.

  45

  When Sylax teleported us back to the ground it was just in time to see the ship starting to lurch unsteadily in the sky. It was a slower demise than was meeting two of the other airships which were in the process of plowing into each other.

  Through the cities sensor array I could detect the powerful magnetic fields surrounding them and I quickly determined the source. Ratticus. Perhaps this was his ultimate ability coming into play, so powerful were the ripples of energy coming off him it was tough even to look at him.

  Anna and Hot Stuff materialized a good minute afterward, the fourth ship beginning it's slump towards the ground.

  "Well that was disappointingly quick. Can't anyone give us a decent fight," Sylax complained just before she was decapitated by a high caliber round.

  When it regrew she was looking for the source of the shot. Those ships weren't the only reinforcements that had been called.

  The Professor was there, riding atop a Tyrannosaur that looked to have almost as many cybernetic upgrades as Wolfson had. Zora had shown up too, flanked by a force in tight fitting armor sporting submachine guns. Crash was present as well, although his army of mecha had been considerably reducted by the recent fighting. Flicker was present with her wire golems and Ophelia was there flanked by her army of townspeople.

  It was a lot and if they all used their abilities to help each other they were bringing a lot of power to the fight.

  "No man in charge? How disappointing," Sylax said as she cracked her knuckles.

  "Then let me make your day. You've raised a lot of fuss looking for me but this isn't going to go your way," Wolf said stepping out from behind a a mecha. This time he was unaccompanied by any of his Wolves, perhaps we had finally whittled their numbers down too much.

  I knew that in addition to these that had come out Wolf had also defeated and compelled Jade and Crystal. Their absence probably meant that he was planning something, Wolf was always planning something.

  "Have you been watching me fight?" Sylax thought to me.

  "You know I have, I've been giving you tactical information this whole time. Am I going to get to watch you run away now?"

  "You're going to take over."

  "While
I approve of your belated desire to put someone competent in charge are you convinced now is the time?"

  "We need to win Emma. The city and every district is in ruins and I cannot force the compulsion of any of them as I am the head of the city but you can."

  I understood her thinking. There was a minor problem of location but if I could access Sylax's ability to teleport we could remedy that. I could defeat one of the district heads and then move them back to their own district to force their submission.

  I'd been thinking Anna and the others might need to handle everyone else while we focused on Wolf, but in reality we'd need to do exactly the opposite.

  I sent a condensed version of the plan to Anna and got her acknowledgment a moment later. She understood and agreed.

  Crash would have to be the first target. If we were right about him dampening the abilities that Sylax was getting from Crystal then taking him out and forcing his submission could quickly restore her to full power.

  Wolf might possibly be her equal then, but he wouldn't be her better.

  "Let's do it," I thought to Sylax.

  It was awkward fitting into her skin, like I didn't quite belong there. Settling into any of my drones had always been a very natural sensation but this was something different.

  I moved to run towards Crash and felt my body being torn apart. Dimensional turbulence, it was a bit like walking into a meat grinder that I hadn't even been aware was there. Slices of me simply fading out of existence and then popping back into being in entirely the wrong spots.

  Although the accelerated healing tried to compensate it was having trouble when not all parts of me were even on the same plan any longer. While my physical host might be having some difficulties mentally I was still functional and my access to the city systems intact. I'd used the teleportation gates to interact with Flicker's reality before, I just needed to do so again.

  I opened a portal beneath Sylax's feet and we fell through, my pieces reorienting and realigning as we went. I lingered briefly in Flicker's dimension, long enough to punch her in what passed for a nose before another gate carried me through long enough to grab Crash and then another to teleport us to his central core.

  Massive screens filled every wall and they shattered most magnificently when I threw Crash into them, the man screamed as he fell to ground crashing with a heavy thud. A wrist computer he wore beeped ominously and I settled for silencing it with a swift kick that crushed both it and the wrist beneath.

  Perhaps I'd been watching Sylax a little too much or perhaps it was just a result of being in her head. I found myself enjoying this.

  "I know you Crash. I know you've probably got some brilliantly unpleasant bit of work on a timer and with you hurt and that computer destroyed it is just waiting to unleash all sorts of unpleasantness," I said.

  "Something like that," Crash said sitting up and letting out a pained chuckle. "The central reactor..."

  I cut him off there. Did he intend to blow up the city? That was my plan.

  "I don't care, Crash. You can submit and live or not and die and I'll deal with your clever little plan just like I've dealt with every clever little monkey plan so far," I said.

  "Emma? You're riding her as your host. That is why the disruption program wasn't as effective planned," Crash said.

  I didn't need him figuring things out. I needed him speaking the words. I smashed his other wrist.

  "You know. I think we could be friends. It's just so rare to meet someone that really shares my hobbies," Sylax thought.

  "I submit," Crash said between sobs.

  "Stop the city from being destroyed, order your forces to support my allies," I said and teleported away. We weren't even close to being done.

  46

  I teleported back to the central tower. The battle waged on.

  Hot Stuff must have invoked her ultimate for she was blazing more brilliantly than I'd ever seen her, cascade waves of heat deforming the world around her as she marches right through the gathering of Ophelia's forces towards her.

  Ophelia's townfolk couldn't heal from being vaporized. Normally I wouldn't think that Ophelia could be so quickly did she heal. With the intensity that Hot Stuff was burning I thought she might now. I didn't know if she could survive that or not. I'd have intervened to stop the vaporization from happening but Wolf was on me from the instant I reappeared.

  It seemed the others weren't that well at holding him off. I shouldn't have been surprised, the first time we'd faced Sylax with a powered force we'd been neutralized in seconds. The difference in power level with her amplification crystal was just too great.

  The blow that Wolf had just dealt me would have eviscerated me even a short time ago. Even now it left a few bloody gouges in Sylax's flesh for all of the second it took for them to heal over.

  My answering punch sent him soaring through the air.

  "Mind if I cut in?" Sylax asked.

  Well, it was her body.

  I mentally took a step back and let her resume control once more.

  Sylax activated Bioarmor. I'd seen this utilized by others and used it with my own drones and it reliably produced a set of armor roughly equivalent to a medium or heavy kit, capable but not extraordinary. With the boost from the amplification core Sylax got something different, besides just providing defense there were entire new offensive options being added as a heavy suit of muscle and bone formed around her.

  Leaping at Wolf a bone sword projected from her arm and she speared him through the throat before flinging him across the room with his head half decapitated.

  It was an impressive visual but unfortunately Wolf's regeneration was very nearly as good as ours, despite the grievous wounds he was down for only seconds before springing back to his feet with a growl.

  Hot Stuff's burn had completely wiped out Ophelia and her forces but in the aftermath when the flames faded away Hot Stuff was left without them. Staggering limply on her feet and when one of Zora's soldiers aimed a submachine gun at her and fired the bullets clipped her arm and shoulder and sent her collapsing to the ground.

  That was useful to know. While her Ultimate had allowed her to perform some feats that she wasn't normally capable of that added power had come with a cost of some downtime afterward during which the normal defensive heat of her flames was down.

  I'd given her accelerated healing in the past, that burst of gunfire shouldn't kill her but her strength there wasn't nearly as strong as the amplified versions of the power and it would take her many hours to heal.

  Wolf had managed to get a good grip on Sylax and using it broken her arm, the crack was surely temporarily satisfying but ultimately as useless as nearly decapitating him had been and mere moment later she was lifting him to throw him against a nearby support column that cracked at the impact.

  This was a battle of juggernauts that was going nowhere fast. Getting Sylax her full powers back had made this a draw and not a win.

  Ratticus was blasting at golems with bursts of lightning and Crash's mechs had turned to support our side. I didn't see Anna.

  I opened a comm to her through the cities systems.

  "I'm ok Emma. I'm working on a plan," Anna said.

  "That is an interesting way to describe running way," I said.

  "Seriously. You're going to like it. How in control is Sylax?" Anna asked.

  I didn't know exactly where this was going but I could guess. Anna likely wanted to kill Sylax and through she had a way to accomplish it.

  I couldn't argue with her thinking. Crystal wouldn't like it but at this point Crystal's approval hardly seemed to matter. If Sylax were killed then Wolf would no longer be able to mirror her amplification core and we might actually stand a chance against him.

  "It is her body and she takes priority. I believe I could take control, briefly, but she'll be able to fight me and is probably able to uninvite me," I said.

  "That is perfect. I'm going to send you a comm burst with a set of coordinates when it is tim
e. Teleport there and be your full insulting self to get her to show you the door," Anna said.

  I rather thought I'd be ejected anyways when Sylax was killed. Still, I couldn't be certain of that. It was good of Anna to be concerned.

  "I understand," I said.

  In the meantime I had to do all I can to help those still here. I focused on the surrounding golems and indicated weak spots on each, Sylax did a poor job at picking those up on her own.

  "Losing sight of the big win?" Sylax thought.

  "I thought that you might be getting a little bored and would enjoy hurting something that didn't heal back seconds later."

  It seemed that Sylax did for the next time she sent Wolf staggering back several steps with a punch to his midsection she swiveled and plunged her fist through the chest of a golem, grabbing a string and pulling.

  It took Anna ten minutes and sixteen seconds since she broke off communication for her next comm burst to come through. It was an eternity in a fight, although it seemed that Wolf and Sylax could go at this forever.

  Time enough for another seven golems to go down, time enough for Sylax to ampulate one of Wolf's limbs three times before he snapped off her bone sword to stab it into her shoulder. Time enough for the fight to go nowhere.

  I forced myself into control of Sylax's body and activated her teleport to the coordinates Anna had sent.

  47

  I materialized in a room lit only by a blue sphere. From the coordinates I thought I had to be somewhere back in my district.

  "What is this machine?" Sylax thought.

  "The betrayal you always knew was coming because you're so incredibly unlikable," I answered.

  Sylax responded just as I thought she would, just as I hoped she would, by fighting back. I felt my consciousness being pushed out of her and a moment later reconnecting with my district.

  My view of the room swam as suddenly it switched from being out of Sylax's eyes and through the wall cameras. It was in one of my testing facilities.