Chapter Text
Chapter 21
(Source: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Aceship/Arknight-Images/main/avg/backgrounds/bg_lock_1.png )
BANG BANG BANG BANG
“PUSH FORWARD! They can’t pierce your shields!”
Under Ch’en’s direction, the pointmen for their tactical team slowly crept forward, all the while blocking firearm bullets. Trying to peek out from her wall, a bullet nearly found its mark on her forehead, making her swear gracefully in Lungmen Profanity.
“Where the hell did they even get these firearms?! Doesn’t Laterano have a monopoly on them?!” Swire shouted from her cover, both hands covering her sensitive ears from the loud bangs. Hoshiguma too was also pinned down in the hallway they found themselves in, with only her shield being the sole thing protecting her. Each time they tried to creep forward, concentrated fire would be placed on their shieldbearers. Worse yet, their snipers couldn’t get a clear shot without effective covering fire. This was the last hallway they had to clear, everywhere else had been secured after painstaking effort.
It was a plain hallway, no way to flank…nor another way around for entry. Whatever was at the end, they certainly didn’t want them to find out. Out of curiosity and the lack of a viable alternative, Ch’en picked up a discarded firearm on the ground, she was not trained in its usage but the same principle of ‘pulling the trigger’ should apply, right? Taking a deep breath, she peeked ever so slightly out of cover and squeezed the trigger at the enemy.
Nothing happened, aside from a simple click.
“I should have expected that…” Quickly discarding the damn thing, there was a reason why only Sankta wielded guns. Crossbows were a much better ranged option for most people and did not come with the risk of exploding (with the risk of contracting Oripathy) when improperly used, which did help them narrow down potential suppliers for these weapons. Only one company in Columbia had the will to reverse engineer Sankta firearms after all, and it just so happened to be the same one that manufactured Chi Xiao’s sheathe.
“Hah! What were you thinking?! You’re not a Sankta, you can’t operate guns like they do!” Swire had noticed her attempt, and still found humour in their dangerous situation.
“Those guys aren’t Sankta either, yet they’re shooting at us with a lot of enthusiasm!”
Just as Ch’en was about to tell her squad to pull back, she heard a familiar sound of…digging?
The floor in front of her suddenly had a perfectly square hole in the centre, and soon after, a familiar face appeared from it.
“Oh hey, Chenny! How’s it goin? Sorry I took so long, those cords were sure hard to find!”
“Alex?!” The other Playaar, who Ch’en wasn’t very familiar with to be honest, had a casual expression on her face. Her head had a glowing helmet secured on it, a hallmark of Playaar Arts Alina called enchantments.
“Looks like you’re a bit stuck, huh? Need a hand?”
“...we would certainly appreciate it…” She climbed up soon after, placing down a block of…stone to cover up that hole. Playaar movements were still a complete mystery to her, just how did they even-
“Don’t worry, I’ve got an idea. Be right back!” Taking out her pickaxe, Alex once again disappeared by ‘mining’ the floor below her, similar to how Alina popped out from the ground, only reversed. Watching her fall down the hole, Alex ran off towards the direction of those shooting cultists before disappearing from view.
“What the fuck was that about?!” Swire asked, only for a hail of bullets to be her answer.
Not even a minute later however, the end of the hallway suddenly exploded from underneath, sending the cultists careening down. Moving up quickly, Ch’en and her squad managed to reach the end, managing to be just in time to see Alex decapitate a power-armour-wearing cultist with an axe. The moment the head split from the neck was something Ch’en wouldn’t be getting out of her system in a long time…
“Number sixty-six! I’m on a roll tonight! Hah, get it? Because heads roll? Oh come on, you know what I mean…” The macabre display of gore below Ch’en took any humour out of the situation…
“Bloody hell…did you really have to-”
“Listen, limey, I’ve had a whirlwind of a day today, so just let me blow off some steam, yeah? Anyways, I think Crowny is already through in the vents judging by the screaming I heard, so let’s just get in there and kill the old bastard.”
Quickly fixing the ruined floor with her own blocks of stone, the doors were opened, and Ch’en was treated to another gruesome sight.
“Oh? Finally made it? The Colonel’s held up in there, I can’t get through, the office is sealed tighter than a Laterano vault.” Inside the room just before the main office was Crownslayer, along with a dozen bloodied bodies belonging to cultists. This was what they were capable of before?! Ch’en had a sudden horrific realization that these extremely dangerous people were in her city for three weeks…wait, did they actually kill a lot of people and she just never found out?!
Her nervous stare was noticed by the Reproba, who sighed in response. “Surprisingly, we haven’t killed anyone in Lungmen before today…I think the body count more than made up for the past weeks.”
“I don’t know if that was supposed to comfort or make me even more worried…”
“Probably both! Now, let’s crack open this fuckin’ thing. Oh hey, a passcode…yeah I ain’t fucking with that thing. I’m just gonna mine open the door.” Alex simply took out her pickaxe again and began picking away at the bulky reinforced doors. In the middle of that however, their radio suddenly received a call for urgent reinforcements, half a dozen delivery trucks had appeared right outside their perimeter…
“Ch’en, I’ll take half the squad with me to go reinforce them-” Hoshiguma suggested immediately, but Ch’en had another idea.
“Take everyone.”
“Huh?! Don’t you need help in-” Swire protested of course, but there was another issue at hand.
“If they get through, we risk opening an escape route. No matter what, the… Colonel cannot be allowed to escape. Fight off their rescue attempt and come back to me if possible, Alex and Crownslayer are capable enough.”
“I was gonna do this solo before but okay…” Alex quipped, one chunk of the reinforced door had been taken off.
Despite Hoshiguma’s reservations, she ultimately accepted those orders. “Damn…come back alive, I don’t want to see ‘killed by a fast food mascot’ on my after-action report!”
As one, her squad quickly ran off to reinforce their perimeter, if they were packing the same kind of Columbian weaponry then their patrolmen needed all the help they could get. Turning to the redhead, Ch’en asked her a question hurriedly.
“How much longer?”
“Five…four…three…two…one…and there we go. Should be big enough for us to fit through. This could be an extremely obvious trap by the way, so if you’ve got any last words you better say it now…”
“Why are you so obsessed with traps? You said the same thing right before we entered Lee’s office.”
“Cause’ that’s what I would do? If some bozo wants to kill me, and they are going to enter one of my places…I’d just rig a giant TNT ring trap for them to fall into. Works every time.”
“...you know what, I can’t fault you for that…” Crownslayer murmured out, causing Ch’en to look between the two crazy people.
“You know that isn’t what regular people talk about, right?”
“Like you’re one to talk. Who here has had their mother from another dimension appear back into their life as if nothing happened?” The assassin retorted back just as quickly, causing Ch’en to tsk in response. She just had an insane situation, while those two were just plain old insane, big difference!
Pop
The second block popped, and Alex switched her pickaxe out for her axe. “I swear these layouts are perfect for a tower defence game or something…looks like it’s just the three of us, Yuè found the missile thingy, she’ll disable it and come back up to us soon.”
Crownslayer followed Alex in, and then Ch’en went in last, her standard-issue sword already drawn. They passed through a hallway filled with paintings and other…exhibits, such as the first franchise opened in Lungmen and past special flavours they created for a limited time. It appeared to be a bog-standard company showroom, in Lungmen those were near dime a dozen.
“Standard corpo flair, dunno who started the trend, but you find enough of these everywhere…at least this one seems to be specifically for Lungmen. Hey, wait, the hell is that?” Alex pointed at a large painting in the centre of the hallway. Walking over to it, Ch’en shined a flashlight on the old oil painting, it seemed to depict the Columbian Revolution of some kind judging by the clothes people depicted in there wore.
It showed a woman, holy and divine, dressed in a white sundress handing out a bucket of…their fried fowlbeast to the poor masses. She didn’t need to be an art expert to see what the meaning was here. During her time in Victoria there were many paintings like this in the academy she went to, Ch’en wondered how Fiona was doing now in the army…
There was a plaque mounted next to it, and she read the words there out loud.
“The…first blessing of our Lady…Winter of 1017… right in the middle of their revolution.”
“Back in their corporate headquarters they kept screaming about their Lady or something in addition to the Colonel. I’m guessing that’s what they were raving on about…”
“There’s more.” Crownslayer pointed further down the hallway. As one, they went past more of those oil paintings, depicting various events such as important inventions…preaching…and even building structures in a very religious manner. Very similar to artworks that came from Iberia now that she had a better look. Near the end of the hallway, there was one painting in particular that was grander and larger than all of the other ones before it.
“This reads… our Lady’s ascension above the false sky…Spring of 1019.” Crownslayer read the plaque for that painting out loud. Unlike the other ones, this time it showed the woman in a white sundress waving goodbye from…a tube-like object at the masses down below. It should be mentioned that she was already high up in the sky, above the clouds and among the stars, which should have meant she perished in the false sky of Terra. Ch'en remembered an important detail then...didn’t Yuè mention that she…
“Huh, that looks kinda like the rockets from ‘ Ad Astra’. Guess she just went to the moon like Yuè did prior to living in Neo-New Elysium…but how the hell did KFC form from that?!”
“...you know, this suddenly makes a lot more sense…I’ll tell you later, or the Colonel will. He’s probably just beyond that door.” At the end of the corridor, there was a simple wooden double door, a far cry from all the security they went through earlier. With nothing else to do or see, they stacked up next to the door, and busted it open together with two well placed kicks.
WHAM
Quickly rushing inside, they were greeted to an almost empty office. It resembled the styles found in the premier Columbian institutes, or the general Trimounts style as it was called. The three of them immediately locked into the sole occupant of the office before them, dressed in a crisp white suit, white hair…and carrying a cane, Ch’en only had a description based on packaging, but the Colonel was actually real…
This whole thing still felt like a fever dream, but the Southern Columbian voice coming from him soon knocked sense into her.
“So, you went through em? Shame, they were tried and true believers. Not everyone was, especially those in minimum wage…but once you’re a full time employee, you were likely to have accepted the Gospel.”
The Colonel turned around from the large tinted window in his office, overlooking the rest of the facility. They were at the highest floor, literally having fought their way upwards to the top.
“Oh I’m gonna enjoy prying some answers outta you-” Alex took one step forward, and a line of bolts immediately impacted the floor in front of them in a line, automatic turrets…also a Raythean specialty.
“Do forgive me for that, I’m afraid I will need some time before you try and take me into custody.”
“You’re awfully certain we won’t.” Ch’en plainly stated, from her point of view, he did not have the high ground anymore.
“Au contraire, madame officer, but what kind of businessman would I be without an insurance policy? I assume you’re familiar with Originium bombs, given your…history?”
Ch’en immediately stiffened, that operation was not publicised, with the dirty bombs omitted from public reports-
“And no, I’m not talking about your recent encounter with one. I am talking about the events seventeen years ago in this city! You see, that Ursus Duke responsible for the whole thing might be gone, but his deeds continue to inspire us today! A real pioneer that one, in the art of holding an entire mobile city hostage!
“You’re holding Lungmen hostage with Originium bombs?!” A flashback to that fateful day, where Kaschey threatened to detonate the Originium bombs on Talulah if he wasn’t allowed to leave flashed again in her mind, making her grit her teeth. Ch’en was now pissed, he made this personal.
“Bombs? Please, not something so…unsophisticated like that. The bombs would have just destroyed the city, just like my ancestral home of Lingones…”
“Oh fuck me, you’re Gaulois?! WHY?!” Alex exclaimed with some amount of despair.
“Gaul may be destroyed…but we descendants keep its spirit alive throughout Terra.” As soon as he mentioned that, Ch’en could see Liberi features flare up behind his head.
“As much as it pains me to harm a fellow countrywoman like yourself, Miss Alex, I have a higher duty to our good Lady, where I must bring all that I have learned back to Columbia, thanks for saying all that information in the hallway, I’m sure we’ll put that to good use.”
“They were recording us…I knew that hallway was too quiet…” Crownslayer muttered, only for the Colonel to shrug. Using his cane, he pointed at the night’s sky above the skyscrapers of Lungmen in a victorious smile, as if he had won before even fighting.
“If you do not let me and the rest of my fellow believers leave, a new Originium weapon will launch into the skies above Lungmen at midnight, and activate an artificial Catastrophe that will do more than simply devastate your city. I’ve been reassured by those eggheads back home it will work in Lungmen, given all of that industry you have over here spewing out those particles. Let’s see here…you have less than half an hour left to accept my demands.”
Ch’en did something she wasn’t supposed to, hesitate. In theory, artificial Catastrophes were extremely hard to create…but if Columbia’s arms corporations were the ones providing it…then the threat was credible. Alex leaned over and whispered to her ear a question.
“That’s bad, right?”
“How do you not-right, nevermind…yes, Alex. It’s bad, very bad…” Catastrophes, as she understood it, were often caused by an abundance of Originium particles in a given area, leading to a chain reaction which caused the destructive event. Unfortunately, the often random nature of it due to many factors were something even Catastrophe Messengers had trouble dealing with. If he could artificially cause them to occur…
“Now, I will admit the artificial Catastrophe won’t be as big as the naturally generated ones…but are you still going to take that risk, madame?” The Colonel taunted, daring her to call his bluff. Yuè and Alina were still disabling the weapon, which until said otherwise was still operational. They were buying time…exactly like the Colonel was.
“Why?! Yan will declare war on Columbia if you detonate it, is that really what Columbia and your Lady wants?! ” Ch’en used the threat of war to try and dissuade him, if Yan and Ursus nearly fought a war seventeen years ago, then this should be the same…even if they are separated by multiple countries in the process. The Colonel slammed his cane down, reverberating throughout the office.
“Ah, but we aren’t the federal government, sure, there will be an investigation and diplomatic threats, as well as crashing Terra’s global trade for a while…but we’ll survive. These nations and their bickering…it gets in the way of the Gospel.” The Colonel held his arms out, as a Lateranian preacher would do.
“My life was saved by the teachings of the Colonel! When my family arrived in Columbia after the destruction of Gaul…we starved. Many of us starved…if it wasn’t for our good Lady’s teachings and her followers providing us with charity, a good portion of Southern Columbia would not be here today. The Colonel taught her, and gracefully, us, the importance of charity…and what better way to honour them by exporting her Gospel?! We ARE Columbia’s spirit! Her teachings of self-reliance, business acumen…and the importance of a good bucket of fried fowlbeast are core tenants of what makes Columbia… THE GREATEST NATION ON TERRA!”
Stunned beyond words, Alex appeared to be the only one with a coherent emotional response. “Okay, boomer. Va te faire foutre, Amerloque!”
The Playaar raised her crossbow loaded with a firework, Ch’en was too late to stop her.
FWOOM
The projectile was aimed true, but the Colonel simply tilted his body so that it missed, instead impacting the glass behind him and piercing right through. A colourful display detonated outside, but it only served to illuminate the Colonel’s silhouette even more ominously.
“How vulgar! We have a dream, that every person in Columbia will take control of their own destiny! A nation of those truly free, not ruled by some business interests…some politcian’s agenda, your race or even whether you’re Infected! Ruled by free will, just as the Colonel intended! And in order for that to happen…we needed to find our Lady once more for her unbound wisdom…you should have just worked alongside us.”
Suddenly twisting his cane, the top most handle popped off from the rest of the stick, revealing a large needle inside the base. Jamming it into his thigh, the Colonel shouted in pain for a brief second…before his arms began twitching. Preparing to strike, Ch’en was stopped by Crownslayer herself, she noticed something they didn’t.
“That’s…a combat stim!” She shouted out, and as if on cue, the Colonel ripped the top off his white suit one-handed, revealing an impossibly well-built body for someone who should have been elderly. Discarding his cane, the Colonel flexed his muscles, literally as big as a small watermelon in his biceps, and turned toward them with a righteous grin.
“What can I say? I was a real momma’s boy back then, shooting all those body-building commercials means I had to grow up eatin’ good! Thank our secret Fowlbeast gravy recipe, only the executives like yours truly have access to them, a relic from our Lady herself!”
“Doesn’t matter, I’m still mounting your head on my fireplace!” Alex charged first, ignoring Ch’en’s shout for her to wait. Tanking through the bolts from the automatic turret, she managed to reach to the muscle-bound Colonel for a swing, only to be stopped halfway in the attempt by a swift roundhouse kick to her abdomen.
CRASH
Alex crashed back into the wall beside them, a Playaar-sized crater forming on it upon impact. The fact that she immediately began cursing, in words she recognised at probably Gaulish profanity meant she was still alive…
“Played college ball back in the day as a freshman! Could have gone pro if I hadn’t joined the Union Army! You’re gonna have to do better than that!” Prying Alex off the wall quickly, Ch’en stopped her from immediately rushing him again.
“We attack together, remember, we’re buying time for them to disable the bomb.” Thankfully, after that failed attack, Alex was more than willing to listen.
“Shit, alright…damn he hits like half a Warden …the fuck do they put in Terran diets?!”
Alex took out a huge apple made out of gold , and proceeded to down the whole thing in a few bites. “Want one? Guarantee it’ll be worth it!” She offered one of them to Ch’en and Crownslayer, both slowly shook their heads in response. How the hell was she supposed to eat that thing quickly?!
“Your loss…guess it’s open season on CEOs now; sure he ain’t a health insurance exec but I’ll take what I can get. Shame we couldn’t get him earlier, though I’m always up for a fight like this!”
“You’re an actual combat junkie…there’s a few screws loose somewhere in there…” The assassin said as she downed another potion given by Yuè earlier, this time rendering her invisible.
“Nah, that’s Leda, but who the hell cares?! Let’s fucking GOOOOOOOOO!”
As one, the trio charged at the corporate mascot turned prophet, the fate of Lungmen on the line.
Ch’en did her best to ignore the nagging thought in the back of her mind shouting that the report would be hellish to write afterwards…
(Source: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Aceship/Arknight-Images/main/avg/backgrounds/bg_lungmenbridge.png )
Move, wait, and then strike.
Lyudmila was taught these three things in her essential training. When dealing with foes that were stronger than her…the advantage she had was in everything they lacked. Unfortunately, despite getting in multiple fatal stabs and slashes…the old bastard was still not going down. At some point their fight had moved away from the office and onto the large road on Lungmen’s outskirts. Behind her was the wilderness, and in front of her, was a life and death battle.
CLANG
The Colonel was locked in against Alex, who was able to hold her own with her enchanted shield. Ch’en just attempted to slash at the Colonel, only to be shoved a dozen meters away by his remaining free hand. Seeing her opportunity, Lyudmila rushed in, delivering twenty-eight stab wounds before needing to retreat, the swiftness potion still worked even after a while.
“You little rat! I can break the Vice-President in two, who are you to scurry around like that?!”
Slamming his foot down, a shockwave made her retreat temporarily…as it turned out, being completely invisible was not great for balancing, on account of not being able to see your arms and legs…
Taking the opportunity, Alex delivered another blow to the Colonel, this time halfway into his neck, before being unceremoniously roundhouse kicked again.
“Guh!” Using her axe as an anchor, Alex slowed herself to a standstill using it, huffing and wheezing as she shouted more obscenities at him in Gaulish.
“Putain de merde! WHY WON’T YOU DIE?!”
The Colonel grinned, before flexing his muscles again like a heavyweight champion.
“The original recipe, girl, it heals my wounds and calcifies my vital organs in response to physical trauma, making them hard as diamonds! You can’t kill me, Alex!”
In response, Alex used an ender pearl to get closer, clutching a End Crystal as she got close. Lyudmila thought that was it, the fight was over, only for her hopes to be dashed when Alex was grabbed by the throat, just before she could detonate the crystal as she did before.
“You can thank our partnership with Rhine Labs for that! Combining the old and the new…that’s the Columbian way! Not so easy when the enemy knows your tricks, huh?!”
Like a ball, Alex was punted away into a fair distance while Ch’en attempted to go in for another strike. “Not so fast, officer! I fought in the vast deserts of Sargon, you’re a decade too young to even touch me!”
Like a raging bull, he went in for a devastating strike on Ch’en, one hand was grabbing her sword, while the other went for her face. Lyudmila attempted to intercept, but the speed that the old bastard somehow mustered meant she couldn’t-
CLANG
“You! You’re those rats belonging to Wei, did you like our anonymous tip back then?!”
“Fool me once, never again. Die, and be at peace.”
The strike on Ch’en was blocked by two Raincoats, appearing from out of nowhere-
“Crownslayer!”
The Fang immediately breathed out a sigh of relief, finally, some fucking reinforcements! Turning around, she found Yuè and Alina next to her, she should have just been a floating dagger from their point of view, but that was enough to their expert eyes by now. A squad of Shadows quickly descended upon the Colonel, trying their best to take him down as well, but like before, it was proving to be a much more daunting task than originally thought…
“We took down the missile! Literally for that matter…I heard from Ch’en’s radio that you were fighting him…but you never said he was straight out of Metal Gear!” Presumably, she made another eye-arr-ell reference Lyudmila would not understand without half an hour of explanation.
“I have no idea what that is…wait, the hell am I saying?! The Colonel injected himself with something just now. No matter what damage we inflict he just shrugs it off, every hit we land on him is useless, he regenerates it almost immediately or it just isn’t affecting him. Any bright ideas?! I think it might be related to one of your items!” Lyudmila didn’t know for sure, but still said it on her hunch. Everything she learned so far pointed to their origins having something to do with Playaars…
“You think it’s a status effect? Well, I mean…”
“It is a status effect! I got a good look at him, there are particles coming from the old fuck, just barely!” Alex suddenly appeared beside them, not appearing any worse for wear despite being punted dozens of meters away. Yuè seemed to reach an epiphany, her eyes widening, the bow in her hands disappeared, instead replaced by a full bucket of Overworld milk.
“In that case…I have a bucket of milk with me, but only the one. We need him immobilized so we can force him to drink it. And from what I’m seeing…”
He darted around like a complete maniac? Whatever he was on, Crownslayer, or any one of them for that matter would be hard-pressed to pin him down. She heard rumours about the Columbian megacorps conducting all sorts of experiments…but this was just bullshit. Even the goddamn Raincoats had to work together just to hold their own, the old adage of there always being stronger foes turned out to be very true.
“Wait, Alex, your soulsand!”
“Oh shit, we summoning the Wither?!” Alex asked with some amount of glee, before Yuè dashed her hopes just as quickly.
“No, dumbass, it can slow the old bastard down! Go and place it somewhere, in the meantime-”
“He’ll just fight us off while he's slowed, you got some super attack that can wound him enough? Damnit, this is what we get for not bothering with the majority ‘modd-ed’ stuff, have you seen the kinda shit that they get up to?!”
“Now is not the time! Wait, if that’s all we need…” Yuè suddenly looked up, directly at a Ch’en who was unsure of what to do a fair distance away.
“I’ve got an idea. Crownslayer, you’re with me, Alex, you go and help the Shadows distract him, give your soulsand to Alina.”
“What? But she can’t place-”
“I can!” Alina said with conviction, holding a few of those concrete blocks she broke earlier in her hand, Alex stared at them, dumbfounded.
“How in the fuck -oh who cares right now! Here, place them in a four-by-four grid, it’ll give us that much room to work with! You’re telling me what the hell happened back there after this!” The redhead threw Alina the creepy-looking sand, the ones with those animated faces and dashed off to go join the fight.
“What do I do?!” Lyudmila shouted, she wasn’t sure if Yuè remembered her presence so she decided to play it safe.
“You’re with Alex, make sure he can’t move after he gets on the soulsand, break his knees, slash his tendons, make sure he can’t take another step before we can immobilize him.” She checked her dagger, still deadly sharp.
“Will do. What will you be doing?”
Yuè looked at Ch’en, a complicated expression on her face, before morphing into one full of acceptance. “I’m going to encourage my daughter from another world, like all parents should do!”
Lyudmila watched the the not-Lung run off, towards the true-Lung who had been hanging back. Deciding to trust in them, as she should have done weeks ago, she dashed ahead, they all had their own roles to play here.
Ch’en wielded her standard-issue sword uneasily, there was no opening for her to strike. The Shadows had taken over her fight, saving the Superintendent from certain demise yes, but it reminded her of that day seventeen years ago. With the difference here being that it wasn’t raining, and in an entirely different part of Lungmen. She could picture herself there again, standing a far distance away from Talulah, hand reaching out to her, but to no avail.
“Tch, even now, I’m still being saved by you, huh Uncle?”
What did her strength mean? All of her time and effort in strengthening herself to unravel the mystery behind her family…yet, she was unable to fight equally against an elderly man, even if he was juiced up by a mystery drug-
“Not using Chi Xiao?”
Of course, Yuè was there too now. And this time, Ch’en knew she was no illusion, the battle armour made it quite obvious.
“...what’s the point of me using it? Years spent training with it, yet I can’t even get it to unsheathe.”
She was somewhat jealous that Yuè, with virtually no swordsmanship training, could effortlessly draw the blade while it didn’t even budge for her. It was a significant blow to her ego, but back then she had more things on her mind.
“The point isn’t to unsheathe it, or to put it more accurately, the sheathe was never a part of Chi Xiao. Only the sword is, and even then, the sword itself doesn’t matter.”
“Can you not do it with the cryptic messaging right now?! We’re kind of in the middle of a fight-”
“Think, Ch’en, think…I won’t pretend to know everything that has happened, but I think I know enough. Is the culmination of everything you learned in that sword, or is it in yourself?”
“But Chi Xiao has-” Ch’en meant to say power, but that wasn’t exactly true, was it?
The sword itself was…not radiating with Arts unlike Yuè’s armor or bow. In fact, it was akin to a blank void, her uncle once said it had the power to cut through any and all Arts, but that didn’t matter if she couldn’t even remove the sheathe.
“Did the blade come first, or did the sheathe? Whether or not you use it with or without…” Yuè placed a hand on Chi Xiao’s hilt, guiding Ch’en’s dominant hand to grip it with her offhand. She discarded her standard-issue sword, for what she was going to do, both hands would be needed.
“When I drew Chi Xiao back then, I did not know others could not draw it. Simply put, the sheathe did not matter, all I knew for sure was that I needed to use it. A sheathe is just a sheathe, and a blade just a blade, both are ultimately useless without the wielder.”
Her regrets, her fears, all were in the sheathe itself, being present in the tragedies that occurred seventeen years ago. It witnessed everything, and was now present again when a similar event was about to repeat.
“Your burdens are not yours alone to bear anymore. So, be free of them, and stop chasing after past shadows, my little fighter.”
Under Yuè’s comforting touch, the weight of the blade, her responsibilities and burdens…felt a lot lighter.
So that’s what I missed… Ch’en thought, a single tear sliding down her cheek.
Ch’en got into the stance she practised for years, never once being successful in succeeding, until now.
(Source: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Aceship/Arknight-Images/main/avg/images/avg_5_7_chen.png)
A crimson light began emitting from the blade, brighter than she had ever seen it before.
She aimed with conviction, this cut could not miss, Yuè pointed at Alina’s general direction, a square patch of sand being their ultimate goal for some reason. The light show was enough of a signal to Alex, who suddenly directed the fight over towards her, giving her a clean shot.
“Remember to say something cool!” The redhead shouted at her, right before getting punched into the concrete, she was now cleared to draw.
“Chi Xiao: Boundless Will!”
She pulled, and drew Chi Xiao for the first time.
Meanwhile in Yumen…
A Grandmaster looked out of his window, toward the direction of Lungmen, clearly visible even among the sandstorms that plagued the areas around the fortress. He felt it, and if he felt it all the way here…then his other eleven siblings would have too.
“I should write a letter to Yenwu…” He thought to himself, and made sure to send it through an express messenger.
A Lung in the sky was an auspicious sign after all, of interesting times to come…
(Source: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Aceship/Arknight-Images/main/avg/images/avg_5_7_chen_2.png)
A crescent arc of energy launched from Ch’en’s blade, just once arc, but it rapidly expanded in size as it neared her target. The Colonel, pausing from his fight, seemed to be blindsided by the sudden arc coming straight for him, but before it could strike true, he dodged.
He was not fast enough.
“ARGH!” The Colonel stumbled back, clutching the stump that was his right arm.
The arc did not stop, continuing to go on until it hit the expressway above them, causing a portion of it to split cleanly off and fall onto the ground. Thankfully they shut down the road hours ago…
“I’ll take over from here! Get that milk ready!” Alex had gotten up from being a part of the road, and was now right in front of the hulking Colonel with a black glass block and a floating purple crystal in hand.
KA-BOOM
A split second later, an ear-splitting explosion rang out in front of Ch’en, Alex flew black several dozen meters, but so did the Colonel…right onto the odd-looking sand Alina quietly placed while Ch’en went through her moment.
“Gah?! More tricks! Fight with honour!” Despite losing an arm, the Colonel still managed to shout those words out. Just as Alex intended, he landed right on the sand, Alina had actually mined out the top layer of concrete just to fit those blocks in. He tried to get up and jump away, only to find his feet sunk deep into that eerie-looking material.
“Now’s our chance! Fucking get his ass!” Alex shouted, rousing everyone else into action.
Yuè and Ch’en rushed forward, but a floating dagger of all things beat them to it, two quick slashes to his legs brought the elderly man down on his knees.
“This is for your mid-ass food! You’re a shame to everything the Colonel stood for!” Next, it was Alex’s turn, literally teleporting right in front oh the Colonel, managing to bring a pickaxe right down into the Colonel’s chest, pinning him down with a painful cry. “ Yuè! You’re up!”
“Ch’en! Force open his mouth!”
Despite having no idea what that was about, she still did as she was told, and jumped right next to the pinned Colonel, any other situation and this would have been elderly abuse...
“YEARGH! This ain’t enough to kill me, I’m fucking invincible!”
“Oh yeah?! Hey Yuè! He needs some milk!” As if on cue, Yuè brought out a bucket, filled with the same liquid that brought Ch’en’s Oripathy to a complete stop. Ch’en landed a solid punch on the Colonel’s jaws, which felt like punching Hoshiguma’s shields, but despite that, she powered through the pain and forced his mouth wide open.
“Ready!”
“Here I go! This is the weirdest fight I’ve ever been in!” Slowly, then a constant stream, of the marble-like liquid flowed in. As more of it entered the Colonel, his body began to spasm, literally thrashing those pinning him up and down as he gurgled, Ch’en herself struggled to keep his mouth open…eventually however, after what felt like eternity…
The monstrous strength he had from before faded. And despite his large muscle-bound figure…he was relegated back to a mere mortal Terran. No one rose from their positions, as if waiting to see if it really worked, or was another one of his tricks.
“...it’s over. The milk removed all his status effects…” Yuè said, the air around them had quieted, with only the soft whispers of the animated sand below her making any noise. Speaking of, she immediately got up from it, something in her gut told Ch’en to get away from it immediately.
“...that’s it then? We won? Crisse, this was one hell of a fight, definitely in the top ten for me here…”
“No… I’ve won…” All of their attentions were immediately on the Colonel again, who despite having one lung punctured, managed to croak out his words, blood coming from his mouth. Yuè scoffed, holding up what appeared to be a long metal cylinder in item form.
“Your missile? We took care of that before coming here. You lost, old man. Ch’en, do you want to do the honours-”
“...I’ve still won…”
“The hell do you mean? We literally dismantled your little vanity project-” Alex was cut off by none other than the Colonel himself.
In a victorious smile, the Colonel tilted his head so that he was looking at Lungmen itself.
“You only got the first one…there were two ‘V’ missiles…just good business to bring a backup…Oh my Lady...hallowed by thy name...receive me as a loyal soldier...”
Ch’en, Yuè and Alex all looked like an Elafian caught in headlights. She had just enough time to check her wristwatch, it had passed midnight roughly thirty seconds-
BOOM
High above the skies of Lungmen, there was an explosion, a vapor trail below it similar how a poppy looked like, only this was no poppy. It was something worse, much worse…
“Ch’en! Originium particle levels have just broken all thresholds on our aerial sensors, what just happened out there?!”
Her uncle’s voice barked out on her radio, but she couldn’t bring herself to respond. Simply stunned, it took until Alina running back to them for her to snap out of it.
“It’s a Catastrophe! I see dark clouds forming, Lungmen isn’t going to evade it in time!”
Catastrophes, the scourge of all life on Terra. The phenomenon itself took many forms, from sudden blizzard storms to flash flooding, similar to the Profound Silence that sundered Iberia. All of them had a commonality however, it was obvious once it began, and those dark thunderstorms that quickly appeared over Lungmen’s clear skies were an undeniable sign of one. Soon, like a rainstorm, small drizzles of Originium would begin raining down…followed by larger, and larger crystals, until ones rivalling the size of skyscrapers would fall descend. That was how they destroyed mobile cities, and it was only the most common kind of Catastrophes Terra could face.
This was the worst-case scenario…and all Ch’en could do now was ensure as many people could make it to the shelters before the inevitable occurred. With any luck, they could minimise whatever damage would be done, about to shout information and orders through the open channel, Ch’en was suddenly stopped by Yuè, pointing at the rapidly forming Catastrophe with a question.
“That is the cause of all Oripathy, right? Is it a weather event?” She asked casually, treating it as more like an oddity than a life or death situation.
“What?! Of course-I can’t answer your questions now, listen, I don’t know if Playaars can be affected, but you need to seek shelter immediately-”
“And in the process infect everyone else, I’ve read about it, Ch’en. First time seeing one in person…but if it is a weather event, I think I have a solution for that.” Yuè trudged out of the sand, and placed down two things on the concrete floor. First, an odd-looking block with all sorts of flashing lights on it, and then a lever, a simple wooden lever next to it.
(Source: Beiyang’s Neo-New World for builds (Hope you took breaks while reading this chapter!)
“How the hell is that supposed to help us?! Forget it, I need to organize an evacuation while we still have time-”
Yuè, seemingly deaf to Ch’en’s cries, simply went on with her…flashing block. Alex was also with her now, both of them analysing the damn thing like it was a car engine issue.
“Ya sure about this? The ‘mods’ don’t like it when people use those things, especially without prior approval-”
“Oh who cares? Weather events are local on this ‘ser-var’ anyways, they won’t mind, we’re not doing anything drastic like changing the time.”
“Okay then…the command is different for Bedrock, right?”
“It should be the same, it auto-fills in what you need. I’ve put in the command, flip that lever and we should see a clear sky again.”
The entire exchange lasted for less than a minute, but in that time, the dark thunderstorms increased in intensity. Air raid sirens had begun to ring out, before, they were simply known as the Catastrophe siren drills, with announcements of testing widely circulated weeks in advance so that no panic would occur. Unfortunately, this was no drill, and they were too late…
“…we need to seek shelter, immediately! We can head back into the facility, there should be underground facilities that can keep us safe from the worst of the effects-” Her frantic shouting went in one ear, and out the other. Shuffling past her, Alex kicked the lever, and for just the briefest of moments, Ch’en could feel the space around her d̴̰̞̍i̴̯̲͙̎ṣ̷̹̦͑t̵̟̑͝o̷̘̒r̷̩̤͗̓͌ţ̴͙̝̉͂̒.
Only for a moment however.
Pop
“Hey, it worked. Problem solved!”
Ch’en blinked.
She blinked again.
The Catastrophe was no longer there. The dark coulds that spelt doom for untold thousands in the city, disappeared like a balloon being popped. Reverting back to the clear night sky in the literal blink of an eye, the full moons were once again visible, as if it was some bad mirage that was never real in the place. However, the Catastrophe sirens were still on full blast…meaning that it wasn’t a dream.
No one made a sound, except for the sand shuffling under her boots. She did not know how long it lasted, but only that everyone there kept staring at the sky, the clear sky.
Turning to the most probable cause of the mind-numbing event that just happened, Ch’en turned to Yuè , slowly, and respectfully.
“Miss Yuè.”
“...you can just call me Yuè, didn’t we go over that already?”
“What happened to the Catastrophe?”
“Oh, we removed it. Set the weather back to clear? You know, how it originally was?”
“Come again?”
“Exactly as I said, by using this Command Block I got rid of the Catastrophe; I named it my mini Deus ex Machina machine. Took a few trades to finally get it, these things are very rare in the ser-var, but in a pinch they’re great. Though abusing it will get you punished by an ‘ahd-min’ so don’t think it’s a get out of jail free card.”
She took in a deep breath and then asked one more question.
“You…can just… remove Catastrophes, the scourge of all nations on Terra, with a machine smaller than my dining table?”
“Yeah, pretty much. Living in Terra must suck ass if that thing can happen by chance, huh?” Alex nonchalantly said, before trudging back into the sand where the Colonel lay still. Ch’en's thoughts were completely void of arresting the criminal anymore, especially when something like that just happened.
The superintendent ignored the frantic shouting from her radio, probably her uncle and everyone else who was involved tonight. Her own mouth was opening and closing rapidly, in between wanting to ask answers, and wanting to keep her sanity intact. Just then however, she felt a hand on her shoulder, it belonged to Crownslayer, only because no one else was currently invisible among their group.
“Hey. You’ll get used to it. Damn, that felt good to finally say…thanks a lot, Alina.”
The Elafian gave both of them a thumbs up, but Ch’en wasn’t smiling. In fact, she was questioning everything she knew about Terra right now, as most people would after a significant emotional event like that.
“Oh fuck, he’s dead! Goddamnit, how the hell am I going to interrogate you now?!” Alex’s shout snapped her out of her daze, and right back into her role as an Officer in the LGD. Kneeling down next to the old man’s still body, Ch’en performed basic vital checks, only for it to confirm what the redhead shouted.
“He’s gone, there’s no pulse. How did you-”
“Oh, I got his experience when I went near him, I figured something was wrong when that happened. Shit, I was hoping he’d give up some answers for us…”
“...we’ll perform an autopsy, investigate the facility, collect evidence…good old fashioned detective work essentially.” Ch’en was seeing a lot of work coming her way soon, a lot of insane, probably nonsense work, but still work for the SIU to solve…
“But before that, does anyone need medical attention? I can call in an ambulance-”
“I need a fucking drink, blyat.”
Ch’en shared the Reproba’s sentiment, she needed to get absolutely wasted tonight. In fact, she had the perfect idea…
“Hey, Alex? Do you know if Emperor’s bar is repaired by now?”
(Source: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Aceship/Arknight-Images/main/avg/backgrounds/bg_bar_1.png)
“Ch’en, I don’t want to be rude, but shouldn’t we be debriefing and writing a report-”
“ssSSSHUT the hell up, Hoshi! Let us have this, we haven’t gone for a drink since my…my fuckin’ mom arrived and threw my life into comedy show!”
Alina sat next to Hoshiguma, who in turn sat next to a wasted Ch’en. Her jacket was nowhere to be found, and her face was redder than an Overworld apple. Not even three hours had passed since they left the bridge area after securing the Colonel’s cold, dead corpse. Since then however, things devolved into something she herself didn’t recognise anymore.
The Emperor, who somehow had a Playaar-made jukebox in his possession, was blasting out music that was supposedly from eye-arr-ell painstakingly recreated in the Overworld. Alex and the Emperor were currently ‘vibing out’ as the term went in Columbian slang.
“You know it’s funny when it rains it pours. They got money for wars, but can’t feed the poor-”
“My man was a fuckin’ visionary! Say, any chance I can ever get to meet my homie ‘pac?”
“Uh…ooh…you might wanna sit down for that, man.” Alex, now out of her armour, cringed as Emperor’s face dropped. Whatever they were doing, Alina didn’t want to interrupt.
Everyone was similarly talking to each other, mingling together in some way. By her count, everyone that they had met in their journey here so far was present, some on more official business like Mister Wei, who was…or was not… Yuè’s older brother (she needed a lot more context), while others were simply there to have fun after a long day of work, such as the rest of Penguin Logistics. Getting up, Alina decided she could use some fresh air, the scent of alcohol coming from Officer Ch’en was starting to bother her a bit…
“See? You’ve made Alina go away, go and get yourself sobered up-”
"I AM PERFECTLY SOBER. WHEEEEEE-” Alina waved an apology at the Oni, who ushered her to go away while she took care of Talulah’s sister. Oh, the stories she could tell her when they got back to the Overworld…
Walking around, she noticed the other guests all in their own little interactions.
Crownslayer was talking to Officer Swire and a purple-haired Zalak Alina hadn’t met yet, while Yuè was with Wei Yenwu, and an Elder Zalak. She passed by the latter, hearing a tiny bit of their conversation…
“Again, it’s fine, Lungmen’s safe. There’s no Catastrophe. You can tell the residents in the slums to calm, if needed, my clinic can provide them with treatment…I see you haven’t changed at all, Ge-Rui.”
“Hah! And neither have you as much, Lan-Mei. Only that we seem to have aged…while you have retained your youth. Care to tell us old fossils how you do it?”
“Is this really the time and place to discuss this? We still have the aftermath to clean up-”
“Oh don’t interrupt the moment, brother. I remember when you and Ge-Rui got so drunk that I had to drag you out of bars before getting into brawls-”
“That never happened here, you remember things that never-”
“Oh, those were the days! We both got piss drunk, got into fights, and then you had to take your guard and come retrieve us-”
Alina wanted to ask the Playaar a few questions, most notably about her newfound…status. However, seeing her hearty laugh, the Elafian couldn’t bear to interrupt her moment. So, she decided to head for the balcony, the sole quiet(er) place in the entire bar…
Leaning on the protective railings, she looked at the city below, considerably not destroyed by a massive Catastrophe. In her youth, she only witnessed one from afar, it had no chance of affecting her small village, but the effects were visible even from the safe zone. What if Lungmen really did get caught by one? What would have happened to the city? Perhaps it was best she never knew the answer to that…
“Too loud inside? I understand.” Alina was suddenly joined by…another Elafian. Her features were similar to her own, with the exception of her hair being white, and she spoke in a Victorian accent. She wore a dark labcoat that ended at her knees, like how some Reunion physicians dressed back in the Overworld. As Alina stared at her, she realised something, like others at the party, she did not recognise her at all…
“I…just needed some fresh air. I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve met before…?” She guessed the fellow Elafian was probably someone either Crownslayer, Yuè or even Alex met in their journey. Even Lee was here, so everyone who remotely came across their path should be present…their Sarkaz mercenaries sure helped themselves to the ‘free booze’ the Emperor boasted about earlier.
“Ah. Actually, we did meet before. According to my system records…we met around four hours and thirty-five minutes ago, in the ser-var whitelist. I remember you were just stuck there, with no clue of how you ended up in such a place, a real deer in headlights I must say.”
Alina’s mind worked, the day’s events had made her somewhat tired already…eventually however, she remembered what happened roughly five hours ago. She was bleeding out, and…died. So if she met her after that, then the ‘person’ in front of her must be-
“You’re…YOU-!”
Alina was about to shout, but the ‘Elafian’ suddenly placed a hand over her mouth, stopping her from drawing any attention. Despite that however, the labcoat-wearing woman next to her gave her a bright smile, akin to how her grandfather expressed his proudness for Alina in the past.
“Hey there! Sorry I didn’t swing by earlier…you just seemed to have your moment so I decided to remain as a spectator. Whoops, introductions first! People usually just call me Grif, or Miss Grif if you want to be polite. And as for my position…”
The woman swung her arm out with dramatic flair, in the direction of Ursus, and by extension, the Overworld.
“I am the owner and head ‘ahd-min’ of Gryphline Frontier! A pleasure to meet you, Miss Alina, you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for Terra to be…discovered.”
All of Alina’s prior drowsiness was instantly blown away upon hearing who the person in front of her really was. She wasn’t going to get any amount of sleep tonight, was she?
AN:
The Colonel is based on a certain Senator who played ball in college, and also on Americans I’ve met in real life. Not apologising for that, American exceptionalism is a very real thing.
Recently I got a question on FFnet (this fic is never going on that site) about the dialogue in this fanfic being very different from the writing style in Arknights. I personally don’t see a huge difference other than the…long-winded yap sessions many characters are prone to during events, but otherwise I do try and emulate the original text to the best of my ability. Even when it is questionable, young Ch’en for example was something that I basically read once, and decided to just do my own thing. Not like you noticed the difference, right?
If you think Ch’en here is a bit weaker than canon, keep in mind this is three years before the Chernobog incident, and before all of those trials and tribulations she went through. That is by design, and for further character growth in the future, because we all like to see that don’t we?
Minecraft Mechanics: the Command Block! Essentially, in Minecraft there is a console command function like many other games. Unless the Player is in creative mode, the functions there are unable to be accessed unless cheats have been enabled prior to world generation. However, the Command Block is a special block that is only attainable through console commands (other methods of obtaining it do exist, but those are considered dark magic) which can execute console commands no matter what mode the Player is in. Simply put, you enter in a command, activate it with redstone, the example shown above is a lever, and the command will execute in game, as if you have done it through the console. Of course, the block is never seen in Vanilla gameplay or most multiplayer SMPs, because it is very much considered ‘cheating’ to have access to console commands (duh). I foreshadowed it all the way back in Chapter four, so don’t go accuse me of it being a deus ex machina!
Next week will be the epilogue of this arc! I may post it a couple of days earlier just because I will be busy in holiday celebrations with friends. Don’t be surprised if you get a sudden notification for one of my fics before the usual time I release my fics.
Be civil in the comments below, as always.