Yuriko's thoughts swirled around her shortcomings. Or rather, her swordsmanship's shortcomings. Without Radiant energy, her swordplay wouldn't be as good, she knew. She lived off it back in Rumiga, right after her Atavism Ritual. Before she held Fri'Avgi, she used a sideblade, a Plasma Caster, and the spear-like combination of both. Come to think of it, soldiers from Bresia, Irvalla, and even here in Dragon Fall City did the same thing. She saw assault rifles with attached knives, bayonets, and there were videos of people demonstrating how to use them while she was spacewalking on REI-space. The style had been simple, no-nonsense, and the best thing she got out of it was that it worked. It was considered a last-ditch attempt at fighting back, since here, if one ran out of bullets for their main weapon, they were in dire straits.
Melee masters here were heavily armoured, often had chronian gear for limbs, and according to popular opinion, mostly insane. Yuriko scoffed, though she might have thought that too, once upon a time.
Radiant-infused blades burned more than they cut, she realised. Not that she didn't know, but that it never really occurred to her to make the distinction. The foes she faced absorbed energies, though Radiant was too potent for them to contain. She was not a fool, however. She noticed that even as the blobbies died, part of their absorbed energies was funnelled into the circuitry within the walls.
Even the single mote of Radiant she used to finish off chopped-up blobbies was more than enough for the corpse to absorb. She…worried where all that energy was going, though perhaps it was being consumed to produce the things in the first place. Even now, while she rested and her sunblades protected her, the leaching of energies continued.
The blobbies slowly grew, too. Their morphic bodies grew a bit tougher, and it had come to the point when a single mote wasn't enough to turn them into ashes. They weren't much faster or stronger though.
So what she needed now was the capability to kill the blobbies without using Radiant or any other Elemental energies. Though she didn't know how she could accomplish that.
Hmmm, or maybe she could simply leave? This wasn't really her goal when she came here. She needed to find a way to use the Gate portals to her needs rather than just going wherever those things went. She also wasn't sure that opening a portal to the Chaos Sea from here was possible, but…portals crossed the gaps between space faster than going across it, right? She remembered seeing some research papers about spatial sciences, but nearly all of them required a higher authorisation level and a hefty sum of ACs.
So then, how did a sword harm its target? By cutting, slicing, stabbing, chopping…
Perhaps the path to the Metal Style was simply enhancing the sword's effect? Better at cutting, better at stabbing, and all the rest of it. But was there not a limit to how useful a sword's sharpness could be?
If it was sharp enough to cut flesh, clothing, and armour, is that not enough? What else could it cut?
What…else…could…it…cut…?
Yuriko's thoughts ground to a halt as images rose from her mind. Damien was a swordmaster, and the things he cut…not all of those could be cut. How in the Abyss did he cut the Progenitor from…whatever…that was, and allowed her to come into being? If one cut, one destroyed, right?
Unless one cut away concepts? Ennoias?
Her breath grew short at the implications…and at the weight of reality pressing down on her. She could feel the thought, the ideas, slipping out of her mind. She was not strong enough to even ponder such things, but who knew how long it would take to think of it again when she finally grew in power?
Desperately, she grabbed the swords she forged. She pressed her fingers along the blade, and etched several words on it. She only managed two runescript words when the pressure multiplied to the point she blacked out….
Huh?
Did she fall asleep? Yuriko blinked awake, then yelped when she saw a blobby's claws a couple of inches from her nose, just about to skewer her. She jerked to the side and the claw scraped against her cheek. It wasn't tough enough to actually wound her, but she felt it try to siphon her Anima. It managed to draw out a couple of motes of Radiant energy, which then incinerated the offender.
Yuriko leapt to her feet. A sword was already in her hands. Hmmm, why was she holding it half-sworded? She rarely used the technique since she did well enough with a standard grip. She shifted to that and proceeded to decimate the blobbies, wondering all the while why her sunblades suddenly dissolved.
"Rotter!" she cursed when she noticed that the walls had golden lines running through them. The sunblades' Radiant energy had all been siphoned! She flared her Anima and pressed a couple of tendrils against the circuit and attempted to pull the Radiant energy away. The walls fought back viciously and occupied most of her attention. She could feel her Will and Intent strain as she fought the mental tug-of-war, but she couldn't allow her energies to be used against her!
Unfortunately, most of the energy had already been transported away. There were even signs of degradation within the circuits, so maybe she would be better off blasting the things off the surfaces.
She slammed her fist into the wall.
Boom! Crack!
A crater several paces deep appeared. Yuriko smirked, until the amount of blobbies multiplied by a hundred.
Plop plop plop plop plop!
The nearby pustules spat out the guardians and rushed at her. Yuriko chopped them to bits, then blasted them with beams of Radiant energy, making sure not to overdo it. Considering the circuits nearby were already broken…
"Swarm fodder!" she yelped when she noticed the Radiant light transferring from blobby to blobby, until it reached an intact wall.
The other blobbies swarmed towards the damaged area, then threw themselves into it. They burst into goo, and filled in the crater in a matter of moments.
"So it is not the way," Yuriko muttered.
"Woof!" Fluffington agreed, having woken up in the middle of the fight. He was quite cosy in the bag after all.
She fought her way out of the crowd, but after a few more minutes, the number of blobbies receded, and only the usual number remained. Those rushed towards her, and she hadf to fight them off.
Most of her Anima was pulled inside her body, except of the bits containing her expanded Animus storage, regeneration runescript weaving, and the Adamant Guardian Seals. She manifested those around her torso and her hair. That way, her limbs weren't coated, and since those were the ones more likely to contact the enemy, it reduced the chances of getting burned or siphoned. Her skin and muscles were tough and resilient, and nothing the blobs did could actually pierce it. Grabbing her still allowed them to drain her though. Slow drain, but nonetheless annoying.
Once she cleared the blobbies nearby, she moved towards the main tunnel connection. There were no pustules there, so she could have a bit of reprieve. How long has she been here? She glanced at her Autowatch, poked it to show the date, and snorted when she saw that it had already been five days. Nobody contacted her?
Her Autotab was in her backpack, as was the visor. She pulled the latter over her eyes and booted it up. That rotter scrambled her settings, and it wouldn't restart! Hmph! The Autotab was hit too, and only the watch was safe. Too bad it didn't have a comms function.
She should cast True Connection instead. Talking using the threads without the aid of a spell was only possible if they were nearby. Underneath the mountains, the threads suffered quite a bit of interference.
She looked at the longsword in her hand. For some reason, she couldn't quite put it away, or simply throw it. The sword was just one of her hastily forged experiments. Eh?
She lifted the blade up to her eyes. The metal was etched. Half-melted. It formed…words? She must have been the one to write it. Who else could? What did it say?
She frowned as she read. It was only a few words. "Cut?" The next one was completely smudged, but the third and fourth ones were nearly mushed together. What in the Abyss had she written down?
"Cut. Unknown. Any, everything?'
What had she been thinking of then? She had been in meditation…she frowned as a hint of a headache started to pound her mind. She shook her head, instinctively knowing that to push now would erase whatever progress she made. She took a deep breath then sighed. "Alright. I'll work with this."
Cut.
The Metal Phase should be about cutting. Sensing metal around her was just an accessory to how she would cut her foes. Cut.
Yes, that could work. It would apply to her sunblades wonderfully too. Radiant infused weapons burned the area around the contact point and was sloppy, now that she thought about it. Precision and accuracy were hallmarks to mastery. Cut.
The thought and Intent resonated around her. The blade in her hand vibrated and sang. The glimmers of a complete Phase appeared in her mind, and she grinned.
Once they were in the main passageway, she cautiously cast True Connection to talk to Gwendith…
"Eh, what do you mean you lost the apartment?" Yuriko blurted out.
__________
Elsie Silverlock hurried down the hallway, the Fang Eyed gang boss was jabbering away at her ear.
"Elsie! We've got trouble down the shopping district! Why are there corpos in our town? They're stirring up trouble! Your neighbours are in the middle of it!" Yahnik's whiny voice made Elsie's brain throb painfully.
"I don't know what's happening boss," she said through gritted teeth. "I'm already on the 152nd! Just pull our boys out of the 101st!"
"That's what I'm doing. Don't let this devolve into a full on war! We can't afford the Lawbringers' attention, or for the big corpos to be rootin around."
"I know. Now get off the line!" Elsie huffed as she went right to get to the hallway. Big Waldo and her square were in the apartment already, but today had been a lazy day. Why did this happen now?
She halted in front of apartment 1023 and she rapped her knuckles on the door, "Gwen! You in there? Yuri?"
The door slid open and the blonde girl with the spiral curls blinked vapidly at her. "Elsie. What brings you here? Well, come in. I think there's trouble."
She stepped into the apartment and Elsie spied Ryoko and Dev in the living room. The redhead spike boy was sitting sheepishly on the sofa while the tawny haired woman was whistling to herself on the kitchenette counter.
"What happened?" Elsie said. "I've reports of bodies on the 101st, and your face on a wanted poster."
"Mine?" Gwendith asked. "But I haven't left the apartment all day. Ryoko?"
"I don't know why they put your face on the poster, it was mine and Dev's doing," Ryoko said ruefully. "Or rather, we were just defending ourselves."
"And you left bodies," Elsie said dryly.
"They wouldn't stop coming," Dev grunted. "I ended them."
"And you just left them in the hallways," Elsie continued in a monotone.
"It's too much of a bother to bring them along."
"Well, now what will you do?" Elsie asked. Ryoko and Dev's faces were also in the wanted poster. Strangely, Heron's and the other girl were not.
Gwendith pouted. "Can we not stay here until it blows over?"
Elsie rolled her eyes at the other woman's joke. "Obviously not. I…think you three should go. I'll bring you to Sifu's…"
Her comms beeped and a message written in all caps appeared in front of her eyes.
THEY'RE ON THE FLOOR!
Elsie sighed as she tapped her pistol, a Breaker Arms Garan with armour piercing bullets, on her hip. "Looks like you…we'll have to fight our way out."
Gwendith sniffed. "Dev, hold them back. I've got to go pack."
Elsie groaned. Do these people have any common sense? Well, she already knew they didn't, and at least the day wasn't boring.