Ravens of Eternity

Chapter 38

38 Synthetic Terror, Pt “That’s unit leader to you,” she snapped back.

Eva’s electrolance was getting torn to shreds bit by bit by Darius’ relentless attack. Its tip was basically gone, and much of its smooth metallic shaft was shredded down to its electrical skeleton.

The exposed generator underneath flickered chaotically, and small arcs of electricity leapt out of it and into the air. Eva felt its charge slowly dwindling.

“Why’re you even after me?” she continued. “What do you care?”

“Why?” he sneered, “‘Coz you’re the big fish! All the cadets revere you!”

Eva scoffed at him. Being stronger or faster didn’t mean his victory was assured.

Grizz’ arrogance was a symptom of his own self-inflicted mental trauma. He had known, deep down, that he was the opposite.

Darius on the other hand had actually believed he was superior. His trauma was inflicted on him by someone else. It was something that was drilled into his very core.

Eva realized that’s what bugged her earlier. When the two siblings spoke it didn’t just feel practiced. It felt as though they were revealing their own brainwashing.

.....

“When I beat you,” he continued, “it will prove that synths like me are superior to the best humanity has to offer! I’ll crush you and score a huge victory for my family!”

“Tch,” she retorted. “You’re acting like you’ve already won. But the only thing you’ve been better at doing is blabbing uselessly.”

Eva wasn’t concerned if he truly was or wasn’t. All she was concerned about was beating his face into the ground for killing her cadets. For killing her friends.

She decided to release the lance’s charge before it became completely useless. Doing so caused it to vibrate madly and whine horribly while sparks flew from its exposed interior.

Tendrils of electricity coursed uncontrollably all around the lance, and sped down the metallic whip.

In the blink of an eye, the electricity had reached Darius’ mecha, and shocked him to his core.

He grit his teeth uncontrollably as his body seized up and spasmed from the electric shock. His hands shook violently as he tried to loosen his grip on his whip, but simply couldn’t.

Blood started to come out of his ears.

Meanwhile, the damaged electrolance was slowly reaching its limit. Electricity poured out of it dangerously, and multiple warnings came up on Eva’s MFDs. The whine had hit a fever pitch, and the thing had become hotter than hell.

She realized that the thing was about to explode, so she quickly threw it towards Darius and ducked away.

Darius recovered the moment the whip loosened, only to find the broken electrolance flying towards him. He dashed off to the side just as it exploded in a shower of sparks and shrapnel.

The lance’s metallic shards splintered in every direction, and slashed at his armor. Some even embedded themselves into it.

And just as he regained his balance and momentum, Eva smashed right into him with her shield. He was thrown back violently from the force of her slam.

“You sure about you being superior?” she taunted. “You don’t seem all that great.”

Darius decisively engaged his rear jets and kept his mecha stable and upright. His mecha slid back a few meters slowly, and launched his attack the moment he found stable footing.

“I haven’t even begun!” he yelled.

Angered by her verbal and physical attacks, he whipped at Eva’s shield and sliced deeply into it with every supersonic strike.

It had taken a great deal of damage during the previous fighting with the drones, and these devastating lashes only tore them apart even further. She didn’t maximize her nanorepair, as she needed the energy for her jets, but now she regretted not giving it more juice from the start.

She attempted to fall back to reposition, but he pressed his attack and kept on slashing off pieces of her shield. In fact, his attacks had torn off so much of her shield that it was reduced to less than half its previous size.

“You’re just a simple human,” he continued. “And you’ll never match up to someone as powerful as me!”

Before Eva could do anything else, he brought the two whips above his head and snapped them both forwards, from the sides.

One of the whips wrapped around her shield just above her arm, while the other snagged it from just below.

And with one swift yank, he pulled the shield right out of her grip. He flung it off to the side, where it fell somewhere in the middle of all the fighting, far beyond Eva’s reach.

But she was undeterred, not in the slightest. Shieldless and weaponless, Eva did the only thing she could do – she charged directly for Darius.

“Match you?” she replied. “I’m going to best you!”

If she stayed at that range, she would have been torn up by his whips. And if she pulled back, she could use her other weapons, but he would’ve just torn them apart. So she instead chose to close the distance and stay on the inside.

Darius was surprised by her sudden rush, and only just barely tried to slide out of the way. She was too fast, however, and struck him squarely in the chest.

The collision was brutal, and his core echoed with the sound of a raging thunder. It was as though lightning had struck a mountain of ore, and split it.

And the force of the impact was so great that it felt as though every bone in his body was going to break apart.

His chest armor cracked from the impact, but hers was barely dented. That was another reason why she went in close – her armor was slightly better than his. She had the advantage while they were in melee.

She threw a number of jabs and kicks while he was unbalanced, and cracked his armor bit by bit in those few spots.

Darius tried his best to back away from Eva as she repeatedly struck at him. He needed just a little more space to strike her with the whip, but she was absolutely relentless.

“You’re not the only one that can play this fuckin’ game!” he screamed.

He quickly spun the whips around in his hands, so the serpentine portions pointed downwards. On top were now the underside of the whip handles, which were basically long batons with heavy weights on the end of them.

They looked like short clubs, and he used them to expertly defend himself. Even his attacks and counterattacks were made more effective.

Just as Eva jabbed at him, she suddenly found herself being parried by one of Darius’ batons while the other smashed into her side. Although he didn’t do much damage, the armor and the structure underneath had dented slightly.

When she swung again, he caught her arm with the two batons, and attempted to wrench it out of its socket by twisting it viciously. This caused damage to her shoulder joint, and slightly warped its housing.

In response, she quickly flipped forward to prevent it from breaking off and slipped her arm out his hold. But as she did so, he jabbed a baton at her chest and dented it.

She couldn’t let him do too much damage like this, or her systems would get damaged bit by bit from his attacks. Everytime she was hit, her effectiveness fell slightly. He was basically whittling her down.

“I’m not here to play games,” she said. “But I admit: you ain’t bad.”

Part of her started to enjoy it and wanted to stretch it out a little, but she knew that was a dangerous line of thought.

She quickly maximized nano repairs and went back in to try to finish him up. She learned not to play games of attrition, and wanted the quick kill. The longer she took, the more time he had to neutralize her.

Darius had been quite an opponent for her, and she found it difficult to get her fast kill in. So she changed things up a bit.

When he swung to attack, she quickly dropped down and unceremoniously kicked his legs out from under him.

Darius was slammed on the ground with a heavy thud. The impact knocked him around and dazed him inside his core. His mind swam and fought to stay conscious as his head whipped around from the force.

This gave her the time to stand over him and slam downward on his chest even more. She repeatedly struck him with her fists like a pair of jackhammers, and further cracked the armor protecting his core.

She truly was going straight for the kill.

And his structure was starting to peek through where it was damaged most.

Darius’ core echoed with resounding booms as Eva’s attacks pounded on the armor protecting it. He quickly activated the hover jets under his feet and slid right out from under her.

At the same time, he snapped a whip at one of her arms and grabbed it tightly. He maximized his boost and hoped to drag her along with him. He needed a few seconds to get his bearings and a little distance, so if he could unbalance her...

However, she instead leapt up and performed a boosted rush back down towards him. She had even used the tension of the whip to help guide her.

Panicked, he let go of his whip and rolled out of the way. Eva slammed down on the ground knee-first, and missed him by millimeters. The force of her impact kicked up dust and debris as the ground shook momentarily.

Both of them used various jets on their mecha to quickly stand back upright and face each other. They had truly met their match with each other.

If they had met under different circumstances, they would likely have become comrades.

“I’ll also admit you’re not bad,” he replied.

They sized each other up for only a moment and took note of each other’s skills. Both of them were fast and decisive. Their reaction times, combat skill, and precision with their controls were on par with each other.

The both of them were considered peerless.

Except Eva had made one little mistake. She gave him space to maneuver.

“But like I said from the beginning,” he continued, “you’re nothing compared to us synths!”

Darius quickly performed volleys with both of his whips as he jumped back slightly. His strikes were true, and lashed at Eva’s mecha with unerring precision.

She tried her best to get back into close range, but he had found his footing, and evaded just enough to keep her at bay.

Even though she dodged as many of his strikes as she could, he still managed to land plenty. His nonstop volley wrenched open Eva’s armor more and more. Her structure started to show up as the lashes became deeper and deeper.

Eva could have used the gauss rifle on her back, but was afraid to get it torn to pieces. He would have no doubt aimed for it the second she drew it. And he moved around much too fast for her beamcannon.

No, she had to do this the hard way...

Suddenly, Sunflower came on Eva’s comms display.

“Freya!” she yelled. “Hang on!”

Sunflower came out from behind Darius suddenly – she had set her power low so she could sneak up on him. She had noticed that he and Eva were in a standstill earlier, and so decided to help turn the tables on him.

She had already shot at him previously, but the two of them had fought so ferociously that every shot she took missed. They were both impossible to track while they were in melee!

Instead, she did the next best thing and ambushed him. To hell with a fair fight – this was war!

She jumped out of nowhere and quickly wrapped her arms under and around his shoulders. She then looped her hands behind his head, which effectively restrained his arms greatly.

His whips dangled helplessly since his arms were locked in place!

“What the hell?” he screamed.

.....

He struggled to break free, but it was in vain. Sunflower had locked down her mech’s joints, which completely neutralized Darius’ mobility.

“You bitches couldn’t handle me one-on-one so you gotta gang up?” he continued. “Hah! What a joke! You’re such simple humans aren’t you?! If you’re really superior to me, let me go and face me alone!”

Eva didn’t care about his taunting insult. She didn’t even care about being superior. All she cared about was turning him into paste.

“The dead are superior to no-one,” she replied.

Her hand was reared back and laid flat as a knife as she dashed full throttle towards Darius.

His eyes went wide as he realized what she was going to do, and thrashed around to try and get away from Sunflower.

But she held fast, and even used her jets to keep them both nice and steady.

At the very last moment, Eva overcharged her jets and thrust her hand right into Darius’ chest. Sunflower also boosted forward, and ‘pushed’ Darius into Eva’s knifehand.

Both her hand armor and his chest armor shattered completely on impact, but the force was powerful enough that it drove Eva’s unarmored hand towards Darius’ core. Its titanium-carbide fingertips warped into jagged shards of metal as it was pushed further through the mech’s remaining armor and structure.

Each broken point stabbed and crushed their way into Darius like he was little more than an insect. His soft, fleshy body crumpled and tore under the unyielding metal.

The pain was so great that he couldn’t even scream. Hell, he couldn’t even think.

Eva withdrew her mecha’s broken, jagged hand from the core. Crimson blood poured out from the gaping wound freely.

The mecha collapsed in a heap as its owner’s life drained away into the Martian soil.

Unsurprisingly, his blood nourished it the same as everyone else’s.