Ravens of Eternity

151 The Flow of Blood, Pt Colviss blinked at Miko after her ludicrous statement, and laughed. She found the idea of any child, human or Drogar, having any lethal capacity as pure fantasy. On top of that, Miko’s short, skinny frame didn’t help dispel any ideas regarding human frailty.

“You? Annihilate me?” Colviss said. “I figured humans could do better than send their fledgelings to fight. Seems I was wrong.”

“And you believe your size makes you powerful?” retorted Miko. “Or perhaps that your age does?”

“Of course not. Ra’ventrii is clearly ‘smaller’ than me, but I know what she’s capable of...”

“I see. So it appears that you need a demonstration first. I can appreciate requiring scientific proof.”

Miko took a few steps towards Colviss, who was immediately alarmed by the little girl’s actions. At first she was simply bothered by the girl, but now there was a feeling that she couldn’t shake.

She was unable to put her finger on it, but Colviss felt a different kind of danger from Miko. She didn’t feel pressure like she did with a stronger, faster opponent. Such as when she watched Ra’ventrii and Orsethii duke it out. Their brief fight telegraphed their energy, even through a screen.

But Miko was far different. It felt more like a tense uneasiness that grew with each step the girl took. Like the calm before a terrible storm.

“I’m not going to fight a child,” Colviss said.

.....

“Then walk away from this battle and go home,” Miko replied. “Leave Doleth alone.”

Seeing as the girl wasn’t backing away, Colviss stepped away from Doleth, but also began to circle her. She gripped her blade loosely with both hands and inched closer to her sidearm.

“I can’t do that,” she said. “I’ve got some business with Ra’ventrii, and I can’t go home until she and I... share some words.”

Miko stopped walking, but her demeanor changed instantly. Her stoic face quickly turned dark at the mention of Eva, and the implied threat.

“You will not get that chance,” she said. “I will never allow you to hurt more of my friends.”

Colviss was filled with alarm – she could feel the bloodlust pouring out of Miko. She focused herself – she needed to end things quickly here. Who knew what the girl was capable of?

So she quickly drew her sidearm and shot at Miko with blinding speed.

Without skipping a beat, Miko zipped her buckler through her DI and captured Colviss’ bullet less than a meter away from her head. The slug spun slowly in its antigrav field as its kinetic energy ebbed and eventually faded.

The antigrav field quickly repulsed the bullet back at Colviss, who dodged the moment she realized her attack was useless.

She ran in a wide circle as she holstered her gun, then took her blade back into both hands before charging straight towards Miko. Just as she entered strike range, she launched into a dance and swung at the girl’s head, right at the apex of her velocity.

Miko, her face unchanged, slid backwards with speed, her neck suddenly just out of reach. She could feel Colviss’ blade cut through the air, as the wind it caused brushed against her skin.

Surprised by the girl’s mobility, Colviss had no choice but to press her attacks and swung over and over in an attempt to catch Miko. It didn’t matter what she tried – diagonal slashes, long thrusts, powerful overhangs – the girl kept sliding out of the way!

And it appeared she wasn’t even moving her legs. It was as though she was hovering above the ground ever so slightly. As though the girl had thrusters on her body.

In truth, she kind of did.

Her three cottonball bird drones floated just above her, each one with their antigrav fields trained on her. And as a group, they kept her out of Colviss’ reach.

Miko herself had absolutely no hand to hand combat experience or expertise. If she relied on her own skills for that, she would have been cut to ribbons long ago. But her drones’ operating intelligences were a whole other matter.

She had ensured that all her drones were installed with the latest drone combat intelligence available. They were even supplemented with Eva’s own combat data as a pilot and as a duelist.

Though she removed the whole spinning aspect – she wasn’t exactly a fan of getting dizzy.

But all of the code she injected into her drones allowed her a degree of mobility – plenty enough to stay out of Colviss’ reach.

Doleth clutched at her wounded stomach as she watched the two Reborn fight. She wanted nothing more than to stand up and help, but she only found herself weaker as the moments passed.

She fished into her medical pouch, pulled out a MedNject, and stabbed herself right in the wound with it. She groaned with pain, which slowly abated as the painkillers she injected started to work. Although the blood coagulants helped slow down her death, it didn’t do a thing to stop it.

All she could do was watch as Colviss swung at Miko over and over again in utter frustration at her own inability. At the same time, she was astounded by what she saw, even while her own blood pooled further around her.

She laughed painfully to herself – this whole time she believed the little girl needed guarding. Despite knowing what she had accomplished and understood that she wasn’t to be underestimated, she still ended up doing it herself.

The very sight of her belied her own abilities, and that held a certain amount of danger in itself.

Child or not, she thought, she’s making that Reborn Justicar look like a fool!

“Are you gonna run all cycle?!” Colviss yelled. “Or are you gonna attack at some point?”

The frustration was evident in her tone. More than that, her attacks started to wane slightly as fatigue began to plague her.

“I am simply considering how to best neutralize you,” Miko replied. “Please be patient.”

With that, she gestured at her third cottonball bird, who zipped around Colviss at speed. It circled around the Drogar, like an overzealous and annoying fly.

And out of nowhere, a small arc of electricity jumped from the drone and zapped Colviss on her right thigh. Arcs of electricity spread in a small circle from the point of impact, and diffused into her suit.

Though it absorbed much of it, Colviss was still affected – her thigh muscles spasmed and threw her off rhythm and balance for just a moment. She stumbled slightly, missed her window of action, and completely fumbled her attack.

Colviss growled in irritation and relaunched her dance with renewed urgency.

But before she could even take two steps, was zapped again. This time it numbed her arm just before she swung her blade, which caused her strike to be incredibly sloppy and easy to avoid.

“Arrgh!” cried Colviss. “Are you gonna zap me to death?!”

“Hai,” countered Miko.

The drone zapped Colviss’ lower leg and caused her to fall down to her knee. And while she was down, the drone zapped her over and over all over, until many of her muscles spasmed uncontrollably.

Each one was like a small bite – nothing too painful, just irritating and distracting. A wave of humiliation swept through her when she realized that a child had pinned her down with some sort of toy.

It was followed by a wave of fury.

She roared into the air, let out all her current frustrations, centered her body, and shook off all her pain and all her problems. In that moment, while she still had full control of everything, she launched towards Miko again. But instead of swinging at her, she instead performed a feint, then slapped at the drone with the flat of her blade.

Colviss easily struck the little drone with a loud PING, and sent it flying into the remains of some nearby fortifications. It smashed right into it and broke into pieces from the impact.

Colviss panted heavily as she caught her breath a little.

“Well now, three down and two to go,” she said. “So come on, bring your next little drone out.”

Miko shook her head.

“Not necessary,” she replied. “I have all the data I need now.”

She quickly raised her baton and pointed it at Colviss, who was immediately alarmed and raised her blade defensively in response.

And through her DI, she upped her suit’s energy shielding to the maximum. Just in case the little girl sent another drone to zap her again. Or worse, blast her with whatever crazy energy weapon was in the baton she held.

It was glowing a light blue and with increasing intensity – clearly she was going to hit her with something. Her mind raced as to what it could be and shifted her feet to take on a fully defensive stance.

Whether it was a beam or energy attack, she made sure to stand in anticipation of it. She even fell back to give herself more distance and more time to react.

But all the girl did was wave it at her. No mega beams, no massive rays of lightning. Just little circular motions.

Colviss was incredulous! She felt like she was being toyed with, and her anger began to rise. But before she could berate Miko, her suit suddenly began to move sluggishly and its functions began to falter.

She even lost control of it through her DI.

“Your suit’s security intelligence is in dire need of an upgrade,” said Miko.

She waved her baton once again and delved deep into Colviss’ suit’s inner functions, and cut off lines of power one by one by one. They were rerouted to spin through the suit’s failsafes and caused them all to overload.

In the span of a few moments, the suit’s protective benefits wavered as each of its subsystems lost power. The reactive mesh, antimagnetic plates, and energy shielding all dropped down to nothing.

“You should know that I was not attacking you with my drone,” she continued. “I was instead probing your defenses.”

This took Colviss completely by surprise, but she quickly grinned when she realized that Miko’s actions didn’t matter.

“So what?” she said. “Except for your two little drones, you’re basically unarmed! Even with my armor powered down, you’ll never be able to hurt me, much less annihilate me!”

Colviss shifted her stance into a highly aggressive one, and pointed the tip of her blade towards Miko’s neck.

“I’m still plenty strong enough to hit you,” she continued. “And one hit’s all I need.”

“This is true,” Miko said. “If you hit.”

“Never underestimate a Reborn,” she said. “We’re the gods of our kind.”

Colviss harrumphed, then focused her entire being into a single strike. She pulled her consciousness towards that perfect path – the path where her blade met with Miko’s neck.

And once the two met, she exhaled and took a step.

She launched herself forward with explosive speed and poured all her energy into her blade’s velocity. Her mind’s eye watched as her blade cut through Miko’s neck, and her head flew into the air.

But the reality was far different from what she envisioned – digital intelligences were still faster than biological intelligences, and their reaction times were near instantaneous. They predicted her attack the moment Colviss got into her stance, and began to move even before she took a step forward.

Miko’s drones slid her out of the way, just fast enough to slip from Colviss’ reach.

All the Reborn managed to cut were a few strands of black hair.

At the same time she was pulled backwards, Miko flung her armorscale ball right at Colviss. It hit the Drogar’s chest at the exact moment she completed her attack and had the least velocity left

The ball predictably broke open into dozens of individual scales.

And Miko snapped her fingers.

Tendrils of electricity shot between each scale, and popped out into a wide ball large enough to surround Colviss. These arcs coursed between each of them, and through Colviss herself, who screamed in pain as multiple lines of electricity plunged into her.

Arcs of electricity burned through her armor’s mesh structures, spidered across her metal plates, and painfully raked her albino scales underneath. For those few moments, all she could feel was pain on every centimeter of her body.

.....

Her mind immediately shut off when it became more than she could take, and fell over completely senseless.

Seeing this, Miko quickly powered down her scales until they snapped back together into a ball. She then picked it back up and shoved it into her bag.

“I agree,” she replied. “Never underestimate anyone, god or not.”