[15] Hostile Detected
Tanisha was the first one in the meeting room. She’d woken early, restless and already slipping into the rhythm of mission prep. Her under-armor clung to her like a second skin. It was comfortable, far more durable than most unenchanted fabrics and even some light armor but utterly lacking in modesty. A robe was thrown over it loosely, more gesture than cover, but it was enough for now.
She stood near the long table, arms crossed, mind racing through tactics and possibilities until the doors slid open. Aurelius and Fuyumi entered together. They were in similar outfits but unlike Tanisha and Aurelius’s black under armor Fuyumi’s was a bright red matching her eyes. She wasn’t wearing anything over the skin tight suit. Aurelius wore pants.
The meeting began without much ceremony. They reviewed everything they’d observed during the skirmish with the S-17. The primary issue: its layered aetheric wards. Even when all three of them had struck together, their combined force hadn’t made a dent. The second issue: teleportation. While the machine wasn’t fast on foot, its Blink ability allowed it to shadow them with disturbing ease. Then came its weapons: deadly point-defense guns mounted beneath and above its frame, and the far more lethal aether cannon. One hit from that, and there would be no recovery.
“I noticed something about the ward,” Tanisha said. “It deactivated right before Fuyumi hit it the last time. I think it was because it was about to teleport.”
“How do you know it was about to teleport?” Fuyumi asked.
“I could sense the aether spike. It happens every time it is about to Blink,” Tanisha said.
“Not being able to sense aether is really biting us,” Aurelius grumbled.
“Well I think Fuyumi landing that lucky shot is the reason it stopped following us.” Tanisha said.
Aurelius rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “We will have to plan it carefully, but if we can get it in a similar position and you tell us when it is about to teleport, we can damage it.”
“Do you know what the aether pulse is doing?” Fuyumi asked.
“No…” Tanisha furrowed her brow. “Actually I think it might be how it is tracking us. Laxy told me about something similar they the humans used while mining. It’s like a divining magic but it uses waves of aether. They are shot out and bounce back when it hits a target. I think it is how my armor’s map and enemy detection works. I don’t remember exactly what it was called.”
“That would explain how it kept up with us.” Aurelius said.
“Wait, can we target that specific part that creates the pulse?” Fuyumi asked, leaning forward.
“I would have to get a good look at it right before it teleports again but it happens so fast.” Tanisha tapped her lip in contemplation. “If we get it out in the open and I am in a good position, yes.”
“That is good, but we shouldn’t make that our first objective.” Aurelius said.
“Why not?” Tanisha questioned.
Aurelius crossed his arms, “the only time the ward is down is when it teleports. If it loses the ability to teleport then—”
“We lose the window to damage it.” Fuyumi finished.
“Exactly. We will still find out where the pulses originate and avoid damaging it if possible. Our priority is those point-defense guns. The big cannon’s deadly, but it takes time to charge. The smaller guns are faster and harder to avoid.” Aurelius said.
“And they are dangerous.” Tanisha added, she tapped her chest over her heart.
“Fuyumi and I will run distraction. Tani, you are going to be in charge of catching it before it teleports and destroying the point defences. You can feel the pulses so you will be able to react the fastest.” Aurelius said.
The group fell into discussion about how to handle the initial assault this time. This thing was a siege war machine and it was built like a fortress. They were going to take it down like they would a fortress too. No one harbored the illusion that they’d bring it down in a single battle. It was going to take time and constant pressure. They were going to wear it down piece by piece, even if it took days.
Eventually, the conversation shifted.
“Do you know how long it will take Bjorn to get back?” Aurelius questioned.
She closed her eyes and felt for the bond. She could feel Bjorn getting closer but distance wasn’t something she could tell. She needed to fix that. When he got back and things settled down she would practice to see if it were possible to not just feel the direction but also distance.
“No, I can only tell that he is closer but not where he is or anything else.” Tanisha said.
“Okay.” Aurelius said but it looked like he wanted to say more.
“Regardless,” Fuyumi added. “At least we know he is alright. We should try to make sure we have this S-17 destroyed before he gets here. He can help us with the S-16 and we’ll be done with this place for now.”
“Right,” Aurelius nodded. “We’ve got our new plan. Let’s head to the training room, run some drills, and prepare for the next assault.”
***
Helmforað burned with the fury of combat. Aetheric weapons lit the sky in streaks of white and gold, raining down with lethal precision as Aurelius and Fuyumi led the S-17 Siegebreaker in a relentless game of cat and mouse. It was the sixth day of their assault, and so far, they had only managed to destroy ten of the nearly thirty point-defense turrets embedded along the warframe’s armored shell.
In that time they learned several things. First the point defences weren’t the only weapon beside the main cannon. It could also vent aether much like the shadowmaw. When it did, nothing could get close. Second, it possessed a secondary cannon—smaller than the main weapon, but just as devastating and significantly faster to aim and fire. And third, and most troubling: it was learning.
Everyday they had to come at it with different tactics to get it in a vulnerable position. It stopped using teleportation so liberally and would instead bunker down firing its cannons. It had even begun tracking Tanisha directly, keeping several point-defense nodes on standby specifically for her. It knew she was the one that attacked whenever the wards went down and was trying to keep her at a distance.
But this time, they had a new strategy. While Aurelius and Fuyumi drew the machine’s fire, Tanisha was inside a nearby skyscraper, bardiche in hand, her body aglow with pulsing red energy. She found the final support pillar, the one that would bring the whole structure down.
The S-17 didn’t want to teleport? Fine, this time they were going to drop a building on it and see what it does. They were getting through that barrier and killing this thing no matter what.
Alright hear we go.
Tanisha lifted the weapon high then swung. The blade hummed, alive with scarlet lightning, and crashed down on the steel beam. Metal shrieked and glowed as her strike burned through it. Scarlet energy danced through the room as molten slag sprayed across the floor. With a growl she ripped the weapon free and swung again. This time her aura manifested as a ringularity and drew in all the power she could into the arc.
The blade passed through the beam and the building shook. The bardiche carved clean through the beam. The building groaned. Floors began to shift. Glass shattered in deafening cascades as structural integrity gave way.
Tanisha wasted no time as the ceiling and floor began to tilt. She ran and Blinked to safety, landed hard, skidded to a stop, and raised a hand. A bolt of lightning surged from her fingers striking S-17. It did nothing, the ward blocked the attack but the sound and flash was the signal that Aurelius and Fuyumi needed to get away from it yesterday.
The skyscraper leaned sharply, gravity finally winning. Chunks of silver and glass peeled away like rain, slamming into bridges, skywalks, and neighboring buildings in a storm of ruin. Tanisha stood on the walkway, eyes locked on the collapsing tower.
“Come on.” Tanisha said as she watched intently.
The building reached the point of no return, its gradual fall becoming faster and more devastating as it crashed into bridges and roads bringing down far more than just the weight of a single building.
Aurelius was the last to move away, his speed more than enough to dodge oncoming debris. As soon as Aurelius backed off Tanisha felt the aether pulse but it was too late the building and thousands of tons of debris hit the city like a meteor storm.
To the city's credit none of the other buildings toppled with it.
“Hopefully that just crushed the damn thing,” Tanisha muttered, scanning for any sign of movement.
[Hostile Detected]
Her HUD pinged. A fast-moving red dot streaked across her minimap. Her stomach dropped. She knows for a fact that they had cleared this area of S-Series robots beforehand. She quickly scanned the area for it and saw the outline red target of the S-19 Shadowmaw. It was in stealth mode sneaking up on Fuyumi a dozen levels down.
[Third Activation Initiated: Aether Draw - Battery]
Tanisha moved. She dropped through levels like a falling star, blinking between walls and vaulting down collapsed corridors. When she neared her mark, the Walking Armory roared to life. Her bardiche manifested in her right hand. The physical version of the weapon snapped into her left.
Both weapons glowed with energies. But the physical weapon glowed a little brighter.
Ionikinesis Weapon
Seiðr Cost 50
Coat your weapon in the destructive force of ionikinesis, extend the range of bladed weapon strikes. This effect can not be used on weapons from your Walking Armory. Duration of this skill is two minutes per cast.
It was her only Ionikinesis spell and one of her own design. She created it as a usable focus of the plasma pillar that was too unwieldy to use in actual combat. In the past, she’d avoided using this ability because of its seiðr cost, especially when she also had to sustain her armor’s aether draw, defensive spells, and any other active enchantments. But that was before. Things had changed. With her new suit, seiðr consumption was not a concern for the next six minutes.
She intended to use every minute hitting this thing hard. Tanisha leapt from the skybridge, dropping like a thunderbolt toward the prowling machine below. Both bardiches raised above her head, twin crescents of wrath gleaming with condensed lightning. Both weapons aimed for its neck.
Both weapons found its mark right before the Shadowmaw shot its own beam weapon from its mouth. It intended to take Fuyumi out while she was distracted. A lance of aether surged from its maw only to go wide as arcane electricity surged into its systems, frying them mid-discharge.
Her Ionikinesis Weapon bit deeper than the Walking Armory. It was expected given how much hotter the physical weapon was. Still it wasn’t enough to sever the neck completely. It took several attempts at the neck’s thick armor to take out the first one and this time it would likely take the same.
The Shadowmaw bucked violently, jaws snapping shut as it vented unstable energy in a shockwave of aetheric heat. The air around it ignited. Stone cracked. Steel boiled. Tanisha used Arcane shift just in time to avoid the explosive release.
“Yumi!” Tanisha yelled. “You okay.”
“Yes,” Fuyumi said. “What is that thing doing here?”
“I think we caused a scene it couldn't ignore.” Tanisha said.
“There were two Shadowmaw left in the city. Is the other one here too?” Fuyumi asked concerned.
“I am not picking up any other.” Tanisha said as she raised her arm and cast a bolt of lightning towards the sky. “Aurelius should see that and come soon.”
The S-19 purged the last of the residual arcane lightning. It used Aetheric Flash Step to jump to a higher level. Tanisha and Fuyumi prepared to follow, but then the world turned gold.
A wash of white-gold energy engulfed them in a blazing tide. Aetheric heat rolled across the battlefield, melting stone and warping steel like wax under a blowtorch.
Aurelius stood between them and the beam, his shield braced and gleaming. He had intercepted it. The beam ended and they saw the origin point. A hole clean through the fallen building.
Then Tanisha felt the Aetheric Pulse and the explosive entry of the S-17 as it appeared only a few dozen feet away from them.
“Shit! Scatter!” Aurelius yelled.
“No, stay together, Shadowmaw is here too!” Tanisha said.
They sprinted into a nearby building as the street outside was chewed to pieces by gunfire.
“One of the 19s is here?” Aurelius questioned as they ran.
“It was drawn in by the battle.” Fuyumi said.
“Fuck. We need to regroup. Tanisha keep an eye out.” Aurelius said.
“Right.” Tanisha said.
Movement abilities made them fast but not fast enough.
[Hostile Detected]
Her Hud lit up with alerts as soon as they jumped through the far side of the building.
“It's here.” Tanisha screamed.
The Shadowmaw struck first. Its claws slammed into Aurelius, whose shield flared just in time to block the blow. He was sent flying.
The bladed tail slashed at Tanisha scraping against her side. She barely dodged as it cut a glowing line deep into her armor.
Fuyumi slid under a swipe from its claws, her sword turning into a spear as she passed underneath its head. She stabbed upward into the gash in its neck. Ice erupted but it didn’t slow the beast down.
Tanisha used her teleportation to appear next to Fuyumi, tackling her right as the beam weapon from the Siegebreaker shot. It missed the Shadowmaw by millimeters. It wouldn’t have missed them.
“They are coordinating.” Tanisha said.
“You two take out the Shadowmaw.” Aurelius said. “I will distract the S-17.”
There weren’t any further discussions. Escaping both of them wasn’t going to happen. They needed to take out the Shadowmaw. The two women separated. Tanisha’s aura sprang to life around her. Hers wasn’t a typical aura; it was an event horizon. Ambient energy rushed inward, siphoned into her body like stardust into a singularity, fueling her strength.
She dismissed Ionikinesis Weapon as the time limit was up. She dodged another slash from the beast's tail. She teleported mid-step, sidestepped a second blow, then parried a third, dancing through the chaos. It wasn’t perfect of course. She had to decide which blows to dodge and which she would have to rely on her defences. Even then she couldn’t defend against everything.
Her free hand sparked as she whispered the spell for Voltaic Orb. The energy began to form, crackling brighter with each passing heartbeat. She just needed her moment to strike.
Fuyumi struck again, her spear biting into the monster’s neck, and in that moment, Tanisha saw her chance. She launched the orb. It hit the creature’s flank and detonated in a thunderclap of force. Metal blackened and peeled away. Tanisha was hit with the force as well and was hurled backward from the blast.
Electricity surged around the beast as it again vented the energies to keep itself from overloading. Tanisha had just gained her footing when the Shadowmaw used Flash Step and appeared directly in front of her, maw open, cannon already firing.