Rise in Revolution (Chapter Fifteen)

[tanadin]

 Sorry-not-sorry for the ending of this one. Have fun!

Chapter list: https://tanadin.dreamwidth.org/650.html
World map: http://tanadin.deviantart.com/art/Kaldriel-RiR-map-594639189

Chapter Fifteen

Defender’s Blood

Control Center IAL, Sector IAL. January 18, 2272. Time instance 842N.

Emma gulped quietly as her eyes drifted to the shape of the control center in the distance. They had reached the end of the stony street and had about half a kilometer to walk across flat ground to reach the intimidating building.

It wasn’t anything special to look at, really. It was gray and uniform, and the area around it was absolutely covered in turrets, at least according to Seven. Emma wasn’t looking forward to trying to run the five hundred meters between the street and the control center while under fire from dozens of turrets and cyborgs, including the nine thousand unit that could probably kill them all. She could see turrets dotting the landscape here and there between them and the control center.

She turned around and surveyed the group around her. About thirty people from other parts of IAL, including about six from the prison, had joined up with the Black Market in this sudden revolution. A group of five stood a bit off of the rest, rubbing their necks and conversing quietly. They had approached Sadie, asking how she had gotten her collar off, and she had directed them to Geek and Seven.

The five mages had then proceeded to offer to help in any way that they could, but their power level was nothing too spectacular. One of them possessed an affinity for electricity magic (NOT lightning, he told them in a huff, but ELECTRICITY), two were good with general short-range energy attacks, one was skilled with healing magic, and the final mage could teleport short distances and turn invisible for short periods of time.

It was the healing mage, Scara, who seemed to be the most helpful in this situation. With Devan back in the Black Market with Tac, their resident medic was gone, and the advantage to Scara was that she could instantly heal wounds- at the price of her own energy.

As Seven cleared his throat, the babble of excited chatter died down to almost nothing. No one was used to being addressed by a cyborg that didn’t want to kill them, and Emma noticed that many of them gripped their weapons more tightly.

Not that I can really blame them. Most of us have had to deal with the cyborgs being a threat most, if not all, of our lives. She ran her fingers over the handle of her knife again, flinching as her fingers encountered a patch of half-dried blood. She had hastily wiped off the knife after killing the cyborg in the prison, but she must have missed a spot.

She pretended that it didn’t bother her that she killed her, instead focusing on what Seven had to say.

“So, does anyone here have long-range weapons?”

A couple of people half-raised their hands, looking uncertain- Sadie and Geek among them, Emma noted. Seven sighed. “Do we really not have anyone that can accurately hit turrets from long range?”

“You can.” Tanadin grumbled. “Sorry, we’re not all cyborgs.”

“Great. That’s great. Okay. Looks like we’re advancing and trying not to get mowed down in the process. Are any of you magic users able to create a shield?”

“I might be able to if I had this collar off.” Geek said mildly. “I don’t think anyone else here can.”

The mages mumbled amongst themselves but didn’t speak up.

“So I guess we’re just going to go in with no protection from bul- wait a second.” Seven raised a hand and pointed at the ‘electricity’ mage. “Electromagnetism.”

“Me?”

“You! You can create an electromagnetic charge to divert bullets from the area around you. It’ll work long-range, as there won’t be that many bullets. You probably can’t handle all the turrets firing for the later parts, but it should help us close. ”

The mage paled. “Why me?”

“Because you’re the only one with the right mastery over shit.” Kyir snapped. “I don’t have the best control over my elemental abilities and trying to maintain some kind of electromagnetic horseshit is beyond my capabilities without practice.”

“We said we’d help.” One of the other mages, one of the two good with energy attacks, told him. “Come on, Fred. For the greater good.”

“Bella, no.”

“Bella, yes!” She glared at him.

“Bella yes.” Scara agreed.

Fred sighed, defeated. “Fine, fine. I’ll do it.”

“Good. Once we get in range, spread out to provide less of a target and do anything you can to take out those turrets. Until then, stay close, the magic’ll be more effective closer to it’s center.” Seven instructed.

“Fire will work against them.” Tanadin added. “Overheat them and fry their circuits. Slash them open, shoot them, explode them, whatever. They’re dangerous. And remember: when that nine thousand unit shows up, we can’t take it on. Not at our power level. We need Geek for that. A few of us will be heading into the control center itself once the unit shows up and Kyir, M, and Zahnra act as a diversion.” She paused. “Any questions?”

“How do we avoid being shot?” Sub asked.

Sadie grinned at her. “That’s the best part! You don’t.”

Sub’s quiet ‘oh’ was lost in the crowd’s mumbles.

Tanadin waited for about a minute before clapping her hands together to draw attention. “Alright, everyone. It’s go time.” She turned towards the control center, motioning for everyone to follow. Fred tagged along a ways behind, focusing on creating the electromagnetic charge above the heads of the group as they advanced.

They’d barely walked a couple of meters when the first of the turrets started firing. The group remained unharmed, however, as the bullets were drawn upwards to meet the electromagnetic charge and then sped past in a totally different, and harmless, direction. The entire group, except perhaps for Seven, was tense, just waiting for a bullet to break free and shoot one of them in the chest.

M walked several feet out, away from the group, and easily dodged any bullets that came his way. He had always displayed a dislike of being in a tight crowd, and he demonstrated this now by risking himself in an effort to stay away from them.

Well, he’s not really at risk. He can dodge those bullets as easily as Seven could. The thought halted Emma’s mind in its tracks. Just like prediction software. She watched M curiously as he sidestepped the paths of the bullets, not seeming to care about the danger he and the others were in.

They were about halfway before the turrets produced and audible click and the short-ranged weapons kicked in. An entire wave of bullets flew at them, far more than the more precise long-range fire from before, and Emma tensed, eyes flicking to Fred as he paled. The bullets were pulled up momentarily before the sound of someone falling over was heard and they sailed along their new paths, over the heads of the group.

Fred had fallen over from the effort of magically redirecting that many bullets. Emma swore quietly, cursing the limitations of human ability, before a more pressing matter hit her like a train.

Or, more accurately, like a speeding bullet.

Emma yelped as a bullet dug into her left arm and she was dragged into the reality that they now had no defense against the turrets. She bolted away from the quickly scattering group, eyes noting that several figures were charging the turrets, blasting flames or other magical powers. A blur of movement shot towards one, pausing to reveal Kyir, before enough electricity was pumped into the machine to fry it and he moved on.

“I thought you were supposed to heal!” Fan’s accusatory voice caught Emma’s attention, and she noticed both the taller girl and Scara running nearby. Scara was considerably shorter than Fan at 5’6, her dark blond hair waving behind her as she ran. Her blue eyes were narrowed behind her glasses.

“There was nothing to heal!  He died from overexpending his energy. He was fine one moment and dead the next!”

Emma was about to intervene when a quick beam of red energy shot at the ground by her feet, making her shriek and trip. She quickly got up and identified the source- a cyborg holding some kind of pistol, probably custom-made for the units. She swore quietly.

“Fan, can you distract that?”

“Maybe. Why?”

“Because I’m going in.” Emma picked up her knife from where it had fallen and started towards the cyborg, albeit in a roundabout manner. Before she could really act, however, Sadie flew overhead, blasting purple and black flames at the unit.

Clearly it wasn’t very high quality, likely a one thousand unit, as it fell to the flames in moments.

“Well, that works, I guess.” Emma mumbled, before turning to find another target. One and two thousand units were swarming from the control center to the battlefield, and she didn’t care to count their numbers.

She didn’t want to know.

She was locked in combat with a one thousand unit when loud screams and calls for help started to crop up in the back of the group. She drove her knife into the cyborg’s throat at the first opportunity and turned to see what was going on, fearing that the nine thousand unit had made its appearance.

It was hard to pick her out at first, but a cyborg- definitely not the nine thousand unit, as it wasn’t as big and bulky as Seven had said it would be- was wreaking havoc in one section of the resistance, cutting down anyone that got too close. She flagged down Sadie and pointed. The demon grinned.

“It’s show time!” She roared, before charging forward with claws extended and unnatural flames licking her claws.

Sadie’s grin only widened when the seven thousand unit- 7008-α, based on its identification tag- parried her first blow. The girl was quite tall, about six feet, and her single human eye was piercing blue and narrowed in hostility. Her right arm, part of her torso, and both legs below the knees seemed to be cybernetic, but Sadie didn’t have much time to consider that.

Not that she really cared.

She blasted flames at the cyborg as she dodged a strike, grinning widely when the unit was forced to move out of the way. She repeated the action, this time throwing in a pure energy strike in 7008’s path. She was forced to duck under the flames but leaped forward, getting in a scratch against Sadie’s side before they seemed to be equally matched once more.

Sadie was beginning to charge up another blast of flames when the cyborg’s right eye- its robotic eye- flashed brighter and she released a pulse of blue energy from her body. Sadie staggered, feeling her power levels drop to almost nothing, even below what the collar had limited her to. She struggled to stand and cried out when the blade was driven through her stomach, retracted, and stabbed in again. She weakly clawed at the cyborg holding her, but 7008 was relentless, pulling the blade out of the demon’s abdomen in order to strike again.

However, the opportunity didn’t come. She was forced to let go of Sadie and leap back to avoid the wave of flame that Tanadin sent at her, and was soon occupied with another opponent. 7008’s blade came up just in time to block Seven’s attack. The two evaluated each other for a second or two before leaping into action, exchanging blows and easily dodging or blocking each one. Tanadin didn’t risk trying to fry her again, not wanting to accidentally hit Seven, no matter how unlikely that was.

The two cyborgs fought as if it was rehearsed, evenly matched and equally determined to fight. Both were capable of ending the fight at any time by striking and killing the other cyborg instead of defending themselves, but that would result in both dying and neither were willing to let that happen.

Seven, however, eventually realized this, and acted on it.

He moved slightly out of the way of one of 7008’s strikes to buy him some time, although he didn’t dodge it enough to save him if it landed, and struck at her barely armored neck, slicing deeply into the flesh and cutting the artery.

Then, he switched on his shields.

7008’s blade bounced harmlessly off of him and she backed up, trying to stem the flow of blood from her damaged artery. Realizing there was nothing she could do to save herself or to take out Seven, she readied her gun and started shooting wildly at everyone around, trying desperately to make a difference before the human part of her brain lost enough blood to make her knees buckle as she fell, unconscious, to the ground.

Seven’s shields faded and he walked away from her, leaving her to bleed out. He approached Tanadin and was about to remark on the fact that, other than 7008 showing up, things had been going rather well so far and they had most of the turrets and defending cyborgs defeated.

That was when they heard it.

The heavy, rattling footsteps of a bulky, heavily armed cyborg.

Unit 9099-α burst out of the control center, charging into battle with blades ready and guns blazing. Tanadin gulped as she saw its weaponry and looked at Seven helplessly. He didn’t look worried, only determined, as M, Kyir, and Zahnra- in her werewolf form- moved in to engage it.

“Can we do this?” Tanadin asked quietly.

“Absolutely not. Let’s get going before it notices us.”