Rise in Revolution (Chapter Forty-Seven)

[tanadin]

 In which we check up on some characters we haven't seen in awhile, there's a big fight, and what's probably our last major character is introduced.

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

Chapter Forty-Seven

 

Dare to Die

Edge of the city, Sector TZI. April 6, 2272. Time instance 842N.

Sub bounced with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. She, along with the rest of the revolution, was watching TZI very closely, looking for signs of the golems turning on the cyborgs.  So far, no conflict had showed itself. Apparently they were expecting some reinforcements from within the sector, as well- some aven named Goldtalon or something equally strange had promised to rile up who he could, although he made no promises for troop quality.

Sub wasn’t really sure what to expect but she was ready to fight with her friends once more. She felt the magical energy swimming within her almost as a reassurance, a reminder that she wasn’t totally helpless. The weight of a shortsword at her hip should have been reassuring as well, but it was only a reminder that she barely knew how to swing it, nevermind defend herself from cyborgs with it.

Sub turned at the flutter of wings and smiled slightly as Hawk landed next to her. “Hi, Hawk!”

“Hello.” Hawk clicked her talons together a few times. “Did you happen to hear what kind of aven that Goldtalon is?”

“No, why?”

“No reason. Just wondering.”

“Haaawwwk.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Okay, well.” Sub crossed her arms. “If you won’t tell me, I’ll just have to...read your mind!”

“Sub, you know you can’t-”

“Shh! I’m concentrating.” Sub shut her eyes and focused, opening them again moments later. “You want to know because you don’t know many aven and hope he’s cool!”

“That wasn’t exactly difficult to figure out,” Mars put in, sidestepping over. “But I’m pretty sure you’re right.”

Hawk muttered something in her native language and fell silent.

“So. Any idea when this is going to start?” Sub noticed that Mars seemed even more ansty than her, wringing her hands and shifting constantly. Sub adjusted her hat, feeling Mars’ anxiety get to her.

“No,” Sub admitted. “It could be any minute now, really.”

As the minutes passed, Sub thought she would lose her mind, her anxiety rising and not being helped at all by the eerie silence that had overcome the entire revolution force.

They were left watching and waiting for a sign that might lead to their doom.

And yet.

Golems came into view, marching forward towards the cyborg patrols. The cyborgs didn’t seem to react until the first one fell and the danger registered on their sensors. They turned and gunshots rang out, followed immediately by the roar of the revolution as they charged forward.

“This is it!” Hawk cawed, spreading her wings and taking off.

“This is it!” Mars shouted, fire spreading over her body and leaving her in her fire elemental form, allowing her to leap and bound forward through the crowd.

“This is it,” Sub echoed, drawing her sword and running along with the others.

At first, it seemed they would have no difficulties with the battle. The perimeter force wasn’t as strong or coordinated as they were led to believe, and they had almost destroyed the original cyborgs when a larger force showed up to crash the party.

“Oh, shit!” someone shouted before being gunned down by a three thousand unit. Sub panicked and raised an energy shell, blocking several bullets before her shield failed. Someone larger slammed into her and knocked her out the way, taking a few bullets before the three thousand lost track of them in the chaos and changed targets.

Zahnra got to her feet, blood staining her fur. Sub shakily stood as well, looking at the werewolf’s wounds in horror.

“You saved me,” she mumbled. “Why did you…”

“You are young,” the werewolf rumbled. “You can shape yourself into anyone you want and I see potential deep within you. You do not deserve to die before you have even lived. And,” Zahnra grinned at this, “it will take more than a few bullets to slow me down.”

Sub nodded, still stunned, and watched the werewolf bound away to tear the head off of a two thousand unit and turn her claws on a three thousand. She shook her head to clear it, knowing that she couldn’t afford to be distracted right now. She picked up her sword off the ground and ran off to find someone to help, knowing she couldn’t take on a cyborg on her own despite her claims of her magical ability.

She was confident, not stupid.

Sub found herself back-to-back with Tac, two swordfighters with limited skill and no way to eliminate the cyborgs they were fighting.

A three thousand unit advancing on them dropped.

Somewhere in the battle, Cap reloaded her rifle.

A blur of movement caught Sub’s attention, electricity darting from the blade of the man speeding through and slicing the two thousand unit that Sub was having difficult with. Kyir paused to wave at them, a fierce and crazed grin on his face, before darting back to that odd woman that he had been sticking to lately.

She held dual pistols and aimed quickly and precisely, hitting what she shot at unless prediction software intervened fast enough. Kyir darted around her, taking out what threats she couldn’t and occasionally making excursions to help other nearby resistance members.

A shadow fell over them and Cataclysm hovered above, ice encasing his wings. He flapped once, twice, three times, sending feather-shaped ice spikes at the cyborgs below. He circled down towards Kyir and his entire fighting style changed, replacing the ice with flame and working flawlessly with both Kyir and Jase.

Sub wished she had such cohesion with her team as she somehow managed to get a foot tangled in Tac’s hair, making them both yell and struggle to get free as every nearby cyborg turned their eyes to the easy targets.

...Not that they weren’t easy targets before. Just not worthwhile.

A shotgun blast, a ring of ice lances, and a cyborg later, and Sub and Tac found themselves relatively safe, just enough to figure out how to untangle them.

“Be more careful!” Seven barked before leaping back into the battle. Shawn checked on them and stayed nearby, keeping a close eye on them as they fought. Geluu moved a ways away, determined to keep helping where he was the most needed.

Sub howled as a bullet impacted her shoulder, causing her to drop her sword and fall to her knees, clutching the wound. Tac shouted her name but Sub didn’t notice as a second bullet hit her in the collarbone.

A purple energy shell formed around her, her magic acting almost on its own as her panicked mind struggled to do something, anything, to save her.

She missed how exactly her attackers were destroyed, but the moment her energy shell faded, Devan was there, shouting for someone to help him pick her up and carry her out of there.

She blacked out shortly after that, not sure whose arms she was in but not really caring.

~~~

Hawk rose above the battle, watching the first of the cyborgs retreating towards the control center.

Cowards. “They’re retreating!” she cawed, swooping down lower over the revolution and repeating her message as more and more cyborgs disengaged.

She landed next to Tanadin and watched the cyborgs go, drawing back to the control center and ignoring attacks from both the revolutionaries and magic users within the city.

Cheers broke out among the rebels but Tanadin wasn’t among them. She mumbled something about enemy tactics before leaving to find Seven. Hawk watched her go and scanned the battlefield, taking in the blood, the bodies, and the machinery left unwanted on the ground.

It would have bothered her once, but now, she was accustomed to it. She kicked at a metal arm as she strode away from the corpses, intending to get some of the blood out of her feathers. If it dried, it would be difficult to fly and fight.

She froze as her eyes locked on an aven coming out of the city, followed by crowds of hesitant people, many of them collared. He was tall, with tawny-gold feathers and an almost regal pose.

An eagle! Another well-respected ruling class-type aven! Hawk quickly shuffled away in an attempt to locate some water.

Perhaps her feathers could use some more work than she had originally thought.

~~~

“That was amazing!” Goldtalon exclaimed, looking between Jase and Tanadin. “Absolutely amazing. You’ve shown these people that we can beat the Mainframe. Do you have a way to get their collars off?”

Tanadin nodded. “I’ve already got Neves and a few of the other cyborgs working on it.”

Goldtalon hesitated. “Cyborgs?”

“Yes. We have cyborgs in our ranks.”

“I wasn’t happy about it either,” Jase muttered, “but it is how it is.”

“Hmm. Some of them won’t like it.”

“They don’t have to like it,” Tanadin told him. “They just have to deal with it. Is there anyone of significant power in your group?”

“Some mediocre spellcasters, some elementals, a demon with a pretty hefty anti-magic collar, and Dare, of course.”

Jase’s head snapped up. “Dare? Dare Hyvak, the half-shadow elemental?”

Goldtalon blinked. “Yes. Why?”

“I want to see her. I know her. She’s my friend and I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see her again.” Her head snapped around to look at Tanadin. “Where’s Kyir?”

“Hell if I know. Somewhere.”

“I need him. He would want to see Dare as much as I do.”

Tanadin threw her hands in the air. “Find him, then! I need to worry about the losses and the wounded!”

Jase obtained Dare’s most likely location from Goldtalon and set out to find her husband, hiding the smile that wanted to break through across her face.

~~~

Kyir was practically buzzing with excitement, and that was before he saw Dare. Jase and Cataclysm ran along beside him, looking, searching.

He couldn’t believe that she was here, here in TZI, and still fighting. He’d figured that she’d be dead or in jail by now. The fact that she wasn’t…

He caught sight of her- tall, short black hair mostly obscured by her helmet, and purple visor on said helmet covering her matching eyes.

The three of them shouted her name and charged towards her. She turned around and stared for a moment before a wide grin broke out across her face, revealing sharp teeth, and she raced towards them, calling their names and they embraced and started babbling incoherently.

“You’re alive! And you’re not in jail!” Kyir finally shouted once he could form words again.

“Well yeah I am! Jail isn’t the place for me!” Dare looked between them and laughed. “What about you guys? I expected you all to be in prison! Even you guys can’t break out of those places!”

“I was in prison, but I got broken out!” Cataclysm told her, flaring his wings in excitement. “Kyir’s been in IAL and helped start the revolution!”

“I had a black market in my basement and turned a cyborg over to our side. Then fucking Jase here has been hiding in the woods and fucking around with cyborgs and mining rigs!”

“Hey, no, I was surviving and avoiding being captured!” Jase swatted his arm.

Dare barked with laughter. “I’m glad to see we’re all still the same! Gods, is it good to see you guys again!” She looked around at them and frowned slightly. “Wait, wait, wait. Hang on. There’s only four of us. Where’s Dise? Where’s...where’s Corvus?”

The grins immediately fell off of their faces. Kyir felt his heart sink from his chest down into the earth. Dare’s eyes widened.

“No. No. He’s...he’s not…”

“I’m sorry,” Cataclysm whispered. “He was turned into a nine thousand unit and we were forced to take him down.”

“No. No. No, no, no, no this can’t...this can’t be happening, it’s not...he’s not…” Dare’s knees shook and Jase moved to support her, hugging her friend tightly. “He’s not….”

“He’s gone,” Kyir’s voice was almost inaudible. “My brother’s gone. I’m sorry, Dare.”

“No…” Dare stumbled forward, dragging Jase along with her, and hugged Kyir. “I…”

“There wasn’t anything we could do. You can disconnect most cyborgs from the Mainframe, but if you do that to a nine thousand, it fries something in their heads and they go into a coma. They can’t be taken out of it until we take the Mainframe, and they can’t last very long in that state,” Cataclysm explained quietly. “It was...a hard thing to do.”

“No shit. What...What about Dise?”

“He’s gone,” Jase mumbled. “Died in the original invasion.”

“I’m sorry. I guess our sibling track record isn’t that great, huh?”

Dare drew a few quiet chuckles out of the group. “Leave it to the shadow elemental to have the dark humor.”

“Stuff it, feather boy.” Dare took a deep breath and drew back, standing on her own. “Okay. We just...we need to focus on the now, right? We haven’t won TZI yet. Not even close. We have to take the control center. And to do that we need to kill the nine thousand.”

“Right. Nothing we haven’t done before.”

Dare nodded once, determined, and grinned. “Right. Let’s fucking do this. I can help- you know I can help.”

“Between you, Mark, and Goldtalon, I think we might have a chance to beat the Mainframe,” Kyir told her.

“Oh, don’t get ahead of yourself. I might be great, but the others are slacking.”

“Oh, really? I didn’t see you controlling the golems or leading Jase around the city,” Kyir said, raising an eyebrow.

“I would have led her around if she came to me!” Dare protested. “Calm your shit, sparky.”

Cataclysm sighed. “Tanadin will want to meet you.”

“Seven will want to meet you,” Kyir added. “You’re really something else, Dare.”

“I will choose to take that as a compliment as, due to recent circumstances, I’d rather not punch your face in.”

Jase shook her head. “Some things never change.”

Kyir smiled slightly as they turned and moved back towards the rebel forces, searching for one of their leaders to introduce Dare to.

Maybe things would be okay.