Steel Ethereal

Ch. 39 The Light Under the Helmet

            

Luciana

            I take a deep breath and flex every muscle in my body possible. I relax them and feel temporary relief. I silently pray to whatever deity exists that Pip's mystery syringe solution would hold.

            "Not too late to turn back." I snap to the armor standing feet above me. My noir armor barely gives me four inches in height. I'm dwarfed. Was the golden armor really this large before or had its creator imbued it with new upgrades.

            "I cannot do that, I've already been commanded..." She answers in the same muffled voice.

            "Come on, rules were meant broken," I declare.

            "No. Not this one." The voice says.

            "Then maybe take your helmet off. Fight me face to face."

"There are 87 snipers ready on that fence line. I will not." She says pointedly.

I scoff and shrug my shoulders, "doesn't hurt to try." I say.

I ready my fist. I knew what to expect, what to avoid. Robby wasn't here to save me. I couldn't afford to be reckless.

The armored woman lurches forward, a large clawed hand plunges into the dirt where I had once been. The claw retreats from the ground, snapping a large clump of dirt that stuck to its long, razor digits.

I zip above, faster than the woman in the armor could react. My foot comes crashing down with force I had not used in a while. I pack my foot with electricity and slam it into the armor's hunched form. The armor absorbed the blow but the woman is down on one knee and hesitant to get up. Maybe my kick did some good.

            While the armor is down, I leap back to let the snipers do their work.

The discharges of the rifles are like cannons. Each are mounted and bolted to the ground. With each pull of the bolts, a bullet the length of a pencil and the thickness of a plumbing pipe.

The rounds crash into the armor, knocking it around at different angles. She stays on her feet, but is still being pushed back steadily.

The hail of bullets cease and I charge forward.

Thinking the armor to be stunned, I slap my palms on the armor to siphon its energy as I had before. The armor quickly shifts its claws to bat my arms away, nearly breaking my arms in the process. I zip away, but not unharmed.

I ignore my bleeding hand as I zip around the armor and try to sweep the armor's legs, but it's much too heavy, even for me. Instead of falling to one knee, the armor merely shifts as if momentarily stumbling.

I zip here and there, slamming the armor with energy instead to charge it up and short it out as I had done before.

The woman in the armor expects this. She's more evasive and predicts that I'd shove my palms at the armor's chest.

I continue to zip as I hear the woman in the armor charging the same devastating beam as before. I knew what was going to happen and I zip away to safety.

The volley of bullets begins again and the armor is pushed back by bullets that would bisect or decapitate an ordinary man.

Still the armor stands after the bullets casings cease their fall. At this point, half of the rifles are overheated. They'd need to cool down for several moments and a misfire could mean several burning deaths.

Several of the men pour buckets of ice water to cool the barrels. The sizzling would signify that the rifles could be reloaded.

I zip toward to armor to buy them more time. My noir armor doesn't hinder my movements. Pip designed my own armor with my mobility in mind. If anything, it guided me, kept me from stumbling with the added weight on my body.