Spring Upon the Solstice

VIII - Battle of the Cretaceous

{001}

I struggle to catch my breath, as the thick black smoke begins to dissipate in the current.

No, not smoke.

It's charred skin. A deep crimson permeates the outside view through the Akuma's viewscreen, and it sticks obstinately to the titanium armor. Chunks of meat that have been shredded apart drift by much quicker.

It's over.

"Computer, how bad is it?"

Systems running at thirty percent functionality. Oxygen supply dropping.

Shorted fuses explode above my head and the display in my visor crackles every so often with distortions. My legs are numb—no surprise there—but I can't feel my skin anymore. No doubt I still have skin on my body, but the current doesn't flow against it, like my Kokoro-induced state says it should. Must be because the thousands of pressure plates attached to the exterior of the Akuma have been completely incinerated. The inner layer looks to have survived, but until support staff remove or repair the outer one, the data it transmits might as well be hitting a concrete roadblock.

"Now, where the hell is that—"

—Warning. Radiation signature detected.

"What?"

Warning. Radiation signature detected.

"Computer, rescan right now."

Proximity warning: object detected at bearing two-seventy-five.

It strikes me that the nuclear blast wasn't enough to kill the Harbinger. Somehow, in one way or another, it tanked the shot dead on. But I have no time to think on how.

A harpoon of pain spikes through my left shoulder from both sides, ripping through my flesh. I cry out—only once—and spin my head around, the visor's display mirroring my movements down to the last millimeter.

I would probably describe it as a crocodile. A glorified, eighty-meter long crocodile, with both halves of its jaw hooked over the metallic shoulder of Akuma-1, and by extension, my shoulder. Up close, it's far larger than the Jormungandr in the reports, dwarfing any and all other organisms Mother Nature could possibly show for in the modern era. Its mouth alone could probably swallow a small house with ease, and the four beady cerulean eyes set into its skull are as large as cars.

Pieces of scorched skin break away from the right side of its ashen body, but unfortunately, it seems like I've only pissed it off. And as if in affirmation, the Harbinger pushes off the Akuma and tears loose a whole chunk of circuitry, joints, and titanium plating. A lightning strike of agony sears itself into my mind, frying my muscles and tissue in one white-hot scream.

"You motherfucker!" I take one hand off the controls to clutch at my shoulder, though it does nothing. Biting my lip seems to do a better job at nullifying the pain, which dissolves into the dripping blood that pools on my lap. Despite the fact that no physical damage has actually reflected back on me, it sure as hell feels like a chunk of flesh has been gouged from my body by sheer force, and that wipes away any thoughts I have of trying to win the fight quickly. The Harbinger is setting the pace, not me.

I latch back onto the controls and press a button located just above my thumb, which pushes the main weapons systems to one-hundred percent. A thruster built into the back of the forearm emerges from the darkness, sending bubbles surging across the Strait. I rotate the wrist of the Akuma, and the whole arm locks in, primed to fire. No use in activating the left arm; all the joints hang in shreds.