Serial
39: BLINDEYE
January
12th, 33 S.D. 09:19 Talimer Forest, Sventa
Without hesitation, Losha narrowed her eyes as she took a speed-step to the right. Quickly, she raised her hand and serialized a bolt of lightning. This thin trail of sparks readily leaped upwards, surging ahead at her intended target. However, before Losha’s attack ever reached Suvla, the strange seer swiftly shifted to the side. Her form pulled away in flight, and the stream of electricity harmlessly sailed past her hair. Losha grunted faintly as she stared at her missed shot, however, her attention quickly turned back to Suvla. Those movements bore great similarity to her most recent opponent, Koter. Were the two somehow related? She could not help but imagine they shared a link. Losha, however, had no idea that these two officers in fact operated under the same unit, nor did she realize Suvla had been specifically assigned to fight against her.
“Do you think you can hit me?” Suvla asked, turning the aim of her small crossbow at Losha. “I can see every move you will ever make before you can even think of them. Any attack you send my way, I already know it.” At last, the sights of Suvla’s weapon aligned with Losha at the center. “My attacks, however, are a bit more... unpredictable.”
Losha waited until she saw Suvla’s finger tighten around the trigger. At that instant, she jumped back with a powerful speed-step. As blue light shortly danced beneath her feet, she pushed against the earth. In a heartbeat, she’d easily crossed ten meters, propelling herself beyond the clearing and back into the dense forest. Upon landing though, she saw danger fast encroaching from the side. Turning to her left, Losha stood nearly face-to-face with the fine point of an arrow. No time remained to dodge it, however, the projectile didn’t seem to be going anywhere.
Prior to engaging Suvla, Losha had raised a thick kinetic force-field around herself as a precaution. Her thoughtfulness now proved lifesaving. The unseen barrier held the arrow aloft in its place rather than deflecting it. Losha plucked it from the air and snapped it between her fingers, breaking the shaft with a brief kinetic series. Tossing the pieces to the grass, she looked up at Suvla who still hovered high among the branches. She frowned to herself. What had happened? Suvla was right in front of her; why then had the arrow come nearly 90 degrees from a completely different direction? Losha knew that she hadn’t made a mistake; even during her speed-step, her eyes had trained upon her foe, never once wavering. The timing between the arrow’s collision with her shield and Suvla’s pulling of the trigger itself apparently matched too. However, it were as if Suvla had fired from somewhere else entirely...
As she took into account all of this, the logic in Losha’s head didn’t add up. Then again, there were a lot of things about Suvla that made little sense to her: the levitation, the ability to pass through the ground, how she could see anything at all despite her covered eyes. Though the woman’s powers appeared occult, Losha believed some science must have backed them. Like the magic and witchcraft the Henron accused Losha herself of performing, everyone’s abilities had a more rational explanation to them. Losha’s was serialization; Suvla’s, though unknown, could still be analyzed and exposed.
“People like you put far too much trust in what your eyes tell you,” Suvla said as she readied another round into her crossbow. “Open your eyes as wide as you can, Wolf of Sventa, and still you shall see nothing.” Her final utterance echoed throughout the region as her body drifted away, wafting and winding deep into the forest, bending around trees. Like a spirit, Suvla moved along as light a breeze, yet with menacing speed. Losha jumped after her, taking aim with two streaks of serialized lightning. The currents rushed together in short succession; Losha hoped their rapidness would create an opening of some sort. Yet like before, Suvla wretched herself away before these shots even lined up. The two bolts crashed into a nearby branches, burning these limbs black with a sharp crack and a flash of brilliance.
Undeterred, however, Losha decided to try another approach. She dashed towards Suvla in two speed-steps. With that, she positioned herself just below her enemy. Pivoting quickly on her heels, Losha spun around and looked upwards. In this same motion, her arm swept in a wide arc as she let loose another serialized attack. Whereas her previous forays had all been precise discharges of electricity, this version spread out widely like a web. As it spanned some five meters across in width and height, the reach of her tactic proved nigh unavoidable, even for one who moved as fast as Suvla. However, Suvla didn’t even attempt to remove herself from the series’ path. With her back to Losha, she merely stood there, hanging amongst the treetops.
As the attack drew upon her, a curious event occurred. When the fiercely surging lightning should have struck her, the sizzling, whipping energy simply passed through. Her image rippled for a single moment as it entered and left her body, but no visible harm came to Suvla. The trees overhead, however, caught the full force of this rampant voltage. Igniting, exploding, a handful of branches turned ablaze as they tumbled down, scattering to the forest floor. Losha squinted momentarily at the fire. Suddenly a sickening series of snaps resounded above both of them. The large upper portion of one tree had been outright blown away, and now its charred remnants were falling. Losha took another speed-step backwards, positioning herself safely long before the deadly wood smashed the very spot she had formerly occupied. Suvla, on the other hand, allowed all of the debris to phase through her. As the embers settled and the smoke cleared, Suvla slowly turned around to face Losha.
“Keep fighting just like that,” she said, pointing down at the serialist. “None of your attacks will even come close to touching me.”
Suvla eased her way over to a nearby tree; gently her hand brushed across the smooth bark as she drew closer. Then her body seemingly slipped inside the trunk, as if fusing with it. In a single second, Losha’s opponent had disappeared entirely. Only a brief muttering spread throughout the forest, as if they land itself were speaking lowly in some unheard of tongue.
Losha turned back and forth, scanning everything as far and as acutely as she could. She held her place, gazing intently forward, forcing herself to perceive even the faintest change. Her ears locked onto every noise: birds in the far background, a running brook somewhere outside of the fog, the rustle of the wilderness. In addition to emphasizing these physical senses, she also concentrated heavily on detecting any seras frequencies in the vicinity. Nevertheless, she could feel nothing from Suvla. Was she really not quite of this world, or was she simply masking her frequency like Koter had? Even if she were a ghost of some kind, Losha still would have expected to register something, not that serialists knew much about poltergeists though...
As the picture of the surrounding seras frequencies became clear, Losha was then all at once reminded of WOLFWIND and the Special Operations Corps. Discounting Suvla, over 100 foreign soldiers remained an active threat to them all. Her comrades were outnumbered and could scarcely see much, a combination that made for unfortunate odds at best. If the Henron ambushed them, they’d wind up losing in the worst way. The guiding orb of light she’d left behind was still at work though; she could choose from several actions based on that option. She could draw them back away from the Henron until she dealt with Suvla and returned to their aid, she could lead them to attack the Henron with an ambush of their own while she fought Suvla separately, or she could bring them to her location to finish off Suvla together and move on to the Henron contingent afterwards. Which decision was best? Their lives were practically cradled in her hand.
“Shrieks,” she whispered to herself. There could be no time for debate; she made her decision in that very instant, remotely altering the sphere she had generated. The most difficult aspect of this task was not so much controlling a series she could not directly see, rather it was simultaneously dividing her attention in two. She not only had to maneuver her companions through the forest, she had to do so in the midst of her own deadly struggle.
Losha stepped around the trees, every moment of hers being one of caution and suspicion. No matter where she turned her head, however, she could find no trace of her mysterious enemy. Suddenly, from behind her, a crossbow bolt darted straight towards her. It would have penetrated the base of her skull, and had it connected, the shot would likely have gone into the back of her mouth. Its fine lethal point, stymied by Losha’s kinetic barrier, never reached such a gruesome conclusion.
Whipping around, she saw that the arrow, like before, hung idly before her. With a wave of her hand, she brushed it away as if it represented nothing more than a nuisance. What unnerved Losha, however, was the fact that she’d never seen it coming. Only a disturbance in the flow of seras responsible for the protective bubble had warned her. Furthermore, Suvla herself continued about, imperceptible to all sight. For now, it seemed as if the two combatants had come to a stalemate. Suvla remained immune to all of the things Losha had tried, but Losha had proven equally defensive.
Another bolt zoomed in on Losha, this time from above, however, as it stuck itself on her barrier, Losha looked up to see a most unpleasant development. The arrow, at first glance, appeared unusual in shape. From the head to halfway up the shaft, a large, odd clump was attached. More worrisome though was the lit fuse on the side of it all, a thread that signaled but seconds left to go. Reacting on pure instinct, she flung the arrow upwards with a quick kinetic series as she speed-stepped away to the side. A deep, curt blast roared high above the forest. Even at an altitude of 30 meters, the shockwave cut through all as Losha felt her core tremble. She doubted her kinetic force-field would have safely taken the brunt of that explosion. What was Suvla using, dynamite? Losha could only wonder.
Whatever the true case, her foe had just drastically raised the tactics of this fight. Now it didn’t matter if her barrier stopped the incoming projectiles; if those shots blew up before she could get rid of them properly, she’d be in serious trouble. Even the amount of time she had to deal with the first one was cutting it close; any fuse of a shorter length was going to be problematic to say the least. Losha began running, moving around the trees as she pulled back. She figured that if she could make herself into a mobile, agile target, she could at least gain some breathing room. She speed-stepped her way across lengths of the forest, rushing along the ground, changing her course spontaneously. Yet, even as Losha flew at seemingly untraceable speeds, another explosive arrow landed near her.
While it did not hit her or her barrier, the shot never intended to. Instead, it sank deeply into the trunk of a tree she’d only recently passed. In mid-stride, just as she readied another speed-step, Losha heard a distinctive “thunk”; her head turned back slightly as she launched herself. Her eyes opened wide in alert, but it was now far too late to do anything. Rocking earth and air, the deafening bomb ripped through everything in its path. The tree from its base all the way to its branches were smashed into a storm of chips and splinters, bursting in a destructive display of disintegration.
Swelling forward, the concussive force grabbed Losha from behind, thrusting her body far faster than she’d ever traveled. As soon as she knew what had transpired, she’d already been helplessly hurled into the ground, tumbling over her sides. She could hear nothing, a momentary loss of hearing she reasoned. Her vision wavered uneasily as she felt pressure attack her from inside her head. It was by luck that she hadn’t been knocked out. Her constant kinetic force-field had diverted most of the explosion’s damage away from her, but only because she’d been moving swiftly away from it to begin with. The serialized shield had also prevented any major injury as she slammed down into the grass, however, it was not an unbreakable defense. She’d been bruised in the fall, and badly at that. However, she had precious little time to merely lie there, prone and open to all attacks.
Though it pained her, Losha quickly rolled over like a log before standing up and placing herself behind a tree. Despite the fact that the sturdy plant barely offered her any real sanctuary, it was the best choice at hand. If Suvla truly did see the future, it wouldn’t matter how fast or where Losha ran; she’d always know the exact spot to aim her weapons and when to so. That also meant no area truly served as viable hiding spots. What a troublesome enemy. Losha never knew where she’d deal the next blow, and she had no way of retaliating against such a wraith-like foe.
She mumbled and shook her head for a bit, however. No, Suvla could not be invulnerable, and she could not have been a ghost either. Perhaps she did have some very peculiar strengths, but she was still human. One way or another, Losha knew it was possible to defeat her using serialization. If she could at least see Suvla accurately, that would even her chances in this fight. Since Suvla seemed impeccably adept at shrouding her seras frequency, Losha decided that another approach better suited the situation.
While her skill with the so-called third-eye series remained a work-in-progress, she didn’t have the luxury of using something else. She recalled the principles in her mind but once before executing the series. Generate a “screen” of kinetic energy, not unlike her force-field, measure the minute disturbances on the screen caused by natural phenomena such as heat, sound, or movement, interpret these disturbances into a sort of “image” or map: that summed up the process. Even for her, the series proved challenging. Making a screen sensitive enough to hear whispers 50 meters away remained anything but trivial. It couldn’t be helped, however; it was far too late in the battle, and things had turned dire.
Quickly, she serialized a sheet as prescribed by the series’ formula. As sounds and other micro-forces bombarded it, the sheet actually changed form in certain ways. When noise bounced off it, the sheet shuddered subtly. Losha, however, only initially recognized these inputs as a bunch of tiny waves; what they really meant eluded her. How exactly had Denze used it to decipher words? At any rate, everything stood silent for a time. If she could have made the sheet sensitive to light, perhaps she could have also gained a more detailed view of the environment. Such a level of finesse was still above her though, so all she could do at this point was wait.
Out of curiosity, she stuck her head around the tree and looked about. Suddenly, a vast amount of changes warped the sheet, telling her instantly that something fast approached. Using this information, she calculated that an item moved quickly about the forest, another arrow most likely. Losha actually felt how the screen rapidly morphed in response to the changing sounds, how the shape reflected the different locations of the projectile over several seconds. All of this data helped her to pinpoint the path of the arrow long before it ever neared her.
It sank downwards at an angle, landing in the moist ground only a meter behind the tree where she had hidden. When it pierced the land, Losha had already swung around the trunk. As she had expected, it was another bomb. Rather than chucking it away as she had previously done, Losha wiped her hand in a short arc as she froze it. Substantial amounts of vapor around her made it a simple task of holding the water molecules in place with a carefully designed kinetic series. The snow had melted here, but she could still easily form ice at will. As the arrow became thickly encased in a cold, crystal block, its devastating device failed, and no detonation followed. If she could utilize this third-eye series even further, she’d overcome this battle without incident.
Out of nowhere, Suvle appeared before her, fading in. “Sa, everything is as I saw. Even with that in consideration, I applaud you for you efforts.” The crossbow she held seemingly vanished into nothing as Suvla slowly clapped her hands together, quite mockingly. At that moment, however, three more doppelgangers of Suvla arrived, each stepped out from a tree as if detaching themselves from the wood itself. Surrounding Losha at various points, each of her triplets aimed their crossbows at the serialist. Losha slightly shifted her eyes left and right, but she anchored them steadily at the Suvla in front of her.
“Surviving one of these explosives appears too easy for you. What say you about three?”
Something wasn’t right. Though she heard Suvla speaking, though her ears told her that she was right in front of her, her third-eye series told her something completely contrary. The human voice created strong vibrations, thus Losha knew the series was not mistaken. It wasn’t picking up anything ahead of her, however. In fact, it didn’t even notice the movements of Suvla’s duplicates. The clarity of the predicament all at once broke through, at last. Whatever it was she thought she saw and heard, it wasn’t real. As Suvla had said previously, Losha had put too much faith in her native senses. In using serialization, she’d gained another sort of vision, one that was not easily deceived.
Her third-eye series definitely knew Suvla was talking; Suvla just wasn’t talking in front of her. Without delay, Losha spun to the side and unleashed cascade of electricity high towards a tree. Though at first it seemed as if nothing at all were there, Losha soon saw that her lightning wrapped and jumped around an invisible object. Whatever she’d just hit, it fell from a branch, collapsing into a heap. Suvla and her clones started to slow, as if they were stopping in time. Eventually, they all winked away as if never having been there.
Losha turned to the mass she’d struck. A strong current still flowed around it when she’d speed-stepped her way over. As she cautiously walked forward, she realized that a new seras frequency emanated in the vicinity; this was the real Suvla. She also heard someone panting heavily. The remaining trails of static outlined a human shape, though Losha still saw no one before her. All at once, the figure stood upright, swiveling about as if to face her.
“Well done, Losha. I mean my words,” Suvla said. Still in use, Losha’s third-eye series indicated that no trickery was involved here; the voice she heard indeed belonged to her enemy. Losha stared and blinked several times as if something were wrong with her eyes. Gradually, Suvla’s form came into view.
“This is the real fox,” Suvla said, grabbing the edge of her cloak and ripping it away. As this cloth fluttered down, Suvla revealed a black, tight-fitting suit, replete with boots and gloves. The last bits of electricity dissipated into the air. “I had them make this for me. While it is not completely insulated, it seems to work well enough. Koter is not the only one who takes precautions.”
Losha took one step forward, loosening her stance as she held out both of her arms to the side. “There is no point in fighting anymore,” she said. “I can see you clearly now; however you pulled those illusions, it will not work again. I may not be able to use electricity anymore, but I can still stop you with fire, ice, or raw force if need be.”
Suvla smiled beneath her large band. “I knew you would say that,” she chuckled to herself. “Unfortunately that is not what fate holds for us.” In a single, blurring moment, Suvla drew her crossbow directly at Losha. Her movements, even without manipulating the senses, were blindingly fast, not unlike Koter at all. “Only one of us has a future.”
“It does not have to be so,” Losha said. She looked straight into the awaiting arrow without expression. She knew she could handle anything Suvla could send, thus she spoke calm and evenly. “There may yet be war between Sventa and Henron, but there need not be war between us, not you and me. You can all leave this forest alive and well. Surely we can agree on a future with none of our deaths, sa?”
“Ha,” Suvla said, tossing her head back. “What is this? Your orders are to kill all of us, are they not? Come now, you cannot fool a trickster-”
“My orders are to ‘clear out’ any of your kind. They left the means to me. That includes asking too.”
“It does not matter,” Suvla said firmly as she released the arrow. It traveled a meter before Losha’s barrier caught it in midair. “My orders are quite different.”
Losha sighed as she grabbed the arrow and broke it like before. She held both ends, one in each hand. “Is this forest worth that much to you? Are you willing to give your life up for a plot of land?”
“I am willing to give up your life for your land...”
“Ksh,” Losha frowned.
“You are too soft,” Suvla said. “Even peace has its price. This is simply the world we live in.”
Suddenly then, gunshots rang out in the distance. “WOLFWIND! Aslo!” Losha breathed as her glance shifted to the side.
“It seems inescapable, battle that is,” Suvla said as she looked up into the sky. “It also seems the hallucinogens are wearing off around here...”
“Hallucinogens?” Losha asked as her eyes narrowed. “Is that what you have been doing all of this time?”
“Hmph,” Suvla smiled. “Kill me and find out. Wolf of Sventa, try not to hold so dearly to those ideals of yours...” Just then Losha’s sight began to dim as if ink were spilling into her eyes. In truth, the arrow pieces she held began to exude a dark, noxious gas. A thick cloud soon pooled out of the shattered shaft. Had she booby-trapped it, knowing full well that Losha would crack it open? Losha choked on the fumes as her eyes and throat burned. Coughing, she stumbled backwards, weakly grasping the edge of nearby tree as everything lapsed into blackness. As Suvla spoke aloud, her words seemed to grow fainter with each passing moment. Losha but managed to hear the last few bits of her speech before completely going deaf.
“After all, you would not want to be blinded by your beliefs,” she said as she shoved another arrow into the crossbow’s slot and pulled the trigger.
Share This
Email
Facebook
Twitter
Read Request
My Library
Subscribe
Flag Writing