Serial
47: Kilometer killer
January
17th, 33 S.D. 11:06 Leitis, Sventa
“You should not have left us like that,” Yega said, shouldering his sword before folding his arms. “What was that all about anyway?” he protested.
That morning, WOLFWIND had finally caught up with Losha. Though they’d had to push themselves double-time to make the same journey, her three comrades had managed to get to Leitis nevertheless. Losha had expected them as soon as she noted their seras frequencies. Eight members of Aslo’s unit had come along as well. Because of the treacherous winter conditions, they’d traveled using four dog sleds, each fitted with a team of hearty-looking hounds. The dogs could go great distances with little effort, but only a handful of people could be transported like that. In the street, after their initial greetings, they had talked about the current situation of the war, a topic that left Yega particularly flustered.
“We know what you have done for us and what you are capable of, Losha. But that does not mean you can just go off whenever.”
“Actually,” Tami interrupted. “Things probably turned out for the best this way.”
“True,” Faima agreed.
“Are you all serious, sa?” Yega asked in an incredulous tone. Tami merely shook his head.
“Think about it. If Losha is here, that basically puts the whole invasion on hold. They will not be able to go any deeper into Sventa territory.”
“Not unless they want to deal with Losha,” Faima added.
“Well, sa...” Yega demurred. “However...”
“Yega,” Tami said firmly. “Losha did what she thought was best. Even if you feel otherwise, we still have to respect the choices she made. Besides, no harm came of it, excluding what happened to the Henron anyway.”
“It is not as if anyone above me will do anything about the matter,” Losha said. “Not that I am seeking to abuse my own importance, but I think I am allowed a certain degree of autonomy regarding my course of actions.”
“If I may interject myself on the subject,” Valo - one of Aslo’s engineers - spoke up. “Losha has a valid point. You guys probably would know little about this, but the politics behind the general army and special tactical operations gives her a lot of leeway. Basically, as long as she gets the results they want, they will let her determine the means.”
Yega scratched the side of his face, trying to hide a scowl. “Could have at least said something beforehand,” he mumbled.
“Se?” Faima huffed, turning to him with a blank stare. “It was pretty obvious what she was up to when she left.”
“As the Gandians say, put two and two together,” Tami shrugged.
“I admit,” Valo chimed in. “Her intentions were pretty clear from the start, further reason why Boz did not seem angered at all.”
“I will remember to leave you a note next time, Yega. I promise.”
Yega sighed aloud. “Ha, ha,” he said flatly. “But seriously, I get that you have to go solo sometimes, but we are still a team.”
“It is not something I have simply forgotten,” Losha assured him.
“Yega just feels left out of the action,” Tami said. “He is a young farmhand who went to war on such romantic assumptions of courage, heroism, and adventure. We cannot let his dreams go unfulfilled.”
“Maybe if he were a serialist,” Faima began, “then he would be useful in battle.”
“Ouch, Faima.” Yega rubbed his side. “That bites, even for you.”
“Well, it certainly would be a lot easier if all of you could serialize,” Losha noted.
“Is there a reason why you have not spread this art of yours to other Sventa yet? More specifically WOLFWIND?” Valo asked. “I mean, granted, it would surely take a quite a while to train any one of us into competent serialists, but just having a handful would be enough to turn the tides of war invariably in our favor.”
“Time is one matter,” Losha answered. “As soon as you would learn enough to fight, the war would be over. The other thing is principle. I will not introduce my students to a form of serialization dedicated to dominating others. As long as I am able to, I will be the only one who has to use the art in such an offensive manner. When this is all over, however, I would be more than happy to serve as your teacher. I already have one potential pupil.” She turned over to the opposite end of the street and looked at Jun. He was preoccupied with the sled dogs who were in fact being rather friendly with him.
“Who is the kid anyway?” Faima asked, tossing her head in his direction.
“A survivor. The only one I found here when I came. As you can see, not all of the townsfolk made it through the Henron assault, but I have no idea where the rest are.”
“Think they fled?” Yega wondered.
“Negative,” Valo replied. “We saw no signs of any large groups of people moving away from Leitis. We would have heard something about it too. So as of now, it remains a mystery, albeit a very concerning one.
Tami groaned and shuffled about a bit. “That leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but there is little we can do. On that note, just what is our next step?”
“I was actually going to hold this position until more of our forces arrived,” Losha answered. “If the Henron approached, I had simply planned to beat them back. Once one of our divisions arrived, I figured I could just chip away at them while our army reclaimed the territory.”
“So we rush all the way over here just to sit on our hands?” Faima frowned as she jerked her head away.
“Who is the action-loving romantic now?” Yega pointed at her.
“She has no pretensions about the glory of combat though,” Tami countered. “In fact, Faima is just rather bloodthirsty.”
“I like to fight. Nothing wrong with that.”
Defeated yet again, Yega grumbled as he turned to the side.
Losha moved her mouth to speak, however, before a single sound escaped her, a monstrous roar ripped through the air. As if tearing space itself apart, a splitting screech flew overhead. Barely a second thereafter, a thunderous crash exploded just up the street. Instantly, they all whipped around to see a gaping hole punched straight through a nearby residence. Haze and debris smoldered from the newly-made opening as the house visibly shuddered for a time.
“What the hell?!” Faima cursed, instinctively ducking down.
“Shrieks! An explosion?” Tami asked.
“No!” Valo cried out. He tapped the side of his head as if to get rid of the ringing in his ears. “That was definitely a projectile. Someone shot at us!”
“Get down, everyone!” Losha commanded. Instantly they all dropped to their knees. The dogs barked and cowered, trotting back and forth in confusion and uncertainty. Out of sight, Losha heard Izel neigh in distress.
“Where did that come from?” Faima questioned with a sneer as she spun her head back and forth.
“I do not sense anyone but us... Jun!” she called out. The boy stood there, wide-eyed, stunned as he could do little more than look about. “Get inside. Stay inside.” He didn’t move, however; he simply held himself to the spot. “Of all the times for this...” she said as she cast a kinetic series around him. Like a doll of a sort, his body was yanked away by an unseen force. She whirled him straight into an open doorway of some random building. Quickly, she did the same with all of the dogs and shut the entrance.
“We cannot stand here ourselves,” she said. “Take cover!”
Meanwhile, some distance away, Avil took his eyes away from the scope. “I knew this spot was no good. Whatevah.” The gun suddenly breathed, exhaling copious amounts of hot gas.
“Hey, hey! No need to be like that, baby,” he said to himself. “The winter sure does keep you cool. That means I get to fire a whole faster than usual. However...” He peered down the lens, examining the damage he’d done. The round had essentially wiped out the front of someone’s home, smashing and tearing down walls. Even so, it was quite a ways from his intended target. Rather than eliminating Losha, it had gone up and to the right long before it even came close to its mark.
“Hmm... however, it seems like the cold is messing with my systems.” A little stub popped up at the top of his oversized gun, an indication that the barrel and chamber’s temperatures were sufficiently low enough to shoot again. “Guess I gotta deal with it then. Not like I can wait for spring.”
Reaching to the side, Avil rummaged around a pouch he’d brought along; the contents chiefly consisted of ammunition and gas canisters. Though he pulled out a bullet, it was clearly no ordinary specimen. At just over 26 centimeters long, with a diameter of 2 and a half centimeters, the thing looked like a miniature cannon-shell more than anything else. Even so, Avil shoved the round into a slot, pulled the bolt, and loaded up his next shot.
Though the Gandians had only recently “invented” their versions of conical bullets, Avil had been experimenting with them for many years. His own devices were already many times more accurate and lethal than any other firearms. Unfortunately, he’d never taken the effort to get his work reproduced on a mass-scale. He had designed the artillery that Core Lead Liveta was supposed to have used in battle, but the Wolf of Sventa had destroyed every last one of them, but that was as far as anyone had ever utilized his own specifications. True to his free-floating nature, he seemed to wander off to one project after another, leaving his previous achievements behind in the dark.
The only gun he ever constantly dabbled with was the sniper rifle he currently had with him. In all regards, it was his masterpiece, the zenith of all his creations. Unlike other guns, Avil’s required no powder whatsoever. In its place, he used a custom combustible gas he’d developed. By compressing it, then igniting it under pressure, the gas produced a powerful explosion capable of hurling bullets at least 2 kilometers. This fiery launch, in turn, unleashed a significant amount of heat, so much that the gun could actually melt some of its key components if left unchecked.
He’d never tested the effects extreme ambient temperatures had on his weapon, but he now knew that in notably colder weather, the shape of the barrel changed momentarily as it heated up from the initial blast. That would be more than enough to sway the bullet’s path a few degrees, which over the course of a kilometer translated into way off target... He hadn’t even come close to striking Losha or one of her comrades. He’d have to make a few corrections given this. Avil clearly saw them disperse and run behind other buildings. They’d already deduced that he was shooting from the east, so from his direction, none of them was immediately visible.
“Ksh. Was kinda hoping I woulda hit at least one. Now they all gone. Not a single one to be seen.” He smiled for a moment as he adjusted the gun, tilting it precisely until he felt he was onto something. He shut one eye as the other looked over Leitis. Without warning, his pupil dilated and altered its form, becoming thin and vertical, like a predator’s.
“Not like they can hide though.”
Pressed against the side of a building, Losha, Faima, and Valo waited in silence. Down an alley, Tami, Yega, and the others crouched low, their backs to a stone wall. Three long, uneasy minutes passed before anyone spoke again.
“The hell was that all about?” Faima hissed. “I never heard anything that loud or seen anything smash a house like that except for...”
“Cannon-fire,” Valo said.
“Sa...” Faima turned to Losha. “What is going on? You said that you could not sense anyone around here. You have a range of, what was it? 15 kilometers or some s**t like that?”
“15, more or less,” Losha confirmed. “However, there are certain people that can mask their seras frequencies.”
“What do you mean?” Valo asked.
“They can suppress the amount of seras that naturally radiates away from the soul to next to nothing. In my experience, only two individuals were capable of doing such as non-serialists.”
“Who were these guys?” Faima asked.
“Koter the Velhast Hound and Suvla the Olta Fox.”
“All members of TRIBLADE,” Valo mumbled for a bit. “Then, that must mean-”
Before he could finish his sentence, a deafening boom followed a great crash, blocking out all other sounds. The very building they sat behind trembled from an impact of some sort. To their ears, it seemed as if a meteor had tried to crush the whole thing down. Whatever it was, it completely sheared the roof off. Like a rock tumbling into the surface of a lake, a wave of tiles splashed backwards as the top of the building disintegrated.
“Shrieks!” Faima said through clenched teeth as she stood up, grabbing her gun. “What was that? Another one?”
“Does the enemy know where we are exactly?” Losha wondered.
“If we are up against who I think we are, then sa, he does,” Valo said, shielding his head from falling bits.
“Do you know who our opponent is?” Losha asked hastily.
“Sa! But we really cannot stay put. Another round of whatever that was will destroy this place, along with us. Hurry!”
Everyone scattered and found new cover. The three of them, sticking together, ran further east, tucking themselves behind a large store.
“Alright smart guy, tell us what or who the hell is trying to blow us the f**k up.” Faima demanded as they came to a halt.
“If Losha is unable to detect their presence, it has to be another member of TRIBLADE, Henron’s infamous three-member cell. With Suvla dead and the whereabouts of Koter unknown to us, in all likelihood, it is Avil the Noven Hawk. The attacks we have sustained so far match up pretty well with his profile and the intel we have.”
“Which would be?” Losha asked.
“Briefly, he is an accomplished sniper. Furthermore, all of his guns are custom and devastating. The rumors are that he has worked on things that far exceed even Gandian technology.”
“Like putting house-sized holes into things,” Faima said, unamused. “Seriously, you said he is a sniper, right? What kind of rifle shoots does that?”
“It would scarcely surprise me if he had not made a gun that practically acts like portable artillery...”
“But if all he can do is shoot at us,” Losha frowned. “He is not very - how should I say this - not very challenging.”
Faima and Valo stared at her for a moment. “Se?” Faima exclaimed a moment later. “Mind explaining what that wolfy little head of yours is saying?”
“Sa, the others of TRIBLADE all used intricate techniques and strategies to battle. This guys seems more direct. He probably just shoots to kill.”
“Well excuse me,” Faima said with a snort. “Not all of us have powers that can stand up to guns that shoot through f*****g buildings...”
“If it adds anything to your sense of ‘challenge’, Losha, it is rumored that Avil has an uncanny ability. It is almost as if he can see through anything to lock-on to a target. They say his eyes are as piercing as his gun. Both seemingly cut through everything.”
As if to prove just that, a third salvo struck nearby. Plowing into the store ahead of them, the shot actually demolished the structure. With a sudden rush, all three of them were blown meters away. Careening end over end, Losha found herself spiraling through the air before collapsing into a patch of snow. Rolling around once thereafter, she slid to a stop on her side. The world around her for a moment appeared indistinctly as she blinked and gasped. Her swooning head managed to turn in time to witness the store cave in entirely. Spewing up dust, wood, and ice, it sunk with a tired groan.
“-Osha!” she heard distantly, like echoes through water. “...alright?”
“Can she hear us?”
“Losha! Faima! Valo!”
Disregarding caution, the others raced over to their aid. Tami’s form materialized from the far left of her sight as he grabbed her by the shoulders.
“Sa, say something!”
Losha shut her eyes hard for a while, shaking her head. “I am fine,” she said at last. “To my feet, help me.” He pulled her up quickly, though Losha teetered slightly thereafter. Faima and Valo soon recovered themselves as well.
“There!” Faima said. “Is that enough of a challenge? That last one almost killed us!”
“Almost, but it hardly did the job. You both probably were unaware of this, but ever since the first round hit, I have serialized a kinetic barrier around each of us. As long as we had not taken a direct hit, we would have been fine, relatively speaking. At any rate, I think I have come up with a way to deal with this fellow.”
“Sa, sa,” Yega said, looking anxiously to the east. “That is good to hear, but do we really have to talk about it here? In the open?”
On that sentiment, they fled to a large brick warehouse that sat near the northern edge of Leitis. Valo estimated, based on the damage Avil had previously caused, this would provide sufficient cover, at least for a few rounds. It would safeguard them until Losha could explain and prep them for their counter offensive.
“Alright,” Valo said as they huddled around in a circle. “What do you have in mind, Losha?”
“It goes like this,” she began. “First, notice that there is a delay between his shots. Either he is being conservative with his ammunition or firing another round is not something he can do instantly. Given the sheer destructive force he is capable of, it seems he can merely shoot through any object in his way, and with his reputation, I doubt he needs all of that time just to aim. I believe then that he is not budgeting his bullets, but rather he needs that pause for something else.”
“Secondly, he obviously has a priority on me particularly. Tami, when you and the rest were behind that wall near the alley, Avil could have easily gotten multiple casualties in one shot. Instead, he chose to come after me, even though it was harder. He may have an extraordinary sense of sight, but he may be a bit too focused as well.”
“Lastly, I imagine that he feels the most effective way to deal with us is via long-range attacks. If my guess is right, then he will be more vulnerable at close-range. That is not to say he would leave himself defenseless, only that he would not be well equipped to handle the situation. Taking all of that into account, he has some rather obvious weaknesses that we can exploit. I will need your assistance, however.”
“We are going to burn this f****r, right?” Faima asked, gripping her gun tightly.
“Yeah, for once I agree. This guy is nuts,” Yega said.
“Ready when you are,” Tami said. Valo and the rest of Aslo’s soldiers nodded.
“Sa, once we go over our plot, we move straightaway. Now, let us begin,” Losha said, standing up.
Everything had grown quiet as Avil gazed down the sights of his weapon. Hiding behind the warehouse had been a good idea, the right choice, technically speaking. He would have had to take at least three shots to puncture it, during which they could have run off to some other location the moment he needed to reload. Not that it really mattered though. He would have simply sniped them dead at their new location if they ran. Either he’d get them the moment they hit an open space, or sometime as they took refuge behind an object. He’d pull the trigger all the same, as easily as that. He could wait. Even in the case they decided to stay at the warehouse for hours, Avil knew he could force them out by pounding their position. It was a win any way his sharp eyes saw it. However, things began to complicate themselves as a shining blue light emanated in and around parts of Leitis
“Se?” he said, temporarily cocking his head away from the gun. “The hell is that?” he laughed and grinned.
Stretching high into the air, great plates of ice rose from the town at various points, forming frozen barricades. They blocked and obscured parts of Leitis, and to boot they appeared especially thick. It was, no doubt, a measure designed to counter his rifle. Avil flicked his shades up and looked on at the changing landscape.
“Heh heh! Hell yeah! Now things are getting good...”
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