Serial
88: Assault and battery - II
March 22nd, 32 S.D. 07:47 Binfort, Henron
“Do not be a fool, Koter!” Losha said, gritting her teeth. “Do you have any idea what kind of power rests within that serastone? It is not something you can easily control.”
“I know exactly what I am dealing with,” her opponent said, waving a finger at her. “I was there when the Prime Lead first tested the serasword. I was there when that division of yours was wiped out. I was here when the wall of Binfort was blasted away. I have a very clear understanding of the stone’s capabilities.”
“Then you should know how dangerous and wild it can be.”
Koter laughed for a bit. “Dangerous and wild suits me just fine.”
“Ksh. Stubborn dog...” Losha grumbled. “If you truly knew what you were getting into, you would know those things require batteries to operate.”
Koter held up both knives, glancing over each. “Sa. That is correct, in a sense. However, Sansat never found the true means of activating serastone.”
Losha cocked her head to the side slightly. “True means?” she repeated. “What are you talking about?”
With his arms outstretched to the sides, Koter held his weapons back-handed. Rotating his wrists, he tilted the blades horizontally. “Let me show you what it really looks like.”
In an instant, he slammed the knives together, butting the ends of the handles against one another. As they met, a great burst of light followed a single, loud chime. The knives became enveloped in white brilliance, a glow that quickly spread over Koter’s body. At that moment, Losha felt Koter’s seras surge, leaping as if excited. With widening eyes, she recalled a strikingly similar situation at the Ganglan Pass. His seratic presence was growing, just like before. He wasn’t serializing, however, he seemed to be drawing considerable amount of seras from his soul. In that regard, he was mimicking the basics of the art: aggregation. All of a sudden, the serastone unleashed its might. A wave of radiance swept across the room as the aura around Koter rapidly dispersed. Losha kept a firm hold on her servai, but the air rushing past forced her to shield her face.
“Ghh!” she said, clenching her jaw while bracing herself. The burst only lasted several seconds. Afterwards, Koter raised his knives, assuming a fighting stance. Jagged lines like electricity ran up and down the lengths of his serastone. Somehow, someway, he seemed to have brought the stone to life. As he had claimed, the batteries were optional. Had the Field Lead just used his own seras as the trigger? Based on the reaction, it appeared so... She definitely sensed the seras frequency of the stone; before it felt practically dormant. Losha resumed her old posture, readying her servai.
“I hope you have prepared yourself for this,” Losha said, spreading her feet apart. Then, as she was right about to launch herself, a strange sensation came over her. As if from a dream, the world suddenly felt very... nostalgic, familiar. Déjà vu set in as her sight became fuzzy. Images blurred like water while light sources flared. To her, time stopped, slowing to a crawl, then halting completely. Her soul did not rest, however, for her seras yet flowed. Losha was unaware of it all, but as she blanked out, she was serializing.
Outside of her episode, she blitzed towards Koter. She charged at him not with a speed-step, but with ripping. Her speed, her flight was a perfect match for the type of movement Nabel and his disciples employed. To Koter’s eyes, Losha virtually disappeared. A faint buzz zipped past his ears; if it weren’t for his exceptional reflexes, he’d have never picked up that she was behind him. Acting on his perception of danger, Koter ducked just as Losha swung her servai. Her tool missed him by only a handful of scant centimeters.
Koter dropped and rolled, coming upright as he spun to face her. He met the end of her servai pointed directly at him. A ball of blue light formed at the tip; its color quickly grew in intensity. The blazer beam was nigh point blank when it surprised Koter. He threw himself to the ground right before a vicious stream of raw seras erupted in front of him. The concentrated attack scorched the floor where it struck. Though it was primarily used to attack another’s soul, the technique produced a large amount of heat, damaging physical objects with burns. Koter crawled away before standing up. As soon as he did, however, Losha held her servai high overhead as she came upon him.
She swung her sword straight at Koter, intending to cut him down the middle. Quickly though, he managed to throw up his blades and guard himself. Her servai crashed against his serastone, creating a dazzling array of blue and white sparks.
“Hnng!” Koter grunted, struggling to defend himself. Why was her blow so heavy? He should have had the advantage in terms of strength. But, the level of her attacks... For a moment, he wondered if she had finally...
Just as easily as she had lost herself, Losha regained control. Confused, she blinked and frowned. Out of panic, she speed-stepped backwards. Her retreat freed Koter, but she was too startled to do anything about that.
“What... just happened?” she asked, holding the side of her head. It felt like she’d gone somewhere, but that didn’t make sense to her. “What did you do?” she demanded, looking up at Koter.
“She is not moving as fast as she was a moment ago,” Koter mumbled to himself.
“Are you going to answer me, or shall I find out forcefully?” Losha said, taking both hands around her servai.
“Heh,” Koter smirked. “At last, it seems to be working.”
“At last? What kind of trick was that? Something like that whistle of yours?”
Koter raised an eyebrow in amusement. That little tactic had been designed to disrupt and disorient others, but it was a far cry from what was at play here. “I knew you would feel it, the spirit of battle. It has been a long time, but you are finally starting to awaken. Not as a scholar of serialization, but as a fighter.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked urgently
“This is not the first of our little duels, Losha. You and I, we have been at one another for ages, and now you are starting to remember. Very good.”
“Ksh,” Losha said, shaking her head. “Talking about those old fables again? The Wolf and the Hound? Two eternal rivals...”
“If that is how you wish to see things,” Koter said. “But make no mistake, our history goes back right to the very beginning.”
“I have time for neither childhood tales nor your interference,” she said, raising her servai. “I will defeat you, one last time. Then I will put a stop to Govan and all of this business with serastone.”
“Fine,” Koter laughed as he sliced his knives through the air for show. “Let us start this properly.”
They ran head-on at each other, dashing full-sprint until they were but meters apart. Losha swiped her servai in a huge semi-circle as she raced forward. Koter dodged it by sliding feet-first along the ground. Springing up, he found himself behind her. Swiftly, his arm snapped out to slash her. Without realizing what she was doing, Losha spun around, holding her servai at an angle. Their two weapons collided, repelling one another. Again, a round of sparks sputtered onto the ground as they both took a half-step backwards.
Losha knew her servai could only affect seras, but her guess paid off; serastone was an exception. Her sword bounced off Koter’s knife as if both were somehow in fact metal. When she stopped spacing out, she remembered hitting his knives; now she knew it wasn’t some fluke. Their brief lull soon ended, and the two combatants resumed. They closed in on each other, drawing their weapons for the next assault.
As if in unison, they tossed one arm out, aiming to inflict a wound. His knife and her servai tangled in the air once more. Unrelenting, they tried again and again. Both Losha and Koter unleashed a dizzying flurry of movements, but in every instance they found themselves equally skilled. Their blades crossed and bounced from the recoil. Each impact released numerous flashes as they battled on in this manner. After a dozen iterations, the stalemate continued. Koter, however, spontaneously leaped to the side. A white, searing light formed around his knives. In one, single motion, he whipped them downwards in an “X”.
To much surprise, Losha saw a mass of seras form before her eyes in that exact same shape. The cross flew at her fast. Instinctively, she used a speed-step to throw herself on top of some nearby crates. Koter’s attack sailed all the way past her until it slammed into the wall. Over there, the room shuddered from the collision; a large dent pounded into the fortress. Analyzing what had just happened, Losha figured Koter has used raw seras as the basis of the attack, but somehow that light carried significant amounts of kinetic energy as well. It was then she came to understand that serastone didn’t allow people to perform serialization; it allowed them bypass the whole process. Koter was manipulating raw seras and converting it to other forms of energy, but she never once detected him casting any series. Serastone, it seemed, was more dangerous and troublesome that she thought.
Koter gave her no reprieve, however. He swung his knife in a large, crescent arc, and another round of raw seras came at her. Jumping to another pile of crates, she dodged the threat as it flew up at the ceiling. With another trembling explosion, the room quaked. Bits of the roof crumbled down, exposing the sky.
“In battle, you should never stop moving, never stand still,” Koter grinned. Having mastered this attack, he cut the air several more times. With each one, he let loose a white, C-shaped blast of light. Losha ran along a row of crates; at her heels, the waves Koter sent ripped into the wood, casting splinters in all directions. They pierced their way through each box until they rammed into the wall behind her, tearing out gaping holes. Losha barely managed to keep ahead of this barrage, yet she took a speed-step right as the last one targeted her. The crate disintegrated in a hail of jagged shards, but the Wolf vanished in that moment.
“What?” Koter said, squinting. “Damn, I just saw her, but then she...” He paused and sniffed the air. By her scent, Koter tracked her down; he ran a short distance, then turned at an aisle of stacked containers.
“You cannot hide here!” he exclaimed as he found her. She stood with her back facing him. Tossing her head over her shoulders, she simply looked on at Koter.
“I am not trying to hide,” she said as she waved a hand. Koter leaned forward as if to go on the offensive. He soon straightened up, looking high as he noted things shifting above him. The many objects piled around him began to topple and cave in. Immediately, he saw that Losha was using some sort of kinetic series. The whole area had been a trap. His hastiness had lead him right into it. Yanking her hand to the side, Losha commanded the stacks to fall over. Collapsing one after another, they buried the Velhast Hound under their weight. Even as Koter turned back and raised his forearms in protection, there was no escape.
“Gaaaah!” he cried as the avalanche caught him. Amid a cloud of dust, Koter disappeared beneath the mound. After the noise settled, everything remained eerily quiet. This method of fighting was a bit too violent for her tastes, but it was one of the few suitable ways to deal with Koter. She detected his seras frequency as strongly as ever, so she knew he was neither dead nor dying.
“Honestly,” she frowned. “You can be such a hassle. I should have been done by now with my mission.” She could still sense her team on the other side of the ruined entrance. They had no idea what had become of her. Walking over to that side of the room, Losha came across Koter’s dogs again. They growled at her but kept themselves at bay.
“Be gone!” she said, advancing at them. With bent ears and curled tails, they reluctantly obeyed her and left. She came to the rubble and examined the extent of the bomb’s damage. The passage looked completely blocked off. Several large sheets of stone lied in the way. For any normal person, moving these would have required inhuman strength, but for the serialist, it posed no challenge. Losha stepped back and raised her hand as if to guide her serialization. A blue glow encapsulated several chunks as she pushed them aside. After a few minutes of digging, she broke through with a small gap. Climbing over the scattered pieces, Losha crawled towards the narrow opening.
“Hey!” she called. “Hey! Can any of you hear me?” She peered down the hole, but only saw darkness. Waiting a bit, however, she heard shuffling and mumbling on the opposite end. A heavy slab was pushed, and finally light from the next room flooded in.
“Losha?” Is that you? You alright in there?” Tami asked.
“Sa, for now.”
“What is going on, commander?”
“Just dealing with an old acquaintance. I can handle myself well enough, however. Tell me, have any of you sustained any injuries?”
“We got scratched up a little, but thankfully nothing major.”
“Good. I still have to deal with these batteries. The inside is a mess. Do you have any clues about their exact location?”
An exchange of murmurs ran around after which their guide came and gave her more details. “I do not know where you would find them precisely, but all of the most recent things are generally stored in the back.”
“In the back?” she echoed. “Sa, I see it now.”
“You do?”
“No, I mean, I just see I will probably have to destroy everything in the back. We have wasted too much time here already. That will be quicker and more efficient.”
“Oh...” the guide said.
“Tami, can you still hear me?”
“Sa,” he said. “Still here, commander.”
“I want you all to get out of here, help defend the base. I am still preoccupied right now, but you would best stay away while I take care of this. There might be more... demolition going on soon.”
“Understood, Wolf. Just make sure you get out of there alright,” Tami said.
“I am lifting the force-field on the doors that lead us up to the labs. Be careful out there.”
Right as she stood up, Losha noticed movement behind her. Whirling around, she saw the heap shake where Koter had been entombed. Through the mass, a single fist shot upwards, as if punching its way beyond so many layers. Slowly, painstakingly, Koter’s upper body emerged as he pulled himself free.
“Grrrraaghh!” he roared, clenching his teeth as he strained to rise. Finally, with a jerk, he extracted his other arm. Panting, he held his head down for a while. Gradually, he looked up at her, revealing a streak of red smeared on the right of his face.
“This is not over yet, Wolf,” he said in between breaths.
“For once, we really should finish our fight,” Losha said, swinging her servai and directing it at him. Koter grinned as he snatched himself out of the pile, rising high to the ceiling as if ejected. Following him, Losha narrowed her eyes. Speed-steps? She could only wonder if he had reached that level. Koter came down to the floor, landing and crouching to one knee. Quickly, he raised himself and flipped his knife in one hand.
“Only one?” Losha asked. “Lost the other, sa?”
“This is all I need,” he replied.
Without delay, they ran up to one another, pitting their weapons against themselves with a single swipe. Like before, they were evenly matched. The conflict between servai and serastone released another wondrous amount of colored light. With her other hand, Losha serialized a bolt of electricity. Gathering the current in her palm, Losha let it crack loose. At that range, Koter couldn’t avoid it, however, he too raised his free hand. As the voltage snaked towards him, its path was blocked by a pale, translucent screen. It was a force-field, one that nullified the attack midair.
Koter stepped back and dropped to one knee again. He stuck the knife into the floor as it glowed intensely, hot and white. A second later, the ground before her began to change, brightening and reddening. Suddenly, a pillar of flames burned upwards. Koter was using the serastone to create massive amounts of heat through kinetic energy. He ignited the floor itself to use as a weapon. Molten concrete, brick, and stone towered over her as it prepared to fall. She took a speed-step to the side as it splashed down. Three more columns came to life around her, forming a lethal triangle with her in the center. She could go nowhere to avoid them.
Thinking quickly, she cast a counter-series. If the blazing magma around her was caused by heat, all she had to do was freeze it. Wiping her hand out in a large circle, she reversed the temperature of Koter’s stratagem. Though it required a fair amount of her own seras, her serialization quelled the surrounding inferno. The tall, crimson spires rapidly turned dark and gray and ground to a stop. Breaking and decaying, the structures were now quite frail. Taking a speed-step to the nearest on, she cleaved it in half with a carefully measured burst of kinetic force. The frozen slag tumbled towards Koter, falling like timber.
Nimbly, he jumped to avoid this as it shook the room. Losha, however, caught him as he fled. Sending her servai along a curve, she almost cut him. The Velhast Hound pivoted and leaned away as the end of her weapon whizzed but centimeters from his chest. He was on the verge of losing his balance, yet he recovered in time to spin underneath her next swing. In retaliation, his knife danced across the air in short, pointed strokes. The blitz forced Losha to retreat step after step. His speed overwhelmed her; she barely kept safe from his razor. However, she trained her gaze on his movements, studying his stance and style. To Koter’s amazement, she blocked his following thrust, then parried it with as much agility.
“Hnnngh!” he breathed, side-stepping to the left as her servai grazed the end of his shirt. Too close for comfort. What came after that was a long series of trades: a blow, the opponent’s defense, and a swift response. Mired with one another, they battled back and forth, two foes of the same prowess. On and on they fought until Losha came up with an idea.
Closely, she watched Koter’s right hand as it held the knife, tracing the black serastone as it carved around. She flexed her left hand, the free one, readying it for the proper instant. As soon as he lurched forward with his blade, Losha stepped forward as well. She caught him by the wrist, halting his arm and his means of attack. Losha twisted the joint, sending pain all throughout his limb. He seized up and dropped the knife. The Wolf, however, was not finished yet.
Letting go of Koter, fluidly she whirled around, closing in on him. With her backside to his front, she flipped the handle of her servai. She thrust her weapon behind her in manner similar to sheathing a sword, except her blade pointed upward at Koter’s chest. Instantly, she pierced him, gouging deeply into his body. Red light poured out of him steadily as he lost large amounts of precious seras.
“Ooooh...” he croaked; his limbs slackened. Losha did not look at him; instead, she held her servai there a little longer. Then, just as swiftly as she had hit him, she pulled out her weapon and stepped away. Koter teetered for a time as his eyes rolled up.
“Bleeeh...” he said weakly before falling onto the floor.
“I believe we are done here, Koter.”
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