Warsinger James Baldwin (read this if TXT) 📖

and it shoved away from the gridlock. Suri didn’t let up, bringing the huge blade up and down in a series of increasingly violent blows. Sparks sprayed across the floor, Zarya’s inscrutable mask, and Suri's skin. The final strike of the combo was so powerful it drove the edge into the floor and sent cracks careening through the marble – but it missed the agile simulacrum. In one fluid movement, Zarya twirled out of the way and snatched its swords from the floor, somersaulted onto the edge of Suri’s greatsword with the easy poise of a gymnast, and danced up the length of it to drive both sabers down at the Berserker’s head.

“Dammit!” I instinctively lunged toward the barrier, even though there was no getting through.

Suri bought her sword up sharply, flexing her enormously enhanced strength to fling Zarya up into the air. Caught off guard, it flipped up and was promptly smacked down out of the air. Suri dogged it as it rolled back, coming up to its knees and raising its forearm up to catch the next sword blow. The greatsword skidded off white skin into black – and there, the blade bit into flesh. Zarya once again dropped its swords with nerveless fingers, scrambling back to hunch and clutch at the wound.

“Die, you dumb bitch!” Suri picked up the fallen black blade and flung it end over end at her as she landed. The blade took Zarya right in the gut and sent it sprawling. But the blade didn't kill it – the weapon absorbed into the simulacrum’s body, turning its skin and hair a solid glossy black.

Suri reeled away, panting, as the simulacrum - now radiating an aura of deadly menace - flipped to its feet and disappeared into a cloud of smoke. It reappeared right behind Suri, a knife raised to strike. Suri took the blow to the arm instead of having it driven down behind her collarbone. She shrieked in defiance as she caught the next blow with the edge of her sword, parrying frantically as Zarya slashed at her, jabbed at her, pressured her guard.

[Suri takes 221 damage! HP: 81/5349]

Suri was almost as fast as Zarya now, her Primal Rage ability operating at its maximum effectiveness. She blocked half a dozen strikes from every direction as Zarya teleported around her, raining blow after blow against the broad face of the greatsword, then drove the Mercurion forward with a push of crimson heat that sent Zarya flying into the air. It corrected itself like a gyroscope, raining shards of brilliant white energy down across the arena. Suri somehow dodged them all: she was limping and bloody, her eyes burning like coals through the veil of her hair. Zarya hadn't even landed when the crimson energy around her burst out into a cloud of snake-like tendrils and drove her into a single-minded charge. I recognized the strike: it was one of her most powerful combat abilities, Gorgon Overdrive.

The now-vulnerable Mercurion landed like a cat and sprung up - right into the ferocious blow of Suri's blade. The sword crushed its shoulder all the way into its chest, almost taking off its head. The simulacrum crumpled to the ground in a pool of oil-slick hair, clawing weakly at the injury before expiring. Suri put her boot to it and pulled the sword free in an arc of crackling energy, then staggered back and fell over onto her ass as she ran out of stamina.

[Suri Ba'Hadir gains 1900 EXP!]

[Suri gains achievement: Slayer of The White Shadow]

“Yeah!” Karalti bounced up and down in excitement. “Go Suri! Best at fighting!”

The barrier dropped, and I ran to Suri with potions in hand. With over five thousand HP, my Concentrated Moss Tinctures would only take the edge off, but she took them and chugged anyway.

“Fuck me, that thing was fast. Got anything for stamina?” she rasped. She stayed on the ground for now, uncorking the third flask and downing it like a shot.

“Sure do.” I fossicked around for one of the brilliant red stamina potions. “Here.”

“That was crazy!” Karalti scampered over to the corpse of Zarya, but as she reached out to sniff, the body of the simulacrum melted and separated into black and white fluids that wisped away into nothing. There was only one item of loot left behind: [Signet Ring of the Artists]. It was the same symbol I’d found on the inside of the Gauntlet of the Arch-Smith.

“Here.” I handed it to Suri. “She dropped this.”

“This wasn't THE Zarya, was it?” Suri traded me for the empty bottles, and pulled her gauntlet off with a shaky hand so she could don the ring. “Like, the 2000-year-old Mercurion?”

“Don't think so.” I looked over at the vaguely humanoid impression on the floor. “The Bioscan implied she… it… was some kind of copy of either Zarya or Tanis. I’ve never seen a machine move like that. Zarya must have been one hell of an artificer.”

“I guess so.” Suri looked to the far door, where the final palm print lock waited for her hand. “You guys ready?”

“Red-hot ready.” I offered her a hand. “It’s mech time, baby.”

Suri smiled, and let me help her to her feet. As a group, we crossed the room, but Karalti and I hung back as Suri pricked her finger and pressed her hand into the lock.

Chapter 53

The doors slid apart, soundless except for a shower of sand that rained down through the beams of golden light from within. I put Rin back on video feed as we headed into an entrance hall.

“How’d it go?” she whispered to me.

“No one’s dead,” I replied, trailing behind Suri and Karalti. “You should have seen the thing we just fought, though. I’ll tell you about it later when we… hello.”

Rin gasped as she spotted the same thing I had.

The Rose Vault could only be described as part cathedral, part aircraft hangar. The ceiling rose in a sea of precisely geometrical arches, framed around a huge central portal. At the end