A Sinner's Eden-Chapter 169 - EVO

***Tirnanog, Aerie Flagship***

***Seeker Elijah of Northroute***

I growled while burying my punching ring in a soldier's stomach. The impact folded him over before I danced around his body. My precognition told me exactly where to move so I could avoid the spear tip coming from behind me. Tugging at the Thich's shoulder, I drew her into her comrade's attack so the spear would impale her instead of me.

Reaching over the screaming woman, I grabbed the spear and pulled, impaling her further while bringing the spearwielder closer. Then his horrified face met my punching ring, ending that problem.

I was in the flow. As one with my precognition, as I could be.

These soldiers were nothing but cannon fodder before me.

Grinning, I reached up and angled my armour's elbow-guard just right to deflect a bullet. It pinged off and hit the soldier coming up behind me right in the face.

Being right among the enemy was where I could shine.

It was nothing like sparring with Magnus or his wife. The two could compensate for their lack of mastery over precognition with raw power and speed, posing a challenge.

Confident in my abilities, I charged down the corridor, leaving the rest of my family behind.

Then something changed. My precognition suddenly went berserk.

Ducking and rolling, I tried to dodge, not knowing where the threat was coming from.

Then the corridor exploded, flinging me back as splinters dug into my skin. Thankfully, my constitution allowed me to take a hit or two.

However, it didn’t change the fact that I still had no clue what was going on. Did one of the Thich soldiers I was fighting have a deadman switch on them?

I looked down the corridor towards where my parents and Linda were fighting. “Be caref-”

Something barrelled into me, my precognition giving me almost no warning of what was happening. Having never encountered a similar situation, I was taken totally off guard.

When I got up, I saw one of Zach's clones fighting against my parents, and it was like they suddenly lost their precognition! Their movements seemed clumsy compared to the clone's as he ducked and wove between Hochberg's most powerful fighters as if they were children.

Then the clone brought a short sword up and chopped down, taking Holly's head before he stabbed the sword into Luka's chest in one smooth motion.

There was no grand battle. Just a simple execution, and my parents were suddenly gone.

Linda screamed and threw herself at Zacharias, but he sidestepped and tripped her in the process. Pulling his sword out of my father’s body, he brought it up and aimed at my partner.

Then someone was roaring, and Zacharias looked at me, and I belatedly realised that I was the one screaming like a barbarian. In turn, the bastard only smiled and adjusted the tip of his blade, pointing it at me.

Like I cared!

The blade slid up to the hilt into my chest, and Zacharias stopped grinning when my arms closed around him. My legs kept going as I bulldozed into him. We broke through the wall behind him, then a second and a third before my legs found no longer any foothold to push against.

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We were outside the airship.

Realising that we were falling, the clone began to struggle.

I smiled as I slowly squeezed my arms tighter and tighter around him. The ground rushed closer with increasing speed, but I couldn’t care less. Even if I died today, this would become the most amazing body-slam in history.

And I would take this bastard with me.

***Tirnanog, Aerie Flagship***

***Vanya***

The command bridge was in chaos.

Despite the mess, I had no doubt Zacharias would lose. Sticking their nose into a room full of the most powerful people in the alliance was bound to end badly for anyone who tried. Though the question was not whether he would lose, but how.

It seemed like Zacharias brought the strongest people he could find, many of them capable enough to give Aerie's elders trouble. Which was why the attack hadn't been snuffed out as soon as it came close to threatening our command centre.

The whole affair was without doubt nothing more than a distraction, but one with purpose. And that purpose was quite obviously: me.

Tianna and Anajed pushed me behind them, shielding me with their bodies as Zach’s clone and his men pushed their way in our direction. They managed to overrun the guards at the door to the observation platform, which became their entry point.

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My bodyguard blew out a thin stream of fire at a Thich soldier who managed to come close, setting his upper body ablaze. Consequently, the man had suddenly something else on his mind than getting to me.

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to sow disorder among the enemy's ranks, but with allies and enemies scattered all over the place, it was hard to restrict my powers to one group. All I could do was cause a distraction without creating chaos.

My abilities were powerful against individuals, but they weren’t cut out for widespread engagements with dozens of people intermingled. Worse, it looked like Zacharias had managed complete immunity against psychic abilities. A fact which shouldn’t surprise me, given the guy’s age and history.

“Get the girl!” Zacharias shouted while swinging a large spear and goring one of the elders with it.

He tried to get closer, but Etan and Teresa intercepted him. The two elders faced him together without fear, using that strange fighting technique of theirs. I read records about it stemming from the previous war, but reality was so much more brutal than any written description. Whereas most hunters from Aerie's twelfth strata used their treemonae mutation to animate armour around them, their elders had acquired a special mutation.

They mostly forewent armour in favour of using their filaments to build up tension. Once released, the filaments cracked out like whips. There was so much force involved that being hit was equivalent to standing in the way of a ripping steel wire which was holding several tons of weight.

A Thich soldier tried to flank Etan to give Zacharias an opening, but the elder didn't even look at the man as something cracked like a gunshot. The air between them blurred, and the next comprehensible thing I saw was a retreating filament, winding itself back around Etan's hips.

Blood sprayed, and the soldier dropped to the ground screaming. Both his legs were gone from the knees downward.

Not comprehending what had happened, he waved the spurting stubs around as he tried to stand, spreading more blood on the floor.

Zacharias stabbed out with his spear, but another 'crack' coming from Teresa turned the front third of the weapon to splinters, but the clone had done well to keep his hands out of her range. He retreated and threw the remaining spear-shaft at her, which Teresa deflected by casually swiping it aside with the back of her hand.

Then Etan rushed forward, bringing his filaments into reach even as Zacharias struggled to stay out of the elder’s range.

The same way Zacharias’ men had carved a bloody swath of destruction through our guards, Etan was a rolling cannonball of death, causing dismemberment to anyone who came too close. His partner followed in his wake, keeping his back guarded in a coordinated dance between them.

Finally, Etan caught up to the clone and sliced him apart in a shower of guts and blood. There was simply nothing Zacharias could do once he entered the sphere of influence dictated by the length of Etan’s filaments.

The fighting died down quickly afterwards. Thich’s soldiers were unable to keep up their morale without their leader and broke ranks, allowing the defenders to retake the command centre.

But three elders lay dead among the casualties.

Gwen Torres from the sixth strata was lying with her head in her partner’s lap, her eyes fixed on something no living person could see.

And Olga and Willard White, elders of the tenth, were lying amongst a pile of Thich. They had been right at the front where the ranks of our guards broke. It was a brutal reminder that even those who were regarded as the most powerful could be swept aside in an instant if their mutations happened to be a bad match for the enemy.

My attention was drawn away by one of the adjutants who had dutifully kept their attention on managing the battle even as others were distracted. He pointed at one of the barred viewports, where Thich’s flagship was listing forward after a massive explosion and diving into an upwards spiral. It was no longer on a collision course with us, allowing me to let out a breath of relief.

Magnus and Astra must have found a way to manipulate the flagship's lift capacity, sending it into an uncontrolled ascent.