Chapter 16 :: Mathilde Wairen
This country is going to feel a lot different without the Empress around.
I sit on the red cushioned bench with gold linings, thinking about prior conversations with the princess. If I recall, Cammy actually doesn't enjoy the political side of being a royal. She would rather fight alongside me on the battlefield as a soldier. Though, I'll admit that this is the first time I've seen her fight with those two golden blades.
Yet, that's what her older brother, Caienne, was — a soldier. He was a Tribune for the IXth Legion under the helm of Eoin von Scully, a monkey-fae and artifact summoner from the western half of The Tree. However, Nightmares ambushed his unit on a mission and killed him. Though, I wonder if someone told Cammy about the fate of her older brother, because his afterlife was not pleasant.
A few minutes later, Cammy emerges from the double-doors. She says, her voice low but her face forward and full of determination. "No time for funerals. At least not today. Instead, we must look forward and believe in victory."
Alphio confronts his sister and asks, "What's the plan, sister?"
"Find and pursue The Usurper. I suppose we can start by investigating the waters. After all, it seems the spirit of the disgraced prince, Justinio Volnia yos Cagnazzo, has signed a pact with her. If it means we have to vanquish it, then it will be done." Cammy then glances at me and lets out a smirk. "Besides, we have the Warrior of Light on our side."
My teeth chatter, and it feels like my cheeks are blushing. "Well, I mean — shit, I can't take all the credit. Bringing light to the world is not an easy thing."
"Nothing is ever easy in this world," Cammy says.
"Of course," I say as I lead alongside Cammy Figarosa to the palace's great hall. The rest of our crew follows from behind.
From there, Cammy unlocks a door where a set of swirling stone stairs greets us, leading downward to the basement.
The dank air feels heavy, and a strange breeze blows through the corridors of gray bricks and stones. The water flows through the sewers, but at an irregular rate. It doesn't feel right. Upon a closer inspection, it seems the water looks contaminated. Dead fish rise to the surface and a moaning chant gets louder as we get deeper into the sewers.
We arrive at an elevated octagon-shaped platform. A strange hooded man with raised arms stands at the center while water continues to flow from elevated drainage pipes. He faces away while humanoid Nightmares let out strange chants.
Then the water stops flowing, and the Nightmares stop chanting.
The man turns to face us as the Nightmares vanish into puffs of smoking aether. He presents himself wearing a dark blue unbuttoned hooded jacket with no shirt underneath, revealing a hulking muscular physique. A patch of black hair decorates his chest. He's also wearing black tight pants, blue brawlers boots and matching fight gloves. The tan skin man has chiseled cheeks and a shaven face. An uncombed pile of short raven-black hair covers his head.
He lets out a hearty laugh. "It looks like The Usurper is right. The Warrior of Light and her allies have arrived."
Cammy points straight at the man. "Who the hells are you?"
He spreads his arms wide open. "I thought you would recognize me, but it has been two and a half centuries since I've ruled these lands."
Cammy turns her head but maintains her gaze at the man. "Fuck. Of course you're him."
The man tosses his jacket aside, flexes his pectoral muscles, and lets out a wide grin. "Brilliant of you to accompany the Warrior of Light, Princess Cammy yos Figarosa. And what's this? Prince Alphio wen Figarosa is here too. Two for the price of one."
I step forward, in front of Cammy and Alphio, and motion my arm to the side. "You'll have to get by me first, Prince Justinio Volnia yos Cagnazzo."
"That's Emperor to you, my friend."
"You're not my friend and you don't deserve to be called Emperor, fucker."
"Very well," Justinio says, pounding one fist into the palm of his other hand and cracking the joints around his neck. "If that is how you feel, then I challenge you to a duel." Prince Justinio raises a hand like a rising claw and a cage erupts from below us, enclosing him and I. "The Usurper told me you like to fight with your fists. If so, then show me your raw strength and you will witness my full might."
I get into stance and so does he. Justinio stands wide with his palms open, his fingers wriggling. Looks like a wrestling pose. Most wrestlers I've fought are slow, but I'm sure having an affinity for the water element could shift the balance. The element that brings life, I guess. Still, I can't let my guard low either way.
Justinio rushes forward and attacks with a swift uppercut, water splashing upward with full pressure.
I back-dash and punish with a long-range heavy kick, poking him from a distance. The wrestler staggers and I follow the attack with a spiraling, piercing kick, knocking him back. Finally, I take a leap forward and strike with a diving heavy fist.
The False Emperor parries the strike and responds with a series of horizontal chopping strikes, which I parry and try to counter with double-leg reversal kick to his face.
"Predictable," he says as he parries my strike and counters with a water-propelled palm thrust to my midsection. The strike stings, but my feet still maintain my stability. "You still stand," he says with a low chuckle. With quick hands, he tosses a shot of water from his palm.
My reflexes take cue and I spin past it, delivering a swift back knuckle. The wrestler back-steps, evading the strike, and scoops his hand upward. I dodge the attack, but my footing feels like it's slipping. "Shit," I say, glancing below. A small whirlpool forms around my feet, and now I'm struggling to stabilize my stance.
"Now bear witness to my might, assassin!" Justinio charges forward and delivers a swift knee strike to my gut. Then he scoops me up with both arms and launches me on to the sky. I spin and twirl, wondering what he intends to follow up with next. Prince Justinio launches into the air, grabs my body mid-flight, continues twirling, and slams me back to the ground.
That impact. The power. His brute strength is unreal, but I return to my feet and stand back up, despite the pain in my neck.
"The tenacity. I admire your courage to keep fighting."
"Don't you dare patronize me, you big shit." A snarling grin forms across my face as a warm feeling oozes from my forehead. It's blood. My blood.
"Your anger is true," the False Emperor says as he swipes his hand to the side. "Yet your reckless fury will be your undoing. It is time you witness your last ride." The muscular man charges forward with his arms wide open.
"Wanna bet?" With expert precision, I launch myself forward, spiraling my way through and connecting to his midsection. Then I send him flying with a heavy upward spiking kick right to his jaw.
Justinio lies down against the edge of the cage, black blood pooling from his mouth. "Perhaps I have underestimated you. Very well. I have no other choice to reveal my true form."
The cage breaks, black and blue smoke fills the scene, and Justinio transforms. His skin turns into a dark bluish hue and an his body grows a carapace on his back. He grows somewhat taller and his nails become long and sharp.
The beast announces himself, his voice reverberating throughout the sewer's chamber wall. "I am Justinio Volnia yos Cagnazzo, and this is my kingdom."
Samza throws a book. "I see you're all about the SPDs. Well, two can play at that game." A rift forms and a robotic eikon appears, matching the height of the transformed prince. The eikon bares resemblance to the Greater Eikon known as Alexander, except this one is much smaller. Appearing behind it is another machine-like eikon sharing a similar theme and motif as the first eikon but slender in build.
Justinio lets out a hearty laugh. "Your eikons mean nothing to me, fae child. Today, you will learn—"
Samza interrupts. "Oh shit! We gonna learn today?"
Mezos says while taking control of one of Samza's eikons using a strange flat box-shaped device with buttons on its surface, "I know, right? Mr. Turtle-man is going to welcome us to the real world."
Samza points at Justinio and, with her voice high and mighty, she says, "Well, listen up, homie. I think it's time to unleash every single cheap move in the book."
Mezos follows. "That's right, sucka! We're gonna show you how we run things in our house."
"So if you think we're gonna learn today, I have three words for you, homie: let's go, Justin!"
Justinio raises his clawed hand and a waterfall forms around the arena. A whirlpool forms, drawing both Samza and Mezos into the arena while everyone else remains outside.
"Mathilde!" Alphio says as he throws his summoner's book into the arena. "Asura, come and aid my allies." From the rift, a tall pale skin woman in exotic fabrics presents herself. She appears with three faces and six arms, each hand holding a bladed weapon. She turns to me and an aetheric stream of energy flows from one of her blades and on to my body.
That's a healing spell and I feel refreshed to stand back up and fight.
Glancing around, I see Samza, Mezos and Alphio, but it seems Justinio has warded away everyone else with his waterfall barriers.
Alphio gasps at the two machina eikons. "Great Gears of Alexander! That's Brute Justice and Cruise Chaser."
"That's right," Samza says while raising a finger. "For you homies in the back, BJ is the big bulky dude. He be chilling with the likes of Gief and Pot. Meanwhile, CC is the slimmer one that can turn into a jet. She's got them schmoves, dawg."
Mezos taps the buttons on his device, "And it looks like CC has a modified Killer Bee load-out uploaded onto her fighting processing unit." Cruise Chaser performs a standing Y-form medium kick. "Yup! Something fitting for the Blassty Bee herself."
Justinio charges forward and slashes in a frenzy, unfocused and full of rage. All of us evade the attacks. Then he bulrushes to Brute Justice. The hulking machine locks hold and wrestles with the demonic turtle-like Nightmare.
"Watch this," Samza says while commanding the eikon, "Midan Impact!"
Brute Justice lowers his fist, and a compartment opens from his glove. A warhead fires from the compartment and explodes in front of Justinio, knocking him backward.
Cruise Chaser spirals through and zips past the transformed Justinio, staggering him, and then follows it up with a string of light attacks, which Justinio blocks.
"Roman cancel!" Mezos says while pushing a button on his control box.
Cruise Chaser jumps and strikes with a piercing dive kick, connecting to Justinio's foot, and then she tosses the giant turtle-like monster into the air.
"Tag!" Mezos says while commanding Cruise Chaser to motion Brute Justice back into the fray.
As the Justinio continues twirling mid-flight, Brute Justice latches on to him and more explosive warheads burst and combust from his glove's storage chambers.
Justinio retracts his head and limbs into his shell, opting for defensive measures. "My shell is impenetrable. You cannot harm me."
"Oh yeah?" Samza says, pointing at Justinio. "You can't hide in your tiny-ass cubby hole forever, home-slice." The rabbit-girl turns her head and faces the goat-boy. She extends her fist and so does the boy.
"For our loyal fans!" Mezos says, his voice loud and intimidating.
Samza yells, "Witness our full might!"
A heavy burst of steam puffs from the exhaust pipes on both eikon servants. Cruise Chaser starts the sequence with a piercing spiral kick with a gyrodrive spike, launching Justinio up high up, up, up.
"No mercy! No remorse!"
Brute Justice then flies upward, its rocket-powered gloves boosting the hulking metal titan to Justinio's position. He latching on to Justinio's shell and the two come crashing down, down, down into a twirling spiral.
Impact! The platform cracks and feels unstable to stand on.
"Shit," I say as I struggle to keep my balance.
"Mathilde," Alphio says, gasping and panicking, "the platform is going to break."
Then the cracks spread and the platform crumbles.
"Oh, shit," Samza mutters. She then commands Cruise Chaser, "Yo, CC! Save our friends."
As we fall down, the slender machine eikon transforms into a mobile carrier craft, large enough to haul a full party, and catches us, breaking our fall.
Brute Justice and Justinio land at the very bottom. The eikon is still inside his shell.
Cammy glances around and so do I. We're in the deepest part of the Bektorian Waterways. Water from the Great Gordian River flows through the large pipes like streams of life, providing the capital city with clean water to drink and bathe.
"I have an idea," Cammy says as she turns to Samza. "Can you summon Shiva?"
"I can but—"
"Then do it," the princess commands, her teeth gritting in fury.
"Got it, your highness." Samza opens her tome and sends Brute Justice and Cruise Chaser back to their realms. She then throws her book on to the battlefield. Emerging from the aetheric void, a blue-skinned woman of shimmering ice appears. She looks dressed, unlike the most imaginative forms of Shiva, donning an icy blue eastern-style qi pao dress.
Cammy then turns to her brother. "And go summon Garuda."
Alphio swipes through pages of his tome and the eagle-winged siren, Garuda, emerges.
"On your signal," Samza says. "She's ready to flip the spinning bird."
"Now," Cammy says, motioning a hand for the eikons to act.
Shiva levitates and, with her legs split forward and back, performs an upside-down twirl. Cold dust-like diamonds fill the scene.
"Your winter has come, Justinio. You will freeze by my hand and I will finish Emperor Rydio's job. This ends here and now." Cammy opens her palm and draws aether from Garuda. Then she takes her twin gold blades and impales them on to the ground. Icy stalagmites pierce from the ground, surging its way to Justinio as he continues his defensive position inside his shell. A block of ice entombs the False Emperor. The princess then lunges forward and shatters the ice — and the armor carapace protecting the fiendish Nightmare.
"Now we finish this," Cammy says, motioning a charge. "Rin! Arizona! Blast him hard."
Rin turns to Arizona and grins. "You ready, partner?"
Arizona grins back with equal intent. "Heaven or Hell."
"Let's rock!" Rin says as she leads the charge, as both gunbreakers unleash a blazing rave of shock and burning blasts at the Nightmare.
Justinio staggers, but he still stands.
"Lyne!" Cammy yells, pointing forward.
The Archaean dragoon engulfs herself in white flames and blazes ahead, spear forward. "Bound by the resolution of Bahamut -- now burn!"
Justinio tries to set up another water-shield, but breaks easily from Lyne's burning spear.
"And now we finish this," Cammy announces, while turning her head to me.
"By your command, your highness." I launch myself, beginning my assault, and delivering four blazing kicks from multiple directions. And now the coupe de grace — one devastating slash kick to the back of the Nightmare's neck.
Justinio lets out a loud roar and explodes into a puff of aether, dissipating into the nothingness.
This battle is done. My legs falter and I stumble. And yet again, exhaustion overcomes me and my vision goes black as my face hits the cold stone floor of the Bektorian Waterways.
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