White [Fianna POV]

Fianna kept observing the battlefield. The massive mound of water that was Kanaloa was gone, chasing Nathalia, Veridion, and Layla to the pocket dimension the battle of the Fateweavers had shoved them into. The muzzle of her rifle pointed at the Kupua for a time. They and Lee were in an invisible stand-off. Though her new nature as a being of metal and magic brought with it many advantages, a sense for Illusion Barriers was not among them. If anything, her overall capacity for them felt like it had dulled since she had changed to this nature, even with the Create I.D. Skill that she passively benefitted from.

A pull of the trigger would have caused a commotion among their enemies. The bullet first, the summoned tiger thereafter. Fianna restrained herself from deploying in this manner. A sniper shot could have been alright, but the usage of the follow-up was problematic. For now, her existence was broadly unknown. Though many had suspicions or even half-solid knowledge that her Master employed a scout, none should have been aware that she was the White Tiger’s Chosen. Summoning a white tiger, well… that would have given the game away.

It was for that same reason that Fianna currently had her tail tucked under her bodysuit and her ears hidden by a simple helmet.

Though she felt tempted to aid Lee in this invisible battle she was fighting, the sniper maid ultimately had another target. Something had been off at the periphery of these trials. She had encountered the feeling here and there as she patrolled the islands. As a scout, it was her job to be paranoid and often times that paranoia led to nothing. Nathalia swiping at the air had been one clue. Veridion warning John another. Once was a happenstance, twice was a coincidence, but with her picking up something off now…

Three times was enemy action.

Fianna spotted not something immediately off in the landscape, but rather a lapse in her attention. Invisibility did not just make people see-through, that would have been too simple. Rather, invisibility was the most visually noticeable of a whole host of enchantments. Noise cancellation, aura diminishment, air displacement countermeasures, smell neutralization and, perhaps most importantly, presence suppression.

It took someone quite trained to notice when they were made not to notice. After a couple hits on targets that had worked extensively to make themselves unknowable, Fianna was in that select camp. Her increased power in this new state of being only honed an already existing edge.

Her Innate Ability let her zoom in on the area she was meant to ignore. Bit by bit, she reduced the effect of the enchantment, penetrating it with her will. Presence could be suppressed, but never fully erased. Fianna narrowed in on one spot, an unassuming bit of the land where the dirt, by natural means, had depressed enough for someone to nestle into.

Fianna: Lee, I am about to attack and I would appreciate cover. Can you open a Swirling Point at my location in about 30 seconds?

It took a moment for the Lady of Shifting Dimensions to respond.

Lee: Roger that. Will be counting down from 30 after I press enter on this message.

Fianna closed the window. ‘The first shot is always the most important one. It alerts your enemy. Strike the target as hard and precisely as you can. The cleanest kill enables the quickest getaway.’ Recounting the mantras of her craft, she took aim. Lowercase aim, annoyingly. She could not designate a Target without confirmation of its position. ‘Assuming a humanoid shape, centre mass would be about… there.’

Without another second’s hesitation, Fianna pulled the trigger.

The manifold tubes and cables that connected her to her riffle tugged at her being, a sensation akin to tensing a muscle outside herself. Enchantments empowered the bullet. The hypersonic projectile reached the target before the soundwave did. Bright green blood gushed into the air. A flutter of wings catapulted the target into the air. It hung up above for less than a blink, then dove towards Fianna. Her own Camouflage only counted for so much.

The sniper maid moved her rifle up, keeping the visor on her now designated Target. It dashed side to side midair. Motion blur and magic made a clear view impossible. Aim ticked up all the same. ’26... 27…’

The thing slammed down on Fianna’s current position. White claws swiped, leaving blue and green traces in the air. The sniper maid ducked and weaved through. Shooting was her speciality, speed a close second. Though the bulk of her weapon slowed her mildly, she all the same escaped the swings of the spindly limbs.

Space around them swirled. A series of annoyed clicking sounds reverberated in Fianna’s ears. They both dropped through the dimensional vortex into an exact, empty copy of their environment. It had been still before, now it was utterly silent. Fianna only heard the whirl of her internal mechanisms, a faint replacement of the heartbeat that once would have pulsed in her ears. Ripping up her gun, she pulled the trigger once more.

The creature escaped her aim. The bullet slammed into the ground a few metres ahead of Fianna, the kinetic **** bound into it creating a small crater in the soft soil. Her weapon was far beyond the realm of an anti-tank riffle. Anti-ship would have been more like it. Even in this situation, within the confines of her half-helmet, her tiger ears flicked with amusement at her own firepower.

A simple joy in a complicated situation.

“A soft ting… fur on metal,” an androgynous voice spoke.

Grass flattened. The moon stood inexplicably full above, hovering between fuzzy, twitching antennae. The creature had landed, its blurring aura fully dismissed. Blue eyes glowed in a head of white chitin. The same colour combination was present on the creature’s torso and biological shoulder bags, joined by green trims. Moth-like patterns covered wings that fell as a mantle around the thin frame of the insectoid being. A slender leg ending in a two-pronged claw rose and fell in a half-step, facilitating a respectful bow. The injury she had inflicted upon it had already closed.

[Moonlit Martyr Morph: https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/d6caf306d5c8.png ]

“Throthaxen,” Fianna remarked.

“Artificial Spirit,” the servant of the Mite King classified its opponent in turn. “Though that is hardly the entire story… Fianna Valentine?”

The sniper immediately raised her gun again. Though she would have liked to build up Aim first, the Throthaxen wasn’t going to stand at the business end of her weapon. It closed the distance, one of its arms lashing out from the cover of the lowered wings. A middle joint unfurled, the strike’s range increasing suddenly.

Fianna tilted her head minimally. The arm stretched past her head, then suddenly snapped back. The middle joint folded back up. The left arm of the creature came up in a hook deflected by the side of Fianna’s armament. Fingers bundling into a tight unit, the sniper maid hurled a punch of her own. Chitin splintered, bright blue blood splattered, something beneath the bright green flesh creaked.

The creature disengaged. Cracks in its head rapidly mended themselves, the running blood reversing course. ‘A regenerator, but he does not feel sturdy,’ Fianna thought as she mentally released her armament. The various connection points hissed as cables detached, coming fully off with a singular tug. Without looking, she threw her sniper rifle into her Inventory. It served her poorly in a melee and she wasn’t going to take the risk of the chamber having been jammed after sustaining a hit.

Inhaling slowly, she centred her spirit. Exhaling, she primed her mind for ****. Her left foot drew a semi-circle as she lowered her stance. Her right fist was lowered, the arm tugged against her side. The palm of the other hand pointed at her enemy. The point of her middle finger was her crosshair. Her Aim gradually ticked up.

Asking how the creature knew her identity was redundant. Fianna’s transition into being one of her Master’s maids had been hurried. The proper steps to bury her identity had been taken after, but there were plenty of gaps to exploit. Anyone with half a mind and one good contact would have realized that a previous agent of Nightfall had been missing. Her face was still obscured, but her dimensions and semi-mechanical nature were self-apparent to anyone with eyes and ears fine enough to pick it up.

“Any name I should report later?”

“I am but a humble Martyr Morph, born in the moonlight flower.” The creature bowed once more. “I am merely here to observe. Hostilities between us are pointless.”

“Do you think I will let you go after realizing my identity?” Fianna asked.

“Fighting me will reveal more than letting me go will.”

Fianna stared out through the lens of her helmet. It was not beyond reason that Devos had a connection to his created subjects that allowed him to spy on this engagement. Fianna considered the chances of that lower than the Martyr Morph bluffing to save his own exoskeleton. Still, it was better to do this with a minimum of her capabilities revealed.

The cyborg maid closed the distance with a single leaping step. Her clenched fist hurled at her opponent’s chest. The tall, thin creature swiped at her arm, moving with the deflection, Fianna whirled around on her heel. Her high kick connected to the Throthaxen’s chest, once more rupturing the surface.

The Martyr Morph had played into its strength. As the wound reversed, the creature grasped Fianna’s head. Three claws tightened around the helmet, holding on as the middle joint pulled the extended limb. The metal cover was torn off in an instant.

“White Ti-“ the Marty Morph began.

Fianna recovered from her kick, ducked under a preventative strike, and then laid into the thin midriff of the creature. A rapid series of strikes had the Throthaxen bend forwards. Every percussive impact reverberated in the air, but they were only a prelude. After a series of backsteps, the Martyr Morph managed to get out of range for a split second. Superior speed had Fianna close the distance again, her hands now wide open.

White claws replaced each nail. The **** continued unrelenting. Slash after slash, the Cardinal Chosen raked the chest of her Target. Regeneration sealed wounds shut slower than she made them. Amidst the spongy flesh and hard exoskeleton, she cut something different.

Blue tendrils burst from the chest of the Throthaxen. A wiggling mass of lashing limbs covered Fianna’s front in sharp impacts. Pain filtered through her stoic will. Gritting her teeth, she pushed her left hand through the mass. The Martyr Morph pulled its hand just out of reach of her strike. Her palm pointed at the creature’s head.

An almost inaudible click confirmed the snapping of the projectile into the rune-covered barrel. A hidden hatch in Fianna’s wrist snapped upon. Five of the ten Claws of the White Tiger attached themselves to the bullet, then rushed up the grooves made specifically for them. Electromagnetism and gravitational runes joined her metal magic in providing rapid propulsion for the bullet. The entire limb heated up as the enigmatic engineering did its work.

BLAM!

The recoil threw Fianna’s arm back. Her entire torso twisted to deal with it, tearing several of the blue tendrils off her. They snapped like plant roots.

Half of the head of the Throthaxen stopped existing, less scattered than vaporized by the high calibre bolt shot. Fianna got a brief view of the inside of the monster’s head. Blue, pulsing fibres and flower petals snaked through the green flesh. Ichor the noxious green of necromantic magic swirled into the blue liquid that otherwise served as the creature’s blood. On instinct, Fianna used the Harem Comms feature to take a picture of the sight.

“For my unborn siblings, my all.”

Even missing half a head, the Throthaxen managed to utter the Babel Phrase. Fianna managed to tear herself free of the tendrils as they trembled around her. A multitude of vents opened all over her lower left arm, more runes and arcano-tech activating to accelerate the cooling.

The previously spindly Martyr Morph bulked in size, growing larger and more brutish by the moment. Fianna pointed her right arm forwards.

BLAM!

Another chunk of chitin and spongy flesh came undone. Like liquid wax, the expanding form of the monster closed up the gap. It was an imperfect mending, scar tissue uncovered by chitin prominently marking the impact point of the bullet.

The Throthaxen came to resemble a fusion between moth and ant yet was neither. It stood on four gangly limbs. Six fuzzy wings expanded from its back. Previously featureless, the head had formed into a mass of scarred flesh and large mandibles.

The creature began to advance, entirely oblivious that it was no longer a 1vs1.

White and black particles had scattered from the shot, now coalescing into the glowing form of a tiger. Its fur had an ethereal translucency to it, its motions too light for a truly physical being, but all the same it was there. Its teeth dug into the back leg of the now fully monsterfied Throthaxen.

‘Full commitment then.’

Fianna dropped to all fours. The bodysuit on her skin was absorbed into a pocket dimension, getting out of the way of her skin. Fur rapidly grew from her curves, its colour matching both the pale base and the stripes thereon. Arms and legs elongated, bone structure shifting beneath the fur. Her lips peeled back, the initially human growl turning deeper and deeper until it was entirely replaced. Fianna roared, flexing her corded muscles. The white of her fur shimmered metallically under the moon.

Either she had been **** to reveal it all or she was right and none of this made it back without the Throthaxen reporting. Fianna was committed to the path chosen with militaristic fervour.

Firepower was satisfying. The recoil, the impact, the accuracy of a good shot. Slamming her paw into the Throthaxen was not quite as enticing. Bludgeoning and cutting simultaneously, she broke one of the thin legs on impact. The Throthaxen tilted towards her, trying to bite her in return. The unbreaking Claws that her bullets had deposited in the flesh of the monster were suddenly dragged down. Working against the innate magic resistance the body of every living being possessed was difficult, yes, but these artefacts were part of her own being as the Cardinal Chosen and her metal magic, boosted by her transformation, specialized in minute manipulation.

The tenfold tug ended in the claws ripping up the stomach of the creature. Swiftly, the Throthaxen twisted back, to complete its mindless bite.

Not swiftly enough.

Fianna dug her blade-like teeth into the creature’s neck. She tasted copper, salt and resin. Jaws crunched down. The hovering Claws responded to her, joining into a segmented blade that sawed through the other half in one swift motion.

The Throthaxen had already sacrificed its mind. Its body followed the moment the weapon was finished cleaving through. A hissing sound filled the air.

Fianna mistook it as a form of **** rattle at first. Bloating in the still standing corpse was her warning. Releasing her jaws, she sprinted away. The head hung from a last thread, the neck stump the source of the hissing. Gasses were gathering inside the corpse – then ignited.

The explosion swept Fianna off her paws. Gaia knew how much she weighed currently, a monster of metal and magic the size of a car. All of that weight was tossed by the shockwave, **** to tumble over the ground as bright green particles scattered over the landscape. Where they touched the ground, blue flowers bloomed and the arid landscape turned lush with pale life.

Of the corpse, nothing remained.

Fianna gathered her bearings. Her back was torn open, but it was nothing her new body couldn’t mend. All she had to do was wait for a bit. If all went well, she would only be an observer to the rest anyhow.

‘I believe in you, Sir,’ she thought.