FORTY-TWO
Alice was tall for a woman or a man, with broad shoulders and an athletic build of rippling muscle. Even dressed in regular clothes there was no mistaking her for anything other than a human pushed to the peak of physicality. Alice didn’t walk into his arming suite in the casual, baggy jumpsuits that they normally wore. She was dressed in armor for the first time Kon had ever seen her.
Nearly seven feet of blood red armor that glittered in the light, her hair was shaved close to her scalp to better let her helmet sit on her head. It was bulkier than his own suit, thick everywhere to add extra protection for her more aggressive fighting style, it added to her considerable bulk. A single obsidian axe sat on her hip while her crystalline shield was tucked to her back as she held her hands out to whirl around in a pirouette.
“Why red?” Kon asked as Alice finished showing off and stood with her hands on her hips.
“You’d have to ask Bob, but it helps keep the blood from showing as much. He fixed up my axe for me,” Alice said as she pulled the single axe from her waist and showed it off.
“What’d he do?” Kon asked as he grabbed it and grunted as the weight nearly pulled it from his hand.
“Took the treasure-alloy, melted it down and combined it with some armorer secrets and burned runes into it for strengthening, sharpness, repair and a few little other things,” Alice said with a smile. She showed the small pocked marks where cores could be inserted to power the runes.
“Super heavy,” Kon said as he handed it back to her. Alice took it with a laugh and slid it back into her holster.
“That’s just because you’re not full grown,” Alice said with a smile, she looked literally radiant in her joy as she showed off her weapons.
“I’m plenty strong enough. Just don’t know why you can’t use weapons that are an appropriate weight,” Kon said, his own smile hidden behind his visor.
“They are the right weight. Heft helps cut into heavy armor. You got a new toy?” Alice asked and Kon nodded as he pointed to a baton nearby that Bob had mentioned. Runes were carved along the length, Alice reached over and grabbed the baton and runes lit up under her fingers. Metal sprang open as a two meter spear appeared in her hand, the tip of it sharp enough that the air bled as she twirled it in her hand.
“This is nice. Helps fix a bit of your range problem, but I still prefer having the heft,” Alice said as she handed the spear back to Kon. he took it and the moment Alice’s hands were free of the spear it shrank back down in length to the baton that Kon attached to his belt next to Conclusion.
“Range is fixed by having that massive rifle that Bob built me. Have you seen them? Supposed to be able to shred through anything weaker than D-grade.”
“Knight armor should be able to reflect it or at least divert enough of it to keep them alive. Will rip apart any of the secondary troops or Squires they have with them though. Are you ready for that?” Alice looked him over and for the first time Kon enjoyed the masking anonymity of full armor.
“Ready as I can ever be. I’ve killed before.”
“Not humans though. Not our people and not like this will be. It’ll be different for all of us, no matter how battle scarred. I would like to keep the kids back on the ship, but we need every hand we can get,” Alice said and Kon nodded in agreement. None of their cadets had armor or any levels of body purification and cultivation needed to make them sturdier than what a few runes would give them.
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A few runes wouldn’t keep explosive rounds from ripping them apart. Heavy standard armor would only slow them down where speed would keep them alive more than an extra centimeter of regular steel. Benny’s armory had been raided and amplified by Bob’s works to the point that Kon was certain that it was the best work that could be had that wasn’t Knight grade treasure-alloy and runic enhanced.
“It’s good work, but I’m worried about them. They don’t have our protection,” Kon said.
“We forget ourselves. We spend too much time with demi-gods and old creatures from the annals of history. Our cadets are well trained, armed, and armored. Soldiers die, that is what has happened since the dawn of time and will always happen. We all know what we signed up for,” Alice replied.
“So we’re stuck in the same cycles? No, that’s unfair of me. We know our profession and I lashed out at you because I’m nervous. I’m sorry,” Kon said, catching himself before he accidentally insulted Alice again.
“Relax, kid. We have enough to concern ourselves about than having your nerves thinking about the cycles of war.” Alice clapped him on the shoulder, steel ringing out as Kon fought to keep his feet under him under the power of the blow.
“Kon and Alice, report to the bridge,” Benny’s voice cut them off before they could continue what was becoming an awkward conversation.
“Let’s go see what the old man wants,” Alice said as she turned and headed out the door while Kon mentally chided himself. He needed to get his head in the game and questioning Alice about the nature of soldiery wasn’t going to help with that.
“You need to learn to relax when you can,” Alice’s voice echoed in his ear as she connected to his internal comms.
“I do relax,” Kon muttered to himself.
“Mic is on, they’re fairly twitchy like that. And no you don’t relax. You spend more time training and that’s not relaxing. Now, get your head in the game and get ready,” Alice chided him and this time Kon kept his curses to his mind as they reached the bridge.
He bumped into Alice as she was standing with one foot frozen in mid-air. Kon peered around her to see what it was she was looking at and blinked rapidly as she saw the monster in black.
Benny had donned the outer suit. It turned the frail old man into a blade, harsh and unrecognizable. The color of the suit wasn’t black so much as a void, drinking in the light as Benny looked at them with faded eyes, his skeletal helm in his hand tucked against his body.
“You two done dicking around?” Benny growled as they stood there. Everything about the old timer radiated danger, as if breathing too loudly would attract a lethal gaze. Even under Daniur’s presence Kon hadn’t felt like his life was about to be lost so much as when he stood before his mentor.
“What is this?” Alice hissed through the external speakers in her recently donned crimson helm.
“Death. This suit is Death,” Benny said simply and Kon could hear the way Benny emphasized the words, the same way he would for a full rune.
“It feels like I’m in danger just being next to you,” Alice said as she set down her foot.
“It is just a pale shadow of what it used to be, just like myself,” Benny said as he ran an armored finger down the breastplate.
“I shudder to think what it was like in its full glory,” Alice said with a trembling laugh. Kon struggled to move to break the fog of terror that clung to him. It was a great struggle to breathe again as Benny brought them in close.
“Abandon all doubt. Abandon reason and morality. Become the blade and know only the ability to kill. Fast and ruthless, leave none alive,” Benny whispered the words as if it was a prayer, a desperate plea as he closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Alice and Kon said nothing as the old man opened his eyes. Kon shivered as the flat disks stared at him, stripped of life they were cold blue as the ice glaciers of the poles. For a few minutes he labored under their weight, but Benny quickly donned his helmet, masking his dead eyes. It should have brought relief, but if anything with the helmet on it reinforced the dread of Benny in his full armor.
“Melissa has sent the signal. Shields and defensive weapons are down. We’re an hour out, get the rest of your kit and your teams and be ready for what needs to be done.” Benny’s voice was hardly above a whisper, hard to hear even with the auditory amplifiers in the helmet and Kon’s already prodigious hearing.
“Come on, kid. Time to blood the cadets,” Alice said, a hint of panic in her voice as she reached over and grabbed Kon’s shoulder, pulling him from the cockpit as they raced down the hallways toward the landing bay.
“What was that?” Kon whispered and Alice shuddered, a rippled running through the plate armor.
“That was a folk tale come to life. Armor that has had an intent forced into it. But Death? A greater rune to encase the ending of all and he wears it? That’s insanity,” Alice said and Kon couldn’t help but agree with her.