Project Divinity

Chapter 40: Confrontation

Elaine thanked all the stars in the sky for the fact that her armor was so amazingly tough. It often didn't feel like it, given how easily Darklight could carve through it, but against anything else the armor was spectacular. The creature had tried poking her with syringes, drills and other implements and none of them had managed to break through her armor. The needles had shattered against it and the drills couldn't find purchase.

Of course, that still left her tangled up in the metal tendrils the creature had caught her in and, worse, the creature, presumably another one of Caulder's cyborgs, had another arm, which it was using to try and rip the armor off her body. Not that that would work.

So instead of needlessly expending all her energy struggling in the thing's grasp she relaxed her entire body and thought about how to escape. Fire was out unless she wanted to test out just how heat-proof her armor made her. Ice as well, for similar reasons. But maybe...

She reached deep inside herself, for the spell she had used to beat Jeanne. It came to her but with difficulty. Clearly this was quite advanced magic and using it outside of her Higher form was a struggle. But she made it work.

The cyborg clearly sensed her attempt to use magic as it tried several times to disrupt her concentration but that tactic no longer worked against her. She simply separated the part of her mind that was casting the spell from the part that was being bothered by the random jabs and jolts and continued working in peace and quiet. And when she was done she sent out a glob of rapidly swirling acid at the cyborg's back.

Elaine wasn't sure whether these cyborgs couldn't feel pain or whether they were simply incapable of expressing it, though she certainly hoped for the former. Either way, as the cyborg didn't react to pain it took quite a while for the acid to have any noticeable effect but when it happened it was quite spectacular, the cyborg's entire body collapsing after its spine had liquefied. The tendrils still held onto her but with the cyborg itself no longer capable of movement it was the easiest thing in the world to produce a small crystal knife and carve the tendrils apart.

Apparently their plan to capture rather than destroy these cyborgs had gone to absolute shit. Well, there were still three of them around, two once Cassie got done.

She got up and checked her armor for holes, then took a good look at the half-melted cyborg who had just attacked her. Aside from the fleshy bits this one was still fairly intact and the one with the gun had simply been sliced apart twice, so maybe the Professor would still be able to get something out of these.

She could still hear Cassie struggling with the insectile cyborg and for a moment she considered rushing to his aid but then decided against it. Cassie had told her he'd take care of it and she didn't want him to think she didn't trust him. And, more to the point, there were two breath signatures still at large and the last thing she wanted was another one of those cyborgs to crash through the ceiling and land on top of them.

And so, instead of turning around and helping Cassie she made her way up the nearby stairs.

The second floor was even more hollowed-out than the first one, with large chunks of wall missing, letting unfiltered sunlight in. And it was in that bright sunlight that Elaine came face to face with a girl.

The girl was clearly the owner of the frantic breath signature, small and meek and terrified. She was shorter than average, with a slight build. She wore a white sundress with a tactical harness, the combination looking oddly formidable on her, and around her throat rested an electronic choker not entirely unlike the CARD they all wore. The girl had long, turquoise hair, the color unnatural but not looking dyed at all, and her eyes were a glittering golden yellow. But the girl's most distinctive feature was the pair of wings on her back, gossamer-thin wings like those of a butterfly.

Finding a gorgeous girl like this in a den of Caulder's cyborgs was utterly incongruous. Was she their hostage? Where had they found a girl like this? Or was she their handler? But if so why did she look so terrified, so traumatized?

**

259 stared at the soldier in front of her, her heart hammering in her chest. The figure was terrifying to behold.

The soldier was clad head to toe in black armor that looked like the high-tech gear the celestials usually wore, their face obscured by a black glass dome. A slight curve in the soldier's chest was the only indication of gender 259 could make out though the fact that this was a woman didn't make her any less terrifying.

She wore an assault rifle on a three point sling on her back and a dozen crystal blades were floating behind her. The air around her rippled with magic and 259 knew that this person would have had little trouble carving a path through her cyborg minders.

And yet, for how much the soldier terrified her, had her face been visible, 259 could have kissed her. She had found her executioner.

All she had to do was pull out the little pistol she'd been given and charge head first at the soldier. Then her nightmare would be over. She would be able to rest and her master would no longer be able to do horrific things to her. If she was quick enough about it her soul would be long gone by the time 202 made it up to her position and then not even a soul cage would keep her in her master's clutches.

She was about to reach down to her thigh holster when the soldier spoke:

“Are you alright? We can help you.”

259 blinked. Was this woman stupid? Here she was, without restraints (at least without visible restraints, the AI in her head that checked her thoughts for disloyalty sure counted), in a den of cyborg warriors who had lured the soldiers into a trap, and this woman didn't instantly assume 259 was one of the bad guys?

“Don't come any closer,” 259 said, her voice coming out as a whimper.

The soldier cocked her head to the side. “You know...”

But before 259 could find out what she did or didn't know, another soldier came up the stairs, with 202 clinging to their back, her claws at the soldier's throat.

**

Cassie danced out of the way of the creature's massive claws. It couldn't even really be called a cyborg, seeing as only its legs were robotic. The rest was a humanoid figure with chitinous claws and an insectile head. But even if the terminology was complicated, it was clear that this thing was one of Caulder's twisted creations.

And what a creation it was. Its swings were devastating and Cassie couldn't stay too far out of its reach or it would launch more of those spines at him. If he knew they were coming he could dodge them no problem but using them didn't leave the creature open to attack so Cassie would gain no advantage from baiting that attack.

And so he kept dancing around the creature, slicing bits off of it where he could. Not that it helped much, given that it regenerated absurdly fast. The claw he'd sliced apart was already fully healed.

No, Cassie needed something more, something stronger. He needed to kill it in a single stroke. And so he kept on jumping out of the way of its swings until he had the perfect angle.

He waited, longer and longer, until both its arms were low, then lined up a horizontal swing and took the creature's head clean off. As the head tumbled through the air Cassie jumped away from the creature just in case and, sure enough, even without its head its arms kept reaching for him one last time. He jumped off to the side, then lobbed off one arm, then the other. He wasn't sure if that had just been a residual command or if the creature could function without its head so for good measure he kicked it to the ground and then stabbed it through the heart a couple times until it stopped twitching.

He breathed a sigh of relief a moment before a weight slammed into his back.

“Do not struggle, do not scream, or you die,” a monotonous, mechanical voice said into Cassie's ear as he found himself in the grasp of... something.

Cassie had fought enough of Caulder's cyborgs to get a pretty good feel for how they were and weren't supposed to look and the thing clinging to him was nothing like those things. Thin, spindly hind legs were hooked around his thighs and two equally spindly forelimbs held wickedly sharp claws against his throat, crossed over each other like a giant pair of scissors.

That alone was weird enough. Caulder's cyborgs trended towards solidly built, bulky figures and these spindly limbs were nothing like those, but Caulder's cyborgs also tended to be made from bulky male human bodies and what pressed against his back was decidedly feminine, soft breasts and supple curves. And of course, he had never, ever heard one of these cyborgs speak, much less speak words that implied a level of intelligence.

“Alright, fine, what do you want?”

“Move slowly towards the living room,” the monotonous voice said. “If you try to remove me I shall remove your arms.”

Cassie did as he was told. He was pretty sure losing his limbs wouldn't permanently cripple him with healers like Ophelia and Rachel back at the base but right now getting his arms lobbed off wouldn't increase their chances of surviving this.

And so he advanced towards the living room, stepping over the bodies of two more cyborgs. So unless the bad guys were cheating there were only two of them left, one of them being the one clinging to his back.

“Up the stairs,” the robotic voice told him and Cassie spied a staircase.

“You know, climbing those stairs would be way easier if I didn't have to give you a piggyback ride,” Cassie said a mite flippantly and was rewarded by the blades on his throat inching a little closer. “Right, right.”

Slowly he made his way up the stairs. Supernatural strength be damned, his muscles were burning by the time he was done. His armor wasn't as heavy as its protective properties would indicate but it was still armor and while the cyborg's metal limbs were spindly the entire construction did still add up to roughly the weight of a normal human, so essentially he was carrying a suit of armor and a person up a flight of stairs and so he was a little winded by the time he made it to the top of the stairs.

And because of that it took him a moment to see that the fifth member of their group, the one Elaine was facing, wasn't another bulky cyborg either. It... no, she was a young woman in a sundress with butterfly wings, a fairy come to life.

“Ah, 259,” the cyborg on his back said. “Good work stalling the other one.”

**

Subject 259 flinched as she heard 202's robotic voice. She hadn't been fast enough.

The soldier in front of her spun around, though she didn't entirely turn her back on 259.

Maybe not stupid after all.

“Cassie?” the soldier asked, and if there had been any doubt about her gender they evaporated when 259 heard the husky, feminine voice. “Are you alright?”

“Hey Elaine,” the other soldier said, her voice high and clear. “You know, just chillin'. Trying to keep a cool head on my shoulders and all.”

“What do you want?” the soldier named Elaine asked the slaver AI, not wasting any time on platitudes like demanding it let go of the soldier named Cassie.

“You will lead us to your base,” the AI's robotic voice said. “You will open the gate for us. If you comply, I shall not harm her.”

That was a lie. Or at the very least it was a deeply misleading statement. Once 202 and her had access to the compound, they would either blow it up if possible or they would send a signal to their master so that he could drop an entire army on top of them. The slaver AI wouldn't harm her, yes, because it wouldn't need to.

“259, draw your gun and keep it trained on her,” the slaver AI said. “If she does not comply, fire at will.”

Wordlessly 259 reached for the gun in her thigh holster. It was a compact little pistol, leagues ahead of any conventional firearm. 259 had read over the specs multiple times, had even been present for its tests. The gun contained two PSI devices. The first one created the bullets, essentially a tiny, magical 3D printer, and the second one imbued the bullets with an armor-piercing enchantment. The gun could plug into any wall outlet and, once charged, would then be good for about a hundred rounds.

Her master hadn't said as much but the research into this gun had clearly been an attempt to create a weapon capable of slaying the Knight keeping watch over him.

Either way, she drew the gun, then hesitated.

Things had gone to shit so fast and all because 202 had caught the soldier named Cassie. She couldn't even commit suicide by cop anymore because if she tried to get the soldier named Elaine to kill her, the slaver AI would react by killing the soldier named Cassie.

However... the other cyborgs were dead, weren't they? The only ones of their group left were 259 herself... and 202. 259 swallowed as she realized the situation she was in and the AI in her head was suddenly wide awake, sensing how close her thoughts were to triggering the disloyalty loop. She would only get one shot at this and hopefully once she did the soldier named Elaine would grant her the mercy of a quick death.

259 had gone into this situation hoping to find a way to die but that had been the coward's way out. Right here, right now, she had one shot to give meaning to her death and, retroactively, to give meaning to her whole life.

If she thought any more about this the implant would shut down her body and everything would be over. And so she emptied her mind, letting her thoughts quiet down. She made a conscious effort to calm her racing heart back down and took a deep breath.

And then she trained the gun on 202 and shot the slaver AI through the circuit board.