Bang!
Crack!
A corner of Petra’s stone shield broke under Seras’ barrage and the bullet cracked her armor. With her bronze rank mana resolve and greater power the shield reformed in seconds, but the point was that Seras’ shot had broken through. All it took was three essence abilities stacked upon one another to break past the defenses of a bronze rank Fortress confluence wielder like Petra.
It didn’t seem like much, but this was a huge step forward in her power set. Previously Seras’ guns lacked penetrating power against tougher foes. Beings like the metal abominations from the Stellar astral space could take dozens of Seras’ shots head on. Even the Star Gliders thick hide and massive body mass were enough to cushion the blows from Seras’ guns.
But with her two new powers that wasn’t the case. By hardening the bullet with [Structural Reinforcement] and stacking both the spell and special attack on one another she could break the armor of tougher opponents. And with control bullets she could even make sure the bullet didn’t get deflected by hitting at the wrong angle.
There was just one caveat. The incantations.
“Fueled by my might; slay my foes” and “By my will Break,” when used back-to-back they slowed Seras down and telegraphed her attack. On the plus side [Enhance Bullets] enchanted the full magazine, it just required more mana for more bullets, or higher caliber ones. After paying the initial cost it would persist for a time afterwards.
She could either spend a bit of mana to enchant the single bullet in her rifle, or a slightly increased amount to enchant her whole revolver. She would need to work out the ratio between mana consumption based on caliber and then determine whether it was more efficient to do a whole magazine or if the growth in cost was linear. Either way it did move up her production schedule for a magazine loaded Magitech rifle. She already had a few ideas saved with her blueprinting software. She might even be able to make Magitech pistols viable for fighting monsters and magical foes.
[Armor Piercer] was a more straight forward power. It was a special attack that infused her weapon with magic and fired a high powered and magically hardened bullet at a target, there even seemed to be some sort of internal magic going on to disrupt magical shielding or reinforcement. So, it wasn’t like firing a higher caliber gun with higher penetration. The only issue she needed to work out was things like over penetration. This power she couldn’t scale back, it took a set amount of mana and did a set amount of damage. Over penetrating on a less durable foe would result in completer through and through penetration, which was less lethal than having a bullet stuck inside you. Especially if she ever worked out internal fragmentation to add more damage to the attack.
On her world there were bullets with a specifically designed internal structure that made it pop apart once with the softer flesh of a person. And for fully modded cyborgs like herself there were corrosive acids and nano bots.
There was room for improvement in all things, but Seras didn’t let that ruin her elation over her new powers.
“Gods dammit Seras, I said no shooting your friends,” a gruff voice roared from the side of the field.
Seras and Petra winced as Dustin marched over to then, his eyes blazing with fury. Literally.
Seras looked over to Petra, “I thought you said he had a meeting with the other Caravan crews?” Seras whispered.
“He did,” Petra whispered back.
“That was an hour ago,” he growled, “I just got back, only to here from the owner you’ve been causing a ruckus out here.”
Seras checked her internal clock and winced; time had gotten away from them.
“Have you been shooting Petra for the whole last hour?” Dustin asked incredulously.
“Well, I wasn’t shooting Petra the whole time. We did test it out on steel plates and boulders first. But I needed feedback on its effects against magical defenses.”
Dustin looked out at the blown out steel plating and shattered boulders in the yard, “and you thought after seeing all that that it was a good idea to try it out on a person.”
“Hey, I’m a tough girl, tougher than some rocks,” Petra complained.
Even as they tried to defend the sanctity of their decision making the two woman saw that it was a lost cause.
~~~*~~~
The end credits of the movie began to roll, so much text was scrolling across the screen that the translating magic gave up on translating the blocky runic characters of Mantalese.
“See, that wasn’t so bad,” Seras said with a smile.
She heard a sniff behind her and turned to a red eyed Athena with tear stained cheeks. “No, it was beautiful. But why couldn’t they just have a happy ending?” she moaned.
“It wasn’t possible.” Flint said as he dabbed his own eyes, “Rand and Guts were too deeply flawed as people for them to have a happy ending.”
“It would have been fine if the bookies just left them alone, they didn’t even need to go that far. They had the money to pay them off,” Dustin pointed out, little trails of steam rising from his eyes.
Seras shrugged, “the world’s not like that, you don’t get to chose when someone with more power comes around and screws you over.”
“Did anyone think there were way too many gratuitous sex scenes?” Petra asked. She was the only one in the whole room besides Seras who was completely dry eyed, and that was only because Seras had seen it dozens of times. It used to annoy Frost.
“I thought it was fine,” Dallas mumbled, the lines of fire on his cheek flared a bit brighter.
“The scene behind the dumpsters was a bit much, and did he have a metal-,”
“Yup, they’re pretty common on my world. Though most girls prefer guys with ones naturally that large.” Seras answered. It wasn’t her thing, but she had heard plenty of gossip.
Athena made a face at that statement.
Dustin slapped his knees, “whelp, that was certainly a lot better than the last one, I still wish it had a happier ending. But it’s getting late, this old man is gonna head to bed. Don’t worry about the volume though.” He got up from the couch and began to make his way upstairs.
It wasn’t lost on many of them that Flint followed Dustin up only minutes later.
Seras snorted as her bionic ears suddenly stopped hearing the creaking of floorboards from their room. A telltale sign of privacy magic being employed. “Its cute they think we don’t know,” she quipped.
Dallas nodded his head, “yeah, the whole family back home even knows, I don’t know why they hide it.”
“Flint doesn’t look it but he’s a bashful kind of guy,” Petra said. "The one time I caught them on accident he went as red as a flame drakes ass.”
Athena covered her mouth to hide the loud snort trying to escape from her lips.
Seras smiled at them all as she fiddled with the projector to set up the next movie.
~~~*~~~
Bang! Bang! Bang!
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Seras cursed and jumped out of the way as the charging monster barreled through where she had been.
She held up her pistol and concentrated on the magic flowing through her, “By my will, BREAK!” she roared as magic emptied out of her mana pool and into her gun.
BANG!
The crack of the gunshot was far louder than before as the special attack charged her little pistol with more power than it should have had.
Two instances of [Enfeeblement] have been added to Sand Roller
The crack in the Sand rollers shell was by no means a fatal or debilitating blow. The fact that two instances of Enfeeblement had been added to the already large stack of afflictions was the only worthwhile thing about that attack.
Seras emptied the spent rounds in the revolver and replaced them with fresh ones. While the Sand Roller was still distracted she cast her spell. “Fueled by my might; slay my foes.” Her mana dropped, but not by much. Pistol bullets were rather small after all.
She ran forward and leapt high over the Sand Roller, she pointed her gun down and fired, each shot aimed at the crack in its tough shell. A jet of flames burst out of the of the shell as the power within the bullet ignited. Her hope was to burn it like Dustin had once done months back on their journey to Karstess.
The heat flaring out from a crack in its shell baked the surrounding armor, and a long crack in its shell developed. But with lack of subsequent [Enfeeblement] afflictions told Seras it wasn’t enough to harm the Bronze ranked monster.
She landed and cursed as the Sand Roller curled up and began to charge her down. Seras summoned a small device to her hand and activated a small rune on its casing, she waited until the Sand roller was right on her before placing the bomb and teleporting to safety.
BOOM!
Scree!
Her latest addition to her growing arsenal was a shaped charge with magical sticking runes that she could activate of the fly. The charge stuck to the shell and directed the force of its detonation directly towards its target.
Seras had only teleported a dozen meters away so that she’d be ready to hammer the injured monster with more bullets. That would turn out to be entirely unnecessary, as the shaped charge had killed the monster.
“Break, and fuel my rise,” Seras chanted.
Ten Bronze rank spirit coins have been added to your pocket space
One hundred iron rank coins have been added to your pocket space
Five earth quintessence have been added to your pocket space
Sand Roller Carapace has been added to your pocket space
She turned to the waiting figures of Petra, Rohan, and Athena. “Well I guess that proves it, the pistol is still not enough to deal with Bronze ranked enemies.”
Rohan quirked an eyebrow, “you know, most Iron rankers have great trouble dealing with monsters of our own rank.”
Seras rolled her eyes, “well that sounds like a waste of magic. If I can’t punch up then what’s the point?”
Rohan frowned, “you’ll find that most well trained iron rankers to be less stupid than the monsters you have faced. If your strength and speed weren’t already at bronze then you’d be far less deadly.”
“But I am, if its gonna kill me in the end then I’ll get every advantage from it that I can.”
Rohan turned away from her pointed stare. He was feeling frustrated by her current power. They had both become iron rankers at around the same time, and he had about the same amount of powers as she did. But Seras was already punching into Bronze while Rohan was still working to adapt to his full suite of abilities. It helped that Seras’ abilities all helped reinforce the fighting style she had already mastered.
A wave of relief washed over Seras, and she found herself smiling before she realized what that meant. Her head snapped over to a suddenly very pale faced Athena.
“I knew it, you advanced your abilities again, a lot of them by the feel of it,” she said through gritted teeth.
Seras averted her gaze, “just the essential ones, [Shape metal] and [Inscribe rune/circuit]. I need them to be stronger.”
As she finished speaking a wave of intense pain flowed back into her, and Seras dropped to one knee. She clenched her fist and slowly stood up.
“Sorry, couldn’t hold it any longer, it slipped.” Athena said as she took in deep gasps of air.
“Its, oh fuck, nope, not fine. Fuuuck!” She groaned.
Petra sighed and walked over towards Seras, with one arm she lifted Seras up onto her back with a grunt and began to walk back towards the small canal skimmer they bought. “That’s enough monster hunting for today, we’ve already cleared most of the contracts we took, you need to rest.”
“I’m, fine,” she said unconvincingly.
Though she couldn’t see it from her angle, something about Petra’s aura gave off a feeling of her rolling her eyes, “riiight, remind me, when was the last time you slept?”
Seras shut up.
“That’s what I thought, you need to rest. Do you still have that sleeping drought Flint bought you.”
“Yeah, it doesn’t work though, I wake up feeling just as tired.”
Petra and Athena exchanged conspiratorial looks with each other. “Just try it again.” Athena insisted.
Seras frowned, but she didn’t say anything else.
That night Seras got an actually restful nights sleep. But she couldn’t pretend to not see the drained and pale look of Athena the next morning. In her head she knew that Athena had taken on her burden so that she could sleep, and while she wanted to tell her off Seras couldn’t make herself do it. Something in her heart yearned for more of that peaceful oblivion she had felt last night. So she said nothing.
~~~*~~~
“Alright, now pull the wire back, see that bolt there, yeah unscrew that one.” Seras gently coached Athena as she undid the last piece hooking Seras’ arm into her shoulder socketing.
Left Biolite recoil reducing arm has been disconnected from central nerve center.
The little popup confirmed that they had done everything right. Athena rolled the table cart with her left arm away and pulled the next table cart up. On this second cart was a very simple magical armor piece, a simply articulated metal limb Seras had ordered from the magic society two weeks ago. She had heard it mentioned several times before that there were magical prosthesis out there, a temporary fallback for wounded adventurers until a good healer had time to see them. They were first developed in regions where magical healing had grown too expensive, and were a simple curiosity to the greater magical community.
But to Seras this simple iron ranked prosthesis was her hope for a pain free future.
After studying the material Healer had given her access to Seras had come upon this one possible solution to her issue. As things were Seras was in an impossible situation where her body was bronze rank while her magical matrix was only iron. Every step forward in her essence abilities brought her closer to closing that gap, while at the same time increasing the strain on her soul. She would die before she reached bronze rank, and thus could never fix her soul/body disconnect.
But what if she could replace her body with iron ranked pieces?
Her rebirth had seemingly made her body bronze ranked, and there were systems she could never replace without risking death like her spinal implants or the cranial augmentations. But an arm was much more doable.
If she could safely replace bits of her bronze ranked body with iron ranked ones then maybe she could more safely advance her essence abilities and eventually step into bronze rank without dying. At that point she’d just reinstall her normal limbs and live the rest of her life as a happy pain free cyborg.
That was the idea at least. Today they were going to test that out with a very simply iron ranked replacement.
Athena wheeled the second table cart over and began to slowly hook in her never wires into the small converter boxes Seras had made. Working off the same principle that allowed the magic projectors of Pallimustus read the data dense shard of Ruin, Seras was hoping they would convert her electrical nerve impulses into magical ones that would control the metal limb.
When the last wire was connected Seras felt something with herself surge out into the limb. Her natural magical matrix reached out and touched the artificial one of the limb.
Loud scratching, whirling, and humming came from the magical sensors Director Dundee had lent to her. These devices were the ones used in formations research to read the magical oscillations and feed from experimental formation circles. This was how new formation circles and runes were developed over time.
Seras felt a prickling sensation in what her brain told her was her left arm, and she began to feel excited.
ERROR
Incompatible entity detected.
REJECTION
ERROR
REJECTION
ERROR,REJECTION, ERROR, REJECTION, REJECTION, REJECTION, ERRO…
Soul body disconnect has advanced to 30 percent.
Soul body disconnect has advanced to 40 percent.
Seras’ back arched as unimaginable pain ravaged her. Her mouth gaped open in a silent scream.
“No! NO!” Athena screamed in alarm as she began ripping the wires apart.
Soul body disconnect has advanced to 50 percent.
Soul body disconnect has advanced to 60 percent.
“God’s fucking dammit, NO!” Athena screamed.
Soul body disconnect has advanced to 70 percent.
Soul body disconnect has advanced to 80 percent.
Soul body disconnect has advanced to 90 percent.
Soul body disconnect has advanced to 95 percent.
Soul body disconnect has advanced to 94 percent.
Soul body disconnect has advanced to 76 percent.
Soul body disconnect has advanced to 68 percent.
Soul body disconnect has advanced to 52 percent.
Soul body disconnect has advanced to 41 percent.
Soul body disconnect has advanced to 30 percent.
Anomaly removed, soul body disconnect has returned to prior levels
Seras rolled off the table and began to hack violently, blood and phlegm came up with each convulsion of her chest. A hand was placed against her back and began to slowly rub in small circles. She wheezed until something churned in her stomach, Seras tried to hold it back, but no force of will would keep down the vomit fighting against her lips to burst out.
The last memory she had after seeming to hurl up her remaining guts was of black spots swimming through her vision before she passed out in the pool of her own awful.
~~~*~~~
Athena was hyperventilating over the unconscious form of Seras. She only vaguely heard the aggressive wailing from the monitoring equipment Seras had borrowed. She looked down at the bloody and soiled Outworlder and felt an impulse to use her power on her, but then she remembered the awful scratchy silent scream she had made as everything went wrong.
Athena had been forced to study a thousand different kinds of monsters growing up, and the one that had always stuck in her mind was the vile Phantom possessor, born from magical manifestations in areas with tons of death these monsters were almost impossible to detect until they found a victim to possess. Their victims were known to convulse violently, thrash about, bleed from their eyes, and twist themselves into unnatural contorted shapes. Seras had just reminded Athena of every nightmare she had of those spectral monsters as a kid.
And her aura.
Her aura had assaulted Athena’s own with an echo of the pain she had been feeling.
She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t help. She was an awful rotten friend because she just couldn’t make herself reach out and help Seras.
She hated herself.
Bang! Bang! BANG!
Three heavy blows rained down on the metal door to the borrowed lab as the security and medical staff of the magic society burst through. Magic research wasn’t always a safe endeavor, especially when you concentrated so many experiments together in one campus. The security quickly secured the room and made sure there was no experiment going wild. At the same time the Healing staff leapt forward towards Seras without any pause, even after seeing the state she was in.
They cut her free of her ruined clothes and hooked a leather breathing mask to her face as they searched her for any signs of injury. When nothing besides the missing arm jumped out to them, they pulled her onto a metal board and threw a cloth over her before rushing out for the nearest temple of the Healer.
Two stayed behind and began to look Athena over, shining magical lights into her eyes and pressing a magical matrix reader into her skin.
Shakily she pointed to the arm still on the rolling table, “she’s, she’s going to need that.” Athena said shakily.
They glanced over to the arm and quirked their eyebrows simultaneously. They turned back to Athena, and the brown-haired Elf healer spoke to her in a kind and patient manner. “We’re going to need you to explain this from the beginning.”
