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At first, I focused upon keeping my balance and providing ranged support. Fortunately, Pendorian rail car roofs were flat rather than the convex of the rail cars in Robert’s memory, which made using them as a fighting platform feasible. What should not have been feasible was the presence of Daq R’mion wielding a weapon completely out of place on this rooftop, yet here I was.
Fortunately, my world left the era of fragile military technology behind long ago. If one of the creatures did close the distance with me, my Corporate Arsenal Mark IV Plasma Projector also functioned as a cudgel or short staff without fear of damage, despite its complex circuitry.
One of my wife’s many lessons on being human was that people experience fiction as an extra reality. They live in the stories they enjoy. Unfortunately, I never understood what she meant during my lifetime.
Fiction is a difficult concept for an enhanced human, who is wired so tightly to the physical universe. My wife believed that my inability to access that extra reality was the reason I could never enjoy the literary or displayed stories she enjoyed so much. I only knew that I valued a good text on power mechanics or transmitter field repair far more.
Robert, who also comes from a rational universe, somehow adjusted to this fantasy world far faster than I. He managed it even before his persona merged with Tiana. At first, his flexibility made little sense to me, until I realized that it was what my wife tried to teach me. To him, this was a reality which he had already encountered in fiction.
For me, it was simply irrational. For that reason, I carried the weapon that the Interplanetary Service issued me for reserve military duty at my permanent assignment. I have neither confidence in the magic of Pendor, nor skill in the primitive melee weapons that they use. Certainly, Robert never had such a skill either, but he, or rather she, acquired the luxury of Tiana’s training. Lacking his belief and her magic, I can only have confidence in a man-portable railgun sending forth bolts of phased plasma.
My effigy reproduces the physics of my world, down to reproducing functional electronics and mechanisms in my body and extending to the functions of this weapon. It hits targets with the force I expect, as if I fired it within my own reality rather than this fantasy, because I can trust it to work, and, as a result, my mind does not somehow disrupt it.
I do not understand that last part, but Fan Li assures me that my effigy must have my trust in order to function correctly under my command. In the end, I would be unable to take over another effigy or Tiana’s main body, because I still, despite all the evidence before me, cannot truly believe in it.
When I saw the ‘drac’ somehow parry my shot, turning it into a glancing blow, I prepared for close quarters combat, but Shindzha became the creature’s target rather than me. It did not reach her at first, though. The soldier who had stood guard beside her while she cast ranged attacks inserted himself before her while swinging his pike.
I don’t know how much intelligence these creatures had, despite their vaguely humanoid appearance. Perhaps they were like the Soleitsian warriors who my world battled before my birth, who had somewhat human shapes but only basic instincts to act as defenders and attackers for the more intelligent castes of their race. The Pendorian soldier accomplished his intent anyway. The ‘drac’ which easily disarmed him redirected its attack to him, attempting to either bite into or suck blood from his neck.
Faced with that gory scene, Shindzha dispensed with pretending to be a human mage, growing her claws and latching onto the creature to tear it away from her ally.
For my effigy, Fan Li cleverly disguised senses and communications which others felt as thoughts in the back of their minds as electronic inputs through my sensory and network connections. That’s how I received the shocked thoughts of the sage from the cultivation world as she learned of an ability that Shindzha had hidden even from her. Through Shindzha’s claws, one of the inexplicable energies of this world flowed into her ‘demon core’.
<She’s extracting Demonic mana from it!> Fan Li described the action in words. She had replaced Captain Sirth in the back of Shindzha’s mind when the sailor woman left her job of monitoring the hellspawn in order to join the fray.
With the soldier losing his balance, Shindzha couldn’t finish the job. She broke the creature’s neck and flung it away so she could catch him. I shot it as it fell from the train to make sure of the kill and it exploded into steam.
My main focus returned to attacking the beasts in the air, fewer now but still a threat, but I could spare some attention for the woman now next to me, who was lowering her former guard down to the roof surface. My tactical display showed an aura of field activity labeled ‘Dark Mana’ covering his wounds as she cast her magic to heal him.
She no longer had her guard, so I stepped closer while continuing my fire. Her eyes, now wide as she recognized how she might have outed herself, scanned around to see who noticed.
“Never mind that!” I barked at her. “The enemy is still attacking!”
“We have this!” Ryuu yelled from behind me. “Get the wounded off the roof!”
I gave a single curt nod and slung my weapon across my back. While I crouched down, I caught her eye and gestured for her to help. Not because I needed her help, but because Fan Li sent me a request to do so. She needed a moment of Shindzha’s undivided attention.
I grabbed his armpits, she had his legs, and we carried him together to the end of the car. Meanwhile, Fan Li interrogated her, while relaying the conversation to me.
<That attack, what was it? You appeared to be draining mana from the creature.>
<Mistress, I’m sorry for hiding it. I feared it would be too creepy…>
<Our incarnation in this world is a creature who drains the lifeblood from people. What were you thinking?>
I did my best not to laugh as we worked our way down the roof.
<Extra Demonic mana for use as a weapon is a precious resource, Mistress. So a stronger demon can drain a weaker demon of their mana as long as they can absorb it.>
<Demonic mana does not exist in the wild.> Fan Li mused as we labored. <It is manufactured when a demon draws in natural mana and metabolizes some of it into miasma to combine with the rest. Before you can afford to use any for attacks, you must store quite a lot. It makes sense for it to become a target of theft between demons.>
Neither of us were terribly familiar with negotiating Pendorian trains, but I had reached the end first, and climbed down the ladder while she held the soldier steady.
She looked at him with concern. “He may still die. My magic only repaired the wounds. I cannot replace the lost pneuma.”
She was oddly empathetic for a creature called a hellspawn. But Fan Li corrected my impression.
<A hellspawn is half human. Their human empathy might normally be buried, but Tiana’s Bond unearthed hers. She feels tremendous guilt over her old life, and great resolution to make up for it.>
I nodded as she helped over the edge into my arms. Meanwhile, Fan Li continued her interrogation.
<That drac was by no means a weakling. Dracs appear to be tremendously powerful creatures, possibly the demonic equivalent of dragonkin. Does that mean you are able to use your demon core to overpower them?>
<Yes, Mistress.>
“I’ve got him,” I told her. “You get back into action.”
Rather than obeying immediately, she gave me a puzzled stare.
“Are you…. also Mistress?” she finally asked.
I raised my eyebrows for a moment, then shrugged.
“I suppose that is the case. She lived some of her past lives as men. Don’t let it bother you.”
I’m sure one of the others would have given her a laugh and a wry smile, but that’s a bit too difficult for me. Rather than drag out the difficult exchange, I turned my attention to dragging the soldier through the door into the car, where worried onlookers, including the Lower Pendorian nobles Ansri and Tagit, observed him with alarm.
“He’s already healed, just suffering from blood loss,” I told them. “Have someone look after him”
I returned to a serious developing situation. Fewer than half the dracs remained, but Tiana and the fairies were pushed back until their battle was above the train rather than behind it. The long range attackers had switched to fending off the dragon while the close quarters combatants protected them from the remaining dracs. I took up a position back-to-back with Shindzha.
<Her Grace cannot use the same level of strength or magic in her effigy as in her natural body,> Fan Li explained. <If only this small one could acquire the resources to build a Soul Refinement stage effigy. Or even better, she is almost ready to handle a Golden Core stage.>
As went to my knee so that I could aim upward, I replied, <My wife would reply, “If only is a fool’s wish.”>
Her dry chuckle filled the voice channel. <Your wife was a sage in her own right.>
<I suspect so as well,> I admitted, as my wife was always the smarter one. <She was an AI psychoanalyst, after all.>
The creature’s wings were riddled with scratches from the attacking swords of Tiana, Serera and Sirth, but without significant damage. It was time to look for a different target. Targeting the beast’s underbelly, I squeezed the trigger. The burst of plasma blasted forth.
It let out an angry howl as my attack partially penetrated its defense, but it did not back away.
The battle against the dracs raged on around me. The ‘shrine maiden’, Laylin, cast an attack of ‘purification’ on one with her back to Ryuu, who was delivering a mana blast outward from the opposite side of the train. Bruna and Ilni similarly battled back-to-back, protecting their flank, while Princess Amana and Kottos also cast ranged attacks against the dragon. The fairy guards would certainly be engaging these creatures in the air, if they didn’t have their charge to protect, but their protection was worthwhile, as their defense left Amana free to pummel the dragon with her magic.
On the next car forward, Graham, Brigitte, Arken, Ceria, and Ceria’s fairy guards similarly arrayed themselves, and the Pendorian military brandished their magic weapons in the same way, but only Ceria and Arken were casting the ranged attacks. Dracs continuously flew in and dashed back, seeking to overwhelm them.
These dracs, although dwindling, were individually stronger on average than our side. Perhaps they qualified as what Tiana calls ‘Class A demons’. As such, even in reduced numbers they still threatened to overwhelm us. I decided to switch back to them as targets, and began repeat fire on them, while refusing to question why I was not running out of spare power packs. Mustn’t destabilize this replica I was wearing.
The addition of my firepower made a difference, as did the addition of Shindzha’s, whom Fan Li had counseled to also concentrate on the dracs. Although they were able to withstand multiple shots that would penetrate many inches of armor, they did fall in the end. Their invisible shields had a limit, and I found I could exceed it with multiple shots. After Shindzha and I subtracted two from the total, we reached parity as a whole, and after I defeated a third, we began to overpower them.
But Ilni cried out, “The dragon is getting closer!”
My inputs delivered confirmation. The beast was indeed nearly close enough to attack with its claws, although its breath attacks were still concentrating on the trio who were harrying it.
“My apologies, Sister!” Ilni suddenly cried out, and passed her hand across her face. “Everyone, avoid my eyes at all costs!”
She stared out at the nearest drac, and my tactical display recorded Dark mana, just as when Shindzha healed the soldier. The creature shuddered and screamed as it projected some sort of defense, but in the end, it dropped to the ground and was left behind.
It was clearly the attack of a gorgon, which in Robert’s memory was that of turning a creature to stone, although what I witnessed was more a paralysis attack, something like a nerve whip.
“I need to look that dragon in the eyes!” she yelled, almost a shriek. “Someone carry me up there!”
While I wondered whether it would work on a dragon, Shindzha chanted, “[Dark Wings!]”
<Shinzha, what are you doing?> Fan Li demanded. She had left our connection open, but I heard no response from the hellspawn as she leapt into the air.
I distinctly remember her being unable to fly without a flying beast, though? One more thing she concealed from us.
