Chapter 29: Battling Manipulators

The three manipulators following after Jaeger had done a good job. Whilst they were individually slower than him, they had still managed to track him over a sizeable distance and keep pace with him on account of the meandering path he took as his guiding voices seemed to have suddenly started considering not leading him to their source. This was very strange, but he didn't have too long to worry about it as he had finally decided that something needed to be done about his pursuers.

He was loathe to killing them, but it seemed hard to imagine that he could just make them give up after they had raced so far. Maybe he could just defeat them without killing them and leave them without enough energy to continue the chase. This did seem like it would be difficult, but he supposed that he may as well give it a go and, should it turn out to not be possible, he could start to run again. All he then would need to do would be to choose a place for their battle.

With the confirmed ability of one of them being the production of fully controllable chains, he thought that he would need quite a large and non-enclosed space to effectively dodge them and soon found one such area. It was an old farmer's field, ringed by woodlands and clearly abandoned because of the many weeds and newly emerging trees. This could cause an issue in that they would conceal any chains at his feet, making it easier for him to be ambushed from that direction, but he was tired of running, and there didn't seem to be anywhere better nearby.

Sitting on a rock by the clearing's edge, he waited for his opponents to arrive. Sure enough, only a few minutes later, they emerged from behind the trees still wearing their blue robes. Two men and a woman and Jaeger guessed that he already knew two of their abilities. The woman's was to produce the chains but, given how well they had been able to follow him, one of the men's was likely to be a tracking ability. That would be no help for them here. Hopeful, this meant that he was really entering into a two on one, not three on one, fight and he stood and strode forwards to meet them.

Stopping around halfway, their leader, the man whose ability was entirely unknown, called to him, "Did you really have to lead us on such a chase? If you just tell us what you're after, then maybe we wouldn't have to follow you."

Jaeger knew that this was a lie, as how could they possibly believe his word at face value? So he replied, and honestly too, "I don't know what I'm after right now, but you keep slowing me down, and so I'll just have to tire you out here so that you lose track of me later and can't get in my way again."

"Oh," he was told, "Well, then come and get us."

Jaeger was not quite that stupid. With at least one ability unknown, just charging in was a bit of a risk and their confidence was a bit strange. Surely they recognized him as a threat?

Deciding that it probably would turn out fine no matter what he did, he ran at them, picking the man on the left to go for as they had the suspected non-combat ability. Their leader jumped back as he did so, allowing the woman's chains to go flying after Jaeger, but he neatly raised his hands, solidified the area before them, and, using this method to immediately stop and change direction, he easily dodged them. As he did so, a new section of chain split off from the original to go flying straight after him.

The chains didn't have to be like a section of rope then, he thought, the manipulator could create new parts of them that weren't just linear. Again solidifying the area beyond his right arm that he held before himself, he sprinted along the left of this new bit of chain blocking it from coming after him. He then moved across the original length of chain using a similar method below his feet so that he could walk across thin, or in this case rather thick, air. This got him close enough to hit his target, and he attempted it now before stopping himself mid-strike.

He had underestimated them, he now knew, as the person standing before him, in fact none of them, had a proper aura. Making the decision to go forwards with the chains chasing him from behind, he pushed through the illusion just for it to disappear under his hands, revealing that the grassland - not an old field - was devoid of people but himself. Great, he groaned internally, I've really messed this one up, but that's what I get for not taking human manipulators seriously enough.

Turning around, trying to spot them, he barely had enough time to cover himself before the chains hit him, sending him skidding backwards. Not wanting to give them a reasonable chance to close around him, he jumped into the air and watched as they turned to dust before him. He was certain that those chains had been real, they had felt real, and that meant that the woman manipulator was close by. Perhaps this also meant that the enemy group's leader was the illusionist?

Scanning the area around himself, he thought he could make out their auras and, sure enough, they appeared there in what had previously been an empty bit of the sky. Wanting to buy himself some time with conversation he shouted over, "You realize that such basic tricks won't work, right?"

Rather than an attack, he got a reply, "They almost did." and it looked like his enemies were wanting to do some more talking.

That's when what his mistake had been hit him. They probably needed time to set up an illusion that was tailored to this environment, and he had been giving it to them by being willing to try and talk. That was just the problem with not being out to kill, he thought. They weren't living by the same restriction.

An army of red-clothed men appeared beneath him with skulls for heads and open sockets where their eyes should have been. The skeleton soldiers gathered and faced up towards him, gesturing violently with swords and shields. Knowing that he would have to attack at some point, he ran across the air towards the manipulators ignoring the baying men. They were not real anyway, and this time he was confident that the manipulators were based on their auras.

Chains shot up before him, blocking his path and expanding into the sky, they had moved faster than he had previously seen but before he could consider this, a new set of them split off from each original to chase after him. To dodge them, he removed the barrier at his feet to drop down into the horde. As he had expected, they were not real, and he could move through them as though they did not exist.

Suddenly, the iron links changed direction again to be shooting down towards him in a crescent moon pattern. His only two options then were to move back or forwards and, only wanting to tire his opponents out and drag out the fight, he moved back. When he did so, beneath the rapidly approaching chains, he only saw two of the manipulators.

Swoosh and boom came the noises from behind him as he twisted around, jumped into the sky and then used a barrier that he put at his feet to jump from the chains and move out of the danger as black smoke rose from the ground.

The explosion had been rather large, able to carve out a crater ten feet across and three feet deep in the ground. Standing at its centre was the missing male manipulator. This meant that he had jumped to conclusions. All three opponents were combat specialists.

Their leader created illusions to trick their foes, the woman created the chains to trap them and then this man blew them up. Their abilities were interesting, mediocre and boring, in that order, and, even with them working together, Jaeger knew that he could hold his own, which was perfect as he was also certain about being able to outlast them.

Dropping down into the middle of the illusionary soldiers, he ran at the person who tried to explode him, straight through some of the illusions themselves, and threw a punch at him. It was stopped by the palm of the man's hand and the two of them exchanged several blows like this, with Jaeger only hitting as hard as he thought he could without injuring his foe. When he launched yet another fist at his opponent, the man produced a ball-like structure between the fingers of the hand that he was moving to meet Jaeger's.

Recognizing that this would explode, Jaeger called off the attack to form another barrier in front of him and blocked the impact, which momentarily cut off his vision of what was in front of him. He could still see, with his aura, the chains that raced through the smoke taking his attention but these didn't concern him too much because of his own wall there. He also noticed how they were illusionary. However, other chains, from behind, snatched away at his left arm, tightly binding around it being very real.

This allowed the bomber to have another go at him, now that he couldn't move, but Jaeger calmly altered the slant of his shield so that the explosion was mostly directed at breaking the very chains that bound him.

Freed, Jaeger raced off back through the crowd of skeletons, promptly stopping at its edge and ignoring them as they clustered around him with blades raised up high. They then all disappeared, and a building appeared around him, obscuring the auras of what was behind it. Assuming that this meant they were trying to tie him up again, he marched forwards before a blast knocked him off his feet. He rolled and got back up again, right into the face of a giant lizard that bit at him and fazed right through him as it was merely an illusion. However, it was an illusion that hid another explosion-making pellet that detonated right by him.

Then another three chains appeared right before him. He could see that all three looked fake but the one on the left looked more like it could be real so he had to assume it as such. Therefore, to avoid it, he decided to jump through the other illusions.

This was another mistake. The middle one had been the real one; the illusionist had placed an illusion over the woman's real chains to make them look like a fake allowing it to twist around Jaeger as a whole. Next to him, one of the infantrymen that had now reappeared took a swing at him but was again ignored until the blade turned out to be real and was only stopped an inch from his skin.

What was that? Wondered Jaeger, he had accounted for all three of the manipulators, and none had been there! That was when the final illusion fell away, revealing that a battalion of actual Krinestadt soldiers had arrived with their commander strutting around the field on a brown stallion.

Not good. The situation was quickly spiralling out of control, and the restrictions that he was placing on himself were really holding him back. He felt anger rise within him at how these weaklings thought they had the upper hand, eying the smiles and grins bestowed upon the face of the normal infantry. Didn't they know better than to mess with manipulators? Right, he thought, I have two options, either to run or put them in their place, and they certainly were helping him reach a decision.

"What are you really here for?" demanded the manipulator's leader.

That would be the metaphorical final nails in their future coffins as Jaeger ripped open the chains that bound him. He then leapt towards the bomber manipulator, who tried to slow him with an explosion that he blocked and moved straight through. Obviously, he would be seen coming by virtue of his aura, but Jaeger was too quick and closed the distance in a mere moment allowing him to strike the man's jaw. The impact sent him flying, crashing through several ranks of soldiers, causing the others to flee, realizing that they had made a mistake in getting so close.

"That's enough." sounded a different voice, as clear as day, "Captain, pull your men back."

The infantrymen did not need to be told twice and retreated, casting nervous glances behind them as they hurried to do so.

The voice belonged to a tall and slim man dressed all in white, without a speck of mud. He had black hair which fell to his shoulders and blue eyes that seemed deeper than the ocean. His white cloak flapped out behind him as he walked forwards at a leisurely pace revealing a long and thin blade at his hip. The lull in the fighting, at this late arrival, gave the bomber time to rejoin his comrades.

"Sir!" the manipulators' leader complained but was ignored, and he clearly was not a fan of the newcomer. From how the three of them were standing, between Jaeger and the man in white, it looked as though they were caught between two enemies, and they were stood, practically back to back, ready for anything. Jaeger had not seen the man before, but his aura was bizarre, being black, as he had never seen a person with that colour before, and he did not know what it meant.

Regardless though, his attention had been sufficiently taken for him to wait and see what this person would do next, "If that man had been trying to kill you, you already would be dead." he stated, smiling nonchalantly.

As a result of his course and him not seeming to want to walk around the three of them, the original manipulators parted to let him pass. When he was three paces closer to Jaeger, they all fell dead, limbs separated, and necks deeply cut.

The man had not touched them. He had not even been particularly close to them, he had not moved his eyes to look at them, and he had never lost his smile. Not only this, but his aura had not even flickered. It was as though what he had just done, an action that Jaeger did not understand, was a simple gesture for him. Unsure if this meant that he should keep his distance, Jaeger shook any concerns away from himself, finally deciding that this person was worth being serious against and went to meet him.

"I've been waiting for you to arrive." he was told, as the man opened his arms wide as a friendly greeting.

Ignoring the corpses, Jaeger supposed that he would play along, "I did take a while to get here; you knew that I was coming?"

"Brother told me, and he also told me who the message was from."

"There's a single person? I've heard voices but never from anyone in particular."

"Well, then we have something in common, although I feel that your voices come from an actual place." and he stretched out an arm to shake Jaeger's hand, "Two others are being called, you know, but only you and the first one are here."

"So I'm in a race?" asked Jaeger, worried by the knowledge that he hadn't been particularly fast in moving to his destination.

"Don't worry, I don't think that the other one is rushing too much either; I was going to see them soon as well."

"So what are we going to do now? Fight maybe?" as he was excited for the chance.

Jaeger's question was ignored. Instead of answering, the newcomer went over to his side and put an arm around him, "You know, what happened to the earlier three ought to have happened to you by now, although it was unlikely to be so extreme."

"You have an ability then that only requires you to contact their aura to function?" Jaeger mused, understanding now that this meant his opponent wouldn't be any fun to spar with if their ability could not be used.

"Quite right."

"But then, doesn't an admittance of this make you vulnerable to me?"

"Not at all," said the man, and he walked off to get a few steps ahead, "You aren't going to attack me now, are you." he continued, smiling ruthlessly and refusing to look away as though he could see into Jaeger's mind. That was very odd, Jaeger thought. Normally people looked away from him, but here he was the one being compelled to do so whilst suspecting that this meant he was already under threat from the man's ability. "Anyway, I have a few jobs for you."

"You can't order me to do anything. I'm going after the voices; the sword if you're right."

"But I most definitely have the authority to." and he lifted a black stone from under his cape.