Chapter 6: Resistance
Optional Music to Accompany the Chapter:
Philipp Beesen - Shadow Warrior | Epic Uplifting Orchestral Music
https://youtu.be/_2FlmNEIhp4
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Mid Morning - Early Summer : Year 0 | Month 0 : Central Virginia
World: Earth | Rank: 6 Population: ~1,895,413,000
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- Corporal, Diana Hale ~
-Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!- Curses rang through my mind as I held the throttle down with every speck of strength I could muster—the unending tremors never stopping as the mind bending terror lingered.
In that instant.. the moment 'it' appeared.. every speck of lingering composure I had ejected itself from my mind.
After wrangling in my nerves thanks to the screams of command, I managed to fire off a nuclear warhead and keep the laser on target until impact.
But despite my efforts, it didn't even look at me, eating fifty megatons like it was a hand grenade before darting off so fast even my sensors couldn't even track it.
That 'thing' wasn't a monster Earth was meant to face—a monster that could only be dealt with using orbital weapons like the Great Wyvern of Japan, a 150-meter-tall behemoth that would get its neck wrung like a chicken by the 'thing' I just watched fall from the gate. -But I doubt orbital weapons will be able to hit it...-
Momentarily looking over my should to see the horizon-spanning wall of smoke from the fires that spread beneath the creatures attack, I felt my chest tighten before turning away and closing my eyes to pray.
Command was still on the line, but I didn't care... After watching that monster not just take the blast from the nuke head on, but completely ignore it, the voices of command had faded to static.
Through the waterfall of adrenaline in my mind, every sense but my vision had blurred into nothingness, my only, completely instinctual thought being to get as far away as possible.
But.. the silence that settled in the cockpit after a moment only made my mind descend into madness.
Replaying the deaths of my closest friends in my mind, I felt my stomach twist to the extent I had to pull my helmet off to stick a tube in my mouth and vomit as tears streamed down my face.
If I was going to die, I didn't want to see it coming... So I sat, not even looking over the lip of the cockpit, praying to whatever god could hear my cries.
Until eventually.. the incessant tugging of time stretched minutes into an eternity, and the heavenly voice of the system met my ears. *Ding!* "Excessive stress detected. Activating skill: Level Headed."
Feeling the tremors fade with an unnatural, almost mechanical ease, my eyes shot open and my mind clamored together its first thought. -T..he system.. is back..?- Looking up at the panel as the horrific tightness in my chest and blinding fog in my mind settled, my eyes drifted to the array of dials and buttons with a mix of confusion and hope. -I'm.. alive..?- It almost felt like I had just woken up—shaking off my lingering unease like it was all a nightmare.
I knew it was wrong. I knew it was temporary.
But like hell I was going to let myself break out of that illusory facade without doing anything.
*Pat-Click* Throwing my helmet back on with the mechanically suppressed panic, the HUD returned with a flicker, replacing the wall of dials and buttons in the cockpit with the view of the distant, arcing horizon. -It's.. not chasing me..?-
Momentarily recalling a memory of the monster firing off another beam as I ran away, my mind accelerated. -Did.. Eli not die..? Was it running over to finish him off or...- The image of the woman we were meant to rescue instantly popped into my head. -Was that thing here because of her?-
Finally settling into a more stable mental state thanks to the system, I started taking control back from the emergency autopilot, reactivating the scanners and map before finding myself all the way in Richmond, with my jet blaring warnings at me.
*Beep* "No Fuel Remaining. Please find a place to land." *Beep* "No Fuel Remaining. Please find a place to land."
"Hooh..." Quickly letting out one final breath, I looked down at the huge city, finding a series of icons in my HUD showing all the nearby runways before settling on the farthest one, deepest into the city. -I need a long runway since Im out of fuel... Sandston it is...- "Cardinal, connect me to Sandston ATC."
"Attempting connection to Locale, Sandston—Richmond International Airport." *Beep* "System Communications Artifact at Locale not functioning properly. Attempting other methods."
Watching it cycle through various connection types in the HUD, I held my breath until finally, it stopped on 'Radio'.
"Connection established." *Beep*
Hearing it connect, I didn't waste a second more. "Sandston ATC, this is Corporal Diana Hale. I am out of fuel just south of Petersburg and need a long runway ASAP."
Hearing nothing more than empty static accompanied by a deep hum, I sat tense.
Until finally.
*Crackle* "Y-yes, this is Richmond ATC! Is this the military?" Breaking through in a panic, a young man spoke with with a horiffyingly hopeful tone.
Something that felt.. truly off... "T-This is Corporal Diana Hale. I am out of fuel just south of Petersburg and need a clear runway."
An immediate silence instantly filled the comms.
-Shit, did something happen here too..?- Deciding I didn't have the time to waste, I stiffened my tone. "We are aware of the situation, but nearly all our jets are disabled. It will take some time for help to arrive. For now, I need a runway cleared!"
There was another immediate pause before the young man finally spoke. "W-what vehicle are you in?"
"A Cardinal. I need a mid-size runway or larger because I dont have the fuel for reverse thrust to slow down." As I slowly banked to the side, I used my cameras to zoom in on where the runways were and immediately saw two airships the size of buildings hogging them.. one of which trailing smoke. -Shit...-
"Th-that will be difficult! Our larger runways are occupied by international airships. One of which had a malfunction on landing. It will take at least twenty minutes to clear-"
"Make it five!" I blurted, "I'm out of fuel; I can't stay airborne that long."
"T-that will be diffi-"
*BEEP* The young man's voice was immediately cut off.
But.. it wasn't a connection issue...
Staring into a blood red panel before me, the comms fell completely silent... We, like everyone else within hundreds of kilometers, found ourselves reading the same thing.. our eyes tracing the panel line by line.
'Regional Quest Created. A foreign, Leviathan Class entity has invaded the region...
Kill it.'
The rewards tagged to the quest were unfathomable.. a divine wish—a chance to be granted nearly anything you desire by a god—and hundreds of levels.
A set of rewards that could ignite the greed inside of even the most humble inside the system...
At least that was until they registered what the quest was...
To kill a Leviathan Class creature... A being no longer bound to the limits of physics thanks to the enormous amount of mana contained within them... A creature closer to a god than a mortal.
-W..what kind of bullshit is this..?-
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- Evren Lestir ~
*tap-tap-tap-tap-WOOSH* *Ding!* "Hm?" Hearing my system ping me with a notification out of the blue, I quickly opened it, keeping my eyes on where I was running through its transparency:
'Update and Repair Complete.
All remaining restrictions have been removed.
Redistributing System Resources...'
-Ah, it was still updating?- Swiping it away without much more thought, I clenched my fist a few times to see if the 'restrictions' being removed changed anything, but I didn't exactly feel any different. -Though, maybe they were just restrictions to my mana...- After all, while I could recognize it as the energy exuding from my body, that was about the limit for my ability to sense it. -I'd be surprised if I couldn't learn something from a childrens book on mana...-
But that was part of what made me excited.
For the first time since I was still exploring worlds with sentient life, I actually had the desire to learn something.
I just needed to find a teacher.
Looking back up at the horizon, I shifted my focus back to the image my exuding mana painted in my mind in hopes of bringing it more into focus before noticing a gap appearing between the trees down the road.
The sign of a clearing. -Looks like I'm getting close...-
Speeding up considerably, the opening in the trees widened faster and faster until the sight of the short, cut green grass greeted me with the top of a colossal grey structure. -What is that?-
Speeding up even more, the structure rose higher and higher over the horizon, exposing rows of black, cannon-like installments organized across its exterior before finally, the bottom of the structure came into view, and I found myself bound with a sense of surprise. -Woah...-
It was a wall stretching almost 250 meters into the air, so wide it connected opposite horizons, and so coated in weapons it looked more similar to the side of a loaded galleon than a castle wall, with a huge metal gate at its center, where the rails met it. -Looks like Earth's infrastructure is doing just fine...-
But, that of course assumed it was being maintained.. and as if to confirm my skepticism, after entering the clearing surrounding the wall, the distant sound of blaring alarms met my ears. "Hah..." I couldn't help but scoff.
However, that was only before I caught a blue pulse out of the corner of my eye.
*ZIP-CRRRRACK* Barely managing to react in time, a large, glowing metal dart zipped over my shoulder so fast it took me aback. -What the?!- *CRACKLE* Snapping my gaze to the wall as the dart slammed into the concrete behind me, I found one of the countless black installments faintly glowing orange with heat.
But before another instant could pass, another electric glow zip down the barrel of a different gun. *ZIP-CRAAACK* Though this time, it was a little easier to dodge.
*CRACKLE* -Dang, these things have more power than I thought...- Quickly getting a grasp of its speed, I idly looked back at the plume of concrete dust the impact kicked up before turning around as another one was sent my way.
*ZIP-PAT* But despite catching it with ease, my grip instantaneously liquified the dart, leaving it to morph and splatter against my hand like a superheated water droplet. -Shit I keep forgetting how weak the materials of this world are...-
Realizing I wasn't going to be able to catch one without it splattering, I quickly dodged the following barrage of darts before leaping into the air, shattering the now-damaged road and zipping all the way to the top of the wall before clipping the edge with my heel to come to a hasty stop. *CRACKLE*
But the sight that met me wasn't anything I could have guessed.
The wall was dozens of meters thick, more than thick enough to hide the city beneath its far edge, but even if it didn't my eyes wouldn't have even recognized it.. for my focus was honed onto something else...
A gun.
Stretching far over the inside edge of the walls was a cannon resembling those on the outside of the wall, but upscaled to a point where each rail was nearly a kilometer long, stretching through the clouds like a spear humanity tried to pierce the heavens with. It's side reading, 'FX-8620 Tomahawk -|- Eversor Company Orbital Railgun'
But.. it wasn't laying still... It was moving... Turning and lowering.
Straight.. toward.. me.
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