Chapter 222: Desperation

    December 3rd, 625

    Inside a chopper about 10 thousand feet in the air, I brought out the weapon I’d start our battle with.

    We’d be dropping into an active battle against 210 Hog Riders who were on the way to attack a battalion of our troops. That was several minutes ago, and they were likely locked in combat now.

    I was with the Snow Doves in a troop transport. It only had 30 seats but with a little overstuffing we made it work.

    Umara sat beside me as I fiddled with a new gun. After my advancement I was able to project deep into the 7th Star. I had no doubt that I had surpassed the power level that Maxwell expected me to have upon advancement. I was above average, even for his Call.

    So that meant I could outright skip some of the early weapons, getting to more of the good stuff. It seemed that the surface level weapons were from the early 21st century, while the latter weapons were a decade or two older.

    Weapons didn’t change too much after the 1980s, still being used well into the 2000s. The M240 was one such weapon and the one I had in my hand was the M240LWS

    Made to be lighter weight than a standard M240 and given a shortened barrel and frame, the M240LWS was perfect for me who needed some level of mobility while retaining a higher caliber and volume of fire. It was much more wieldy than the M60, could fire faster, and they used the same caliber. That meant I could continue to summon backpacks of ammo and feed chute the belts to the gun.

    On the helicopter, I first took off the barrel and fiddled with the gas regulator, upping the gas setting to 3 and thereby increasing the fire rate. I had yet to ever get a jam in any gun I summoned so I was going to take advantage of it and not worry about what an increased fire rate would do to the weapon.

    After that I reassembled everything, mounted the feed chute adapter, accessed the feed tray, laid down the belt, shut the cover, and slotted in the feed chute. After that I racked the receiver, placed it into open bolt configuration, and clicked the safety on.

    Now it was good to go.

    Umara commented after I was done.

    “That was complicated. The gun looks weird too.”

    “It’s a machine gun, but I almost forgot that you haven’t seen any of my new weapons since the Magisterium.”

    “No, I haven’t. The last ones I saw were what you used when we hunted together in the markets. The Tommy Gun, I believe.”

    “Hoho, well you’re in for a real surprise. That was two Authorities ago and these guns punch much harder and faster.”

    I said that while taking out a holo sight and mounting it to the rails. Once that was on I settled the weapon on my lap.

    Umara reached over and felt the body of the gun.

    “No more wood.”

    “Nope. Steel, titanium, maybe some polymer for the grip.”

    “What’s polymer?”

    “It’s almost like a plastic but that’s not technically accurate.”

    “What’s a plastic?”

    “A petroleum product, very versatile.”

    “What’s petroleum?”

    “It’s oil, but not the cooking oil you’re familiar with. A hydrocarbon specifically. A more well-known one is octane which is an alkane with the formula C8H18 that can be refined into gasoline among other cycloalkanes and aromatics.”

    “I recognized some of those words.”

    She chuckled at me, making me smile and shrug.

    “Sorry, I’ve been getting technical recently.”

    “I actually noticed. You seem different after your advancement. Something happen?”

    “It’s just a natural consequence of how enhanced my mind has become. I have an absolutely perfect memory now as well as a thinking speed several times faster than before. I’ve remembered absolutely everything I’ve ever seen, heard, and experienced throughout my entire life. There’s an unbelievable amount of information I have access to now. I may have to give you some more grimoires and improve the old ones.”

    “That’s... amazing. Don’t worry about my grimoires though. Let’s get through these battles first.”

    “Mm.”

    I nodded and waited, quickly getting closer to the battlefield.

    After some minutes, we arrived.

    The pilot called out, “Get ready to deploy!”

    I looked up at the knights in front holding shields. They’d be leaving first, everyone standing following them before those in seats finally got to leave.

    I turned back toward Feiden who sat at my other side, nudging him with my elbow.

    “Go for longevity. This won’t be the only battle tonight.”

    “Roger. Are you sure you don’t want me to stay near you? We can work in a team.”

    “I’m sure. Just worry about the Hog Riders. We need to wipe out as many as we can while we’re in the field.”

    “Dropping!”

    The pilot yelled, the helicopter landing and shaking with the impact. Then the ramp dropped, the knights charging out.

    “Move, move! Get to the front!”

    Nonnen charged out with them, launching himself toward the enemy as soon as he was clear of the helicopter. I stayed seated, adjusting the machine gun in my lap.

    Everyone in the seats came next, mostly warlocks who followed behind the knights. Me and Umara’s squad were last.

    I turned back toward the pilot.

    “Keep her close! This won’t take long!”

    “Roger!”

    I got a thumbs up, turning and running out.

    A few seconds after my boots hit the ground the helicopter went back up.

    Umara turned back to face me. I nodded to her.

    “I’ll be watching.”

    “So will I. I’ll see if you’re ready to join special operations,” She smiled at me cheekily.

    “Honey, you have no idea.”

    Too slow. Wasn’t he supposed to be the fast one?

    But emitting sweeping blades of vigor was wasteful. Did he just have to stab and slash faster?

    But he could bend space. He was the Apple, literally. It had become his nickname after that fateful epiphany.

    So, perhaps, if he managed to bend space to assist his attacks and kill faster, not just for the sake of traversal...

    He smiled, thinking he was onto something. If it could move him, it could move his spear. He just needed to refine his control over his Aura. He had never used it recklessly after almost killing himself with it. There was an abysmally steep learning curve and he was still ascending it.

    He continued to fight, manipulating his Aura to try and find that path.

    That’s when Umara’s voice came from behind though.

    “Where the hell is Tana?”

    Feiden glanced around, thinking that he hadn’t seen the girl since they exited the helicopter.

    He ended up glancing at John again, and that’s when he saw Tana there as well, following behind John as his barrel spit fire and reddened in the night.

    He pointed, “She’s with John!”

    Umara looked to where he pointed, seeing the girl and squinting her eyes to see a bit better. The strobing flashes from John’s gun made it easier to pick them out but she couldn’t see what exactly Tana was doing.

    She eventually shook her head.

    “Nevermind, just keep fighting.”

    Feiden didn’t question much and simply focused on refining himself.

    In the distance, Tana watched John run out of ammo. The next second he went invisible, completely vanishing from Tana’s senses.

    “No, you’re not actually gone...”

    She muttered. She knew this was a trick of the mind. John wasn’t gone. He wasn’t somehow removing his influence from the world. His body still affected the wind, affected the ground, reflected light. Nothing about him or his place on the ground was affected.

    It was her own mind. His Psyka and Aura were so abstract that her mind was incapable of making him out. Even if she did somehow realize his presence, picking him out would require her to decipher his influence on his surroundings, which seemed to be outright impossible. She’d have to overcome the complexity of his mind, and that was only something another summoner could do.

    In short, her mind was convincing itself that he wasn’t there simply because she couldn’t comprehend him.

    “What are you looking for?”

    He appeared next to her, hoisting a fresh pack of ammo.

    She looked at him. It was no wonder he so easily vanished and reappeared. His powers went so deep that he was effectively reaching into her mind and removing himself from her senses. So long as he was capable of it, nobody would be able to stop him from coming and going like a ghost. At that point, his only weakness would be wide area attacks that would simply obliterate the ground he was standing on and kill him anyway, visible or not.

    She responded even as he started firing again, walking with him, knowing her words would reach him just fine.

    “There are two ways to vanish from the world. Tricks of the mind, and removing your effect on the world. I don’t have your powers for the former, and the latter seems impossible. I’m a little desperate so I want to ask you about what path I should take.”

    He didn’t comment, even though she was half expecting him to say that she shouldn’t be so desperate. He may have before but ever since they arrived he seemed to be a bit colder, even to Umara. Maybe it was just the battle, but she had a feeling it was the advancement. Something changed in that mind of his.

    “There are three ways to remove your influence on the world. The first is by removing yourself physically, which is impossible. The second is by letting the world pass through you as if you weren’t there, which isn’t possible as far as I know even with existing magitech. The third is by bending the world around you. You must keep in mind that invisibility comes in different forms. You must not produce sound and must not interfere with sound. You must not absorb or radiate light, must not radiate heat, must not touch the air, must not crush the ground under your feet. It seems impossible and under normal circumstances I’d say it is. But perhaps you’d be able to find a way to do it.”

    “But how do you bend light around you?”

    She asked as he stopped firing, the last Hog Rider dead. The rest of the Snow Doves were cleaning up with the excising help of 5th squadron.

    John kept his gun out but focused on her, the battle over in his mind.

    “Gravity is the only way to do that. Feiden bends space with gravity to increase his speed. But you can refract light in different ways to achieve a similar effect, as glass or water does. But that is only one sense. You don’t know how to dampen sound, how to eliminate your effect on physical substances like the ground or air, how to trick the mind like I do.”

    “No, I don’t,” She readily agreed, feeling a sharp pang in her chest, “Compared to you guys I’ve been pulling myself different ways. I’ve managed to learn how to slip through air with minimal resistance, but it’s not great. I’ve done some mental trickery like you, but it’s not great. I’ve tried making myself invisible but I’ve almost entirely failed, using mental trickery as a crutch since it was the only thing I learned to do properly. But none of it’s great. I’m ahead for now but I won’t be able to keep up like this.”

    John didn’t respond, a silent agreement, Tana figured. Then he spoke.

    “Yeah, you won’t.”

    She felt her emotions well up in her eyes. Brutally honest. She knew she needed it, wanted it, but hearing it still hurt.

    She pushed down those tears and swallowed before speaking again, lest she choke on her words.

    “Do you have any advice?”

    He was silent for a little while, the battle ending around them, the Snow Doves cleaning up as the helicopters came back down to pick them up.

    When the calls to muster came, he finally spoke.

    “You’re gonna have to do something big. I don’t know how deep you are in your Auric development but changing course is gonna be fucking hard. You’ve always been a hard worker but I don’t think that’s something hard work is able to fix. So, bare bones logic would dictate that if something’s not working for you, and you can’t change it, you need to get rid of it.”

    Tana looked up at him, not particularly thinking about his words, just nodding and waiting for the actual advice.

    But when he simply looked back at her, it clicked in her head. That was the advice.

    “Get rid of my Aura?”

    “Don’t ask me how I know, but I’m telling you now that it’s possible. I don’t know if it’s possible while still maintaining your Vigor or powers, but it is. And theoretically, in a world where everyone has Aura, where it’s become an extension of their beings, someone without Aura would have a massive advantage. Sure, a developed Aura can be a potent weapon and a tool of prediction in battle. But if you can’t reach that height then it only becomes a weakness, especially in front of someone better. So get rid of it.”

    “...How?”

    She asked, knowing the answer.

    John chuckled, starting to walk back to the helicopter. She followed.

    “I don’t fucking know, otherwise that probably would’ve been the first thing I would’ve done.”

    “...Well, if that doesn’t work, what should I do?”

    “Figure out how to specialize yourself, quickly, and take it to an extreme. Otherwise, I’m not sure, Tana. I’ve got a friend who knows how to become invisible. I can probably call in a favor and have him teach you, as well as an idiot can, but that’s about the extent of how much I can help. Say the word and I’ll get you on a plane back to the Captial to meet him. But until then, you’ll need to get creative.”

    “Right. Thank you.”

    “Of course. I’m only sorry I can’t help more.”

    He turned his head and gave her a smile. She returned it as they boarded the helicopter.

    Soon enough they were on their way to the next battlefield. Another battalion was getting hammered, this one worse than the one they just saved.

    Tana sat down and pondered the whole way, desperation filling her mind.