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363 - "Daywolf" [Sturmblitz]
🕑 Added 2024-07-08 00:22:04 +0000 UTCOne by one, the swarm of servitors converged on Victor. Twisting, rearranging, disassembling and reassembling, they gradually formed a lanky, awkward framework, more hollow than not. Numerous holes hinted at an elevated degree of mobility than Dawnwolf — it even had full-sized vertical thrust vents on the front of its calves, protected by downward-jutting, articulated knee-plates. Its faceplate was identical to Dawnwolf, but the helmet fully enclosed Victor’s head. It towered over Zelsys, but not in the manner of Zero or Acala Nova, which was its closest equivalent in build — it wasn’t nearly as stable as either of those machines, and Zel wagered a strong wind could throw it off-balance as it was now. A dozen fleshy, snake-like servitors of varying size slithered into the gaps, attaching themselves inside the suit with squelching sounds. Lastly, a centipede-like servitor attached to the back, forming a curious, tentacle-like appendage with its legs and fangs as grippers. An open mouth waited on the unit’s waist, with segmented plates mimicking the rough appearance of a belt. Victor brought out a stone smoldering with bonefire and fed it to the suit.
“Ignition!”
Black flame flowed through the armour, and the numinous force that swirled about Victor intensified greatly, such that it swept up a false wind. Pale-red aura coursed between the armour’s plates and tinged the silver conduits of the Oculus’ shaft.
Victor wasn’t done yet, making a few tentative movements within the armour before taking up another stance. Grasping the Oculus with both hands, he rattled its rings and invoked: “Sacred onbashira, mighty spear of Bishamonten, skewer all demons and cleanse the world of wretchedness!”
With another surge of numinous force, a spectral outline of the staff-spear appeared. It was significantly larger than its true size, but proportional to the prototype — and then, when Victor once more rattled its rings by raising it up, the real Oculus followed. Somehow, by a mechanism Zel didn’t understand, the implement simply increased in size. It grew nearly to match its outline, only to stop, and for the red glow within its silver conduits to die.
Victor’s shoulders slumped with a groan of frustration.
“Better than last time, at least,” he uttered. At last, he approached Zelsys. The prototype’s steps were unlike Acala Nova’s — it moved more like a stilt-legged theatre costume.
“I don’t recall seeing that enlargement technique in the Itrian Scroll. Where is it from?” Zel asked.
“Er… Bishamonten,” Victor replied. “Scrolls like mine only contained arts usable by any shrine guardian, while the Eight Guardian Deities directly taught methods of harnessing their power to those they “deemed worthy”, in Bishamonten’s own words. I have yet to complete this technique even once, so I don’t even know its name yet.”
Zel saw something there, in the flow of scarlet aura and the motion of his gestures and their lack of conviction — a flaw so glaringly-obvious even she could see it at a glance. She kept it to herself, meaning to bring it up later.
“It doesn’t matter, as long as you’re making progress — it might just need a few adjustments to make it fit you,” Zel deflected, continuing in the struggle to keep her disciple mentally on-track. “Right now, I need you to show me the prototype’s mobility. Do you have a working name? Something like Daywolf?”
“Daywolf has been the working name, yes,” Victor nodded. “I cannot help but feel it doesn’t quite work, but I can solve that later. For now, I will start with on-foot mobility and then transition into aerial mobility. The muscle tissue I am using is refined Hellfire Kite, thus the performance will be at best slightly better than Dawnwolf with significantly more muscle mass.”
“Enough talking. Just show me,” Zel repeated herself.
And so he did. Daywolf’s awkwardness quickly vanished once it got up to speed, and its long legs and somewhat disproportionate build allowed it to sprint blisteringly quickly. The turn radius could use some work, given how wide it was even with assistance from bonefire maneuvering jets. In the air, its mobility was at its peak — even this unfinished prototype took to the air far more readily than Dawnwolf. From swimming through mid air with the appearance of weightlessness, to roaring from one end of the grove to the other, Daywolf’s air maneuverability was its best-developed aspect.
“Alright, I’ve seen enough. Hit me. As hard as you can, no enhancements, muscle strength only — you know how this goes.”
At that instruction, Victor landed in front of Zelsys. He stepped back a bit, then drew back his fist, widening his stance and twisting his waist. It was clear he had at least thought far enough ahead to account for Daywolf’s proportions.
Zel crossed her arms in a simple guard, digging her heels in so as to take as much of the impact as possible. From the vibrations that traveled up her right arm, she immediately knew it was roughly equivalent to a “Mons Ominosus” rocket-assisted punch from Dawnwolf, but not one fuelled by an extraordinary amount of power.
“Impressive. Efficiency-wise, how long do you think Daywolf can operate under combat output? At least a comparison to Dawnwolf,” she asked.
Opening the suit’s faceplate, Victor immediately answered, and spun it off into yet another defeatism-spiral: “Much shorter. I have yet to optimize it for efficiency, and the Wildfire Kite muscle obeys, but puts up far greater resistance than material from Teutobochus. I’ve considered simply waiting until Teutobochus arrives. I’ve come to the conclusion that Koschei’s estimate for the titan’s speed of self-repair in Borea’s environment was overly optimistic, but the maximum time still places its latest arrival near the end of this year, and realistically, it will likely arrive not long after the Borean caravan…”
“Nonsense,” Zelsys disregarded the very thought. She reached out with four Thundergods and dragged Victor into a slouching posture, forcing him to lean on her shoulders lest he topple over. With her bare hands, she forced Daywolf’s mask open and stared into those weird, weird cruciform pupils of his. “You will rage against your own limitations here and now, to the fullest extent of your ability, and I will see to it that you are able to do so. If the time of Teutobochus’ arrival comes and you have yet to bend Eisengeist’s flesh to your will, then you may consider sourcing more tissue from Teutobochus as a temporary, intermediary solution. No earlier. Waiting for a problem to solve itself sounds easy. You become complacent. Complacency is death. Complacency is how centuries-old cultivators manage to run out their clock and die in a cave somewhere. Daywolf can run at low output for some time, yes?”
“A few hours, just like Dawnwolf. The issues arise with combat output levels.”
“Good! Then just keep it on and focus on keeping it running as efficiently as possible.”
