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257 - A Warm Welcome [Sturmblitz]
🕑 Added 2023-06-24 11:06:30 +0000 UTCA welcome party awaited them in front of the gate, made up of members of the Newman Sect as well as the city’s tankmen, both in Third-model and Second-model suits. It wasn’t the whole sect, or even a substantial portion of it, just two handfuls of people, including Mata Gano, Vaceran, Joseph the Mercenary, Fendas Pohlem, Nesgon the Immortal Groundskeeper, even Halxian Estoras. The Estoras Heir had grown nearly ten centimeters and bulked up a fair bit since the Blue Moon War, gradually approaching his father’s likeness in appearance while mostly retaining his vaguely androgynous appearance. The reason he stood out to Zel’s eyes was twofold: Firstly, the similarity and contrast between him and Victor, and secondly, the fact he managed to meet her gaze from hundreds of meters away with that insufferable, smugly challenging look. A number of other non-members were present as well, such as Ezaryl Krishorn. In fact, Ezaryl and Sigmund stood to either side of an unidentified figure, who had, for some reason, placed itself at the forefront.
It was a hulking beast of metal and bleeding-edge essentech, two-and-a-half meters tall, its right arm plated in black-gleaming damasite alloys, glyph-etched phials at the elbow on full display. The towering form strode forward to approach them, carrying upon its shoulder a two-meter curved blade of cold-iron; not a kriegsmesser, a war-knife in the traditional sense, but a grossemesser, a great-knife, its bulk laden by gold-mended cracks end to end. The armor’s torso was designed to invoke the image of a sneering demon, contrasting the helmet’s expressionless countenance. The helmet’s sole standout feature was a trio of glowing spheres as eyes of a sort. A bulky belt occupied its waist. It was an engine-like tangle of glyph-glass tubes armored in the same black plating as the armor’s right arm, with two slots for miniature storage tablets, two slots for phials, and strange buttons on both sides. Most stand-out of all was a revving handle just outright copied from Sturmgandr blueprints, sticking out of the belt’s left side.
The mechanized monster was halfway between an Iron Rider suit and a Third-generation one-man tank.
“Took you long enough to get back, and with… Two new disciples? We only heard of one!”
The voice of none other than Makhus echoed forth, amplified and distorted by the armor.
“She was a last-minute pickup, and there’s still another one or two coming in on their own. Looks like you’ve been busy, too. Is that the final version of Acala Nova, or just another prototype?”
There was barely anything left of the minimalist design that embodied the Iron Rider philosophy. After all, Makhus did not practice the battle-arts of the Iron Brotherhood, and thus had no need for the design specifications that best suited those arts.
“You’re one to talk about being busy. Face open.”
His helmet unsealed, its faceplate slowly crawling up to the top of his head, revealing the swordsman-alchemist’s ever-familiar visage. A handsome face with sharp eyes plastered over by a confident grin, slicked-back black hair. His perpetual five o’ clock shadow had given rise to a light mustache in two distinct halves. No bloodshot eyes, no daytime dust yellowness around his nostrils, and only a slight neurotic twitchiness to the way he looked around. Makhus had done well for himself, doubtlessly in no small part thanks to the fact he had easy access to alchemicals that made his frequent manic, sleepless episodes perfectly viable.
His aura was sharp as a razor.
“Just a prototype, but it can pull combat output long enough for a single-strike spar. Close face.”
Dropping into an abnormally wide-legged stance, Makhus grasped the revving handle of his belt.
“Iron Philosophy: Opus Two…”
“You want to do this here?”
“Where else? No problems with collateral, the ankhezian road will just regenerate.”
“Don’t complain if I break your sword.”
He glanced up at the crack-laden mosaic of a blade resting on his shoulder.
“I do like this one… But what the hell, this is a special occasion! Let’s see how badly you’ve outpaced me. I need to know how hard to push the re-tuning before I can consider this version viable. Just don’t bust up my suit too bad, alright? No upper-back shots.”
Zel considered for a moment. Just a moment. Then, she got off her sturmgandr. She supposed this was as good a first time to reveal Carnifex Fulguris to the sect as any. Already, she felt curious gazes and heard hushed questions as to where the blade was, what was that weird tattoo on her back, what had happened to her arm, and so on and so on.
“Butcher!”
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Makhus held no expectation of being able to match Zel’s level. Perhaps right before she had left, but now, there was no way. He knew, and she knew, and she knew that he knew that she knew. In short, he trusted her to pull her strike, or whatever completely unreasonable thing she was going to do. His own intention in initiating this face-off, however, was very much testing out both his own and Acala Nova’s capabilities. If he could see it coming and react, he would be content to go ahead with aiming for these performance metrics as the baseline for the next iteration. In the current version, Acala Nova could barely sustain this output for ten, maybe twenty seconds, and the latter would without a doubt go right past strain and into damaging the parts.
He’d heard of Carnifex Fulguris, of course; accounts of the so-called Hulson-Ramdall Blood Feud and the events surrounding it had reached Willowdale a while ago. But mere descriptions of the weapon, let alone ones distinctly lacking in any substantial use, weren’t exactly enough to get a good mental image of it.
A sword? Makhus could imagine a sword, even if it was a complex or unorthodox design. The same went for axes, and guns, and nearly any reasonable weapon, including great-cleaver variants. But he just couldn’t quite picture what in the everliving hell Carnifex Fulguris was supposed to look like in motion; neither the blade, nor the supposedly humanoid form it took.
