Special Episode! - 10 - Arashi Akihiro (part 1)

The little fan

“Heeello Lady and Gentleman! Today in Special Episode, we’ll be discussing quite the hot topic! As Binding Fate become more and more popular, so does the top players, and we’ve received a lot of request from you all to do thorough search and explanations on those top player. But enough chit-chat, let’s take a look at the person we’ll discuss today. And mind you, those footages we are using are published for the very first time! Enjoy yourself!”

“Mom? Mooooom! What are you doing? It has begun!” Asked a boy from the couch.

“I’m here I’m here, I just finished making popcorn!” Answered the mom, rushing in the living room. “So, who are they talking about today?” She asked, sitting on the couch next to her 10-years-old son.

“They didn’t say, we need to guess… it has started!” Exclaimed the little one joyfully.

The Holo-projection had turned black and soft music was playing. Eyes riveted on the picture, the little boy wasn’t making a noise. Suddenly, a tiny spark appeared in the centre of the darkness, pulsating like a heart. Each pulsation made it bigger as the soundtrack was growing in rhythm. The purple spark became a light, solidifying into a stone as bright as the day’s orb. All around it, on a metallic frame, its energy started flowing in strange symmetrical shapes and the faint sound of battle started echoing all around. Among the noise, voices started to stand out, strange combat chatter just like in those war movies. Light of explosions and roars of beasts became more prominent.

“S-9 Section compromised! S-9 section comp-AARGH!”

The camera seemingly zoomed out and the son-and-mom duo could finally see the entirety of what they were looking at. The bright stone was embedded in a flying metallic armour, long shiny wings extending left and right from it.

“It’s Araki!” Exclaimed the little one once more, his eyes glimmering with pure wonder.

The flying armour took a sharp turn and started rising in the sky, stopping over the S-9 Section of the wall. Wave after waves of abject creatures were ramming into the steel rampart, burned, electrocuted and dissolved by the numerous traps seemingly sowed everywhere. On the rampart itself, numerous soldiers could be seen, unleashing devastating spells or using the weapons laid here and there to bring death to the grotesque tide.

“It’s a Tarasque.” Said a parchment-like voice deeply. “You don’t have the equipment to take it down, keep it distracted, I’m launching the mountain-slayer to your position.” He added.

“Understood.” Answered the person in the armour in a metallic voice. The monster was nearly fifteen meters high, with barbed bit everywhere and gigantic steel tusk that were for now deeply penetrating the rampart, creating a still enlarging breach.

“Do move fast, please, I won’t be able to keep fighting it with the wave-lightning.” It said before diving straight toward the monster’s head, a long lightning-covered spear in its large hands. Sensing something amiss, the Tarask tried to pull its tusk off but the lightning-bolt-like armour crashed on its head way to quickly. Thunder echoed on the steel wall and lightning arcs flew everywhere as the spear dug in the monster’s chitinous armour

“Tchh, not even a meter deep. How do you want me to fight a giant with stuff made to kill waves of tiny creatures!” It complained, pulling back its spear and flapping its wing powerfully to rise in the sky once more.

“Stop bitching and keep fighting, ten seconds before delivery!” Said the man, probably dealing with another threat.

“Copy!” It turned its gaze back on the giant monster. “Twelve Thunder!” Its metal wings suddenly split into twelve long metallic feathers, creating a formation around the Tarask. Without the support of its wing, the armour started falling but it violently thrust its spear toward the first feather. Just like that, the whole area was bathed in a blue unruly light, as the armour had morphed into lightning itself. In less than two seconds, the armour-become-lightning jumped several times between the twelve metallic feathers, letting long burn wounds on the monster’s organic armour. Enraged, the Tarask flailed everywhere as numerous opening all over it started gushing a seemingly caustic fluid. The metal armour was knocked back on the sky, toward the rampart, covered by the green corrosive substance. “Discharge!” Screamed the one in the armour.”Clac-clac-clac…!” Numerous banging sound echoed all around as the whole armour was falling into pieces, dismantled by power rivets. In the metallic rain, a female body could be seen, covered by a black tight suit. She started falling with the former pieces of her armour scattered all around in the air, the only thing left from it a harness made of some kind of black metal. “Two seconds!” She looked at the Tarask, the monstrosity’s gaze fixed on her.

“Oh no!” Exclaimed the child in front of this scene. He hadn’t touched the popcorn his mother had made, nor, in fact, had the mother herself, the two of them too focused on the action.

The Tarask opened new holes on the top of its head and, powerfully, spat a long pillar of corrosive liquid. “One second!” Araki twisted her hands and the falling pieces of armour suddenly jumped in front of her, creating a shield that deflected the attack, but only for a second… “PANG!” echoed once more, creating a shockwave around her. The green pillar pierced the shield but, as soon as it did it, it froze in place, starting to crumble under its own weight quickly. A chilly aura started eating the space everywhere but on the rampart, tinier creature freezing in less than five seconds. And, over the battlefield, a new armour was hanging in the air. Nearly twice as big as the previous one, its four wings were constantly emitting an unnatural cold. The blue stone embedded in the chestplate was shining like the sun, working full time to sustain the whole magical suit with its chilly heartbeat. “Finally!” Araki exclaimed, arming her left arm pile-bunker. “However, I don’t think corrosion was a sound choice to fight this thing.”

“I didn’t know it was corrosive too before you started attacking it, and I had already launched the slayer at that time! I’ll prep another element once you’ve fought it a bit more, I need more time to calculate countermeasure.”

“I’ll try to take it down in the meantime then, but let’s not overdo it. Level 155 isn’t something I can just shrug.”

“I know.”

On her back, in the middle of the wings’ attach system, another stone was shining in a toxic-green light. Araki started dogging the Tarask’s ranged attack, her control over her wings quite exquisite. “Let’s slow it down at least.” She dove from the right with a sharp turn, her body taking some G’s as the inertial dampener wasn’t made to deal with such manoeuvre, not with a slayer-class armour. She crashed on the side of the monster, too quick for it to do anything more than moving one or two meters away, and the tip of the pile-bunker pierced its chitinous armour. Feeling the flesh under her weapon, Araki mercilessly pulled the trigger. “BANG!” She was knocked back, destroying the now ice-covered monsters her wings had frozen during her dive, the ice load penetrating deeply into the Tarask’s body. The monster screamed its pain as frost was starting to conquer its inner organs, bypassing all its protection. It tried to counter-attack but Araki dodged it easily, as the monster was already heavily slowed down by the pike in its side. “It seems that ice was a good choice, it may be vulnerable to it.”

“Indeed! I’ve finished superficial analysis, launching another package to switch your armour.”

“Understood.” She took to the skies once more, taking support on the ground to jump. She could finally see how much damages her armour’s ice was doing. “Brother, I think that the ice’s weakness of the Tarask isn’t limited at it, the tinier ones are also heavily impacted.”

“Frost, of course. I have lightning, fire and acid but of course they’re weak to ice. Note to self: ask Ilayne to add ice traps to the walls' defences.”

Araki couldn’t help herself, she smiled hearing the scientist complaining. “However, even knowing that…” She dodged another of the Tarask’s ranged attack. “...I don’t think we’ll be able to hold them, I don’t see an end to this swarm.”

“We won’t seal the city.”

“Yes we will, once I’ve killed this Tarask.” She answered with a domineering voice.

“...Yes Sister, as you say.”

With another smile, she dove once more on the Tarask while firing tens of tiny frozen projectiles all around her, trying to help the soldiers on the wall.