Aurora Over a Dead World

Chapter 29: A Complex Mission

"Well, looks like this is the place. Cross-referencing what Nexus gave me with what Theo told us, I’d say the best route is through the back. It’s a dead industrial block waiting for demolition and scrapping — definitely a temporary base," I say to Eirwen, who’s following behind me.

"I suggest you start by cooling things down." I offer Eirwen some solid advice, since she relies on lowering the temperature first to have any real freedom with her powers.

"Okay..." She’s been awfully quiet the whole way. I wonder what’s going through her head right now, but we have more important things to deal with, so I brush it off and start heading inside.

’How unpleasant...’ The temperature starts dropping fast, and since I’m wearing short clothes instead of my warm commander’s uniform, the cold is miserable. The environment cooled down faster than I expected.

"Professor—"

"Shhh..." I raise a hand to silence her as I sense people’s presence through the movement of space. Eirwen’s whole body tenses up, and she looks more nervous than she’s letting on.

’Seems like one... maybe two.’ I take a few steps, approaching the edge of the corner, but staying out of sight. Soon I hear footsteps, and as they get closer, I draw a knife.

I use the knife to slit the throat of the one who rounds the corner while taking a few quick steps into the corridor, spotting the second person.

"!!!" I see he’s wearing a vest and helmet — vector-proof gear. That genuinely catches me off guard. This is military equipment.

"Intru—" Before he can aim his weapon at me, my tail strikes through his torso, blowing a hole from one side to the other. For a moment, his expression is one of silent shock before I pull my tail back and he drops to the ground.

"..." I look around, confirming there are only these two, then glance at Eirwen, who has her hand over her mouth like she’s about to vomit.

"..." She steps backward as if she’s afraid of me, while the vertebrae of my tail rotate in a smooth rhythm, vibrating to shake off all the blood and chunks of flesh.

"Looks like they’re better equipped than Nexus reported..."

"W-Why did you kill them? You c-could have just knocked them out... and y-your tail... how?" she asks, stunned.

"First, we’re here to kill them, and I made that perfectly clear. As for my tail... well, back in the day it was thin and not all that big. It was literally just a support to help me walk."

"But I’m skeptical about a lot of things, and I realized this tail could be more useful, so I had it turned into a weapon. Of course, that meant all my gear needed readjustments, which made it nearly three times longer and almost five times thicker."

"But in exchange, I got a weapon that pierces reinforced vector materials like they’re paper. A human ribcage is nothing compared to the penetrating force my tail has." Worth all the extra weight, in my opinion.

"Of course, I understand that watching someone’s chest get a hole blown through it by your professor’s tail might not be the best incentive to learn better control of your powers," I say, crouching down near the bodies.

’Hmm... it’s old...’ I wipe some of the blood off the knife on their clothes and put it away, studying the uniforms they’re wearing. They’re quite old, the defense isn’t great — they probably bought them rather than stole them from the government.

’But how could they have the money to buy this?... Is someone helping them?’ I stand up as my tail finishes cleaning itself of blood.

"Eirwen, freeze the corpses. It’ll keep the smell of blood from spreading. That way, if they have a mutated human like Rouge with wolf-like traits, they still won’t pick up the scent."

"..." Eirwen stares at me without doing what I asked.

"Get on with it." She bites her lip and then uses her powers, freezing the bodies to the point where they practically become ice statues.

"Well, I would’ve loved having this kind of help on some past missions... let’s keep moving. If they find the bodies, it doesn’t matter." I start walking quickly, pulling a disk-shaped device from my jacket. I throw it against the wall and it latches on. If someone passes by here, it’ll send me an alert — that way I’ll know if they’ve discovered the bodies.

"..." We keep moving through several paths, and when we find a group in the corridor, Eirwen immobilizes them by freezing them, but she doesn’t kill them. Even though she’s locked them inside a kind of solid ice block, I know they’re still alive.

"Why didn’t you kill them?" I tap the ice, feeling its resistance.

’If I rotate my tail, I can pierce through... but it would take some time, and we don’t have that to waste here.’ I don’t want to expend my powers, but leaving this kind of criminal alive is a risk.

I point my finger and destroy space at small points, piercing through the heads of everyone inside the ice.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Eirwen shoves me against the ice, realizing what I just did.

"I did what you were too much of a coward to do."

"They couldn’t do anything anymore!! We could’ve sent someone to arrest them!! You’re a monster! You’re killing people for no reason!"

"...Haaa..." I sigh and then punch her hard in the stomach. The impact makes a slightly loud sound as she falls to her knees, gasping and nearly vomiting on the floor.

"Never push a superior officer during a mission. Never shout in an unfamiliar location with enemies present. And never question the orders of someone who knows what they’re doing."

"There’s an abyss between questioning stupid orders from someone you know lacks the merit or ability to lead, and questioning a veteran superior who fully understands what she’s doing."

CRACK

"Are you insane?!" She generates ice — a massive amount all at once — that surges toward me like ice spikes. Since everything behind me is frozen, I’m forced to defend myself by moving my hand and cutting the ice perfectly, along with part of the factory’s structures. The cut is flawlessly clean — a spatial deformation that would have killed Eirwen if she’d been standing.

I jump, landing on the smooth surface and dodging the ice below while I run toward this idiot who’s drawing attention.

"S-Stay away from me! H-How do you expect me to trust someone with no scruples about killing? You don’t even know everyone who was there — there might’ve been one or two who weren’t so bad," she says, starting to run.

’Damn it, this is exactly why I didn’t want to be a mentor to a bunch of brats with issues.’ I chase after Eirwen, but she’s freakishly fast, and the cold is affecting my prosthetics, which slows me down.

’I’m getting sick...’ It’s too cold — worse than I imagined it would be in an environment where Eirwen has altered the vectors. It’s not simple cold like when the weather cools down; it’s as if the temperature has dropped even inside my body.

"Eirwen, you idiot!! Don’t run!" I keep chasing her, but I sense something strange moving fast.

’What is that? Big... too big for a human.’ I quicken my pace, catching up to her. I know maybe I went too far showing that kind of thing to someone who’s never seen such brutal deaths, but running away was stupid on her part.

"Eirwen, get back here!! Something dangerous is approaching fast!" I shout at her as she turns a dead-end corner. She immediately comes face to face with the wall just as I reach her.

"Shut up!! Shut up, shut up!!! I’m not taking part in this anymore!! I want to go home! I don’t want to learn from someone like you, who doesn’t give a single damn about human life!"

"You’re someone who would no doubt leave me to die if it helped you somehow. You’re a selfish, egocentric monster who would never, ever sacrifice your own safety for someone you don’t know!"

"You know what, I’m going to get you expelled from the academy. I bet what you do violates every human right and—" I ignore the bullshit Eirwen is spewing as I track that thing’s movement through space.

’Behind?... the wall!!’ I push my prosthetics to run as fast as possible. Eirwen looks confused as I run straight toward her, and I see the fear in her eyes, as if she thinks I’m about to kill her. But immediately, something bursts through the wall behind her, and I see some kind of bizarre wolf.

It’s a black and gray wolf, and even though it has only two eyes, each eye socket holds dozens of purple pupils.

Its open mouth reveals hundreds of teeth in numerous rows, and it tries to bite Eirwen, but I manage to get there in time, putting myself in front.

The wolf’s bite sinks into my arm as it barrels completely through the wall and switches its target to me. It’s incredibly strong and caught me off guard, shoving me violently backward.

I use my tail against the floor to slow myself down, but I hear a grinding sound. The wolf’s teeth seem to rotate and shred my prosthetic completely. Eirwen, fallen on the ground back there, stares at me in shock while I glare at her.

"This is exactly why you never get in a superior’s way." She’s the reason this thing noticed us. It looks like a common mutated wolf, but its strength is far too great to be a natural mutation.

"Gaaainkkk!!" I punch the wolf’s snout, forcing it to pull back and rip my prosthetic off completely.

’It tore it off... how did it break the ligaments with just its teeth?’ I’ve stopped much larger things that seemed far stronger with my hands, and I’ve been bitten plenty of times by extremely dangerous things, and none of them managed to damage my prosthetics this fast or this easily.

’Not the time to figure out how the hell this thing came to be...’ I take one last look at Eirwen and realize she’ll be useless. She’s started crying while huddling in a corner.

’I need to end this fast...’ The wolf growls at me, spitting out my prosthetic while shifting its legs from side to side, ready to lunge. Since it’s fast and has clearly picked up on the vectors being altered by Eirwen, it’ll no doubt dodge if I use a small spatial strike.

But if I use a large spatial strike, it’ll hit Eirwen. So I can’t be reckless.

’I’ll buy some time... I need to draw it away from Eirwen.’