Collab with @Letter Bee.
“I’ve… had worse.” Qingshe only had time to shoot Marta a confident grin, before the disguised nun catapulted herself high into the sky on an explosive parabolic arc. A chuckle left the Snake’s parched throat, even as she clicked her tongue in mild irritation. The nun had left her shadow far behind in the leap, so Qingshe was going to have to hope that girl and Nil could handle themselves for the short while it took to catch up.
Refocusing her attention on the sky, Qingshe frowned, as a bead of light rose from some point she had looked too late to determine. That same “bead” was now expanding, as it flew higher and higher, gradually forming into a new blazing sun of grand size that obliterated the night with its searing radiance. That same “sun” was now moving to obstruct sight of Ai Chen. Though, its pace seemed to be slightly staggered…
Her frown deepened, as the only response to her attempt at dialogue with the Rooster was answered only by a fresh spray of light arrows now raining down towards the Snake. In response, Qingshe raised her Noble Arm and dropped downwards into her ooze, submerging herself halfway as a partial shield against the attack. The impact made her arms shake, as searing heat stole the moisture from the air around her all over again. Blistering burns erupted across her skin, as her flesh was cooked by the mere proximity, peeling and blackening into fourth degree burns. Her military uniform, meanwhile, simply caught ablaze entirely, burning fabric crumbling to ash under the onslaught. If she didn't have the ability to just ignore pain outright, the experience surely would have sent her into shock and unconsciousness on the spot.
Constructs boiled from her ooze, long-range heat sensors and targeting systems that zeroed in on the speck that was Ai Chen before the slowed sun could pass in front of her. Shortly thereafter, a set of familiar armed missiles -using those same sensors for their marching orders- erupted from the roiling black mass with peals of split air, as Qingshe returned her own two-dozen attacks towards the distant form of the Rooster.
These were the modified missiles she had developed in conjunction with Lotus Squadron in days past, enhanced both technologically and by the machinations of what skill the Snake could offer in Occult Programming Language. The result was a “smart” missile with a trifecta of infrared, visual locks and onboard missile radar, working in tandem to counter various forms of interference -like the light and heat disturbance of Huo Ren’s sun. Loaded with an onboard minor AI, each missile was capable of differentiating targets and had recognition fine enough to snapshot and pursue even a single biological target.
A target like Ai Chen.
Ai Chen screamed as she desperately shot at the cloud of missiles, hoping to prematurely detonate at least two, or four, maybe six at best. She was still very fast, among the fastest of the Zodiac. She can still shoot and has a very long range! She must prevail, she must escape!
She tried to hide behind the Artificial Sun, hoping that its mass would shield her from more missiles. However, only the thermal component of the missiles’ sensors would receive interference -
Huo Ren saved her again, launching a volley of fire sprays at the missiles from his artificial sun, prematurely detonating the ones she had not already hit. He would then message Ai Chen through her radio:
“You owe me the first… interaction with Noel Alonso and Nico Makri for saving your life. As for you, Qingshe, it’s rare that I fight seriously, with
optimal tactics. If not for the fact that two superior beings have awoken below in the camp, I’d raze it with this Artificial Sun… But for now, I’ll only
consider it.”
And with that, the Artificial Sun rose higher and hotter, before emitting gouts of superheated gas at Qingshe’s position, even as Ai Chen ‘sling-shotted’ around the sphere of fire and tried to flank Qingshe’s left side before letting loose another spray of arrows of light.
Qingshe watched relatively impassively, as what portions of her missile swarm made it through Ai Chen’s defensive volley and encountered Huo Ren’s interference. Searing beams of plasma lanced out from the sun now parked high overhead, and even the attacks that didn’t make direct contact sometimes warped and cooked off the missiles anyway from the sheer heat, filling the otherwise night sky with a cacophony of explosions.
Qingshe’s eyes narrowed, as Huo Ren’s voice entered the airwaves. Yet, for all his boasts of acting efficiently, her lips still twisted into a hidden smirk, drawling in reply,
“Fighting me seriously for once? What an honor.” She could only be grateful his priorities were so skewed; otherwise, the rest of Obsidian would be in real trouble. The longer she had the Zodiac’s attention, the more time the rest of the team was free from being terrorized from the sky.
“And here I was, thinking this was going to be a boring exchange, filled only with Rooster’s cowardly squawking~. My thanks for making it interesting~.”-and revealing your position to me.Tied into the airwaves as she was, Qingshe had little trouble tracking the now open signal back to its source. A little bit backtracking, and…
there, atop that mountain. She should have known, but it figured the Dragon would find himself a high place to best observe and target his artillery. Honestly, if Huo Ren were less inclined to boasting, she might have been seriously worried about what to do about him at this stage. Well, maybe that was unfair. Against anyone else, she was sure he could have gotten away with such talk without issue.
Still, now that she had a target…
Qingshe clicked her tongue at the newest set of incoming attacks and dove beneath the flow of her shadow completely moments before her position was consumed by a wave of superheated gas and a shower of light arrows from Ai Chen, lighting up what little night wasn’t extinguished by Huo Ren’s sun with another searing flash of explosion and shower of plasma.
Submerged in her ooze, the wave of attacks passed the Snake by harmlessly, disallowed from passing through the gateway with her. Yet, even so, her vision outside her ooze was rapidly dwindling. The sheer heat sweeping over the top of her ooze now was simply flash-frying and boiling the eyeballs she had sticking out of it. The wave of attacks also quickly laid waste to the majority of the sensors she had sent out to gather targeting data for missiles.
But she didn’t need to see to use data she already had.
Outside the ooze, 10 large gun barrels began to emerge, spread out roughly 100 meters apart wherever there was space and aiming upwards towards the hill where the Dragon was located. Safely beneath the ooze and protected from premature detonation, a number of shells were loaded into the battleship main guns, and after a moment, the deep clunk of readiness sounded out, before the air was split by a combined “broadside” of nearly a dozen 20-inch guns firing at once, sending High-Explosive shells as a return present for the Snake’s former comrade. The force of such guns firing sounded like a cataclysm, shockwaves ripping branches off the surrounding trees and even threatening to shatter windows and glass all the way at the PoW camps.
Atop the hill, watching through a pair of binoculars with a cigarette perched between his lips, Cao Bao did not need to be a genius to understand what was coming the second those long tubes all emerged from the damned Snake’s “shadow”, pointed in a conspicuously unfortunate direction.
“
Shit!”
There was a flicker of movement, utterly inhuman in speed, as the wielder of the Noble Arm, Blueblood, almost seemed to exist in multiple places at once for a brief moment. His hands and Noble Arm flashed out, slapping across multiple pieces of equipment, several of Shen Tu’s “toys” and Shen Tu -just to be doubly sure, before the trio were ripped from their position to as far as Cao Bao’s range could take them, just in time for the impact of Qingshe’s artillery barrage to thunder into the hilltop.
There were a number of eye-searing flashes, and the hilltop simply ceased to exist. It was easy to forget that mere 16-inch battleship guns were credited with the sinking of an island at one point in time. A single hilltop offered precious little resistance to 20-inch shells, and the resulting explosions obliterated the entire area with an impact that shook the sky, utterly annihilating the site in a shower of burning rubble.
Even avoiding the direct impact, the shockwaves rippling out could be felt in Cao Bao’s bones, threatening to rupture eardrums and pulverize internal organs regardless, as he rapidly activated his ability again and
again and
again, diving low behind the mountain and out of sight in a series of dizzying teleports well out of visual sight of the area the Snake was parked, Shen Tu and Huo in tow. He stayed in flight until his path finally ended atop another semi-adjacent mountain, not as ideal as the last one, but still capable of overlooking the battlefield to some degree.
Heart thundering in his chest, Cao Bao came to a stop with his allies and had to make a serious effort to avoid his knees shaking, as he hissed out a low, “
Motherfucker… That was way too close!” Grinding his teeth, his hand tightened around the hilt of his scimitar. “How the fuck did that freak-?” His brow scrunched in concern, before the binoculars he had been holding before reappeared in his free hand. Scooting over to the edge of the hill, Cao Bao lay down and began adjusting the magnification to account for the new location.
He already had some idea how the Snake had tracked them, but he wasn’t sure how much he’d bet on Huo Ren actually following his advice if he said to trash all their communications equipment. For the time being, he’d just keep watch and hope that was a lucky one-off for the Snake. If it happened again, however…? Well, he’d cross the bridge later. In the meantime...
The communications equipment reappeared beside Huo Ren again, once more repaired from the annihilation visited upon them by Qingshe’s counterattack.
Meanwhile, down below, Qingshe re-emerged from her shadow again. This time, however, she was no longer clad as a nondescript Chinese soldier. She had taken advantage of the brief time she spent within her ooze to revert her appearance and don her “battlesuit”, the ebony material of the dress clinging to her yet again unnaturally flawless body. The previous wounds and agonizing burns she had suffered had been wiped away as if they’d never been there, as she flicked her long green hair and smirked up at Ai Chen, ready for round two.
The Artificial Sun was still there, courtesy of Cao Bao’s quick work. Now, Huo Ren patted Shen Tu’s shoulder, an act that did not fail to make the young man uncomfortable, then said, “Your Noble Arm - Use it to bring the communications equipment here
to life; make them sapient.”
The bleached-grey haired youth visibly gaped and said, “That makes them capable of having a Noble Arm, especially in these circumstances that force growth and change. Why would you- ?”
In a flash of light, his Noble Arm, a book, appeared out of thin air and
screamed at Huo Ren, “There is no way I’d make more children just for you to throw them into the meatgrinder -”
Huo Ren’s response was to take one, two, long strides over to Shen Tu’s position and slap the young Arms Master hard in the face, hard enough to bring him down, and say, “You will. Or should I remind your wielder of the consequences of ingratitude? After all, if Alonso and Makri elude me today, I’m going to need a
substitute...”
The implications hung in the air, as chilling as Liu Xie’s icy sword.
Shen Tu pursed his lips, glared at his superior, and said, “If
Xing Xiao, my sapient Noble Arm, does not want to bring things to life only to die after a few minutes, she does not have to. As it is, it is only her clemency that prevents me from bringing your toothbrush to life and having it choke your throat.”
“Oh,
good fucking grief,” Cao Bao grumbled, shooting a glare over his shoulder, the orange glow of his burning cigarette part of what little light they had out here. “I’m sure it has something to do with keeping us alive.” He shot a look of annoyance the Dragon’s way as if asking for confirmation. While he didn’t particularly “jive” with the implications of Huo Ren’s threat, he was well-practiced with evading his superior’s fury. “Just make your little toys and be done with it. If you don’t, the fucking Snake is going to kill you as much as any of us, and I’d
remind you again, your life is inherently more valuable than your…
children.” There was a note of dubiousness in his tone, as he shrugged his shoulders. “There’s only one you, and you can always make more of them later. So, control your damn book.” He turned back to observing the distant battle, seemingly having said all he cared to on the matter.
Shen Tu nodded and said, “Xing Xiao, give the communications rig maximum sapience; this will allow it not just to automate itself - Not that it won’t work as normal and
allow Qingshe to detect the radio waves anyway - but also allow it to grow its own Noble Arm if it can get sufficient development through whatever Qinghse will do to it.”
Then in a barely audible whisper, he said to his book, “Besides, her taking it for experiments is better than letting it stay with us.”
The Book-shaped Noble Arm fluttered its pages in response and said, “All right, that works!”
Fifteen seconds later, the communications console flickered to life, saying, “What am I? What am I here for? …Oh. I’m to be cannon fodder. Literally.”
With a few pushes of its buttons and twists of its knobs, the comms console began giving a situation report using speakers that should not have worked without electricity, saying, “The target has disappeared, but there are approximately 10 guns, spaced 100 meters apart, on various hills - Coordinates are…”
With each coordinate, the Artificial Sun sent out a gout of superheated hydrogen enough to turn the hillside into molten *glass*, until all ten locations were hit, and Qingshe’s oozed with them. The now-sapient console then spoke, “I also detect several items of… Qingshe-tech on the Mekong Riverbank. They seem to be comms beacons?”
Huo Ren asked, “Are they beyond your ability to hack?”
“Sir,” was the sapient object’s response, “I am limited by my body’s physical capabilities unless I grow enough in whatever metric qualifies me to grow my own Noble Arm -”
Huo Ren turned to Cao Bao and said, “Cao, prepare to teleport us away and
leave this sapient appliance behind. But first…”
He then went and forcefully handled the sapient communication console’s buttons and knobs and said, “Hey Qingshe, you missed! Also, here’s a creativity test: What happens if I pick a populated area for my next viewing spot?”
Then he gestured to Cao to teleport them away… Towards Jinghong City itself.
It seemed the Dragon had survived and found himself a new spot to target from, Qingshe noted with mild irritation. A shame. She nonetheless plastered on an unperturbed smile, as Huo Ren’s sun struck again and again, reducing her naval guns to melted slag under the onslaught. Her ooze was, of course, completely unaffected by the attacks, which were unable to disturb her power’s “footing” since it was only striking from above.
Even so, despite the exchange being relatively short, it had set the surrounding forest on fire, many trees and other flora either burning or reduced to ash, and what wasn’t already burning was likely only a matter of time. Perhaps she should… The heads of fire hoses began to emerge Qingshe’s shadows, ejecting a powerful spray of cold water into the forest, aiming to at least douse the worst of things before this evolved into a full-on forest fire.
Qingshe resisted the urge to grind her teeth at Huo Ren’s banal taunt, not rising to the bait to attack, as she responded with,
“Running away again? You’ll never get a proper lover if you keep standing your dates up~!” Her cheeky grin faded, however, when no response came.
Had he wised up? Possible. And the last thing he said was worrying. A “populated area”? What did he mean by that? He… wouldn’t attack the city, would he…? No, something like that, for no military gain? Even Huo Ren couldn’t get away with that. He was just using the populace as meat shields against her retaliation then. That was mildly frustrating, she had to internally admit. On one side, Ai Chen. On the other, hunting Huo Ren.
Why not both? a traitorous little part of her brain suggested.
But
no, she had the mission and her team to worry about right now. Grudge matches could come later… Or well, grudge matches that would be out of her way to pursue. If Ren was going to flee all the way to Jinghong City -the nearest large populace he could be referring to, then he’d be out of the fight regardless. Tactically speaking, this was still a victory, a powerful opponent removed from the board… however temporarily, no longer a threat to those on her team that couldn’t endure his firepower with similar success. If she could just do something about his sun, he wouldn’t be able to replace it unless he dared to come crawling back. And in the meantime…
Golden eyes gleaming, Qingshe’s lips split into what some might have called a fairly evil grin.
She could devote all her attention to the once more isolated Ai Chen. 
Aku the Samurai
Izurich
Otreas
Auz
Urizen
rexgn
Thayr
FernStone
