Aether Weapon

Morning of the second challenge

December 11th, 2050

Asakusa Boundary

“Boss… is that w-what I t-t-think it is?”

Outside the window was a tall man, long black hair and white leather jacket soaking in the rain. He was hunched over, contorted unnaturally as if his body was being squeezed by an invisible hand. And though it was hard to see, bits of bronze smoke came out of his skin.

It wasn’t every day one witnessed exaltation. In Ruby’s case however, she’d seen the drug-induced version more than she cared to.

“I’m certain that’s Shinozuka’s product,” Ruby whispered in contempt. “Bastard should be conscious.”

“H-He’s starting to look around…” Yukari trembled so much, she dropped the phone she was holding to peer outside. She covered her head and ducked for cover thinking the noise would be enough to catch the enemy’s attention.

“Calm yourself!” Ruby hissed. “The transformation causes them confusion at first. We need to make most of our time before that fiend realizes what’s happened to their body.”

Assuming they even last long, Ruby thought, I completely messed up by showing Shinozuka my aetheric fire, so if something like that can trigger abilities, we may be in trouble.

“We need to go,” Ruby said. “Grab your phone and see if you can get a signal.”

It probably wasn’t a coincidence the network wasn’t working.

Ruby moved towards the door and out into the hallway with Yukari following closely behind her. As soon as they reached the stairs, she immediately noticed a male police officer lying on the mid landing. His body was splayed unnaturally with a clear burn mark on his chest. A similar scorch mark was on the wall next to where he lay. Something pierced through his body and killed the man.

“Yukari,” Ruby said softly. The girl clutched her arm the moment she noticed the body below. “Ayane Kujo is still in custody, correct?”

“Y-Yes…” Yukari replied, “in fact, the police just talked about it this morning. Hiyori’s team confirmed handing her over to them. It’s impossible for her to be here…”

What does this mean?

Ruby did her best to sense aether downstairs but felt nothing within range. She did hear a bit of noise, however. She covered herself with an aether shield and slowly descended the steps. She passed by the body, confirmed it to be dead, then slowly made her way towards the second floor. She—

A large shadow flew past her field of view, as if an object was thrown without effort. It crashed on the floor, followed by the sound of pained breath.

A figure appeared on the opposite hallway, a bald man with round spectacles Ruby didn’t recognize. He wore the tell-tale white leather jacket of the anti-exalt faction, while a slab of metal akin to medieval pauldrons were strapped on his shoulders, gauntlets on his arms and greaves on his legs. It was all held together by black strings patterned like spider web.

The man, no, the armor was generating—

“Aether?” Ruby said in shock.

The man heard her voice and the two of them made eye contact.

“She’s up here!” the man screamed, sounding like a deranged lunatic. “I found Tennojima!”

The armor around the man’s body glowed in a shiny bronze color filtered beneath metallic gleam.

Suddenly, the man leapt towards her in a way only an exalt could.

Ruby blocked the punch aimed directly at her face with both hands shielded with aether. The impact sent shiver across her entire body.

“How do you like this, Tennojima!” the man screamed with a cackle of laughter. “The power of the exalted made by human ingenuity!”

Ruby gritted her teeth and pushed the man down, her arms radiating heat.

“That armor…” she muttered, realizing the device displayed before her. “…that weapon.”

It could only be something created in the institute, something they’ve been researching for years. Of course, none of it was for public use or even ready for any kind of production.

She heard the institute was also attacked, but the Anti-Exalt Faction couldn’t have simply gone and taken whatever was around. They had to know.

“What do you say, Ruby?” Professor Matsumoto’s voice echoed in her head. “Are you interested in joining our project?”

Fire rippled around Ruby’s body.

Another insurgent in white appeared, this time with a gun instead of the armor. He immediately regretted aiming his weapon at her.

Fire ignited like a bomb in the man’s hand incinerating both his gun and his arms. His scream echoed across the entire building.

“Not fair, exalt!” the armored man shouted. “Fight someone your own—”

Ruby propelled herself towards the armored man, her body burning with hot, white flames.

Their fists connected, followed by a loud sonic boom.

Ruby was never a strength-based exalt so the thin shield around her knuckles was immediately shattered. But this was never about that.

Like a moth watching an open flame, ravenous for light, the armored man went too close only to find itself burn. The hurt passing through his eyes as he realized his mistake was almost too hard to watch. Almost. He screamed like the other one and fell.

They both hit the ground, Ruby crushing the armored man beneath her heel. It was then she realized the dead and unconscious bodies littering the hallway. Three of her security team in blue and two police officers sent to watch over them. Beaten, bruised or full of holes.

Ruby shouldn’t waste her limited supply of aether, but she exploded in a fiery mess that lit the man beneath her aflame.

The other insurgent with the gun wailed on the floor so she walked over to him and kicked his teeth out.

“R-Ruby…”

She spun around and saw Gen’ichi on the other side of the hallway, struggling to get up from the floor. He was the one who was thrown earlier. He fell back down, his left arm clearly broken.

“Yukari!” Ruby yelled. The girl quickly ran over to help.

At the same time the door opened on the opposite hallway and another insurgent came out, an older woman in white. She jumped at the sight of Ruby and her fallen comrades. “Aaah!” she yelped, then pulled out an odd-looking gun and pointed it at her.

The weapon was shaped like a revolver. It had an obsidian gleam, while the cylinder appeared to be like glass. Inside it was the familiar bronze smoke swirling inside. Aether.

A hand suddenly grabbed her left heel.

Ruby looked down and saw that the armored man, half burnt, crawled towards her. He cackled a dry laugh.

Lightning suddenly zoomed close to her face. She barely managed to shield herself with aetheric flames.

I knew it!

Ruby kicked the armored man, then blasted her flames across the hallway.

The old woman dodged back into the room she came from. Ruby followed, but before she could reach the door, the old woman was thrown back out. She slammed hard on the opposite wall, then slid down on the floor unconscious.

Bang!

Bang-Bang!

Gunfire echoed from inside the room. It was the second-floor rec room where the others stayed.

“The others are still fighting there!” Gen’ichi shouted with a slight choke in his voice.

Ruby nodded tensely and saw Yukari tend to the old man.

How did the Anti-Exalt Faction even get here? The mansion was obvious, and Kanda Summit was a public place. But this building in Asakusa was a last-minute decision following their escape from Kanda. Their original destination was Tenno Hospital. On top of that, the police and security team did their best to keep this location under wraps.

Ruby peered into the rec room and saw an exalted police officer in riot gear, standing defensively on the opposite side of the room. She was shielding two of Ruby’s security personnel, while others lay beaten on the floor. Four white-jacket insurgents crept closer to the woman, one of which wore the same armor as the bald man from earlier.

Maya summoned a barrier of light when an insurgent pulled an obsidian revolver and shot her with a blast of aetheric lightning. Just how many of those weapons do they have? When that didn’t work, the armored woman jumped in with her gauntlets brimming with power. She hammered her fists into the exalt’s barrier, wailing repeatedly as she laughed.

Ruby made eye contact with the police officer. She pointed at the three unarmored insurgents, summoned her flames, then ignited aether bombs for each of them, targeting their hands. They dropped their weapons in a cry of pain and surprise, which was enough to distract the armored one.

The exalted police took down her barrier, then blasted the armored insurgent with a beam of light, sending the woman crashing into the wall. Ruby’s security officers, Hiro and Sanae, took that opportunity to jump out of hiding and tackle the other insurgents. In quick succession they all subdued their opponents.

Ruby scanned the rest of the rec room and found thrashed computers and broken pool tables. Bodies from both sides of the conflict laid next to the door leading to the opposite side of the building. It looked like a lot of fighting happened there.

“Boss!” Sanae shouted. “You’re safe!”

“For now,” Ruby replied.

They explained how the Anti-Exalt Faction first appeared in large numbers in front of the building, which the police confronted immediately. But that was a diversion. Many of their members had already snuck inside, while the network was consequently jammed. It didn’t take long for the insurgents to overwhelm them with their aether weapons.

Ruby and Yukari took the stairs east of the rec room, but had they gone west, they might’ve seen a more heinous scene. The guards who tried to alert Ruby of the attack probably died in those steps.

“Ruby Tennojima,” the police officer called. When she lifted her visor, Ruby recognized her youthful face and head of brown hair. It was officer Maya. “The last communication we received from Detective Miyabi was an ambush. We can’t expect backup, so we need get out of here asap.”

Ambush? The enemy knows everything. “What about the—”

Yukari’s scream echoed from the hallway behind them.

Aether reverberated in the air and Ruby didn’t even need to try to sense it. She ran back where she came from and saw the looming figure of a rain-soaked man standing in front of the staircase. He had long black hair, tattered white jacket, and skin oozing out bronze smoke.

Dammit, I forgot about that one! Did he learn to use aether already?

The transformed man looked around, appearing a touch more aware than Shinozuka did back at Stargaze Hotel. His head jittered, eyes windows of pure bronze. He kicked one of the insurgent’s bodies lying on the floor as if attacking on pure instinct. As if wanting to get something out of it. And then, its head turned again and found Yukari and Gen’ichi on the opposite end of the hallway.

Ruby clicked her tongue. “Over here!” she yelled. But the monster quickly disappeared in a blur. It charged at the two civilians with ravenous arms flailing.

Yukari screamed a second time, but Gen’ichi got between her and the monster. The former general blocked and weaved through the enemy’s attacks, then wrapped his arms around the thing despite his broken arm. “Run, girl! I’ll hold—”

The monster wrapped its arms around Gen’ichi in turn, bronze steaming out of his skin, screeching like a wild animal. It squeezed the giant man like he was an empty plastic bottle.

Ruby summoned her flames and ignited an explosion directly on the monster’s back. The fiend roared in frustration, dropped Gen’ichi, then swung its arms around trying to rid itself of the fire.

Ruby breathed exhaustively. How much more aether can she conjure at this point? Perhaps it was—

Bronze eyes focused on her. Before she knew it, the monster charged in direction with unimpeded speed.

Ruby gritted her teeth made a series of explosions in the hallway, but the monster simply outran them. Ruby jumped back into the rec room as the monster crashed into the wall behind her.

When the fiend reemerged, its body was covered in larger swaths of bronze smoke, mouth gaped open, eyes bulging like molten metal.

Sanae screamed in horror.

Hiro yelled in fear.

The monster limped into the room, its body jittering uncontrollably. When it tried to lunge at Ruby, a transparent barrier blocked it and held it in place. “Now is the time to run!” Maya shouted. “I’ll try to hold it back as long as I can!”

The fiend struggled against the barrier, but the aether shield was quick to crack.

Ruby hesitated. She still had power inside her, but her hands felt cold and trembled slightly.

That’s when she found one of the aether weapons lying on the floor next to a dead woman in white. She immediately went to pick it up and pointed it at her enemy.

When Maya’s barrier broke, and the monster was free to charge at them, Ruby let out a series of lightning-charged shots. It was quiet and efficient. Unnatural. She knew it to be aether, but the sensation of simply handling the weapon felt… wrong.

For what it was worth, however, the weapon did a fine job riddling the bronze fiend full of holes.