Small Losses

The incomplete sword pinned Shiro to the ground like a nail through wood.

Shiro’s hands clamped around the flat of the blade just above the crossguard, blood already slick between his fingers. Every small shift sent a fresh white spike of pain up his leg. The steel was cold, roughly forged, and still unfinished. It had no edge to speak of on the upper half, which was the only reason he still had a leg at all.

I thought they wanted to kidnap me!? I'm going to bleed out just pinned here!

Outside, the fight continued without him. Flashes of Azura's purple lightning stuttered through the open doorway, showing the swirling blade cutting through silhouettes in violent arcs. He could hear the wet impact of bodies hitting stone, a sharp ring of demon's steel against her aluminum spear and fabric scythe blade.

“OUCH!!!”

Damn it! Maybe I shouldn't be moving around too much... Azura is holding her own pretty well...

Shiro leaned back, taking the pressure off his leg.

"That scum bag sent a divine revelation to some head demon Oracle, just to get them to kidnap me."

Shiro looked around the blacksmith’s workshop. It was a mess of raw materials and scattered tools. Racks of tongs, hammers of every size, unfinished blades, and a massive forge. A heavy anvil sat only a few feet to his left. A quenching barrel stood nearby, still of water.

"Looks like a steel smith, rather than the electro smith that forge aluminum. This place does sell weapons and armor, outside of Azura, most knights use steel..."

Shrio heard a yelp of pain come out from the smoke in a voice that was clearly Azura.

His heart froze for what felt like minutes, before the slashing of metal and flashes of purple lightning continued.

Shiro gritted his teeth and pulled at the sword but it didn’t move.

The crossguard was pressed hard against his thigh, the tip buried deep in the workshop floor. The smith who had been working on the blade had managed to give it a solid tang.

“Stupid… cold blooded… bastard…”

Shiro planted his hands and the base of his good leg against the floor. He sucked in a breath that tasted of blood and smoke, and pushed with his entire body.

The cross guard pressing against his leg with intense pressure. The blade cut more through his leg with every shift.

"Aaaahh!"

The ground grip on the blade came loose. Shiro immediately fell on his good leg. His breathing heavy as he clutched his other leg in pain.

The sword was still in his thigh, but taking it out would increase the rate at which he was already bleeding out.

SHIT! That was a stupid idea!... Still I can't keep sitting around being useless. I'm a hero after all.

Shiro looked around the blacksmith’s workshop once again, with renewed determination.

Think man, think! I'd just get in her way if I grabbed a random weapon, but this is a workshop full of tools! My territory!

Steel... Coal... Iron...

I could use two swords to make rail?

Shiro looked at the bag of bolts and capacitors. The lather had half of them already turned to powder.

"I have more dust than capacitors..."

Gears started turning in Shrio's head. His studies were coming back to him under the threat of war. Shiro opened the bag and started pulling out the bolts and capacitors, leaving only the powder inside.

"That's not dust. Maybe the runes aren't turning the aluminum capacitors to dust because of magic, but rather chemistry."

Shrio had pursued aerospace and nuclear engineering rather than chemical engineering, but aluminum and energy transfer were two things he had learned a lot about.

"The powder is two different particles, some sorta ’head something’ mixture. So what is this aluminum oxide and pure aluminum powder? The high current of the rail cannon might be what's causing cracking. That leads to increased oxidation under the electric runes and then the subsequent powder."

Shiro immediately looked at the barrel of water and raw iron.

"Three to one weight ratio of iron oxide to aluminum... this workshop should have.. "

His eyes then scanned until it landed upon an old fashioned two sided balance scale. Shrio pulled himself up, the pain forgotten as he went to work.

"If I electrocute the iron in water, I should be able to trigger the rusting extremely fast. Then I mixed it with the aluminum powder..."

He activated the remaining aluminum capacitors before throwing them into the barrel of water.

Using the light rail for insulation, he lowered the Iron ingots in and out of the water. Flicking off the layer of rust after each dip.

In under a minute, Shrio had made enough rust to triple the weight of the aluminum powder.

"I don't know which of the two powders is the oxidised aluminum, so it'll just have to be impure. But a bag of poorly made thermite is still a bag of thermite."

Shiro looked around for something to prove enough heat to trigger the exothermic reaction.

"...coal isn't going to be enough. Not like a blacksmith is going to have raw mercury laying around... Uggh I'm not a chemical engineer but there must be some around here that could trigger thermite."

His eyes search the workshop for the third time. That was when he took a double take at the light rail cannon.

"... even as powder, the aluminum would still conduct electricity, it probably would shoot it forward too. A chemical shotgun rather than a grande..."

By doing this, I'm technically introducing the use of exothermic reactions for weapons into this world.

The sound of fighting continued outside. Shrio didn't know if the back had arrived or not. He didn't know how Azura was holding up. If Geraltavin or Johnaquil were still alright.

"Take your small victory today, Revorgress. This war is still mine to win."