The samurai screamed, throwing himself forward to puncture my human’s suit. With a miraculous reflex, Ali dodged the attack. Twirling on the right of her enemy carried away by his impetus, she assailed him with a violent punch in the stomach. Folded in two, Akira Kumo Raïda performed an aerial pirouette to get back on his feet. But when he stood up, Ali had already grabbed the nearest sword, a curious iridescent pink blade strapped above a coral urn.
“I forbid you to touch that katana!” the bounty hunter shouted as he switched to a peculiar fighting stance. He was again hovering mysteriously above ground, overcoming the gravity pinning me under my suit’s weight.
But the air current that sent dust between the two opponents gave me a precious clue as to the strange power of this ancestral clan.
“Hello,” my partner cackled, twirling her stolen sword. “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”
“Ali…” I sighed, staggering behind her. “Instead of fooling around, look at what he’s been jumping on for the past few minutes…”
“Oh snap…” smiled my sapiens while coming to the same conclusion. “A Yamashiro fan? Cool!”
Unperturbed, Akira dashed again towards her target, the sword backwards. Ali greeted him and withstood the charge without blinking, although I noticed a ruddy spit running from between her teeth. My partner then rolled to the side, making a series of flicks with her weapon. But these were only grotesque in appearance as the samurai quickly realized his secret was out. The almost indistinguishable steel wires allowing aerial locomotion were gradually being reduced to rubble before his eyes.
Our enemy swore before launching himself one last time from his elevated position. The clash of blades only stopped when the master of the house finally regained the advantage. Trapped as if in a spider’s web, my partner stumbled. With her sword still in hand, she tried to free herself from the invisible bonds that had tightened around her suit. As she struggled, she ended up cutting her flesh inside her suit’s nylon garment.
“Nothing but blind fury and cockiness…” grumbled Akira with a perceptible feeling of disappointment. “Yet—ouch!”
I had gathered my last strength to come and bite his calf after removing my helmet. Cursing me, my enemy sent me back against the pillar of the iridescent sword with a geta blow to the muzzle.
“Don’t hurt the kitty!” shouted Ali. Her space suit tattered and bloody, my sapiens struggled to tear her body out of it.
The bonds yielded to Akira’s surprise. This one hurried to produce new ones from the pearl bracelets he carried. Alas, my furious retired bounty hunter had already tackled him to the ground. Bludgeoned without respite, the killer responded by deeply slicing Ali’s thigh. Both fell backwards, and my human screamed in pain.
The samurai quickly got up, grabbed me by the neck and pulled me close, tightening his fingers around my throat. “I’m sorry,” he said in Japanese, smashing the coral urn against my back in his murderous effort. I could see in his eyes, however, that the words weren’t intended for me.
A blade swished. Its glint caught my eye just above the warrior’s sternum as the iridescent sword had just pierced his heart. Coughing, Akira Kumo Raïda released his grip. I got away before he stumbled backwards and could see that Ali, entangled in the wires, had found just enough slack to save my life.
“Koviràn...” the samurai whispered as he staggered.
“Your laser disc’s stripy, Raï…” Ali went on, meticulously freeing herself from the bloody metal bonds. “I was thinking about what you said. On the bright side, your involvement years ago was a blessing. It turned an old Koviràn into two new bloods. Two dolls ready to zero the Gods and their fucking puppets!”
“Doll?” the steely warrior scoffed before warily sitting on the black tatamis, legs crossed and eyes closed. As he breathed, droplets of blood dropped on his trembling fingers. They were followed by tears. “She’s not a bio-machine, Félix… You’ve made a terrible mistake, my friend…” The swordsman’s head slowly fell down, dampening the final whisper of Akira Kurau do Reidā, the last Cloud Raider: “Donovan was right. You should have let her burn…”
After a couple of seconds of silence, I cautiously went closer to the body, expecting another surprise from the samurai. Alas—I meant… fortunately, he was 110% dead. “What did he say?” I asked, sitting in front of him before wincing in pain. I had forgotten my injury.
“Fuck this a-hole. He was rambling…” my partner tried to reassure me. “Can you help me? I’m dying.”
Entering the room, Braun growled: “I don’t enjoy being buried alive under a haystack!”
Seeing Rasputin, Ali lost herself in various flowery insults. After aiding the Soviet to lay down against a pillar, she made a makeshift tourniquet for my leg from the torn fabric of her suit. I saw that the bullet hadn’t been stopped at all and had even perforated her abdomen just below the pancreas. I was unfortunately far too weak to yell at her.
“The Ark is on her way. The others had repelled an assault from strange MKs made of chrome, and are fixing the ship,” the Soviet informed us after offering me a Viceroy. “Any news from your sister?”
“She’s fine…” Ali reassured him before snatching the cigarettes from both my mouth and Braun’s. “She’s half-Niku, half-‘borg. I'm pretty sure she would survive diving in the tachocline!” Bending over, she then picked up her gun and limped towards the samurai’s body, reaching for the iridescent katana.
“Our ship is becoming a yard sale between Yaan-ze’s pebbles and Marcus’ bulky .50 pentagun… Are you sure about bringing this trinket to the Kitty?” I asked as my partner pulled the blade.
“Why not? The color’s neat and matches my gun.”
Just as crippled as we were, the major got up and painfully pushed the iron door open with his shoulder, raising a fine cloud of sand and radioactive particles that made the terminal on Ali’s wrist crackle. “You guys heard that?” he asked as I took the lead.
“It’s coming from the Oda,” I went on. “It sounds like a radio.”
“Indeed. After this attack, the Awen exposed itself!” the Soviet grunted. “We have to know who’s calling their dead hound… and bring him personally to the Supreme Techno-Court.”
The ex-MP first lifted me the best he could in the pilot’s seat. The alarm came from a curious holographic module added to the antique dashboard which I immediately reached.
In projection mode, the device drew a white and grainy human form, standing on the nose of the single-seater ship. It was a humanoid with an asexual, but muscular body, at least three meters tall. Judging by its icy skin and the purely cosmetic engravings along its limbs, it was most certainly a cyborg. His flat hammerhead, swarming with diodes, confirmed it when it finally appeared. “Akira?” he uttered.
“Who the fuck are you?” Ali asked loudly enough to drown the Marine’s grunts. She had lost a lot of blood and was white as snow.
The waving hologram glanced at us. Noises came after a brief delay. “What a surprise. As rude as they are ugly!” the visitor replied in an authoritative tone, reinforced by an extremely deep voice. “Did you forget the Techno-Etiquette when in the presence of a Lunar God, sub-humans?”
“Sounds like the DIA got its last proof…” I mumbled.
Braun helped me leave the cockpit to run towards my enfeebling partner before asking: “Who are we speaking to?”
A warm breeze lifted a veil of particles that made the ghostly image sizzle. “I am the Arch-Prince Taranis of the Awen.” Curiously, the hologram also strolled down to the ground. “I see you’ve overcome the tightrope walker,” he growled. “The whole clan is now gone. Good riddance, I supposed. Even backed by the Awen’s spearhead weaponry, sub-humans are so clumsy.”
“We’ll get you for your crimes on the Rings!” Braun roared as he limped towards the God, pointing at him. “You won’t hide forever behind a hologram!”
“A hologram?” Taranis responded as the LEDs on his hammerhead glowed purple. The depiction of the cybernetic body reached out and grabbed the Marine’s collar with a real grip. Braun let out a hiccup of surprise before being lifted three meters off the ground, his face almost in contact with the hideous head of the Lunar God. “Didn’t they teach you manners at the Academy? Or did you forget them alongside Graves?”
Shunning the MP’s undistinguished response, his assailant henceforth fully materialized on Earth and snapped his huge jaw. Opening from the base of its neck to the flashing diodes surrounding its flat skull, it revealed several rows of sharp laminar teeth.
Braun would have lost his scalp if the Interceptor hadn’t suddenly burst beyond the ramparts, dislocating the roof of the dungeon. Black beams and tiles flew off and bounced off the invisible steel wires and a deluge of deadly debris erupted. A truss rod struck Taranis’s wrist and his arm sizzled before letting go the Soviet who traversed the claw-like fingers. The Marine landed at the feet of the immaterial Lunar colossus.
“The Moon and Mars are ours forever now,” Taranis chuckled calmly. “You are ancient history, sub-human Yossef Braun Kamirov. Tell the Graves siblings and their rebellious friends from the DIA that they are done too.”
The Ark’s reactors roared before we were joined by Winston and several DIA agents in battle armor.
“The Black Haven and Lunapolis aren’t Solaris. The system doesn’t restrict itself to sell out politicians and morbid puppeteers in cryosleep,” Braun barked, glaring at the Arch-Prince as his crew evacuated both Ali and me. “You failed. I will live another day and we will meet again, crab face!”
“I’m looking forward to…” Taranis laughed before cutting his twisted and haunting holo-call.
Back to business!
