Chapter 32: A Test Of Mettle II

“Was that necessary?” Elaine asked, her voice cold as she watched Jeanne lay the unconscious Abigail down on the ground, gently cradling her head and placing her down with the utmost caution. The tenderness was quite ironic considering Jeanne had been the one to knock her out just moments prior.

“There was no way I could beat the two of you,” Jeanne said as she stood back up. “And knocking you out was off the table with her supporting you.”

“You understand that I am quite upset with you right now, don't you?”

“Perfectly. So show me what you can do.”

A dozen more swords joined the six Elaine had already summoned and then she was off, blasting herself at Jeanne with two circles of whirling death spinning around her. The circles were moving as fast as a blender, enough to shred anything that dared touch them, enough to make them look like two solid rings of crystal, and Jeanne just stood there, lazily holding her Trumpet in one hand. As Elaine approached she snapped her wings forward to protect herself but at the ludicrous speeds the blades were going she knew even angel wings wouldn't be able to shrug the attack off.

In fact, when Elaine's blades reached Jeanne they encountered no resistance whatsoever. For a moment she was horrified that she was about to tear Jeanne apart when the angel reappeared inside her ring of blades and slammed an elbow into Elaine's head.

She went flying and her blades clattered to the ground and only when she stood back up did she see that the Jeanne she'd attacked was flickering, just an illusion made of light.

“Sloppy,” Jeanne said. “Anger can be a weapon but it can also be a liability.”

Elaine grit her teeth. She hated being lectured like this and the fact that Jeanne was right didn't make it any better. Elaine had snapped and gone for a reckless attack, completely forgetting that she wasn't fighting a slavering monster but a legend with centuries of combat experience.

And so she decided to calm down and fight smarter, not harder. Once again she stormed towards Jeanne but as she did she summoned two dozen small crystal stilettos and sent them all across the battlefield, embedding them into the ground. When she was done she sent out a hair-thin beam of light that refracted off of the stilettos, bouncing around until a spiderweb of light beams crisscrossed the arena.

By the time she reached Jeanne she glanced down at a beam of light that should have gotten stopped by the angel's feet. If the Jeanne in front of her had been real this beam of light wouldn't have been able to reach its end point but it was. It let Elaine know that this Jeanne was an illusion.

As she noticed it her gaze swung outward, looking for interruptions in the beams of light where they shouldn't have been any and when she found on she sent a dozen crystal swords at it.

For a normal human this tactic would have been impossible, being far too slow to catch out someone as powerful as Jeanne, but for Elaine it was just about possible. Her reflexes and eyesight were both far better than those of a normal human and together they allowed her to use this net of tripwires to spot Jeanne's illusions.

And so when she sent out a dozen crystal swords there were multiple loud clanging sounds as Jeanne attempted to smack away the blades with her Trumpet followed by grunts of pain as a few swords hit her despite her best efforts.

At the pained sound the illusions dissolved and Jeanne appeared from behind her veil. Most of the sword strikes had been blocked by her armor, meaning they had likely hurt about as much as strong blunt impacts, but one had nicked her cheek and a thick film of blood was covering half of Jeanne's face.

“You're learning,” Jeanne said, wiping the blood away with the back of her hand before starting her own attack.

She did the same thing she'd done before, running at Elaine with her Trumpet dragging on the ground behind her while sending out razor-sharp metal ribbons. The last time Jeanne had tried this Abigail had melted the metal ribbons down but this time Abigail wasn't awake to do it again.

The last time Elaine had needed to trust Abigail with taking care of the spell as it would have been too overwhelming for her to deal with on her own but now that she'd seen the attack once before she had an idea of how to handle it.

As Typhon had promised her, her issue wasn't lack of power any longer, it was lack of control. She had more magical horsepower than she knew what to do with. All her spells so far had been fairly economic in how much effort they took to cast compared to the amount of damage they could cause. For a mortal mage that was very useful but for Elaine, the Lacrima this meant that precious few of her spells were strong enough to actually take advantage of her vastly expanded reserves of power. The crystal swords were the one spell that bucked the trend. The issue with the spell had been that increasing the number of swords exponentially increased the amount of effort and focus the spell took but now neither was an issue. She could dedicate a part of her mind entirely to coordinating the swords and another to fixing them if they broke, leaving more than enough of her brainpower to moving her physical body in conjunction with the blades.

But while that spell was powerful Elaine had also started tinkering with other spells that took advantage of her new state. The tornado she'd used when fighting Caulder's army had been a prime example, requiring more power and control than she'd ever had as a mortal, but it wasn't the only new trick she had.

And so when Jeanne's spell and Trumpet came rushing at her Elaine summoned an enormous barrier in front of her. The barrier was a half-sphere, made of dozens upon dozens of hexagonal crystal shards. She usually just blocked with her swords but that had many disadvantages. For one, if they broke Elaine had to spend time and effort on repairing them before they could be useful as weapons again. For another, a shield made of the swords left gaps that small projectiles could leak through. And finally, the swords didn't have the structural integrity to withstand the most devastating of blows. Hit a piece of crystal just right and it shattered.

But this barrier fixed that problem. The shape made it much sturdier than blocking with a row of swords, there were no gaps between the hexagons and it wasn't composed of her offensive weapons and thus it wouldn't cripple her offensive momentum to block with it.

And, sure enough, Jeanne's metal ribbons just bounced off the barrier and even her Trumpet failed to carve clean through. Oh, the blade, enchanted for armor piercing, sank through the crystal shards like a knife through butter but the handle wasn't enchanted and so the weapon bounced off after piercing through the barrier.

Off balance and disoriented it was the easiest thing in the word for Elaine to step into Jeanne's guard. She might have been able to force her to yield then and there but she was still upset with Jeanne.

They'd spent a night together. Elaine trusted her. And yet Jeanne had done something dishonorable.

And so instead of circling Jeanne's throat with a dozen blades and forcing her to yield at the points of her swords Elaine coated her balled fist in crystal and slugged Jeanne, right in the already healed cheek.

The angel went flying to land in a heap and the sight gave Elaine pause.

She was doing it again, wasn't she? She was holding Jeanne up on a pedestal, thinking of her as a legend rather than a person. A person with flaws and faults. And looked at from a more neutral standpoint Jeanne's reaction made sense. All of Project Divinity had come to watch. Most if not all of them had been terrified of Jeanne once upon a time. As the average level inside the compound had started to grow that terror had slowly lessened for most of them but most of the compound still harbored a healthy respect for Jeanne.

But if Jeanne were to lose to one of the Awakeners it could change the way people thought of her entirely. Of course, Elaine wasn't just any Awakener. She was more powerful than anyone at the compound except the staff. But even so, Jeanne losing to her would be a paradigm shift.

That wasn't necessarily a bad thing, mind. One of the Awakeners beating a Cherubim would be a sign that they were indeed growing stronger, even if the terrifying Red Rider had forced a massive slice of humble pie down everyone's throats. It was proof that they were becoming powerful enough to take the world back at some point.

But for Jeanne it was still an uncomfortable situation. If she had to lose her she wanted to at least lose with her dignity intact. And that's why she'd lashed out. Elaine got it, she understood it. But Abigail had already been worried about not being good enough, scared that she would be found wanting, and Elaine was worried that Jeanne had inadvertently helped that fear take root.

And that was the crux of the problem. This fight was a tightrope between Abigail's fears and Jeanne's fears. Except Abigail's fears had already come true and so all Elaine could decide now was whether to let her anger at Jeanne win out and prove her fears correct as well or let compassion win.

In the end, her decision came down to not wanting a second person to lose face now, though she did plan to have words with Jeanne when this was over.

“Not going to end it?” Jeanne asked, her voice strained as she got back up.

“Oh, that was for knocking Abigail out,” Elaine said. “Now we can finish this.”

Jeanne's wince calmed Elaine down considerably, letting her know that the angel actually felt bad about the dirty trick she'd pulled.

And that's when it hit her. She knew how she could fight and beat Jeanne while helping her save face.

“You know, if I'm being honest I'm a little disappointed, Jeanne,” Elaine said, just loud enough that everyone in attendance heard her.

“Oh yeah?” Jeanne asked, a flush of anger coming over her face. Clearly she thought Elaine was going to put her down.

“Yeah,” Elaine said, not giving Jeanne's anger a chance to fester. “Back when we liberated Albion I saw you fight. I saw a version of you that could take down an Outsider demigod.” A Shoggoth wasn't technically a demigod but there was no reason she couldn't exaggerate Jeanne's power level just a little. “When you challenged Abigail and me I hoped I would get to fight that version of you. I was hoping I could really test myself against you at your best.”

And that was the point of Elaine's plan. She was going to try her damndest to beat Jeanne, both because Jeanne deserved her best and to show her that her behavior had been unacceptable, but if both Jeanne and her demonstrated that they were far stronger than all the other cadets it would let Jeanne save face even if she lost.

A sudden flash of understanding came over Jeanne's face as she understood Elaine's intentions, followed by a look of gratitude and then another guilty look.

“Is that truly what you want, Elaine?” Jeanne asked.

“Give me everything you got,” Elaine said. “Show me the Maiden of Orleans.”

Jeanne nodded and a wave of power blasted out from her. The hairband keeping her braid in place disappeared and her hair fanned out behind her, a carpet of golden locks cascading down her back. Her armor shifted alongside her, turning into something more like medieval armor, metallic white with golden trim, and a second pair of wings grew out of her back. But more important than the physical change was the metaphysical one. Jeanne exuded a level of power that Elaine knew was stifling to anyone not at their level of power.

“Yeah, that's the Jeanne I wanted to face,” Elaine said and released her own Higher form.

**

Elaine was spectacular when she changed. Jeanne had met a few Lacrima during her time but Elaine was the first one she'd met back when she'd been a mortal. It made her appreciate the depth of power Elaine now exuded, so much harder to fathom than before. The fact that Stollos had created a way to strengthen mortals to this extent was incredible. Jeanne knew well why Stollos and his method had been hated back when he'd still stood in opposition to Heaven. It was terrifying to know that he could take mortals, who were usually ignored in the greater scheme of things, and turn them into actors on the same level as a Cherubim or Arch-fiend.

But even entirely beyond that Elaine was breathtaking. She was a very attractive woman under ordinary circumstances, tall and muscular and quite pretty on top of that, but the Higher form added a depth to her beauty that made her breathtaking.

Her hair grew longer and small braided strands wove themselves into it, a sheen of crystal layered over her hands and forearms, over her feet and calves, adding a layer of protection and wickedly sharp talons to her extremities, and a dozen crystal blades snapped into existence behind her, held together in the shape of wings.