Chapter 14: Not An Aging Researcher After All

Instantly Elaine's remaining crystal blades were yanked away from her as a massive wave of air and earth magic exploded outward from Stollos. She had to shield her eyes at the sheer intensity of the power coursing through him and she realized, to her horror, that this was the first time she'd seen him using magic. She'd been making extensive use of magic just to be able to hit him once and now he had used magic for the first time, all but knocking her over.

When she could look at him again he was surrounded by concentric circles of crystal blades, dozens and dozens of them created in a flash and all under his telekinetic control. Not just under his control but so thoroughly under his control that she thought she might possibly be able to wrest control of a single blade back and even that only if she could touch it without being sliced open.

It was only when she had gotten over her awe at seeing all those blades, a number she couldn't hope to create at once, never mind hope to control at once, that she noticed that he had changed his entire equipment. The Scourge was gone. Both the glove and the sword were no longer in his hands. Instead there was a crystalline sheen around his hands and halfway up his forearms, as if he were wearing gauntlets made of crystal.

“Don't you think this is going a little far, Stollos?”, Jeanne asked, loud enough for him to hear over his mad cackling.

“He hasn't even accessed his Higher form yet”, Rachel said, sounding a lot less worried. “See? No wings. He's only barely trying right now.”

“All she needs to do is hit me once more and she's passed with flying colors!”, Stollos called out, his voice manic.

And then he pointed a finger at Elaine and a hail of swords launched themselves at her.

Elaine's eyes widened in shock for just a moment before she began sprinting in a circle around him, occasionally rolling or jumping out of the way of a sword that had come too close for comfort.

As she ran she thought. The Professor clearly wasn't trying to kill her. He could have surrounded her with blades and skewered her already. He was testing her, trying to see if she could think on her feet and find a way to get past this new challenge he'd provided.

He had already felt her carving straight through his glove with Areadbhar so he had to know that those crystal gauntlets wouldn't be stopping her from hitting him. The challenge, therefore, was to get past the never-ending hail of crystal blades while unable to create any of her own. She knew that if she tried he'd just yank them out of her control the moment they lost skin contact with her.

It was a tough challenge but it wasn't impossible. The old her would have been screwed right then considering her magic had been turned against her. But now Elaine was much more than she had been. She had power over all four basic elements, light and shadow, and the minor elements ice, lightning and metal besides. Not only that but she had an entire arsenal of magical weapons from her girls. She had options. But which options would actually help her?

Fire, water and air wouldn't do much to help her stop a rain of crystal swords. Light and shadow let her avoid them but avoiding them wouldn't last forever. Metal might, but she'd barely spent a five minutes practicing with it. There were just too damn many of the swords to avoid forever. She had to do something, but what...?

As she dodged another cluster of swords she was momentarily blinded by the light refracted through one of the swords between her and the Professor and that was when inspiration struck. She had her solution. Now the only question was how to get herself into position to make it happen.

She smiled and started typing away on her CARD as she kept dodging.

**

Stollos was honestly impressed. The girl had spent the last few minutes merely running away from his attacks but he knew better than to think she was panicking. He could clearly see the calculating look in her eyes. No, the Sergeant wasn't running away in terror. She'd been shocked when he'd taken her crystal weapons away but the shock had only lasted a moment before she'd caught herself again. And right now she was thinking up her next move.

If she'd simply charged at him he would have thought less of her, would have likely smacked her around with the flats of the blades for a bit, just to humiliate her. But instead she was assessing the situation and coming up with a plan. And when he noticed her typing on her CARD he knew he had found his candidate. He didn't know what she was typing but the mere fact that she sought assistance from her comrades despite the force field separating them spoke of an ability for outside-the-box thinking that few could hope to match.

And so he decided to take it a little easier on her, slowing down the speed of his blades by about 1% and ever-so-slightly weakening their tracking ability. To onlookers it might have seemed like Stollos was going all out but in truth he was, as Rachel had put it, barely even trying. Had he wanted to he could have summoned ten times this many blades and controlled them much more competently. He had once held back a dozen master swordsmen of Heaven by controlling his blades as if they'd been wielded by actual fighters. Simply using them as projectiles the way he was now felt so... unrefined. But these mortals couldn't even handle him when he was barely trying.

Of course, part of the reason why he was barely trying was his Soul Shard. Typhon was the spirit of rebellion against tyrants after all and if he lorded his superiority over others too much it might decide to rebel against him. Typhon made an exception whenever the lapdogs of Lucifer or the White King came to apprehend him and in this situation his Soul Shard agreed with him that Sergeant Caldwell needed some tough love to unfurl her true potential but he could only push it so far.

He had created a challenge that looked daunting but was definitely winnable. All she had to do was to think on her feet while being constantly bombarded by blades that occasionally slashed or boomeranged back just to keep her from getting complacent. And right now she was doing that beautifully.

Of course this show of force had one other purpose. Stollos always tried to fulfill multiple goals with anything he did and in this case he wasn't just testing Sergeant Caldwell. He was also showing off just a little, to show the cadets that they still had a long way to go until they could punch in the same weight class as those they were reporting to.

Given that goal he was glad that so many had come to watch this sparring match. And from the looks of awe and fear he could see on the faces in the crowd that part of his plan had worked wonderfully.

He was pulled out of his thoughts when he saw Sergeant Caldwell's eyes narrow in concentration. He'd finally get to find out what she had come up with.

**

Alexis was breathing hard as she watched the hail of blades Elaine was running from. She was terrified one of them was going to hit her lover but so far she was doing a great job staying one step ahead of them. Alexis could tell that objectively this attack was nowhere near as terrible as it looked – the blades were clearly only used as mindless projectiles when the amount of control the Professor seemed to have suggested that he could be applying much finer control over them if he wanted – but it was still tough to watch Elaine continuously running from dozens of swords launching themselves at her.

When one came particularly close by circling around Elaine and then launching itself at her from the opposite direction Alexis damn near had a heart attack. She didn't know what to do with her hands, didn't... she felt a hand clasping hers and giving it a squeeze. The hand was soft and small and feminine and when she glanced off to the side to see whose it was she noticed Cassie standing next to her.

“It'll be fine”, the tomgirl whispered. “Elaine's got this.”

Alexis didn't quite know what to make of Cassie. He was cuter and prettier than a lot of the women she'd met but the thought that this person was a man still felt a little weird to her. Had Cassie been a girl he would have been right in Alexis' strike zone but he wasn't.

This wasn't like Elaine who had been born a woman and a freak accident had changed a certain anatomical detail about her. Cassie had been born male, identified as male and simply presented as female and let people come to their own conclusions. Alexis wasn't bothered by this, exactly, but...

She knew Cassie was interested in Elaine. She knew Elaine was interested in Cassie. And that was fine.

But while Alexis was perfectly fine with sharing Elaine with Cassie she wasn't sure if she would be fine sharing the bed with Cassie. She had shared the bed with Elaine and Ophelia and she wasn't opposed to doing the same with Evelyn but Cassie? He was super cute and pretty but he was a man. Did that bother her? She couldn't tell anymore. Then again, would anyone force her to share the bed with him? No. She trusted the others not to force the issue, either.

Either way, right now Cassie was genuinely trying to comfort her and the last thing she'd do would be to spit on his kindness.

She gave his soft, feminine, obscenely soft and delicate hand a squeeze back.

“Yeah, she does.”

**

Abigail was fascinated by the fight. Seeing Elaine in action the first time had been beyond humbling and what she was seeing from the Professor was humbling compared to even that. Why did they even bother fighting when they had someone this powerful at Base 15?

Of course she knew the answer. They had to do their best to get stronger so that the Professor wouldn't remain the strongest person by far on the compound but seeing the gap in strength firsthand was still beyond disheartening.

But she was pulled out of her introspection when a message from Elaine flashed in front of her eyes.

She read it and smiled.

**

Sergeant Caldwell began her assault by drawing on many of the M skills she'd gained from her comrades. The first she pulled out was Areadbhar, the magical armor-piercing spear. Clearly she wanted to make sure the blow she wanted to strike wouldn't glance off his crystal gauntlets or body armor. Next she pulled out the Lampade Wand. The moment her hand closed around it she used it to summon globs of shadow that launched themselves all over the arena, leaving puddles of darkness where they struck.

Stollos was impressed with that. Few mortal mages could have sent out that much magic so effortlessly but between her high Intelligence stat and the Wand's assistance she was managing it without even breaking stride.

The third M skill she called on was a surprise, though. Sergeant Caldwell had summoned Aenbharr, Lugh's mighty war horse.

It was a massive stallion and armored snout to rump but still, if she sat down in the saddle she'd turn herself into a sitting duck. She couldn't possibly be that foolish, could she?

No, she wasn't. She patted its neck once, whispered some instructions into its ears and then the beast simply barreled forward, straight at Stollos. His eyes widened and he threw many of his blades at the beast but there was little his crystal blades could do against its solid metal armor. Even worse, in all the commotion he'd lost track of Sergeant Caldwell.

He kept hurling blades at the massive stallion but try as he might he couldn't stop the beast so when it had almost reached him he threw himself into a roll to dodge its charge. He knew full well that this moment of vulnerability had been exactly what Sergeant Caldwell had been waiting for and knew she would be making her move so he called two of his crystal blades to himself as he came out of the roll, holding one to guard his front and one to guard his back.

**

Elaine knew she had to think outside the box to beat the Professor and she had done just that.

She'd texted Abigail and asked her to use Skill Copy to give her Ophelia's Aspect of Liminality and the girl had come through. Then, after sending Aenbharr to barrel into the Professor, she'd used the newly acquired skill to slip into the huge stallion's shadow. Once the beast had gotten the Professor to dodge she'd peaked out of one of the puddles of shadow she'd spread across the arena and sent out six pencil-thin laser beams. She'd used Oracular Visions to help aim them and each of them struck. Not at the Professor directly but at the blades surrounding him.

She'd used this trick once before, sending a laser beam to bounce between her own crystal blades so that it would ricochet back and forth between them and burn her target again and again. And this time she'd aimed it so that no matter where the Professor moved at least one beam would strike.

**

When Stollos realized what Sergeant Caldwell had been planning it had almost been too late.

It had been a great idea, getting him into a vulnerable position and then tricking him into thinking she'd attack with her armor-piercing spear only to strike with magic instead. Magic, he realized, that had been calculated to hit him no matter where he tried to dodge. He was half tempted to activate his Higher form and take the hit on his wings as Celestial wings were nearly impenetrable to anything that wasn't Darklight but... if he couldn't avoid the hit without shifting to his Higher form then that meant that she had earned the win. If he couldn't defend against her attack without letting go of the shackles that held his power bound to this mortal flesh of his then he might as well have lost. No, he wasn't going to do that.

But even so, he wasn't quite beaten yet.

He twisted impossibly, avoiding three of the beams. Two more he sent off-course with his two swords. The final one was trickiest to avoid but he just managed to send it away with his crystal gauntlet.

He allowed himself a small smile as he had managed to just avoid Sergeant Caldwell's gambit.

And then the smile was wiped from his face when he felt the flat of one of his own crystal blades smacking down on top of his head. A moment later it truly sank in what had just happened and his smile returned.

Now that she had managed to hit him he finally realized just what she'd done. She hadn't merely used Aenbharr to make him vulnerable, she'd also used Private Devereux' ability to slip into the shadows while he was distracted by the massive horse barreling towards him. But she didn't have access to that ability yet, which meant that when she'd used her CARD to type out a message it had been to ask Private Peterson to use her Skill Copy ability to give her Private Devereux' ability. Yes, exactly as he'd suspected: Great capacity for outside-the-box thinking.

“Excellent, Sergeant”, he said as he got up and turned around to face her. “Truly excellent.”

He could see that she was breathing hard, so hard that she could barely reply to him. Not that he blamed her. He'd just forced her to run a marathon at superhuman speeds before she'd summoned forth enough magic to make a mortal mage pass out.

Finally she gasped out: “How are you this strong?”

He decided to stop playing coy. The leadership already knew this and after this display the cadets would hopefully not be too shocked by it. “Because Lucifer's blood flows in my veins. I am grandson to one of the most powerful beings in this universe.”

The others being the White Christ and that damnable angel who had decided to dedicate her life to protecting the Fates from outside interference. Well, and the White King Himself, but Stollos was beginning to suspect that He might be even more powerful than any conventional approach to metaphysics could explain. He should not be that powerful with a mere four billion believers empowering Him. Even the idea that worship empowered gods exponentially rather than linearly wouldn't explain just how ridiculously powerful He was. There was a reason that only angels of the third highest rank and above were even allowed to reside in His presence. Anyone weaker would have had their brains melting right out of their skulls from the sheer power He exuded.

“But that is neither here nor there”, he continued once the muttering had stopped. “I gave you a test and you passed with flying colors. I promised you answers if you did and I will give them to you.” He paused and looked from Sergeant Caldwell to the crowd before he added: “In private.”

**

It had taken some grumbling before the crowd had dispersed but in the end they were all part of the military so when one of their superiors told them to scram they scrammed.

'In private' hadn't quite meant what Elaine had expected it to mean, since Lieutenant General Hayworth, Jeanne and Rachel were coming along and the Professor had explicitly asked Elaine's team to come as well. She was glad for the company, especially the adoring looks she got from Alexis, Evelyn, Ophelia and even Cassie. Even Abigail looked happy and Elaine suspected that asking her for help had been good for her sense of self-worth.

The fact that the Professor had asked them to come along also spoke of a certain level of understanding on his part. Anything she learned here and wouldn't be explicitly forbidden to share she would have told her teammates regardless, so if anything him inviting them along just saved her a bit of effort.

It also helped since Elaine was a little nervous. What could he possibly be telling her that was so important? Only the leaders of the compound and her team were allowed to hear it and they were headed to his laboratory. She appreciated the moral support of her team being here, but what kind of bombshell was he about to drop on her?

Finally they reached his office and after poking a few buttons on a panel laid into the far wall his laboratory opened.

She immediately noticed the pieces of the Blessed of Shub-Niggurath she'd handed him on one workbench and the fleshy cocoon she'd brought him in a vat off to one side. But there was also more traditional laboratory equipment, like the stuff needed to mix bacteria cultures together. The place had looked a little sinister the first time she'd been here but after hearing him cackle like a mad scientist it felt positively creepy. At least there weren't any suspicious blood stains anywhere.

“Now, Sergeant”, he finally said once everyone had settled in to the creepy lab. “I promised you answers.”

She nodded and waited for him to continue.

“You were right to think that Jeanne was grooming you for higher things. Becoming an Awakener or a Shard Bearer is not the end for one's evolution. You, all of you, are now much more powerful than mere humans but you are still only mortal. But there is a way to change that, to give you access to powers and abilities that only angels and demons should have access to.”

“What powers?”, Elaine asked.

“You have seen Jeanne take on her Higher form in Albion, didn't you?”, he replied.

She had. It had been humbling. That sudden wave of power, pure and bright, that had almost brought her to her knees. The overwhelming presence of her. The physical changes to her appearance, the way her armor had suddenly changed shape, the two sets of wings, the halo, all of it. “Yes, I did.”

He nodded. “But that is far from all. The method I am talking about will let you interact with your Soul Shards in ways that Shard Bearers can only dream of.”

“How so?”, she asked. After seeing first-hand what that Soul Shard she apparently held inside could make her capable of she was intrigued.

“Souls are infinite and immortal”, he said, getting into his spiel. “Soul Shards, likewise. The way your Shard Bearers are increasing their powers is by leeching strength off of their Soul Shard and using it to empower their bodies and souls. The Soul Shards regenerate in time but the enhancements stay. But in the end it is little more than parasitism. What I can offer you is a symbiosis, a way to commune with and learn from the gods whose Soul Shards you hold.”

“But there is a catch, isn't there?”, she asked.

“Yes”, he said. “That was why we groomed you, to find out if you were right for this procedure. The procedure is called the Oath of Crystal Tears and I invented it centuries ago.” His eyes flicked over to Jeanne and Rachel. “It was what got me thrown out of Hell, in fact.”

“Because it's so dangerous?”, she asked.

“In a sense”, he said. “It is a way for humans to gain powers that let them rival powerful angels and demons, all the way up to Jeanne's and Rachel's level of power.”

Elaine's eyes flicked over to Jeanne as well. “This is what you've told us about in Albion, isn't it?”

The Professor blinked. “You told them?”

“I told them that you were banished for seeking ways to empower humans, as neither Heaven nor Hell liked the idea of humans becoming any harder to control”, Jeanne said. “I also told them that recent events caused the Lords to reevaluate their stance on the matter.”

He gave her a very small smile and then turned back to Elaine. “That makes the explanation much simpler. The Oath of Crystal Tears can make you very powerful, but there is a reason I am offering it only to you and only now. There is a risk to it. A risk that used to be unacceptably high.”

“What risk?”, Elaine asked.

“I will get to that”, he said, not unkindly. “As we've established, souls are immortal and will grow back when damaged. For this reason angels and demons sometimes offer small pieces of their souls to mortals in exchange for favors. If you've ever heard of a 'deal with the devil', this is where that legend started. No celestial can take away a mortal's soul but they can give away pieces of their own. These pieces can make you or your magic stronger and some people have become staggeringly powerful by gathering many such fragments.” Aleister Crowley, for example.

“So what, you want Jeanne and Rachel to give me bits of their souls?”

“If it were just that I would have suggested it long ago”, the Professor said. “No, the Oath of Crystal Tears goes a step beyond that. Normally these fragments are inert balls of energy. You can hold as many of them inside you as you want and each just adds a little bit of power. But what the Oath of Crystal Tears does is to make these balls of energy clash against each other. Again and again they war inside you, generating more power than they could ever have on their own, and your body and soul will absorb that power. But as you can imagine this process is quite volatile. The subject needs to have enormous strength of will or the process will tear their mind and body apart.” He took a deep breath, then went over to the far wall and pressed a button that raised metal shutters over a glass cage.

Inside the cage was a being unlike anything Elaine had ever seen. It was hard to understand what she was even looking at. Parts of it looked insectile, parts of it looked like they'd come from a bat, parts looked like a bird, but underneath all of these bits the creature looked deeply, distressingly human.

Its limbs were twisted in ways limbs just weren't supposed to twist. Out of what could generously be described its back grew a feathery wing, a bat wing and the kind of wing one would find on a dragonfly. Its head was mostly human except for the faceted bug eyes and the horn growing out of one side of its head. Half a halo spun around over the top of its head, the pure golden light utterly incongruous as it illuminated this mockery of creation. One of the thing's arms was a crippled bat wing and all of its limbs ended in sharp claws.

“This is a Havoc”, the Professor said, his tone sad. “This is what happens when a subject does not have the necessary strength of will to withstand the power generated by the Oath of Crystal Tears.”

As the creature noticed them it immediately threw itself at the glass, clawing at it to get to the people on the other side.

“They only have three instincts left”, he continued. “Pure hatred for all celestials, a deep, furious jealousy for humans and unwavering devotion for all Lacrima, those who have succeeded with their own Oath of Crystal Tears.”

“This is what would happen to me if I fail?”, Elaine asked, horrified.

“Yes”, he said, pressing the button again to lower the shutters and hide the creature. “Becoming a powerful Awakener or Shard Bearer significantly reduces the risk of that happening. We've approached you, Sergeant, because you have an exceedingly high chance of success, but there is still a small risk involved.”

Jeanne finally looked like she couldn't hold back any longer. “Don't just consider what would happen if you fail. Consider what happens if you succeed.”

“What do you mean?”, Elaine asked.

The Professor sighed. “If you succeeded you would become powerful. You would be able to access a Higher form. But what Jeanne means is that you would also transcend humanity in a different way: You would become ageless. You are still young and so your apparent age would be locked where it is right now. You would never grow old. If we manage to overcome the Outsiders and you are still alive to see it you would live to see every mortal you know die of old age.”

Elaine swallowed hard. She thought of Alexis and Evelyn. She thought of her family, of her little brother. If she did this she would live to see them all grow old and die. Ophelia was ageless and Alexis and Evelyn might be able to gain the same power she was being offered but she would end up attending her little brother's funeral. That just wasn't right.

Of course, that was all assuming they would be able to beat back the Invasion in the first place. And that would become a little bit more likely if she were as powerful as he claimed the ritual would make her.

But what truly made her hesitate was the sight of that horrifying, sad creature in the cage. If she went through with this she could end up just like it.

“How would this ritual work?”, Elaine asked. “How long until I know if I end up like this beast?”

The Professor sighed and looked at Jeanne and Rachel. Jeanne looked away, her cheeks growing red.

Elaine had just been deep in introspection but that made her look up in surprise. Why would Jeanne be blushing about this ritual? And why did that blush have to look so damn intriguing on the angel?

Finally Rachel took pity on everyone and explained: “Giving away a soul fragment requires a certain intimacy. The more intimate the contact the more efficient the transfer is. What the Professor didn't mention was that the magic circle in which this ritual takes place is big enough to surround a king-size bed.”

“Hold on”, Elaine said, her cheeks feeling like they were on fire. “You're saying that for this ritual to work I'd need to have a threesome with both of you?”

Rachel gave her a lecherous smile and Jeanne buried her face in her hands.

Elaine stared at the blushing angel. “And you agreed to this?”

“It turns out that the Virgin of Orleans---”, Rachel began but Jeanne cut her off.

“Shut up, Rachel!”

Well, that made the whole thing much more intriguing. But it also presented even more problems. It was a little ironic that that consideration even made it onto her list given that her life was on the line here, but the thought of sleeping with two women who weren't part of her three girlfriends just sounded greedy to her.

“As to your other question”, the Professor said, clearly trying to change the topic, “you would know almost right away. The moment you leave the circle the powers will begin clashing.”

She took a deep breath. “In your professional opinion, should I do this?”

He seemed to consider his words carefully before speaking. “You have the highest chance of succeeding with the Oath that I have ever seen. And according to my projections you would be exponentially more valuable to the project if you were to become a Lacrima. But I cannot and will not make this choice for you. You need to decide this for yourself. I am merely giving you the offer.”

“Then I would like to think about it some more”, she said.

“Very well”, he said.