Lament of the Fallen

Dee gave Aurelie a grateful smile as the latter handed her a cold drink. She really needed this after the grilling she had just gone through. Aurelie had mentioned that Dee would likely be let off easily during the process of becoming a Lord of the Assembly, and she had been partially right. Normally an applicant had to go through a rigorous process of interviews during which they had to show a sufficient amount of knowledge and aptitude. These interviews and additional tasks were actually done before the three main tests that Aurelie had talked about, and this part of the process was indeed waived in Dee’s case thanks to her level of power. Moirai and Araqiel had to put in a little more effort, but they got off easier during the first actual test.

For Dee, the problem came at the first actual test, where the scientists of the Assembly tested your blood to determine your race in order to weed out spies sent by the other participants of the War in Heavens. Normally this was a formality unless you were either an angel, a demon, or a dragon. If you were part of these three races, then additional questions would be asked. Aurelie had assured Dee that they had experience with chimera like the two of them, and that was indeed true. The questioning could have been even more thorough and rude. Dee wasn’t even forced into equivocating about her past as much as she had expected. Still, it had been several long hours of choosing your words carefully.

“That took a lot longer than you said.” Dee stated with admonishment clear in her tone.

“Well, you weren’t exactly advertising to everyone that you had all three of demon, dragon, and angel inside you. Of course they would ask questions.” Aurelie defended herself.

“I assumed you had included that in your estimate since you knew. Still, I’m glad that part is over. Are we skipping straight to the third portion like you said?” Dee looked at Aurelie’s pinched expression. “I’m assuming that’s a no. You’re horrible at guessing these kinds of things, aren’t you?”

“Well, to be fair, this one was completely out of my expectations. They haven’t really seen much of how you fight. Normal trainees spend years in the academy under the guidance of their teachers and we get to slowly learn their style. You’re something new. Naturally, they’d like to find out more. If it’s any consolation, I volunteered to be one of your testing partners so you get the opportunity to express your displeasure at my horrible estimates.” Aurelie smiled at the last part, showing that she was playing around.

However, Dee’s nod in reply had no playfulness. Of course she was joking, but she wanted to take a small revenge on Aurelie at least. The two of them flew to the testing facilities that were situated along the bluffs of the central mountain. As it was a testing facility, it was more sturdily built than most buildings, eschewing the prevalent tower design. The facility seemed like a square block of metal instead, and it stood starkly separated from any other facilities, as if expecting to be blown up.

As they entered the facilities, the halls were filled with blue- and brown-sashed Lords. They passed many laboratories and testing areas ranging from testing small items to large flying ships. The two went up to the top southern corner of the building that was directly facing the mountain itself. As they got to their destination it became clear this whole segment of the facility had been built and enchanted with the express purpose of stopping anything inside from doing damage to the rest of the facility, or more importantly the city. Every wall was made of enchanted stone and much thicker than anywhere else. Every doorway was covered with heavy armored slabs of metal in several layers.

Aurelie finally led Dee to an observation platform overlooking a flat and open room filled with measuring spells. The observation platform was filled with representatives from every faction. They weren’t numerous enough to call a proper audience but it wasn’t far short of it either. A blue-sashed scientist approached the two. “Lord Aurelie, Miss Haydee. Welcome to our new testing facilities. We’ve never had the pleasure of measuring the power of a fresh rank thirteen being so I’m eagerly expecting this. Miss Haydee, would you kindly go down to the testing room and follow the instructions given. We’ll start with some simple measurements, and then proceed into a couple of fights. Do remember though that this is mostly just to get a handle on your abilities and not a life or death battle.”

Dee gave a small nod. “I’m actually slightly surprised you haven’t set up something that would allow us to battle freely without worry of hurting each other.”

The blue-sashed man smiled a bit before replying. “Ah yes, I’m familiar with such training facilities and have built some myself. They have their place as they are good for sparring, but the problem with altering reality or doing imaginary battles is that it’s hard to get exact measurements and such altered states aren’t always perfect representations of reality. For scientific work, actual combat is much more useful.” He waved towards the room below. “If you would, please.”

Dee nimbly jumped over the railing and used her telekinesis to make a soft and silent landing in the middle of the large room. A dome of protective energy sprung around the observation platform, powered not only by a spell formation but also everyone present on the platform. The voice of the male scientist, obviously enhanced by a spell, sounded in the room. “Now, if you would kindly pick the first target and utilize your most commonly used attack on it. No need to use full strength but be at least a little bit serious.”

As soon as the man had finished speaking and before most people on the platform could even register what had transpired, a psionic weapon impacted on one of the provided targets, annihilating it completely in the subsequent explosion. After a second of silence the man spoke again. “Um, I think I mentioned that there was no need to use full strength.”

Dee smiled sardonically as she replied. “That wasn’t full strength. I wasn’t even serious. I’d say that was maybe 30% of the power I can put into it without turning the attack into multiple projectiles.” She hadn’t even put a spin on the attack.

“Did we get a measurement?” The scientist asked another blue-sashed man standing at the side, observing some magical measuring devices. The other man nodded. “Yes, though it’s far from exact. I’d say the attack has a good chance of taking out a fresh immortal, and would certainly take out a rank nine being. The psionic power used by her is extremely thick and seems to have a rather unique quality that is impossible to quantify that makes the attack more potent. If I were to speculate, this might have something to do with her recent rank up. We have some reports of other rank thirteen beings and their powers also becoming more potent.”

The scientist leading the proceedings turned back to the wider room. “Would you be so kind as to scale that attack as far as you can without compromising accuracy?”

Dee looked around her. “I don’t think the room is large enough but sure.” Suddenly thousands upon thousands of such psionic weapons appeared. They covered the ceiling of the room and were close enough together to be touching.

‘Huh, it seems that becoming rank thirteen is doing wonders for my control. The power is much easier to use.’ She commented to Croestia.

‘You did mention to me earlier that this seemed to be the case. Do you still think it has something to do with that weird feeling you’ve been having?’ Croestia asked. The two had discussed this matter on their trip towards the White City.

‘Yes. It feels a little bit like I’m becoming energy and my body is just a shell I inhabit. Using that power is more like using my own arm than spending some abstract power inside me. The more my power grows, the more obvious the feeling becomes.’ Although her powers had grown only very marginally since becoming rank thirteen, it was still enough to notice some trends.

“Ok, good. You can let the attack dissipate now.” The scientist announced. Afterwards, they proceeded to do a hundred small tests ranging from her holy attacks to her various defensive abilities.

“Chief, I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to scratch that protective layer with a power under the rank of thirteen.” The other blue-sashed scientist announced as they finished their test with Dee’s armor of light. Unsurprisingly Dee hadn’t shown all her abilities, but the armor of light was such an obvious defensive measure that there was no point in hiding it. She would be using it all the time anyway.

“Ok, we can get to the fights now. Remember, these aren’t really fights to the death. They’re just something to get a handle on your style for the time you’ll eventually have to fight alongside with other Lords in battle.” The scientist announced.

It was obvious Dee had the abilities to fight as a long ranged mage-type, but now they wanted to see her in close combat. The first one was supposed to be an armed fight. A single rank eleven defensive-focused fighter from the green faction stepped into the room. Despite being a more defensive type, the man was armed with a pair of light swords. Speed was an important part of defense after all. “You may begin when ready. Also, Miss Haydee, you’ll need to be armed.”

With a small shrug, Dee pulled out her ‘smacking stick’ as she had started calling the weapon she had gotten from Lumen. Gravity was already starting to act funny around the thing. As the green-sashed fighter started approaching Dee, she made a slight gesture with her stick. She wanted to use her invisible hands to disrupt the man’s approach and the gesture with the stick was more of a theatric move than anything else. To Dee’s surprise, not just her psionic power but also a bit of her holy power was channeled into the attack, and it came out with twice the strength she had planned on using. The green-sashed warrior was flung to the side as if run over by a giant dragon, finally bouncing off the wall and floor with enough strength to break many things. Some of those things were probably important.

“Uuh, oops. I think I accidentally broke him.” Dee stated to the benefit of the tester, genuinely sorry.

‘Who would have known that the damn stick can function as a wand of sorts as well?’ Croestia laughed inside Dee’s head. The two had gone over many possible uses for the weapon, but using it like this had not come up in any of their theories. Apparently, the thing allowed Dee to combine her two powers in weird ways.

“Miss Dee, we’ve gone over this several times. No need to get so serious. Healers, please!” The man sounded a little exasperated. Despite Dee’s continuous protestations, the man thought Dee was just taking this too seriously to show off.

“Meh, this isn’t going anywhere. Just let me do it and we can get this done. You’ve indulged yourself enough.” Aurelie stated and jumped down to the testing room as the green-sashed man was being carried off by healers. As an immortal, the man would recover quickly anyway and was in no real danger, but healers could get him up to full strength sooner.

“Will this go any different?” One of the grey-sashed observers asked a little confused. He was also one of the grey faction’s councilors. Aurelie was not well known, but those that did have some knowledge of her knew her to be capable. Still, even they weren’t entirely sure of her complete abilities. Aurelie was one of those people that defied standard evaluations, and normally she was very hard to judge.

“Don’t worry about her.” Mit-Amen stated. She was here to represent her faction of course. It was also likely that she’d get a chance to talk with Dee after these tests. In fact, that particular opportunity had already been scheduled. The downside was that all the factions would get the chance to make their case. The chance to snap up a rank thirteen being that had no significant ties to any faction was just too attractive to pass without giving a shot at least.

“But is she even rank twelve? I can’t sense her properly and she doesn’t carry any identifiers. This will be a waste of time if she ends the exact same as that rank eleven green warrior.” The grey councilor insisted. They were mostly busy people after all.

Mit-Amen shook her head in consternation. Just because one became a councilor in one of the larger factions, that didn’t guarantee your intelligence. “Like I said, don’t worry about it. Aurelie is one of those hard to rank people. Against armies she’s not all that proficient, but against individuals she’s a real monster.” In fact, Aurelie didn’t have a proper official ranking just for this reason. She was too hard to judge. Usually, she acted under direct orders of the leader of the red faction so she didn’t have to mind seniority.

“Well, is the fun part beginning?” Dee asked as she saw Aurelie drop down to the testing area.

“Oh yes. This should be interesting. It’s been a while since I fought one of our siblings.” Aurelie replied while shedding her robe. The standard robe of a Lord was not the best attire for close combat. Instead, she was clad in skintight dark leather that barely covered her modesty, if that. Dee finally got a real eyeful and appreciated what she saw.

Her appreciation might have been slightly narcissistic as Aurelie’s body type was very similar to her own, very athletic without being overly muscular. Aurelie still filled out certain strategic sections of the armor very nicely. The chitin plates Dee had noticed earlier ran down her spine from the neck and all the way down to the tail that seemed to be formed from layers of those plates. The only other chitin plates seemed to be on her arms and seemed more like long gauntlets that came almost to her shoulders. The silvery white hair ran down her back had a tingle of purple in, and actually reminded Dee of Noyala a bit. Even with the devilish horns, the woman was a head shorter than Dee, which still left her taller than most women.

“Liking what you see?” Aurelie asked playfully.

“Very much.” Dee replied honestly and made a small wave with her hand. Her robes were also swallowed by the shadows, and now she too was clad in nothing but the shadows. Well, almost nothing but. There was no need to advertise that one piece of clothing still hidden by the shadows. She had decided to match Aurelie’s attire, so the shadows had formed into a similar armor. “So, shall we go unarmed?”

“We can start that way, though I doubt either of us will end up that way.” Aurelie replied while also giving Dee and appreciative look that bordered on leering. Her look changed a little to a more thoughtful one as Dee materialized another pair of arms.

The robes Dee had been wearing had not been designed for four arms, and while she hadn’t hidden her extra arms, she had felt uncomfortable using them. The upper pair of arms was suddenly covered in draconic scales while the lower pair was covered in the familiar white fur. Both had wicked looking claws on them. “And neither of us is really unarmed.” Dee pointed out, as they both flexed their long and sharp claws a bit.

Then they both seemed to vanish and an enormous impact shook the building as their attack started colliding in rapid progression. The unleashed energy from the impacts was creating large grooves in the floor and walls around them and even slight accidental misses in their attacks left deep claw marks on everything close-by. Hundreds of blows were exchanged in seconds, and the attacks were taking a rapid toll on the area.

“Rupert, I seem to remember you guaranteed that the protections of this room would be enough. I think your direct quote was that ‘the room would be able to withstand two dragon Aspects in heat going at it during mating season’. A rather vivid imagery I must say. I hope you were not exaggerating.” Mit-Amen looked towards the scientist in charge.

The man was sweating a bit. “It should hold! It’s just the surface that’s getting damaged.”

“Yes, and those two seem to be only beginning. We might want to ask anyone in the immediate vicinity to evacuate just in case.” Mit-Amen’s voice brook no argument.

In the meantime, Dee was finding that Aurelie was much more appropriate as an opponent than she had thought. The other woman seemed to have focused all her efforts on the physical enhancement side of psionics. As a result, her strength and speed were boosted to a phenomenal degree. If Dee didn’t have the blessing of Lumen, then Aurelie would probably be slightly faster than her, despite the fact that she had become rank thirteen. Dee was still a bit stronger, but not enough for it to make a difference.

Aurelie’s body seemed to be surrounded in a weird field of power that seemed to somehow make Dee’s attacks ineffective, and it took Dee a while to figure out how. The field didn’t actually reduce the power of her attack, but instead evenly distributed it around Aurelie’s whole body, rendering those attacks ineffective. Aurelie was also extremely sturdy thanks to her enhancements, so that small damage was almost negligible, even if it happened to her whole body at once. She also had the regenerative ability to stop the damage from slowly mounting and becoming a problem.

Another factor was that all of Aurelie’s attacks seemed to carry a weird sort of energy that seemed to pass into Dee’s body even when she blocked the attacks coming at her. That weird energy seemed to vibrate with every subsequent attack and seemed to be slowly getting worse. This gathering power meant that Aurelie’s enemy would have to start using some of their power to suppress that energy inside them, and eventually the vibration would become too much to deal with.

“So. You either overwhelm your opponents with speed and power, or you win the slow battle of attrition. Not bad.” Dee said in slight admiration. “Normally that might be a little difficult to deal with.”

Aurelie cocked an eyebrow. “Normally?” She was rather confident in her usual tactic. It was not all she could do of course, but it was usually enough. There were some people that could counter the tactic of course. The easiest way was to keep Aurelie at a distance until the vibrating energy subsided, but that was not an option in this case.

Suddenly Dee was surrounded by black flames that didn’t seem to do any damage to her or the surroundings, and Aurelie felt the power she had pushed inside Dee being consumed. ‘I see, that’s another way to do it.’ There were ways of purifying foreign energies inside your body, and Aurelie had expected Dee to have some way of doing so with her holy powers. Cleansing Aurelie’s energy was not easy, but not impossible. This black flame was new though. Something to do with the kitsune tails perhaps?

The two went back at it with even bigger enthusiasm and quickly discovered that their opponent was extremely skilled in unarmed combat. Their styles were vastly different, partly because they had different abilities and even a different number of limbs, but they were rather complementary. Aurelie’s style emphasized sheer power and speed focused on breaking through all opposition, but it wasn’t without its grace and fluidity as she smoothly moved from one aggressive attack to another. In the meantime Dee kept leading her in circles, redirecting her attacks and trying to trap her. Aurelie couldn’t get in any clean attacks while Dee’s attacks were largely ineffective thanks to Aurelie’s protective field. All in all, it was good training for the both of them, though the room was starting to slowly break down.

“I think we aren’t getting anywhere like this.” Aurelie finally said and backed up. “Phase two?”

“Sure, why not.” Dee agreed with a smile. She rather enjoyed having a worthy opponent, even though she was keenly aware that she could win rather easily if she stacked both Croestia’s supportive abilities with all the supportive holy spells she could cast. But that wasn’t the point. If all she wanted was a victory, then she could just use her black flames or death spells. But that wouldn’t be any fun.

Both of them materialized very similar looking psionic weapons before diving back in.