The War Chronicles of a Little Demon

Set in the Diyu Demons verse A Saga of Tanya the Evil fic. By Sunshine Temple

Naturally, I do not own Youjo Senki. So here’s the disclaimer:

Saga of Tanya the Evil its characters and settings belong Carlo Zen, Shinobu Shinotsuki, and NUT Co., Ltd.

Previous chapters and other works can be found at my fanfiction website.

C&C as always is wanted.

Chapter 4: Silver Wings.

It was a clear night. At this altitude the air was crisp, not that I could feel it through my suit.

VioletBlood and I had started a couple of over-flights to herald the opera house’s main production with fireworks displays.

Our part of the plan was to go to a few locations out of the city and deploy a couple of explosions and sparkling streaks to draw attention towards the city center and the opera house. That only took half of our load out, but it would have been a bit suspicious to only take on a small amount of fireworks.

Using the rest of the Squadron’s displays and our camouflage, we slipped away to the southeast of the city.

True to the duchess’s word, House RedStorm’s local Airspace Control didn’t challenge us, and soon our scrying systems gave us good telemetry on an abandoned orchard out in the farmlands that approached the border, still about twenty miles distant.

Our specific target was a leaning, old gazebo. There were two schools of thought for clandestine meetings. One preferred meeting in a busy area to allow for someone to make use of crowds, labyrinthine buildings and terrain, and a variety of vehicles. In short giving a lot of areas to hide and break contact while retaining hidden support.

This had the downside that the other party, or third parties could also use terrain in such a way.

The other school advocated using a more remote area to make sure the site was secure before approaching and that no one was waiting in ambush before leaving. It took the opposite doctrine in being able to control, or at least reconnoiter the location. It allowed for more care to make sure the various parties were alone.

The downside was that if extra assets were hidden, then it could easily become a trap.

And given I was part of a Ritual Plate team on orbital overwatch, I can see why the duchess was willing to go along with this location. If the seller was on the up and up then there would be no need for us to do anything but log a few more boring flight hours.

"Seller’s approaching the primary location," VioletBlood transmitted.

I sighed. The thaumaturgical links of our comms meant they were nearly emissionless. Stronger transmissions for longer ranged communication could be picked up. I was told the encryption system was also rather robust, but I had not yet gotten approval into the exact nature of the mathematics used.

From my experience with computation orbs, I was a fair hand at such calculations.

There was also transmitting in the clear on a commonly used channel, but VioletBlood would not be so insipid to do something like that.

Still my ire was more that VioletBlood’s idle chatter was getting to me. This was the third time she had transmitted over the course of our surveillance. "Message received and seconded," I tersely replied.

Maybe the little baroness was upset because we were about eight minutes out from Narvos or maybe because this was her first time on a real mission. I suppose it was mine too, if you only counted this life.

Though on balance, it was better to have her on my wing, than be alone up here. Even if she was not so stoic.

There was a brief chirp of acknowledgement from the duchess’ transmitter.

VioletBlood and I continued to fly over as the party came to meet Duchess SilverFlight and made the exchange. I caught a visual of the Sellers showing the supposed statue that was the overt point of this while also handing over some papers and other bits to show authenticity and providence.

"Sellers are leaving," VioletBlood stated with a bit of relief in her voice.

"Keep an eye on them. Things can still go wrong." I continued tracking with my Gorgon rig. Trusting VioletBlood would keep an eye on the group we knew about, I directed my attention elsewhere.

That’s odd.

"I’m getting something to the south, by the river," I transmitted as I tried to work over the slight variance. The size was too wrong, but it might have been fliers under a Veil.

"Getting similar telemetry from the Sellers," VioletBlood’s tone had gotten clipped and serious.

"Confirm," the duchess stated to us before going to her troops on the boat. "Centurions get in the air-"

"Multiple explosions!" VioletBlood and I shouted. On my display I could see the boat, the Sellers, and the gazebo where my... my... mentor was at were all hit.

The biggest was the boat and the smallest was Duchess SilverFlight.

"To me!" I ordered VioletBlood as I descended and put on max power to accelerate towards the duchess.

As we raced in, I could see the sparkling dome of a ward around the duchess’s form. "Watch for other targets," I ordered VioletBlood. "SilverFlight. SilverFlight!"

"Yes, Tauria I’m here, just entertaining an old friend," the duchess said with some measure of strain.

It was then that I made a rookie mistake for a Ritual Plate Pilot.

I landed.

The ground came up and I saw that the duchess was fighting what had been an elegant woman. Imperious lines were still on her face, but her curled black hair had been cut harshly short and she wore a matte grey bodysuit. She dropped a smoking spear shaft to the ground.

And where once was the aloof, but harmless expression of the idle-rich owner of Heavenly Home, was now fanatical madness.

"You brought your daughter," she crooned. "My mother would be eager to see her. She’d love to have a granddaughter, that is if she doesn’t take her for herself. We’ll have to all meet and have some tea!" she screamed, ramming a silver-etched obsidian spearhead towards the duchess’s ward.

The rune design looked to be Zioxan in style.

"Luddy, your mother has been dead for a decade," the duchess patiently said before the spear hit.

There was another explosion as the obsidian blade blew apart. The blast caused VioletBlood’s and my wards to flare as the shockwave hammered us as it passed.

I was on the ground and thus my Ritual Plate’s stupid boots dragged against the dirt, nearly flipping me over.

The duchess’s ward blew apart, but she had already darted forward. Parrying the spear shaft, she slid her sword blade into Luddy’s side. There was a shock of lightning and the duchess’s friend fell to her knees.

"What’s going on?" VioletBlood demanded.

I gave her a flat look before going to the duchess. "Someone captured and brainwashed Lady Luminedia Tessaris."

I felt sick. Such a thing was possible. A powerful demoness could take one of lesser power, or in a weakened state, and dominate her, twist her, make her into an obedient daughter. By BlackSkyvian standards, a great crime had been done to Luddy.

"And took out my Flight," the duchess stated. I could feel the rage and sorrow burning beneath her exterior. Her silver lips turned to a frown as she pulled out the blade and almost gently kicked Luddy to the side.

"And the people that sold you the Package."

The duchess shook her head and quickly checked Luddy’s breathing and pupils. I could feel the Zephyr swirling around SilverFlight.

"You two can switch between carrying her and the Package. I’ll follow right behind you," the duchess explained as she went to a marble statue of a demoness with six arms and three tails. She idly cut the head off with her blade and pulled out a small metal case the size of a deck of cards.

"You can’t," I stated. The speed difference was too much. Ritual Plate meant far more power could be fed to our Zephyr.

I strode over to her and grabbed the Package. I did not need to know what it was, only that people were willing to kill and mind-rape for it. "Optio VioletBlood take it."

I handed it to her. "Go to Narvos."

Glancing at Luddy’s limp form, VioletBlood slipped the slim object into one of the side compartments on her Ritual Plate.

"You are the fastest one here." I spat. "Get up, and after thirty and start pulsing your Gorgon Rig, to check to see who is following. Don’t get stupid but that will be helpful."

The baroness nodded.

"Don’t waste another second. Go! Now!" I ordered with as much authority as I could muster.

VioletBlood’s masked face bobbled a me as her wings swept out and she automatically took off and darted into the distance.

"Mission focused, little one," the duchess said with a wan smile as her tail hung behind her. She said a few words into her communications system and if anything her tail drooped more.

"There’s an incident at the opera house. The Troupe and Mira are helping with the fires and other problems. It sounds like they’re arming up. So, we’re still minutes from help and there are two groups converging on us faster than backup will come. You can still take Luddy"

I blinked, if things were bad enough that a demure librarian had to help legionary fliers... No matter.

"You’re taking Luddy." I stared up at the duchess. I grinned as my tail flicked. "I’m going to go after and these bastards who did this to your friends."

The duchess had pulled Luddy in an awkward carry in front of her so she could still use her wings. "If she wakes up, I’ll have to drop her."

I shrugged and let my impatience show.

"Right, time is slipping," the duchess unbuckled her sword and handed it over to me.

I wordlessly took it on. It was not much of a weapon in an aerial flight. Even as a focus, it did not have great range, but I did have experience with bringing a blade to an aerial mage flight. And it was nice to have an actual weapon instead of the glorified fireworks and glitter streamer that my suit was currently set up with.

The duchess took flight and started flying close to the surface. "You know they’re going to follow me. If this is House Ziox they’ll value me more than the Package, other than denying it to us. Regardless, a BlackSkyvian noble of my experience would be valuable."

I took to the air behind her.

"And that’s not counting that the monster who did this is desperate to get back her ‘daughter’," she spat.

"That’s what I’m counting on, your Grace," I confidently said as a manic grin split my face.

++++++

I split off from the duchess and took a vector that looked like I was on VioletBlood’s heels before I laboriously powered up a credible Veil.

I wanted to give the impression that I was a panicked young flier in an unarmed suit, trying to run away and hide. That I had been desperately trying to follow someone who was faster than me.

All the Diyu Great Houses used some form of Ritual Plate. Many used them as their primary form of air power. Some, like House Ziox, preferred to use nimble aircraft, some manned, some golems.

An aggressive, mid-size, power with designs on their smaller, and even their larger, neighbors, Ziox did not have as much of a focus on expeditionary capabilities. Their enemies were across the border instead of across the continent or offworld. Thus the calculus that led many powers to heavily invest in Ritual Plate was not there.

The logic went that Ritual Plate, at the cost of requiring pilot skill, expense, and precision arcane logistics, created a force that was extremely efficient on a firepower per mass basis.

This was extremely useful for a House that used carriers as a means of power projection. The weight efficiency meant that the limiting factor for naval powers such as Trosier and Alecto was not the number of RP Pilots their seaborne RP carriers could hold, but the amount of pilots they could recruit, train, and equip.

This had an effect on their carrier design and what ancillary craft they carried, such as utility, troop, and cargo transports or torpedo bombers. Fitting with our doctrine of mobility and ranged power projection we made heavy use of airborne Ritual Plate carriers. This meant House BlackSky could place a titanic and powerful or nimble and focused Ritual Plate platform at will.

From my past experiences, I still had issues with such a broad-spanning use of airships, but when combined with capital ship grade Wards and Teleportation Runes the results were quite useful. Escort craft and air defense were also required, and was why the Household Fleet invested in so many Air Groups dedicated to Combat Air Patrol, Interception and Defense.

House Ziox took the opposite approach.

Their enemies were all close by. They did not need to invest in a massive air fleet. They did not need to infest in defending said massive air fleet. Under the presumption that they would have runways, even short rough ones, to operate from they could, by and large, use more rugged, larger, and cheaper aircraft.

This gave them more overall thrust, and a slight edge in firepower over many comparable Ritual Plate models. On a firepower per cost aspect House Ziox came ahead. Thus they could produce more fighter and strike craft than if they were a primarily Ritual Plate force. They tried to be competitive with larger Houses, and overwhelming against smaller Houses. The downside was that these airframes were larger; which meant, on balance, they were less agile and easier to target.

These and other deficiencies meant that House Ziox still maintained a cadre of RP Pilots. As a platform Ritual Plate was too useful for any House to entirely ignore.

Taken from the most promising, and compatible, of their conventional pilot corps, and developing equipment and training from Trosier, House Ziox maintained a credible threat with their Ritual Plate force.

It was one of these units that I was up against.

A vicious smile formed as I increased altitude and collated the passive scrying from my own Gorgon rig. VioletBlood’s own periodic pulses were illuminating the area. They also drew some attention to her.

But she had a head start, and the duchess, burdened by Luddy, and without the power of a Ritual Plate suit was much slower and much more vulnerable.

I took a sip of water and studied the intake of scrying data. I even triggered the command to heat up some broth and drank some of that thick, energy-enriched, concoction.

Poor, brainwashed, Luddy had not been in Ritual Plate. But the echoes I was picking up might just match with Satori pattern stealth ground strike Ritual Plate.

A bit of a hybrid design, House Ziox built the Satori as a capable, but relatively expensive, suit that could be useful to soften ground targets both hardened and softer. It was less powerful than a Telephe, but House Ziox preferred to use fixed wing platforms to go after large mobile enemy assets.

The Satori was not as powerful as the Telephe but it could fire more shots, if at shorter range. They were decent at ground support but a bit lacking in protection. In some ways, they were the Zioxan version of Polyxo. Though with less modularity in mission packages, which made them more of a compromise design all around.

Unless I was wrong and these were their Tjardu air-superiority pattern suits. Which was a high-performance modification of suits developed with House Trosier. I knew many pilots who would argue the pros and cons of a Harmonia versus a Tjardu.

The Tjardu was lighter and had greater turning capability while the Harmonia had greater protection and overall speed. Scrying systems and comms integration went to the Harmonia but the Tjardu was supposedly an easier platform to Veil. The Tjardu was also trickier to master with a steeper learning curve.

It was a bit academic to me, because few of those debates involved taking an unarmed Polydora, without any mission modules, versus at least two Flights of Zioxan Ritual Plate. Not to mention the likelihood that one of those pilots was powerful enough to Dominate a BlackSkyvian noble. I suppose, technically, my suit was not unarmed. I was carrying fireworks launchers.

The pulses from VioletBlood gave me just enough backscatter to examine with years of experience in aerial combat. I knew the enemy had split into at least two forces, three if you counted poor Luddy.

I knew where they were at a given point, when they had made those attacks against the duchess’s pilots, and I knew where the duchess and VioletBlood were.

From there it was picking the locations that seemed most likely to hold an enemy force.

I flashed my fangs and dropped down to one of the two probable locations.

Without having on-board systems to worry about, I had spare capacity in my power budget. I stated by pushing most into my Veiling while edging up my speed.

The time for being low-profile would be ending soon, but I would keep that advantage as long as I could.

Closing in, the imagery resolved. Even at this distance, the quartet would be hard to make out, as they were more blurs of shadow and light. Fortunately, I was not limited to basic senses.

The combination of VioletBlood’s help, a year of training, and a lifetime of general air combat experience pointed me to the Zioxan Flight. The four Ritual Plate suits were likely Satori. I suppose, they could be Tjardu bulked out with extra equipment, running below the normal cruise speed of such suits.

I picked the trailing and higher altitude member of their diamond formation. It seemed rather textbook, at least from what Ziox learned from Trosier, which came from the latter’s wars against Alecto, who were in-turn taught by us.

It was a fast formation that gave mutual support in all three dimensions, having clear fields of fire and areas of detection. At the Squadron level, two more Flights would be flanking the lead Flight, each in their own altitude zone. Fortunately for me, while this force knew the book, they lacked the paranoia and experience to learn its limitations.

In a near vertical dive, I pulsed my Zephyr. The eager air spirits were simple creatures; their existence was centered around one thing: speed. It was an alluring trap for many a rookie pilot. Raw velocity was exhilarating. It also required careful warding to erect a proper aero-shell and keep the magical shield an optimized drag-reducing shape.

The pilot in what might have been a mottled grey-green armored suit was skilled. She actually turned and tried to intercept. Her scrying system had detected me.

Unfortunately for her, I was already above mach one with the duchess’s sword held in my arm with the plates locked into place. She flicked aside as I lit the runes along the blade’s length.

I may have been sub-optimally armed, but I was still armed.

Golden light flared along the edge as I slammed into the enemy flier. I had been aiming for the spot in her back just between her wings, about where her heart was.

Her wards flared. I triggered my suit’s power, and for a brief moment her protective bubble collapsed under the kinetic and magical assault.

The cut was messy as the blade skittered over enchanted plates of armor before slipping between a backplate and a side panel. Impaled, she screamed in surprise and horror at such volume it was audible through her helmet.

Thrashing, she tried to turn and fling me off or at least get her own weapons pointed at me. I could feel her desperation, her shock, the pain lancing through her, but I pushed it aside. It was her or me.

Laughing, I twisted the blade and slammed yet more acceleration into my Zephyr as we continued plummeting towards the ground. Now, now, her desperation and horror was getting hard to push aside as my horns buzzed.

The rest of her Flight had flipped around and was vectoring in. There was a moment as they hesitated unsure if they should fire on their own comrade.

My expression became a malevolent, slashing grin as I tore the sword out of the pilot’s back and sliced it across the base of her wings. While she screamed, I kicked off of her thrashing body and began a dash climb.

Now, would the Flight leader send one of her pilots to rescue the one I had stricken? They’d have to split up immediately if they wanted to catch her before she hit the ground. If she was very lucky, very skilled, and strongly bonded with her Zephyr she might be able to slow her fall enough to survive.

From the way their formation bobbled and broke up, I supposed their fourth member was begging for help, and the Flight leader was refusing. That did not bode well for her ability to save herself.

Well... time to push them just a bit further.

The enemy immediately started firing, bright green beams of evocation energy. I suppose I should feel honored they were bringing out near-Lance-grade weapons. I started keeping count of who was firing what, it was an academic exercise, at the moment.

I could burn out my ward emitters with every ounce of power I had, and a full Lance strike, even one from an inferior Ziox suit, would still pop my ward like a bubble and burn through my suit.

The nice thing about Zephyr and Ritual Plate was that with enough concentration, skill, and enchantment, thrust vectoring was possible. Sliding and twisting I avoided the powerful, but blunt, beams.

And then I returned fire. While I was only armed with pyrotechnics mortars, the actual projectiles were rather accurate, especially in a rapidly-closing combat.

And while the bursting charges were not strong enough to get through the enemy’s wards, several pounds of burning, flaring fireworks blooms made excellent improvised chaff and blinding agents.

Overlapping, gaudy, multicolored explosions designed to light up a municipal downtown went through the diminished Flight. If they had been in a more spread-out formation not all of them would have been so readily caught.

Cohesion dropped as the two trailing pilots started to turn and try to get around. Meanwhile, I twisted, dove, and using the giant blinding distraction, rocketed up beneath the lead pilot.

A downside of Lance-grade weapons was they were not very subtle. When you pumped out that much arcane power there was enough luminosity and back-scatter to make them visible even at range.

And these pilots were panicked and had poor fire control, shooting at shadows. If they had held fire, I would have been just as blinded to their location as they were to mine. It was hard to keep track of who was firing what shots but it was vital.

Alas...

Lingering smoke, burning metal, and powder parted as I swept through the lead pilot. I don’t know if she froze upon seeing me, or never knew I was there.

This time I led with a fist in locked armor and kept the sword back ready to swing. There was a jarring joint-tearing sensation as my ward slammed into hers and, with a thrust and blast of magic fire out of my fist, it shattered.

The moment that happened, I swept the blade out. The cut was workmanlike but the charged sword cut through her neck. There was only so much physical armor a Ritual Plate suit could have, especially at the joints. Beyond that you might as well build a Ziox style aircraft and armored cockpit.

In a spray of blood, the lead pilot’s head came off and I felt a pulse of energy go up my sword arm and the gnawing in my gut abated. Even the pains and aches in my poor abused off arm started to fade.

I had to focus; it was too easy to bask in the bliss of feeding. It was also too easy to get tunnel-vision on the immediate combatant in front of you. There was at least another Flight out there. I still had to buy time for the duchess, the Package, and, I guess, VioletBlood to get out.

I triggered the deice, demud, miscellaneous cleaning function for the eye lenses to my suit. The blood cleared off, at least the vision-obscuring part. I supposed my helmet and chest armored were still splattered

Letting the lead pilot fall, I went to the nearer of the two remaining Satori Ritual Plate. Buzzing at the energy, I put the excess into my warding shield.

Shooting straight towards her, my only concern was to make sure this suit was between myself and the other surviving pilot.

I hoped that the CSR and our other intelligence branches had got an accurate assessment of enemy capabilities. I was more worried about that than any other part of this maneuver.

Sickly green beams shot out from the Zioxan pilot’s Lances. I pulled and tried to avoid, but it was hard given that I had to get into knife-fighting range for her.

Ritual Plate doctrine emphasized ranged combat as much as possible. It was sensible and logical as that was the safest way to take out the enemy, and gave the most time and maneuver space.

Of course, that was the basic doctrine.

The more I moved the more the pilot fired as her beams became a bit more diffuse and lost some luster.

To my dismay, a moment later, I twisted wrong and a pair of Lances hit my wards straight on.

Even at this range, I could feel the relief coming from the enemy pilot. I screamed at the pain as my suit’s enchantments took most of the arcane and mental load. The bleed-through was enough to scour my brain and I howled in agony as my wards failed.

But instead of bursting and letting the beams pierce through me, they ablated away as I rolled down. Runes flared and some blew apart as I careened into the enemy.

Then the green beams gutted out.

"You should have kept count of your ammo supply!" I screamed using my external speakers as I body-checked the shocked pilot. I debated using the open channel, a commonly used communications protocol that all the Diyu Houses knew of. But I was so close and my intention was to disturb and distract the enemy.

My body roiled in pain as she tried to claw at me. Her talons sparked against my armor and a few dug in under the shoulders. Close quarters combat was not a normal part of Ritual Plate training, at least for Houses that didn’t make a full study of the suits.

My tail snaked out and slashed behind her knees. The pilot screamed and I used the break in her concentration to stab up through her side, the duchess’s sword entering just under her chest armor.

I relished the burst of energy as I ripped the life out of her. By and large, our species was rather robust, hard to kill, but less so against a determined opponent.

I turned and tilted my head to the last pilot. Her flying was weak and her emotions broadcast with rage, loss and fear at how a diminutive flier had in bare moments wiped out the rest of her Flight.

I wondered if she would run, that was the smart move. She had to know I was fighting this way out of desperation due to being ill-equipped. Thus she could safely retreat and regroup with the other Flight.

By my count, she only had a few more shots in her Lance batteries, but that model of Ritual Plate had other offensive systems. Ones that still out-ranged my ad hoc weaponry.

"You! Monster! You killed my sisters!" she screamed in accented Silvan Latin in the clear over the open channel. And then she bounded straight at me.

I blinked. We were both demonic soldiers serving imperialist powers ruled by ancient demonesses. And it was her people who attacked us.

Anger grew within me, this time I let it flow freely and my own horns emitted it.

It seemed no mater the world, no matter the life I had to deal with irrational, emotional people who wanted to kill me for reasons that weren’t my fault.

Circling and gaining more attitude, I bought some time to rekindle my wards. Many of the enchantments that made up the emitters had been burned out and the list of warnings displayed on the edge of my vision was getting uncomfortably crowded.

Still, if this pilot wanted to do an emotional, ill-conceived charge...

Who was I to dissuade her? I spared an instant to look at the timer and the overall situation. Every moment spent in this fight brought those I care- those who were my allies closer to safety and gave more time for reinforcements to come.

Lances shot out and I flicked and dodged. It took coaxing to push just that much more out of my Zephyr. The air spirits were exhilarated. It was a rare treat to be pushed this far, but even they had limits.

But, I had grown up with them, and my Zephyr trusted me.

I dug in and the very plates of my suit screamed in protest at the power being pushed through their enchantment. While a Polydora could have agility that put it somewhat close to that of a Harmonia air superiority fighter, that required the installation of mission modules full of specialized enchantments.

Green beams blew past as I shook, trying to evade and close the distance.

My enemy was rather obliging.

Feeling like we were eye to eye, I shot a brace of mortars at her, the massive, but mostly theatrical explosions blinding both of us.

Well, they would have blinded me, but I blink-closed the covers to my eye slits. Even with them in place, the light from the pyrotechnics bled through and lit up the inside of my helmet. For the moment I was dependent on the composite scrying feed from my and VioletBlood’s Gorgon rigs.

The Zioxan pilot screamed and her beams went wildly off track. Exhaultant, I took her by the side.

This was the last member of her Flight, once I took out her ward, once I killed her I would-

Oh no.

A massive thermal and arcane bloom flared onto my display.

On pure ingrained, intrained instinct, I took the yowling pilot and, using my sword as a lever, shoved her between me and the enemy attack.

An emerald green Lance that left me seeing stars, despite having the shutters closed on my eyes hit.

It turns out some of the enemy pilots were ruthless enough to shoot into their own comrades.

Blinded and confused, the Ziox pilot screamed as her warding, enchantments, Ritual Plate, and flesh all boiled away.

I had tucked into a ball for the first time pulling in my wings, and put every bit of power into my own wards.

At least I took out one Flight and had delayed the enemy by a fair bit.

++++++

Pure desperation and anger fueled me. These were not sustainable emotions. And my power situation was grim, but my suit was being held together by sheer force of will.

I will admit that I was impressed by the robustness of the humble Polydora and the skill of my Ritualista. In the vanishing chance I survived this I was going to buy them as many drinks as they wanted.

One arm hung limply. By sheer luck, and me turning my body so that was the side that got the glancing blow, it was not my sword arm.

Lances shot out in careful, deliberately-angled spreads that gave an instinctual, a doctrinal escape route. If they hit me then fine, but if I evaded, then I would have dove straight into a trap.

Compared to the previous Flight, this one operated at a higher tempo, cohesion, and experience.

It was also a reinforced Flight, with five pilots instead of the normal four. And the fifth one had that nasty overpowered Lance beam, and a custom Ritual Plate suit that throbbed with energy.

Often as not, she was the one who took the trap position when her minions tried to corner me.

Trying to Veil, I reduced my signature and attempted to draw them to the south. My worry was the Zioxan in the custom suit would grow bored and simply split her force.

Flipping to avoid a ranging Lance beam, I guzzled the last bits of water in my suit. Maneuverability and the enemy’s trepidation were my main advantages. Instead of trying to get me head on and accept some losses, they were still probing.

They had to know I was minimally armed. They had to know I was in a Polydora without any mission modules.

They had to...

There!

Enchantments screaming, I slam-shifted from powering my Veil to my Zephyr.

Feeling incandescent, feeling dipped in molten silver, every feather seemed like it was made of raw nerves as I corkscrewed and slipped past the interweaving Lances.

Everything went into this, counting their shots, knowing their locations, monitoring transmissions, keeping abreast of my own suit’s status.

Armor plates rattling, I spun, giving of a ghostly contrail of leaking magic that was a bare shade off the sparkle canister still attached to the small of my back. The silver motes covered my wings.

By doctrine, there was a trained way to escape this kind of bracketing, and this Flight would normally put their leader in a veiled position to use her superior power and suit to blast me.

It was a hard trap to escape.

But this time... this time there were two echoes covering the textbook escape route.

Grinning hurt, my lips were split, and bleeding.

Pushing into my wards I flipped over and launched feet first towards one of the two Zioxan fliers.

Firing over my body, I expended the last of my improvised chaff.

These pilots didn’t panic when bright fireworks went off. They didn’t waste their limited supply of Lance beams. The formation of pilot and wingwoman was also not debilitatingly close to each other.

Orange bolts shot out towards me like tracer fire. In a way that’s what the lesser evocation was. They were the arcane equivalent of tracers, minus the physicality of the actual bullets. It saved a lot of weight, but at the cost of requiring pilots to be capable mages, which in all honesty was already a requirement.

On a damage per mass basis another alchemical fuel cell, even one specialized for evocation, was far more efficient than a hopper with a belt of machine gun ammo. It had the downside of being more expensive and maintenance intensive. Which was a factor that limited a lot of Ritual Plate.

The vision-impaired pilot fired a burst of bolts. A pilot of her caliber had plenty of power to spend on firing. However, my shield was more than capable of resisting, provided I evaded taking sustained bursts.

The last of the fireworks were going off as I hit. Anger and surprise, flared in her, but was backed by resolve. Pulsing out my own hate, I levered my sword and discharged the last bit of my offensive power.

If my estimation of this pilot’s skills were off....

My broken arm flopped as her ward just barely popped. I watched as her wingwoman moved into position. She did not want to kill her companion to get me, but she was ready to do it. She had slowed and took a steadied position to snipe me if need be.

Perfect.

Unlike the previous Flight, the pilot I was locked into had experience with close combat and with eerie calm angled her gauntlet and opened fire point blank at me.

Orange bolts sparked over my ward but before it collapsed I stabbed the duchess’s sword just below her elbow joint and levered.

Screaming in shock, she didn’t halt the firing command. Orange bolts shoot out as I twisted the sword and, with a push of my Zephyr, twisted us around.

Her wingwoman got into motion, but it was too late.

Bolts of fiery energy stitched over the second pilot’s suit. I had bare moments before the runaway gunfire stopped. The luckless woman’s ward shattered and the bolts scythed against her armor before it failed. Using the sword as a crude aim point I made sure the wingwoman was dead by unintentional friendly fire.

Letting my glee and satisfaction bloom, I turned to the woman I had in a bladed embrace. Shock turned to anger as her tail shot out, but I had already readied mine and cut hers off at the base.

Wrenching the sword, I slammed the pommel into her helmet. Her head lolled and flipping the blade around I put the tip in and wrenched off her face mask.

A terrified woman who didn’t look much older than Visha stared at me, her green eyes with bleary confusion. There was a sudden spike of comprehending fear on her face. Then I slashed the blade tip across them and punched the sword down her mouth.

There wasn’t far for it to go. Her death spasms rocked me and power flowed in. I gasped and felt feeling, painful glorious feeling return to my broken arm as flesh and bones knitted.

Kicking the corpse away I dove down with renewed vigor. My heart rocked with more energy than a stim injection.

Now there were three left.

And they were closing in.

++++++

"Little BlackSkyvian!" A voice boomed out above me.

I raced down and knew I had to break contact.

"You’ve impressed me! Savage, skilled, ruthless. And for one so very young." The words were in a cultured purr, her Silvan Latin perfect. Somehow the voice was not as loud as it should have been.

I gave a moment to take in the overall layout. She had slowed and seemed to be following in an almost disinterested manner. The remaining half of her flight followed behind her, flanking.

This was the woman who had taken and mind-raped Luddy. She had also blown up the duchess’ mercenary pilots. And I had just killed six of her pilots.

And she was congratulating me.

Stupid, crazy demons.

"I know what you’re doing, fledgling," she said in her smooth, smarmy murmur. "You want to go to the river, the border, draw out this fight."

I twisted and poured more into my Veil and then went for altitude. The distance from them to me was gaining. If I broke contact I could go and attack from another vector.

"I know you think you can draw us to the southeast while your... mother perhaps? And your mate, mayhap, escape? How self sacrificing." Now, the voice was almost intimate. "But I can send my two girls after you and take care of them myself." Her voice deepened and became harsh. "I assure you I am more than fast enough to intercept them well before they reach the city."

I winced and worked to keep my horns insulated. We have been given lessons on dealing with elder demons and mental prowess was one of their major threats.

"I’m upset." Her voice was flat, all the charm was gone. "I rather liked that new daughter. Don’t make me choose, fledgling. I’ll take them or I’ll take you."

My body spasmed. I had to focus on the mission. I would also never let her take me. If I had to engage with her, then so be it.

I turned and hit the open channel. "You have no idea. Compared to the beings I have killed, the armies I have shattered, a jumped up Zioxan pilot is nothing," I stated in a flat even tone.

"Oh, you are a temptress my blood-coated broodling," she chuckled. She was now transmitting on the same channel. "And I am no jumped up pilot. I am War Mistress Zaphania Rodswor commander of the Second Assault Infiltration Wing. Favored by the Dictatrix herself. And you will be my daughter, fledgling."

I kept my guard up. It didn’t seem like she was using her mind powers. But... explicitly being told by a powerful demoness that she wanted to dominate and brainwash you was not fun.

"Please, make a show of it, someone armed with fireworks taking out Flights of enemies has style," Zaphania purred. "Take pride in my approval, fledgling."

I gave a broken chuckle. Well... now I had leverage. I can make it so the War Mistress or her minions won’t kill me outright

"Hah! Like the approval of a failure means anything to me." I sneered.

I let the channel hang mute for a moment. I was not normally open to being so chatty in battle, but my weapons were few and I was not so prideful to turn one down.

Zaphania started to reply but I cut her off.

"You stink of it. You are a failure of a commander, a failure of a mother. You are an example of all that is wrong with our kind." I snarled. "Heavy-handed, clumsy domineering. Sacrificing loyal troops, loyal daughters, abusing their love then tossing them like so much spoiled meat when you decide to chase a new bauble."

I allowed myself to laugh and projected out my emotions. Maybe I could unsettle her.

Her voice was cold and brittle. "Piper. Michelle. Give her a lesson in respect. A painful one. Consider it an education for all three of you."

"Yes Mother!" they said, voices tight.

I tracked the two remaining pilots break from Zaphania and streak out towards me.

Great, just as planned.

That was the problem of the open channel, it was hard to hide your location when you were openly broadcasting.

It all came down to resources. My suit was trickling down on power. I had fed on the life energy of a few pilots, but I had drunk all my water and broth, so there was no more physical food coming in. I was empty on mortar rounds. There were other resources such as time, altitude, speed, and knowledge.

I also had my body.

Veiling up, I raced over to try and get past the two pilots. If I could regain some uncertainty in where I was...

A rapid hailstorm of orange bolts fired out from both of them.

Lovely, at least they weren’t using Lances.

Their assault bolts had less power and range, but had more frequency of fire. And enough hits would shatter my ward. And then they’d be on me.

The sensible thing would be for them to stay back and, using mutual support, pound me into submission.

But they were goaded into making this personal. Pushing my Zephyr, feeling my wingtips starting to char as the magical "waste heat" became too much to manage, I pushed my suit to where most of the status indicators on my Display started blinking orange.

The plates continued to rattle as I expended my suit’s lifespan to pull the two pilots into a spiraling, twisting turning fight. The artificial horizon display spun until the gimbals seized and it flicked with a fault warning.

Orange bolts shot past me as I desperately used what little I had left to get behind them. To get into the textbook position for a firing solution.

I failed.

At that.

If they had been thinking clearly, maybe Piper or Michelle would have wondered why I was trying to get behind them. I had no way to hurt them from that angle.

Instead, they got target fixation. And one of them managed to blast apart my ward while her wingwoman stitched orange bolts over my body.

Or she would have if I hadn’t rolled and tucked my legs up.

It was a tumbling move I had learned in ballet. And it put the armor of my lower leg and the armor of my thigh in front of my torso. It also protected what was behind my torso.

The pain was excruciating as my left leg was holed and my right was blown apart above the knee.

My suit, loyal to the end, deployed automatic tourniquets to staunch the blood loss. And then analgesics to put some edge off the spiking, debilitating pain.

The two pilots saw me tumbling, shedding armor plates and spraying blood.

They closed in.

I could have focused on healing, I could have focused on getting my wards back up.

Instead, I pushed as much as I could, from my suit’s power cells, from those I had fed on, from myself into the sword. The engravings flared with a bright, ominous light, it was full. And then I put in more.

I was tumbling. I was fading. I was bleeding. But they had stopped firing.

Distance was hard, but worse was getting the right vector. I also had limited time before this went all wrong.

Now.

I pulled my arm and whipped the sword out to the trailing of the two pilots.

Swords are not meant to be thrown. They have all the wrong balance. And getting the blade to stick, on an armored, warded foe was folly. Fortunately, at that moment I didn’t care about the sword as a sword.

The pilot seemed amused by the flailing blade. She actually just did the bare minimum to keep the sword from biting her.

And then the overloaded magical capacitors built into the sword exploded.

Part of me winced at destroying the duchess’ prized possession. Part of me rejoiced that the explosion was enough to blast through the pilot’s ward shield and snap her neck.

She flopped over dead and fell like a doll caught in the wind.

"Piper No!" the other pilot screamed as she tackled me. I twisted and tried to get out. Well, at least this gave me a chanc-

Talons raked over my helmet and tore my facemask off. Cold air blasted past my face as my eyes were exposed to the shearing wind.

It was like being back in Norden.

I twisted, aimed my hand, and set a small blast of fire against her torso armor. Runes flares and the material softened and worry crossed the pilot’s face, but it wasn’t enough. Her suit ejected the malformed heated plate revealing her unharmed inner bodysuit.

"Running on empty?" she laughed, angling herself so the weak spot was no longer within my reach.

"How does it feel knowing your mother prefers me to all your sisters!" I cackled. In the desperate moment, it was easy to forget my mangled legs.

Fury and hate pulsed over me. I wondered if she would ignore her mother’s orders and kill me. That would be preferable.

Her tail swept up and went straight to my face. I could see the writhing, razor sharp filaments extend. I reached out and grabbed her tail.

The filaments quickly cut through the gloves and armor, and it was like holding a miniature chainsaw. Before my hand disintegrated I yanked hard on her tail and she slammed back into me.

The pain was horrific but I burned with contempt as I rammed my own tail into her torso. My own set of razor filaments went throught the weak spot where her suit had ejected the armor and into her guts. Stretching my tail up, I searched and shredded organs until I found her heart.

Her body went limp as I pulled in her energy. That made eight kills.

It was not enough, I needed to have fed on both of the last two.

Or I needed to-

And that’s when War Mistress Zaphania dropped down and took me from behind.

Her mental presence pressed on my weary mind, my drained will. Her arms wrapped around mine and she tisked seeing my ruined hand and legs.

"You should have given in," she purred, popping up her own face mask.

A pale face with hard amber eyes stared at me. She had the lean, cold beauty of an elegant equation. The War Mistress slowed our velocity. Right here, right now, she was going to bite me and make me her daughter. I should have expected that.

I did expect that.

"You wouldn’t have accepted that," I coughed, looking up at her. She seemed so much bigger than me. I looked away.

"No, I wanted to see if you were worthy, Daughter," Zaphania leaned closer. "And you are; you used every weapon."

"Not quite," I smirked.

Confusion crossed the War Mistress’ face. She then felt the canister between her and me.

And then I released the contrail container at the small of my back. It had no explosives, but my Zephyr, ever loyal, used the last of their power to shoot the glitter and sparkles upward.

War Mistress Zaphania shrieked as her eyes, mouth, and nose were sprayed with the brightly sparkling motes.

Blinded, there was a shocked moment. I spun around; her face was so close to mine.

Stretching, I head butted under her chin, and with the War Mistress’ head knocked up, I opened my mouth and clamped my fangs over her neck just above the collar of her armor.

I didn’t hold her there, but I chewed and shook as I drained her vita and worked through to tear out her spine. I did not know exactly when she died, and how much I had eaten as my remaining hand started clawing apart her armor.

But I did know that we had started to plummet. Things turned grey after that. I do remember using my own wings to slow down, and made sure I landed near the body.

I was very hungry.

Horror could wait until I was not dying.

That’s what I told myself before I passed out.

++++++

Things had been... exciting in the last few days. Exactly what had happened up there south of Narvos was being kept under the bodice.

There was more tension with House Ziox. House RedStorm was on a higher alert. House Andromache simply upped their tempo of training missions.

But such matters were above my pay-grade.

My concern was what had happened to one of my Cadets. For my sins, for my skills, I had been rotated off of being assigned to a deployed Legion and had spent this year training future Legion Fliers, including a certain Cadet Optio Tauria DiamondDust.

Cadets who, upon entering the Legions proper, would be a core of new Centurions with extra experience and skill, at least in training. Which will help the far larger number of new pilots who had yet to bond with a Zephyr or wear Ritual Plate.

As assignments went, it was a mixed bag. They were all very driven and very skilled. Mediocrity was uncommon among those who could find the patronage to get access to Ritual Plate at a young age.

But that elitism did make for some insufferable little brats. Fortunately, I had Andromachin Cadets to throw them against which managed to knock the wind out from their wings. House Andromache had little time to indulge their new pilots.

Still, this year’s Cadet squadron was solid. Even if one of my Cadets did have me worried.

Well technically two, but VioletBlood was uninjured and, aside from a few careful interviews, was out and about.

Walking through the corridors of Castra Bovitar’s Volantes admin building, I shook my head. Nobles were trouble.

The ones who thought the rules did not apply to them were bad enough. They could be worked around and were driven by simple graft.

But the ones who felt they have an obligation to greater heroics and self sacrifice?

They ended up Imperial Heroes or getting a lot of people killed. Often both.

I slowed as I approached my destination. Everyone knew centurions were notorious gossips on a level that would make a meddling grandmother in a farming hamlet proud.

But there was truth to that.

Centurions had a broad range of responsibilities depending on rank and specialization. A generic centurion, shoc