Capítulo 59: Chapter 59 - General Isabella Lilac
Bright orange flames reached for Sarah's pale face, and she was still rooted on the spot, unable to move even as hot air hit her, blowing her hair up. Her skin turned red, and started hurting. The pain saved her, and she moved away from the fire-type skill on pure instinct.
The Ifere responsible for the attack snorted, and opened it's mouth once again. The Lapidum soldier next to it only sparred her a glance, and turned around to search for another prey. Clearly, she considered her companion more than enough to take care of a scared little rookie like Sarah.
Unfortunately for the blue-coat, that was the cold and harsh truth. Even now, she couldn't do more than shakily step back, until she bumped into her former sergeant's body. A scream got caught up on her throat as her stare switched from the corpse to the Ifere, and back to the body. Just when she thought that was how she would die, cowering in fear, a shadow jumped over her.
It was a blur. A deadly, terrifying blur. The fire-type Ifere let out a screech, redirecting it's skill to the new opponent, but before it moved even a few centimeters, two ice blades pierced deep into it's body. The Ifere let out a last cry, then fell silent. It's companion, the Lapidum soldier, barely managed to turn in their direction before a bullet took her life.
Shocked, Sarah stared at the Ifere that just saved her. It wasn't small, but it also wasn't big. Maybe a meter long, from the soft ears - that somehow hung before it's snout - to the stump of what once must have been a long tail, covered in soft light-blue fur. Razor sharp ice needles covered it's body, almost like an armor, and two of them - the ice blades that killed the fire-type Ifere - were longer than the rest.
She didn't know the Ifere's species, but the fact that it had so easily killed the other creature was enough to show it's power. The ice hinted water-type, but Sarah wasn't sure. Her head was occupied with other thoughts at the moment.
"Are you okay?"
"Y-Yeah! I think..."
Someone helped her get up, but her eyes were still glued on the Ifere. When she finally turned around to thank her savior, Sarah gasped in surprise.
"Ah! Ma'am... G-General... Uhhh... Sorry, I-I..."
"Shh... Deep breathes now. In and out."
General Lilac was standing right there, next to her. Sarah couldn't believe it. The person she admired the most, the reason she joined the military was by her side, talking to her... And she had just acted like a coward.
"G-General... I-I... I'm sorry..."
"Don'tchu worry 'bout that. Everyone reacts differently to their first battle. The important thing is you pick yourself up, and don't die. Can you do that?"
"Y-Yes... I can!"
"Hahaha! That's the spirit!"
The general before Sarah looked nothing like the stern and serious image that was showed on television, or used as a model by her training instructors. She had a crazy smile on her face, her hair was messy, and her jacket open, fluttering in the wind. Her eyes shone with fighting spirit, and her grin became even wider as her companion killed another two Lapidum soldiers.
She looked alive.
"Well, don't stand there looking at me, soldier! Remember your training! Aim and fire. Aim and fire..."
"Understood, ma'am!"
"Good girl. Minxa, let's go! Looks like they could use a little help on the left!"
Patting Sarah's shoulder, General Lilac yelled at her companion, who returned to her side, blood dripping from the beautiful but deadly ice blades. Barely looking, the general squeezed the trigger of her gun, and a black-coat screamed in pain. A second Ifere, which suddenly appeared - literally out of thin air - next to General Lilac finished the soldier off with a bite. Sarah flinched at the brutality, her stomach turning.
So this was war. Not the galant combat of two equal forces, or the brilliant victory of one side thoroughly overwhelming the other. No, Sarah now understood that war was a struggle for survival. While some felt disgusted and terrified by it, others felt right at home. She just wasn't too sure as to which type she belonged.
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General Lilac gave a last glance to the pale rookie, and shrugged. She might make it or not. A lot of newbies died on their first battle, but those who survived tended to become a lot calmer. Being face to face with death had an effect on someone's mental fortitude.
Patting Minxa, the woman scanned the battlefield with her eyes. To others, it might seem like a chaotic mess, humans and Iferes dying, and random explosions happening. To her trained eyes, however, it was like a chessboard. One with a lot more pieces, but a chessboard nonetheless. She could see every bit of it, where Menoraz's defense line needed to be reinforced, and from where she could pull out said reinforcements.
She looked to the creature next to her. A long, scaled body, supported by four wings that shouldn't by any means be able to lift the ton of pure muscle, but did anyway. Space-type Iferes always were a little... Weird. And they tended to defy the laws of physics.
The four milky white eyes that seemed to stare through time and space turned to her, and Kilqia hissed with affection. At the same time, a Lapidum soldier a few hundred meters away suddenly clutched at his chest, trying to feel a heart that wasn't there anymore.
Unaware of what her companion had just done - although she wouldn't care even if she knew - General Lilac grabbed it, and they both disappeared. Minxa looked at the spot where they had been, and growled grumpily. Kilqia never teleported it, only their companion.
...
Two or three kilometers away from where they were before, Kilqia and General Lilac appeared, startling a squad of soldiers. They aimed at the new attacker, but lowered their weapons when they saw the blue uniform. The general smiled at them.
"Lieutenant, take this group and any lost troops you can find along the way, and go help our left flank. Lapidum got some real nasty death-type Iferes there, so be careful."
"Yes, general! Let's go, you piles of lazy Lesna gunk!"
The soldiers half marched, half ran off behind the officer, and General Lilac had Kilqia once again use Blink to teleport her back to where Minxa was. They found the other Ifere tearing a poor electric-type creature apart. For something so beautiful, Minxa could be quite cruel.
"Come on, Minxa, it's already dead! Kill those over there instead."
The water-type Ifere howled happily, and used Freeze Drop - a skill that allowed it to lower the temperature around it drastically - to make humans and Iferes alike shiver. White mist appeared around it, and Minxa jumped onto it's new prey. Meanwhile, General Lilac took potshots at any target in sight. Unfortunately, her accuracy and fancy uniform soon made her a target.
Years of fighting granted her a danger sense that was almost inhuman. It wasn't like Sixth Sense that Cobaks had, which allowed them to predict threats before they even appeared. It was more of a tingle in her scalp that warned her she was about to die. And so, with expertise, she ducked and avoid a few bullets, before diving into a trench.
"Oh? Andrew and Nathan? Fancy seeing you here!"
"Same to you, general. How we doing?"
As she hid behind a sandbag, she saw two of the veterans under her command resting a bit. There were two or three soldiers she didn't recognize, although they didn't appear to be greenhorns, considering how calm they were. None of them seemed surprised to find General Lilac, the person in control of the entire battlefield, right next to them, deep into the fight.
"Tied, overall. I hate to admit it, but that b*tch Bloodborn is good. She only sent half or so of her troops to test us. The first day is gonna be bland."
"Uhmm... That's not her style... Last war, she kept throwing everything at us, like some crazed tidal wave. We did she suddenly change tactics?"
One of the blue-coats, Nathan, said that, causing General Lilac to frown. She had already noticed that, obviously. General Bloodborn of Lapidum was an old enemy, so any change of tactics was quickly registered. The reason behind such a twist was what bothered her.
"If she wants to..."
"Incoming!"
Some skill hit the ground in front of them, sending dirt flying and interrupting General Lilac. She barely blinked, knowing that she wouldn't be harmed. Minxa had already stepped in front of her, using it's own body, covered in ice, as a shield to stop anything that might injure her partner. At the same time, Kilqia used Space Slit - a skill that quite literally tore a gash into space - to disintegrate most of the threatening projectiles resulting from the explosion.
"Sh*t!"
Unfortunately, one of the unknown soldiers wasn't close enough to the skill's radius. Although he crouched and protected himself the best he could, a sharp piece of metal still managed to pierce through his vests, and into his chest. Andrew crawled towards him just in time to hear the last few heaving breaths of the man. Frowning, he shook his head. There was nothing they could do.
"Kilqia, go..."
Sparing the dead soldier but a single glance, General Lilac peeked over the trench, and found the attacker, a large Ifere hurling boulders that rose from the ground as if controlled by an invisible hand. Before she even finished speaking, her companion had already disappeared, and the other creature was engulfed by a black sphere covered with white dots. When the sphere disappeared, the Ifere laid dead on the ground, no apparent wound on it's body.
Star Domain was a terrifying skill. It replicated the emptiness of the void, missing only the bone-crushing pressure - or rather, lack of it - that caused living creatures to implode. The lack of air inside of the black sphere was what really killed. The downside was that it was costly on the user, as it was proved by the wheezing Kilqia that reappeared next to General Lilac.
"You did great, girl. Rest a little."
The Ifere made some noise in acknowledgment, and laid down without a care in the world. It was difficult to tell if it was sleeping or not, since Kilqia didn't have eyelids.
General Lilac let out a small smile, and turned on her communicator. She listened carefully to the scrambled words, and frowned, the grin disappearing as quickly as it came. Absentmindedly, she wiped her hands - covered in dirt and some blood, she didn't know from who - on her pants.
"Colonel Aber, move the third, fourth, and ninth platoons to help out Major Sun Qiang. General Ountre, I want your battalions to stay back, and keep watch for... Yeah, I know, so shut the f*ck up and do as I say! Yes, immediately!"
After barking orders at her subordinates, General Lilac looked at the sky, and saw that the sun was already high up. Only a few more hours of daylight left. Time passed fast while in battle. Cracking her joints, the blue-coat got up.
"All righty, I'm going. Stay alive you four."
"We will try our best, general."
Gesturing to Minxa, General Lilac eyed the battlefield, and seeing that the enemy had switched focus from her to somewhere else, climbed the trench, and ran forward. Kilqia stayed behind, still resting, but the human wasn't worried about her companion. The Ifere could just use Blink to meet up with them later.
A few bullets flew above her head, and the general returned fire. Even as she ran, her hand was firm, and her aim stable. Two Lapidum soldiers screamed in pain, then fell silent. Grinning madly as a squad spotted her, General Lilac slid to a halt behind the broken and burning remains of what once was a mortar.
"Showtime, Minxa! The stage is yours!"
The Ifere didn't need to hear anything else. Using Ice Blades, Freeze Drop, and Ice Armor all at the same time, it rushed towards the enemies. A shallow wound appeared on it's side as a stray bullet found it's target, but much of the power behind it was absorbed by the Ice Armor.
Almost at the same time as the cold blades started chopping the soldiers in pieces, General Lilac jumped out of her cover, and supported the water-type creature. They had fought side by side for so long that they didn't even need to look at each other to understand what they were doing. Their synchrony was beautiful. It was scary. Soon they stood amidst corpses, almost untouched.
General Isabella Lilac was right at home. Her blood was boiling with fighting spirit, and she felt she could defeat an army on her own. For allies and foes alike, she didn't look like a harmless fifty-something old woman, but a deadly Ifere ready to pounce at their throats. It was terrifying. It was also wonderful.
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