章 77: Chapter 77
From the floor of the unused cargo bay, the female infiltrator rose. She was clad in a full length black body glove, with select armor at shoulders, forearms and shins. It was designed to prevent any and all emission of magic, an expensive, and fragile stealth suit. She was armed with the same magic resistant weapons that were used by ninja field operatives. However, she also carried a single Steyr Mpi 81. Ordinary ship crew should not be able to defend against such things. She was Hornet, and she would succeed.
Sorcery in the east was highly based on energy and motion. A sorcerer attacked by sending a bolt of lightning at you from the sky above or by sending a wave of water at you. Transfiguration, as known in the west was almost totally left alone. For one, it was fairly short term and was highly inefficient in their conversions. The closest equivalent was to turn transmutation, which did not convert any of the elements involved.
Also, a sorcerers defenses were partly anti firearm in nature, designed as it were to oppose small mass high velocity objects. Arrows were quite troublesome, bullets fairly more so. To the trained sorcerer/mage, neither represent a credible threat, as they tended to have automatic defenses (British called them wards) anchored to their clothes, keyed to such things, among others. Hence, ninja opted to do close up kills, sprinting at very high speeds to stab or behead an unwary magic user. However, individual sorcerers were more, or less sensitive to magic, sometimes to such an extent that sorcerer to sorcerer combat could be accomplished over distances as large as five miles. At close ranges, even the slightest hint of magic emitted by the body may alert the sorcerer of malicious intent.
In order to accomplish this, ninja had to entirely abandon the use of external magics. No particular focus was used. All magic was fairly internal. As such, ninja magic for the last three hundred used revolved around enhancing the body. Magic was used to control metabolism, senses, body structure and so on. At the higher skill sets, a ninja could speed up the body and mind until the world slowed down. Still, it was not always enough, and sometimes ninja died in spite of skill, preparation and surprise.
Firearms were not traditional ninja weapons in any case. Ninja were not traditionally sent to deal with ordinary humans, against whom such a pistol or sniper rifle would have been highly effective. Ninja sent to take care of Rogue ninja, or said rogue ninja themselves sometimes carried them, as ordinary people and ninja did not have the all encompassing fortress style defenses that sorcerers employed. But then, being ninja, they usually had some means of avoiding getting shot...
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The first crewman she found was an off duty officer. A flick of the wrist, and a four inch dull black spike went through his throat and spine. She did not even bother to check her handiwork. The rear of the ship was fairly deserted, seeing as many of the men were on standby to provide assistance to the containment team, leaving her path clear of potential corpses. It was standard practice that once the preliminary containment was achieved, there was little need to move from place as most of the battle would be a contest of power and focus between the target and the team, with the assistance of the ships equipment. Destruction of such a high class foe was literally worth the damage that might be sustained by a ship.
Consequently, the magical reactor, what they called the ships heart (literally, as the entire "power-plant" was based on sorcery and animal hearts) was crewed by a skeleton crew. The comparatively large room, covered with arcane symbols and odd devices, many of which must have served no purpose at all, was barely glanced at before the intruder began her grim work.
As soon as Dragon entered, two poisoned spikes were hammered into the heads of two men huddled over a station. Still in motion, her gun rose and spat fire, emptying a 25 round clip into six men, who were hovering next to the main control, in an almost perfect position for a single burst. Four men fell, splattering blood over the console and floor. And the weapon was dropped after clicking empty, for the next part was close quarters.
Two of them were ninja and had refused to die, moving as soon as they had sensed the intruder. A moment after she entered, they had moved out of the way so as to avoid any projectiles she may have sent their way, avoiding the rain of lead she had sent at them in that in that split second advantage she had. Consequently, they were not in the locations that were fired at, seeing as she had only a fraction of a second to pick her targets.
So the black clad woman raced across the room, dropping the empty pistol and drawing out two dull black Jian in a flourish as she jumped at her two opponents, who were wielding a pair of Sai and a katana.
Due to the proximity of the highly volatile and sensitive equipment, the three were fairly subdued, staying away from the more flashy acrobatics that could have destroyed all of them in a flash. And Dragon was skilled enough to hold off the slightly longer reaching katana and the short and quick Sai.
Two minutes into the high speed melee, the katana wielder was beheaded. The woman had let her right shoulder be stabbed clean through with a Sai, even as her right arm had beheaded the first fellow. A hit from the Sai, a stab wound was much more preferable to the loss of a head or limb the katana would have accomplished. She was quick enough that her lone opponent could not capitalize on her weakness. Another thirty seconds later, the second ninja also lay on the floor, a Jian through the groin having suitably incapacitated him. She took a few seconds of rest before finishing off the incapacitated ninja. The next part was the really tricky bit.
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