Mecto Amore - Chapter 2

Hiya guys!

As usual, check everything up and tell me anywhere I could improve on. Every review helps! If you're just starting from here, it'd be better to check chapter 1 first, but do what you want, I'm not the one reading! :) 

Thanks for all the great reviews,

- Sathalha

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I fire another round from my pistols into the mass of ungodly black demons at the end of the corridor I’m standing in. They’re blocking the way to Coco’s room, and there’s no other path we can use to get there.

So I fight.

Thanks to the auto-reloading functions of Sol and Luna I can shoot almost endlessly, but for every Enfolder I take down, six more take its place. I’m not able to do much with my pistols, so Coco and I were heading to her room in the ship to get her gun. Fighting Enfolders at every turn, I wouldn’t have expected to survive this long.

A hand slaps me on the back. “Come on, Ajax. If we get Swampy I’ll be able to mow them down without a problem!” I avert my eyes for a second and see Coco almost hanging on to me, her eyes peering intently at my face. I can’t let her die here, and I won’t.

“I’m going to do something a little crazy now Coco, so make sure you stay behind me.” She smiles up at me, excited by the idea of some mayhem. I start shooting at the pack of monsters in front of me again, but they were getting closer by the second. I only have one choice now, and if I fail we’ll have no chance of surviving.

Sol and Luna are starting to heat up in my hands, they won’t be able to hold for much longer. I stop firing and flip a small hidden switch in the butt of Sol, then do the same with Luna. I have exactly three seconds in which I bring both of my pistols together and point them down the corridor.

Booooooom. Two blasts of light, one gold and one silver, emit from my guns and intertwine together to create a divine ray of searing hot brilliance. It rips through the darkness in front of me like a burning blade, leaving mounds of dust where Enfolders were a moment before.

Divina Lux. The ultimate attack of my guns, able to wipe out a whole group of enemies with one shot. The problem is that I can’t use them for a whole hour after the attack. Luna sputters and emits steam out of her barrel, a useless ornament right now.

“Wow, you rascal! I love it when you do that.” Coco laughs and starts skipping down the corridor, deftly avoiding the piles of dead Enfolder. Her room is right at the end of the corridor, and as she opens the door she looks back at me. “Now, I’m gonna have a quick wardrobe change, and then we can blast this ship to smithereens!”

I wonder if she knows that we’d still be on it if she blew it up, there’s no escape boats on an airship. I walk over and crouch down to inspect the dust on the ground. How could the Enfolders have gotten here? Monsters are created by natural crystal reactions in the ground or in the air, and specific monsters come from specific crystal types. Enfolders spawn from Yellow-grade spirit crystals, which can only be found in the southern part of the world, so Europa definitely shouldn’t have any.And how did they get on the ship in such large numbers, the only spirit crystal on the ship was…

Could they be coming from the engine room?

Suddenly the door next to me flies open and Coco comes out, a trigger happy grin on her face. She’s changed into her usual attire, while keeping the jacket, and her hairs been done in a ponytail. She’s also wearing a pair of jet black crystal-powered mechanical gloves to support the massive contraption in her hands.

Coco’s gun packs more power at times than an airship broadside, and she isn’t afraid to use it when she feels necessary. It is a golden work of terror and beauty, and its special feature is that it can change weapon forms.Right now it’s in machine gun form, and the copper gears overlay the six shiny barrels jutting out of the end. The rest of the gun is covered in a riot of spray-painted colors, ranging from an aquatic blue to a fiery red, Coco makes sure to re-apply the coating whenever she can. Technomagical runes and small spirit crystals are engraved all over the stock, imbuing her weapon with unimaginable power and its special ability. As far as I know there are three forms: Machine gun, Sniper rifle and Shotgun. I honestly don’t want to find out if there are more, she can wreck enough death and destruction with the ones she already has. She calls it Swampy because of the mess it had caused one mission where we had been fighting half an army of goblins. It had not been a pretty sight.

She hoists Swampy up and starts trotting down to the corridor. “You coming, Ajax?”

What? I haven’t told her what I had deduced and she was already walking off. “You don’t know where you’re going, Coco. We have to get to the- “

“The engine room, right?” She sticks out her tongue at me and starts walking faster, picking up speed. “Ajax, I’m your partner, not your sidekick. I’m smart enough to figure out that Enfolders have to be coming from a spirit crystal, and the only one big enough right now to make them is powering the engines, even if it’s artificial.”

Damn, I keep on forgetting that Coco is actually smarter than me, even if she acts like a careless little girl most of the time. I quickly chase after her and fall into step, now we were working as one team, a seamless bounty-hunting group with the most takedowns in the history of Caledonia.

“Do you have, uh, you know…?” I trail off.

She beams at me and pulls a shotgun out from inside her jacket, how she hid it in there I don’t know. “One Barfy, coming right up!” She hands me the gun and a handful of shells.

I take what she offers me and look down at my new weapon. Its appearance is highly unusual, which is one of the things I really like about it. At first glance it looks like a normal bolt-action steam shotgun, but the jagged colored lines covering the barrel, the blue-flecked butt and the red spots all over it tell a different story. It had at, one point, come in contact with an exploding rainbow-grade spirit crystal and absorbed almost all the power, making it an extremely dangerous weapon which could turn normal shells into mini exploding supernovas. The only reason we don’t use it on a regular basis is because of the smell it makes whenever it’s used, hence the name ‘Barfy’. Coco had named him; she names most of the weapons we collect on our missions.

I suddenly hear a shout in front of me, and look up to see a man sprinting towards us and away from a pack of Enfolders. Bloody hell, I can’t use Barfy in such a tight space, I’d blow a hole in the side of a ship. All I can do is look over to Coco, who’s already swiveling to point Swampy down the corridor.

“Get down, or I’ll blow your head off too!” She shouts at the guy running at us. Luckily he hears her and ducks down just in time as Coco lets Swampy rip. A relentless hail of flaming bullets starts pounding into the Enfolders, and they burst like bags of sugar. Three or four of them at a time, filled with magical lead, fall to Swampy’s terror.

This complete massacre goes on for less than a minute, and then it’s over.I survey the scene ahead of us, and see a corridor filled with grey dust that goes up to my knees. She’s managed to take out more enemies with a single attack from Machine Gun Swampy than I did with Divina Lux. All the more to show how capable she is of being an excellent Bounty hunter. I’m not exactly even sure what I’m useful for anymore, probably only the ‘talking’ part of the job.

“How many bullets left for the machine gun?”

She pops a gauge out of Swampy and checks it. “Oh, he’s good for about another hundred rounds. So I’d say about one more wave of thirty to forty Enfolders!”

Suddenly the man that was lying on the floor jumps up and ambles over to us. “Nice shooting, my young lady, you executed those monsters without much of a problem.” I manage to get a good look at him as he brushes Enfolder dust off himself. He was definitely no crewman, that I could see immediately. His huge, well-built figure is clad in a long, opal red leather overcoat, emblazoned with a symbol on the upper sleeve. His face is hidden behind a well-trimmed black beard, the same color as his hair, which he had pulled into a tight mullet behind his head. He has huge white gloves on, covering hands that could probably smash boulders.

I take a closer look at the symbol. It’s a shooting star over a clockwork gear, the symbol of Caledonia. “You’re a Caledonian solider?” I ask him.

His bearded face breaks into a warm smile and he slaps me on the back. “A Caledonian officer, actually. Major Hagan Forrest, at your service,” He bows to us, “and who may you two young saviors be?”

He seems like a good person and a possible ally, so I don’t lie to him. “My name’s Ajax Kroner, and the girl with the machine gun is Coco Adamina. We’re bounty hunters, and before I tell you anything more I want to know why you’re on this ship.”

Hagan guffaws and slaps me on the back again. God, that is getting really annoying. “Fair question, fair question. I’ve been sent by Caledonian high command to ensure safety at the upcoming Conference of Empires!”

The Conference of Empires. A yearly meeting between the largest nations in Europa, held in the Elven nation of Duitsland. All major species were represented there, each from an individual country. Humans from Caledonia, Elves from Duitsland, Gnomes from Hayastan, a joint Goblin-Kobold federation from Champa and finally the enigmatic and mysterious Metalmen from Abyssinia. An explosive political hotbed where a single wrong phrase can lead to a bloody war. Coco and I were here for exactly the same reason as Major Hagan, to make sure everything goes smoothly there. I had received a message from my contact in the government that we should fly over to Duitsland and help with the protection of the conference. The only reason I accepted was because the pay was insanely high, I don’t care much for politics.

I come out of my train of thought to see Hagan staring at me, rubbing his beard. “You’re those two famous bounty hunters, aren’t you? I thought your names seemed familiar! Well, this was supposed to be surprise for when you reach Duitsland, but you’ll be working with me personally to ensure the safety of all the emperors in the very heart of the conference! Aren’t you honored that you were chosen for this magnificent task? I’m surprised that I was picked myself.”

What? My head starts reeling. We were supposed to be part of the Conference’s personal guard? None of my contacts anywhere in Europa had mentioned anything like this, and it shouldn’t be in the realm of possibility. No matter how famous we were, normal bounty hunters would usually never be in the proximity of the Caledonian emperor, much less every emperor on this continent. Then on the way to Duitsland, our airship gets attacked by creatures that aren’t even supposed to be anywhere close to it. My gut feeling is telling me that this wasn’t a coincidence, and Coco’s troubled face tells me that I’m not the only one who has it.

Suddenly she starts walking forwards to the engine room again. “Well, whatever is gonna happen at that conference, I don’t care about it right now. What I want to do most at this second is blast the rest of those ugly Enfolders off this ship for eternity.”

As Hagan and I follow after her, I ask him a question that’s been pressing me for a while now. “How come you’re still alive, Hagan? I don’t see a weapon on you.”

He smirks at me and raises his two fists. “You do not need a weapon when you’ve got two perfectly usable fists. I would have been able to take care of that group of Enfolders had the spirit crystals not run out of power at exactly that moment.” I’m shocked for a moment. This guy fought off Enfolders with his hands? How much of a badass was he?

Before I can say anything else, Coco skids to a stop in front of me. I stop too once I’ve seen what she saw. We’ve reached the engine room, but I didn’t expect this.Where there were supposed to be two solid iron doors is a gaping hole leading to the darkness within. What’s left is a corrugated mess of metal on the floor.

Hagan whistles. “That must have been almost half a meter thick. Must have been caused by an explosion in the engine room.”

I kneel down to inspect the rubble. What I see also attracts Coco over towards me. “It has a kind of aura, doesn’t it?” She squats down with me and pokes the metal. It bursts in flame as soon as she touches it, and she quickly withdraws her hand.

She pipes up. “I know what’s happened! The doors were overloaded with sooo much technomagical power that they crumpled, and now they act like fire bombs!”

Luckily it wasn’t too hard to find a path through the mess, and we reach the doorway without any deadly fireworks burning us. The doorway seems more like a barrier to a dark void than the entrance to engine room, and all I can see is a set of rusty iron steps leading downwards to a hellish red hue. Before I go any further Hagan moves forwards and stops me.

“How is it that the stairs look undamaged?”

I’m confused. “What?”

“You see the damage caused to the doors, why aren’t the stairs in the same state?”

He has a point. The stairs seem unharmed and completely ordinary, which they definitely shouldn’t be. I gently push Hagan out of the way and pull a shell out of my pocket, then drop it onto the first metal step.

Nothing happens.

Coco laughs and jumps onto the step, and again nothing happens. “This is getting crazier by the second! Aren’t you big boys having fun?”

I shake my head and pick up the shell. “Coco, your definition of fun is way more dangerous than mine,” I turn to Hagan, “Hagan, once we’re down there we might have to fight. How will you protect yourself?”

He shows his gloves to me, they seem to be shimmering with a kind of silver light now. “No need to worry, my gloves have had enough time to recharge.”

“If you say so, I won’t be sacrificing myself to protect you, though.”

I take the lead again, and we run down the spiraling stairs, our footsteps ringing clearly against the unnatural silence. This is wrong in itself, an engine room should be full of the sounds of clanking gears, roaring flames and the hissing of steam. I can still feel the airship going, so the engines haven’t stopped, but it feels like the very essence of this gigantic metal contraption is being drawn into a silent black hole, drowning in the darkness within.

As we run down the view below resolves itself into a sight of pure horror. What I’m supposed to see is a floor full of various furnaces, pipes and machines, each controlling an individual part of the airship’s engine. What I’m supposed to see is the main engine furnaces on the right, the sail controls on the left and all the gauges on the far side, with the 2-meter-wide sky blue spirit crystal embedded in the floor in the exact center of the room.

What I see instead is a floor covered with writhing black shapes, all cavorting grotesquely around the middle of the room, where thick, black fog emits from a large crack in the spirit crystal. Every twenty seconds or so the fog condenses, and an Enfolder bursts out of it to tumble into the inky sea below. The crystal itself is ruined, it’s normal beautiful shade of blue streaked with a horrid black, almost like it had been infected with a fatal and parasitic virus. It was the cause of all the monsters, and we had to take it out.

I turn back and point to the crystal. “We have to destroy it, otherwise we won’t get off this ship alive. Even if it is powering the engines, it’s been manipulated somehow to start spawning those Enfolders.”

“The ship will undoubtedly crash if we take out the crystal,” Hagan’s eyebrows are creased together, “How will we survive that?”

I think for a moment. “This might sound stupid, but if we jump off the edge of the ship at exactly the right moment, we should be able to make it.”

Suddenly Coco hauls herself onto the railing and slides down past us. Obviously she’s gotten bored of the conversation, she wouldn’t want to stand around talking if there was a whole army of enemies waiting for her arrival. I swear at her and then start chasing her down until we reach the floor, but then it’s go time.

I aim at the dark wall at the end of the staircase, and pull Barfy’s trigger. The result is absolutely amazing. A pair of shells blast ten meters away from me, carving a clear path through the Enfolders, and then explode in two gigantic balls of flame to take out another twenty of them. I waste no time in popping open the shotgun and reloading, trying to not breathe as the awful smell overwhelms me. In the corner of my eye I see Swampy wreaking havoc in his machine gun form, and surprisingly enough Hagan jumping into packs of Enfolders, his fists swinging into them like punching bags, causing explosions with every hit.

I dive back into the fray and shoot Barfy again, taking out another few dozen monsters without much of a problem. I slowly start making progress towards the crystal, moving forwards with every round I shoot.

Then I’m there, standing in front of the black cloud. I shoot once more and the pack of Enfolders thins and moves away from me, but I would only have a few seconds until they’d attack again. I reach into my pocket to grab another pair of shells, but I find nothing.

I’ve run out of ammo.

The Enfolders, sensing something is wrong, move in to converge upon me. I bring up Barfy again and they momentarily move back, frightened. This gives me enough time to do what I want, namely to turn around and plunge Barfy into the crack defacing the spirit crystal.

Technomancers have the ability to draw upon magical energy within themselves and infuse it into spirit crystals or runes, giving us the opportunity to make magical weapons or constructions. We can also overload something with our energy, and that’s what I try to do right now. Barfy has a direct link with the power in the spirit crystal, and as I pump my energy into the shotgun it flows right into the crystal core, making it extremely unstable. Then there’s a flash of blinding golden light, and my world turns dark.