Azaria 2-23

Good Morning!

Chapter 23: Neo-Chicago goes to War! Part 2

Azaria

I watched Lance sail through the air as I sent her flying with a bit of magic. When she had cleared the edge of the enemy island, I used my link with the doll that she had on her to pull it back toward my field and thus slow her down. Confident she could handle it from there, I turned back to everyone in the lot in front of my dungeon.

I cleared my throat and created a map of the two cities in front of me. The doll’s eyes had taken in everything I needed. The small details might be missing, but streets and large structures were easy to capture. “Now then. Lance will provide a good distraction while we attack from the other side of the city.”

“Isn’t she your friend?” mother asked with a bit of heartbreak in her voice. She was probably disappointed that I could treat someone like I just had.

I shook my head and explained. “Friend might be pushing it, but besides that, Lance is more than capable of taking care of herself. Trust me when I say that even if she tried to avoid it, trouble will seek her out.” I had blasted her in the opposite direction than Ophelia had went. I’m sure she was going to be pissed, but that was a problem for later.

“Whatever. Let’s just get this underway. I would like to be back on Earth,” Neo said coldly.

I pointed to the edge of the city on the map. “Those of us that can fly should head over and clear some of the air for Ophelia. I will gather up some more forces from a few of the dungeons that have agreed to help and meet you over there. Once we’ve assembled, we can take the fight up to the enemy. That’s it. You all know wait diving a dungeon is like after that.”

“Fine. Let’s go,” Neo said before he shot off toward the edge of the city.

“Is he always this impatient?” I asked and the others just shrugged.

The rest of the Powered moved over to vehicles that were prepared and went after him. I turned to Thomas. “Alright. You first.” He nodded and we leapt into the air. His dungeon was surprisingly close to mine. If you went over land, it would have taken you only about ten minutes. That’s when I realized that it was the dungeon that I could sense from my fourth floor.

I filed that away for when this was all over. I might have to show him who’s boss in the future and being able to get to his core easily would make him cry uncle. I did think it was sad that I considered the potential of having one over him first, but that was how the world was now.

In front of his dungeon was a more permanent check in station for divers then the old subway station. Arranged in front of it, were lizardmen decked out in armor with spears and halberds. I counted at least a hundred of them. If they weren’t from a manipulator class, then that was quite a few souls to create them small army.

“Not bad,” I said as we hovered over the large group Privately, I was more impressed with the soldiers made by Ophelia, but I kept it to myself. His lizardmen looked like they had marched right out of a fantasy book and had seen a few battles as well.

“My pride and joy. They are stationed on my core floor and only one person has ever managed to defeat them,” he said a wide smile morphing to a frown.

“Oh? Who?” I asked unable to hold back my curiosity. Not to mention I would like to know anyone powerful enough to fight through a force like this by themselves.

“Neo. I think he has conquered most of the dungeons in the city,” he replied looking like he swallowed something sour.

“Huh. I need to pump up my own defenses when we get back,” I said then descended toward the ground in front of the lizardmen. They reacted to Thomas by bending to one knee and kneeling for him.

“I doubt there are many dungeons, intelligent or not, that can match you anymore,” he replied with a head shake.

“I saw Neo’s power. He can phase through matter. That makes him a pain to deal with, but I’m sure I can find a countermeasure against him.” He had used his power inside my field. In fact, there were hundreds of Powered using their abilities in my field at this very moment. While I couldn’t focus on every single one individually, the dungeon aspect of my mind was soaking it in. I had already thought of several new ways to use my magic from my violin thanks to some magic users I had spied on. With Zaria absorbing it all as well, I would get double the effect once we got some practice in.

“We’ve all seen Neo’s power,” Thomas said with an amused snort. “Dealing with it is a different matter. Trust me, we’ve had twelve of those moon meetings before you came along. We’ve been talking about him for the last seven months and still haven’t come up with anything against him.” I pursed my lips but nodded. His warning reminded me not to try and get in over my head. Just because I had a lot of power doesn’t mean that someone else might not come along and show me up.

“Thanks for the advice,” I said finally. “I’ll keep it in mind. For now, let’s look ahead to the problem at hand.”

Thomas ordered his lizardmen to head straight for the edge of the city where the others were gathering. I peeked over there with my dungeon sight to see that a much more intense battle was raging than I had expected. Without Lance to remove the energy barrier protecting the higher demons, they were able to attack the Powered forces without much worry. That wasn’t to say they weren’t being breached, it just took longer and more energy than I otherwise would like it to.

Ophelia and her soldiers were cutting through the gargoyles without much trouble. They were saving Powered that were getting in over their heads here and there. The situation wasn’t too out of hand for the moment, but we would need to figure out how to deal with the barriers. Especially, since I knew from the dungeon training with Starburst that the stronger monsters further in the dungeon usually possessed stronger versions of the abilities. If the barriers were already this annoying to penetrate, then the next level would be a headache and a half.

Casting my gaze over the rest of the edge of the city, it was quite accurate to call it a warzone. If I had seen the scene two months ago, I might have lost the contents of my stomach, but now. Now I was sad to realize that I could observe the scene with an almost cold indifference. Even as humans were turned into lifeless corpses or sometimes worse, unrecognizable charred piles of ash, I just looked on and studied the abilities of the enemy.

“Azaria?” Thomas asked pulling me from my observations.

I shook my head and turned to look him in the eye. “Sorry. We need to hurry or there won’t be many Powered left.”

“Twenty-one and Seven were going to meet us there along with Thirty-two and Forty-nine. We can head over with the lizardmen.” I nodded and we hopped back into the air then moved to catch up with the lizardmen. We only passed a few humans that were out, but Neo and the others had managed to get a message out to leave any monsters coming from the dungeons alone. That didn’t stop the Powered we passed from taking defensive stances with their abilities charged up. To do otherwise was foolish and borderline psychotic.

Thomas’s lizardmen could move and we were soon nearing the edge of the city. Explosions, yelling, screams of pain, the strong iron smell of blood and the acidic smell that the demons possessed washed over us as bodies of both humans and demons came into view. The Powered worked in various groups much like they were diving a dungeon and were holding back the enemy. The rest of the island edge was nearly as bad as here, but there were many more dead demons due to the dungeon monsters pitching in to help.

Twenty-one’s bugs were swarming over a section of the battlefield, literally eating anything that got in their path. The Powered had, understandably, left that large chunk of land to her. Bulls and half bull-men, usually called minotaur were fighting in the next section. Even with the barriers, the minotaur were strong enough to break through in four or five hits. Usually resulting in the demon maintaining it, being sent flying back as blood escaped the holes on his face.

The demons responded with blasts of fire and brimstone. Anything hit by it was quickly reduced to nothing more than a pile of slag and ash. Even Ophelia’s soldiers couldn’t take a full on hit from the magic. More than one had to throw away their shields to survive the attack. Some weren’t fast enough.

“This is madness,” Thomas commented, and I would be tempted to agree with him if all the death happening in my dungeon was making me a little… strange. The usual dungeon madness was there, but it felt like it was behind a veil. I could feel my desires swinging in the balance every few seconds.

I cleared my throat quickly. This probably wouldn’t be good for my sanity if it continued much longer. I held out my hand and my violin formed from the Aether. I already knew I could pull in Aether from the ambient area and from it willingly given by sentients. It was time to see if I could take it from the demons as well.

Floating forward, I pulled the bow across the strings going for tune from one of the many songs I’d heard were composed for war and about war. The flows of Aether appeared in front of me as the song began, in the distance, I could feel Zaria joining in on her piano adding a bit more to my strength.

Looking at the maelstrom that was the Aether around me, I picked through it carefully but quickly. I didn’t want to accidently absorb the Aether from one of the Powered. With some effort and after I learned to ignore the Aether that was coming from humans, I found the enemies Aether. Red like everything else in this dimension, I expected it to be fierce and maybe violent, but instead found that the sensation I got from it was subdued and beaten down.

I grinned to myself then switched verses in my song as I switched to pulling in the energy. It wasn’t hard to see when the demons in front of us started to stumble and even collapse. The gargoyle ones were mostly muscle and thus unaffected, but the magic casters appeared to almost need the Aether to even move. All over the battlefield barriers started to fail allowing the Powered to push the demons back to the edge of the city.

I breathed in deeply as my power surged. I knew instinctively I was going to need every drop when we dived the Queen’s dungeon. Not to mention when we tried to go back to Earth. Surely something like that took a considerable supply of Aether to open and maintain for something the size of the city to enter.

With my intervention, it appeared whoever was in charge of the demons ordered the ones still inbound to retreat. They were still only a stone’s throw away above us on the other island but at least the humans could help those that had overextended themselves. Though, if a gargoyle got to them, there was usually nothing they could do.

Slowly lowering from the sky, I landed on a burnout car. Starburst landed next to me, his arms covered in blood. Judging by the smoke coming from it, the blood didn’t belong to him. “The first wave has pulled back. I think the humans lost more than they had expected. They don’t have more than one, maybe two waves felt in them.”

“I noticed. The other side of the city is worse,” I replied biting my nail. We had no idea what sort of dungeon the Queen had. It could be a nightmare diving it which translated into time we needed. “Get the captured boats ready. If we capture some of the enemy city then they’ll be forced to concentrate on us.”

“A beachhead. That should pull some of the pressure off the humans,” Thomas added, and I nodded. I guess that was the word for it. After this, I felt like there were a lot of areas in life that I needed to study. I had never expected to need to be able to command a war after all. Who knows what I might need next, physics? Though, dungeons were sort of loose with that field of study.

I closed my eyes and looked into my dungeon. “Barbe and Kin. How many mannequins do you have now?”

“A few hundred, dear.”

“Plenty.”

I nodded to myself. “Send half of them to the streets outside the dungeon. They look human… enough to blend in. Have them assist the humans.”

“You got it, honey!”

“Sure thing!”

The half-faced doll replied with its two faces before it turned back to the factory and started sending the dolls out. Being the technical last floor, there was a teleport matrix in the center of the floor they could use to bypass walking through the entire dungeon to reach the surface.

Opening my eyes, I looked between Ophelia and Starburst. “I had Barbe and Kin send their minions out. It should buy us a little time, but we need to take care of the dungeon soon.” Having my field over the entire city, I could easily see into the shelters to see the humans that were on the border of panicking. Only a small part of me cared, but now that the battle was over, I could feel it a bit more strongly then when the death-lust of my dungeon instinct had completely overpowered it.

“If the boats crest the edge of the upper island, they will be sitting ducks,” Thomas said pointing. From what I saw when Lance went up there, a blood rain-soaked city was waiting for us that went all the way to the edge. I doubted the demons would abandon that sort of advantage and were in the middle of put as much firepower up in the buildings as they could.

There was a boom as a car exploded then a golden light landed nearby us. It was followed by a flaming man that was hard to make out from the blue flames licking at the air. Realizing it was my mother, I watched as her and my father walked over as she cleaned a spot on her armor with a rag. The rest was covered in blood, dust, and all manner of dirt, but there were three spots that were perfectly clean and golden light poured out and over the armor from there.

My father lowered his flames, so the air wasn’t literally burning around him. He had changed into a set of robes that obviously had a fire boosting affect from the Aether pattern on them. Some other Powered rushed over to them and handed them water bottles, they had the family crest, a keyhole with roses growing from inside, on their shoulder patches.

“When are we moving into the city?” asked my father after he drank half the bottle before pouring the rest over his head. “Even we have limits. Those barriers are a nightmare to break through.”

I had to admit that I was impressed since from what I saw only a few of the Powered had been able to actually break the barriers with their own powers. Of course, these were two of the most powerful Powered in the city. “We want to move as soon as we can. This side suffered much less than the others. We just don’t know how we’re going to make a beachhead,” I glanced at Thomas to make sure I used the right word. “Anything that goes up there will likely feel more than a little hurt.”

“If you need a spearhead, leave it to us,” my mother said with a stern face. “We’ll make a nice cozy spot for the rest of you.”

“If anyone can do it, they can,” Thomas said with an agreeing nod.

“Then let’s do that,” Neo said appearing out of nowhere. He had phased through the ground. I was surprised since I had lost track while he was in the rock. I would need to watch out for that after this was all over. I mentally added it to my list that I was making that contained tricks that Neo could do.

“I agree. That sounds like our best bet do this without half the Powered with us dying,” I said finally. I turned my attention to Ophelia that had managed to gather up ten of the boats, only two of them looked like they were about to fall from the sky. “Looks like our ride is here. Those that can’t fly, all aboard.” I started moving over to the boats since even if my parents were able to secure a beachhead, there would still be resistance to such a large group heading for the island. I could absorb the Aether from at least a few of the spells.

“Azaria,” my mother called, and I turned with a raised eyebrow in question. “We need a ride.” She pointed above us and I couldn’t help but grin.

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