There was another rumble of thunder that vibrated through the cold, crisp air of the north. Porter felt the sound reverberate through his body, sending tingles throughout his muscles. Everything around him seemed so...slow. He watched bullets lazily pass by him like a summer fly, as if they had nowhere to go and nothing better to do then flat through the air. As one projectile came increasingly closer, its trajectory on a direct path to the chest of the white Storm, Porter watched a spark flash and electromagnetic waves repelled the bullet, pushing it away from the Goliath and bending its course into something harmless.
And the pool was still.
"Come on loser, we got to get out of here," Chase shouted, turning his back on his teammate.
"No," Riya said, stopping everyone. "We won't have to go anywhere." She had a feeling, some sort of connection with Porter she was picking up on, one that gave her great confidence. There was something surrounding the young man and his older Goliath, an aura he had never had before, one that she hadn't seen since Brigadier General Cross had walked on the battlefield.
The White Storm disappeared in the blink of an eye. A low hum picked up, echoing between the mountains. Then Porter was in the middle of four Artisan Goliaths, hovering in the air in front of two of them, each of his blades thrust between their head units. Blue electricity crackled and shot off the now inoperable machines. Before the other two enemies could advance, slash marks burst across their front, deep gashes that rent their metal frames and sent them stumbling backwards. Suddenly, plumes of snow shot up from the ground, blazing a trail between where Porter had started and finished....seconds after it had happened.
The young pilot didn't wait for any questions. He wasn't surprised at his own capacities. He didn't feel much of anything for the moment. Just the focus inside of him. He was in front of a new Artisan now, knocking aside its gun as it tried to swat him away then slicing off its other arm. With a swift uppercut, the fight was finished, and Porter disappeared again, the shooting snow catching up to him only once he had vanished again.
An Artisan warmachine on the opposite side from where Porter had once been suddenly found itself face to face with the White Storm, who stood calmly and still in front of the opponent. The pilot, screaming obscenities, scrambled to level its gun at the foe, raising it up and squeezing the trigger. But before the action could be completed, a line became carved in the metal of the Goliath, from its left shoulder to its right hip. The top half of the battlesuit slid down a little before falling off the bottom, having been sheared in half already.
The snow trail followed on cue, flying from one side of the mountain to the other until it finally caught up with Porter. As the snow settled, the Goliaths that had been caught in the path found themselves crippled and covered in slashes, often missing limbs or chunks of armour. Porter slowly surveyed the scene, noting the few remaining targets in the area, as well as the general who stood down lower, watching him with amusement.
Two Artisans sprung up from beneath a lower portion of the mountain, having hidden themselves on a cliff. The twin assailants leapt for the Enian Goliath, trying to tackle it so that it could be restrained.
"Look out Porter!" Nami cried as she watched. Everyone in the CRU had been dumbfounded observing Porter in action and hadn't moved a muscle, aside from their eyes.
Porter's head moved languidly to focus on the attackers, but he did not make any other motions. The Artisans crashed down atop the teen...and passed right through his fading form. "An...an afterimage?" Ardwen mumbled in shock. He turned to look at Raul for confirmation, trusting the ninja to be an expert on such an advanced technique. The older boy simply shrugged and nodded his head, secretly hiding how impressed he was.
Electricity shot through the battlesuits that now lay on the ground after missing their target. Neither was able to stand again, finding their spines had been severed. Porter was already gone again, hunting down the final few enemy soldiers who had scattered in fear. But none of them, no matter how fast, could outrun the White Storm. It caught each one, finishing them off with ease, riding them down into the ground from behind, chopping off heads, legs, and arm in a flurry of swipes, or being cleaved clean in half or into four quarters by the twin blades.
Soon the snowy mountainside was coated in the pieces of slain Artisan Goliaths, dyeing the fluffy, white ground with different shades of brown as mechanical fluids and oils seeped out of the destroyed warmachines. Porter stood in the middle of it all, observing what he had done with his empty, blue eyes. His focus remained unbroken, the water free of ripples or disturbances. And he would not be stopped.
"Run still." Ochenkov's voice cut through the moment of victory, the power restored to the cave's communication network. "Sigmeund too strong to fight. Run fast."
"We can't run now Ochenkov," Ardwen answered. "Porter won't go anywhere in his current condition."
"We have to stay and support him," Nami chimed in, pumping her fist triumphantly in the air.
"I don't know what's going on with him," Ardwen continued, "but I know he's not going to stop now. If he seems overwhelmed we will all attack at once. A general can't possibly beat us all back."
The only response from the barbarian was a gruff snort before the communication was cut. "I don't know if Porter really can beat a general though." Raul's calm interjection broke through the good feelings shared amongst the CRU.
"Yeah, I mean Porter's not that good." Chase quickly saw this as a moment to defecate on his favourite target. "If you guys really wanted to see someone in action, you should let me go fight this Sigmeund guy."
"Not now Chase," Ardwen snapped, shutting down the youth's ego. "Raul, what do you see? What makes you say that?"
"Generals aren't given that rank for nothing. Consider how skilled we are in our training. We are better than the average soldier, but when we fight elites and leaders, we are equal at best. We haven't made the rank of generals for a reason. They are in a class all on their own."
"But maybe Porter has unlocked something," Riya said in her quiet way. "Perhaps this is something inside him waking up, like we saw before."
Raul shook his head. "This is a trained state, one that Porter has achieved through hard work, not through emotions. It is not as wildly powerful and uncontrollable, but is very precise and focused. It is the pinnacle of Porter's abilities but Sigmeund has been at the pinnacle of his own powers for years."
"Then we attack at once!" Nami pumped her fist some more in the air, assured of the upcoming win.
"Then we would all die together," came the blunt reply. Raul folded his arms as he gazed at Porter. "If Porter loses, we must escape. Ochenkov is right. I know it isn't what we want most..." Raul was silenced by a proportionally sized snowball smashing into his head. Everyone turned to look at Nami but she threw her hands up in defense and pointed at Riya.
The normally timid girl seemed to stand a little taller, her Goliath that extra inch higher than the others. Her hands were covered in snow that was quickly melting on the heated metal of the Goliath. "We will never abandon one another, certainly not after they just saved us!" she cried. "Porter just put everything he had out there for us, to win this for us and...and...and for his brother and everyone he loves! We can't just turn our backs if he loses. We are the Crisis Rescue Unit! Look at what we have been through. We don't just abandon one another. We live together and we die together."
The rest of the students looked at their feet in embarrassment. The words hit Raul particularly hard, who was so used to being an outsider in the classroom, forgetting for a moment he was part of a larger family now, that he had friends, and people who cared for him...and people he cared for in return. "I...I am sorry," he muttered.
Porter couldn't hear any of this, even though it came through his cockpit. He didn't hear anything. He doubted he even really saw anything. All he had was a feeling of what surrounded him, noticing the ebbs and flows of the energies in the air and reacting to them. And there was Sigmeund in front of him, the general who threatened the safety of his classmates and his brother.
There was a fury suppressed within the pool of focus. It was an anger at any who sought to take away what was important to Porter. He had felt it before when Ramirez had threatened the CRU with the bomb. It had come again when Riya's life had been endangered by Rick and her father. Now it was under the surface, held in check by the training the pilot had undergone. But it still fuelled a little part of him and he knew if it broke through he would lose control but also reach a whole new level of power. Whether or not his body would survive going through an ordeal like that was a mystery though.
In a blur, the White Storm was gone, flashing forward and striking down with its twin blades on Sigmeund. The only reason anyone watching knew this had happened was because the strike had been halted by the Silver Hawk's shield, held up in front of its face. "You have great focus to draw out such power," came the veteran's voice from within his battlesuit. He shoved Porter away with his shield and held up his lance at the ready.
The words of the general hardly resonated inside of the young pilot's mind. Nothing would disturb him from his mental state. He would reach the pinnacle of his abilities in order to keep the rest of the CRU alive. He immediately lashed out again, trying to knock aside the lance and pull in close for a finishing blow. The shield came in again though, this time knocking Porter off balance with a bash from the side before Sigmeund back-stepped out of the White Storm's reach.
More thunder boomed above in the clouds as lightning jumped about. A cluster of bolts struck the ground all around Porter, electrifying the air in a dazzling display. The twin blades of the Enian Goliath flashed in unison, a flurry of blows directed at nothing in particular, simply trying to move faster than the target could in an effort to get in a shot. One of the weapons bounced back, rejected by the shield once again. The other was parried aside by the lance, which could be manoeuvred with incredible speed and precision for such a large weapon.
Porter brought both his blades down together in an overhead slash that Sigmeund just barely managed to sidestep, letting one of the swords clip the tip of his shoulder, leaving a tiny scratch in the armour. "A hit!" Nami cried in joy. "Porter got a hit!" She had to quickly be contained by Chase as she started jumping up and down (to avoid causing an avalanche.
"Cool it little girl, he only got in a scratch," the hothead exclaimed as he barely contained the struggling Nami.
"Indeed," Raul added. "I have heard of experienced veterans who let their enemies get in a strike or two, very minor ones, to fill them with overconfidence and create openings. This could simply be a trick."
As Raul finished the sentence, the Silver Hawk's shield suddenly whipped out at Porter, smashing into the chest and sending the White Storm stumbling backwards. As it tried to regain its balance, the battlesuit disappeared in a blue blur, sending up another jet of powder into the sky. Porter landed on the ground higher up the mountain, a significant distance away from Sigmeund, who had thrust out his lance in a follow-up attack.
"Were it not for your focus, you would be dead right now." The general pulled his weapon back and waited, eyeing his opponent down. "Your powers are impressive and well trained. Your master must have done great work with you to create that and should take pride. It is all that keeps you alive though and we both know it will not last forever. Can you find within yourself the abilities to overcome your lack of skill?"
Nami looked around the rest of the group from her pinned position underneath Chase (who had decided to sit on her Goliath to keep her in check). "What's he talking about? Porter has skill. Look at all the enemies he beat!"
"Not necessarily," Ardwen explained. "Porter has power and a lot of it, coming out from his chi. He is tapping into it in order to give himself the illusion of skill, in a way."
"The illusion?"
"Porter was never the best pilot," Chase continued the explanation, understanding where it was going. "He wasn't the best before he got put in our group, and he isn't to this day. But when it counts and he gets pushed past his limit, he can draw out those lightning bolts and that speed from his spirit."
"Exactly," Ardwen finished. "Look at Raul for example. He is a very talented pilot, well versed in driving his craft because he has been working on it diligently for years. His minimal chi abilities mostly affect his already existing skillset and work to improve upon it. He is a very technical fighter. Porter or Chase, on the other hand, are very emotional pilots, they are spirit users, who rely on pulling out their abilities from their life force, not from due practice."
"Re-examine Sigmeund's profile." Raul's voice calmly cut through the conversation. He had been watching the battle below intensely.
"He...he has no chi?" Riya said, surprising everyone as she had been so silent since her outburst.
"How can you have no chi?" Nami puzzled. She then started whispering to Chase on a private network to let her go, attempting to sweet talk him into getting off her to no avail.
"No discernable chi at least, or none that will help in combat." Ardwen pointed down towards the Artisan. "He is known for his complete lack of chi-based abilities. He is just like a regular soldier in that regard. His powers just aren't enough to anything more than pilot the Goliath. But he is certainly gifted at doing that, and has thus trained himself hard in mastering his machine, just like Raul does."
"It is a race," Raul uttered, half to himself as he was so focused on the match. "Can Porter overcome the enemy before he outmanoeuvres him or before Porter runs out of steam?"
On cue, the White Storm dove forward again, vanishing as it reached supersonic speeds. It seemed to swirl all around Sigmeund, who quickly yet calmly brought about his shield and lance pairing to deflect the almost-invisible attacks. Finally, porter was knocked back again, leaving him panting outside the range of either Goliath's weapon.
"You're very talented young boy, but you lack training in your fundamentals. Without strict work on your basics, you will never become the heroic pilot you so desperately seek to be. But you did manage to make short work of my battalion and for that I have respect. It seems you have also stalled for enough time to let Sigma come back to life, if my scans are correct. So I will take my leave. You will have to save this battle for another time when you have become a more experienced fighter. Be grateful I have spared your life this once."
Sigmeund turned and began to walk back down the mountain, much to the relief of everyone watching. The fight was over, the battle won. The CRU was victorious in its mission. They were...
"Where are you going?" It was the first time Porter had spoken a single word. The Silver Hawk general stopped in his tracks, smiling to himself within the cockpit of his warmachine. "So long as you are alive you will chase my brother won't you? That is your mission?"
"Of course."
Porter held his blades up in front of himself, pointing them at his foe. "Then I will not rest until you are dead, for the safety of my family. You will not leave this mountain alive."
If it is a date with the reaper you so desperately want then I am happy to be your wingman." Sigmeund spun around, taking up a battle position himself. "Let us duel to the death then!"
A/N: A challenge uttered and accepted! Can pure willpower overcome the legendary talent of Sigmeund?
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