Unison - OC

The Magic Knight came out of nowhere.

Of course, when dealing with Magic Knights of the Cloud Court, you learn to expect this sort of thing. With their impossible speed and balance, they tend to come at your high, crossing up your vision radius and get you in your blind spot, just behind your shoulders, where the large, caged helmet of your Alchemical Drive has trouble keeping track. You should never be too careful, or assume too much, when a Magic Knight is in the area, however.

Poor Richter and Sybil learned that the hard way, when the Knight came snaking out, low and quick, from inside a tangle of pipes and wiring, and ran them through. It's needle thin, silvery blade punched clear through the reactor core on the back of their Monolith, and erupted through the chest cavity a moment later, a spray of crimson blood from the front of the machine and a splotch of glowing purple oozing from the back.

It held in place for a moment, looking all the world to not be worried at us, before Susan brought up the arm of her machine, stitching a line of heavy bore shells along the gantry as she tried to line the thing up. It launched up in a graceful arc, ducking behind one of the cannons we had been sent down here to originally protect, before bursting out a second later, thirty paces away.

-

The battle had been going well up to this point; our vessel had been sortied to deal with an excursion on the western fringe. A state-of-the-art skyship, the Unzahmbar was a sleek destroyer, tasked with keeping the border between the safe lands of the Empire and the lawless outside realms stable. The Cloud Courts had been known to slip in and kidnap innocent villagers in the border provinces, for who knows what manner of slave labor once they got them back to their depraved lands. It turned out that one of the Cloud Court's unusual looking city-like flying craft had drifted too close to our airspace, and we had sent out to stop them.

We had maneuvered to engage them from afar, using a nearby cloudbank for cover, as we began to shell them from extreme range. Their vessel pulled back aftter trading shot for a few  minutes. Trying to stay out of range of their big guns, we came under abrupt fire from above, leaving a shattering of fire along the upper decks. Clearly they had expected us, and had left a trap, but after rolling to our side the port guns could realign and return fire, scoring a line of heavy impacts along the sides and bottom of the attacking craft.

Of course, that minor victory was quickly spoiled when the real danger appeared. Our of the cloudbank came a racing pair of lightning quick boarding vessels taking advantage of our course correction, manoeuvring close enough to deliver their deadly cargo; two Magic Knights and their retinue, clearly tasked to shut down our cannons.

That's when we sortied, in a desperate attempt to repel the boarders.

Four, three man squads, per gun deck, hoping they'd be enough to slow down the Magic Knights until they decided leave. Equipped with some of the finest battle suits the Empire can offer, my two subordinates in the dual pilot/copilot Monolith, my machine the upgraded Duolith, with two copilots.

-

Juniper was the one who noticed the Knight on it's second pass, coming in on a deadly side arc at Susan and Lily. She called out at the last moment, letting Lily activate their shielding systems, as the Knight's blade scraped off the sudden wall of pinkish force. As quick as it was there, it was gone again, leaping to the side and disappearing into the melee happening on the gun decks.

“T-Thanks... Juni...” Susan panted into her microphone, and I could see the yellow glow leaking out around the right pauldron on my machine shine a little brighter.

“Hey, no problem. How you doing over there, Lily?”

“Good so far. That thing's FAST though, and it hits HARD. We gotta take it down quick, or it'll just wear us down.”

I nodded, a habit even though I knew the others couldn't see the motion. “That's for sure. If we can bog it down, then-”

“Look out!” Hazel, Juniper's mother and the other copilot riding in my left pauldron, flickered a bubble of sky blue force around my machine, before Juniper got the idea and added her own power, turning the bubble a lime green color. Part of an industrial storage crate fell our way, the slice pattern clean and crisp on the heavy duty metal, as it was sheared away from it's base and pushed our direction. I lurched forward to help protect my squadmate, the shield that Hazel and Juniper together could produce being much stronger then Lily's single effort. Susan took the time wisely, however, shouldering the metal container to the side once the shield slowed it down enough to maneuver.

 That's when the Magic Knight appeared again, and suddenly Susan's life signs flatlined.

-

An Imperial ~name~ is a wondrous piece of hardware, harnessing the power of both men and fae into an enduring symbol of our grand Empire; one where man- and fairy kind strive together to push forward the common-man’s utopia, where all is equal and everyone pitches in for the good of the State. A fusion of man's ability to wield science and machinery to create large, powerful walking machines, and the fae's natural ability to wield magic to create an immensely rich power source, the ~name~ is the face of future warfare, we are assured. Tens of times stronger and a hundred times tougher, a ~name~ can go toe to toe with most opponents can go toe-to-toe with most opponents and come out on top. It's powerful crushing fists, wrist mounted microcannon, thick metallic hull, and unique fae powered shield and energy system means it'll walk out of almost any fight with a victory.

The great rivals of the Empire found in the Cloud Courts, however, tend to prefer more... barbaric slave labor for their primer warriors. The Magic Knight is an unholy amalgam of base flesh and eldritch sorceries, covering the human in sigils of power that leave the individual much faster, monsterously stronger, almost invulnerable to harm, immune to the necessities of food or sleep, and completely under the thrall of their fairy masters. Though inherently a cowardly way to fight, where the controlling fae stays back home and uses their Magic Knight as a deadly war puppet, they are grudgingly accepted as powerful opponents. Faster, possibly stronger, and with much more powerful magics at their disposable then a ~name~, it has been found to be generally good practice to take to the field in numbers when one is spotted in the area.

Not that a ~name~ couldn't deal with one by themselves, of course. Probably.

-

Wheeling around after clearing my head from under the rubble, I saw the strangest sight. The Magic Knight, who I could finally tell was a male, appeared stuck, trying to drag it's sword out of the chest of Susan and Lily's Monolith. It looked like Lily had managed to activate her shields in time, and the sword lay buried halfway into the machine, cutting the cockpit wide open, but unable to move further or back either way, the pink barrier preventing escape. It looked ridiculous, a young, attractive looking man dressed like he was headed to a dinner and ball rather then be the perpetrator  to a desperate warzone. He wasn't even wearing armor, which seemed to be normal with Magic Knights, in my experience.

This was our opening.

I leapt forward, the servos squealing in annoyance as I thrust both massive powered fists forward, attempting to crush the slippery target. He glanced at me, flat face no more impressed at the powerful war machine rapidly bearing down on him then he might feel threatened by an ant. Waiting until the last second, just as my Duolith's hands came in to crush him in a bear hug, he bounced up, standing on the narrow handle of his sword like it was a wide open ball room floor. Leaping upward, using the flexible blade as a springboard, he slid his slipper clad foot up under the chin of my machine, not but two fingers wide, and gave a gentle stroke with his toe as he rose.

I felt us rocket upward, like the machine had been hooked to a suddenly out of control crane intending to throw us into the heavens. We sailed back, Juniper's voice shrieking out in shrill panic as we lost control, before coming to rest against a turret two rows down, collapsing the gun and causing my head to slam against the rear of my helmet. I could feel broken skin, and blood running down my neck.

“Up, above!” Hazel seemed to recover first, being the most veteran pilot of us three, and I saw a sight that made my heart almost stop.

The Magic Knight was descending on us, arms folded, one foot extended into a clear lunging jump kick, sword apparently left behind in the ruin of Susan's Monolith.

“Jun-!” I thrust my right arm forward, and she instantly responded, the palm of the gigantic fist becoming enveloped in a yellow bubble of light. She was concentrating it into a much smaller point then usual, clearly trying to focus as much power as she could into stopping the deadly strike.

It wasn't nearly enough. Despite the man appearing no more then 10 stones in weight, the now almost golden field of light, powered directly off of Juniper's life force, held for a but a breath before it started to collapse, caving under the unyielding pressure from above. As his foot touched the reinforced mental being protected underneath, it started splinter and warp; my hand inside the gauntlet began to feel warm as the metal deformed, and I knew in a moment here he'd have crippled my arm in this single attack.

I swung the left arm up desperately, clenching the side of his face, trying to hold him off of us. Hazel pitched in, throwing everything she had into our counterattack. The fist was bigger then the Magic Knight's entire head, and I could see his face between the clenched fingers, covered in crackling blue energy.

He looked bored.

He was going to slaughter me, my fairy copilots, my squad, and the entire rest of the ship we were on, and he looked bored.

I heard a sharp squeal from my right speaker, as Juniper's field collapsed entirely, her moans of mental pain echoed by my physical ones as the right arm disintegrated, shattering bones in my hand, wrist, and lower arm as the Knight's attack finally connected.

Hazel's voice cut through the shrieks, her unflappable calm almost confusing as she spoke. “Mikhail, Juniper, listen to me. You two... Make... me... proud...!”

As she spoke, the peaceful sky blue field crackling around the the left fist suddenly deepened, growing darker and sharper, almost light it was starting to absorb the light around it. The grip I had on the Magic Knight's skull, which before felt like a glass marble, smooth and unyielding, suddenly softened, like a rubble ball, then a rotten fruit, crushed in my palm. My electronics sparked and overloaded, as Hazel put every last ounce of her energy into this final attack.

I blacked out for a moment at that point, my screens dark, blood running down the back of my neck, the sobs of Juniper in my right ear answered answered only by the dead silence from my left.

-

I came back to a few minutes later, probably, long enough for Juniper to cry herself out, only responding in single word replies when I asked her if she was ok. Figuring she'd be fine, I took a status update of the area, seeing the fallen body of the Magic Knight at my feet, a look of dull surprise etched across his face. Looking over to the remains of my squad, I could tell that Lily was looking weak, but alive, in the back reactor pack her Monolith, but Susan was still flatlined, as was both Richter and Sybil.

Clearing my throat, I called into the bridge. “Command, this is Moonlight Squadron, starboard gundeck. Magic Knight is down, I repeat, Magic Knight is down.”

I heard the Captain's voice come on, as he exhaled, a note of worry leaving his tone. “That's... good to hear, Moonlight. Looks like they only managed to get three of the guns, too. You might have just saved us this fight, Moonlight, the bastard totally wrecked the port side guns. Losses? Did you meet up with Starlight?”

I shook my head, wishing we had met up with the other squad. It might have come in handy. “Negative, fight was over too quickly for that. Lost two pilots and... two fae. Two Monoliths with non-critial damage, one Duolith that'll need some time in the shop.”

The Captain sounded surprised and happy at the report. “That's it, just two of you? That's an awfully small price to pay to snag one of their Magic Knight's I'd say!” I winced at his casual dismissal of the sacrifices, but her carried on without noticing. “Stay put, then, I'll have Starlight come by and pick you up. We've got a battle to win!”

As I gingerly crawled forward in my heavily damaged machine, I could feel the vertigo in my stomach as the ship was brought around. A minute later, the rolling broadside had begun, and I had managed to extract a weak, panting Lily from reactor chair in the back of her quiet machine, and slumped back, holding her protectively as I waited for pickup.

A win was a win, I suppose.

-

We went onto win that fight, as it turned out. It was just a sortie, a bearing of teeth really, where both sides got a little bloodied and backed off again. As for Juniper and I, was were given a Golden Saber medal for managing to kill a Magic Knight, while Lily was given a Silver one for assisting in the kill. Hazel, of course, was also given a Golden Saber, wreathed in the traditional Amethyst Laurel for being essentially the killing blow. Not that there was much to attach the medal too; there never is after a fairy overloads themselves, just a few wisps of residual energy, and those had all disappeared by the time Starlight Squadron had met up with us. Still, we had a little burial vase of sorts that Juniper picked out that we kept the medal with.

I was promoted a level, and this time around I get to pick the recruits for my squad. Lily, not having a pilot to copilot with, decide to join us, and we've almost gotten the hang of the member switch on the machine. It's kind of weird, though, now instead of Hazel and Juniper's enegy combining to form a green color, with the two of them it's more of an orange.

I guess I'll get used to it.