Winged Power Battery

(Context for Winged Angel and Water situation for the Electricity Feat)

And then, mercifully, an arching doorway.  Another large room, which might have been chemical or water processing.  Huge tanks loomed in the center, surrounded by catwalks.  The ceiling was high, and tiny windows high above were open to the sky, showing sunset hues.   Multiple teams were gathered on the ground level.

Atop the tanks, looking down on us, were three modified Dragon-craft, weapons armed.  Each was supported by teams of thralls and a handful of capes.

Modified to be something other than Dragons.

“Those are her old suits that she wasn’t able to find after G.M.!” Balk called out.  “She said to watch out for them!”

Mechanical angels now.  One with a glowing halo, one with extensive wings that made me think of the Simurgh, another with metal plates connecting into one another in what could have been flowing robes, carrying a glowing sword.

*

We took what cover was available.  Filtration systems the size of four-story buildings were spaced out around the ‘room’, pipes big enough to drive a truck through feeding out of those systems into wall, floor, and ceiling.  The domed ceiling high above us, accommodating the structures, and concrete fences were set here and there to ward employees away from dangerous parts of the structure.

*

I took cover along the side of a pipe.  Water and steam gouted out of multiple places in the filtration system.  The cover was demolished, and my teammates gone.  Water rained down from above, cold enough to make my skin contract, while steam rose from above.

*

The sword had taken out a good quarter of the filtration structure to the right, and the amount of water was startling as it sprayed out at high pressure and massive volume.  The group that had climbed further up the same structure, Ashley and Capricorn included, were having to fight to keep their positions as pipes dipped and previously horizontal sections became precarious slopes.  On the ground, capes were running through the water or even dropping low to let themselves get carried by the flow, where the geyser banked off the wall to the floor.

*

The winged suit unfurled its wings as it twisted in the air, more acrobatic than the other two.  Each wing was made of slats, top and bottom ends set at diagonals, each slat connected to the next, getting larger as they got further from the main suit.  With the unfurling, the wings glowed, and the slats replicated with projected images, each added slat taller than the last, with the final segments punching into the ceiling and floor both, right by the door.  Our group scattered, cut in half by the image.  The glow of the projected wings faded a second or two after the ‘impact’, but the damage remained, and a combination of smoke and concrete dust served to cloud our vision.

*

The left-hand wing of the winged suit extended, sweeping forward.  A wall of what seemed like forcefields, extending between the group and their path of retreat.  Extending in my way, so that I crashed into it, hard enough that the Wretch was canceled.

The wing-wall remained intact after I collided with it.

*

And in the background, the wing mech had been quiet, but was now doing something else.  Something protruded from its back, as if it were laying an egg.  A cartridge.  Electricity crackled around the cylindrical protrusion, and the entire craft seemed to go a bit dim.

I flew, diving, being aware of the halo’s apparent range, which was very visible with the way it zapped everything that was close enough.  Close to the ground, until I was skimming the water that layered over the floor, breastplate scraping tile.

Come on, my horrible partner.  Work with me.  Don’t kill us.

The cartridge dropped.  It was the size of a fridge and likely the same weight.  It toppled end over end.

*

Don’t move too violently or hit it.  Stay still, embrace it.

I intercepted it.  I felt the Wretch latch on.  No violent blows.

Arcs of energy crackled along the Wretch, dancing over droplets that had found cracks and crevices on the Wretch’s form.

*

Love Lost planted both feet on the cartridge, residual electricity arcing along her tinker gear, and then kicked off, full-force.

It only pushed the cartridge a few feet closer to the angels, but a few more feet was enough.  The halo zapped it, and it detonated.

*

The detonation hadn’t done much.  A bit of damage to the warrior angel’s robe, a bit of damage to its hand.  One of the halo mech’s feet was scuffed.

*

The winged craft had loaded another power cell, and produced more barriers, slicing at catwalk and cutting off lines of fire.  One collapsing catwalk was stopped as Stonewall created a shield and planted it in the side of the structure.