Chapter 121 : Trainees VS Legions (Patreon)

Sarah dived under the metal fist that came flying to her face and raised her glowing knee into the attacking robot's waist, its lanky frame bending under the force of the impact before the machine fell to the ground. A second Legion dropped from above, jumping off from the roof of the fake building the Union's training room had fabricated by raising its white floor, but before the robot could reach her silent wings dived through the air, and Scareowl's talons caught the metallic fighter. The avian boy adjusted his grip as he flew higher, and once he was satisfied with the way his talons held the machine he dived back down, adjusting his angle at the last second to push all of the strength of the fall onto the metallic body that he let go of. The Legion let out a loud crack, though the way its limbs continued to twitch and its singular red eye kept following the flying boy in the air showed the machine wasn't fully out of commission yet.

In all the fighting, Sarah didn't know how long it had been since they began or how many waves of enemies they already went through. All that she knew was that they were all still doing well and unharmed, and the Legions kept falling.

One of the robots began to climb the closest building, and judging by the way it stared at Scareowl its intentions were clear. The thing planned to wait on the roof until the flying boy passed by, at which point the machine would jump unto him. Sarah wasn't about to let it do as it pleased. The ginger girl fired a brief ray of light at one of the robot's hands, disturbing its grip on the surface it was escalating but not enough to make it fall. Instead, the thing's head turned to face her while its body kept climbing, and when Sarah sent another blast of light the robot adjusted its position so that its body took the hit instead. The Hero trainee was annoyed her powers didn't pack enough of a punch in long-range to damage the machine more, but she wasn't too worried. Taking out stragglers going after the flying member of the class wasn't her main job in this fight, after all.

With its cyclopean gaze focused on Sarah the Legion missed the arrival of another trainee, and by the time its audio receptors caught up to the situation it was already being bathed in an inferno of pink flames, courtesy of Glicer Glitter, who currently displayed a very unheroic manic smile on her face at the sight of the burning machine. Funnily enough, Glicer's fire wasn't magical or special in any way, the reason it was pink was because of all of the glitter she carried on her that caught in the flames whenever she sent them out. The Legion didn't seem to appreciate this interesting bit of trivia as its metal melted enough to fuse its joints, at which point the shortest member of the team stopped her attack. The robot was stuck on the wall, its fingers still encased in its white material, but couldn't move anymore. It was also covered in sparkly pink particles somehow.

Glicer giggled as she skipped away to take care of more robotic fighters, and Sarah briefly looked up to see Scareowl pointing at something to her left before making her way there. Light covered her feet and acted as skates, letting her go much quicker than simply powering up her limbs would, leaving glowing trails behind her for a nice but unintended aesthetical effect. As she turned around the corner, she got to see Elaimant picking up a Legion with their oversized hand before crunching it in their grasp and throwing the robot at the nearest wall. As soon as they were done with their throw, the titanic magnetic trainee turned to pick another of the half-a-dozen machines clinging to their legs and trying to crawl their way up to the crystalline structure that served as their brain. Behind Elaimant, Maledicta was whispering with her eyes closed and her arms spread out to the side, ghostly dark thorny vines escaping from her wrists and forming a complex shape above her head, something that gave Sarah a headache just by looking at it. The ginger saw more Legions coming in from behind the drow and she hurried to intercept them, already firing blasts of light to hold them back until she could engage in melee combat.

She might not have liked the drow, but a teammate was still a teammate, especially when they needed help.

Sarah leaped through the air with her glowing leg forward, taking down the first Legion she reached with a mighty kick that sent the robot crashing into another machine. She turned her waist and punched at the next incoming mechanical fighter but her fist was caught by the Legion's metal hand, and Sarah prepared herself for some pain as her head began to glow before she slammed it against the machine's own, its red eye shattering as its body fell to the ground. Sarah briefly rubbed at her forehead, already imagining the bruise that would show up, before getting back into action and landing light-empowered hits on the hostile Legions.

One of the robots caught Sarah's arm, and luckily this time she didn't have to hurt herself to get free from the machine's grasp. A metal cable flew through the air and wrapped itself around the Legion's limbs and torso, ripping its arm away from Sarah before the cable suddenly became ten times heavier and pulled the robot to the ground. The girl sent a quick thankful nod at Elaimant before getting back into the fight, not missing how a Legion tore off its fallen comrade's bindings and helped it back up. The crystalline lifeform's magnetic powers were strong, but they were sadly limited by their ability to focus - they could do more if they stopped upholding their fake humanoid body, but it would limit the ways to defend their crystalline brain. As soon as there was more than one opponent with enough strength to bend metal and free themselves from whatever Elaimant bound them in, their powers weren't quite up to the task. Thankfully, they had someone else who could take care of large groups.

Maledicta opened her eyes, revealing their new otherworldly red glow as she stopped whispering and joined her hands together above her head, the symbol she had been weaving with her vines shifted as it rose through the air, going from what felt like a weeping willow to a skull to a pair of wings to an angular spiral in seconds before the vines unfurled and snaked their way into the pristine white ground. In a blink of an eye every Legion, even those who had already fallen, were assaulted by yet more thorny tendrils of magical energies. The machines pulled at their binds but found their strength drained, the glow of their red eyes dimming as the last ones standing fell, metal clanking loudly as it hit the floor.

As the drow's eyes returned to their usual yet still odd pink color, a smug look appeared on her face, and Sarah already had some idea as to what she was about to say.

"So, did you all see how you get it done?"

Sarah let out a sigh as she stopped over the unmoving frame of a Legion to join her teammates.

"Observation: There are no more active Legions in the perimeter."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious."

"Statement: I am not the popular Hero Captain Obvious, who operated in Factville from-"

"It was a figure of speech, crystal head."

Uh. That sounded more like friendly banter than usual, coming from Maledicta. Perhaps fighting together had helped create bonds, and show her there was no point in being a jerk to people she was supposed to be friends with. That would have a nice change. Given the way the drow scowled when she saw Sarah next to her, likely not.

"Firefly. Took you long enough."

"Maledicta. You're welcome for the save, by the way."

Her pink eyes rolled.

"You can thank big and slow over there for giving you a job."

"Statement: This one is not slow, but was held back by the numerous enemies this one had to fight on their own. Reminder: The Union's Legions are immune to magnetic powers, greatly reducing this one's effectiveness."

"Cut Elaimant some slack, Maledicta. They did an awesome job. We all did."

Glicer appeared out of nowhere and jumped in next to the trio, doing a little twirl on herself as she threw glitter in the air with a childish smile on her face.

"We did it!"

Scareowl descended from the air and landed next to them before nodding.

"All the Legions have been taken care of. Kopper will be arriving any second now."

The drow scoffed.

"What was the beanpole even doing?"

Oh, Sarah wouldn't let that hypocritical critic slide.

"You're one to talk, you're even thinner than he is."

Before the curse weaver could answer one of the white walls around burst apart into chunks, and Kopper Kid was kneeling on and pummeling the shaking form of what could only be described as a Legion combination. One robot acted as the central body while others attached themselves to its limbs and another made itself at home over its back and head, forming something between a humanoid shape and an arthropod. Hadn't the light in its eyes been vanishing as it let out distorted noises that grew silent, Sarah would have been more worried at the sight. The combined machines let out a final murmur as the black boy's fist pierced through the security camera-like head of the uppermost Legion, and when he pulled back his hand the rectangular piece of metal came off along with a mechanical spine of servos and wires. It was in times like these that Sarah was very thankful that the Union's Legions were fully non-sentient. The spectacle was already quite the gory mess even without actual flesh being involved, she didn't want to imagine what it would be like if those weren't cold unfeeling machines.

Kopper stepped off from his kill and shook his hands to dislodge the decapitated head that it was stuck inside of, and only focused back on his teammates when the severed thing fell off in a hollow clunk and bounced off behind him.

"So, uh... I didn't know they could do that."

Even Maledicta's eyes widened at the sight of the combined robots' bodies. Before she could comment Sarah beat her to the punch.

"Yeah, they don't do it often. Why bother doing that when they can send a Hero instead, you know? Besides, most of the time six Legions are more effective than one of those. Still, great job beating it!"

"Eh, thanks Firefly."

The drow still addressed the boy, but not for the reason Sarah expected.

"Kopper, did red vines bind that thing at any point?"

"Uh... No?"

"It doesn't make sense... My curse targeted all the Legions by pulling at their similitude, how did that thing avoid that?"

Scareowl answered her question.

"Your curse didn't consider it a Legion anymore. It's quite simple when you think about it. More than that, do you really think the Union wouldn't have a security measure specifically for cases like these? You didn't expect your curse to take down all the Legions in the country, because you knew it had limits. The Union has the knowledge and resources to take advantage of those sorts of limits."

Maledicta looked ready to argue but apparently bit back her snark as she scoffed and turned her head in such a way her hair whipped to the side. Scareowl continued talking but this time addressing all of the group.

"I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm quite satisfied with our performance so far. Our initial strategy is working out quite well, despite a few close calls this time."

Their plan was quite simple, really: Scareowl flew as high as he could to take stock of the situation at all times and direct the others where they needed to go, as well as occasionally dropping to fight himself if he saw an urgency where he was needed; Glicer Glitter ran around doing her own thing to take down anyone trying to attack the skies, and if she were to be outnumbered she would just cause a massive explosion that would at the very least let her run; Maledicta readied powerful spells that took time to prepare while Elaimant defended her until she was done; Kopper followed Scareowl's directions to fight off the biggest toughest guys around; and Sarah's job was to go wherever she was needed, her light powers gave more flexibility in what she could do and thus she could either act as support for Elaimant and Maledicta like she just did or help Kopper if he was overwhelmed, and if no one needed her then she could go after stragglers hiding in corners before they could get the jump on the rest of the team. It was a simple strategy, but it had worked out so far.

A rumbling echoed between the walls of the room, and the raised floor that had acted as buildings retracted back into the ground for a short second before it moved again. Thin pillars that branched out into sharp spikes like low-polygonal dead trees rose with tremors that had the classmates shaking, and Elaimant scooped them all up in their large arms before any of them could fall.

A massive pit opened in the white floor, and a massive claw formed from the union of three Legions emerged from its depths and gripped at its edge, pulling itself out.

The trainees shared a very similar thought and Elaimant was the first to put it into words.

"Observation: This is a very big problem."