Chapter: 632 – The Fox at Midnight

Tala had left the gate open to Ironhold, anchored to the wagon that it had been with all that day. Doing so meant that they didn’t really have access to their sanctum—as Kit couldn’t spread her various parts out too much—but that was fine.

Kedva, Brandon, Adrill, and their assistants could enter and exit the sanctum at will, so if something was needed while the core Sappherrous family were gone, it could be acquired, and they weren’t leaving those within the sanctum trapped there.

The Sappherrouses didn’t simply walk out into the wilderness. No matter how much time they had, that would be far too slow as they didn’t know exactly where the beast would be holed up.

Instead, they each utilized their own method of fast movement.

Rane, as usual, turned his magic into kinetic energy, vaulting in great arcs.

Terry flickered through the trees, and Tala leapt with great, powerful bounds, altering her gravity at key points to go further and move more quickly.

As to Lea? She crouched, seeming almost to stutter, artificial muscles and magics straining against one another as she fought to move while absorbing all her own momentum as soon as she began to do so.

After about ten seconds of this, her inscriptions flashed in a different pattern, and she was loosed forward, instantly taking on more speed than either her father or mother, catching up and passing them in what would have been a blur of movement to a mundane.

The girl’s very soul seemed to resonate with the movement and with the world around her, leading to reality… remaining undisturbed by her passage. Wait… is it her soul? Or is it from her body?

-I can’t tell either… We have been analyzing it when she’s practiced, but we haven’t been able to pin down the exact source of the… leveling? Soothing?-

Well… keep an eye on it?

-Already on it.-

After reaching the top of her leap, Lea began to arc down, slowing rather than speeding up, her momentum re-entering her inscribed storage for that metaphysical quantity. At the same time, she would be moving her arms slowly in fluid actions, clearly fighting against her storing magics, adding to the building momentum that would be at her disposal. In the descending phase of her travel, Tala and Rane would catch and pass her, leapfrogging each other at various points as well.

When Lea’s foot touched down, it was as light as a feather, not even disturbing the surface she landed upon.

Then, she would release the stored momentum once again, loosing herself once more to catch and overtake her parents yet again.

As to where they were going? Alat and Enar were guiding the family’s flying constructs through the area, each with a small bloodstar cloud utilized to give them a far, far greater ability to search.

The family was proceeding right up the middle of the search pattern—which the alternate interfaces had been executing since the first of the exodus had begun setting up camp for the night—ready to divert to the side if anything was detected.

Even so, it still took them hours before the midnight fox was discovered.

Ten minutes after it was, the Sappherrous family landed outside a large cave, the mere starlight no hindrance to any of the four.

Tala immediately informed the others what the situation was. “The beast is near the back of the irregular tunnel. The entire cave is only about a hundred yards deep with quite a few twists and turns, making it defensible for the beast, depending on how it chooses to fight.

“No offshoots that I can see, and it is alone.”

Rane nodded along, Terry was simply staring fixedly at the cave mouth, and Lea was hopping from foot to foot, clearly both nervous and excited.

“So, Lea?”

“Yeah?” The girl jerked, her head whipping to face her mom.

“This is the test you wanted. Fight and win without collateral damage.”

She nodded.

Rane cleared his throat. “Do you know what you are facing?”

Lea nodded again. “Midnight Fox, Bound level existence, lightning and darkness magics, most often manifesting as electrical strikes and defensive shields of various kinds.”

Rane nodded, not seeming to see a need to correct her.

Terry chirped, and Tala sighed. “No, Terry. Just her. We’ll wait out here.”

He chirped again, clearly a bit disgruntled.

She shook her head. “She’s ready, Terry, and she is better prepared than I was when I faced this beast.”

Lea looked to Terry, seeming confused, almost hurt. “Don’t you trust me? Do you think I am so weak?”

Terry squawked in complaint, eyes narrowing.

Tala laughed. “Ahh, that’s the issue.”

Lea looked between the avian and her Mom, confusion evident on her face. “What?”

“He is afraid that you’re going to ruin the meat, and he’s still grumpy from my destruction of his snack, back in the day.” Tala turned to regard Terry. “I’ll remind you that you could have helped me back then, but you didn’t. I killed it the best that I could. It isn’t my fault that there was nothing left for the scavengers.”

Terry let out a disgruntled, offended squawk, but then hunkered down to wait, shrinking until his head barely poked above brown grass in this sheltered valley. Still, his eyes remained locked on the cave mouth, his intent and feelings clear.

Rane chuckled, patting Force’s hilt at his waist almost absently. “Well, then? We’ll wait out here. Proceed when you’re ready.”

Tala nodded, her white steel hand molded around Flow’s hilt at her own waist, even though the weapon was in the form of a knife.

Lea sighed, looking at her Talon-provided armaments and gear in general.

She had a chest and back piece over her tunic along with vambraces and greaves for her arms and legs. Hanging down around her waist was a series of plated leather strips forming an armored skirt over her pants. An overly heavy round shield made up the rest of her ‘free’ white steel, meaning that which wasn’t a part of her body.

She freed the shield from her back, moving it to her left arm where it integrated with the vambrace there and formed a handle for that hand to grasp, keeping it from twisting freely about her forearm.

She then grasped the edge of the shield and pulled away, forming a short, heavy blade that would be a wonderful choice for the close confines of the cave, even if the space was nearly twenty feet in its smallest dimension.

After taking a few test swings, Lea frowned. Then, with a sigh, she reshaped the weapon into a short spear. Tala nodded as that was, honestly, a better choice given the situation and Lea’s magics.

The girl’s shield also grew, widening even as it thinned. Lastly, thin wires spun out to hang from the bottom edge of the shield, just long enough to brush the ground.

Tala nodded in approval once again, but didn’t say anything further. This was for her daughter to work out.

Lea muttered to herself. “I could just bring down the cave and crush the beast within…”

Rane cocked an eyebrow, clearly holding his tongue.

“But that would fail the test.” She sighed. “Alright, let’s do this.”

Lea moved forward with a rolling gait, shield held before her, spear ready to thrust forward.

As she approached the cave mouth, her over-thick backplate shed some of its mass to flow upward, forming a full helm that separated from the back to allow for ease of movement.

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The addition of the helmet caused Tala to sigh in relief, earning a mischievous glance from her daughter, her eyes barely visible through the eyeslit. Though Tala could see her just fine with her threefold sight.

That girl… Still, a smile tugged at Tala’s lips. I am glad that she’s confident enough to have mental energy to play with.

-Indeed.-

Lea’s playful expression fell away as she oriented on the cave once more, her movements predatory as she advanced.

The midnight fox had clearly sensed them, but it had stayed back despite their gates, likely cognizant of the vast disparity of advancement and power. Magical beasts hated gates and gated, but that hatred was generally not enough to cause them to kill themselves on humans so many stages beyond them.

Now, however, Lea was moving forward alone, a being that wasn’t even Bound in power.

Tala saw when the vulpine predator realized what was happening. It perked up, then dropped low, stalking forward, even while its antlers began to build a charge.

The fox was a bit faster, but Lea had started first, meaning that the two met near the middle of the cave’s length.

The first engagement was an obvious one, lightning lancing from the near total darkness of the deep cave toward Lea.

Lea either felt or saw the attack and crouched a bit lower, the hanging wires coming into solid contact with the ground even as she pulled her short spear back behind the shield’s profile.

The lightning struck her shield, then—being within Lea’s authority and thus outside the continued control of the fox—the electricity took the path of least resistance, flowing across the shield and down the heavy wires into the ground.

The white steel was an excellent conductor, barely heating with the passage of such power.