He looked down at his own hands first, because that seemed like the responsible order to check things in, and found gauntlets there instead of skin, bronze veins of light running under plating that moved exactly when he told it to.
Did I just... henshin?
He flexed his fingers. The gauntlets flexed with them, no delay, no resistance, like they'd been his hands his whole life and only just remembered to show up as metal.
Okay. Thess is kind of cool..
He rolled his shoulders next, testing the weight of the chest plate, the greaves, whatever was currently doing a very convincing impression of a helmet on his own head, and none of it dragged at him the way he'd expected armor to drag. If anything it sat lighter than his own gym bag ever had, and underneath all of it his whole body hummed with something he didn't have a word for yet, strength that hadn't been there minutes ago sitting coiled and ready under his skin like it had just been waiting for an invitation.
I feel like I could punch through an actual concrete wall right now, not just drywall.
Across the lot, the creature had gone very still, wings half-cocked, amber eyes fixed on him like he'd personally ruined its evening.
It said it slowly, wings trembling like the words themselves offended it.
"That should not have happened. I did not grant permission for this."
Yeah, well, join the club.
It recovered its composure fast, shaking out its wings with a metallic click, but something in its voice had shifted, the boredom gone out of it, replaced with an edge that hadn't been there before.
Its claws sparked, electricity crawling up from the tips.
"Hand over the Starseed. Now. I'll ask once more, and only because I am, by nature, an extraordinarily patient and generous creature. After that, I take it off your corpse instead, and I promise you, the corpse version is far less flattering to look at."
Hikaru rolled his neck, the helmet's faceplate doing nothing to hide the fact that his voice came out steadier than it had any right to.
"Yeah, I heard you the first time. Still not handing over something I don't even understand. And you still owe me for the ear thing, so."
"You're going to fight me in that?"
"I'm going to fight you regardless of what I'm wearing. The armor's just a bonus."
The creature's tail lashed once, sparks scattering off the Tesla coil at its tip, and something that might have been respect flickered behind the amber glow of its eyes before it buried it back under theater.
It drew itself up to full height, wings spreading wide enough to blot out the dead streetlight behind it.
"Very well. Since you've earned it. Vox Lacerans. Voice of the Sable Legion, First Screamer, herald of Lord Dramatos's will on this pitiful little rock. You may thank me for the introduction with your undivided attention."
Whatever the Sable Legion was, this one clearly ranked itself as its mouthpiece, and wanted that fact known.
...Did he just monologue his own name at me.
He dropped into a stance, weight settling into his heels the way twelve years of drills had carved into muscle memory.
"Cool. I'm Hikaru. Let's go."
Vox Lacerans came in first, claws leading, and Hikaru caught the strike on a raised forearm that would have snapped clean a few minutes ago. It didn't.
The impact rang through the gauntlet and nothing else, and he answered with a cross to the beak that actually rocked the creature's head sideways.
Okay. That's new. That's very new.
The armor was not decoration.
Somewhere beneath the plating, in a way no boy standing inside it could have explained if asked, it multiplied him: strength beyond anything twelve years of forms alone could have built, reflexes tuned past the ceiling of an ordinary nervous system, speed enough to read an attack before it fully arrived.
Whatever he had been minutes ago, holding two chocolate almond bars in a convenience store, he was no longer that.
Vox Lacerans reeled back, more surprised than hurt, wings snapping wide to put distance between them.
"That actually landed on ME."
It said it like an accusation, like the hit itself had committed a crime against good taste.
"Yeah, I noticed. Wanna feel it again?"
He didn't wait for an answer, closing the gap in one explosive step, and this time when his knee drove into its ribs, the creature staggered, actually staggered, talons scoring the concrete as it fought for balance.
Wings flared, blades unfolding, a scything horizontal swipe aimed at his throat. He dropped under it, closer to the ground than he'd have managed a few minutes ago, and drove an uppercut into its jaw hard enough to snap its head back.
I'm keeping up. I can actually win this!
Vox Lacerans shrieked, more fury than pain, and launched itself skyward, blade-wings catching the dead streetlight and throwing shards of reflected glow across the lot.
"Running already?"
"Repositioning."
It snapped the word out, sharp enough that it came out more defensive than dignified, and dove for him from above, claws first.
Hikaru planted, caught the impact on crossed forearms, and used the creature's own momentum to throw it sideways into the laundromat's rooftop access ladder, metal shrieking as it tore loose from the wall.
He didn't give it room to recover, vaulting the low fence at the edge of the lot and scrambling up the same ladder rungs after it, boots finding grip on rust and old paint like the armor had opinions about traction he'd never had to think about before.
Vox Lacerans met him at the roof's edge, wings snapping into a bladed guard, and the exchange that followed took them across three rooftops in as many seconds, gravel scattering, an old satellite dish crumpling under a mistimed swipe, a rooftop AC unit taking a hit meant for Hikaru's head and folding like a tin can.
He caught a talon strike on his forearm, felt it actually hurt this time instead of nothing. He answered with a spinning kick that sent the creature skidding across loose gravel toward the roof's far ledge.
It's not a pushover anymore either. Good. I was getting bored winning too easy.
Vox Lacerans caught itself at the edge, wings snapping wide for balance, one clawed foot hanging over open air three stories up.
"You're stronger than you should be for someone who found that suit ten minutes ago."
Hikaru rolled his shoulders, already closing the distance again.
"Yeah, well. First time for everything."
Vox Lacerans didn't come at him again. It backed off instead, wings spreading wide, and the shriek that built out of its beak this time came out lower, sustained, aimed rather than thrown.
The sound hit him like a wall. Hikaru staggered, both hands slamming over the sides of his helmet, and a small gold bar he hadn't noticed before flickered awake at the corner of his vision, already dropping.
[■■■■■■■■■□] 90%
What is that thing? I really don't wanna find out.
He tried to close the distance and the sound wouldn't let him, another wave rolling out the second the first one faded, keeping him pinned at range while the bar kept ticking down.
I need something, anything, come on!
Text flared gold across his visor.
SPIRAL LANCE AVAILABLE.
His hand snapped out on instinct, and light gathered into it, condensing fast into an eight-foot shaft wrapped in glowing spiral grooves, amber and gold pulsing down its length toward a curved blade shaped like a dragon's fang at the tip.
He planted the butt end and swept it in a wide arc, and the shockwave off it met the next scream head-on, both forces collapsing into nothing, sound and force canceling out in a ring around him.
Vox Lacerans choked mid-shriek, wings freezing.
"That's not... how is that even..."
Hikaru turned the lance once in his grip, testing the balance, weight settling into his shoulders like it had been there for years instead of seconds.
"Huh. This is actually pretty good."
It's been a while since I've held one of these, but it still feels the same.
Old Master Renji had made him run drills with everything from staffs to sai to some kind of curved sword nobody could ever remember the name of, more out of his own obsession with collecting weapons than any belief Hikaru needed to know them. He'd never been good enough to call himself a master of any of it, not the way the old man was, but the forms had stuck, muscle memory that apparently didn't care what century or planet it woke back up on.
The lance settled into his hands like it belonged there.
He pressed after that, lance sweeping in wide arcs that kept the creature from ever finding room to wind up another scream. Vox Lacerans backed off a step, then another, wings dragging where they used to snap.
It's slowing down. This is my chance!
A wild claw swipe came in sloppy, telegraphed, nothing like the precision from earlier. Hikaru caught it on the shaft and shoved through, driving the creature back another two steps toward the ledge.
[■■■□□□□□□□] 30%
The gold bar kept bleeding down at the edge of his vision, faster now, but his own legs still felt like his legs, his own arms still swinging like they meant it.
That's a problem for later. I just need to finish this first.
Vox Lacerans threw one last desperate strike, claws raking for his throat, sluggish and wide open. Hikaru sidestepped it, planted, and drove the lance forward with both hands, the dragon-fang blade punching clean through fur and metal-scale and whatever lived underneath both.
The creature went rigid around the shaft, wings snapping open once, uselessly, and folding back down.
[■□□□□□□□□□] 8%
Its voice came out smaller now, all the layered theatrics gone out of it, just one thin thread of sound left.
"I... I lost. To a human. This isn't... Lord Dramatos will..."
It sagged forward on the blade, amber eyes dimming.
"Lady Nyxara, I failed you. I'm sorry, my lord, I couldn't..."
The last of the glow went out of its eyes, and its weight went with it, sliding off the lance and slumping to the rooftop gravel in a heap of dulled fur and dead metal.
Hikaru stood over it, lance still raised, chest heaving inside the suit.
[□□□□□□□□□□] 3%
The tension went out of his shoulders slowly, the armor's glow settling to a low steady hum along its seams. He crossed the roof to where the body had slumped, curious despite himself, and crouched beside it.
Torn fur peeled back where the lance had gone through, and underneath it wasn't just meat and bone. Metal plating ran along the ribs, wires threaded between what should have been muscle, some kind of mechanism still ticking faintly even in death.
Was I fighting a robot this whole time? Or a robot wearing a dead lion as a costume? I don't even know which answer I want.
Something in the air shifted before he heard it, a pressure drop settling over the rooftop that raised the hair on his arms even through the suit. He spun and got the lance up on pure instinct, catching a blade an inch from his throat, the impact driving him back a full step across the gravel.
Steel rang against the dragon-fang edge and held.
The woman who owned it hadn't so much as staggered from the block, feet planted, blade still pressed hard against his.
Pale skin caught what little light the dead streetlight offered, and her hair sat black and precise, not a strand out of place despite what had to have been a hard landing to get here.
Grey eyes studied him over the crossed weapons with the same flat, assessing calm someone might use to check inventory, no fear in them at all, only calculation.
Everything about her uniform fit close and controlled, nothing wasted, nothing loose enough to catch on a blow.
Great. There's two of them.
"You're fast," she said, like she was noting it down somewhere. "Faster than the readings suggested."
Hikaru held the block, arms trembling from more than just the strain of it.
"Who are you?"
She said it flat, like a fact filed and closed.
"Nyxara. Second in command of the Sable Legion, in service to Lord Dramatos."
She stepped back half a pace, blade lowering just enough to no longer be actively pressing against his.
"I'll offer you a mercy Vox Lacerans never would have. Give me the Starseed Key, and you walk away from this roof breathing."
He shifted his grip on the lance, planting his feet.
"Yeah, I've heard that one already tonight. Didn't like it then either."
He came at her first this time, driving the lance forward in a thrust meant to end things fast. She sidestepped it without visible effort, and his follow-up swing carried less force behind it than it should have, the motion sluggish in a way his body hadn't warned him about until it was already happening.
[■□□□□□□□□□] 2%
Come on. Not now.
She caught his next strike on her blade and shoved through it, sending him stumbling back a step, and this time he couldn't find the strength to close the distance again.
Suddenly, light hit the rooftop from directly above, a column of white swallowing him whole before either of them could react. Both of them looked up at once, following it to its source: something long and pale hung in the dark sky, veins of blue-green light pulsing along a hull with no visible engines at all.
Nyxara's blade snapped up on reflex, too late. The light lifted him clean off the gravel, the last of the rooftop and the woman's narrowed eyes falling away beneath him as the ship swallowed him into itself.
She stood alone on the roof a moment after he vanished, jaw tight, gaze dropping to the ruined corpse still slumped near the ledge.
Her blade came down on it twice, three times, more force than the already-dead thing required, fur and metal scattering across the gravel in pieces.
She was gone before the last piece hit the ground.
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