Careful Not To Break Reality

Rydel could tell that the Aquarian is yet another practitioner of the Steady of the Unyielding Ice style Aquarian blade martial arts from the way she deflects the mace that was thrown. With a simple movement, despite her blade being flicked out of her grasp by the equal and opposite force, she avoided a potential devastating blow to her body.

Aquarians are more durable to bruising and trauma type damage due to the overall fluidic nature of their body and how the vital organs can be moved around to avoid critical damage, but a strike of that speed colliding into her who is also travelling at relative high speed will still leave its mark.

For Valerie however, this opponent would be a great practice, provided that she won't get critically injured. The mercenary is fast, but really not faster than Valerie herself. The same can be say about strength, though this won't likely be what is going to happen when she eventually challenges Gold, for her at this stage of her development, there couldn't be a better opponent.

Thinking back to the newbie crushing done by Gold at the start of the training, Rydel was mostly thrown off by Gold's brand new ability to move as well as using the power of his artifact rather than the fact that he has now been incorporating other styles of Aquarian martial arts into his fighting style. If Valerie can press her opponents hard enough, it won't be hard to imagine him falling back into this old habits.

Meaning a fight against someone who practices Steady of the Unyielding Ice would be extremely valuable regardless.

Rydel honestly doesn't know what he meant by stepping in. It seemed obvious that his pistol won't do anything against the armors of the Aquarian, and it certainly won't do enough damage quick enough to get Valerie out of a dangerous situation. And using a powerful firearm such as his blaster rifle would be a foolish choice as it would giveaway the fact that someone is having a proper fight here.

Rydel looked at ahead, and saw that the smoke screen set by Valerie earlier still lingers around.

Realistically, the only way he could step in fast enough, would be to use his own artifact for the first time in a long while. But he needed to make sure that nobody would know, and that's where the difficult bit comes in.

With a flick of his finger, he turned on an interference field around him, preventing any electronic devices from detecting any useful information in the corridor, combining with the smoke screen Valerie set up before, they should be uninterrupted for a while.

Maybe Valerie will kill the mercenary? Maybe Rydel would have to be the one to dirty his hands? He doesn't know yet.

He knew this is the wild regions, but still, the thought of taking a life remained a line that Rydel is hesitant to cross, no matter what. In the wild regions, the law isn't the bottom line, but rather one's morals.

'Guess I have to deal with it later...' Rydel sighed, clenching his left fist and made up his mind finally. If Valerie is in extreme danger, than he will warp away whatever blade that will land a critical strike, and give Valerie an enough opening to defeat the mercenary. Nothing more, nothing less.

Valerie didn't really know what Rydel meant by stepping in if she is in danger too. Realistically, what could the boy do? They are basically equals in terms of movement speed, and it is obvious that guns would be a stupid idea.

Oh whatever.

Right now, she needs to focus on winning the duel in front of her. According to Rydel, Gold is an expert martial artist in at least one of the three major forms of Aquarian martial arts, and the only reason he was able to do decently well against him was thanks to the help or a teammate. It was a bit more disappointing that that's all Rydel is willing to say at the time, but Valerie has a feeling that he is hiding something more and is also willing to let her know the rest, given the right circ.u.mstance and enough time.

Valerie breathed slowly and calmly while she run through checks of her hidden mechanisms and weapons within her sleeves, jacket pockets, heels and behind the ankle. Everything is responding as she intended, and then she lower her stance and creates tension throughout her body, winding the muscles and pulling the tendons so tight she felt like she was about to rip herself in half.

But that's exactly what she wanted. From that position, by release all her built up tensions in an explosive pull, she can get to a speed so fast that not even having the physiological enhancement would be able to do much against it. This sort of action is especially more effective thanks to the reinforced muscles and tendon tissue being able to generate and transmit more force faster.

The mercenary realized what Valerie is going to do. She planned to overwhelm her with incredible speed. And with that, she decided to settle into the basic form of the Steady of the Unyieldig Ice and prepared for the attack.

Valerie let's out a single breath, and with that, all of the tension.

In an instant, she covered the distance between her and the mercenary, and with a fierce strike of her blade, she aimed at the gaps within the armor and sent her blades digging deep into it, aiming to completely cut her arms off in a brutal and efficient manner. However, before the blades make contact with the joint, the mercenary moved. With her body weight shifting around, she raised one of her blade and knocked Valerie's blade to the side while gearing up for a simple counterattack at her torso.

Valerie didn't let the initial set back stop her momentum, but instead she turned her wrist, and activated yet another hidden mechanism which showed yet another nozzle popping out from above her wrist. She smiled coldly and activated the nozzle that spewed out a sticky paste onto the body of the mercenary before flipping to her side and dodging the counterattack. Then she sprung up from the floor and hopped backwards before sparks started appearing from the now solidified paste on her c.h.e.s.t plate going into one of her shoulder joints.

Then, it blew.

Rydel almost had his jaw drop onto the ground. So Valerie actually had some explosive paste that she is just carrying around in her jacket? Rydel is now seriously rethinking who is the crazy one here. The one that would be challenging an artifact user without an artifact, or the one doubting her chances. Now, instead of worrying about Valerie over everything, Rydel is intrigued to see what other tricks she has quite literally up her sleeve.

The explosion lets off a single bright flash and the mercenary was thrown back into the wall with a bang. Rydel thought surely that would have drawn some attention from the others, but nobody is showing up from the other side of the smoke still. Their fight remained uninterrupted.

Obviously shaken by the impact of the explosion, the mercenary didn't get up for a good moment that Valerie started to wonder whether that explosion did the trick. That was about all of the explosive paste that she has and it was undoubtedly the most powerful weapon she has in her arsenal. Now she has to make due with a variety of utility based weapons, rather than purely powerful ones.

The physiological enhancements may grant someone superhuman strength, speed, endurance, resilience and other physical attributes, but it can also act as a protection blanket against one's true weaknesses and shortcomings, leading for people to rely solely on their brute strength in order to overpower their opponents. The rest of the combat package like combat skill, timing, element of surprise, the utilization of various tools are equally, if not more important especially when facing someone else who has also gone through the enhancement process.

That was the realization Valerie has come to after her fight with Rydel. She has picked fights with other recruits, and the power high that she experienced from simply being able to overpower other opponents and watch their surprise and disbelief turn into despair began to cloud her judgement and assessment of her true abilities. Then the fight with Rydel made her realize and remember once again that she needs to look beyond the fancy packaging of her newly strengthened muscles and bones and look to the skills she has acc.u.mulated over the years.

The skills of combat, not the strength of her muscles.

'You are tricky, human. A worthy opponent.' When the smoke from the explosive paste cleared, Valerie and Rydel can see the now obvious crack cutting diagonally across the mercenary's armor, as well as one of her arms dangling senselessly at her side like a towel wrapped around someone's shoulders. It looked like the explosion has somehow damaged the nerves in that arm enough to the point where she could no longer use it. With the remaining five functioning arms, she took off the broken c.h.e.s.t pieces of the armor, exposing her flesh underneath that has bodily fluids coming through the exoskeleton suit, indicating damage underneath.

'When my brother said to come into the wild regions, come to that organisation, get stronger and then use our combat skills and ability to our advantage to find a life of our own in the stars, I was not expecting someone as strong and as tricky as you just walking around.' She continued to say as she dropped all of the armor around her upper body onto the ground to her sides, revealing scars and cuts to her suit, no too dissimilar to those on Valerie's body.

Valerie knew those scars certainly wasn't from the process of the enhancement operations. They were from training, missions, deadly battles, not too dissimilar to how she got her own scars. Suddenly, there is a deeper sense of connection between the two. Without any further words, the Aquarian turned one of her blades, and cut off the arm that was paralyzed by the blast. Then she reached into the hidden compartment and applied a layer of blood clotting agent.

Valerie and Rydel simply watched in silence. Suddenly, Rydel felt a sense of uneasiness, perhaps from how the Aquarian just went ahead and cut off one of her limbs without any hesitation seeing that it wobbling around would simply be a hindrance to her battle? This level of resolve is respectable, and scary.

'No more bombs.' Valerie said calmly before raising her blades once again to the start, and regathering into her stance, preparing for another fast ferocious attack.

'I know.' The Aquarian replied, and raising her blades to the sides too.

On the foot, even an enhancement Aquarian can't move as fast as a human, but that's not going to be the deciding factor anymore. Aquarians have more limbs, longer reach and other qualities that more than made up for their water adapting physiology.

With another breath in and a newfound focus, Valerie loaded and launched herself at the Aquarian. To her surprise, the Aquarian also stepped forward, and struck towards her with a flurry of blows at angles at such a speed that she barely have the time to block and react before clashing into the Aquarian and then falling to the side, rolling forward two meters or so thanks to the continuing momentum.

'Valerie!' Rydel shouted, and took a step towards her. Hearing Rydel's voice, she put up her hand to show that she is okay, and yet a sharp pain exploded from the posterior side of her shoulders and she winced in pain. Clenching her teeth, she rolled to her front side, got up and applied a layer of freezing solution to the cut open flesh. This must have been a second scar near that area, a scar on a scar.

She looked at the Aquarian, who swung her blades in quick succession around her body, the style of movement clearly different from before. Perhaps the heavy armor geared to protect against ballistics and gunfire hinders her movements, and forced her to resort to the more basic of the forms? Now, with the new found speed, she has become an entirely different animal.

Valerie was careless, yet again. But now she knew what the Aquarian is going to do, she also has a strategy for a counter attack. With the freezing solution numbing the sensation coming from her shoulders, she ran through the checks of all the hidden mechanisms once again, and selected the ones that she think would most suit her in this particular battle. Personally, she would much rather fight against someone that are slower than her, and that certainly wasn't the case.

So what can you do to someone faster than you?

Valerie prepared herself yet again, and then launched her body forward for a final assault. The battle would be quick, just as she liked it. But right now, the Aquarian simply chuckled at the simplicity of her initiation of movement, and stepped forward to engage her opponent. With her blades creeping from all the directions, intending to cut Valerie into many pieces, Valerie suddenly threw one of her blades forward, going straight for her c.h.e.s.t, and then she threw another.

The two blades are thrown at such a timing that it would be too fast for a single blade to perform the deflections, so the mercenary immediately redirected two of her arms and knocked the two blades to the side. Then, she saw herself being in the line of fire of yet another nozzle. But this time, instead of the explosive paste like before, it was smoke. The smoke was ejected as a tight thin stream of particles before rapidly expanding in area and completely blocking the views for the Aquarian, who no longer has the helmet on. Fearing for a surprise attack, the Aquarian spun around and swung her blades as quickly as she could, creating a net of blades around her body and forcing Valerie not to get close.

But that was never the intention for Valerie.

With each further swing, the Aquarian felt something was wrong. Was she getting tired? Her arms felt heavier and heavier with each movement, until it got to the point where the mere motion raising her arms across her body becomes an absolute grind. She focused all of her body's energy and power and stepped outside of the smoke screen, only to find her entire body covered with a thin layer of black liquid that has also solidified and is severely impairing her movements. So it seems like that wasn't the only thing that came of the nozzle.

Or it came out of the other nozzle. In the time the Aquarian has her vision blocked by the smoke, she thought she could simply deter any of Valerie further melee attacks with a flurry of her very own, only to expose herself to whatever this viscous fluid is.

Seeing how her arms are completely seized just by the time she has realized what has happened, there is no coming back from this. She couldn't even move anymore.

'Like I said, tricky.' The Aquarian sighed as she looked down at her exoskeleton, completely drenched in that black material.

'You have lost, mercenary.' Valerie said, 'I suppose I can't really take your life here and make sure no one else finds out about it, so I guess you are my prisoner for now.'

'No can do.' The mercenary shook her head and said slowly with threat looming underneath her voice, 'I will not be taken prisoner by you, I swore that I will never be a prisoner of anyone anymore, I will find a way out, and I will kill you.'

Valerie didn't answer, but instead she looked to Rydel and gave him a big thumbs up. But to her surprise, Rydel was mouthing her something with a look of terror on his face as he started running towards her.

Then, she felt a cold hard item pierce through her back, and when she looked down, she saw a single blade coming through her abdomen. Valerie tripped forward, and fell to her side. With a fading eyesight, she saw the blurry image of Rydel coming towards, with an arm outreached.