Careful Not To Break Reality

It took Valerie a surprising amount of time before she had reached the edge of the lake at her full speed sprinting. The floating cargo is barely keeping up with her going to full engine speed and they have finally made it all the way around. Throughout her run, she had made sure to keep scanning onto the beacon of light within the corners of her goggles and checking the progress made by Gold. More often than not, the trees will obscure the lines of sight and making visual confirmation rather difficult, but the location of the beacon is still usable data to her.

Gold made it to the mud pile right about when Valerie is nearing the edge of the lake, and she could see him exiting the vehicle and continuing forward into the lake in the direction of Valerie's beacon before she activated the interference device. Understandably, he ditched the vehicle and simply returned of his Aquarian roots.

Typically, modern Aquarian armors cater to both aquatic and land environments through a string of easily adjustable devices that will loosen certain joints and connections for optimal movement depending on the environment the combat is fighting in. That's why Aquarians will still have unmatched mobility in water no matter how chunky the gears they are wearing seemed. The same obviously applied to Gold, and the enhancements from physiological enhancements and nanotechnology also further enhanced his movement capabilities and endurance.

Knowing that Gold wouldn't take that long to cross the five hundred meter long lake, Valerie hastened her steps. With the trees being less dense and the ground being harder, it became easier for she to fully open up her strides and move even faster. However, she is aiming directly for the center of the settlement region from the corner of the lake, her path cutting directly across the terrain. With less roots and rocks in the way, the cargo container following behind her is also finally able to better keep up.

There is no sigh that Gold has noticed her current location, from what she could tell by the beacon. It is also quite obvious that Gold had no means of turning off the beacon, perhaps he wasn't as well prepared as Valerie for all the potential situations, or perhaps he felt that he would have no need for such cheap tricks at his current power level.

Either way, an advantage is an advantage, and Valerie will take hold of it regardless.

Far out from the distance, the explosion from the very first mine was set off. Valerie couldn't help but glanced over in the direction of the lake, wondering how much damage would have been done. But there aren't much time for her to just stand around, so she marched on soon after. If those mines were trouble for Gold, then Valerie has got lots of things a lot spicier in place for him.

It has been a really long time since Gold has swam anywhere, and it felt like when a human returned to riding bikes after five years of hiatus. Things felt vaguely familiar and yet he had to be cautious with all his movements, despite the amount of perceived energy expenditure. He knew for sure that his movements will not be as efficient as need be, and yet it should be good enough given his physical capabilities. Things do feel a little clunky and out of time, but for the purpose of crossing the lake as fast as possible and get to the last known location of his challenger, this will be enough.

Roughly five hundred meters took him just under a minute, a speed he is not the proudest of, but serves the purpose for today. The activity warmed him up a great deal and tuned his mind for the upcoming conflict. With the scanning goggles on, he walked onward towards the last recorded direction of Valerie. And that's when he felt his left feet stepping on a metallic object.

The gentle cl.i.c.k.i.n.g of a firing mechanism alerted Gold of the up coming danger, and he switched on his shield generator the instant before the mine blew up and sent thousands of metal shards flying in all directions at blinding speeds. The physical and energy shields ate up most of the damage at the expense of its fuel and charge, and the impact threw Gold off his feet and to the side, where he rolled on yet another mine.

Another explosion took place throwing him around even further, but this time Gold was able to regather himself and land on his feet before retreating quickly back into the water. He wasn't ready for it, and despite him not taking any actual damage, most of the reserves within his shield generator is gone. After that, a cheeky shot from a specially enhanced sniper rifle could end his life without any trouble! He needed to be more careful, but why hasn't his scanning goggles picked up anything?

He carefully adjusted the focus of the goggles and scanned for metallic objects in the beach, and the only things showing up are the thousands of shards that was given off in the explosions. Then, he scrolled through the spectrum of materials, and temperatures and found nothing.

Realising that technology may not help him much further in this particular task, Gold returned the goggles to its basic settings, made sure that there are no enemies hiding in the bushes and rose up from the water. With the hand with Lock down ready and blades in the rest, he carefully poked ahead and made sure that there are no more land mines that are going to end up underneath his feet.

Eventually, as he gingerly made his way through the beach onto harder ground, the blade in one of his right arms made contact with a mine, and he dug away the mud around it to reveal its true self. It is a mine of rudimentary design, crude and deadly, and extremely hard to detect especially for the more modern scanning goggles that had stopped catering to that specific type of mine.

Gold made a mark on the ground as to not step onto the mine by accident on his way back, and headed deep into the forest. He continued being extremely cautious, and was able to avoid the traps and mines set by Valerie. When he eventually reached the pile of leaves near the last known location of the beacon, he scattered the leaves on top, only to see an bomb being set to explode the moment the weight on top was being removed.

However, this time, Gold simply turned his hand forward, and activated Lock Down. The black spiraling stripes around his arm pulsed once when a wave of light traveled down from the shoulder onto his palm, and the region of space was locked up completely. The sound of the impending blast was harshly silenced, and the flame was held in place like a paused slow motion video.

'Very tricky...' said Gold as he shook his head and returned the blades back into the holster. This is where the last known signal of his challenger was, and there is nothing here except for a trap. Turning on the infared function of his goggles, he scanned for the sign of this person near by, but as we know, nobody is near.

Then, the beacon lit once more, this time coming from the settlements.

That was all a distraction, to get me to fight in the settlements? Or perhaps to tire me out? Gold looked up into the sky and focuses inwards, it won't matter. There is a job to do, and after this, my power will be proven and no one shall deny my place among the most powerful artifact users within Absolute Being!

All the preparation Valerie has done had rolled out perfectly, and she set up the second stage up as quickly as she had rehearsed it before, albeit with a few modifications based on the environment around her. Then when she was ready, she lit up the beacon.

She knew Gold saw it, and soon from the edge of her vision, the Aquarian emerged from the woods, seemingly unharmed but her tricks and traps. He dived into the water, and emerged on this side not long after. Then, he ignored the vehicle and headed straight for her. fearing that yet another trap may have been set on it. He was careful to watch his steps, though it is a lot easier to hide the mines in muddle soil than in solid rock and dirt roads.

He approached Valerie, and stopped a mere sixty meters away, it would only take mere seconds for enhanced individuals like themselves to close all of this distance. From this distance, he could clearly see her, and she could him.

'I am truly intrigued, Valerie.' Gold said, being surprised by the identity of his challenger, 'I had no idea who challenged me, and I certainly wouldn't have thought it to be you.'

'I never did tell anyone my last name.' Valerie said, her arms crossed and standing proudly in the middle of the street, 'I am Valerie Surtnouf, daughter of the Black Wolf., and I am here to end you.' Her high pitch voice ripped through the air and shock Gold with the shear amount of anger and hate from her tone.

'Black Wolf...' That name definitely rang a bell for Gold, and it didn't take long for him to realize the significant of that name. The very artifact embedded into his skin and flesh used to belong to him, and Gold took it away from his corpse after his successful challenge. Now, his daughter has challenged him.

Whatever goes around comes around.

'Do you realize who you are about to challenge, Valerie?' Gold said as he reached behind to retrieve the blades one by one, 'I did teach you how to use the powers given to you, but I never thought you would use it to turn against me.'

'You were never the best teacher.' Valerie replied, pressing in a line of commands into her personal interface, 'and you had no idea how hard it was for me to hide my heart in front of you.'

'I always thought you have a certain ferocity, and now I know why!' Gold exclaimed, and sprinted forward towards Valerie with four blades by his side. Each of his heavy foot step dug into the concrete street, crushing the materials and forging blocks for him and bounce off of. Within a three steps, he had closed nearly half the distance in between the two.

Then, a line of trip wire was flicked up from the ground and was propped between the buildings on both sides of him, high voltage electricity running through it with the subtle buzzing of generators in the background. The timing of the trip wire was fired so that it would be as late as possible so that Gold wouldn't be able to cut it in time before his shields have been shorted out by the wire.

Gold turned his wrist and charged up the blade, anticipating the trajectory of the wire that approached ever closer towards his torso. Then, with the footwork and movement of the Acquiescence of the Living Grass, he rotated his body around the wire with a forward somersault, slicing the wire up as he passed it while maintaining his forward momentum. The wire didn't slow him down for a single second.

Valerie opened fire with her rifle. Blizzard of bolts stormed towards Gold right before he had gained his footing and rained it down on what little remained of his shield generator. But he simply kept his motion going and kept on charging forward without a single consideration in the galaxy. He eyed the dwindling percentage points feeding back from his shield generators and knew exactly how long it would take for him to close the distance.

Twelve strides.....Ten strides...Seven strides!

Right before Valerie appeared within attack range of Gold's outstretched arms and the shining Aquarian blades, two canisters were released from the bottom of the walls near both sides and rolled towards Gold's feet. As they continued their trajectory and started ejecting thick smoke from their nozzles, Gold knew exactly Valerie is planning to do. A simple trick to hide her actions behind the smoke, and a simple smoke grenade is not going to worth wasting the powers of his artifact on.

Switching the configeration of his goggles to thermal imaging with a low vocal command, he rammed into the smoke. The image of Valerie showed her staggering her stance and pulling something from her back pocket and holding it by her side. Then, she swung it towards Gold, expect...it was way too early! A sword can never reach that far.

Then, Gold came to realise what had happened.

Before he could react, even with his enhanced abilities with all of the enhancements and the cognitive bonus coming from the artifact itself, he could not attack the devastating attack coming from Valerie. He activated the Lock down, and enclosed the region of space immediately in front of him.

I will stop it! He yelled out and clenched his fist. The very next instant, he was hit by the whip right in the c.h.e.s.t, the clash of metal on metal throwing him flying backwards. Shear devastating destructive capabilities of the whip tore through the shields like paper and dug deep into his outer layer of armor, sending metallic and composite material pieces flying outwards in all directions. The deafing sound of the whip cracking on his chesst completely overrode his hearings and the impact felt like him being hit by a truck. He tried to breath, but it felt like no air is coming in.

All of his inside organs felt like they were thrown into all the wrong positions possible and the whiplash from the collision thrown him into a dizzying episode of confusion. The nanosized drones went to work immediately and have started to piece everything together, but there is no time for him to relax.

'You won't care about my father, so I don't care about you.' Valerie said from the other side of the smoke screen, the sensation feeding back from the tip of her whip confirmed the sucessful hit on Gold, and from her own thermal imaging goggles, it showed that Gold is not in a good condition after the hit. He could probably only take another hit or so before his armors became obselete.

With simple physics and conservation of momentum, a soft piece of rope can be turned into a devastating weapon, let alone a whip with woven carbon atom nano-tubing and steel fibers. She was rather proud of this creation, and it worked brilliantly with her plan.

'You bastard...' Gold tried to speak through the pain, but the nanodrones within him still haven't got around to his vocal parts yet. He realized Valerie's usage of the whip way too late, and he had been underestimating both her level of preparation and her use of various surprise tactics in order to just land a hit on him. It was a deadly blow, for sure. But it won't happen again.

Gold will only make every mistake once, and for the rest of this battle, Valerie will need to come up with something better. He could still see Valerie through the smoke, though only her body is visible and she used that fact to hide the presence of the whip. The same could be said about him and his blades, though his reach is a lot shorter than that of Valerie's.

Valerie didn't give Gold any chance to recover, and she swung yet again at Gold, gathering all of the power her body could generate and transferring all of her energy from the ground up, through the knees up to her hip, amplifing through the core and her shoulders. The wave continually traveled through the body of the whip at a faster and faster speed, breaking the sound barrier for this atmostphere and the tip was flung towards Gold's head.

'LOCK DOWN!'

With a hand raised, Gold activated his artifact, and the tip of the whip was stopped dead in its tracks and locked in its instantaneous position within the place, inches in front of Gold's face, not able to travel even a milimeter forward. The region of space affected was only that right in front of Gold, and when Valerie pulled back the whip, it simply snapped off at the edge of space between locked down space and normal space.

She has now finally forced his hand, it's time to move to the next phase of her plan. Bringing her rifle back out, now fully charged once again, Valerie opened fire once again, and the bullets were once again stopped right before reaching Gold. She could tell the piping hot bullets from her goggles, and they simply formed a wicked line in the air before getting to their intended target.

That's two! Valerie noted down, as she stepped back and and rolled two grenades forward into the smoke. Then, immediately before the supposed time of explosion, Gold suddenly emerged from behind the smoke and threw two pairs of blades flying at ridiculous speeds towards Valerie. The first dagger closed in the distance between them in literally the blink of an eye and the charged blades shorted out the shields upon impact.

Her heart raced as she tilted her head to dodge the first one barely, the edge grazing along her cheek and leaving a scratchy feeling, as the physiological enhancements saved her skin quite literally this time. Then she turned her forearms upwards and knocked away the second blade with her arm guard.

Gold did not pause for a single extra moment, continuing his sprinting forward and reaching to his back to pull out two extra swords. In response to his aggression, Valerie responded in kind with her left hand trigger a mechanism and ejecting a thick viscous fluid towards Gold before lighting a spark near the end and setting it all on fire. The flames chased down the flying fluid and lit it all up. With a wave of his hand, Gold had once again stopped the fluids in it's tracks. As he ducked under and rolled around the black fluids, the region of space that was paused continuously moved with him and it simply fell onto the ground and continued combusting as if Gold was never there.

This is a new ability! Valerie cursed underneath her breath as she continued to step backwards and reached for her whip once again and tried to remain calm and poised in the process. The Black wolf never once figured out how to bring the region of space that was locked down with him, and Gold seemed to have that figured out with that display of power.

She needed to keep pressing him!

With that, she twisted her forearms once again, and the explosive paste is out. Before it blew, Gold had went past it and locked it down before.

'You cannot keep running away!' Gold shouted as he did a flurry with his blades and charged on.

Valerie didn't respond, but instead pumped out acids from her right arm and some of the splash had finally landed on Gold's armor, sizzling it away gently upon contact. Though most of them was still blocked by him. Because Gold is continuously charging forward, and Valerie had to keep on using up her reserves of weapons while sprinting backwards as fast as she could, the distance between them were actually steadily but slowly decreasing.

Then, an explosion came from far away.

This is the limit! Five! Valerie grinned excitedly as she took another giant step back and reached in her pocket for the killing device, he really had improved upon the use of Lock Down since the times of the Black Wolf, but that doesn't mean there isn't a weakness to be exploited!

With the next move, she shall turn the tide of the battle that has been slowly slipping away!