Chapter 687 – Hudson Brawl Finale – Aftermath

Chapter 687 – Hudson Brawl Finale – Aftermath

Jack found Eliza, standing next to the corpse. His actual body was still getting up the tower, but he was at least aware that things had largely concluded. With the destruction of the IBMA, the Lake Alliance had a window to flee. Magoi couldn’t do both, keep the barrier together and hinder people from leaving, so this battle was officially over.

Seeing what John currently was seeing, through the eyes of his Extension, and having heard what Jeremiah had said at the end, the Gamer knew that things had not gone nearly as smooth for the Lake Alliance as the Art Eater had thought when leaving. Once they realized their own losses, Jeremiah would likely be in a strictly worse mood.

This didn’t really elevate John’s own feelings on the situation. To him, this entire thing had been a senseless strain on resources and loss of life. Not to mention that he was seething because, right now, he was learning through Salamander that Metra had lost a fair chunk of Astrotium.

That was something John could get worked up about, the Jack-guiding split of his consciousness had to deal with the worry for the blood mage. She was just standing there, in front of the corpse. Her exterior was close to how Thana had usually looked, but not quite there. She had the carapace and the tail, but the only wings she had were that of Bloodburn. Albeit, for the first time, not burning away. The four wings had a steady shape, thin membranes of blood, partly crystallized. It was equally beautiful and macabre.

The corpse in the middle of the crater was from a middle-aged man. A lance of bone had blown a hole through the axe he had raised in defence and his own chest behind that. Somehow, the force of the impact had made him drop to his knees, leaning backwards, arms now lifelessly dangling. He looked like an unbeliever that was forced to acknowledge the angry face of god in his last moments.

Normally, she would have noticed him by now. “Eliza?” he called out, carefully, once he descended into the crater. Aclysia and Beatrice were right behind him.

It all happened in a flash. The wings flared up again, a crimson Aura encapsulated the blood mage. She vanished, then appeared again in front of Jack. Before he could do as much as raise a foot, her claws had already ripped a hole into his stomach and went out on the other side. Only then, did her purple eyes rise.

Animalistically pulled back lips collapsed into a horrified expression as sapient light returned to her purple eyes. “J-john?” she stuttered, looking down at her arm and where it was. “I...I...”

“Shhhh...” the Gamer pulled her into his arms. “Don’t worry, this body can’t bleed nor cause me to die,” he said and stroked her hair as she began to cry. “It’ll be alright, it’ll be alright...”

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“Give me some time alone, please...” Eliza said, once Jack had managed to get her back to the Palace. Naked, the carapace had fallen off sometime along the way, and clearly afraid, the blood mage didn’t look anything like the threat she actually was. Slowly, Jack nodded, and allowed her to close the door in his face. Then he reverted back into the Mandala Sphere and began the trip towards John himself. Having a hole punched into the Extension also damaged the original product, so a repair session was greatly needed.

‘Beatrice, keep a watch on Eliza’s room,’ he mentally commanded from his position in Scarlett’s apartment. Once he got his confirmation for that, he let out a troubled breath and sat down on the couch that came rising out of the floor.

With him were the surviving four elementals (Stirwin was still swimming out there), Metra, and Scarlett herself. Magoi and Rave were attending via phone conference, their faces projected on a large screen covering a wall. When Chemilia stumbled in, the gathering was officially complete.

“You got hurt?” John asked, while Undine was already flowing over.

“Three of them ganged up on me and I got stuck somewhere with that extendable blade,” the pin-haired general explained. “Still not completely used to this mechanical leg thing.”

“Did it get damaged?” Scarlett asked, earning herself an unappreciating glance from John for how uncaring that question sounded. “What? It’s so much easier to mend wounds than it is to fix a mechanism THAT intricate,” the practical thinking redhead shot back and lit herself a cigarette.

“You aren’t wrong, but it still makes you look rather...” He stopped himself and pinched the bridge of his nose. “No, never mind, I know how you tick... Sorry, Scarlett, just a bit tired right now. Been a long-” He checked the clock, 18:52. Given that they had needed time to get to this place as well, John rounded down to arrive at the number he spoke, “forty-five minutes.”

“It’ll be an even longer night for me,” Magoi made himself the centre of attention, using an urgent tone. “Listen, the barrier collapses once I go to sleep or otherwise lose consciousness, so I just want your quick agreement with this plan: you know the near-finished IBMA we have been preparing for Boston? I would call the best Fateweavers I currently have and finish it in the next twelve hours. Any problems with that?”

“Honestly, I have no clue.” Metra shrugged. “Something like this happened before, Jeremiah isn’t the first creation devourer ever encountered, but I didn’t care to listen back then.”

“Well, by the wording of things, it sounds like you could absorb any piece of Astrotium to make up for what you lost. Like, as long as it restores your natural balance of materials, the origin of it doesn’t matter.”

“Fucking fantastic, so we just have to find any old piece of star metal, along with small parts of numerous deceased gods,” the ancient weapon laughed. “As to the weakening bit, I feel physically the same, but the armour will be a bit thinner. Shouldn’t have too much of an impact, I always had the most of the metal among my siblings.”

“Alright... let’s hope we get lucky,” John answered, only to growl, “unless we can rip those pieces right back out of Jeremiah, that is.”

“That does sound like a fun time.” Metra grinned from ear to ear.

“What’s the status on the remaining damage?” John turned back to the actual discussion. The alcohol was unfolding and it made him more pissed. It also helped him comprehend the situation as a whole. More alcohol would have definitely shut that latter bit off.

“We have lost immense amounts of government documents, most of the skyscrapers that were copied have been damaged in some form, what can be salvaged of the fleet remains to be seen. I would estimate the damages to be anywhere between 2 and 5 billion, not including private property.” Scarlett hung on the bottle of vodka without a care in the world, her liver was trained to get through more than the rest of them. “The good news is that we have 0 civilian casualties.”

“That is pretty good, indeed.” John nodded, then his hands drummed on the edge of the couch. “The way I see it, this whole thing ended in the worst way for both factions,” he summarised the matter. “Even if not as widespread as they may have wanted, they did manage to cause wide economic damage to us. However, they did lose two of their strongest fighters, with another one captured. Fusion can recover from this in a few months, but it will take them generations to find people like that again. Basically, we got fucked less by this whole thing.”

“So,” Rave asked through the connection, “what’s the plan?”

“The plan is to take them, metaphorically bend them over and have our way with them,” her boyfriend responded. “The Lake Alliance is no longer a threat to us, at least not an existential one. At worst, they’ll become to us what the Small Lake Pact was to them.”

Scarlett lit herself a cigarette and blew smoke into the air. “We have to be very careful while we engineer that peace deal,” she stated. A statement absolutely true, since John wanted to avoid having a terrorist neighbour at basically all cost. There were also other eventualities to take into account.

“Yeah,” he agreed and rubbed his eyes. Just as the Mandala Sphere entered the room and he threw it into Create for the repair. ’35 hours. When I could use being in two places a lot right now...’ “Alright, here is what’ll happen,” he continued nevertheless, “I need to have a chat with a number of people. Scarlett, I trust you to hammer out a modest deal that’s in our long-term interest...”

“Economic enslavement, got it,” Scarlett stated with a straight face, huffing deeply through her cigarette. Only when John raised an eyebrow in her direction, did she give him a dry chuckle while exhaling. “No, no, I got it. I have a contingency draft somewhere that I can fit to this whole fucking situation.”

“...Alright.” John nodded. “Getting a list of bullet points is enough. Send it to me for approval and give it to Aclysia once you have it.” He would have done it himself through Jack, but he would rather have the Mandala Sphere fixed as soon as possible than lead what should be the easiest part of negotiations.

“Aclysia?” Rave asked. “Ya think that’s going to end well? They went against us, kinda sure she is in a stabby mood.”

“I am in a stabby mood,” he retorted. “That’s the point. Aclysia will not ask nicely for them to come to the table, because we don’t have any reason to be nice anymore. If I don’t have a peace deal by tomorrow evening, they will be having a bad time.”

“Alright, I trust ya know what you’re doing, tiger.” Rave smiled, and even through the filter of the screen, that did make everything a little better. “Imma go mingle with the people a little bit, help with cleaning, be a role model and all that bee’s wax.”

“I’ll join you later,” John assured her.