A metallic sheen washed over the blue and silver Asura Frame, the sunlight reflecting off of the material in hues of argent. It was a beautiful, powerful piece of art, with defined contours along its lean form. On the back near its neck, some kind of chain hung down like a ponytail, and it moved as if alive, snakelike. The tip was tapered to a deadly point.
The girl’s legs moved lightning fast, the cloth around them a red blur. Front kicks, side snap kicks, spin kicks, axe kicks—Devicer Five accompanied every display of masterful footwork with quick, disciplined kiai shouts, sounding the inevitable demise of whatever Anomaly so happened to be her target. Skeletons became fragments. Giant fae trolls went flying as if they’d been hit by a semitruck, and they didn’t get back up. Golems of metal were decapitated or dismembered with single kicks as the cloth around the Asura Frame’s feet cleaved through the otherworldly metal like the sharpest of swords.
Devicer Five and her partner, Varuna, danced all around Jakarta’s bay area. The Anomalies were many and scattered, but a single leap with the azure Frame could cross kilometers in a second. And the Devicer could fight like this without worry for whatever creature thought it wise to sneak up behind her.
“Varuna! Handle it!”
The chain ponytail at the Frame’s nape whipped like a tendril and drove its spearheaded end into a creeping goblin. It had no blind spots.
And these weren’t her only weapons.
“Prayer Wheel, recite the Gospel!”
The wheel in the belt at her waist began to spin at once—a power-generating turbine present in all Frames of the Asura series. A chorus of voices, both male and female, crescendoed from the wheel. “Gate! Gate! Paragate! Gate! Gate! Paragate! Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha! Gate! Gate! Paragate!”
This became the backing track to the battle as Devicer Five ordered, “MUV Sea Dragon! Artillery at the ready!”
Responding to Five’s command, a beast emerged from the dark, dirty waters of Jakarta Bay—a mechanical leviathan. Extending off an elliptical hull was a long, limber neck, the end blossoming into a bloomed tulip where its head ought to be. Artillery shells rocketed from the center and arched back down towards the city. Wherever they fell, so did Anomalies. Violently. And they were powerless to stop the relentless barrage. Not even the monsters with magic to protect against such projectiles were strong enough to combat the sheer force.
The Asura Frame Mark V, Varuna, was the King of the Sea, with an army of water-based auxiliary droids at its disposal. With the additional three droids, four Sea Dragons in total cleaned up the remaining Anomalies, eventually careening over the harbor to neutralize targets more precisely and methodically.
“Oh, that kind of girl’s definitely the fussy type that’s never satisfied,” Shanti grumbled as she watched the droids work. “I can already tell.”
Shanti was still near the harbor. As far as she could tell, all the Anomalies nearby had been taken out, so no one was panicking anymore. The Sea Dragons were easily visible from where she stood, their necks poking from the murky bay, dirtied from the pollution that often accompanied developing nations. They continued to bombard the city.
“I think Taeyang called those ‘auxiliary droids’ in a video once.” According to him, Devicer Four’s Frame was specialized for fighting on the ground. “If there are chiefs of the land and sea, I wonder if there’s an air one?” Shanti wondered aloud. “I still don’t know if I like her, though. Why did she have to act so rude?”
The blue Devicer seemed to be a woman. Shanti was grateful to her, of course, but there was something about bossy girls that made her get a little judgmental. So she changed her perspective. It was surely an incredibly stressful job, being the owner of a weapon that could decide the fate of humanity. Shanti couldn’t imagine the pressure Devicers must have been under.
“Taeyang must be different,” she thought to herself. “I’m sure not everyone can act as nonchalant about it as him.”
Shanti didn’t like to bad-mouth people, and she especially didn’t like to be negative. Positivity was her goal in everything. So she decided to replace her complaints with gratitude for Jakarta’s savior.
At some point, she noticed that the aurora had vanished, and she recalled a video that had taught her this meant the portal-keep didn’t have enough magic to stay on Earth any longer. She smiled and looked towards the floating castle. Just as she’d been told, the temple-esque portal was blurring away like a mirage.
But then something took its place that made Shanti gasp. The enemy’s stronghold had vanished, only to leave in its wake a giant monster at least half of the castle’s size. Wings unfurled from its bulging, muscular back, its skin dark red. Its eyes blazed with fierce flames, and smoke plumed out of its mouth and nostrils. An inferno enveloped the being’s entire massive form. It was a pure devil of fire, utterly and truly.
“Anomaly identified. Designation...ifrit?!” Devicer Zhou Xueli growled under her breath.
Xueli was part of a special nanoparticle unit in the Chinese navy, and although it was impressive for a seventeen-year-old girl to hold the rank of lieutenant commander, Xueli took no pride in the accomplishment. She knew she was capable of so much more than her position allowed, which was why she found it quite cathartic to be a Devicer. The Asura Frame let her utilize her martial arts prowess and wits as she pleased. She liked that, despite the...impediments still limiting her true capabilities.
“A fire devil,” she hissed. “Not quite archmage level, but close enough in terms of spellcraft.”
Drained of magic, the portal-keep had disappeared. Clearly, however, they hadn’t been so dry as to neglect leaving their parting gift with enough mana to cause widespread destruction. How polite of them, Xueli thought.