Claire Langdon's body is ever young but her mind is old. On an innocent child's eyes glows the faded temper of an eighty year old woman who has seen her fair share of war. She walks in bright contrast to the barren wastes ravaged by war. A minimalistic beauty that clashed heavily with the environment. Her feet are not touching the ground, sign that her key is on a hair trigger. On her back are her usual four short light wings.
On the opposite horizon long range mortars start to unfold and capacitors begin to fill up. Heavy artillery fire blossoms from the center outward. The shockwave from shells breaking the sound barrier is visible at a range, meaning the discharges will only be heard long after they connect.
Claire breathes in.
Behind her is the larger portion of the unionist army. From light scout to floating destroyer. Every man, woman and ship stand confidently behind their leader.
On her forehead a blue circle unfolds signaling an opening of the third gate.
The deep blue cloak engulfs her quickly. One thousand hands per second coming out of her center to trace a rough humanoid presence. A first pass is followed by a second and a third, leaving bright ripples on the skin. As it stabilizes it becomes an aura that looks like fire and flowing water at the same time. This is auramancy.
Claire breathes out and breaks the sound barrier herself, jolting the front lines.
She meets the shells halfway between armies embracing them with enlarged arms, triggering a second blossoming this time of bright explosions. Their sound reaches her army moments before the initial shockwave.
Sixteen kilometers east is the Juggernaught: a massive three hundred meter ship riding on a thunderstorm. Inside it is an individual without name. He discarded it a long time ago along with the rest of his humanity. The membrane of his cocoon is ripped with a screech, spilling protein transporting fluid. He emerges forming a mouth and jaw as he stands up.
Above him is a bright red light, the key of Ambition, presenting itself to its rightful owner. He swallows it whole, triggering his birth.
The canvas shifts quickly on a logarithmic scale. He is now a six kilometer dark red aura crushing the Juggernaught and thrashing violently. There is no friend or foe, only power.
Claire is now standing in the middle of the battlefield looking up at a shade two orders of magnitude larger that her own. Her foe holds a power tap much greater than her own and is bringing down an earthquake level punch to end her. He has only been awake for a few seconds though. She had her eyes open for the greater part of the last century.
And she bores a hole straight through his punch, taking most of its momentum out his back. Power ripples through her shade's skin as she breathes in again. She is now three kilometers meters wide herself, grabbing the arm that hasn't been pierced.
This is nothing less than a battle between gods. Leveling mountains as they brawl. Though the battle is bluntly lopsided and will soon end.
As her foe grabs her Claire takes a smaller form, leaving her shell behind to quickly melt. She is now at the face of the beast, looking down its heart of fury. But she has been through worse. She begins to rip force field layers like flesh, clawing at her foe mercilessly. As the giant writhes in pain his center is quickly reached and she quickly swoops out his disfigured original body.
As the blood red aura finished melting rain began to fall. Claire stood in the mud with her opposite in hand. She hesitated before remembering to breathe out again. Her foe was still writhing and trying to reopen his gates.
It didn't took her another breath to finally crush him between her fingers.
Memories of her lost innocence brought out melancholy.
31/03/2016
Luis Eduardo Reis