Operation Demetrius, Part II
In my estimation, there were two main reasons why the pilot pulled the trigger so without hesitation.
First, the mage aboard the helicopter must have sensed our magical response. Second—
Well, it was probably because of me, wasn't it?
No matter where you go, the person who looks completely unfazed is always the primary target. When everyone else is startled and trembling in fear, a person who stands there with a smirk and waves is someone you beat down first and ask questions later.
Thus, the machine gunner's primary targets were the close-protection mages in the back who were preparing to cast their spells, and I was next. Under normal circumstances, it would have been an incredibly rational and sensible decision. If only their opponent hadn't been a witch like me.
The bullets aimed at me stopped dead in their tracks right before my eyes, as if they had slammed into an unbreakable, invisible wall. The virtual plane formed by the bullets frozen midair marked the exact boundary of my defensive barrier.
Consequently, the hail of lead splattered in every direction except for the blind spot directly behind my shield. Perhaps they were aiming to incapacitate rather than kill, as the floor was quickly littered with men crawling in agony, shot in the abdomen and legs instead of the head. There were a few unfortunate souls who died instantly, but the British forces seemed to have deemed that acceptable collateral damage. After all, if you can capture dozens of high-ranking IRA leaders alive, losing one or two wouldn't hurt.
Hundreds of lead rounds chewing into the reinforced concrete kicked up thick plumes of gun smoke. Exploiting the heavily obscured visibility, the helicopter ceased its brief fire support and began pouring troops into the building through the shattered windows.
As the smoke cleared, the grim scene revealed a highly disciplined, elite force. Suddenly, a surge of raw emotion welled up in my chest. Was it because they reminded me of the Spetsnaz commies who had hunted me in Kaliningrad? I quickly buried the impulsive feeling back into my subconscious and reassessed the battlefield.
While the British soldiers secured the previously incapacitated IRA members, the heads of the men identified as mages had all been neatly ventilated. In a standoff like this, mages were always the biggest wild card. Eliminating them beforehand was simply good practice. Since I had deployed all my Equinox subordinates outside, the mages stationed in the tactical operations room—and thus, the ones currently lying dead—were entirely the IRA's own men.
Since their original duty had been protection, this was only natural. But it also meant the groundwork had been laid for me to replace all of the IRA's high-ranking mages with my own people later on. Fighting fire with fire wasn't a strategy exclusive to the British government.
Having finished neutralizing and capturing the personnel in the operations room, the British soldiers now fanned out to surround me. Six combat troops, one mage waiting in the rear, and a helicopter hovering outside the window with its heavy machine gun trained right at us. In any ordinary standoff, I wouldn't exactly call this a favorable position.
As I slowly rose from my chair, the barrels of their rifles tracked my movement. A few soldiers kept their weapons trained on Pavel and Rybakov, but whether by instinct or sheer intuition, the rest seemed to recognize that I was the most dangerous person in the room. It is, after all, quite difficult to maintain one's composure when staring down the barrel of a gun.
"I told you not to worry so much. It seems the Director of Intelligence sent exactly the right people." I reassured Pavel, who, despite my repeated warnings before today, couldn't hide his anxiety now that the moment had arrived.
Nine in total, including the two pilots. While high-level applications of Charm—like wiping memories or forcing suicide—might be too demanding right now, simply freezing them in their tracks would be child's play. I made direct eye contact with every single soldier, including the pilots, and spoke.
"Don't move."
The men pointing their guns at me froze instantly. On the faces of these newly minted stone statues, a wave of panic spread like a plague.
"Ah, keep hovering, though." I quickly added as the helicopter showed signs of losing altitude and plunging.
"I knew it! You're a witch!" Amidst the silence, the only enemy who had managed to retain his senses bellowed in fury.
"Aren't you a bit slow on the uptake? Where did that quick judgment go that had you ordering a strafing run immediately?" As expected, Charm didn't work well on mages. I would have to break his magical defenses first before I could force my will upon him. With even the two pilots now under my thrall, the enemy mage was the only threat left to deal with.
"Encountered a highly powerful hostile mage. Requesting reinforce—"
Crack!
"Now, now. Aren't you even going to try fighting fair, one-on-one?"
The pistol round fired by Pavel had cleanly pierced the mage's radio. His hand was completely unscathed; the bullet had selectively destroyed the device. It was an exquisite display of marksmanship. The enemy mage stared back at us, utterly dumbfounded.
...
It wasn't a particularly long distance, but to face a monster who could maintain such cool composure and shoot a radio right out of someone's hand in this situation... He had probably assumed he only needed to watch out for the female mage. Now, he was likely wondering if the man standing opposite him possessed some hidden specialty of his own.
But there was an even greater shock in store for him.
The defensive magic he had been maintaining shattered in an instant.
"What, did you think it wasn't a one-on-one? He's a much better shot than me, so I had to ask him to take the shot on my behalf."
"How...?"
His question was clearly not about how Pavel had aimed so precisely at the radio, but rather how his defensive barrier had been dismantled so effortlessly. I offered him a gentle, sweet smile.
"Why does everyone have the exact same reaction? What do you think it means? It means I am superior to you."
Instead of waiting for a reply, I pulled my own trigger. Just a single shot. Having anticipated my movement, he had frantically poured his energy into defense, causing the bullet to strike his chest with significantly reduced force. Combined with his body armor, the impact was heavily mitigated on both the magical and physical fronts. It didn't kill him.
"Ugh..." The enemy mage groaned. It was a sensation I—or at least, my current body—had never experienced.
"Not bad, though. To patch up your security vulnerability so quickly." He was certainly a far more capable mage than the idiot I had torn apart in the back alleys of Londonderry. He seemed to have decent combat experience, too. Realizing his only chance of survival lay in closing the distance, he lunged straight at me. Of course, that didn't mean he would succeed.
"What the—?!"
Focused entirely on me, he was too slow to notice the attack from his blind spot. Defying the direction of the light source, an elongated shadow surged from beneath his feet and snatched him up in an instant.
"Did you think struggling would change anything? The moment you broke through that window, your fate was already sealed." The Ministry mage thrashed wildly, but like a carnivorous plant's trap, the grip only tightened the more he struggled. Realizing physical strength alone wouldn't free him, he resorted to casting a spell.
The shadow hand holding him erupted in roaring flames. It was a fire that consumed not oxygen, but the soul. I felt a vivid, agonizing sensation, as if the portion of my soul allocated to the demonic hand was screaming in torment. It was a spell that left the caster completely untouched while incinerating everything in his immediate vicinity.
Son of a bitch...! The fiercely burning shadow hand rapidly lost its shape. Thick, black liquid resembling molten asphalt dripped onto the scattered concrete debris. I responded by retracting the demonic hand back into the floor. Although I kept my shadow extended so I could summon it again at any moment, having my soul chipped away was not something I enjoyed.
"Haah... I've never seen magic like that before."
"Why? Now that you're on the verge of death, are you suddenly filled with a burning curiosity for magical theory?"
But unlike me, who was relatively unscathed, my opponent was in a wretched state. His bones were likely fractured in multiple places, and his internal organs turned to mush. The bullet-dented ballistic plate slipping out from his torn tactical vest was proof enough.
I decided to press my advantage without giving him a moment to breathe. I divided my elongated shadow evenly into four directions. The mouthed hands that emerged from each were smaller than before, but they made up for it in agility. There was no reason not to utilize my numerical superiority, nor was there any reason to hold back my hidden trump card. With a sickening squelch, a short knife slid out from the mouth of one of the hands.
"...A knife?"
The hand caught the blade regurgitated by the writhing, liquid shadow and lunged at the mage as if to tear him apart. The other three hands followed close behind. Modern mages rarely used cold weapons. After all, a mage with a gun was far more lethal than a mage with a blade. Conversely, pulling out a blade in this day and age meant the user either had a romanticized fetish for melee weapons, or—
It's a magical relic. The enemy mage seemed to know this all too well. The moment the blade appeared on the battlefield, his attention was entirely locked onto it.
Flames erupted in the air. Even though it was a soul-burning fire, it still generated physical heat, which immediately triggered the overhead sprinklers.
The magical world and the physical world are never truly separate. If you're going to use fire indoors, you have to be prepared for the consequences. Caught in the crossfire of this magical duel, the British soldiers and the IRA leadership, now reduced to mere spectators, stood dazed as they were subjected to an unexpected shower. Naturally, Pavel, Rybakov, and I remained bone dry. It was simple enough to exclude ourselves from the barrier's parameters.
Exploiting the weakened flames, the demonic hands toyed with the enemy mage, tossing the knife back and forth between them until they finally landed a clean hit. With the sharp tear of fabric, a crimson arc painted the air. Though the artificial rain quickly washed the trajectory away, the blood staining the blade, even for a brief moment, was an omen of my victory.
I could see the knife humming, searching for the owner of the blood on its blade. Not with the physical eyes in my face, but with a mage's vision that perceived the soul. In that instant, the host and the guest, bound by blood, were connected by an invisible thread. The divided shadows merged back into one, driven by a primal thirst for blood.
Since both the blade and the demonic hand served me—the master of their souls—with singular devotion, my amplified magical power manifested as a form far larger than before it was burned. Snatching the enemy mage, the demonic hand began to swell in all directions. It was an irregular, chaotic expansion, bulging in places like a malignant tumor. This indiscriminate swelling was more than enough to half-crush the prey trapped within its grasp.
He had first taken a bullet to his chest plate, and then he had been cut by a blade that feasted on his blood. The only reason he was still holding on was the defensive barrier he maintained like a second instinct. It was also due to my own lack of proficiency; I hadn't yet learned how to imbue the demonic hand with the ability to exploit vulnerabilities in defensive magic. Thus, the shadow hand was crushing the enemy mage through sheer, brute physical force.
I watched the hope slowly drain from the mage's eyes. I walked toward him with slow, deliberate, and confident steps. Unlike me, he had taken the full brunt of the indoor downpour, leaving him looking utterly pathetic.
"Don't move."
My Charm, now far more potent than before, had become a more effective tool for subduing him than even the shadow hand.
"Who... are you...?"
Clack!
Actually, let me correct myself. It wasn't quite perfect yet. With a casual kick, I sent his pistol skittering across the floor just as he tried to pull it to his hand with telekinesis in a desperate last-ditch effort. To think he could still pull off a stunt like that even while the fog of my Charm was eating away at his mind.
"I said, don't move."
I repeated the command softly, and only then did his limbs lock completely.
"You crazy bitch...!" But his mouth was a different story. I could have forced him to shut up, but I wanted to hear what he had to say. First, I needed to find out how much the Ministry of Magic knew about me.
"Do you know who I am?"
"How should I know...! You're going to kill me no matter what I say anyway, aren't you?"
Smart guy. But just because you're about to die doesn't mean you shouldn't hand over information. You have to leave something behind to make your miserable life worth something, don't you? I stared deep into the mage's eyes and asked again.
"I'm asking you. Do you know anything about who I am?"
His eyes grew even cloudier than before. This time, my Charm had taken a firm hold. If he still didn't answer after this, it meant he truly knew nothing. For me, that would actually be the best-case scenario. Unfortunately, things rarely went perfectly.
"...Are you with the Syndicate?" At least they had caught onto the name. I had been trying to delay this as much as possible through Delis, and I had been acting with the utmost caution, but as the word 'delay' implied, I always knew our exposure was inevitable.
"Hmm, the Syndicate?"
"Are you going to deny it? If a mage of your caliber existed within the territory of the Empire, there's no way our Ministry wouldn't have known!"
Charm was quite different from a command spell. While they shared some common ground, it didn't force the target; rather, it made them act out of pure goodwill toward me. And goodwill wasn't strictly limited to loyalty, respect, or lust.
Is it... awe? While it was less potent than the other three emotions, it was clear that awe alone was enough for Charm to take root. Thus, it wasn't particularly strange for the charmed mage to maintain such an aggressive stance toward me. Awe, after all, was an emotion that viewed the other person as someone infinitely distant from oneself. In other words, it was the emotion furthest from understanding.
Without harboring much hope, I asked. "Sure, whatever. Denying it won't change anything anyway. Have you found out anything about the organization's true identity?"
"...You kept it incredibly well-hidden. We only knew you were lurking somewhere in London. If we had known we would face such a powerful enemy, we wouldn't have even dreamed of..."
He was spilling everything. The magic flowing through my veins was acting like a truth serum. As I listened in silence, he suddenly blurted out something completely unexpected.
"Is your entire organization like this? If a mere field agent is this powerful even after the Soviets gutted most of your assets, then what on earth are your leaders like...?"
"What...?" I frowned, utterly dumbfounded. It seemed this bastard had absolutely no idea that I was the head of the organization.
No, wait. If this was the general consensus within the Ministry of Magic, it was actually a good thing. It meant they couldn't even fathom that a sixteen-year-old girl was leading such an organization. The only reason Delis had immediately pinned his father's death on me was because he was an extraordinary individual completely unbound by prejudice. In the minds of ordinary fools, I wouldn't even be on the list of suspects.
This was more than enough information. Although we had smashed the radio he used to call for reinforcements, the lack of response would eventually raise suspicion among the British high command, and they would inevitably dispatch additional troops. It wasn't that I couldn't win, but having too many mages witness my abilities would only complicate things. It wasn't time for me to step into the spotlight just yet, so it was time to make our exit.
After putting a neat bullet hole through the head of the now-useless mage, I approached the other person who had outlived their usefulness.