How long does it last?

Two gladiators charged Lex head-on, one sweeping its chainsaw at knee level as the other’s chopped directly at his throat, buzzsaws moving in a perpendicular pattern that he could foresee would catch him if he tried to dive between them.

How frequently can it be used?

Another two were circling around behind him, attempting to drive him towards the pair in front. The tubes in their faceplates were firing nonstop, sending a shower of micro-projectiles at him, the distance he had to dodge them growing narrower with each passing moment. In just under two seconds, they’d rush him again, trying to bury him in a press of spinning blades and rapid shots.

How much damage can it inflict?

The final pair were continuing their efforts to pin him down, eschewing using their onboard weapons in favor of bodily hurling themselves at him, making sure to stay clear of the other four’s lines of attack. His trans-temporal sense showed him that turning incorporeal wouldn’t help – they’d be able to make full contact with him even as a shadow, including with their weapons – and that they’d accept whatever damage he inflicted on him in exchange for restricting his movements.

How does the Dominata work?

Lex knew that his survival was tied to how quickly he could answer that question.

Accepting a hit from the chainsaw of the leftmost of the pair of gladiators charging him, Lex let the Pentachromatic Armor soak up the damage, his tail slapping one of its buzzsaws away as he ducked beneath the other. Its partner moved in to capitalize on his having turned his back to it, but found its path suddenly blocked by a wall of black crystals. The barrier was wide enough to not only cut off its advance, but also block the line of fire of the gladiator further back, buying him a few seconds as he knew both would have to waste time circumventing the barricade in order to rejoin the fight.

The other would-be sniper was still firing, only for its shots to fail as Lex used the gladiator he’d grabbed as a shield, its metal frame jerking and writhing as it was struck dozens of times over, the relentless series of impacts throwing off its attempts to break free. But Lex granted it release a moment later, hurling it bodily at one of the gladiators that was about to throw itself at him, the impact filling the area with the sound of metal striking metal as the two rolled away in a heap.

All of which left Lex wide open from above, where the sixth gladiator was dropping down toward him...

Only to be caught in the massive upsurge of sub-absolute zero temperature as Lex called upon Solvei’s cryomancy, freezing it solid in an instant.

Lex waited almost until it had crashed into him, then spin around and kicked it directly at where Steel Soul had been watching the exchange.

But although the mechanized stallion didn’t move, the frozen remains of his gladiator never came close to touching him.

Instead, it struck some sort of field roughly ten feet in front of Steel Soul, a brief flash of multicolored light momentarily breaking the darkness of Mare Occultum. An instant later, the gladiator fell to the ground, the ice around it gone as the heap of metal was now scorched, melting, and with tendrils of electricity playing over what was left of it.

“I’m rather disappointed,” noted Steel Soul without so much as glancing at the pile of slag that his fighter had been reduced to. “My simulations suggested that you’d have destroyed at least half of the gladiator units by now. Did the Dominata injure you that much?”

Beneath the draconic exterior of the Pentachromatic Armor, Lex sneered. “Not as much as it would have if you’d used it for something like ‘don’t move’ or ‘don’t fight back’ rather than ‘don’t flee.’ Are you overconfident, or just more tactically inept than your automatons?”

“I believe I already told you that I wanted you to provide combat data for the CH54-36 units’ refinement. You’re already going to lose your life here, so now it’s simply a question of getting the most use out of you before you expire.”

“Overconfident it is, then.”

“Says the fool who’s forgotten that the battle hasn’t ended yet!”

Steel Soul’s proclamation was punctuated by the glow from his interior components suddenly changing, the light spreading out to illuminate more of his internal workings, until he was shining from within. The sight was accompanied by a high-pitch humming, as if something was spinning very fast, making the air itself scream from whatever unseen rotations were happening. Even the air around him seemed to crackle, as though heavy with some sort of imminent discharge-

Then it all suddenly stopped, Steel Soul’s appearance returning to normal.

Only for the remaining five gladiators – who had regrouped in the short time the two of them had been speaking – to emit the same combination of light, sound, and pressure, as though Steel Soul had transferred whatever he’d been doing to them.

Which, Lex realized, was exactly what had just happened.

“You were dragging out the fight against these units because you were hoping I’d grow impatient and use the Dominata again, weren’t you, Lex Legis?” taunted Steel Soul. “Perhaps hoping to goad me into revealing a few details about it once you realized that wasn’t working?”

Still glowing, the five machines took up attack postures again. This time, there was no division of duties; all of them raised their blades, their projectile-launching tubes pointed directly at him.

“Unfortunately for you, such simple-minded tactics have no hope against me,” cackled the mechanized stallion. “Not when I have so many other options I can make use of.”

Foreseeing that the gladiators were about to renew their attack, Lex bit back a curse as his trans-temporal sense showed him that they’d just grown stronger, faster, and a great deal tougher.

“Upgrading these units past their operating parameters will negatively impact the quality of their combat data...”

Immediately, all five rushed in at once.

“...but according to my calculations, they should have a great deal more effectiveness against you now.”

Lex didn’t have a chance to answer, suddenly finding himself on the defensive.

Fifteen whirling blades came in at him from every angle, the gaps between them covered by speeding metal shots that choked the air so thoroughly there wasn’t an inch of space to spare. In his foresight, a wall of black crystals immediately crumbled under the onslaught, a burst of ice magic inflicted only modest damage, and an attempt to turn into shadow and descend into the ground failed, running into Mare Occultum’s magic-suppression zone less than six inches below the surface.

So instead, Lex went on the attack.

But not with his claws.

Calling the Autumnal Insignia from his pocket dimension, Lex held it aloft as he sacrificed one of the spells he’d stored in his mental architecture, channeling its power into the metal leaf, along with a supplement of power from his reserves and metamagic from Nenet. Immediately, the runes covering its surface began to shine with a light of their own, breaking down the spell energy that he’d fed it and reshaping it according to the fey properties stored within.

He hadn’t wanted to use this. Activating the Insignia not only required him to expend his thaumaturgical spells, of which he had a limited supply, but it also showed everyone here that much more of what he was capable of. Conserving power and concealing information about his capabilities were going to be vital to rescuing Nisha and escaping Darkest Night, and using the Insignia ran counter to both of those tactics.

But there was no better alternative now. The gladiators had been little more than distractions before, but whatever augmentations Steel Soul had used had elevated them into genuine – albeit still minor – concerns. Especially with the threat of the Dominata still looming over him; for all Lex knew, simply falling back to a better position ran the risk of invoking Steel Soul’s prohibition on fleeing again, causing incredible damage that he knew he couldn’t afford to take if he wanted to conserve the healing spells he had.

Which meant that the gladiators needed to be destroyed as soon as possible, even if it meant giving his enemies a glimpse of just how broad his arsenal truly was.

The Autumn Court were the killers among the Unseelie, dedicated to wiping out those who stood against them, and their magic reflected that. Theirs was the season when nature saw fit for living things to expire, structures to decay, and the night to begin growing longer. It was a power that beckoned entropy, invited destruction, and courted death. And it made no distinction between the organic and the artificial, releasing an explosion of rot that slammed into Steel Soul’s gladiators all at once.

Immediately, the automatons began to crumble, their exteriors corroding as cracks began to spread across them. The lights shining within them began to flicker and dim, their sudden increase in power faltering as their interior components began to fail. Stumbling, they almost collided with one another, the strength of their charge spoiled.

Lex didn’t miss his opportunity.

Returning the Autumnal Insignia to his pocket dimension, he tore into the weakened machines. A swipe of one claw caved in the chest of one gladiator, tearing out its deteriorating innards as its blades shattered against the Pentachromatic Armor’s scales. A second had its head crushed as he brought his tail down upon it, the fleshy appendage continuing its descent until it hit the ground, leaving the entire metal structure crumpled. A third was ripped completely in half, its chassis unable to hold itself together as Lex tore clean through it. And the last two-

Were shot through the back by Steel Soul, the mechanized stallion’s beams of blue energy passing directly through them and striking Lex dead-center.

Neither automaton was injured by the friendly fire, the azure rays not so much as scratching their exteriors, but the same couldn’t be said for Lex. The first shot struck with enough force to punch completely through the Pentachromatic Armor, dismantling the scales over his face, neck, and sternum, sending Lex stumbling back. He only barely managed to bring one foreleg up in time to avoid being struck in the same place by the second, instead sacrificing the armor around that limb.

The remaining two gladiators immediately moved in to take advantage of the opening their master had made for them, and Lex had no chance to either block or dodge as a buzzsaw was pressed against his ribs, still not completely healed from the Dominata. An instant later, over a hundred rounds of small metal projectiles struck him directly in the side of the head, peeling the flesh and muscle away from half of his face.

His response was to reach out and tear both gladiators to shreds in retaliation.

The scrap metal that was all that was left of them hadn’t even hit the ground when Steel Soul’s follow-up attack came.

“I take it by now you’ve noticed that my molecular disruptors are set to affect organic matter only,” announced Steel Soul, continuing to fire as he spoke. “I trust you have no complaints about it being an unfair surprise, after you suddenly began using fey magic like that.”

“Not at all.” Calling the Autumnal Insignia back into his claw, Lex charged it with another spell, one that was much stronger than the last, knowing that the Insignia’s output would be proportional. “This power destroys organic and inorganic material alike.”

He let loose with the autumnal spell just as he’d finished speaking, the corrosive magic streaking directly toward Steel Soul.

Only to shatter as it hit the multicolored field in front of him, which barely flickered at the hit.

Steel Soul cackled, breaking off his attack as he seemingly reveled in the superiority of his defenses. “You’ll find that it’s far from enough to destroy me.”

Cursing inwardly, Lex put the Insignia away, and after a moment’s consideration, did the same for the Pentachromatic Armor, shrinking it back down to a single scale on his collarbone before putting it – and the others which had been knocked free by Steel Soul’s attack, telekinetically gathering them up – back in his pocket dimension. Even if the Armor was damaged, it likely wasn’t completely beyond repair, but that would change if Steel Soul kept chipping away at it.

Which he would have plenty of opportunities to do so long as he had that protective field around him. So far it had resisted a physical attack – when he’d thrown the frozen gladiator at it – and now a magical one. All without having wavered in the slightest.

Not to mention that he’d need to figure out a way to bring it down without having any cover of his own, since neither black crystals, ice walls, and the rocky terrain of Mare Occultum were apparently able to stop his enemy’s weapons; now Lex knew why there’d been no impact marks when they’d struck the terrain before. But that still didn’t explain why they were seemingly immune to his attempts to interfere with whatever magic they were using.

And he still hadn’t learned anything about the Dominata.

Which meant that it was time for a much larger gamble.

“Apparently so,” admitted Lex, not taking his eyes off of Steel Soul as he reached into his pocket dimension once again. “But I can assure you that this is more than up to the task.”

Then he withdrew Belligerence.

Author's Note

Reaching into his bag of tricks, Lex destroys Steel Soul's gladiators, only to find that Steel Soul has a few surprises of his own, forcing Lex to bring out his most powerful weapon!

Will Belligerence be enough to take Steel Soul down? Or is Lex making a terrible mistake?