Chương 90: R&R2 Ch. 29 — Heroic Failure

Jasmine was glad telling Eva about their wacky scheme went over well; she went from surprised to pensive, to Jasmine was going to say resolved and not resigned that there was nothing she could do about it. Now they were guarding the train as per usual, and she had to admit teleportation was a really fun power to use. Illusory versions of her flickered across the battlefield as her real self stayed invisible. And when the moment to strike arrived, she teleported behind the enemy and stabbed them with the soul knife.

After the first few times and hearing their horrifying screams, Jasmine got a lot better at killing them in one go. Monsters they may have been, and trying to destroy her planet and friends they were doing, they still had souls, and Jasmine wasn't going to make someone suffer for no reason. Their souls were scarily close to humans, so she would not risk anything like that."

Burn" A wall of silver fire sprang between Jasmine and the train, probably to block off the view of the monsters and encourage them to go elsewhere, but it meant she needed to change the direction of her teleport. Her ears popped as if she were going up in elevation, and she reappeared on top of Nicholas's flying sword.

"Having fun?" Nicholas asked.

"Me?" Eva asked, from where she was whipping the silver flame wall into a tornado of destruction. Jasmine wished she had a cool combination attack like that she could use in this armor. It would be so cool.

"No, Jasmine just teleported onto my sword," Nicholas explained, shifting over so Jasmine could have better footing until she blinked away again.

"You're the one that made me screw up my aim," Jasmine said, focusing on the illusory soldiers. She had made the armor so that eventually they would have some force to them, but right now it was like a thick mist. The moment anything got a hand on them, it was obvious they weren't real." Ping" Jasmine wasn't sure how to feel about Nicholas using the telepathic connection to brain blast her and Eva with information, but it was useful, especially when they were trying to maximize their practice time.

"I'll take the big one to the west," Jasmine said, blinking towards the enemy. She would get there in about three jumps. She conjured more soldiers since the last rounds were practically gone. She caught sight of her opponent and grimaced; it was a giant bug monster that was crossed with a squid or something else with way too many tentacles. Jasmine was not a fan.

"Can I get another ping focused on detecting a weak spot?" Jasmine asked. It was something she was going to take care of, both for this armor and her gunslinger build; she was going to get damn weak point detection. That way she wouldn't have to do this.

"Give me five," Nicholas said. Jasmine acquiesced, surveying the battlefield. Today was actually a really light day for the attacks on the train. Barely any honestly. She knew why. And she hated it. Because despite how few they had to kill, she could feel the weight of them on her shoulders. There were a lot of them and they felt like vipers poised to strike. It wasn't impossible they were hibernating, but it made her skin crawl at the idea that they were planning something."

Ping" Information flooded Jasmine's mind, and it was like the spot she would need to attack was highlighted. Knife held in reverse grip because it looked cooler. Jasmine willed herself above the monster's weak spot. And nothing happened. Jasmine tried again. Nothing continued to happen. Jasmine tried to appear anywhere near the monster.

And nothing worked; whatever powers the creature had seemed to include at least a partial ability to stop teleporting, and Jasmine hadn't made any countermeasures for that since they were expensive. Plan B. Jasmine charged forward, dropping the invisibility while conjuring more illusory clones as she pushed her physicality as hard as she could. With the armor on and fully active, she could go toe to toe with a physical type, at least for a few seconds.

Ashen emerald light trailed off her as she exploded into motion, flipping over tentacles and closing the distance. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. To her sides, the clones did the same, and Jasmine forced herself to match their pace. Part of her was tempted to attack with her knife to create an opening, but something told her that wasn't quite what she needed just yet.

Her intuition told her that if she attacked now, she would only make the situation worse. The explosive boost to Jasmine's physical ability came right as she descended onto the weak spot. She didn't need the increased strength for this part. An emerald knife, impossibly sharp and meant to shear souls, met the carapace of the monster and won, sinking deep into it as it let out a horrifying scream. Jasmine cursed. It was dying, but it wasn't dead. The thing was big enough that a simple cut would not be enough.

But she was out of time. With a thought, the knife returned to its home in her soul, and Jasmine teleported away. Whatever stopped people from approaching it was posing no issue with Jasmine escaping.

"Can one of you switch with me? It's dying, but I won't be able to speed up the process." Jasmine asked, recovering her breath and turning herself invisible again.

"Switch with me," Eva said, flying to the monster spirals of wind twisting around her in artistic loops. Jasmine moved to where Eva had been fighting and grimaced. She knew why Eva had been so ready to switch and why it was Jasmine's job to take care of them. Several rock golems, all without souls, with a trail of energy connecting them to their leader.

"I know I called this my in-combat assassin build, but I was hoping to spend significantly more time catching people's attention so I could save people," Jasmine complained, flickering across the battlefield.

"Well, if Connection is right, the trap is going to spring shortly." Nicholas said as he released a barrage of energy, taking down several bird monsters. Jasmine grumbled but found her target, dispatching them with a single dagger strike. It really was so easy. There were a dozen tricks to deal with teleporters, and she would have to create counter measures for each one, but this armor was really a nasty combo. Even if it was made to save people, that changed nothing."

Break" The attacks that were flying towards Jasmine shattered as Nicholas's command shook the world. But if they were attacking her location already, Jasmine quickly flickered back onto the train and went about choosing her next target. It wasn't hard to find her if she stayed still, and she had to stay relatively close to her illusions so she needed to get into the habit of moving right away after her kills.

"Explosive boost is back up if there's another big target," Jasmine said once she checked the state of her armor.

"Once I finish dispatching this, I'll check again," Nicholas said. Eva echoed similar sentiments, so Jasmine killed some time flickering around the battlefield to kill off various Beyonders that she thought were worthy of her knife. It was her oldest creation, and yet this was actually the first time she was putting the thing through its paces, and the blade was holding up incredibly. She wasn't sure what that said about her soul or the design.

Her mood soured at the thought of the design; the knife, while tweaked by Jasmine mostly in the aesthetics department, had entirely been designed by someone else." Ping" The three of them before the information fully started processing. The dormant Beyonders were already on the move. There had been a plan to let the trap fully spring and then take care of them in one fell swoop with the people who were supposedly off, but in that moment Jasmine couldn't care.

People were about to be in danger, and she wasn't going to be okay with letting that happen. The moment she knew where they were, she had always planned on striking. The only reason she hadn't been able to attack before was there had been no way to detect them. With so many Beyonders around, she couldn't pick out an individual one. She would just have to be fast enough to stop the trap as it sprang. She didn't know why Nicholas and Eva were doing the same thing, but she couldn't complain.

She needed their help if she was going to pull this off. Quicksilver spun out of her soul before flowing into three of her illusory doubles as she went for the scariest combo she could in the armor. All three illusion clones now held knives of silver." Maximize" Books word settled on her and Eva like a blanket, pushing them to the limit of their potential. It had taken extensive practice to deal with how much it boosted their physical ability, but she could handle it now."

Dragon" Nicholas roared with the spirit of a dragon, causing many Beyonders to pause in fear or on instinct as an absolute predator announced itself to the world. On wings of flame Nicholas raced past them, leaving the flying sword behind as he cut through the enemy with tongues of flame he wielded like whips. Jasmine kept running to the strongest source and holding both the teleportation card and the physical boost close to her chest. It wasn't time yet.

Eva wasn't waiting either, and Jasmine cursed that this suit didn't have any ranged attacks besides throwing the knife, and that was risky. Explosions ripped across the Beyonders as Eva used Nicholas's flames along oxygen-concentrated paths to cause her own explosions. The two of them would fight hard, but it wouldn't be enough. They had been too far away, and some Beyonders were already trying to break into the passenger sections of the train.

Sections of the train neither of them could fight near, or they would risk harming it with the destructiveness of their powers. As one Jasmine and the three silver knife clones flickered forward. Quicksilver couldn't make a knife on the level of her own, but it could make a soul weapon and let it be used by the illusions. Still invisible, Jasmine's suit released ashen emerald energy as the world slowed down. Maximize would help her hold this for even longer.

Purple blood flashed as Jasmine fought through the train, keeping a close eye on when any Beyonders broke inside. When that happened, she flickered in, killing the monster instantly before flickering the passengers away to the nearest safe room. Jasmine forced herself to go even faster, releasing the invisibility so everything could go into the physical boost, teleportation, and puppeteering her useful clones. She was a butcher cutting through the enemy, but all she could feel was rage. At the Beyonders.

At the people higher up who decided they would try to spring the trap instead of stopping it. At the people who designed the train, only making safe areas and training rooms meant to sustain a proper fight and not the entire train, regardless of the cost. Most importantly? Jasmine was mad at herself when she was too slow.