Chapter Thirty-eight: An Elephant Never Forgets

The Elephant Boys, the ones she hadn’t downed yet, surged around her. She’d taken two out for now, one with a broken leg and the other with a bad wound in his thigh he was trying to bind. Five more surrounded her, raining blows at her that she didn’t even have to focus on. Her new Silkfield Awareness Ability helped her dodge attacks she didn’t see, or independently moved silk tentacles to block them. It seemed to detect every attack within her silkfield, which was apparently a three feet diameter sphere with her at its core. Her octoweave mind ascension split her thoughts, so she could focus on both the fight, and what was happening around it.

Twenty-three Elephant Boys, but she had only tied up seven of them so far. Sixteen of them were charging up the street towards the Sabini men, and the Sabinis were injured and slow.

Stella leapt onto a man in front of her, her feet landing on his shoulders. She kicked off, driving him to the ground as she somersaulted over the men who surrounded her. A tentacle grabbed a statue carved on the side of a building and she swung along the street, landing and turning into a roll, then coming up before the Boys who had charged ahead.

She turned towards them, and the first swung a wooden bar at her face. She bent back, almost double, at the waist, and as he stumbled off balance, she came up and thundered a punch into the side of his head. She sidestepped a knife swipe she hadn’t seen, noting in one thought track that Silkfield Awareness was quickly becoming her favourite Ability, and her tentacles grabbed the three closest men, pulled them close, then shot out. The men launched back down the street, smashing into the previous group she had fought, who only now were turning to face her.

The knife wielder lunged at her, and a silk shield tangled the attack. She punched him in the jaw. He dropped the knife and blocked her next punch, then screamed as a tentacle speared the knife through his boot. He hopped back and she kicked out at a new man, but part of her mind was still on the rest of the Boys she wasn’t fighting. Once more, they were streaming up the street.

Stella leapt into the air, tentacles lashing out, and swinging along the road. Someone threw a chair at her, but it sailed past behind her and a moment later she was again in front of the Boys. They were all closer to the Sabinis now, but the longer she fought them the more chance the Sabinis had to get away.

It was a losing action. Even delayed, the Boys were still closing the distance. She needed a victory option that wasn’t just beating them all to a pulp, because they’d definitely catch the other gang before she could reach that goal. A third thought track spun off to consider the Sabinis. Each time she swung, she could see the full length of the street. She knew their injuries, she’d timed their exit, she knew the length of the street, and the next one. Blackfriars Bridge was twenty-five minutes away. Forty with their injuries. They wouldn’t make that. They wouldn’t even try; long before then they’d decide to stand and fight.

Stella ducked a punch, and her return jab drove into a gut and shot all the air out of her opponent’s lungs. She felt her silk shield her exposed back from an attack. Forty minutes? She was lucky if she had forty seconds left! She needed to change the situation.

She stopped considering the Sabinis, instead focusing two of her thought tracks on the Boys. One began mapping out everything around her, including the gang. They’d attempted to spread out, but they’d essentially formed three small groups across the street. There was another, more scattered group further back, people she had fought and disengaged from, trying to catch up to the fight again. She was far more mobile than they were, and faster. Her tentacles gave her extra attacks, twenty feet of reach, and a built in defence system thanks to her Silkfield Awareness. Up to four separate simultaneous thought processes thanks to her octoweave mind ascension, and she could still control her tentacles. Maybe. She’d only used three thought processes so far, in case the fourth dropped control of her silk or something.

She held all the advantages here. What she needed was a knife to the face she instantly blocked, stole, and chucked aside then delivered a knee to the guts that left her with a plan but she didn’t have one. She stuttered in her movements as two of her thought processes slammed into one, and then a wooden bar smashed into her shoulders and knocked her to the ground. She rolled and came up, a hard kick causing her to stumble.

It seemed her split thought processes also had a time limit. That was inconvenient.

She leapt into the air and swung down the street, getting further ahead of them, giving her a moment to breathe, to think. She only had one thought track now, but she only needed one to instantly analyse the situation, and run through the lessons her mother had imparted.

Plutarch’s Lives had taught her how Fabius Maximus had fought Hannibal in the Second Punic War. Maximus avoided direct confrontation, harassed and slowed Hannibal, and won by denying Hannibal his objectives of a stand-up battle. That was her exact goal. Ney’s rear-guard actions in the Retreat from Russia in 1812 had shown how a small, disciplined force could delay a larger one by constant repositioning. Ney had proven that mobility was more important than strength, and that the environment could be used to delay pursuit.

But the street was empty. Buildings she couldn’t affect and an enemy to numerous to defeat without some slipping past her. No, once again she needed to rely on Sun Tzu. He was her favourite general, because he was the best.

The supreme art of war is to subdue without fighting.

Alright, how was she going to pull this off?

She took up a position in the centre of the road, three tentacles shooting out on either side of her to grab onto the buildings around her. They found purchases and pulled tight with her in the centre of a fence made of silk.

The Elephant Boys slowed as they approached, suddenly cautious at her new tactic. That was exactly what she wanted them to do. Slow down. Let the Sabinis get a little further away. Give her a moment.

Her Heroic Form Ability wasn’t one she could use. It was always on, it had changed her entire body into the shape it now was. Her silkenesis was already in use, but six of her eight tentacles were out of the fight, barring the way forward.

Her chromoweave… actually, she used that, darkening every part of her silk to the deepest black. She couldn’t see it, but she imagined her white volto was shining in the darkness of her hood.

Her octoweave mind ascension was down for the count, and she could only be thankful that losing it hadn’t affected her tentacle control. She really needed to take a moment to train the new Abilities she had received recently, find their limits outside of a combat situation.

She would do that later.

Right now, she had a fight to win without fighting.

Her pyroguard flameslow… didn’t matter, unless the Elephant Boys tried to light her on fire or something. Honestly, it would probably end up her least used Ability, it was too niche.

Her Silkfield Awareness was unaware, because the spread out Boys were staring at her and not attacking.

She had one Ability left. She hadn’t practised with it at all. She had used it exactly once, unconsciously. She wasn’t even sure how to turn it on. She didn’t know if it could be used in the way she intended. She was basing all of this on the Ability’s name and nothing else. No, the Ability’s name and the reaction of the priest. He’d trusted her instantly because she had a light to her, he had said.

If you must break an enemy, first break his will, Caeser had written.

Heroic Presence was the name of the Ability. All she knew that it did was make her look shiny and trustworthy to priests.

But heroes were only reassuring to innocents. To the guilty, to those who opposed the hero, they were terrifying.

Hopefully.

If she could work out how to turn the Ability on.

“Get out of our way,” Wal said, pushing to the front of the group.

Honestly, she thought she understood some of what Zhuge Liang must have felt, playing his lute on the walls of an empty fort, and scaring an enemy into retreating.

The supreme art of war is to subdue without fighting.

But if it didn’t work, she’d just have to kick all their asses.

“I told you to get out of our way,” Wal snarled.

“You should ask,” she replied, her voice calm. She was thinking about her last tin of birthday peaches. Maybe tonight would be a good night to eat them, once she’d sent the Boys off to their beds.

“What?”

“You can’t move me. You can’t pass by me. You can’t intimidate, force, or stop me. You have no power here. You might as well try politeness.”

He ground his teeth. She wasn’t really focusing on him. She was doing what he should have done, watching the men around him. She saw the exact moment their morale cracked. It was when he spat out his next words. “Will you… please… get out of our way.” With those words, he acknowledged her, he accepted what she had said, that he couldn’t force her or stop her or intimidate her. With those words, he broke the men around him, and he didn’t even notice the distraught expressions on their faces as they stared at him.

The supreme art of war might be to subdue without fighting, but somehow it was better when they defeated themselves. “No,” she replied softly, her words calm, all tension leaving her. She could feel the Ability now, like a layer of warmth beneath her skin. She wondered what it looked like. She wondered what it felt like to them.

Every eye was on her now, as the heat grew and began to radiate outwards. Heroic Presence.

A benediction to the innocents who needed saved.

A curse to the guilty.

The heat was coming off her in waves now. She saw the first man take a nervous step backwards. She saw another tremble, his knife shaking as his grip loosened.

“If you run, now, I shan’t pursue,” she promised, and their will broke. The Elephant Boys turned and ran, all except Wal. He was standing utterly still, though she could tell by his expression he wanted to flee.

“I’m going to remember this,” he swore.

“Of course you are, sweetie,” she said, her tentacles releasing the building. “An elephant never forgets.” She turned and walked away from him.

It was a power move, turning her back on an enemy, but it wasn’t particularly worrying. She would hear him if he moved. She could sense his body heat. Her Silkfield Awareness would detect and deflect attacks. And besides, even if he hadn’t run, he had been broken by her words.

It was safe enough to dismiss him. He held no power here.

Previous Chapter: Thirty seven

Next Chapter: Thirty nine

Author’s Note

Today’s queerguide is about toxic masculinity. Again, you don’t need to read it, but if you want to, it’s here.