Chapter 18: The Titan Phantom

There was no time for Iris to switch to a princess-carry position, so the landing on the ground below was a bit harsh, but Finn managed to stick it nonetheless.

Unfortunately, the Phantoms that had chased them down here followed through the gaping hole in the ceiling, and there was no time to rest. Finn and Iris quickly readjusted themselves and prepared to keep running… but Archon did not.

He remained rooted in place, tightening his grip on his warhammer.

“Damn it… this is how it’s going to be, huh?” He muttered, much to the surprise of Finn and Iris, who stopped in their tracks.

“What are you doing?” Iris asked, frowning in confusion.

“You guys go forward… I’ll buy you some time. If we just keep running like this, we won’t be able to get anything done. You got this, rookies… bring those three idiots back for me.”

Iris’s eyes widened slightly, but she realized this was the right decision. Nodding firmly and solemnly, she turned away from him.

“… On it, Archon.”

*****

As Archon roared in fury and leaped into battle against the enormous horde of Phantoms, Finn and Iris disappeared into the dark corridors of this floor, dimly lit only by the occasional white light on the ceiling.

There was no sewage water or any stench down here, which made Iris and Finn wonder who — or what — made this, and for what purpose. It couldn’t possibly have been built by a Phantom… could it?

“Finn. You still remember the number of steps we took up there?”

Finn nodded. “To the bone. We shouldn’t be too far.”

“I see… we’re on a time limit here. There’s no telling how long Archon can hold out for, so we need to hurry.”

“I’m aware. You don’t need to tell me.”

The two sprinted through the halls, with Finn adjusting his step count inside his head to match his current larger strides compared to before. Luckily, the layout down here seemed to be identical to the floor above, making it easy to navigate.

That is, except for a single room right in the center of the whole maze.

The two reached it after about five minutes of running. Finn still had plenty of energy left thanks to his Ghost blood.

“Stop,” Iris suddenly called out. “There’s a wall in front of us… looks like a dead end. Finn, did you…”

“I didn’t miscalculate,” Finn immediately replied. “They should be right up ahead.”

Iris stared intently into the wall and took a deep breath. “In that case…”

Closing her eyes tightly, she concentrated and spoke.

“You’re right — I sense four energy signatures beyond this wall. Three belong to humans, while one is hostile. And the hostile one seems… powerful.”

“That must be the Titan-class Archon mentioned earlier, then…” Finn muttered. “But how do we break down this wall, without him here?”

Right as he said those words, however, a crack suddenly appeared in the wall.

“Get back!” Iris yelled as Finn quickly leaped backward a short distance, activating his gauntlets’ blades and preparing for combat.

A large white hand suddenly tore through the crack and pried the rest of the wall apart, creating a loud rumble that shook the whole ground. And out through the demolished concrete, came an enormous, pure-white figure, with glowing lumps on its back that pulsed grotesquely with energy and that same Glasgow smile that defined all Phantoms.

“Looks like we won’t need to break down the wall after all, huh…” Iris muttered, gritting her teeth and taking aim with her handgun.

She quickly fired off a few bullets towards her target, but it was merely absorbed into the massive creature’s body and served to amplify the pulsing of the various disgusting lumps on its back.

“Well, that’s a bit of a problem.”

“… I have a plan,” Finn said quietly as the massive Phantom began taking steps towards them, shaking the very earth every time it did so. “I’ll start running away, while you keep shooting at it. Then, once far enough, I’ll throw you past it and into the room, where you will then find a way to free the other three.”

“… You’re kidding me, right?”

“I’m not.”

“Yeah, I figured… fine, but you’re going to owe me a lot more than a wheelchair for this.”

Finn wanted to argue, saying he wasn’t even the one who broke it, but now was anything but the time. Immediately, he turned around and ran, right as the Titan-class Phantom smashed the ground where they had just been, sending chunks of the concrete floor flying.

Finn ducked down to avoid being hit by the airborne debris, while Iris cleverly lowered herself onto his back to do the same.

Quickly regaining his composure, Finn began sprinting again, calculating his own speed while keeping track of the Phantom’s based on the number of mini-earthquakes he could feel.

Once there was a bit of a distance between himself and the Phantom, he purposely slowed down to let it catch up, while pretending to simply be out of energy. He deduced that if this monster was capable of employing strategies such as hostage-taking, it definitely possessed a certain amount of intelligence and wouldn’t be fooled that easily.

In order to prevent it from finding out Finn had a tricky plan up his sleeve, he had to act this way.

Pretending to pant heavily and even going as far as to purposely stumble a bit, Finn managed to successfully to convince the Phantom with his tricks.

And once they were far away enough from the room where the abomination came out from and their allies were, Finn suddenly did an 180 degree turn, holding Iris up like a shot put ball, before utilizing all the momentum he built up through that run to launch her towards the demolished wall.

“Use your wings.”

Iris, faced with this message, gritted her teeth as she soared past the monster.

“Ugh… screw you, Finn!” She activated her Angelica and poured all the energy she had into her armor, hoping to activate the wings on them, but it wasn’t working.

Slowly, she was losing altitude. At this rate, she would crash into the ground before reaching the wall… and all of Finn’s efforts would be made in vain.

“I can’t… let that… happen…!”

Her eyes began blazing a bright golden as she continued to fall, biting her own lip hard enough to draw blood.

“C’mon…!”

But alas, it still wasn’t working. No matter how hard she tried, the wings on her armor refused to work. Did she get scammed by Mavrick? No… she just merely wasn’t strong enough.

Closing her eyes, she accepted her fate.

‘I’m sorry, Finn… I’m sorry, Archon…’

“To reach for the stars, one must first know the earth. To soar across the skies, one must first understand how to walk. And to achieve victory… one must first taste defeat.”

As those words were spoken to Iris by a mysterious voice inside her head, right before she hit the ground, a sudden surge of momentum upwards lifted her back up, causing her eyes to snap back open.

“Wha…!”

Iris glanced behind her to see two beautiful white wings, as pure as angels and glowing a faint gold that matched the color of her Angelica.

“It worked… it really worked!” She cried to herself, before quickly soaring towards the demolished wall. It wasn’t all that difficult to control, and the movements felt quite natural to Iris despite this being her first time flying.

Heading straight through the demolished wall, she came up right in front of Octane, Storm, and Reaper, trapped within some sort of transparent glass cube.

“Miss Ivis!” Octane yelled, knocking at the wall of the cube. His voice was muffled, but since Iris was so close to them, she could hear it just fine.

“I’m here, I’m here… now, how do I get you out…?”

“Break open the sacs on the Titan’s back,” Storm said calmly. “They are its only weak spot and will reduce its power. Once you destroy enough of them, this cube will naturally disappear.”

Iris turned back to look at the Titan-class Phantom to see what Storm was talking about, but her eyes widened when she saw what her partner was trying to do.

“Finn… what is he…!”

Immediately forgetting all else, she flew away once more in the direction she came from, gritting her teeth and pulling out her handgun.

Taking aim as she hovered in the air, she pointed her gun at the creature’s back, where exactly twelve pulsating sacs of energy were. And on top of its head, Finn held on, trying desperately to balance himself on top of its head in order to distract the Phantom from going after Iris.

“Finn!” Quickly letting out a shot, Iris rushed over just as Finn was swiped away by one of the creature’s large arms, and caught him in hers.

Meanwhile, the bullet she shot hit the Titan true in the back, right in its upper-right sac.

“Ngh…” Finn groaned. “Iris… did you… get them out?”

“No, we need to break open the sacs on its back,” she said, soaring around and remaining out of the Phantom’s range. “I got one, but that’s not enough…”

“… Got it. I’ll distract it from the front, you circle around to the back and shoot the sacs open.”

“H-Huh? Wait, you just got injur-“

“You said it yourself. We’re on a time limit.”

“Ngh… hard to argue there. Okay, let’s do it!”

Saying this, Iris dropped Finn down gently a short distance away from the Phantom, then flew away to get out of its attention.

Finn activated his gloves’ blades and lunged towards the direction of the Titan’s loud footsteps, fully prepared for what comes next.