The sound of gears meshing echoed through the garage. I sat cross-legged on its concrete floor, fingers slick with oil as they moved inside the transmission box of my R1.
It had been nearly totaled during our clash with Assassin, and I hadn't possessed the free time to repair it fully until now.
Yet, what I was doing wasn't just a repair; it was a complete overhaul. Calling this machine an R1 anymore was technically inaccurate, as the only remaining similarity it still had to the original was its outer shell.
Thousands of miniature magic circles lay dormant beneath its chassis. The standard 4-piston engine had been replaced with a custom-compressed 8-piston block. Its front tire was so heavily reinforced that an ordinary human attempting a turn with it at high speed would shatter every bone in their arms from recoil alone.
Eight-piston engines were typically reserved for heavy SUVs to propel their massive frames at high speeds. Mounting that same powerplant into a bike that weighed barely a tenth of an SUV meant a staggering thrust-to-weight ratio.
I unhooked a gear chain from its casing and dropped it into a tub of liquefied mana resting beside my knee. Standard motor oil would instantly ignite at 500mph under the immense friction of chain teeth grinding together; liquefied mana was the only viable coolant and lubricant.
A subtle shift in air pressure brushed past my peripheral vision. I didn't look up from my work.
"You've been watching for a while. Would you like to take it for a ride once I'm finished?"
"I would... like to."
Medusa was crouched by the front wheel, her fingers tracing that tire's thick grooves, or more accurately, those threads of mana woven into its rubber in the exact shape of magic circles.
"When did you get back from checking on Sakura? Just now?"
She rose at my question without a word, her hand trailing along R1's front suspension.
The moment her fingertips brushed that metallic casing, they froze.
"Is this... something special?" Medusa asked, tilting her head toward me.
"You mean those shock absorbers? They're lined with dragon tendons. A dragon's tendons possess incredible tensile strength and flexibility. They are perfect for absorbing impact and acting as a bike's suspension."
Medusa kept her blindfolded gaze fixed on me for three long seconds before straightening fully, her grip closing around the handlebar.
"So... how are she and Shirou?" I asked, unhooking another chain and submerging it into that glowing bucket of mana.
"They're... fine. Living together and... going to school. Sakura... seemed happy."
As she spoke, her grip tightened on R1's handlebar, easily denting its reinforced metal and leaving a deep imprint of her fingers behind.
I brought my eyes up, gaze landing on her crushing grip. "You're feeling hurt?"
The metal under her fingers groaned further. She dropped her head, gaze falling to her boots.
A second passed. Two.
Then she glanced back up and gave a small nod in my direction.
"Because she forgot about you after living a peaceful life for some days?"
Another hesitant nod.
I went silent at that.
One hand still moving inside the gearbox, I brought my other hand to the bucket of mana and scooped a handful of solution, spreading it across my palm before smearing it inside the gearbox.
"...Come, help me with this. Having two more hands will get this done faster."
She glanced at my actions and walked over, crouching near my shoulder, arms extending forward and landing above mine.
The sound of gears shifting intensified.
"Don't touch that. Pull on the chain right beneath it... and gently." I instructed after she nearly wrenched a wrong chain.
"...Mn."
Medusa adjusted and pulled. Another wrong chain.
I didn't say anything. I placed my palm on the back of her hand, guiding her myself.
"Pull here."
"Oh..."
...
Artoria was counting coins in her hold one by one, stacking each on our dining table with the reverence of someone who'd earned them through backbreaking labor, her lips moving silently with each placement, fingers trembling slightly.
I stepped into the dining room, wiping residual oil from my hands with a wet towel.
She glanced at me once and went back to her work, setting another coin on her pile with furrowed brows and unwavering focus.
I crossed the room, pulled out a chair opposite her, and sat down, keeping my gaze on her.
"Where did you get these coins from?"
She paused mid-stack.
"Medea gave them to me for completing some chores for her. Do you want one too, Master?" Her fingers moved, offering me a single coin from her pile.
I looked at her face. Then that coin. Then her face.
"Don't offer them to anyone else, or you'll be in deep trouble."
She tilted her head, a single eyebrow rising.
"Why, Master?"
"Because every one of these coins is counterfeit, created through magic. Their serial numbers are missing a letter, making them very easy to catch. Medea probably left that flaw deliberately."
Artoria's jaw fell open. Her eyes widened to their limits. Her arm remained frozen toward me, coin still offered.
She stayed like that for a long moment.
Then, her teeth ground together audibly. Golden light erupted from her grip, and the coin in her palm crumbled to dust between her fingers.
"How dare that witch take advantage of my honor... How dare she make me do chores and reward my earnest efforts with counterfeit money!?"
Excalibur materialized in her grip, and she turned right, launching herself in that direction.
"Be prepared to bear my righteous fury!"
Her voice reached me from further away.
I looked in the direction she'd surged and sighed.
"You're going the wrong direction. Medea's workshop is the other way."
Crash.
Something shattered two rooms over. A golden blur shot past me, this time to the left.
I shook my head.
My hands had just become clean when—
A low rumble rolled through our garage walls.
Then it faded down the street and was gone.
Medusa.
...
Next day.
The morning mist still hung in air, thick and white, with droplets of water clinging to walls and rooftops like a second skin reluctant to part. The sky above hadn't committed to a color yet, somewhere between the pitch black of night and warm gold of dawn.
Our neighbourhood was still asleep, no engine sounds or voices. Just the mist and a slow drip of condensation from three houses past.
"Master... must you go overseas without me? As a knight, I must accompany you wherever you go." Artoria said with furrowed brows, her hands curled into fists at her sides.
"Someone needs to stay behind and help Medea keep Illyasivel stable. Besides, spending some time with Medea alone might help the two of you get along."
She narrowed her eyes at my words. "I will never get along with her."
"Me neither." Medea replied from nearby, handing Medusa a set of purple glasses and continued.
"These are Mystic Eye Killers. Master wanted them made for you, and I had to rush to finish them in time. They can keep your eyes sealed for extended periods and make sure you don't petrify anyone accidentally. Just keep them close, alright?"
Medusa was wearing a black long-sleeved sweater, paired with blue jeans and brown boots. She brought her hand forward and took the glasses, fingers closing around them with care.
Then she looked up at Medea. "Thank you."
"No need. Master wanted them made for you, so I made them." Medea waved her hand casually.
Medusa turned her face toward me, peering in my direction.
"Put them on, and let's go," I said.
Her free hand went to her blindfold.
"Master, will you not reconsider?" Artoria asked once again.
"No. Medusa and I are enough to handle everything. We'll be back in under a week." My hand went into my coat pocket, bringing out the Mystic Code gloves Medea had made for me days ago.
"Then you must bring lots of food from overseas as compensation." Artoria wrapped her arms beneath her chest, glaring at me with a serious face.
"...Alright."
I had barely affirmed when Medea walked over and wrapped her arms around me in a hug.
"Take care on your trip, Master."
"I will."
She reluctantly pulled back after a minute, stepping back to stand beside Artoria.
For once, they did not immediately start a fight.
I looked sideways at Medusa. She had swapped her blindfold for the new glasses, her gaze sweeping across everything—mist, streets, the sky—with a quiet wonder of someone seeing everything clearly for the first time in a long while.
"Let's go." I slipped those white gloves on. Gott Mit Uns etched across them caught a stray wisp of early light.
R1 was parked just behind us. I moved toward it, gloved hand landing on its fuel tank.
A single magic circle on my glove flashed. R1 vanished before our eyes, stored inside its spatial storage.
I moved. And Medusa followed behind.
Our destination: a train, then the airport.
...
..
.
Germany.
Bavaria.
A road stretched through the Bavarian forest like a smear of frozen ink. No streetlights visible for ten kilometers in every direction.
Moonlight could not reach us here, obstructed by overlapping treetops and their canopies, the only illumination around us came from R1's headlight, two crimson beams cutting through dark.
Medusa stood beside me. Her glasses caught that crimson glow, and behind those lenses, her eyes moved. Forest. Road. Sky.
Small, methodical sweeps. A predator reading new terrain.
She was still wearing the black sweater and jeans from this morning. Her hair hung loose past her shoulders, contrasting against that dark cloth. Without the blindfold, her face was open for all to see. The glasses sat on her nose like they belonged there, but her fingers kept rising to touch its frame. Adjusting. Then adjusting again.
I swung my leg over R1's seat. Its leather was cold against my thigh. The dragon tendons in its front suspension creaked under my weight.
"Hold on to me. Don't let go."
She mounted behind me. Her thighs pressed into me. Her arms came around my waist. Light.
"Tighter."
Her arms closed. Her grip now firm. Present. Still restrained.
I placed my gloved palm on R1's fuel tank. The magic circles on my glove rotated, clicking in place like a key.
A single pulse sank through R1's frame. Beneath the chassis, thousands of dormant circles stirred in sequence, each flaring awake in flashes of violet.
The 8-piston engine—
It detonated.
A single, subsonic wave travelled through the chassis, into the road.
Asphalt beneath the tires split. A fracture line shot forward from the front wheel, racing ahead.
Medusa's grip flinched. One sharp contraction of her fingers against my coat, then steady again.
I twisted the throttle.
50 mph.
The first breath was gentle.
A lean forward. A hum from the engine. Bavarian pines began to slide past, their trunks distinguishable and individual, swaying slightly in the wake of our passage.
Then a second breath came.
100 mph.
The engine's voice climbed. A hum to a growl. A growl to a scream. All in three seconds.
Those pine trees bled out of their boundaries, become a mix of black-green blurs, two continuous walls rushing past on either side.
A dashed white center line on the road flickered in broken snapshots: line, asphalt, line, asphalt.
One second.
It merged. Became a solid, glowing thread of white.
200 mph.
Air found us next.
First a breeze against my face. Then something pressing against my chest. Then a wall trying to pulverize my body.
Temperature dropped. The moisture in air crystallized against my hair, tiny ice shards forming and shattering across it.
Medusa's breath caught. A sharp intake against my neck.
300 mph.
The air should have killed us.
It moved aside.
Those magic circles beneath the chassis erupted with a wail, each projecting a pulse of mana that shoved atmosphere outward.
A corridor formed around us, air in front of us bending in a perfect cone.
The wall of pines on either side of us bent outward. A vacuum in our wake then snapped everything back in, and that force crushed hundreds of thirty-foot trees into splinters behind us.
400 mph.
The engine's wails had long dropped below the range of human hearing. What remained was a vibration.
R1's frame was shaking. Its tires were humming. The road was trembling.
All 8 pistons weren't firing in sequence anymore. They were firing in abandon. Mana-cooled gear chains ground against one another, synchronizing the bike's combustion cycles into a single, continuous detonation.
450 mph.
The world lost its depth.
The road ahead stopped being a surface and became lines. The sky stopped being above and became colors. The forest stopped being trees and became dots.
Everything two-dimensional. As if someone had taken a photograph of the world and we were sliding across its surface.
Medusa's body changed.
Her grip stopped being a passenger's grip. Her weight shifted, back aligning with mine, head settling on my shoulder.
She was riding.
With me.
500 mph.
City ahead.
Headlights of cars coming toward us bent.
Each beam of light reached the corridor around us and curved, flowing around, wrapping the bike in a tunnel of distorted lights before reforming behind.
To all the oncoming drivers, we were just a dark smear, a shadow that flickered and was gone before their brains could process it.
The road was empty ahead. Always.
People forgot we were there before we even arrived.
A security camera at an intersection recorded static for the two seconds we passed through.
Motion sensors at a gas station triggered ten seconds after we were through.
R1 tore through a puddle. Instead of splashing, the water parted into two perfect walls on either side of its front tire, hanging in air for a breath before collapsing back into that puddle without a ripple. The tires remained dry.
Moon was visible overhead now. Medusa's shadow stretched behind us on the highway, long, thin and moving too fast for the angle of light. It didn't match her shape.
The shadow on-road had horns. Claws. It was bigger than our bike, larger than the road, stretching across all four lanes as if it belonged to something enormous following just behind.
I glanced at the shadow in R1's mirror. It looked back.
I smiled and rolled the throttle forward. The shadow smiled too. Then it stretched, and grew, and swallowed the roads behind us in absolute darkness.
Ahead, another city's lights appeared on the horizon. They flickered. All of them.
Every streetlight, porch light, neon sign, and headlight in every driveway. They flickered once in unison, like a heartbeat, like they had just noticed us approaching and blinked.
The lights went out. The whole city went dark.
We were already past that city when those lights flicked back on.
Behind me, Medusa hadn't moved her head from my shoulder.
...
..
.
***
[200 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter]
[5 chapters ahead on P@tr3on = [email protected]/Not_Aaryan]
...
[Authors Thoughts]
Our boy's first real smile. Badass doesn't even begin to cover it. Honestly, I live for these kinds of chapters. Writing things like this makes me feel more alive than ever.
Anyway... Our boy is on his way to the Einzberns. Maybe even further, we'll see.
Anyway... Take care!