Editing City Series:Volume6a Chapter4 (section)

===Part 4===

Berger was running along Prinzenstrasse on the east end of Berlin.

The wound on his cheek was a mere scratch from a bullet that grazed him. He licked away the flowing blood and his nimble feet pounded loudly on the pavement as he moved south along that large road. The torn hem of his black coat fluttered behind him as he made a beeline for Tempelhof Airbase.

No one else was on large Prinzenstrasse. Everyone else was hiding in the buildings.

He sped up his running legs as if riding on the second alarm sounding all around.

“They declared martial law and then they opened fire the instant they saw me? Looks like someone’s made a name for himself.”

The stone-paved road was covered by the blaring alarms, the chilly winter wind, and people’s abandoned vehicles.

The shops had all shut their doors, but countless gazes peered out from the many windows to see what was happening.

Berger faced forward with all those eyes on him.

“Just when I think I’ve taken out their sniper, they bring out the real big guns.”

A large shadow was cast on the intersection about 100 yards ahead of him. Heavy metal footsteps had sounded on the pavement as the owner of the shadow appeared from behind a building on the right.

It was a single Grösse Panzer. It was black, just like the ones he had seen in front of the university’s main gate.

“HMP109, Br’s 18th child, the Panzer Fuchs designed for urban warfare. Why would they send this into their own city? Do they think they can blow up their problems along with the city itself?”

The Grösse Panzer had arrived within about 20 yards of him.

He was within its range, so the Panzer Fuchs drew the short sword at its hip and took a step back.

For use in cities, the gun turret had been removed, its Panzer Kleid and limbs had been lightened, and it had plastic claws on its feet, allowing it to make shockingly nimble movements.

Its metal engine and joints roared nicely while carrying its weight.

The giant mass’s movements whipped up the wind as if sucking in the air.

But Berger did not stop running toward it. He simply muttered to himself.

“I really should have gotten my own Grösse Panzer for this.”

He took a step to the right just before a silver wall rushed in on his left along with the roaring wind.

That was the Grösse Panzer’s short sword. It was 1.5 yards wide and at least 5 yards long.

The white blade jabbed in while perfectly parallel to the ground and it simply shined there without touching him.

“Decent skill.”

The blade pulled back before Berger was done speaking. On its way back, it angled itself diagonally to try to slice through him.

He spread his limbs below him like a crawling lizard to drop to the ground and avoid the path of that silver line.

The blade pulled back in an instant and then launched an attack from the side.

The silver line was now so low it could easily hit him even while crawling, so he got back up, pulled out Gelegenheit, and blocked the attack.

The Grösse Panzer’s white blade probably could slice right through a building, but it failed to do the same to gold-glowing Gelegenheit.

However, the weight difference was overwhelming.

“…!!”

Before he was launched backwards, he pressed Gelegenheit toward the white blade and angled it upwards. He used the force of the white blade to shift his own body weight upwards as if rolling.

He used that momentum to twist his body around and over the blade.

After passing below him, the horizontal slash sliced through three trees lining the road.

The blade sounded like it was tearing through flesh three times in a row. And after a slight delay, Berger crashed into one of the remaining stumps. The felled trees crashed down onto the road, cutting off his escape.

“Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!”

He kicked a branch away, stood up, and quickly slipped between the trees just before another jab of the sword. And this time…

“Its Ober Emblem!?”

Berger saw armor made of ether light wrap around the Grösse Panzer’s right arm while the sword held in that hand grew to more than 20 yards long while emitting an icy chill.

“Hm, so the emblems on the armor are activated by the Schreibener’s willpower and that modifies the Tons of the ether to transform a portion of the Panzer into something else, huh?”

He moved away from the trees, righted himself, and stood up with a slight smile on his lips.

The blade swung horizontally while giving off frigid air that seemed to pierce through him.

He twisted around and dropped onto his back instead of onto his stomach.

The sword surrounded by all-freezing “frost” ether passed by just in front of his nose. Even the wind was frozen and scattered as frost as the bluish-white blade passed by.

The white attack shook the air and was pulled back with even more speed.

At the same time, Berger pulled a “potato masher” grenade from his hip and used his finger to switch the timed fuse to the shortest setting. He tossed it between the sword and the ground.

“This was fun, but I’ve really gotta run!!”

His words were punctuated by the grenade exploding.

The shockwave rushed out more powerfully than the fire, smoke, or wind. A loud boom echoed out and the bluish-white sword was launched upwards by the blast.

The Ober Emblem shattered, the ether turned to dust, and the blade appeared from within.

The metal right hand on its giant hilt was pushed upwards by the explosion.

The ultra-heavy weapon would not stop shaking thanks to its mass. The Panzer Fuchs tried to regain control of the sword by grabbing its hilt in both hands and Berger chose that moment to jump up on top of the blade.

“The German military’s policy is to send Panzers against powerful Heidengeists, Tuners, and Busters, but that seems naïve to me.”

He ran along the blade and set foot on the heavy metal hands.

He immediately used the Grösse Panzer’s fingers as a launch pad to jump forward.

The black cloaked figure soared up to its shoulder.

The Grösse Panzer frantically let go of the short sword with one hand and pursued the black cloak fluttering in the wind, but it was too late.

Berger slipped below that hand and landed on the narrow right shoulder for just a moment. He was within arm’s reach of the metal face.

“Have a gift. And I’m feeling generous today.”

He pulled out four grenades and slipped them into the gaps between the different facial devices.

Then he leaped behind the Grösse Panzer.

While he dropped down behind it, he heard the heavy sound of the Grösse Panzer scratching at its face in a panic.

He did not look back.

The explosion sounded overhead and behind him just as his feet reached the ground. A large shadow fell on him and extended out ahead of him. The shadow had a humanoid form with limp limbs.

He whistled as he took off running.

“Now, I really do need to hurry.”

As soon as he escaped from below that shadow, he heard the loud crash of a great mass falling directly behind him. He heard a harmony of metal shattering and breaking against the stone pavement.

He still did not look back. “That was a little too acrobatic,” he commented as he picked up speed.

Up ahead in the distance, he saw several armored trucks racing down the road toward him. He saw a Panzer Fuchs standing up in the back cargo area past each of those armored roofs.

“Hm, they get persistent when you piss them off.”

He looked up to see an area of woods beyond the armored trucks and Grösse Panzers. Those were the woods surrounding Tempelhof Airport.

The enemy was approaching with those woods as a backdrop.

“Berlin is a fairly nondescript city, but it does have a childish love of big weapons.”

His tone remained light as he pulled a Phlogiston Tank from his pocket and attached it to the bottom of Gelegenheit. Then he attached another. And another.

He poured their power into Gelegenheit while speeding up his feet. He ran ever onward with the alarms blaring in the distance.