[REDACTED]
Attempt to retrieve information from Superbian servers regarding Project Testament. As with all previous attempts, the trespass met with failure.
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Ruth leapt out of the way as the insect lunged forward, its mandibles snapping shut where she'd been standing just a moment ago. That didn't mean she was safe.
The creature's legs were as sharp as spears, piercing the ground where it walked. It stabbed down at her with them, forcing her to parry with her claws, each collision creating an explosion of sparks. Aether infused in her arms and legs kept her stance steady, but with each blocked attack she was sliding backwards along the floor -- further away from the main enemy.
It was infuriating. The card-user was just standing there, smirking, leisurely drawing more cards from the deck until he had five in his hand. This really was all just a game to him.
"Ruth!" Bruno called out from behind her. "Back to me!"
For a moment, a new flare of anger ran through her gut -- he wanted her to just run away? -- but no. Bruno would have a plan.
She dodged backwards as the ant stabbed down again, nearly spearing her from skull to groin -- and taking the opportunity, she began to charge back to Bruno's position. He had one arm held out, palm flat, ready to project a forcefield.
Thump. Thump. Thump. She could hear the Unseen Antsassin behind her, its footsteps rapid, gaining with horrifying speed. She wouldn't make it in time. There was no way she would make it in time.
But she didn't need to make it in time.
Purple Aether sparked around Bruno's hand -- and a second later, an unearthly screech erupted from the beast behind her. Abandoning caution for a brief moment, Ruth glanced over her shoulder.
Bruno had used its own ferocity against it.
He'd created a forcefield -- flat and thin, sharp enough to cut -- within the mouth of the creature, fixing it in place immediately. Then, as the Antsassin had charged at Ruth, that forcefield had been dragged further and further along into the ant's insides, scraping away its organs as it went. The shield, now coated in pulped organs and blood, burst out of the beast's backside as the Antsassin slid to a halt.
Grisly, but effective. Ruth let out a deep breath.
"Get him!" Bruno shouted again -- and Ruth realized she had no time to waste. Just like last time, the card-user would resurrect the Antsassin, and it would probably be even bigger and stronger than before.
She charged across the room, leaping over the twitching corpse in a single bound, making her way to the card-user with ferocity in her eyes. He was lifting his hand, holding up a single card, opening his mouth… she wouldn't reach him before he spoke the name.
"Utility Card," he cried out. "Bullet-Ant-Swarm!"
Ruth braced herself for impact as she ran, arms covering her face.
Noblesse Set.
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"Look at you," Giovanni Sigma Testament said, strolling across the room towards Dragan's prone form. Twin tears of blood trailed down his face. "Once I know your abilities, you're not really so formidable, are you? I imagine you used some kind of trick against Jamie. You'll pay dearly for that."
His words were just noise. Dragan writhed on the ground, excruciating pain radiating out from the hole in his leg. It had only just started truly bleeding, and already he felt lightheaded. If he didn't act quickly… he would die.
He'd recorded his own heart back on the Aipol Beach, and his Aether had continued to pump blood all the same, acting as a substitute. He wondered… could he…
Giovanni stopped walking, lifted one hand up, and smiled.
"First Verse," he whispered, almost hungrily. A spear of red crystal appeared floating over his shoulder, spinning in place, aimed right for Dragan's right leg.
No time for wondering. Now was the time for action.
The spear fired.
Gemini World.
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Sixth Verse.
Giovanni's vision became warped as he activated his sixth ability. His surroundings became faint, dark, indistinct, like watercolours bleeding into each other. Even if he looked down at his hands, he would see only vague protrusions of flesh.
Aether, however? Oh, Aether he could see clearly.
The blue cloud of writhing electricity that was Dragan Hadrien quickly floated to the ceiling, trying to move up into the rafters as an escape route. As it did, Giovanni could see faint images in the flashing Aetherlight -- memories, impressions that had soaked into the Aether over time, visible only to the chosen few.
A young boy, looking up at the smog-filled sky.
A young man, shooting someone in the back.
A corpse, falling down into the bowels of the earth.
It was the same with the spear Giovanni had fired -- in its red glow, he could see his own memories, flowing like liquid dreams. He paid no mind to it: his own recall was perfect. He didn't require secondary sources.
"I can see you, you know," Giovanni said in amusement, his eyes tracking the cloud of blue Aether. "You're not exactly hiding from me."
Before Hadrien could reach his destination, Giovanni fired a spear at the wooden rafters -- and with an explosion of wooden scraps, it collapsed into nothing. Another escape route was cut off.
However… Dragan Hadrien did not stop. The cloud of Aether hovered over the now-destroyed rafter and -- with a flash of light -- manifested again. Giovanni deactivated the Sixth Verse, looking up at Hadrien through his own eyes once more.
He couldn't help but whistle.
"Oh," he said. "Very impressive."
Dragan Hadrien had only manifested the top half of his body out of the Aether cloud, and so was floating there -- unburdened by gravity -- like a genie out of some cartoon. Through the hole the ability left below Hadrien's torso, Giovanni could see nothing but dark fuzziness, like videograph static.
Very impressive indeed. Dragan Hadrien had learnt to fly. Then again… that was nothing special.
Fourth Verse.
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This was perhaps the strangest sensation Dragan Hadrien had ever experienced.
His legs existed. He could feel them -- but they were not there. But they were, just in a different format. It was like phantom pain and real sensation at the same time.
At the very least, he wasn't bleeding anymore. He hadn't healed the wound on his leg, but so long as it was recorded into his Aether it was essentially paused. Could he take that principle further? Record tiny parts of his body whenever he got injured, so even minor wounds had no effect on him?
Another question for another day. Right now, all he had to do was not die. Dragan glared down at Giovanni, doing his best to keep himself steady.
His consciousness felt stretched between the physical and informative, his actual body and his Aether. He willed the cloud of sparking blue that formed the lower half of his body to move -- and it did so without complaint, moving him slightly higher, closer to the ceiling.
His heart hammered in his chest. He was flying. He was flying. Despite everything, he couldn't help but feel a wild grin cross his face.
"Oh," smirked Giovanni down below, raising his eyebrows. "Very impressive."
Excitement didn't take long to be replaced by caution. Crimson Aether cracked behind Giovanni, and in a flash of red light yet another construct appeared. A ring of blood-coloured crystal -- the same material as the spears and shield -- had manifested behind Giovanni, floating over his back.
Run, Dragan's instincts told him.
Giovanni kicked off the ground -- and flew, zooming towards Dragan at horrifying speeds. As he moved, four more spears appeared over his shoulders, each one firing towards Dragan. The first he absorbed into Gemini Shotgun, but the other three were travelling so fast that he was forced to writhe and dodge in the air to avoid them.
Gemini Shotgun.
The crimson spear, crackling blue with Dragan's Aether, was fired back at Giovanni's approaching form -- aimed right for his torso. Dragan had a sneaking suspicion that he had to remain stationary to use that shield of his: if nothing else, this would stop his advance.
But Giovanni just smirked.
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Third Verse.
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In the moment before the spear made contact, Giovanni's body moved -- in a manner that seemed both grotesque and impossible.
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His back bent until his body was nearly folded in half, at such a sheer angle that an ordinary spine would surely have snapped. As the spear flew overhead, one of Giovanni's arms lashed out -- cracking and dislocating for additional reach -- and seized it out of the air. The force of it scraped away the skin on Giovanni's hand, but if he felt the pain he showed no sign of it.
As quickly as he'd assumed that impossible posture, Giovanni's body snapped back -- and now he carried that massive red-and-blue spear in both hands. He caressed it as if it were a pet as he smiled, still flying towards Dragan.
"Your abilities are focused on recording and manifesting," he said calmly, swinging the spear like a club with such force and speed that it nearly took Dragan's head off. "You record incoming projectiles and fire them back with increased power, or you record yourself to move around unseen."
Dragan dodged back through the wooden web of rafters, avoiding Giovanni's swings of the spear, but each miss was a near thing. Clearly growing tired of the dance, Giovanni shrugged the spear onto his shoulder and hurled it like a javelin.
It still had Dragan's Aether infusing it along with Giovanni's, and so it was many times more powerful than the original attack. Still, though…
Gemini World.
Dragan absorbed the incoming projectile once more, fired it back --
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Seventh Verse.
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-- and felt excruciating pain in his arm.
He slowly looked down, his eyes wide, his teeth so tight he'd nearly bit off his tongue. There was his right arm, almost severed by the attack, connected to the rest of his body only by a few stray strands of muscle and meat.
Giovanni continued his pursuit, eyes glaring hatefully as he flew forward, but all of Dragan's attention was taken up by his injury.
What had happened?
Fog enveloped Dragan's mind as the pain took hold, and through the fog he could see his Archive, hurried theories carved into the walls. He had definitely fired the attack back at Giovanni, yet he'd been hit by it anyway. It had been far too fast for Giovanni to catch it a second time, too. The only explanation was that Giovanni Sigma Testament had an ability like Gemini Shotgun -- one that allowed him to record attacks and send them back.
Giovanni smirked.
No. He couldn't lose focus.
Gemini World.
Dragan grit his teeth as his near-severed arm was recorded into Aether, the pain vanishing with it. The memory of it was nearly as excruciating, though. He was down one arm and one leg, and none of his attempts to fight back had borne fruit. As far as he was aware, he hadn't inflicted an injury on Giovanni yet -- unless you counted the scraped palm, which he'd really done to himself.
Range was Dragan's specialty, but Giovanni had neutralised that advantage instantly. If he wanted to win this -- no, survive this -- he had to get out of his comfort zone.
Dragan's flight slowed to a halt -- and Giovanni's slowed just a little, too, as he watched in caution for what Dragan would do next.
Dragan was done running.
He charged.
If the move had thrown Giovanni off, he did not show it. Instead, he simply lifted his arm, firing off two more spears that Dragan absorbed into Gemini Shotgun. He didn't send them back this time, though: doing so would only invite disaster.
He had his eyes on the prize. Dragan's gaze was fixed right on Giovanni's face, and his remaining fist was pulled back -- ready to sock the asshole in the jaw.
Finally, for the first time, surprise appeared on that arrogant face. The slightest widening of the eyes, but it was all the fuel Dragan needed to keep going. A delirious, feral grin spread across his face.
He'd use the shield now. Dragan knew it. Giovanni's mouth opened to say those two words, but too late.
"Second --"
Gemini World.
"-- Verse!"
Dragan disappeared entirely for a split second, reappearing right next to Giovanni in the moment before the crystal shield snapped shut around the two of them.
He threw a punch at Giovanni with his remaining arm, but his enemy easily countered -- slapping the fist away with an Aether-infused hand. Before Dragan could so much as breathe, Giovanni had grabbed him by the collar, pulling him close. Dragan could see the dilation of his pupils, feel the warmth of his breath. Right now, Giovanni embodied fury in all its aspects.
"Useless," he hissed, pulling his fist back. "Utterly, utterly useless."
Crimson Aether, starbright, coalesced around Giovanni's fist, spilling through the gaps between his fingers. Just from looking at it, you could see this was intended as the killing blow. A punch that would pulverise flesh and shatter bone.
Just as Dragan had hoped.
Giovanni let loose his fist, striking Dragan right in the centre of his stomach. Dragan had no defence that could block such a blow, nor the speed to dodge it. All he could do was witness the blur coming to kill him.
After all, he'd already taken the steps required.
The punch went right through Dragan's body, emerging through the small of his back.
Giovanni gasped.
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Giovanni gasped.
He'd run Dragan Hadrien through -- he knew he'd just run Dragan Hadrien through -- but something was wrong. His fist had met nothing but empty air as it had impaled him.
Immediately, he realised what Hadrien had done -- he'd anticipated where Giovanni was going to strike and recorded that part of his stomach individually, leaving the clothing so that Giovanni wouldn't realise.
A clever trick, but far from unbeatable.
All Giovanni had to do was turn this into an endurance match. How much pain could Hadrien endure, how much of his body could he record, before it all became too much? For his part, Giovanni couldn't wait to find out.
He pulled his fist free of Hadrien's body --
No. He did not free his fist from Hadrien's body. It was stuck. Giovanni looked up from his trapped arm to Hadrien's face, and saw the victorious grin there.
His blood boiled.
Hadrien had manifested his stomach once more -- not all of it, but enough to keep Giovanni's arm trapped. No matter how hard he pulled, he couldn't free himself from the prison of flesh. He roared in fury, channelling his Aether into his arm to grant himself the strength to --
Giovanni felt a plasma pistol press against his skull.
Instantly, he focused his Aether into his head to defend against the shot. Hadrien pulled the trigger, and the pistol fired -- but with Giovanni's defences, he suffered only miniscule damage. But then, a second later, Hadrien fired again. And again. And again.
Fury boiled over as Giovanni realised his enemy's plan. So long as he was using his Aether to defend against these headshots, he couldn't use it to free himself from Hadrien's trap. Eventually, even he would be worn down from countless shots to the head… and his defences would weaken… and…
No.
Giovanni dispelled the crystal shield around the two of them, the crimson sphere collapsing and dissipating into Aether. Immediately afterwards, he called upon the First Verse -- and a legion of spears appeared surrounding the two of them, their points directed as one towards Hadrien.
If he couldn't free himself of this trash, he'd simply destroy it. However…
Hadrien tugged.
It was movement borne not from Hadrien's own motion, but that of his recorded body, and so it was much more difficult to resist. Giovanni was pulled along, and soon enough the two of them were spinning like this was some kind of waltz. As they spun and spun and spun, Hadrien continued to fire shots into Giovanni's head, each one doing more and more and more damage. Giovanni could faintly smell the burning of his hair.
With them spinning like this, Giovanni couldn't fire his spears without risking hitting himself. His fury became tainted with a hint of uncertainty. Did Hadrien have him in check right now?
He couldn't block the shots forever.
He couldn't pull himself free.
He couldn't fire the spears at Hadrien.
What should he do? There had to be a way out of this. With dawning horror, Giovanni realised he could feel his own sweat on the back of his neck. This trash had made him sweat? Him?!
"Let go!" Giovanni screamed as they spun, voice cracking furiously.
Hadrien did not reply. His eyes were shadowed over, his finger mechanical as it pulled the trigger over and over again. Giovanni gripped his opponent's forearm in an attempt to snap the limb or pull it away, but without his full Aether he couldn't quite overcome Hadrien's defences.
There was only one way out -- but the humiliation of it… Giovanni's trepidation vanished as Hadrien pulled the trigger again, and this time the blast was accompanied by the slightest pain. He could delay no further.
He couldn't get rid of Hadrien's arm, but…
Giovanni timed his move right after Hadrien fired his shot. With an Aether-flashed chop from his free arm, he struck right down at the exposed elbow of his own trapped arm --
-- and severed it.
He kicked off from Hadrien's chest, crystal ring dragging him away to a safe distance as he cradled the bleeding stump. The pain was excruciating, but he could bear it. He could bear anything. This was a test.
The severed arm dropped out of Hadrien's body as he exhaled, staring down Giovanni.
"Draw," he croaked, voice ravaged by exhaustion. "How about it?"
Giovanni blinked. His blood was spilling freely, coating the floor below. Slowly, he smiled.
"A draw?" he said quietly. "Of course. Of course --"
Seventh Verse.
Ironic. The Seventh Verse had caused Hadrien such injury not so long ago, and he'd completely forgotten to watch out for it. The ability allowed Giovanni to designate two spherical points in space -- anything of suitable size that entered one of the points would be recorded into Aether and transmitted to the other, where it was manifested again.
Effectively, teleportation.
As they'd been remaining in a fixed position during their little dance before, Giovanni hadn't been able to use it -- but now was the perfect opportunity. Using it on himself or Hadrien wouldn't be too effective, but…
Giovanni's blood spilled down towards the floor --
-- and landed in Hadrien's eyes, utterly soaking him. The words he'd been about to speak were reduced to disgusted spluttering.
"Ha!" Giovanni screamed, manifesting a final spear in his free hand and preparing to throw. "I win! Be blinded by blood!"
He'd done it. He'd done it! This humiliation would be avenged. Jamie would be --
The doors to the chambers beyond slammed open. Giovanni couldn't help but glance towards the source of the noise -- and what he saw there made him hesitate for a moment.
It was just a man. Just a man standing there, in a long green coat. By all rights, he should have been nothing. Just another enemy to be annihilated. But the look in his eyes… and the tension that seemed to radiate from his body…
The man's gaze flicked towards Hadrien's battered form, and the jovial lines on his face slackened into ruthlessness. When he looked back at Giovanni, it was with the face of a killer.
"Heartbeat Bayonet," he hissed.
Sixth Verse.
Giovanni activated his Aether-vision, ready to perceive the form of whatever attack was coming at him -- only to see a web of bright green slashes zooming through space. The gaps between the network of invisible blades were barely large enough to fit a finger through.
Panic returned.
Second Verse.
No effect. His auto-avoidance did not activate. In essence, this was an attack that could not be dodged.
So Giovanni made the only logical move.
He inflicted the final humiliation upon himself.
He turned and ran.