John surely must have looked a mess, long streaks of mucusy sweat did not so much as drip as roll down his forehead in slimy coils. He twitched, part in pain and part from the residual energy of the power that had burned through his flesh unlocking speeds that were simply not sustainable in any sense of the term. It didn’t matter though, he was where he needed to be, and probably just in time too.
He tried to say something to Cobalt but between his haggard, choking breaths and the slime drowning his face not much managed to get out besides a pained gurgle. Still, given the way Cobalt’s expression shifted from shock to a grim stubbornness, she seemed to have picked something up at least.
“Stay away John… please…” She begged, voice breaking as desperation bled in despite her obvious efforts.
“I… urghk… I can’t let you destroy yourself… Cobalt…” He coughed.
“It’s my fucking life! Let me choose how to spend it!” She howled back, skin flaring flame red.
“DO YOU HE- gah… HEAR YOURSELF RIGHT NOW?!” He screamed, choking on slime and the acid eating away at his exhausted muscles.
“We’ll be fucked either way, how many of us can we truly evacuate? Face it John, the enemy is at the gate and we are not ready, even if we kracking surrender I know that fucking monster will just feed us to his pet! I am going down on my own terms, bomb it all!” She bit back bitterly.
“I… am not convincing you with words am I?” He acquiesced, a very stupid thought already flooding through his brain.
[JOHN.] ARTOS chastised. He shook it off and wiped off the slime blocking his vision with a hazy cloud.
“Then I suppose I will do what I know best!” He declared, rolling the slime around in his hand, almost into a ball.
“What the fuck does that m-” Cobalt started to shout out before John sent a mental command to lengthen his right arm into a whip, which was achieved with biologically impossible effectiveness. Cobalt probably could have dodged that nonetheless, but there were two things he was banking on. One, she was in no state for thinking, or even fighting with raw instinctual skill like usual.
Two, nobody would have the fucking audacity to do this.
The shot landed true and a glob of the conductive mucus landed straight on her face with a thunderous clap.
“WHAT THE FUCK!” She screamed before suddenly going very silent as she witnessed the charge flowing down his arm at speeds incomprehensible to an ordinary human.
It was a technique he developed, inspired by some of Magni’s… more annoying tendencies. Something he didn’t get to show off before the tournament came to a very sudden screeching halt.
Insult to injury. He thought
[INSULT TO INJURY.]
Even Cobalt’s supernatural durability could not stand the pain of such a massive jolt delivered straight to her face, the slime evaporating off in an instant and converting into sheer electric power. The lights surrounding them flickered, and a thick stench of ozone permeated the air.
Cobalt screamed and lashed out with her extended claws, normally too fast to react to, but she was currently disoriented and sloppy. He retracted ARTOS just in time to block a strike that would have slit him open down the middle.
“It’s a gamble, but when you are stressed and get in the mood for a fight you won’t stop until you have emptied it.” He said as he parried another two clumsy strikes. “I don’t know if you are even listening right now, but I could feel you weren’t ready to listen before. And this is far worse than anything I have ever done, but stupid is all I got!”
“WHY JOHN!” She snarled, lunging forward with snapping jaws he barely dodged. He felt the edges of his still soaked sect robes singe, even burning the skin beneath the old rags he still preferred to wear underneath.
“Where should I start? The fact we need your dox-brains? That we are stretched so thin we need to manage the evacuation effort with two elders down and the sect in chaos? The fact your suicidal charge would have killed us all by turning the little time we have into si-choked ash?” He explained with an almost mocking edge between frantic dodges, channeling his inner Magni as best he could. A burning strike rang true, sliding off the metal of his Relic arm and landing squarely on his side, the heat turning what may have been a fountain of blood into a squirt of red mist. Even then he struggled out the last part of his words. “OR THE FACT- I AM YOUR FUCKING FRIEND!”
His vision swam, internally he asked ARTOS how much longer can you keep me up?
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
[DEPENDS. I TAKE IT YOU WANT ALL YOU CAN GET.]
You didn’t have to ask. He answered in his thought, once again failing to parry another attack fully resulting in an ugly gash across his chest.
[YOU MAY NOT REMEMBER THE DEAL WE MADE, BUT I REMEMBER THE DETAILS. VERY WELL THEN, PERHAPS WE SHALL DISCUSS MORE IN YOUR DREAMS ONCE THIS PASSES. I JUST HOPE YOU ARE READY TO PAY.] ARTOS responded coldly.
Anything. He thought without hesitation.
In lieu of a response, a surge of chemicals flooded his blood, including something that caused his ugly slash wounds to even start pushing themselves closed, and with this renewed jolt of energy, John rushed forward screaming to wrap his arms around Cobalt’s waist like some parody of a hug.
“YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO THROW YOUR LIFE AWAY WITHOUT US!” He screamed, fully aware of the hypocrisy even in his drug-addled mind. “ARE WE REALLY NOT WORTH LIVING FOR!?”
Cobalt’s breaths came out in desperate, panting whimpers. With a jolt of realization, he realised she was sobbing.
“You are… such a fucking idiot…” She cried softly, raking his back with claws that unquestionably ripped through flesh but in his current state, he was unable to feel. Slowly the claws rounded out to fingers as her whole body shrank. “I- I will hurt you… I have done some terrible things already… I have hurt y-you too… Spirits I don’t want to be the reason so many people I care about die… but you were right…”
“I am glad to hear it.” He said with a smile, head surprisingly clear for now. Though he knew it impossible to last for very long. ARTOS was currently silent, a hole was left where it was in his mind that he could now feel more than ever. It was a problem, but if he didn’t make it out of today then he wouldn’t be able to worry about it in the future at all.
“How did you know it w- would work?” She asked hesitantly, dragging herself up to her feet and struggling to wipe away the flood of tears.
With the dumbest grin he replied. “I didn’t!”
He was glad he was still too numb to feel her slap, weak and half-hearted as it was, as it would undoubtedly still bruise later. Regardless he slung his limp right arm, more a massive weight dragging him down to the center of the Earth than anything else right now, and together they made their way over to the place where the evacuees were gathered.
Cobalt licked her fangs, and he felt the strangest shudder down his spine which was probably not entirely due to the drugs burning through his system.
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The formation was carved, with the help of Elder Aurelium and a Cinnabar who had recently returned to semi-functionality, it was actually rather simple to follow the complicated instructions of Roan. With a little test of power, the runes came to life with a warm green radioactive light, and the borders of the designated zone shimmered with a little barrier of imperceptibility currently too weak to be of any real use but still enough to apparently confuse the already panicked insects buzzing around into flying in frenzied circles. Idly Magni tracked one with an eye and picked it out of the sky, shoving it straight into his maw with loud crunches. He didn’t know when exactly he picked up stress-eating as a habit. It probably had to be at the point in his life when he even had enough food to stress-eat about. Thankfully the ravages of Cultivation and the associated Curse tended to keep people rake thin despite everything.
Suddenly he sensed two familiar figures approaching at the edge of his perception, which then prompted him to tear the rest of his eyes away from the formation to observe closer. There was not even a second of doubt, he jumped to his feet and ran over to the other Aureliums, nearly tripping on his own feet from his poorly calibrated senses.
“ELDER! ALEXANDER! COBALT AND JOHN ARE BACK!” He yelled out, causing the two old men to jolt up themselves.
“That’s two less unaccounted for. Besides a group of presumed deserters including that Greenhouse fellow… Moss was it…” Igni’s gruff voice cut in, though even on his stony face it was evident he was well and truly troubled. Nicole was completely absent, besides helping with the formation she had been utterly silent and still the whole time, wearing the same expression as Igni except perhaps a dozen times worse.
“PAUSE THE TESTING, WE WANT TO BE SEEN JUST FOR THIS MOMENT!” Elder Aurelium declared, to the dubious looks of most of the other gathered cultivators and even some of the mortals. Still Cinnabar seemed to have understood, and even reduced as she was she demonstrated her unspoken authority by swaying the rest of the gathered group with a confident nod.
Practically crashing over his own feet he managed to push through the huddled masses in the crowd surrounding the entrance to the Lead Cave where the evacuation efforts were centred and managed to see his only two real friends. John was looking like a mess, mouth moving in slurring motions and eyes unfocused as he was practically half dragged along by Cobalt. Cobalt herself, upon further inspection, also was hardly in her best shape, eyes puffy and filled with enough coalesced regret that he didn’t need his psychic senses to see it in the slightest. Though perhaps that was expected considering her state the last time he saw her. They were moving rather slowly all things considered, like Cobalt was afraid moving much faster would break John. Considering the boy’s state right now he really couldn’t blame her for that at least.
“John! You idiot! What have you done!” Alexander yelled out, third eye wide open as he pushed his way through slightly behind Magni. A gaggle of thin children and teens, John’s fellow rats, tried to follow before being held back, in some cases quite literally, by some of the cultivators tasked with keeping this uneasy peace.
At this point, the two had made it close enough for enhanced hearing to allow some semblance of conversation back and forth. Magni was able to pick up a slurred. “I’lls be finsh d’wrry boot me~”
“Tell Aunt Cinnabar I haven’t forgotten my duties. It was a close thing, but my head is clear and I am back.” Cobalt shouted after taking a deep breath. “I am no coward, the consequences for my actions are my own, but here and now I am ready to take this stand!”
He would ask what happened later he decided, when John was lucid and Cobalt willing to share details. For now, however, there was the matter of organising the evacuation of over a thousand through a hole in the wall which could barely fit one person at a time in just over two hours. Magni would pray to the Spirits, but they never cared to answer him before.
Besides, he was just glad he wasn’t so alone here and now.