I’m ordering my undead around. This situation is too good for my side to let it slide.

Together the elementals were too strong, able to push all my undead around. Now that they are separate…they are not weak at all. But, they are definitely easier to contain.

And they clearly know it too. They are trying to meet up with each other, forming groups and then rallying towards their leader. I keep commanding my undead to close gaps and stop them.

A group of about five or more undead is strong enough to not let a single water elemental push them around too long. Meli and her soldiers are doing quite well, her skills let her penetrate deep into the elementals and infect them with necrotic ash. All she has to do is hold tight and not let them overwhelm or push her too much.

Merlin and his mages are also doing quite well. Quite a few of them can use some rudimentary ice spells. More importantly a lot of them are able to copy cast spells from others, the strongest are able to copy spells directly from Merlin, at roughty his power.

Which is to say, all around Merlin there are ice sculptures. The exact status of elementals is a little bit weird, many manges argue that they are not ‘alive’ at all, just ‘animated’.

Regardless, these water elementals are quite deanimated, the undead vision is able to see that.

Which is wonderful. I have read of water elementals that were actually able to incorporate the Water cycle.

Meaning, if you froze them they would still function perfectly. If you evaporated them they would become mist, vapor or cloud elementals. If you threw mud at them like my undead are doing they would just become mud elementals, and so on and so forth.

I even heard of specialized assassin water elementals. They would engulf you in their bodies and then evaporate, draining you of all your body heat in the process…that gives me some ideas. Later.

The battle seems to be going pretty well. I also have some other undead on the sidelines, just in case something happens they can jump in. Bob and Gorger are there, they have catched some runners.

Gorger ate his, and Bob tried to drain his elemental like a vampire. And then he actually vomited the water out, which is...interesting? The taste was apparently quite bad.

But really, all of these things are just the sideshows. The real thing is happening at the center, or close enough to the center.

Stinger is dueling the water leader and its horse. I even have Merlin freeze tag any elemental coming too close to it, just so they don’t interfere.

Stinger is getting her ass kicked. Granted, she’s not getting grounded into bits, her undead constitution and body are very strong. But she’s learning a lot, and seeing her weaknesses, weaknesses she didn’t even know she had.

For example, her fighting style always had some showy flips and twists. The reason she was able to do that was not only the fact that shes was fast as fuck, that her undead senses did not make her woozy, and more importantly, that she understood the physical body instinctually.

Stinger has a strong instinctual sense of how bones work, that is to say she can look at one opponent and see how their body should and should not bend. Up until now she had not even realized it. She had not realized how deep this sense is ingrained in her, and how important it is to her fighting style.

Well, she’s learning now.

The elemental whips at her with its giant worm arm thingy.

Stinger dodges by jumping over it. A watery fist comes at her midair. {Dodge Kick}, {Dodge Step}, Stinger spins in the air, her head going backwards, dodging the punch.

The punch keeps coming towards her face, the watery limb extending. It hits her right in the face, her head spikes into the ground, skull first.

The water elemental does not have bones, it doesn’t even have flesh technically. Its limbs can shrink and extend at will. And this commander is quite proficient at kicking ass too.

The water horse rears, its somewhat amorphous body transforms into a more defined vision of a horse.

With two gigantic hooves, the horse stomps on Stinger. Her {Iron Arm Block} allows her to take it without too much damage.

Then the hooves melt, their form changes back into conventional water. The horse grabs her and lifts her up, before slamming her back into the ground.

She is able to free her legs. The elemental slams her on the ground, she falls on her feet. Her knees bend under the force of the slam, but do not break.

She abruptly opens her arms with {Counter} and {Power Strike}, breaking the hold of the horse. The water woman punches her again, this time the blow sends Stinger flying away.

She is shot back like a bullet. She tries to stop herself and plants her feet on the ground.

The momentum, however, is too big. All it does is make her spin erratically, and now she’s being ragdolled into the ground. The elemental commander does not follow after.

I see it glowing, it starts weak, but gains in power every second.

Stinger finally stops. She’s on the ground on her knees and starts punching the ground in anger.

I can feel her emotions vividly.

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They are so…raw. Her frustration and anger rise like jet flames.The elemental commander stops glowing, and starts shooting streams of water at Stinger. I tell Kaiman to help her.

The first one she dodges by rolling on the ground. The second hits her right in the skull, the force of the stream so strong Stinger is lifted from the ground. A third jet of water is coming, right at her sternum, she is going to be hit midair.

However, something else is coming in her direction. A giant ball of mud.

The aim is perfect, the ball falling just in front of her, the beam hits it and immediately loses much of its power.

The elemental stops shooting and stares at the thrower. Kaiman stares right back, in his dinosaur-like form. His tail slaps a nearby elemental, flattening it against the ashen ground.

Asterion throws a ball of necrotic mud against the commander, covering for Kaiman.

Kaiman’s tail end shifts, becoming something like a blender or a mixer. It then… mixes the elemental with the ash, killing the thing for good and making more ammunition.

It shifts again, turning into a spherical bucket form. Kaiman shoots the necrotic payload, all around him the undead are working together to make more mud.

The necrotic mud sails through the air. I can tell it’s not going to score a hit. It’s too slow, its arc too obvious.

The elemental slaps it out of the air before it can reach her. She then shoots back, hits Kaiman… and doesn’t do much at all.

Kaiman heard what I said, and he seems very big on criticism, because his form immediately shifts.

Just a bit though…he still looks like an ankylosaurus, but somewhat curved?

He runs into a circle, like a… actually, exactly like a dog chasing its tail. His tail dips, it catches a bucket-load of mud.

He spins faster, and then hurls the payload. It is launched in a straight terrifyingly fast line.

I can see the spikes in its body shifting as he spins. They become more fin-like and—wait is he trying to make his body more aerodynamic?

The new projectile is fast, very very fast. Not fast enough though, the elemental dodges, though it comes very very close. I tell Merlin to take some shots at her too.

The undead can all communicate with each other without words, in moments like this, the ability shines.

I do not need to tell them to do this, they do it on their own.

Kaiman, Merlin and Asterion both start to shoot at the elemental in sync, trying to make sure she cannot dodge all three attacks at once.

Asterion also changed his throwing form. One of his abilities is {Solid Diver}, it increases his speed when diving, in this case into the ground with {Stone Swimming}, which lets him enter into stone as if it was a very dense liquid.

His {Earth Glider} gives him increased mobility and speed inside the stone. In fact, he is actually faster swimming under the ground than on it.

He goes under the ground and spins, somewhat like Kaiman. His spin however is somewhat like a fish, diving deep and then rising up, as he does he uses his momentum to grab some mud and throw it at the elemental.

Sometimes he mixes it up, actually jumping out of the ground, into the air and then throwing the mud at a downwards angle.

The elemental responds in kind, dodging and attacking the mud. She starts using her whip to defend against the ice beams of Merlin.

In the middle of this water-mud war with a side dish of ice, lies Stinger.

I can feel her anger, her frustration melting away as she watches this. Those emotions are being washed away, like rust on a blade.

They are showing what’s truly underneath.

Pride and resolution. She gets up as she stares at the elemental. Seeing it in another perspective. Stinger is shorter than it, quite a bit.

This showed in their battle, the elemental is now clearly more at home now. Dodging the attacks and shooting back.

It dawns on Stinger that just like herself, the elemental was fighting an opponent it wasn't accustomed to. Its moves are much more fluid, like a dancer, just a very violent one.

I feel something else coming from Stinger. An understanding.

She runs towards the elemental. She talks to her allies, their implicit understanding of each other letting them make a quick battleplan. It’s a pretty simple one too.

As Stinger approaches Kaiman shoots a mud ball at an angle. This one actually gains an arc, going up it keeps up with Stinger. And then it goes down.

The elemental clearly gets that they are planning something. It watches the mudball falling, keeping pace with Stinger.

Stinger jumps, a mud ball thrown straight by Asterion hits her from behind. She knew it was coming, her jump and the angle of the ball are perfect. {Dodge Kick}, {Dodge Step}.

The ball pushes her towards the elemental, her skills increasing the momentum into a sharp kick. The elemental moves to counter, yet at that exact moment, Merlin shoots her with an ice beam.

The ice beam is not nearly as lethal to the commander as to the other elementals, still it does enough, it slows her down. The kick lands, cutting a part of the elemental, together with the mud ball.

Stinger punches upwards, her fist meets with the falling ball Kaiman shot. Again the kick skills activate and she falls into an axe kick.

The elemental moves back and attacks with the whip. Stinger lets her, he jumps, just a tiny bit off the ground. A watery fist comes.

Using her block she meets the whip at an angle. She uses all her willpower to make sure her arm is unbending, unbreakable. The whip hits her and she goes along with it, her whole body moves together with the attack, slightly shifting her whole body.

The fist meets her face, yet she’s ready. As the fist hits her head she moves, her head and body using the attack to propel her backwards. Again she uses her kick skills, she spins in the air and kicks the arms, taking a bit out of them.

Merlin’s beams and some mud hit the elemental. She’s not Gorger or Kaiman or even Bob, she is not heavy. When she stands against attacks, it's all about her skills and positioning.

But really, why stand against the attacks? Why can’t she just—the elemental attacks her. A punch with all of its power. It clearly understands that it will be slowly grinded to death with Stinger here.

Stinger sees the punch coming. She moves. She uses {Dodge Kick} with her left leg and {Dodge Step} with her right leg, the left leg going forwards, the right one backwards.

Her fist rises into a palm. {Iron Arm Block}, {Counter} and {Palm Shield} working together. The attack hits, she goes along with it, letting it push her backwards, furthering her momentum.

She is too far for a body hit. So she just attacks the water limb. She uses {Stinger Jab}, {Flicker Jab}, {Power Strike} in conjunction. A large volume of the limb explodes.

She continues, not reason to slow down. She uses her own momentum to carry her forwards. Her fist has passed the limb, so she uses her elbow.

She uses her kick skills to keep spinning. She turns and hits the limb again with her other elbow, then whips it with her fist. All in one movement. Then it clicks.

{Chain Attacks}, {Relentless Assault}

to

{Flowing Water, Howling Gale}

Each attack in quick succession increases damage and speed of all attacks in the chain.

{Dodge Step}, {Dodge Kick}

to

{Whirlwind Kick}

A greatly accelerated kick, useful for strong attacks, movement and dodging.

Unyielding Zealot Level 25

{Undead Fist}

to

{Negative Flood Punches}

All attacks absorb the opponent's life energy, transforming it into necrotic energy. Each successful attack increases your own necrotic energy, increasing all necrotic mana abilities.

{Iron Arm Block}, {Palm Shield}, {Counter}

to

{Necrotic Gauntlets}

Create gauntlets of necrotic energy around your arms. Gauntlets charge up in power when intercepting physical and magical attacks.

Death-Torrent Fists Level 25

{Stinger Jab}, {Flicker Jab}, {Power Strike}

to

{Death Sting}

Strong attack that increases length and elasticity of a limb to deliver a piercing spike of necrotic energy

Gained {Piercing Lightning Blow}

Shoot out a powerful, very short lightning bolt with an attack.

Stinger immediately tries out her new attacks. {Death Sting} ad {Piercing Lightning Blow} deal heavy damage to the water commander, then Merlin strikes with his beams. In a few movements, the leader is dead. For a second she felt sad, she wanted to truly stretch out her new abilities.

Stinger looks around, cracks her knuckles, and decides she has plenty of punching bags to try out her new abilities.