I considered making a run for it. I had no idea what ‘Level’ my opponent was, or how their abilities worked, and even my best move had almost gotten me killed. But I had done a lot of running in my last life. I had made the decision to move forward no matter what, to seek my goals by whatever means or paths. To be like lightning.
Taking a deep breath, I thought about how the fight had gone so far. Point one, the Asshole had not reacted to my blows and did not seem to care about defence. Point two, they had some sort of energy weapon attack. Point three, they only seemed to uss that attack after I had attacked.
I thought back to my last blow, the time echo punch. It had hit, and there had been a light, and then I had chance to run away. The first time they attacked, I had managed to dodge, just had been hit by the shockwaves or the blast. My mind went to the glowing circles that dotted their body; when I had first seen them, I thought they were decorations, a part of the armour, but it was not armour, it was their body. I could see people wanting to decorate their bodies, but given that these replacement parts were apparently their cultivation equivalence, I found it difficult to assume they were mere decoration.
Looking down the hallway a hundred feet or so, it was difficult to make out the circles, and after a moment of looking I realised that it was not all because of the distance; the circles were no-longer glowing.
Energy cannot be destroyed, only changed or moved. The force I had applied to the Fullmetal Asshole had been purely kinetic, and unlike my own arm – which I had used Instinctively – they were not redirecting it back at me, as that would have blown my arm off, I was fairly sure. Which left either directing it elsewhere, or changing it. Was it possible that they were converting the kinetic energy into thermal energy and then using that to attack? It made sense to me. But it required... testing.
With a sigh, followed by another deep breath, I took off down the wrecked corridor again, avoiding glowing globules of molten metal as I ran. This time, the Asshole did move, though it was – insultingly – only to open their arms wide in welcome.
I was on them quickly, but this time I did not punch, merely laying my left hand gently upon their chest and I looked inwards, gripping the reigns of my lightning and forcing it to flow to, through and out of my prosthetic with a scream of tearing air and the sharp stench of ozone as the brilliant white lines came into existence and latched onto the metal of that made up the Asshole’s body. Knowing it was metal, I expected arc blasts from the flailing bolts, but none came. The body in front of me stiffened and flailed in slow motion, like an insect caught in honey. But that was it. Cutting the flow of power and pulling the arcing electricity back into my channels I danced back to reassess.
Back out of range – for what it was worth given the lack of any physical offense – I watched as the triangular irises of the lizard-bird's blue-on-gold eyes slowly focused on me. I could make out what I was sure was the equivalent of a grin on the scaled face and I ground my teeth in frustration. So far, the Asshole had simply ignored both of my trump cards, though at least it did not seem like my lightning was going to blow up the corridor. Looking at the jet-black metal body, I noted that the circles I had noted previously were barely glowing at all, like a dying coal.
It did not appear that Fullmetal could absorb all energy, or at least not electricity, but for some reason it still had not affected... and that is when I realised my mistake. Metal body. I looked down at the metal floor and would have said something disparaging but, but I was too busy trying to figure out what to do.
The replacement parts the lizard-birds used was not a result of complex electronics, no matter if they sort of looks like robots – or cyborgs – but rather mostly solid objects invested with energy systems. I had basically pumped one-point-twenty-one gigawatts into a metal bar, which had in turn conducted it into the metal floor, and likely discharged it into the ocean, or ocean floor, without ever passing near any of their living systems. I had not noticed, either because my shoes were insulating me, or because I was just a much shittier conductor than the floor, and it had taken the best route to get out of dodge. Either way, lightning was not going to work unless I could get my hands on his face, since the helmet was connected to his body.
The Fullmetal Asshole was definitely the hardest counter to my abilities I had ever come across; I could try my sword, but I had a feeling it would only result in more of the annihilating blasts. My mind raced trying to find a solution, but the only thing I had left in my repertoire was my arm, which could redirect force, but feeding a blast back into them seemed like a bad idea, and even if it could work, I had no idea how to do it. My Instinctive Precognition has figured it out, but I had a feeling that particular ability had cheated somehow. And that left my incredibly ineffective time-spikes.
The spikes had done nothing in my tests, and I had reasoned that the motivating force had to be within the field in order to cause the shearing effect, which meant that the only way to use it offensively was - in theory – to develop a moving joint and allow it to sever itself. I supposed it could also work on a heart, but that was a test that would have to wait, given the solid construction of my foe.
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With a tiny shrug and a flex of will, I pushed aura out around my left hand, as that was somehow easier given the increased strength of the field. I felt the world speed up around me as my over-all compression diminished, but I was still moving way faster than my opponent, though that did not matter much given his lack of attacks.
Running in, I ducked under the out-stretching arms to stand behind Fullmetal, before turning to... point my left hand at the figure’s black elbow. The Asshole began to turn, and I kept my hand pointed at the same spot, feeling like a very-fast-idiot. As they turned, I watched closely as the right arm began to move, rotating down at the elbow. Unfortunately, the arm did not sever. Either I had been wrong in my theory, or my spike had encompassed too much arm for it to be effective. I had a feeling that my theory was right, so I may need a more precise extension.
Growling in irritation, I gave a tiny shrug and leapt onto its back before they could fully turn around. Bracing my feet around their hips and hooking my arm around the black helmet, I felt for the eye slit and pushed my fingers inside. As my fingers squeezed in, I felt a pull. It started out so weak that I did not notice, latched as I was to Fullmetal. But as I became of the aware of the pull, it rapidly multiplied until I felt myself ripped free, unable to maintain my grip. I found myself falling backwards down the long hall-turned-well-shaft, my time-compression working against me as I fell faster than should have been possible.
Instinctive Precognition flickered to life and I reached out, catching myself in a doorway with a grunt of pain as gravity hammered me into the metal hard enough to bend it, and also hard enough to break my foot. A subjective second later, the gravity let up, dropping back to normal – if it being oriented sideways could be considered normal. Looking up at the black person now stood on one of the walls, I pulled out one of my few healing pills and swallowed it, knowing it would not get me back to normal in time to make a difference in this fight, but anything was better than nothing in that moment. Staring up, I felt vaguely nauseated as my inner-ear tried to make sense of it, but I knew what had happened. To that point, each of my constructed opponents had only used a single ability each, at least that I had seen, but it seemed that was no hard limit, and much like one of the first four I had fought, the Fullmetal Asshole could manipulate gravity. And to a much higher degree than the last guy.
I noticed Fullmetal glaring at me as they began to bash their hands against the nearest wall and stamp their feet. For a moment, I thought they were having a pretty embarrassing tantrum and I felt better, until I noticed the circles scattered around the black metal begin to glow brighter. Son of a bitch.
As I saw things, I had three options. I could run away with my tail between my legs – that sounded pretty good right then. I could try to cut something smaller with my time spikes. My last option was trying to electrocute them again. It had rattled the Asshole, given the response – the whole gravity thing. I was fairly confident I could get away and wait for the Construct to show up, or Paragon to return, I was loath to try that while I still had other options.
The circles were getting worryingly bright by the time I made my mind up to try my lightning again. I judged that I had fallen about a hundred feet, at at least fifty times as fast as I should have. Normally, I would be able to jump that without much issue, but with the broken foot, I had my doubts. It was possible, with my top speed and time compression, provided the Asshole did not turn the gravity back up, but it would hurt. And there was no guarantee I would be able to catch myself again if he did. Looking down, I saw the corridor stretching down into the distance and experienced a moment of vertigo.
Tearing my gaze away from the drop, I crouched, wincing in pain. I pulled my spike back in, as I knew I would need all the speed I could muster to make it. Gritting my teeth, I drove my body straight, not letting the pain stop me from giving it my all. The leap shot me almost directly up, the walls blurring as I travelled with every ounce of acceleration I could muster.
I covered the distance in a blink, overshooting the black figure significantly, but this time, the way my time aura interacted with travel helped, as I fell back down to land on their broad back with a crunch of broken bone. Fullmetal was already starting to turn their head as dropped, wrapping my legs around their waist and locking them as the pain burned though my leg. I wrapped left arm around their neck, using my increased grip strength to grab onto the collar of my robe, just in time as at that moment, I felt gravity shift again to send me falling down the other direction. I forced my fingers into the helmet as a giant hand seemed to grip and pull, but I was prepared, and I held on – just. Feeling scales, I abandoned my Path, and pushed everything I could out of my fingers and into bird-lizard's skull. I felt the body underneath me convulse and I smelled burning hair – feathers.
All at once, I felt the pull vanish and the world turn around me. To add insult to injury, I almost threw up on my foe as gravity righted itself and with a spark of Precognition, I managed to throw myself clear in time to prevent what had to be a thousand pounds of metal falling on my already damaged leg.
Laying on the warm metal, I heard a painful croak as the fallen figure spoke, their voice a broken imitation of what it had been when insulting me so beautifully.
"My... sibling will... kill you, frea-”
Interrupting them, I pulled myself back over to the body.
“Sorry, Asshole, but I really doubt that.”
Leaning down, I finally slipped my fingers back into the slit in the helmet and let fly another blast at my maximum strength, waving away the newly created smoke as the body shuddered under the electrical onslaught.
“Ow.”
I lay next to the body – or what I hoped was now a body – and let the healing pill and my own Lesser Regeneration go to work as I once again became aware of the facility around me booming and shaking. The intensity and frequency had definitely picked up, and I knew I would have to set off again as soon as my leg was fixed, but I really hoped that I did not run into any more difficult encounters.