----------------------------------------
Jace jumped down into the demolished building, sliding down the now-sloped-inward roof, and coming to a stop right in front of the cybernetic warrior who had the icy-blue Nebula symbol on his left hand. Slashing across the torso, he frowned as he saw the blade did cut – but no [Rending] crimson bleed. The deep purple of the slowing micro-singularities did appear and begin to spread.
The figure cursed before their chest opened up and an enormous, area-of-effect blast that encompassed the entire collapsed building exploded outward. Priam’s barrier almost instantly spiderwebbed with cracks, but still held. Jace seized the moment of weakness from the cybernetic warrior’s torso being exposed, stabbing his blade into the center of his chest before ripping it up and through the head.
Despite having his body partially sliced in half, the figure’s arms shot up to wrap around Jace and hold him tight. “You’re going to regret that,” he growled through a heavily synthesized, robotic voice. Jace saw the icy-blue begin to build once more.
Oh hell no! Jace flexed his arms to make just a little bit of wiggle room, slide out of the man’s grasp, but then felt his instincts propel him to turn about-face. A pair of silvery-white, bone blades were caught on his raised weapon, and skittered off of the angled block with a screech. Jace could feel the heat of the bright, red light lining the weapons.
“I can’t see him!” the cybernetic warrior behind him shouted.
The woman unleashed a frenzied assault as her skin shifted and peeled, the flesh warping unnaturally as more bone-blades emerged and continued the assault. It took all of Jace’s prowess to keep her at bay, and he began to push her back, scoring hits that bled and spread the slowing, purple miasma. Dark Matter Mending (Rank 4) [Vampiric], he thought. He could feel the fortifying renewal sitting dormant, waiting for him to suffer injury and kick in.
“Point blank!” She shouted.
Jace felt the icy chill behind him. Kicking out at the woman, he pushed her back just enough to buy him time to turn around and face the now-charging-up laser cannon. Let’s see how you like this! He shoved the tip of his sword down into the laser cannon. [Astral Annihilator] kicked in and shut down the Skill that was cooling the weapon, and it began to heat the air substantially.
Jace kept pushing the blade forward, and saw the laser sputter out. The cybernetic man growled out, “He took out my primary!”
“Detonate the core! I can take it!” The woman shouted as she moved to assault Jace once more, pulling all of his focus away to her.
“Charging!” The cybernetic warrior replied.
No you don’t, Jace thought as he jumped back – planting his feet inside the man’s still-open torso. Steel Gale Stride. The once per day Skill activated, and swirling, slicing winds appeared under him – directly inside the torso of the man. Jumping up, he got enough height to get out of the building, and looked down to see the now-blended, cybernetic figure’s Cosmic Power symbol sputter out.
“No!” the woman screamed out as she looked up at Jace and jumped after him.
Right into the invisible air blades.
She screamed in pain as she was sliced into ribbons, as if she had jumped into a blender. Her body tried to regenerate as it fell back down into the building, but Jace ran on the air down after her and unleashed a series of rapid slashes; applying the [Rending] and (Rank 5) effects of his Dark Matter Blade.
She let out a gurgle as she finally fell still, her Star symbol fading into nothingness. Ollie immediately dusted the both of them, as Jace used the lingering few seconds of running-on-air to escape the building’s collapsed interior and get back to the roof.
-----
[Stardust Acquired: 600]
[Stardust Split: 150]
-----
“They both had a lot of changes that increased their Stardust value,” Ollie stated. “She was highly mutated with biological factors, and he was more cybernetic than you. Most people are not that valuable in terms of Stardust.”
Jace scanned the rooftops as Quinn’s voice crackled into his ear once more, “You’ve got six incoming. I got access to cameras and started figuring out their deal. Black Hole Mage and Assassin, Planet Medic and Mage, Pulsar Mages – two of them. The Assassin has some type of stealth ability like you – I’ve lost them!”
Right. Deal with the Medic first, then the Mages. If the Assassin gets close, well, I have [Reflecting] combined with Hope’s Edge for that. He spotted the two Black Hole Aspirants with his eye’s telescoping capabilities. They’re the closest.
He began sprinting, leaping across buildings, as he made to intercept the pair before they could join up with their Nebula Alliance allies.
----------------------------------------
Will felt the wind on his face as he jumped across the roof. “Come on! We already lost two!” The Black Hole Assassin held his Moonstone Dagger in his right hand, and held up a small sphere of gravitic magic in his left hand. A means to detect any changes in the local gravity – his only means of finding this stealthed foe.
Only Pierce could spot him, and his Mage friend and ally let out a deep exhalation. “This is bullshit! We should’ve been at the servers, where we know they’re going to be!”
Stolen story; please report.
Will frowned, “You know those two Ascendants won’t like that. They said they didn’t want to worry about collateral damage. We’d just-”
“Get in the way,” Pierce finished. “I know, I was there too when they chewed us out for being so weak.” He shook his head, “Fucking hell, man. I don’t even kno-” his eyes narrowed, and he pointed with his staff. “Entropy’s Embrace (Rank 12)!”
A line of misty, ghostly-grey energy shot out from the tip of his staff and impacted something invisible a few buildings over. Will saw the energy scatter and disperse around a slight glimmer of gold. There he is. Will crouched behind one of the AC units on the roof, flipping his dagger in his grip to hold the blade down, and waited. He’ll come right for Pierce, and then I stab him!
Will could feel his adrenaline racing as he knew a powerful enemy was going to be trying to kill him soon. And he loved the thrill of near death. Come on! Let’s see what you’ve got!
----------------------------------------
Jace saw the beam and tried to dodge it, but it was faster than him. It slammed into Priam’s barrier, and the Pulsar Ward began to fragment as chips and bits flew off. This higher Rank is no joke, he thought.
“That’s raw entropy! If it hits you, even healing might not revert the effects!”
Shit. Jace jumped onto the roof that the Black Hole Mage was standing on and made a direct route for him. He was coalescing the same energy on the tip of his staff, and Jace was right about to get close enough for a hit-
Wham! He ran into something very pointy. He saw Priam’s barrier crack to the point it was barely hanging on. Backing off from the invisible point, Jace barely ducked out of the way of another beam of entropy – but it redirected mid-air and impacted him. Priam’s barrier shattered entirely.
This is what it’s like facing an invisible enemy, he thought as he cursed his inability to detect invisible, undetectable, and untraceable foes. It has to be the Assassin. How do I find him?
Jace instinctively raised his sword, and felt it partially catch a shorter blade. Just trust the Swordmage Stance instincts, he thought. It won’t stop the Mage using his Skills on me; but it’s something. Then, it clicked. This rooftop is only about fifty feet across – and my weapon is about five feet long. He grinned as his body reflexively deflected another slash. Raging Cleave (Rank 10).
He saw a phantom outline of deep crimson line his blade before extending fifty feet out. And he dropped to his knees; spinning in a circle with an enormous, cleaving, whirlwind strike.
----------------------------------------
Will jumped up as he saw the strike coming his way. Area of effect sword swings? Impressive. And he’s blocked every stab so far. Who the hell is this gu- He looked back as he saw that Pierce was not dodging. “Jump!” he shouted.
Pierce did so, and the slash went under him. “Get away from him!” Pierce shouted as he landed on shaky feet.
Will did so, back up to the edge of the building.
----------------------------------------
Jace didn’t feel the blade bite into anything except for the nearby AC unit – which is sliced in half. The Mage raised his staff and grey energy began to coalesce at the tip. Not enough time to get next to him! Jace reached down to his belt and grabbed four throwing knives – one in between each finger – and flung them at the Mage.
The first impacted a grey barrier; but then that barrier shattered as Jace’s [Astral Annihilator] applied to all of his bladed weapons. The other four knives found their mark in the man’s chest, and he went down as the crimson miasma spread across his body.
Something stabbed through his shield, and he felt no pain – only seeing the blood dripping from his wound. Reaching out, he grabbed the arm of whoever it was that had stabbed him. Keeping them close, he slashed down where he imagined an arm would be – and it appeared in his grip as he severed it somewhere above the elbow. Pulling the dagger out and throwing the arm to the side, he tried to activate Dark Matter Mending once more…but nothing responded. The hell?
He did not see the person he had injured – but the slight, crimson miasma dripped from them as blood splattered on the rooftop. There you are. Lunging forward, he unleashed a vicious series of slashes; left, right, cross-chop, stab – every hit found its mark, but the person he was hitting kept spinning with the blows and reducing the total damage suffered.
But the bleed continued to build, and after ten seconds of non-stop slashing as he advanced on the dripping trail of blood, a body appeared on the ground. Covered in slashes and cuts that oozed the crimson miasma before the deep, red blood spread out on the rooftop surface. “Dust them,” Jace ordered as he sucked in deep breaths from the exertion.
Energy-wise, he wasn’t very tired, and as he saw Ollie begin to convert the bodies to Stardust, he saw another three figures on a nearby roof – three mages with wand, staff, and scepter, respectively, raised high up. Oh, fuck me.
-----
[Stardust Acquired: 200]
[Stardust Split: 50]
-----
Spheres of crackling energy were floating above the three mages. One with the planet symbol held a sphere of fire, the two with the Pulsar symbol held spheres of light blue, shuddering force that Jace could only assume was magnetism.
“Your Cloak dropped!” Ollie shouted. “The Assassin must have had a Skill-sunder thing! All of your defensive Skills were deactivated!”
Jace glanced down and couldn’t see his Dark Matter Shield, the glow of his Cloak, or feel the curing power of his Mending. Wrath’s Embrace, Dark Matter Blade, and his constant Skills such as Energy Cost Reduction were still active.
Time seemed to slow as the three spheres combined and launched towards him. He knew he couldn’t move fast enough. Dark Matter Shield (Rank 3) [Reflecting], Hope’s Edge.
The Shield didn’t manifest. His weapon illuminated with the silver and gold dust…but his trump card was nullified by the Defensive-Skill sundering Assassin.
This isn’t good!
The merged sphere collided into his body, and he felt the horrible pain of crushing magnetism that crumpled his Steelstalker Sabatons and Ghostlight Grapnel Arm in on themselves.
His weapon quivered in his grip, and all of the throwing knives instantly shriveled into little spheres of steel. The micro-EMP charges, the lockpicks, the electronic lock breaker, his sliverscreen and the creds on it, his earpiece allowing instant contact with Quinn, his flashlight – all crushed into tiny spheres of their composing material.
Only his eyes, the sword, his armor, the Anathema Arm, his skin, skeleton, amulet and bracer survived intact.
But that was just the first effect of the magnetic sphere that collided with him. The second sphere was not dealing damage on its own – it was magnifying what Jace realized wasn’t actually fire. It was dozens of pounds of powdered magnesium – and if not for his Wrath’s Embrace, the pain would have surely incapacitated him.
Keeping his mouth shut, he shut his eyes to prevent the metal flakes from getting into any of his orifices – but they went into his nose and ears as the sphere encompassed him – and the second magnetism sphere pushed them onto his body.
His legs partially crushed gave out under his weight, and he fell forward; dropping his sword and catching himself on his Anathema arm as the constant, burning metal clung to his form.
“You cannot feel it but your vitals are almost flatlined!”
Jace nodded and grit his teeth. Survive for her. The instinct kicked in and drove out all other thoughts. Survive. Just survive.