With supernatural speed, Talwar jumped into the air away from Izanagi’s attack. The black crescent passed harmlessly under the Second Dark Apostle. Izanagi swore loudly as his attack missed. Talwar seemed to barely put any strength into the jump, but he soared more than a dozen feet into the air.

As he flew, he reached into one of his pockets and produced a handful of ball bearings. Talwar whipped his hand and flung the ball bearings at Izanagi. There was a boom like thunder and a number of almost-simultaneous cracks as the ball bearings struck the pavements and embedded themselves into the asphalt.

Izanagi was hit by several ball bearings, and he fell to the ground. Blood seeped from a number of fresh wounds caused by the supersonic iron balls.

Tantalus ran to catch up with the Second Apostle. He moved with the intention to close to melee range. The Captain sprinted past Izanagi as the man in the demon-mask wheezed and rolled onto his stomach.

The Captain’s approach was cut short by a crack as a high-caliber rifle bullet ricocheted off of the ground only a few feet in front of him. He managed to trace the source to the roof of a nearby building. The Deluvians in the nearby buildings had begun to return fire.

“Caligo,” Tantalus chanted as he reached a hand out into the air in front of him. A thick haze of smoke emanated from his hand, and a cloud soon appeared between Tantalus and the standing Dark Apostle. Moments later, every Revenant present cast the same spell. The effect of these five spells cast in tandem was a large spherical cloud of white smoke.

Tantalus ran toward Izanagi and helped him to his feet. Izanagi had clearly been severely wounded by the attack. He had been struck in four separate places, and each wound was bad enough to kill a normal person.

“Run if you want, but it won’t help you!” Talwar’s screaming voice could be heard over the thrum of battle. “You killed the merciful Apostle, now there’s nothing stopping me from slaughtering you all!” Talwar's sentences were punctuated by rapid-fire gunshots coming from the same direction as his voice.

The two Revenants hobbled away from the source of the shouting. Bullets zipped past Tantalus and Izanagi as they retreated. A bolt of lightning streaked in front of them, and there was a dull thud as some heavy body fell invisibly to the ground. Tantalus crouched down in order to make himself a smaller target, and he brought Izanagi painfully to the ground with him.

Through the symphony of loud, discordant noise, Tantalus was able to pinpoint the origin of the incoming gunfire. Rapid semi-automatic gunshots were coming from the direction of the Second Dark Apostle. Tantalus recognized the gunshots as pistol rounds, and about two dozen shots rang out before he heard the telltale click of a hammer striking an empty chamber.

Captain Tantalus rapidly extracted himself from the tangle of Izanagi’s limbs as he turned back toward Talwar. His instincts formed from hundreds of hours in Ninth Oasis spurred his muscles toward the sound of an empty magazine.

He was already on his feet when his brain caught up to his body. Why was he rushing toward the Dark Apostle? His bullets had little to no effect, and any magic he used would probably be equally ineffective.

Before Tantalus reached the edge of the smokescreen, he heard a voice come from the direction of the Dark Apostle. This voice wasn’t Talwar’s, but Tantalus recognized it like he had heard it yesterday.

“Talwar, he’s still alive. We need to pull back,” the voice said with a tone dripping with equal parts anger and fear.

Tantalus strode out of the smokescreen with his Luger raised in a firing position.

With his vision no longer blocked by the smoke, Tantalus saw Talwar standing there with a Glock held loosely at his side. Talwar’s face was turned away from the smokescreen and toward a man who had not been there seconds before. The newcomer was draped in a grey cloak, and a modern sniper rifle - the kind which was invented in the late 20th century - was slung across his back. The cloaked man looked up, and Tantalus saw his face clearly.

The chaos surrounding them seemed to lessen to a quiet din as Tantalus lowered his gun. “Enzo?”

Enzo locked eyes with Tantalus, and his facial expression was that of a man who had just been caught at the scene of a murder. Surprise, shame, and fear were the dominant emotions on his face. Enzo’s shirt was unbuttoned, and Tantalus could see the mark on his chest: XIII. Enzo opened his mouth as if he was going to speak, but something stopped him.

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Instead, Enzo was engulfed in supernatural shadow as he broke eye contact with Tantalus. It was as if hundreds of ethereal hands had reached up from beneath the ground to cover Enzo and the inert form of Svenheim. Then the unnatural shadow receded, and the two Dark Apostles were gone, leaving only Talwar and Tantalus standing outside of the smokescreen.

“Did you hear that?” Talwar chuckled. “You can’t even assassinate one of us properly.”

In all other circumstances, Tantalus would have responded with a verbal barb. In that moment, however, Tantalus could do nothing but stare at the empty space where Enzo and Svenheim had been a moment before.

An annoyed look passed over Talwar’s face as he tapped the Glock to his own temple and said, “You know, this villain shtick gets boring if you don’t respond.”

Talwar’s knees bent for a moment before shooting towards Tantalus. The flagstone tiles under the Second Dark Apostle cracked as he flashed like a bolt of lightning toward the Captain of the West Gate. Within less than a second, Talwar’s fist was less than three feet away from Tantalus’s face.

At that moment, a curved blade emerged from the smokescreen behind Tantalus. The blade scythed through the air, timed perfectly to intercept Talwar’s deadly leap.

Talwar changed his trajectory at the last possible moment by striking a single, powerful leg into the ground. He went sailing over the two S-ranks and the smokescreen as a whole, becoming obscured from view after two seconds.

Izanagi finished his strike into nothing but empty air, though he had not applied Spatial Rift to the strike. He had delivered the swing with his usual vigor, so Tantalus could tell that Izanagi’s wounds had completely healed despite the bright red blood stains that still covered his outfit.

“Get it together, man!” Izanagi shouted.

With gargantuan effort, Tantalus brought himself back to the present. A million thoughts shot through his head, and he wondered for a moment if the Enzo he had just seen had been a hallucination. No, Tantalus had experienced hallucinations before, and this one was different.

“If we kill Talwar, the other Deluvians will fall into disarray,” Tantalus told Izanagi, recalling a piece of information that Riemann had shared with him. Tantalus did not mention the presence of Enzo, however.

“Greycloaks!” Tantalus shouted to the unseen soldiers within the smokescreen. “Fall back to the train and set up a perimeter! Set up a smoke screen as you go!”

With that, Talwar’s leaping body arced over the smokescreen and landed about twenty feet in front of Tantalus and Izanagi.

Izanagi started laughing. It was a grim laugh that portrayed the feelings of a man who was quickly coming to terms with his own bad fortune. The laugh was not without mirth, however, and Izanagi seemed to almost enjoy the situation he found himself within.

“So, I guess we’re taking the rear guard, then,” Izanagi chuckled. He removed his sword's scabbard from his belt and dramatically cast it to the side.

“Unfortunately,” Tantalus smirked.

Talwar, the Second Dark Apostle of the God of Machines, looked at the two Revenants standing in front of him. He seemed to perceive the whole situation as a big joke. Who were these people, and why did they think they could beat a Dark Apostle?

Talwar looked down at the Glock he held in his hand. He dropped the handgun dismissively and said, “Seriously? Do you really think you two can kill me by yourselves? How about this? I’ll tear you two apart with my bare hands, and then I’ll move on to the rest of your army.”

Another singular figure emerged from the smokescreen. Pixie, grasping her shoulder in one hand and a gnarled wand in the other, stepped beside Izanagi. She had torn her tattooed sleeve off, revealing that she had used about half of the wand’s charges.

“Sorry I was the only one who could make it, Captain. The others are busy fending off the other Deluvians,” Pixie said.

With a look of equal parts offense and respect, Tantalus said, “I told you guys to retreat back to the train.”

“With respect, sir, FullDan said, ‘that crotchety old bastard is being stupid, go reinforce him,’” Pixie smiled.

“Yes, yes, very cute,” Talwar interjected with an annoyed look. “You’ll be singing a different tune when I…” Talwar paused for several seconds. The three Revenants considered launching an assault during this brief moment of hesitation, but none of them dared to make the first move against such a fearsome opponent. Talwar grabbed his head in an expression of fatigue. “God, this sucks. I don’t want to do this, you know, but I have to. If we don’t bring the hammer down now, you’ll kill all of us. You’ll kill me. This is our only opportunity. You Revenants will just get stronger and stronger every day, while we Dark Apostles will stay at our current level of power. I have to do this! The others just don’t understand!”

As Talwar ranted, Tantalus mouthed the words, “Protect her,” to Izanagi, who responded with a quick nod.

Talwar buried his face in his hands, and Izanagi responded by shooting him in the head with his revolver. The bullet ricocheted harmlessly. In response to getting shot in the head, Talwar merely chuckled.

The Dark Apostle looked up from his hands. He stretched his arms our in preparation for the coming fight. “If it means anything, I’m sorry.”

For the briefest moment, Talwar crouched down. Then, like a released spring, he flew at the three Revenants.