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Chapter 8

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RE:DUEL

Avalacia and Royce's blades slammed hard against each other. Their faces came close; soft and young, hard and old. Two complete opposites. Two separate factions. Two fighters condemned to eternal lives on the battlefield, and lives that would be forever intertwined.

Her eyebrow twitched at the thought of it.

"Avalacia Baphomet. How good to see you." He grinned slightly.

She pulled her blade away, swung twice as she approached, pushing him backward toward the landing pad.

Royce gave one overly heavy swing at her sword. His plasblade shattered her sword instantly.

Her gun instantly swapped into her hand from out of nowhere.

A [Quickslot]? Impressive!

Royce spun the saber. Ava's glowing shots echoed through the smoky village as they bounced from his blade. He was too quick, too nimble... Too high leveled.

What happened to my Level 99!?

The Paladin burst forward on a gust of wind. His blade swept.

[Success]

She bowed right beneath the blade, spun a backflip kick for his jaw.

[Success]

But Royce must have succeeded his own Reflex Save, easily taking a step back to avoid the special attack.

"You know this fighting will go on forever, don't you?" he asked, swinging his sword a few more times.

Ava danced around the swings. "I know." Then she got close, pressed her gun into his blade to push it away, locking it at a bad angle between the grip and the barrel. "I think I kinda like it."

PSHOW.

The crackle of a shot from her pistol, cut short by the pistol's destruction by a quick rush of his blade.

"That's an impressive blade you've got!" Ava smiled as she skittered away, getting distance. "Link it for me?"

"You'd love that, wouldn't you?"

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

"Uh, yeah?" She shrugged. "Why do you think I'm asking?"

A stray soldier rushed her with a [vibrosword]. She grabbed him by the jaw, twisted his wrist around painfully to disarm him. Then she wrapped both of her arms around his head and neck, made a sickening snap!

The [vibrosword] was hers. She quickly struggled into the inventory management;

Quickslot Vibrosword [Empty]

But then Royce was upon her again. He lunged forward with immense, unquenchable speed. His blade came down.

THWACK!

It was Rié who stood over Ava, her wooden bo staff holding the plasma blade away.

Royce's eyes went wide. They both pushed, knocking each other back. Rié and Ava fell over each other, Royce kept his balance without even the appearance of a struggle.

"How did you do that?" Royce asked, tilting his head.

But Rié was quick to her feet, spinning her staff once again.

"[Unbreakable Staff of The Endu]"

The stat sheet appeared on Royce's HUD. Indeed, a weapon without hardness, without HP for itself. An indestructible weapon.

Impossible. I'll break it!

Ava launched up, appropriated the staff from Rié, then stood before her with a confident battle stance.

"Oh? Are you proficient with such a weapon?"

"Come at me and find out!"

He complied. Their distance was once again separated in an instant, their weapons clashed again and again through clatters and sparks and flares of bright plasmatic light. Royce kept a stern gaze, did not show his dismay. Ava showed her fatigue, though she tried to hide it, and found her teeth gritting more and more with every strike.

But it would only take one good blow from the old Paladin to kill her. It would only take one opening, a single sliver of time in which Ava would reveal a gap. And with such an uncomfortable weapon, it surely wouldn't take long.

Seiko scrounged to her feet. Her whole HUD was flashing a blinding red, a color adjacent to blood. She clutched her aching head, stumbled over rubble, through a blurry mess of dark shapes and colors.

Her eyes began to focus once she'd exited the hut, once the morning sun was pointed directly at her like a spotlight.

And then she saw them. The blonde soldier woman from the crash-landed ship, striking defensively, moving nimbly like a cat, like a dancer around the giant Paladin. Paladin Royce. He found me. I remember, I remember...

She almost threw up under the strain of the memory.

Her whole body eased as though a calming drug was suddenly injected through her veins. She braced her hand up against one of the last remaining beams of the shattered hut, stared off at the duo.

I have to help her. She came to help me... I can't let Royce kill her.

And Seiko drew her plasgun. Her brow furrowed. Her face grew stalwart.

"Wait..." muttered Zark, pulling at Seiko's pantleg.

She jumped back in alarm, nearly collapsed from the fright of it. "AH!"

He snickered slightly from beneath the wooden detritus. His smile fell as he planted his cheek to the dirt, looked longingly at the fight off in the distance. "You can't take them. Either of them, let alone Royce. Look, even Ava is struggling to keep up."

Seiko watched. "That's why I have to. I can't let her die for our sake. It was my choice to donate your ship to the colony, it was my choice to call for a pickup."

"I would have had to call anyway..." He let out a wretched, dying cough. "I'm stable. But if Royce wins..."

"We'll all die." Seiko nodded. "And again,

that's why I have to go."