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Neither of us needed to say anything. We bolted for it, and in the streets citizens scurried away from a fight taking place in the middle of the intersection. Cars stopped and turned away as fast as possible as massive growths of crystilare erupted and flowed across the road in massive, unstoppable bursts. The area folded into chaos—the epicenter contained our target of the night against the rest of my team.
I looked to Dori, who dutifully followed behind me. “Make sure all the citizens have evacuated,” I said. “I’ll keep our suspect away from the populace until the situation is contained. Once we’re clear, change and come in as backup.”
He nodded, a serious look on his face for once before he scampered.
I only managed to get as close as one of the crosswalks before I rolled out of the way of a speeding car, the security pilot functions taking over and forcing the driver off the road. Finally, Ale and Kelsey remained near one another, with Kelsey much more prepared than Ale with her spear in hand. Ale had lost his new gun already—curses. Charya kept at a distance, but she held her sword at the ready. Then, there was the matter of this new face…
Though traces of light swirled around him and his sword, ha, nothing hid his identity from me anymore.
The crystilare formed and chased away the citizens before it dissolved all at once, and the young man turned a cold gaze to me. “There,” he said. “Now I feel good about this.”
Striking was one word. Utterly bizarre, utterly…undead? Yes, rips and tears dotted his face, a body forced to hobble to life over and over again. Various parts of his skin appeared rubbed away and exposed the bare red flesh underneath. Patches on his face were most prominent, but I spotted a few on his cat tail that snaked out of the bottom of his coat. He possessed qualities of a cat hybrid human, with dark brown ears to match his hair, his tail sharing the same colour.
The red slit nestled within his brown iris bore into me a glare hotter than an inferno, though he covered his other eye with a white medical eyepatch that contrasted his brown skin tone.
His clothes also changed. He wore dark brown gloves, a black trench coat with a brown belt, and a similarly coloured pair of shorts. He donned long white socks and an old pair of slip on shoes that looked like they could had been white before, but were covered in so much dirt they now bore the title of being brown.
Did anger burn so brightly in his soul? Surely our interference only served to kindle the flames of rage sparked so long ago. Yet I would not shrink under his rage.
I licked my lips, tasting flecks of dust carried on the winds. The smell of rot only grew more powerful after his disguise faded, but I’d not let that deter me. He’d stand down now, or suffer the consequences
Yes. A true hero never wavered.
I pointed the tip of my sword in his direction.
“You will not take another life,” I said.
He sputtered and bared his teeth at me. Around him, crystilare jutted in and out of the ground in wild, uncontrolled clusters.
“Listen,” he began, and a formation shot out in my direction, rapidly forming and receding from the ground like a tidal wave. I side-stepped out of the way just in time, only to see two more headed towards Ale and Kelsey, along with one aimed for Charya.
“I’m not even going to try to convince you all,” he said. His hands glowed with light energy, though his focus appeared quite marvelous, as he manipulated the path of the crystilare without a glance back. It moved with or without his input. Rather, he threw himself at me with his sword. “Get out of my way, or you die!”
Luckily, my team did not disappoint. I bared my sword in a diagonal defensive position to force him back when he collided with me. Charya whistled, and a strong gust of wind wrapped itself around her out of nothing. In a few moments, the gust became strong enough to form the shape of a bird, which picked her up before taking to the air.
On her resume, Charya stated she was not only adept at Spirit Magic, but held three elemental spirits under her command. I only hoped she knew how to use them wisely.
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As for Ale and Kelsey, they both managed to get out of the way decently enough, but Kelsey stumbled and fell to the ground. She started to pull herself up, but the shot of worry that she wouldn’t be fast enough kept me focused on her.
I attempted to dart away from our suspect, but he used the distraction to push me off balance and to the ground.
Damn it all. I couldn’t afford to pay attention to her. I focused on the young man—a few crystilare fragments formed under me, but I rolled left to avoid the worst of it, though not without a slice to my leg. I didn’t have time to change into protective gear, so my caution would be of the utmost importance.
I formed a shield in front of me, and the sparse few seconds it took for him to hack away at it were enough for me to get back to my feet. The moment it shattered, I reared my sword back and slashed his face.
A line formed across his cheek and split open. You could see the inside of his mouth with how deep and clean the cut was.
Yet not a drop of blood fell, as if he were a doll.
I jumped back as he turned his attacks back on me. His strikes were frenzied, uncoordinated. If I could rile him up further, then surely I’d gain the upper hand. I hated resorting to dirty tactics, but his ability to attack the others with crystilare without even a glance weighed on my thoughts. The others may fall if I allowed our fight to drag out, then I would be forced to face his might on my lonesome.
He shifted tactics, jumping back and leaping forth again to put more power behind his slashes. To draw distance between us, I began to jump back as well while using weak shields, but the constant soul energy projection drained my stamina.
I played a pitiful game of cat and mouse, but it drew him away from my team as well. Still—still! I performed better than this, surely!
If not…
I couldn’t take it. I threw myself forward and took an awful stab to the shoulder when he jutted his sword towards me. I shut out the pain and tackled him to the ground, slammed my hand against his chest and fired a blast of energy right into him. He finally cried out in frustration, and focused his energy on prying me off while I caught my breath from conjuring the blast.
He pounded my face, to which I kicked at his ankles and bit his arm until he let go. The crystilare that shone so brightly in the distance suddenly grew dim, and so I conjured the strongest shield I could around me.
Armed with a look of disgust, he raised a hand and summoned a patch of crystilare under my feet. Opaque brightness blinded me, the pressure from the emerging crystilare much like the maw of a wild beast, with I as the prey fighting to free myself—luckily my shield held until the last second. The light could fight me no longer, and it shattered with a screech that pierced my eardrums, made them throb.
The undead man threw himself at me in a rabid tackle, to which I positioned my sword so it would go through his chest. It did not pierce all the way through; he realized what happened just in time and pulled back.
He fell on his behind—the two of us were in the same position, similarly weakened.
Yet—
No, a human wouldn’t recover quickly, but I—
The man moved. I lifted my sword and jabbed the tip to his throat, to which he managed to do the same to me. A stalemate, one I knew could change at any moment. I would not die, and he would not bleed, yet here we were. With these useless threats.
“I implore you, this is a fight you cannot win,” I began, and from behind me I heard someone cry out.
“Erna!?” Kelsey exclaimed.
“Don’t come over here!” I yelled. He rolled his eyes.
“Oh, shut up,” he said. “It’s not like you’d die if I cut your throat. Not like me.”
“Would you?” I said, and he clamped his mouth shut.
“Does it matter? You’re throwing me in jail either way. I’d rather be electrocuted to death than be your stupid science experiment.”
“Hah, I’m afraid I already might have an inkling as to what magical affliction has caused this,” I said, “but that is not the point. To slaughter innocent citizens, that is what I’m here for. I will bring you to justice, even if I must suffer for my goal.”
He scoffed, face pinched. Even I could tell rage radiated off of his very being. “You don’t know anything about this,” he said. “I’m doing something good. Stop me now, and—and…”
He swallowed. His grip on his sword grew tighter, and he dug the tip deep enough in to bleed. “We all just want to live quietly. But some of us don’t have that luxury.”
Bang.
A single bullet plunged into his chest from behind. He jolted, screamed as if he’d never experienced pain before and fell over. I ignored the burning ache in my throat and twirled my body around to kick his wrist. Another twist had me pin it to the ground with one hand while using a foot to keep his sword down. I reached into my pocket to pull out magic suppressing cuffs, which contained a charge of sedating energy strong enough to temporarily stop one’s magical abilities.
They were on his wrists, and the sword in his hand slipped into his body the moment they were applied, as if escaping. As soon as I restrained him, I was quick to turn my soul magic to the wound on his back, to heal the pain we had put him through.
But the wound refused to mend. I gave up upon realizing my magic held little benefit.
I could hear him panting in an arrhythmic fashion—how the shot affected him, how the chest wound hurt him when even getting his face sliced open didn’t, I didn’t know. However, that was not my priority.
Killer or not, every citizen deserved my protection by right of birth. What came after would be up to him, and the crimes he committed in the name of his so-called ‘cause’.