“LANCELOT!” Jack roared, releasing an arc repulse that blew apart the rooftops of the nearby buildings and sent the legendary knight flying.
Jack spread his wings, the feathers moving to impale the man only to be blocked by the black specter.
“Solomon!” The shadow spat, its back sporting tendrils of blood that acted as legs to suspend the man mid-air.
Jack inhaled, eyes focused not on the black knight that impeded him but on Lancelot smirking as he stood unharmed below with Roland at his side.
“GET OUT OF MY WAY!” Jack yelled. Supercharging a feathered spear Jack struck the knight down before enchanting his feathers with lightning and unleashing a storm upon his enemy.
Lancelot laughed, twirling his spear, which sparked each time it deflected one of Jack's feathers.
Jack activated energize, his body radiating with red lightning as he torpedoed into the earth.
“Fancy meeting you here,” Lancelot smirked, taking Jack's attack straight on.
The pair clashed, Jack's gunblade smashing down on Lancelot's spear.
“I'm gonna rip out your intestines with my teeth!” Jack roared.
Roland and his knight attempted to intervene yet was caught in the explosion of Jack's arc repulse.
“Ha! Now that's the spirit!” Lancelot yelled, using the force of the detonation to launch into the air and perform a flip before landing on a tilted street light. “Come Jack, show me a good time!”
Lancelot’s body now sported blue scales, his body almost reptilian-like as blue lightning danced around his body.
Jack grit his teeth, his heart pounding angrily with the air swirling in response to his will.
“Jack! Jack, you need to get out of there! The Solarus is about to fire!” Selfia barked, her transmission barely audible to his ears that pounded with his own heartbeat.
In the distance the citadel of gold floated, nearing the city as Selfia's fleet moved to engage.
“Damn it,” Jack hissed, sensing the swelling of mana.
“Jack, that thing is about to fire!” Sahaqiel warned, prompting Jack to soar downwards just in time to avoid the torrential flood of mana that smashed through the barrier of Selfia's command ship.
“SELFIA!” Jack called out, but he didn't have time to focus on the burning flagship crashing into the city.
Lancelot and Roland were upon him, the two pincering him just as the shadow moved to flank him from behind.
Shit! Jack ducked beneath Excalibur, his wings blocking Lancelot's gungnir while Ruby engaged the shadow.
Dodging Roland's attacks, Jack attempted to go on the offense instead, using his feathers to harass Roland while he dealt with Lancelot. However, this was proving to be a daunting task, although not as quick as his father, Roland's blade was damaging his feathers each time they made contact, not to mention his teleporting, armor protections, and enchanted gear were proving a nuisance to his skills.
Jack opened his mouth, unleashing frost breath at Roland while kicking off the ground to gain distance from Lancelot.
With three-to two-odds and Roland soldiers now racing out, Jack decided to retreat, at least for now.
To his assailant’s surprise, Jack's body started to emit smoke, the area around him rapidly blanketed by magical fog that hid his mana signature as he fled.
“Learning new tricks are we?!” Lancelot shouted, swiping at the space where Jack had been only to be greeted by a flashbang. “Fuck!”
Taking shelter in a nearby building, Jack used the ruined structure to act as both cover and concealment to hide his presence from the enemy.
Jack took a moment, listening in to the combat chatter on his COM-LINK as Admiral Skirita took command of the battle and moved the fleet to engage the Solarus.
“Selfia! Come in! Selfia!” Jack barked, attempting to raise the Queen on every channel he had.
“Oh my God! Stop yelling in my ear, you're making my headache worse!” Selfia snapped, the sound of screams audible in the background.
Jack exhaled, satisfied that Selfia was alive at least as he looked down at his arm that was bleeding but not healing.
“Problem, Lancelot is here,” Jack reported, ducking down to breathe for a moment as soldiers neared.
“Then get out of there, while I'm sure you can handle my brother I don't think you can handle both him and my father. Retreat if you need to, Jin and the others are still fighting their way through Lamperouge soldiers,” Selfia reported as Jack winced from the injury on his arm.
“I can't leave just yet,” Jack replied, “Not until Roland tells me what I need to know, I'll try and capture hi-”
The line cut off, signal interference it seemed.
“Fuck,” Jack muttered, cursing his own overconfidence while loading his gun blade.
Although they were the enemy they weren't stupid, the Roland soldiers were still Imperial guardsmen at the end of the day. Trained soldiers.
If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
“I told you you needed to be careful about that sword,” Sahaqiel chastised.
“Yeah well, kinda hard managing three attackers at once,” Jack retorted, clamping a hand down on the wound that hurt for once.
“Spread out and bring him to me!” Roland shouted, ordering his troops to search the building.
“Tsk, I need mana,” Lilith spat, materializing to tend to Jack's injury caused by the Excalibur.
Guess Roland can scheme too, Jack frowned himself before punching through the nearby sheetrock and pulling a screaming soldier through.
The man fired his gun wildly, hitting his comrades before falling to the floor as a dried-out husk.
“AMATEUR!”
Immediately Lancelot was upon Jack, stabbing at the latter with his legendary spear who ducked beneath the weapon limited in its use in such tight quarters.
“Did I ever tell you about your father Jack?” Lancelot goaded, unleashing a torrent of blue lightning that was met by Jack's red.
An explosion ensued, the positive and negative energies detonating the space between them.
“Uninterested,” Jack replied as Sahaqiel reported Roland on the move. Jack turned his free hand, cycling his gun blade that blasted the knight through a wall attempting to flank.
Through the crumbling debris, Jack could hear the usurper cussing, barely able to take in breaths from the large caliber round that smashed against his armor.
“Look at you Jack, four years and you've become akin to a war god,” Lancelot laughed, retracting his spear and adopting an expression that was almost one of pride. “If you weren't born to a bastardized race I could almost be proud to call you my son-in-law.”
Jack responded with a gun blade, the weapon unleashing a round that Lancelot immediately moved to deflect.
However, this proved to be a mistake as the moment he did the micro-proximity fuse within activated, unleashing the armythieum flechettes that detonated and pierced Lancelot's mana shell.
“GAH!” The golden knight screamed, stumbling before Jack's roar flooded his ears and he was tackled out of the building and into the rubble-filled street.
The knight swung wildly, attempting to counter yet Jack's feathers clamped down on the man's wrists and legs, pinning the Knight of One down so Jack could go to work.
It started with a punch to the face, one that sent joy and ecstasy echoing through Jack's body that propelled him to punch again. And again. And again. Each subsequent punch coming out faster and faster with his own mouth screaming obscenities as he beat the strongest Knight of the Empire in front of an army of witnesses.
Jack smiled, his face twisting with glee. “You once told me that I couldn't siphon you! That you had plenty of mana! Well, let's put THAT TO THE TEST!
Lancelot roared with rage, his body igniting with power that became Jack's as he slapped his palm over the man's face.
“Where is all that power?” Jack asked, his trauma transforming into catharsis as he forced the screaming man down into the dirt, pressing him into the earth despite his struggles.
This time Lancelot couldn't escape. Couldn't overpower him. Couldn't mock him! Couldn't taunt him! This time Jack was the one with overwhelming strength.
Jack's hand began to glow, searing Lancelot's face with fira as the mana mixed with Gehenna permanently scarred the Knight's face.
“How does it feel? How does it feel to be scarred!” Jack hissed, his eyes glazed over with madness as the knight’s screams of pain came to a halt.
“Jack! Behind you!”
Jack spun, rolling off his unconscious prey to avoid the blood spear and chains of light aimed at his back.
“I'm going to kill you both,” Jack said flatly as Selfian soldiers began to appear nearby. “But not before you tell me where my sister is.”
“Tch,” Roland let out, drawing his blade close, the once regal model image of a king coated in debris and dust.
Roland charged, slashing at Jack who calmly dodged and kicked the man in the shin, knocking him to the ground.
“Why!?” Roland screamed, rolling away just as Jack's foot came down. “Why must you impede me!? Would you deprive a nation of its future?!”
“You’re goddamn right I will, I’ll kill everyone that gets in my way,” Jack replied, firing a blast of mana that Roland deflected using excalibur. “Now tell me, where is the Black King? Where is my sister?!”
“And why would I tell a mongrel who is about to die that?”
“The only one who will be dying is you!” Jack spat, his anger rising but not enough to blind him to the shadow attempting to attack him that he shot with his gunblade.
Roland grit his teeth, rousing his mana.
“I have spent twenty years of tenacity and planning! I will not have it all undone by some sniveling mutt who could never grasp that what I fight for is mankind! For the world! For a better empire!”
Jack paused.
“Is this hell your definition of fighting for mankind?! Is kidnapping children, waging war against your own sister and conspiring with evil your definition of just?!”
Roland’s face scrunched.
“I could never expect you to understand!” Roland slashed his blade, shaving off a portion of Jack’s hair. “A puppet of the Black King! How dare you raise your arms to me! Arise o will!!”
Jack backpedaled, detecting a large influx of mana as the man's core shifted from purple to silver, all indications in the mana in his surroundings displaying the preparation of an anti-army skill.
While anti-army skills could cancel each other out, the truth of the matter was that the point-blank activation of such skills didn't so much as nullify the skill effects but implode them, mushrooming the mana in a condensed space rather than blanketing the field when two skills clashed in the open.
Roland was attempting to blast Jack away, perhaps hoping that with Selfian troops nearby Jack would hesitate.
He was wrong.
“Fine, if you want to throw down anti-army skills then let's throw down!” Jack barked, rousing his core much to Sahaqiel’s shock and reluctance. “I offer thee calamity-”
“You bastard!” Roland seethed, realizing that his gambit had been called, “Shine with Brilliance-!”
““Erase from my sight and begone,”” Jack and Sahaqiel’s voice twisted as one, the two reciting the skill as fast as Roland cited his.
“-Let all those unworthy know thy glory!”
““Let my winds carry the will of destruction and bring forth tragedy!””
“I, the inheritor, I, whose ambition knows no limit!”
“”I, O' guardian of the Gates, the avatar of freedom-!””
“I who topple mountains, I who am king! I who cast judgment!”
“DENY YOU! BEGONE! MANAWRAITH TEMPEST!”
“EXALTATION! JUDGEMENT SLASH!” Roland roared, the mana in the air suffocating to those unaccustomed as both he and Jack called upon the energy of universe to unleash their attacks with the world obliging their bidding.
Roland swung the Excalibur, the weapon of gold unleashing a beam of pure radiant energy that pierced the heavens. At the same time, Jack's skill manifested a hurricane at point-blank range within the city center, the storm conjured ripping away their surroundings.
All sound was lost. The light, drained. Every shadow gone as a brilliant explosion ripped the world asunder.