HOLD… STILL!
Ethan wrestled with the flailing swordsman, Artorious of the Greycloaks, intent on nothing more or less than the absolute control of the latter’s brain.
[Hat {Legendary} Spirit Cores: 55 vs Artorious Pendragon WILL: 50]
Possession in progress…
I hate how they all put up a fight…
Artorious’ every swipe and slash at Ethan’s tip was only barely dodged by his flopping, hatty self. His fury was matched only by his frenzy, the spears of lightning tearing through the dark skies above, adding furious percussion to his grunts and roars.
What’s it take to bring this guy down?! Ethan screamed in his own mindscape, not even having Sys give him a sarcastic quip in response.
Possession in progress… 25%
The warrior blinked around the water-beaten battlefield in an attempt to throw off the demonic parasite that was currently whittling down his mind. He threw himself to the ground and slammed his own head into the rocks that had once belonged to Ethan’s troll host. Ethan felt each impact through his steely focus, slowly beginning to fade away in the face of more pain that was compounded by the fact that he’d only just felt his host’s heart stop mere moments ago…
Thankfully, this world’s System didn’t have a “Trauma” meter. Otherwise... I’d have more baggage than I came here with.
The swordsman stopped abruptly, and Ethan was almost certain that, in that moment of clarity, the warrior had just heard his voice.
Possession in progress… 80%
Go on, buddy, he goaded his foe. I’ve been through worse—in this world and another. Believe me, I can take everything you throw at me. So why don’t you give it up, lie down, and just fucking give in!
Possession in progress… 95%
COME ON! COME—
A sliver of laughter erupted from the swordsman’s throat. He stood calmly, coolly, without a care in the world...
“So, that’s how you do it.”
Possession: FAILED
…what?
The next few seconds were a blur to the demon hat: Artorious reached up, grabbed him by his eyeball, tore him free from his scalp, and tossed him across the grassy battlefield with as little effort as a dog tossing its chew toy aside. Ethan felt himself bash against the firm bark of an oak tree, shuddering against the raging storm, and then something small and sharp impaled itself just above his eye—a thrown knife that had just pierced his flappy tip.
Ethan slumped, wiggling around in vain. The knife had attached him to the tree. And he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Sys! he practically roared in his mind. How the hell’d that happen?
The response was as jarring as the sight of the one-armed swordsman rising, wiping the blood from his pale features, and beginning a menacing march towards his trapped prey:
Humanoid: Artorious Pendragon
WILL: 4980/5000
…he messed with me. He hid his true stats…
The ability is not a common one.
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But if any would wield it, it would be the LIGHTBORN.
Lightborn… that was this guy’s class, right? What was it? The ultimate badass or something?
“I can tell by your unblinking eye that you are confused, Archon,” the warrior said as he stalked towards Ethan. “That tells me you have not languished in this world for long. Argwyll can count itself lucky that you only committed a massacre of its most base creatures.”
Sys, Ethan asked, trying as hard as he could to shut up another one of the old geezer’s victory monologues. Just who the hell is this guy?
That information is designated [CLASSIFIED]
Ethan narrowed his eye to a hateful slit. Just whose side are you on here?
“Frustrated?” Artorious asked him. “Angry that your life had such a short expectancy? Good. Let that fury be the knell that summons you to hell.”
Fuck… just do me in now, dude. Spare me the fucking rhymes…
As the storm reached its apex above, and thunder announced the raising of Artorious’ silver blade, the warrior spoke what he believed were the final words Ethan would ever hear:
“Know who it is that brings the End. I, Sir Artorious Pendragon, am the solution to you and all your vile species. Let the screams of the Archon echo through the night, and let the end of your life be the end of all your kind.”
…my kind?
Another javelin of lightning signaled the final thrust of Sir Artorious as he plunged his rapier right into the eyeball of his trapped foe, and Ethan looked at the silvery tip of the blade that was to be his final sight...
…or at least, it would have been, if the blade had not instantly shattered into pieces as soon as it made contact with his pupil.
The silver rapier’s fragments scattered harmlessly to the ground, and Sir Artorious Pendragon, Lightborn of the Greycloaks, stared into the eye of his foe with just as much surprise as Ethan had.
Gotta say, that really puts a dampener on your whole ‘savior of the world’ schtick you had going on there, huh?
Artorious’ unblinking stare of stupidity was enough to bring Ethan back from his life having just flashed before his eyes.
Looks like things won’t be so easy for you after all, eh, old man?
The swordsman looked down at his busted blade with nothing but abject confusion smeared across his face.
“That is… new.”
He trailed off, shaking away whatever thought had just entered his mind. Meanwhile, Ethan’s eye caught something behind the smarting warrior that would have brought a smile to his face if he had a mouth to smile with. Or a face to wear that smile.
“It matters not how I kill you,” Artorious growled through his dried, scarred lips. “If I have to beat you to death with my bare hands, so be it.”
Only one small problem there, champ. And that’s the weird-looking girl that’s currently aiming a staff at your back.
Before the swordsman had a chance to lay a pale finger on Ethan, he felt the impact of something strong and cold against his back. He whirled, hands raised and ready to demolish his new opponent, before staring down at his feet and watching a creeping block of ice travel up them before he had a chance to blink away.
His eyes flew to the spot by the bushes where his assailant had just emerged, both her small hands clutching a wooden stave tightly before her.
“Er, um—y-you should cool… cool up?”
Another voice thundered from the bushes behind her.
“It’s cool down, Fauna! Sheesh… finally you’ve got a chance ta say a badass one-liner to the Lightborn himself and you go and muck it up!”
“I—I-I’m sorry, Tara! Really, I am! It… it’s just that this is a very tense moment for me!”
“For you? What about the Archon!?”
Ethan listened to this interchange with an eye totally unblinking in disbelief. Then he watched as the two speakers came into the gradually growing light of the dawn: two young women, probably no older than eighteen by their sprightly steps. The staff-wielding girl wore a long, flowing dun robe with a hood—through which two long, floppy white ears were poking out. The other girl emerged with the grace of a practiced dancer, somersaulting from the bushes and landing on her long, lithe legs with supreme confidence. She stood beside her friend, resplendent in a tank top and ragged short shorts, her dark skin glistening against the rainswept environment. Then she shuddered, twitching the two cat-like ears that framed her face, her whiskers scrunching up as though she were about to sneeze the whole forest down.
“A Minxit and a Hopla,” Artorious growled from within his cage of ice. “Really?”
The cat-girl leveled a short blade at the frozen warrior. “That’s right, Mr. I’m-the-savior-of-humanity-Lightborn! Take it all in. Get a good look at the hybrids that have come here to end your legacy before it begins!”
Silence reigned in the forest then, broken only when the cat-girl called out to someone over her shoulder.
“Klax? Um… he doesn’t seem intimidated.”
Another voice—one much more gruff and somber—answered her back.
“That’s probably because he could kill us all with little more than a look. We can’t all be as lucky as the Lightborn.”
Before Ethan’s eye, a lumbering wolfman then appeared from his hiding place, a V-neck toga adorning his heavyset frame. He seemed far less human than the others. Whereas their faces still bore the features of humans, his face was framed by a mane of wild grey hair and a set of flaring nostrils.
What the hell is happening here? Ethan murmured.
They have come, Ethan.
I must admit, I had my doubts.
Indeed, they may simply lead to your torment being prolonged.
Still… the fact the Lightborn’s weapon broke might mean that this is no coincidence. Kaedmon works in mysterious ways…
The three hybrid humanoids watched as cracks began to appear in the ice block that encased their foe—for he was their foe, that much was obvious even to an outsider like Ethan.
What was not so obvious was why they were here for him.
But whatever the reason, he thought. I ain't gonna turn the help away. And they might just have the answers that Sys can't give me…