53.
Santi made it three steps before the alarm went off. A general hue and cry of shouts, horns blaring in the distance, as guards all turned and looked away from him. People began to clatter and run, racing toward the open entryway and leaving Santi practically alone courtside. He caught snippets of the conversations, but the primary driver of the new alarm was that invaders were entering the downtown area.
It could only be his team. Santi raced upward, not caring if what few guards remained were suspicious. Everyone else was running and he blended in well enough. He had to finish the fight off before his friends and family got hurt. If he could kill either the Apostate of the Alpha, he could break the stranglehold the groups had of the downtown region.
He cleared the stairs that were the lower atrium and skidded to a halt as a wide man with a white cowboy hat met his eyes. A machete hung on one hip and a whistle dangled on a string around his neck. The cowboy’s eyes widened in alarm as he straightened in shock, his hand grabbing for his whistle.
Santi rocketed into him, stabbing three times even as their bodies collided. They hit the smooth concrete and slid, slamming into a wall as the kill notification dinged in his head. Looking around, he saw no one had noticed the brief altercation. He grabbed the man and flung him over his shoulder and started jogging down the wide concourse. An empty bathroom wasn’t far away and he hurriedly dumped the dead man in it before he kept moving.
He had never been in the stadium before the integration, but had prowled its ruins once or twice. The VIP suites weren’t at the top of the stadium, but rather near the halfcourt line on the middle concourse. He stepped up his pace as the morph blade transformed into his trustworthy saber.
Santi continued to round the oval concourse and saw the suites. There was a single guard standing bored outside of the doorway. He turned and saw Santi and grabbed for the whistle he had on his lanyard. The guard was too far away for him to reach him in time and Santi cursed not having a lethal long range spell.
In that brief moment of distraction as his attention was fixed on the guard, he almost didn’t feel the hidden knife heading towards his kidney. He twisted and slashed outward, feeling the distinct clink of steel on otherworldly metal before steel lost. A dagger’s blade went tumbling away as the Apostate was left holding just the hilt of his knife.
The shrill screech of the whistle blew behind him and Santi knew this was it. His sister was behind that door and the only way he was getting to her was cutting the Apostate down. There could be no retreat now.
Duncan pulled out another knife from beneath his cloak of shifting shadows and feinted at Santi’s throat. Santi leaned back and slashed at him, extending the length of the saber at the last moment and slicing a thin cut along the Apostate’s face. A trickle of blood flowed out a moment later, staining the man’s face.
“I didn’t expect you to be this good, you know. You were just a fly in the ointment, something to be crushed before I continued our plans. I can’t fully explain my surprise when I found this place and saw you.”
Santi attacked, a blur of movement as he used [Air Shield] to prevent the assassin from dodging to the sides. The dual casting instantly caused a headache to sprout up, but he managed to slash a deep wound down the man’s thigh as he was forced to scrabble backward.
Duncan pulled a potion out of his cloak and drank it in a single, smooth motion. The cut on his cheek healed and the blood that had just started pumping out of his thigh stopped. He continued talking as if nothing had happened.
“I followed you around for a long time. Saw what you were doing. Similar to what we’re doing, less organized and with poorer leadership, but on the right track. That little spy you have, Daniel, he’s solid. No, that’s a lie, he’s good. You got a couple there who have the potential to be greats. The drive, the inner fire, the ruthlessness. You’ve helped them build good foundations too. Chloe will go far. As will Yessenia.”
Santi threw a half dozen cuts and jabs as fast as he could, but the Apostate managed to match him. Trying to outpace a speed build was foolhardy, but the moment his sister's name came out of the killer’s mouth, Santi’s rage boiled over.
“Even you, who was apparently quite competent but nothing special, have managed to rise to a level I couldn’t have expected. I should have killed you the moment I saw you, but I was intrigued. I thought maybe I could get you to side with us, bring your entire settlement over to our Lord.”
“Fucking die already!” Santi spat [Gust] caught the Apostate from behind and caused him to stagger toward Santi. He lengthened his saber into a true longsword and stabbed, angling upward to pierce the Apostate’s heart.
The man twisted at previously impossible angles, the longsword scraping along his ribs instead of his bowels. Duncan grimaced and hissed in pain as he rolled away from Santi, who was following trying his best to finish the man while he was standing and fighting him square.
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A door slammed open and a hoot rang out, echoing across the arena as the [Primus Alpha] ran toward them. It loped with its knuckles on the ground, coming at him sideways like apes did. Santi bit back a curse as he hit it with a [Air Manipulation] reinforced [Gust]. The howl of the wind in the tight confines was deafening and the alpha slid to a halt, its momentum drained away in the burst of gale like winds.
Santi turned back to the Apostate and spat out a curse when the man had disappeared. Santi had the edge against him in a straight fight, but with him coming out of the shadows, he was in much more danger of being knifed in the back. The primus hooted and a sixth sense had Santi dodging, rolling across the ground just as a hot dog cart came flying at him.
The heavy cart crashed against the concrete wall and crumpled. The primus picked up speed again, rising to its full height while pounding on its chest with its oversized hands. Each blow sent a ripple through the ground, softening it until it was like taffy.
Santi struggled to move as the primus charged him. He turned the morph into a whip and lashed out for the upper deck railing above him. The silvery tendril wrapped around it and Santi imagined spikes emerging from the whip to hold it in place while it condensed, pulling him free of the soft concrete.
The primus skated over the soft concrete, fists slamming into the space Santi had just vacated in a blast. It screamed in rage, scooping its hand into the gooey substance and lobbing it at Santi as he hung in the air, dangling from the rail. The concrete lengthened and became spears as they split the air toward him. Santi released the rail and fell, [Air Shield] shattering one of the two spears into dust.
Santi landed lightly, his morph blade cutting another spear of concrete that the primus threw. The ape closed the distance, raising its heavy fists up again to smash Santi to paste. Santi slashed it across its broad chest, flaying muscle from bone as the primus brought its balled up hands down.
[Air Shield] slowed the descending hammerfist for a split second, allowing Santi to jump away. Santi immediately twisted at the waist as another dagger came screaming at him from behind. Santi slashed backward, forcing Duncan to fall to the ground or risk losing his head.
A hairy fist caught him in the ribs, bones cracked as Santi twisted and was thrown against the wall. Pressure and pain overwhelmed him, as he slid to the ground. His shoulder wasn’t responding properly, something grating in it when he tried to lift his arm. Santi got to his feet and slashed out twice as Duncan closed the distance, forcing the assassin to stop his advance.
The ape didn’t care at all, taking both of the blows without hesitation. Blood and fur coated the ground as the monster screamed in rage again, punching at Santi. Santi dodged as the monkey’s fist slammed through the wall where his head had been. Dust and chunks of concrete rained down on him as Santi leapt away from the primus. [Gust] hit the creature and sent it staggering a few feet.
Energy swirled around the monkey’s feet, firming the ground around it as it caught itself. The monster rose to its full height and started to charge back at him, but Santi was running. He leapt off the edge of the concourse, using the morph as a whip again and swinging himself up to the second level.
The primus proved itself just as agile, leaping and grabbing the edge of the second story, following him with a singular purpose. Santi raced upward, arms and legs pistoning through the pain as he flew up the stairs. The crashing followed behind him like a wake of destruction. Santi could feel the monster's presence right behind him, feel the hot breath and drooling fangs.
[Air Shield] was cast behind him without looking and the shock of the [Primus Alpha] was evident as it screamed in rage, bouncing off of the shield even as it broke apart. The heavy thud of its body bouncing down the steep steps was loud enough that it brought a grim smile to Santi’s face.
He reached the top of the stairs and raced straight up the wall, his morph blade becoming a hook that dug though the concrete like it was putty. He climbed straight up, angling for the rafters that ran across the open space above the court. He leapt, pushing hard enough to crack the wall and sailed toward the beams, grabbing on and hoisting himself up with one hand.
Up here he couldn’t be surrounded by the assassin and the Primus, and the beast was isolated from its element. There were beams he could move between with ease and Santi had long taken advantage of his familiarity of heights. The primus was grabbing the steel-I beam with a wide hand, crushing the metal with its grip strength as it rose up.
Above him he felt a stir in the shadows as the Apostate got above him. Duncan would wait to ambush him when he was fully occupied by the primus. The small catwalk wasn’t wide enough for the primus to walk easily. It had to move cautiously, each step careful as it got closer to him. Up here the monkey couldn’t use its earth affinity for shit, its once sure steps now uncertain.
[Crosscurrent-Orb] detonated above him, the tearing winds throwing Duncan out of his hiding spot. The cat-quick rogue was fast though, spinning in mid air to land on his feet on a catwalk further away. Santi wasted no time as the assassin was out of the way, he simply started to cut the monkey to pieces. His long morph blade sliced strips away like it was nothing as he kept walking backward.
The [Primus Alpha] chased after him, but its footing was precarious. It made it three steps before its foot slipped. It caught itself with ease, but its momentum was halted long enough that Santi landed two more blows along its right arm. Santi continued to work that arm, slicing and ripping with a barbed whip until the right arm was nothing but shredded flesh.
The [Primus Alpha] was snarling, nostrils flared as its blood flowed to drench the I-beam. Santi was running out of space to retreat and he hadn’t worn the beast down as well as he could have. He leapt over the next I-beam and when the primus jumped after him he cast a series of spells.