The normally colder nights of Atlantis felt unusually hot. It was almost unbearable to deal with, even though most didn’t notice the change. Sweat and blood hung in the air with chaos mixing elements. Order struggled to hold on with the unrelenting power of inhuman beings clashing.
None of it concerned Photine. She still wore a simple robe that Heber insisted she wear during her recovery. Photine didn’t believe she needed to sleep in an infirmary to recover her mental energy. After Heber finished his work, her body had no injuries. Her health was perfect, physically at least.
In the ensuing chaos of the attack, it made it difficult for her to do anything. They pulled back all of the patients to safer distances. Blood dripped down her face to tap her forearm. It forced the muscles in her arm to tense up. Her mind fell back to the images of the infirmary tent only minutes after the attack began.
A large chunk of debris ripped through the tent destroying any peace. It immediately alerted the attention of Heber and others under his command. The sudden attack brought all three of the MP users out of their cots to stare at each other.
Photine glanced over at the debris. Blood pooled out from behind it wetting the dirt. All she saw free was someone’s mangled arm separated from their body. It widened her eyes abruptly and jumped her heart rate. “What the hell?!” She jumped out of her cot, but felt a strong force behind her. Her head tilted over her shoulder to see her cot missing.
“Someone help me!”
“It hurts!”
Screams of the injured surrounded Photine. She spun around trying to figure out what happened. Nothing made sense to her, everything happened too fast for her to process it all. Her heart pounded stronger and her palms turned clammy with sweat.
A scalding wind burst through the tattered remains of their tent. Bright red light blinded her right eye. She caught sight from her partial vision of the towering flames shooting around nearby them. Photine no longer could mistake the cause of the destruction. “…they’re here…” rattled her voice barely kept in control.
Explosions went off throwing around pieces from the ruined tents. Cloth from the infirmary tent tore again. A struggling groan escaped someone’s lips near to Photine. She turned around to find who was injured. “Antipas!” she yelped, as she knelt down to his side. “How bad is it?” All she saw was blood everywhere, but no injury.
Antipas coughed from his position on the ground. Blood poured from his mouth splattering the grass. He slowly lifted himself over with the help of Photine. “…oh…” he muttered, his eyes cast down at the large chunk of wood embedded in his chest. The sight made him cough again, but it felt worse as though something inside him ripped. More blood dripped down his lips. He worked up a brave face for the horror filled Photine. “It’s not so bad…”
“What are you saying?!” She looked over at the rest of the area that used to be a tent. Screams and blood filled everything. Heber and all of his assistants scrambled around trying to save everyone. She saw his Field already working on stabilizing those in shock. “I’ll go get someone for you! You just stay here! Don’t move!”
Photine tried to stand up, but Antipas grabbed onto her arm at the wrist. His eyes already looked dark underneath and his face began to turn pale. “…it’s fine…”
Her head pulled down towards him confused by his words. “No, it’s not! You need to be treated!”
Another cough showed his worsening state. It drew Photine back in. “I can feel Heber’s work, but I’m too far away. His Field is too weak…here. All it’s doing is dragging things out.”
“Then I’ll carry you closer!”
Antipas shook his head. “No, I can feel it tearing me up inside.”
Photine lost her breath. She hardly knew Antipas. They never worked together until the morning, but suddenly found tears dripping down her cheeks. She didn’t know how long she had been crying. ‘I can’t…let him…’ Her eyes closed to focus. Ripples came out from her feet signaling her Field activation. However, a crushing squeeze on her wrist broke her concentration. “…what do you—“
“No, you don’t have…as much control of your Field…do you?”
“Huh?”
The pain tore through his chest again forcing up more coughing. His breathing ran shallow. “You can’t use your Field… …you’ll interfere with his…I’m only one…he can save…dozens…”
She choked on the thought. Her mind divided with thoughts of the others and Antipas. Photine shook her head to throw out the thoughts. “I’ll save you! I don’t care!” She placed her hand on his hand that held on to her. His strength started to weaken.
Ripples pooled out from her feet again. Desperation shortened her breath. Faint light gathered around her at the start, but another hand grabbed onto Photine. Antipas pulled at her, as he could no longer support himself. His bloodied hand rested along the side of her face with his fingers clumped between her hair. “…what?!”
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He smiled up at her. Photine fought him, but found her strength missing. “It’s fine… this isn’t so bad…”
“What are you saying?! I can save you!” She tried again to get up, but could only hover above him with her hand holding her up.
Antipas rubbed his thumb over Photine’s cheek, smearing blood. “I always thought…it might…be nice…to…” A cough interrupted him, but it drained away most of his strength. He could barely breathe anymore. “…die in…the arms of…a beautiful…woman…” His smile grew a little more.
Photine blushed a little, taken back by his words. “Antipas! What—“ She stopped herself when she realized that he stopped breathing. Her heart stopped for a second. Everything around her went silent. She thought she shouted out for him, but she couldn’t hear anything.
Blood dripped down her cheek again echoing through her memories. It snapped her back. “…he’s dead…” Her eyes held a dead look buried amongst hardened features built on despair.
Chapter 158 – Product of Despair
She stumbled around in her robe with little direction in mind. Fighting occurred around her, but she couldn’t intervene into someone’s fight. Nothing remained for her. Photine needed something to do. She wanted to do anything. Her body felt hot. The festering inside wouldn’t disappear.
A body collapsed to the ground dead. The weight of the life lost rang through her ears. Photine turned her eyes up, suddenly awakened by the sound. Her eyes widened in surprise. She never expected to see her again. “…you…” Everything in her body suddenly became alert and honed.
Yumi straightened herself back out. Blood dripped across her face from the last act she made. Her eyes readjusted, feeling another foe nearby. “So it’s you.” Yumi's face changed to disappointment. She turned away from Photine.
Ripples sprinted out from Photine’s feet altering the entire area into a dust bowl of rocky terrain. None of the camp remained in the area. Photine ran up to close their distance. “I’m not letting you go! You’ll pay for your crimes today!”
Pausing for a moment, Yumi turned her head over her shoulder. A clarity in her eyes existed with a greater sense of deduction. “So you’ve included Japanese in your Field. However, I’ve no interest in chatting with someone she beat. Leave my sight.”
Already breathing heavily, Photine leaned forward a bit. She struggled to keep herself together. The image of Antipas burned in the back of her eyes. An array of swords erupted from the ground meant to block the path of Yumi. “You’re not going anywhere. I don’t care if you don’t have an interest in me. I’m putting an end to your chaos! No more will die!”
She raised an eyebrow a little amused by the guts of the woman. However, her expression otherwise remained unchanged. “You’re of no interest. I only want to fight those that are strong. You’re weak if she was able to defeat you.”
“I’ll show you who’s weak!” Several of the swords flew quickly at Yumi in reaction to Photine. However, they all missed their targets. The weapons recovered from their failure and hovered opposite of the remaining, surrounding Yumi.
Crossing her arms, Yumi turned to face Photine. “Acting on anger? Your powers won’t be of much use to you with emotions clouding your mind. You were better before.”
Photine gritted her teeth together. It bothered her that she missed her attack, however it annoyed her more that Yumi was correct. She lost control of her weapons and they responded on her instinct rather than on her command. “Shut up! You don’t know me! You don’t know anything! You aren’t even one of us, are you?” She panted again after her explosion of words.
A bit of a smirk built up on Yumi. “So you’ve finally figured it out. You acted as if we used the same powers. You’ve stopped making assumptions. You’re correct, we aren’t the same.”
She blurted it all out suddenly without much of a thought, but the answer shocked her more. Photine gasped for a moment. ‘What?! You can’t be serious? I just thought…I didn’t know… It just seemed strange, but to be right! Then I was right!’ It took her a little more to take it all in after hearing it. She only thought and guessed about it while recovering. “Then what are you?”
“There is no name for us yet other than Japanese. There hasn’t been enough time for someone to think one up yet.” Yumi turned away, no longer interested in the conversation. She waved a careless hand back at Photine and began to walk away. “Bye.”
Photine motioned all of her weapons in to surround Yumi. However, a puff of wind blew out from the ground as she jumped into the air effortlessly evading them. She turned it into a smooth flip to touchdown beyond their reach. Another missed only angered Photine more. “I didn’t say you could leave!” Her body heat only continued to rise.
No longer bothering to look back at Photine, Yumi spoke from the spot she landed. “I don’t believe you can do anything to prevent it. Besides, someone as worked up as you over grief doesn’t belong in a fight.”
The shaking in her body became uncontrollable for Photine. Dozens of weapons materialized around Yumi. Sweat beaded up on her face. “What do you know?! You’re going down!”
A sigh escaped Yumi’s lips. The numbers increased around her making dodging more difficult. She slid around on the heel of her foot to face Photine. “I generally don’t make it a habit of fighting those too weak to fight back, but I guess I don’t have much of a choice.”
“That cocky attitude won’t last! Just because you beat me once doesn’t mean it’ll be the same!”
“You’re right about it not being the same.” Yumi motioned her arm to summon up a barrier. Ten red barriers appeared around her. “Her powers might not be what I’m used to, but it doesn’t mean that I can’t make better use of them.” Lines appeared through the barriers causing them to divide. It segmented them into hundreds of pieces. They all rapidly spun around her and then subdivided further quadrupling the number in the air. Thousands of sections of the barrier created a deep impossible to navigate maelstrom.
All of the pieces then suddenly stopped. They flattened out set up all around her. In an instant, the pieces disappeared as barely visible blurs of red light. The air around them exploded into shards. Red particles and metal chunks rained around to the ground.
Photine clinched her fists at the sight. “Don’t think that’ll make me back down!” She began to move to summon more of her weapons. However, a shadow appeared behind her, setting the hair on the back of her neck on edge.
A dark voice spoke out to her. “I didn’t think it would.” Quickly following the words, a flash of light arced through air. Blood sprayed up in the aftermath.
Instinct was the only thing that saved Photine. She already started to jump away when Yumi attacked, but she didn’t get out clean. Her right arm hung at her side bleeding heavily from the nearly severed limb. The pain made her twitch in her face. Photine quickly modified her trench coat to tighten off her arm to staunch the wound. She bit through the stabbing it produced. It made her pant heavily for a couple of breaths to recover. “You really aren’t the same…”
Yumi relaxed her hand lightly dipped in Photine’s blood. She glanced back over at Photine. “The speed isn’t to the level I’m used to, but it’s still enough to deal with normal humans.”
“Is that right?!” she yelled. More weapons appeared around her, but in fewer numbers. The look in her eyes was completely consumed with rage. “There’s nothing normal about me!” She sent the weapons quickly speeding towards Yumi to become blurs.
The act only elicited a bored raise of her eyebrow. “Same tactics…making them faster won’t save you…” She lifted her hand to erect barriers to slice the weapons. The barriers quickly materialized and spun around moments before the weapons entered the perimeter. “This’ll end the same way.”
An explosion of metal shattered the weapons and clouded the area. However, Photine held a smirk on her face, making Yumi curious. She looked up at the debris cloud to see it suddenly divide. A single sword broke through unharmed. Yumi’s face held a flicker of surprise for a moment before another barrier rose. The sword pierced through the barrier destroying it without even stopping.
Trails of blood painted the ground and Yumi’s arm. Her face narrowed suddenly, becoming serious for once. Another set of weapons appeared all around Yumi. “This is the end for you! This isn’t the same fight as last time! I’ve seen what you can do and I’ve created special counter measures for everything! This won’t be like before!”