Mikan’s first move was to immediately hit a big red button behind her. The both of us stumbled as the submarine began to rise toward the surface of the water. I don’t know what her plan is. After all, she spent all this time hiding, but all of a sudden she wants to reveal herself? I have to beat her here to stop whatever she has planned.
I swung my baton into an arc at her head that she immediately dodged, then I extended it into a staff and swung it right down onto her. She staggered back a few steps and then…collapsed?!
That was way simpler than I thought…she did say she wanted to go straight to the research team of the BCT, but to not even be able to take a single hit is concerning.
Well, concerning for her. Not for me. This is a major win for me. I hopped over her body and looked at the bomb fastened into the slot Mikan made. I’m not gonna bother removing it since the only win condition I need to keep in mind is the defusal of the bomb. Geez, are bombs even common with terrorists anymore? Ori told me that bombings aren’t even top five in terrorist attacks.
As I reached for the bomb to begin inputting the defusal code, a spark of electricity snapped at me and I briefly recoiled. In the very next moment, three round speakers came down from the ceiling.
“Hello! I’ve you’re listening to this, you’ve defeated me! I’m not much of a fighter, but—” I destroyed each and every speaker Mikan’s voice was coming out of. She was either gonna stall me or give me an impossible task. Mikan Archon is an enemy who has the sole objective of stalling me until this bomb blows. Through inspecting this control panel, I was easily overwhelmed by all of the buttons and gadgets. How the hell am I supposed to decipher what’s important and what isn’t?! How would Arno figure out what to do here?
…
I immediately started to destroy every part of the control panel except for the bomb of course. Once I did, the submarine came to a complete stop, but it was too late.
All sides of the submarine folded outwards to create a large platform that laid out the current situation to me. My eyes widened and jaw dropped at the current situation that wasn’t playing in my favor whatsoever…
Mikan Archon the night before…
“We have one advantage and one disadvantage going into this fight…” I was breaking down what we had going into the fight tomorrow and what the enemy had.
“Our advantage is knowledge of their stematas. Whether or not they believe, their advantage is their teamwork. If they work together, they’ll find us and take us out in no time. That’s why I suggest a game of keep away with the bomb. I’ll evade with bomb while you fight. You have the best firepower out of the both of us anyway.”
“You know, you used the word suggest but I’m getting the feeling—”
“Oh no, I’m definitely telling you to do these things. It’s our best option if we want to win.” I was saying all of this while drawing things out on a chalkboard. My drawing could be rather rudimentary, but I think they get the job done.
“Well, that’s fine by me. Just tell me where to go and what to do and I’ll do it. I’m your tenacious foot soldier and nothing else.”
I immediately stopped drawing on the chalkboard. I didn’t want to turn to face him because he may get a hint of emotion from me. Emotion that could be used against me one day.
“You’re a fighter, Agathor Septimbre…but it’s important to not only fight, but know what you’re fighting for. Don’t ever forget that…” I immediately brushed off what I said by saying “anyway” and drawing more on the chalkboard.
I explained that at some point, Rono will find me. Whether or not he finds me alone is to be determined but in either scenario, I lose. I’m simply not strong enough to fight that.
What comes next is important.
Agathor will have to go toe to toe with Gollie Themis if he hasn’t been defeated already and win that fight. Once he does, it’ll be a simple stall down to the last second.
“This is all if Rono finds me too early and you’re too occupied to keep him back.”
“How am I supposed to beat Gollie? You know how my stemata works, I’ll get crushed!”
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
“You’re the ‘tenacious foot soldier,’ are you not?” I turned to him with a smirk on my face. “Make a miracle happen and if it doesn’t, force one into existence.”
Agathor Septimbre
After using the impact of the ship debris to propel myself toward Gollie, I prepared for the next attack. Rono instantly submerged himself within the water to most likely hunt for Mikan. It’s fine though, since it’s still all according to Mikan’s plan. I just have to beat Gollie…
I quickly learned that what I was aiming to do was easier said than done. As I swung my stemata at Gollie, Gollie swung his fist at me. My stemata struck the giant’s knuckle, but probably did less damage than a mosquito bite as the fist came barreling towards me. The punch launched me across the arena and into an invisible wall. This was probably made by the Terror Crusher to ensure no audience members got hurt. Once I hit the wall, it felt like my entire body was ringing as I ricocheted off of it and saw another fist coming towards me. This isn’t good. At this rate, he’ll just keep pummeling me in this one spot until I lose. I have to make something happen here! I have to force a miracle to happen here!
I gripped my stemata with one arm and tapped the end of it against my opposite arm once. Thankfully, no critical hit. I have no choice but to build as much pity as possible to nail this critical. I can’t afford to get sandwiched here or I’ll just lose.
Two taps. Three taps. At this point, Nellie caught onto what I was doing and began announcing.
“Is Agathor suicidal?! Thanks to his stemata, at any moment, any miscalculation, it could set off and take his entire arm off! Possibly even more depending on where in the arm he’s striking! This man’s got guts!”
“He’s relying on complete and utter delusion.” Dr. Archon said. “What he’s looking for is a statistical sweetspot that ensures a critical. But to get to that critical, he has to test and risk severe injury to himself. It’s high-risk low-reward down to a fundamental level.”
Four, five taps in total. This is all I can work in before Gollie and I make contact with each other.
“And even if he does get this five That’s a simple five percent out of a hundred. It’s simply a gamble that—”
“Please remind me because I’m having a hard time seeing it: you are the head of the Stemata Research Department, right?” The Trickster asked Dr. Archon a question with an obvious answer. One that he took offense to and was about to answer, but The Trickster cut him off again. “You know better than any of us: stematas can produce fire out of a simple spark, reanimate the dead, or reconstruct entire buildings. They can create cities out of thin air and destroy them with the use of another one. Stematas are devices that can make the impossible possible. So just stop complaining. You might just see a miracle.”
A miracle. Let there be a miracle.
As the fist came speeding toward me, I tried once more to hit it with everything I had. My stemata made contact with his knuckle once more and I could immediately feel it: the impact of a strike!
It wasn’t enough to do severe damage to him, but it was enough to redirect Gollie’s swing downward. I landed on Gollie’s arm and took off running with the express purpose of hitting him with a crit to the face. I’ll just keep building pity as I approach the head. One tap—
I was momentarily suspended in the air as I realized what had just happened.
“I can’t believe what I am seeing with my own to eyes! Agathor Septimbre hit a five percent critical and then immediately, with one hit, unabashedly, unforgivably, landed a critical once more!” Nellie announced as the surrounding crowd went wild.
I was now in control of the trajectory of Gollie’s arm. Because of my two critical hits, it was as if a strong force was pulling him by the arm straight toward the ground. I had no other choice than to keep the momentum going. I struck at the arm once and felt that surge once more.
“Another critical! With Gollie’s face heading so close to Agathor by the second, will he be able to pull this off?! Right now he has three criticals under his belt. Will he be able to get this forth?!”
“Have any interesting commentary to add on, Doctor?”
“What, do you want me to be a bumbling fool over the logistics to say things like how impossible what I’m seeing is? You won’t get that satisfaction out of me. Luck was simply in his favor in the fight.”
I took advantage of this massive momentum that I was having in the fight and as Gollie’s titanic head casted a shadow over me as it quickly descended onto me, I prepared my pickaxe for a match-deciding swing and made contact. I shockwave reverberated through my body as I made the firepower of an upercut happen right under Gollie’s chin. His body jerked backwards as it began to descend and make an entire tidal wave that encompassed the entire arena.
“And there it is! Agathor Septimbre knocked Gollie out! He managed to get four critical hits in such a short amount of time! Someone take out a calculator! Just how likely is such a thing to happen?!”
“That’s a good question. Hm…” The Trickster thought while Dr. Archon answered in a robotic tone “0.000001. As I said, nothing but luck on his side.”
“Luck in of itself could be seen as a massive talent though. To say that luck doesn’t play a single role in our day to day lives is foolish. You know that, doctorrrr.” The Trickster said in a teasing tone.
Now I just have to asses the situation and—
Oh…I aimed upwards with that last critical, so naturally I would be pushed downward at high speeds.
As my face was inches away from the water and it felt like time was slowing down, I wondered: what was the height you could drop at before water would feel like concrete?
I got my answer as I made contact with the water and almost instantly lost consciousness.