With us briefly in a deadlock because of the opposing forces, I used my stemata to help me push him away. “Blazing Soul: Cross Split!” As he flew a back a couple of feet in the air, he mocked me “You name your attacks? Dude, how cringey can you get? Here, I’ll give it a try. Bleeding Soul: Shotgun Spread! While in freefall, he pointed all of his fingers at us and ten shots of blood came speeding at us.
“Damn it! Bonnie, Armadillo!” On Leo’s order, Bonnie transformed from a giant hawk, to a giant Armadillo. Several of the ten bloodshots were deflected off before falling off and dropping to the city below. The other three however pierced through Bonnie’s shell. The animal writhed in pain and on seeing that, Leo gave the order for her to transform into an ant. Her form changed and got so small that I couldn’t even see her. I caught Leo and the both of us landed smoothly on the ground. Whereas Julien landed with a crash that produced a shockwave, breaking all visible windows in the street. I quickly looked at his legs and saw that they were a bit larger and more muscular than the other parts of his body before returning to normal. At this point we know he can manipulate blood, but to give him this much of a power amp…is that even possible?
And another thing…
“Is your partner gonna be alright?” I asked Leo.
“Don’t worry. Ants can survive freefalls from pretty much any height. Once she dropped, she probably transformed again and left to go find the bomb. I wonder why though?”
Yeah…if the best strategy is to capture one of the enemies and get them to spill the information, then why would she separate to do a much harder task that’ll take her more time?
“Oh I forgot! If trained properly, dogs can smell the properties of explosives!” On hearing Leo say this, I let go of him and allowed him to drop on the floor. Now I understand why Bonnie gives him such a hard time. Such a crucial detail and he…forgot?
“If that’s the case, I’ll have to take care of that, huh?” He turned around and was about to make a dash to begin searching for Bonnie. We obviously can’t allow that.
“Blazing Soul!”
I closed the distance between us and got right in front of him.
“We’ll have to keep him occupied while Bonnie finds the bomb.”
Occupied? I’m confident we can take him out here.
But then I saw that sly smirk on his face again and I knew we were in for trouble. He jumped backwards and because of the increased strength in his legs, he went flying towards Leo. I followed right behind him but before I could catch him, he prepared an amplified punch and struck my teammate. Leo was sent flying, but quickly recovered by directing one of his pistols behind him and shooting to provide a counterforce. He then aimed both pistols and fired off a barrage of shots at Julien as well as myself because I was directly behind him. To retaliate, Julien created a wall of blood right in front of the both of us. “Let’s start round one, shall we?”
He turned back around toward me and sent an amped punch my way, but I parried it and punched him directly in the stomach. His stomach however felt like a boulder with how hard it was. Not only that, but he moved his head slightly to the right and the first one of Leo’s air bullets hit me directly in the head and forced me to fall backwards a bit. Although my head was ringing, I tried to discern what just happened by looking in front of me. It turns out that Julien didn’t simply make the air bullets disappear. He just blocked them away from my vision temporarily. One after another, it was like his blood wall was spitting my own teammate’s attacks at me. He must have some sort of feeling attached to his blood like Anna with her stemata. That’s the only way that him predicting where that first bullet was gonna land makes sense. As an army of air bullets came my way along with Julien, I charged toward him as well. It became a warzone as him and I maneuvered around some of the air bullets, hit some of them away, and even landed devastating blows on each other. As soon as that wave of air bullets stopped, Julien amped two of his fists with a malicious grin. For a split second every fiber in my body was telling me to block, so I did exactly that. The impact sent a burning sensation in the entire section where the point of contact took place. I felt a crack in my bones and my eyes widened as I realized just how much damage he actually did. My feet slid backwards down the street, kicking up gravel and broken tiles before rolling over and eventually recovering with my still intact arm. Julien on the other hand didn’t stop his calm rampage. Once the wall of blood dropped, He immediately looked up to see Leo aiming both pistols at him in a free-fall. He produced a wall to shield himself from an attack from the top.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
An attack from the top that never came.
Leo angled his pistols in a specific angle and fired. As soon as he fired, he brought every one of his limbs closer to his body as he spun in the air around the shield, landed in a pose next to him that gave him a clear shot, and fired both shots at him once more. These shots left did more visible damage than I could hope to achieve, leaving a visible hole in both of his cheeks, showing where the bullets entered and exited. The blood shield dropped and poured all over Julien like a bucket of water. As it did he licked around the rim of one of his now exposed wounds.
“You guys are a lot tougher than I thought after all, do you know how much blood I packed into those last two punches?I guess…it’s time for round two!”
Leo backed up a couple steps, but still stayed in front of me. He probably saw my injury and is fighting to account for that. Maybe we’re not as bad of a duo as I thought. Regardless of my newfound respects, we still have to stall Julien out so Bonnie can find the bomb. And that’s even assuming that she either avoids Ori, or runs into Ori and beats her. Either way although the path is bumpy, we’ve got a clear one ahead of us.
“Sike!” Julien amped a fist, hit a nearby wall that sent debris flying everywhere, and bolted into a nearby alleyway.
“Huuuuuh?!” Leo and I said as we chased Ori’s teammate down the various alleyways of the Battle City. Damn it! I’ve lived in zone one for a year now. I should know how easy it is to do something like that!
We chased him as he used his stemata to zigzag across the city, as we did though, I began to realize something. Julien wasn’t looking for Bonnie while running away from us. No, his movements are too calculated for that. There’s not a single amount of doubt or thought as he navigates these streets. But why? Did he discover Bonnie’s location? No, we’ve been watching him this entire time. I looked up to see if we were anywhere near that business district and we weren’t. So it’s not like he’s lining up a shot for Ori or any…thing…
Oh…
Something just crossed my mind. Ori and I have been together for a long time so we know a lot of our habits. For example, Ori knows that I open up a fight by trying to land a decisive first blow while I know that Ori would ideally want to hide at a vantage point with her stemata.
But what if for the sake of this one fight, she changed things up? What if this entire time the both of them had us believe Ori was over there when in reality…
I saw the glint of a sniper sight in a nearby pop up shop Leo and I were passing in our heated pursuit of Julien. I had no choice but to use my trump card to save Leo from a fatal blow.
“Blazing Soul: Overclock!”
A gold shimmer encompassed my white armor as I entered that tinge gold world. As the red steam exited my armor from all slits, I saw the brilliant red light of one of Ori’s strongest attacks: Firebolt. I had no chance of knocking it away without damaging myself way more than I already am. I only have enough freedom in this instance to save Leo.
I pushed him out of the way with my good arm and as the world resumed, I took the brunt of the Firebolt. The destructive damage left a hole the size of a fist in my bicep. Regardless, I gritted my teeth and made a beeline for the shop. Any pain I felt from that wound would leave my body as I yelled about the one thing I cared about in this world. The one person.
“ORI!”