There she stood, the grieving mother was nowhere to be found, in her place a monster born from evolution, death itself - The Grim Reaper.

Angelo's mind raced through options like flipping through pages in a burning book. "Can't outrun an Evolved Auron - she'd catch us before we made it three blocks. Only shot is keeping her focused on me." His voice hardened with resolve like steel being tempered. "Bill, the second she's fully engaged with me, you run. That's not a suggestion, it's a direct order!"

Bill swallowed hard, visibly torn between loyalty and terror. The raw fear in his eyes made him look even younger than his sixteen years.

"Red, Blue," Angelo's thoughts cut through their shared mind like a blade through darkness, razor-sharp with focus. "She doesn't know about you yet. That's our only advantage. We play this like with the Infernian Force Auron."

"A distraction is needed while we charge the attack," Blue's analytical mind was already mapping possibilities like a general plotting strategy.

"Exactly. I'll keep her busy. Once you're materialized behind one of these buildings, hit her with everything we've got. If we're lucky-"

The thought shattered as Jill launched herself forward like a released arrow, moving faster than any human eye could track. The scythe's blade sang through the air where Angelo's head had been a heartbeat earlier. His energy tendril had already latched onto a nearby building like a grappling hook, yanking him and Bill backward in a movement more spider than human.

Jill's eyes narrowed at the unnatural escape, curiosity flickering across her perfect features. "Interesting trick."

"NOW!" Angelo's command crashed like thunder. In the same instant, three figures scattered like startled birds - Bill vanishing behind one half-finished house while Red and Blue's smoke forms slipped behind another. The coordination was perfect, each movement flowing into the next like a practiced dance.

Angelo rose to his full height, orange aura blazing around him like a living flame. "Time to see if this technique has any merit after all." His aura expanded outward, forming a sphere of misty energy that wrapped around him like a protective cocoon.

Jill's response was immediate and brutal. With a flick of her wrist, nearby lampposts tore free from their concrete bases, whipping toward Angelo like metal serpents. But something impossible happened - he dodged attacks he couldn't possibly have seen coming, his body twisting between strikes that should have crushed him like paper.

"Clever boy," Jill breathed, genuine surprise coloring her voice. Her fingers splayed wide, and the air filled with spinning metal blades that screamed through the night like angry wasps. Yet somehow Angelo danced between them, moving with impossible precognition as if he could see attacks before they happened.

Behind their chosen building, Red and Blue materialized, immediately thrusting their hands forward. Energy - crimson and azure - poured from their palms like liquid light, swirling together in a violently unstable sphere. "Don't let up, Angelo," Blue muttered through clenched teeth, "Just a little longer..."

"Stay focused on your attack!" Angelo's thought cut through their concentration like a whipcrack. "I'll handle her!"

Meanwhile, Bill crouched behind decaying walls, his phone's screen casting an eerie glow across his determined features as he frantically typed messages calling for backup. His hands trembled slightly, but his jaw was set like iron. He couldn't abandon his mentor - not like this. The air between his palms began to compress like an invisible balloon being squeezed, just as they'd done against the Force Auron. The unfinished buildings offered perfect sightlines through their skeletal frames, like windows into a deadly theatre. All he needed was the right moment...

Angelo's dance with death continued, his Aura Area technique letting him sense attacks from every direction like an invisible radar. Each dodge seemed to defy physics itself, his body moving just ahead of strikes that should have been impossible to anticipate.

Blue's thoughts cut in "Almost there Angelo, when I give you the sig-"

BOOM

Hope turned to ashes in his mouth as a thunderous explosion rocked the street. His heart plummeted as Red and Blue's unstable energy detonated prematurely, their smoke forms rushing back to Angelo's body like scattered mist being sucked into a vacuum.

"Fuck!" Red's essence roiled with frustration like a stormy sea. "We had one shot, and we blew it! We are so monumentally screwed!"

Blue's usual cool crumbled like sand. "Angelo, I... we..."

Jill leaped toward the explosion's source like a predator pouncing, her scythe raised high. "Show yourself!"

Angelo seized the moment of distraction, gathering every ounce of energy he could control until it felt like his body might burst. "Let's see how you handle THIS! ENERGY WAVE!" The beam that erupted from his hands lit up the street like artificial dawn, orange power condensed into a beam of pure force.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Jill turned back to face him, her smile turning predatory as a wolf spotting wounded prey. One gauntleted hand stretched out almost lazily, and Angelo's world tilted sideways - his energy didn't strike her, it was being consumed. The skeletal gauntlet drank in his orange power like a black hole, beginning to glow with his stolen light.

"How..." The word escaped him in a horrified whisper, his confidence evaporating like morning dew.

Jill's laughter echoed through the abandoned street like broken wind chimes. "Oh, this little thing?" She admired the glowing gauntlet with mock modesty, turning it this way and that. "I call it 'Void Metal' - though really, it's just a very peculiar sponge. It does love drinking up energy attacks." Her smile turned razor-sharp. "But the real fun part? It doesn't just absorbs..."

Her arm snapped forward like a striking snake, and Angelo's own energy rocketed back at him with devastating force. His tendrils barely yanked him clear as his attack carved a glowing path through the night like a comet's tail.

"Shit," Angelo muttered, bitter irony twisting his mouth. "I literally just mentioned this to Bill. Some mentor I turned out to be..."

The night had only begun to show its teeth, and already their options were running out like sand through an hourglass.

"Any brilliant ideas would be really appreciated right now!" Angelo's thoughts carried rising panic as he ironically faced down death itself, his breath coming in ragged gasps. "Because fighting solo clearly isn't working out!"

"You're not fighting alone, dumbass!" Red's voice carried an unusually warm undertone that caught Angelo off-guard, like sunshine breaking through storm clouds. "When everything went to hell with Blue, I noticed something weird about that angry energy mass. Managed to shift to smoke at the last possible second."

"That's fantastic, but we're still severely lacking in the 'not dying' department!" Angelo's mind raced as he watched Jill's predatory stance, her body coiled like a serpent ready to strike.

The Grim Reaper pressed a metal-clad hand to her cheek, drinking in Angelo's mounting desperation like fine wine. "Oh yes," she purred, her voice dripping with twisted delight. "That look of dawning horror - it's absolutely perfect! Give me more!"

"This witch is completely off her fucking rocker!" Red's voice dripped with disgust like oil on water.

"Focus!" Blue's voice cracked with uncharacteristic panic. "We need a strategy, now!" The guilt in his tone was obvious as the image of their failed attack flashed through their shared consciousness again, a reminder of their dwindling options.

The memory sparked something in Angelo's mind like flint striking steel. "Wait - Albert's theory! Our energies naturally repel each other!"

"Fascinating scientific principle," Blue shot back, his usual analytical calm fracturing under stress like thin ice. "But how exactly does that prevent us from being eviscerated?!"

"We hit her together - me and Red! If she absorbs both our energies, maybe they'll destabilize like they did with you and Red!"

"That's... actually brilliant," Blue's confidence flickered back to life like a rekindled flame.

"Better move fast," Red warned, eyeing Jill's increasingly predatory posture. "Because our resident psychopath looks ready for round two!"

Red's crimson smoke poured from Angelo's body like blood in water, twisting and coalescing into his physical form. The sight stopped Jill dead in her tracks, her perfect features twisting with confusion as two identical figures faced her down.

"What manner of trickery is this?" she hissed, uncertainty cracking her composed mask for the first time.

They seized the moment of confusion, unleashing a devastating barrage of orange and crimson energy blasts that lit up the night like fireworks. Jill drove her scythe into the ground like an anchor, both gauntleted hands stretching wide to catch their assault. The void metal began to glow with an ominous dark orange light, like metal about to melt.

"Yes, feed me your power!" Jill crowed, her voice rising with manic glee. "Every attack only makes me-" Her voice faltered as something shifted in her gauntlets, the metal beginning to vibrate like a tuning fork struck too hard. A high-pitched whine filled the air, setting teeth on edge.

The explosion that followed lit up the street like daybreak. Void metal shattered into glittering shards as opposing energies tore each other apart, the force launching Jill backward like a ragdoll. Her scythe went spinning away, embedding itself in the skeletal framework of an unfinished house with a metallic shriek.

"Now's our chance!" Angelo shouted, his hand shooting backward in a practiced motion. Red mirrored him perfectly, their synchronized movements fluid as water as they began charging their ultimate technique - the same devastating blast that had felled the Infernian lightning Auron.

But Jill rose like a vengeful spirit, one hand extending imperiously toward her lost weapon. The scythe ripped free from the building's embrace as if called home, returning to her grip like a loyal pet. She launched forward with terrifying speed, the weapon's blade singing through the air like a metal banshee.

Angelo and Red's voices rang out in perfect unison: "Mixed Energy Wave!" The combined blast lit up the night like a newborn sun, orange and crimson power merging into a beam of devastating force.

But Jill had learned from her earlier mistake. Instead of trying to absorb the attack, she brought her scythe around in a perfect arc. The blade split their energy wave cleanly in two, the halves shooting sideways hitting the unfinished structures.

Time seemed to crystallize into perfect clarity. Angelo saw the attack coming but his body wouldn't move fast enough - like trying to run in a nightmare. Red lunged sideways, throwing his shoulder into Angelo's ribs to shove him clear - and the scythe carved through Red's materialized form like he was made of tissue paper. But Angelo wasn't completely unscathed; the blade's tip opened a deep gash across his chest, blood immediately soaking his shirt in a spreading crimson stain.

Jill's eyes gleamed with triumph as she raised her scythe for the killing blow, the blade catching moonlight like a promise. This time, there would be no escape.

"VACUUM CANNON!"

The shout came from behind one of the houses, followed by a sound like all the air being sucked from the world. Jill's eyes widened in genuine surprise as she was catapulted sideways by an invisible force, her body smashing through walls with devastating impact. The entire structure groaned like a dying beast before collapsing inward, burying the Grim Reaper under tons of concrete and steel.

Angelo turned toward the source of his salvation, his movements sluggish with pain and shock. There stood Bill, his uniform coated in gray dust, hair disheveled, eyes wide and unfocused as he fought to stay upright. His chest heaved with exhaustion, and his aura flickered and died like a candle in strong wind, completely spent from channeling such power.

The rookie's eyes met his mentor's across the rubble-strewn street, carrying equal parts triumph and bone-deep weariness. He had refused to run, and in doing so, might have just saved the Angel of Death himself.