Sydney wove her hands together, drawing on the power of both her ice and lightning elementals in order to create the seal she desired. Calm and insistent, with the powerful charge of lightning behind it to enforce the bindings. Her Mana quickly flowed out of her like water sluicing into the void, but Sydney didn’t mind. After all, it would be… dangerous to proceed otherwise.
I should have come sooner… God, I really let almost a year go by before I came looking for you…?
After a few minutes of layering the two energies on top of each other, a shimmering blue crystal coffin appeared in front of Sydney. She wiped away some of the cold rain running across her forehead and released a steadying breath. Not that wiping away the moisture did much; the rain was a constant companion in this world.
The coffin itself functioned both as a way to suppress the occupant and also make it easier for her to move him. Although it required a small amount of Mana to maintain it, now that the structure was set up it didn’t take much attention. And considering the fact they were technically behind enemy lines...
Gently, Sydney reached out and touched the cool surface of the coffin. She looked through the translucent walls at the agonized expression on Drake’s face. For several seconds, she simply stared at the shredded lids of his eyes and the sharp prongs of the Fate that had claimed his sight.
I’m sorry I waited so long to come to save you, Sydney apologized internally. Her gaze became heavy. It seems like I can never reach out toward the people I want to talk to the most…
Why had she balked at the prospect of telling Ace about her illness…?
The surface of the nearby lake began to bubble and Sydney’s gaze turned sharp. In a split second, her left hand was wreathed in lightning while frost skittered up her skin from the fingertips of her right hand. Both arms glowed with light blue energies, similar but very unique. But the bubbles soon resolved themselves into the fearsome form of Neveah and Sydney relaxed.
In several huge strokes, Neveah swam into the showered and waded upward. She was currently in her natural state, a humanoid bone wyrm with a horrifying, toothy maw. Two large wings of bone stretched outward from her heavy bone pauldrons. Her hands resembled bouquets of short swords as she cut through the water.
Neveah dragged another body out of the depths of the lake and tossed it over onto the spongy muck along the shore to relative dryness. Of course, the constant drizzle of the Toad World was an incessant companion, soaking them both to the skin. A ripple ran through Neveah as she arrived back on land and her body shifted, transforming back into her human form.
She was slender with long black hair that was plastered attractively to frame her face due to the rain. Her features were clearly a mix between Randidly’s and another woman’s, but the effect was honestly pretty good. And after a year or two of practice, she wore the human features with a very real warmth.
Sydney coughed lightly and pointed to the unconscious body of Roy, who they had been rather surprised to find in the Toad Lord’s Dungeon next to Drake. “Want me to bind him too? He’s… a dangerous individual.”
Chuckling darkly, Neveah shook her head. Her wet hair swung sideways around her head as the rain continued to soak them. “No need.”
Sydney recalled the scene of Neveah simply relying on her horrifyingly powerful body to rip through the assembled Toad Lords in their assault to rescue Drake. The fight had happened underwater, so Sydney had the unpleasant experience of swimming through the drifting clouds of gore that Neveah left in her wake.
Even the Toad Lord that ruled this world by imprinting on the Aether had been heavily injured and forced to flee in front of Neveah. He had attempted to use strange sigils of Aether to trap Randidly’s Soulbound companion, but over the seven minutes that the fight lasted, it was clear that Neveah was intuiting the way the Toad Lord utilized his Aether at a frightening speed. She had inoculated herself to his attempts to bind her at a visible speed.
By the end of the fight, Neveah had forced open the Aether traps between them and ripped off one of the Toad Lord’s thick legs. Her sharp fingers had squeezed and a puffy cloud of blood had wafted out, obscuring Sydney’s view of how the Toad Lord has escaped. If Neveah said that she didn’t need any bindings on Roy to ensure that he wouldn’t misbehave, Sydney believed her.
Tsking quietly to herself, Sydney looked up at the overcast sky. Small raindrops landed and popped on her face as she considered the moody vista that reflected her feelings a little too perfectly. Do I really always need to rely on someone else to help me with my secrets…? Why can’t I just-
But Sydney stopped that thought. After all, she doubted she would have had such success against that main Toad Lord. Instead, seeing that Neveah had hoisted the now muddy Roy back over her shoulder, Sydney channeled her Mana through her elemental companions and caused the coffin to float a short distance off the ground. After exchanging a glance, both began to walk back along the same road they used to get here.
They certainly made for a strange procession in the damp world as they wound their way past the disturbingly silent swamps. None attempted to stop them.
After thirty minutes of loping along, Neveah twisted her head to look at Sydney. “Why does it matter that they are creating a television network? It’s just constant movies, right?”’
Sydney chewed on her cheek before answering. Sometimes it was easy to forget that Neveah basically knew nothing about the Earth before the change. “The channel itself doesn’t matter much. I bet the content will even be pretty decent. It’s more… the fact that there is a significant portion of Zone 1 that dedicated their time and effort to entertainment. Donnyton can be extreme sometimes, but I agree with them on this: we should be preparing for the Calamity, not trying to reclaim pre-System habits.”
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Neveah’s head bobbed a little as she considered this. “But people had more fun before the System right? Fun is a good thing.”
“People procrastinated a lot more before the System arrived,” Sydney replied. “And you could afford to; the consequences for failure didn’t often include death in old Earth. I think those of us who are worried about Zone 1’s actions believe that some people might be lulled into forgetting the very real consequences of our current lives by the familiar presence of television.”
“You worry a lot,” Neveah used her Randidly-esque face to grin at Sydney. Sydney could only force a smile in response.
You remind me so much of Randidly. That same thoughtless smile…
But before the conversation could continue any further, both Neveah and Sydney dug their feet into the muddy road and skidded to a stop. The rain continued to fall, forming several small streams that drained toward a lake about a hundred meters to their right. But other than the unconscious body, the bone wyrm, and the woman dragging a crystal coffin, the surroundings seemed completely empty.
Neveah’s smile warped into something hungry as she stepped forward. “No need to hide, friends. Come on out to play.”
For a second, there was no response. But then a booming laugh cut through the low drizzle of rain. “Alright then, no need reason not to speak amicably before we kill you.”
There was a fluttering sensation of Mana and a circle of runes appeared alongside the track on which Sydney and Neveah were walking. A veil parted and suddenly three individuals appeared, staring intently at the duo. The individual at the front of the trio was wearing a loose cotton shirt that was now so soaked that it clung like glue to his skin. When he smiled at the two of them, his top row of teeth were made of gold.
Sydney’s eyes slid past the unfamiliar figure to two individuals that she recognized immediately. The first was a serpent with fluttering wings and hypnotizing eyes. The second was a tall man that wore a heavy suit of liquid obsidian.
“Nemesai,” Sydney said lightly for Neveah’s benefit. Obviously Neveah was active on Earth, but it was hard to tell how well she understood Earth’s situation. To her credit, Neveah slowly nodded her head, seeming to concur.
There are two unknown Nemesai currently… I suppose this is one of them. Sydney thought to herself.
With his shit and dirty hair plastered to his face, the man with the golden teeth looked like a skeleton dressed up in paper skin that barely provided him with a semblance of humanity. But he still stepped forward with a wide smile and spread his arms. “Right you are. We are the Nemesai, and here, out of view of your precious Champions, we are your worst nightmare. I am the Bandit King. I hope you realize what an honor it is for you to be killed by my hands.”
Neveah casually tossed Roy’s body to the side. His body squelched loudly as it tumbled into a puddle. “I doubt you can kill me. I will let you try though… and punish you if you fail.”
The Bandit King’s smile widened as he took another step forward. “Ohhh… got an attitude, don’t you, pretty? Well-”
“Bandit King,” The Winged Serpent abruptly cut across his fellow Nemesis. “We are retreating.”
Both Neveah and the Bandit King turned to look toward the Winged Serpent with shared expressions of shock and disappointment. Those dangerous eyes of the serpent measured Sydney and Neveah, then shook its head. “The plan was to ambush them while they were fighting with the Great Toad Lord. Since we missed the opportunity-”
“Shit, they probably haven’t even started yet!” The Bandit King bellowed. “It’s been what, ten minutes?”
This time, the Obsidian Duke spoke. “We tried to explain, this planet is unusual. The population is powerful. We cannot just-”
“Fuck that, I’m going to have some fun.” The Bandit King spun around with a leer across his face. But almost immediately, be paled and leapt hurriedly backward. Neveah had reverted to her Bone Wurm form and rushed forward. Her pale wings spread outward and her body moved so quickly that she was just a blur in the grey rain.
Despite his surprise, the Bandit King was still a powerful Nemesis; one he saw the threat, he responded decisively. He produced a brutal pair of daggers that were stained with blood, but Neveah’s wings were faster than he could adjust for. The tips of her wings flicked outward and yanked open his defenses. Neveah thrust her arm forward, aiming to bury a chilling bouquet in the Bandit King’s chest.
There was a sound of cracking stone as the Obsidian Duke imposed himself between the two and was forced to endure Neveah’s blow. Shards of obsidian fell to the ground. For a split second he strained, but then Nevaeh continued to press forward and knocked both the Obsidian Duke and the Bandit King to the ground with raw power.
“They have the benefit of images and we do not,” The Winged Serpent hissed. It began to conjured a series of runes around its body, but Sydney raised her hand and unleashed a blast of lightning that interrupted the Skill. Hissing, the Winged Serpent produced new runes that shot forward and landed on Neveah’s body before Sydney could intervene again.
These runes threw her several meters backward, but Neveah eventually ripped them off of her like they were fat leeches and charged forward again. But the few moments of space gave the two Nemesai enough time to get to their feet. The Obsidian Duke interposed himself between Sydney and the Winged Serpent to give its fellow time to conjure a portal.
Sydney considered using her full strength to stop the Nemesai from retreating, but honestly, she saw no reason to force the fight at the moment. They were alone in the Toad World; fighting here was dangerous. If both parties wanted to wait for a better opportunity, so much the better.
“Her image… is so strong…!” The Bandit King hissed. His eyes were red with fury as he glared over toward Neveah.
As the portal began to form behind it, the Winged Serpent nodded. “Yes, but that means that soon one of their images reach the requisite power and the lock on our images will disappear. And then-”
“Then what?”
Everyone froze as Neveah stopped charging forward and instead spoke. Then she raised her hand and Sydney could feel the Aether in the air freeze as though Neveah’s claw gripped this entire world by the threat. After a few seconds of straining, the runes of the portal faded.
That’s the same Skill that the Toad Lord used on us… Sydney thought solemnly.
Neveah grinned at the three stunned Nemesai. “If you tell me that you are going to get stronger soon… how can I let you leave easily? Creatures like you will kill the people of this world whenever you get the chance. And I’ve become quite fond of humans.”
Neveah crackled her knuckles ominously. A towering dragon of bone appeared above her, thick smoke rolling out of its snout. “I think I have the responsibility to remind you that your actions have consequences. Since you came out to play, you are going to finish my game.”