Around two hours till midnight, we arrived at Mitre square so we could prepare ourselves. As we had planned, Elysif was sitting on the top of a nearby building with a good view of the area, ready to summon her familiars from a safe distance. Iscariot, on the other hand, stood behind us ready to activate the anti-magic gate. To most, he looked like an observer, so it wasn’t bad to have him there. Pulling out his pocket watch, Scott opened it just in time to see it strike eleven. The moment it did, we began to hear two sets of footsteps approaching from the other side of the bridge.
From out of a fog-covered back alley, the masked figure stepped with a determined stride whilst the Changeling unhappily hobbled behind him. Much to our surprise, the Changeling was bound with a rope that the masked man held with little concern. Looking at the Changeling, its shoulder still looked bloody and possibly infected from where I had stabbed him. Like before, the Changeling looked like the same sleazy dude, however, there were various bruises and new wounds all over its body. The Changeling's hands had also been bound in rope and a gag had been stuffed in its mouth. Despite its bindings, the Changeling was snarling at the masked man with rage in his eyes. Much to its dismay, it couldn’t seem to get any closer than a meter from him. It was as if some invisible barrier was blocking it from doing so.
Stopping at the edge of the bridge, the masked man stood with a smug stature. His rune-decorated robe waved in the fairly brisk breeze, revealing the plain dirtied work clothes beneath it. Clasping his hands in front of his waist, he began to speak with satisfied vigor, “I see that you aren’t late.”
Stepping over to the bridge ourselves, Scott and I stopped at the other side of it. Behind us, Iscariot stood eagerly, waiting to activate the Anti-magic gate. Although we couldn’t see her, we knew Elysif was ready to assist us from above. “Of course not, we are men of our word,” Scott replied with a serious tone so rare for him to use that I became a bit more worried than I already was.
“Then why bring that old man? Did you think he would be of any use to you?” the masked figure asked with a faint chuckle, as he pointed at Iscariot. From behind us, we could hear Iscariot chuckling at that slightly. Thankfully, neither the masked man nor the Changeling heard him.
With a faint click of his lips, Scott looked back at Iscariot, who waved as if he were enjoying himself, then back at the masked figure with a disputing sigh. “Call it insurance in case you don’t want to follow through.”
Trying not to make it seem like we weren’t about to try fighting him, Scott stood in a less defensive way. “At least you’re not stupid. Send over Barrett,” the masked figure said with a wave of his hand. However, Scott did not comply, nor did I. The masked figure tilted his head in confusion.
“The Changeling first,” Scott said with an unyielding look. Strangely, the masked man pulled his hand across his chest and gave a slight bow in agreeance. Whether we were bargaining or not, we weren’t gonna complain about him giving in to our request. As he was bowing, I noticed a slight glimmer from the moonlight of a small bird-like creature stooping atop a building. The creature in question, upon closer inspection, was one of Elysif’s familiars. A semi-invisible bird that stood around seventy centimeters tall.
“Of course,” he replied, before he dropped the rope that held the Changeling. Looking a bit confused at first, the Changeling quickly realized that the only way out of this alive, was to go with us, and began to hobble across the bridge. As the Changeling reached the center of the bridge, the masked figure gave a quick snap of his fingers. Upon hearing the snap echo between the buildings, the cobblestone below the Changeling shifted slightly and a blade shot out. With a loud squelching sound, it pierced him between the legs, protruding out through his neck like a pike. Stepping back in shock, we watched as the Changeling's body turned to ashen dust and the blade returned to the stone.
Iscariot didn’t seem to care that the Changeling had just been killed without warning. In fact, he seemed to be amused by the display. With a curious but unsurprised look, Scott shook his head. “I thought you said he would be handed over to us?” Scott asked the masked man.
“Yes, but I never said in what form. You can pick up the remains when we are done if you so wish,” the masked figure replied with a crass hiss that seemed like it was meant to agitate us. However, neither Scott nor Iscariot seemed to be bothered by his comments. I, however, wanted egregiously to kill him that biting my own tongue was the only way I could stay calm. Elysif seemed to still be watching us with the familiar, but it seemed to be cocking its head like it was worried for us.
“Fine,” Scott said, motioning for me to cross the bridge. Trying as hard as I could to remain calm and casual, I made it past the middle of the bridge. However, I couldn’t help but scowl at the masked man, who in turn, just glared back at me through the mask's eyeholes. I think he was scowling back, but I couldn’t see the rest of his face through the mask. Stepping within half a meter of the masked figure, I heard Iscariot begin a chant under his breath. It was faint but I could still make out the tone changes in his hushed breathing.
Without any warning, I grabbed the masked man’s wrist who, in turn, stared at me in shock. Pulling out my knife in a hate-filled rage, I attempted to ram the knife into his throat. Had I waited to do so, then I may have won, but because I struck so early, a blade shot out of the cobblestone below me. Because Iscariot was still forming the gate under us, the masked man could still use magic. I attempted to jump back but there was barely any time, as the blade severed my left arm completely off. With a pained look, I stood holding my shoulder whilst my arm fell onto the cobblestone bridge. Blood dripped from the wound onto the stone like a gelatinous waterfall, before it eventually reformed the bone, flesh, tendons, and skin.
“That’s it! I’m killing the lot of you,” the masked man bellowed with violent discontent as several more blades erupted from the cobblestone below me. Barely dodging the longsword-like blades with several hops backward, I received a few minor cuts across my body, whilst my arm finished growing back. From behind me, Scott charged at him with thunderous speed to both back me up and to keep the masked man busy long enough for Iscariot to finish his chant. The masked man, however, saw Scott and a wall of blades burst forth to protect himself like a wall of sharp iron.
The metal wall gleamed in the moonlight, covering the entire left side of his body as a stationary shield. With his right side exposed, Elysif’s familiar kamikaze bombed the masked man's head, exploding into a ball of blue flames. Unfortunately, that didn’t phase him in the slightest, it did keep him still long enough for Scott to shoot around to his right side. Without a second to think about it, the masked man conjured another wall of blades around his right side. Smashing through not one, but two layers of metal with a barrage of heavy blows, Scott jumped back in pain. The third layer had been angled, cutting his knuckles despite the protection from his gloves, this allowed the masked man to refocus some of his efforts back on me.
Dodging more of the masked man’s blades, I drew my gun whilst running away from him. Cocking the revolver's hammer, I aimed it between the shields that were appearing and disappearing based on Scott’s attacks. Seeing that the masked figure was no longer focused on me, Scott dodged to the side to give me a clear shot. As my finger applied pressure to the trigger, Iscariot finished his chant. From the center of the bridge, a red light emitted, covering everything, including the water flowing below, with the same red hue in the shape of hundreds, possibly thousands of runes. The light expanded to cover the entire block, before fading, burning the runes into everything the light had touched. Even the water had unmovable char-coloured runes above it, as if it had made an invisible barrier over the flowing river.
At the edge of where the light had reached, several of Elysif’s familiars appeared. However, rather than birds, each one was shaped like a knight, but they all had a strange bluish tint to them with a stature of roughly three meters. With ethereal halberts, they guarded every point of escape at Elysif’s command. Having finished the gate, Iscariot sat down on the cobbled alley and focused solely on keeping the gate active. Each blade that had been erected from the cobblestone returned to the ground in the wake of the anti-magic gate, causing the masked figure to retreat away from both Scott and me.
Holding out his arms on both sides, the masked man stood with an overtly confident aura, making both Scott and I pause out of caution. “You had a good plan. It was far superior to most, but what you didn’t account for, was that I had prepared for such events to unfold.” Elysif, who was just beyond the gate, watched through the eyes of her familiars from the gate’s edge. They were sadly unable to enter. Though, like Iscariot’s job was to keep the gate up at all costs, Elysif’s job was to keep the masked man from going beyond the gate.
Despite the overbearing show of superiority that the masked man gave, Scott lept towards him with the same incredible speed as before, punching the man's mask. The force of which resulted in a loud shockwave, forcing a plume of dust to be freed from between the cobblestones. As the dust was settling, Scott and I both stared in disbelief. The masked figure had caught his fist without any physical repercussions. Scott attempted to punch him with his free hand, while I fired two of my five bullets at the masked man’s back. Like before, he caught Scott’s fist with his other hand, and a shockwave was sent through the area with a wave of dust before I could see if the bullets did any damage. Hell, because of the smoke, I couldn’t see either Scott or the masked man.
Within the cloud of dust, Scott inhaled some of it, causing him to have a coughing fit. However, he did not dare to close his eyes, as the masked man was still holding his fists. Without warning, the masked man pulled himself close to Scott. “You may have enhanced your body with runes, but I have plenty of runed items. You could say I have equal power to yourself,” the masked figure said softly into Scott's ear before kicking him in the stomach hard enough to send him flying out of the dust cloud.
As soon as I saw Scott tumbling backward out of the cloud of dust, I fired the last three bullets from my gun. One after the other, each bullet penetrated the dust cloud, but as it cleared, I realized that they had no effect on him at all. Two of the bullets landed on the cobblestone by his feet, and the man didn’t look phased at all. Looking at me, he began marching towards me with a threatening stride. I attempted to fire another shot out of disbelief, only to hear a click from the hammer hitting an empty chamber. Before I could run away or try to fire the empty gun, he was already in front of me, grabbing the barrel and ripping it out of my hands. Beyond him, I could see Scott lying unconscious at the edge of the bridge. Iscariot sat with his eyes closed, focusing on maintaining the gate instead of noticing us losing, whilst Elysif’s familiars shuffled around, eager to fight, but stuck beyond the gate.
With everything I had, I tried to stab him with a right jab. Upon hitting him, the knife was knocked from my hand and the masked figure clenched his hand around my throat. As his hand choked me, an invisible force slammed into my throat from his palm. The breath I had was knocked out of me as I barely stayed conscious. Unable to fight him in this state, the masked man lifted me up by my neck until my feet couldn’t touch the ground.
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“You can’t hurt me, time traveler. I had planned on beating you with my power alone, but you forced me to use one of my trump cards right from the start. I can absorb physical attacks as power, and then release it at any point through any means that I wish. When I kicked your friend, I released the force of his punches back at him. Now, be grateful that only two of your bullets hit. It will make the old man’s death a little more painless,” the masked man said with an amused sense of rage, before throwing me against the bridge wall like a ragdoll. As my limp body folded over the side of the bridge, I released my dinner into the water below. I could barely lift my head, let alone fight anymore, despite my collapsed windpipe being healed by this point. Even though I had a hard time feeling pain, my body had been worn out, so I just hung over the side of the bridge, barely conscious.
Realizing that I wasn’t going to be moving for a bit, the masked man turned to Iscariot. “Well, I guess I better deal with this barrier,” he muttered under his breath. With Iscariot too busy chanting in order to keep up the barrier to notice, and Scott out of commission, he strolled across the bridge toward him. Though, as he passed by Scott’s body, the masked figure was stopped by a hand grabbing his ankle. Looking down, he saw that Scott had a firm grip on him, despite the rest of Scott’s body being limp, like some kind of last-ditch effort of strength that was greatly hindered by internal bleeding and broken bones.
“I see that you’re still conscious. You must be in so much pain, and yet, you bear it so well,” the masked man said with condescending praise, before kicking away his hand. “However, I don’t need you alive, do I?”
As he finished speaking, an explosion of gaseous fumes covered both the masked man and Scott. The masked man coughed and wheezed, grabbing his throat as he ran out of the smoke in a stupor of coughing fits, whilst Scott painfully dragged his way out of the smoke with a cloth covering his mouth and nose.
Once he had crawled his way out from under the rising smoke, Scott began to painfully chuckle through a coughing fit. Looking at the masked man who was currently hunched over uncontrollably coughing himself hoarse. “You may be immune to our attacks on… the outside—” Scott stopped, coughing before continuing his sentence. “—but what about on the inside?”
Taken aback and rather confused by the effect such a tactic had on him, the masked man looked at Scott with cursing bloodshot eyes. “W—what was that?” he asked the moment his lungs gave him the slightest break. Quickly returning to his convulsive barking after asking.
“A toxic smoke bomb that Elysif made for me. It burns the lungs of anyone who inhales it. I have plenty to spare, so I hope your lungs are ready,” Scott answered sadistically, as if he were a child tormenting ants. The smug grin Scott gave despite his pained look enraged the masked man, who could do nothing but attempt to expel the toxin from his lungs.
Clutching his chest, the masked man held himself afoot only by a fleeting narcissistic pride, as he looked at Scott’s broken body. With gnashed teeth and between breaths, he spoke hatefully to Scott, “You… are an absolute… pain,” the masked man spat, before running over the bridge towards one of the alleys that one of Elysif’s familiars was guarding. With a bewildered look, Scott watched from where he lay as he realized that the masked man decided to run away rather than continue to fight, despite having such an advantage. As he rushed past my limp body, I shot up and latched my body onto him like a human octopus.
Surprised by my sudden revival and entrapment, he yelled out angrily between coughs. More annoyed than anything, the masked man yelled out as he tried worming his way out. “What in the blithering hell?! I thought you were unconscious!”
“I almost was, but remember that you tortured me so much that pain means nothing to me. I was just resting while waiting for you to take your eyes off me,” I replied with a smug grin. From my pocket, I pulled the pin on one of Elysif’s smoke bombs. With loud cries of pain between violent coughs, the masked man inhaled the smoke that rapidly filled the area around us. I too was coughing horridly from this, but wasn’t that concerned considering my healing. Actually, could my body heal toxin damage? Oh shit!
“Why, you little,” he coughed out before slamming his elbow into my face. The impact had no additional force behind it, but it was just hard enough to knock me off him. With a near-Scott-level speed, the masked figure spun around to face me before breaking my jaw with an enforced blow. As I was falling to the ground, Scott, covered in bruises and blood, charged at the masked man, punching him as hard as he could in the chin. Scott looked broken and beaten without remorse, to the point that he couldn’t actually tolerate the pain. Despite this, he wore a twisted smile that bore the joy he had in doing what he was meant to.
The masked figure didn’t flinch in the slightest. In fact, he seemed confused and enraged by our repetitive annoyances. The sheer stupidity that he believed we had, based solely on our desperate style of fighting. “You already tried that, and it didn’t work. What difference is it going to make now? Are you enough of a dunce to try the same attack, time after time, in hopes of a different result?”
Whilst standing back up, I watched as Scott pulled his fist back from the man’s face. With a heavy step back, he stood there like a tired boxer after the bells rang in the last round. The fact that he was in so much pain that he could barely stay conscious was reflected on his face, dripping blood from his nose, lips, and right ear. Yet, he still bore the same smug grin as if to mock the masked man in his last breath. “No… I just needed you... to stay still long enough.”
We could do nothing but stand there as he scoffed at the two of us before bursting into maniacal laughter. His body contorted back as if trying to view the moon overhead. “What for? This barrier stops magic other than that of runes, so what other than that gas could hurt me?” he mocked between his laughter.
Looking at me, Scott nodded, to which I nodded back. Reaching into my coat pocket, I held onto one of Elysif’s gas bombs, and the biggest smile Scott could produce grew. “The Dimensional Demon Sorcerer,” Scott replied with a mix of disdain and joy. The laughter stopped and the masked man contorted his body back to face Scott, his back cracking and popping as he did.
“What?” he asked threateningly, before an ethereal arrow pierced through his leg from the cobblestone below, making him fall to the ground. “The old man…” Looking at Iscariot, he snorted hatefully. “I thought he was maintaining the barrier. Perhaps I underestimated how powerful a foe he is,” he said under his breath as he tried to make sense of what had just happened.
More and more ethereal arrows impaled the masked figure. Each time, they caused him to flinch in a similar manner to when a nerve is being electrocuted. Scott and I both looked with thankful, yet tired eyes upon the masked figure as he crouched down in agony, crying, unable to defend himself. “This barrier, as well as your coat, only affects one plane of existence. But we can still use whatever tactics we need to on another plane,” Scott said with a chuckle, before stepping toward our ensnared enemy.
Grabbing the masked man’s coat, Scott began to undo the fastener bound in a hilariously over-tied knot. A ways back, I watched him closely with the smoke bomb in hand. Whilst I examined the masked man, I watched as the arrows pierced his body, leaving no sign that they had actually penetrated him. His cries were somber and frequent, like a madman experiencing all five stages of grief, gasping for minuscule amounts of air. No… it was not weeping that I heard, but a faint chuckle.
“Scott, get back!” I yelled, throwing the smoke bomb at the masked man, but I was too late. Despite the continuous volley of arrows, he lunged at Scott and punched him in the chest. The shockwave it created blew the toxic smoke over my body, whilst Scott was sent flying back into a building, toppling to the ground, and coughing up a small pool of blood. Laying there, his only sign of life was the twitching of his fingers, as he collapsed to the ground. Elysif’s familiars began shuffling with rage. I could only imagine Elysif’s level of hatred for this man after seeing Scott like that. Iscariot, still focusing on casting the ethereal arrows Into the masked man, probably had no idea that Scott was out of commission… and that soon, I would probably be as well.
Frozen, I couldn’t run, but I couldn’t fight either. He was probably going to incapacitate me or kill me if I stayed. If I ran to another time period, then what? I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. “Even though I may feel the pain of these attacks, did you really think that I still wouldn’t be able to absorb the energy from them?” the masked man asked with condescending pride as he turned back to face me.
“T-that’s bullshit, right? The-ere’s no way that something that convenient exists,” I stuttered, unable to comprehend the absolutely overpowered bullshit that he was spewing. What could I do? I couldn’t even run away out of fear.
“Now… it’s your turn,” he said, grabbing my collar. I tried to escape his grip, only for him to punch me in the chest with his free hand, the force of which sent me flying into the wall of the bridge again, with possibly shattered ribs and crushed lungs. However, the force flipped my broken body over the wall, falling onto the water below. Because of Iscariot’s barrier, I didn’t sink, but rather, slumped over top. Conveniently, the effect of the running water caused me to be dragged by the current, like a water conveyor belt.
Floating away, I could hear the masked man talking to himself, “I can get him later. For now, I better take care of that sorcerer, this barrier, and then the witch behind these familiars.” Shit! I need to get up. Though my consciousness was quickly fading away, as I was carried downstream. Only to find that I was among the stars. Wait… why was I in the Realm of Stars?
Turning around, I was faced with the Time god, Sela. Without a beanbag chair this time, the being was pacing around the Realm of Stars deep in thought. “Sela, why am I here?” I asked in a philosophical manner. Stopping immediately, the deity gave me a whimsical, unsure look. The stars flickering above reflected off Sela’s vibrant hairs, hanging low from the left side of the child-like being's head with an irregular divinity.
With a sincere smile, Sela spoke caringly. “You are here because I thought you could use a break. Also, you fell unconscious… so I thought I would talk to you till you woke up. There isn’t much else you can do at this moment.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I asked, feeling a bit overwhelmed by the fact that I was chilling in the Realm of Stars while everyone else was fighting that masked freak. Scott was possibly dead, Iscariot may be able to handle himself, but he won’t be able to keep up the barrier for much longer, and Elysif couldn’t do anything else while controlling her familiars, so she’ll be a sitting duck. Even if I couldn’t win, I had to try and at least give them a chance to escape.
“Simple…” Sela began to say, as a devilish grin formed upon the being's child-like face, sending me into a stupor of unease. “... someone much more powerful is about to show up.”
Did this being see this as a joke? My friends are about to die and they stand here, entertained by our fight. The lack of care this deity held for humanity was exemplified by its enjoyment of someone stronger entering our fight. My biggest question was whether it was a friend or foe. “I thought we were going to win? the note from the future said so,” I asked, confused as to why the future would possibly change after Sela said it couldn’t.
“It did, but it didn’t say how. Didn’t that note also warn you to watch your head? You should have been more prudent about that. Your jaw might not have been hit so many times,” Sela said with a mocking, yet giddy look. Sitting down cross-legged in front of me, the time god gave me an empathetic but innocent look that only caused me to sigh in defeat. I was stuck here so there was no helping it. Plus, most of my fears had been alleviated.
Sitting down across from Sela, I crossed my legs over the water-like floor below me. Ripples formed in the water as I did, expanding out into the stars until I could no longer see them. The sight grounded me, calming me before letting out a tired sigh, “So nothing has changed?”
With a vaguely annoyed look, the time god rocked back and forth. “Of course. It has already affected you, so it would have eventually happened,” Sela replied as if I should have already known this. Technically, I did know this but I guess I was still having trouble fully comprehending it.
“So who exactly is this powerful person that is gonna show up?” I asked curiously, figuring that Sela wouldn’t give me a straight answer.
Sela began to look excited in a proud kind of way. Strangely, the excitement radiating from the time lord felt accompanied by an empty sadness, barely hidden by its pride. “The one your captor has been imitating; Sir Micheal,”
“What?!?”