Kyra felt the heat of the fire on her face and her hands, everywhere else her armour protected her from the raging inferno coming from the basilisk. The monster had a physics-defying ability to direct the fire and she was having a hard time dodging it and some of her diamond panels that absorbed the damage were having a hard time.
She read the notifications around the flashes of flame and saw Lucy’s message when it hit the interface. She knew a change was coming and got ready to make her own opportunity. The basilisk seemed to breathe in for a second before releasing its next torrent of flame and she stood right in front of it. The flames are rushing towards her in a rotating tunnel of fire, she threw her arms akimbo and took the splash of flame straight to her chest. The huge diamond panels there seemed to suck in the fire. The monster stopped, unable to see its target around the flame and sure it had killed the agile two legged thing in front of it. As soon as it stopped Kyra leapt high into the air into a lazy backflip. As she did the diamond panels rearranged, fresh ones coming from the built in storage and the damaged ones moving to the seldom seen diamonds on the soles of her shoes. She chose then to detonate the panels, sending damage-soaked Mystic Diamond shards into the monster’s face, the damage the diamond had absorbed used against the monster; shredding it’s eyes. It wasn’t known by the same name in this world but Newton’s third law took effect, she was blasted away from the monster, effectively breaking contact with the enemy. Whilst she was airbourne she pulled out a hand mirror.
………
Lucy watched as Kyra sent out a circle of diamond dust with an artefact they had created together in the middle. Her golem was normally a huge round boulder of pure diamond with two short stubby legs and two short stubby arms with a little round head. This time with the artefact in the centre the golem appeared as a huge crystalline bear covered in sharp edges. Trying not to be distracted by this appearance as it lumbered off to join James and Koda Lucy picked her moment and cast a spell. [Heads up Teddy!]
“Exchange our fates.”
She immediately switch teleported with Teddy. As he had been attached to the tether power she took the bond herself. She had drawn the Athame of the Combat Witch. She was nowhere near the swordsman that Teddy was and immediately was overwhelmed. One of the human confederates ended up pounding her in huge overhead swings. Eventually she missed a swing and it chopped into her body, burying itself halfway.
Lucy watched the sword bury itself into her illusionary double, her Playing Possum power at bronze teleported her just out of range. She had recognised that Teddy had not been able to use any powers so she had activated the Playing Possum power before she launched, trusting it would still work. She found herself next to Kyra who was taking a moment. She squeezed her round the waist quickly in a hug as she stood up then watched the two human confederates. The illusionary double started to fade away now it had been struck. The tether that had been attached to Teddy, then Lucy and then to Lucy’s double now had nothing to connect to and the general rule of tether powers or items was that a forcible disconnect caused a backlash. As the other two humans were still attached to the tether it caused it to attack them, they were hit with pulses of magical power that had them writhing on the floor. The assumption was that they must have had another item to negate the power but hadn’t had the chance to use it. The one who had made the ‘killing’ blow started to rise first, he grabbed something off the floor where Lucy had been and Kyra recognised what it was.
“Oh no you don’t!” She said, conjuring a diamond spear and throwing it as the confederate picked up Lucy’s Deathstick where it had fallen from the back of the Athame.
Kyra had a good throw but what Teddy and Lucy had learnt the hard way was that these extremists that joined the Confederacy were hypocritical, they were essence users that hated a world of people ruling with essences but they eschewed their own, refusing to use their powers in combat so they trained to be the best martial warriors they could. The Confederate rolled and the spear dug into the ground next to him. He stood and smiled malevolently at the girls, reversing his grip of his sword he dug it into the ground and pulled the spear free. Even though they had sworn off magic he was obviously pissed from being blown up and he had seen the damage the wand had done in Lucy’s hand. He must’ve had an essence power to allow him to use magical weapons because he raised his arm at the girls and fired. The wand blew up his hand, he looked in shock at the bloody stump that ended just beyond the elbow.
[It was at 001/200 uses, I didn’t know what would happen when it run out so I left it there out of curiosity.] Lucy explained.
The girls stood watching and flinching slightly. Kyra shrugged again. “Oh well.” She said dismissively and snapped her fingers. The spear in his other hand exploded and blew his other hand off.
He stood there stupidly not knowing what had just happened. A dark blur went past him and his head toppled to the floor and Teddy held his pose with his blue dimension blade held out behind him, staring at the last Confederate with terrifying dark eyes.
The man was scared. They had all felt the divine intervention and the other two of his team were now dead, they had given their all and the other team had rallied.
Teddy hadn’t been idle in the time Lucy had provided and they saw the Basilisk Kyra had been fighting was now fighting off a swarm of tiger-sized beasts from the void. At iron rank the beasts had been up to dog-sized, dark and shiny with extra limbs or mouths but the detail was hard to see as it hurt the eyes to look at them. This effect on the vision was made all the worse by creatures as big as a jungle cat, jumping on the monsters back and leaping for its throat. The monster’s fiery breath slid straight off the shiny skin even with it being a silver power punching a rank down. He had also used his Dimensional Warrior power and a huge shaggy barbarian character was sprinting towards James’s fight, wielding wolverine-style claws that were three feet long from each hand and hooked at the ends it barrelled into the fight.
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With the silver rank monsters tied up for the moment it was three on one, the two girls and Teddy stood against him. Athame, diamond and dimension blades held ready.
“Surrender, tell your monsters to stop and we will take you prisoner.” Kyra called out to him.
“There is no surrender.” Teddy snarled, completely out of character.
“Teddy!” Kyra called in surprise, holding out a hand to stop him. She turned back to the man. “All hope is lost, surrender is your only hope.”
Something broke in the mans eyes as he searched for a way to win and he closed his eyes as if searching within himself. Suddenly a magic bubble shield appeared around him and he summoned a sword of fire.
“Coward, hypocrite.” Teddy snarled. [Triple slam.] He put on the interface and designated the man as a target. The card popped up next to it as it was a named moved they had used before. Kyra sighed audibly, she had tried.
First Teddy threw his Void Pull out to the side of the Confederate. The large gravitational void also had the effect of pulling his bubble shield to the side, as it was free floating in the air it was pulled almost entirely free of the man exposing his top and side. Like a feathered thunderbolt Lechuza smashed down with incredible force into the man who thought he was safe behind his shield. After he had started the move Teddy looked up, he teleported as high as he could then free-fell down, he used Winged Feet to kick upwards, pushing himself to the ground even faster, accelerating all the time. When he was close enough, just after Lucy absorbed Lechuza the split second after she hit, Teddy used his Wraiths Dash on an air step to accelerate his body to ridiculous speeds. He smashed past the man with his dimension blade out sideways, causing incredible damage before zipping through a rift portal on the ground so he himself wasn’t pulped when he hit the floor. The split second after that in a feat of timing only possible due to the interface and the incredible amount of training the team went through James teleported above the man with his execute ability Last Shadow. The amount of damage the man had just taken made the execute incredibly potent and James’s transformed taloned foot tore through his chest and face into the ground, leaving an unrecognisable mound of flesh.
The silver rank monsters went still, they were like robots awaiting command. The Void Beasts proceeded to rip chunks of flesh off as they bore the Basilisk to the floor. Koda, the Diamond bear golem and the Dimensional Warrior laid into the two dinosaur twins. The team joined in, they had no idea if the formidable monsters would come to their senses and start fighting back so they went all out putting them down with every power they had. There were few bronze monsters left after the Titan Ragnar had attacked the bulk and they were soon in a smelly, bloody, very still valley.
The Mitchells stood silently in shock. They were ragged. Teddy had been cut so many times his dark combat robes were shredded, hanging around him like tendrils, the self repair magic completely ruined. James was cradling his left arm with his right, chunks of flesh had been torn out and would need extensive healing from Kyra that their boons weren’t covering. Kyra’s armour had stood up to its test of silver rank combat but was blackened by residue, her neck and one side of her face was badly burnt and her accelerated healing was struggling to make ground against it. Her hair miraculously had not been burnt and was a stark contrast in its beauty, the barrel charms from Hero had protected it. Lucy was badly beaten in the duel before she could use her Playing Possum power effectively but what she was suffering with more was the headache of having used so much mana over the battle, she was completely wrung out.
The smells and the dead filtered away, a thick smoke billowed out covering the ground and they felt like they could see the sunbeams again. As they looked around for the source they felt a recently familiar aura. Looking down the hill again they saw a short, thickset man wearing a feathered cape over ancient armour, his beard was pure white and long to match his hair. He wore an eye patch over one eye, the other seemed to pierce through the four adventurers. Along with a long sword on his hip he was leaning against a gnarly wooden staff that thrummed with violent magic.
None of the Mitchells felt like making an Odin joke, not out of reverence for the god, out of a feeling of emptiness. There was a hole in their chests, a space that they hadn’t realised had grown so large and used to be filled with Ragnar. Hero seemed to realise this, he stamped his staff on the ground once and the swirling fog next to him spiralled up into a facsimile of Ragnar. It didn’t fill with colour, looking very much like the ghost they supposed he now was.
The ghost spoke to them.
“I take this gift freely, be not saddened by it for I am not. Tell them. This is mine choice.”
Hero gave them a moment. Then he stamped his staff again and the ghost puffed away, Kyra’s hand twitched like she was going to try and catch the smoke drifting away.
“There is never a moment I am more proud, and more saddened then when I meet one of my clergy face to face. Ragnar has been in my service since he was a boy, we have shared every moment together and I have never seen him as happy as when he was with you Mitchells.”
“What do you want?! Why are you here? Why are we here? How dare you stand there and show us what we lost!” Teddy raged at the god.
“I want you all to be all you can be. You are good people no doubt about it and the world could do with more like you. You come from a world where doing the right thing is a choice, a choice which does not involve the wrath of a god.”
“He asked you why you are here, you got what you wanted, why don’t you just leave us alone.” Kyra said, staring defiantly at the god.
“I cannot leave you be Mitchells, for reasons I cannot tell you but one day you will know.”
“That’s a fat lot of good to us now, just leave us out of whatever you have planned.” James said angrily.
“You are sad and angry, you have every right to be. I have seen heroes all over this world sacrifice themselves with or without my being there to offer them the power, be comforted this is precisely how Ragnar Ohanson wanted to be remembered. All over this world in every one of my temples artists are already composing art dedicated to the Titan under the Mountain. He will be remembered for longer than the newest born babe destined to make gold rank will live.”
Hero paused to look over their shoulders and they turned to see Lord Alihan float towards them, he was unsteady like being buffeted by strong winds and they saw why. He only had one of his four dragonfly wings, half of his face was just gone, leaving a red edge. He was missing one leg to the waist and the other to the knee. One arm was mangled beyond recognition as an arm and the other… The team all felt a tear in their eye as they saw he was carrying the remains of Ragnars axe, one half of the double headed axe had completely snapped off and the other had a twelve inch gash in the middle of the blade. He handed the remains to Teddy.