“Here is your drink, Sinzen.”
The red-masked skelemental held his hand out, and Yunze dropped the bottle of wine they’d received from Eurus into the open palm.
“Your timing is horrendous,” Sinzen said, performing a dramatic wave over the empty space in front of and below him. “You missed the scene of the hero waltzing in to defy me! I missed my opportunity to do the spit-take!”
“I am sorry,” Yunze replied, although there didn’t seem to be any emotion behind their words; it was difficult to care about something they couldn’t even begin to understand. “Do you want me to find another hero?”
Chuckling, Sinzen flipped the wine bottle into the sky, and it dropped back down, landing upright (in mid-air, mind you). “No, no, no! The sensational Sinzen is not one to perform the same scene twice! Each Sinzen production is a once-in-a-lifetime event!”
As was always the case, Yunze had no reaction to Sinzen and his showman antics. With a sigh, he waved his hand once more. “Begone.”
“You want me to leave?”
“Though you performed with the speed and grace of a limbless sloth, you have completed your task and no longer have a reason to be here,” he explained, his throne already beginning to levitate higher into the sky as his exit. “If you aren’t going to kill the ultranians or destroy their little crystal treehouse, you should leave.”
For a moment, Yunze hovered in place, cloak fluttering in the breeze, watching blankly as Sinzen floated out of view. When he was gone, the little skelemental’s eyes slowly dropped to the ground below.
“Where should I go?”
* * * *
ULTRA KNIGHT
* * * *
Despite the wounds the U-Knight still carried, Sevya mentally noted that he fought as though he were in prime condition.
She’d never before battled a foe as powerful and skilled as this. Each claymore slash that struck her shield sent a surprisingly sharp streak of pain surging through her skeletal arm. And despite how large and bulky the knight was, he managed to evade almost every single one of her spear lunges, and the ones that did manage to land didn’t seem to affect him much.
She’d already considered him a dangerous foe given his defeat of Fohrzen, but he seemed to be even more deadly than she’d anticipated. Because of this, Sevya knew mere moments into the start of their battle that she would have to go all out in order to defeat him.
Her shield came up to deflect another of his sword swings, but this time, the blade managed to dig into the metal-like bone of the shield; it wasn’t enough to break it outright, but it certainly got the ball rolling, and all it would take was one or two more to get the job done.
As soon as the U-Knight’s sword made contact with her shield, Sevya lunged forward, putting all of her weight behind the attack.
The Knight was ready, however, twirling to the side to avoid the stab outright.
That was Sevya’s desired response. Rather than a simple straightforward stab with her spear, Sevya actually pushed forward as she attacked, charging forward until her entire body sailed past the U-Knight, thus leaving her back exposed to him for an attack.
Predictably, the U-Knight saw the opening and cleaved towards her spine with his claymore.
A sharp bolt of blue lightning extended out from the back end of Sevya’s spear, aimed straight for the U-Knight, catching him unawares. It wouldn’t be enough to kill him or anything, but it would certainly stop him long enough for Sevya to whip back around and finish him off.
Unfortunately for the skelemental, her gambit did not pay off as cleanly as she would have liked. While the blue bolt from her spear did manage to bypass the U-Knight’s claymore and aim for his gut, the Knight’s instincts served him well.
He immediately released his hold on his claymore, and brought his hands back to his stomach, smashing the knuckles together, on either side of the lightning bolt, catching it just before it could pierce his armor.
Sevya’s eyes widened as she heard a loud, explosive voice erupt from behind her.
PULSE!
A wave of purple light danced across the U-Knight’s body in a flash. The blue lightning bolt momentarily adopted the color as the energy of the Pulse Install raced up its length, through Sevya’s spear, before finally exploding in a blast of concussive force in the skelemental’s arm.
Both her spear and her shield fell from her grip, and pieces of her armor on the right side of her body were blown off as well. Sevya herself was thrown several feet away until she crashed against the base of one of the giant crystal Lunafei trees.
The attack had also managed to disorient her, and though she couldn’t see or hear anything for a brief moment, her fighter instincts told her the U-Knight was undoubtedly approaching for the kill.
A swirling mass of green winds began to encircle her body just as the U-Knight dived at her, sword at the ready. He was caught in the sudden storm, and his blade remained locked in place, unable to push past the harsh winds.
The winds dug at his armor, slowly grinding away at it, reducing it to dust. It was an attack that caught him by surprise, and was reminiscent of something Fohrzen had done in their battle.
Sevya lunged at the U-Knight with her spear once again, this time with the intent to actually land a strike.
She did.
The tip of the spear opened a crack in the U-Knight’s stomach plate, and pushed forward even more, digging into his flesh by one, two, then three inches. A spurt of blood shot out from the hole, though it evaporated into silver dust before it had time to hit the ground.
Before Sevya’s spear could burrow any deeper, however, the purple light from the Pulse Install washed over the U-Knight’s body once again, racing up the spear and exploding in a burst of force in Sevya’s hand, causing her to drop the weapon.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
The two warriors leaped away from one another, chests heaving. Neither budged an inch towards their fallen weapons.
“My, going at it like animals even in public!” Sinzen’s obnoxious voice hollered from above. “That fond of each other, are you?”
“Quiet!” Sevya barked, flexing her spear hand open and shut to soothe the ache that pulsed through the bones. “Finish destroying the totems!”
Sinzen was suddenly behind her, leaning his head over her shoulder. “Ah-ah-ah, the glorious Sinzen here is the director, not you. You are merely a bit part actor. Learn your place, Sevya.”
She lashed out with her elbow, but of course, he was long gone by the time it would have connected. He had teleported a few feet away, standing beside the U-Knight’s claymore.
With a snap of his fingers, the sword slowly began to rise upward until it hovered in the space before him. “A strangely dull-looking sword, I must say,” the masked skelemental said. “Certainly not befitting of a hero. Where is the flair? The flash? The unique embellishments? How will we sell toys of this weapon if one could not immediately recognize it as belonging to the famed ULTRA Knight? Your brand needs work, my friend.”
The claymore then started to make its way over to the U-Knight, who snatched it out of the air.
Sinzen vanished and reappeared in the sky, this time atop his throne. Folding one leg over the other, he said, “Carry on with your battle scene, then.”
Sevya still did not have her own weapon, which she mentally cursed Sinzen for. However, to her surprise, the U-Knight did not rush into striking her before she could grab it. She still kept a wary eye on him as she stepped and bent over to retrieve it from the ground, but still the Knight did not move.
It was only after she retrieved both her spear and her shield that the U-Knight settled into his fighting stance. A fact that caught Sinzen’s attention as well. “Ah, he fights with honor, does he? How quaint. Now, hurry and kill each other, would you? Action!”
* * * *
ULTRA KNIGHT
* * * *
Elsewhere in the city, the (non-speaking) skelementals continued their assault on Lunafei largely unimpeded. None of the Ecclesian Knights could fight them, and the city’s mages couldn’t seem to do anything more than slow them down through the creation of various obstacles, but that still didn’t stop the beasts from attacking. Nothing seemed capable of doing so.
That is until the spirit animals arrived.
Glowing creatures similar to those in Aerin’s office, albeit much more corporeal, began to appear in Lunafei, seemingly blinking in existence all around the crystal trees.
They came in a wide variety of bright colors, and were of many different species as well. Blue foxes, red ravens, green unicorns, purple serpents. In almost no time at all, there seemed to be one spirit animal for each skelemental, and the reason for that soon became clear to the people of Lunafei capable of watching.
The spirit animals did not bother trying to attack the skelementals; evidently they themselves did not have the means of actually defeating the monsters either. Instead, each animal approached a skelemental, latching onto it as best they could. And then, in a blink of colored light, the two would vanish, whisked away as though they had never existed.
Aerin breathed a sigh of relief, watching the events unfold through the crystal globe. The others around her seemed a bit confused, and so she answered, “The spirit animals are taking the skelementals to the spirit world. They will not be able to harm us from there.”
That seemed to lift the, uh, spirits, of everyone in the room. The mindless skelementals crawling over the city would now be taken care of in the next few moments. Aerin thus turned the globe’s attention to the outskirts of the city, where the crystal totems were. Though the spirit animals could handle the lesser skelementals, the two leaders would likely be another story entirely. Something else would be required to stop them.
And as that something else appeared in the crystal globe’s view, a voice excitedly called out from over Aerin’s shoulder. “It’s her! The Spirit Queen!”
* * * *
ULTRA KNIGHT
* * * *
The second phase of the U-Knight and Sevya’s duel was a bit more heated than the first. With both being made aware of the other’s ability to gain the upper hand at any moment and deliver the killing blow, they both fought more desperately, putting more energy into their attacks, and keeping their wits about them for any potential tricks like the Pulse Install or the green wind storm that could flip the entire battle on its head in an instant.
Sevya lifted her shield up to block the next incoming claymore strike, cursing under her breath as she felt the shield almost break completely. She could block one more time before it would shatter to pieces.
She wasn’t making much progress on getting a good shot in with her spear, either. The Knight continued to move more quickly and fluidly than she would have thought possible given his size and previous injury, and it took everything she had to keep pace with him. Her spear attacks were quicker than his claymore swings, but even then, neither of them were able to land a solid strike on the other.
But Sevya wasn’t banking on defeating him in a straight up duel, either. Though it hurt her pride to admit it, he was the better duelist, and would most likely win the battle were it to go on long enough.
What she had done instead was order her skelemental steeds to circle around and tackle the U-Knight from behind. Even if they weren’t able to actually trample him, the hesitation would certainly buy her enough time to lunge in and kill him.
And so, as the skelemental horses approached with the speed of a stray lightning bolt, Sevya prepared her final maneuver; she would block the claymore swing with her shield, tossing it away as it shattered to pieces. She would then two-hand her spear, and the moment the Knight was struck or distracted by the horses, she would plunge her spear into his throat.
When the horses were in range, she held her shield aloft, directly in the path of the U-Knight’s next swing. As expected, the blade cleaved the thing into pieces, and Sevya released her hold on it, transferring her hand to the shaft of her spear, ready to spring in for the kill.
The horses arrived on the battlefield, aiming their skulls right for the U-Knight. He seemed to have noticed them this time, and swung in a wide circle, severing both of their heads in one clean chop.
Sevya was surprised to see him swing with such power and precision, but the sacrifice would be worth it. His back was now exposed to her, even if only for a brief moment, but it would be enough.
She aimed the tip of her spear at the nape of his neck, and lunged.
Just before the tip could strike him, a figure materialized in the space between Sevya and the U-Knight, pushing the Knight aside and out of range. She appeared to be a twelve-foot tall woman, though rather than a normal physical body, she seemed to be composed of pure emerald light. Her hand was raised, catching the spear tip in her palm.
The weapon vanished in the blink of an eye as it was taken to the spirit world.
Sevya stumbled in place as her weapon was gone, throwing off her attack. The U-Knight spun around to face her, but did not strike her. He didn’t have much time to, either, as Sevya was suddenly consumed by a sparkle of red light.
She reappeared in the sky, sitting in Sinzen’s lap within his throne. Upon realizing this, she elbowed him in the face, though it didn’t make contact, phasing through him completely. Of course. Another illusion.
“My, my, what a special guest we have here!” The Sinzen illusion said. “The Spirit Queen herself! To what do we owe this honor, milady?”
The Spirit Queen did not open her mouth when she spoke, but her voice was loud and clear, echoing around the entire city, calm and composed, but powerful. “Leave Lunafei immediately. I have already removed your skelemental army. Your invasion is over.”
Sinzen sighed. “There’s always someone here to ruin the fun, isn’t there?”
But he appeared to concede, bowing his head. “Very well, milady. We shall be on our merry little way to terrorize the next city.”
“Other cities are not of my concern,” the Spirit Queen replied. “Only Lunafei matters to me. Do what you will.”
“Oh we shall indeed!” Sinzen said. “Curtains, please!”
In a sparkle of red light, Sinzen, Sevya, and his throne all vanished, leaving the U-Knight and the Spirit Queen alone.
The latter slowly turned around to face the silver-white knight. Neither spoke for a few moments, until finally the Spirit Queen did:
“You will leave my city as well, fraudulent knight. Or I will tear your soul to pieces.”