Ranvir and Dhaakir clashed. Sand sprayed and obsidian shattered. Snow blew in the wake of their struggle, drifts torn back into the sky, whirling patterns tracing their movements. Above, the sky crackled and roared, building, building, building.
Then it could hold no more.
Light seared the heavens, blinding all who watched. Static filled the air and the school’s roof caved in and burst into flames. The lightning strike revealing the forlorn remains of the actual building that hid behind the facade.
Perception cleared Ranvir’s sight in moments, long before anyone else on the field. He dove in, wrapping himself in Bastion and Vortex. Despite Dhaakir’s strengthened blackstorm, he hammered a punch through.
The purist slammed out of the sky with a crackle of bone and cartilage. The old triplet master returned to the sky, blood from his nose joining the dried remains of previous injuries.
Cuts, a dozen tiny injury, lined Ranvir’s forearm and hand, seeping fresh blood. With his blackstorm wrapped so tightly about him, Ranvir could not punch through his defense in any other way than raw strength.
Keeping on the edge of Dhaakir’s Mantle, he sensed the man readying his Lance once more. The old man snarled as he launched his attack. Each moment post Dhaakir’s alignment saw him return to the person he used to be. A hoarse cry sounded as he swung a fist. Half the storm twisted into a mirror of his attack.
Slipping around it, launched himself forward. Hammering feet into hardened space, while shortening the distance before him. Within the old master’s Discipline he couldn’t manage his biggest workings, but these were more than sizable enough.
The wind howled in his ears, snow turning to a blur in his vision, as Ranvir crossed the two-hundred meter span of Dhaakir’s mantle in less than two seconds. Storm bolt launched alongside Ranvir’s strike.
Able to neither hear nor fully feel the impact, Ranvir tumbled through the sky. For a moment, he fell through cleared air before righting himself. It took genuine effort to control his trajectory and come to a halt.
A bone deep ache howled in his fist. A pounding starting at his foremost knuckle, traveling through the fingers and down past his elbow. Cautiously, he flexed his hand. Pain, like an agitated dog, barked at him, but was all bark.
Behind him, the obsidian had fallen to the ground. The stones had fallen in a trail pointing towards Ranvir, or rather beyond him.
He heard the gurgle before he saw him. Dhaakir rose into the sky, head hung low as if it was an effort to keep his eyes on Ranvir, let alone his head up. Blood drooled from his mouth and one arm hanging limp. Black speckled ivory emerged from his side and sternum. Bone stained with obsidian.
A dozen cuts on his face, right arm seared, left arm limp. The leg replacement was gone entirely, and he had a fist-sized dent in his chest. Ranvir saw the effort it took for him to work up the sneer. Dull gray eyes barely seeing what was in front of them.
“You don’t get it,” Ranvir said, swinging in close.
Dhaakir’s gurgling breath was swept away by the wind. The spark was gone. They could no longer understand each other. Yet this close, Ranvir’s translation stone, cord cut but tucked into his pocket, made up the difference.
“I did it,” a line of drool and blood was whipped away in the wind as Dhaakir spoke. His deep-set eyes wandered aimlessly, heavily bagged and purpled from the fighting. “I… became greater.”
“Like Ayvir, or Grevor, or Esmund. But I did it first. Do you understand? And I did it on purpose. Consciously moved myself forward, Dhaakir. They say you hate us. Hate. Does it bother you then? How I moved beyond you? I was seventeen when I did it. First-stage, a single Discipline.”
“Lie,” the old man swayed in the air. Ranvir swept closer and took hold with his bird hand. The old man followed the movement until all he saw was the avian arm. “What are you?”
Ranvir shied away from the feelings inside of him. The notions were too dark, the movements too aggressive. He forced them away. To a place where he didn’t have to look at himself.
He turned Dhaakir’s face to look at him. “I am a traveler. I am twenty-three, almost twenty-four. I have seen more worlds than you ever will. I understand more of mana and anima than you could understand. I take care of my own and when my enemies come to my door, they haven’t yet had the decency to die by my hand.”
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Dhaakir fell forward, his weight resting against Ranvir’s hand. The old man’s injuries were getting the better of him. At least, he was pretending at such, his Lance slipping obsidian ever closer, though hidden from Ranvir’s negligent gaze.
“FOCUS!” Power ripped alongside the words. Ranvir’s tether-sense snapping against the old man’s brittle soul to send a wave of sheer adrenaline through him. Dhaakir jerked back, his Disciplines quivering.
With a groan, the old man tore himself free. His body once more strengthening through the Discipline of Body.
“Arrogance becomes the young,” Dhaakir snarled. “It makes you easy to fell.”
With little more than an arm’s length between them, the old man set to ripping Ranvir apart. Obsidian whipped faster than ever, tearing through Bastion in moments. Dodging back, Ranvir still gained dozens of cuts before he cleared the attack.
“You speak of arrogance? Dhaakir, I see now that you would never have beaten me. You simply weren’t suited for it.”
The old man hunted him. Ranvir kept his distance. On the very edge of the blackstorm, obsidian less than a hand’s span away at any one time.
“How long do you think it takes a swarm of locusts to eat a cow?” Ranvir asked.
Dhaakir ignored him.
“I’ve never checked, but I think a hand is a good estimate, don’t you think?”
Loce lurched to attack. Dhaakir’s technique whirled strongly enough to kill hundreds of Loce’s swarm, sheer chance catching most of them. But Loce wasn’t limited to an insect appearance. Even if so, it still wasn’t enough.
Dhaakir screamed, yet neither blood nor flesh could be seen beneath the writhing mass of his hand. Ranvir glanced down. They weren’t as close to the Purist army as he would’ve liked.
This will have to do. Dismissing Loce, he punched through Dhaakir’s defense one last time. One hand against his fresh clavicle, the other on his unburned hand. The ankirian didn’t even notice the second touch. Ranvir shattered the limb with a single squeeze.
“You come to my school!” there was a fevered tone to his voice that Ranvir only faintly recognized. “You attack a place of learning, a safe place. We did not want any part of your war. Yet, you would not let us stand free. Now here we are. Me fighting and corpse who doesn’t even realize it.”
Dhaakir’s technique was weakening, focus slipping. Ranvir lifted the shattered limb, revealing the ice coated hand. “You didn’t even see, did you? You never fought it. Just let it take hold and now it’s too late. Now all that’s left to me is cleaning up.” Taloned fingers dug into skin and bone.
Dhaakir writhed, eyes widening. His mouth formed silent pleas as he grasped Ranvir’s bird arm. Reinforcing Body left his blackstorm technique faltering, stones dropping out of the sky for the last time.
Ranvir lay his tether-sense across the old man’s soul, smothering it as he seized him by collarbone and neck. With mana enhancing his strength and spirit crushing his enemy, Ranvir heaved.
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Cries and screams went up among the crowds gathered before the school. A storm to anger the Sisters, bringing abominable lightning and snow into an unholy mix, brought with it the birth of a horrible terror.
Purple light shone to mark the two figures struggling in the sky. One crumbling in the other’s mere presence, arm breaking apart and showering the ground as he battered against an implacable foe.
Dhaakir, the Blackstorm, al-Khatib screamed as the monster, edged in stormfire, who fought with pestilence, tore him in half. The violet gaze then turned toward the warriors and soldiers, the army remnant. Even their captors shook at the vision before them and the Purists knew.
Somehow this struggle had unleashed the Devil itself upon. Each country had its own name for it. Ealam Althueban. The name moved through both armies at the speed of rumor and story; the name repeated on the rare Elusrians among the Sleeping Sons. Varumgándr had taken human-flesh.
Storm clouds descended to swallow the monster. Funneling down to swallow his form entire. Lightning flashed to outline the channel, revealing the writhing shape it took to reach him.
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Kasos examined the space working, hovering at the center of the school’s pocket-space, or rather fold. Above, Ranvir was clearing out the storm, rightfully recognizing the danger of letting it run wild.
Unfortunately, it seemed he was running out of storm mana, so it was taking him a while. Kirs and the others had been carted out and were being seen to by the Sleeping Sons. It seemed they would live.
“You hid well,” Kasos commented.
“Yet you found out,” the only other occupant of the space said, voice distorted by anima.
“Too convenient.”
“Convenient?”
“A man like Dhaakir, his ability was specialized to hurt, mangle, and kill as many people as possible.”
“Ah,” the voice acknowledged. “I couldn’t rightfully let him.”
Kasos turned, and death breathed down his shoulder. “Eyes front.” Sweat already running in the tracks of his age, Kasos shook as he focused on the knot. “Impressive isn’t it?”
“It is. For one so young.”
“For one at any age. Could you have done the same?”
Kasos hesitated. “The effort would’ve killed me.”
The person rested a hand on his shoulder. “I feared you might’ve realized. This is just to ensure your suspicions don’t spread. I am not here to kill you.”
Kasos closed his eyes and swallowed hard, shirt clammy and chill against his back. “You couldn’t repeat this. Protecting them against Dhaakir is one thing, but Saleema. She’d be—“
“My equal?” The voice was amused. “Imagine that…”
“Kasos?” Kirs asked, standing at the top of the ice stairs. “What are you doing all alone?”
Kasos gave her a weak smile as he turned around. “Forgive an old man his dawdling.”