“Are you sure this is going to work?” Asked Benny anxiously as we stopped outside the exit to the passages. The others were behind us, but they’d wordlessly agreed to hang back so my best friend could try to talk some sense into me.
“That depends.” I said with a smile, looking over my shoulder. “Hey, Walker.” I called loudly. “You sure this is the exit closest to the speedster?”
He nodded. “When last we checked. This should be the nearest to his position.”
“Then, yeah, I’m about fifty percent sure.” I told Benny brightly. “Pretty good odds. It’s as good as a coin flip. Fifty fifty.”
He threw up his hands. “That’s a failing grade in literally every feasible grading metric! Fifty fifty is terrible!” He turned and started pacing. “You’re going to die. And then I’m going to die. Or worse, you’ll die and I’ll live and your wife will murder me. Slowly!”
“It’s true.” I admitted. “She’d make you suffer for decades.”
“You’re not helping!” He hissed angrily.
I put a hand to my chest in shock. “Oh no! Am I not being considerate of how hard your part in this plan is? I could see how having to risk your life like this would be stressful, oh wait, no, that’s me, so shut up and go stand in the corner like a good little rescuee.”
He glared. “You are not RESCUING me. You’re helping. We could totally do this on out own we-” He yelped as something smacked into the back of his head, shooting Celine a betrayed look.
“Sorry.” She said without a hint of remorse. “Callie says when the two of you spend too long bickering it needs to be interrupted or you’ll banter for hours.”
He rubbed his head, glaring at me. “Your wife is a terrible influence.” He said acidly.
I shrugged. “She’s not wrong.” I reached out and tapped him on the shoulder lightly with a fist. “I’m good man, seriously. I put a lot of thought into this plan, did the scouting, measured everything. I can do this. Just be ready to leg it when phase one ends.”
Blowing out a breath, he nodded. “I got it. Just be careful. Seriously, aside from being super sad, my life will be hell if you die on my watch. Forget Callie, your mom scares the shit out of me.”
“That’s probably a smart position to take.” I admitted. “I’ll try my best not to leave you hanging.”
Smiling reassuringly, I turned to the passage and opened it, stepping outside, we left it cracked so I could see in, part of the plan.. I had State of Grace pushed to its limits and was paying close attention to my surroundings. I even triggered Piece of Mind so I could dedicate a whole parallel to executing my task flawlessly. My plan was rough, but I had the tools to pull it off. I’d crunched the numbers, I just needed to manage this first phase and we were golden.
It only took a moment or two. I’d counted on them having some way of monitoring the hallways, and sure enough, they did. I felt my Danger Sense go off and used my parallel to trigger a pair of skills at once.
As I felt the attack coming, I triggered Double Trouble, targeting Benny inside the passage, and Pit of Despair on the wall next to where I was standing. Dust Construction kept it looking like a wall as I vanished, replaced by an illusion. Even with my speed enhanced, an entire other mind working the problem, and forewarning, I BARELY managed to move out of the way. But manage I did.
The speedster had been nearby, and when notified of my presence had come right for me, as I expected. While the other E-rankers were important, I was the main target on Callus, and I knew there would be standing orders to prioritize my capture.
My plan’s first phase went off perfectly as the speedster passed through the illusionary double and hit the wall, smashing face first into a Pit of Despair and driving himself deep into the stone.
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I let the skill drop, entombing him in rock, and shouted to go, the rest of us booking it out of the passages and down the hall. We’d gone over the path we had to take ahead of time, and all of us moved at top speed. Walker actually carried Benny and Jessie, while Jessie carried Randall (mini form) and Celine hung around his neck.
His ability let him move faster than any of the rest of us, and between my waltz and her stats Stella and I made the trip fast.
We were around the corner and in the next hall when there was an echoing crash, but I was already in motion. My Danger Sense had gone off again, and warned me of the return of Bon Voyage, and I was already in a combination of Mephistopheles and Belial, my staff flashing out to slam into the ground and open up a pair of Pits of Despair infused with Belial’s corrosion.
As soon as they were down, I raised my staff and started charging cosmic collapse with the black fire and corrosion energy combined, pushing myself further than I ever had before as I activated Mornax, a third form stacking on top of the other two.
Even my soul, so powerful for my rank, screamed in distress under the weight of using all three forms and a technique at the same time. Only Callie’s silent support and intervention, shouldering half the burden, left me functional as I launched my cosmic collapse.
With my parallels going, this entire sequence of events had taken place in a fraction of a second, my warning from Danger Sense letting me move before the speedster even broke free. As he came around the corner he ran into my pits of acidic despair and had to pause so he didn’t fall in, then readjust to use the singular path I’d left between the pits.
The cosmic collapse detonated as he was right about to reach me, less than a foot away, and he didn’t have time to dodge it at all. The explosion of black fire was infused with corrosive green flame, and the combination sprayed the hall in a cone, sticking to every surface like corrosive napalm.
Bon Voyage had taken it full in the face, and I let Mephistopheles and my parallels drop as I adjusted my stance, Mornax and Belial still going, but the strain easing as I pulled back from crossing my limits.
The speedster had stumbled back, screaming and clawing at his body, burning with a terrible flame that wouldn’t go out, the toxic fire eating through his flesh, mixing the horrible corrosive strength of Belial with Mephistopheles’ armor piercing properties. It was WAY more damaging than expected, and it would have been enough to put any normal person out of commission.
But luckily, I didn’t make plans to deal with normal people. I’d been studying tactics, learning how to make best use of my abilities, and while this particular plan was mostly just ‘apply extra hard brute force here’, I’d learned enough about making plans to know you should always expect to need overkill.
The speedster screamed, an inhuman sound of pure rage, and rushed me at top speed, obviously trying to use some combination of the fire and his momentum to smash me into mincemeat and hopefully end the skill.
Which, considering I still had Mornax active, didn’t work out so well. He hit me at top speed and stopped like a bug hitting a windshield, albeit with less explosive results. He was still burning but the most the impact did was break some bones. Of course, it also STOPPED him, and I wrapped my arms around him in a big bear hug, holding onto him tightly.
Belials’s corrosion still coated my body, and it started seeping into him, even through the flames. My fire didn’t hurt me at all through the combination of my defenses and current corrosive nature, and I felt him stiffen and start to panic.
His fists came up, and he started wailing on me, arms blurring as he smashed his hands into me faster than my eyes could see. I just took it, letting him poison his shattering fists as he pounded fruitlessly at my extremely durable exterior. To my shock, I started to feel the blows cracking my implacable stone hide, pain eating away at me.
Speed was a factor of Might, and someone like this had to be absurdly specialized. The strength he was using was unbelievable, and he was hitting fast enough to damage even my nearly unbreakable defense. At the end of the day though, it wasn’t enough. I’d put him in the worst position someone like him could be in.
He stopped struggling after about five minutes (an eternity to me) and I stumbled back, letting all my skills and forms drop as I keeled over. Benny caught me, Jessie there to support, and I felt my healer friend’s power surge into me, even as Benny’s spiritual calming helped repair the soul damage to my cracked and aching spirit.
“I hate super speed.” I rasped. “I hate it so much.”
Benny snorted. “I can’t believe that worked. How the hell did you know what he would do so accurately?”
I shrugged, ignoring the agony it sent through my repairing body as they hefted me up onto a now expanded Randall. I wouldn’t be walking for a while, and the bear would make a good protector as well as a mount. “It wasn’t too hard to predict his path. The tough part was knowing if I’d be fast enough to react. State of Grace and my armor helped with that. Otherwise I’d have been screwed.”
“Speaking of your armor.” Said Jessie in a worried tone. “How did he bypass it and do so much damage to your body?”
“Blunt force.” I grimaced. “Plus I was in a stone form, and extra vulnerable to that kind of thing. The vibrations were basically tearing me apart. Never come up before because almost nothing our rank can get through my defense. That guy was hyper focused on Might, and his speed ability clearly gave him some kind of modifier for it too.”
I mentally sent a question to Callie, checking on her, and she sent back a tired, pained affirmative. She’d helped a lot, but I’d been handling most of it. She was going to be fine, she just needed some rest. “Alright.” I said tiredly. “Let’s go meet up with the others. We need to get the hell out of here. Walker, you ready for your part?”
The dapper guild master nodded. “I’ll be applying my ability to this ‘starlight charger’ to enable us to travel vast distances nearly instantly.”
We made our way out of the building. We ran into a few baddies, but the others handled them, mostly just wendigos. Randall apparently remembered the first one, because he seemed to take great pleasure in tearing them apart.
Once we got outside, Callie was able to direct me to the others, still cognizant enough to keep watch, and we met up with them quick as could be. Dead Eddie and Sam Slaughter were with them, the former seeming almost cheerful and the latter looking suspiciously beaten up.
Bethy took us all into her Domain, and she, Gabe, and Walker climbed on the charger (it was a bit cramped but the horse was big) and we were off. The speed of the horse, Gabe’s Path, and Walker’s ability was just as potent a combo as we’d expected, and we literally made it back to the fortress in less than ten minutes, a staggering pace. When we were safely back, I stumbled up into the castle, finding a room, and promptly passed out on the bed. Mission successful, now I needed to get some fucking sleep.