"I will." I grabbed her hand and held it momentarily before teleporting.
I arrived at a vastly different Arctic Circle. Thunderclouds gathered overhead, the sea beneath churned, and frozen hail whipped from the skies.
"Welcome to your tomb," she grinned, and the world came after me. Lightning, thick as buildings, speared from the heavens, and twisters from the frozen sea swirled up, clashing in the middle where I previously stood.
Teleporting to land didn't make matters any better. The ground exploded, chunks of stone and permafrost spearing out at over Mach 10 speeds. I blurred through the landscape, bursting away from the cascading attacks, reappearing behind Storm. I unleashed a barrage of compressed, target-seeking, telekinesis-infused firebolts.
The moisture in the air disappeared as Storm called up water from the sea and flash-froze it to block most of the attack. Several planes of meter-thick air joined in as well to intercept the rest.
While she was distracted, I struck with a fully charged burst punch to her stomach. The blow connected, eviscerating her midsection, and we shared a collective look of horror.
"You're a lot stronger than he gives you credit for," Storm said. "I see why he wants you dead."
In a flash, her body transformed into lightning that surged up my arm and targeted my core.
Arcs of electricity flooded out, cooking my skin underneath. My muscles twitched, and my blood boiled, but I welcomed the pain strangely. My body savored it. It resonated with something deeper inside of me--my Promethean Body.
I let it linger longer than it should have before rebuffing it with an Aegis parry, throwing the remainder of the lightning back while I activated my offensive Cloak stack. A gust flared around me with a beat of my blue wings, and my Mind and Density cloaks activated, ramping up each aspect's effectiveness boost in Devil Trigger.
Storm welcomed the streak of lightning with her hand and solidified it, adding more lightning to the bolt and transforming it into a weapon.
"Really, a trident?"
"I thought it appropriate given the setting," she said. "And it is the weapon I'm most experienced with."
"I could say that about all of my weapons," I said. "Shame I don't intend to drag this fight out."
I drew on my telekinesis and fire affinity—Eryx glowing in my hand—and uttered a final word.
BURN.
The explosion nearly shattered my eardrum and sent out a ripple of force and fire that shook the air. It reminded me why I loved my commands so much. Fighting with them was so much fun.
The sky overhead roiled with fury as lightning strikes descended by the dozens. I cut through the air, banking, twisting, diving, and dodging; all the while, I channeled my dual affinities.
Time to kick things up a notch.
With a flex of my hands and affinities, I reversed the direction of the fire and kinetic energy, turning it inwards instead of out, making Storm the center of the floating ball of fire.
The lightning storm intensified, and soon, I was burning at full speed, drawing on my Advanced Burst to keep ahead of the assault. The fight took a difficulty spike when the first beam of red lightning struck inches from me. Moment of the Sage let me dodge in time, but I didn't come out unscathed. It blackened the side of my armor, sending jolts up half of my body, making controlling demonic energy difficult.
I stamped down the interference with a flex of my will, but I could see the writing on the wall. The demonic energy in the air suddenly doubled—and doubled again. Swiping down, I acted before she could fully manifest her Cloak.
DOWN.
Gravity joined in with the fire, pulling and yanking her to land. The ice exploded when she made contact, and a shove pushed her past the meters of thick ice and deep into the earth underneath. I stopped holding back the explosion, empowering it with another surge of my fire affinity.
EXPLODE.
I commanded, and the fire obeyed. The earth and sky shook, and a fire and magma poured out. The ash and heat rolled off in waves like I'd awakened a long-dead volcano.
For a long moment, there was silence, and I feared that I might've overdone it and killed her, but her oppressive energy remained very much the same, and the lightning stopped.
"That's a good sign. I think."
The sea turned blood-red so fast I almost didn't notice it happen. Spears of Bloody Ice burst from the water by the hundred, dozens of feet tall, all angled at me. I snapped my fingers, unleashing a wave of fire that should've erased them, but it only made them weepy.
Shit.
I swished my wings, spiking Burst as I vanished, dodging the avalanche that came my way. The barrage pushed me to my limit and forced me to lean on my runes. I dedicated a quarter of them to Burst. The world compressed. One moment, I was meters above the Arctic; the next, I was at sea, near the clouds—exactly where Storm wanted me.
Red bolts descended. I blurred again, tapping into half of my runes, reappearing closer to the ground this time, only to be intercepted by two bolts already in motion. Moment of the Sage gave me milliseconds to respond, and I raised an Aegis shield and parried, redirecting most of the charge.
A third bolt caught me from behind, spearing through my shield like tofu, crashing into my armor. The metal held but offered little protection. The electricity ravaged my insides, and the impact swatted me into the Ice.
It took me longer than I'd like to realize that the final attack was no bolt at all.
Storm finally unleashed her form, and it was glorious. She'd taken the bloody tint of the rest of her attack and wielded an actual spear covered in runes. Whatever it was, I guessed it supercharged her demonic magic penetration ability, which explained what happened to my shield and armor.
No worries. I still had more tricks up my sleeve. On a hunch, I decided to lay off elemental attacks. You never know.
Pure telekinesis it is, then. I flexed my will, reversing my descent and rocketing upward with a burst charged to the brim with my runes. Storm's eyes widened just before impact. Eryx tore through her Cloak, shattering it, and slammed into her midsection. She shot through the clouds, parting them like a spear. I followed.
When I arrived, she was gone. My eyes darted around as I floated. A flicker of movement—then a bolt of lightning struck. I teleported just in time, but she was already there, waiting, her trident swinging. With Aegis off the table, Eryx would have to do.
My eyes widened as I felt her energy flood Twilight Sentinel. Somehow, she wrenched my arms apart, leaving me wide open. Her strike landed—but so did mine. A fully charged burst of telekinetic force detonated between us, blasting her away. But she wasn't done. A sharp, rippling pain exploded in my chest. Blood spilled from my mouth and nose.
Did she just detonate the air in my lungs?
I barely had time to process before her trident rammed into my core, discharging enough lightning to stop and restart my heart. But that wasn't the worst of it.
My armor jerked violently, flinging me toward the volcano I'd created. I struggled to regain control, but her grip on it was ironclad. I reached for my runes, but she cut me off with an unexpected move—
She flooded Twilight Sentinel with energy, severing my connection to my own armor. Then, to drive the knife deeper, she struck me with another bolt, cooking me from the inside out.
I screamed as my health plummeted. My body hummed. Promethean Body drank in the damage, learning, adapting.
I flexed my Density and Gravity affinities, making Twilight Sentinel as light as paper. But that didn't help the tug-of-war. Taking it off would be suicide, and teleporting was risky—she could strike before I even finished reappearing.
Her enhanced mutation, it seemed, had significantly boosted her base control and expanded it to include anything elemental-adjacent. Even metal.
It was like fighting Lumos all over again.
I'd promised Jean I would go easy on her, but I didn't really see many other options.
I couldn't run. Switching modes would leave me vulnerable. I had one real play left—Mind Affinity. I'd give her an aneurysm. With her regeneration, she'd have to survive a few.
BREAK.
Storm's head snapped back, blood bursting from her orifices, but she recovered in less than a second and charged me.
BREAK. BREAK. BREAK. BREAK.
BREA—
Stone hands erupted from the earth, locking me in place. Her trident rammed into my gut. The force drove me deep into the molten crater, currents of lightning pushing Devil Trigger's regeneration to its absolute limit as she tried to rip my armor apart.
"Die, you worm. I should've never given you the benefit of the doubt."
The feeling was fucking mutual!
With one final shove, she slammed me into the bottom of the magma pool, splitting it apart. The volcano collapsed, burying me beneath millions of pounds of rock.
Time slowed. Moment of Sage activated just before impact, granting me my first real breath in nearly a minute. My lungs were good as new. For the first time since she activated her Cloak, I wasn't dealing with attacks too fast to perceive.
I had a few precious moments. And I was going to make the most of them.
Twilight Sentinel vanished, replaced by simple clothes—enhanced with Devourer Scales from a side project. I'd designed them to make my attire more durable if I had to fight without armor.
Good call, in retrospect.
I switched Triggers and changed Eryx to Aquila. In her brutal assault, she hadn't once gone after Rebellion or its other forms. She didn't seem like the type to hold back. It was more likely that she couldn't control the enchanted weapon.
Dimensional energy flooded the engraved shuriken blades. I swung upward, unleashing a massive energy disk packed with slicing power. It carved through the falling stone, opening a gap rapidly filled with magma.
I teleported out faster than ever before. Without Storm's energy running through me, my control over space felt effortless. My wings spread wide, holding me in the air. I held back Gust but activated my Mind and Gravity Cloaks for speed. Those two affinities seemed like the safest bets.
Storm hovered above, eyes narrowing as she took in my new stance and Aquila in my grip.
"I'm going back to the basics," I grinned. "Let's see just how fast you really are."
I pulled my hands back and swiped forward, unleashing hundreds of energy shurikens in a blinding wave.
With a flex of my dimensional affinity, I uttered my second command with Angel Ascension.
CUT.