A fat chance.

Surprisingly, swinging the Artificer's spellblade was a lot tougher than John would have imagined. It wasn't that the weapon was heavy, not for him. The problem he had was in the resistance. Even without slicing directly into Michel's form, just swinging the blade through the air was like trying to cut through something thicker than gas or water. When he swung, he felt it push back against him, but with each inch the weapon moved, it somehow got easier, as if the spell had somehow been weighing it down.

-16 HP!

The backblast alone from the weapon's spell hurt John and sent him stumbling backwards as it tore apart the street in a wide, devastating arc. Cars, walls, and asphalt alike all shredded beneath the blade in the form of an icy blue wave. What it struck and didn't immediately destroy was sprayed in a layer of cerulean tinted liquid that froze on contact with anything that it touched. When the wave hit Michel, it threw him off his feet, and John watched as the blond giant was rocketed through the walls nearby and buried in the rubble of one of the nearby buildings.

Around the edges of the small splashes of cerulean liquid, a gentle blue flame flickered weakly to life... or at least it looked like flame. It spread like fire too, but it didn't burn like it. Where the small bits of blue flame touched and licked, it only stayed there briefly. The fire enveloped for just a mere second... and then it moved on, and behind it, the fire left a trail of more and more ice until, finally, one half of the street was covered entirely in snow and ice.

For a long moment, John just stood there... staring at the hole in the side of the building where Michel had just been. Even if Michel somehow wasn't dead after that, he expected him to at least be frozen. He waited and watched, as if he were struggling to turn and face the other man who had made himself an enemy of the Gamer in that very street. It was a lot harder than he expected.

Taylor wasn't even moving when John turned to face him. He was watching John with wide, green eyes, but he wasn't moving. The surprise of what John had just done had stunned the other man and kept him still long enough for John to fly at him in a blind rage.

He didn't even pay attention to the pop-ups anymore or bother with using his abilities. When he turned and saw Grace's limp form just lying there, John descended upon Taylor like a man possessed. He hit and struck him again and again, raining down punches until his knuckles actually began to hurt and his enemy stopped moving, and then he hit him some more. In the back of his mind, John could make out the sound of someone screaming, a man, he realized... but it wasn't until he ran out of breath that he realized he had been the one yelling. He almost jumped at the sound of his own voice, and after realizing that Taylor was no longer a problem, he stood...

...and Michel stood beside him.

445 Damage!

Michel Vitaly Alexeev
Level 20 Fighter
<Practicus>
108/986 HP
RP: +5
Effects: Herculean Body, Hardened Hide

John didn't even get a chance to try and swing the sword again; Michel just grabbed it before he could even lift the thing. An audible whining noise echoed throughout the street as the large, blond giant gripped the blade with one hand and squeezed. He didn't even cast anything or prepare a spell. With one hand, Michel took the blade of Cassandra's katana... and shattered it mostly into two large separate pieces. The metal squealed painfully in their ears as it broke, humming highly on an unnatural level before he tossed it aside and turned to John.

The Gamer twisted as soon as he saw him break the sword, ducking low enough to grab at the **** rifle Taylor had been using before Michel suddenly hit him again. As John quickly found out, the giant didn't hold back this time. Michel was struggling after John had sliced a hole open in his chest. His breathing was heavy and audibly pained. His gaze remained hard and angry, and what little bit of clothing or armor he still had was frozen solid. The rest of his gear had been reduced to scraps.

-80 HP!

It only took a touch. John didn't even have to grab the rifle to take it: once he touched it, he managed to shift the weapon over into his inventory and pull it back out after Michel kicked him across the street. He chuckled as he noted how close he was to **** again, grinning at the last four hit points he had and at Michel... when he saw Grace move again.

It was subtle. She barely even twitched enough for John to realize that she was still alive, but when she sluggishly began to open one of her eyes and her shoulders started to fall, John realized how much time he had left.

If he could at least get to her...

Michel crossed Grace on his way to get to John. He didn't bother looking down or checking to see what he was doing. He just outright stepped on their friend, and John pulled the gun out of his inventory.

He could taste his own blood, John realized as Michel stopped right in front of him. It may have been the first time since he had received his own powers that that had happened. Michel had actually hit him harder than he realized, at least hard enough to trigger something... If it wasn't an actual wound, then perhaps a memory... probably of one of the times when Frank had hit him.

That was one of the things he still didn't even understand. He had heard the reasons he gave, but it didn't make sense to John. Why would Michel have helped him with someone as menial as Frank if his intent had been to just betray him?

"Don't make me do this." John said it without thinking. It seemed unlikely Michel would stop by that point, and after a moment, Michel stepped forward again.

“Only the weak get taken." The blond giant grabbed his gun, and John fired... twice. The first one didn't do enough damage, though neither did the second one.

45 Damage!
45 Damage!

Click Click! The gun ran empty after the last two shots, and for a moment, the two of them just stood there staring at each other. John swallowed and waited for Michel to hit him again, before the blond man fell to one knee. He coughed, and John watched as he spat up blood, but Michel's hands didn't loosen their grip on the gun. He just locked eyes with John and didn't say anything.

"Eighteen hit points..." John muttered under a heavy breath, and Michel's brow furrowed in confusion. It didn't really matter anymore if Michel knew the exact details of his powers or not. Michel had just enough health left for one of John's abilities, and his last few words were still ringing in his ears. He acknowledged his loss and nodded when John used Infused Strike and his fist started to glow.

It sapped the last of his Mana when John finally buried his fist into the center of Michel's chest. He watched as Michel stopped moving, and with a gentle push, he let his friend fall back into the street with the rest of the ruins. Michel’s long, beefy body didn’t disappear after he was defeated, like the other enemies that John was used to fighting, he just came to rest in the street like a testament to the fact that he was different than other monsters that John had come to already face in the abyss. He stood over him after the last strike, for a lot longer than he should have, staring numbly while his friend slowly went still. In the end, it was Grace's coughing that pulled John's attention back, and he rushed over to her side. Her stomach and her neon pink sports bra were both soaked in red when he dropped down next to her. His eyes idly flicked over the 'It's not alright!' message scrawled across her top in thick bold letters for a moment before he ripped away what was left of his own shirt.

It didn't do much to put pressure on her wounds, especially with how many there were, but he tried regardless. Neither one of them tried to say much. When Grace opened her mouth as if to speak, she fell victim to a horrible coughing fit and had to stop. When John tried, he lost all the strength in his voice.

Finally, he just scooped her up.

"The paladin..." he mumbled under a shaky breath, too low to hear. "I gotta get you to the paladin." The barrier's ruined city lay sprawled out before him, but nothing made a sound. There were no more lights, no more pieces of falling glass, or other fighters moving around. No other living thing moved in the city.

It was like John was the only one left.