Last Stop

A Rider-Waite safehouse in Hong Kong, at 8:13 AM.

“Strength! What you did is unacceptable!” Alvaro charged through the door, his eyes alight with a cold, blue fire as red hot spectral chains shot from nothing to trap the accused giant in the small wooden chair he was sitting in. It was one of the few furnishings in the room, no television, no computer (currently, at least), just a few chairs and a table. It was typically used to discreetly give those protected under contract a place to stay for a few hours before transport. “Killing contractors, applicants, actual guild members! I don’t know what you’re after, but it stops here!”

“I would watch your tone, Maximus gets agitated when people are hostile with me.” The lion in question hissed, standing tall and opening its mouth to show off its fangs. “Do you have any proof of this assertion?”

“The investigation is ongoing, but you are the prime suspect. Memories of applicants have given me a good idea of what’s happened. The bounty hunter you manipulated left a few loose ends. Your status as a founding member has lent you a lot of leeway, but you’ve gone too far this time. I’m taking you in.”

“You and what army?” Strength growled, shattering his restraints and standing up. Drawing to his full height he had nearly two feet on the furious Spaniard. He blinked, and suddenly there were four Magicians. Baring his teeth, he backed away toward his lion companion. Another step back, and there were now sixteen of the same man before him. The walls closed in on him, squeezing him on all sides before falling away completely to reveal the stars. All that remained from the apartment were the table and chairs.

“You may have superiority in the physical realm, but such matters are trivial before a master of the arcane arts,” all the clones spoke in unison, surrounding him. “Chains of Claih de Moor!” all sixty four mages evoked the same spell as before, innumerable burning restraints trapping the giant.

All but one of the man fell away as the off-balanced warrior let out an inhuman roar. With a struggling gasp of rage, he broke the arcane bounds. The image of a lion dispersed as goat and snake heads joined the lion one, each spitting fire upon their master’s enemy. “You have no right to detain me here, you weak fool!”

The giant wound up an earth shattering punch and swung at the man dodging chimera fire. “Shield of Kalma, protect me!” Sickly green cracks spiderwebbed through the approaching fist as it slammed into an invisible shield. The man’s arm exploded in gory rain up to his elbow, and he yelled his fury as it visibly regrew.

“You’re going to regret that, you insufferable wretch!” The newly regrown arm was surrounded with a blood red aura as it sailed through the Magician’s invisible shield and into his gut, knocking him back into a nearby wall.

“Aura of Philomon, hold him fast!” Strength was frozen inside and out, his immense power used against him, turning his aura to stone. The rock appeared on the outer edges of his aura, spiderwebbing inward and restraining first his limbs before consuming him fully. Where a man once stood there was a giant, spiky boulder. The chimera was trapped in a prison of its own aura as well. The Magician sighed in relief, That was too easy, he must be planning something. Either that or the Emperor oversold his-

Strength burst out of the rock, shrapnel flying into the white, runic shield the Magician immediately erected in response. “Stay down, Strength! Don’t make this harder than it has to be!”

“Like hell I will!” Strength snarled, taking a chair in each hand and hurling them at the man in front of him.

“Ialprg lrasd hell ialpon!” Bloody red fire erupted from The Magician’s fingertips, instantly turning the wood to ash. “This is your last chance! Surrender, now!”

“How could I surrender? The fight is over,” Strength whispered in the Magician’s ear… who hadn’t seen the man suddenly behind him. His fist sailed clean through Alvaro’s head.

“Ventus Vindictae!” The superpowered giant met naught but air with his attack, which was returned tenfold when a column of air slammed into his pelvis, knocking him to the ground, further into the inky black darkness, hundreds of feet away.

Suddenly he was falling, soaring downward infinitely through the vast emptiness of space. “Such tricks won’t work on me, charlatan!” The behemoth closed his eyes and cut off the plummeting feeling. He knew it to be all in his head, and so keeping that focus he opened his eyes and smashed the bottom of the barrier, destroying it. He let out a small huff and cracked his neck, slowly rising from the ground and looking for his opponent in the small safehouse room.

Tendrils came out of the ground and wrapped around not his physical body but the spirit within. They pulled his astral self to the ground, and his body couldn’t help but comply. The Magician had given up on physical restraints, this would be much more effective even if it could prove to be more damaging. His influence worked its way deep into the raging beast’s mind, slowly forcing him to the ground.

He flew as a mass of wind toward his subdued enemy, reforming back into a physical body and landing next to the goliath’s head. He bent down to stare into Strength’s eyes, “I’m taking you in.”

“You don’t have any evidence and you attacked me.” The man’s consciousness was split. The docile, deferential part taking over under the Magician’s influence despite his growing fury.

The rising inferno in his mind was calmed not by his opponent’s influence, but by his own. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, uncaring of any attack coming his way. His mind clearing, he slowly stood. He felt a tendril of mithril, bounds above the chains before it, encase his arm. This, too, went ignored. Instead, his mind filled with one thought. Triumph.

His eyes were a lifeless black as he slugged The Magician in the face, shattering the man’s jaw and sending him crashing into the wall. Had he the capability for more than one thought, he’d notice that the wall hadn’t exploded outwards. “I didn’t know I could do that,” Strength said with a note of surprise, staring down at a mirror of himself tinted the same malevolent crimson as his aura.

Its restraints faded away as The Magician flickered in and out of consciousness, and it snapped to rejoin him. “You brought this upon yourself, Alvaro.”

“Et qui pugnat et viribus naturae non debet miror quod et viribus naturae pugnat eum!” A mass of hellfire encircled Strength, who backed into the center of the room and away from the heat. A tornado formed and lifted him into the air, tendrils of Mithril stronger than the arcane chains previously used erupting from Alvaro’s pocket dimension to encase Strength up to his neck. Water vapor in the air condensed and froze on him, bringing his temperature down far below zero, taking the fight out of him along with it.

“I gave you every opportunity to surrender,” Alvaro scolded as he flew back to his once-ally. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what went wrong with you, my friend.”

The Spaniard shattered the copycat barrier, re-entering the small apartment with his captive. A crack in reality slowly formed, and levitating his charge, Alvaro stepped through it.

Café des Deux Moulins in Paris, France, at 9:57 AM

Lucille allowed herself to relax; nobody would be so bold as to attack her in a cafe on Earth. Even if it meant she had to leave her capsule belt at home and tone down her outfit a little bit. There were rules in place, treaties that couldn’t be broken. All her expectations were shattered, however, when she was sucked into a trap barrier.

It was an excellent replica of the cafe’s outside, down to the tiny tables which could hardly seat more than a person. The chairs, which were metal, were now both metal and lumpy. I was scanning the crowd the whole time. Who could have caught me off guard?

“Lucille Palmer, Debora Vanderbuilt, Charlotte Debutante, the list goes on and on, and for all the deception here, you are. You are under arrest for the **** and attempted **** of several guild applicants. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in trial. If you fail to say something during questioning which you rely on during trial, it may harm your defense. You have the right to legal representation. If you cannot afford legal representation, it will be appointed for you. You’re coming with me.” Isabelle appeared in a flash of light and drew her katana, the orange tattoo of a partial eclipse on her forehead glowing an ethereal white.

“You and what army?” Lucille couldn’t have known that she echoed her master’s words as she used Advanced Spy on the eye-patch and kimono wearing samurai in front of her.

Isabelle Ardyn, The Bladed Moon
Raised by bounty hunters from a young age alongside multiple sisters, Isabelle has been honing her fighting skills since she was four years old. Her skills with the katana are renowned throughout multiple Kingdoms and underground fighting rings on Earth, and many fear her name alone. Their stories would not reflect her fighting attitude, which is downright jovial. Wielder of the Mikazuki Munechika and Champion of the Star Goddess Astra.

The bastardized ability absorbed the information into her brain, a harsh reformatting compared to the floating screens John could read at his leisure. It was useful nonetheless.

“Does that mean that you’re not coming without a fight? Because I’d love to fight you. I’ve heard you’ve got copying powers. Sucks for you that I don’t use any magic,” Isabelle drew her blade, contemplating her opponent, though keeping her body loose and free.

Lucille was able to copy the sword easily enough, if not the material and multitude of enchantments. She was having more trouble with her opponent’s stance. She seemed to be… unguarded. Making the first move is risky at best, but she’s not giving me anything to copy right now. She’s definitely faster than I am, so she’s probably relying on that to intercept whatever move I make.

With that thought, Lucille Jumped behind her opponent and stabbed backward, but Isabelle sensed the shift in the air behind her. She leapt to the side and kicked off a table to propel herself back towards the elf with a spinning slash. Lucille’s joints screamed in retaliation as she blocked the blow and swiped at the more agile samurai.

Isabelle, for her part, merely slammed back against the elf, hitting her on the head with the pommel of the Mikazuki. Lucille responded by Jumping back, staring at her opponent, determined not to make the mistake of moving into her opponent’s danger zone willingly again.

I can’t copy what she’s doing! Her movements are so damn erratic! It’s like she doesn’t even know what she’s doing until she does it. I have to play the ranged game. Taking the sword in her dominant hand, she conjured a hand-cannon in her off-hand before firing a salvo of bullets at her assailant. “Leave me alone!”

The oncoming arcane projectiles were nothing for the cocky samurai, who blocked each bullet with ease. “How can I do that when you’re the one attacking first?”

Isabelle moved in a dazzling beam of moonlight, swiping at Lucille’s midsection. The elf just barely dodged out of the way, suffering a slight slash in her stomach as a result. She responded with a sweeping attack to the samurai’s neck, who ducked under the strike and swept Lucille off her feet in the same motion.

That’s how the elf found herself staring up at the point of a legendary katana.

Making a hasty retreat, she Jumped back, conjuring a fireball and an electroball in her left and right hands respectively. She hurled the attacks at her opponent, who kicked up a table in response.

Isabelle took advantage of the resulting smoke to leap up and grab on to the roof’s awning, bringing her sword to a downward slash on the elf, who was charging up a Fist. The spell-imbued hand clashed with the katana, but it wasn’t nearly enough. The katana sailed through the metal of her artificial limb, cutting it clean in half. The oil and blood that gushed forward hurt like hell, and served to anger the brunette.

Lucille responded with an enraged swipe, which Isabelle backflipped out of the way of, earning her a tear in her robe. The redhead dropped low under another slash and spun on her hands, bringing her legs around in a sweeping motion. The cowgirl turned swordswoman Jumped above the champion, bringing down a strong overhead slash.

Isabelle merely thrusted herself upward with her hands, blocking the attack with her sturdy wooden sandals and taking advantage of Lucille’s **** position. Locking the elf with her legs, she reached upward and grasped her head with both hands, her katana falling to the ground as brilliant light shone through her eyepatch. “Astral Flare!”

The light of all the stars in the sky filled the elf’s mind and wiped it clean. The elf fell to the ground conscious but utterly useless. Isabelle silently worked to clean up the scene, even if it were only a barrier that would collapse at the press of a button. She picked up her sword from where it stuck up, its point embedded in the ground. “Man, that was quick!"