On the Run

Shango and Lance exchanged a flurry of blows, each carefully bobbing and weaving around the other. Lance used their icy battlefield to his advantage, creating spikes on the underside of his feet for better traction as he unleashed a barrage of spear strikes, each faster than the last.

Shango was **** onto the backfoot, he dodged under a swipe but the next one came even faster. Lance’s spear carved a crimson gash deep into Shango’s chest; the ice below them stained a deep red as the shifter pummeled the champion with his own spear, a litany of slices that the pirate was barely able to avoid.

His business elsewhere seemingly done, the thunderbolts constantly striking the battlefield slowed down. With a mad grin, the lightning rain slowly closed in on the electromage, striking only him and empowering him. He hovered an inch above the ground, and with complete control of his movement, went back on the offensive.

John was distracted from the fight by a distant rumbling and chattering. Shango’s lightning rain had pierced through the frost blanketing the battlefield and the wooden coffin beyond. Only one or two appeared at first, hauling themselves out of the monstrous fissures in the ice. John dismissed his pistols and pulled his sniper rifle out of his inventory. He checked the Shard of Mercy was still attached before picking off the two warriors that had reemerged. The first stumbled on his feet, looking around for his captain. John cleared the revolving barrel into the man’s head. Only the first two hit, but it was enough.

The next began to sprint toward their ship, and John went into Reflex Mode, quickly reloading his rifle and training his sight back onto the ridiculously hairy man bearing an evil grin that raced toward their ship. This one took three shots to put down, though all three found their mark on the first try.

His victory was short-lived as more and more of them began to flood from their supposed watery grave. He began to take out the frontrunners, and hoped Shelle’s wind communication spell was still up when he exclaimed, “They’re coming back! We need to get out of here, fast!”

“I’m almost done!” came Shelle’s frantic reply as she remained unseen. John could have sworn he heard several voices muttering behind her, but they all sounded the same. He looked back to Lance’s fight for reassurance, but the pressure of the ocean quickly set in.

Lance could barely keep up with the fully awakened champion; Shango hacked at his shoulder with his spear, and the shifter’s arm flew clean off. Lance screamed in pain as electricity sizzled through the wound, leaping across his body. Giant scorch marks appeared on his metallic flesh wherever the lightning touched, the white hot buzzing brought him to his knees, and he swung at the champion’s face as payback.

Shango blocked the spear slash with his own and charged lightning through it, the electricity running through his polearm into Lance’s. He cackled as he charged as much power as he could through their spears.

In his time studying the mechanical spear Shango wielded, Lance had become intricately familiar with its inner mechanisms. He certainly knew it better than its wielder, and perhaps better than the scientists that made it. He let it sink into his hands so he could mold it freely, then wrapped it around Shango’s, absorbing the real weapon as well. Lance melded and wired them together, and both exploded, unable to withstand the champion’s might.

Shango charged his hands with white lightning and punched his armless duplicate’s chest, but he couldn’t pull his fist back. Lance melded it to his chest, and Shango placed a hand on his shoulder intent to both crush it and push away, but that hand too sunk in. Lance’s aura raced up Shango’s limbs and toward his chest. It pooled there before spiraling together inwards, spilling into the cut the shifter had opened.

Shango’s left arm slowly began to sink inwards onto itself and disappear from the hand up, and Lance’s arm grew back at the same rate. The shifter sought to close the champion’s heart on itself, but Shango’s electrifying soul rebelled. With a powerful roar, his god’s power filled him and his arm erupted back out of its socket.

Lightning stronger than any before filled Lance’s entire being as recompense for his transgressions against a divine soul, and the resulting **** knocked him through the ship’s galley window. Shango touched his chest before looking toward the cloudy sky. “That’s new.”

“Hey, copy-man, what did you try to do to me?” Shango called after Lance, though the battlefield was silent in response.

“John, I’m almost done, but he can’t come below deck! Even thirty seconds would be enough!” Shelle’s update killed the panicked question in John’s throat, but compared to Shango he felt about as effective as a wet paper bag.

“Hellooooo?” Shango asked, floating onto the deck of their ship then touching down. “I know you’re all in-”

John dropped down from the crow’s nest, charged a Fist with three hundred mana into his hands, and fell toward the champion, aiming the punch at the side of his head. In a flash Shango turned around and grabbed John’s wrist out of the air, intent on slamming him down through the deck, but instead visions filled their heads.

A lightning bolt strikes a tree, searing the wood. A group of men and women find this tree, and take turns shearing long strips of wood from its bark. This moisture-stripped wood is their advantage, and their enemies' spears break on their shields as they defend their territory. A man in a long robe records the exact dimensions of the first successful chariot. He tries his best to think not about the thousands of deaths he is propelling as he sketches its design. Beings of every kind stand ready to turn the key and destroy the world for what they believe is right.

Shango dropped John when their visions began, and despite being unable to see his surroundings, John used Jump to create some distance.

“You’re… like me? How much like me? How many people are there like us?” Shango asked, advancing on John. Despite the danger he felt, Shango’s face was so earnest that John was half-tempted to answer. He was interrupted by the hostile champion engaging him, attempting to sweep his feet and transitioning into a roundhouse kick when John began to backpedal. The gunman was surprised at his own ability to dodge, and Jumped in for a quick jab into an uppercut, receiving a backhand as **** for his damage greed.

John saw stars as fireworks exploded in his head, sickly pain creeping into his head as he felt the familiar debuff of a concussion come on. He went careening through the air, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw a horde of angry pirates approaching them from the front.

He flew through the walls of the captain's quarters and into the spacious bedroom, where Boathaen lay **** on the bed. That single attack had halved his health, and he could tell Shango hadn’t hit him very hard. He scrambled to his feet as the enemy champion entered. Shango’s aura expanded and saturated the room. It hung thick in the air, and when John raised his pistols, it felt as though his arms were moving through water.

With his helpless ally behind him, John ground his teeth so hard that he took a tick of damage, but he stood on steady feet eye to eye with his demise.

“You have the **** ferocity of someone who knows they’ve been beaten. It’s not fun anymore if you’ve figured it out.” Shango moved to finish the job, but red hot spectral chains grabbed his arms and bound them behind him.

“Chains of Claih de Moor!” Shelle held him tight with chains from both hands, the metal growing and wrapping around him, sizzling against his flesh as it constricted tighter and tighter. Two wind clones appeared, stepping out of her body from either side, slowly backing out of the room. With a wordless spell, Boathaen and John were switched with the wind clones just as Shango finally managed to break free.

“Aura of Philomon, hold fast!” Shango’s aura had filled the entire room, and so the entire room was filled with a dense black stone. With a whispered chant Shelle lifted the enormous block off the ship. The stone rectangle tore the wood and iron apart as it lifted up through the ceiling of the captain’s quarters and slammed into the frozen sea behind the ship. Shelle followed it, and the ship began to levitate.

“I’m going to fight him long enough for the ship to leave his territory. Get Boathaen below deck, it’s not safe above deck going so fast.” Shelle’s whisper made its way to John’s ears, even over the commotion of Shango’s lackeys. As the ship floated higher and higher off the ground, the navigator emerged from below deck. He appeared to be conducting the rigging and sails as everything folded down to give them a slimmer profile.

“What about you?” John called to her on the ice below. She turned and gave him a toothy grin, along with the same thumbs-up Lance had given him hours ago.

“Seeya.”

The ship sailed through the sky instead of the sea, cutting smoothly through the air as they flew out of Shango’s territory. John watched as Shelle grew smaller and smaller until less than a minute later she was out of sight completely.

Shelle sighed as the ship left her view, her shoulders relaxed as she looked between the imprisoned champion and his army. The lightning rain resumed, pounding Shango’s stone prison in an effort to free him. Luckily, his intense aura’s power had been turned against him, and though the lightning clearly reached a little further into the stone each time, Shelle decided to focus on his crew first.

Shango’s crew shot bullets, lightning, and magical bolts at her in an attempt to mow her down, but each bounced off her Steelskin enchantment easily. An enchanted sniper bullet hit the back of her head with about as much effectiveness as a pop gun. It broke the skin, but only just.

Shelle checked the spells she prepared with the time John and her team had given her, and upped her armor spell to Draconic Aspect with a thought. The slight, perfect sheen her skin had developed under the previous spell faded away, replaced by the outlines of scales across her flesh as the skin hardened further. With that, their weapons weren’t even a distraction. All the spells she prepared weighed heavily on her mind, so she floated to face the mass of pirates with an eager grin, ready to take some of the burden off. She extended her arms out, her palms radiating a frosty black void as she called the Enochian spell she had prepared to the forefront of her mind.

“Dobix-od-uniglag.” Many pirates covered their ears as Shelle’s unintelligible screeching filled the battlefield. Water floated up and out of their bodies, and their uncaring jeers quickly sputtered out as the weakest of them began to collapse. Those who succumbed immediately seemed to have no physical injury. Their auras flowed together with the water into an ice spike that grew larger and larger.

The strongest among them struggled forward, each step weighed down by the sucking rot overtaking their minds and bodies. Their flesh shriveled up as they fell, the water and aura **** out of them.

The substances she stole from them collected into a rod of ice and mana. With the crew taken care of, Shelle carefully carved tools and weapons out of the large pole, shunting each into her pocket space. Circular blades, thick shields, and more until the ice and mana was whittled into an enormous stake, pointing straight at the block of stone that began to creak and groan under the **** of the lightning hitting it.

Shango laughed as he broke free, climbing up out of the rubble of his own aura, which he now **** tight to his body, restraining its intensity. He looked up at the massive weapon floating ten feet from his face. “HA! You think you can beat me with that?”

“I know I can.” Shelle launched it toward him, and he conjured a blast of lightning to protect himself, but the icicle melted into thick fog that smothered the battlefield. Five identical versions of Shelle flew past him, shooting rays of frost and mana beams. Shango attempted to conjure electricity into a shield, but sparks sputtered at his fingertips. All according to Shelle’s plan, Lance had destroyed Shango’s weapon to leave him more **** in her prepared Anti-Magic Fog.

Shango was immediately **** onto the defensive; he dove to the side, flying straight through the fog as fast as he could to evade and escape its shroud, but it seemed as though he wasn’t getting anywhere. His normal spells sputtered off his hands when he tried to create them, but the lightning rain and flight provided by his god were much more reliable. He expanded its range and managed to catch a wind clone in its ravages.

Shelle smirked as her prepared Elemental Cycle spell switched over from water to fire, and the various versions of her unleashed different attacks on the champion. One attempted to capture him within a double-helix of flame. Another fired a beam of mana that was only blocked by a chance lightning strike. A third rapidly launched her premade frozen disc blades at him. He unknowingly flew faster toward the legion of spellcasters awaiting him in the thick fog.

John carefully placed Boathaen in a wooden chair in the galley before he raced through the ship; he sidestepped a multitude of supply crates and ran through the cargo hold to a large room in the back of the ship lined with netted hammock beds. Lance was still in a body identical to Shango’s, but the missing arm was a dead giveaway. He was in one of the beds toward the front of the room; three men and two women were crowded around him, talking amongst themselves, “Isn’t this the captain of the Shango pirates?”

“No, that’s one of ours. He’s a shapeshifter,” John explained, stepping in and putting himself between his downed ally and the crew, who were dubious of his explanation. He was tempted to use Advanced Spy on Lance in this **** state, but decided against it. Lance clearly doesn’t want me to use it on him. I thought that this was another life or **** situation, but they made sure I was safe. I shouldn’t betray his trust.

As John considered his **** acquaintance, Cinder faded into view beside him. I appreciate your tact, John. Were I in his position, I would want the same. Abyssals tend to be more… opportunistic than mundane humans.

A drop of blood fell from Lance’s stump arm to the floor, and John looked to his fire elemental. “Can you help him?”

I’ve never attempted to heal any sort of shapeshifter before, but I’ll do what I can. Cinder’s Boonfire appeared under Lance, and the various cuts around his body slowly stitched themselves back together, even the stump of his arm. Cinder floated above the soulshifter, observing his aura and his body as she observed the effects her healing magic had. Interesting… I sense a multitude of souls inside of him, all his own. I wonder if I can…

Her Boonfire disappeared from beneath him and a healing wisp from Warmth of the Hearth appeared in each hand instead. One attached to Lance’s soul, the other to his head. After a few seconds of this, he woke up with a start. He hit his head on the ceiling before switching to his orange-haired speedster form, which was mostly healed. “Hey, thanks for saving that form! Where are Shelle and Boathaen?”

He disappeared before John could answer, and the gamer left the stunned crew to their own devices, following the blur Lance left behind toward the galley. There, he saw an awake, pristine Boathaen tenderly cradling her **** counterpart. As John looked on, the real Boathaen’s injuries disappeared, identical cuts, bruises, and burns appearing on the duplicate's body. With that, Lance dropped to the floor again, but this time it was Boathaen’s turn to awaken.

She picked up her duplicate with the same care, carefully putting it in the seat she resided in. A branch grew from her hand, and a flower bloomed at the tip. The flower sprayed a mist into the duplicate’s face, and in an instant it was back to Lance, awake in his agile form. Boathaen brushed an orange lock out of his face. “You’re so reckless.”

“How can I help it when I see you like that?” Lance asked, rising from his chair and pulling the elven archer into a tight hug. John decided to back into the crew’s quarters and leave some privacy.

The crew were sitting in their own beds in one corner, the rest of the hammocks likely for guests. Aside from the circular tables built into the floor and the beds, the only other notable thing in the room was a door in the back. His minimap told him it led to a small, unexplored room. Well, for completion sake.

“No, you can’t go in there.” Lance appeared in front of John, limbs outstretched in front of the door.

“Why not, the treasure room was empty last I checked?” a man that John identified by the grease stains on his shirt as the cook helpfully supplied, looking up from a card game with one of the women John hadn’t met and the navigator. The Gamer looked to Lance for an answer, but the soulshifter wore a distracted look.

“You’re a cool guy, but I’m kinda doing something right now. I’ll explain later. Look, for the next half hour or so there is no treasure room.” Lance palmed the door behind him and turned it to solid wood to match the wall. Without any further explanation, he was gone.

“He better turn that back,” the navigator said, looking from the new wall to the doorway Lance exited through. He tossed a gold piece in, but on closer inspection John realized they were actually playing for chocolate.

“Classic bounty hunters, they just do whatever they want. Extinction King hunters, Waites, they’re all the same,” a gruff man in the far corner hammock rasped. John backed away and narrowed his eyes. He used Advanced Spy on the man, learning he was the first mate. He was about level fifty, and the only combat oriented member of the crew, responsible for their safety on lighter voyages.

“I’m a Waite too, you know,” John said, staring down the stronger man as he thought of his friends in the Waites, and then Asley, the only Extinction Kings hunter he knew of and probably the most dangerous individual he had met since coming into the Abyss, even if she wasn’t the most powerful.

“Yeah, but the healers are always at least a little different. You lot have some idea of what we put up with,” the woman playing the card game chimed in, laying a card down from her hand onto a pile in the middle of the table and tossing a big silver-wrapped coin into the pot.

“Besides, you’re actually talking to us. Did you notice that he came in, changed our ship, and left without so much as looking at us? How would you feel?” the cook asked, motioning to the new wall. He put down his cards and shoved them forward, conceding.

“Well, he did just risk his life several times to keep us all safe,” John said, his mind immediately returning to their fresh fight. He shook his head and tried to keep his attention on their card game, since he hadn’t yet figured out the rules.

“And he’s going to make as much as I do in a lifetime for his work here today; he wasn’t doing it out of the kindness of his heart.” The woman who wasn’t playing cards with the others had been reading up until this point, but she splayed her book on her stomach to save her place as she joined the conversation.

“The services they render and the information the Rider-Waites bring to us are indispensable, nobody can argue that,” the captain said, addressing his crew. “Our friend here brings up a good point. Much of what exists in front of our very eyes wouldn’t exist without the Rider-Waites. The enchantments on this ship were developed in part using their public database. The generator we carry and the disease research facility that it will arrive at only exist because they spread their medicine and technology to us. That facility alone has produced vaccines that have saved millions of lives in the fifteen years since they’ve contacted us. However, the attitudes of their individual agents often leave something to be desired. Nobody means to claim that the Rider-Waites aren’t vitally helpful; we just ask that we be acknowledged and treated with respect.”

“We never asked for them to come to Astraea to begin with, anyway. The advancements they’ve provided are nice, but shouldn’t we have a right to find our own way, and discover things for ourselves? Even if it means more deaths, what right have they to so drastically change the course of our people?” the woman in the hammock posed, one eyebrow raised as she studied John’s face.

“This is getting a little too philosophical for me, who wants to eat?” the cook asked, swiping the rest of his chocolate coins and depositing them into a pocket on the side of his apron. “Hypatia, come help me chop, would you?”

“You need help?” John asked, his passive Auric Vision showing that the man’s aura matched his own.

“Not as such, but if I can have more fun and get a friend some wages on the Empire’s dime, why not?” The cook laughed, the woman with the paperback followed as he walked toward the cargo room. John had to admire the careless manner with which the cook carried himself.