March II

“Second monolith destroyed. Good work, Mandruzzo.” Lucien smiled at his apprentice; the pressure ring he kept around his hair popped away after the battle, letting his long bushy curls down his neck. He formed another under a nearby skull and floated it over to him, his pupils a dull white as he looked it over.

“I can’t feel any other necromantic power in the graveyard. Still, I’ve been wrong before. We’ll do another quick sweep, then split to join the other groups. I’ll head over to John and Della while you join Shelle.”

“Trying to get rid of me, huh?” Mandruzzo asked with a slanted smile, walking over to his mentor with his hands in his pockets. His pupils shifted between a green and a dull gray as he tried to imitate the older man’s spell, channeling mana through his eyes and chanting under his breath.

“Both should require assistance. Even Shelle being alone worries me, and at best she could use another set of eyes. John and Della are the most powerful of the apprentices, but if they encountered Wallace, or worse, Nairis herself, I doubt either would escape. I enjoy your company, and our powers are quite supplementary,” Lucien explained, dropping the skull as he prepared to exit the barrier with his partner. However, his smile dropped when the hair on the back of his neck began to stand up. He grabbed Lucien by the collar and pulled the bubble mage behind his shield as he spun around to face a surge of necromantic taint and… something else. The other of the approaching being rattled him more than the necromancy. His humanity surged with adrenaline and the shred of godhood in his soul swelled with power as translucent black waves pressed in against his aura, but could not press past his shield.

Innumerable hands burst from the ground, clawing through the dirt as corpses of various decay rose from the previously unoccupied ground. Lucien waved his hands in a ring above them to call forth a strong pressure ring that drew in and repelled the air around it. The ring fell beneath them and expanded outwards, snapping in two each body in the sea of corpses half-risen from the ground. He tensed when Wallace’s voice spoke out, “Won’t fall for it and quick to dispatch the distractions. You are good.”

“Mandruzzo, give me a bubble and EXIT,” Lucien ordered, forming another ring in his palm to house the offered mana-sphere and focusing on his breathing, steadying his aura against the onslaught of aberration alerting him. The mage gave a two fingered salute and ended it by firing the bubble into the giant paladin’s hand; Mandruzzo took the opportunity to channel mana through his ring as well and popped back to the Springfield infirmary, leaving the broken silver band behind.

“So cautious, godling.” Wallace’s voice belied Nairis appearance; the earth tore in two creating an enormous chasm bisecting the whole barrier for her to rise from. Rubble rained down into the ravine she created, and several rotting corpses climbed out of the now open hole.

“You?!” Lucien exclaimed, gripping his shield even harder. “What are you?” He tensed his grip on the bubble in his hand and redoubled the steadily increasing pressure on it.

“Such ambition in you,” Nairis commented in a tone that morphed from growling into inviting as his true adversary showed herself, floating toward him casually. His heart and soul pounded as she approached, and he surrounded the bubble with a full sphere of pressure rings as he let it float out of his hand to draw his sword. “You people have grown too bold. I desire to know how you’ve been able to stifle me, and you won’t fool me with your act. What desire is locked away in your heart?”

“To vanquish the foe in front of me,” Lucien softly spoke, holding his sword in front of his shield as the Entity approached him. She frowned at his words, the tight-lipped expression curled into a sneer as he lunged at her with his sword, which glowed a blinding white in her presence. The demigod swiped at her to no avail; the aberration in front of him glowed a sickly green and dodged all of his attacks with astonishing ease. Her body thickened and grew more muscular as she drew on this power, his power.

“So much wasted on a fruitless effort. You truly believe yourself free of deeper desire,” Nairis began. The same black miasma that curled off her arms and recoiled against his aura leaked from her mouth and eyes as he finally struck true. The glowing blade tore through her chest and created a chasm of his own; he pivoted with the cut to slice her in two as the ground ruptured behind her. Black hands grasped his blade and more of the same aberration poured out of her torso as he cleaved through her physical form. The same deep magic that formed her raced up his greatsword and into his grip in a wispy wave as he groaned a deep pain.

Crossfire leapt in front of Abigail, red metal boots hitting the ground with a heavy thunk as he summoned his greatshield. The pulsating green fireball ricocheted off the edge of his shield, leaving behind a patch of smoldering metal that did not diminish. “You sure you can handle necrofire?”

“Only one way to find out, right?” Abigail replied with a grin, vaulting over his shoulders and propelling herself on her flames to kick the offending undead mage in his rotted, fragile face. Its body collapsed into bones and a black miasma which lingered in the air. A gout of fire speared through it from the brawler’s hands, but it went through the eerie mist and scorched a nearby gravestone, one of the small stone monoliths clustered around them in roughly circular patterns in the barrier.

“I have another for you, Igmorsnis,” Crossfire replied, flicking a green spark at her through their attacker’s residue. She caught it between her hands with a clap, then sharply drew them back with a wince.

“I can’t remember the last time I got a papercut,” Abigail said, shaking her hand and stepping around the corrupted mass in front of her as she rejoined her mentor.

“Take a deep breath and fix it like I showed you, I’m going to see what our friend here left behind. There’s more of it than before. And this one wasn’t nearly as ugly as the other ones. They were like the bad Zeroxes of this guy.”

“The other ones didn’t use necrofire either. Back up a sec, though, I’d like to think I’ve come pretty far in learning about world culture, that reference has got to be obscure, right?” Abigail let her question hang in the air with a slight, bemused smile to follow his instructions; she pulled air through her lungs and set her body alight, redistributing her flame and murmuring a sing-song rhythmic chant to focus her mana and intention.

“A little outdated maybe,” Crossfire replied, his helmet retracted up his head as he moved to scratch his neck, sheathing his sword with his other hand. He stuck a gauntlet into the shadowy but shadowless mass in front of him, and felt a thousand icicles pierce his soul at once. He gasped and reeled back, mind flashing back to the Entity sinking its talons into him during his imprisonment. “I’ve felt that before. If there was any doubt before, we’re definitely dealing with the necromancer here. The entity? I wonder what this thing’s true name is.”

“John told me he’s heard its summons say ‘her’ and ‘Nairis’. I don’t know if you’ve met her, but my friend Elizabeth spied on some of them and they apparently called ‘it’ ‘Iel’ instead. Is it possible it doesn’t have one?” The brawler tried once again to burn the corruption in front of them, encasing it in a sphere of flame that collapsed in on itself. Her eyes widened in hope when it maintained shape beyond her will, but if the hanging miasma caused this, it didn’t show any signs of resistance afterwards.

Before they could posit any further, a quickly blinking red light started at the very tip of Crossfire’s helmet, right between his eyes. He crossed them for a moment, and his phone appeared in his hands before his eyes straightened out. “The others have been attacked. Lucien is MIA and Mandruzzo’s back at base. Shelle is holding off Sorvel and waiting for reinforcements. No word from John or Della, I can take a wild guess who’s with them. Assuming he’s not here, of course,” Crossfire finished with a small shiver, his armor subconsciously thickening around him.

“We need to help them!” Abigail said, lifting her own phone from her pocket and making toward the edge of the barrier they had come from.

“Wait!” Crossfire called. “We shouldn’t… Alright, go. I’m going to finish up here. I’m going to finish what we started; if our intel’s good ,it wouldn’t take them an hour to recuperate the damage we’ve done so far. You try to meet up with John and Della. Developing a ring to suit your body and skills took a while, don’t let that be wasted time. Going down without a goal in sight doesn’t help anyone.”

“Really, I don’t know what she sees in you,” an echo of Wallace said, easily dodging John’s Destroy enhanced punch and catching Della’s bullets even through her lightning fast redirects. The nearby mage they had been trying to save fell to his knees though still withered and imprisoned within a hexagonal cage of bones. The echoes they had been fighting disappeared, their essence seeping into the ground.

“This is bad.” John activated Reflex Mode just to keep up with this weak fake’s onslaught as it shifted through colors in its imitation aura. Though John could see it with Auric Vision – and might not have even prevented its sneak attack otherwise – being inside the dull color felt wrong, even insulated with his skintight gold silhouette. He glanced through David’s vision with Attunement but could not find the true monster, though a slanted copy hurled a stone at the hawk, and would have struck true if it hadn’t blinked out of reality.

“No kidding?” Della replied, rolling out of the way as another goliath showed up, causing it to further disfigure its disfigured-from-creation compatriot. John used the confusion to Displace as many of Della’s bullets toward the already-injured copy in a scattered arc above and around it. It collapsed into bones and black mist, though the new arrival landed a solid punch in his gut, sending him flying a dozen feet back and through the concrete of a burial crypt warped by the barrier, which collapsed onto him.

John began healing with two of Cinder’s flames and tossed a stone into the air as the beast fell upon him once more. He ripped a chunk of Adamantine out of his inventory and pumped four thousand mana into a Create to form the taxing material around him in a dome that withstood the giant’s first overhead axehand, though only barely as a sizable dent caved into it. A fetid yellow air permeated the dome as the brute’s muscles engorged and it began to rip his shelter apart. John took the opportunity to use Displacement on the stone he had previously flung. The aberrant giant finally cracked his shell to find nothing but cobbled path as John fell back onto it, imitating its style with an overhead axehand empowered with Destroy and the rest of his mana.

Instead of the black his other foe left behind, Destroy left the air clear when this one fell. “You don’t get it,” John said, jumping to be back to back with her as four more showed up. “These just showed up. If they’re anything like the other echoes we’ve fought-”

“The original isn’t far behind,” Wallace completed for him, stepping out from nearby shadows. “I was mistaken. I see it now, supposed Champion of Gaia.”

And that’s why I couldn’t find him far away. Of course he found us immediately. Why wait? For me? John reached for his guns but his hands hadn’t gotten past his hips before he was grabbed by the throat and lifted into the air.

“Long standing thorn in my side. I would have killed you myself if I had known what you would become. Fortunately you are so… incomplete.” Wallace let out a deep, genuine laugh, his eyes closed as John struggled in his grasp. The gunman’s gaze darted to his regenerating mana. Their tormentor’s glee was interrupted by a gunshot and a bullet which flattened on his forehead.

John barely felt the ground hit him as he followed the man’s aura to Della, who emptied her revolvers into him fruitlessly, only stopping when she ran out of bullets and looked up into his almost apathetic scowl.

“Errant pissant. Know your place.” Wallace backhanded her, and John heard a distinct snap before she hit the ground. In another moment Wallace was on him again; this time a giant palm slammed his forehead into the ground, fingers wrapping around the top of his head.

The giant’s other hand reached down and John howled as pain lanced through his hand, arm, and body; his captor held his ring finger, and the teleportation ring with it. John’s aura flared around him as the giant crushed his ribcage with a smack through the stone path beneath them, now crumpled into a divot in the dirt.

“You would not be the first champion I killed, but you will be the first whose power I’ve added to my own,” Wallace hissed through rotted teeth, reaching toward John’s chest, his hand alight with an incomprehensible darkness. John’s body seized when the ravenous hand made contact, digging through his aura into the gunman’s soul.

Sufficient power attained to survive an activation of ‘Champion’s Presence.’

Clinging to life with what little mana John had left, he tried to Displace with a nearby rock, but something about the monster’s grip prevented his escape; a sizzle tingled his sinuses as the mana crackled into nothing. An immense pain tore through his chest, and he screamed again, but in that moment there was only silence.

Insufficient power and experience to awaken! Attempting lucidity…

The few who bore witness to his power could not withstand it. First the wind whipped over them all, thunder roared in their ears and even the monster recoiled, dropping its prey. Unseen **** rippled outward. Immediately the goliath’s echoes collapsed to nothingness beneath its power. The fallen cowgirl stirred as it passed over her, steeling her soul and forcing breath back into her lungs. Wallace’s eyes widened and he took a step forward, shielding his face with his arms as he trudged through the impossible.

Adrenaline spiked through the lucid dreamer; his veins throbbed as his body slowly repaired itself. One hand grabbed the edge of the small crater he found himself in. Strength could not muster the **** to proceed and fell onto his back, though he was already getting back up. The final wave fell over the graveyard, blasting the dirt apart from his crater. It all receded with a nearly silent whoosh, and John’s health and mana bars shot beyond full with temporary health and mana absorbed from the foes he had already felled. I’ve never felt this good before. Maybe I can end this all right now.

“Impossible. You are far too weak to awaken,” Wallace growled once he overcame his stupor, dusting off a shoulder. “Tsk Champion of Gaia, a worthy foe indeed. Come and see how you fare against earned power, chosen one.” His yellow aura seeped out of him once more, though the giant looked to be moving through water on his approach. His power faltered as John fell out of sync with it, unused to his new speed and unsure.

How slow his legendary opponent moved bolstered his confidence and his power surged back. Ducking under the oncoming blow and jumping up to slam his foot into the giant’s chin, he sent the man high up into the air. His guns trembled in his hands and bucked against their own power as he channeled empowered Destroys through them rapidly, though Wallace regenerated almost as fast as holes appeared across his bloodless body. John Displaced with the last bullet to pierce his foe and slammed him back into the ground with a Destroy empowered fist. Can’t let him goad me. Need to finish this quickly.

Acidic green wisps poured out of Strength and burned away the yellow as he blitzed toward John with a furious snarl, this time closing the gap between them in a moment and outspeeding the champion. In a blink John’s nose broke and he slammed back into the ground, though he launched himself up on his arms to avoid the following heel that crushed the earth he left behind. John grabbed at the finger in the stunned man’s hand but Wallace crushed the ring and appendage to dust and viscera before kicking John away.

Somehow the limitations of his abilities felt so insignificant to him like this. He willed himself to Displace with his unwilling foe and thought became reality. He grasped at the air with his hand which Moved Wallace into the air with a sharp stutter as his spell fought his foe’s resistances. John crushed him with more **** on all sides with rapid fire instances of Move, though when the goliath switched back to his slower stance, he dropped like a stone out of the air.

Movement stirred in the corner of John’s eye and he swiped Wallace further into the air then dove toward the trapped mage who Della and John had fought echoes of before their greater foe appeared. John slammed a Destroy empowered fist into the assembly of bone before him, and the man croaked a quiet, “I’m sorry,” as he collapsed to the ground again, more echoes of the mage appearing all around him. John readied to take them on, but his body slowed to a crawl as dozens of mages set their magic to impede him.

Discordance alarmed him though the monster got to him only a moment after, breaking his leg with a quick heel and sweeping the other in one smooth motion. Wallace rained blows on him in a primal, simple onslaught that reminded him of getting knocked around by Frank at Ashcroft. “Much as I want to fight properly, there are more important matters at hand. You will understand soon. She will make you understand.”

A gunshot echoed through the barrier, and the mage’s echoes holding John in place collapsed as the trapped man grunted a brief **** throe, surrendering to release easily. “No! Della?! We-”

“Bet you forgot all about me,” Della grunted from the ground, one firm arm holding her revolver out while the rest of her body shook. “Never count me out.”

“I won’t make the mistake again. If you would be so kind as to expedite your last words,” Wallace remarked, slapping John to the ground and standing over the cowgirl’s broken body with a malicious smirk. Her last shot went wide of the giant, but found its mark in John’s shoulder, though it barely scratched the skin.

“I don’t miss.” Della laughed, as she, Strength, and the entire graveyard disappeared from John’s sight. His hand grasped for the bullet in his shoulder; his blood went cold when felt the ring there, and the spark of mana she had put into it. The Rider-Waite infirmary swam in his quickly fading view.