Seeking to Light Its Dark Reaches with White-Hot Fury

If there had been any doubt in John's mind as to the power of this new level of Twin-Soul Resonance, it was gone now. The world around him had slowed, his senses and mind had sharpened, and even his combat skills had taken on a new edge. John and Sophia's minds and souls worked perfectly in sync, driven toward the same goal. While his training and skill moved their blade, her instincts and practice moved their wings.

The wings were particularly dangerous because they were only semi-ethereal; they passed through the mundane surroundings with ease, but could strike physically at will. Sadly that didn't seem to apply to spells, or to the metallomancer's metal as it flew through the air. It must have been enchanted, or at least so heavily laden with mana that it functioned similarly to a magical object on its own.

John's ferocious **** to drive the Albidian leader back from his allies, to isolate and destroy him, had been mostly successful. He'd chased the man backward so far and so fast he'd needed to flee into a separate room in order to escape. John followed quickly, only to find himself in what seemed to be the school's gymnasium, except converted into a makeshift armory. Weapons hung in racks along the far edge of the room, and John made a point of pushing the man away from them as much as possible. He was mostly successful, though the man was clearly interested in one particular rack…

Only the metallomancer had the time and reaction speed to follow along as John pursued the suited man, while his allies were noisily clashing with the others behind him. John didn't want to leave any of his friends now, not after what had happened, but vengeance overpowered the sour taste in his mouth. He had to believe in them - had to trust that they could handle themselves… If he lost them too, there was no telling what shards would be left of the man once known as John Newman.

He wasn't sure how much remained even now.

So he dedicated himself to the eradication of these monsters, focusing only on their destruction. It was… a slower process than he would have liked. The metallomancer was always there, always blocking John's assaults, but never seemed to be any closer to tiring. John could disrupt his control of the flowing metal, but all it did was momentarily harden the metal and cause it to fall to the ground. Since the only weapon John had to disrupt the metal was his blade, the sudden hardening of the metal meant even his enchanted blade had a hard time striking forward. He wasn't sure what kind of magic encased the metal, but even his most powerful strike could only cleave an inch or two into the flowing material, a gap that was quickly repaired the moment his foe regained control of the substance.

But John was more determined than he'd ever been before, and more dedicated to this cause than any other he had pledged himself to. He would find a way… even if he had to exhaust every option.

It started with flurries of golden feathers, cast from his flickering wings at the beck and call of Sophia. They curved around the walls of the spacious cafeteria, converging on both of John's targets in equal numbers, from all directions. Still they defended themselves adequately, but at least John had finally learned something about his foes…

He learned why the leader of such a fearsome organization wore an outfit as foolhardy and unwieldy as a full suit.

John's first few feather volleys found only hard metal to block their paths and disperse them, but eventually he learned the patterns of the metallomancer's ways. He was a decent mage, showed no signs of mana fatigue in the early salvos… but he was only a man. And now, combined with Sophia, John's mind was working faster than his foe's. The metal could only move as fast as the metallomancer could command it, and John's feathers grew more numerous and more complex in their pathing with each volley. Eventually they were soaring past in droves, but they still never struck home.

Because the first time one of John's feathers approached that Albidian bastard, his suit stretched outward and slapped it, dispersing the mana immediately. John's eyes widened in shock at the strange and unexpected movement - it was as if his clothes were alive.

"You seem surprised," the man remarked, continuing his dance backwards. He lashed out with an arm and his sleeve extended, reaching toward John. It was the first attack that the man had made since John assaulted him, and John was nearly as caught off guard by the strike as the defense. He lashed out with his blade, expecting to catch and cut through fabric… but the strange black "cloth" bent and gave way like a rubbery liquid, fluctuating with the strike and only being slightly thrown off course. It cut through John's cheek in an instant, grinding against his skin with an insistence and **** that indicated it was likely only the strength and resilience of this new form that kept it from doing more damage than a light scratch.

"I don't want to hear your fucking voice," John replied, lashing out with an arm as he tried to grab hold of the material. It slipped free of his fingers almost effortlessly, like trying to hold onto a stream of water. It reformed along the smirking Albidian's sleeve as he repositioned himself, while John was busy dodging a slew of metal spikes cast his way by the metallomancer.

"Few of us can ever have what we want, John Newman… I want to have my alchemist back, to have your creations under proper control, and to be coasting to an easy life on a wave of wealth, power, and recognition. But no amount of-"

"You're done talking!" John roared, careening forward. Despite his anger, it was not a blind rage driving him forward, and his senses were heightened rather than blunted by a lack of focus. He twisted around the metal seeking to engulf him from the side with a single flick of his newly formed wings, he swerved around the extrusions of the Albidian leader's suit with quick but accurate flutters. The only obstacle really came when he drew close to his target, when his blade was nearly upon the man's throat, only to find the collar of the suit jacket bending upward to intercept the blow, stopping it at the threshold of the man's skin with an angry glare to accompany it.

"My, my, you're even more passionate than the Warden. You can tell we struck a proper nerve… Tell me, would it comfort you to know that in her final moments, your lover called out for you? She really must have cared for you quite deeply. Quite durable too, we weren't entirely sure how to kill her. Before the final blow, though, she cried out your name, and-"

"He is taunting you, Father. Do not give in. Do not let him affect you so."

"Should I let his continued offenses go unanswered?" John asked, perhaps a bit harshly. Sophia seemed unaffected by his angry tone; she sounded every bit as calm as ever when her words echoed through John's mind.

"No… but we should work around their defenses, and we should make certain that they suffer as they deserve."

John considered Sophia's words, even as he was **** to back away from the Albidian leader. The metallomancer had collected himself and had sent a barrage of tiny metallic spikes toward John. The only thing that saved him from being skewered was a quick flutter of his wings that carried him away faster than the other mage could redirect his projectiles.

"Well, considering that man is one of his greatest defenses…"

"Let us work around him," Sophia agreed, already twirling their joined form in mid-air to swoop around the far edges of the gymnasium.

They curved along the walls, allowing the continued assaults from below to thrash themselves against the cinderblock construction relatively harmlessly. Now that his strange, living suit had been revealed, the Albidian leader seemed comfortable going on the offensive himself - not only did the strange living fabric reach out on its own to strike, but the man was taking advantage of John's distance to reach several of the weapons on the racks nearby. Some of them hovered on their own like John's own blade and were willed to lash out, some of them were thrown quickly and accurately by the man's own hands, and a few were handed over to his attire to be wielded by the incredibly lengthy reaches of that enchanted garment.

Although the offense was impressive - made more so by the striking number of various weapons that seemed to be enchanted - John had already shifted his focus. Between the suit, the metallomancer acting as a permanent bodyguard, and the litany of weapons the man had now acquired, he was too dangerous a target to focus on. John's anger still burned within, but he could put it off long enough to take out the weaker of the two targets.

If only to make the other target suffer all the more…

Sophia tilted their wings and the flight path adjusted, seemingly arranged to lead them back to the Albidian Leader. With John's anger subsided somewhat, he took the opportunity to finally cast his Observe on the man, hoping to gain some kind of useful information.

Joaquin Malquiar
Level 57 Albidian Hoarder
<Overlord of the Albidian Circle>
1935 / 1935 HP
Relationship: -87
Alignment: -97
Status Effects: Biomancy Bonds

The man's information didn't give him new information that he could rely on, save the name. Levels weren't as meaningful to him since he'd discovered his Reincarnation, and the health was only a reminder that he had yet to strike a meaningful blow. But all the same, perhaps there was something there he could use to his advantage…

"You're right. Find the weakness. I have an idea, but it's dependent on how our magical abilities interact. His suit reacts without movement, but it hesitates until he notices the blow. It seems to be attached to him through magical means… Sophia, do we take the risk?"

"Now you are thinking clearly, Father," Sophia said, sounding almost as proud as she did determined. John's wings flared out at the same time as her words came, adjusting their flight path just subtly - placing them on a collision course with the slight gap between the two men. John raised his blade in anger, willing the Rune of Disruption into action with all of his might.

A flurry of assaults greeted him; every weapon still grasped by Joaquin's living garments struck out at once from different angles, and the metallomancer launched several projectiles of his own. John tore between them as best he could, letting his armor and wings take the brunt of the blows he could not fully avoid. John ignored the ticks of lost health and mana, pushing on through the pain and exhaustion. Sophia turned their wings so that their gentle descent became a dedicated dive, pushing them past the brunt of the attacks while John did his best to ward off the wayward strikes that reached them.

When they finally returned to the gymnasium floor, John did something he hadn't done in a while - he utilized Elemental Control, combined with a downward flap of their wings, to send a burst of wind outward in all directions. The bleachers and basketball frames lifted to the ceiling above rattled and shivered with the effort, sending a metallic clanging noise through the room as John righted himself and pressed forward onto Joaquin's position.

The man's suit reacted as John approached - and just as John had intended, it went to block the overhead strike he was aiming. Before the suit could engulf his weapon John shifted his stance, pulling back his main arm while taking his off-hand entirely off the weapon to strike forward with his elbow. The moment that Joaquin laid his eyes on the shift in weight, the pseudo-cloth shifted its focus, redirecting itself to intercept John's elbow. But John was ready for it, and the motion with his main arm to withdraw the weapon was quickly reversed, turning an abandoned slash into a more direct stab at the man's chest.

John had gambled on the man's perception versus his own - and he was finally rewarded when Joaquin's eyes shifted back toward the stabbing motion, and the suit abandoned all pretenses to prevent the incoming lethal blow. Both sides of the man's suit jacket converged, thinned, and erupted outward to halt the incoming pinpointed stab.

When John felt his **** come to a complete stop, he gritted his teeth, cupped his left hand, and grabbed his blade by the edge. He had no way to protect his own flesh, and he couldn't apply proper **** to the blade when it was already being held on three sides by the suit of his foe, but he didn't need proper ****…

All he needed was the slightest contact to test his theory. When the bare edge of his blade just lightly touched upon Joaquin's collarbone, his theory was proven true, and John's smile took on a wicked tone. John's mana depleted by nearly half when the blade made contact with Joaquin's bare skin, but the effect was instant and the results were exactly what he'd hoped for.

The black-toned suit exploded outward from Joaquin's skin as soon as John activated his Rune of Disruption, taking with it a good chunk of John’s mana reserves, and even though the blow was halted by the initial **** of the suit’s movement, the actual effects were quickly made clear. Some traces of the magical material remained close to Joaquin's chest, but in large parts it rapidly left its home near his torso, and the previously cloth-like appearance of the enchanted material exploded outward in a pattern not unlike an arterial splatter as it rocketed outward from his being. John drew the glistening edge of his blade backward slightly now that it was freed, raising an arm as if to strike again, until he heard the crucial and definitive orders from the exposed Albidian leader echo through the room.

"Hatsem, defend me! Protect me with your life!"

The command was, if anything, a bit excessive. The man's own defenses combined with the suit's response were more than enough to protect him from most responses John could mount, and John doubted the man was entirely without defenses even now. Joaquin's suit already worked to reconstruct itself, doing its best to recover from John's Rune of Disruption and re-establish its protections over the Albidian leader's body before John's sword would strike true, meaning even the most direct of attacks would have failed… but John already knew the man would risk any of his suboordinates to protect himself.

Exactly as he and Sophia had planned for such a selfish leader.

The metallomancer - Hatsem, apparently - was already moving his metal to intercept John's oncoming blow. But fortunately for the Gamer, he had anticipated this path, relied on Joaquin's cowardice, and even foreseen the metallomancer's acquiescence to protect his boss… by the time the living suit was reforming to intercept John's strike, he'd turned to one side and placed his hand outward with his thumb tucked and all four fingers extended, pointed with lethal accuracy toward the metallomancer's skull, reaching past the incoming wave of metal and finding an opening while a sickening smile played across John's face. Had the Albidian leader even the slightest courage, had he faced John with the barest of his own defenses, he might have withstood the storm that now fell. Instead, his minion fell as easily as the words now fell from John's lips.

"White Lightning."

John had often contemplated the speed of his own techniques before, but until now, he'd never had the sinful pleasure of watching someone else react to a technique in such a direct, lethal way, while enjoying every second of it. At best he'd seen a few Barrier creatures succumb to his magic, most of which were too low level to properly consider. Now he was watching the direct results of his efforts against a living, breathing human being. He was watching the light fade from a man's eyes…

And he was gleefully savoring every moment of it.

Mana converged at the tips of each of his fingers, forming the basis of a lightning bolt before he'd even fully extended his arm. Bright energy showed on his fingertips as he stretched them outward, then erupted in an ivory cascade that plowed through the metallomancer's chest and branched out into every extremity as the mage's life **** faded into the eternal dark of the abyss. The man's eyes flickered slightly as John cast, but he was far too slow to react to John's spell, enhanced as it was with Sophia's strength added to his own.

Sophia seemed to have something to do with the targeting and the way the spell worked its way through the man's body, but John didn't have enough time to understand how. Before he'd had a chance to blink at the white-hot eruption of mana, the metallomancer was already bursting in a wide-spread spray of blood and bone and tissue, his body actually ruptured from the ****.

John hadn’t just cast one bolt - he’d poured most of his remaining mana reserves and sent four separate blasts of lightning into the man, one from each finger, not willing to chance his foe’s survival. Even in his focused state John closed his eyes at the display, wincing a bit as the blood spray passed him and the liquified metal fell to the ground, not daring to open his eyes entirely until Sophia's mental coaxing eventually brought out the most feral parts of him.

"Do you feel that, Father?" Sophia seemed to breathe within his own mind. "Can you hear his uneven heartbeat, his frightened breathing? We have the advantage, now."

John nodded as he **** his eyes open and locked his gaze on Joaquin once more, as he focused all of his hatred into one point. He responded mentally to Sophia, without hesitation.

"Yes." John felt it in his soul, the agreement resonating within both of them. "We do."