Lightning fell like rain, the stench of ozone so thick as to suffocate, while chunks of buildings punctuated the steady downpour with sundering might. Here, and only here, the plague craft of the Holy Diver could not manifest, the sheer force of arcane invocation enough to vaporize all the vermin that the Behemoth called before they could even fully manifest. The bells of hell clamored in their dissonant glory, the Dawnraiser wielding its calamitous instruments again and again, as if to scar its very existence into the eyes of all that claimed the city as their home.
And within that madness, there existed but a single shadow that still held on, surviving the onslaught.
And then there was her lab assistant, supporting her from on top of the convoy.
”This one’s tough.“Veronica had pressed ahead, which left Binky to defend the caravan until she could usurp Dawnraiser from their path ahead. Not hard for the nigh-immortal doctor Dinky, but only for the moment. With six different instruments to call her own, there was little the beast’s spells could do to her. The problem for Binky was never getting hit by an opponent's attacks. It was finding an opening to give a battle a decisive end. But in the current situation all she could do was buy Veronica enough time to get to the behemoth herself. The bright flashes of lightning cast long shadows. She would be upon Dawnraiser shortly.
”Fall back! Let’s see if it chases us.“Thirty seconds was a generous estimate of Binky’s duration in the esper state. It usually ended sooner if she decided to use melodies, which she absolutely had to do to preserve the convoy. She had made herself a watch so that she could monitor how much time she had left in the esper state. It even appropriately accounted for time lost due to her spell slinging. A quick glimpse at the clock revealed she didn’t have much time left.
“Tick tock indeed, Binky.”A voice sounded, unfamiliar but seeping with playful malice. A silhouette, a mere silhouette against flashes of lightning and gouts of flame, looked down upon her with
two glowing eyes. Operator ‘Blackout’, well-known for being a ‘true’ swordsmaster even a decade ago, now a terrorist working side by side with what she once slew.
But her eyes would have no effect on the Raid Boss Esper, and her appearance was mistimed; Binky still had enough seconds left to take down a
mid-tier esper.
That was, until the
driver spun the wheel and slammed the car head-first into a stone wall.
She’ll survive, of course. An Esper with six Instruments had plenty of options to defend themselves with. But time, measured in seconds?
“Tick, tock.”It was quite short, indeed.
Betty had done nothing this entire encounter but chase Finn. Her endless rage prevented her from giving up on her pursuit, and no amount of heckling would get Finn to change his mind it seemed. She had been burned, bitten, but wasn’t out. Her opponent might have fared better in that regard. While he was subjected to a few frog detonations himself, he took a moment to heal up some of the damage.
But he could only run for so long.
She was almost taken back by Finn’s sudden choice to charge. But she wasn’t going to stop. As angry as Betty might have been, her technique was on point. Finn likely knew this.
As they drew closer, Betty’s hand was in range of Finn’s rapier. She brushed it to the side before swinging her ax over her head. There was nowhere for Finn to hide, but he had already set his course before the charge even began. He was able to reach past her blade and stop her arm. But Finn wasn’t stopping. He continued to move forward. Betty and Finn may have been equals in speed, and Betty’s weapon was heavier than Finn’s, but that weight was helping him when he collided with the violinist. But Finn wasn’t aiming for a stumble, he aimed for a fall. There was little Betty could do to correct her balance. She only had one hand on her weapon. The other was on Finn’s shoulder. They would fall together.
But they didn’t.
The same black swarm that accompanied all of Betty’s melodies was swarming around her body, suspending her in the air. Whatever her element was, it was based on wind magic. She floated away from the edge of the building. The corner of her lip crooked up into a smirk as she released Finn. He might have fallen to his death if he didn’t have a free hand to grab onto her ankle with. She placed both of her hands on her sword and prepared to swing.
”This is it!“Meanwhile, it rained blood. But Ashley was getting absolutely showered in it.
Binky’s buzzsaw orbited her, cutting through the bloody tendrils with every pass. It didn’t destroy the mass of blood but it did free Ashley for the moment. She was able to step away from the bloody tendrils and fire off her melody without a hitch. But it was getting more difficult to assist from her position. The bloody abomination only grew with each passing second, and was nearly the target of Ashley’s melody.
But her spell did get through.
That was all she could do for the moment. She fired at the mass of blood while moving to a better vantage point. If it was just the blood tendrils she would have been fine, but now the flies were attacking en masse.
Before Ashley’s melody could land, Marrie tried to free herself with a melody of her own. Normally a rain melody would be plenty obvious to monsters and esper alike, but not in a storm of blood, frogs, and flies. She was able to get around the usual limitations of the portal note by having the projectile bounce several times, creating a few portals.
If Marrie wanted chaos, she had invited it.
Blood and frogs no longer rained from the sky, they came out of the ground too. The lice from earlier were still on the prowl, and the emerging frogs detonated with a single bite. White entrails slapped against Marrie’s back with some of it falling on Justin. It burned, but Marrie, like Ashley, was resistant to the attack. The only issue was that Justin seemed to resist it as well.
”How droll.“By luck or planning, a handful of frog guts were flung into Justin’s face. He flinched for an instant, and that paired with Justin’s weakening influence on her allowed Marrie to move. She grabbed her arm and kicked off the vampire before her arm was totally torn off. She could still hold her instrument, but she was unable to move her shoulder. But she was free, if only for the moment.
How did Samuel know what Gunther was thinking? I don’t even think I narrated his reaction to the projectile.Samuel lied in wait. He could have attacked immediately but he had transpaced himself. Casting a melody immediately after the last one was not an option. Even with the blood obscuring the distant fighting, he could see this fight unfolding around him.
Finn and Betty’s duet in the air..
Ashley’s dance with the tendrils and flies.
Marrie’s waltz with Justin.
Jacqueline and Pac-A-Fist performance overhead..
The only person without a dance partner was Gunther. Samuel could tell what was going through his head. He was going to smash the cars together, Pac-A-Fist’s life be damned. He was a monster after all. He might have been following Justin’s orders.. Maybe he was just like Samuel in that he could follow his employer’s will without question, but the difference was that he was a monster choosing to serve a monster. Human suffering put him at ease. No, it sustained him.
Samuel’s melody was primed. He was ready to strike.
Gunther was starting to look around. Where had Samuel’s soul gone? He couldn’t sense it anywhere.
”Unless…”Gunther whipped around and swung his hand in Samuel’s direction. His eyes expanded as the arcane knife cut into the ectoplasm that made up Gunther’s body. It was like cutting into a burlap sack filled with clay. The poltergeist opened his mouth. His last words were a high pitched shriek as his unlife came to an end. Just as Samuel’s knife reached the pit of Gunther’s neck, an explosion of arcane energy severed his head and arms from his torso. His body sunk to the ground like a playdough structure, but the sky was filled with stolen souls rushing off to join their ancestors in the afterlife.
Maybe Su was among them.
Pac-A-Fist’s sports car was on a collision course with Jacqueline before she blinked over to her. She went to knee Pac in the face, but she countered by firing a round directly into her knee. Despite the eccentric nature of Pac’s laser gun, it had to be physical because it bored a hole right through flesh and bone. Jacqueline wouldn’t be walking on that until it got healed, but she didn’t need to take another step to get a hold of Pac-A-Fist. She fell into the driver’s seat, where she was able to drive the butt of Havoc into her chest. From there, she could punch and elbow Pac with impunity. The steering wheel prevented her from kneeing Jacqueline, and the one hand she had left was secured on her gun. She managed to get hold of Pac’s wrists just as the vehicle was starting to fall out of the sky.
”Are you serious!?” Without the ability to stand, Jacqueline wasn’t able to get Pac out of the car. They fell swiftly, and landed with quite the crash. Jacqueline’s body was thrown lengthwise across the seats while Pac was still sitting in them. Everyone outside would see the pile of cars spring around after the fall. nobody knew how far they fell, but it was sure to hurt. Jacqueline was the first to open her eyes. The only reason why she might have survived was because of the suspension on the vehicles. Rather than coming to a hard stop on the concrete, the vehicle’s suspension systems gave the vehicles just enough spring to cushion their falls. Jacqueline was going to be sore for a while, but she’d survive this. She’d survived worse.
The only indication she had that Pac was still alive was that a cluster of pixels coated her body in a sort of 8-bit medieval armor. Her intent was not clear, but it would be shortly.
This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me. If you refuse to let them go and continue to hold them back, the hand of the Lord will bring a terrible plague on your livestock in the field—on your horses and donkeys and camels and on your cattle and sheep and goats.
— Exodus 9:1–3
And in this day and age, he’d probably fry Egypt’s infrastructure with a few well placed lightning bolts.
And what was more attractive to a lightning bolt than a pile of cars on top of the police building?
There was no warning. A pillar of light coursed through the cars and shocked everyone inside and kicked off all the street lights. This gave Jacqueline muscle paralysis and did further damage to her already sore body. Pac had anticipated the Diver’s next move and prepared accordingly with a magical shield. Pac shoved Jacqueline off of herself and dove out of the car. She jumped onto one of the large exhaust vents and started firing at Ashley. In addition to this, the giant flies were homing in on her. Meanwhile, the ball of bloody tendrils were only getting bigger, and it now seemed interested in devouring Jacqueline. It latched onto the sports car and pulled it closer to the edge of the police station. Its flailing whip-like appendages ripped the door of the vehicle and mulched the frame as it was drawn into itself.
Marrie’s dance partner also seemed to have vanished. As soon as the bolt of lightning landed, Justin switched targets. With a scream, he dove across the street and slammed into Samuel. He managed to roll to his feet some distance away from the others, but Justin had rebuilt part of his blood barrier and placed it between himself and the shadowy esper.
”You’ll pay for what you’ve done, and you will pay dearly..“ The barrier of blood grew spikes.
”Do you have any idea how much that statue cost? It was carved by italian sculptures right in Rome!“With a wave of his hand, the barrier flowed forward like a tide of blood, and it was growing.
But something else had joined everyone on the rooftop. It was hard to tell with the bolt of lightning, but a teal blur darted across the roof and hid under the wrecked cars Gunther had tried to crush Samuel with.
All this excitement, and the Diver had only cast half of its plagues. Would they have time to stop the diver before it unleashes the rest?
