Again, the Howling Djinn's Keep shook. This time, it came not as the reverberation of a powerful blow beating against its wall, but as an alarming jerk that affected everyone on or within the structure. Mercifully, the detonation of Trinity's explosive payload inside one of Jake's inert earthen arms had not been catastrophic. A couple magnitudes stronger, and such a blast would have removed one of what had become the tower's essential supports, sending the entire construct and everyone inside plummeting to the ground in a stone deathtrap. Neither Indigo, with the atmospheric power bestowed upon her by
The Yawg, nor Sepia, with her control over earth, could have acted on time to prevent such a fate. It did, however, remind Indigo of the precariousness of her situation. Though it enabled her to act freely, allowing the tower to sit in one spot went contrary to the plan, and she needed to resume her position.
Three noteworthy obstacles stood in the way of sending the Keep skyward once more, however. Impossibly, Dragon Fang's Axeling managed to right himself and instantly lock the feet of himself and his allies to the floor during the minuscule amount of time it took Indigo to cannon her Stormfront into them. With the same blatantly unrealistic speed, Amy brought her two weapons together to suck up and channel out all of the electricity that came along with the buffeting wind, despite it being dispersed across nearly the entire room. Hyun could not help but to crease her brows.
They're that fast? What kind of training does this guild undergo? For a split second, doubt crossed her mind.
Fortunately, reality ensued. Having feet stuck fast to the floor did not somehow immunize the three enemies' bodies from the effect of gale-force winds. When the wave of wind slammed into them, enough force coursed through their ankles and shins to break the bones of an ordinary person. When a tornado coursed through a forest, the trees that wouldn't bend would break; that was a raw fact. In addition, the handles of Ammy's scythes were not made of rubber, and since solid rock conducted electricity far worse than human flesh, the lightning injected by Indigo into her stormfront coursed through Ammy instead. Seeing, this, Indigo wished she'd used more charge. Even if Ammy had absorbed all the electricity into herself, there hadn't been enough in the first place to inflict serious damage to a powerful mage. Still, the sight gave her some solace.
In their rush to try and counter my attack, they did not think their strategies through, and ended up harming themselves as much, if not more, than helping themselves. Good to know.The resilience of the Dragon Fang mages, however, could not be underestimated. No doubt putting aside whatever pain afflicted them, they moved to attack, and first on the offense was Hunter. His viridian magic flowed through the stone floor, and beneath Hyun, Indigo, and Plum, planting spears of jade to sprout from the ground much like the Tectonic Blades and pierce his opponents from below. Yet, the soldiers of Frenzy Plant held to the time-honored principle of not splitting up. When the jade began to rise, Hyun was ready to defend her comrades. She waved her parrying dagger at the floor, sending a wave of distortion into the area immediately around her, and Hunter's attack was nullified. Not a single jade outcrop appeared. Frenzy Plant's champion swordswoman then found herself immediately beset by Jake, equipped with a halberd.
”A poleax,” Hyun remarked, deadpan, as he rushed forward.
”A defensive weapon, best used from a distance by infantry or guardsmen. The worse choice imaginable for a close-quarters duel.” She was only too happy to close the distance. When her flamberge locked with Gorma's Halberd just beneath the axehead, all that separated axeman from swordswoman was its shaft—barely any obstacle at all, and with no distance to work with, the hefty, unwieldy halberd simply couldn't be swung. Hyun's knife shot forward like a viper toward Jake's unarmored armpit. With magic nullified in the area surrounding Hyun preventing the requip of weapons, and Jake's terrible weapon choice, there could be no conceivable defense. This duel would be decided in one master stroke by a seasoned veteran of melee combat.
”Amateur,” Hyun murmured matter-of-factly as she drove the point home.
At the same time, Plum and Indigo faced Ammy and Hunter. Wordlessly, the double and the original changed positions, each choosing the foe most suited to herself. The batlike talons of Plum met Hunter's own jade-empowered claw, but she did not seek so much to block them as to grab them. In fact, Plum practically dove forward to clasp her talons around Hunter's Crush Claw before his swing could pick up enough speed to truly threaten her. The instant she made contact, magic power began to seep from the Jade Dragonslayer into herself. Plum held nothing back, greedily devouring his essence as fast as she could with no regard for the future, and in doing so she left herself vulnerable to some other avenue of attack.
Indigo gave Ammy a haughty smile as she attacked with waves of purple energy.
”I'll give you a shot.” she purred, her words oozing condescension. With very little ceremony she turned around, allowing the waves of dark magic to hit her back. Her atmospheric aura dampened the spell a little, but it still caused her to see stars. Reaper Magic, she had to admit, was virulent. She could even feel a numbing effect spreading through her upper body, some of her energy slipping away.
"Ahh...ahh..." Still, Frenzy Plant's most excellent magician would not be deterred. She hadn't taken the attack for sport, but instead to concentrate on her own spell.
”Dead Air.” The air inside the tower was already flowing, but now it really began to move. A wall of fog appeared in the doorway, as well as a horizontal barrier overhead, and the remainder of the air condensed into spheres around the heads of Indigo, Plum, and Hyun. The entire bottom half of the tower had been turned into a vacuum in which only Frenzy Plant's soldiers were permitted to breath. Indigo's warning to her enemies that the atmosphere itself within a certain radius 'belonged to her' was not, after all, an empty threat.
She knew that the current situation could not last for anyone. Her foes could not breath, but she and her allies had their own clocks ticking. The concentrated bubbles of air around their heads put a good deal of pressure on them, causing headache and murkiness of thought. She was confident, however, that Dragon Fang's representatives would fall or flee first. Plus, the bubbles themselves would repel physical attack, like bouncy cushions. Even though she knew that the Dragon Fang wizards couldn't hear with no air to carry sound, the Librarian smirked and said,
”You were fools to challenge us in our realm. It is time to pay the penalty.”Meanwhile, the situation on the tower's top was less under control. All eyes were on Damian as he soared up, up, up, past the range of the sentry towers. Not a single soldier doubted what was to come, but while the Blade of Phoenix Wing gave them substantial time to prepare, there wasn't a whole lot they could do. The cacophony of weather below in the Keep drowned out any potential audio cues as to what Damian had in store. Based on previous observation, though Zander imagined he might know what his foe would be up to. To the best of his knowledge, Damian did chiefly three things: attack with real swords, use swords to move around, and create magical swords to attack. His act of abandoning the sky-surfing Striker Blade and then putting himself in a nonsensical position for a melee attack made for little ambiguity in Zander's mind.
”Here he comes. ETA: ten seconds” The Ruby Knight pointed at Dmitri as he strode to the edge of the tower.
”It's time to go to Phase Two. Do it now.” As he spoke, Vert -still wielding
Wolfenstein- howled again, returning a little magic power to everyone present.
"Yes sir." Dmitri, still breathing heavily, crouched as fast as he could. His face was grim as he placed both hands on the black stone of the Howling Djinn's Keep. Instantly, all of his trap arms receded—that spell had been wasted. Their magic circles did not, however, fade away. Instead, they grew brighter before adhering to the stones to which they were bound, searing their designs on the surfaces of the stones.
”Hekatonkheires' Cairn.”The spell was done, and he stood to sprint for the side of the tower. He threw himself over the edge, followed quickly by Owen, Zander, Scarlet, Vert, and Aqua. An instant later, Damian made contact, and the surface of the tower exploded into a geyser of swordblades. A matching font of steel even emerged from the tower's bottom.
Then the tower itself exploded. Every stone fused by Dmitri's power in the upper half of the Howling Djinn's Keep joined together in a chain detonation. A concussive shockwave spread from the explosion that rattled the city itself, though the shockwave itself did no more than that. No 'protective mechanism' nor magic sword could shrug off the maelstrom of pure destructive force at the epicenter of the detonation—and hopefully, no Blade of Phoenix Wing could, either. As he fell, Zander fretted that the explosion might hurt Damian more than intended.
No...an S-class warrior of Phoenix Wing could not be killed, or even brought near death, by something like that given his armor and resistance. He imagined, hair whipping in the wind, that others might accuse Frenzy Plant of going overboard. Nonense!
Nobody could possibly find fault in this course of action, unless they're biased against us. If we hadn't gotten out of there, that blade geyser could have spitted all of us like pigs. The hands that grabbed the tower could have crushed it and pulverized everyone inside if it had been weaker, or the hands stronger. Every guild is throwing around a lot of power...that's the nature of the Games. He turned his attention to Owen, who'd sent sparks out from his rapier to the ground below. From the street, giant rapier blades shot up, rising around the falling soldiers like a bamboo forest. Each soldier grabbed onto one of the blades to slid down, just as a fireman might slide down a pole in the station. When they got to the ground safely, the giant poles disappeared, and Zander became aware of something else. Dmitri did no rise from where he tumbled. He looked sick, exhausted, even like he was suffering. There could be no question: the brawler was all out of magic power, and physically unable to continue.
”Easy, soldier. Take your rest. We will fight on in your stead.” Furthermore, Scarlet was bleeding badly from a huge wound on her back. Having lagged at the back of the group, she'd been only a few inches away from being bisected by one of Damian's blades. She, too had collapsed, and was weeping.
”Aqua, please help her.” The knowledge that she was one of Indigo's doubles did not dull his worry at all. His heart hurt terribly to see the grievous injury. He looked around, hoping that nobody would come for the Frenzy Plant soldiers just now, and that Indigo's team would quickly abandon the Howling Djinn's Keep as well to reunite with the ground team.
”We should have communicated better...it was our M.O. to stay together, but we have separated ourselves.” So saying, Zander grasped his ruby arming sword in a reverse grip by the blade just below the hilt, and he drew his great claymore from his back onto his shoulder for use.
