A cloud of dust and smoke was kicked up from the explosive impact of Galvadon's mace, obscuring his vision entirely. John wanted to see the results of his handiwork as soon as possible, so he used a spell to whip and disperse the smoke immediately. To his dismay, no person or organic matter laid within the crater he had created with his strike. He quickly turned and surveyed his surroundings, finding nothing in sight. An irritated look crossed John's face. That coward... did he run? He thought, but his irritated expression quickly turned to panic. He forgot to check one last place.
Galvadon looked up, just in time to see Nemo hurdling down right at him. He had escaped the blast radius of his mace by warping above it at the last second. Nemo let out a crazed laugh before cartwheeling into a downwards kick at John. With his mace's head still stuck into the pavement, he couldn't swat Nemo from the sky, his only choice was to block. Just before he was impacted with the heel of Nemo's boot, Galvadon blocked it with the blunt staff of his weapon.
The impact discharged some magically generated kinetic energy, transferring from Nemo's boot, to John's staff, and finally his body. It caused him a good deal of pain, but not nearly as much as it would have if he hadn't blocked it. John pushed Nemo back with his staff, causing Nemo to dismount from balancing on top of Galvadon's weapon into a back flip before landing.
Galvadon quickly pulled his golden mace loose from the pavement and retracted it, causing it to fly through the air before popping heavily back into place on the staff. "I can't say I'm surprised, but I really wish you would've just died from that. That's rare coming from me, but I already know torture wouldn't bother you any." He said before resting his weapon on his shoulder.
Nemo let out a small scoff in response. "Splitting up was a questionable decision, Father Stockton must really have been afraid of my anti-magic ability to go as far as to sacrifice your twin synergy. Shame I wont get to witness it." He replied.
"Oh, well, he really hated the thought of having his specially crafted spells be belittled down to simple fish food for you. Fighting you would be like opposing a brick wall for him."
"I suppose I can sympathize. My abilities aren't always as visually inspiring as I'd like. In order to create my own spells I must first destroy another's."
"Spare me your sermon, Smiley, I've heard enough speeches lately as it is." Galvadon snapped back, uninterested. "What's with that outfit? You lose a bet with the apostate or something?" He asked.
"Not quite... she did." Nemo replied. "I thought I'd give my own little spin to her gang uniform. It's not often I have a reason to go for a retro-punk look. What do you think?"
Galvadon let out a laugh. "What do I think? I think that might be some camaraderie I smell. That's unlike you. Were you hoping the snake might accept you because you put on motorcycle jacket? I fear you might be growing soft on me, Smiley." He explained with a condescending tone, continuing to chuckle. "Maybe I'll tell Stockton to spare her, so I can bring her up here and finish her myself, nice and slow. All for your pale white eyes to see. What do you think about that?" John asked, his sadistic side beginning to surface.
After John's diatribe, Nemo's expression was noticeably less playful than before. "I think I've grown tired of our little talk." He answered, his voice deadpan and ominous.
"I couldn't agree more." Galvadon grinned before swinging his mace towards Nemo. The head detached as soon as he began the swing, extending out by the chain to reach Nemo.
Nemo limbo'd himself back strangely to dodge the swing, and then immediately used his warp to advance himself closer to Galvadon. John retracted his weapon back to try to hit Nemo with the backswing, but Nemo sidestepped it at the last second. After his mace was back in place, Galvadon stepped forward and began to slam it down towards Nemo.
Nemo extended his glove hand up in an attempt to block the swing by it's head. Any onlookers would of thought this to be a terrible idea, but just before the weapon connected with his palm, it was stepped by a small plate sized force field. The impact let out a loud clang, as if a church bell had been rung. Nemo kept his arm up, locking the weapon in place.
"You're much stronger than you let on." John commented with a slightly strained voice before pulling his weapon back to break the hold. He followed up by striking the ground instead of Nemo to create a heavy shock-wave of debris towards his opponent.
Nemo generated a quick barrier to shield himself from the shrapnel, but just as the pelting passed, John's mace-head suddenly flew through the dust by it's chain and pierced Nemo's barrier. It continued on to slam heavily into Nemo's chest. Thankfully the spikes were still retracted. Despite the crushing blow, Nemo barely lost his footing. John rushed through the smoke neck while his weapon was still retracting back, delivering a ruthless punch to the side of Nemo's face.
Nemo powered through the assault, appearing mostly unfazed. He returned the favor by striking John right in the abdomen, his own attack had left the church-goer wide open. John winced, clearly not as accustomed to pain as much as Nemo was. John threw another wild attack, but Nemo blocked it, this time grabbing his arm into a lock. He pushed John back, forcing him to back-pedal until he slammed into the temple wall. The impact loosened his grip on the mace, causing it to drop and clang loudly on the stone floor.
With a growl, Nemo threw a feral strike at Galvadon. John narrowly cocked his head to the side to dodge the punch. He then grabbed onto Nemo's jacket and used all his strength to spin him around and slam him into the wall. In a fury, John began to repeatedly bash Nemo across the face. Galvadon quickly lost count of the strikes he dealt, but by the fourth Nemo began to emit a sickening chuckle. As the beating continued, Nemo seemed to only get louder with his laughter.
Eventually John exhausted himself with the attack. He stepped back to take a breather, seeing Nemo's now bloodied face. Strangely, he was still cracking a smile, albeit one with trickles of blood seeping out of his mouth now. Nemo spat the excess blood out of his mouth. "C'mon, put some emotion into it Johnny boy, I just can't feel the love in your punches yet." Nemo stated, ending it with a giggle.
Frustrated, John rushed back forward and unleashed another strike. This time however, Nemo blocked the swing with his fist and grabbed John's forearm. He then forcefully twisted it until he yelled out in agony. Followed by a swift kick to the midsection to immediately silence him. Nemo then let go of his arm and struck Father Galvadon across the face. John stumbled back and fell over by his mace with a thud.
Nemo advanced on John once again while he was down, but just before he could initiate his next move, a fiery swing from John's mace appeared. John had grasped his weapon on the floor and put in a little something extra this time. The sight of the flames seemed to immediately cause a shift in Nemo's attitude. His carefree look seemed to dissipate, replaced with wide eyes as he tracked the fire intently.
"You're one tough son of a bitch, I'll give you that." John said as he brought himself back to his feet. He spat out a small bit of crimson from his teeth before continuing. "You might not fear pain, but that's fine, because I know what you do fear." John waved the flame engulfed mace towards Nemo. "I thought playing fair with you would be enjoyable, but it's begun to lose it's charm."
"I think fear is a strong word, I'm just a bit more sensitive to being burnt extra-crispy than others." Nemo replied.
John angrily swang downwards at Nemo, his macehead detaching to extend it's range. Nemo hurriedly warped out of the way to the side. "I am the rising sun that will cause vile creatures like you to scurry back off to their caves!" John whipped the handle of his mace, causing the head to remove itself from the ground and swing by it's chain back at Nemo, this time coming dangerously close to hitting him. "But my light will burn so bright that even there you wont be safe!" He added before raising his free hand up and exploding a ball of magically created yellow sunlight in his hand, causing a hot flash-bang like effect to course through the air.
Nemo was so preoccupied with tracking the ablaze mace that he didn't notice his other spell, Nemo's light sensitive eyes were immediately blinded. He covered his eyes, reeling from the irritating flash and stumbled back. With a heavy metallic ker-thunk Nemo found himself sent airborne by a immense strike from Galvadon's mace. He sailed across the pavement before leaving the ring entirely and smashing into a broken wall of one of the ruins.
After hitting the floor, Nemo worked on trudging himself back up on his feet, sputtering blood out from his mouth. On the way up he cleared his eyes and checked his body for any fire, thankfully the brief impact with the mace hadn't lit him ablaze. He certainly wasn't completely unscathed however. The morningstar had slammed into him with more than enough force to shatter a couple of his ribs like peanut brittle. It was then that Nemo noticed that his left shoulder had been popped completely out of place as well. He grabbed his arm and crudely shoved it inwards to snap it back into it's socket. In order to stop his lungs from getting torn to shreds from the broken ribs, Nemo placed his hand on his midsection and cast his mana-thread spell to temporarily sew all the pieces back together. However, with the time he had, he couldn't totally fix the three puncture wounds he received from the spikes. A stream of blood could be seen running down his leather jacket, trickling onto the ground.
"Good... that's good, I'm starting to feel the emotion in the way you fight Johhny-boy. It's been a long time since I've been hit that hard... Honestly, it's a rather refreshing feeling. It's only when I bleed that I can truly feel like I'm still living." Nemo stated after wiping the blood from his mouth. "One thing I've always loved about situations like these, with nobody else around, is I get to use some of my personal spells. Many of my own creations have never had an audience that's lived longer than the performance."
John idly swung his mace above his head to ready a strike if he needed. Nemo's comment made him hesitate to commit to any attack until he knew what was coming. Even though he might be able to prevent him from charging up a spell, he might be running straight into a trap.
"Leere Erbrechen." Nemo spoke, casting some sort of incantation John had never heard before. At first it seemed like nothing had happened until Nemo noticeably retched. He spewed a cup worth of black sludge onto the floor from his mouth before raising his head back up to face Galvadon. His maw became full with something once more, and when he opened it he fired off a glowing basketball sized black blast of magic towards John from his mouth.
Galvadon quickly charged his own blast and fired it off to collide with Nemo's, but his yellow ball of fire was effortlessly snuffed out by Nemo's own spell. What?! Now wide eyed and with no time to spare, John panicked and retracted his mace. He pointed it forward and generated a massive yellow magic barrier from it's head.
Nemo's ominous midnight colored spell collided with the barrier into a massive black explosion, eclipsing the entire area John once was into a noxious field of onyx colored vapor. The dark fog slowly rolled away in the wind, revealing John splayed out on floor, his clothing significantly scuffed up, and his mace totally destroyed. The head of the weapon ended up taking the brunt of the attack, and it could now been seen in multiple gold pieces around the arena, leaving only the pole and chain in tact spilled out on the floor. The power behind the spell must have been truly mighty to shatter an enchanted magical heirloom like that.
"What a shame, I was planning on keeping that for my collection." Nemo spoke monotonously as he started to slowly approach John. Droplets of that black ichor still dripped from his mouth intermittently, and crimson blood still trickled out from his wounds onto the floor. Nemo reached into his jacket and retrieved a balisong knife and began to idly flip it as he approached.
John groaned heavily, sputtering up his own lifeblood onto the floor. He rolled to his knees as quick as possible to face Nemo. "You t-truly are a monstrous creature." He spoke, shakily raising his arm up to fire off a yellow blast of sun magic.
Nemo raised his gloved hand up to the attack, effortlessly dispelling it into vapor when it connected with his X rune. "I suppose it's within my means to repair it." He pondered, halfway there.
"Even if I die, I'll at least know that your punishment will be m-much more severe. By failing to kill you I've only condemned you to your heinous existence. Life itself is your punishment. A life where you will always be hated. A life where you will never be loved, even from God. A life where you will be completely, and utterly, alone!" John exclaimed with a halfhearted grin. He began to frantically fire off three more blast spells in a last ditch attempt to ward Nemo off.
"Maybe the weapon wont satisfy me... perhaps I'll take your skull." Nemo dispelled John's attacks just as easy as he did the first.
"I don't fear you, for in the end my spirit, my soul, will be released to return to my Father and rest in heaven." John said, accepting his fate. But before he could speak any further, he noticed that Nemo was treading awfully close to the long expelled chain of his broken weapon.
Galvadon quickly reached to the side and grabbed the handle, causing the chain to spring to life even without the head when he injected mana into it. It moved to the side and rapidly wrapped around Nemo's leg. John yanked on it with all his might and pulled the chain back into it's handle. The combination heaved Nemo's feet out from under him and sent him airborne towards John upside-down.
"Purgatio Pugnus!" Galvadon yelled, charging a spell in his right hand. Once Nemo reached him he added one final word to the incantation. "IGNIUM!" John then punched Nemo's body with great force, but all that force was nothing compared to the massive fiery detonation he inflicted on Nemo. A vast cone of light and fire exploded out with a bang, sending Nemo sailing once more across the stage until he collided with the wooden door of a abandoned ruin. He smashed through it and disappeared into the dark.
John's silent shock and awe soon turned to triumphant laughter, increasing in volume the more he thought about it. "Fool!" He cried out as he got to his feet. John limped over the the ruin as fast as he still could, planning to incinerate the body to make sure Nemo was dead for good. When the Arcanocracy hears word of his victory, John knew he would be rewarded greatly. He finally reached the doorway and peered inside, looking forward to seeing the body, but the lighting was too dark to see a thing inside. John flicked his finger, sparking up a steady flame to illuminate the room.
To his horror, John gazed upon an empty room, followed by the light touch of a gloved hand being rested on his shoulder. As soon as it contacted him, his magic fire was immediately snuffed out. John was paralyzed in fear.
"I think I know what I'll take now." Nemo's monotone voice said from behind. He rested his chin on John's other shoulder and whispered into his ear.
"Your soul."
Rutger regained his composure on the floor and brought himself to his knees. Still grasping the dagger, he looked up to Raiya with a face full of rage. After pondering what to do for a few moments and let his anger cool down, Rutger oddly made the decision to drop the dagger. It emitted a metallic clang when it hit the ground. "No." He replied. "Why would I? I'm useless without my magic, so it would be pointless to even try. You could take me hostage, but what if this spell you've used on me wears off? You'll just have to strike down a defenseless man on his knees won't you? But that wouldn't been too out of character for you, huh?" Rutger explained. "Go ahead, show them what you are, you viper."
Rutger's intense gaze was thrown off when he heard a slow clap echo out from the entrance side of the tunnel. To Rutger's disappointment out of the shadows stepped Nemo, looking like he had seen better days judging by his outfit, but clearly still alive. A small smirk crossed his face as he approached, still clapping. "Geez, what an dilemma Father Stockton. You really managed to rip all the fun out of the game with that one." He said. "But there's one problem with that theory, Father. Since I'm here now, even if you did regain your magic, you wouldn't be able to use it, not when I've got my little fingers on you." Nemo explained while crouched down to Rutger's level, holding up his hands up and wiggling his digits in front of the Father's face with a small chuckle. "Maybe we should put a collar on you and keep you around for a while, huh?" Nemo proposed, flicking Rutger on the forehead with his finger.
Nemo stood back up, looking to Raiya now. "Don't bother sullying yourself with his death, Raiya." Nemo commented, reaching his hand into his jacket. Nemo casually pulled out his smaller revolver and fired, hitting Rutger right in the chest. "That's my job."
Shocked, Rutger looked down and put a hand over the gunshot wound. Blood began to spill out from in between his fingers anyways. Speechless, he looked back up to face Nemo, a small stream of blood tricking out from his mouth. "You had one thing right though, Father. You really are useless without your magic." Rutger then collapsed onto his side, dead.
Member
Massasauga