Tali’s grip on my hand released, and as it did, I rolled. Pain shooting through me like flame, I grasped my sword, and managed to pull myself into a crouch. I tasted blood in my mouth, and I desperately wanted to collapse and sleep for an eternity. But I had to keep moving, press on. I needed to know, for that matter, what the hell was going on?
I gathered my strength, mostly due to hearing the sound of fighting approach, and pulled myself to a standing position, death grip on my blade in a fashion that would have brutally strangled a person in the blade’s place as I surveyed the scene.
Tali had been sent sprawling. The individual who had struck the blow was following up for another. Or…did they? I looked around for the attacker, and saw none, but he’d still gone down. I looked over to my right, where the large diabolos and the orc were, along with the other allies of Tali. The horned woman with the maul was seemingly attempting to fight a large quadrupedal shape, which seemed at the very least slightly difficult, as the shape seemed unable to be taken out by a single swing. The orc was charging up to assist, and their backline, consisting of the magi, who seemed to be charging up a spell and the gnome, who was fiddling with a small likely clockwork device in his grasp. They however, didn’t seem to be ready for long, before some sort of spear shaped projectile struck the magi around the shoulder, sending him to the ground, and the gnome fleeing for cover, dropping the device to the floor.
I soon realized I was in the middle of an active battlefield now, and began scanning the area. Ok. Where did those projectiles come from, firstly. I looked up to the roof, seeing the vague shape of an individual waving their hand. A spellcaster. Did he cast a spell on Tali? Regardless, I had to be safe. He could have avoided me completely accidently. I moved for some cover in the nearby alleyway, looking over to Tali, where he laid prone on the ground. I should finish him off. I leveled my blade at him carefully, charging my flames sigil as I prepared to fire off a gout to hopefully kill the enemy sigilist, when suddenly, the faint orange glow of the sigil simply…faded. I tried tapping other sigils, but most of those also leveled out empty. Damn. Damn damn damn!
I got a bright idea, then. Looking out, and still seeing the combat far, far from me, I made my move. Running into the street, I instead picked up Tali’s own sword where it laid on the street, feeling the slight reserves it still held, and moved to strike the Noctis traitor dea-
Just before I would move into the motions of the strike, I felt most of my energy leave me, and I heard a voice, as if it was everywhere and nowhere, the air itself
“Don’t do this kid. It’s not worth it.”
I spun around, dumbly looking for a source, finding none, and found fatigue rapidly catching up to me. It felt nearly impossible to even lift my blades-two of them now. Shit. Where was the surge I’d felt earlier?
I staggered for a nearby source of cover and finding little recourse, sparing a glance over to the battle, which had progressed somewhat since the last time I checked on it.
The diabolos had swung again with her maul towards the quadrupedal creature, which upon a closer glance in the light now available in the darkness, seemed to be a fully grown adult brown bear, a massive creature of fur, fangs and claws. Rendered bloody by repeated strikes from two very large weapons, but still in the fight, it raked into the diabolos with its fangs, and by contrast, she looked rather worse for wear, though the orc assisting in the battle seemed rather unhurt thus far.
The light I was now able to see in was due to a fire that had started off to the right. The gnome had thrown something explosive, but it didn’t appear to have hit the mark in the slightest. Smoke trailed into the sky, as I saw the figure on the rooftops jump to a new, not flaming one, in what had to be a supernatural distance. I saw the faint shape of the gnome scurry away. Making a run for it?
About a second later, the gnome screamed, and was sent flying from the alley in a heap, the fire seemingly growing bigger in response, as a seemingly invisible force began to slowly drag the gnome for the fire. I winced out of a sense of habit and instinct. An unfortunate way to go, immolation.
It was then that the hit magi sprung to his feet, letting out an incomprehensible shout as he held out a hand, the gnome’s advance stopping. This was all the rooftop shooter needed to take the magi’s head off in blast of whatever they were shooting. The neck stump likely spraying up blood as I saw him collapse to the floor in a bloody mess. His counter hold on the gnome soon equally released, and as if the force of whatever was forcing him towards the flames before had been holding itself in reserve while the Noctis Magi was holding him in place, because the gnome went flying, screaming into the fire with an audible slam. He looked up through the flames, his face an unrecognizable pulp of vague bloody and broken features, arm bent in three places after he’d tried to use it to break his fall. He let out his best gurgling scream as he proceeded to burn alive, unable to move outside of a crawl. He barely made it halfway from the center of the blaze he’d been pushed into.
The only remaining two combatants were now free to be focused on, just as the bear appeared to be losing steam, strikes having less power and force, ability to take hits and recovery time from said hits getting longer as the two combatants whaled on them. Two projectiles slammed into the back of the orc, then another two, then another two.
Meanwhile, the diabolos moved to take what likely would be a final, lethal swing against the bear, when suddenly she was knocked off her feet, sent stumbling to the ground, maul used to brace it as she let out a yell of frustration. The bear capitalized on this, and with newfound vigor that it couldn’t possibly have had in it, tackled the diabolos to the ground and began clawing, biting, ripping and tearing into red flesh.
As this happened, the orc was prepared to move forwards when more projectiles soared through the light of the flame towards him. In said light, I could make out more about them. Dark crimson, solid, but seemingly detonating on impact with a given target, and spraying…?
A sinking feeling in my stomach as I thought about what it could be. Or-well, I knew what it was. Blood. But how? Where?
I flicked my gaze over. The Magi’s corpse. The body was visibly growing less colorful in the light as more projectiles peppered the orc, some seeming to now do visible damage. He was visibly and clearly torn, emotions clear on his face. Help the diabolos, or deal with the person shooting him. He chose the latter, letting out a war cry as he charged for the building, pulling a titanic spear from his belt and throwing it at the distant figure. They jumped from view, and the orc charged through the flames after them, leading me to barely be able to make anything out about the fight.
Back over with the bear and the devil, the diabolos was being ripped into with newfound ferocity, but finally, the horned woman managed to get a firm grip on her weapon, repeatedly slamming the bear with the pommel, knocking it onto the ground and dazing it. She then let out her own primal roar, and began scanning the area.
“COME OUT SIGILIST! I KNOW YOU’RE HERE! FIGHT ME!”
It took me a moment, as the shout rang out across the street, and likely the neighboring streets as well, to realize that she was talking about me. My blood froze. My heart pounded in my chest. I even, for the first time really in this battle, felt scared. But I sighed. I knew what I had to do. For the Kingdom. I took a deep breath, gripped both of my swords, and stepped out from behind cover, waving in her direction with a stone cold stare that she likely couldn’t make out from her distance.
“Here I am, devil. Fight me, if you so wish. I’ll cut you down, then finish off Tali, executions for the traitors that you are!”
I yelled the words with as much enthusiasm as my tired body would allow, which was a shocking amount all considered. The diabolos yelled something incomprehensible right back, and charged for me, maul in hand. I prepared to dive under her swing, and jab at her in the stomach. I wouldn’t kill her, but at the very least I wouldn’t die…assuming she didn’t just trample me, or do any maneuver besides a particularly wide swing with her maul.
It was just then that I felt it. A massive brush of wind, and a shaking of the ground beneath me, as a shape passed in front of me, just as the diabolos in front of me moved to pulverize me, going for a kick I wouldn’t have anticipated in all likelihood. The shape planted a blow dead center of the diabolos’s chest, then twisting upwards, the force of which sending the diabolos sprawling over my head in a brush of too close air, and collapsing to the street in a road shattering roll across the ground near Tali. When I blinked again, the shape was gone, but I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, so to speak. I turned on my heel, and feeling a surge of energy like before I ran for the diabolos, who was weaponless, swinging both blades at her neck. She managed to recover just in time, deflecting with her left arm as a parrying method. I barely broke the skin of her arm with my swing, deep purple blood like on her other wounds being all that emerged and staining the blades of my swords.
She growled, and managed to force me back with a swipe of her other arm, forcing me in turn to pull back my blades. With her now free left arm, she grabbed Tali’s prone form, throwing him over her shoulder.
“This isn’t over, Sigilist.” Was all she spat out before she took off at a full run away. I was far too slow to keep up with someone of her size, especially with unreliably energy which could dissipate at any moment, so I let her run. Letting a look of pure contempt bore into her back her whole way fleeing the battlefield like an injured animal. I was almost hoping for another blast or figure to pick her off as she ran, but no such luck it seemed. I sighed, as the surge of energy slowly began to fade from me, and I turned my gaze back towards the flaming section of street. The first thing I noticed, was that the bear was gone. I blinked. The corpse was there a moment ago…
It was then that I saw someone, literally materializing nearby the flames, hurrying over to somewhere near where the bear was, kneeling over. I squinted…a person? A shapeshifter?
My eyes widened. But not nearly as much as when the newly materialized person, seemingly a man in well made white armor, turned in my direction, and started walking towards me. My heart pounded, as he got about thirty feet away from me before speaking.
“Come over here. We’ve got to talk.”
Kindling And Miscellany 