add this after the youtube address
/watch?v=RgAc7ekYmVA&fmt=18
~Any way the wind blows~
She saw Baelfael just ahead, and her grip tightened on her scythe. She planted one foot firmly on the ground, braced against the foothills of Vale, and leapt thirty feet through the air, soaring with the wind rushing through her hair and landing gracefully on the precipice above.
The man in the white coat turned and with a casual gesture, aimed a small fireball at her. She raised one arm and shoved it aside dismissively, as it spiralled down and exploded on the hillside below.
He glanced down at her, and raised one skeptical eyebrow.
"Why do you pursue me, mortal? Is this book really that valuable to you?" he patted his pocket, where the book lay. "You have witnessed what I did to the demon. Are you so willing to risk the same fate for yourself?"
"All mortals die, and you are no different," he said, expressionless. It was not with glee, arrogance, or malice that he said this. It was the matter-of-fact statement of a scientific fact.
"Sorry, I just can't stand arrogant jackasses like you," Karst replied, swinging her scythe. "And I can't stand thieves. Just a pet peeve, it's nothing personal," she said affably, but her eyes said that it was something very personal indeed.
Baelfael sniffed and turned around, his head turned back over his shoulder for an instant. "If you desire this object of bound paper and runes, this simple book, then take it from me."
"I intend to," Karst said, and suddenly she was mere feet away from Baelfael, her scythe swung in a glittering arc in the early morning light.
Baelfael simply smirked and leaping straight up, executed a perfect flip.
The blade passed under his head by the width of a finger.
He felt it whistle through his hair, leaving several to fall to the stone below as it severed them easily.
He landed catlike on his feet.
The slowly lightening sky overhead was free of clouds, as the meadows of heaven closed their flowers in slumber, chased away by the rising god to the east. The faces of the mountains they stood on now lay bathed in gold, a wave of light roaring silently against an embankment of earth. Beyond the crest however, looking across a land where the only sight was the lifeless back of the earth, darkness still ruled supreme.
It was here that Baelfael, sunlight pouring over his body like anointing oil, face alit and hair transforming into fire, spread his arms and like a god, looked down on Karst below. And her, outlines in light from behind, expression cast in darkness, looked back.
Her scythe shone in the red-yellow sun as she drew it, and seemed to set aglow with the same fire that Mars Lighthouse held.
The battle, like the striking of a spark, ignited.
Burn.
She leapt forward, one knee tucked before her and the other leg perfectly straight back to keep her balance. Her scythe flashed in an arc before her, but this time she from there she stabbed with the haft of the blade, then crossing her footsteps swept the blade down from above.
Baelfael once more merely evaded, each time stepping back just enough to taunt death. He moved in short, quick bursts, an infuriating expression of calmness on his face, Karst's attacks increasingly frenzied and angry.
Finally she swung her scythe and let go with one hand, her free hand sliding to the very end of the shaft as its own momentum carried it, extending as far as she could reach with it.
Baelfael once again jumped back, dancing across the uneven ridge of stone as if it was a ballroom floor.
But not swiftly enough.
The scythe tore across his midsection, ripping cloth and flesh alike, leaving a thin red line across his stomach. It was merely a superficial wound, but as the fire spread up his stomach, he knew it would be painful.
"You like that?" Karst growled as Baelfael leapt backwards, one hand flying to his stomach in surprise. She spun her scythe like a baton and braced it behind her, her free hand open before her.
He held his fingertips to his eyes, registering the blood gleefully shining on the surface. His eyes moved past his fingers as he looked at her.
Her heart faltered for a moment.
The emotion she saw there was not hate, nor anger… but rather, a clinical fascination.
"Truly, the inhabitants of the Primaterra are remarkable," he observed. "I wonder just how far your capabilities extend?"
Her felt, rather than saw, the heat of the fireball as it screeched towards her, the air superheating and exploding around it. It quickly grew in size, igniting the air itself, and shortly she was faced by a fireball much, much larger than the one previous.
She gritted her teeth, and raised her arm to cover her eyes, and tucked her head into her chest.
The fire was suddenly all around here, consuming her, tugging at her, trying to scorch her skin and to pull her flesh away from her bones. Her dress immediately caught fire and burned around her, shrivelling at the ends and falling into ashes. The metal of her scythe grew white-hot in her grip.
But she was unworried.
With her free hand, she reached ahead, and parted the curtain of fire.
And dismissively pulled it down before her.
Her scales glowed brightly in the afterglow of the fire, her skin only lightly darkened by the powerful fire attack. Her hair seemed to shine, long and luxuriant, as if watered by the fire. Her wedding dress was burned away, to reveal familiar garb beneath.
A dragonskin miniskirt, pleated at the hem with red triangles, and a similar material making her shirt. Her stomach, arms, and legs were bare – and as she stalked confidentially across the ridge towards Baelfael, her eyes thrown up in challenge, his mouth parted in silent marvel.
"Resistance to fire… marvellous. It seems as if the old paradox may finally be answered," he said, spreading his arms wide to shoulder height, twin fireballs exploding in his palms. "What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable wall?"
Karst suddenly ran full-tilt, her naturally tough feet bare, finding every crevice and crack in the stone and slipping into it for purchase. Her scythe trailed behind her like a tail, her hair a flaming mane. "I know what happens."
She pressed into the stone and flexed her leg muscles, then sprang high into the air – straight at Baelfael.
"You die."
The funnel of fire buried and locked itself in Baelfael's chest, his throw of flame going wild into the dawn sky. The cord of fire remained connected to Karst's open palm, as she used it like a rope and drew herself over Baelfael in a graceful arc. Her body contorted as she flipped through the air and extending her legs, kicked Baelfael squarely in the back with both feet. The resulting push drove her forward and arms outstretched, she sprang off her scythe and deftly spun in midair, landing to face Baelfael with her feet together, scythe held daintily at her side.
She snorted and tossed her hair back as the scientist lay sprawled on his face. "Oh, I have still got it. You never should have crossed my family, Baelfael," she called. "Threatening my children! You think one would know better by your age. Or maybe that's the problem? You've decayed with time?"
"I regret to say it," Baelfael's voice said, but it was barely recognizable – it was thick and lush with power, and it seemed to her that she heard the burning of many flames beneath it. "But your hypothesis is flawed."
In the blink of an eye, his arms flashed out the side and flames erupted from the ground all around him, stone hurtling far into the air and then falling, a stone rain that left the earth splintering and cracking in Karst's ears. The figure levitated off the ground and set itself lightly on its feet, and she noticed a brilliant red light filtering through the sleeves of his arms. He reached down and rolled up his sleeves, revealing for the second time the intricate web of designs and geometric patterns that adorned his arms.
His hair wavered in constant motion, like the movement of fire itself.
His head turned sharply towards her, and she saw his eyes were filled with fire.
And then the ground between them was erupting, stone hurtling into the air as magma vomited from the earth itself, cracks spiderwebbing redhot through the dull stone.
As Karst frantically leapt backwards as the very ground broke beneath her, she realized something.
He wasn't just calling up reserves of magma in the mountain, she would've sensed that and had warning.
He was creating the eruption himself.
And then the ground beneath her was erupting, and coherent thought bowed out the door to instinct, reflex, and battle-hardened training.
She parried a flurry of rocks the size of her fist, dodged one the size of her head and – despite what coherent thought would've told her – leapt out towards the eruption, finding ground in the boulders rising from the earth itself. She ran across still-turning boulders, sideways as a boulder rose beside her, and slid across the magma as a boulder hurtled straight towards her, molten rock splashing around her as she dove feet first, the top of her head scraping the several-ton stone as it zoomed by overhead.
She gathered her feet beneath her once it passed and sprang at Baelfael, scythe at the ready.
His eyes flashed, and suddenly the Fire erupted directly before him, and a massive boulder the size of a wagon appeared, directly in her path.
Flames coursed up her arms as she drew from the erupting earth beneath her, and her scythe began to glow with an ominous red glow.
(Death Scythe)
She swung her scythe vertically, and the psynergy-imbued weapon passed through the stone like it was grain. The stone parted, molten where the blade touched it, and fell in two halves to the side.
Her eyes saw for a second Baelfael's stunned expression, and then she rode the shaft of her scythe into his throat, driving him backwards against the stone, forcing the shaft down to cut off his air supply.
She braced her arms and glared down at him, angry red into glowing fire.
Baelfael moved his hands from their attempt to push off the scythe, and instead firmly planted his fists into Karst's stomach.
She grabbed tightly onto her scythe just as-
The immense burst of fire beneath her threw her into the air. Tens, a hundred, hundreds of feet into the air, until Baelfael was a mere point on the ground.
He levitated to his feet and opened his fists.
The beam of fire that was pushing her suddenly opened up.
He reached forward and closed his hand.
The fire wrapped molten fingers around her waist and, fire immunity or not, it hurt.
She gritted her teeth as he waved back his hand.
The hand maintained its grip and first carried her at what seemed like the speed of sound backwards, she almost lost her stomach-
Then he flung his arm forward and opened his fingers
- and she was hurtled forward at twice the speed and then she was flying, hurtling through the air towards the mountain below her, the wind howling in her ears as she picked up velocity. The corrugated stone rushed towards her, and Baelfael traced his progress with burning eyes, her falling figure reflected in the lenses of his glasses.
"Fare thee well, brave one," he said quietly. "But there is no wall that can survive against the force of my love. I swore to myself that I she would live again… and nothing else matters."
As he turned to leave, a brilliant star blossomed in the golden sky, and he felt the wave of fire energy hit him. He spun back around so quickly his spine cracked.
The back of her dragonskin shirt first distorted, as if something was pushing beneath it… and then, it ripped, first by two wicked spines, followed quickly and majestically by twin, fully-formed dragon wings.
She arched her back as they extended, flexing to their fullest ten foot extension behind her, and immediately felt the nature of her descent change from free-fall to glide.
Her wings rippled and snapped like canvas in the wind, as she slowly approached the mountain beneath, her blood boiling from the dragon awakened in her spirit. When she opened her mouth to breathe her exultation, she revealed teeth that were just a little bit spiked, just a little bit carnivorous, and when looked at her hands she saw they were tipped with little hooks.
When she glanced over her shoulder, she saw rose-coloured skin stretched over the bones over her wing, and a dark, wine-like red spread between its fingers, a lighter-pink, almost white, on the inside.
She landed on the mountainside at a strange angle, and had to take several steps to regain her balance, her wings nearly toppling her over with their added weight. But as her blood began to cool, and her heartrate began to slow, she felt… them slowly disappear.
With a noise like flesh burning, they shrivelled to the bone, and fell off her back.
She spun around in shock, and found herself across a gulf of several hundred feet, at the tiny figure on the other side.
If she could have seen her back, she would've simply seen her pale, scale-dappled skin through the rents in her armour.
She stared across the gulf to the figure on the other side, and beckoned, flames rising from the air around her. With a gesture, she sent the Inferno across the gulf.
He couldn't help but smile.
What a marvellous specimen.
But as the fireballs hurtled towards him, his smile turned to a frown, as he levitated from the ground and began flying across the gulf
"What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?" his eyes were wild, dancing with flames, his hair blown back in the wind and his coat rippling. "What happens when my love meets your honour? Which one will be the first to surrender?" he called, flames forming in the abyss beneath him and shooting towards Karst like bolts of lightning.
Karst windmilled her scythe, the flames breaking across it harmlessly, strands of broken fire washing over her form. She smirked, and crouching, sprang backwards up onto the ridge behind her.
"Come find out," she said. "Before I burn that book of yours," she said, her eyes dancing gleefully.
Baelfael said nothing more, but spread his arms and leapt at Karst.
"Finally," she said, as the rain of fireballs fell all around her.
The mountains were silent. No creature cried here, save for far above, the cry of the eagle against the rising sun.
Silence shattered - no, burned – by the fire that erupted from beneath.
They moved further and further away from Vale, leaping from mountaintop to mountaintop, eyes always on each other as they leapt from stone to stone, from peak to peak, soaring through the air in feats of physical or magical ability. Scythes rent the air and flames snaked hissing, burning Karst's body a little at a time and sending her flying back from their very force.
Theirs was a deadly dance, the air itself aflame, in the solitary wilderness of dawn.
She dove across the stone, her dragonskin shirt protecting her from most of the harm as gravel scraped her tough Proxian skin. A half-second later, the river of fire hit the ground where she had been standing a second before, flames curling white-hot around the core of the spell, instantly liquefying the rocks beneath it. She swore. She was resistant to fire, true, but this was on an entirely new level.
She sensed, rather than saw, another fire attack coming in from above… felt the pull of the psynergetic network as he swept his arms upward, the very fabric of Mars moved by his spellcasting.
Freewheel, she heard him whisper, and burning, felt, rather than saw, the air change as an arc of fire formed before him, slowly inscribing a circle in the air. Like a painter's work, the circle was filled with fire piece by piece, and after a beat, the rim glowed.
And a spiral of fire erupted forth, descending to where she lay prone.
Instinct kicked in, as she rolled to the side just above the stream of flame, which began slowly arcing around in a circle, after the nature of the spiral attack. She raised her scythe in the air, now on her back, and stabbed the hilt at the earth beside her, using it to prop her up just ahead of the next wave of fire, which she slashed defiantly behind her.
She glanced a glance up and saw him suspended there in the sky, the wheel of fire grown to perhaps fifty feet across, his form thinly visible as a darkness in the flames, a faint outline as unreachable as one's own shadow.
His eyes burned back from the heart of the fire.
She stood defiantly on her two feet, though doubt began to creep into her heart. This man… wasn't truly a man at all, was he?
The true implications of what it meant to be an Elemental Knight began to dawn on her.
To be the source, the foundation, the channelling demigod of an entire element.
Not that she necessarily believed their story, but all the same, he was an extremely powerful Adept.
She looked up at him, and doubt writhed.
Was victory truly possible in such a situation?
She could not even approach him.
Through the rippling fire, she saw a smirk.
The fire glowed.
Yet, she knew… he had been mortal once. He had his weaknesses. Perhaps… with Fate's help
(not Mars anymore)
she could win… Immortal, if he was once mortal, he could die.
Mars psynergy rose around her, and she, sheathing her scythe, raised both hands into the sky.
The dawn light poured.
Fire convulsed, rotating softly, furling petals of fire around her.
Rosenkreutz.
The petals opened like the gateway to Gehenna, revealing a swirling mass of fire that had been her hands.
A geyser of blaze burst forth like a volcano.
Baelfael's eyes narrowed.
The great wheel of fire spread out across the sky curled inwards around the attack, which raged against its bonds to break through.
There was a beat, in which everything was perfectly still.
And then both attacks exploded in glorious fire.
Felix looked across the gulf of stone at the wheel of fire in the sky, and the brilliant star beneath it, and felt his heart leap into his throat.
The smoke had scarcely cleared before they leapt at each other.
Karst planted a foot on the stone and leapt into the air as he dove down, her scythe curling through the air. Baelfael created and dissipated a shield of raw energy in an instant to repel her blade, then sent raw force into Karst's chest. She flew backwards head over heels and smashed into the mountainside with a great crash.
The breath left her body as her head slammed into the earth and almost immediately, she felt a trickle of warm blood down her scalp.
(that was new)
She looked up in surprise, and turning her head to the side, spat out blood on the earth. Looked like it wasn't just her head that was hurt.
But in the air, smug, he beckoned.
She got up, staggered, and leapt again.
They raced along the spine of mountains, she scythe swinging, he trying to redirect her force with pure power.
They were more airborne, the sky more filled with fire, than not.
Baelfael paused on the mountainside.
Karst's scythe swung and sent up a shower of sparks as it hit the stone where he had been a second ago.
She pulled her scythe from the stone with effort, and leapt across the void again afterwards.
She brought her scythe overhead, scarlet hair rippling, and descended down upon him.
He looked up and sidestepped across the stone, but instead of flying away
Buried a fist in her gut.
Her eyes flew wide open with pain and exhilaration – yes, exhilaration.
Finally, he bites.
Karst's scythe clattered to the mountainside and slid down the stone for perhaps fifty feet before coming to a rest, perched precariously on the abyss.
Karst bent around his fist, then grinning, grabbed his wrist. Planted her feet on the earth, and with a shrug of her hip, flipped him over her shoulder and into the earth.
She was thrilled when he reached with his other arm and grabbed her wrist and rolling onto his back, kicked her behind him.
She landed deftly on the ground, rolling to her feet in an instant.
This is what she lived for. Fighting.
And she found quite a willing partner.
His eyes were cold, concentrated as she spun around and delivered a kick from above, his arm rising to grab her leg and flip her backwards.
She used his push to spin with her other leg and kick him beneath the chin, landing on her hands and springing out of reach.
But he was there to catch her as she landed, a flurry of fists to her stomach.
She flexed her abdominal muscles and bearing them, raised her elbow and smashed it into his head.
He wavered for a moment, dazed, and she seized the opportunity, grabbing his head and introducing it to her knee, then grabbed his shoulders and with a twist of her waist, flipped him.
He lay on the stone for a moment, stunned, and once more she pressed her advantage.
But her foot came down on stone, and a moment later his wrist wrapped around her ankle, and pulled her to the stone.
(damn he's fast)
But before he could strike, she tucked in her arms and rolled to the side, hard. Ignoring the pain of biting stones as she slid down the side of the mountain until-
One hand wrapped around the shaft of her scythe and leaping up, unleashed an Supernova.
There was a whir of charging energy, and then explosions ricocheted through the air.
And through the fire Baelfael flew, his still-human body not protecting him as well as Karst's. His skin burned bright red and then he raised his fist into the air, gathering pure elemental force into it… and gritting his teeth, his fist flashed out like a whip and struck her on the breastbone.
She flew backwards through the air, across the rift between mountains, and into and inside the mountain on the other side.
He looked steadily at the hole formed on the rock, and the promising darkness within, and levitated.
Karst groaned as she lay prone on the floor of jagged stone, breath blowing back in her face as she exhaled against the mountain's gut.
The air was musty with the stench of the long-contained, thick with moisture from an underground stream somewhere. It occurred to her that this may be the first time this cave was exposed to the world in thousands of years – how long since its formation, had a cave in sealed it off to the world?
Her reminiscence was cut short by Baelfael appearing at the gateway, a floating figure wreathed in a red glow. His white coat was torn and shredded, burned in places, his hair askew and his face marked with soot.
She pulled herself from the ground, her bare legs and arms likewise dirty with rockdust and soot, the dragonskin shirt she wore slowly tearing to pieces in the back, from where she had needed her wings before. Her breath was ragged, her mouth half-open to catch her wind. Now that there was a break in the fighting, she began to be keenly aware of just how tired and hurt – yes, hurt – she was. With the red fog of bloodlust fading from her eyes, her body began to slow down, and ache. Burns innumerable, regardless of her part-dragon nature, bruised bones from many fierce strikes and – she suspected – some internal bleeding, as well.
She put her hands together, and grimaced. She only hoped he was feeling the same pain.
The bolt of fire shot just shy of her left air at the same moment she fired her's past his right.
Surprisingly, lit by the glow of their attacks, they saw that the other wore a smile.
Warning shot.
And then Karst turned and, running up the side of the cliff wall from the stream of fire burning the ground behind her, flipped off and fired a Volcano Ball, the superexplosive ball of psynergy hitting true – but not at Baelfael but rather, the stalactites above him.
He looked up with surprise as the red glow filled the cave, revealing an immense room filled with stalactites and stalagmites, the floor vaguely concave. It was most empty, however, and as the shadows danced left and right in the oscillating aftermath of the explosion, so to were their faces bathed in perfect light.
Pebbles fell from above as the ceiling shook… and then fell above Baelfael.
Fragments smashed into his body and left dead limbs in their wake as his arms seemed to lose all feeling, but somehow he threw himself bodily out of the way, just narrowly avoiding death by impalement.
Even so, one of the stalactites pierced the tail of his coat, pinning it firmly to the ground.
With an almost shrug of impatience, he squirmed out of the coat, revealing a sleeveless white vest-shirt beneath. The nanotattoos continued from his wrists and spiralled all up his arms before slinking beneath his shirt.
He was careful never to turn his back on Karst, now.
Lest she know.
He was incredibly slender, skin pale, arms lacking harder any muscle definition at all. He was a scientist primarily, not a fighter.
But yet, he was matching with Karst.
He raised his arms, fireballs once more forming in his palms. And then he began moving his arms in circles, the fireballs beginning to move up and down in a circle before him. More and more fireballs formed, until he appeared to be juggling a wheel of fire.
They illuminated him brightly and clearly in the otherwise blackest cave, Karst's cautious expression just a dim shade on his sight.
One by one, the fireballs left the circle and hurtled towards Karst.
(whoosh)
as they flew towards her, shadows moving with their light left and right across the cave, playing with light and making the stalactites seem as the bars of a prison for an instant.
These shadows, crawling across the walls, gave her an idea.
But for now she leapt furiously to the side and kicked off the ground with her heels into a double-roll, fireballs hitting the ground behind her. She turned and met the last fireball with one of her own and then, her recovered scythe flashing. She parted fireball after fireball like so much air before her and then swung her scythe wide, aiming to cut him in half.
He once more dodged it effortlessly, but this time Karst was ready.
She had already freed one hand off her scythe, and now pointed it downwards and at point-blank range, buried him in a stream of fire.
The cave lit up, the shadows wavering furiously in the constant fire, darkness all but eradicated. And Karst, Karst could hardly look at her own fire that she was producing.
Then, exhausted for now, she stopped, and just as completely, darkness fell over the cave.
It would take several minutes for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, a critical error, she realized. She would have to make use of her other senses.
So, she did.
She listened, for the sound of footsteps.
She opened her mouth, for the taste of him.
She felt for vibrations in the floor.
And, she smelt-
Burnt hair.
(there)
She spun around behind her and fired a lance of flame.
There was nothing there.
Then the hand seized her by the hair and pulled her back, a guttural grunt escaping her throat as her hand flew to her hair.
Darkness once again fell completely over the cave.
Quickly and deftly, Karst twisted the scythe in her hand and swung it behind her.
Gurk.
She felt the fine spray of blood hit her bare arms.
The hand dropped from her hair, and she twisted free, pulling her scythe with her and taking a pleasure in the sound it made as it came out.
Darkness still lay heavy over the cave… but now, she heard the steady drip… drip… drip… of blood hitting the stone.
Giving away his location.
She felt the fire start to gather to him, and frantically listened. Listened to the pulse of the earth.
Mayhap it was Felix's presence in her life that allowed her then to communicate with the earth. It almost felt as if Felix was right there with her, hand in hers as he showed her what the earth felt, how to interpret the messages it sent through psynergy. And now, she felt the ripples of his footsteps as if the stone was a pond. She followed him in the darkness, sensing him.
And now, she knew, she was right beside him.
Felix's closeness in her life allowed her to feel the earth and now, she called upon her memories of her childhood friend, as she extended one hand and was not surprised when it pressed firmly against Baelfael's back.
Rising Dragon, she whispered.
The fire burst to life around Baelfael, and he looked back at her in shock. "How did you-"
And then the dragon burst from the ground and carried him far to the ceiling, jaw of flames gaping wide, and smashed him into and through the stone.
Smiling ferally, Karst took careful, measured steps, stood in the shaft of brightening light that fell from the hole above, and then leapt up through the hole.
Felix saw the dragon of fire erupt from the mountainside, and climbed faster.
Baelfael flew up and then slowly, with a kind of unconscious grace, fell back to the ground.
She set her scythe behind her, and went in for the kill.
Baelfael stood shakily, a little dazed and surprised. Immortal or not, he still felt pain… and a curious reluctance to unleash all his power on this mortal, fighting so furiously for the man she loved. Not even for his life, just his honour. How much more greatly would she fight against his killer?
He had the ability to destroy her, of this he had no doubt. But some part of him was unable to co-operate… for a moment, he wondered. Did some part of him desire this punishment? Did some aspect of his persona believe what he was doing for Moira was wrong?
He gritted his teeth. Impossible.
With a perfectly-aimed fireball, he shot the scythe out of Karst's hand.
She ran on anyway, both fists aiming for his stomach.
They locked eyes for a moment, Karst's fists caught firmly in Baelfael's hands. Somewhere up above, it began to rain. Clouds had gathered in the sky above and suddenly, the heavens opened and a deluge poured down.
The fire in Karst's eyes cooled for a moment, and for the first time in a long while, she spoke.
"Did you really love her so much?"
Baelfael's face was ashen, grief, and loneliness, warring in his eyes.
"More than the world."
There was a pause and then, suddenly as it began, the rain stopped. They stared at each other through curtains of hanging, sopping hair, water dripping plink… plink… plink… from the bangs and onto the wet rock beneath them.
Then, a great red fire growing before Bael, as Karst's hair instantly dried and wavered in the heat as the immense fireball formed in her fists.
Fiery Blast, she mouthed, and the force of the blow flung Baelfael off the edge of the cliff and high into the air.
She made as if to go after him, but before she could-
Twin swords of psynergy pierced Baelfael at the shoulders, pinning him to the fabric of reality itself. And then, before her disbelieving eyes, Felix leapt from the mountain below, a great shimmering sword of psynergy forming around him…
(Odyssey)
Acheron cleft the air, empowered with all the psynergetic force that Venus could muster.
Baelfael summoned a wall of raw force as quickly as he could, but the blast along sent him plummeting down into the crevasse between the mountains, falling into darkness.
Felix allowed his momentum to carry him to the mountain, his psynergy softening the earth for his landing. Dust rose in a cloud as he bodily hit the ground, bending his knees to brace against the impact, then he raised his head, black hair long and straggly.
He turned to Karst, and sheathed his sword. He put a hand over his heart and bowed.
(this is your fight)
Then rising, he smiled, and blew her a kiss.
Karst couldn't help but smile in return. Dork.
She retrieved her scythe and, leaping into the air, leapt down after Baelfael.
He was in pain. It felt like countless bones in his body were broken, the earth jagged and biting into his body. And like an uncomfortable lump, it poked into his back… and the Tomegathericon, safely in his pocket.
He raised his eyes and stared at the sky through the crevasse, and saw her.
She bounced from wall to wall, quickly descending on him like the reaper's blade.
He saw her coming, and half-heartedly fired a few fireballs.
She dodged them effortlessly, and then came the gleaming scythe.
He closed his eyes.
She swung.
(sni-thuck-crack)
It struck with a meaty thud, biting through flesh and bone, then the stone beneath.
He suddenly couldn't feel his right arm.
Because suddenly, it was gone.
Karst raised her bloodslicked scythe and stared down at Baelfael.
He would not die here.
It was time.
With his left hand, he reached behind his back to what was strapped there, and in an instant, had drawn forth the pistol and shot Karst once.
The last thing she saw as she turned and fell was Felix, screaming, running down the mountainside toward her.
