Chapter 37
If she had been alone, that would have been the end of her. She had never fought, directly, against someone so blindingly [i]fast[/i]...
For just a critical moment, as her eyes widened, Louise [i]froze[/i].
And then a miniature hailstorm blasted Wardes to the side, from the lowered tip of Tabitha's staff. Above, there were screams as the fight erupted.
... And the crashing noise of cannons firing and impacting with the heavy stone fortifications of the academy.
Damn it. Everything all at [i]once[/i].
This wasn't over by far, though. In what seemed like the time it took to blink...
Wardes did not heave the piled ice off of himself and rise.
Lightning flowed out, instead, from the heap of crushed frost, without dislodging it, and a lightning bolt struck, forming as it went into a bloodthirsty and howling Wardes.
And then [i]she[/i] was no longer where she had been, but across the courtyard, with her familiar's red eyes looking casually down at her, with an air of only the vaguest interest, perfectly unsuited for having just snatched her from the hungry jaws of a lion.
"... What do you think you're doing." Wardes hissed slowly. "With [i]my[/i] wife?"
Rumia's eyes turned.
"What... do you think you were going to do? To [i]my[/i] master." She asks back in turn, eyes narrowing slowly.
A brace of cannons fire, and one of the shots slams home into the central tower, away from anything warde, and punching a wide hole directly through. There's so much screaming...
"Put me down." Louise orders softly. She has to think. She has to prioritize.
There are two big threats here. Tabitha, together with her... they can't match a war-galleon. Not a full warship of the skies. But maybe...
And perhaps, perhaps, the two of them might be enough.
"Tabitha and I will handle... this." Louise says, as Rumia casts a scornful look towards Wardes. "You... I need you to deal with Reconquista's airship. Can you do that? P... please."
She should be able to.
She was on equal footing, more or less, with the grand spirit of Ragdorian Lake!
And she's always been willing to follow at least this sort of order before. But now, she hesitates.
... She can't possibly be [i]worried[/i]? She's never thought deeply enough about anything to worry about it before.
Even so, she nods, after a long moment.
"Fiiiiine." she says, lazily. "But you aren't allowed to die. Alright? If you do, I'll make you soooorrry, [i]my[/i] master."
She grins. And then she sinks down into her own shadow on the ground and disappears.
[i]That[/i] is definitely new.
Wardes laughs again.
"You will... handle? [i]Me[/i]?" He chuckles.
Louise answers him by swinging the sword through him, expecting him to block or dodge. he doesn't so much as twitch.
And for a moment, blinding and crackling agony rips up her arms, and she screams. Even as she dimly realizes that Wardes is emitting a surprised and pained bellow of his own, as he is for a moment cleft in twain, before he crackles into electric fury and reforms, clutching at where the wound was and scowling darkly.
"Thats... a really strong flavor." The sword says, slowly. "Not sure how much help I'll be, this time, with..."
"I'd figured [i]that[/i] much-" Louise manages, fingers spasming and just barely enough under her control that she doesn't drop the blade.
As Tabitha renews the assault, she barely manages to sheathe the blade once more, and take up her wand again.
Nothing.
Nothing at all, that either of them do, hurts him one bit.
Not for real.
Not the way the sword seemed to, though that was a mutual and joined agony.
Impaled with ice, blasted apart, cleaved with blades of wind, burned with flickering fires dancing between the raindrops, or burying him under an avalanche of stone.
Nothing hurts him for real.
How can you harm lightning, electricity, with attacks? No matter what, only a heartbeat passes, and he is once more hale and hearty and laughing at the futility of their efforts.
Nothing seems to do more than annoy him. It's [i]infuriating[/i]!
Louise channels that rage into her next failed spell, and blasts off, or seems to, Wardes' arm at the elbow.
He's less annoyed by that than he is, a moment later, when Tabitha simply freezes his entire body solid in ice.
He flickers through it in almost an instant. And then a spot of hope arises, because his arm isn't back yet.
It only takes a few more heartbeats, and he doesn't seem to notice himself, but he's beginning to slow. His healing is, at least.
His actual [i]speed[/i] is as ridiculously high as ever, as is proven when he's suddenly [i]there[/i], and gripping Tabitha by the head.
"I'm tired of playing with you, girl." he says, flatly, lifting her up off the ground. "My [i]wife[/i] and I would like to be alone now."
Without a further word, he slams her heavily into a wall. There's an agonizingly meaty crunch.
Tabitha's arms go limp, and the staff drops from her hand as he tosses her aside like a rag-doll.
No. No, no, no, that wasn't supposed to-!
... she's still breathing. Faintly. But still.
And then, as he turns, smiling, Tabitha's dragon falls from the sky with all the force of a screaming, scaled, and clawed meteor.
He strikes, of course, but something...
Wind shield? Was Tabitha just conscious enough to see her familiar incoming and set up a defense in advance?
It doesn't help against the next blow, as Wardes blasts the dragon aside.
"... I don't feel like playing with you." He grunts. "... If you don't take here away, she'll die, you know? It will be your fault. I don't care either way, but I'll happily kill you if you keep coming."
The dragon's screech is keening and pained.
And its eyes are almost what could be called apologetic, as it turns aside, and desperately flees with its master in careful claws, leaving the forgotten staff behind on the ground.
"... And now. My lovely Louise." Wardes says, striding slowly force. "If you will not willingly kneel?"
He stops just out of her arms reach, grinning widely with still-reddened teeth.
"I'll just have to teach you to obey."
He swings. Barely, just by a hairs width, Louise evades a crackling and clawing blow, and her wand is raised once more. When she speaks, it isn't an incantation so much as just a simple command.
[b]"Die."[/b]
At the flat word, Wardes' eyes widen just a touch, and he flows into an almost instinctive motion to avoid the blast and strike from the side and behind. Pain blossoms.
"Foolish little Louise. You can't win."
Louise grits her teeth, and manages to wing him with the edge of a blast. It invites another punishing counterattack.
"You definitely cannot win. I'm no longer simply a mage using lightning."
Another exhange of blows, and she definitely feels something crack, thinks there might be the stink of something burnt, faintly.
"I am transcended."
A new blossom of pain.
"I [i]am[/i] the lightning now. I am so much more, more than you could ever possibly understand. How can you possibly stand against me?"
"... I will win."
Louise's voice is defiant, and Wardes roars in laughter once more.
"No matter what. I'll definitely win." Louise continues, staggering, but still standing. "If it breaks every bone. If I shed every drop of blood. No matter what it costs, there is no way that I won't win. I will definitely defeat you."
Something flickers on Wardes' face. For just a moment, the sheer [i]certainty[/i] of those words leaves him... almost uncertain.
But not for long.
In another flash, he's crossed the distance, and holds her up by her throat.
"We'll see-" he begins, chuckling.
Only to pause, as he realizes that the business end of Louise's wand is hovering less than the width of a fingernail from his eye.
[b]"D-!"[/b] Louise begins to command.
But he's already moved his arm, and the not-incantation is aborted as she is slammed painfully into the ground and lifted up again.
"Impudent-!" He starts to rant.
He is interrupted by nothing more than the merest whisper on the wind.
He draws back quickly. And as a wide and deep line opens itself through the earth and grass of the courtyard, larger by far than any single spell should have the right to, he leaves part of his arm behind as it crackles away and, over several long heartbeats, reforms.
A voice resounds through the courtyard, as cold and as sharp as polished steel in the winter.
"... And what. Do you think you're doing?" it says slowly, as Karin halts herself with levitation once more, staring down through hard eyes. "... With [i]my[/i] daughter?"
"... You..." Wardes hisses, slowly.
Karin lowers the rest of the way to the ground, feet touching down as Louise carefully claws breath after breath into her lungs, securing consciousness.
Wardes displays reddened teeth once more in a savage grin.
"... Ha. hahaha!" He erupts, laughing once more. Like he's laughed at so much already. Louise is beginning to hate that laugh.
"... Fool." Wardes says. "I'm not that awed little boy any more. Karin! You were a fool to come. Do you think I'm still afraid of [i]you[/i]?"
"You [i]should[/i] be." Karin replies, nothing in her voice but the purest and most absolute of certainty.