(During Issue 10: WITCH fights off scuttler)
"Aarrghh!"
Eric cries as another powerful punch hits him and lands behind on the prison walls leaving cracks of chasm behind him. He holds on to the ordinary and usual sword that he took up a while ago, as he falls back to the ground. 'Why is he even here of all days! His presence was never part of the plan!'
Earlier on, Eric instructed to his rebel team to retreat and evacuate to the backstairs and all meet at rendezvous point. He on the meantime takes and buys time as he fights off once again as the prisoners in the cells watch every scene of the fight, face-to-face with Cedric once again. Yet the fight seems out of hand…
"You've never change you fool! You're just the same weakling back at Earth!" Cedric bullies him as he points to his frail body.
'And I thought I would become much faster if I used a lighter sword!' Eric then lands back to his feet as he huffs.He then charges back at him as he prepares another blow.
"Charging me once again, are you?" Cedric exclaims as he continuously blasts his powerful beams at him.
Eric flips over as he runs on the wall in a momentum. 'I could actually retreat now and meet with the others at rendezvous point… yet I can't leave Grantaire and the others here!' he says as he deflects one of his beams and goes for the strike as Cedric is in his fighting range.
Cedric quickly steps back as Eric swings his inverted gripped sword at him. "You're persistent as ever!" he says as he once again like the fight at Sheffield, blows a hard and fast punch at him in the stomach and his body is once again thrown back but Eric still remains back on his feet.
'No good! With me just by myself, I can't do anything to stop him!' he breathes and chokes to himself as he turns to his side as he sees a conscious Grantaire trying to stand from his chained magical cups drains and locks his powers. 'Unless…'
"It's a good thing I was here in this prison!" Cedric explains. "Her highness has been fond of Alborn and Miriadel here lately. That's why I was told by Phobos to execute those traitors!" Cedric laughingly explains.
"Such good timing, huh…" Eric compliments as he staggers up on his feet back as he inserts his hand on the nearby cell to maintain his balance. "Yet the Guardians are here, shouldn't you worry?"
"And as I said young legionate, Frost's Corps of a hundred men are coming their way." Cedric hisses. "You should consider your surrender by now! Besides, you even can't handle me!—What's so funny?!"
Eric snickers and chuckles to himself. "Though how many times did your plans fail because you were defeated by children such as ourselves and by the young Guardians?" he mocks with a scornful smile.
"Do you even dare me?!" He waves his hands on front of him and electrocutes him with continuous flashes of lightning.
"Urrgghhh!" Eric cries out as the continuous lighting shocks electrifies and heats his body up. His body falls in a crawling position, while still holding on to the wall as he staggers to survive the endless sparks. 'That's it! Keep on coming!—Urgh!'
"I think I was too soft on you boy! But I won't make the same mistake that I did last time on those colleagues of yours!" He laughingly recalls to when he did not disintegrate Nigel and Ray completely back at Futurdome. "Now die— Impossible!" He suddenly weakens when he sees Eric, though in pain, stubbornly tries to get and move towards him.
'It hurts so much that I'm disintegrating!' Eric says to himself as he keeps on slowly raises his sword up to try and deflect the current. Though his body surrenders to the powerful lighting, his mind and will stirs up his determination to progress forward.
"That can't be! No creature could ever move in that situation!" Cedric says as he pushes his power once more unto him. "Aren't you in pain?!"
"I am!" Eric replies hesitantly as he deflects the current using the sword on his hand and stops aiming at him. "But I think I'm used to it!" he yells out as he bends the current away from himself and reflects the charge at Cedric.
"Arrghhh!" Cedric growls as his own lighting reflects back at his eyes as he stops his attack. "My eyes!"
'Now!' Eric exclaims to himself as he inverts his sword in an inverted grip hold and he pushes himself once again and dashes forward at the vulnerable creature who rubs his eyes in pain.
Cedric quickly senses his approach and begins to open his sight and quickly dodges a delivering vertical strike on him. "Why you little—!" he says as he tries to attack him, but Eric still continuously blows his sword around quickly and unskillfully as he stops Cedric from making another move.
"Fool! This same distraction was used against me when we had our fight back at Earth!"Cedric slowly moves his steps back as he recalls his first fight with him back on Earth as his distraction caused him for an opening of barrage of arrows that hits him. "I bet your other colleague is somewhere around the corner—Arrghh!"
Eric flips around to add more momentum to his swings to advance his swordplay blows and finally scratches his lower arm then quickly wounds the other. "You sure about that? Or I'm just alone to defeat you one all-out attack!" he dares as he glares pressure on his eyes.
'W-What's going on!' Cedric says to himself as he tries to find an opening attack. 'Last minute ago, I thought I won when I beat him up and electrocuted him! Yet he still has the extra will power to fight against me and make me retreat! Is he even a human to begin with?!" Cedric then feels the pressure and intimidation in his resolved eyes. '…or a monster within!'
Cedric continuous to retreat down the hallway as he awaits for a deus ex machina that would save him while Eric persistently continuous to swing rapidly at him until he almost drives Cedric to a corner, yet as a human being, his swings tire down.
"Weak now aren't you, I bet there's someone out there—Ugh!" he screams as another blow slashes his abdomen. 'So he's not bluffing after all! He's all alone and trying to take me down after all!' he then quickly founds an opening after he dodges a momentous swing. He takes him on seriously as he quickly and surprisingly punches him back as he once again lets out a stream lightning on him.
"Urghh!" Eric interjects as he keeps his feet anchored to the ground as he fights off the agony. 'No not yet!' He then drives his unbearable arm as he slashes his sword to defy the lightning and stops the flow, yet because of the too much pressure done on the sword, it shatters and breaks, that on leaves a shard of metal left on Eric's blade. He still continues to charge on what he has left.
'So determined! He may be even worse than the Guardians themselves! Cedric says to himself. "Your sword's gone! You think you could take me down using only pieces of your blade?!" as he waves his arms at him to give a final lightning stream at him.
"I can't, but he can!" Eric says as the determined charging legionate falls down unconsciously on front of him. "Look who's the fool now…."
Then beyond the hallway, where the initial fight begun a lizard figure staggers and stands on front as it places his scaled hands points at him. "G-Grantaire!" Cedric exclaims. "But you're in jail—Wait! Did that boy just released him out!'
"Erebo Third Technique: Beaming Darkness!" Grantaire battered out chants as a dark beam shoots out from his hands and an instant reaches Cedric who could before react to the attack.
"Arrgghh!" he cries out as the beam attacks him. 'He's been bluffing all this time, he really does have a plan!' he curses on his unconscious and restless body. He then blasts his powerful beams back at him when he sees an opening.
"First Technique: Submerging Shadow!" Grantaire chants as his body turns into dark sludge and blends himself in the shadows on the floor. The silhouette of a Grantaire then quickly approaches to him and jumps out before Cedric in an instant!
"Second Technique…!" he chants as a pair of gleaming sphere of dark energy covers his fist and is about to give a blow to him he lunges his arm back
"Oh no you don't!" Cedric surprisingly says as he waves his hands out once again.
"Too late!" Grantaire exclaims as he blows a powerful punch at his large torso. "Hands of Gloom!" he chants as dark energy bursts tremendously at him as the impact threw his body through the walls of the prison that creates a series of holes behind him.
"Agghh!" Cedric cries out as his body is now thrown to the outside of the prison walls together with some of the debris with him. His head still conscious as he notices he's now outside with his head that looks towards the sun and the blue sky.
'Damn that boy!' he says to himself as he casts a portal behind him as he falls and enters the whirling and horizontal and flat rotating light behind him. The portal then suddenly collapses to itself a few moments later as he gets in.
"Looks like he got away…Ughh" Eric says as he staggers and peeks out through the hole on the wall. Suddenly he falls to his knees in the heat of the pain.
"Hey! You shouldn't stand now—Oww! You're too warm!" He says as he puts Eric's steaming arm around him. "Never knew you would come to save me, I thank you for that."
"Well, I never knew that my plan would work anyway." He replies as he recalls the plan he made. "Good thing you noticed."
Suddenly, a series of tinkling and clanging of metals echo. It was the prison locks as if it were unlocked. As the prisoners soon realize that their cell metal doors swings free, they open their jail door and run along the hallways in escape to freedom, with no questions asked.
"What's going on? The locks just free itself?" Grantaire asks.
"The Guardians are here, perhaps it was their doing and used their unquestionable powers to open the cells." Eric asks as he sees the free prisoners as they run and exit joyously along the hallway.
"By the time when you inserted your hand through my cell, I knew you were up to something." Grantaire changes the topic suddenly as they too exit down the hallway prisons. "I thought you wanted to lean on it to maintain your balance, but I saw how you drew a simple magical circle and I knew what it is…"
"An anti-mage circle…" Eric explains. "When we realized that your locks are chanted, I just have to reverse the magic. I used it occasionally back at the academe, to outwit my opponents during training. That's why without looking, I was able to draw the circle perfectly, even the foolish Cedric didn't notice it. The problem was that those magic locks were too powerful to undo."
"That's why you used Cedric's lighting energy to as an alternative?" Grantaire asks
Eric nods slowly. "I learned from my colleague legionates that Cedric has the power to control lightning, so I figured, I just absorb his lightning, direct his powers to my circle and finally, I undo the spell in your cell. I then bolted out towards him while waiting for you to recover."
"Yet you survived that stream of lightning." Grantaire asks confusingly. "No mage-less being could ever survive that! Unless you truly are one…"
Eric then shows his left palm another complex magical circle, drawn out of black ink. "I'm still human, Grantaire. It's a good thing too I've brought my black marker that is."
"Isn't that the circle to protect yourself from lightning?" Grantaire asks he recognizes the circle as a master. "You even memorized how to even draw such a complicated circle?"
"No, I think not…" Eric replies. "I had an opponent once during our exams who was able to do lightning, so I guess the cheat saved my life today. Still, with my less amount of mana, I still get the electrifying and painful experience!"
"Don't you know with less amount of mana one can have, it is possible to create a tremendous amount of energy on the magic circles itself?"
"Really? How?" Eric asks.
"I can teach you to become a master of the circles if you want."
