Chapter 10 Part Two: A Show of Superior Force
"-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!" Chrome stopped to breathe, prompting Will to look up hopefully from his spellbook, only to begin screaming again soon after. Will simply returned to his book; trying to get her to stop would only result in more screaming, this time directed at him. After improving a few more equations he had scrawled a few weeks earlier, he turned to a sketch he meant to go back to: two stately Dogs, a Lord and Lady, hand in hand in the middle of a waltz.
The Lord, despite his fine, but ill-fitting, clothing, cut a roguish figure: one narrow, electric blue eye contrasting with its wide, milky-white twin; scruffy brown and gray fur covered a wiry but powerful frame; a bone wand handle poked out of a coat pocket, never out of its master's reach. In contrast, the Lady seemed to be very much upper class. Her snowy fur and locks, deep green eyes, and short, narrow muzzle denoted a breed confined to the highest echelons of Marleybonian society, and she seemed completely comfortable in her elegant emerald and cream ball gown. The dancers appeared to be complete opposites, save for the loving look the partners gave each other.
Will smiled as he closed his book, eager for the day to end so he could return to his easel; he wanted nothing more than to translate the drawing to paint. Briar and Rose Waggstaff, he thought, my… patrons, I guess? He never really knew how to treat the couple: whenever Nick left him at their manor while he was away on "business", they were always cordial, if somewhat distant. They always left him to his own devices when he was there, except for their training sessions, where he was welcome to either watch or even join in, the same as any of the other visitors that happened to be there at the time.
"Chrome." Lady Oriel's voice jarred Will out of his ruminations, and finally stopped the Fairy's scream. She turned to face the much larger Seraph, whose otherwise kind face displayed impatience. "Are you quite done, or do I need to find another Fairy to help organize repairs?"
Chrome blushed and shook her head furiously, mortified. "No need for that, my Lady," she said hurriedly. "I'll get on that right away!" She bowed low, and flitted to the ruined doorway. Packing up, Will followed her, for lack of anything better to do. He picked up a particularly large chunk of wood and positioned it on the ground next to a somewhat fitting piece. Putting a gloved finger on the beginning of the seam the two pieces joined, he muttered a few words under his breath, causing a green spark to jump to life on its tip. With no small amount of satisfaction, he ran his finger down the seam, leaving a glowing trail on the wood. Setting the pieces down in the quickly fading sunlight, he repeated the process on another two pieces of wood, and then another. Afterward, he checked on the first pieces, or rather, piece: new wood had grown from the glowing area, fusing the pieces into a seamless whole. Will then began fusing the larger chunks together until he had one complete, too-heavy-to-physically-lift door. I did good, was his first thought. His second, of course, was, Damn it.
"Hey, Chrome, how's your door going?" he asked, and did a double take when he saw it perfectly fitted on its hinges. "…How?"
"I began from the hinges."
Damn it. "Just… help me deal with this."
Together, they managed to levitate the door to its original position. After a minute of fiddling, they managed to fit the remaining door correctly, making the completed set as good as new. "We did good," Will said happily. "So what's next?" Without a word, Chrome motioned to the enormous cracks spiderwebbing the walls. "…Damn it."
Basically an Eternity Later…
"Okay, it took basically an eternity, but the walls are fixed."
"It was barely five minutes, you big baby."
"Potato, potato. On to the next thing: seeing if we can make it to the end of our friends' fight against a destructive warlord. I mean, with my luck, your screaming basically lasted the entire battle, and right now they're all shooting the breeze while we're here doing repairs."
The Fairy huffed in exasperation. "Yeah, well, they can have their little "fight" without me. I mean, what's even the point of going? We already know how it's going to end: Nicholas beats them no-contest, Marcas is captured while the rest leave or something, and Nicole gets pissy because she wanted to beat Marcas herself, but got held up by that Bunny, Frank or whatever. Who really cares anymore, I ask you?" She plopped down on the ground. "This entire mess has been dragging on for far too long. At first, after I got over my fear, I was sort of excited, you know? Like, I never noticed it before, but I was always a little… not bored, exactly, but kind of restless here. Don't get me wrong," she hurriedly assured Lady Oriel, who was listening in, "I'm perfectly happy with my role here! But sometimes… I feel a bit constricted; it was as if nothing ever really changes here. So when that cannonball crashed through the door, I was terrified, just like everyone else. But then I began to feel excited; "this is like the beginning of a grand adventure, just like in some of my favorite novels," I thought. But the last few hours have just been an emotional roller coaster, and I'm too drained to bother seeking out Nicole right now."
Will sat down facing her, pulling down his hood. "Yeah, I hear you," he said, nodding. "Situations like this start to wear on you after a while. Nick is just a magnet for this crap, and he LOVES it, weirdly enough. I'd be cool with it, but that battle-freak almost always dragged me along for the ride when he wasn't droning on about "effective trading tips" when we planned trips to the Bazaar."
"Yeah, um, a question about Nicholas: were you ever, you know, scared of him? You know, in the beginning?"
The Wizard sat back with a low whistle. "Hmm… not really… but then, I always assumed he was a Master when I first met him; which he was, as a matter of fact! But somehow, in the two years I've known him, he gained the type of power most Wizards won't in ten. I guess I got used to him, but most people think he's weird, even, well, scary. But even now, knowing his full power, he's still him, just, you know, a lot stronger."
Chrome nodded, smiling. "That's nice." She pulled a face, remembering the Necromancer's rather extravagant entrance. "All the power of a demigod, and he uses it to shake up Unicorn Way."
Will snorted. "Professor Balestrom made something similar during a seminar. It's all about the raw release of power, and trying to hold it together so it makes something more than a load of hot wind. Want to know the worst part? Nick's wasn't even a Grandmaster level storm; He can go a lot higher than that."
A bead of sweat formed on Chrome's forehead. "You said he was a Master when you met him," she said, pushing herself to keep the conversation going, "so what is he now?"
"I don't know if they even have a word for what he is now, but a Grandmaster is at max Level Fifty-nine. Nick said he was Level Seventy, and considering I have no reason to think he's lying, that would mean he's a full order removed from Grandmasters like Headmaster Ambrose."
"Huh… So how do we know when he uses his full power?"
"I couldn't begin to guess if he was fighting normally, but if he had a Polymorph, that would be a good indicator."
"How so?"
"Polymorphs are dictated by Level. Depending on how powerful they are, they're locked away at specific level requirements so weaker spellcasters can't abuse them, and stronger ones won't waste their time on the lower level ones. Plus, you can't really hide your power in one; your well of power is different, so all your attention is focused on keeping a grip on the transformation itself. So if Nick uses a Polymorph, all of his power and then some will be on full display. But I've never seen him use one the entire time I've known him, so-"
ROOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRR!
The trio looked started, and looked around, as if hoping to catch sight of the source of the interruption. Will stood up and opened the doors, only to be knocked down by a combination of a sudden tremor and a burst of magically charged wind. The roar continued unabated, clear even above the howling wind and the further twisting of the street.
"What is that?!" Chrome shouted, somehow making herself heard over the noise. Will attempted to respond, but before he could, a distinct phenomena manifested: reality, or at least reality in their general vicinity, seemed to… unhinge, as if girding itself for an impossible release of power. Before he could collect his thoughts, it snapped back to normal, bringing with it a feeling of wrongness. Something was drastically wrong with the source of the power spike, enough that all the other powers he felt previously, even those of Lady Oriel, Chrome, and the other fairies, were drowned out by its sheer intensity.
A soft white light began to glow behind Will and Chrome, alerting them to Oriel's high-powered Ward making a line the tempest visibly broke up against. "Get behind the Ward!" the Seraph called out. "You will be lost if you linger!" Without reservation, the pair jumped behind the shimmering boundary, just before a gust of malignant wind—the strongest yet—crashed against it, before dying entirely, leaving only a heavy silence.
Marcas the Storm, undisputed holder of Wizard City and the ultimate warrior of his kind, dove behind a stone fence, narrowly avoiding Iceflame's gout of flame and landing awkwardly on Phil. Doesn't matter, still alive. He sat up, supporting himself against the fence, trying to catch his breath before his opponent launched his next salvo. Phil seemed completely shell shocked, constantly looking over the fence in search for his opponent. A bone-chilling giggle floated on the wind, and a girl's voice called out in an eerie singsong manner, "Phi-iiil! Come out and pla-aaay! We have so much to discuss. Like how to PROPERLY attack an opponent! Hint: it's not when their back is turned!"
"I only sssaw the Red Man in the last five minutesss or ssso before I lost sight of him. The Bunny eluded me, too; it appearsss to be a ssskill of hisss." Iceflame's testy hiss placed him only a few feet away from his ally, by Marcas's reckoning. He looked around for a promising escape route, to no avail: they were pinned, plain and simple. Damn it, this is a disaster! He nearly slammed his fist against the ground in frustration, but caught himself just in time; the pair would definitely hear it, even from that distance. He slumped forward, his head resting on his knees. How did we even end up here? Feeling a sudden burst of inspiration, he peeked over the fence and caught the girl's eye, struggling to activate the ability before she noticed him—
Flashes of the past, disrupted by the release of a massive well of energy, enter your mind: "I have a specific technique that may be a little hard to grasp at first, but that I'm sure you'll take to admirably; it's called "beat the other guy senseless"."
"Okay, so clearly you're a poisoned well of knowledge, so—"
"Baller, let's do it."
"Bwahahahahahaha!" "Wha—you jus—I—just— aaaaaagh!"
"Welp… later girl scout!"
"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—"
Marcas ducked back down before she saw him, trying to steady his vision; the Signum was always disorienting when he was out of practice, and seeing as the last time he used it was during their last big battle two months ago, he was well past that point. "Well, since they apparently didn't plan this (or anything, really) at all, I can safely call that a bust," he said to himself. "So now what?" He peeked past the side of the fence to see an odd sight: the Dark Fairy was perched on Iceflame's head and waving a trench spike to the left, trying to get him to turn; her wound leaving her wings effectively crippled, she was using the height advantage afforded to her by her unusual position to scout out potential hiding places he and Phil may have hid. Of course, she didn't check behind the nearest balustrade, because no one was that brazen, now were they? This was a reasonable oversight, one Marcas was happy to exploit for the extra minute or two it would grant him. Well, us, he amended, looking over at his partner and underling.
Phil, apparently having gotten over his horror at Nicole's "transformation", was now rubbing his jaw where she struck him in retaliation, drying blood speckling his brown-and-white fur. "How're you doin', man?" Marcas asked the Bunny, making him freeze, only to relax a moment later when he recognized his leader's voice. He sighed, staring at the sky with a dejected expression. "I, uh, I'm alright. S-sir. I-I'm just t-tryin' to, um, well, tryin' to…" he trailed off miserably, quietly ending with, "I didn't mean for this t' happen."
Marcas patted his melancholy teammate on the shoulder reassuringly, while checking to see if the monstrous duo were turned away; some semblance of a plan was beginning to churn in his mind, but the timing had to be right. "Don't beat yourself up over it. It's not like you knew about any of this, right?" Phil didn't answer. "Either way, if we're gonna win, we're gonna have to take the fight to them." He allowed a tiny squeak of dismay to escape his comrade, before letting the other shoe drop: "Or we can stay here until they find us on their own." Another, louder squeak confirmed his aversion to that idea. "Well, there you go. On my signal, we rush the girl. She's on the big one's snout." Phil, not wishing to get close to the deadly duo but fearing the repercussions of inaction, nodded weakly and began to form a small, cream-colored energy orb. Marcas gave him a grim nod before working on his own attack; the Bunny was preparing an especially potent attack, one that could feasibly take the Dark Fairy out for good if it connected.
"Damn it, where is he? He didn't run off… at least I think he didn't." Nicole seemed equal parts agitated and listless, her shoulders drooping as if exhaustion. Iceflame hissed impatiently, incensed at the very thought that his quarry may have escaped. "If they wish to run, fine!" Shaking Nicole off of him and flaring red-and-purple wings, he said, "I'll burn those cowards down from the sssky if I have to!"
He raised his wings to the sky in preparation to take to the air, only for the Dark Fairy to grab one of them with a snarl. "The barracks bunny is mine. You are not taking that kill from me!" Her ally snorted, and snapped his wings outward, flinging the smaller girl into the nearest balustrade… the same one that Marcas and Phil were hiding behind, stock-still and not daring to even breathe.
"The only one who said anything about killing was you, if I recall correctly," he replied, as the Dark Fairy picked herself up off the ground. "But no one will be killed by anyone if we stand here and argue for the ressst of the day." He raised his wings again and, this time unhindered by his ally's interruption, took off into the air with several heavy pumps. Nicole glared after him, clutching her shoulder; the place where the gash was deepest was also where she recently hit the balustrade, much to her misfortune. In her ire, she flung the trench spike into the nearest pile of rubble and began firing small meteors at promising hiding places; this, of course, excluded the balustrade directly behind her.
Everything went to shit way too fast to prepare for, honestly, Marcas thought, watching as the Dark Fairy launched a particularly large meteor at a passing Lost Soul, giggling madly as its incorporeal form exploded into tiny shreds of shimmering light. To think, we had this whole plan ready to go… Okay, it wasn't much of a plan, but it was still a plan, Marcas thought to. Another Lost Soul, blasted away by the maddened Dark Fairy, who now had her back turned to their hiding place. Op, there we go. "On my signal," he murmured to Phil, who got into position at the edge of the fence.
Nicole caught sight of what appeared to be yet another Lost Soul, and flicked another meteor at it. Focused on the resulting explosion, she didn't hear a hissed "Now!" from the Fir Darrig, nor did she pay any mind to the smell of ozone that permeated the air until a magic missile slammed into her, knocking her toward an inexplicably intact Lost Soul… or at least, what had appeared to be a Lost Soul at first glance. She noted a distinct yellow tint in its coloring as she flung herself to the left, Marcas's Stormblade cleaving the cobbles she lied on but missing her entirely.
"Dammit!" Marcas swore angrily, as Nicole cleared his following swing with barely an inch to spare, landing on her feet and firing a volley of stinging embers, which he laboriously blocked with the flat of his "blade". Phil had a direct hit! How is she still able to dodge me? Hell, how is she still able to stand? Reaching out, he managed to tap her arm thigh and chest in quick succession, the electrical current making her cry out in pain and collapse, limbs flailing. He rushed forward… only to be knocked away by a Troll's wild swing. Leaping to his feet, he raised his sword (the Stormblade having fizzed out when he was hit) to meet its club before it crashed down on his head. "Okay, now what the hell are you doing here?" he said nonchalantly, as he knocked away the club and struck the sudden interloper in the ribs with the flat edge of the sword, winding it.
"Grrr…"
The Troll's animalistic growl marked it as one not for conversation, or even basic speech. Of course, a hefty whack to the chest wouldn't help matters much, but Marcas was too busy looking for the source of the Troll's sudden appearance to care very much about that at all. Okay, so Nicole's still trying to move, a Blood Bat's swooping down at her, Phil's floating in the air getting forced choked by the Myth Shadow coming straight at me—wait…shit.
The three seconds afforded to him was barely enough to do what he did next, but he managed: immediately rabbit-punching the Troll before it got any ideas, he fired off a quick energy bullet at the heavily phlegming chiropteran, strong enough to incapacitate, but not enough to cause any permanent damage; while also wishing to save his energy for Iceflame, he didn't feel the need to cause any unwarranted injury to a random animal called from parts unknown. Placing a free hand on the flat, he willed his Stormblade into existence, ignoring the drain as he cut the Shadow in half. Continuing, he slashed the rapidly graying enemy into translucent ribbons, and obliterated it with a good-sized blast. Phil flopped to the ground, the hold on him no longer being sustained, but hopped back up almost immediately, apparently unfazed by the psionic death grip he had suffered. "M-man, that was, was cool, Marcas! I didn't know y-you could do that!" the Bunny said, amazed by the speed at which the Fae dispatched the attackers. Marcas grinned, welcoming the much-needed compliment, and caught an unusual sight in the corner of his eye, prompting him to turn Phil toward it.
The Troll, clambering to its feet with a roar of rage, froze suddenly, and began to glow with a soft amber light. Rapidly growing in intensity, it encompassed the monster in seconds, and broke apart in a scattering of motes; they had just witnessed the signature cessation of a Created creature's life. "Wh-wha-aaat?! W-what j-just happened to that guy?!" Phil was, understandably, shocked by what they just saw. Marcas shrugged. "It was Created by the Shadow, so when I killed it, our friend there dissipated. The Bat was just Called." The Bat in question, now free from the Shadow's command, began to fly in the direction of the Wizard City Commons, the orange sunset glancing against its wings.
"O-oh, I mean, that's okay, I-I guess," Phil said, gaze avoiding the spot where the Troll disappeared, and caught the spot where Nicole lay… or rather, used to lay. "Um, Marcas, w-where's Nic—"
CRASH!
The duo whirled around, as Iceflame landed heavily in the middle of the sidewalk, concrete cracking under his talons. He slowly began to walk toward them, wings folding and unfolding behind his back, single murky green eye glimmering with malicious intent. In a large, clawed hand, he held Nicole, who hung from his grip limply, clearly unconscious. "I think you dropped thisss," he rasped, hurling her at them. Marcas twitched out of the way, leaving Phil to take the body to the face, throwing him back and sending them both sprawling to the ground, with the Bunny being knocked unconscious from the impact. That's not good, Marcas thought absently, as his opponent tapped a horn knowingly, a manic grin splitting his features. "I want you to think back to the beginning of this battle. To see and truly live the moment you realized that you would die here."
Marcas raised his cutlass, its point trained on the opposing monster's remaining eye, keeping himself from quaking with only some difficulty. "As a matter of fact," he managed to say, "I'd rather just continue what we're doing now, if that's cool with you." He squeezed off a quick shot before rushing the massive warrior, only for him to backhand the bullet, detonating it harmlessly, and grabbing the Fir Darrig bodily, crushing him in his grip. He choked on a scream; his bones ground together harshly as he was raised to eye level. The eye flashed, stunning him, before firing a sustained beam of light into his own. Before the world whited out, he heard a rasping chuckle. "And as a matter of fact, I wasn't asking…"
"…But there's another flaw with my transformation…"
"Yeah, what?"
"I can't hide my power in it."
"Wait, what?" But it was already happening: a high wind picked up, blowing off of IceFlame in pressurized waves, their cacophony only drowned out by his scream. It went on, and on, and on… Marcas began to think—began to hope—that something went wrong, that the Wizard was dying… and then… everything stopped.
The world went gray, its color burned away. All movement ceased, the wind dying and Marcas freezing in place against his will. Sound seemed to have never existed. It was a Moment, hanging outside of time for time immaterial, and it nearly drove Marcas mad from its immense pressure. And then their Moment slammed back into time with a release of raw magic power, and everything started all at once: the wind howled, stopped, and began to pull back to form a magically charged column of air around the Wizard, whose scream morphed into a deafening roar. Marcas clung to a broken lamppost to keep from being pulled into the maelstrom, and saw that Nicole and the awakened Phil were sharing a particularly large pothole. The roar ceased, and Marcas turned back to see Iceflame's full grin through the wind column. He closed his eye and raised his arms in a sad sort of shrug, as if to say, "sorry buddy, it's out of my hands," before raising them completely, palms facing upwards as if to hold up the sky. A pulse of magical power ignited the already unstable wind tower, transforming it into a tornado of red and white flame. Iceflame began to scream again, only for it to transform into a mad peal of laughter.
Marcas felt a stabbing in his mind watching the increasingly bizarre spectacle, a tangible indicator that what he was witnessing was wrong, completely against the laws of the universe itself, an indescribable mar on the fabric of reality. What… what IS he?! There were a few times when he felt some level of fear, but they were nothing compared to the deep, visceral terror he felt grasp his heart like a freezing cold vise.
Iceflame's silhouette became visible through the flames, twitching and twisting like a possessed marionette. With a screech, bat-like wings sprouted out of the figure's back, snapping open and shut reflexively. Hands warped into brutal claws, and the silhouette's modest height nearly doubled. The flame tower collapsed into a shining sphere, and Iceflame's cackle turned into a thunderous roar. With an impossibly loud boom, the sphere exploded, revealing Iceflame's transformation: an eleven foot tall Draconian in smoking gray plate armor.
His powerful tail lashed casually, crushing stones and snapping lampposts and fences like twigs. A single, murky-green eye sat above a snout full of wicked fangs. Orange-red wings with a smooth purple membrane folded and unfolded slowly, matching his breathing. His armor depicted many multicolored eyes and mouths, opening and closing hungrily. Overall, Iceflame cut a figure lifted straight out of the nightmares of collective consciousness. He uttered a sibilant hiss of amusement at the Fir Darrig in front of him. "Well. There you go."
Marcas was quaking in blind terror. Iceflame's power nearly doubled from what he felt before. He almost didn't hear the Draconian's next words: "Let'sss have a good time."
"…OKAY, so, gee, how about I kick things off by asking WHAT THE BED-SHITTING FUCK WAS THAT!?" Chrome, as could be expected, was in fine form over the new development. Lady Oriel was somewhat occupied making sure none of the other fairies were harmed in the event, but Will was fully able and willing to cut the Fairy off before she picked up steam. "Chrome—"
"Hey Will! Shut up!" So much for that. "What the hell was that bullshit?! We were rolling along, like a pair of walking, talking daisies who found a nice pile of shit to sink our roots into, and like, talking through some personal thoughts and insights, right? But then Time or, Reality or some shit, up and had a brain shart, like, "Oooooooh, shit is up the creek without a paddle", and I'm like, right?! Shit is so far away from the paddle, Will; the shit wants nothing to DO with that paddle right now! Shit up and threw that paddle away, and now the paddle's filing for divorce and custody of it and the shit's three babies!"
"Um… what?" Will interjected weakly, but Chrome continued unabated, grabbing his shoulders for extra emphasis.
"After serving some cold, hard truth like that, RealiTime shits the bed, 'cause some demon or vaguely established god decides to check up on how shit's going here! And we're all right in the thick of that shit, Will."
"We… we are?"
"YES!" she exclaimed, tightening her grip on his shoulders. "But we're not talking about daisy shit!"
"We're not?"
"No! We're talking about some Grade A Reality shit! So loamy and fit for incineration by some god taking one whiff and saying, "You know, I wasn't going to treat myself today after bringing down that plague on Tajikistan, but what the hell, let's get corpsey! Well, what do ya know, I got a few unlucky bastards right here! I'll torch them first, and then the other bitches hiding in that building!" That's what we're in, Will!"
"…Chrome, not that this isn't amazing, but we've got real shit- um, stuff, to deal with right now."
"LIKE WHAT?!"
"Like Nick."
This finally managed to snap the Fairy out of her spiel. "Pardon?"
Now that the "storm" calmed down, the Sorcerer could feel all the energy signatures he could before… all except one. "I can't be sure, but I think that may have been the Polymorph thing I was talking about?"
"That was no Polymorph!" Lady Oriel said sharply, glaring at the direction of the new power. "The energy it gives off is warped and abominable. If it is a transformation, it is only the release of your mentor's true form."
"Whatever it is," Will said, exasperated, "I've gotta go there and check if Nicole and the Fir are even alive after something like that." Not to mention what might be happening now, he thought.
"I'll come with you," Chrome said instantly, and promptly flew out the door without him. "Wait, Chrome, we should stick toge- aaand she's gone. Awesome." He dashed off after her, but was forced to stop when he cleared the first corner, arriving at a veritable mountain of red-hot asphalt, iron, and stone blocking his path. "Someone up there must hate me," he lamented, before clearing a low fence and zigzagging through ruined buildings toward his goal.