The streets of Washington are in turmoil as fighting rages throughout the city. Ethertech munitions ravage the buildings thus far left intact, while the rubble serves as cover for both Legion and Loyalist forces as they fight in the streets. Meanwhile Renault has taken the lead in our personal fight, attacking Chloe with the force and ferocity of a man driven to pure rage. His technique is a bit lacking in his blinding fury, but he more than makes up for it with explosive power and sheer brutality. He nearly slices Chloe cleanly in half at the waist, but I’m able to push her out of the way, then, in the last second as his blade begins to make contact with, then dent my armor, phase my body out of reality with [Dimensional Slip]. I remain in subspace for barely a tenth of a second, just long enough to evade the attack and be ready to counter the follow-up.
Though I don’t get the chance. Seraphina is on me the next instant, forcing me back, then back again, then leaping into the air. Chloe follows me, and Seraphina leaps up, battleaxe in hand, swinging it in patterns that look haphazard but carry a certain beauty and lethality to them. For the barest instant, I allow false hope that we can turn the fight into a two-vs-one, only to have it dashed when Renault starts employing a variant of Lindsey’s [Wind Walk] Skill to leap up into the air after us.
Though his mobility and aerial mobility are slightly reduced compared with ours, Seraphina’s is even greater in the air. Her batlike wings seem to be capable of making subtle shifts to her momentum; unlike my flight or Chloe’s, hers seems to be partially mechanical as well as being magical. She attacks from above, using the sun’s position above the eastern sky to try to blind us as she approaches, and if not for my perception not being fully tied to sight, she would have slain me right then and there.
As it stands, I suffer only a glancing blow, having gotten all but a chunk of my shoulder out of the way in the nick of time. Chloe’s [Curing Light] restores me to full vitality, just in time to fly out of the way of Renault’s obsidian blade.
His attacks attack not just what they cross but also rend the very fabric of space underlying, creating small tears through which subspace and its stroboscopic colors, hostile to living things. The tears in the principal layer of space quickly mend, but the damage from taking even a glancing wound from that weapon would be nearly impossible to repair, even with Chloe’s magic.
Still we fight on, the four of us, Chloe and I being pushed back, hardly able to dodge, let alone try to counter or go on the offense. The best I can do is keep an eye and an ear on the battle raging beneath and try to throw off an attack or two to assist our side. Though even this backfires, when Renault begins firing bolts of black lightning down as well, turning soldiers on both sides into charred husks.
“You’d kill your own men like that?” Chloe asks. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“They were about to be killed by your side’s hands. I ensured that the Experience went to–”
“Shut the fuck up, Renault. And just bloody die already.”
Chloe’s weapons glow with the scalding intensity of [Celestial Fire], now channeled through the edges of [Lumen] and [Aria]. Her attacks are equally vicious, born of righteous indignation, and to my shock, she’s actually able to beat back his attacks. Right up until the point where Seraphina flies in to intercept her attack and force her back.
I fly right toward my double, trying to force her back, though I am unable to pierce through her stance. That massive greataxe head is capable of easily batting back Filia’s thrusts, and her attacks are so swift that there’s no chance to reverse from flying backwards to forwards before the next one is upon me. Chancing a strike in her frenetic dance, I use [Dimensional Slip] again to dematerialize past her strike and try to time an opening, only to be dismayed when her attack strikes right when and where I appear.
“How…” I mutter.
“Did you really think I can’t follow you and the ripples you create?” the other Seraphina asks. “You aren’t the only creature I’ve fought that can slip through reality like that.”
I smile. “Then, shall we spice things up, Seraphina?”
Using [Dimensional Rift], I teleport just behind Seraphina and deliver a stabbing blow. Blocked. To the left. Parried. From below? No, Seraphina just flies backwards and lets my spear fly through the ground unabated.
“Gonna have to do better than that, Seraphina!” she says.
“Alright, let’s try like this!” I ready myself to attack and charge at the other Seraphina. She floats, her long, thin tail wagging like a dog’s, a manic smile upon her face. I return her grin as I feint forward, preparing to strike. I start my spell, but delay it just as the ripples in spacetime start to form, I end it and strike through conventional space.
The ruse doesn’t work, my strike batted aside and my body with it.
“Better,” Seraphina says. “But that’s not going to work either, and you know it.”
I smile as well. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to give up!”
“Try again?”
“Chloe,” I say. “Try to get Renault closer to me, alright?”
“Got it,” she says.
I attack Seraphina again and again, buying time as Chloe continues her fight with the leader of the Legion while cycling through my spells and trying to figure one out that might be effective at bringing down the Legion’s Black Knight. In the meantime, I take steps to try to push her back, avoiding slipping into subspace as much as possible, but am completely outclassed in a way that Chloe currently isn’t.
It infuriates me; how is the gap in strength this vast after everything? Why can’t I deliver even a single good attack on her? I’ve certainly fought creatures lower level than I am and while I always win those fights, some of them do give me more trouble than I’ve given her. And she’s not using any Skills that I can tell. Is it our equipment? Stat distribution? What explains the gap in our power?
“Is that it?” Seraphina asks as she catches my swordstaff’s blade between her palms. “I was told that you were supposed to be the strongest one around, and yet you’re not as strong as I was hoping.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, trying and failing to pull back my weapon. “You’re absolutely incredible, gifted beyond measure. I wish I was strong enough to give you a better fight than I’ve shown to this point.”
“But you’re not giving it all you can,” she says. “I know there’s more strength welled up that you’ve yet to use. Only basic attacks, barely a smattering of magic. I know you have magic; I’ve got magic, and you’ve got the same power I have. Why are you still holding back?”
“It’s just… I’ve never fought someone as strong as you are. I find myself at a loss as for what techniques would even work against you. But I’ll try this now.”
The problem is the triple challenge of fighting at this level of intensity, switching between dimensions, trying to work out and Manifest a spell strong enough to put Renault out of the fight, all while leaving Seraphina sufficiently amused to the point that she won’t suspect what I’m really trying to do.
Kristil throws a barrage of indigo lightning toward our battle, and I can’t tell if she’s trying to hit me or the other Seraphina or if she’s completely manic and doesn’t care about friend or foe. The fact that I don’t hear Nicholas shouting through our bond as he silently watches the battlefield from afar suggests she hasn’t gone completely rogue, but the manic cackles that echo through the sky as she clearly is having the time of her life don’t reinforce the notion.
“Hey! Stay out of our fight!” Seraphina yells, throwing a blast of pure [Ether] that explodes toward where Kristil was and half a second ago vacated.
It’s all the time I need, using the brief pause in Seraphina’s focus to attack, using [Impulse] upon myself to accelerate my movements and quicken my attack. Seraphina is taken off guard, and for the first time, she’s on the backfoot. But she quickly recovers, taking advantage of a momentary overextension as I press my attack to pierce my defenses and throw a punch with her offhand that cracks my armor and sends me hurtling backward.
I try to recover, forcing my way through the injury and casting a [Elemental Ether Strike] with the [Light] element, hoping that that might be her weakness with all those motifs of darkness upon her body. As she bats back the magical burst with the same ease as breathing, I find myself disappointed but not surprised. She’s on me like a bat out of hell once more, and I’m forced to vanish from reality once more to evade death via bisection.
I appear behind her, then immediately teleport again before she can move. Blinking in and out of reality helps mitigate the onset of dimensional sickness, but doing so consecutively eats through my [Ether] at a runaway rate. I can’t keep this going for long; I need Chloe to make her move, and fast.
Seraphina strikes at me right as I phase out of reality; when I phase back into the principal layer, twenty yards away, she’s there far faster than a blink, forcing me to phase out yet again. I get no quarter and I’m given not even a tenth of a second to get my bearings in order and mount a defense before she’s there again, bolstered whatever [Speed]-enhancing spells have been cast upon her.
“N– Major Richardson,” I say frantically. “Does anyone have any sort of [Speed] enhancement that they can cast on me? It might be the only way to steal back a battle that’s going to turn into a rout real damn quick.”
“I’ll work to get someone on the case posthaste.”
You better hurry, Nicholas. Chloe’s continuing to fight, but I can see her flagging already. Every attack is getting slower, weaker, and less precise, and though she’s still pressing the attack, it’s going to be a matter of seconds, maybe a minute, before the tide irreversibly turns against us. And I’m stuck. I don’t know what to do.
In a panic, I throw spheres of [Gravity] around, hoping that Seraphina will be stymied and thrown off balance by the warping of spacetime. It works for less than a second before she’s fully adjusted and is now altering her flight path nearly perfectly to compensate.
But I have another trick up my sleeve. Combining it with the new [Scalability] glyph I learned a fortnight ago, I’m able to triple the apparent mass of the pulling force at my other self’s back. This proves just enough to slow Seraphina down for me to fly backward just enough to avoid the attack. And for the first time, I manage to land an attack upon her. Just a glancing blow that briefly crackles, releasing a single drop of… oil down her skin before repairing itself the next instant.
Why oil and not blood? Just what is she? Partially Ethertech, partially biomechanical, but with oil in place of blood and yet there’s some trace of actual, organic life underneath all that.
“That’s more like it!” Seraphina says. “Now I see why you’re considered the strongest! But since we have the same type of power, I knew that you would be.”
“I’m glad I haven’t disappointed you too much, Seraphina. Despite everything, this is a lot of fun,” I add truthfully.
“I suppose that we can call round one a draw,” she says, her lips curling up into a smile. “But now, time for round two!”
Hurry, Nicholas. Hang on Chloe. Just a little longer and I’ll be there to help you. I promise.
Chapter 372: [368] 4.89 The Second American Civil War VII
11 min read