They couldn’t take the skimmers through the aperture, so once they arrived in the astral space, Emir and his people were on foot. Not all had the movement abilities to keep pace with Emir, but he didn’t wait. Only two of his people, specialised in mobility, were able to keep up as they dashed in the direction the tracking stones were pointing them. They quickly discovered they were on some kind of island chain, but the water didn’t slow them down. On the contrary, they moved faster over the calm water than the crowded terrain of the tropical islands.
Danielle drove the freakish enemy into retreat but she chose not to follow. The fight had drawn her attention from the larger battle and she needed to stop and reassess. Leaping high in the air, she used one of her time powers to slow herself down, floating as she scanned battlefield.
She looked for potential weak points in their formation, and people she could send to reinforce them. On a distant flank she spotted a second bizarre silver-ranker overwhelming Rufus. It was another disgusting fusion of metal and flesh, half construct creature and half living being.
Even as she turned her full attention to the action, Rufus slipped and the fight was over. His arm was severed and his opponent kicked him away. Seeing the abomination turn to Farrah, Danielle teleported directly into the fray.
In the chaos of battle, Thadwick and his two offsiders, Neil and Dustin, had been separated from the main force. Dustin had used his powers to protect them while Neil had kept them alive with his healing. Thadwick had been blasting powers blindly into the enemy at range, exhausting his mana.
“Replenish me,” Thadwick demanded.
“You can’t just keep throwing attacks into the pack,” Neil said. “We have to find a way to rejoin the group, not draw more enemy attention.”
Thadwick’s essences were lightning, wind, potent and storm, and he had used a preponderance of awakening stones of the magus to get more spells than the human affinity for special attacks would normally produce. His essence powers were all simple, straightforwards and powerful, with an attendant high mana cost. What they were not was subtle.
Thadwick looked around, only now realising how isolated they were, in spite of warnings the others had given him.
“You need to hold them off so I can get back,” he told the other two, immediately running away from the enemy.
Neil and Dustin looked at each other.
“Dusty, did he just…?”
“Yeah, he did.”
“I am so done with that little turd.”
Danielle had seen Jason fighting in her mirage arena enough to envy the freedom with which he teleported. Even after years using her own ability, there was still a moment of disorientation on arrival. That moment proved to be everything as she arrived close to Farrah and the monstrous silver-ranker attacking her. That fleeting confusion was all too costly as four metal arms pierced into Farrah’s body like spears. Neither Farrah’s blade nor her armour was enough to block them, one of which buried itself in her head. Farrah’s corpse was still falling to the ground as Danielle recovered and attacked.
The four arms were fast, but like her enemy, Danielle was at the peak of silver rank. Her confluence essence was time and everything seemed to slow around her as her dimensional blade cut into her enemy again and again. It was in many ways a reflection of Rufus’s fight. She was more skilled than her enemy and used expert technique to strike out with her conjured blade. She even had a power, similar to the one Rufus possessed, to briefly accelerate so fast that the world around her seemed frozen.
The difference between her fight and Rufus’s was that she was not overpowered by the enemy. Instead of bouncing off seemingly impervious metal, her weapon left savage gouges in steel and flesh both. She did not have to compensate for lesser strength and speed, instead easily outpaced her enemy. When she was struck, the injuries were much less dangerous to her silver-rank armour and toughness.
Suddenly she seemed to make a mistake, overextending as she lunged for her opponent’s main body and leaving an opening for all four arms to lance into her body. It did not miss the brief but crucial chance, metal limbs piercing through her armour. Unexpectedly, they stopped dead as they hit her flesh, like they had struck an impervious wall. The enemy realised it had been baited even as she placed her hand on its chest. The wounds that it should have inflicted on her were instead unleashed on its own body by her power.
Heavily injured, the silver-ranker scrambled to escape. Danielle wanted to give chase but in the absence of Farrah, enemies were encroaching. No silver-ranker would go down easy and she didn’t have time to press the fight. She reluctantly allowed it to flee. She moved to hold the line, calling for more people to assist. Once things had stabilised, she took stock. Gary was on his feet again but barely, staggering forwards with a face full of fury. Danielle picked up Rufus’s severed arm and pushed it into his chest.
“Rufus needs you now,” she said firmly. “Farrah is past help.”
Gary’s face crumbled in agony and for a moment it looked like he would try and shove past her, but instead he nodded and turned to Rufus. Rufus was still on the ground, disoriented and in shock. His eyes darted back and forth unfocused, his face confused. Still holding the severed arm, Gary dismissed his conjured armour, picked Rufus up and headed for the backlines. He tried to yell for a healer but it came as a loud croak, his own torso having been savagely pummelled.
People were coming in to hold the line and the enemy leadership was pulling back. Whether from an unwillingness to lose all their constructs or from almost losing part of their leadership, it was enough that they started withdrawing from the engagement. Danielle retrieved Farrah’s body, whose conjured armour had vanished on her death. Under the feet of swarming constructs, it had been mangled unrecognisably. She sealed it away in an Adventure Society casket, which she then placed into her storage space.
Danielle wasn’t happy with their position, with the water at their back. Organisation was still a mess, certainly beyond crossing between islands under battle conditions. The advantage was that the beach was an open enough space to regroup and take stock. The only other open area was the cleared ground of the camp, which they had paid such a price to escape from. They had lost another silver-ranker and some of the bronze, but most of those left were solid. The major loss was Farrah. Not only had she been a massive factor in the large-scale combat, but her companions were almost as valuable and her loss had gutted their morale.
The group still had their silver-rank healer, so reattaching Rufus’s arm hadn’t been a problem. The brutal kick that had sent him out of combat had required more healing. Aside from the tiredness that came with the extensive healing, Rufus and Gary were physically good as new. Emotionally, they were wrecked, especially Rufus. Left sitting in the sand with other recovering adventurers, he just stared into space, saying nothing. Gary paced back and forth next to him, a volcano that could erupt at any moment.
The eruption, however, came from elsewhere. Thalia Mercer, who Danielle needed calm and collected, was exploding on a pair of iron-rankers.
“YOU LEFT HIM OUT THERE ALONE?”