10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqKBuUHPvBzCindar – Aeric's Manor
Ice and blue lightning burst forward as Zekryo and Kaci initiated the battle, fighting surprisingly well together, each move complementing the other's.
They went for the weakest link first, Felix, moving with killing intent. Zekryo froze the ground, causing Felix to lose balance as he struck for her head.
Kaci was an excellent partner as she joined to end her too, striking with lightning-laced claws, aiming straight for the klevonian's heart, but Fuse was quick and stopped their blows with his spirit arm. He then used his weapon to generate a burst of force that pushed Zekryo away from Kaci.
"Deal with her," Fuse told Felix, who transformed as she recovered from her brief embarrassment.
Kaci's body swayed slightly as nine tails of blue lightning unfurled behind her.
"We know all about your infamous blue tails. They're concentrated representations of your destructive power that reduce as you use up your energy," Felix stated.
"Knowing that doesn't mean you can defend against it," Kaci retorted and attacked her in a flurry, but Felix quickly adapted and adjusted. She was by no means faster than Kaci's lightning, but her ability to read and predict Kaci's movements proved more troublesome than anticipated.
Kaci relied on her Doubt Sacred Gift to make Felix second-guess herself, granting her moments of hesitation when Kaci struck her. She also used Delay to slow Felix's reaction time while also speeding up her perception. With her abilities in conjunction, Felix became an easy target, unable to trust her own judgments or move fast enough to evade.
"QUIT SCREWING WITH ME!" Felix yelled when suddenly there was an instant hurricane of winds that erupted from her. She used continuous high-velocity winds and updrafts to disrupt the electrostatic buildup in their area and cut the conductive ionized paths in the air, greatly weakening Kaci's lightning. The intensity of the winds was enough to somewhat destabilize Kaci's electric body, causing her to lose focus.
The two stood across from one another as wind and lightning raged around them, then rushed to attack. They exchanged equal blows. Their fists clashed, but don't touch as Felix's winds dispersed the lightning around Kaci's claws.
But Kaci was determined to reach her child, finding the strength to push harder and landing a satisfying punch to Felix's face. However, Felix's Probability Field helped her adjust enough to land a solid slash of her own simultaneously.
Kaci's Storm Strike generated a thundering *CRACK* that vibrated the air and sent Felix reeling with a trail of blue lightning as a devastating burst of wind simultaneously sliced Kaci into four vertical parts.
Felix crashed through another wall of the manor. When she climbed out again, she was bleeding from her face as Kaci struggled to regenerate quickly enough. The wind currents that circulated in her wounds slowed down the process. Still, despite the output of power Kaci let out, Kaci's number of tails had only been reduced by one.
"You pneumarian really are a pain in the ass," Felix muttered as she spat blood. "But it doesn't matter. I failed against the Ryfa Pakt. I need to make up for it. I won't let someone who's not even a top commander defeat me."
Felix lunged and swung a strong kick to Kaci's head to put her out of commission for the time being, but Zekryo appeared, catching her leg and freezing it painfully. Fuse has been frozen solid against the ground where they clashed.
"AAGGH!" Felix winced as she clutched her frozen leg. She felt Zekryo's energy spike in preparation to flash freeze her, but just then, a red object fell from the sky next to them, distracting them all.
Felix grinned as pieces of tech flew from the fallen object and collected around Fuse, melting the ice as his armor changed into red and gold with fumes of flames shooting around him. He wasted no time to blur over and slice Zekryo's arms off, freeing Felix before driving Zekryo away.
"You have me to deal with," Fuse said from within his suit as he shot fumes of fire at Zekryo.
{The Anti-Flora suit is fully operational, sir. Calcite at 100% capacity.}
Did this klevonian's suit just speak to him? Zekryo wondered.
Nonetheless, he's using calcite to generate his flames. That explains why his flames are too weak to affect me for long; he wiggled the fingers on his hands, which had already grown back.
"I'll get to you in a moment," Zekryo told Fuse before he phased through his fire and armor, placed a hand on the back of Fuse's suit, then flash froze him.
As Fuse fell, Zekryo dashed after Felix again.
"Don't turn your back on me," Fuse called out as his suit heated up to melt the ice, but Kaci had recovered now. She unexpectedly blitzed in front of him in lightning form, then delivered another Storm Strike that reduced her tails to seven.
The lightning overloaded his systems and fried him inside. His suit was too much of a lightning conductor. He was sent flying towards Zekryo, who phased, allowing him to pass through and crash into Felix, who still held her frostbitten leg.
"Something's off. They're moving unnaturally in sync," Felix grunted as she and Fuse gathered themselves. She was covered in wounds, and Fuse's suit was steaming and sparking from electrical damage.
In the next instant, Zekryo summoned a scepter of ice that was reinforced with his spirit energy. Then a blizzard formed in the area with thunder booming above them.
"That can't be good for us," Felix said half-heartedly. "I could try to counter it with a hurricane..."
"They won't let you," Fuse interrupted as he readied his spirit arm and threw it at Zekryo.
Zekryo saw the flick spear streak towards him and tried to phase through, but it struck him in the shoulder. He grunted as he painfully pulled the weapon out, causing it to revert to its ring form around Fuse's finger. When he looked down, he saw blue ichor dripping from his wound. That was going to take a while to heal.
Zekryo glared at Fuse with a pained look before he vanished into nitrogen mist. Kaci was gone too in a flash of lightning.
"Where are they?" Felix asked, looking around in confusion. "Think they left?"
"We aren't leaving until we get what we came for," Zekryo's voice boomed as temperatures dropped even further.
The tension in the air rose as Fuse and Felix waited for an inevitable attack. Suddenly, thunder boomed, and Fuse felt an intense lightning strike to his core as Kaci appeared with the lightning, striking him and Felix together. They were sent flying when Zekryo appeared, catching them by their heads and then smashing them into the ground.
He reached his hands into their heads, sending frost across them, followed by an instant lightning strike. Fortunately, he was able to phase through the blast, but the other two weren't so lucky.
Despite their wounds, the two klevonians stood again. He had to commend them for their resilience after taking so much damage.
"This isn't making sense...I ran the numbers in my head. We shouldn't be losing to these two. Not like this," Felix complained.
"Your calculations don't account for Union Mind," Aeric called down from above them. "Your Probability Field won't work on them while their minds are synced. Intriguing. Only the bansedai are supposed to know how to use it. Still, you two must be awfully close to be able to pull it off," Aeric flicked a finger at Zekryo and Fuse.
"This ought to put you two down for good," Kaci called out, ignoring Aeric. She transformed into a full thunder kitsune as Zekryo transformed into a full ice dragon. Their beast forms weren't suited for battling strong opponents, but they did make channeling energy much easier.
They charged a combination technique called Draconic Howl: Cold Storm that filled the air with an intense electrical charge and chilling dryness as Zekryo charged a dragon breath attack while Kaci charged super dense lightning from her tails.
Fuse tensed as the two gathered an immense volume of power.
"F.A.I.S.! Send MK 17! NOW!"
Another object was seen shooting from the sky, heading toward Fuse. When it landed, the Anti-Flora suit broke into pieces that shot skyward as pieces of the fallen object broke off and shot toward Fuse. Once the tech was fully materialized, he was in a new suit of armor – one that was silver and blue this time.
{Mark 17 is 80% operational, sir.}
"It'll have to do. I'll tune it up later," Fuse responded to his suit. "For now, this is the only suit that won't conduct electricity and has superior insulation and heating."
{Perfect for keeping you alive, given your circumstances, I'd say.}
"Let's test that theory," Kaci's voice was heard as a strike of lightning hit Fuse. He was pushed back slightly, but that was the only effect the lightning had on him.
"Well done, F.A.I.S.," Fuse praised his suit. He manifested his spirit arm and charged it with his spirit energy. "Dammit, I haven't recovered enough energy from before."
"It'll still at least counter it, right?" Kaci asked, a little nervous.
"If I were at full strength, the detonation would be enough..."
Suddenly, the immense gathering of energy stopped as Zekryo and Kaci vanished again. Seconds later, it reappeared high above them.
"Kaci, move! From that angle, the blast will spread outward!" Fuse yelled over the roaring winds. He and Felix scattered, but Kaci suddenly appeared before Felix in her normal form as Zekryo appeared before Fuse, hitting them with enough force to daze them and knock them back to the center as the Draconic Howl: Cold Storm struck from the sky.
There was a whistling sound as the projectile fell at incredible speeds. The air crackled as lightning snapped, pushing even Felix's winds away to make a clear path to its targets.
Zekryo and Kaci watched with bated breath as their final attack struck the ground. Then there was stillness where there should've been a massive eruption of power.
Zekryo could see the attack still raging as it tried to reach its intended targets, but below it stood Aeric in his monstrous crimson form, gripping the bolt of freezing lightning, preventing it from impacting. He crushed the bolt in his fist.
"Sorry. It's only fair. I still need them, and they're not at one hundred percent, you see," he stated as he rubbed his hands together to break off the frost that had formed from grabbing the blast. "But now that you've technically attacked me..."
Aeric blurred in front of Kaci, who stared up at him in horror. She had only four tails left, showing just how much their union technique took out of her. Zekryo too.
"I believe your tactic was to get rid of the weakest link first?"
Aeric easily crushed Kaci into the ground beneath a dense mass of gravity. Then, he turned to Zekryo and effortlessly stopped him by lifting him by the throat. Zekryo tried to phase through his hand, but Aeric's particular energy proved to be able to bypass his intangibility.
"You two surprised me," Aeric monologued as they struggled to move. "I didn't expect any of this from you. Individually, Zekryo is the only one worth anything, but together, you two are a true force. That last attack would've caused some serious damage. I could use that strength."
"I agree, we could use them – keep them here as additions to your force," Fuse suggested as he and Felix limped next to Aeric.
"No. I have a better idea," Aeric grinned mischievously.
He willed Felix's body to pull to him, then touched Zekryo and Kaci's heads, looked them in the eyes, and, after some hushed murmurs and ensuring that they hadn't told anyone of what they'd discovered or where they were headed, he sent them home.
"Why are you letting them go?" Fuse inquired.
"They're just two pathetic parents seeking to save a stupid child," Aeric commented. "They came here despite knowing they likely stood no chance. That's how far they're willing to go. So... as long as they think their child was taken by the Klevonian Army, when the time comes, they'll kill as many of them as they can to reach him. I've ensured it."
"So they're more useful as puppets instead of soldiers," Fuse summed up.
"Hm...all this time, I never knew those two were a thing. Strange coupling," Aeric remarked as they observed the two get further away.
"Most are unaware of it; however long ago Kaci orchestrated a trickster game involving a strong blood oath that put their love for each other on the line," Fuse informed him.
"Right, she was known for her mischief at one point," Aeric remembered.
"She set a preconditioned blood oath that if he was unable to pass the trials during one of her games, then they weren't meant to be," Fuse continued. "She did this fully confident that he could pass, but during the trial, an emergency occurred that required him to purposely fail to tend to his duties as Crest Head, resulting in their love being destroyed by the All-Father."
"When'd you learn that?" Felix questioned, wincing through the pain in her leg.
"Long ago. As we've continued Aeric's mission, I've taken it upon myself to learn as much as I can about every significant figure on the planet. You never know who could someday prove useful."
"As proactive as always," Aeric said as he turned toward his manor. "Now clean this up."
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