Ink-stained Pages
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Chapter 30
🕑 Added 2024-03-10 04:57:43 +0000 UTCChilling ambience filled the dark, cloudy sky.
A haze of Aqshy infused my body in a dense wave of heated magic, keeping my clothes and body dry in the wake of the night’s heavy storm. Rain droplets sizzled and evaporated mere moments away from making actual contact with me, leaving both of my visions clear.
I had been a bit… incensed at how close the truck had gotten to being turtle-flipped over onto its back, and it may have come through in the overwhelmingly girthy size of my Gaster Blaster’s laser beam. It consumed the night sky, as wide as a goddamned house and half as tall, and I was just happy that it was limited to extending only ten meters away from me before petering out. Otherwise, the hotel across the street would definitely have ended up with a suspicious amount of vacancies on the upper floors.
It was good, then, that I was going for an obvious display of pure power.
I was still blinking spots out of my vision when the golden blast of pure, magical light and heat finally dissipated, leaving behind tiny motes of mana that twinkled like stars.
Crusader’s body would have begun falling to the street below if I hadn’t teleported forward to catch it by the collar, grunting silently at the surprisingly heavy weight of his medieval set of armor. A quick yank of the Aethyr, and his helmet went sailing off of his head, exposing a face that could have once been considered handsome after a couple beers.
“So much for ‘mah white supremacy’. Asshole.” I snorted, tilting my head and examining the corpse - because he was as dead as a doorknob unless he held the soul power of a fucking Shinigami. Whatever the hell complete soul erasure caused, Crusader was the prime example of it. His skin was as pale as Alabaster’s - at least before Overdrive turned him into road kill - and his cheeks were sunken in to a grotesque degree, as if all the blood in his body was just drained right outta him. His brown hair was limp and stringy, plastered to his bony forehead.
All in all, Crusader kinda looked like the deaf bitch from Spongebob who hated chocolate. Ironic, considering who he ran with. Fortunately for me, the quick examination only took a few seconds.
I promptly let go of the dead body.
‘Oh well, onto the pussycat-‘
I turned my attention down to the chaos-filled street below me, and warmth surged from my mask. The sound of bells filled my skull.
I tilted my head to the side, barely dodging a blast of stone the size of Trainwreck’s fist. My eyes narrowed, and I raised my hand to-
CRACK.
Stars filled my vision, and I felt heat, so very different from the warmth of my mask, pulsating from the side of my head. I hadn’t been prepared for the second chunk of concrete that curved around like a boomerang, peeling off from the shadows of the first. I rolled with the hit, feeling a hot liquid trickle down from the torn flesh and burn against my Aqshy field as I did so. My thoughts weren’t muddled yet, the pain only igniting the scorching vindictiveness alight in my chest. More bowling ball-sized rocks were coming, at least a dozen of them, jagged and heavy and fast, but I could actually see them. There was no time for active thought, only action.
My body blurred into motion, charged by the Winds and guided by my mask.
Every movement flowed smoothly into the next, the blood singing in my veins as I pushed my body further and further. A flip backward to dodge a shotgun blast of stone, a swift juke to the right to dodge a much larger slab, a hovering twist on my left foot to reorient myself, and then another tilt of my head to just barely avoid a sneaky sliver of concrete that would have taken an eye. My face warmed, instincts screaming at me as the rocks that I’d already dodged reversed themselves to attack me from behind, but I had Second Sight - I’d known the entire time they were still there.
There was a high-pitched whine and a slight dip in my reserves as Gaster Blaster appeared behind me and roared its golden challenge to the world, turning a majority of the floating chunks to scattered rubble within its laser beam.
A brief, uneasy pause drifted between us, and I worked to stabilize my breathing. Rune’s onslaught was tireless, and the projectiles were practically homing missiles, but I knew that she needed time to inscribe her power onto more objects. I could see the nazi bitch through the darkness, hovering on a much more solid platform made of mashed-together blacktop and concrete. Her face was shrouded in shadows from her large hood, long blonde hair spilling out of her vaguely wizard-like robes as she dragged her fingertips across rock beneath her feet.
Her head was tilted up towards me, and Hidden Intuition whispered that she was yelling something, but I couldn’t hear her words over the sound of rain, heavy wind, and Pain’s foreboding ass theme song.
None of that really mattered at the moment, did it? I had a brief moment of respite from her ranged attacks as she traced more runes over her platform, and I didn’t let it slip out of my fingers. Trainwreck assured me that he could hold Stormtiger off for at least a few minutes, especially with the durability-enhancing magic I infused his power armor with, but I had never been one to completely hedge my bets on other people - ‘specially not someone I’d only just recruited yesterday.
When it came down to shit hitting the fan, I trusted my magic above all else.
In a sizzle of rain and a woosh of displaced air, I disappeared.
______________________________________
Rune felt like she was going through the five stages of grief at a rate that just could not be healthy.
How had things gone so totally, completely, and utterly to shit in only a few minutes?
Being the centerpiece of a break-out operation was exciting, and when Kaiser confirmed that she would be the most important part of the mission, urging the others to keep her protected, Rune’s heart almost burst with pride. Her role was supposed to be relatively simple; keep the team mobile at all times, supply them with the aerial advantage since the transport would only be guarded by non-fliers, and provide supportive fire from long-ranged once the Protectorate began fighting back.
It was supposed to be quick, aggressive, and easy - just the way she liked her crimes. The only reason so many of them were mobilized in the first place was because Kaiser was worried about that Avalon spook showing up and making shit difficult. He’d taken out Hookwolf, but that was mainly with his Shaker power that corroded metal. Outside of that, his other recorded powers were counterable. Annoying and strong, sure, especially the fuck-off lasers and the teleportation, but they could out-maneuver those.
On the off chance that he did show up, she was confident in their ability to defeat him.
Capture was preferable, according to Kaiser - he wanted to make an example out of the nigger to stifle the way that the blacks online were beginning to rally together behind Avalon’s name. According to him, that sort of attention and fervor wasn’t good for their organization.
And everything had been going so well, too.
The Protectorate, a bunch of pussies as always, were being pinned down behind their trucks. Victor had been taken out, but breaking him out of prison - if his cocky ass couldn’t slip out himself - would be easy, especially with Hookwolf freed once again. Crusader was keeping the heroes’ only form of long-ranged attacks busy, and it was only a matter of time before Miss Militia succumbed to his annoying ass clones. All that was left was for her to move Krieg, Alabaster, and Stormtiger up to the containment van, help them dunk on the rest of the heroes, break Hookwolf out, and then leave the heroes wounded and embarrassed.
Everything really had been going according to plan.
…Before it wasn’t.
Before Alabaster was exploded into nothing but chunks by that monster truck of a vehicle that was just too fucking fast to hit.
Before some giant in bulky power armor football tackled Stormtiger off of her platform, plowing through the man’s hurried blast of wind with pure weight and grit.
Before a second sun exploded in the night sky and burned her fucking irises with its golden glow.
Before… before Avalon showed up, killed two of their members, and then proceeded to dodge all of her moves, seemingly with unnatural ease. Thinker, Mover, Trump, fucking retarded!
And now?
‘Now,’ Rune snarled as she hurriedly forced the front half of her car-sized platform upwards into a rudimentary shield, ‘Now we’re getting fucked!’
And that pissed her off more than anything. More than fear, more than regret, more than shame-
BOOM!
Her heart shot into her throat.
“SCREW YOU NIGG-”
A gauntlet-clad fist, surrounded by a warm, radiant golden hue, turned the thick wall of concrete into powder. Fragments of rock and dust exploded like shrapnel, slamming into her body like the punches of a particularly angry boxer, and Rune instinctively covered her face with her draping sleeves as a sliver of stone sliced a hot, painful line across the soft flesh of her cheek.
It was pure luck that she did - not even a moment later, that same fist blasted into her criss-crossed forearms, and a loud, ear-splitting crack echoed through her skull.
The explosive blow sent Rune rag-dolling through the air, over a dozen yards above Lord Street.
Rune saw him for the briefest of seconds, right before takeoff. Tall, silent, shrouded in his golden glow. A monster incarnate, standing on thin air with his fist still extended. Fuck, he wasn’t even wet from the rain.
Avalon wasn’t normal. He wasn’t a normal fucking cape.
The pain was delayed. She felt the wind whistle through her ears, rain impacting against her water-logged body and cooling the warm bruises on her skin way before she felt the burning, stabbing agony of broken bones. It was a new kind of pain that she’d never felt before in her short fourteen years of living, the kind of pain that made her want to both piss herself and scream her throat raw.
She was screaming her throat raw, Rune belatedly noticed. Panic flooded in like a tide, joining the soul-deep throbbing that pounded through her broken arms like drum beats. She instinctively went to flail her arms, only distantly aware of the fact that a fall from this height would definitely kill her, but she couldn’t feel her hands. She couldn’t feel her forearms. Even if she could feel more than that burning, throbbing agony, it wasn’t like she could draw symbols in mid-air.
She was going to die. She was going to fucking die-
A strong hand yanked the back of her hood, and then she was dangling, limp and panicking, within the oddly warm grasp of the very same fucker that ruined everything.
“You fucking spook- AGHHH!”
Rune bit her tongue, stubbornly cutting off the agonized scream that wanted so desperately to burst out as Avalon shook her by her hood like a naughty, rain-soaked cat. Her limp forearms smacked against her stomach at the movement, and she felt her eyes roll upwards as darkness beckoned. Another bolt of pain lanced through her arms, and unfortunately, Rune was shocked back into full awareness.
“You kiss Kaiser’s ass with that mouth?” Avalon’s voice was quiet and deep and gravelly in just the right way to send shivers of fear and hatred down her spine. Feebly, with all of her flagging strength, she kicked back at his legs with her boots. He didn’t even react. “Do something for me if you wanna live; yell ‘black power, fuck nazis’. Make MLK proud. Say more racist shit, I drop your redneck ass. You get me?”
The way that he spoke to her - spoke down to her, with a mocking lilt to his cold tone, lit a fire in her belly. She pushed through the pain, pushed through the fear, and spat out her next words.
“H-how about you kiss my ass and stay in your god-damn lane you filthy sack of b-”
She plummeted.
There was a flash of crimson something - energy, light? - but Rune couldn’t focus on anything except the feeling of her stomach falling to her ankles and the pain of her broken arms flopping upwards in the wind. She nearly bit through her lip in a desperate attempt to not scream, slamming her eyes shut. It was only a couple of seconds of free fall, but to her, it felt like a fucking lifetime. Emotions shot through her chest - regret, disgust, anger, self-pity, and in those couple of seconds, Rune realized that she… bit off more than she could chew.
Her hood snagged on something.
“One more chance,” An amused voice - Avalon’s voice - piped up, and Rune’s eyes snapped open. The half-lidded hero was hovering, still as dry as a fucking desert, with his right arm extended. In his grasp was the ornery shaft of some long weapon. His spear. He had a spear.
He was holding her up by her hood, with one hand, using a fucking spear.
“What-”
“You got maybe…” Avalon tilted his head to the side, glancing down at the war-torn street below, and Rune saw the gash in the side of his scalp where she managed to tag him. “Fifteen seconds before I have to go fuck up the rest of your klansmen. Say the fuckin’ phrase, bitch.” His eyes flashed dangerously, and she swallowed.
What was the fucking point? What would it even prove? She could admit when she was defeated; Avalon defeated her fair and square, and proved that he, alone, was worthy of at least that much respect. He was worthy of all of her hatred and loathing too, of course, but he was strong. All niggers, though? When so many were weak, and lazy, and cowardly, and- and stole jobs…? Or were those supposed to be Mexicans?
“Five…”
Her heart shot out of her chest. “Fucking hell you crazy asshole, b-black power!”
“Four…”
“BLACK POWER! F-FUCK NAZIS!”
A mocking grin formed on the hero’s previously frowning lips, and subconsciously, against her right mind, Rune distantly noted just how ridiculously attractive the man’s smile was. “Good enough for now. Labere in Arcum Sapphyri!” His voice was suddenly booming and powerful as he gestured downwards with a casual flourish of his left hand.
Some sort of invisible energy pulsated outwards at his words, like electricity sparking over her skin, and Avalon yanked his spear back.
As gravity yanked her down, consuming her mind with pain and fear and confusion, the last thing Rune thought she saw was a small, sapphire-colored arch of glass, twinkling beautifully beneath the night sky, and then… nothing.
______________________________________
I came down on the bruised and haggard Stormtiger like a glowing comet.
It was a testament to the man’s reflexes and supernatural senses that he managed to blast himself halfway across the street just in time to avoid taking the entire ten feet of my spear straight through the spine. I straightened, yanking the head of the Armament clean out of the blacktop. Trainwreck, red-faced and panting, came to a skidding halt a mere few feet away from me, his previously gleaming armor coated in dust and marred by dozens of thin, shallow claw marks. He bled freely from a gash that trailed from his nose to his ear, but he didn’t seem to notice the pain, or even me - pure anger and annoyance warped his ugly visage into a scowling snarl..
“Stop fuckin’ runnin’ ya piece of nazi dogshit!” He roared, jerkily raising his left gauntlet. The fist had been replaced by an open-mouthed cannon, blocky and uneven, and it was glowing a deep, foreboding red.
Trainwreck is frustrated. Trainwreck is frustrated because he can’t defeat Stormtiger. Trainwreck can’t defeat Stormtiger because Stormtiger’s aerokinesis counters-
I frowned. ‘Of course.’
In the corner of my eye, I saw the nazi crouched low to the street, raising his own hands up in our direction. Wind started to blur around his palms, sending pebbles and dust flying through the air, and I quickly began channeling in Anoqeyån. Teleporting out of the way would have been child’s play, but Trainwreck would still be hit. I had no intention of risking the next blade of air actually killing the dumbass.
BOOM!
His arm jerked with the recoil.
The silent shove of raw Aethyr I launched from the road, like a geyser of magical force, sent Trainwreck’s cannon shot of molten shrapnel flying straight up into the sky. Immediately, I turned in the direction of Stormtiger, noting in the split second that our eyes met that the blurred wind around his hands had turned into six pale, translucent claws almost a foot long. I had only had a moment to react, but my incantation was nearly complete.
Azyr was strong and wild here beneath the storm and rain, and it hadn’t been until I cast The Sapphire Arch beneath Rune did I consciously come to that realization. That strength made the arduous task of coaxing it into a focused, controlled gale equally as simple as it was hard, but I was nothing if not fucking stubborn.
“-täl senlayi leøœn!”
And I tamed it.
Thorsen’s Howling Gale.
It felt as if the very atmosphere shifted beneath my fingertips.
The spell started as an ethereal, wisping white gust that drifted from my fingertips as soon as Stormtiger released his shimmering claws of air, but that gust almost immediately surged into a galeforce of screaming, magical wind. Crackles and howling filled the stormy sky, emanating from the controlled blast of destruction that I masterfully eased out of the Aethyr. Dust, debris, and chunks of cracked concrete were swept into the unbridled tempest, and a moment later, so was Stormtiger’s attack.
What had originally been cast as a reactive defensive measure against wind swiftly became a blistering force of nature, and I… was all for it. Good thing we were quite far away from the Protectorate’s failed convoy. Somehow I felt like killing nazis would be easier to get away with than destroying official PRT property.
To his credit, Stormtiger tried to move out of the way of the Howling Gale, but the spell was too large and too fast. The violent winds slammed into Stormtiger with extreme force, whipping his body wildly through its magical vortex like a puppet with its strings cut, and I didn’t have to hear it happen to know that bones were pulverized and fractured in both the buffering winds and the flying shrapnel that buffeted his body. His broken left arm flailed and flapped as he was hurtled into the sky, dozens of meters higher than he had been previously standing.
Hell, he even eclipsed the fucking buildings.
But, as I narrowed my eyes and began walking forward in the dusty, Azyr-charged wake of my spell, I could see that he was still alive. Somehow, someway, the asshole had managed to protect his extremities from the worst of the winds - possibly by forming his own concentrated vacuum around his body to ward away the worst of the damage. Thorsen’s Howling Gale was powerful, but it was also originally created as a way to blow defending enemies away from their castle walls with destructive aplomb.
It didn’t really account for men who also held control over air.
He was floating back down extremely slowly, doing the best he could with his bruised and battered mess of a shirtless torso and a flopping, compound fractured left arm, but I wasn’t here to give the nazis a second wind.
I was here to kill them. I’d cooled my heart to the idea the very same day I came to this world.
“...What th’ FUCK was all’at, kid-?!”
“Go help the Protectorate,” I interrupted the gaping Trainwreck, leaning back on the balls of my feet. A small, hooked grin pulled at my lips, and I gave my new minion a two finger salute. “I’ll meet with y’all soon.”
“... Feh. Fine. Hurry up ‘fore Overdrive ends up crashin’ into one of the ‘heroes’. Crazy ass bitch.” Trainwreck began jogging away with loud, cumbersome footsteps, only to pause mid-stride. “An’ I coulda taken him, by the way. Fucker kept deflectin’ my shots.”
Was that embarrassment in the big guy’s voice?
“Sure thing, bud.” I tilted my head, narrowing my gaze at the wounded pussy cat. “You did good work tonight.”
“... Thanks.”
As Trainwreck resumed his slow retreat back to the battle happening at the wreckage of the containment vans, I kept my eyes glued on Stormtiger. He was lowering himself down towards the ground even faster now; the cape could hover and float, but he wasn’t a flier - he was just a wannabe. If he moved too fast, he’d risk even more injury.
The fucker probably thought he could deflect my spells with enough power and good enough timing. Foolish, considering he was down a whole arm.
I began walking forward once again, cool and composed, but with every step I allowed my magic to bring me higher and higher into the air. The wind, though my spell had already dissipated, was still charged with remnants of Azyr. The scent of ozone was thick in the air despite no lightning having struck anywhere near the battle of Lord Street. Within moments, I was as high in the air as he had drifted down, and the difference was growing larger every second. His head followed me as I walked, and even from so far away I could see the translucent, almost glass-like blades of wind growing larger and larger around his one good fist.
We were too far away for him to nail me with his wind claws, but in this moment that was his only source of comfort.
“You can hear me, can’t you Stormtiger?” I spoke into the angry wind, my voice casual, cool, and level - as if I was talking to a man right across from me. “... Boo!”
His head jerked.
BOOM!
An explosion of air shot through the sky, three huge claws of pure wind hissing and screaming as it tore the very atmosphere searching for purchase in my flesh.
I reappeared ten feet higher. The compressed air violently ruffled the back of my coat, just barely missing the heels of my boots.
“I’m guessin’ you can,” I snorted, gesturing above him with my finger. Mana wrenched itself from my core, coalescing into power in the skyline above Stormtiger’s head. The dip was noticeable, even for my overcharged magical reserves, but I still had more than enough in the tank for the rest of the night. “You’d think your ears are good enough to hear Death breathin’ over your shoulder, then. Look up.”
He twitched, more wind building over his fist, and hesitantly tilted his head back.
I witnessed the moment he realized that he was completely and utterly outclassed.
Gleaming, radiant, almost holy-looking armaments of gold twinkled in the night sky, each spear aimed directly towards the beaten nazi. Threads of raw mana warbled and arced between the rows of magical weaponry, linking them together in a manner that vaguely resembled a runic circle.
Dimly, I was slightly concerned about the random phenomenon, but put it off as my mana being chuuni.
Weapon Magic had been my first ever source of damage from the Grimoire, and we’d gotten very familiar with each other over the past couple of weeks. I had been able to summon at least a dozen when I first rolled the power, being forced behind cover by white supremacists and wondering if my first day would be my very last.
Now, though?
Over a hundred spears hummed in unison, vibrating with my own overwhelming desire to end this shit stain of a human. This shit stain of an organization.
It was only after I started to speak that I realized that I was grinning.
“You made your shitty bed when you became a fuckin’ skinhead, loser. Lay in it.”
I brought my finger down, and the shining spears harkened my call.
Stormtiger did try to avoid the attack, and for a second, as he tore his only good arm out of its socket by blasting all of his collected wind in the opposite direction, he actually did get out of the way.
Of the first onslaught.
He didn’t avoid the second, third, or fourth.
…
It was only after I was flying back down to the rubble-strewn street, my mana constructs fading away into fractals of light, did I realize that Grimmy was offering me another mote of power. This one was… interchangeable, going from a weaker mote to a stronger one, depending on how strongly I pulled it in. Considering the other two perks I accepted recently, the charge in my soul felt fairly low, but what I sensed was very tempting.
Evil Eye (20 Minutes Till Dawn - 200/400 CP): "If looks could kill" is a common expression; for you, however, there is no 'could'. By giving a sufficiently focused look you are capable of physically harming those in your view. While this isn't too tiring to do for a moment, you'll find holding the effect for extended periods of time does hurt your eyes. As a secondary effect your vision is notably good, especially your vision in the dark.
For an additional 200 CP, your glare can be imbued with magical powers you possess. These effects are usually not the most complex feats of magic you can perform, but they are applied to those you look upon fairly continuously. Given time you can learn to mix other magics into your gaze and selectively choose which of the magics you could do that are applied.
My eyebrows raised in interest.
It would clear me out completely, leaving a certain emptiness in my chest, but…
‘Heh, I’ve always wanted to eye-fuck a nazi to death.’
_____________________________________________
A/N:
So, this happened. I promised you guys action, so you get some action. Rune is captured for reasons unknown in a spell. Cassie, Pod, and Sherrel have fucked off to help with Krieg, Trainwreck stalled out Stormtiger, and Avalon finished him off.
Wonder what’ll happen with Hookwolf and Krieg. Any guesses?
And how will people react to the firepower Avalon let off tonight? He wanted to show force to scare villains, and he definitely did enough for PHO to latch onto with their teeth.
Guess we’ll see!
Perks Accepted in Chapter 29/30 (First two hasn’t been shown because they haven’t come up yet, organically):
Just You, Me, and Them (Deathloop - 400 CP): Whether magically or technologically, you have the ability to lockdown a district or smaller area in order to trap a particular target. The lockdown is temporal, meaning time outside of the lockdown is stopped. The target is unable to escape unless they perform a certain task in order to lift the lock, whether that means destroying a pillar of magic or downloading unlock codes from a tower. While inside the lockdown, you and your allies gain a boost to your physical parameters such as reaction speed, movement speed, accuracy, strength, etc.
Timelessness (Golden Sky Stories - 300 CP): There are some things in life that don’t change regardless of circumstance. A little town that remains rural despite the efforts of industrialization, a group of animal spirits that don’t seem to vanish, even if people don’t believe in them as much as they used to.
You are timeless – in the sense that you don’t age at the same pace as the rest of the world around you. The effects of temporal magic and shifts don’t seem to affect you, as if you are detached from the same time frame that the magic would otherwise affect. Be wary – immortality isn’t as wonderful as it may seem, especially if the rest of the world continues to age around you.
Evil Eye (20 Minutes Till Dawn - 400 CP): "If looks could kill" is a common expression; for you, however, there is no 'could'. By giving a sufficiently focused look you are capable of physically harming those in your view. While this isn't too tiring to do for a moment, you'll find holding the effect for extended periods of time does hurt your eyes. As a secondary effect your vision is notably good, especially your vision in the dark.
For an additional 200 CP, your glare can be imbued with magical powers you possess. These effects are usually not the most complex feats of magic you can perform, but they are applied to those you look upon fairly continuously. Given time you can learn to mix other magics into your gaze and selectively choose which of the magics you could do that are applied.
100 CP remaining.
Comments
thevolunteer
Black power! Fuck Nazis! I’m dying lmao
fireball77
Those perks are fucking amazing
