Chương 26: Bk 1 Ch 24: Maelstrom

I jump into the air to avoid the forest of spikes that erupt from the concrete around us, trying to skewer us from every direction. Anja and her clones do the same. The street explodes under Barracuda and Obsidian, fragments of concrete blasting outwards. They jump nimbly off the fragments, launching themselves forwards to meet us, or me in particular. I slice through a sawblade, then juke sideways to put Obsidian between myself and Barracuda.

Given that his magic needs solid ground to work with, I'll be a better matchup against him than Anja would. Obsidian's greatsword slams into the haft of my spear with a flash of magic, knocking me a couple of feet backwards. I turn it into a midair backflip, avoiding the spike which lances up under me. Obsidian whirls his sword sideways, knocking away a barrage of broken concrete with the flat of the blade. Behind him, Barracuda is forced to turn and confront Anja, blocking a slash and retaliating.

It's immediately clear that she's got a major edge in both speed and strength, and Anja goes staggering backwards from a hit on her shield. Instead of following up, though, Barracuda is forced to slash through a clone, throwing a sawblade at two more. The sawblade cuts straight through the shield of the first clone, but splashes harmlessly over the second. Already summoning another clone, Anja jumps back in.

Back on the ground, I continue hurling debris at Obsidian from every angle, scoring a few hits and leaving tiny dents in his armor. Ducking under a horizontal slash from his sword, I cut through a cluster of emerging spikes behind me, then throw those at him too. He knocks them away with his sword, and I continue my spin into a low slash at his legs, which he backflips over.

I hurl myself forwards, striking at his off side in the instant he's in midair, but the window is too narrow; he finishes the flip just in time to block my strike. It still knocks him slightly off balance, so I push harder, rushing him with a series of fast slashes, then leaping all the way over him to avoid the spikes he summons under my feet while slashing at him from above.

A few more chunks of concrete smash into him as he blocks the blow, but then I have to break off, flying higher to avoid the fresh cluster of spikes I'm about to land in. I spare a quick glance for Anja. She's down to a single clone, another still in the process of forming, constantly retreating as Barracuda pressures her. Clusters of spikes dot the battlefield, and I send some of them flying at Barracuda, forcing her to dodge backwards and giving Anja a moment to breath.

Then I dart back in towards Obsidian before he can interfere in their fight as well. I'm starting to get a rhythm for the fight; he can summon spikes pretty much continuously, but the more he makes at once, the slower they grow. They're resistant to my magic as long as they're growing, but they've got a maximum length of around six or seven feet, and then they're just regular concrete again. We clash again, trading blows.

He spins away from a vertical slash, turning the spin into a brutal two-handed blow with his full strength behind it, accepting a couple more hits from random chunks of concrete in exchange. It's strong enough to jar my grip on my spear slightly as I block it, and knock me several feet backwards. My instincts flair, and I jerk myself up and forwards, not quite fast enough.

Another spike erupts from the metal garage door of the warehouse behind me, scraping a shallow but painful gash down my back as my momentum carries me into it. So he's not limited to creating spikes just from the ground, then. Like Barracuda's magic, though, the cut is just a cut, not damaging my resistance like his weapon would. He attempts to press his advantage, lunging at me with an overhead chop and attempting to force me back against the wall while summoning more spikes from it.

I dodge sideways, cutting through the spikes that try to block my escape. They're solid metal, the same as the door is made of, probably aluminum or something. But the door is just thin sheets, whereas the spikes are several inches across at the base; I can already see it starting to warp and buckle under the extra weight. That gives me an idea. Another exchange of blows, and I intentionally let him maneuver me between him and the door again.

I dodge backwards, too close to the door, and more spikes thrust outwards. This time I'm already expecting it, and avoid them by jumping straight up above the roof of the warehouse entirely. I don't use my magic to help, instead focusing all of it on the door. With the extra mass of the spikes, the force is enormous. The entire door is ripped straight out of its frame, too wide for Obsidian to avoid. He does at least avoid the spikes, slicing a vertical cut through it in the fraction of a second he has.

Then the entire door slams into the wall of the factory on the other side of the alley and smashes straight through it. Obsidian is spared the worst of it, the thin metal splitting and warping around him thanks to the cut he put in it, but he's still knocked through the wall. Unfortunately, it's just some kind of drywall rather than concrete or brick or something, so it can't really inflict much damage.

Instead of pursuing him inside, I launch myself at Barracuda, who's pushed Anja forty or fifty feet further down the alley. I'll only have a couple seconds before Obsidian rejoins the fight, so I get aggressive, coming in full speed with my spear extended. She turns and deflects it at the last moment, stumbling slightly as she leans aside.

I reverse direction as quickly as possible, ignoring the spiked whip of water she lashes me with as she turns to block a strike from Anja and accepting a small cut on my shoulder. Then I'm back on top of her, forcing her to focus on me as the larger threat. She backpedals and dodges frantically, but not quite fast enough to avoid a thin slice on her side from Anja's sword, the first real hit of the battle. Then the wall of the factory explodes outwards as Obsidian throws himself through from inside.

I turn and block his strike, while Anja jumps backwards to avoid the spikes erupting under her, blocking another with her shield. For a few seconds, there's a general melee, all of us striking wherever we can while avoiding attacks from all directions. Obsidian carves through one of Anja's clones and bats away one of his own spikes hurtling at him with the same motion. I exchange a few fast blows with Barracuda, before twisting away from more spikes.

Anja cuts through a sawblade, then gets knocked backwards by a heavy blow from Obsidian's greatsword on her shield. I explode the street under Barracuda to make a bit of space, then reengage Obsidian. Again, Anja starts getting driven back by Barracuda. This time, she retreats into the factory through the hole left by Obsidian. It's a good effort to steer the fight away from the next warehouse down, which she probably assumes is still full of people.

I consider for an instant, then follow her through, Obsidian pursuing me. It looks like the factory is actually a sawmill; big slabs of plywood are stacked on tall metal shelves around us, and everything's coated in a thin layer of sawdust. I briefly hope they've got good insurance before sending one of those shelves crashing down on Obsidian, who summons a cluster of angled spikes from the floor to catch it before it can smash him. We tear through the sawmill like a hurricane.

I surround myself with a vortex of wood chips, concrete shards, bits of metal, and anything else that happens to be lying around, constantly battering Obsidian as I close back to melee range. He retreats, attempting to switch opponents with Barracuda. She gets the idea, leaping towards me the next time she knocks Anja away and summoning a toothy maw to shred my vortex. I drop it, instead sending some big, expensive-looking machine crashing down on Obsidian, preventing him from closing the distance to Anja.

I reengage him, but Barracuda's determined to stay on me this time. As we break through the far wall of the sawmill into a large timberyard, things once again devolve into a general melee. Anja's picked up a slash across her bicep at some point; I'm not sure if it's from Barracuda's magic or her actual weapon. The fight hasn't been going on for that long in absolute terms, just a minute or two, but I don't know how much longer she can last.

She is taking a lot of pressure off me, there's no way I'd be able to fight both of them directly like this. But I'd intended to stay entirely on the defensive, using my superior mobility to dance around them while staying just close enough to keep them chasing me. With her here, that's not an option, there's no way she'll survive even a few seconds of both of them focusing on her.

She's already done plenty, but I can't think of any way to get the stubborn idiot to retreat without revealing to everyone that I actually care about her. Barracuda drives Anja back onto the huge stack of logs that takes up most of the yard. I follow her up, and Obsidian follows me, flipping and jumping off the log I throw at him. For the first time since the fight started, though, I don't have to avoid any spikes.

Does his magic not work on organic material, or is it just because the logs aren't fixed to the ground? Whatever, I'm not gonna worry about the exact mechanics right now, I'll take any advantage I can get. I'm still fighting to delay, not to win; instead of pressing my advantage against Obsidian, I dart after Barracuda, forcing him to follow. This time, the fight doesn't split back up into a pair of duels after a few seconds.

It's absolute chaos; there's no solid ground at all anymore, just a whirling vortex of logs getting sliced into progressively smaller and smaller chunks. It's perfect. Once more, I find myself with a manic grin on my face. This is how I'm meant to fight. I'm the eye of the storm, turning the entire battlefield into my weapon, forcing my opponents to play by my rules. Barracuda and Obsidian jump frantically from log to log, scrambling to keep their footing.

I dart back and forth with impunity, slashing at them from every blind spot. I land a shallow cut on Barracuda's thigh, and then a deeper one on Obsidian's back. Anja does her best to keep up. Even though I'm not actively trying to trip her up, her reflexes aren't quite as sharp, and she can't bend physics to the same degree, pushing off even the tiniest fragments of wood like our opponents. She misses a step, going tumbling.

But then one of her clones clinging to a spinning log grabs her by the arm, swinging her back up onto the same log. It's a small trick, but it makes the difference. She jumps off the log, meeting another clone in midair and pushing off its shield to abruptly change direction. Barracuda and Obsidian are now trying to retreat back to solid ground. I do my best to impede them, trying to herd them back towards the center of the lumber stack. It's not completely effective.

Even though this battlefield is hugely to my advantage, there's still two of them, and I can't focus on both of them at once. Anja sees what I'm doing and tries to help, leaping towards the nearest edge to cut them off. Obsidian reaches her first. They clash in midair, and Anja bashes him with her shield, knocking him back towards me in the center of the vortex. But in return, he slashes her across the thigh with the very tip of his sword. It doesn't look too bad, but her resistance is a lot weaker than ours.

I doubt she can take more than one or maybe two more hits like that before her transformation breaks. Obsidian pushes off a log, trying to close the distance with her again, but I intercept him, knocking him off course as he blocks my slash. For a second, he scrambles to find anything to grab or jump off of. I take advantage, darting around him and landing my own minor slash on his leg. Then he swings himself around another log, getting his sword back in position to repel my next hit.

I leave him, throwing the log he's on further back towards the center of the stack as I turn towards Barracuda. She's nearly at the edge of the stack, with Anja once again moving to intercept her. Barracuda blocks Anja's slash as they land on the same log, immediately retaliating with her own strike. Anja stumbles on her injured leg, just barely managing to knock Barracuda's sword away with her shield. Barracuda lashes out with her free hand, throwing a sawblade at her from close range.

Anja tries to slash through it with her sword. She misses. Her sword goes flying away, dissolving into white light. It leaves behind her hand, severed from her arm a few inches above the wrist. Anja screams, losing her footing and tumbling off the log. Barracuda lunges forwards, her sword drawing back for a killing blow. I'm too far to reach them in time. I do the only thing I can, focusing my gravity field on Anja herself. She fights my magic instinctively, and for a moment her resistances holds.

Then I smash through, flinging her away bare inches ahead of Barracuda's descending sword. I slam into Barracuda from behind a moment later, landing another small cut on her shoulder as she twists around to defend herself. I spare a single brief glance for Anja. Her transformation hasn't broken, which means she isn't going to bleed out immediately. But when she hits the ground, she tumbles instead of catching herself, which means she might be going into shock anyway.

I don't think she's gonna be able to retreat under her own power, at least not right away. But if I abandon the battle to grab her, Barracuda and Obsidian will certainly go hunting for the Sun Eaters. Have they gotten far enough away to be safe yet? There's no way to be sure. I'm going to have to hold off both of them on my own, for as long as it takes. At least Barracuda doesn't show much interest in finishing Anja off anymore. No longer trying to get back to solid ground, both of them come for me.

The battlefield is still massively to my advantage, but it quickly becomes clear that Anja really was making a major difference just by being another threat for them to worry about. With both of them now 100 percent focused on me, it's suddenly a whole lot harder to defend myself, let alone hit back. Every time I try to come at one of them from a vulnerable angle, the other one is always right there, forcing me to dodge or block instead.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Everything becomes instinct and reflexes. Block, dodge, dodge, counterattack, dodge, block, reverse the direction of the vortex to try and trip them up. I take a cut on my shoulder from Barracuda, and then a gash on the back of my thigh from Obsidian. The air is full of sawdust from the logs shredded by Barracuda's magic, but I keep moving, keep grabbing more.

Another cut on my arm from Barracuda, but I make her pay for it, slice her across the stomach in retaliation. My resistance is starting to weaken, my transformation isn't in danger of breaking yet, but a couple more hits and it will be. Dodge, block, counterattack, block, dodge, dodge- A threat suddenly screams at me, and I fling myself sideways, completely out of the vortex I've been maintaining for the last couple of minutes.

Barracuda and Obsidian frantically try to dodge as well, but they're still limited to jumping, way slower and less maneuverable. A dragon crashes into the timberyard, thirty feet long and emerald green, sending logs flying. It swipes Obsidian with a claw; he gets his sword up just in time to block, but still goes rocketing a good forty feet across the yard, slamming into the timber stack near the far edge.

Simultaneously, it opens its jaws and spews a massive plume of flame at Barracuda, washing over the shield of water she summons to protect herself. The flame cuts out after just a second to avoid setting everything on fire, and Barracuda lands the logs looking only mildly singed. She immediately retreats towards Obsidian, flinging a sawblade behind her as she runs. The dragon casually bats the sawblade aside, but doesn't pursue.

Instead, it dissolves into emerald light, shrinking and solidifying into a woman in barely half a second. She's wearing green leather armor, patterned with scales like the dragon's and trimmed with fur, and a mask in the shape of a stylized raptor head. Her weapons are twin curved swords made of pale bone, resembling enormous talons.

"That is e-fucking-nough!" shouts Chimera.

"Are you three shitheads trying to turn this entire fucking city into a goddamn warzone? Do you have even the slightest idea how much property damage you just caused, how many people are going to lose their livelihoods because of you treating their job like your personal playground? Do you know how much fucking paperwork I'm going to have to fill out because of this?" None of us answer.

She's strong, at least as strong as Huntsman, strong enough that all three of us would need to work together to have any real chance of beating her. She's also currently between me and Anja, although at least it doesn't look like she's seen her. After a moment, she points a sword at Barracuda and Obsidian.

"You two dipshits seem to have forgotten the rules, so let me remind you: No killing civilians. No hurting civilians. No looking threateningly in the general direction of civilians. I don't know which of you two geniuses thought attacking a New Year's Eve party was a brilliant idea, but next time it happens, I'm having steak and lobster for dinner." She turns without waiting for a reply, pointing a sword at me.

"And you, little miss space cadet up there. You think you're the first clever black mask I've ever dealt with? Try and get ABRA to do your dirty work for you again, and you're gonna find yourself brought back down to Earth real goddamn fast." Shit. I'd assumed that even if the white masks realized what I was doing, they'd still take the opportunity to grab Barracuda and Obsidian while they could.

Apparently, though, the two of them aren't worth setting the precedent that baiting other black masks into pissing off ABRA is a viable strategy.

"It's New Year's, so I've got a resolution to suggest to all three of you," Chimera continues.

"I don't want to hear a single fucking peep out of you or your gangs for the rest of 1999. No fights, no murders, no fucking exploding houses. Thanks to you, I'm stuck in this little fuckass town playing babysitter for the foreseeable future. My only goal is to get home as fast as possible, and there's two ways that can happen. You can work with me and stay quieter than a mouse farting until I convince my bosses that you must've fucked off to Narnia. Or you can keep causing trouble, and I turn you into a chew-toy.

Your choice. Any questions?"

"Yeah, I got a question," snaps Barracuda after a moment.

"Where the fuck were you when the Syndicate murdered Blitz and eighty more of my friends? You give them that pretty little speech too?" Obsidian puts a hand on her arm, clearly trying to get her to shut up.

"Unlike you, the Syndicate's learned where the line is, and which side of it to keep their toes on," replies Chimera.

"Why do you think Surtr's spent the last year fucking around up in Seattle? He could smash the Grizzlies in an afternoon if he went all-out, but instead he's taking his time, doing things cleanly, and not burning down half the damn city. I only care about one thing, and that's the fact that the Syndicate causes less trouble than the Party Crashers did. If you wanted fairness or justice, you should've put on the other color of mask." Barracuda is clearly still seething, but she doesn't say anything else.

After a moment, Chimera turns back to me.

"How 'bout you, Space Cadet? You got anything you wanna say?" Right now, I want her to fuck off so I can check on Anja. I think for a moment, then say, "The partygoers. Will you make sure none of them were hurt?" She stares at me for a second.

"... I would've anyway," she says eventually.

"Don't think you're winning any brownie points by asking. And if you try and start the fight back up while I'm distracted, I will fucking end you, got it?"

"Understood," I reply shortly.

"Fine, then. You can all go ahead and fuck off now, and you'd better hope this is the last time I see you. Happy New Year." Barracuda and Obsidian hesitate for a couple of seconds, then turn and jump away, clearing the fence around the timberyard in a single bound. I wait a couple of seconds longer to make sure they're really leaving, then shoot up into the air until I reach the clouds. I wait there for a bit, staying just low enough to see through to the ground.

After about twenty seconds, an eagle with a twenty-foot wingspan takes off from the lumber pile, flapping over the sawmill, then vanishing in a twinkle of emerald light in the alley where the fight started. I don't waste anymore time, darting down to the last place I saw Anja. It takes me less than a minute to find her. She managed to drag herself out of sight behind behind a big front-loader, but not any further.

Now, she's slumped against one of the wheels, clutching the stump of her arm, blood seeping through her fingers. She's still transformed; if she weren't, she'd probably be dead already. I don't know exactly how our accelerated healing works, if it can fully regrow a lost limb given enough time, but it seems like right now her magic is stretched to capacity just stopping her from bleeding out. She looks up blearily as I land.

"... Are you here to finish me off?" I huff an irritated sigh, kneeling down next to her.

"I already told you, I don't want you dead. Unlike yourself, apparently. Has the bleeding slowed at all?"

"I dunno. A little, maybe. Why do you even care?"

"Someone has to, and you clearly don't."

"I… I helped though, right? Everyone at the party is safe now, right?"

"... Yeah. You helped. They're safe."

"... Okay. Good."

"Hey!" I snap my fingers in front of her face a couple of times.

"Focus. Stay conscious. If you pass out now, you'll die." She doesn't answer; she's fading fast.

"Shit," I mutter. There's only one way to save her, and no time to worry about the consequences.

"I'm going to get you some help, alright? Just hold on a little longer." I don't wait for a response, pulling both of us into the air. Then, I start flying east, fast. It takes just a couple of minutes to cross Franklin. She manages to hold on until I'm starting to decelerate. Then, there's a flash of light, and her costume vanishes, leaving her in jeans and a sweater which rapidly start turning red. Cursing again, I grab her arm a little above the stump, squeezing it as tightly as I dare as a makeshift tourniquet.

Her other injuries are bleeding as well, but not as much, and I can't do anything about them except hurry. Fortunately, Elliot's house is easy to spot from the air thanks to being so damn big. There's probably cameras, but I know their coverage isn't perfect or he wouldn't be able to sneak out to meet me. I descend as close to the back wall as possible, trying to remember exactly which window he went in through when I followed him home months ago. I pause outside one, and raise the blinds with a gravity field.

Inside is just an office, so I move on to the next. This time, it's a bedroom. All I can see is a head of short brown hair; hopefully Elliot doesn't have a brother he never told me about. I rap softly on the window, and then again a little harder. He stirs slightly, raising his head a bit off the pillow. I tap once more. He looks over, then jerks upright, scrambling out of bed. Thankfully, he doesn't sleep naked.

"Gabby?" he asks as he opens the window.

"What are you- What's- Anja? Shit, is that blood?"

"She tried to fight Barracuda and Obsidian," I tell him.

"She's hurt bad."

"Shit," says Elliot again, quickly yanking the screen out of the window. I float Anja through first, then follow, careful to keep pressure on her arm. The room is briefly illuminated as Elliot transforms. He darts over to his bed and yanks the blanket off, spreading it out on the floor.

"Put her here, I'll just get rid of the blanket after. And stay as quiet as you can, the staff should all be down on the first floor, but I don't want to take any chances. Wait, are you hurt too?"

"I'm fine, it's nothing," I say, doing as instructed.

"Whatever, just try not to bleed on the floor. I need to see the injuries, we'll have to take her sweater off."

"It's ruined anyway, just tear it."

"... Uh, right." He does as suggested, the severity of the situation overcoming any embarrassment. She's got a T-shirt on under it, probably also ruined, but he leaves that in place for now.

"You'll need to let go of her arm."

"Right. Be ready to grab it again as soon as the sweater's off." I let go, swiftly tugging the right half of the sweater off. Blood immediately geysers out of her stump, then cuts off as Elliot starts squeezing.

"Jesus," he mutters.

"Alright, alright, okay, it's fine, I've got this." He falls silent, focusing. I've seen him use his magic plenty of times, but never on an actual person before. The growth starts from the inside out, bones slowly emerging from the stump, then muscles growing around them. Her wrist joint forms, then the dozens of smaller bones in her hand. Skin creeps forward last of all, covering everything back up until her hand is indistinguishable from the one she lost. The entire process takes only a couple of minutes.

Elliot moves to the wound on her bicep next, squeezing it together with his fingers. This one heals much faster, only taking thirty seconds or so. Next, he moves to the would on her thigh, still covered by her jeans.

"Uh, I can't-" I summon my spear blade, cut a tiny hole in her jeans, then tear it wider.

"Right, thanks." He does the same as he did for the other gash. There's a handful of shallower injuries as well, probably left by Barracuda's magic, or maybe one of Obsidian's spikes. These, Elliot heals in just a few seconds each. When it's done, he lets out a deep breath.

"Alright. I gave her about a liter of extra blood as well, I'm not sure exactly how much she lost. I'll give her another half-liter if her heart rate hasn't gone down significantly in five minutes."

"You can do that?" I ask. He shrugs.

"Anything living, I can make more of it. Can't do water on its own, but it works as long as it's inside an organism." It's a bit of an arbitrary rule, but that's how magic is; it cares more about concepts than about science. There's a few seconds of silence.

"What the hell happened tonight, Gabby?" I sigh.

"I set a trap. A big New Year's Eve party. I knew Barracuda and Obsidian wouldn't be able to resist crashing it. But Anja didn't realize I had a way to get everyone out safely when they showed up. She thought she was protecting me, and everyone else." He gives me a sharp look.

"You didn't, like, push her into being there, did you?"

"Fuck no," I say.

"She… She did surprisingly well, honestly, but she had no business being in a fight like that." He's still looking at me, so I add, "I promise. I didn't know what she was planning, and would've tried to stop her if I had." He hesitates, then nods.

"Okay. Um… What are you gonna do now, though? She… She still doesn't know, right?"

"Not yet." That's all we have time for as Anja starts stirring. She blinks a few times, slowly raises her head, and then freezes.

"... What? Where… Ell- Uh, I mean, how-""Hey, take it easy," says Elliot, putting a hand on her shoulder to stop her from pushing herself up.

"It's fine, you're safe. How are you feeling? Lightheaded? Thirsty?"

"I- I'm fine. What happened? I… You… saved me? You… took me to- to Apollo? But how-" She looks over at Elliot.

"You… Do you know her? I… I don't understand." Elliot looks at me helplessly. I let out a long sigh. Then I say, "I told you before, you absolute stubborn dumbass. You're my friend, and I don't let anyone hurt my friends, not even themselves." And then I drop my transformation.