Chapter Forty-Five
“Miss Luther, now may not be the best time to ask, but what happened to the children that were with us?” Vulcon asked. I froze in place. Somehow it had completely slipped my mind that we rescued children from the Keep and once I faced Ardentia, my mind was locked on accomplishing my goal. But, what confused me was that the others didn’t say anything either. Not until this point.
“Isn’t there a Noble that can mess with the minds of others? And we don’t even know to what extent?” I asked. I peeked out from my ice wall and saw six Nobles gunning for us. The one with purple hair I recognized as Psyna. “There. The one with the purple hair. What the fuck did she do to us?”
I looked up at Rose on the roof as Adriel prepared himself to take on the brunt force of the Nobles’ first attack.
“Rose, can you see through others’ illusions?”
“I would hope so, being the goddess of illusions. Among other things,” she said, lining up a shot. “But we can’t focus on those kids right now.”
She fired a shot at Psyna, but she just waved her hand in the air and the bullet hit the ground instead.
“Rose, switch with Vulcon!” I caught on to what they were doing. They were attempting to evenly split us up with the best duo matchups for our power sets. Vulcon and Aura Ray wouldn’t be too helpful in this fight, so Rose created a portal and swapped places with Vulcon, joining me and Adriel on the ground level. I made the ice wall into an ice cube as I raised the walls to block Asai’s guards from being able to shoot at us or Aura Ray and Vulcon on the roof and made it so the Nobles couldn’t attack them either. Inside the cube, it was three against six. And based on who was on which side, I really couldn’t tell who had the advantage.
“You want this to be your coffin?” Tyfuse asked, looking around the room.
“Big talk coming from someone who doesn’t have their redo anymore,” I said. Tyfuse let out a hearty laugh.
“You genuinely think you have a chance now? With Lux on his way--”
Seismic smacked him in the back of the head. I was aware the Archs had supernatural physical capabilities along with their signature superpower, but Seismic was the second physically strongest under Ardentia, so I can imagine the smack hurt.
“You weren’t supposed to mention that, Adam,” Seismic said to his teammate. This information didn't change the fact that I needed the six in front of me dead.
“Hey! I thought you said no real names when in public!” Tyfuse argued. Seismic then glared at me.
“Doesn’t matter when we’ll be the only ones left standing,” he said. I imagine it was supposed to sound menacing, but it just came off as strange.
“Okay, here’s an idea. To make this fair for you all, we’ll each fight two of you at once. But, different locations so there’s no interference from your boss,” Rose suggested.
“What makes you think you have any ounce of negotiating power in this situation?” Seismic questioned. I figured it out. It felt like he was putting on an act. Like the person we were seeing really wasn’t him. Yes, we killed Ardentia, but he didn’t actually seem pissed off. It felt like he was playing a role everyone was expecting him to play.
“Well, you don’t have a choice, so we do have the power--”
Tyfuse went for a cheap shot with a bolt of lightning from his fingertips, but I saw Rose’s portal open before me and I dropped onto a scattered, rocky ground. I got up to see my two opponents were Tyfuse and Vital. I took in the location. A power plant. In a thunderstorm. Tyfuse let out a wheezing laugh this time and wiped a tear from his eye.
“Oh man, your bitch friend must really hate you,” he said. “There’s no way she randomly set these up. Based on the fact that it wasn’t raining in Haven City before we left, this has to be either in a different city, or it’s possible we’re in a different country.”
I disagreed. This was no mistake. I believe Rose had a plan all along and knew who to send where. At this time, I didn’t know who she was paired against, nor Adriel, but she likely knew Adriel wasn’t paying attention when I said that Tyfuse had already used his redo, but Vital hasn’t. So he’d likely think the fight was over. She would be at a disadvantage with these two because of their differences in combat preference where Vital prefers to be close and Tyfuse prefers to spam lightning bolts. Knowing this and with the fact that any lighting he shoots would be conducted with the water, I was the best option for the duo. In addition, I’ve already fought them once. Rose likely thought this would be a guaranteed win for me, meaning two more Nobles down. And she was right.
“You really plan on still fighting us, don’t you?” Vital questioned. He then sighed. “I guess it can’t be helped. If I was in your position, I would do whatever it takes to not get captured as well. I empathize.”
At this point, I had nothing more to say to these two. They were mere speed bumps in my journey. And I felt I was almost at the end.
“Nothin’ left in the tank, huh? Shame. I thought this would be more fun,” Tyfuse said. As soon as he finished his sentence, he shot a bolt of lightning at me. When he did this, I made an effort to decrease the temperature around my body to freeze the rain that was pouring around me so the lightning wouldn’t spread through it to me. I’m aware of the fact that there’s space between the raindrops, but I also did this incase he decided to strike any small puddles I was unaware of.
As soon as I dodged, Vital predictably moved in for a punch. I sidestepped and attempted to counterattack, but he dodged my attack, then moved out of the way of Tyfuse’s next lightning bolt. This failed to hit me as well, as I made a small ice shield that took the strike for me, but disintegrated upon contact. Vital had snuck around me and went for a sweep kick, but I jumped and tried to freeze his leg in place, but missed.
As I landed, Vital went for a ki-charged uppercut, but I stepped back then ducked the next lightning bolt from Tyfuse. Vital dodged in time as well, but was pissed off at his teammate.
“Dude, watch where you shoot those!” he shouted.
“Just fuckin’ hit her!” Tyfuse shouted back as he moved out of the way of an icicle I tossed at him. Just then, seeing the way the icicle moved through the rain made me realize something I should have sooner. I waved my hand through the rain at Tyfuse, freezing any droplets I touched, causing him to stumble back into one of the panels out of fear of getting hit with black ice. I then spun while he was stunned and froze any and all water at Vital’s feet. He was caught. He quickly attempted to break out of his foot prison with a charged ki-fist and I allowed him, but the top of his head was shown to me and I sent an ice dagger through the top of his skull.
“Shit! Vital!” Tyfuse shouted. I knew it wasn’t over, but his redo was gone. His body collapsed onto the rocky ground and I glared at Tyfuse before rushing him. I was trying to take him out before Vital resurrected, but the fucker was crafty. He dodged my punch and I sunk my fist into the panel he was standing in front of then blasted me with as much lightning as he could before the panel exploded, knocking us away from each other.
I got up with smoke escaping from my mouth and my burn wounds healing. I looked over to where Vital’s body was supposed to be, then got punched in my spine which sent me flying directly into one of Tyfuse’s lightning bolts. I tried to get up, but was struck in the exact same spot in my spine, and my face connected with the rocky ground again. As I struggled to rise, Tyfuse called a lightning strike from above to strike me in my back.
I placed my palms flat on the ground and caused ice to spread all around me. I could tell the two of them had been standing over me and I forced them to jump back. This time, I managed to get to my feet.
“That should be the last of it. Any residual should be emptied,” I heard Vital say from behind me. I didn’t understand at first, but quickly realized the rain droplets around me were no longer freezing. I feared the worst and the worst came true as I spun to see Vital’s eyes glowing blue like mine.
