Chapter 33: Clash Of Titans

All subtlety had gone out the window once Elaine and Jeanne had shifted into their Higher forms. They moved at superhuman speeds, clashing again and again, and Cassie was sure the sounds of impact were the only things the weaker Shard Bearers could even sense. Even to his supernatural motion tracking the two of them were a blur and thanks to the way Elaine's swords worked she didn't even have to pause when clashing with Jeanne, resulting in a black blur and a white blur flitting across the arena, slamming into each other, bouncing off and then clashing again, over and over.

It was beyond impressive, the fact that Elaine could keep up with one of the strongest people Cassie had ever seen, but unfortunately he knew that Elaine was losing.

Oh, they were evenly matched, certainly, but that was precisely the problem. Jeanne was an angel, with centuries of experience in controlling her Higher form, while Elaine would faint after only fifteen or so minutes of continuous use.

And so Elaine was on a shot clock. She had to win within that time span or she would lose by default. She needed an edge. That edge would have been Abigail's support but Jeanne had been smart enough to knock her out. And so it was up to Elaine alone to find a chink in Jeanne's defense.

**

Elaine let out a grunt of frustration as she blocked another strike. Jeanne wasn't giving her any room to breathe. If Elaine hadn't been a Lacrima she wouldn't even have time to think with how relentless Jeanne's assault was. Thankfully she was and so she did.

One part of her mind was focused on her body, the other focused on controlling her swords, and a third part was thinking furiously, trying to come up with a way to push Jeanne back.

She knew she was losing, the countdown to unconsciousness glowing red in her peripheral vision. But Jeanne's defense was just too good. It had been nearly impenetrable with two wings but in her Higher form Jeanne had four of them, giving her even better protection against attacks aimed at her sides and back. Elaine idly wondered how annoying fighting an Angel Lord would be, given that they apparently had three pairs of wings in their Higher forms, and then immediately chastised herself for the irrelevant thought.

But as she continued struggling against Jeanne she realized something. The two of them had fallen into a predictable rhythm. It felt bizarre that Jeanne didn't try for a more decisive attack but Elaine supposed it made sense in a way. Jeanne could stall things out and her entire fighting style was efficient. The only reason she'd taken a risk to take out Abigail had been because that had been the most efficient way to win the fight. And now the most efficient way to win would be to continue fending Elaine off until overuse of her Higher form made her fall unconscious. Winning that way would even prove a point to the cadets: Sure you can become strong enough to match me but you can't do it for very long.

But that same predictability also meant that Elaine had a golden opportunity to fight back against Jeanne.

She had used this trick once before, back against the satyr at Albion. She held two swords back and infused them with as much fire and air magic as would fit, creating a volatile, explosive core to the swords, and when she was sure they were as dangerous as she could afford, she clashed with Jeanne once more, except this time she used the infused swords.

The process of filling them with this kind of explosive magic also made the swords far more brittle, brittle enough that even less catastrophic attacks would break them, and so when the infused swords struck Jeanne's Trumpet they shattered, unleashing a torrent of fire and air that launched super-heated shards of crystal at Jeanne.

The angel spun out of the way to protect herself with her wings as fast as she could but unfortunately outrunning explosions only worked in movies and so she took a massive hit, hot rocks hitting into and through her armor, piercing her in several places, before she went flying across the arena. Instead of smashing into the force wall again she twisted impossibly, her four wings beating, and came to a stop on her legs, though from the way they wobbled it wouldn't take much to bring her down.

Jeanne had half a dozen holes in her armor and all of them were oozing blood, meaning they'd gone deep enough to pierce her skin as well.

“That was a dirty trick,” she ground out. “I guess we're even.”

“We're even when I've knocked you out, Jeanne,” Elaine said coldly.

The angel flinched at her words and Elaine couldn't help the satisfaction. Yes, she was angry that Jeanne would stoop so low as to use illusion magic to show Abigail a fatal attack in order to make her drop her guard and knock her out. No, knowing why Jeanne had done it hadn't made her any less upset. Abigail had already had confidence problems before this match. Yes, she'd offered Jeanne the chance to save face by having them both change into their Higher forms but it didn't mean she'd forgive her just like that.

At the same time, knocking Jeanne out was easier said than done when Elaine only had nine minutes left before she would faint. And not only did she have to work on a shot clock, she was also up against Jeanne, a legend with centuries of experience. She'd managed to catch her off guard once but that trick wouldn't work again. Elaine needed to capitalize on her momentary weakness and she needed to do it while watching out for any trick Jeanne might pull.

Speaking of tricks, this time Jeanne took the initiative. But instead of dashing towards Elaine the angel flitted around the arena, trusting her wings to block Elaine should she try something. As she rushed around she kept intermittently slashing at the air, blasts of magic radiating out with every slash. Try as she might though, Elaine couldn't sense any danger to these swings. They weren't aimed at her at all. She decided to keep the slashes in the back of her mind and concentrate on the moment Jeanne would switch over to a direct attack.

At the same time Elaine herself wasn't idle. She was weaving together a construct of air and ice this time, cooling her blades down until they were colder than blocks of dry ice. The resulting temperature difference made cold mist radiate off of them. Not only would these blades do catastrophic damage if they scored a direct hit against uncovered flesh but the mist trailing behind them would be useful for hiding her movements as well.

Even then, Elaine had realized that contingencies were mandatory when fighting Jeanne. She needed an edge, a bit of subterfuge, one trick that Jeanne would not see coming, hidden behind the ones that were obvious. But what could she...?

Gift from Tiamat, she heard Typhon's voice in her head. For being such a good Mama Bear. Kick Jeanne's ass with it.

A spike of pain in her temple followed and a moment later knowledge flooded the part of her mind that was split off to deal with spellcasting. She blinked as she realized what she'd been given. It was devious, it was just what she needed, and it gave her a glimpse of what kinds of powers she could look forward to when she unlocked all of Tiamat's power.

She drew on earth and water this time, and a moment later Jeanne finally charged at her.

**

Cassie felt a bit of pride welling up inside him when he saw Elaine suffusing her blades with bitter cold. This was something he'd given her, something she could do so well because of him. And he immediately understood that this was not just an offensive ability but a defensive one as well. The blades left thick trails of cold mist in their wake that obscured Elaine's movements, making it harder for Jeanne to read her once they started clashing again.

Cassie didn't believe for a moment that there hadn't been a deeper meaning to Jeanne slashing at empty air. Even he had been able to feel her investing power into those slashes, after all. But fucked if he could figure out what the point of it had been. He'd expected projectiles to come flying at Elaine but nothing like that had happened.

But before he could spend any more time wondering Jeanne launched herself at Elaine once more. This time her Trumpet was met by half a dozen crystal swords and frozen mist exploded between them. Elaine twisted to Jeanne's left to continue her assault under the cloak of mist but Jeanne's wings blocked the attack. Of course a moment later half a dozen swords also struck at Jeanne from the right. She raised the other two wings to protect that side as well but wasn't quite fast enough and one of the swords slipped through.

The sword only struck Jeanne's armor but the impact still jarred her, putting her off balance and allowing Elaine to push her back a step by their locked blades.

But apparently that's exactly what Jeanne had been waiting for because the movement had pushed Elaine into one of the spots Jeanne had slashed at earlier. A quick tap on the ground was all the warning Elaine got before a line of white light carved through the air, catching Elaine's arm and slicing through both the armor and the limb underneath it, leaving Elaine's arm cut in half lengthwise.

Elaine screamed in pain, the sound so visceral it brought tears to Cassie's eyes, but even after having her arm cut into ribbons she didn't falter, maintaining ironclad discipline. She sent a dozen swords at Jeanne, swirling around her and harassing her as she danced out of the way, giving herself a moment to assess the damage. Her arm was in tatters but already growing together again. She summoned earth and air to encase the arm in crystal, pressing the two halves back together so they would heal faster. It had to hurt like crazy and he wondered how she was still standing with that kind of pain racking her body. She hadn't told them everything she could do and so of course Cassie didn't know that her parallel processing allowed her to compartmentalize the pain, letting one part of her mind experience it while the rest of her mind dealt with the fight.

“That wasn't space magic,” Elaine said, her voice only a little strained. “You used time magic to displace the slashes you made, didn't you?”

“Precisely,” Jeanne said with a nod. “I hope you remember all the spots I attacked.”

“I'll do my best.”

“That crystal compress is a smart idea,” Jeanne said, “as were those blades of mist. But hiding your actions only helps when they aren't predictable. You only got a single hit in and it didn't hit any exposed flesh.”

“I agree,” Elaine said. “But I'm not quite as predictable as you think I am.”

“Oh?” Jeanne asked.

“Yeah,” Elaine said, then gave Jeanne a small smirk. “You hear the hissing by now?”

Jeanne frowned at her and Cassie strained his ears to hear the sound Elaine had mentioned. And now that the two of them weren't clashing or talking he could indeed hear a hissing sound. He looked around, trying to see where it came from, when Jeanne started shrieking in pain.

**

Elaine's plan had worked... well, with her arm bisected lengthwise she couldn't exactly say it had worked perfectly but the injury was a small price to pay for getting that one sword past Jeanne's guard. Because not all of them had been enchanted with ice and that one hit had come from one of her special surprises.

The knowledge Tiamat had gifted her through Typhon, that particular combination of water and earth, had been on how to use acid, creating minerals with earth magic and then diluting them in water to create potent acids. And no acid was more potent than Aqua Regia, the only acid powerful enough to dissolve gold. Even with that, she was certain their armor would offer protection against it. After all, even if Aqua Regia was capable of dissolving gold, the process would take hours. The acid acted faster on other metals but the armor they all wore was no doubt enchanted to last just as long against acids. But that's where the magic came in. Because water magic could create disintegration effects, eroding materials the same way mountains could be ground into sand, except only taking seconds rather than the millennia the water would usually take. Disintegration blasts weren't very effective against Yesod pattern body armor either, but when combining the dissolving effect of acids with the disintegration effect of water magic, the combination could harm even the armor of one of the Cherubim in her Higher form.

However, that still wasn't enough. These acidic disintegration blasts were powerful and would surely become a big part of her arsenal in the future, but they were too short-lived to chew through a Yesod armor in a single strike. Which is why the spell Tiamat had taught Elaine had also included a way to create a viscous solution that would cling to whatever it struck and then act like a disintegration spell while continuing to be viscous and hard to remove. It was a devious bit of spellcasting and it taught Elaine quite a lot about how Tiamat fought.

Typhon had said she'd given this to Elaine 'for being such a good Mama Bear'. Typhon's snark aside, this told Elaine that the operative word in the title 'Mother of Dragons' was still 'mother' and that Tiamat reacted violently to anyone who hurt her charges. Was that why Elaine had such a temper when her girls were in danger? She shook it off and focused on the matter at hand. Tiamat clearly used brutal, even cruel attacks, but only against those who deserved it. Did the dragon spew that clinging acid instead of dragonfire? If so Tiamat would be a horrible opponent to face.

Elaine felt a little bad about using that kind of cruel attack against Jeanne but this, at least, she considered payback. The glob of acid the blade had delivered had chewed through a large part of armor on Jeanne's right and then continued to eat into her flesh. But credit where it was due, just like Elaine Jeanne didn't let the pain incapacitate her, instead thinking on her feet and putting together a combination of water and earth of her own, creating a strong base to neutralize the acid. Even then she had to use force magic to blast the glob of water containing the disintegration spell off of her body. Only then did her flesh start knitting together again.

When Jeanne was no longer taking in ragged breaths full of raw pain Elaine said: “One last time?”

“One last time,” Jeanne agreed and the two of them shot at each other once more, weapons raised.

**

If Cassie had had any doubts about his infatuation with Elaine they disappeared in that final attack. The two warrior women clashed one last time, throwing their entire weight and strength at each other, Elaine catching Jeanne's Trumpet in a cross guard and pushing back against the angel.

“Elaine!” Jeanne screamed in defiance as she was slowly driven back.

“Jeanne!” Elaine yelled back.

For one more second there was an equilibrium as the two held a stalemate and then there was a brilliant flash of light and an ungodly clatter of stone on metal before Jeanne's Trumpet went flying, spinning away to strike the ground blade first.