A lunged forward, his body splitting in half as aric charge raced up Bck Lotus’ sword. She whipped it down and to the right, a huff of exertion all it took to send the charge into the ground rather than her arm. The outstretched arm of the mad mythic crackled and sparked, talons of electricity reag for Marta. Marta tilted her head back, letting the blow catch her in the chest. Her visio white for a moment before her head whipped forward, her heart restarting as soon as it stopped. She raised her arm and brought her elbow down, a thunderous crash eg out as her limb crashed through his.
Above, the serpent howled again, the Great Eel recoiling as a portion of it flickered and its body shrank. A reflected its howl with one of his own, staggering backwards as a tendril of electricity leaped from the stump of his arm and reformed into a limb. He snarled, bearing his teeth as Bck Lotus darted in low, the st of blossoms filling the air. She muttered under her breath as the pink coloration faded to an icy white-blue, a chill ripped through the air, and frost began to form on the edge of her on. She momentarily turned into a streak, her skin nearly turning red as the frost on her body turned into steam. The instant she ast him, a trail of i her wake and his right side coated.
Without stopping for a moment, A pulled himself in half as the serpent in the clouds struggled and thrashed. Lightning became flesh ahrew his arms out wide, the air being charged. Marta and Bck Lotus exged a look and darted away, getting some distance as an enormous bolt of lighting fell down from the sky. Marta gnced up at the serpent again, noting it had signifitly reduced in size. She frowned and brought up her glowing fists, the metal gaus gleaming with an almost holy light. She’d finally noticed it, but she wasn’t about to question it. Whatever she’d done, whatever had ged, she was going to roll with it.
A lowered his arms, breathing hard, his body moving with strange jerks and slowdowns as if he was moving both fast and slow at the same time. His head was looking both back at Bck Lotus and Marta at the same time. He’s powered up, again, but he’s running out of juice. There was only so much electricity in Las Vegas, no matter how you shake it. He has a limit.
She gnced again at Bck Lotus and her. The other woman nodded as well a herself into a stance, drawing her on up and over her head, parallel with the ground. Her hand outstretched, she let out a low breath and the chill that had surrounded her shifted to a summertime glow. The st of blossoms filled the air again as Marta’s muscles coiled beh her, ready for another burst of movement. The two moved as one, Bck Lotus raced forward in a ray-like line, a pink fsh of light and motion while Marta kicked off the ground into a blitz, traversing fifty meters in an instant with her fist already desding.
Her fist collided with A’s head while a sword erupted from his chest. His head turned nearly one hundred ay degrees. Marta felt the point of Bck Lotus’ sword pierce her waist, the energy releasing out of her back but there was no pain. The heartbeat-length exge felt like several seds as Marta pivoted in the air and Bck Lotus turned her sword to cut horizontally across his chest. There was a terrible sound of tearing and another howl of impotent fury from above as A was torn in half, his torso skipping across the ground away from her punch while his lower half dropped to the ground.
Marta pulled bad gnced down, his legs twitched and sparked.
“Retreat!” She shouted and kicked away just as they exploded with arcs of lethal electricity, scorg the ground and sending gss-like shards everywhere. A few darted past her face, leaving cuts in her skin that quickly healed. She turowards the torso and readied herself as another bolt of lightning came down from above.
–
hua whipped her on down, not that she o. The monster didn’t bleed. She gnced up at the sky with Handmaiden, the writhing serpent above had nearly vanished. It barely resembled a coiled bolt of lightning anymore. She looked down at the ref body of A, his bare lower half twitg and spasming. All of his clothes were go this point, he couldn’t reform them with his powers. Her lip twitched as he sat up with a jerk, his appearance all the more bestial now. His teeth looked more like needles and sparks jumped off of them as he got to his feet.
She readied her on, prepared for the exge, when something stru Set in the side of the head.
She blinked.
A single blue bolt of power spshed against his temple and dissipated. Then a rock hurtled in from the left. A bck arrow from the right. Then a bde of wind screeched across the field and knocked him to the side. One of Pathfinders bullets caught him uhe a him stumbling. hua looked around, bewildered, as the heroes who had fought, bled, and nearly died against the gnolls positiohemselves around the circur battlefield and resumed their bombardment that had only been paused by the motack.
She saw Marta shift and reach for her ear and couldn’t help herself.
“Marta!” The man called Amos said over the line. “Mana levels dropping and fast!”
Marta sagged a little, “What-”
“The Dungeon’s gone!” Amos shouted excitedly.
Roars and shouts rang out all around them as everyohrew all they had left in their reserves at Ahe serpent above shrieked and writhed in agony while hua internalized what Amos had said. Go was cleared? But-
BZZRRTTTZZTTTT-
TIbsp; … TICK … TICK … TICK … TICK
The tig of a clock.
A hum in the air.
A chill up her spine.
An eye appeared before her, opening wide.
hua froze, taking a step back but it simply followed her. It hovered there, two dimensional, transparent, it looked almost digital. It glitched and flickered, blinking once as it observed her with its eerie pink glow. Theiced that it was utterly silent. She gowards Handmaiden with a simir eye in her face. Then at A who was fusedly swatting at the one him. Eyes everywhere. Eyes in front of every hero. Eyes floating in the air looking at the battlefield from all dires. An all enpassing gaze.
Then as quickly as they had appeared, they vanished, all closing at onbsp;
“What was-” She felt something desd upon her, pressure, will, an absolute presehat washed over everything she was and reached down to her soul and gripped it in an iron csp. She felt her knees buckle as light erupted overhead. She looked up, fighting against the terror that was trying to worm its way artificially into her heart. The serpent was go dark clouds remained. In its pce was an eye as big as the battlefield, a fuschia gaze of some otherworldly thing whom they’d drawention of.
“Leader-” BZZZTTTT
Euclidia tried to chime in but the radio immediately fizzled out.
Aried to pull himself off the ground only to abruptly trip and fall, it looked like an invisible force was literally pushing down on him, crushing him with ruthless strength. hua forced herself to breathe, drew on every ounce of training she had and will collected through her ability to stay on her feet and squeeze down on the handle of her sword, even as her fingers went numb. She looked back up at the eye and saw the inner part of the eye grow more solid, a ring of hard light that opened up into a space she couldn’t quite make out.
From it, she desded in a n of light.
All white, her hair flowing out to either side like feathered wings, her arms spread out. Her helmet, dark and cruel with two slits of pink light burning from within, malice boiling off of her in nearly visible waves. She seemed to stand in mid air as she desded, her feet firmly pnted on what looked like nothing at all as the eye loomed above her. Panels of light formed in the air around her before spreading out over the field, smming down in a ring around the area, blog the view of the heroes around them. The self-procimed first supervilin, a supposed goddess made flesh, the absolute enemy of every hero on the p.
“Ishtar,” hua breathed even as her mind reeled and ected dots. Her lips formed a thin line. She tilted her head forward and leveled a defiant gre on the woman. In the er of her eye even Handmaiden assumed a defensive pose, shifting back a bit and readying for yet anht in this tireless onsught.
“I AM ISHTAR.” The voice was bloodcurdling, cold, a rasp that could likely be heard across the city. “THAT FALSE HERO, A DESECRATION OF THE TITLE, IS STILL USEFUL TO ME.”
hua jolted, No!
She turned her focus ba A and darted towards him, sword drawn. She was going to take him, she wasn’t sure why, but she was not going to let that happen before she got her answers. Even if that meant killing him. She had a duty. “PRIMROSE DANCE OF OHOUSAND-” She roared, her on vibrating as she turned herself into a rocket of motion only for her bde to e crashing into a panel of white light.
“I’M AFRAID I ’T LET YOU DO THAT, HERO,” Ishtar’s booming voice decred.
hua darted around the barrier just in time to see a pool of bess spread out beh the broken man, violet needles stig out of his ned foam ing out of his mouth. He sank into it as if it were water before the puddle simply dried up and vanished as if it had never been there. One moment the monster known as A had been on the verge of death and at her fiips, the he was simply whisked away with nothing to show for it. Her teeth nearly cracked as she whipped her head up towards the woman h above her.
In respore, the panel beh Ishtar vanished and she nded where A had been only moments before.
“Apologies for the steal, hero, I do feel bad about taking ylory,” Ishtar rasped, her voice down at a normal volume. There was a bit of amusement in it, “Like I said, I have a use for him.”
hua snarled and marched towards the supervilin, her bde at her side. She didn’t stop until she was right in the vilin’s face, looking at her own eyes in the reflective surface of the helmet. “You,” She growled, “Are you Sonya ovna?”
The vilin tilted her head as a low hum filled the air and hua’s earpiece crackled to life. A lo hissed into her eardrum; “Yes.”
hua blinked, she had expected anything but that. Mog would have been more expected, more reasonable. She held her ground, gring at the woman behind the mask, trying to her head around it all. The things that Handmaiden had said. That she was trying to stop things like this from happening. Yet she had been nearby when A had apparently lost his mind. Did she have something to do with it? What was her angle? She’d said it through her earpiece, was that a clue? An admission? Why? Just, fug why? None of it made any seo her. She’s lying, trying to discredit ovna. Somehow she was in the dungeon with her. It just doesn’t click otherwise.
“I want answers.”
“If you survive, certainly,” The Supervilin said.
hua blinked only for every instin her body to scream at her to move. She leaped to the side just as a ray of light erupted from Ishtar’s fiip. If she had moved a sed too te it would have created a finger sized hole in her heart. hua slid to a stop and readied her on, she raised it and opened her mouth to speak, “If I-”
Handmaiden didn’t o be cajoled as much as hua. She let out a roar and charged at the supervilin who took a dang step bad swirled her hand once, a barrier of light appeariween her and Handmaiden’s fist. The gss-like material shuddered and cracked, but held. Ishtar seemed to vanish into another panel of light and hua’s instincts were the only thing that saved her yet again, she dove low as a bat knife made of light swiped across the space where her throat had just been.
Fine! She snarled and pivoted, bringing her on out with a snap-draw. Ishtar pirouetted out of the way and snapped out a kick, the force of it making hua’s eyes water as she pulled her head bad out of the way. Before hua could recover a fist drove up and intut, sending her heaving and staggering back. I o recapture momentum! She screamed at herself, dodging another knife blow aimed with surgical precision. She snapped her leg out to kick Ishtar’s foot out from under her while sweeping her bde out towards the woman’s helmet.
“More,” Ishtar growled and a barrier formed right o her head.
hua pulled the on back, pig up speed and released a series of rapid speed jabs, One-Hundred Eighty Petals!
Ishtar stepped bad swayed, moving with each motion like a bde of grass. Her head tossing zily left and right. hua snarled and followed up with the step in the foing from one-hundred eighty petals to on Fl Branch! She felt her internal energy rushing through her muscles, her power screaming to life as she brought the on in, up and down in a cataclysm of force. Ishtar caught the attack at the base of the bde with her knife, pivoting past hua’s left side and driving a kito her. hua let out a gasp of pain and tumbled, hitting the ground and scrambling to her feet.
Handmaiden had moved in pce of her, her fists raging as she threw her full wrath at Ishtar. Ishtar danced and dodged, delivering light but carefully targeted blows to the woman’s body. She moved into a backflip and even nded on one of Handmaiden’s hands, snapping down into a split kick that caught the hero in the back of the head with her boot. hua looked down at her sword and up at Ishtar, breathing hard, She had already used a lot fighting A, even still, that move.
She knows my fighting style?
Handmaiden staggered back from the blow. It wasn’t oeo i to stun her. She was immuo killing blows but staggering ones were effective. She moved like water, no, like a faerie, dang on the air and even hopping on panels of light to get distance before immediately responding with vicious ahal force. hua collected herself and shook off the pressure that the supervilin utting on them somehow. She took a new pose.
“ISHTAR!” She shouted.
The Supervilin nded a few meters away from Handmaiden and raised her hands in wele, “e, Hero! Show me everything!”
