<02/12/1972 – 23:30 | Alpha Zero, Junon Region, Sprawn Valley>
"Shadow Force!" The explosive magic sent from the glowing end of Danton's Mega-Staff sent four dark pulsars in a straight direction towards the target, simultaneously creating three large Shadow Waves in multiple locations to close in on the target at top speed. Danton remained focused on protecting his team, giving Cleo just enough time to take his men and retreat. After Danton's team suffered two more casualties from his personal security section, he was adamant on taking this beast on alone.
With Mainne and the others trailing a bit behind, Jane noticed the source of the disturbance in B-107. Though she had nothing to call or compare this to, the monstrous beast standing large and tall before her was by far the largest monster ever spawned by the dark zone. But another creature almost equal in size was spitting a purple stream of fire at the larger creature. Jane made both creatures out to be massive dragons. The smaller creature was the same one Danton was capable of summoning, Entiene. Entiene stood on its four legs confronting the other translucent dragon in front of it, also on its four legs. The dark-zone-spawned creature had a few different defining features about it. One such fact was the missing wing structure of the beast. The next was its phasic aura and ability to be seen through while radiating a small amount of glowing light. And the third was the large energy scope above the creature that already assigned a moniker to the specimen.
Jane slowed her pace quickly. The phasic dragon wasn't on their side, and its massive body and powerful glow indicated something extraordinary about the danger of the monster. She could spot out Danton in the distance, battling the beast using his most powerful summon Entiene. Jane had no time to react to one of Gaia's incoming attacks, though it was directed towards Danton's summon more than anyone else. As it happened, the action display center on the enemy creature lit up with holographic text.
Phantom Blast! As the larger wingless dragon opened its mouth with its ghostly fangs, a bright burst of dark colored photons fired from its breath, slamming with light speed into Entiene. There were five total hits to Entiene, but Danton didn't even have the chance to count all of them. It was over in a flash, Entiene's health dropping from a high level to an immediate zero percent, which he had never seen happen so quickly before.
Following the defeat of his summon, Entiene's spiritual body became completely transparent, exploding into a blast of tiny light particles going everywhere. Danton growled under his breath, unable to learn the secret about the power level of this creature. Its behavior was totally unusual, as Gaia gave itself its own name and energy scope, providing a small level of sentience to the creature. Its power was so far unmatched even by his standards, and from the corner he could see Jane Venn rushing in with her daggers to help aid in the fight, much against his intent.
Jane slid in the burning dirt below her, her daggers in front and ready to enter the battle and defeat this massive creature. It stood in the way of the entire assault team to advance, and the enemy seemed to be in waiting for its chance to recharge while Danny and Taylor came in to assist Jane, Mainne lagging behind somehow. "Get all the injured away from here. We'll handle this thing."
"No Jane!" Danton decided to retract his last command to form his teams in this location, even if they still haven't all arrived just yet. "This thing is way too powerful to fight. We need to defect and shut this creature down from the source!" Danton had no choice but to yell, with the roaring of the massive phantom dragon before them making it harder to hear along with the increasing hot wind bellowing in everyone's ears.
Taylor glanced back to Danton, who seemed to be chickening out of the battle, and to her right side was Mainne, still struggling to get in range of the area, perhaps mortified by the size and power of the creature before her. But Taylor watched Jane fight Danton's summon all by herself. Gaia seemed a bit bigger, but without its wings, it couldn't even fly. With its translucent factor, it must have a spirit elemental body structure, just like the Phantom Dragon they had to battle against the Scarlet Cult on the 787 bridge. Taylor knew that with Jane and Danny helping out, they could certainly do this. All Danton has to do is help too.
The phantom dragon designated as Gaia stretched and turned its neck with its head, opening its mouth to show off its powerful see-through jaws and fangs to its enemies, and following it up with a long roar so loud and powerful that the noise level created an active earth quake below it.
Taylor met Danny's eyes as he held his sword ready to combat the oversized creature. Taylor already had her glowing bow equipped and ready to fire. "Give me a boost?" she requested.
Danny began to charge energy into his hands in agreement and sync with what Taylor had in mind by her words. "Let's go for it." Holding out his arms to release his magic, Danny chanted the support spell proudly. "Molecular Boost!"
The spell casting created a special glyphring floating in the air at an angle to aim at the creature's neck. Taylor took her bow and aimed her Crystal Arrow at the glyphring. After she fired the arrow enchanted with crystalline and explosive Leray magical properties, the arrow itself obtained a massive amount of light while picking up speed upon passing through Danny's support glyphring. The impact of the arrow created a sonic blast upon the impact, as well as an explosive hit that seemed small compared to the size of the actual creature. The impact to the bastard's neck managed to penetrate and damage the creature despite having a near astral body, while the health stats decreased slightly on its energy scope in response.
Jane couldn't believe how little damage that ended up doing to the creature. She could visibly see the dragon shake its head an extra time in response to the pain of a piercing crystal arrow strike its body, yet it had plenty of energy to continue fighting back with vigor. She could sense it beyond the report of the energy scope, and soon realized that Danton's warning wasn't to be taken lightly.
With its face returning to glare at Jane's entire team, the eyes of the creature lit up with more intensity. Its evil red glare intensified the motive of Gaia just as it began to retaliate to the last attack with a more interesting decision. Doom Shield!
Jane knew what the spell was, but was too surprised to see it happen in order to take action in time. In just another second, the magic from Gaia sent invisible waves that quickly erected another dark colored dome shield around itself and the rest of the battlefield. However, due to the odd positioning of the dome shield itself, Danton was pushed back by the edge, kept outside of the interior of the dome, while Mainne wasn't even close enough to get swept up inside of the shield.
Jane quickly found herself in a new situation. Her team was now trapped in a dome shield invulnerable to destruction, bound by the life span of the spawn before her, and Mainne was trapped outside. After a quick glance from behind, she noticed Danton was just kept out by a single foot of distance.
Danton pounded on the magical shield with his fists, screaming in denial at the new development. "Jane! Get the hell out of there!"
Mainne could see Danton's distress after his eyes met hers, but she had another idea to help get Jane out of this problem. "Fall back to regroup! We must help them as a team!"
Danton's magic from his Mega-Staff simply reflected off the perimeter of the dark yet solid shield, and he addressed Mainne's unknown plan of action. "How do you propose we do that?"
"So it's kill or be killed?" Jane could tell by the simple glare of the monster standing a towering ninety meters tall that it had this intention in mind all along. Gaia was going to test Jane's small team by a fight to the death, the same challenge Atlas proposed earlier. "You leave me no choice. Bullet Blitz!" Jane carried two sub machine guns spawned by two small yellow glyphrings forming in front of her due to the effects of her magic, and fired the weapons regardless of the recoil response. Jane unloaded as many bullets as she could into the creature. But as the bullets drilled into the phasic scaly skin, the damage was not even registering to the energy scope. Jane quickly tossed the machine guns to the floor before they would soon disappear, and decided to go with more powerful magic.
Mize! Jane saw an attack spell coming on the ADC of the creature. Though she was familiar with the name, Jane didn't even give the monster a chance to cause severe damage to her. Using her charged up Leray energy, Jane cast her signature power shield aura around her entire body with the flick of both her arms and hands. Just as Jane got her shield up, a glyphring formed in front of Gaia's dragon face, firing a bright narrow beam of energy that slammed into the shielding aura, creating small hexagons all over the impact sight, but the duration of the beam was about less than half a second, leaving Jane with little energy expenditure in protecting herself.
Jane suddenly had more time now to fight back at the large dragon than the enemy did, though she noticed a bit of delay in her team. They would need to hurry up and stop being afraid of this thing. The light from the phasic dragon seemed to be a bit more intense than before due to the blockage from external light by the dark doom shield around them, but Jane didn't hesitate in her chances for a single second. "I'll show you a beam spell. Quantum Beam!" Knowing the spell itself has some weak properties, Jane also learned by now more ways than one for refining the spell. She created a small glowing glyphring in front of herself while simultaneously charging up the blue glowing aura around her body. As soon as the glyphring as fully formed with spiky edges at the bases, Jane merged her aura with the glyphring, and unleashed her beam attack, which turned her entire aura into a large beam of non-elemental Leray magic. Aimed well at the creature, the beam struck the target, draining a small amount of its HP. Jane was again surprised to see how high Gaia's endurance rating was with the amount of energy she had to spend on that spell alone.
"Sereing Blast!" Using an overloading glyphring of Leray magic, Danny aimed his next spell at the dragon to add on to Jane's attack and battle as a team, though it drained a little more out of him due to how quickly he forced himself to invoke the spell. The blast of white light slammed into the lower body of Gaia, chipping off another small chunk of HP to the enemy summon. After that, Taylor simply didn't follow it up with anything.
Darkness Eater! Jane began charging energy to shield herself, but her charging was finished a moment too late. She realized soon enough that a red circle was forming under her body as the astral body of the dragon lit up with a changing color of deep red. The circle surrounding Jane was turning into a Star of Darkness spell, despite the radius being that much smaller.
But Taylor noticed that she as well as Danny were being targeted as well with separate Stars of Darkness circles. Due to her inactivity last time, she had more room to react, jumping out of the forming circle immediately before it was too late. Upon landing on her arms and chest to the disgusting ash filled dirt, Taylor suddenly remained unharmed while Jane and Danny were trapped inside of magical spheres that quickly sucked their HP away, simultaneously draining their entire essence. But contrary to an ordinary design of Star of Darkness spell, there was no surge of electricity at the end. Still, Danny and Jane fell to their knees in just mere seconds with the fading of the Darkness Eater spell just from how much it drained both of them alone. What worse, Gaia's health benefited from the surge, proving how much of a power level the summon has.
Jane lifted herself up quickly, refusing to give into the massive draining sensation taking her over. With her surge of Leray energy growing in charge and the perfect recovery plan in mind, Jane tried her rebuttal. "Your energy is mine!" Performing the spell known as Drain against the creature in front of her, Jane executed the spell effortlessly and immediately drained more of Gaia's energy force from its HP levels, charging herself back up to the way she was before getting hit by the last attack.
Gaia changed its stance slightly, and began shifting direction of its neck to indicate an imminent counterattack. Jane prepared herself for defense while reading into the action display center, hoping to cause total damage to the evil summon they've been forced to fight. Firewall! Firewall is the name of the next spell, and Jane chose that moment to invoke her shield again. The dragon lowered its head with its mouth open, breathing a large stream of fire while aiming in a singular line as if to breath all over the entire field, but the fiery stream created a tall wall of fire instead, spreading all the way from one end of the dome to the other end.
As the firewall advanced downwards towards Jane's team, Jane simply had to wait for the passing of the damage over her protective aura to be safe again, but she questioned the readiness of her other two teammates, who would suffer third degree burns from this spell if they don't act now!
"Earth Glave!" Danny wasn't standing close enough to Taylor for this spell to help her as it was about to assist him. After taking aim at the advancing wave of fire coming straight at him, Danny forced the ground to shoot upwards and advance forward from his direction, which immediately dosed the section of fire that was to affect his entire area. In one single attack spell, Danny used the power of the earth to deflect the flames away from him as the wave continued in other areas.
"Cold Spin!" Since Danny wasn't close enough to use that spell to help Taylor out, she had no choice but to use her magic as well to deflect the incoming wave of fire, certain that her magic would undoubtingly protect her from the incoming wave of flames. The large tornado of freezing air plowed forward through the field, and dimmed the flames down to pure smoke as soon as the Cold Spin rotation attack sucked in all of its available oxygen. The waves of fire were broken apart, long passing over Jane's shield. After a quick analysis while Jane lowered her power shield again, Taylor was happy to see nobody on her team affected by the last attack.
Hyper Blast! "What?!" Jane didn't see this coming, a consecutive enemy spell right after the last one, and she wasn't prepared for it. After just coming out of a power shield, her MP energy wouldn't charge quickly or strongly enough for a second power shield. Jane figured she could prepare to use a Return attack to deflect it, but she wasn't sure what type of magic spell this was going to be. She knew a beam could never be deflected in time...
Gaia opened its mouth again, creating a glowing white sphere of powerful magic that shot forward above all three of the targets, exploding suddenly in the air to blast hot white light all over the entire battlefield. It's a light screen attack about as powerful as Ultima, and not a single one of the humans had any chance of evasion or resistance.
Jane felt her body heat up violently, as if she had been trapped in a field of rising steam that begged to boil her very skin. The sensation was both painful and draining at the same time. As the bright light screen faded, Jane slumped down slightly, trying to prevent herself from giving up, but her skin was smoking, and from the looks of her teammates, they sustained just as much intense damage as well. Jane didn't want to stop battling in hopes that she could stay alive long enough to defeat this creature, but the damage done to her just now was overpowering, as it slowed down her reaction time and drained her life force.
Taylor noticed how quickly and deeply she was breathing from the exhaustion the battle already had on her, but Danny and Jane were both in a similar predicate, unable to fight back in the moment, giving into their desire for recovery. Gaia wasn't even scratched badly, but all three of them were having trouble. Screw the doom shield! There has to be a way out of here. Taylor charged a spell that she knew would only allow her to buy time to figure out a new strategy, learning quickly from one of Jane's earlier spells. "Drain!" Invoking the magic quickly, Taylor drained some of the enemy's HP, refreshing her own and allowing her to feel more alert and steady.
Blaze Storm! "No." Jane's voice was weak and frail. She struggled so hard to stand firm and concentrate. What would Blaze Storm do to everyone in a place that is already over one hundred twenty degrees in average temperature? How could this massive thing have so much endurance and power stored up? With the color of the sky burning a deeper red slowly over time, the temperature in the area began to rise quickly. Jane was already sweating, but now her sweat would be sweating with her.
Just as unexpectedly, Jane caught the glimpse of an unidentified orange glyphring flying high above her head, which didn't seemed synchronized to the monster. Shortly after it happened, a fiery beam of magical light blasted with a sonic boom straight into the creature's right eye, causing Gaia to roar and wail in agony while the glyphring faded just as quickly.
Jane didn't take credit for the attack, but neither were Danny or Taylor. It couldn't have been someone from the outside, since the doom shield would simply block their magical entry. While Blaze Storm continued to make the field less comfortable for Jane's team, she tuned into a weak signal from her ear comm.
"I don't think the bastard liked that very much!" "Give em hell Jane! Don't let that thing get the best of you! Show us what you can do, just like in Eldora Tower."
Jane recognized both of the voices, Cleo and Brock talking to her over the communication devices. This dome shield was not the same type as the red dome, thus radio signals were not totally being blocked out. But how in the world did Brock and Cleo get their attack to enter the impenetrable dome?
Jane gasped at the most simplistic answer she never thought of until now. They simply teleported their magic into the field. Using teleportation and multidimensional warping techniques, they were able to manipulate that Flameburg spell to teleport mid-attack into the dome using more than one glyphring! Jane had no idea the shield had this many flaws. That means she could teleport her entire team out of here too... But if they did escape, Gaia would simply attack the other teams in the same way. This creature doesn't seem to be as linked to the dark aura in Alpha Zero as the others. Shutting the vile field down wouldn't solve the problem therefore.
With determination returned to her eyes, Jane drew out her daggers, ignoring the one hundred fifty degree heat in the area to convey a plan of action to her friends, who seemed more distraught by the heat than she was. "Both of you get up! If we die here, it's over!" Danny and Taylor tried to force themselves through the rapid dehydration and do as Jane wanted, but it wasn't working in their favor, the heat overwhelming all of them. "This thing is all that stands in the way of our life. Gaia has to die! Let's show it what JDT is made of!" Jane expended little of her magic upon Danny and Taylor at the same time, giving them auras around their bodies that charged some of their energy for them while decreasing their body temperature momentarily. The trick seemed to work, but Jane was going to proceed with her attack first.
"All together now! Mako Speed!" Jane shot a short-lived blue beam from the edge of her right dagger while aiming at the ground, launching her body high into the air, only the first part of her attack.
"Crimson Blade!" Danny infused a fiery aura of magic around his sword, preparing to go through with a good spell he stuck with since obtaining the sword, a spell he designed all by himself.
"Meteor Strike." Taylor didn't holler or yell the name of her spell, since it was one of her first few times invoking the powerful area attack. As her magical aura activated, much time passed during the rest of the charging and invocation since she wasn't all that familiar with the area attack in the first place. Naturally, Jane and Danny's attack hit Gaia first.
"Summon Hell!" Danny swung his sword twice this time, sending six small powerful crimson colored photons towards the stationary dragon. Just as the crimson photons were hitting the beast, so were Jane's elemental attack spells.
"Prism!" Much like she tried in the championship battles, Jane used her Prism spell while elevated high in the air from her Mako Speed trick. From the end of her colorful glyphring, Jane launched four Fire Bolts, four Ice Bolts, three Thunderbolts, and four Spirit Bolts in a rapid-fire sequence with the combination of her spell, drilling into the phantom skin of the dragon and causing a fair amount of health loss in the creature. Her attacks hit in sync with Danny's Summon Hell photons, which assisted the total attack power.
Taylor activated her Meteor Strike spell two seconds after Danny and Jane were done with their spells, causing glowing red meteorites to rain down from above, smashing into the dragon all over its back, head, and other areas due to the total area of effectiveness. Gaia reacted with another roar of pain, including a stomp in the ground with its foreleg. By the time Taylor finished using her spell, she felt more exhausted than ever before.
Despite the health loss and pain Gaia must have suffered, the monstrous dragon prepared yet another attack spell without breaking a sweat. Mimic! Jane prepared herself while charging MP energy for the unknown. As the magic from Gaia activated, an additional wave of red meteorites began raining down from above, only now were they targeting her entire team, the dragon simply mimicking Taylor's Meteor Strike spell. Jane had a means to dodge the attack, but she had to rely on her faith that Danny and Taylor were keen enough to have their own method as well.
"Dark Strike!" Jane invoked her spell long before the meteors came slamming into the earth where she stood. Her aura combined with her body, transforming her into a solid beam of light as she traveled at uncapped speed through dimensional barriers with her daggers out, slashing at Gaia with every pass in and out she made over and over. On the fourth strike, Jane dug both of her blades into Gaia's massive scaly nose, but instead, the metal and her body slipped through the astral body of the monster, failing to affect the creature at all due to her last strike containing no magical properties. The first few strikes did however contain magical slashing damage, and therefore caused some damage to Gaia. After the Meteor Strike ended, Jane used a small amount of her magic to kick off and land on the ground with a Push Wave to lighten her descent back to the ground following her failure to damage the monster in her last hit. While Jane got her distance from Gaia, she counted the health on everyone, noticing that Danny and Taylor were sunk to the ground, hit from the enemy Meteor Strike.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
"Gyrobreak!" Jane didn't even bother waiting for her chance to read the next actions from the enemy. She needed to gain the upper hand here and now. By disrupting the magnetic pattern in the area inside of the doom shield, Jane made the earth quake violently, which seemed to confuse her foe thus far.
Danny immediately took advantage of the situation despite how weak and tired he felt, but with Blaze Storm fading away already, the rush of cooler air on his body helped him to ignore his previous damages. "Ozcom's Razor!" Creating a massive oversized magical sword above the monster's neck Danny thought he could decapitate the creature, his aim perfect despite his feet barely able to plant in the ground from Gyrobreak, but as Danny unleashed his spell that sliced into the monster, Gaia barely took any damage or pain effect from the spell at all.
How is this thing so powerful? Jane couldn't figure out a method to actually win the battle. Gaia was just too powerful for them right now. Redemption! The action display center lit up with a most distasteful spell cast Jane surely recognized. Knowing the full extent of the power of Redemption, Jane knew how deadly this one move would be to all of them. "Dodge that!"
The dragon released not one wave, but three waves of Redemption, though most of them were aimed at Jane Venn. The spiral effect from the vertical beams of light seemed confusing, but Taylor and Danny both took evasive action. Taylor danced around like a crazy person, sliding in the dirt and jumping out of the way of oncoming beams of light, evading each one too close to her beautifully. She watched too as Danny had similar intentions in mind, but a winding beam from the left managed to slide right into his body, dragging him straight to the ground from the intense level of damage it had already cause him. Though that last beam left Danny and Taylor in the clear, Jane wouldn't be able to help either one of them right now with her need to dodge them as well.
With every intention to evade them, Jane was hit by two Redemption beams consecutively, the first leaving her too stunned to dodge the next in less than a second of time, while her HP and life force energy dropped immediately and dramatically. All of her previous wounds from before hurt more than ever, but she still felt much weaker than she did any pain from the Redemption attack, since it has a lower pain level of magical damage.
Gyrobreak already ended before the Redemption attack began, giving Taylor the balance she needed, but Danny was in trouble, his previous injuries getting worse due to the lower endurance rating from the last attack. "Crimson Flare!" Taylor shot her magical attack forward at Gaia only to buy herself some more time while she approached Danny with her supply sphere open. Using the healing orbs isn't against any rules in this setting, and Danny needed it most.
"Kill Wave!" Though she was already weakened by the last attack, Jane helped Taylor out in her attempt to bring Danny back up to speed. She would need both of them right now to defeat this nasty creature before it kills all three of them. Her spell created six blue energy spheres from multiple directions surrounding Gaia, impacting the dragon from multiple locations and dealing damage with the Crimson Flare Taylor used before.
After giving Danny the glowing healing orb, his stats did improve, but only slightly compared to what they should have been. Though the effect wasn't dramatic for his stats, they were dramatic to his physical recovery and stamina boost. Danny was back on his feet with his sword gripped tightly, as he thanked Taylor for looking out for him this time.
"I'm not letting it end like this." Jane conjured up more magic than what she was used to, preparing to unleash her secret weapon. She wasn't sure how effective this strategy would be, but at least it would give her a moment to breath and recover. "Massife!" Jane focused her energy, creating a large yellow glyphring in the sky, and from the summoning glyphring came the flying dragon attached to the summon. Despite the size of Jane's summoned dragon only being about one fifth the size of Gaia, her Massife dragon could fly, giving it a wild advantage as well as being capable of keeping the enemy off of her teammates while dealing damage at the same time.
With a roar as loud as Gaia's battle cry, the Flare Drake took flight as the yellow glyphring faded behind the Leray-based creature, loyal only to Jane Venn. Jane practiced this spell a hundred times in secret, inspired by Cass to at least have one summon ready and available to pull out. Though Flare Drake is somewhat of a weaker form of summons, it was still capable of dealing heavy damage, even to Gaia.
"Yes!" Taylor cheered. The Flare Drake. Finally, Jane is using her head! "This is good. We may have a winning chance now."
Danny took his time in recovery, formulating ideas and strategies, but the flying smaller dragon above was a bit distracting. Jane was totally in command of the creature too in real time, giving him a renewed sense of how far Jane has come as a Leray master.
Jane's green eyes changed in color to a bright autumn yellow while glowing with the intensified synchronization of control level magic. Jane could almost feel the Flare Drake as if she were the beast, and immediately gave it the attack order to shrink Gaia down to size. "Use Fire Beam! Then Thunder Beam!"
The dragon reacted immediately, flying around for a quick attack run. Without needing any glyphrings, the creature only had to open its mouth like Gaia to store and blast energy from the base of its throat. The creature fired a high intensity beam of fire elemental energy straight into Gaia's phasic body, still managing to deal damage to the enemy. The drake followed its spell up with another beam of energy, this time containing electrical elemental magic that affected Gaia's entire body while dealing a slightly higher level of damage overall. By the time its attack run had ended, Jane's summon changed course in the air, while Gaia targeted the creature with an attack of its own.
Prism Shot! Gaia created a multi-colored glyphring in front of its face, using that glyphring to fire multiple spiritual bolts towards Jane's summon. Since even Leray-based summons are weak against spirit elemental damage, it proved that Gaia was making a more educated choice of spells.
"Dodge it and give it the shock of his life!" Jane's command got through to her Flare Drake immediately. The creature took evasive aerial maneuvers, despite the ten total Spirit Bolts of magic containing homing properties on the target. The dragon maneuvered in the air while changing course for one final attack run. The dragon charged up its electrical energy in its mouth, zapping Gaia with as much power as Jane commanded it to, running her summon low on MP energy.
With Gaia's entire astral body sparking up with electrical bolts here and there as a full indication that electrical attacks were effective too, Jane felt victory coming soon. Her summon was doing a great job drawing away the attention of Gaia. But why weren't Danny and Taylor doing anything about it?
Gaia opened its mouth so suddenly, breathing a blue magical burst of fire aimed right at the Flare Drake. Jane was in sync with her summon, so it was up to her to see that blast coming and dodge the attack for her companion. But she failed, the drake being engulfed in the fiery energy of pure magic from Gaia. The summon Jane brought out burst into hundreds of photons of bright light, defeated in one single hit. Her eyes ceased glowing and returned to their ordinary green, while Jane lay in shock of how fast that was to bare.
Danny couldn't believe how quickly things turned upside down for Jane, but he didn't stand there in awe long enough to let Gaia target him or Jane again. "Firesurge!" Invoking a fiery Shadow Wave infused with earth and fire elemental magic, Danny's advancing wave took some time to go that far towards Gaia's feet, as he soon realized the damage level may not even be significant. But Jane seemed to have her own tricks up her sleeve.
Refusing to take the time to mourn the loss of her summon so soon, Jane drew her daggers and gave Gaia no mercy in her next attack pattern. "Dark Strike!" Following the completion of her energy charge, Jane felt and watched her MP levels drop down to twelve percent, giving her a lower rating and one final attempt to do this right. Jane entered the same dimensional warp as she did previously, sending herself at light speed towards the evil dragon with her daggers glowing red with pulsating Leray energy. With one strike, she teleported and performed the same action using some of her already charged up MP energy, all the way to her final strike, which she soon canceled due to her lower MP levels this time.
Nature's Wrath! Gaia wasn't backing down for a moment, summoning three different tornado attacks infused with a fiery aura of supreme heat magic. Each tornado targeted someone, with Jane the first to be hit soon unless she could take evasive action. After glancing at her low energy and health stats, she knew there were not many options left. Danny and Taylor took evasive action against the tornados of fire, but Jane activated her Energy Cycle aura and stood perfectly still.
After infusing herself with a purple aura of magic, Jane deliberately took on the fiery tornado attack from Gaia, burning her skin with a high level of pain and intensity. Her health declined by a moderate amount, but her energy levels charged in response to the damage.
"Splice!" Jane slashed her daggers charged with energy through the air, creating an X-shaped wave of magical lines of piercing energy that drilled through Gaia causing it to roar out in the pain it was designed to cause, but the activation in her spell alone shut down her own Energy Cycle, giving Jane just what she had left to work with while the Splice attack took its toll.
Danny finally charged up enough energy to unleash his spell, but controlled his magic to focus the radial effect of the area attack. "Mega-Flare!" Danny's burst of a light screen attack only turned into a blinding radial light that affected the large phantom dragon instead of the entire battlefield, causing massive damage to the enemy while draining much of his MP energy.
Taylor was on his side and ready to assist in dropping Gaia's HP down as far as she could. While Danny was using Mega-Flare, she went with a spell of her own, already invoking the magic because she had been charging her energy prior to Danny's spell. "Photon Burst!" As Taylor landed her arm motion downward, the sky lit up with raining photons of Leray energy, bombarding Gaia all over from the great area attack Taylor scored. The damage wasn't as light to the dragon this time, but the beast still seemed to have plenty of energy left to fight.
Jane held her daggers firm, processing what attack she could use next. With little energy left, Redemption was out of the question. Anything with a high-energy rating would be difficult for Jane to maintain, and Energy Cycle would use up her HP should she refuse a passive charge.
Without much warning to Jane, Gaia fired an electrical projectile out of a glyphring that flashed and faded like lightning, stunning and zapping her on the spot without lighting up its action display center. Jane was electrocuted in place for half a second, but the blast brought down her health stats to a critical area. Inflicted with real time damage, Jane sunk down to her knees in defeat, too weak to get a hold of herself. It took too much to focus in this heat with this much damage.
Danny could see the damage rating on Jane, refusing to believe that she of all people would be left the most vulnerable. He called Taylor to help her by distracting Gaia with simplistic magic, but it took some time to get a reaction from anyone.
Jane's heart rate and breathing increased dramatically, her pain surging throughout all of her veins like nothing she had ever felt before. Jane was slightly screaming in and out with the way it flooded her body, and it wasn't much longer until a bright light surged from the top of her right hand. Shinning right through the battle suit and her fingerless gloves, the Mark 64 symbol blasted its way into a holographic view. Though it felt painful, Jane could sense everything soon to stand out, her energy quickly regenerating by the sudden activation of her symbol. But again, she wasn't in control of its activation; it happened automatically, likely triggered by her critical condition from all of the damages. In just four seconds, Jane felt stronger than ever, and blocked the pain out as she carefully stood back up with her symbol in constant radiance.
"Jane's symbol!" Taylor called it out for Danny, knowing he could clearly see the brightness and design from here. It was the same symbol as always, a circular disk much like a glyphring, but with a smaller oval shape inside of the circle and lines that wrapped around to make the pattern appear as a planetoid with rings. Past the bright intensity of the light, it even had the same pink coloration to it as before, but there were a few extra markings right at the edge of the outer layer. It wasn't the same exact design after all, unless this was a detail she missed last time. Being twenty meters away from Jane, Taylor could make it out with fine detail.
Atomic Barrage! Jane's vision was suddenly restored from the slim blurry sensation she had been experiencing a minute ago along with the rapid dehydration from the hot air around her, but her body felt like it was enshrined in cold water. She became fully aware that her symbol just activated, and did it ever feel so amazing! Gaia was activating a spell right now, but with the energy stats restored on her energy scope, Jane patiently waited for the right moment to counter the enemy's skill.
As Gaia's spell activated, the sky suddenly lit up with massive comets the size of houses all coming down from above, ready to phase right through the doom shield Gaia created around the battlefield. Jane could see the detail of each comet carefully, with their blue burning tails and glittering dust floating around all seven of the falling rocks. They even changed the color of the sky from her angle from the dark red to a dark blue, the radiance of each comet as powerful as the magic used to create them.
Jane lifted both of her arms aimed as high as she could aim them, targeting an imaginary field she dedicated to all seven of the comets, and charged her energy into each hand. "Inversion!" Though it took two extra seconds, Jane managed to take full control of the entire speed and direction of all falling comets coming down, stopping them to zero speed right as they began to phase through the doom shield.
Danny was again amazed by the incredible power inside of Jane's symbol, while this particular spell belonged to Jane alone. Despite the size and weight of all those comets, she redirected its entire flow of magic, each rock suddenly moving sideways in the direction of the phantom dragon. Danny charged some of his own energy to hit Gaia with more than just that, but waited to watch the show before releasing it.
Jane continued to expend her MP as she sent the comets crashing downwards and sideways to Gaia's direction, causing all seven comets to impact all over the back of the beast, causing major damage to the phantom creature on the spot. By the time it was over, she felt winded and bewildered from that single spell, as it seemed to drain much of her MP controlling such a high powered skill.
"Laser Rain!" Danny's invocation of Laser Rain was nearly instantaneous on having his energy prepared ahead of time, and he fired lasers from the sky landing on top of the enemy creature, but the damage to him was still insignificant! Even Jane's trick brought Gaia only minor injury.
"That thing has to be wearing down!" Taylor drew out her bow, preparing to give Gaia a regular dose of attacks to continue wearing the creature out. But another skill appeared on the enemy ADC which Taylor had to prepare for. Earth Plume! Before she could figure it out, Gaia lifted one of its forelegs and stomped it into the ground with incredible force, shaking the entire ground where Danny and Taylor were standing. Somehow, the force of the impact had little effect in the area where Jane was standing. Instead of creating a mild earthquake, the invisible wave of magic shot the earth up like an advanced version of Earth Glave, smacking Taylor in the jaw, and Danny in the gut as they were helplessly airlifted only to crash again to the ground.
Jane watched in horror as her friends were hit with such a rough attack so violently. Their health stats began to tank while they both lie helplessly on the ground, barely able to get up and move. "No!" Jane cried out in desperation that the hit wasn't as bad as it looked. Taylor was making an attempt to get up and recover herself, but there was blood all over her face.
The thought of losing both of them, to this ignorant creature; Jane felt her nerves tighten in her rage. They weren't dead yet, but this Gaia thing was surely crossing a line now. There had to be more Jane could do to stop this thing, and she immediately gave it her all. "Voltage!" Aiming her dark magic at the monster, Jane activated two red glyphrings flying high above Gaia's position. Their activation began to electrocute the phasic monster with red lightning infused with dark magic, the kind Jane was opposed to using, and it seemed to be a bit more effective than ordinary Leray magic in this scenario. It was still far from enough.
A glowing arrow disguised as a speeding bullet of light shot from the ground into the monster, with Taylor's bow standing in her arms as evidence. She got herself up and used a Spirit Arrow on the creature, chipping away its health a step further. It seemed Taylor was still not backing down either, and with Danny now standing up as well, Jane knew she had one more chance.
With her symbol still glowing active, Jane quickly teleported a short distance to Danny and Taylor using Leray magic, and conversed with both of them. "Both of you grab my hands." Jane commanded each of them to take one of her hands. They both seemed confused, but complied swiftly with Gaia preparing to make another attempt of an attack. As soon as Jane could feel the grip of her friends and her energy ready to use, she unleashed all of her saved power into the field. "Zero Zone!"
In just one more second, everything turned a bit darker, black in white in color. The landscape became bleaker, but also cooler and silent of sound. Jane could only hear the noise made by herself and her friends. When everything became certain, her suspicion was confirmed. Zero Zone had special properties that can benefit those touched by the user at the same time. Both Danny and Taylor were left unfrozen in time. By being in physical contact with someone during the very invocation of Zero Zone, those touched are immune to its time distortion just as the user of the spell is.
Keen to the immediate situation, Taylor was amazed in seconds. "Wow! This is what freezing time is like!" Gaia was frozen solid, but everything including herself was black and white with no color, as well as having less light than previously available. Even the energy scopes were frozen in time. Taylor knew that in this state, she and Danny could deal a lot of damage to this summon of hell.
"Focus!" Jane reminded. "I'll attack it. Just be ready to give me a boost." Jane sensed Taylor would not let her down. Danny would likely attack with what magic he had left normally to add to the damage she planned to tax onto the monster. After turning to face the creature and rushing towards her enemy on foot, Jane unleashed all of her powers while the symbol and time freeze were both active. "Shadow Force!" Jane unleashed three separate Shadow Waves from different angles all at the same time proceeding towards Gaia, and another dark glyphring in front of her as well. Jane fired four dark colored photons of energy at the monster. Despite their impact to the target, Jane would have to wait before noticing any damage. Jane knew it wasn't enough, and invoked a better spell on herself, creating a dark green aura thinly encased around her skin. "Blitz!"
The coloration of magic itself remained even in this zero zone, since the user was free to use all the time and magic during the event. Taylor used her spell on Jane this time, giving her own ally an interesting boost as part of an experimental process she believed would work. "Molecular Boost!" Taylor's invocation lit up Jane's aura brightly, as it seemed to actually affect support auras as well as other spells mid-invocation. But would this really work to boost the power level of her own stored energy?
"Star of Darkness!" Danny decided to give it all he had too, despite how weak he felt. At least with this time freeze, everything felt colder, and his recent wounds hurt slightly less, but he was already bleeding a small amount from multiple locations, the real time damage piling up against him. His spell created a red Star of Darkness all around the creature, serving to drain its energy while Jane went to town with her Blitz spell.
"Ragh!" Pulling out two machine guns much like her first attempt at a Bullet Blitz spell that failed before, Jane's bullets aided by Taylor's Molecular Boost in the support aura created a yellow magical coat around each and every round Jane fired from the barrel. After emptying both clips, Jane transitioned to the next attack, while Taylor continued her constant invocation of Molecular Boost.
"Prone Strike!" Jane unleashed a normal looking Shadow Wave advancing forward, but remembered the special properties in the spell. As soon as the earth bound wave was close to the belly of Gaia, the wave jumped up and exploded into a dark pulsation of high-level energy, dealing major damage while Jane transitioned into the next spell, draining the energy stored in the Blitz aura. "Prism!" The glyphring she created was glowing brighter than usual thanks to Taylor's assistance, and Gaia's health was going to go down further with Danny's assistance on his Star of Darkness approach. Jane launched four bolts of all elements, fire, ice, electrical, and spiritual bolts of Leray energy, amplified in power by the Molecular Boost, and invocated so quickly due to Jane's Blitz aura, which sped up every one of her invocations of spells since.
Once the final bolt smashed into the skin of the phantom dragon, the coloration of the world around them returned to normal, as well as the heat and movement of the area. Zero Zone was coming to a quick end, but Jane still had enough time for one more attack, even if Taylor was done with her support spell. "Dark Beam!" Jane fired a beam of dark energy, depleting most of her remaining MP while drilling the red narrow light of dark magic into the scales of the monster, piercing through the guts of the wild animal despite being hallow.
Jane was amazed with her friends to find the phantom dragon still alive. But a more distracting scene occurred with the flickering of the dome shield around them. The shield was failing, collapsing and allowing them all to escape. It was a generous offer, considering how Jane's MP reserves were sent to. But the reason for it was something different from what Jane hoped for.
Telebarrage! Gaia launched four massive photons the size of large comets from the base of its head, but the trajectory was a long way away from Jane or her friends. Instead, it was going high in the air and far out of the battlefield. By the time the trajectory proved to have them land on the ground somewhere soon, Jane panicked with the realization, handling her communication device. "Everyone scatter! Aerial barrage incoming!"
Despite having little time, Jane had to warn everyone fighting in the area to be mindful of those photons in the sky. The target was units other than Jane's own team. What is Gaia doing?!
"Scatter! Everyone watch out for those barrages!"
The radio transmission worked when the shield was up, but only half as effectively. Gaia needed the doom shield to go away before it could try something like that. Jane wanted to retaliate immediately, but it seemed that she wasn't the only one with critical MP. Danny and Taylor were to her side, barely capable of standing straight due to their reduced overall stamina. With low MP combining with their low HP, they were understandably tired. In this heat, they should have passed out assuming they were ordinary Leray wielders.
Fiery Breath! Jane prepared what energy she had left for multiple Farshields, protecting her friends, but she didn't have the time to pull that energy together. Gaia waved its head around, aiming its mouth towards Danny and Taylor instead of Jane, whom all have spread apart after Jane's Blitz attack ended.
A dark yellow and orange colored fiery stream of death flew towards Danny and Taylor, but it was Taylor who stepped out in front to defend the both of them. She put both hands in front of herself, and blasted the forward area with a wave of freezing wind. "Icy Wind!" The collision of cold air with the stream of fire created a mist around Taylor shortly after the impact, but the impact was quite the same nevertheless. Since fire magic is stronger than ice magic, Taylor ended up sustaining a heavy burn anyway, but her action still reduced the total effect of the attack against Danny.
Taylor's loud scream reacting to the fiery blast of burning energy felt like a piercing sting to Jane's heart. Even if they were alive, they were both suffering because of their decision to stay and defend her. "Hang on you two!" Jane growled with the quick display of yet another imminent attack by Gaia, though now the creature was directly targeting Jane. Luckily, she already stored just enough energy for one more good power shield. Jane prepared to make full use of it.
Orbit Blast! The sky lit up brightly with a raining barrage of photons, colored with an interesting array of light, but this time there were at least a hundred or more of these photons coming down. Despite being an area attack, the predicted impact seemed to target only Jane, and she had already thrown up her power shield around her in preparation for the barrage. The photons soon blasted the earth around her, as well as the shield she used to protect herself. Jane however had immense trouble sustaining the concentration of her shield after more and more hits to the aura. Hexagons formed everywhere in small size, each hit as powerful as the next. It was practically raining photonic energy spheres at a rapid pace. After several more hits, Jane finally lost it.
The shield around her collapsed instantly, and Jane was blasted again with several more photons of energy without any level of protection, without any MP to get herself out of the situation. The blasts hurt about as badly as a Laser Swipe could, but instead of going down screaming, Jane's dizziness caught up to her, and the sensation of going to sleep was beginning to take over.
"Jane!" Taylor heard herself and Danny both call her name out in distress. She wasn't able to see her energy scope until the rain of photons finally stopped, after watching enough of them blast right through her own power shield. Jane was lying on the floor, but still conscious and attempting to at least sit up. She was on her hands and knees, holding her head in agony for some reason. Jane must have hit her head on the way down as well, but now she was in critical condition. One more hit would kill Jane! But without the dome around them, they could escape.
"We have to get ourselves out of here!" Danny had the same idea in mind as Taylor did, and tried to rush for Jane, but his exhaustion played hell with how quick he was able to move. Jogging wasn't even language to his mind as limping was. He had finally stopped bleeding actively, but the damage was still dangerous to him entirely. Before he could travel very far, Gaia glared at him and his girlfriend once again, preparing for another attack, while he had no way to defend against it.
Jane's head felt like it was being crushed with incredible pressure, and the pain from that overshadowed the damages from the other areas, and it only got worse with time. The headache she had kept her to the ground momentarily, but Jane knew her friends were still in mortal danger. I have to get up! Her body disagreed with her motive; the agony in her brain was enough to freeze her nerves completely against her will.
Phantom Blast! Gaia began to glow with a powerful aura, releasing most of its remaining MP energy contained within itself. From the charge, the aura exploded into a dozen of dark pulsars, energy spheres more powerful than the last, yet tiny in size flooded into the air in their direction. Danny desperately tried to think of a plan to defend himself, knowing Taylor would be dry on energy. The pulsars were closing fast as well, giving him just two more seconds to think.
By the time his mind froze up from pressure, Danny saw narrow blue beams of light rapid fire on and off in the area to his front, impacting on the incoming pulsars and destroying them mid-flight. Though he felt his life flash before his eyes, Danny had to discover the source of something that was so quick and precise to shoot down all twelve of those pulsars with just a narrow beam, which would have required the user to take full aim.
To his surprise, Jane Venn was standing, facing the two of them with her hands and eyes glowing with a deep cyan color. Her left leg was cut open, and her body in the front was badly bruised with probable signs of internal bleeding. Yet it was Jane right now shooting down all twelve of the pulsars in progress, using just straight narrow beams of energy from the tips of her open palms. Jane hadn't said a word to either of them, nor did she chant any spell beforehand.
Jane could still feel her incredible headache, but chose to embrace the pain instead of letting it stop her. If she's going to die, Gaia is going down with her. But nobody will be taking Danny or Taylor; Jane would make sure of that! After saving both of her friends, Jane turned to face the monster now fixated on her. Its slight breath was letting out blue magical flames of energy as a sign of strength. Jane's entire body was glowing with a magical aura, though much of it wasn't familiar to her control.
With her MP levels falling down to zero, Jane charged what she had left in her entire body to the aura around her, preparing to unleash all of her energy at the monster. But as an act of assistance, Jane intentionally activated her symbol at the same time, using it only to boost the power of her current spell instead of healing her. "You've made a big mistake attacking my friends. Gaia!" Jane screamed the name of her new arch nemesis to the top of her lungs. She could feel the power building stronger, and felt the similarity in this power with the same moment when she defeated Danton in his chambers. The headache was the same. The surge of compressed energy was the same. The powerful glow of blue in her eyes taking over was the same. The feeling of near death was the same. This hidden power of unknown magic or invocation... "I'll use it to kill you!" Finally unleashing her stored energy, Jane deactivated the symbol on her hand while blasting the entire forward area with the light from her charged aura. It became an entire light screen attack that was only a directional wave of the same color, advancing quickly as it soon swallowed the phantom dragon in front of her, passing through and advancing forward ever still. Jane felt incredibly relieved everywhere upon releasing her energy, and watched as her victorious mission came true. Gaia's HP: it was finally gone.
Just as Jane was done using her powers, the massive creature in front of her exploded violently into a bursting world of tiny glowing particles flowing everywhere. And with that finally taken care of—
Taylor was amazed to see the destruction of that insane monster from Jane's single spell. But about the same time the monster had been defeated, Jane collapsed to the ground face first into the dirt, not even trying to break her fall. Taylor didn't hesitate to run over to Jane with Danny at her side to discover what just happened. According to Jane's energy scope, she was still alive and simply out of MP energy, but she was defiantly unconscious. "Jane! Jane!"
Chapter Theme Shift:
Danny held in his communicator quickly. "This is Danny of the forward assault team. Need healers down here immediately! All healers to B-107!" Danny followed Taylor to get to Jane, whose energy scope was still reporting vital signs, but it was dangerous for Jane to pass out here. With such low HP levels, she was in critical danger. Danny knew himself that he wasn't that great either. His muscles ached and his legs were wobbly, but he kept himself going to see this through.
Taylor's healing orb wasn't working on Jane. She knelt down with one and lit up the device to try and make it work, but Jane's condition didn't changed at all. Jane may have to be conscious to use it. She couldn't be dead! Her health never hit zero percent. But now isn't the time or place to take a long nap. Where the hell is Mainne and Danton?!
