Chapter 395: A deadly dance… interrupted by a dunce
[Dark Reaper!]
[Spinning Comet Cutter!]
CLANG!
BOOM!
As soon as Alice brought down her scythe, wreathed in dark aether as screams of pure terror heralded it’s arrival, Razorstella immediately countered by launching an upward spin kick that glowed with a blue flame akin to a comet.
As soon as the two aether arts made contact with another, the resulting explosion forced the both of them to back off several steps in the air.
“How the fuck are you still this strong despite me having an elemental advantage?!,” Alice Venus shouted in angered confusion. Evidently, miss Venus was so riled up by how shitty this night had gone for her, that she had forgotten one of the core principles of the aether balance diagram: light and dark have no resistances to each other, only advantages.
“Because I also have an elemental advantage?! Also fuck you, that’s why!,” Razorstella retorted while flipping the bird to Alice.
“RAGRH!,” Alice screamed in frustration as she decided to forego using an art and just swinging the scythe in her hands wildly.
‘Huh, I guess that really does work…gods above I hope she doesn’t realize her attacks are actually doing something,’ Razorstella thought to herself as she avoided and blocked the incoming wild swings of the scythe.
After “Fia” had transformed into “Alice”, Razorstella’s battle went from “easy harassment, catch me if you can” to “fuck off, how are you catching up with me, you bitch”.
Part of the reason for this was the drastic change in rhythm from “Fia” to “Alice”.
When Miss Venus was fighting as “Fia” she was acting like a straightforward, bruiser type of fighter.
Brute force, hit first ask later, why break hearts when bones are easier reach, that sort of thing.
Combined with the heavy looking battleaxe she was using alongside the transformation, it was safe to say that the previous form would have been type to plow though a squad of infantrymen and smash open the gate they were guarding with relative ease.
At the point in time however, Razorstella could rely on her innate speed and flexibility in order to attack Fia from weird angles and avoid a majority of the heavy attacks that came her way.
That all got thrown out the window after “Fia” had transformed into “Alice”.
[Shadow Step!]
“That’s not gonna work twice! [Flash Step]!”
Both Razorstella and Alice transformed into streaks of light and darkness respectively as they rushed towards one another, naked to the most mortal eyes. The only signs that the two existed or were locked in combat were the occasional small explosions of energy accompanied by the sound of metal hitting metal.
If one were to sense their movements, the fight would look like something out of a certain anime that was loosely based on “Journey to the West”, before going balls to the wall crazy, like a dragon on drugs.
However, this chain of events wouldn’t last too long.
‘I just need an opening…there!’
[Black Burst!]
FWOOM!
“FUCK!”
During the exchange of blows, Razorstella saw an opportunity to try and stab Alice with one of her legs right through the abdomen. Unfortunately for her, Alice had been waiting for such an opportunity and used an aether art that caused a shockwave of energy to immediately block and knock away Razorstella’s attempt. As the latter was sent flying away, the former actually sped right pass Razorstella and proceeded to grab the doll kaijin by the throat, spinning to stop her momentum and moving them both in such a position that she could “stand” and stare into Razorstella’s eyes.
“Fucking bitch!,” Razorstella cursed, “let me go!”
“Finally!,” Alice shouted with glee and a manic smile on her face, the grip of the fingers tightening on Razorstella’s neck bit by bit. It was a good thing the doll kaijin couldn’t breathe anyways, but still…ouch.
“You know, I was going to just kill you and sell your body to some corpse pervert, but now I can’t help but wonder if I should just steal your ‘face’ instead. I bet it would be a great mask to the collection.”
“What the fuck?”
As if to answer her question, Alice’s scythe began to burn with a definitely unnatural fire, one that somehow made Razorstella fearful on an instinctual level.
“Oh that’s creepy.”
“And now little doll, stay still, this will only hurt a-”
“aaaasaaaaahhhhhhhhh…”
“What’s that sound?”
Just as Alice was about to something unknown and unspeakable to Razorstella, the sound of screaming punctuated the night air and stole her attention.
“AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH”
“Who the fuck is scream-“POW! “-AH,BITCH!”
“DIRECTOR?!”
As soon as Alice turned her head to see who or what was screaming toward her direction, she got knocked in the face by none other than Zhen Liu.
Well…not so much as knocked, more like… accidentally headbutted as he was part of an unwilling projectile composed of the four leaders of the Blue Shadows. On the plus side, he had freed Razorstella from Venus’s grasp.
As to how he got here?
Well…
________________________________________________
*Bing-Bong*
The following two scenes technically happen at the same time, but the consequences are sequential.
*Bing-Bong*
________________________________________________
“The challenge is quite simple really, all you have to do is try and knocked me out of this space,” Archanidame explained.
“What space?”
Snap!
Schink!
“This one.”
With a snap of her fingers, Archanidame instantly carved into the ground a spider-web like grid space with herself in the center. Once it was fully made, she entered into a fighting stance with both hands forward along side her right leg.
“Feel free to use whatever attack you have,” Archanidame challenged, “but before you get cute and try to break the space, know that I will consider that as cheating and eat your throats out.”
Balos looked a tad confused at the statement, honestly not thinking about that plan of attack, while Fili let out an audible click of his tongue since he was clearly thinking that.
“Now then, are you two going to keep me waiting or-”
[Shadow Slash!]
[Dark Javelin!]
Balos and Fili immediately fired off two long ranged attacks made of dark aether, the former releasing a crescent shaped chunk of energy, while the latter released long projectile that gave off the feeling it could pierce through anything.
Unfortunately, both attacks were immediately reflected right back to their users after Archanidame did a series of forms that involved her stepping around the space she had created.
It was maddening in the sense that it made both Fili and Balos assume she was panicking and was trying to get out of the space she made, but when the reality hit that she was just countering…the looks on their faces weren’t good.
“If you’re going to keep throwing shit, just know that I will knock it back at you,” Archanidame taunted, “but feel free to tire yourselves out.”
Fili and Balos looked at each other for a moment, before nodding in agreement.
The two of them decided that if they couldn’t just use long ranged attacks, they’d get up close and personal.
[Shadow Step!]
The two Aether Grandmasters charged at the spider kaijin at blinding speed, hoping to take her by the element of surprise, and it appeared to work!
The two of them were right up in her face and in striking distance with their respective weapons.
Unfortunately, moments before they could strike out, they felt the familiar tug of spider webs on their limbs.
“Apologies gentlemen,” Archanidame smiled, “but you should have known the game was rigged from the start.”
“You-!”
“And throw!”
Before the two of them could complain, Archanidame immediately stitched the two Grandmasters together and threw them over herself in one fluid motion, directly towards a space right in front of Lacerage.
“The show is all yours.”
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[Damn, and here I thought she was going to slice them with her threads,] Hurricroak grumbled.
[Nah, didn’t you notice how she also pulverized the rubble around herself?,] Nepherage asked, [Archanidame clearly hates messes and she sure as shit won’t let blood spill on herself.]
[Huh…]
[Near…freak…]
________________________________________________
Lacerage slammed her hands together, causing a booming sound to echo out. Seconds later, a small whirlwind began to rev up between her hands and forced the two palms apart. As it kept spinning, forceful winds began to blow outward and push against her opponents.
Ogrim and Dane didn’t know what this aether art was exactly, but they knew it wasn’t going to be anything good.
“We gotta stop her, now!”
“But I don’t got the energy for a ranged attack!”
“Then we go into melee!”
“Fine!”
Ogrim pulled out a pair of twisted gauntlets from his storage space and proceeded to knock them together, at the same time as Dane readied his morningstar.
[Shadow step!]
The two of them proceeded to rush forward, attempting to attack and interrupt the art much the same way she had interrupt theirs moments earlier.
Hower, just as they were about to get into striking distance…
THUMP!
The two of them were knocked into by a pair of familiar bodies wrapped up in spiderwebs.
“GAH! What the fuck?!”
“Balos?! Fili?! How the hell did you-!”
“Done now. [Tornado Cannon!]
“Ah fuck.”
FWOOSH!
A powerful whirlwind shot forward and slammed into the four leaders of the Blue Shadows all at once.
“Uh oh.”
“Look out!”
SLAM!
“What the fuck?!”
“Milord?!”
And one very unfortunate Zhen Liu.
