Stage (Conti.)

I extended a hand and my swords swiftly floating in front of it, spiraling together quickly into something new—a twisted, bladed chain leading up to a merged point. The chain floated casually in the air around my arm, looping around it many times over in a way that reminded me of Autumn. Who, thinking about it, I was glad wasn't here for this fight, given how everything was presently on fire.

I shook the thought away and focused my attention fully on Pyrrha as she ducked, rolled, bobbed, and weaved, doing her utmost to stay ahead of my pursuing Elementals. Credit where it was do, Pyrrha was amazing; I had all the advantages in this fight, with dozens of different powers and the ability to make more on the fly, Elementals to outnumber her with and assail her, healing, a huge amount of MP, battlefield control, and much more, but she fought on with nothing but her weapons and some subtle uses of Magnetism. Granted, I was holding a few things back because this was just a sparring match, but to stay this composed and fight on in the middle of a burning arena…

Because of that, even if I was wasting MP quickly, I didn't mind—I was just happy to be having this fight. I was glad I'd decided to follow Kyanos, because it had led to this. Whether I won or lost didn't matter, so long as I could see things through, I'd be satisfied.

So I stepped things up a notch. Pyrrha ran, slid, and rolled to avoid the horizontal pillars of fire, kept in constant motion to stay ahead of the pursuing sphere, skated around Suryasta's semi-materialized form, and still had both the time and thought to spare me a few potshots, so I knew she could take it. Casting my hand forward, I swept my arm counter to Suryasta's beams, cutting through them and his false form both. The burning figure he'd created didn't so much as pause as it was cut through, continuing its stomping approach towards Pyrrha, four beams arranged so that at least one was always harassing the warrior while keeping me out of the line of…well, fire. My Vorpal Lash extended almost fully across the arena in an instant, cutting across it almost as quickly when it kept pace with the swinging of my arm.

I saw Pyrrha's eyes widen in the brief instant of warning she had before she leapt into the air, curving in a way that couldn't have been possible without her control of magnetism to rise fully over the lash and immediately back to the ground. She barely missed a step, all told, but even that little pause was enough to give one of Suryasta's beams time to close in. She had to raise her shield against one, but the Fire Elemental immediately turned all four hands upon her, combining them into a massive, luminous column. For all the advantages Pyrrha's metal equipment gave her, I couldn't imagine it made that pleasant, especially when I sought to help matters with a hammering blow from above while she was pinned.

Nonetheless, Pyrrha handled such difficulties with grace, tossing her spear straight through Suryasta to strike me into a wall, rolling aside as she did to avoid my Vorpal Lash. She crouched as she evaded, using the nearly circular nature of her shield to her advantage to defend herself as she rolled, which proved necessary as Suryasta immediately refocused upon her. She was charging almost before she rose, nothing but her no doubt scalding shield between her and an oncoming tide of flames, and yet pushed through to beam towards Suryasta. When she stood face to face with his chosen form, she rolled again instead of charging through it as I nearly expected. Using proximity to her advantage, she stayed just ahead of Suryasta's hands and the blasts he extended from them. When I moved to make things even more interesting for her, she threw her shield at me as well and I was momentarily distracted by it slamming my head into a wall.

When I recovered a moment later, I saw my Elementals pressing their advantage against the now unarmed girl. Suryasta halted his beams and instead lifted thick walls of fire, leading up to Levant's now falling sphere, trying to trap her inside, dissolving into them as he did so. When Pyrrha came too close, parts of his crafted form would erupt and try to assail her, attempting to push her deeper into the cage, but with the only alternative being the descending sphere—

Pyrrha reached the same conclusion I did and charged through the wall, Suryasta and all. Perhaps even more impressively, she kept enough of her wits about her to charge in my direction, rushing straight towards me to try and end things. I didn't bother trying to keep her weapons away from her and she'd rather proven how well I did against her in close quarters when she brought her magnetism into play, but…

I was a game character, so this should work; it was part of my inspiration for the idea, after all. As Pyrrha drew near, I extended my Vorpal Lash—not at her, but at an angle away from her. It struck out across the arena, burying itself in the wall.

And then I reeled myself in, all but flying across the arena as I pulled myself towards the hook, instead of the other way around. I laughed, partially in wonder, partially in simple glee that it had worked. Well, of course there were things like this in all sorts of games, so there was no reason for it not to work, but…this wasn't Levant and it wasn't quite flying, but it was me doing this. I pulled myself out of Pyrrha's path before she could attempt to catch me in a series of blows, landing easily by a wall nearly a third of the arena's circumference away.

But I didn't stop there and neither did my Elementals. This time, Levant's sphere didn't follow Pyrrha, but fell upon the suddenly stationary Suryasta, expanding into a larger dome as its volume shifted. For a moment, there was nothing but a smooth looking hemisphere in the center of the ring, but I would have been shocked if Pyrrha was surprised when it didn't stay that way. The top suddenly shifted, like something was moving beneath the surface and then Suryasta rose from the flames anew.

His form had shifted again, becoming something at once closer to and further from human. Most of his inhuman features, such as the horns above his head, had faded away—along with his entire face, leaving nothing but a blank surface a bit too long to be a person's anyway. He was larger now, too; though only his upper body emerged from the hemisphere, he must have been a good four meters in height now, and his arms were much too large for his body and far too long. Though they were roughly human in shape, if he'd had a proportionally sized lower body, they still would have been able to touch the ground, at a guess. I was mildly surprised he'd abandoned a pair of them, though; had he had trouble coordinating four? And where was…?

Ah, I thought as the hemisphere stirred again, another massive shape rising from it. Back to back with Suryasta, the new form might have been a bit more feminine, but I might have been projecting Levant onto the image. Roughly the same base design as Suryasta, its form seemed more fluid—though they must have been coordinating on the maneuver, Suryasta's favored the flames a bit more while Levant favored the air, and it showed through though both seemed like burning storms in the rough shape of giants.

Really, those two. They were certainly spending my MP freely, though I'd kind of given them permission to do so. Still, I'd spent most of my MP already and something like four-fifth of it had been on them. Well, I suppose it was fine if they were having fun, though.

Pyrrha moved to follow me, but Suryasta lifted a gigantic hand and the flames around her exploded. She managed to dodge at the last second—probably used to the fact that anything my Elementals did meant trouble for her—but some of the blast still caught her, throwing her aside. Levant mimicked him, even facing away from Pyrrha, and little tornados of wind no more than a cubic meter in size began to form.

A lot of them.

Needless to say, they all made a beeline for Pyrrha, even as Suryasta and Levant tried to swat her with their massive hands.

The three-time champion tried to ignore both the attacks and the twin giants who made them—which must have been pretty damn hard, considering—and continue on her path towards me. I respected that; even with everything going on around her, she'd picked me out as the source of the threat and remained focused on dealing with me no matter what distractions arose. I thought that was kind of amazing.

Which is not to say I was having any of it.

I leapt as hard as I could and struck out above me with my Lash. Focusing slightly, I summoned another for my free hand, a pair of blades appearing with the casting and swimming together into a single shape. Sending my second weapon in the same direction as the first, I pulled myself higher and higher and then flipped over. Pulling against it with my arms and pushing with my feet, I 'stood' on the dome of the Coliseum and looked down at the sight below.

Now far beneath me, Pyrrha took a deep breath, nodded her head, and kept moving, shifting her focus to trying to stay ahead of both the seeker tornados and the explosions Suryasta would build beneath her while probably also attempting to come up with a plan. Even in a situation like this where she couldn't harm her main attackers and the entire arena was against her, she refused to surrender, kept looking for a way to win.

And maybe she'd find it, yet. Even moment in the flames, every defense and attack, everything she did below slowly ate away at her Aura—but every second of keeping this going did the same for my MP, draining it perhaps even faster. I had so much of it, we were still close, but…

I pushed harder. The chains that kept me latched onto the ceiling loosened just enough for me to raise my hands above—below?—me. I called power to my hands and rained attacks down on Pyrrha; more distractions, more things to deal with. I fired Cannonballs at her first, blasts of stone shattering force to add to her troubles, adding Fireballs and Magic Bullets shortly after. She raised her shield above her head like an umbrella, hiding her face from me as bore the assault. I called upon my Mana Rope next, casting it down to try and bind her limbs, succeeding for a moment before she tore through it with sheer strength. The moment's pause gave my Elementals a chance to draw nearer, though, and so I cast it again and again.

A skill has been created through a special action! A skill to tie the enemy up with rope, 'Bind,' has been created through continuous application of Mana Rope!

Switching instantly to the new technique, restrictive energy raced from my hands. I was curious as to how I might combine the skill with my Elements or with Vorpal Lash, but first—

The ropes pulled tight around Pyrrha, snaking around her arms, her legs, even around her throat and mouth, pulling tight in an instant. The Champion stumbled, but was on guard from my previous attempts and whether with skill or magnetism, managed to trap her blade between flesh and rope, and she used her power to cut the edge swiftly. Even something like that only bought a second against her.

But a second could be enough; a bunch of seconds, even more so. In that brief pause, wind and fire had drawn nearer and I could just hit her with it again and again until they caught her and ended it. Eventually, she wouldn't escape quickly enough, would take a hit or series of hits, and it'd be over. I knew that instantly from that one brief pause—and I knew that she knew as well.

The only question was how she'd deal with it—and it was a question.

Can you do it? I wondered. Can you push this even further? Or is it my win, Pyrrha?

I saw her look up at me for a second.

I saw her make her decision.

She changed directions suddenly, hurling herself towards a yet burning wall, surmounting it quickly and leaping from the top. In midair, she aimed her spear up towards me and I thought for a minute that she'd throw it again.

Instead, she did something much more impressive. As she planted a foot at the base of the spear, fire spurted from the end and she rose like a rocket, magnetism lightening her load. She flew towards me, surfing her spear high into the air, and if thoughts of giving up had ever crossed her mind, I couldn't tell.

I smiled, then—and laughed in joy, amazement, even a little astonishment. My Lashes released their hold on the ceiling and I began to fall, but it could have been in slow motion compared to her rise. I reached out and the Lash around one arm struck out at the arena wall far below, swiftly reeling me towards it.

It wouldn't be enough, I knew before I even saw her response—and sure enough, it wasn't. As I fell past her, Pyrrha pulled down, the spear arching high as it curved to follow me back down to earth. I'd known I couldn't escape her like this.

Or at least, not just like this. With the first shot having moved me enough to the side to escape her original trajectory, I pulled it back even as my other arm Lashed out. The second chain sank deeply into the burning sphere below and began pulling me into the inferno.

I looked above me at the woman on my tail and our eyes met.

She knew I wasn't bluffing.

I knew she wasn't running.

And in that moment, as we fell towards the flames, I was pretty sure I was smiling just as widely as she was. This was it. This would decide it. We—

"—That's enough."

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