Chapter 7-Stubborn Warriors-1

POV: Rudolf Xeres

"Greetings, Challengers Grey and Rudolf. Would you kindly please hand over The Legacy and Nico Sever over? This charade is getting tiring." A voice came from behind Bit-Grey. A man with tattered clothes holding a staff with leaves and flowers was approaching us.

I recognized him immediately. "Firenze, get into the house now." I commanded him in a calm voice. He complied and shut the door on his way in. "Shaorung," I stepped forward, marching towards him while summoning the Bloody Lance. "Good seeing you, old friend."

"Are you approaching me?" He snorted as he unleashed a blast of ether at me. Ether, the fifth element as it was called by alchemists, was fundamentally different from ki. I couldn't use ki against it or it would be useless. I sidestepped the blast in a not-so-suave manner.

I bit my tongue. Minimal movements. I decided to use spatial shrinking to shorten the distance between us.

"I can't kill you without getting closer." I roared as I trusted my Lance towards him. He spun around, narrowly dodging it before swinging the staff at my face, which barely scratched my chin. He then leaped away. 

"Ok then, I gotta use that…" He muttered before Grey slashed his head off his neck. I swear that I didn't see him sneak up.

"Good move, but it's useless." The head monotonously commented. "What the f-" Before Grey could finish speaking, an elbow struck a deadly blow to his right ribcage, which made him buckle and gasp for air while patches of blood began erupting from his mouth. 

A body which can function without a head? Well, well. I propelled forward, sending a gust of wind behind me as my augmented legs recoiled against the ground, my figure–nothing but an impercievable blur. Invented by Vera Warbridge but perfected by me and Grey. I raced towards him with every ounce of strength as I frantically darted towards's his body's postion. Before he could even react, my fingers immediately clawed his jewels and prepared myself to invoke a forbidden vitae spell.

(A/N: If you can't understand, ether=aether, dash is a variant of burst step, Vitae=vivium)

"Balls in Your Jaws." I uttered the forbidden words.

"That won't b-AAAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH" Shaorung yelled as his balls were bitten by his teeth while he was giving his vexatious soliloquy. His main body was rolling as it dropped to the ground in agony, clutching its expanding tube, from where blood leaked out from. Only muffled screams of pain were coming out of his mouth, his eyes wrapped around with red bulging veins as he tried to alleviate the suffering. 

"Who's laughing now?" I sneered in utter delight. "Shall we kill him?" Grey snarled as he pointed his blade at our assailants screeching head. However, right then, for a moment, I thought that we died.

In that moment, I felt a excruciating pain all over my body, including my liver and jewels. Time passed so slowly that by the time the pain subsided, I was on the earth, wheezing as my lungs expelled what seemed to be almost every molecule of air it stored. I puked out the lunch I had prepared for Firenze as I got up slowly, my hands and feat buckling.

Great.

I turned to Grey and saw that he was getting up after falling face first into his own retch. My eyes shifted to Shaorung's figure and it seemed like his head had magically reattached itself to his body and I would have believed it had it not been for the person behind him.

I could see strands of red hair running down her forehead but I couldn't see her visage as it was shaded by her hood. She wore a black dress, just like the Grim Reaper. What shocked me however was the fact that I saw Nico and Cecilia's bodies in her hands.

"Please don't interrupt official buisness." The hooded woman muttered.

"Can you do me a favor and please fuck yourself?" I nonchalantly replied.

"Sorry." She sighed as she dropped both of them before dashing towards me with a fist clad with ether. Oh shit. I ducked under the blow and elbowed her belly. To my surprise, she didn't budge. Instinctively, I backed away.

"What?" She cocked her head. "Not ready to fight?"

I grumbled as I thrusted my lance to launch an air cannon, which she dodged before disappearing. I was about to turn back before I felt a blade through my sternum.

"That's one down." She sighed. The last thing I remember before blacking out was receiving a jolt of electricity through my body.

*

POV: Cecilia 

It hurt. My back hurts.

How long I was unconscious for? I opened my eyes to see Grey getting his head stomped into the ground by a ponytailed guy. No, two ponytails. Grey, beaten? No way! 

No way! No way! No way! No way! 

I need to save that moron! I dashed towards Ponytail and punch him in the face, but it only grazed him. "What are you?" I yelled. 

"Like you, I guess?" He sighed as purple runes appeared on his body before he SLAPPED ME THROUGH THE HOUSE!!

I saw the living room, the weaponry  the kitchen and the backdoor in 0.956 seconds

"I hope you regain your memories, Legacy!" He reappeared in front of the backdoor, ready to strike me with a sword. I felt the blade strike me with enough force to cut through my left collarbone and stop me in my tracks. I collapsed on the ground, screeching like a Banshee out of agony. The pain I felt, it was way worse than anything I have ever felt. I have been run over by busses and bathed in burning tar. However, this guy is in a different league.

"Please come with me. Téngkōng has the ability to make you feel excruciating pain even with a simple cut. If you want it to stop, please come." He gave his hand out, hoping that I would take it. I would never-

"Vajra!" A voice rang in my head. "For your crimes of not bearing the Edict of Fate and murdering a God, you are to be banished from heaven forever! You will forever be hunted by mortals for your power."

Strange. I felt the pain vanish from my body, but the sight in front of me was different. Instead of Ponytail, there were different people staring at me. One guy had brown hair all over his body, but had the face of a monkey. On his right was a guy who wore a hood over his face and held a scythe. On his left stood a man resembling Anubis, the Egyptian God of death. He had the head of a fox and a greyish-black body. He held a pair of scales in his right hand. At the corner was a red-haired woman sitting next to a hearth. She was covered with rags and sooth. She looked at me with sympathy. I looked at myself and found myself in chains.

What was going on? What did I do? Are these my memories? Who are these people? Why is Anubis real?

However, the words involuntarily came out of my mouth: "Haaa…as if you can do a thing to me! I am too important to be thrown from Heaven!"  Why do I sound so baritonic??

"Vajra," The monkey sighed. "I know that you don't like to be controlled, but after Indra's death, this is something that we can't ignore. I will give you a relief from your curse if you can form bonds with people. You can decide your own path then. Until then, farewell. Hestea!"

The red-haired sighed as she threw a piece of burning charcoal at me. It shouldn't have hurt so much, but my whole body was on fire. My skin crumpled as I felt myself internally collapsed. The pain was intense. What was going on?

"Then let Fate guide your impudence for eternity!" Anubis roared. I felt my eyes pop out from my sockets. Every single organ in me was being ripped out and then reinserted, or atleast it felt like it. I felt myself being ripped into half before the darkness welcomed me into it's bosom. A moment later, a jolt of electricity jolted me awake. I saw the hooded woman getting up from a catering the wall. Wait, did I do that? Ponytail suddenly appeared beside her, with venous scars over his face. 

"Be careful, ma'am!" He warned her. "She's regained her memories." 

"Hmmm…no wonder she got stronger all of a sudden." Her tone implied that she was smiling. She then apparatus a scythe out of thin air. "Guess it's time to use that. "

I felt electricity run through my mana channels. No, it was ki with electrical properties. But how? 

Never mind, let's take them out first. 

"Interesting.." The hooded figure hummed as she dashed towards me. I used lightning to augment my nerves to improve my reflexes, enabling me to reach to the swings of her scythe. I summoned my ki sword and kept dodging and parrying her attacks. Then, I saw from the corner of my eye that Ponytails was dashing in with his sword. Grey however intercepted him in the wildest manner possible.

"You want vomit? Here!" He then spat some of his barf into his eye. I decided to ignore their fight and focused on her. The slashes kept coming, with her form becoming poorer. It was clear that she was either running out of gas or was holding back her strength.

My later assumption was proven right when a minute later, her form and moves became faster, making me sweat. I felt the scythe graze my skin a few times. I decided that this was enough and leaped away. As she lazily dragged her feet towards me, I sent lightning ki through my body and enhanced my leg muscles and bones with ki. The glutes to prevent my hip from breaking, quads and hamstrings to improve the dash and flex the knees respectively, the core muscles to save the rest of my body and the calf muscles to handle the impact of Dash. I withdrew my sword over my left shoulder to use a quick-draw lower slash. Risky but it's worth it. I then unleashed Dash to cover the distance almost instantly and closed the gap between us. Before she could react, I brought down my sword, leaving a big slash on her trunk. I should thank Grey for teaching me and saving my life again. 

But then I felt the backlash of such a powerful Dash on my body. Though my bones weren't broken, my muscles ached like hell. I collapsed from the pain on the ground. "Nyyarrrghh!!! Uwaaahh!!" I yelled in pain.

"Hush, little one!" I felt a foot stomp on my face. "Be quiet. Mommy will take you home." My eyes widened in horror as I realized that I hadn't taken out my foe.

"Now, don't give Mommy that dirty look. I have been looking for you for a while. Now, come." She spoke in a seductive voice as if to jeer me. "How are you still standing?" I roared.

"Now now, that's not nice." She stomped my head again. This time, I had enough. If I couldn't win without hurting myself, I will take her down with me. I roared as I focused internally and forced every single bit of ki out of my body in the form of lightning, discharging it in massive quantities, hoping to take out the intruders with. I am sorry, Grey, Nico. I hope you guys don't get hurt. The last thing I remember hearing were shrill bloodcurdling screams, which sounded like the oxygen in their lungs were being sucked out at a rapid rate.

*

POST CHAPTER NOTES:

IT'S WORLD-BUILDING TIME!

In this fic, Aether exists in Grey's world as well (similar worlds, lol). It's called ether instead.

Vivium is Vitae

Aevum is Chronae

Spatium is Locae

Meanwhile, as for the other elements….

I am talking about the deity arts. Decay by itself is an element. As for Force-type mana, it's just normal mana but with the utilization of raw mana for physical attacks since the Pantheon race are hand-to-hand fighters. There are other elements which I will add later.

Deviants? Ain't talking about them now. 

As for how Cecilia can use Lightning? I have already given hints.

Bye!