Adamant Blood

Mark attacked with blades of adamantium slicing through the air.

Kardi instantly countered with 5 shots from her Wand of Destruction, scattering Mark's adamantium to the ground, even as she flipped up and back to avoid the shrapnel. She hovered slightly.

Mark already made himself a spear of adamantium, having expected his Power to be disjoined again. He had hoped that the spellbreaker sequencer he wore around his neck would have helped against the Wand of Destruction, and it did. But the spellbreaker was 3 drops of spellbreaking versus 4 shots of the Wand of Destruction. Apparently the spellbreaker's 'immunity from the same magic for 3 seconds' didn't apply to disjoining magic.

The fourth hit of the wand hit Mark's astral body long before it ever reached him, and everything scattered except the spear he was already holding.

The fifth shot hit Tartu, activating his own spellbreaker sequencer, while Tartu's Domain of something wrapped around Kardi, right at the apex of her jump.

Kardi froze, midair. She was already shooting with the Wand a third time. 5 more lines of mirage-like Destruction shot out, the first one hitting the effect around her, dispelling it, the next striking a density in the air between Tartu and Kardi, dispelling that, then the last three hitting Tartu, fully discharging his spellbreaker sequencer.

Kardi instantly fired off another shot from the Wand of Destruction, and Tartu went down, his Power nullified for now.

Mark was 10 meters from striking with his spear, muscles tensing, Kardi falling right into his path, Union barely working, but working enough for him to connect to the world within his own body. He Unioned with Energy, touching the switch that existed at the bottom of his Binding that shavallian normally shut down. He breathed out Entropy. Did that work against a Wand of Destruction? Yes, apparently! The latch on Mark's Power broke open and the world felt a little brighter. His range increased to a meter, lightning crackling on pale skin.

Spear forward.

Kardi falling.

Mark thrust and Kardi sailed backward, directly out of his thrust, her hoverbelt making her move unnaturally.

Mark advanced and Kardi danced across glass-covered metal tendrils, taking out a bright yellow metal dagger from her back pocket. The metal/glass surface under Mark's heavy feet cracked and broke. He almost fell, but he slammed the butt of the spear down onto solid stone, foot catching on glass-covered metal, spear up and spinning toward Kardi.

Spear to the chest!

Tapped aside by a golden dagger.

Kardi flowed through the air, golden vectors guiding her away from Mark's own. She spun toward a taller mound of glass-covered tentacles and smiled, aiming with her other hand, holding the Wand of Destruction.

Mark interposed the spear between them, pulling his astral body out of the spear entirely, trying to make the beam hit the spear and not him.

Kardi fired 5 different lines of mirage-like destruction. Three of those hit Mark, avoiding his spear entirely. Two went off elsewhere. Mark's Unionsense collapsed inward, yet again. Kardi grinned.

It was going to be like that, huh.

Mark accepted the battle before him, falling into a flow.

The floor was a secondary battlefield. Mark danced across the tentacles, always Unioning his Power back open as well as he could. The floor fell out from under him several times, metal not looking nearly as secure as it should have been. Mark could still fight, and so he did.

Kardi aimed the Wand of Destruction behind Mark.

Mark attacked, full force. He did not need to see or sense Tartu behind him, way over there, to know Tartu was near enough to regaining himself.

Kardi deflected the spear with her golden knife, vectors clashing in a ringing clang, golden metal easily pushing aside adamantium, for some reason. She did not fire the wand.

A Domain struck Mark in the back, and suddenly he could float among the tentacles almost as well as Kardi. He moved faster. Kardi floated upward instead. Another Domain almost hit her, but she retaliated with her wand, disjoining whatever effect Tartu was going for, along with 4 more lines of mirage lancing out in multiple directions at Mark and Tartu both.

A mirage of destruction touched Mark again, and he knew several things, all at once, without really thinking about them.

One: He fell back down to the non-solid ground, Tartu's weightless-or-whatever Domain cracking.

Two: Kardi was never going to lose a straight melee fight. She was trying a lot. But also her Powers were waning because that's what Powers did, but she wasn't doing a lot. She wasn't committing too much. She was not going to lose if this kept up.

Three: There was something special about that dagger. Mark was absolutely sure it was orichalcum. The god metal. Thrashtalon, in this case.

Four: Mark was never going to win without his full Union, but Kardi was going to lock him down every time he got close to throwing off the disjoin.

Five: Wands should only have a few charges and Kardi should have lost the ability to Multi-bolt when Johnny Fiveguns' head was destroyed by Sally. But that's not how any of this stuff worked around Kardi. Kardi was lucky like that.

Six: And finally, Kardi was trying for something. To prove she could fight with the big guys? To prove to Mark she was strong? Something big.

Mark had never stopped fighting while he thought.

He never spared a glance back toward Tartu, either.

But Domains flashed into the air, here and there. And Mark advanced.

The air hardened around Kardi, blocking her escape, and Mark thrust forward. Kardi held her dagger in a downward grip, catching Mark's spearhead, even as she turned, ever so slightly. Mark pulled back, angling his spear to cut into Kardi, and yet Kardi went flipping into the air behind him, having angled her body and over-working her hoverbelt to perfectly avoid most of the cut. She ended up with a slash across her stomach, exposing skin and nothing else.

Mark was already down to less than his boxers.

Mark turned, and now Kardi was in the air between him and Tartu, and Mark saw that Tartu was on his knees, barely able to stand, and Kardi was angling at him, now. Ah. Without Union helping him, Tartu was waning faster than any of them. Casting Domains took a lot out of a guy.

There was other adamantium to be had, scattered on the ground.

Mark Unioned with accuracy and clumsiness, throwing the spear at the same time. He only had several centimeters of range on his astral body right now, but it was enough to do something. His world narrowed down to the point of his weapon and sailed forward.

Kardi angled her body, angling her dagger to deflect the weapon downward, right at Tartu.

But the butt of the spear was only a meter from Mark's hand. He kinetically pulled the adamantium back, on instinct, right as Kardi finished swiping the air with her dagger. It was the first real mistake Kardi had made. And then Mark slapped the butt of the spear with his kinesis, turning it into a needleshower moving at bullet-speeds.

Kardi spun just a little, but not enough. Her dagger caught some of the needles, but not all.

Black metal chunked through Kardi's left thigh and drilled holes through some of her stomach, sending her spinning wildly to the left.

Mark's adamantium needles sailed past Tartu, over the edge of the building.

Mark was already grabbing other bits of metal on the ground, turning them into another spear, while Kardi flew off to the other side of the building, gasping for breath and drinking a potion. She ducked into the remains of the Mayor's technorganic core, metal and glass splashing as she dove inward, using Lenny's earthwalking Power in order to gain some distance.

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She was probably going to come out with guns blazing.

Mark got close enough to Tartu to include him in a Union of Energy and Entropy, undoing some of the disjoining that Kardi had done to him, and undoing more of his own issue. Mark's Union rapidly expanded and Tartu rapidly regained his own Power, so Mark went back on the offensive, bringing him and Tartu into a Union of something else that had to be done.

Earth and Bubbles.

Mark's range was little more than 200 meters, maybe only 150. It was more than enough to catch the entire roof in his range. As the world began to turn to sand and soft air, Mark grabbed Tartu's shoulder, saying, "Expect sandy land after the fall."

The entire building began to disintegrate, to fall and flop into metal dust and glass grains and concrete sand. Mark plummeted on a bed of soft stone, right beside Tartu who did the same. Kardi fell through the stone, too—

Mark noticed Quark in his eyes, running a little message 'test' that bounced around in his vision. The very second Mark noticed that, Quark returned the notice in turn, reading out big and strong, 'Speed, please'.

Mark Unioned with Alacrity and Slowness.

Time slowed.

Kardi was about to aim at him with her Wand of Destruction again. Her Luck was running low, it seemed.

Quark spoke quickly, but not that fast at all, "I am not sure how long I can remain active in this fight with Kardi knocking me out of commission with every blast of that Wand of Destruction. But I have been in contact with others, and they have provided analysis. Tartu needs to leave or he will die when you necessarily activate the Decoupling Ritual—"

Mark began to feel his astral body disintegrate from the outside in.

Kardi had activated the Wand of Destruction even in this speedy time, and since Mark's astral body was out there, she hit it. She didn't need to aim it; Mark was out there already.

Time suddenly returned because Mark switched to Energy/Entropy, keeping himself active as much as he could. Sand-sized debris crashed across his body, spilling adamantium scales away from his skin, into the sand, as Mark and Tartu both landed solid on a fresh hill of dirt.

Kardi pulled herself out of the dirt, about 80 meters away, happily shouting, "That's a good new trick Mark! I figured out how to counter it, though!"

Mark healed his astral body as fast as he could, while also shouting back, "Why did you strike Grey Phantom with that wand?"

Tartu put out Domain after Domain on top of himself and on top of Mark. "Why does it even matter why she did it."

Mark felt himself strengthen—

A golden line of light made everything else look black by comparison. That line illuminated the world right to Mark's right, coming from Blackthorn's finger and aiming right at Grey Phantom, the two of them a kilometer away. The old archmage was furious. The new archmage was avoiding most of the line of golden light, but some caught him and turned him into flames that washed away into the black of the rest of the world.

And then the line faded and color seemed to return.

Kardi was 20 meters away and the Wand of Destruction was already beaming at Mark and Tartu, while her golden dagger was in her other hand, gleaming brightly. "Because Leash is your Contract, Mark. Chris is a dead man walking."

She was a whirling dervish of blade and mirage, golden vectors infecting all of her actions, the wand like a dagger and the dagger like a wand.

Mark's metal collapsed off of his body again, but not before he made two short blades of adamantium.

Tartu was a spectator every time he tried to fight, for every Domain he created was instantly erased by even the most casual of swipes from Kardi. Tartu raged quietly, securely, and then he brought out his own spare dagger and joined the fight as much as he could. He secured against Kardi's retreat, providing a flanker for Mark, which was good enough for Mark.

Mark met every crash of dagger and wand with his own adamantium, his Power continually quieting, his focus on Kardi completely.

She was wounded. She was bleeding. She was strong enough for a real fight.

Mark flowed. Crash into parry. Rake into slash. Lead with the left foot, cut toward the right, meet the blade and aim for the wrist. Pull back when she twists, aiming to counter slash. Both meet in the middle and Mark overpowers, but Kardi has all of her tricks and Mark is fighting bare.

He kicks sand.

Kardi blinks when she needs to.

Mark fights and Kardi smiles. She is having fun with this.

Mark wants to kill her even more.

She has even more fun knowing that this is a real fight.

Tartu tries.

Kardi deflects, locking Tartu down yet again.

The wand never runs out of charges at all.

And then suddenly Kardi breaks it off, flying into the sky only a few meters. It is enough to keep her away. She is breathing hard and Mark waits for Tartu to do something, but Tartu has been cut to the bone across the chest, across the arms, and he's missing fingers. He still tries to fight.

Mark is covered in wounds, too, but they're already healing.

Kardi breathes hard, her flight barely able to keep her upright, because she's bleeding and her hoverbelt is sparking. She bobs up and down, and then she manually touches her belt and floats upward even more, but her belt is sparking and she falters some.

Mark pounces, raking his dagger through her foot; clean through instead of dragging her down like he needs to happen.

Kardi laughs and cries even as she flies upward more, her belt violently sparking, but she says, "We can keep it together a little bit longer."

Mark demands, "Get down here and die, Kardi!"

"Oh I absolutely will in about 2 minutes. I'm out of everything and you're still going strong." Kardi smiles through the blood trickling down her face, from a cut on her forehead. "Relentless. An absolute god of the battlefield. It's your best quality. Don't let them take that from you, Mark. Maybe when today is over they won't be able to take it from you, but don't ever stop training. Don't ever stop fighting." Her belt sparks hard, her wand cracks, and then she falls, "Shi—"

Knife in the heart, several times over.

Kardi smiles, even through the blood gushing out of her mouth, even as Mark holds the knife in there, in her chest. He twists. She doesn't care. She only smiles as she whispers, "See you later."

And then Kardi dies.

Mark chops off her head and spreads her brains across the ground, gathering up his adamantium and smashing the corpse to nothing at all. He rages. He rages. He rages.

It's not enough.

Mark looks over to Grey Phantom, fighting Blackthorn.

Blackthorn is furious and overpowering and not used to melee. Grey Phantom is calculating and quick and used to fighting dirty. One is learned in magics, the other learned in survival.

Black lightning shatters out of Mark's body, Adamant and Ethereal striking the world, striking the intangible, untouchable new-archmage cultist, shattering the back-and-forth balance of archmages.

Chris, the cultist, and the contemporary of Steve, the archmage, were both born before the Reveal. They were both on the 'same side' of 'super villainy' for the last several decades. They had probably shared drinks, good times, drugs and music and lives. Steve was kept young by his demon. Chris was kept young by Mark's uncles. Chris and Steve were probably friends. There is no way that the depth of rage and hate in Blackthorn's vector could be anything but the rage of ultimate betrayal. Mark had been feeling the same thing from Tartu against Kardi for the last hour.

Mark's black lightning touches them both.

Steve watches as Chris falters just enough, and then he strikes. Black thorns whip out of the air and push through the traitor like they had a thousand times before, but this time the traitor is solid. This time there is no getting away from this spellwork. This time the traitor dies to a crush of black death and a crash of black lightning.

Mark feels as Grey Phantom's life leaves him.

And then life, strong and demonic, roars, asserting itself upon reality.

The traitor explodes into something much worse.