Edge Cases

Jakos was not willing to talk.

Apparently, he wasn't one for words at all. The moment Misa and Vex appeared behind him, he let out a guttural roar of what Misa was pretty sure was excitement — which was disturbing enough as it was.

Then he sped towards them, almost too fast for Misa to react. She blocked just in time, her mace morphing into something that flickered between a sword and a shield. It was a not-quite-possible configuration that demonstrated just how hard it was to find a reality in which Jakos's attack could be blocked.

If anything, his grin grew wider. Misa winced as he ran back, winding himself up for a second blow; she could feel the mana gathering from here. Behind her, Vex muttered frantically under his breath, chanting an incantation that would no doubt buy them some time.

Is this normal for Jakos? she asked, her brows screwed up in concentration as she blocked his second blow. This time, the orc practically bounced off of her, and then spun and targeted Vex — she teleported neatly into place to block that, shaving off yet another fraction of her mana.

Good thing she'd loaded up beforehand.

Uh, Helix said. We think Jakos is some kind of berserker. So... yes?

Thanks for the warning, Misa sent, as sarcastically as she could muster mid-combat.

Of all the classes she had to fight. Berserkers were probably her least favorite class, if largely because they reminded her too much of how she'd acted just after she lost her home. If she hadn't found her current team...

Jakos attacked again, spinning a massive axe he'd somehow pulled out of nowhere directly towards her face; she shoved the thoughts out of her mind. Behind her, Vex finished whatever he was doing, a glyph spinning into place in front of him — and a woosh seemed to follow, one that left Misa dizzy and disoriented.

She almost yelled at Vex — she couldn't afford that distraction, and the axe nearly took her head off — but whatever the glyph had done to her, what it had done to Jakos was far worse. The orc staggered almost comically, lurching to the side and busting a hole through a wall in the process; he collapsed in the middle of a shop, staggered back to his feet, and then planted face first into the brick again.

His face left a small crater in the ground, right down to an imprint of his nose.

"What the fuck did you do?" Misa blinked, impressed.

Mana vacuum, Vex responded telepathically, his mental voice terse and stressed. Like ripping all the air out of a room. The more dependent on mana you are, the more it throws you off. He's almost fully running on the stuff, but It won't last forever.

"Time for some arrows, then," Misa muttered to herself, and then pulled out her bow.

Conceptual arrows were still one of the most interesting things in her kit. They were, in theory, almost as versatile as spells themselves — the last time they had tested it, Vex had told her he'd sensed a glyph forming for a fraction of a second as she fired her arrow.

They hadn't been able to investigate it thoroughly in the limited time they had, though. All she knew was that the arrows could be immensely powerful if she landed on the right concept.

In this case, Jakos' Berserker Rage was clearly focused on a love for battle — and so the arrow she fired was simple.

Pacify.

Ethical considerations for potential mind-affecting arrows didn't really apply when her opponent had attacked with the full intent of killing her, and very well still could. The arrow slammed into Jakos at point-blank range, then bounced off his flesh and cracked a tile nearby; Misa winced. He was just as durable as Helix had said.

It didn't matter, though. The arrow didn't need to pierce Jakos' skin to have an effect. The orc's writhing slowed within moments, and his labored breathing became suddenly calm and steady; he sat up after a moment passed, confused and wary.

"What did you do?" he asked.

"Took away your desire to fight," Misa said dryly. She didn't see any point in lying.

"That's who I am," Jakos said. He sounded... well, he sounded entirely neutral about it. Like he'd just told them what he'd had for breakfast. "I wouldn't be happy that you took that away from me."

"You were trying to kill us, so forgive me if I'm not very sorry about it," Misa said, narrowing her eyes.

This wasn't really the best option, she thought. An arrow of piercing might have done enough damage to Jakos; an arrow formed out of the concept of damage might be able to pierce whatever defenses he had. Jakos wouldn't be able to ignore either of those things.

She'd chosen this option because she wanted to talk instead of fight. Because she needed to gain a measure of who Jakos was as a person.

Because Jakos reminded her of who she'd been.

"I wasn't trying to kill you," Jakos scoffed, and then considered his own sentence for a moment. "Although you might have died, I suppose."

"You don't sound very sorry about it."

"I'm not." Jakos shrugged. "I don't like killing people, I guess? But I like fighting. And Elyra lets me fight, so I work for them."

"There are bigger problems right now than fighting."

"Don't care." Jakos paused as he said the words, cocking his head as though he was thinking about it a bit. "Well, I care a bit, I guess. Depends on what the problem is."

"End of the world," Misa said dryly. "Death of everyone and everything, forever."

"Oh." Jakos blinked. "That's pretty big. I guess I would care about that."

"There we go." Misa let a little bit of the tension bleed out of her body, though she didn't let go of her mace; her arrow wouldn't last forever, and although she could in theory keep hitting him with them, she doubted Jakos would allow himself to be hit a second time. "Do you know what's happening in Elyra? Or did the nobles just send you out?"

"They sent me out to a bunch of rebels to capture," Jakos said. "I was hoping they were going to be a good fight."

"Jakos, the rebels are basically all civilians."

"...Ah." Jakos frowned. "I would have felt bad about that. After the Rage. I only want to fight people that can fight back."

"You're... kind of reckless, aren't you?" Vex spoke up for the first time, grimacing a little, and Jakos' gaze landed on the little lizard as if he'd only just noticed him.

"Are you a good fight?" he asked. "You're the one that made me all dizzy and stuff, aren't you?"

"I do magic," Vex said bluntly. "I'm not very good at fighting, sorry. I don't think I'd make a good opponent."

"I think you would," Jakos said. "I think you both would. How about we have a fight right now? You win, and I stop following Elyra. I win, and... I dunno, I haven't thought about it yet." He bounced on his feet expectantly, the glimmers of a smile starting to emerge on his face.

It was... a little bit creepy.

Misa sighed.

"Arrow's worn off," she said, a little regretfully. At least Jakos wasn't being outright homicidal anymore. "Surprised you're not mad about the arrow."

"We were fighting. Everything's fair in a fight. It was a good skill, too — pretty cool, to be honest." Jakos shrugged, then grinned. "I've got better, though. You gotta do more than that if you want to be my rival. Anyway, do you agree to the deal or not? I don't have all day. I have rebels to capture."

Misa grunted. "It's a deal—" she started — and before she could finish, Jakos burst into action.

Because of course he did. She'd been expecting it.

Her mace clashed against his fist with a powerful boom. The axe he was using had vanished again — some kind of pocket dimension with different weapons, maybe — and he was once again using his fists, but his fists were hard as steel. He knocked her mace away but didn't follow through with the attack, then followed up with another one, and it took all her focus to bring up a second block in time.

He'd figured her out already.

Vex was working quickly, and surprisingly enough, Jakos was giving him the time — evidently thinking that he needed more of a challenge or something equally ridiculous. The second mana vacuum took the breath of both of them, but didn't do much more than disorient Jakos; he'd done something to stabilize himself, apparently.

Or he just wasn't using any mana. As far as Misa could tell, he was attacking her with raw stats, and she was still barely keeping up.

She couldn't have been that far behind him in stats, though. Some sort of passive bonus? If she could figure out what it was, and disable that...

Jakos smirked at her, and Misa suddenly felt the force of gravity triple; she almost stumbled as every piece of equipment she was using suddenly felt three times as heavy. Vex let out a yelp as he collapse, thrown off-balance by the sudden change.

Misa stayed upright, but it was a near thing. She gritted her teeth.

"I hope you have some tricks up your sleeve," Jakos said doubtfully. "Or this is going to be a short fight."

Misa almost scoffed, and called upon [Me, Myself and I].

In an instant, a half-dozen copies of her surrounded Jakos. He raised an eyebrow, impressed. "Well. I wasn't expecting an illusionist. You seemed much more of a physical fighter. But illusions won't do you much good against me, especially when I already know where you are."

He dashed at her. Misa didn't move.

One of her clones stepped in his way; Jakos didn't stop, assuming it was just an illusion, and in that fraction of a second that copy slammed her mace directly into his stomach, pitting his own momentum against him. The metallic clang told her it hadn't hit him as hard as she'd hoped, but it still knocked the air out of him—

And Vex, the beautiful lizard, followed up with a spell of his own. He'd taken advantage of his position on the ground to trace a glyph against the street without being seen, and now three entirely different elemental attacks speared out of the air.

Blistering fire seared the ground beneath Jakos' feet. An arc of lightning speared towards him, cracking the air with a blinding flash and an explosion powerful enough that the shockwave would have thrown Misa back, if not for the increased gravity holding her down. A tight sphere of water descended, wrapping itself around Jakos' head and staying there.

Misa could see the logic behind his attacks, but she stayed tense. a Platinum wouldn't be taken down that easily.

Sure enough, the gravitational pull doubled, and Misa gritted her teeth as she had to deal with equipment that was suddenly six times heavier. The water around Jakos' head bubbled violently as he blasted it apart with a roar, the water trembling for a moment and then exploding under the force.

She didn't wait. Three of her clones followed up, two firing arrows of restrict and weaken, and the third one running in with her mace. The arrows missed as Jakos twirled between them, but she'd been prepared — a fourth and fifth copy grapped the arrows as it shot past, and darted in to stab Jakos directly with them.

The orc's eyes were wild with the pleasure of battle, and Misa couldn't help but grin slightly in response. He kicked one of her out of the way, and spun and ducked beneath the other in a sudden feat of flexibility; the third he took head-on, bashing his own skull against her mace and then tackling her in the stomach.

That clone dissipated almost immediately. Vex was already preparing a new spell, his eyes furrowed in concentration, and Misa considered and discarded her options one by one.

But one thing still bothered her. She was so similar to Jakos. She liked fighting, she liked challenging herself — they weren't all that different, in the end. Something about that thought pulled at her.

She liked fighting, but she was different, because she fought for a cause.

[ You have taken another step on the Path of the Endless. ]

[ New Epic-Grade Skill acquired: [The Flow of the Battle]. ]