Icarus Awakens

Thomas had watched the entire fight feeling more useless than Rait. At least he’d tried attacking the Assassin, Thomas had been taken down before it had begun. The thought of telling Silora to do something, anything had crossed his mind, but he wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t force someone to fight against their will, and once skewered there wasn’t much she could do anyway.

As it dragged on, the Assassin impossibly dodging everything thrown at him, Thomas finally had an idea. At least, if it didn’t work, he’d be a distraction. Baiting the Assassin, he played along until he could touch him with both hands. It was hard with how injured he was, but eventually an opportunity presented itself.

With Mark’s hand around his wrist, Thomas flexed his to make contact while his right hand touched the Assassin’s back. Feeling more blood welling up in his chest cavity, Thomas fought to get the words out. Despite everything, there was one thing he could miraculously do without his Focus. Not all of my powers are gone asshole. “Flash Balance.”

It took a truly enormous amount of mana, especially considering that the cost had been reduced after reaching level 3. Thomas guessed he was basically out, going from full after pointlessly restoring his mana earlier this morning. It wasn’t like he’d use it on anything else. Mark dropped him like he’d just lit the Assassin on fire.

“What, what was that?” the Assassin asked, unsure of himself for the first time. Everyone watched as the dark spikes in Silora faded away, and the black Assassin’s cloak changed colors to show a slightly stained, but still dark appearance. “What did you just do? That wasn’t Flash Heal!”

The Assassin appeared off balance for a moment. His fluid, sure movements of before were gone. Though he still dodged Gadriel’s sword throw, timed perfectly with the Hero intuiting something was going to happen, he didn’t kick it out of the air as before.

This just resets buffs and debuffs, but he’s reacting like I just unloaded a Nova on him, Thomas thought, also taken aback by how effective the ploy had been. Either the Assassin relied far too much on heightened features, or there was some aspect to his power he didn’t understand yet. Despite this surprising victory, there was a problem.

“That’s it! You're all dead.” A wave of intimidation rolled off the Assassin. He could still use his powers, but something still seemed off about him. Thomas was about to try to roll away when he saw Daniel charge the Assassin out of nowhere.

“Guy!” he choked out. He watched as the Artificer didn’t attack, but instead grabbed onto the Assassin’s arm.

…

If anyone could literally stare daggers at people, it would be this Assassin. He even had Tlara beat in quality, but Daniel saw what he’d hoped to see hidden in the glare: hesitation. I’m right. Hunter, keep heading to the window. If this plan doesn’t work tell everyone else to run for it.

“Let go.” Mark threatened death with his tone, but gave up the only weakness he had in making the demand.

“You can’t kill me,” Daniel replied, voice shaking. “Someone told you not to. Or I’d just be dead in Arpan’s shop. He told me you wanted me for something.”

“Now he dies painfully.” Both of them jerked as Mark teleported them away. As Daniel had hoped, he had to bring whoever was in physical contact with him along when he teleported. Honestly, he’d made some very sketchy assumptions for the plan he’d thought up, but even the miracle Thomas had pulled out hadn’t actually hurt the Assassin, just weakened him. “And there’s a long way we can go before death.”

Daniel felt a blinding pain as Mark took his other hand and efficiently broke the wrist holding onto him. Blinking through tears, Daniel transformed his hand and continued to hold on. This would have further puzzled the Assassin, but the time for games was over.

“Casia asked me to kill that ringcat, you know,” Mark said in a falsely sweet voice. “I don’t think what she wants will work anymore, but if you don’t let go, I’ll kill it anyway.” He waited for a second, but Daniel didn’t let go. It looked like he wasn’t listening. “You’re that stubborn? There’s no way any of you can kill me, especially now.”

Daniel looked at him then, blinking his eyes. “Does it look like we’re trying to kill you?”

Mark realized several things, then. He’d given way to tunnel vision too much, perhaps, and hadn’t noticed the attacks had stopped. In fairness he could get out of the way of most so easily it was second nature, he barely had to think about it. Also, all of his features had been dropped back to their baseline and he was busy heightening them. He had been paying some attention, though he hadn’t heard anything important

Of course. These annoying people had some kind of Telepathic Network set up. He really should have caught it before now. The Assassin took in his surroundings and saw what everyone else had been doing. Silora had been partially healed, an empty potion bottle in her hands. They couldn’t get her through the door without running into him, so they’d gone for the window instead. Mark scratched his head with his free hand. “What the fuck are they doing?”

“Getting away,” Daniel said bravely. “I stay here and tie you up. They jump out the window.”

Mark took a moment to appreciate the stupidity and then punched the Artificer in the face to knock him out. Seriously, you give a man a few levels and he thinks he can hold off dragons by himself. Whatever that Cleric had done annoyed him too, but stealing the kill he came here for in the first place? Too far.

“Alright, enough.” He flicked one of his hands, throwing a dagger that impaled the ringcat. Frustratingly, it didn’t penetrate all the way through. It was deeply bonded to the Totem Warrior, granting them an enviable damage sharing power. Only two people willing to die for each other, or at least take tremendous amounts of pain, could develop something like that. He was almost curious enough about that story to hold back, anger beating the impulse out.

What were they doing anyway? Mark jumped ahead in space several times, heading for the group bunched up by the window. The Shroud would stop them from getting away, even if they got into the thin area between the wall and the shield. They were locked in here with him. Were they stupid?

He stepped forward again, shoving the honestly unremarkable Bard out of the way with a dagger just as the shavi was dumped out the window. That Arcanist had made an ice platform outside to catch her. The Hero was doing something interesting, standing on the outside wall of the Spire to catch him when he followed out. It wasn’t a stupid plan, he conceded, just a bad one.

Mark teleported onto the ice shelf, ready to end the Fate, when the ice shifted beneath his feet. The Arcanist had seen this coming. Oh well, he’d just-

Slip.

Mark was completely taken aback as he lost his footing. The ice moved like someone rolling a carpet, propelling him towards the Shroud. What? He took stock of himself and realized, I forgot to improve Balance. Seriously? It was one of the features he kept heightened at all times. The only reason Mark never committed it to a higher level was that no one in the Illustrious committed anything to a higher level. It hindered progress towards enlightenment as it permanently locked part of your mana into the pattern of the feature. Escaping the boundaries of the Octyrrum required taking yourself back from the system, not putting more of yourself into it.

He’d just forgotten. In fairness a power that reset everything you had without refunding the mana was bullshit. He’d never seen anything like that before. Mark had had to re-heighten over a dozen powers, all with conscious thought and mana manipulation, while dealing with a handful of pitiful idiots he was half trying not to kill. In the end, without a feature he’d always relied on to catch him on shaky ground, he’d just slipped. Mark truly had to applaud their ingenuity. Of course, he’d just bounce off the Shroud and come back to kill them. Then, he’d-

Mark’s mind completely shut down for a moment as he realized he’d gone past where the Shroud should have been. He didn’t move until a few seconds after he started falling. Mark threw a few daggers and confirmed what he’d thought. The Shroud was still in place.

He landed on the ground, not really bothered by the fall, and pressed his hand against it. “What the fuck?” Utterly perplexed, he looked up and saw his target was being carried back into her room. Mark tried to teleport into the Spire, but of course that was impossible. He was so angry he shook in place for a moment. Then, he took out a knife. And stabbed. And stabbed. And stabbed and stabbed and stabbed and stabbed and-

…

“I think we just won,” Evalyn said, wincing as she pulled out the dagger in her abdomen. “He’s going to be a problem later though.”

“We were just very lucky,” Lograve clarified. “Though I can’t be sure. That is a level 6 opponent down there who now has a grudge. He could, by himself, turn Aughal into a graveyard. We should be glad he had an ulterior motive. Do you know why he can’t kill you, Daniel?”

“No,” Daniel replied.

“That’s a bit unsettling,” Evalyn replied. “I can tell it’s not Hunter talking.”

Daniel had, of course, crossed over to Hunter’s body right before he was knocked out. The bond power that let them share senses also allowed the consciousness to exist independent of the body, though Daniel still didn’t want to test what happened if one of them died while out of theirs. Him staying awake was important, since that had kept the hole in the Shroud Hunter had created with Telekinetic Reach open.

“I’m just glad I can tolerate this now. I may be close to handling switching bodies mid-battle for more than a few seconds,” Daniel said, borrowing Hunter’s voice again. He could just reply mentally, but when you were inhabiting the body of a murder cat, you might as well get the full experience. “If I go back I’ll just fall unconscious, so I’ll be a passenger here for now. Also, that punch looked like it hurt. I’ll wait for Regeneration to do its thing and jump back after.”

Everyone started to move back to the main chamber where the Fate was torn between thanking her saviors and bemoaning her ruined suite, when Daniel asked Hunter to hold back. Khare was still by the window, looking down to where the Assassin was repeatedly trying to stab his way back into the Spire. “Khare?”

“Grafting.” Daniel got where the gestalt was going with this. Khare wanted more than anything to be able to interact normally with other people. Well, that or bringing Kob back, but that was impossible.

“I don’t think he would have helped you,” Daniel said, about as gently as you could through a ringcat’s mouth. He had to be careful not to impale his, or rather Hunter’s, lower jaw while talking. Those canines were absurdly long. “We don’t know if they could.” Shit, wait, don’t take away their hope. “Anyway, that guy is insane. The older one he called the Prime gave me more of a mad hermit vibe, but he did give Hunter speech. If I meet him again, I’ll ask if he can help you.”

“Gratitude,” Khare replied, though Daniel could tell it was half-hearted.

…

Casia felt the mana in the air shift and felt like screaming again. Mark had been taken out? In all the ways she’d anticipated failure, this was not one of them. No, she’d expected her erstwhile ally to turn on them. Even if the price that had paid for all of this was high, an entire piece of alabaster, they were in the territory where all oaths and bargains were made meaningless by pure ambition.

In summary, Casia’s risen allies in Fredreick and Ytaya had been slain. She had a spare heart from her daughter’s monster, but the dagger didn’t work on the same person twice and there hadn’t been time for Arpan to do anything with it. Mark was dead too, somehow. His summoned storm was slowly fading and the communication block had already been lifted. The churches hadn’t been ravaged enough to stop their response. A Tyrant was still on the loose.

Finally, the planned slaughter at the gates of the Sun Spire had been thwarted with the survivors bypassing the Shroud. A rebellion might still flare up, but she’d been counting on that plaza to turn into the breaking point that would throw the entire city into chaos. That the slaughter had fizzled out threw that into question. All she’d seemed to have gained in the exchange was a casualty count barely in the low thousands. In almost every way, Casia’s plans had failed.

She remained calm. You didn’t take the mantle of a general and expect to win every battle. You aimed to win the war. With the people she had here now almost everything was in place. Armafus’ last legacy was within her grasp. The last piece of the puzzle, the only thing left to claim victory?

It could be a random detachment of spire guard. A few lesser nobles leveraging their artifacts against her. Perhaps whoever it was that had somehow gotten through the Shroud at the Sun Spire. Who they were didn’t matter in the end. Only that they came and tried to stop her.