“Fugitive, I’d like to call a ceasefire! You don’t move from that spot, and I won’t make chase. We will resume this later, once I’m done speaking with Ripley,” Jon called to me and Erani. He turned over to where Sylvie and Ainash had been fighting the soldiers. “Men, put down your weapons. We will…oh.”
I looked where he was staring, only to see Ainash standing in the middle of four bisected corpses, all cut cleanly in half by her whip. Blood covered her body and the yellowish grass that surrounded her. An obviously horrified Sylvie stared at her, and Ainash herself was enthusiastically waving hello to us with a big, open-mouth smile on her face.
Jon pursed his lips, sighed, then turned back to Ripley. “Well, that’s dealt with then, I suppose. Anyway, I’d like to negotiate with you regarding a peaceful return to the Koinkar Kingdom.”
“I’m not going with you,” Ripley growled, weapon still drawn.
Part of me just wanted to sprint off with Erani. Jon was distracted, speaking with Ripley, and maybe we’d get a good bit of distance between us before he realized. But the other part of me knew he probably would notice instantly, and we’d resume our chase as we had before in just as bad a situation as we’d been in.
Fact of the matter was, we got a lot more out of this break time than he did. His buffs would wear off, so he’d have to reapply them once we got back to fighting, meaning he’d waste all of that Mana. And on my end, I’d get much, much more Mana back from natural regeneration in the time that passed than he would.
He had probably understood that he’d come off a little behind as time passed because of the buffs, but he had no way of knowing about my insane Mana/Minute, meaning he was completely unaware of the fact that every second that passed directly translated to almost 2 full points of Mana being deposited right into my pool. So I was more than happy to let him argue for a moment with Ripley, especially considering I knew what the outcome to this conversation would be, anyway; he’d already had it in the previous timeline, and Ripley had refused to go with him, choosing to fight instead.
Jon continued speaking with Ripley. “Asmo wants you back in the kingdom. She said that you were, ahem, ‘an invaluable strategic and emotional asset.’ So, my orders are to bring you back.”
“Emotional asset, huh?” Ripley laughed. “Yeah, that sounds about like what she’d say. I get what you want, Jon, but I can’t go back with you. If Asmo wants me, she’s gonna have to come and get me, herself. I wanna duel her, one on one, and we’ll see who breaks first. Go back home and tell her that.”
“I can’t go back to the kingdom without you,” Jon said plainly. “So, if you won’t come voluntarily, I hope you understand that I’ll be forced to put you into a more agreeable state.”Ripley chuckled. “Really? You’re outnumbered, what…one, two three…eight to one. Don’t care that there’s a bit of a Level gap between you and me, you really wanna sit there and tell me you can make up for that?”
“Have you been viewing the battle so far?” Jon asked. “How many lives do you think your so-called allies have taken?”
Her face turned to a scowl at that. “Ah. Right. Y’know, I never liked that Spell. Feels too much like cheating.”
“Don’t be a plague on the world, and it won’t affect you.”
“How much damage would it do to you, Jon?”
“I will admit that I have taken on much of a personal burden in my mission to improve the world. I have cured many sicknesses by taking them onto myself. I am a blight, just as many others have been, and it will become a better place when I am dead. But before then, I will continue to work to help as many people as possible.”
Ripley rolled her eyes, preparing to say something, but before she did, another voice shouted out.
“Hey, Annor!” I glanced over to see it was Sylvie, confused at her interjection. She continued, “Ask him!”
“What?” I responded, yelling back across the battlefield.
“Ask him! The guards!”
I glanced at the guard outpost confusedly. Was something wrong with Bon, Jannin, and Poppins? Didn’t seem like it.
Sylvie saw my confusion, and looked at me like I was crazy. “The whole flamin’ reason we’re here! Those border guards who went missing! With the bounty?”
“Oh, right,” I said. That was technically the reason we’d come out here initially, and as far as Sylvie knew, the entire reason we were here. Jon was just a suspect in the crime we were investigating, not an assassin here sent to kill us. Right. “Uh, yeah, Jon, did you, like, kill some guards on your way across the border? In an outpost like this one?”
He ignored my question, instead looking to Sylvie. “That’s what he has you believing? You’re here to collect some bounty for a missing person? Do you even know who you’re working with?”
Hm, yeah, that’d be a problem. I stepped forward, preparing to re-engage with some Spells, but Erani was a step ahead of me, using one of her limited activations of Elemental Embrace to shoot off a superpowered Firebolt straight at him.
Jon tried to dodge, and managed to avoid a direct hit, but even with the explosion merely coming from nearby, it was still massively powerful, forcing him off his feet and onto his back. Ripley took this moment to charge him, weapon drawn, as I enabled everything I could on him. Crippling Chill had been active the whole time, meaning Cumulative Catastrophe not only carried over, but got more powerful over our brief chat, now past a 50% bonus on all Spell effects.
With Ripley swinging her axe down on the still-recovering Jon, he had little time to roll out of the way, quickly going through his buff Spells to power himself back up. Another swing by Ripley, another strike dodged, and I realized that we finally had some frontline power to back us up and keep us from being forced on the run this whole time. My job was now to keep Jon in as bad a state as I could, and hope Ripley would do the rest.
In the previous timeline, Jon had beaten Ripley pretty badly. But in that timeline, he hadn’t been sapped of his resources before the fight began, nor had he been afflicted with several powerful curses during the fight proper. With those circumstances, he was put at a significant disadvantage.
Ripley swung her axe at his head, but he ducked down, catching a kick she aimed at him at the same time and only sliding back a bit. I saw his hands dig into her armor, and the metal began to melt, his acidic touch digging for her skin as she drew her foot back, using the momentum to fuel a full-power swing at his midsection which forced him to backpedal again, giving her more ground.
Jon’s movements were growing labored. He wasn’t defenseless, but given enough time, Gravity Well would be strengthened enough by Cumulative Catastrophe to make him effectively immobile.
He raised a hand in the sky, and it glowed a blinding white—-I immediately recognized it as his Day of Judgment Spell, the one which killed me in a single hit in the previous timeline.
Index, he isn’t aiming at me, right?
“No, you’re still out of range.”
Okay. Keep an eye on those distances, please.
“Yeah, not exactly what I was created for, but I think I can handle tracking the distance between you two as long as I focus.”
With me and Erani ineligible targets, there was only one remaining: Ripley.
She froze in place, seeing his land lifted to the sky, ready to strike down at any moment. “You wouldn’t.”
“If you prove capable of killing me, I have no other choice,” he said, breathing heavily.
“Asmo wants me alive. You can’t kill me.”
“Then you need to ensure I have better odds with you than I do with her. Currently, I don’t. Lay down your weapon, and that will change things.”
Ripley was obviously hesitating, effectively caught in the same position she’d been caught in when we found them in the other timeline. Dammit, we couldn’t lose our frontliner here. We were so close to killing this guy, but if we went back to him chasing us, I didn’t like our chances.
Frantically, I looked over to Sylvie, who was standing where she’d been before, hesitantly gazing upon our battle. I signaled for her to come over, engage with Jon again and keep him busy, but she didn’t budge. Did she not understand what I was asking? I could yell, but I didn’t want to get Jon to start paying attention to us again. Or maybe Sylvie just didn’t want to fight, whether because she was afraid of Jon, or hesitant to fight on our side after he implied that we had secrets we were hiding from her. Maybe I could—
“Oh, Arlan, behind!” Index shouted suddenly.
I whipped around, but before I could even get an idea of what I was looking at, I was suddenly hit with a wave of force and blasted away from whatever was behind me.
Only a tiny bit of damage, but I was somehow thrown that far? I blinked groggily, opening my eyes to see what’d happened. Three more soldiers had snuck up behind us, and it seemed like some of them were Magic-Types, using some fucking force Spell on us. Something like it, at least. But they still didn’t deal much damage, so…
“Range!” Index voice shouted again. “You’ve been knocked into—”
A bright light filled the air above me, and I had just enough time to think “fuck” before—
You have been smitten. 1075 damage.
Dark Plate has triggered. Damage has been reduced to 340.
Your Health is 332.
The weight of heaven itself felt to have come down to crush me, Dark Plate the only thing leaving me stubbornly alive. I felt my body steaming, burnt and broken, and I was lying flat on my back, though I had no idea how I’d gotten into that position.
Barely opening my eyes, I saw Erani holding out her hand and throwing off a Firebolt before the same blinding white light filled the sky above her, and then came crashing down on her body, as well. She was crushed, though not technically dead, with her own Angelic Shield coming in to save her from being killed—though it also left her with no Mana.
“So, that’s dealt with, then.” Jon’s muffled voice came through my ringing ears. “Anyway, Ripley, I’d rather not waste time fighting you and making this take longer than it has to. You come with me, and we both end up alive. If I’m forced to kill you, I’m sure neither of us would enjoy what would come of that.”
Something prodded my arm, and I opened my eyes again to see one of the soldiers poking me with his foot.
“S-sir!” he said. “This one’s still alive!”
“They both are!” said another, coming from Erani’s location.
“Oh, that’s curious,” Jon said. “I was sure they’d have died in a single hit, especially considering they’re Magic-Types. I suppose I should pay more attention to my notifications, shouldn’t I? Well, no matter.”
I sat up, trying to get to my feet and hopefully scramble out of his range, but before I could even plant a foot on the ground, I was slammed back into the dirt by one of the soldiers using that damn force Spell again.
And then the bright light filled the sky, came crashing down on me for another time, and I was reminded once again of the sins Jon convicted me of.
You have been smitten. 1075 damage.
Your Health is 0.
You have died.
**********
In the in-between place, I plopped down on the ground. Not that there was a ground, or that I even had a body to plop onto that non-existent ground, but I put enough force of will into the idea of collapsing into the floor in an expression of defeat that I got the damn message across.
Fucking really?! I thought. He had soldiers in reserve the entire time? Yeah, no, that’s cool, just keep three entire Magic-Types literally hiding behind some rocks or whatever, and then don’t even fucking use them for the entire first timeline. That’s really cool, and totally fair of you to do. I mean seriously, what the fuck?!
I tried to calm myself down, putting some thought into the concept of closing my eyes and taking a deep breath.
So there’s him, his four accompanying Melee-Types, and then three more Magic-Types staying back as cavalry to call in if things get dire, I guess. Or, at least, one of them was a Magic-Type, with some Spell that can throw us around like ragdolls. What a jackass.
Yeah, I still wasn’t calm. I could feel my mind fading by now, though, so I hurried to pick a time—the furthest back, as usual.
**********
And then I was back, walking down the road yet again. I was actually back before I’d come to this point when looping the first time, meaning nobody knew anything, still.
I instantly turned around and began walking the opposite direction.
“Uh, Annor, what’re you doing?” Sylvie asked.
“Is there trouble?” Ainash asked as well, though I wasn’t sure if it was actually her, or if she was just relaying a message from Erani.
“C’mon, we’re going back to town,” I called back to them.
“What? Why?”
“We’re getting more people.”
If Jon can bring in reinforcements, so can I.