Dark Matter Ascension-Chapter 59B2 - : Swordfight at a soiree

Jace felt his energy slowly draining away. Judging on prior uses of Dark Matter Cloak (Rank 3), and his currently level of physical activity, he maybe had another twenty minutes. Plenty of time, he thought as he got to a wall using his drop-re-grapnel method and then gently lowered himself to the floor.

To his surprise, there was a slight, starry-blue aura that lingered around the pickpockets. Ollie grinned, “I have highlighted temporarily allied targets in your vision to assist in tracking them.”

“Thanks,” Jace replied as he made his way towards the first of the Gold Paw’s pickpockets. They were dancing on the side of the main floor, and Jace was able to match movements for the brief instant he needed to dip his hand into the left jacket pocket, withdraw the handful of jewelry, and stash it in a belt pouch. Easy enough.

He spotted a Conclave Signer patrolling the outside edge of the room, and Jace went the opposite direction. “Ollie, can you highlight hostiles in my vision?”

“Yup.” The Conclave Signer manifested a red arrow over his head to Jace’s vision. “I can only mark or tag targets if you have a clear sight of them, and you designate them.”

“Why haven’t we done this before?” Jace asked as he kept moving towards the next pickpocket who was next to the hors d’oeuvres tables, laughing at some joke.

“That’s because of me,” Quinn replied. “I can tag targets using The Cosmic System. Ollie just has tagging permissions.”

“Yup!” Ollie replied. “Not a specific Skill of hers, but just because she can interface with any world now.”

“Handy tool, Quinn,” Jace replied as he stepped to the wall, grappled the ceiling, and pulled himself up. “Ollie, lets tag every single Aspirant and Ascendant in here with the hostile arrow.”

Ollie pushed his paws in front of Jace’s face, clapped them a few times, and then pulled them back into the hood. Every one of the designated individuals manifested a bright, red arrow over their head. “There you go!”

Jace lowered himself back down, and now able to easily track hostiles and friendlies, he maneuvered through the room with ease and poise. After several trips around the exterior edge, and even dipping onto the dance floor a few times to avoid the two opposite-direction patrols, the pickpockets were wrapping up their time, making some excuses to leave, and leaving the party.

That’s my cue to leave, Jace thought as he headed for the door. He came to a stop, however, and launched his grapnel up to the ceiling, pulling himself up and out of the way as an enormous man wearing heavy, advanced-medieval armor, and holding an enormous sword that whirred with gears and cogs. He had a Cosmic Power symbol on his hand with the Ascended Power at the center. Star and Supermassive.

The man looked up and Jace froze. His face was sunken and he seemed like he was some type of undead, the way that his flesh stuck to the bone underneath. He cracked a smile, “Finally tracked you.”

“Ollie, how can he see me?”

“I’m working on it!”

Jace pushed his feet off of the wall, using the grapnel point to swing backwards before loosing at the apex of the arc and landing in the center of the dance floor. People began screaming as the hulking man with the odd cog-sword strode into the crowd. The various Ascendants and Aspirants rushed towards him, but he shouted out, “I’m here for Deckard’s bounty!” He pointed to the center of the dance floor, right at Jace, “You idiots don’t even realize he’s right here!”

Deckard dashed out of the room with a complement of Aspirants, but Jace saw the various Signers that were mercenaries: not affiliated with the Nebula Alliance: closing in from all sides. Crap. Okay, well, subtlety time is over. Jace took a deep breath and unsheathed his blade. Time to try out my new Skills.

The cog-sword Ascendant planted his weapon into the dance floor as the people who were noncombatants cleared out save for a few observers who huddled near the exits, wanting to watch the soon-to-unfold violence. “You are a tricky one, Flicker. I’ve been prowling for days trying to track you down. But…finally, I’ve figured out how to spot you.” His body flared with a harsh, burnt-orange light that crackled with sparking energy, cascading down his blade and forming an intimidating aura.

Void Blade (Rank 1) [Rending], Void Shield (Rank 1) [Reflecting], Wrath’s Embrace (Rank 10) [Focused], Aura of Wrath (Rank 11). Jace’s weapon vanished from all but his view as, to his sight, it was limned with a grey nebula cloud with crimson sparks inside. The angry, crimson aura crackled around him and lashed out, sparking off the weapons of a few of the Signers who were cautiously approaching his position. He saw the same dull grey surround him in an opaque shell.

Dropping Dark Matter Cloak, Jace raised his weapon in a ready stance, “You found me. How’d you pull that off?”

The cog-sword man just grinned. “Trade secret.”

The various Signers closed in on Jace, or began to use Skills, and he just stood still. Hope’s Edge, he thought. He stood, for a moment, in the eye of the storm. And then that storm collapsed in on him. All types of Skills: arcing lightning, flaming blasts of pyroclastic energy, chilling, biting ice shards, acidic sprays, crushing gravitic waves; all of that and more surged out, hit his shield…and was reflected back upon those trying to afflict him.

The only person who held back was this cog-sword man. As all of the other Signers fell to the backlash of their own attacks, and Jace felt his energy fill up from the damage inflicted, the cog-man was tapping his foot. He’s timing it out, Jace thought. He knows about the 10-second timer, somehow. Studying videos of me fighting on Earth, maybe?

Once Hope’s Edge faded, the man lifted his blade and dashed forward. Jace made to block with his sword, but the man shifted his hands, and the blade split into two: a spear from the center of the shaft that he pulled out and swept out at Jace’s feet, and the blade that kept coming from above. Jace blocked the sword coming down at him, but the spear-sweep caught him fully off guard and he had to jump up.

Which presented an opening where he could not move. The cog-sword man formed a bright, orange light in front of his chest that exploded out into the now-airborne and unable-to-dodge Jace, slamming into his front and launching him back into the wall of the room. Jace felt tiredness begin to take over as he felt like he could take a nap right there in the pile of rubble from the shattered wall. Damnit. Dropping the [Reflecting] on the shield. He saw the effect fade. Thanks to the upgrade from his Ascended Power, he knew that the shield would persist until his energy faded and would not cost him more energy the more blows it absorbed.

Ollie whispered in his ear, “He has got a Skill called Starsight. It enables him to see a second into the future using predictive analysis, and pierce any type of illusion, obfuscation, or other form of concealment that is below his Tier. He is Tier 8!”

Jace shoved himself out of the rubble and saw the Ascendant, standing there, with the spear in one hand and sword in the other, “Well, I’m waiting, Flicker. I’ve seen your handiwork. I want a good fight. Give me one.”

“Ollie,” he whispered. “How do I beat someone who can see the future?”

“I need to find more information out about his Skill and how it works. Just survive for a bit!”

Jace nodded and willed his Void Blade (Rank 1) to spread down to his legs, activating the blades on the bottom of them to give himself more offensive options. Raising his arm, he pointed at the man. “I’ll accept your challenge.” Arbiter’s Anathema. He veiled his thought-based activation using his words, and the black and gold cord whipped out, wrapped around the Ascendant’s body, and then tightened.

“Oh? Deactivating my empowerment Skills? Interesting.” He ran forward and Jace raised his sword to defend, pulling out the vibro-slicer knife from the sheath on the small of his back, expanding his Void Blade (Rank 1) to cover that as well. The spear stabbed forward, and Jace knocked the tip aside with his knife before lashing out with his sword, which was caught by the Ascendant’s blade.

To Jace’s surprise, a third arm rose from the back of the man, jabbing forward with another spear. It slammed into Jace’s shoulder, and he felt control over that limb vanish as the tip pierced through his shield. What? How did it get past my Void Shield? Jace turned his body, ripping the tip out in the process as his right arm hung limp and the vibro-dagger fell onto the ground.

The Ascendant pulled back and grinned, “You would not believe how useful having multiple limbs is.” A fourth arm emerged from his back, and that’s when Jace spotted the difference in material. The extra arms protruding from the man’s back were also prosthetic. “Come now, I want a good fight. Use your healing Skill, whatever it is.”

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Jace barked out a laugh, “I need to hurt someone to activate it.”

“Well, I’ve never been harmed; I’m not going to start now for the sake of a good fight!” The figure began to approach once more.

“Ollie, dust these corpses.”

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[Stardust Acquired: 1000]

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Jace turned tail and fled. He ran through the hole in the wall, jumped out into the open space, and dropped his sword. Using his grapnel arm, he latched onto the higher floors of the building and swung around, landing on a higher-roof than the main floor he had been on. Dark Matter Mending (Rank 1), he thought. The single injury was mended and he could feel his arm once more as the connective tissue was repaired.

“I got some information,” Ollie stated. “His name is Fletcher Rhark. Star [Swordsman 85] / Supermassive [Spear Saint 76]. We are still trying to figure out his Ski-”

Ollie was cut off as a bolt of orange light slammed into Jace’s side and sent him tumbling across the roof, yanking the Wayfinder by the tether along with him. Jace rolled to his feet and immediately brought Nethaldrim to a ready position as a spear stabbed forward. The Ascendant was growling in rage, and those sunken, hollow eyes glowed with a furious rage. “I did not say you could leave yet! I want my fun!” He shoved Jace back and slashed out with the sword, stabbing with the two other spears at the same time.

Jace dropped to his back and kicked away the two spear-tips, spinning on his shoulders in a flare as he chopped the sword blow aside with his own weapon. He ended the spin by slapping down with his hand and flipping up onto his feet. If he’s got Swordsman, I bet its like Swordmage. He’s got a Skill like my Swordmage Stance that is letting him bypass my defensive Skills.

That was when Jace noticed the slight singed flesh on the Ascendant’s body, and he witnessed as the crackling energy of Aura of Wrath zapped out and did a minute amount of damage to the man. I can endlessly heal if I stay close enough. Okay, no more running. Dark Matter Mending (Rank 4) [Vampiric]. He launched himself at the foe, unleashing horizontal slashes that intentionally left him open to injury. Come on. Take the bait.

The figure parried every strike with ease, deflecting the blows and jabbing forward but not getting any closer to Jace. Each spear strike lashed out, pierced Jace’s shield, and injured him: but he felt no pain thanks to Wrath’s Embrace and he was healed immediately as the arcing streams of his aura peppered his foe.

No longer was this Fletcher confident and brash; his face became determined and he grit his putrid, greenish teeth as he increased the force of his assault. Two more arms sprouted from his back, and Jace faced a hail of sharp points: five of them: all stabbing from various angles. There was no way he could keep up with the parrying required, and instead focused on trying to get close. Just let me get my hand on you!

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Fletcher altered the angle of one of his stabs and instead beat Jace to the side with the haft of the spear, knocking him away before impaling him through the gut. Jace could feel the shaft sticking out of him, and Fletcher grabbed the shaft before using it to almost puppet the Jace’s body. Moving him back and forth, Jace tried to break the shaft but couldn’t, and all the while spear points continued to stab down into him from above.

Okay. Screw this. “Burn him,” he muttered as blood filled his mouth. “Pyromancy: activate.”

An enormous fireball exploded from Jace, flinging Fletcher back and searing him as he cried out in pain: not very loudly, though, as he had innate resistance due to his Star Cosmic Power. But it bought Jace time and some distance for his Dark Matter Mending to kick in and fully heal his wounds.

He felt his energy dwindling, and had to let Wrath’s Embrace and its associated Skills fade. As well as Dark Matter Mending, as he had no more constant damage to heal off of. I need a hit with my sword, Jace thought as he had only Void Blade (Rank 1) on Nethaldrim, as the blade’s unique property negated the cost of the weapon imbuing Skill. “Wait a second,” he muttered. “Ollie, how does Void Shield work with Thellor’s Everguard?”

“It does not,” Ollie replied. “That only negates the cost of non-persistent shields.”

“But it still can be used to make a magical shield, yeah?”

“Correct.”

Jace fiddled with the item on his wrist as Fletcher recovered and began running towards him again. “How do I turn it on?!”

Ollie wrapped around his arm and tapped the bracer. Jace held his arm out seemingly by instinct as the entirety of his arm was wrapped in a fancy, metal sleeve. Extended from that sleeve were several flower-petal like, overlapping plates. “That should do it!” Ollie shouted as the plates thrummed with a pink hue of overlapping fields of energy.

Jace turned to face the coming threat, “How do we deal with his future sight?”

“It costs energy. And it is only predictive. You have to do something he cannot see!”

Jace nodded, this is going to hurt, he thought. Nanites, if you can respond to me, turn off my pain receptors. He had no clue if that would work. Taking a deep breath, he fired off another Archmage Skill. “I want to blast him with an icy hail. Hydromancy: activate.” The air grew incredibly cold as a blizzard flared to life around Jace and shards of piercing hail shot out towards Fletcher.

With supernatural speed, the man dodged the incoming shower of ice and rime, getting in close to Jace and lashing out with his five spears and his sword. Jace blocked the sword with Thellor’s Everguard and saw the blade crunch down and get embedded int the metal flower petal protrusions. The spear points came in all around the defensive barrier, and Jace was able to get his sword in the way of one, deflecting it to the side.

The other four found their marks in his torso. The pain was immediately noticeable; like he had been jabbed with large needles. He was expecting worse pain, like being stabbed, but he did not feel that. Thanks, nanites, he thought. Dropping his sword, he grabbed one of the spears, shoved his body weight forward, and was able to just barely get a finger on Fletcher’s hand, hidden due to the shield on his arm. But that was enough. “Mage’s Mark (Rank 3).” He winced as the energy used weakened him further, but the effect took hold.

Wrenching his blade free, Fletcher backed off for a moment, circling Jace. Jace eyed him through the gap of the shield’s riven portion. Now, you’ll only inflict half as much pain. Hiding behind the shield and launching an attack had worked wonderfully.

Jace summoned his sword to his hand, and it flew around the shield before comfortably fitting in his grip. “What’s the matter, Fletcher?” he asked, taunting his foe. “Having more trouble than you’re used to?”

There was a slight laugh in response. “I’m just playing with my food. You’re fun. But you are right, I should bring this to a close. Two Tiers below me? You never really stood a chance.”

That’s what you think. Jace could see the man still circling. I just have to hurt you a little bit with [Rending] to ensure my win. Time to see if my idea works. Steel Gale Stride, Void Blade (Rank 1) [Rending]. The air turned to razor blades around Jace’s legs, and to his delight, the effects of Void Blade manifested on the sharpened slices of wind. Running forward, keeping his body hidden behind the shield, he launched himself at his opponent.

Fletcher got to the side and stabbed out at Jace with four of his spears. Jace ran off of the air, dodging the flurry of spears, as he shot out his Ghostlight Grapnel at the ground behind Fletcher. Yanking himself to the spot behind his foe, he felt the deep, piercing pain of several spears jut into him as he passed overhead.

But his plan did work. As Jace rolled in a bloody mess along the rooftop, he saw that the scything blades of wind following his path of travel scored contact with his opponent: spreading the crimson miasma. Dark Matter Mending (Rank 4) [Vampiric]. He sighed in relief as he saw the crimson slowly spread from the shoulders and head of his foe, and his own wounds sealed up.

“The Everguard is damaged beyond repair,” Ollie stated. “It is useless. Get rid of it.”

Jace nodded and ripped it off his wrist, the metal flower-petals stuck in place as they tried to retract. He tossed the device off to the side of the building. He looked at his foe who closed the distance, and Jace put up the best defense he could. But there were just too many jabbing points. He ensured to keep the large chops at bay, as he doubted he could heal through having his body bisected or an arm chopped off. But each stab of a spear penetrated into his body, only to be healed by the natural regenerative effect of the NICIF coursing through his body, and the Dark Matter Mending.

“Why won’t you die?!” Fletcher shouted out.

Jace smiled despite his injuries and the constant sharp-needle-like pain of the spear stabs. He parried another sword strike, then dropped his weapon and grabbed his foe’s weapon. Kicking up with his legs and pushing off, he suffered stabs to his lower extremities and gut: but he managed to get the sword away as he flipped back to solid footing. Summoning his sword back to his hand, he sucked in deep breaths as he panted from the solid three-minutes of fighting.

His body was aching, he was sweating all over, and he was exhausted. I’ve got double the parrying power now, Jace thought. “I’m not dying because I cannot die,” Jace lied. “You cannot kill me. Troxanir’s minions couldn’t. Deckard’s couldn’t. Why do you think I’ve survived this long?”

Fletcher growled before doubling over and coughing up a glob of brown, goopy blood. “What did you do to me?” he asked through painful inhalation as he fell to a knee.

“You’re afflicted with a damage over time effect,” Jace stated as he threw the cog-sword off the side of the building. “It will never end unless I will it to end. You have lost.”

Fletcher stood up and let out a scream of rage. It shook Jace to his core, as the man exploded with the light of the sun itself. Jace had to squint, and thankfully his All-Seeing Dragon’s Eyes could not be blinded. He saw the man’s skin burn away: including burning away the [Rending] effect as it literally incinerated the affected tissue, muscle, and cartilage. “I am the Warrior of Sunlight! I will not lose!”

Jace threw his sword at Fletcher, and the blade impacted his chest, sinking down to the hilt. The man either didn’t notice or did not care, as the artificial sun that had manifested all around him shrank down to the size of his palm, and he threw it at Jace.

Time seemed to slow down. Jace saw certain death coming for him. The power of an entire sun, condensed into a single point that would have completely obliterated him. But…he had two more uses left. Arbiter’s Anathema.

The sun was instantly wrapped in black strands laced with gold and was negated entirely. Fletcher let out a roar of frustration, and Jace summoned his blade back to his grip. “No! Return of the Second Sun!” Another enormous, artificial sun: this time somehow bigger, brighter, and hotter than the first one, appeared above him.

Jace pointed at that one, too. Arbiter’s Anathema. It vanished as he used the last application of that Skill. He ran forward as Fletcher had no time to react, and took off the Ascendant’s head. “Dust him,” Jace ordered as he planted Nethaldrim into the roof and leaned on it, taking deep breaths to recover.

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[Stardust Acquired: 200]

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“Good job!” Ollie shouted.

Then, his eyes went out. “Jace, get out of there. Now. We can’t risk Nebula Alliance interacting with you anymore and revealing your capabilities.” Xera’s voice was filled with concern and just a tiny undertone of panic.

Jace gulped down the spit that had been accumulating in his mouth from his exhausted, panting breaths. “Right,” he whispered. Sheathing his weapon, he activated Dark Energy Mine (Rank 1) on his chest, ran to the edge of the building at top speed, and activated the Skill: sailing over the city in his pseudo-flight.