In the moment the party let their guards down. They were fighting an enemy and they had killed an enemy. It wasn’t that they believed they’d defeated Gannon, but the Human mind is easily tricked with such simple things. Distract the eye with the wave of a wand and a ball could magically move from a magician’s left hand to their right hand without going through the space in between. Any rational person would think that there must be two balls, but Human minds will accept the illusion as truth. In the next moment all of them realized what they had done and tensed back up, looking out for an attack that was sure to come, but it didn’t. A minute went by. Then two. Then three. When several minutes had passed they relaxed once more figuring that Gannon had run away.

That was what Gannon was waiting for. A high pitched squeal sounded behind Jason. He turned around to block the attack, but it came from below. Gannon had taken up a position directly behind Jason, crouched down with his staff placed inches from his back. Jason turning placed the staff’s head at his stomach. The sound they’d heard was Gannon’s cloak’s energy being sucked into the crystal placed upon the top of the staff, condensing it into a single ferocious explosion of energy placed directly into Jason’s gut. The force of the blast pushed Gannon back. He’d dug his feet into the ground but it wasn’t enough to keep him where he was. Two trails of upturned dirt were created. Jason was launched back into the air, his ARMS armor seemingly dissolving and ripping away around where the attack connected. In the time it took to make its way through the ARMS material Gabbi was able to pull herself away to hide behind Jason’s back. She’d felt one of Gannon’s attacks before and she in no way did she help mitigate the damage and she herself was harmed as well in the process. Instead she could cushion his fall when he struck the ground.

Alyssa was almost as close to the explosion as Jason. She too was flying through the air, her clothes blown away. While taking less of the brunt of the attack she had less protection and no slime girl to absorb the impact. She was positioned so that she was flung away, made to spin in air, not getting much height, and not coming down as hard but the impact had greater effect on her, kicking up dust and twisting along the ground, hitting several stones till she skid to a stop, hitting her head on a random rock.

Gannon stalked over to his prey, his staff disappearing, returning to a hidden ARMS unit, before a mallet formed in his hands. It had a spherical crystal encrusted in the center of its structure. Within it electricity surged like a plasma globe. He approached Jason and lifted him by the tattered ruins of his armor. Raising the mallet above his head Gannon swung it, bashing Jason’s face with it. His body convulsed. A surge of electricity went through his body. Gannon hit him again and again Jason’s body writhed. Gannon’s strength wore out and dropped Jason at his feet, but it didn’t mean that he was done. He proceeded to beat Jason with the mallet over and over again, each blow making a gash in his skin and shake in torment. Vile laughter escaped his lips. He couldn’t help but to sadistically take pleasure in the pain that he was making Jason feel.

The medical ARMS that Rina was using were on their last bit of charge before they gave out. The lance stuck in Jello’s abdomen still remained there, but for the moment he was stable, she just couldn’t force the wound to regenerate any more. This left Xev is a position of not being able to aid Jason as she had to hold the weapon in place. Regardless whether this was the case or not though, Rina could see out of the corner of her eye what Gannon was doing. She knew she had a job to do to take care of Jello, but she had seen enough. Grabbing one of the rifles she had with her, she took aim at Gannon, the other rifles equipped to her linked belt following her lead and moving to target where she pointed the gun. She fired. All the rifles let loose with a bolt of plasma, traveling along at different angles, aligned so that they’d hit slightly off where Rina was aiming to decrease how accurate she had to be to score a hit on whatever it was she wanted to. In this case, it was the mallet that Gannon was using to bludgeon Jason to death with.

The bolts happened to hit the mallet’s crystal sphere mid swing. The globe absorbed the energy of the bolts. At first it appeared to have no effect, but a moment later it burst, the electric bolts going wild, shocking everything within a meter of where it was for several seconds which was both Jason and Gannon. The lightning storm ended when Gannon willed himself to deactivate the mallet and then turned to face Rina, a scowl on his face and a glare.

“Oh, little girl, you’re going to pay for that,” Gannon spoke calmly hiding his anger beneath a tone you’d expect from an adult feigning excitement while talking to a kid or a pet.

“Stay where you are or I’ll shoot,” Rina replied trying to keep from looking scared.

“I think I’ll come over there and give you your reward.”

Rina discharged a bolt. It zipped pass Gannon’s shoulder, “ I mean it! Stay back!”

“I’m so scared. I think I’ll take a step,” he said, taking a step mockingly toward Rina.

“I’m warning you!”

“Warn me all you like, but you, my dear, are going to die now,” were the last words he said before vanishing right before her eyes. “Now how will you shoot me, little girl? You can’t see me and you can’t shoot what you can’t see.”

Rina began to panic. She knew that he was still right in front of her, or at least she thought he was, but what if he had moved. Which way did he go? Something moved in the grass to the left. She turned and fired off a round, destroying a patch of crops, but there were no signs that Gannon was there. He laughed. It came from the direction that he was when he vanished. “So antsy, I hope you don’t accidentally kill someone.” Rina turned and fired again. The plasmatic bolt lit up the area with its soft glowing aura passing quickly over where Jason laid unconscious and bleeding from facial wounds.

“Careful. You almost hit Jason. We wouldn’t want that, would we?”

She went to take another shot, but stopped herself. He was playing with her and she knew it. It was sure that if she wasn’t careful he’d lead her to hurt her friends. As her fear rose she began to panic. Every sound that she heard could be him and each one made her direct the barrel of her guns at them. The more she panicked the more her senses heightened in response. Sounds that couldn’t be heard normally suddenly began ringing loudly in her ears and they were coming from every direction, but with that there was the lose of normal sounds. She could no longer hear if anyone said anything to her or see what was right in front of her. Even without the cloaking skill Gannon could have simply walked up to her with no tricks and killed her, but that would be too kind and a waste. He didn’t want to kill her. That wouldn’t be fun at all and it would take away from the awards he could reap from taking out these heroes. No. He wouldn’t kill her. He didn’t need to. Instead he would take some of his reward right now and then he would finish off the ones that held no value to him. They couldn’t stop him and that would make it all the more sweet.

Twisting around, aiming every which way, Rina had completely lost herself to the fear of being murdered, but that was not what she should have worried about. Without dropping his cloak Gannon came up behind Rina, grabbing her around her hips, stopping her movement. She gasped sharply, drawing in a breath of air. She felt invisible hands slip up her waist. She knew that she should pull away, turn, striking him with the butt of the rifle and then open fire, but she couldn’t. Something within her prevented her from acting, from fighting back. Her mind screamed for her body to move, but nothing, her body refused to listen. Soon Gannon’s hands cupped Rina’s breasts through her clothing. She could feel his hot breath on the back of her neck. He kissed his way to her ears and nibbled on her lobe before whispering to her, “You’re mine little girl. You’re going to serve me as my slut from now on.” His hands roughly groped her as he kissed her cheek. “Maybe I’ll let Jason watch you service me. how would like that.”

Xev was unable to see Gannon, but her ears could pick up his whispers. From where she was all she could see was that Rina had stopped randomly firing her rifle, but once she heard those whispers she guessed at what was happening. “Rina. Are you alright?” Xev called out to her.

Gannon laughed. He stepped around, pulling Rina along with him so that they were facing Xev, “I’ll get to you when I’m ready. Until then you best stay there. We wouldn’t want anything tragic to happen.” He let one of his hands trail back down Rina’s abdomen and slid under her skirt. He lingered just there, taking pleasure in his complete power over the two women. They could do nothing to stop him and had to do whatever he wanted them to or face the consequences and neither would like that.

Xev saw Rina’s reaction to Gannon’s movements, trying to pull her thighs tight together so he couldn’t gain entrance to where he desired. She wanted to move. She could move. Unlike Rina she had fought in many life and death circumstances and this was nothing new, but if she did it would mean sacrificing the life of Jello. She coldly calculated that Jello’s life was worth more than mental scars and chastity of Rina, but Xev had watched over and seen her grow up. They had an almost mother daughter relationship now and it was very hard for her not to let Jello go to rip apart this enemy that was before her.

“Oh I know what would be fun, little girl. How about you get on your knees…,” Gannon said, pulling his hands back from beneath her clothes, instead opting to force her to her knees in front of him. “That’s it. Now just open your m--” His head was blown clean off his shoulders. The only one that saw what had happened was Xev. The hooded sniper that had come with them was still alive and they’d found their way to the fight. They’d arrived and set up at just the right moment. Through the scope Gannon could be seen clear as day. He was distracted and they had the shot so they took it, but not before noticing that they’d known Gannon in a past life.

After they confirmed the kill the hooded sniper made their way to the rest of the party to aid them in their recovery. Jason, Alyssa, and Jello all had to be treated. Xev couldn’t move until they were and Rina was in no condition to do anything at the moment so it fell on their savior, the hooded sniper, to help put things back together.