5 Days Left

When the screams started Floki didn’t react nearly as fast as he should’ve. It had been too long since he’d been on the battlefield, he was too old, and he’d never spent much time fighting. He could come up with a hundred different excuses, but the truth was that he was confused and he failed.

When he first turned towards the noise, he noted two figures. The usually stately figure of Ulf ripping apart in vivid sprays of blood and the person behind him standing with an ivory sword rainbow energy running along the curved edges. His mind struggled to keep up with what he saw at that moment, instead of jumping to action he noted how Ulf’s body fell apart before the woman as she slashed out at the couple who’d been talking with him.

The room went dark, instantly followed by a hand span thick ray of light blasting through the room. Floki didn’t see how the couple, he belatedly realized it was Hildrid and Svenar managed to get away, but as the light returned he saw them standing some distance from the woman.

She’d been untouched by the light, greasy hair blowing in the wind as faint curls of smoke rose from the edges as she glared around the room with wide manic eyes of cracked glowing gold and purple.

Ankirian, Floki thought, then she unleashed a slaughter along with the revelation that startled him the most. She didn’t rush forwards in an explosive burst like a warp Body would have. She blinked out existence, appearing behind a group of three second-stages with a slash of rainbow before she blinked across the room to stand in front of Master Haws. Floki had known the master for the better part of thirty years, he remembered watching him train on the fields with his friends when he’d first joined the academy. Haws had been an obsidian, but he’d been an avid fan of tethered in general and he’d been so stuffed full of questions that even Floki had sent him away in the end, even with his own lackluster class.

She cut him in half before he’d even embraced the pressure. Finally, Floki’s old body caught up to the events. His heart started beating faster, his breath coming quicker, and he embraced the pressure immediately sensing her space-generator power. She was blinking through the room so rapidly and skilled, Floki realized she could only be one woman.

Saleema, the triplet master, had come to kill them all and he’d be damned if he was going to let her. Neither were the others in the room. All around Floki, powers came alive. Ice, and stone, and smoke, and light. All of it was sent flying towards her. Already, she’d scythed through a dozen tethered with her warp infused weapon.

Saleema whipped her head up clearly sensing the attacks coming her way. Floki sensed her spirit flexing and shifting as excess space formed around her. He reached out exerting his own power, No! He didn’t dare oppose her directly. She was a triplet master a full six advancements beyond him, but he could interject a little of his own space. Enough that she failed to encapsulate herself.

She whipped her eyes towards him baring her teeth as the attacks flew from every angle. “We got you,” Floki grinned as her technique faltered and faded. Then she did the impossible. Barriers of hardened space, redirection lines, gateways, and even a wellspring jumped into existence in a moment.

The redirection lines sent shards of power and light onto uncontrolled directions as they suddenly found perfect pathways to travel, most of them still hit other people as she was far outmatched in numbers. Chips of ice and obsidian sprayed the room and one tethered went down clutching their face in a spray of blood. The wellspring surrounding Saleema fed the space turning attacks into glancing hits or near misses. And then a half-dozen gateways appeared before Floki and powers of all kinds rushed at him.

He barely managed to get his single hardened plane of space up in time. Normally that would’ve been fine, but each of these techniques had been thrown from the hands of a master than carried that weight with them, to the point that even his technique was strained by the end.

Dismissing the plane, he saw Saleema blazing a path for him with her sword’s rainbow edge either cutting apart her enemies of creating enough space to make her way. Floki could see his death in her glowing eyes when someone stepped in front of her and stopped her sword. It took a moment for Floki to place the younger teacher’s name, but there were only so many warp masters at the academy.

Hadr’s outline glowed with rainbow energy as he caught the sword in one hand, the other cocked back. Floki noted the widening of Saleema’s eyes as it exploded forwards with a crack of released energy. Floki didn’t know much about warp tethered, especially not masters of the Body discipline, he just knew they were as rare as they were deadly.

Saleema should’ve been blown through a wall from Hadr’s strike, but she halted not five feet from him, though, Floki noted the line of blood on her chin where he’d struck her. Then a ball of warp energy ripped the air as the blasted towards her and she was forced to catch it on her hand.

Floki watched wide-eyed as she wasn’t torn apart, instead only the outer layer of her skin started ripping as she forced the ball away from her and into a gateway. Floki saw the puff of dispersed light that emerged in front of him from her redirected attack as she returned her attention to him.

Then a blur of light took her legs out from underneath her. Floki hadn’t ever seen anyone move that fast before. Even with his perceptions enhanced by his space affinity he could barely track Master Ayvir, he sensed the two fingers the young man had extended towards Saleema as they both hovered in the air and sensed the heave of his will.

The entire world went black. Floki’s senses were completely blocked out until he felt searing heat on his face. It was hot enough that he instinctively backed away as it burned his face. This was one of those times he wished he had trained more with the other Disciplines.

Whatever the master had done it faded with a scream and light returned in an instant. Saleema knelt alone in the center of the room. Half her hair had been burned away, her left ear was a melted mess and burn scars stood out clearly against the left side of her neck, face, and shoulder. The shirt she’d worn was burned nearly entirely away leaving a smoldering rag gently flapping in the heat-created breeze of Ayvir’s attack.

The destructive force had burned a hole straight through the mansion and Floki could see into the night sky through three stories of mansion. Saleema screamed in kisi as she returned to her feet, bloodshot eyes screaming for violence. She still clutched her weapon in one hand.

Hadr pushed into her with a crack of force that ripped carpet and wood floor underneath. She took his first strike on her sword her powers flooding her body and making her immovable for an instant, then she slapped him with the limb she held in her other hand. The arm was severed just below the shoulder and it sprayed blood into Hadr’s face.

The young man staggered back more shocked by the impact than hurt. She tried throwing him into a pocket-space, but Floki opposed her making her scream in hate once more. Instead, she slapped at him with her sword, but Hadr had recovered and pushed it away with his own power.

Before she could push her advantage more attacks came flying her way. Hadr dodged back in the storm of ice, obsidian, and light, the smoke obscuring many attacks making them hard to read.

Floki didn’t believe it would stop her, not after he’d seen how she dealt with the first barrage when he’d taken her by surprise. She still tried to blink away, but her attempt was half-hearted at best. Instead, he summoned a dome of protection around himself as he searched for Master Ayvir. The tethered had been the only one to truly hurt her. Floki wasn’t sure how he’d done it, but didn’t like to think where the arm’d come from.

He found Ayvir lying on his back next to Hildrid, who was doing her best impression of first-aid with precise use of obsidian. Floki was about to curse when he sensed the creation of a massive well-spring. Usually, the technique was only made to generate a little excess space around you to turn glancing blows into near-misses, but this was on the full scale of a Mantle.

Power poured forth as if from an ocean and Floki was already too late to stop it.

The world changed as every single tethered in the room was scooped into a pocket-space, though calling it as such fell inaccurate. It was bigger than most houses and though she’d only grabbed the tethered it was enough that she’d managed it.

Saleema stood bloodied in the center of the dark space gasping for breath as she swayed on her feet, weapon slicing at the floor of the space throwing up purple sparks. Floki knew from personal experience that it wasn’t exhaustion that had drawn her into such a state, among tethered he’d found space to be one of the most enduring in all his years. They usually had an extra step in them when the others quit. Not that they were suited for big burst of power like this, but a triplet master couldn’t follow all the rules.

Saleema pointed a cracked fingernail at him and he felt space try to force him out, but he resisted inserting his own Mantle and material into the area to oppose. She let out another screech of rage which was punctuated by a thumb sized ball of rainbow energy punching a hole in her ribs. Floki saw both the exit and the entry wound. Through lungs and heart.

Her scream was halted halfway through and she coughed up a mouthful of blood.

There was a collective moment of relief as everyone realized it was over. The nightmare was over. There’d been sixty-three tethered at the party before she’d arrived and they were down to less than forty now.

“You got her,” Hildrid words seemed to cause everyone to break out of stunned silence. Floki lowered his arms and turned towards the couple. Hildrid’s loose hair was matted with sweat and blood, which also marked her cheeks as she clung to Svenar. Floki slumped looking down at the empty void within the pocket-space.

He froze realizing his surrounding hadn’t changed. His gaze snapped up as Hildrid screamed. Floki watched a spray of blood punctuated with four digits rose into the air. Saleema glowered down at Svenar, his body opened from hip to shoulder, in the process her sword had torn through Hildrid’s fingers.

Saleema let out a coughing yell. Though, Floki couldn’t understand the language, there was one word that resonated within him, to the center of his soul and his own tether-space. “IMMORTAL!”

Space is immortal, he finally understood her concept.

He watched blood dribble out of both holes in her chest as she glared at everyone swiping her sword through the air.

“She can only last as long as she has power!” Hadr screamed as he blurred forward with a crack of force. Floki only barely managed to catch Saleema attempted expression at excluding the man from the space. Together, they managed to force her back. She was slower than before and Hadr landed progressively more and more strikes, until one cracked her free hand.

“We’ve got her,” he exclaimed as she howled in pain, but Floki knew better. He felt her power peak once more, only this time it kept rising.

“There’s no end to her,” he muttered, with a hollow realization. She didn’t have six stages of advancement on him. She had seven. Power far, far beyond any of those present grabbed the pocket-space. Then it hardened everything. Every single person stopped in place. Techniques in the middle of being throw halted in mid-air. Floki had been inhaling, but now felt no room for his chest to expand.

Thirty-five masters all of them frozen to the spot, unable to move or act. Saleema seemed to be bleeding energy to Floki’s senses. Purple droplets like condensed space fell from her cracked eyes and emerged like sweat from her body. It looked like she was tearing herself apart and he could feel her tether-space, her soul, screaming. It didn’t stop her from beheading Hadr.

Then she dissolved the pocket, dumping everyone back in the room. In the dissolving space, she shuffled two positions closer and Floki barely caught the flash of rainbow light before she drove her sword to the hilt in his chest. She turned away and for a moment, he could see her still beating heart through the hole in her body. The occasional white line covered in an odd way.

That doesn’t look right, Floki thought as he toppled onto his side, the sword coming loose with a wet sucking. It almost looks like scars. Floki saw people emerge into the battered room. The Queen at the head of them. Her eyes were wet and her face flushed with anger and rage. She screamed at Saleema throwing slashes of rainbow light that broke against the ankirian’s Body Discipline.

Then Master Floki died.