DISCLAIR: This story is NOT MINE IN ANY WAY. That honor has gone to the beautiful bastard Ryuugi. This has been pulled from his Spacebattles publishnt at threads/rwby-the-gar-the-gas-we-play-disk-five.341621/. Anyway on with the show...err read.
Splitting Up
My Aurora exploded into existence around us and imdiately aspected towards water, taking form as a bizarre, personalized water spout. As Gilgash entered my range, I felt his presence as a swift moving object literally burning a path through the flowing wind and water, boiling anything that touched his skin with friction alone.
He was fast, more so than anyone I'd ever fought, and that made all the difference in a fight. Most of the Grimm I opposed were massive creatures and there was sothing to be said for thatbut they were unwieldy, too, so massive that everything they did seed almost glacial. It wasn't, truly; logically speaking, any of the Grimm moved at truly absurd speeds given their size. But to ? They were mostly just giant targets. So of the Grimm, the truly powerful ones, had other ways around such things, but those that didn't
Well, they were a big part of how I'd gotten this strong.
And Gilgash wasn't like them at all. If anything, he'd been built with their weaknesses in mind, leveraging the absurd physical prowess of the Grimm to even more absurd levels, without anything to hold him back. I wasn't foolish enough to assu that he didn't have anything else up his sleevemy life was rarely that easybut even without whatever he was keeping in reserve, he was on a different level than the Grimm I'd fought thus far. He was fast by my standards and with nothing but his physical stats, managed to move at speeds I could only match with layered skills and outright ti manipulation. It was, quite frankly, kind of ridiculous.
But so was I.
I held my Aurora in place for only a mont, gauging his approach, and then Fluctuated, flickering away just as he cut through the space I'd inhabited. Even as I moved, I let Xihai slip from my flesh, her spiritual presence seeming to rise from my skin like water vaporand while I disappeared, she remained just where she was, forming a forming a physical form from the surrounding water. That was part of the reason I hadn't put aside Varuna instantly, in fact; though I didn't consider it the best of my Elental Embodint skills, it did have a fair bit going for it, among them the casual ability to either summon or create water. Without any increase in cost, Aurora had generated a massive amount of water; enough to flood skyscrapers and more than enough to serve my and Xihai's needs.
As Gilgash hit the other side of the rough sphere my Aurora had created, he didn't pierce throughrather, the sphere distorted, a portion of it stretching out with him and turning it into an odd cone-like shape as water pulled at him even as he pushed forward, slowing him slightly. At the sa ti, the rough coils of the forr water spout transitioned into actual coiled, complete with dark blue scales. It spiraled upwards, water swirling into a more definite shape as it gathered into the form of giantess with six arms who's body flowed seamlessly into the serpentine scales just above her waist. Even as Gilgash finally broke free of the water's grasp and literally exploded out of her back, she didn't so much as flinch, water shifting back into place ever as what was boiled away began to condensate. Instead, she simply looked at Gilgash with nine pitch-black orbs; two in her face, one at her collar bone, and one on each of her arms, just below where her shoulders rged. From each of the eyes ca a steady stream of clear water, flowing into and feeding the rest of her body.
Of all the improvents I'd made prior to this battle, this was, while not the greatest, definitely one of the closest to my heartmy Elentals had made the jump from Lesser Elentals to True Elentals, with my Elental Affinities all doubling in the process. More importantly than that, however, was the changes that had co to my friends.
"Stop, monster," Xihai said calmly, forming the sounds on her own as she watched her foe. "We won't allow you to do as you please any longer."
Gilgash stopped for a mont to simply look at her for a mont before making a strange sound, like soone clicking their tongue but sohow off.
"To be expected, I suppose," He said, looking back at . "As per usual, you are startlingly divided for one ant to represent unity."
"You have no idea," I answered, shifting my feet slightly as I focused on gathering my power.
"We are united in all the ways that matter," Xihai declared, looking at Gilgash. "A creature such as you should understand that."
"Perhaps so," Gilgash allowed easily. "Nonetheless, it's interesting. Are you the sa, beneath the surface? Or have you changed in death as well, spirit of water?"
"All things change," She said, as if the question was aningless to her. "In life and death and ti. I am not the sa as I was, whether yesterday or a thousand years beforeyet what does it matter? Whatever has been gained or lost, so long as you can continue on, that is strength."
Gilgash tilted his head and considered her, having to tilt his head back to do so.
"Well said," He answered, almost as if applauding the words. "But I would disagree sowhat. Even after all this ti, at least my heart has not changed, nor my will. In my eyes, I consider that to be what makes strongthat no matter what happens, I am still myself."
"I wouldn't consider it a matter of pride to cease to change," Xihai said. "That which does not change rely stagnates and that which is not added to is dood to decline; these are simple facts."
"Spoken as a creature born of water," Gilgash mused. "It's a fair point of contention, howevershall we consider this a test of our resolves, then? Gas are more interesting when there's sothing at stake besides our lives, especially as we are all so willing to face death."
Xihai looked at for a mont and I shook my head slightly, indicating that I wasn't ready yet.
"Consider it what you will," Xihai decided. "But it seems pointless to ; our resolve survived even death."
"Ah, true," Gilgash agreed. "But that's what makes it interesting, no? That which sets us apart."
Apparently considering that the end of the sudden exchange, Gilgash flickered and Xihai deford. As he ca near her, he lashed out relentlessly with his blade, the strikes so fast that they left imprints in the water like open wounds, each of the marks in the exact shape of Gilgash's bladeand monts later igniting in their wake even as the water violently burst. Xihai exploded, her form shattered by the attack and scattered into droplets even as the rest of her form lost shape. I felt sothing odd through my connection to my Water Elental and couldn't say I was surprised when it took her a mont to begin to reform.
As I thought, there was more to the material Gilgash was composed of than simple defensive ability. If Kavacha was sothing from above that shouldn't have existed below, than whatever he was made of seed almost like its oppositesothing created in Malkuth that was sohow divorced from everything else? I wasn't even sure how sothing like that would have worked, but it might have made sense. If I had to guess, the effect was probably the reverse of Kavacha's, too, being more effective against things based on MP than purely physical attacks. Then again, with stats like his, he probably didn't need to worry much about the purely physical.
Still, it was going to make killing him that much more of a pain in the ass.
I checked on the progress I'd made even as I kept an eye on Gilgash who, naturally, had turned his attention back towards the mont the imdiate obstacle was gone. I had a mont to decide whether to keep going or switch tracksand made my decision quickly.
Whatever he had going for him, I wasn't worriedand I wasn't alone. Especially not right now.
Cover , I thought. I need a little while longer.
At once, there was a flash and Gilgash aborted his approach, staggering slightly in the wake of the lightning strike. Vulturnus flickered around , recoiling slightly at whatever resistance he'd felt, but it was a brief thing, not as bad as whatever had struck Xihai. Already, my Water Elental was returning to her physical form, reconstructing it in the wake of whatever had disrupted it, and I didn't stop there. The earth buckled and the wind raged, groaning and howling even as the smoke filled air churned and a storm began to brew above us. I drew back as four of my Elentals rose, keeping only Suryasta and Crocea Mors close at hand, and waited.
I'd known from the beginning that sothing like this would be hard to pull off in the middle of combat, butI trusted my friends. If it was just this, I'd be safe even in the middle of this battlefield.
Sowhere deep in my soul, my Hidden Heart started beating.
Levant took the form of a towering woman, though tiny compared to Xihai's massive formonly about three and a half ters tall or so. She'd changed at once the most and the least amongst my Elentals, with her features being much the sa, if perhaps a touch older; a woman, now, instead of a teenager. What was different waspretty much everything else. She'd traded her gown for what could briefly be mistaken for a white dress, until one noticed the feathers and realized she had wings. They were thin and sprouted from seemingly every joint and vertebrae, varying greatly in both width and length as they conford to her body in layers, covering everything but her face; there were even wings growing from her wrists and knuckles, covering her hands with gloves. On the whole, very few of her wings were actually outstretched; the only real exceptions where a pair of wings that stretched backwards from each ankle and the ones behind her ears, which seed to catch her hair between them. Otherwise, they did nothing but flutter vaguely as she wielded her power.
And wield it she did. Storms struck out at the battlefield, churning the smoke into dark vortexes. She kept safe from her power and prevented it from spilling over onto my friends, but Grimm around us had to brace themselves to keep from being drawn towards than as the wind speeds climbed further and further into the hundreds. Gilgash didn't resist, however, instead stepping forward, piecing cleanly through the first storm like a bullet, using his own speed to keep him safe. Vulturnus trailed after her, his form unraveling into a thousand strears, reaching out towards the rushing Grimm and striking the mont their paths crossed.
Unlikely last ti, however, Gilgash wasn't caught by surprise and he didn't so much as flinch, simply taking the hit and hit and moving to counterattack. His sword flicked out the mont Vulturnus struck him, taking advantage of the brief period between one lightning strike and the next, and sheered through the Lightning Elental's almost shapeless mass with a bizarre sound sowhere between a hiss of a cat and the tearing of paper. Vulturnus exploded into sparks, ironically stunned, and Gilgash turned his attention to his next opponent.
Ereb promptly hit him with a boulder the size of a small house, bringing it down upon him in a massive fist. Ereb was perhaps the most changed, rising from the ground as a titan of earth and stone. Traces of his human form's features were still apparent, but they were tined by earthen ridges and his skin was the color of weathered rock. His proportions were all wrong, too, with his arms and legs far thicker than they would have been on a human, and hackles on his back that looked like a mountain range. He was enormous, too, with Xihai perhaps being longer from head to tail but barely coming up to his waist as she was. His warped hands, now changed to look like brutal stone claws, lded with the boulder as he tried to hamr Gilgash into the ground like a nail. For a mont, it almost looked like he'd succeeded.
A mont later, however, the stone trembled and shook, cracks spreading across its length as Gilgash pushed back, overwhelming Ereb with simple main strength and knocking him back. My Earth Elental fell until the back of his head nearly touched the ground, before stopping oddly, his body held parallel to the ground by his bent knees. His remaining hand grasped at the earth as if clawing for sothing, and then his body flung itself back upright, pulling a jagged stone sword from the dirt. From poml to hilt, it was half-again Ereb's size and looked as rough as a cliff side, but he swung it through the air with casual ease and brought it down with enough force to shatter the ground for fifty ters. Gilgash raised his own sword to catch it, but the smaller blade simply cut deeply into Ereb's, leaving it to crash down on his shoulder and stagger him slightly. He flicked his wrist once, the gesture sohow seeming chagrined, and the stone sword was cut cleanly in two, along with most of Ereb's upper body.
Ereb seed to sway as his remaining arm fell to the ground with a tumultuous thud, though the fact that his head had been split from his right temple to the left corner of his forehead seed like the more serious wound. Unlike Xihai and Vulturnus, however, his form was not dispelled, despite how disorienting the aningless wound seed; a benefit of his solidity, perhaps? Whatever the reason, it seed like he'd have an easier ti recovering, given a mont to recover.
Needless to say, Gilgash didn't allow him that chance; he leapt into the air to strike him in the chest, sending cracks rippling outwards before twisting once to shatter him like a statue. Gilgash landed calmly, shaking away the dust and dirt, before focusing on Levant.
There was a flash, a flicker, and he pierced through both a wall of wind and Levant's chest, crashing to the ground right in front of . I didn't flinch as he rose, eting his eyes without fear.
"A valiant effort," He said. "I've always considered Elentals to be worthy foes and their very nature can make them seem unsurmountable, for even the complete destruction of their physical forms accomplishes nothing. Butthat's only if one is unaware of how to deal with them. I hope you didn't expect to be caught off-guard by such a thing; there are benefits to several millennia of experience."
"So I can see," I mused, hiding my worry. None of my Elentals seed injured as such, but whatever he'd done to them had co as a shock. I guess it was probably the first ti any of them had felt pain and I didn't like seeming them that way.
"Do you have any other Elentals you wish to summon?" He prompted. "Or perhaps to rge into so greater forms? Or are you alone now?"
"You'll find I'm very rarely alone, I think," I replied, casting a glance around. "My apologies for keeping you waiting, however; I was a bit preoccupied."
"Were you now," Gilgash answered dryly, looking over once before chuckling to himself. "Very well; I'm away this is a trick of so kind, but I'm curious, so I shall play along. Let's continue our ga, Archangel."
I didn't so much as blink as he swung his sword towards my head, Fluctuating quickly to the side. In that sa mont, I took a breath and the world around erupted into flas, Agni setting my renewed Aurora on fire. I fanned the flas quickly, activating my other techniques to turn the area around into a hell for anyone caught inside.
It should go without saying that I made sure Gilgash was standing right next to at the ti.
The ancient Grimm actually flinched once, recoiling at the sudden rush of flas. He didn't evaporate as lesser Grimm had, didn't even start to imdiately burnbut I saw his armor heat and glow and knew it must have hurt. He recovered quickly, however, lashing out at with one hand without the slightest care about entering the core of my flas and
Um. Well, technically, what he did was grab my head with one hand, lift off the ground, and slam back downbut when Gilgash was doing sothing like that, it was the type of thing that was best described with words like 'smite.' The already broken ground shattered for another few hundred ters as he plunged straight into the field of molten earth my presence was creating, driving down until I hit sothing solid. I reached up reflexively to grab his wrist, instinctively trying to leverage him off, but in a contest of pure strength, Gilgash probably had more in his fingertips than I did in both arms. He held on and made it clear he wasn't letting go as his grip tightened on my skull, other hand pulling back to strike in the face, pushing further and further down.
All his attention was focused on now, which was technically what I'd wanted, but I admit this wasn't quite what I'd had in mind.
But oh well. I'd long since accepted that improvisation was what I did for a living. And Gilgash was right about one thingit was a trap.
As Gilgash pulled back a hand to strike again, clearly intent on pumling a few hundred feet deeper into the ground, he abruptly flinched once, a spear of gleaming white piercing cleanly through his chest. Unlike , it seed he had a bit of trouble seeing clearly beneath a forty ters of molten earth, but to his credit he didn't question ithe just moved, throwing himself away from with enough force that the miniature lake I'd created all but exploded outwards, leaving behind.
A mont later, however, a hand reached out to and I took it gratefully, letting soone who hadn't just gotten smote pull out of the lava.
"Are you okay?" A voice asked as I coughed slightly. The damage wasn't too bad and most of it was stopped outright by Agnibut I'd swallowed so lava while I was getting punched in the face and it tasted pretty horrible.
"Of course," I said, shaking my head slightly. "It's after all. I couldn't look myself in the mirror if I couldn't shrug off sothing like that."
"True," The voice said, helping to my feet. Or helping upright, rather, as we were both floating in the air at the mont. "We good to go then?"
I nodded and looked up at him, smiling slightly. Gilgash hadn't noticed what I'd done when I Fluctuated away from his attackor rather, he hadn't noticed that I'd Fluctuated twice.
I suppose that couldn't be helped, given what he didn't know; after all, I'd left the sa place both tis.
"Hey, Jaune," I said to myself. "Still looking sexy and amazing, I see."
"Damn straight I am," I replied easily as I scanned the surrounding area. "You too, Jaune."
By raising The Hidden Heart to level 99, you have gained the skill 'Thaumiel.'
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