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.
Shove
I managed to react at the last second, bringing up my arms in defense. His hand crashed against them with enough force that I felt the bones shatter, ground to dust in an instant, and it barely slowed down his claws. They bit into my forehead and dragged down through my eyes, one of them catching my nose on the way. I felt them split my lips, shatter my upper and lower jaw, and nearly tear the latter free of my face entirely. I felt it as the claws continued down, snapping ribs like twigs and shredding my entrails.
On pretty much anyone else, it would have been a fatal wound.
On , it just hurt like a bitch. Not physicallytruth be told, getting stabbed in the brain honestly didn't hurt much and I was so accustod to pain that I just brushed off everything elsebut in the damage it did. Thanks to my recently improved Vitality, I'd limited that greatly, but still, it hurt.
But it bought enough ti for my other self to evade the blow, stepping backwards as I took the hit and dancing out of the way. He extended a hand toward and Gilgash both, snapping his fingers at once.
There was a sudden cracking sound, but attack outpaced itin part because the trap had already been set. Gilgash had walked into the bounds of our Vajra, the invisible markings laid upon the ground around us, and it was just a matter of letting them loose. We could set them up to react when they were tripped, but with an opponent like Gilgashno. Even if he couldn't dodge the attack itself, there was a mont before the process completed where he could escape. Better to pin him down, first.
So we did. I took the hit. My other stared at him with Gorgon activated, other hand flinging a quick Bind his way, and for a mont he wasn't free to simply leap out of the way.
In that mont, lightning struck. Not once or twice, but the better part of a dozen tis, Vajra altering the conditions to be ideal. I felt it when Gilgash was hit, in part because of the transfer of shocks, but mainly because his claws convulsed in my guts. Even so, I was shielded from the worst of it by my natural defenses, and as Gilgash flung himself away, I only stumbled slightly.
My other was at my side in an instant, attention focused as mine was as Gilgash hit the ground and landed on his feet, armor already rippling again. Insulating himself, perhaps? Reducing the conductivity of his armor, almost certainly. Given such control over his own structure, he'd be able to reduce the damage greatly, mitigating it entirely if it fell into the bounds of his version of Kavacha. Even now, he was more surprised than hurt, and I'd bought myself only monts to act.
Best to use them wisely.
I didn't have to glance at my other self to know we were thinking the sa thing, and we shed our Elental Embodints as once, unleashing both tal and Fire. Our Elentals gathered around us as spiritual presences, pressing close as they focused on our enemy before unraveling and coming back together.
Gilgash released an odd, almost chanical sound as he watched us.
"You still have more tricks, I see," He said, though he shouldn't have been able to see my Elentalsor, at least, no one else had ever been able to, when they weren't manifested. His eyes were good, then, no doubt boosted by his new suit. Unfortunately, that probably ant that my plan to confuse and disorient him with Delusions and Fantasies was probably dood to failure, though it could still have value if I played my cards right.
"I ca to play, after all," I told him as I felt my counterpart making his move. He didn't hide himself, as such, so much as project an image of himself over his bodya trick both of us were more than accustod to, which made it easy to follow his lead. This was a risky move in its own way, especially against an opponent like this, which was why I'd refrained from using it until now, butwe were obviously going to need all the help we could get. Combined with what we were preparing to do next, this move would cost us greatly. It was enough to make consider just going all out right now, but
No. I couldn't allow myself to be frightened and break from the plan. I still had my fair share of cards to play, the things I was setting up and keeping hidden. I'd need to use them soon to get the most use out of them, but things like Keter and the Arcana would cost even worse than what I was planning now. I had to use them wisely and make them count.
Besides. Those tactics had risks of their own, aside from their price tags. I'd be taking chances with them no matter how I used them, which was all the more reason not to let myself be shaken.
If there was anything to beperhaps not thankful, because ti was both my friend and enemy in this battle, but at least aware of in this fight, it was that we all moved fast enough that relatively little ti had passed. I still had several minutes before I ran Thaumiel's course.
"Good, good," Gilgash replied. "I was worried. What few people I've been forced to show this power to have died shortly thereafter; for a mont, I believed you would be the sa."
"I'm a lot of things," I said. "Easily killed is not one of them. That ability of yours is impressive, but"
I closed my eyes for a mont, shaking my head at him even as I ntally weighed crunched the numbers. The ti need, the cost per second, how much we needed to prepare, how much ti we'd lose. If it wasn't already, our plan would soon be visible, but ever second counted, both for and against us. We'd have an advantage, but we'd also be giving him an opening. Ironically, the next monts would be critical.
But while ti may not strictly be on our side, we had friends who were.
"Is that all?" I asked him. "I can do that."
The words were, at best, half-true, but they were enough to startle and make him wonder, and that gave them value. I took the opportunity to punctuate them as my Dinsional took form.
The next mont, we were right in Gilgash's faceno, sowhere between our starting positions, already in the midst of a clash. My body was twisted now, the form of Sahasrara seeming to recede behind growing plates of white armor as it slid over our skin. It covered us fully, drawing the spiritual wings of my soul behind sothing rooted firmly in the physical.
My counterpart and I were undergoing a tamorphosis, shifting our forms to match his. I felt strength flow through in the process, rising quickly to engulf fullyand I wonder how aware Gilgash was of the process. Could he sense more clearly now that I was closer to one of his kind? Did my shifted form give him any insight into what I planned to do next?
It was unfortunately possiblebut that was sothing I'd accounted for. It wouldn't matter one way or another by the ti we reached the next step of our plan.
For now, however, we attacked. At first, the forms we took were similar, in so ways, to Gilgash's ownthe White Rider form we'd adopted as Jian Bing, with a perfectly smooth mask, unbroken by holes for the eyes, nose, or mouth. Our bodies streamlined as well, built for power and speed, designed with killing in mind. If there was any difference it was, ironically, that our forms were the more animalistic.
But in re monts, those lines began to blur. tamorphosis was about more than just taking a single form, after allit was a process of modifications and adaptations, intended to make the user more lethal. It was, in that sense, very similar to what Gilgash was doing, likely because it was sothing I'd gained from Conquest.
What that ant in a fight could get a little complicated, especially for soone like . One mont, I felt myself swell, adding mass as I t a blow from Gilgash with one of my own, deflecting it away from my other with force that shattered my own armthe next my counterpart struck, sothing uncoiling in his grotesquely bulging right arm that unleashed a blindingly quick punch. Gilgash swung back, points opening along his arms that began to fire small spikes that bled sothing corrosive, but I leveled a hand at him, middle finger elongating into a wicked spike that I filled with fluids I produced with Venenum, balancing the dosage carefully as I warped the muscle and bone around my wrist and fired it like an arrow.
Gilgash barely flinched as it struck ho, brushing it off even as it exploded violently and filled the air around us with a sticking black smoke that he simply stepped through. His right hand ca up, finger-blades almost touching, and matter began to flow from the tips, gathering into a tiny orb. Circuitry lit up along his arm, shining brightlyand a hair-thin laser struck in the eye, burning a hole clean through my head. I flinch away, reflexively adjusting my ribcage and skull to protect the contents and minimize the damage, but I was already growing, appearing shifting towards sothing both feline and ursine even as my double slipped into my space, hiding himself within as he transford. I layered my existence to hide him wholly within , choosing what to conceal and what to let through as my perspective shifted, and then I attacked.
All the while, my Dinsional stood still, watching and waiting.
I bore down on Gilgash, body growing as matter flooded in from above, adding to my mass and providing structure to my assud form. The hand I swept at Gilgash was massive now, easily large enough to grasp a man's head like an apple, and my claws were wickedly sharpwould have been impractically so, in fact, had I been anyone else. While honing a blade to a razor's edge certainly had its advantages, primarily in that it allowed one to put more force behind less area, there was also the issue of fragility. In comics, there was a lot of talk about absurdly thin blades that could cut a hair in two or slip between molecules or whatever, but even with Remnant's most advanced engineering, sothing like that would crumple like, well, aluminum foil, assuming it didn't simply shatter at the first sign of resistance. Aura could help with that, but even with its reinforcing touch, it would never match to durability of larger weapons. Fighting with such a thing was just asking to be stripped of your weapon at a crucial mont.
But matters changed when you could make them out of unbreakable materialsor, at least, things that acted as though it were unbreakable. Thanks to the Gar's Body, none of the damage I took actually showed on the surface; whether my flesh was pierced, my bones broken, or even if my head was removed, it wouldn't actually seem to harm untilpresumablyI lost my last hit point. In addition, thanks to my various skills, my biology waswarped, to say the least, and the modifications it was able to support were equally unconventional.
It was sothing I embraced, here and now.
Gilgash lifted his left arm to block my coming strike, the limb bulging slightly and taking on a more armored appearance just before my claws connected. I felt my talons crack and break against his hide, sotis pulling up the flesh around them in the processbut none of that showed and my claws raked his carving swallow marks into his forearm. I let the products of Venenum spill from the venom sacks in my knuckles as I struck, spraying the wound with sothing corrosivemy failure to create the alchemical legend that was the Universal Solvent, still potent enough to liquefy organic matter.
The Grimm hardly twitched as the edges of the wounds began to shimr slightly, welling with dissolved skin that was quickly replaced. Instead, he raised both of his arms, hands flashing out like lightning bolts as he clasped his hands on my arms with a grip that powdered bone. His shoulders bulged then, inflating until it seed almost as if they'd been replaced with rough spheresand then several ports opened along its surface, spewing worth what at first seed like smoke.
I knew better, especially as it flowed over and engulfed . The 'cloud' was actually just a swarm of tiny, tiny Grimm-thingslike the magical nanites I'd ntioned before, only taken more literally. They even looked technological at a glance, tiny machines made of tiny pieces of Grimm-bone. They covered , gathering to attack cells and bury themselves in my skin as they tried to tear apart piece by piece.
It didn't work. Even on that scale, my skills were still active, hardening my skin to an absurd degree and pushing back their invasion. Beyond that, Kavacha was still at work, and though it seed to recognize the swarm as a single attack, it still blunted most of their efforts, providing ample ti to counterattack.
Seeing as imitation was the sincerest way to tell soone to go fuck themselves, I gave Gilgash's newest trick my own twist, sending a wave of alteration across my skin. On a level invisible to the normal human eye, cells began to convulse, pulsate, and then warped violently, turned into mbranous 'shells' for my creations. The tiny creatures that ca forth were repurposed parts of my own body, and they crawled over my skin, surrounding and attacking their Grimm counterparts. On the micro-scale, the difference between technology and biologyespecially magical technology and biologywas limited, and our microscopic forces might have seed evenly matched had soone been able to see them fight.
They weren't. We both had our advantages and limitations that were shifting the battle this way and that. Gilgash's main edge was his ability to produce and surround in a devouring cloud of his creations, thick enough that had soone else wandered into it, there wouldn't have been the slightest trace left behind. I, on the other hand, was more limited, being forced to keep my miniature minions close at hand; they were machines obeying commands or even sothing I could issue orders to with a thought, just sothing I created and controlled with my power and limited to my close proximity. While I probably could exceed those limits, it would an adjusting my connection to them and I wasn't sure how much command I'd retain as they distanced themselves from and beca sothing truly independent; sadly, I was guessing not much. And seeing as the skill I was using had been sothing I received from Conquest
No. Biological warfare was a bitch to control and contain at the best of tis. Magical biological warfare stolen from one of my greatest enemies and still touched by his power? Probably wasn't sothing I should play with in the middle of an already delicate situation.
Besides, I had advantages of my own. Unlike Gilgash, I was just as capable of fighting under a microscope as I was on the battlefield and I guided my forces accordingly, aiding them when necessary with careful applications of Psychokinesis when necessary. It was enough to push Gilgash's forces back, thanks to my protection from their attacks; he undoubtedly noticed what I was up to and commanded his creations to attack mine, but they didn't fight with the mind of a strategist behind them. Mine did and overca his forces, if only temporarily. He'd swarm again in a matter of monts, but not before I had ti to act.
It was enough to make Gilgash let go of as my minions turned on his claws, a legion of them swarming to chew at his bladed hands. It only lasted a mont before there was a sudden flash from his claws that slew most of our creations and the smoke from his shoulders changed, becoming a mix of airborne poisons, including nerve gases and worsegaseous contact poisons, prion infestations, and more.
I advanced into the light mist, trusting my defensive skills to see through the danger as I followed Gilgash back. He lifted a hand, another of those odd spheres forming between the claws of his hand, and I saw power gathering even as he aid it at . I didn't so much as hesitate, reaching out to grasp the orb tightly in one hand, a series of Lux Aeterna's gathering around my hand.
We looked at each other, both our masks eyeless and yet still conveying what we wanted to sayand as one, we both fired.
There was a strange crackling sound, as if a lightning bolt were sohow breaking. Colors played across my vision and throughout the spectrum, standing out oddly to my senses and then simply collapsing into the point of intersection, where Lux Aeterna clashed with the matter he'd summoned. Light and darkness played across the sphere, balancing for a mont and then breaking down just as fast. Power collapsed into a tiny point and then burst forth.
As I was flung away, I felt as though my arm had been blown away just beneath the elbow and I was sent careening through the air, before hitting and sliding across the ground while it shattered around . I regained myself after a brief mont of disorientation, turning my slide into a horizontal flip and turning myself Psychokinetically to land on my feet. A hand ca down to grasp the ground, my speed pulling it through fifty more ters of dirt before I managed to stop myselfand I saw an opening.
Abruptly, distance beca aningless and I was beside Gilgash in a heartbeat. He'd done much the sa thing I had, slowing himself with the claws of his left handprobably because the claws of his right were simply gone, erased just beneath the knuckle by whatever interaction of forces we'd caused. Sohow, he didn't seem surprised to see and rose to et my assault. As my fist collided with his own, it was visibly crushed, collapsing until my wrist was near my elbow and revealing the trick I'd hidden within my forearm. As my flesh fell slack, warped by the use of my power instead of the damage, half a dozen red tendrils burst forth, whipping towards Gilgash's head, neck, and chest, sinking lightly into his skin. My other hand ca up, held just before him, and then I shifted the arrangent of my existence, parts of my other self rising even as bits of sank.
Wings spread out from my back, feathers black but marked by red colored eyes reminiscent of the Panoptes. My arm changed, too, eyes opening down its length and sothing like a mouth appearing at the center of my palmand as space shifted and warped, Dust crystals fluttered from my Inventory, rotating around the limb in three circles. Power gathered around and inside , flowing into so hollow segnt of my arm that had been set aside for the task, glowing through my skin.
I fired.
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