Chapter 39: The Southern Range [6]
Three energies churned around Alden’s body simultaneously and didn’t like each other.
Ice pulling cold. Thunder pulling sharp. Fire pulling heat. All three compressed into the same space, fighting against each other’s nature, the pressure of it making the air around him visibly distort.
The cavern trembled.
Seris watched him from the side. Her eyes had sharpened by a fraction.
’His density is completely different from the dragon fight.’
She watched the three elements press against each other without collapsing.
’Does he grow stronger after every battle?’
Vincent raised his sword.
"Then come at me." His smirk hadn’t moved. "Show me what you’ve got."
Alden stepped forward.
BOOM!
Thunder erupted under his foot and he was gone.
A streak of crackling lightning where he’d been standing, the afterimage lasting half a second before the air closed back around it.
Vincent’s eyes snapped sideways.
He was too late.
Alden was already in front of him, fist drawn back, the motion already committed.
Vincent swung his blade.
Swoosh!
His sword cut through empty air.
Alden had disappeared again.
"Behind you."
Vincent’s pupils contracted.
Alden was crouched directly behind him, both wrists pressed together, palms spread wide. Ice and fire spiraled up both arms, two opposing forces being pushed toward each other by deliberate force, compressing, heating, freezing simultaneously until something that was neither became both.
The energy between his hands turned white.
[Breath: Frostfire]
BOOOOOOM!
The blast erupted forward with enough force that the sound of it arrived after the light. Vincent spun and got his sword up barely in time, the impact hitting the blade and shoving him backward across the cave floor, boots dragging two long lines through the ice.
He gritted his teeth and pushed upward, redirecting the stream toward the ceiling.
KRAAASH!
The frostfire tore through the rock overhead. Chunks of ice and stone rained down as a hole opened to the mountain air above them, cold pouring through it immediately.
Vincent had about half a second.
WHOOSH!
White-orange blur travelled straight.
Pyrion hit him in the abdomen with full momentum.
The sound that came out of Vincent was not dignified.
"UGH—"
He went airborne with blood spurting from his mouth, his body spinning wildly through the air.
His sword came down toward Pyrion mid-rotation.
"You should pay more attention to your surroundings." Seris was behind him.
Her scythe came down vertical, sharp and precise.
SHING.
"Aarghhh!!!!"
Vincent twisted, but it wasn’t enough.
The blade caught his left arm.
His hand hit the cave floor. Blood sprayed across the ice. Vincent landed, skidded, came to a stop on one knee with his remaining hand pressed to the stump.
He looked at it. Then up at both of them.
’Far more troublesome than expected.’
"Fine." His grin came back slower than before. "If that’s the case..."
The crimson aura that had been controlled and compact opened up.
His eyes deepened to red. Pupils thinned to slits. His canines extended, visibly now, past what human teeth were designed for. The veins around his eyes darkened and spread. His skin went pale, unnaturally white, the warmth draining out of it as the transformation completed. His remaining fingers lengthened at the nails into points.
"I’ll have to unleash my full strength."
Seris looked at him without any visible change of expression.
"So you’re going all out."
The red aura around her scythe started moving.
It traveled from the blade through her grip and up her arms in thin crimson threads, spreading through her body like veins of light. Her crimson eyes brightened. Her ears extended slightly. Her skin, already pale, went to something closer to marble.
Then the aura gathered around her completely and wove itself into form.
Black fabric. Gothic cut. Fitted through the bodice and falling into something elegant, the chest partially open, crimson patterns traced through the dark material like embroidery that moved when the light hit it differently. The whole thing arrived like it had always been there and the rest of her outfit had simply been covering it.
The pressure in the cavern didn’t increase. It changed quality entirely.
Alden stared, his eyes caught the open chest line.
His face burned crimson, and he snapped his gaze away.
’What are you even looking at Alden?!’ He pressed both hands against his cheeks.
’Focus, there’s an enemy in front of you. A very dangerous enemy.’
His eyes started drifting back and he physically snapped them sideways.
’This is a fight. There is a demi-vampire professor trying to kill both of you. Get your priorities straight!’
"I’ll kill you both." Vincent’s voice pulled the cavern’s attention back to him. His crimson eyes locked onto them. The aura around him was denser now.
Seris raised her scythe.
Alden’s expression hardened. The three energies surged back around him, ice and thunder and fire rebuilding their unstable pressure.
’Wait, why didn’t I think about that earlier?’ Then something clicked him.
He let them go.
All three energies. Ice faded first, then thunder, then fire, the energy dispersing into the cave air until nothing was left around him.
Vincent’s eyes narrowed. "You’re not using everything? Are you underestimating me—"
SKRRRK!
"Ughh!"
Three deep marks tore across Vincent’s chest simultaneously.
There was no visible source for the three clean lines opening across his chest with blood trailing right behind
Vincent staggered, genuinely surprise.
Seris blinked once.
’That again.’
Alden looked at his own hand and flicked his wrist slowly.
’I should have thought of this much earlier.’
He flicked again.
SKRRRK.
Three more invisible slashes. Vincent caught them across the shoulder and arm, gritting his teeth, stepping back.
’Nobody can see where it’s coming from. Nobody can block what they can’t see.’
He walked forward at a steady pace, flicking his wrist.
SLASH.
Flick.
SLASH.
Each one landing before Vincent processed that the last one had ended. He dropped to one knee, then both. Blood dripping from his jaw to the floor.
Alden stopped a few steps away from him.
"You’re done, Vincent."
Vincent’s breathing was heavy. The arrogance in his face had given way to something more honest.
Alden looked at him.
His mouth stayed open on the next word. The one after ’done.’ Surrender. Give up. Words like those didn’t come from his mouth.
Flashes arrived without being called.
The academy corridor. The other professors looking at Alden like a problem to be managed. Vincent stepping through them, stopping in front of him, looking at him the way none of the others did.
"Don’t let their words get to you, Alden. I’ve seen what you’re capable of. Keep moving forward."
One of two people.
Two people in an entire academy full of people who had already decided.
Darius.
And Vincent.
Alden’s hand lowered without him deciding to lower it.
’Even if he’s the one who did all of this.’ His chest had gone somewhere uncomfortable.
’Even if he framed Claire. Even if he stole the Core. Even if he just tried to take my head.’ He stood there.
’I still don’t want to be the person who kills him.’
The noise of the battle moved to the background of his attention.
He was just standing there, looking at the man who had been the second person to say something kind to him in this world.
Vincent noticed.
He felt the specific weight of someone who has stopped moving inside a fight. He’d fought enough to recognize it.
’There.’
His remaining hand closed around his sword.
He launched himself upward from both knees, faster than he had any right to move in his current state, the blade rising over his head and coming down in a single full-force arc.
"ALDEN! WATCH OUT!"