Rune Seeker

Hiral’s fists clenched as Runes of Impact formed in front of them, and he met Picoli’s eyes. That grin had haunted his dreams since the thing inside her had taken their friend. Since it had torn through them like they were barely worth the time. Only when Balyo had sacrificed herself to hold it in place had they finally managed to really hurt it.

But they hadn’t stopped it.

And here it was again, standing in front of them like a spectre from their past.

Beside him, Left activated his Touch of the Primal and Way of Shadow, the two tattoos shaping at the same time to completely cover his body in inky darkness. Only two coal-red eyes remained, along with the wing of blue flame, and a notification window blinked in the corner of Hiral’s vision.

He ignored the notification for now, eyes locked on the Infested at the top of the mound. Hundreds of feet away, it was fast enough to close the distance in seconds.

So was Hiral.

Runes of Rejection erupted under his feet at the same time Picoli released the ant head she was holding, and he bolted up the hill. Left and Right matched him step for step, their sprints tearing the ground as they charged along beside him, flames on one side, ice on the other.

The Infested’s eyes widened like it was surprised they had the gall to run towards it, and then it too launched itself down the hill. Its movement was so swift the air practically stretched around it, and it formed its own Rune of Impact in front of its one good fist. The other arm—severed by Left at the wrist during their first encounter—now ended in a spike of sharpened bone.

Hiral didn’t change course, charging straight for the enemy barreling down from above, but he was outpacing his doubles now, the two of them falling behind with each Rejection-powered step.

Fifty feet from Picoli, Hiral clenched his fists so hard it felt like his knuckles would pop.

Forty feet, and he poured more energy into the Runes of Impact, coronas of light forming around his hands.

Thirty feet, the Infested drew back its spiked arm like it planned to spear him straight through as it ran past.

Twenty feet, and Left and Right were no longer beside him.

Ten feet, Hiral met the Infested’s eyes.

Five feet, and Hiral couldn’t help but marvel at Picoli’s speed. At how… slow it was.

Two feet, and Picoli thrust her piercing arm for his chest. Hiral simply swerved around it, not even bothering with his Lost Echoas he turned his head to watch Picoli’s wide eyes following him. As Right came out of the blind spot behind Hiral, his open hand caught the side of her face.

Like getting clotheslined by a stone wall, Picoli’s momentum carried her legs, waist, and chest forward, but her head and shoulders stopped cold. That is, until Right took another step forward and then slammed the back of her head straight down into the ground.

WHAAAM! The impact sent out a shockwave, blasting back the rain in a wide sphere and sending a ripple along the surface of the anthill. Left followed immediately in his double’s wake, leaping into the air with a beat of his single wing, a trail of ice following behind, then took his Dagger of Sath in both hands. Down came the two-handed strike with the inevitability of the setting sun, but even stunned and surprised, the thing inside Picoli wouldn’t go down so easily.

A pulse of Rejection burst out from her entire body, tossing Right back and throwing Left off course to drive his dagger into the ground more than five feet away. Despite the treatment, neither of the doubles were remotely injured, their Second-Skins of Ur’Thul easily protecting them.

Picoli leapt to her feet, burned-out-but-glowing eyes narrowed at the two copies. Was she wondering how they’d caught her, or why they weren’t hurt? Either way, she didn’t have time to be dawdling. A scar of flame seared across her chest as Seena landed a Cinder+. The strike itself didn’t seem to do much damage, but it forced her back a step just as Seeyela appeared with a bamf behind her.

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Green-glowing daggers shot forward like striking snakes, and although Picoli twisted unnaturally fast, she didn’t get away completely unharmed. A sickly green wound stretched across the length of her stomach as she threw a rune-empowered punch back at Seeyela’s head. She might as well have been aiming for the air for all the good it did, the sister vanishing in a small flash of purple flame.

Picoli barely had time to scowl at the smoke before Hiral came back through it, his own Impact-powered punch catching the Infested squarely in the side of the face. WHOMP! The rain blasted away again as Picoli’s body twisted like a corkscrew and shot to the side.

She hit the ground and bounced three times in quick succession before finally slowing at the end of a dug-out trench up the side of the mound. No sooner had she stood up than a large bolt of Impact erupted in a concussive blast right at her feet. Up she went, flipping head over heels through the air, until a portal opened in her path—and a flaming, purple fist emerged.

Right hit her so hard the ground fifteen feet below cratered from the impact alone. Then she shot down like a comet, punching straight through the roof of the mound and vanishing into a tunnel below.

Above, thunder boomed, and lightning shot up to the clouds. If Picoli thought she’d get a breather in the tunnel, she was dead wrong. Yanily’s Skyfallcame down like the hammer of an angry storm, the lightning bolt as wide as he was tall, and smashed through the remaining tunnel ceiling, only for the resulting explosion to hurl hundreds of pounds of stone and dirt into the air.

A second, smaller explosion sounded, and something shot out of the cloud of debris even as the first of the rocks began to fall.

Hiral was already after it, Rejection fueling his charge as he shot after the wounded Picoli. Her previously injured arm was now entirely missing from the shoulder down, one side of her ribcage looked completely collapsed, and the wound to her stomach oozed green blood.

“You’re not getting away,” Hiral said quietly over the falling rain as she shot down the opposite side of the anthill like a loosed arrow.

Even that quietly, she must’ve heard him, as her head twisted around to spot him following. To spot him gaining on her.

Last time they’d fought, she’d seemed like an impossible blur, moving at speeds he could never hope to keep up with. But he’d advanced, and she hadn’t.

Another rune-empowered lunge got him to within fifteen feet of her, and though she tried to change direction to lose him, he reached out with his Rune of Attraction. Like he caught her around the waist, he hauled her back towards him, but her own push of Rejection kept him from taking a swing. Still, she landed and scampered across the ground to catch her balance, feet churning holes in the dirt, only to be hit by a barrage of fireballs.

The night erupted into fire and light, the sphere of flames climbing dozens of feet into the sky, and the heat of it even forced Hiral to gently Reject it. Inside the dancing bonfire, Picoli’s silhouette didn’t fall—though it did stagger—and Hiral reached out to Death Knell.

A jerk of his hand thrust the glowing blue sword through the lingering fire to drive into the ground, and a column of light stretched to the sky a second later. Dozens of tiny blades cut lines through the fire—and Picoli—as Hiral whipped one of his RHCs from his thigh. Pulling the trigger, his bolt of searing Impact smacked into the Infested’s side at the same time Chain Lightning+ tore across the ground from the other side.

Yanily’s ability had continued to evolve with every use, the charging electricity taking the shape of some kind of serpentine lizard with wide wings that ripped a trench through the dirt as it passed. Its mouth opened, full of energized fangs, as it slammed into Picoli, then burst into thousands of individual bolts, each catching on one of Death Knell’s small, invisible blades. The combined ability acted like it was almost meant to be, the storm of lightning hitting the Infested over and over from every side.

Her body jerked, muscles spasming out of her control, and even the tentacles wrapping around her twitched under the constant barrage. Steaming breath escaped her charred lips, Seena’s assault compounding the damage they’d done to her in their first encounter so long ago.

Picoli took a step in Hiral’s direction, but one step was all she got.

Left materialized out of the shadows on her side, and his dagger stretched for her chest. Impossibly fast, her one remaining arm came up to block the strike, taking the thrust straight in the forearm. The trailing stream caught up to the blade a heartbeat later, shattering the bone and tearing the hand clean off.

Picoli had managed to sacrifice her hand to save herself from a devastating blow.

Too bad Left had only ever been a distraction.

In Hiral’s ears, the Chord of the Primal Echo fell perfectly in tune with the Chord of the Primal Moon, the two rhythms meeting like old friends. And in that moment of synchronicity, Seeyela appeared behind Picoli, then drove both her daggers into the sides of the Infested’s abdomen.