Chapter 54: Last Second Gambit

Purple aura erupted from the gunslinger's chest. He let out a gasp and collapsed, revealing Emily standing behind him. Even as he fell, her aura sword sliced his guns into pieces.

Snarling, Jack released a sphere toward her, but Emily extended one of her blades and used it to pierce the sphere before it reached her. When it exploded harmlessly, Rick saw uncertainty join the rage in Jack's eyes for the first time. His ally in the tank top was coming up beside him, but she glanced in his direction uncertainly.

Instead of a normal assault, Jack drew the rest of the golden light in this tattoos out into the air, then simultaneously released three spheres at once. Emily cut hers just as easily and Rick dodged aside, but he was more concerned for Melissa. She saw what was happening and tried to dodge, but the golden explosion seemed to partially catch her and her body was flung to the ground.

Rick leapt toward her as quickly as he could and sighed with relief when he saw her struggling to get up. She looked a bit scorched and was groaning, but she was okay. He looked to confirm that Jack was moving out of range and then bent down beside her, checking that nothing was broken. "You're alright?"

"I'm okay, Rick, honest. But I need to get you another void flame, since you used the old one..." She struggled to form another, but it was obvious that her control was shaken and it took her longer than usual.

"Don't push yourself too hard. But yes, I used it freely because I knew you were here to provide more moral support."

That got a weak smile from her, then suddenly Melissa's expression shifted to one of shock. Rick was puzzled for a moment before an aura blade suddenly pointed at his throat.

Emily stood beside him, staring down with emotionless eyes. She was obviously deep in her combat trance, and when she spoke her voice was dangerously flat. "I'm still bitter and pissed at you, Rick. But you weren't a dick and I appreciate you being straight with me. So you have my support for one more fight." With that, she retracted her aura blade, though she kept her hand pointed at him as if it might come back at any moment.

"Thanks, Emily." He helped Melissa get to her feet and accepted another void flame from her as soon as she was ready.

Though they'd retreated from the explosions, some nearby entities were now returning to attack them. Emily readied her sword, but now that Melissa had recovered, she expanded her aura to consume them. Rick wasn't sure how Emily would react, but she just glanced at the crumpling bodies, then the aura, then Melissa, then seemed to ignore it entirely.

"Okay, bro, what's the game plan?" Melissa smiled over at him, despite what she'd just been through. It was a good question.

"I don't see Jack anywhere nearby." Rick took a deep breath, trying to refocus. Having Emily here raised their combat power considerably, but did it actually change their strategy? "Either he's waiting to ambush us, or he's going to try to find another lucrim anomaly before they're all gone."

"Standing around here's not an option, so I guess we do that too?"

"Yeah, I guess."

It was a bit difficult to return to the simple surveying technique after the fight, but Rick managed it and helped them target another anomaly. His work was now completely unimpeded, because Melissa destroyed all the smaller entities and Emily easily targeted the larger ones who could resist the aura. She said absolutely nothing, but seemed to work together with Melissa easily.

Unfortunately, their rapid pace didn't profit them, because others had already found the anomaly he was tracking. When they came to the top of a hill, Rick let the aura between his hands fade and just stared down at the fight below them.

Two groups were currently fighting furiously and he recognized Damian and Pan Zhou in the midst of it. Damian's ally was flinging columns of aura everywhere, threatening all the fighters and annihilating any entities that could even get close. Everyone in the fight was probably a middleweight... there was no way Rick could get himself involved in a fight like that.

"Behold, my family's secret technique!" Damian drew the eye with his shout and Rick saw the absurdly complex black aura build up around his raised hand.

Damian had been fighting against a man in a dark poncho, who flinched when the technique appeared. When Damian lunged at him, thrusting the black aura toward his face, the man dodged back. With a mad grin, Damian kept swiping at him, just trying to make contact. His opponent managed to avoid his hand with desperate dodging, but the other man was getting closer and closer.

Then Damian launched himself into a backflip that sent him sailing high into the air. His opponent stared at him in shock at the absurd move.

A wide beam of raw power from the woman in the baseball cap carved a meteoric channel through the earth. The man in the poncho was momentarily invisible as the light of the blast overwhelmed him. When it faded, he crumpled to the ground a short distance away - his defenses had been good enough to keep him alive, but he was definitely not fighting again.

After that, Damian landed lightly and gave a mocking bow in Pan Zhou's direction. The other man glowered at him and called out a command to his allies.

Unfortunately, their observation was interrupted by the fact that the woman wielding aura so recklessly now seemed to be even more unstable than before, blasts shooting from her in every direction. One nearly struck them, and though Rick dodged, Melissa only escaped because Emily grabbed her.

They retreated down the hill to shield themselves from the blasts. Melissa's eyes were wide and she was breathing heavily from the shock of the intense battle. Rick hoped that the blasts wouldn't have killed her, since the woman in the baseball cap was presumably trying not to kill... but she also didn't seem to be very good at restraint.

"What is the plan?" Emily stared between them with that same flat gaze. Melissa nodded slowly.

"I... I don't think I can fight in a battle like that. If there are so many strong opponents, how do we win this?"

"It would be logical to take our gains and retreat."

Rick shook his head slowly as he came to the conclusion that had been in his mind for a long time. "That would make sense if not for Jack. I don't think there's any way I can win the competition, but the scoreboard isn't the most important thing in the end. All that matters is-"

He cut off as a golden sphere screamed toward them. Emily punctured the first one with an extended blade, but there were more coming, these curving slightly to attack from the sides. Rick jumped back, trusting Emily to take care of Melissa. After a rapid retreat from several more spheres that took them further from the main battle, they came to a halt.

Jack followed after them, his focus having returned. His ally in the tank top walked alongside him, still essentially unharmed. Though Rick was willing to bet that Emily could hurt her, this time Jack actually spoke.

"I want to win, but I want to beat you first. Let's finish this quick: you versus me."

Rick cautiously dropped into combat position. "Why should I do that?"

"Because if you don't, we'll target the girl until we kill her. If she stays away, I don't give a shit."

Melissa flinched when his anger briefly turned toward her. It looked like she wanted to shout back, but he saw the truth in her eyes: she knew her limits. She nodded to them and retreated to a safe distance. After bending down to the ground, she extended her aura further than usual, creating a circle that surrounded them and would keep away any distracting entities.

Emily tore across the space between them, but she attacked Jack's ally. If she was playing along, that meant it really was a one-on-one fight. Rick raised his fists and got ready.

It looked like Jack had exhausted his ability to use the Golden Eagle Lucore, which meant it was back to the hand to hand melee. The two of them ran toward each other, Rick saving his Bunyan's Step for more desperate combat. Besides, he was wearing down too.

Though he tried to adopt the same style he'd practiced, he was no longer at his sharpest. After several exchanges one of Jack's blows managed to get through, catching his shoulder. Rick staggered back, biting back a grunt, and Jack lunged in for the kill.

But though it hurt like hell, those devastating hits no longer disabled him. Rick deflected Jack's swipe with his good arm and managed to knee his opponent in the side. While the other man fell back, Rick tried to elbow him in the throat, but the pain threw off his aim. He still managed to land a solid blow on Jack's collar bone that made him stagger.

They couldn't continue like this. Though Rick knew it was a valid strategy to stall for time and trust Emily to win her fight, he didn't want to risk the chance that in her current state, Emily might kill Jack. No, he needed to end this quickly, before his weariness gave him too many more injuries.

When Jack attacked again, Rick deflected his first punch and then released an aggressive but weak assault. Feint after feint mixed with shallow jabs that his opponent deflected. It made Jack hesitate a bit, then begin looking for a chance to counter-attack, which was just what he wanted.

Rick reached out and weakly slapped his opponent's shoulder. But with that slap, he released the void flame into the other man's lucrima soul.

Even as Jack let out a cry of pain, Rick hammered him in the face with his elbow. The blow took his opponent off his feet, sending him flying. Rick had expected him to land and try to quench the void flame inside him, but Jack tumbled several times and lay still. Aura pulsed through his tattoos fitfully, and the ink itself seemed to be shifting unnaturally.

He didn't think the blow could have defeated his opponent, but maybe it had stunned him more than expected. If so, he needed to end the fight now. Rick lunged in with a Bunyan's Step, stomping down toward his opponent's back.

The tattoos glowed brightly and lifted free of Jack's body. Though Rick could see them moving, deceptively simply, he couldn't possibly react in time. They extended like two claws formed from dozens of unnatural black lines, then grasped around his body.

As soon as he felt the pain, Rick sent aura exploding around himself. It was barely enough to throw off the tattoos trying to pin him in place, just enough time to use another Bunyan's Step and get to a safe distance. He gasped for breath, realizing that he was bleeding from small cuts all over his body. If those tattoos had gotten a good grip on him, they could have been lethal.

Both hands braced themselves on the earth and pushed up, pulling Jack into the air. He grinned bloodily as he rose, the tattoo claws arcing from behind his back. Rick wondered how he could have missed something so major, then realized the truth: Jack must have liquidated some of his assets into this new technique. It was less devastatingly powerful, but a nasty surprise that had nearly won the fight for him.

Jack lunged for him and Rick used a Bunyan's Step to dodge on impulse. If he had ranged techniques he might have managed, but he realized that he had no good options. The next time Jack attacked, Rick used a step to get just beside him, but the same instant he emerged he saw one of the many-fingered hands reaching out to grab him and threw himself back.

He managed it, but the claws moved even faster, raking across his body and knocking him to the ground in a shower of blood. Rick barely managed to catch himself with his hands as he slammed into the earth. His injuries weren't disabling, but less shallow than the previous ones. And he had basically no time before Jack was attacking again.

This time when the tattoos reached out to grasp him, Rick lunged directly in, colliding with the other man. The impact seemed to stop the claws momentarily, giving Rick time to slam an elbow into his opponent's face and smash him into the ground, knocking his head back.

Jack looked back at him and spat a tooth into his face.

Before Rick could move, the claws tore into his back. He couldn't help but let out a cry of pain and stumbled back, but the claws were snaking out again, tearing more wounds through his flesh. The pain coalesced into a black agony that knocked him through the air, this time unable to catch himself.

Yet as Rick struggled to his feet, body aching all over, he saw that his opponent had hesitated. Jack had used his tattoos to lift himself into the air again, then froze staring at him. Rick didn't question his good fortune and forced himself up, yet his own attention was drawn to his wounds.

The blood falling from them was black.

He didn't question it, his mind dwelling in an endless ocean of dark blood. Rick managed one last surge of speed, crossing the distance between them and striking his opponent in the chest. Jack retaliated, the tattoos tearing into him, yet Rick didn't feel it. Maybe he was numb to the pain, maybe they weren't harming him, but it didn't matter.

Grabbing his opponent's arm, he flipped him overhead and slammed him into the ground. This, at least, momentarily disabled all his cutting tattoos. They began to rise from his back, but Rick stomped on them. He saw the lines shiver and stomped again, then bent down on his opponent's back and began to pummel him repeatedly.

His elbow rose, intending to come down on the back of his opponent's neck with all the power he could muster. At the last second Rick realized what he was doing and held back, instead just delivering another blow to Jack's body.

The tattoos slithered back under his skin and the other man lay still. Rick managed to get to his feet and then just stood there, panting for breath, not entirely sure what had happened.

"Rick?" Melissa approached cautiously, concern in her eyes. He realized how he must look to her, completely covered in black blood. Having lost so much should have made him light-headed, yet he still felt like he could fight.

Emily arrived the next moment and dumped Jack's unconscious ally beside him. Her gaze flickered over Rick, then her aura sword lit up again. For a moment he worried that she'd attack him, but she just tracked his movements with clinical precision.

"I'm okay, Melissa." He tried to rub her shoulder reassuringly and ended up gripping it to keep himself up. "I... don't think I should fight anymore."

"Then what do we do, bro?"

"Let's go back... to that anomaly..."

Both of them looked at him, Melissa uncertain and Emily unreadable, but they did so. Melissa had to support him as all of his injuries caught up to him. As the blood dried, it started to look more normal, as if it was just dark red and he had imagined any other color. Though his body was exhausted, Rick's mind was strangely clear.

He knew what he needed to do. In theory he could do it now, but there was still one loose end that could be a problem. Unfortunately, that part was entirely beyond his power.

When they reached the hill, he saw Damian's group, but no sign of Pan Zhou. Damian's suit had been severely damaged, the beam-firing woman was blessedly unconscious, and the last man seemed to be nursing a broken arm. At that moment Damian looked up at them, eyes going hard. He quickly moved to stand in their way of the unclaimed anomaly.

"You're in no shape to fight me, Rick." Damian smoothed his tie back into his suit, examining him carefully. "The bare minimum you can do is not fight me and let me have this one."

Instead Rick pushed away from Melissa and dropped down into a combat stance. Damian's gaze got harder, but then Rick mouthed the words "Play along."

Rick charged in with a Bunyan's Step, but the crimson aura around Damian let him slide around the attack. In response he dealt several sharp blows to Rick's chest - but not as strong as he could have hit. He was playing along. When Damian grabbed his shirt, Rick sighed and went limp.

"You win, Damian. I surrender."

The other young man's eyes went wide. He let go and drew back, the battle suddenly over. Rick staggered a bit on his feet, but that didn't matter. All the fighting was over now.

Soon after the woman in the green pantsuit descended from above, frowning at him. "It's too late to revoke your surrender, but you do realize what that means? You've lost all your merits to him. You don't place on the scoreboard and you don't get any final paycheck."

Rick stepped toward her. "Yeah, I understand."