Collide Gamer

Clarity 3 – Heavenly Blue

There was nowhere to hide and Claire appreciated that. The flat terrain of where the green around the mountains transformed into the yellow of the savannah left only the choice to fight. They had continued to run westwards, if only to maintain the façade and gamble on the desperate hope that Ell would lose them in the darkness. John’s desperate hope, that was.

Claire, she wished that they got caught. That was part of why she kept conjuring familiars, despite their red glow diminishing the Gamer’s plan. Outspokenly, because he knew that Ell missing them was so unlikely, the Gamer let her continue. Quietly, Claire continued to chant inside her head. ‘Come to me. Come to me. Come to me. Come to me.’

It was moronic to wish for a confrontation with an Iron Maiden. A misplaced hope to try and beat one. A decade or so more and maybe Claire’s potential would have let her challenge them. That was an uncertainty that would not get resolved. There was only the present. In the events that were unfolding, Claire smiled, knowing that she would get to fight the one she hated second only to Arkeidos himself. Against all odds, the vampire just assumed that she could tear Ell to shreds. The worst outcome was that she died and that John would destroy the Iron Domain afterwards.

That wouldn’t be so bad.

Sickening optimism put a spring in her step. It remained when she felt that tingle again. “What do you think is the worst disease?” Claire asked a seemingly random question, signalling that Ell was around.

“Anything sexually transmittable would be my pick,” John responded nonchalantly, as if there was nothing to worry about.

Then he suddenly stopped. Claire kept running, jumping ahead with all her might and all her familiars, to get out of the radius. The oddly coloured silver arcane of the Gamer exploded behind her. A wave of magic, appearing almost like an expanding veil of starlight, illuminated the darkness and enveloped an invisible form. Rippling, the air ripped open close to John and a spike-headed chain launched itself at Ell – and connected. The invisibility was undone by the damage, revealing the Iron Maiden, the silver chain embedded into her side.

Claire grinned madly at the surprise on Ell’s face. Along her entire flock, the vampire turned backwards. “I will stab you, I will tear you, I will kill you!” she yelled as she descended along a swarm of bats and wolves at the Iron Maiden. A simple knife appeared in her hand, sunk into Ell’s shoulder. The various familiars clawed and bit at the liquid body. None of it seemed to do more than inconvenience the Iron Maiden, who hastily slashed through the Mana Chain.

About to bring her fangs down on Ell’s neck, Claire only chomped on air. Barely catching herself, while the body she had grappled onto liquified completely, the vampire sunk on all fours and repeatedly stabbed at the river of metal with the black, red-rimmed knife.

Whether that did any damage was impossible to tell. Around the knife, the metal spilled, over and over again, consolidating about a metre away into a large blue blob, covered in black lines. Guided by Claire’s aggressive intent, her familiars descended on the shapeless mass, only to be executed by the various spikes that shot out of the roiling surface.

“Claire!” John’s voice snapped her out of her rage for long enough to remember the plan. Their opening gambit had failed and now there was only one path to victory. Jumping back to him, she sent her remaining familiars on a suicidal charge, all to distract Ell while she jumped in John’s arms. It was not the contact they needed, but the one she wanted to have. “I’ll be at the Cardinal Bastion,” he reminded her.

“I’ll be there, Master,” she pledged.

Then she stretched up and she rammed her teeth in his neck. It was an odd sensation to bite him. For the first time in her life, she felt conflicted about the rush tingling through her when her fangs punctured skin. What felt like the skin of a living, breathing being revealed underneath raw pulsing energy. It was arcane, an energy that Claire had never been able to absorb before. Her powers required sentience in the target, above that of enchanted items.

The energy underneath that skin tingled on her gums, as it consolidated into a fluid in her mouth and ran down her throat. With each gulp, she felt her own powers surge. Some of it was permanent, most of it was borrowed, the consumption brought her beyond her current limits. The skin of the gracious man turned translucent, revealing the plates of the many-layered item within.

Claire kept drawing from him. Kept going and going, relentlessly, with his full consent to take into her all this body had to offer. The silver and purple energies within thinned into a swirling mist. Through the translucent skin, she saw that mist draw towards her fangs. Holes at the back of the hollow fangs spilled and transformed the energy into something she could digest.

Willingly as he gave himself to her, she drained him quickly. Even the magic imbued into the metal plates was coaxed out of them. An ephemeral hand touched the back of her head. “I’ll see you soon.” With those words, the last bit of energy left the Gamer’s double. Several dozen plates of bronze metal, some tinted purple, some tinted gold, fell to the ground in an inanimate pile.

“A traitor to everyone.”

Claire turned to face the Iron Maiden. The last of the familiars she had made during their flight dispersed into black particles, melding with the night. “Excuse me?” the vampire asked, a smile on her lips. Part of the arcane energies still danced between her trembling fingers. “You think I betrayed my Master?”

“Your Master…? Oh, how droll!” Ell laughed. “The Emperor was right after all. He always insisted you could be shown the necessary respect for power to become an Iron Maiden. Too bad you chose the wrong ruler.”

“He is not my ruler.” Claire stretched out her hand and formed the overabundant energy inside her into a spear of swirling strands of black and red. She readied herself for the attack, a smile on her lips and hatred in her eyes. “He is my Master.”

The white frills of her black skirt fluttered in the draft of the sudden acceleration. Ell’s eyes went wide, but she readied herself. One of her arms morphed into a long blade. She thrust forwards, right at Claire’s lowered head. The vampire maid tapped into this temporary power her Master had left her with, and suddenly, Ell was no longer in front of her.

Claire twisted around, as did Ell. Liquid, the Iron Maiden flowed on the spot, but the slice of her blade arm was slow and their weapons clashed. ‘Magus Step,’ the vampire maid recalled the borrowed ability she had just used. John had described all his Skills to her and she had witnessed many of them in action. All there was was to put them into practice.

Three ripples opened in the air around Claire, Mana Chains launching out a moment later. Completely neglecting her defence in every other aspect, Ell riddled her form with holes so the chains would sail right through. Capitalizing on this, Claire transformed her spear into a sword and sliced through the Iron Maiden.

The attack successfully cut Ell in two, but all that achieved was that the Iron Maiden collapsed into a puddle. Her separated parts melded back together and then formed one massive spike. A second Magus Step took Claire out of harm’s way. The two of them whirled around again, yet kept their distance.

“Just surrender,” Ell said in a cold voice, her humanoid form restored. “You’re fighting on borrowed time. The invader’s mana will seep out of you eventually. No matter how much quicker you are right now, no matter what powers you hide in your core, you cannot kill me.”

“Of course, I can.” Claire’s energy cascaded down her left arm in a viscous stream. Before it hit the ground, the energy consolidated into a wolf’s head. With a sweeping gesture, she sent it flying at the Iron Maiden. The head swelled, the body formed mid-flight, and the canine’s sharp teeth threatened to bite into Ell. She dodged, just like she dodged the Mana Chain launched at her. ‘And what unkillable enemy bothers with dodging?’ Claire hummed to herself.

The third Magus Step brought her right in front of the Iron Maiden. No awkward whirling around, just a sudden face to face. The blade had been turned into a pair of claws and Claire grabbed onto Ell’s shoulder. She dug into the liquid material. Frays of Schattengarn surrounded the digits. How she would have loved to indulge in every millisecond of the destruction, but Claire knew that she had a time limit. She opened her mouth wide and rammed her fangs in Ell’s neck.

A sweet howl of pain reverberated in her ears as she tasted the deeply tainted magic of the Iron Maiden. The foulness of Arkeidos’ necromancy lay in every drop of what she tasted. “Insolent little…” Ell hissed and rammed her fist into Claire’s stomach. The force of the punch was enough to send the vampire maid flying backwards.

The moment she landed, Claire used Magus Step to dodge to the side. A prudent decision, taking her out of the path of a massive whip of water. Ell’s form, feminine and graceful before, swelled with each passing second, drawing the water of the air and the grass around them. The wolf was caught in a massive hand and crushed.

“I have given you courtesy enough!” Ell roared, her regular body at the centre of a writhing mass of water and noxious green energy. “You will die here, a little accident on my mission!”

Claire pulled out the chunk of hard Poseidury stuck between her mouth and licked her lips, tasting the lifeblood of the Iron Maiden. ‘She can’t liquify while she’s in contact with someone else’s mana,’ she thought, knowing exactly how she could win now. The power she had borrowed was diminished, but enough for an optimistic finish. Nearly all of it evaporated in an instance. Then she charged forwards.

Several whips of water crashed down on Claire. One, two, three, she dodged, then a fourth hit her and drove her back. Immediately she jumped back into the fray. A smile on her lips, she raged against the pain, as a bolt of necromantic energy blasted her left arm off clean. Ell’s laughter sounded like she was gargling. “Now you fight me as weak as you truly are.”

“Yeah, I’m just the worst,” Claire agreed, weaving through the sloppy attacks of the amused Iron Maiden. The tentacles lashed and deliberately missed. ‘Be the cat, think I’m a mouse, see where that gets you, arrogant Ironborn,’ the vampire maid thought, measuring the distance with her eyes. All she needed was one more opening.

Between slamming tendrils, she found it. The last vestiges of her Master’s power took Claire right in front of the water. Concentrating her own power let her slash through the cocoon of water and necromancy and jump forward at the exposed body of Ell.

To have the Iron Maiden’s right rammed into her stomach.

A thorn, the arm penetrated her skin, ruptured the metal underneath, and then expanded. The first wave of pain was intense, the second excruciating. Poseidury pumped into the cavity, tearing it further open and breaking her body apart in the process. Every second of hearing her metal flesh screech and her steel bones crack furthered her hatred. Ell’s delight was evident in her eyes.

“Did you think I would fall for your little charging trick again?” she asked, like an adult speaking to a child. The mass of Ell’s form spread out inside Claire. Thorns burst out of her skin, like they had done out of John’s. Gradually, the pain travelled up her chest, towards her core. “You’re just a stupid girl.”

Claire grabbed onto the arm with her remaining right, barely able to penetrate the surface with her claws. “I totally agree,” she mused. “So how does it feel dying because of someone so stupid?”

Amusement crossed Ell’s face, then her smile died and she turned her face upwards. Silver light reflected in her eyes. The silver light of a star.

From the moment Claire had found out how to immobilize Ell, the vampire maid had known that there was no way she could have ever sucked the Iron Maiden dry before her power boost ran out. Even if Ell repeatedly made the mistake of getting bitten, the individual diminishment would be too little. The only road to her death was therefore to use an attack that didn’t care what form Ell was in, only that she was hit by it. Something so utterly destructive, it could cancel out a meteor.

The Skyfall Claire had summoned had bound in it more than half the power that she had been granted by her Master. How much more might that have been than what he had used before? How much more powerful was it because it fell slower? A lot was probably the answer. Claire didn’t really care. As far as she was concerned, she had already won.

This next part was just pure opportunism.

Claire pulled herself forward on the arm with all her physical might. The motion ripped her stomach out completely and Ell out of her shock. Having spent hundreds of years unopposed had made her sloppy, as opposed to the rank-and-file Ironborn whose lack of relative power forced them to discipline. No one with honed battle instincts would have presented any part of themselves so closely to a vampire’s face.

Violently, Claire chomped down on Ell’s face. Her fangs cut through nose and cheekbones, the Poseidury the same density everywhere. She drained the Iron Maiden, desperately, filling her mouth with the foul stench of victory. In impotent rage, Ell screamed like a banshee, repeatedly slamming her fist into Claire’s side. Panic, raw and pathetic panic. All that Claire could have wanted to hear.

The silver grew to absolution. Darkened only for the short moment it was hidden behind Ell’s back. It slammed into the ground.

Then heat.

Then nothing.

Claire gave herself to the moment. ‘Did I lie to you, Master?’ she asked herself, hoping for an answer. She received nothing and chuckled to herself. ‘Of course, we don’t have that connection. Not yet anyway… not yet? Do I still think I get out of this? I really am an optimistic idiot.’ The moment passed. The moment of her death passed.

And she was still there.

Pain settled in. A very physical, very real pain. Claire could not sense anything. She was alone with her thoughts and that pain in a motionless, soundless, absolute darkness. The cracks on her core ached. That meant that her core was still there. Blasted out of her body and sitting in the dirt.

‘I can do this,’ she thought and reached out to the power she had stolen from Ell. It felt almost dirty to use it. With the many steps of luck it had taken to even get where she was, she wasn’t complaining. Relying on instinct, she reached out to the dispersed parts of her body and pulled them back to her core.

It was slow work at first. With nothing else to do, she quickly learned, however. Liquid bit for liquid bit, she reassembled herself. A layer to protect her core and mend the cracks. She remade her head first. Soon she could look around, which made her work easier. It did not matter much, ultimately. As much as she had drunk from Ell, it was only enough to recreate the basis of her bust and one shoulder.

“Yeah, there’s just no way,” Claire mumbled, looking at the incline of the crater she laid in. The tiny stump she currently had wasn’t even enough to crawl to the nearest piece of metal. She even lacked the mana to summon a familiar. “At least you’re dead.” She grinned at the splattered bits of unmoving Poseidury all over the place. Ell had taken the brunt of the explosion for the vampire maid. “If I was a good planner, I could take credit for that.” Claire would have wiggled her toes out of boredom, had she had toes to wiggle. “I lied to Master after all,” she kept talking to herself. “There’s no way I’ll be there. He’ll have to come to me.”

Claire could do nothing but stare at the sky. It was quickly turning purple, then blue. Even this far north, the change between night and day was abrupt. The horrid burning sphere was beyond the edge of the crater. There was only a cloudless blue sky above. As absolute in its tranquillity as her soul felt in that moment.

He had been right. This moment of calm, of utter boredom and deep satisfaction, no one could have taken it from her. It was hers, no matter whose heavy footsteps she felt approach. This sight of the heavenly blue was all hers.

“It’ll be alright, Master,” she pledged.