Her eyes glowing like the brightest of emeralds, her stance as solid as a board, her grip firm; Elise stared down the barrel of fate against the four before her. To the right in the tunnel Vulper looked on with an expression of shock while behind David and Milly approached.
“Elise…” Vulper murmured in shock.
She stood, sword out at the ready. At once Azala took charge, “I’ve had enough of this, hraaa-huh?”
His ax flew forward with his arm stretching, at which point Elise swung down unleashing another burst of Light Energy that cleaved straight through the arm. Off half of it slid, slopping to the ground with the ax sent flying off. Azala wailed out, stomping backwards as his arm retracted. Dustin growled, Toby rushing ahead at Elise as Azala crashed backwards.
Toby swung down while Elise swung up, her weapon parrying with his. Backwards Toby stumbled as Azala shot forward again.
“Elise, collect energy at the bottom most part of your feet and direct it. Visualize yourself skidding along a rail. That’s the key to pulling off-” came the echoing of Sephiroth’s voice in her head.
“{Got it Sephiroth, thanks,}” she thought in response.
Light pooled at her feet as both Azala and Dustin charged her. Her eyes shut and head down though only for a moment, they shot open sharp. Azala wailed out while Dustin heaved. Off Dustin flew from a solid kick, light glowing at the point of impact at his gut as Azala’s torso fell backwards with his legs going forward. Toby and Szayel both stepped back.
“That was Light Dash,” Szayel choked.
“How is she pulling this off?” Toby growled.
“It’s that weapon,” came Shadow’s voice from beyond them, “It’s instructing her on how to do various techniques. She won’t be able to pick up on anything extreme like magic but so long as she is joined to that weapon, she has another advantage against us.”
“That brat, cut her fricken arm off Azala!” Dustin yelled out.
Azala’s torso spat out darkness to his legs like pillars, slowly pulling to connect themselves once more. Azala stomped down and turned at once, the skull face returning as he breathed in with a metallic echo, “Hrgh, I do not care how much power you obtain child. I do not care how quickly you learn. You will never be able to best us.”
At once the flow of the darkness slowed as Azala’s ax hovered up and back to him. Into his right hand it went as his body resumed a river-like flow with a black aura dancing around him. Forward he moved breathing out, a slight roar behind the breath. Elise turned to face him head on with her weapon positioned, “Ready to take me serious now aren’t you?”
“You insolent rat,” Azala gurgled.
With a roar he swung down, down over Elise’s head. She moved her weapon up and quickly blocked. Beneath the ground cracked as light held her joints, glowing outward. She held up, a hand on the hilt and one near the tip of her weapon, “{Dammit he has some serious strength. Even with these Lightonian abilities I’m not going to be able to take on all four of them at once. At times like this I wouldn’t mind being a prophesied do it all or whatever. But then I suppose it wouldn’t be that satisfying.}”
Azala’s ax rose back up to which she took as a chance to dart off to the side to keep her eyes on the group of four. Scanning each she began to think again, “{Toby knows my fighting style inside and out, Azala can regenerate effortlessly and has a ton of power, Dustin and Szayel probably have mastered their Dharkanian abilities. Either way I look at this situation it doesn’t favor me in the slightest.}”
“As you said though, where is the fun in that?” Sephiroth chuckled.
“{Yeah I know. So the question becomes how do I take them down?}”
“Szayel has hung to the back of this party so far. Odds are that he isn’t good in a straight up fight Elise. I recommend taking him down first if you can get close. With any luck that’ll either reweaken Azala and grant you an opening to finish him or it might give you an opening for something else in general. At that point you just need to worry about using Light Energy against Toby and then overwhelming Dustin.”
“{Don’t forget that there’s still Shadow. I’m fortunate that he hasn’t cut in yet. Should it come to it though I don’t think I’d even force him into breaking a sweat considering what happened with Zero that other time.}”
“Then that leaves one option that’ll surely kill all of ‘em except for Azala.”
“A cave in,” Elise murmured to herself, glancing up at the ceiling.
Shadow watched on as Azala stomped forward. At once his eyes shifted to observing Toby beside Szayel, then to Dustin who approached Elise from her right. His eyes then watched as Elise’s eyes moved around and then up.
“She’s watching everything like a hawk. I suspect that she has already formulated a plan. She’s not stupid enough to think she can beat us. Very well then. I was hoping to wait on this but it would seem that I’ve been pushed. No matter, all in all it’ll go the same as I have predicted,” he muttered moving his arms apart for but a moment, his hands clapping together at once.
Elise blinked, her eyes opening wide. At once Szayel began to wail out, hands on his head and dropping to his knees. His eyes shut as Dustin and Toby turned their attention to him. Both blinked and quickly leaped away. Azala simply chuckled as behind him Szayel rose up yelling out in pain.
His skin bubbling, his eyes fading to black, dark mist leaving his both through every opening. Szayel’s skin immediately blew off while darkness roared out of him into the air like several cyclones. Azala held his arms out laughing as the dark cloud formed by Szayel’s power grew and at once crashed down into Azala.
Elise stepped back, a hand held before her face with one eye nearly shutting, “What’s happening?”
“Elise, evacuate the caves immediately. If what I think is happening is truly happening then this mountain shall soon become a death trap!” Sephiroth’s voice echoed.
“What do you mean Sephiroth? What’s happening to him?”
“The way that Szayel was able to resurrect Azala earlier and with what’s happening now, hell even with what Shadow did and how the others reacted. I suspect that Szayel was used as Azala’s Star Blade.”
“What? No way-”
“Yeah and considering the amount of power I’m seeing enter Azala, who is a Drachen, that can only-”
“Oh no-”
Azala’s laughter could be heard as slowly the form of Szayel shrank, more and more of his body breaking off into darkness. The skull was visible with an ax head taking its place. Elise’s eyes grew big, her head shooting towards Vulper, “Vulper, evacuate the caves now!”
“Understood. All of you heard her, get out get out, get everyone out!” Vulper shouted, running out himself as other Vulfaxians quickly turned tail and began to run.
Elise herself turned and took off, sheathing her weapon at once. Behind her Toby and Dustin disappeared down another passage while Shadow simply backed away into the opening that was behind him. All of Szayel’s body disappeared leaving only an ax, an ax which quickly broke with an endless amount of darkness roaring out.464Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaypzKYMHwf
