Gannon pointed his staff at the group. The gem lit up with power and let out a narrow beam, all of its energy focused to deliver the biggest effect in the shortest amount of time possible so that none could react. Jason was the target of this attack. It connected, burning a hole through the ARMS material at the meeting point between his shoulder and collar bone, but the beam lost its force by the time it reached his skin. It singed his flesh, darkening it, but nothing more. The group had scattered, attempting to dodge Gannon’s attack before they saw the aim.

In the fraction of a second that their attention was pulled from him, Gannon’s staff banged on the ground, bringing their eyes back to him only to find that no one was standing where he once was. Gabbi’s body deformed and streamed into Jason’s clothes. The ARMS material sealed itself up. Rina through an orb into the air above the party. It was getting dark, they’d crashed at twilight and in the time that they’d taken to get to where they were now it had grown dark. Rina thought that maybe their enemy was taking advantage of them not being able to see. The orb began to spin in the air and then pulsed a light. After a few times the light seemed to stop and stabilize into a continuous stream of photons making it like daylight with a 50 meter radius around it.

They looked around. Saw nothing. A few pebbles shifted on the ground where no one was. Alyssa vanished from where she was, instantly reappearing at the pebbles, slicing into the empty air. She was sure that Gannon would be there. It caused her to hesitate. That’s when she felt a strike across the back of her knees dropping her to her knees. Extending from where the head of the staff there was a black shimmer wave revealing his location. The others were too far for any to reach him in time before he twisted to gain momentum to bring his stack across her face, sending her flying into the ground, making the visual illusion cloaking him to flicker once again. She spit blood and several teeth came out with it. A number of bones in her face were broken. Rina rushed to her side, not paying attention to Gannon.

Jello moved to confront and stop him from inflicting more harm. Another attack didn’t come. Instead a flame thrower came from thin air towards Jason. Jello sword was already moving, swinging down in front of the fire, blocking it. Jason stumbled back startled, putting his arms up in defense. The blaze stopped. Jello twisted his sword so that the edge was parallel to the ground and swung it to the source point of the stream of flame. No connection yet again.

Rina used her foci to concentrate on healing Alyssa’s damage. The bones under he face were pulled back in place and mended before work on her teeth began. They regenerated forcing new teeth to grow where her old ones were lost. She screamed in pain as they pushed through her gums, displacing any bits from her olds ones that still remained. Once those injuries were fixed the nanites went about sealing up the minor scratches ad cuts left on her cheek from the blow. It looked as if the bit of flesh stuck itself onto the other side of the gash and zipped itself back together.

Jello swung his sword at the Rina, missing her by less than a half of an inch and skimmed across her back and stopped. Gannon’s cloak distorted again as he slammed his foot onto the sword. Jello’s hand grabbed hold of the hilt of his blade. He pulled it up at Gannon trying to get him off balance. He fell back, but the illusion stabilized the warping, making him return to invisibility. Jello attempted to charge and tackle him to the ground. He succeeded. Gannon lost hold of his staff and fell behind him. Jello pounded on him. Gannon tried to block the incoming fists with one of his arms, but it proved difficult as Jello predicted Gannon’s predictions and adjusted accordingly. It took some of the power out of the strike, but Jello was several times stronger than him so that any loss of power mattered very little in the overall. Gannon’s free hand glowed with a dull grey aura. Suddenly, Jello was speared through his torso, a lance had formed in Gannon’s hand and pierced right through his stomach. It was no challenge for the weapon to penetrate his body. He had no armor on after all. Not even basic clothes. What did he expect to happen?

Jello grabbed at the lance trying to prevent it from being pushed any further in. Gannon took the opportunity to reach for his staff, his fingers crawling towards it. They just barely reached. He used his fingers to pull it back into his grasp. It started to surge with power as he brought it back to between himself and the Thissin, right before he let a pulse of energy explode out at Jello, sending him sailing back, skidding across the rocky ground, only being slowed down by the crops that he bent back and broke as he passed through the high stalks of what appeared to be a corn field.

Jason took the chance while Gannon was distracted to attack. As Gannon got to his knees, putting his weight on the staff, Jason was overhead, his sword drawn and midway through a downward slash. Gannon reacted, twisting to release a burst attack that was small but effective to stop a person in their tracks. It was too late, Jason used an ARMS skills called Quick Step which allowed him to teleport the distance of several steps. He had become such the expert at using that he was able to convert all of his downward momentum into upward momentum so that when he reappeared he would be rising, using the edge of his blade to slice upward. Gannon, having long been an user of teleportation abilities, had a gut feeling, acting on it, instinctually using the foci in his left hand to create a large hammer to thrust at Jason, knocking him hard into the ground. He’d not been expecting that. His head bounced on the ground from the force that the hammer pinned him there.

Rina in the meanwhile saw what had happened to Jello and made haste to his side, a green aura around her hands glowing brightly. “Xev, I need your help!” she cried out. Her hands wrapped around the lance where it met his flesh. Where her skin met his a luminescent green line like an artificial vein started growing and spreading from her to him, branching out in every direction and around the wound. Xev responded to Rina’s call, making her way to her and Jello’s side. “Slowly pull this out,” Rina ordered.

Xev nodded and started to do as Rina wished. “Never been penetrated navely… How’s it feel?” she joked. Jello could only moan in response.

With every millimeter that the lance moved out the green veins glowed brighter and extended further into his system. The nanites needed to close and fix the wound as the lance’s was pulled out due to its girth tapering from almost a foot in diameter to point. If it didn’t there was the risk that what was inside Jello’s body would fall out and that wouldn’t be good. Rina was sure that she knew what to do in that eventuality, but with the ARMS units that they had it would be a struggle.

Gannon’s staff swung down aiming to bash Jason’s face in like he had Alyssa’s earlier but Jason used his skill again. This time he flitted to behind Gannon, his sword already thrusting towards Gannon’s back, looking to repay the villain for what he had done to Jello, but again he was countered, this time with a simple kick that sent him back. He tripped on a piece of ground and fell next to Alyssa.

Jason didn’t understand how this guy was able to do what he was doing. Every piece of ARMS equipment that he could see was on a lower tier than what he and the others had. Even more so in the case of Jason who had at least 2 or 3 levels above anything Gannon had. He’d never encountered a situation where there was such a power imbalance and yet the person in the weak position was overpowering the group in the stronger. Could he really be just that better of a fighter than everyone that Jason brought? That didn’t seem possible. Maybe in the past, but he’d come a long way since then. He was one of the best in the arena so far as the rankings that the Free Nation had been keeping.

While Jason was taking a breath and lost in thought, Alyssa got to her feet and charged at the last place that Gannon was seen, believing that he’d attempt to trick everyone by not moving at all. She slashed where she believed him to be and… hit something. What she hit didn’t feel like it was someone dressed like Gannon. It felt solid. Like a wall. And her blade seemed to have done nothing. About two feet above her the now familiar warping of space associated with Gannon’s cloak shimmered and began descending over what appeared to be a person clad in black metal armor. It was Shadow. Alyssa took several steps back, taking a defensive stance.

Alyssa charged at him, knowing exactly what to do in this situation, having been a fan of knights and sword fighting she’d studied ways to defeat one in full plate mail. She never thought that she would get the chance to try out her theories, but it looked like she was going to finally get the opportunity. She aimed for his eyes with her daggers, hoping to get the attack in before he got in the swing of things. Her hopes were, however, thrashed. Shadow summoned shield into being and blocked her, pushing her off. She landed back on her feet a foot away. Immediately she went back on the attack quickly attacking several places, attempting to break through his shield, but all came to naught. He gave a thrust to knock her off her feet. Instead, Alyssa slammed herself against him, rolling to the side, trying to get around to his back. Her daggers made to quick swipes at the back of his knees. Unfortunately, both blows did nothing. They too had been armored to prevent any such attacks like that. The black knight turned, laughing at the efforts of the woman.

“Have you found what you’re looking for?” Shadow asked with a deep dark voice that carried the confidence of knowing that everything that the enemy in front of him could do was futile and he could play with her till he grew bored.

In the blink of an eye Jason was on his feet, charging at Shadow, and leaping high in the air, launching a kick towards the beast. Shadow wasn’t expecting such an attack. He was expecting a sword or a gun, maybe even magic, but not a simple kick. It hardly even affected him until Jason, instead of falling and landing on ground, followed the inertia of his attack, pulling his legs in so that for the briefest of moments it was like he was squatting on Shadow’s back, and then, he used all of the force that he could generated and pushed off sending himself back into the air and Shadow who was unprepared for such an occurrence forward, off balance and stumbling. He inadvertently lost his shield tossing it to the side. In the moment of weakness Alyssa made her move. Not wasting any time, she instantaneously moved from her place to just under Shadow, delivering an uppercut-like blow with one her daggers. It pierced directly through his lower jaw and into his brain cavity. Momentum threw him back and her dagger forward ripping through the front of his face. The dark dog knight was dead, bleeding out on the ground while Alyssa lost grip of the dagger, dropping it onto the ground, before she too fell on top of the body of the enemy she’d just slain.