Chapter 284: The Infernal Grave-ity Piledriver (Patreon)

Following Jacob’s example, Alec tosses his Darksteel staff aside, where it silently plunges into the viscous Hydrum.

I guess Sudo doesn’t care much for her equipment. Or more likely, expects Lyrack’s servants to clean up after her.

Before the weapon has even completely gone under, Jacob lifts his head and lets out a dramatic roar, the unleashed Vibration Energy forming cymatics patterns on the surface of the small lake.

Then he leaps forward onto the lily pad we’re standing on and grabs Alec, flipping him upside down in one smooth motion.

<Are you sure this is a good idea, Emma?!> Alec sends with a frantic manipulation of his Lavi flows, as his head gets clamped between Jacob’s knees.

<Not really,> I send back, dispelling the invasive thoughts brought on by his position. <But it’s too late now; get ready!>

Astreum once more bursts into life beneath Jacob’s feet, launching us all up like a rocket.

The lake grows smaller beneath us as he takes us up and up, higher than I’d expected. We’re nearing the top of the dome-shaped shell of Boreum before Sudo initiates the next stage of her infamous move. A dense ball of white gravitational energy shoots up, and erupts into a small but powerful vortex.

Jacob’s jets of Astreum finally peter out, his grip tightening as we start to swing around the centre of the pull.

As we pass by, I can’t help but worry that Sudo misjudged our speed, as the gravity feels too weak to stop us, but then its strength suddenly doubles, and we’re jerked back around and down again.

The pull of gravity vanishes and we’re released like a stone launched from a sling.

Jacob reactivates the Astreum jets, and we rocket down, giving me flashbacks of how Kaitlynn killed spider-troll, once upon a time.

“GET READY TO FEEL THE BURN!” Sudo thunders, her voice ringing out across the estate. “Not really though,” she continues at a more reasonable volume. “Moves like these are ninety per cent show; I’ll slow us down with Negative Kinetic Energy right before the impact, so don’t—wait, what’s that?”

At that moment, Spatial Energy blooms into life, right beneath the surface of the Hydrum where we’re projected to land.

My stomach sinks; I’d really hoped she’d be too distracted to notice. <Alec, now!>

Alec, who was previously flailing and mock-struggling, as a proper ‘pro’ wrestler, immediately clamps his arms and legs around Jacob, getting a tight hold on our friend, before he starts discharging all the Electric Energy he’s got stored in a long, continuous stream.

As a result, Jacob spasms in his arms, his Astreum jets sputtering out.

“What is the meaning of this?” Sudo demands, for once sounding genuinely off-balance.

“I figured turnabout was fair play!” I chime, giving her my best impression of a smug Farouq. “I call this move the Embrace of the Lightning Dragon!”

I didn’t have a lot of time to come up with anything, okay?

“This is highly irregular!” Sudo hisses. “Release my host at once!”

“Come on, you’re supposed to be a professional,” I chime tauntingly. “Can’t you handle a little improvisation?”

“In the world of stage fighting, going off-script is not appreciated!”

I knew it. All those fights of hers are fake from start to finish!

“Especially if it’s done out of an unwillingness to accept a clear loss,” she adds in a scathing hiss.

“Oh yeah?” I scoff. “Why don’t you give me a proper example of how to do that then?”

“Oh, believe me,” Sudo chimes icily. “I will.”

Damn. I’d hoped to keep her talking for longer, but I guess this will have to do. She was never going to accept this little stunt, after all.

The dense ball of gravitational energy above us starts to move, accelerating down towards us. In response, I throw up the thickest Spatial boundary between it and us that I can.

The glowing white sphere smashes through it like a bowling ball hitting a thin layer of ice.

Of course, below thin layers of ice is usually some kind of water.

While the initial impact doesn’t do much to slow down her white sphere, it quickly gets bogged down as I start stretching the space between us and it, filling that area with Spatial Energy which both slows it down and weakens its pull.

Meanwhile, Jacob has regained a measure of control over his limbs, and is struggling to get away. Vibrations buzz along his limbs, eating away at Alec’s Electric Energy, but the blond boy holds fast.

For now.

Because right then, perhaps because of her sphere of gravity struggling to catch up and affect us, Sudo starts to form Heat.

Oh shit!

I react as fast as I can, splitting part of my attention away from manipulating my Spatial Energy to start producing Cold, but she’s faster.

A split second later, the Heat blooms up between Alec and Jacob.

The Aether there turns to Astreum, and expands explosively. The sudden blast between their chests rips Jacob from Alec’s grip and flings the two boys apart.

And that’s when our training together pays off.

I show my idea to Alec only an instant before I execute it, but it’s enough.

He flips himself around blindly and enters my narrow warp tunnel headfirst. It loops him around to the other side of Jacob, where he immediately smacks into our friend from behind.

The collision forces a grunt out of him, but despite that, Alec manages to clutch his arms around the boy and hold on as they continue to spin down towards the ground at high speed.

I unleash my Cold a mere moment later, encircling them both with a mesh of flash-frozen Boreum tendrils which bind them tightly together.

Beneath us, I feel Suri’s start to shift her slowly opening pocket dimension a little, to correct for our minor displacement in the Aether.

Never before has a gaping hole in reality looked more inviting.

Moving a dimensional pocket’s anchor isn’t easy, and definitely not quick, but she should be able to get it beneath us in time, as long as our trajectory doesn’t change any further.

Almost there, come on now...

“Damn you!” Sudo shrieks, unleashing more Heat in an attempt to evaporate my Boreum. However, now that they’ve been formed, and I’m constantly feeding them more Cold, my bindings are not so easy to get rid of.

“Ready to except your loss with dignity?” I shout back.

Her response comes in the form of a buzz of Lavi signals, too quick and dense for me to parse as they pass from her to Jacob.

Jacob stiffens, and then starts to form Kinetic Energy.

I immediately project flashing yellow light coming off him to Alec within my mental projection of our surroundings.

Alec spins up Negative Inertial Energy in record time, deploying it just before Jacob unleashes his Skill.

We change course by about one degree.

Jacob’s next attempt is not much better, but he keeps trying, clearly following some order.

“Enough!” Sudo chimes angrily, a hint of panic in her voice. “This ends now!”

A split second later, she lashes out with her Spiritform, spider-leg-like crystalline structures emerging from her crystal, and striking back around Jacob’s head into my own spiritform.

I almost start to laugh at the little pinpricks.

She’s not even as strong as Farouq!

However, since she now truly seems to have thrown caution to the wind, it is indeed time to end this.

So I unleash my tendrils, neatly wrapping them around her spider legs before digging them into her spiritflesh and using them to channel my Devouring Flames.

I can practically taste her panic as the spiritual pain registers.

Then I pop out of my crystal, and pull.

The feeling when she pops out as well is most satisfying.

Interestingly, her spiritform doesn’t just have spider-like legs, it’s actually fully shaped like a crystalline spider.

Huh, weird.

“Alec, now!” I cry out loud.

His field of Positive Inertial Energy disappears in a flash, right before Jacob once more tries to use what I assume is Momentum Manipulation to change course.

Without Alec’s field impeding him, he succeeds, and the two of them go sailing off to the side, heading not towards the portal but to an empty patch of Hydrum, taking my and Sudo’s crystals with them.

Perfect.

I whip out with my tendrils against the Aether, dragging Sudo along as I ever-so-slightly speed up our descent.

A split second later, we disappear into Suri’s pocket dimension.

In its dark confines, I let out a breath of relief. I’m quite sure Sudo didn’t have the time or wherewithal to send off a message or conjure a signalling flare or something.

And we’re not about to give her the chance to do it now.

There’s literally only one point of exit to this place, and Kaitlynn ought to have Imagined a barrier there now with the specific purpose of blocking Espir from getting through.

“CEASE THIS ASSAULT AT ONCE!” Sudo Commands me.

Unfortunately for her, Sudo’s Commands don’t work on me. Not when her Espir Pool is only around 4000 motes strong.

“Don’t think so,” I state calmly. “Now, we can—”

“You disgusting ape!” she chimes. “In Starmother’s name, I demand you release me!

I raise a brow at that unexpected outburst. In Starmother’s name? Interesting... But this is getting annoying.

“Hey now, words can hurt, you know?”

She pays my sarcasm no heed, continuing to rant and struggle in my hold. “Do you have any idea who you just attacked? You’re in for a Realm—”

She finally shuts up when I squeeze her crystalline spiritform more tightly with my tendrils, her lattice cracking under my grip.

“Not really,” I admit. “But I’m sure you’re going to tell me all about that soon enough. First, however, I’m going to need to dig a little deeper... Fair warning: this is going to hurt.”

It takes me mere minutes to get to Sudo’s Core, and judging by the non-stop litany of swear words and indignant yelling I have to endure to get there, it actually hurts her pride more than anything else.

The struggle with her avatar is also over shortly, and before I know it, I’ve got it tightly wrapped in Commands.

“Ah, blessed silence,” I start with a sigh, as her eight beady crystal eyes glare at me. “Now, since you had so much to say about who you were earlier, let’s talk about that a little before I get you out of here, shall we?”

She remains silent, clearly not keen to make use of her permission to speak.

“What’s this?” I ask with feigned surprise. “Before you wouldn’t shut up about it, and now you’re suddenly all shy?”

“I’m not shy,” she replies, forced by my Commands to give truthful answers to questions. “I just don’t wish to tell you.”

I smirk. “Too bad. Now, who are you, and what is your connection with Starmother?”

“I’m an intelligence officer, who tracks down dissidents in service of Her Highness,” she chimes, horror in her voice at the admitted truth.

My eyes widen. Does that mean she’s part of some kind of... secret police force?

Oh, shit.

Author's note:

Thanks for reading ^^