The battle was a symphony of visceral sound and blinding light, fueled by a stench that clung to the back of the throat like rot. Daniela was a storm of emerald, her movements raw and fueled by a berserker's instinct that favored destruction over survival.
The ground shuddered with a rhythmic, subterranean violence. A Grave-Worm breached the surface, its circular mouth spiraling with rows of serrated teeth. Daniela didn't flinch. She swung a massive emerald axe, the blade humming as it cleaved through the beast's neck. A geyser of neon-yellow corrosive blood sprayed across her shoulder; she barely grunted as the acid bit into her skin, sizzling with the scent of burning flesh. She groaned in irritation, but her control over her power wasn't yet refined; her offense was far greater than her defense.
A second, larger Titan-Bore erupted from beneath her. "Move!" she hissed to herself, rolling through the sharp sand just as the massive jaws snapped shut on empty air. Her axe dissolved, the emerald energy reforming into a colossal greatsword as long as her body. She charged, slamming the blade against the Titan-Bore's flank, but the sword bounced off the obsidian-encrusted hide in a shower of sparks. She danced around the monster, searching for the soft underbelly, but a larva soldier shot out from the sand, creating a dust cloud of obsidian that blinded her vision. That single distraction was enough for the beast to sink its teeth into her ankle.
Daniela screamed, kicking the creature off, but the Titan-Bore's tail caught her mid-torso, launching her across the dunes. She was thrown through the air until her body rolled to a stop against a hard boulder. Spitting a mouthful of black sand mixed with her blood, she surged back to her feet with a vicious, blood-soaked smile. Charging head-on, she thrust the greatsword upward, driving it through the roof of the worm's open mouth and holding on until the creature collapsed, destroyed from the inside out.
Panting, she looked toward Jasper. At that moment, a Great-Shell Crusher—a beast twice the size of her Titan-Bore, plated in thick volcanic rock—burst from the sand within his perimeter. Jasper didn't move his hands from his pockets. As the monster lunged, a single, massive hand of solidified darkness rose from the sand beneath it. It gripped the beast by its throat and its tail, and with one effortless, clinical twist, snapped the creature in half like dry kindling. The darkness then simply folded over the carcass, deconstructing it into nothingness in seconds.
Jasper began to sit as a throne of obsidian smoke formed beneath him, watching Daniela's fight with clinical detachment.
"Show off!" Daniela barked, her voice ragged with the effort of her own kill.
"You're making it harder than it needs to be," Jasper replied coolly. "These are brainless beasts."
"Shut up, Jasper!" she snapped, already turning to the next threat.
"Pay attention," he reminded her. "Control the flow."
"You're distracting me!" Daniela snarled. She waded back into the fray, her emerald eyes glowing with an incandescent intensity. She spent the next several minutes carving through a wave of larvae. She didn't just kill them; she obliterated them. She used her momentum to drive her sword through the center of one, then spun, letting the weight of the blade carry her into the next, cleaving it from head to tail. Each kill added a layer of yellow slime and red blood to her skin, her hair whipping free from its braid. She smiled, chuckling as she cleaved through the horde.
She focused on a particularly fast larva that kept diving into the sand. She thrust her sword deep into the earth, but the creature emerged elsewhere, spinning until its viscous coating hardened into an impenetrable, jagged chrysalis. Releasing her sword in mid-air, she reached out as the energy reshaped into a large axe. She slammed the axe down with a bone-shattering strike, but the weapon bounced. The vibration of the impact caused her very bones to scream in agony.
"Fuck!" she screamed, kicking the shell in frustration before moving on to the final few larvae, systematically dismantling them. Neon blood splattered with every swing of her sword. Her teeth were clenched, her eyes hyper-focused on killing every last beast. From the corner of her eye, she saw movement—subtle, but unmistakable.
The troublesome beast that had formed into a chrysalis was now shuddering inside its cocoon. The tremors caused the sand itself to vibrate with ferocity. Before she could brace herself, shards of the shell pulsed outward like shrapnel. Jasper deflected the debris with a casual dome of shadow, but Daniela was caught in the side and knocked off her feet.
"Ow, that hurt," Daniela muttered to herself, rolling from her side onto her back as her body heaved in exhaustion. From the ruins of the shell rose a winged Moon-Stalker. It took to the sky, its translucent wings humming with a lethal vibration.
Daniela's head lulled to the side as she looked toward Jasper, glaring at him once again. He had slaughtered enough beasts to create a feeding frenzy for any creature nearby, and now she was facing a never-ending tide. With one final sigh, Daniela pushed herself up. Taking a deep breath, she called upon her power to go skyward.
Solidified discs of emerald magic manifested beneath her boots. She slammed her feet onto them, leaping into the air to chase the beast into the moonlit sky. She swung her axe, only to miss her target. Without wasting a second, she reared her hand back as javelins of condensed power sparked in her palms, hurling them one after another at the winged terror. But the air was thin, and the strain was immense.
She felt the pressure behind her eyes—a growing headache as her power screamed in exhaustion. She was overtaxing herself; without recalling her power as quickly as she used it, her body felt drained. The strain on her limbs grew by the second. Being in the air wasn't sustainable. Her platforms began to flicker and fail. She plummeted back to the sand, landing hard as her body crashed against the dunes.
Looking up at the diving beast, she gathered every remaining drop of her essence. She thrust her hands forward, and a large, concentrated beam of emerald light roared toward the sky. It struck the Moon-Stalker, scorching its wings and sending it spiraling, but the beast didn't die. It had only been phased for a moment, its left wing damaged but not enough to stop it. Neon blood dripped from the twitching limb.
The output was too much. The brilliant emerald of Daniela's eyes faded, returning to their natural forest green. Her knees buckled. In her desperation, she reached out for her magic, for the feeling of her strength. Instead of feeling the power inside respond, she felt something external. The missing power. The Will. She felt the hum of resonance as her mind locked onto its presence. Instead of the pull she had felt before, this was different; it was as if the Will was trying to connect back with her.
She touched the tether. She felt a cold and hungry pull—anger, a desperate need for vengeance and blood. A fully formed purpose. A will of destruction and decay.
A dark green coalescence of power erupted from the shadows—her Will. It was a featureless, emerald silhouette that intercepted the falling Moon-Stalker mid-air. Its spectral hands sank into the creature's chest and ripped its heart out with a sickening squelch. The Will absorbed the strength of the beast; as it crushed the heart, the glow within the organ left the beast only to attach to the Will, strengthening its form and revitalizing its power.
Daniela's vision blurred as she slumped into the sand, losing consciousness. The moment her eyes closed, the Will turned its blank face toward Jasper.
It launched itself at him with a guttural, primal growl. Jasper stood as his chair dissolved behind him, sliding back as a blade of dark green energy whistled past his throat. The Will was relentless; it didn't fight like a student, but like a predator. It slammed a fist into Jasper's shadowy barrier, the shockwave rippling the obsidian sand for yards.
Jasper's shadows rose like great, defensive whips, parrying the Will's strikes. The emerald silhouette manifested a jagged spear, thrusting with a speed that forced Jasper to move with precision, his body gliding along the lines of the attack. Every time his shadows tried to bind it, the Will simply dissolved and reformed behind him, its movements a chaotic, savage mirror of Daniela's style—a berserker, true to its master's core.
The Will lunged again, its spectral fingers clawing at the black mist. It leaned in, and to Jasper's surprise, a voice emerged from the featureless form—a guttural, vicious tone that bore a passing resemblance to Daniela's own.
"Die... soon," it rasped.
Jasper smirked, tilting his head as he stared at the amalgamation of Daniela's ferocity that dared to threaten him. Her idiotic power had no true intelligence; if it did, it would know killing him was useless and would only lead to its own demise. He watched as the Will circled him brazenly, as if he were prey.
Daniela groaned, her hand twitching as her mind clawed for consciousness, eager to resume the fight. The Will froze. It let out one last, low growl at Jasper, its emerald form pulsing with a warning. Then it turned and ran, its silhouette blurring as it sprinted across the dunes and disappeared into the darkness.
Jasper chuckled, his shadows receding as he looked toward the horizon where it had fled. He walked over to Daniela, watching her eyes flutter open. Standing over her, he gave her a look of disappointment.
"It seems," Jasper said, his voice carrying a new edge of intrigue, "that your power finally decided to miss you."
Author's note:
Enjoy the carnage!