Shocker's Stories
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Chapter 69 - A Sudden Stab
🕑 Added 2024-11-06 19:50:34 +0000 UTCLeona moved with a quickness that put most men to shame, her blade whistling through the air in a beeline toward Coin's neck. The mimic shoved Elijah in one direction and jumped in the opposite way, only barely avoiding the tip grazing his throat.
Yet the assassin pressed the assault, one movement flowing into the other again and again. A missed slash with one blade was followed up by a narrowly-dodged stab with the other. Her cloak fanned and whirled behind her, the swaying fabric regularly blocking the faint light of the lantern.
Valle saw an opportunity to flee and save his skin. Or perhaps he made the quite reasonable assumption that he did not want to be within a hundred meters of Leona with her blades drawn. Regardless he had hastily scrambled to his feet and made a beeline for the door.
"Damnation!" Elijah cursed, running after his former friend.
"E-Elijah, wait!"
"Are you really in a position to get distracted by now?" Leona taunted. She vanished in a flash of silver light, appearing behind Coin a split second later with both of her blades raised.
Coin snapped a hand back, every bit as quick as his opponent, firing a powerful pulse of wind. The gale launched Leona back, her body striking the far wall with enough force to splinter the wood. She grunted in pain, yet managed to keep a firm grip on her swords.
For a moment he was briefly tempted to hit her with a direct bolt of lightning from his fingers. Even a killer as relentless as Leona wouldn't survive that. Yet if he missed and set the wooden room alight, then the ensuing fire could turn the factory into a crematorium.
Leona righted herself and lunged at him, still sporting an eager grin. Then, suddenly, she vanished and reappeared in a series of rapid teleportation bursts. His eyes tried to follow her path around the room, and she seemed to be making a zig-zag pattern as she closed the gap toward him. With every burst of teleportation, Coin dimly noted, her eyes twitched in a specific direction.
Left, right, left, right- He raised a hand, preparing to strike when the assassin appeared at his left side.
She jumped at his right side again.
Coin's eyes widened, and he tried to jump back. A fraction of an instant too late, as Leona's left blade sliced into his cheek. His skin was far tougher than that of a normal human, he had rendered it denser than boiled leather as soon as he realised they were in danger. Yet, even so, her blade cut into him like soft cheese.
Cackling, Leona appeared behind him and whipped a slash at his neck. Coin whirled around, the edge slicing open his sleeve and digging into his shoulder. Streaks of red stained the pale fabric of his shirt.
"Death by a thousand cuts," Leona said, rushing him again.
Power surged through Coin's entire body, rapidly gathering on the outermost layer of his flesh. before pulsing outward A wave of thunder slammed into Leona like a brick wall, shunting her away and letting out a violent roar that shook the factory down to its very foundations.
Coin huffed, rounding on the assassin as she stumbled to her feet with blood dripping from a split in her lip. He couldn't rely solely on his magic, he knew. All those quiet moments spent studying magic, and those occasional fights where he'd had to draw upon it, had not given him enough stamina to waste on such a slippery opponent. Every missed spell would just slow him down more and more.
But if they were in a fight to the death, and nobody else was around to see him... why should he bother hiding the full arsenal of his abilities?
His left hand shot outward, the biomass in his forearm shifting and elongating outward like an unfurling whip. His limb extended outward faster than a crossbow bolt, skin toughening as sharpened growths of bone sprouted from the edge of his hand.
Leona, her eyes wider than dinner plates, side stepped the blow. Coin's makeshift flail struck the floor, splitting several floorboards on impact. Silence briefly lingered between the two. "It's... you," she murmured in disbelief. "You're the mimic."
"Yep," Coin hissed. "I'm the mimic."
He whipped his arm toward her, the sharpened teeth grazing Leona's shoulders as she stepped back. Her sleeve was torn asunder, her skin splitting against the angled bones, but he was just shy of hooking her flesh directly. His arm flailed toward a pair of cabinets on the far side of the room, shattering them apart.
"I didn't think I'd ever meet you again," she admitted, her breath emerging in pale cloudy huffs. "I already went and stole that black powder right from your very wagon, almost as soon as you left your wagon behind. Thought that would be the end of things. Yet here you are, poking your noses in!"
He lashed his arm at her again and again, each swing destroying a swathe of the floor. But, every time, Leona either flipped over his elongated arm or teleported out of his grasp. "So that's it, is it? Suppose I should have expected you to be a sneaking thief!"
"Don't be bitter. It'll spoil that handsome face of yours."
She jumped over Coin's arm and sliced clean through it in passing. Blood spurted from the shorn flesh, a pained cry rising in Coin's throat. The whip wove itself back together with sinews of meat, more of Coin's biomass being directed toward mending his wounds.
A strong gust of wind slammed into Leona's ribs just as she landed, bowling her over and knocking her sword from her left hand. She landed in a crouch and reached into her cloak. Something silvery flickered in the darkness by her hand.
A dagger flew through the air a split second later, flung with ferocious force. The serrated edge carved the side of Coin's neck, unleashing a fresh spray of blood. Coin grimaced and pulled back, willing the meat to knit itself together.
"So, what are you exactly?" Leona asked, leaping for her fallen sword and snatching it up. "Not a wizard, like Askyr said. What kind of bizarre mimic are you?"
"You don't need to worry about the little details. You'll be dead soon anyway."
He raced toward her in a sudden burst of speed, reeling his elongated limb back into place. He raised his fists, studding his forearms with bone growths to act as makeshift shields. He intercepted a swing from the assassin, her sharpened blades clanging off calcified flesh that was sturdier than steel. Sprays of sparks lit up the blackness around them with each blocked blow.
He saw Leona furrow her brow from intense focus, her eyes narrowing to a space just at his side. She vanished in a silver flash, reappearing at his right. His fist clocked her in the face a heartbeat later. The punch swept her off her feet and knocked her clean through the the windows overlooking the factory floor. The sound of shattering glass echoed through the entire building.
It had been a lucky guess on Coin's part. He had tried to follow Leona's teleportation as best he could, and had noticed the way her eyes moved in the direction of wherever she was going to reappear. It made sense, Coin noted. She had to see where she was going if she was going to jump to a specific spot.
Leona's body landed on the lid of a wooden coal storage, breaking several of the boards beneath her. Coin rushed to the broken windows to look down at her, and watched as Leona rose to her full height on shaky legs. Broken glass had slashed her upper arms and the side of her neck, but none had cut deep enough to cripple her.
"Agh.. hah..." She smiled, glancing to her left arm as it hung limp and broken by her side. Leona chuckled, despite herself. "Damnation. You're... strong."
Coin looked beyond her, to the far end of the factory. Elijah had chased Valle down, wrestling him to the ground. Elijah may have been older, but he was stockier and stronger than Valle.
"G-get off of me!" Valle shouted, trying and failing to shove the older man off of him.
"Damn you, stop writhing you blasted fool!" Elijah hissed. "What do you mean, you little bastard? Have they already stolen the damn powder?"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Valle fumbled a hand toward his belt, with the desperation of an animal getting set to gnaw their own paw off.
Coin's heart froze in his chest, a terrible dread rising in his chest. "Elijah!" He jumped from his vantage point, crossing half the factory floor in a single bound. He didn't even notice Leona flinging a blade at him, even as it thudded into his ribs.
In that same instant, Valle had whipped a blade from his belt. And rammed it clean into Elijah's guts.
Coin's eyes widened in horror, his feet slamming into the floor in an awkward landing. Elijah fell back from a horrified Valle, dropping his long and hooked blade from his grasp.
"I didn't mean to.. O-oh, Goddess!" Valle, pale as a ghost, turned and sprinted for the open doors as fast as his legs would carry him.
Coin sprinted toward his fallen mentor and swept him into his arms. "Elijah!" he cried, pressing a hand to the great wound in his chest. Valle, in a desperate and blind panic, had sliced his midriff clean open.
"Lad," Elijah wheezed, shaking and trembling.
Leona had moved from where she stood, raising her blade with her one working arm. Coin turned and fixed her with a dreadful glare, his body destabilizing into a briar of black flesh, gnashing teeth, and luminous golden eyes. The assassin froze at the sight of him.
Then, wisely, she blinked past him toward the open doors in a flash of silver light.
