Emma froze as the vampire flew towards her, for three reasons. The first was that Isolde was the first real flier she'd seen, unless one counted the dragon, besides herself. Maybe Hagor was, but he'd never done much more than levitate. The other two reasons were her breasts.

Ordinarily such things moving towards Emma at a great speed would be quite good, but one look at the fangs attached to their owner told her that this was great. She actually squeaked with excitement as Isolde closed in and threw her weapon to one side.

"Wait!" Emma called out, "hold on, you can still turn me right!?"

"FUCK OFF!" Larry screamed, actually screamed. Screamed so loud Emma would have been impressed by his lung capacity, were he still using lungs to do the screaming. Even Isolde flinched at it, though she seemed far more concerned with Emma's request. Judging by the smirk now growing on her face, Emma liked the odds of it being accepted.

"You're sure?" Isolde asked, voicing perhaps the most redundant question Emma had ever heard.

"Don't do it you dumb bitch!" Larry shrieked, going promptly ignored as Emma kept her focus purely on the hot goth lady.

"Completely certain," she assured her. Isolde beamed and floated closer to her.

"YOU'LL STOP BEING UNTETHERED IF SHE TURNS YOU!" Larry yelled.

Emma froze, paused, thought about that, then turned to stare down at him.

"What?"

Isolde moved before he could answer, blurring into motion like something shot out of a cannon. Emma barely had her wall of blue hardlight up in time, and didn't have chance to reinforce it.

Hardlight seemed to derive much of its 'natural' durability from Emma's own Attunement, and though she hadn't used Matter to strengthen this stuff it was still blue hardlight. By her guess, it was at least close to the durability of solid granite—maybe above it. Emma had made it a good few centimetres thick and it wasn't nearly wide or tall enough to be fragile through sheer area.

So it came as quite a nasty shock when this wall, which might have held up to Kruger's spas-15, shattered into pieces without so much as slowing Isolde down.

The pieces went in all directions, and faster than Emma could have thrown them. Ten metres separated Isolde from her. Half a second passed, and then zero metres did.

Fortunately, Emma had just about managed to ready another wall—this one smaller and boasting a good deal more resilience thanks to hasty use of Matter.

It barely helped. If the first wall had been a plane of granite then this one was really just more of the same, with a bit of rebar to help out. It didn't explode and Isolde did seem to exhaust a lot of her momentum on breaking it, but she still burst out the back all the same.

But that also gave Emma clear line of sight to her, and the resulting energy lance hit quite perfectly in the chest. It was pure coincidence that the blast caught her right in the cleavage and not at all indicative of where Emma had been staring.

Like a thrown brick, Isolde shot back and tumbled through the air but righted herself quickly. She was shooting for Emma instantly and Emma could only gain altitude and soar away. This wasn't good. Isolde's flight seemed more natural than Emma's, instinctive and effortless where hers came from great effort and mental deliberation. Was that a flaw in the techniques she'd used to develop it? Maybe she just wasn't experienced enough, Isolde had been in this world for about a year and if Larry's words were anything to go by her powers would have been with her at close to full capacity from the start. She wasn't learning new abilities the way Emma was, everything she had she'd been given from the start. A year of experience verus what was functionally weeks. Being Untethered sucked.

Apparently having no more sympathy for Emma's plight than anyone else, Isolde just kept on coming. Emma tried to slow her down, first with a cloud of dust, which the woman seemed able to navigate through unimpeded, and then with a cloud of coal dust. Isolde probably thought the black detritus was meant to work better thanks to its opacity. Emma assumed she did, at least, because she wasn't the least bit hesitant to fly right into it.

The joke was on her, Emma sent out a jet of heat with Energy and let all of the dust ignite at once. Everything for ten or so metres in every direction, starting just shy of her own hands, turned into a fireball.

Then Isolde hit her.

For a few moments they flew together, grappling and snarling. Or rather, Isolde grappled and snarled while Emma panicked at the sensation of her armour rapidly caving in. Isolde was stronger than the gargoyle by far, probably stronger than all of them combined. Blue hardlight wasn't anything to her grip, not even with all of Emma's power shoved into reinforcing it. The stuff started cracking and popping, quivering as it strained. Moments from now, perhaps, the whole thing would have absorbed its limit in potential energy. If Emma survived the resulting explosion, she wouldn't survive the vampire.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

Isolde wasn't really damaged at all by the coal explosion, but Emma hadn't exhausted all her heat-based options yet. She raised a hand and started blasting her point-blank with a jet of the highest-temperature air she could manage. It'd been a while since she'd really stretched her Energy's heat generation powers, and it came as quite a shock when the atmosphere started literally glowing between them. Isolde seemed surprised too, she started screaming and let go of Emma instantly.

Stronger than a gargoyle maybe, but she wasn't nearly as persistent. Pain drove her back and gave Emma some breathing room, which she quickly used by forming up her cavitation gun.

Isolde surprised her, trying to close in despite her pain and the weapon aimed at her. She must have figured Emma couldn't fire the damned thing without risking herself.

Emma fired it anyway. She had armour, self-repairing armour, and the thought of what that strength would do to her made her option clear. The air trembled again with the impact and Isolde went spinning away from her, dropping down to land painfully beside her trench. Emma readied another shot.

That, she knew, would not have finished the vampire. Not on its own.

***

Aexilica had thought she knew the extent of the vampire Eric's power, she saw now that she had been delusionally optimistic. He moved fast enough that no movement seemed to happen at all, his weapon was merely wherever it needed to be—in the way of every attack. His attacks seemed to simply happen, with Aexilica having no say in whether they were guarded or hit home.

Krummer helped, Vari helped. Aexilica, she supposed, helped. But all three of them at once were losing this fight, and there wasn't a thing any of them could do to stop it. Not even to slow it down. They were rats fighting a lion, if anything she should have been thankful to have lasted so long.

That sword came arcing around for Aexilica's head, and she raised hers just barely in time to catch it. Luck, not skill, saw metal meeting her enchanted blade. Seeing the edge of her enemy's weapon have a chip taken from it was little consolation when her own arm was opened after. She stumbled away, cried out and watched as Vari took the chance to smash his hammer right across the vampire's temple. Maybe the blow would have been significant if his foe were no stronger than himself, but there was no caving skull or bursting brain that she could see.

Eric took a step to one side, retaliating before he'd even righted himself. Vari wasn't moving until the blade had already made its path across his chest, cutting deep and painting the dirt in blood. Aexilica lunged while her enemy seemed committed but found her sword deflected feet shy of its mark. She could barely keep ahold of it.

Krummer sent a boulder into the vampire's back, by far the most substantial hit they'd scored so far. It almost sent him a full step forwards, though he'd recovered before Aexilica could bring her sword back around to open him up again.

Emma's potion was slowly building its effects up in Aexilica's blood, along with Krummer's and Vari's. By the moment they were growing faster and stronger, but she could feel them reaching its full effects. Would those be enough?

A sword came for her again, slower now. Impossibly fast still but, nonetheless, slower. Aexilica raised her own weapon and felt her wrist screaming at her in agony as the block sent heavy shocks running down through the joint. She was shoved backwards, heels scraping through the mud as her body's inertia dragged it a good three paces. Would have been more, she thought, if not for the strange anchoring effect her newfound strength had. Eric evaded Vari's blow immediately after forcing her away, then cried out as mud was blasted into his face from a wave of wind courtesy of Krummer.

He didn't even move to dodge Aexilica's stab where it found the soft meat right below his ribs, clearly having misjudged how long he had before she was back within arms' reach. The blood came slowly, dribbling from him as if he were a still corpse being stabbed rather than a living body with ichor circulating its innards.

Ah, yes. He was.

Aexilica dodged the retaliatory swing and gave herself another pace of distance, watching him.

His wound was healing as fast as ever of course, but Vari and Krummer gave no chance for it. They were moving, trying to encircle him. The vampire was moving in turn, stopping them. He was faster than them, still, potion or no, and so the control of spacing was entirely his—their ability to simply skewer him through the back was sadly non-existent.

That didn't mean three-on-one was not still an advantage. Aexilica threw herself back into the fighting before he could regain some advantage. Two blows came for the vampire at once, and remarkably he parried both. Krummer's magic caught him in the unguarded face, sent him back a step. Aexilica took the chance to open up his wrist, though just barely came shy of parting a tendon and leaving the sword to fall from his hands. Vari swung the hammer for one protruding foot and just barely missed, spattering everyone in the fight, and indeed probably everyone within twenty paces of it, in a spray of mud.

They circled, waited, held on edge. Moved again, lightning arcing between the clouds. Aexilica didn't see her own strikes, that's how fast the exchange was, but she knew exactly where her weapon was and exactly where it needed to be. Two cuts still made themselves known against her skin, the limits of humanity. Two more and a heavy bruise manifested on the vampire's body. The limits of one.

Krummer ended up doing much to aid them, shielding his allies in some way as the air shimmered and seemed to slow strikes which would otherwise have connected cleanly. It was still a challenge to ward off the vampire, and one that Aexilica failed more than once, but they were landing far more hits on him than they were taking themselves.

She risked a glance over at the other vampire, Marceline, and found her losing the bout against Kruger without much resistance on her own part. That was all the time Aexilica could afford to spend looking elsewhere before Eric's latest attack snapped her focus back unerringly onto combat. Just in time for Eric's sword to open up her calf, from a spot right below the knee to one just shy of her ankle. Aexilica watched the blood drooling out, and felt fear.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.