Chapter 230: Retaliation

Chapter 230: Retaliation

DISCLAIMER: This story is NOT MINE IN ANY WAY. That honor has gone to the beautiful bastard Ryuugi. This has been pulled from his Spacebattles publishment at threads/rwby-the-gamer-the-games-we-play-disk-five.341621/. Anyway on with the show...err read.

Retaliation

Needless to say, Keter was the first to close the distance, crossing the intervening space as though it wasn't even there. It wasn't teleportation or anything like that, eitherhe simply transformed himself into light and moved, abruptly closing in to attack. A hair-thin line of searing white light extended from his finger straight through the center of Malkuth's chest, right through where we'd last seen the portal that sustained him.

A moment later, he flickered once, the action on barely visible to my eyes. Spears of white light surrounded Malkuth in a massive sphere, hundreds upon hundreds of them created in an instant and bursting upon him just as quickly, hardly seeming to even start moving before connecting fully. Keter flashed once and was elsewhere by the time I registered it, a column of light extending from his hand to connect with Malkuth's hideand then there were two more, each born from a slightly different position at Keter's side. By the time I noticed that his hand had moved, dropping to his side just below where the three beams of light had come from, he was closing in, hands reshaping into vicious claws as he grasped and tore at Malkuth's flesh, ripping away small chunks.

Even for me, watching him was like watching a faulty or poorly cut video and seeing it stutter and skip moments or scenes. He was somewhere, but then he was somewhere else by the time I noticed it, one action already completed even as he moved onto the next. He was just testing the waters, not wasting energy on any massive displays of power just yet, because he knew what Malkuth was capable ofand, of course, because he knew what I had in mind.

Despite that, my other and I were mere moments behind him, fluctuating into Malkuth's immediate proximity with power already gathered. My more powerful attacks flew at him from both sides, but they were hidden amongst hordes of other attacks. The brief conversation had given me ample time to regain my energy, especially as we were no longer maintaining Lucifer, and we'd both recovered to fulla fact that we were all too happy to demonstrate. Here and now, I didn't dare hold back, so my twin and I conjured two circles of firing spheres around Malkuth and let loose with everything we had.

I knew from the beginning that most of what I had available wouldn't workand that what was left probably wouldn't work wellbut every hit I aimed at him had a purpose. The Magic Missile, even with their defense penetration, were unlikely to cause him any real damage, but they were cheap enough to produce in massive quantities even when I was normal; here, with Cathedral running, Sahasrara activated in full, and a dozen other things stacked in my favor? They filled the air such that it was difficult to tell where any one ended and another began. Mixed amongst them were Thunderbolts and Far Slayers, brief flashes of light sparking around semi-luminous arcs in the air, masked occasionally by the bursting of Flares. They were a minor addition, all told, but with their price as piddling as it now waswell, it was a cost-effective method, even if the most it did was cause scratched.

Above them came my other means of attack. Gungnir didn't make as large of a showing as its lesser cousin, but still appeared by the dozens, the hundreds. Surya surrounded my twin and I even as our Aurora's flared to encompass him, my very soul reaching out to claw at my enemy. I focused Atlas on him with a thought, crushing him beneath a massive, lingering weight even as I released flashes of plasma towards him, froze him with Deposition, slashed at him with Psychokinetic blades, and more, filling in almost every space left by the first layer of attacks.

And beneath that, of course, I hid the big guns. Longinus wasn't easily distinguishable from a Magic Missile at first glance, and in the almost solid wave of attacks now flying towards Malkuth, it would have been a bit tricky even for me to pick out the lethal needle in the slightly less lethal haystack. The body Malkuth was using nowGilgamesh's bodyhad no conventional vulnerabilities; hell, even complete incineration at the heart of a miniature star hadn't been enough to put him down for the count. Compared to that, stabbing him in his non-existent organs was fairly meaningless, though I aimed several sucker punches in that direction anyway, just in case he though they were safe. The rest followed Keter's example, aiming towards the portal within him, already at least somewhat damaged by the first Longinus. If I could destroy that, I'd cut Gilgamesh off from the tap and he'd be easy pickings. Besides which, it would get Malkuth out of the picture, which was a good thing pretty much no matter how you sliced it.

One might think that, given the onslaught we were unleashing a single, man-sized target, the three of us might get in each other's waybut we didn't. For my twin and I, keeping out of each other's way was almost simple, with our senses turned up to max and Pericognition accounting for all the details without need for conscious input. With the Mathematician's Answer, angling our attacks such that they didn't collide was just a matter of timing and forethought, and we slipped blows through the gaps in each other's attacks that most wouldn't have thought existed.

For Keter, things were a touch different, but the process was, if anything, even simpler. From his perspective, we must have been moving at a glacial pace and he could aimor even approachthrough the storm of attacks without difficulty. More than that, his quickened perceptions and Elemental nature gave him a variety of options that would have been impossible for most anyone else. Beams of light both massive and thin flashed across my vision impossibly, ducking under and passing through attacks as it approached Malkuth. The laser twisted, curved, and then flat out bent around anything in its path, evading every obstacle to burst upon his masked face.

The assault tore pieces out of themsometimes nothing but tiny slivers, such as in the case of a lucky or well-aimed Magic Missile that just barely did a point of damage, and sometimes in much larger chunks as he was struck with the light or pierced through by Longinus.

And through it all, Malkuth remained still. Even as chunks were torn from his body and his left arm came free, he hardly seemed to notice. He floated in the void we'd created around him, ignoring or enduring the attacks we unleashed for several full seconds before raising his one remaining arm, a dull green pulsing outwards from it.

All at once, my firing spheres came undo, shattering at the touch of the light as if struck by some great force. The attacks I'd already used to fill the space continued on their path, breaking against his dwindling hide, and then there was nothing for a moment but silence.

"Telekinesis?" Malkuth asked, tone somewhere between interested and amused. "Ah, no; in your case I suppose it would be Psychokinesis, huh? As expected, you're mind"

I shut him up with a fist to the facethree fists, technically. I smashed my knuckles into the left side of his face while my other went right, even as Keter appeared between us and slammed his fist into what would have been a human's nose. Malkuth leaned back at the force of the sudden assault, barely moving otherwise.

It should go without saying that I didn't stop there, thoughI kept punching. Ruthlessly, relentlessly, incessantly, the three of us hit him again and again, bolstering ourselves as best we could. I Accelerated faster than I ever had before, channeled my Stamina using Qigong, drew from Bai Hu's magnum opus, and did everything I could to make every hit count. Though I saw his HP slowly decrease, I wasn't particularly convinced it was really affecting himbut, if nothing else, it was satisfying as all hell. I punch Malkuth in the face about a thousand times and it felt pretty goddamn good.

Then I abruptly felt like I'd been cut in half, which felt less good, and it took me a moment to realize what had happened. With speed that was startling even for me, he waved his arm in an arc that he somehow managed to still make seem casualand it tore cleanly through my twin and I as though we were no different than the void around us, such that it would have cut us in half if not for the Gamer's Body.

As he did, we all kept our eyes focused on Malkuth, hoping he wouldn't abruptly moveor rather, that he wouldn't be able to come up with a way around stopped time within stopped time, at least not on short notice. If it was the real Malkuth, that probably would have been a pipedream, but within Gilgamesh's body, he was limited too that body.

Once Keter was outside of Malkuth's sphere of influence, however, my twin and I began to use Tachyon for what it was best atbuying time. Though the technique itself was outrageously expensive, it still provided an opportunity to react or prepare without needing to worry about outside influence; if, for instance, I didn't have most of my best skills running at all times anyway, I could have used it to apply them all at once. That wasn't an issue for me, of course, but I still had a few ways to use it that tended to come in handy.

Like setting up a sucker punch.

As time returned to normal, I fired another full batch of Lux Aeternas into Keter's back, providing him with a sudden and massive 'charge.' At once, his body began to waver, appearance spiking oddly and shiftingbut he held himself in place even as my twin released his gathered power within the bounds of Malkuth's luminous sphere.

Or rather, his barrier, for that's what it apparently counted as to Trespasser, a fact that I became certain of the precise moment it worked. But it did work, and that's what matters.

Keter fired a blast of energy into Malkuth's chest with enough force to wipe cities off the map. Malkuth released a hiss of breathe as it hit home, the light pushing him half way to the edge of Sanctuary, and it rose into a near scream as the light passed fully through him. This time, the light acted as though his body were a prism and trails of differently colored light streaming out from his skin as he bore the assaulttrails that scattered randomly, hitting the edges of the Sanctuary and passing cleanly through. In a moment, the near empty space within my barrier was covered in a network of lasers that were more than intense enough to chew through anything in their path, such as, you know, me. Significantly more hit Malkuth, but they simply scattered again and again, adding fuel to the fire and doing little to help matters.

In a moment, however, I felt my other self Fluctuate into the same space as me and Keter moved, wings unfolding to surround us. Each laser that struck him was absorbed cleanly and he channeled the power anew into another blast at Malkuth, holding it one him with brutal power.

This time, however, Malkuth was prepared and raised a hand in front of him just before Keter fired. When the massive column of light came within centimeters of his hand, it abruptly bent upwards, passing over Malkuth at an angle and slipping through Sanctuary's walls, crossing the space behind us, then behind Malkuth, and then elsewhere, instantly filling the areas with bars of searing Light the consumed Malkuth in an instant while Keter kept me safe from harm.

Then something hit us that wasn't light and Malkuthwho'd let the blast push him through Sanctuary's walls, I realizedgrabbed Keter, holding onto the shaped light of his body as easily as flesh. With his other hand, he grabbed me, pulling me up through one of Keter's wings by the throat.

"Into the corner with you," He said with a click of his tongue before turning his body once and then jettisoning the arm grasping Keter, sending him towards the center of the sphere. The detached arm began to bloat in midflight before abruptly starting to shrink, crushed into an almost imperceptible hole in an instant. Immediately, I felt gravity tugging at my flesh, the light around us vanishingbut Malkuth seemed above such things and he held me still. "And now that the lightshow is out of the way, what's say we take this outside?"

Still holding onto my throat, Malkuth dove towards the nearest wall of Sanctuarybut instead of passing through, something strange happened. As the warped space made contact with Malkuth's flesh, I felt something like static erupt in my mind and had mental images of error messages.

And then my barriers shattered like broken glass, returning us to the ruin of Jericho Falls. At once, the fighting seemed to fall silent, all eyes focused on us. In the eyes of the Grimm, I saw fealty. In the eyes of my friends

Malkuth drew a slow breath and I got the feeling he was smiling. He'd noticed then, damn him.

"It's always good to be back," He said, sounding deeply satisfied. "Nowwhere to start? Do you have a preference as to who will die because of you this time or should I just flip a coin?"

I grit my teeth without answering.

Not good. Keter wasn't gone, of that much I was surebut he was trapped within the dark pit Malkuth had conjured, now rotating lazily above us. There was no sign of the terrible gravity from before, but there was also no sign that he'd escaped quickly. I'd known thing might come to this, but if they had, I'd planned to use his help first, instead ofthis.

But there was no helping it now.

Left with little choice, I reached deep inside of myself, crossed my fingers, and activated the Arcana.