V2Ch36-Last Gasp

Moishe retreated into the forest. He moved as quickly as he could in the direction the former prisoners had run. Jeffrey Ross’s body lay slumped over his shoulders.

Cecilia slithered through the trees above them, keeping pace quite easily with the weight of a human body slowing Moishe down.

Ross’s breathing was shallow and ragged, his heart rate weak and slowly dropping, but as James had noted, he was still alive.

Seems like a head shot isn’t what it used to be, Moishe thought. Both Rostov and Ross remained alive despite bullets striking them in the head. Though Rostov had only thrown the bullet from his own injury at Ross, it had moved with such speed that Moishe thought it was comparable to a gunshot. I think my Assassin Class is only going to get harder to level as time goes by.

There was a sound of water moving around in the distance behind Moishe, shortly followed by the searing hiss of steam. He didn’t even bother turning around. He guessed James was trying to extinguish Rostov with some sort of massive magic attack. But it was Moishe’s role to avoid becoming entangled in that fight, and turning into a spectator wouldn’t help him fulfill that role. And he’d made a bit of distance now anyway. If he looked back, all he’d see was trees and perhaps a bit of steam.

As he put his left foot forward, Moishe froze. There was rustling in the shrubbery around ten feet ahead of him. He had a choice to make: try to duck out of sight before the source of the noise stepped into view, or stand his ground and prepare for a possible fight.

He decided to stand his ground. It wouldn’t be easy fighting while protecting Jeff Ross, but hiding while carrying him would be nearly impossible.

A female figure stepped through the bushes. Catherine Ross, one of the Moloch priesthood.

Moishe felt instantly uneasy. James never said whether he’d recruited both of them to his side. He only really mentioned Jeff. Is she on James’s side too? Or…

And Catherine looked instantly wary of Moishe.

“Hello, cultist,” he said. Let’s see what she says to that.

“Hello, Assassin,” she said, giving him an unnerving smile. “I see you have my husband there. Hand him over to me now, and I won’t strike you down where you stand.”

So, not on the same page as James, I guess! Crap.

“Bold words,” Moishe replied. He adjusted his hold on Jeff, pulling the man closer to his body. “But I think you’d have already done that if you could. I think my lifespan would probably be longer if I didn’t hand over my biggest leverage.”

She took a step forward, and Moishe took a corresponding step back.

“Better not move any closer,” he said. “I can kill your husband at any moment if I want to.”

She sucked in a long, slow breath and stopped.

Moishe realized: I actually have an extremely valuable hostage. She doesn’t know he betrayed them, or something. She really wants to get Jeff back. I can use this.

“If you let me have him back, I'll make sure the cult never comes after you,” Catherine said.

“Mighty big promise for Rostov’s little apprentice,” he replied dismissively. “And I don’t think your little gang will be in a condition to come after anyone after today. Heh.”

“Then he’s not—” She looked at Moishe’s face, then up to Jeff’s body. Her expression was confused.

Oh. She does know something about what happened. He made a few mental leaps to figure out what he should do next.

“Rostov is still alive, but he turned into a giant fire monster,” Moishe said. “I’ll give your husband back to you. He’s not in great shape.”

She let out her breath in a slow, steady stream. “Thank you.”

“Yeah,” Moishe said. “I guess we’re not enemies right now.”

He dearly wanted to kill her. Catherine had been more instrumental in Rostov’s doings than Jeff, by far. But it wasn’t as if he had a weapon handy. And if she used her powers, he didn’t know if he could do any damage at all. He might end up getting captured again. Better to play nice with her for now.

Moishe set Jeff’s body down between them.

“Sweetheart, what happened to you?” Catherine said softly, eyes widening as she looked at her husband’s face. There was an ugly diamond-shaped hole just above the center of Ross’s forehead, where the bullet had entered.

“After he shot Rostov, the Prophet gave him the bullet back,” Moishe said, trying to match Catherine’s tone as he spoke.

Her eyes leaped up to meet his, as if she was inspecting his face for any sign that he was enjoying giving the news.

Apparently, she found nothing objectionable in what she saw, because she turned her eyes back to her husband.

Her hands glowed with the same energy Moishe had seen her use everytime she healed someone on their trek through the forest. Ross’s forehead wound closed up, but he looked as near death as he had before.

Well, of course he does, Moishe thought. The bullet’s still in the wound, isn’t it? Not that we could remove it without causing more brain damage, maybe killing him in the process.

“This is all my fault, isn’t it?” she whispered.

She cradled her husband’s body in her arms, and Moishe saw her body shake and shiver as she wept over him. A few minutes passed. He stood off to the side, alternately staring spitefully and forcing himself to look away.

Moishe wasn’t sure what to do. These people he hated were locked in their own private tragedy. One the one hand, he felt livid. I didn’t even get to give my sister’s body a proper burial, but you can moon over your fucking husband for as long as you want…

On the other hand, he felt that his options were limited. He didn’t want to stay near them, but he didn’t think he’d be doing anything constructive by leaving them either. James had asked him to keep Jeff out of harm’s way. For whatever reason, James still saw some value in Jeff’s life. And Moishe felt a debt of gratitude to him that could never be fully repaid.

If something came upon Jeff and Catherine while she was in this state, they could both be killed. And Moishe would have failed at the one thing he’d been asked to do while James finished destroying the cult.

But it made his head pound and his heart ache to be so near these two people.

Jeff shuddered slightly in Catherine’s arms and let out a rasping breath. It seemed almost like a last gasp.

She shook her head and pulled away from him.

“You’re getting worse. I have to do something. Only one other thing I can do.”

Then Catherine spoke softly into her unmoving husband’s ear. Moishe’s high Perception allowed him to catch all of what she said, but he looked away respectfully to try and give the woman the illusion of privacy with her husband. Even if he had a grudge against them, no one deserved to be robbed of their last moments with the one they loved. Even if these two had done exactly that to Isabelle and Moishe.

“You were always better with the kids than me anyway. And you’ll definitely do better with them than I could now. You don’t have the same blood on your hands that I do. You’re not a monster like me.” She pronounced the words with a self-loathing that surprised Moishe.

If you thought this way, you could have behaved differently before, he thought sternly. Look at all the harm you’ve done because you chose to, knowing that there was another way. Not that he was some angel. But there was a difference between running with the cult for a little while and directly assisting Rostov with his sacrifices. Or so he wanted to believe.

“Moishe,” Catherine said suddenly. He turned and gave her his full attention. “Please tell my husband that I love him. Tell him to be good to the kids. Tell him I said I’m sorry.”

He wanted to say that she should tell him herself. But he could feel that something was about to happen. Her whole body glowed with a golden light. Moishe simply nodded.

“Goodbye,” Catherine said, looking at Jeff.

She leaned in and gave him a long, open-mouthed kiss.

And her body turned translucent and slowly faded away.

—

As James stared at Rostov’s body striding toward him through the steaming mud, an idea struck him.

Then he felt a heat behind his ear. It was Hester again.

“Hester, tell Anansi I don’t want help!” James said hotly.

The heat cut off almost instantly, as if James had cut off the Spider God mid sentence. Perhaps he had.

“He was about to give me a solution to your problem!” Hester said softly.

“I don’t need it. I came up with a solution!” James ran as he spoke, doing a loop around Rostov. It forced the Flame Elemental to remain in place, turning and looking after him. James’s Agility was much higher than Rostov’s, so Rostov ultimately gave up on catching him in close range and started throwing fireballs wherever he thought James would be next.

James couldn’t help noticing that the attacks had gotten smaller and a bit less energetic. So the giant water attack really had done something to weaken Rostov. Yes. His new plan would work.

James began Silent Spellcasting again. This time, he was gathering earth Mana.

“Hey, how can we help?!” a female voice asked loudly. James dodged a fireball and looked behind him. It was that woman in the white armor. James remembered she had stabbed him a few times when he last fought Rostov’s group. It was nice that at least one of the more powerful cult members had joined Officer Ross’s little rebellion.

“If you want to help, distract him while I finish charging Mana!” James said.

“Alright! I can do it for about five minutes. I think my friend can distract him for a minute too.”

James was barely listening. He continued running away. He didn’t need as much Mana for his planned final attack as he had to make the lake that he’d used to partially quench Rostov earlier. But five or six minutes of distraction might not be enough. Fortunately, although the fight had gone on for some time now, his Stamina was still alright.

Still, the more attacks Rostov threw, the likelier it was that James would make a mistake. If he took a severe enough attack, that might break his focus and force him to start charging his Mana all over again. Or cause him to pause, exposing him to follow-up attacks. And Rostov’s fire powers seemed dangerous enough that a few follow-up attacks might roast James. In short, he could imagine a sequence of events that could lead to his defeat.

Though he was far from giving up, James felt very aware now that his decision on accepting Anansi’s help was grounded in pride. But then, it also wouldn’t be very satisfying on a storytelling level, if James got help from the Spider God here.

So he continued to evade Rostov, charging what he hoped would be his final move in this battle.

The woman in white armor stepped forward to prevent Rostov from pursuing James very far. Her whole body suddenly glowed and exuded a white light. She began swinging her sword at Rostov, her blade cutting through his flames. The fiery figure turned and engaged her.

James slowed down a bit just to watch the two of them fight. It was like watching two elements collide, back and forth. Her white light seemed to be able to block the curtains of flame that Rostov threw up, so she suffered no damage from any of his attacks. But any damage she seemed to do to Rostov’s form, he recovered from almost instantly.

Rostov was an unstoppable force attacking an immovable object. Or perhaps it was the reverse. That was how it felt. Two titanic enemies colliding, unable to overcome one another.

For five minutes, the warrior in white was able to hold her own against Rostov.

Then the white light that surrounded her began to flicker and fade.

Looks like she was right about only being able to distract him for five minutes, James thought. What an awesome ability! Such a shame it has such a short time limit. He was ready to intervene himself, now, but he needed the warrior in white out of the way.

“Hey, get out of there!” James yelled. “I’m ready to try my last move on him. If you don’t move, you’ll become collateral damage.”

Rostov suddenly turned to look at James, as if just remembering he was there.

He’s more monster than man now, James thought. He doesn’t even remember why he’s fighting.

The other surviving member of the warrior’s team, a man dressed in Heavy Warrior armor, took that opening, raced in, and grabbed the warrior in white. She was staggering, as if she was about to collapse from exertion. He picked her up, threw her over his shoulder, and ran back toward the tree line.

Rostov turned back to see what had happened, but too late.

He took a step toward the fleeing enemies, but that was the moment when James unleashed all his gathered earth Mana.

The ground beneath Rostov shuddered and cracked. A great fissure opened up, stretching roughly fifty feet in diameter. James thought he could see a look of surprise dawn on the oval of fire that had replaced Rostov’s face. It was the last expression James thought anyone would ever see from him, and he enjoyed it.

If you had your full intelligence, you would understand how fucked you are.

Rostov tried to take a step to one side, to move away from the colossal rift that was forming.

James spread his arms and raised them in the air. The two massive slabs of earth on either side of Rostov split neatly apart. Huge plates of rock and soil turned upward, forming a ninety degree angle with their normal positions. The gap between them opened up like a canyon, and Rostov fell straight down, like leftovers scraped from a dirty plate.

The flailing burning man tried to find purchase in the wet soil with his fiery limbs, but James didn’t give him the chance. He suddenly brought his arms together, and the two plates of rock and soil flipped their original orientations, closing on top of Rostov.

Burying him under tons of rock and earth.

Buried underground. Completely deprived of the oxygen that a fire needs to sustain itself. Impossible for him to lift that much rock and soil without magic or a much higher Strength Stat than me. If that doesn’t end the fight, nothing will, James thought.

He let out a long breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, and he sank into a seated position.

He could feel long rivulets of sweat running down his face, his chest, the back of his neck. Despite his helm, the flames had managed to move through the gaps in the helmet and scorch his beard at one point, and now he smelled the burnt hair. His Mana was more than two-thirds gone. His Stamina was halfway gone too.

But he just smiled and shook his head.

“Okay. Yes or no answer, only, Hester. Did I get the correct answer that Anansi was going to prescribe?”

Then the earth began to shake.