Michigan Stadium, Ann Arbor, Michigan - 6:57 PM

  While they were recovering, I took a moment to admire my wings. They were the only part of me that weren’t covered by Ostwriter’s Plot Armor. The six feathered appendages were as magnificent as ever. Before, they had been completely white with no deviation, and then they changed to have black tips after I received the Angel of Death benefit from Entwined With The System.

  Now that I was an actual Angel of Death, the tips were no longer colored. Instead, the feathers on the top half of my wings were white and the bottom half were black. I was momentarily mesmerized by the sight of them. This was a unique pattern as far as I could remember; no other Angel had striped markings like this.

  “What, too enamored to give me a quest?” I teased under my breath as I retrieved the Staff of Raphael from my inventory.

  <<<>>>

  [[Patron Quest: Defeat Sol Ligatus!]]

  Perhaps. It is a very fetching look on you.

  Just don’t get too smug. I might want you to succeed, but they’ve learned a lot since the last time you fought them.

  Objective: Win this fight.

  Reward: 30,000 points.

  <<<>>>

  “Sure thing, love,” I said.

  I might have been momentarily distracted by the quest screen, but Kayla’s movement didn’t escape my notice. She reached out towards where I assumed her inventory was and pulled out… nothing? Snapping away the menu, I turned to look at her with narrowed eyes. There was some kind of metal—

  Before I could identify the device, which wasn’t showing up in my awareness aura at all, it exploded. My entire world went white like a flashbang had just gone off. The arena was covered in a curtain of energy that forced me to pull back my senses. I was suddenly very aware of what the rare device was.

  An Aura Stun Grenade. It was meant to combat monsters that saw things like I did through Absolute Awareness, but it also assailed the other senses of such creatures. In this case, me. My eyes could only see white as I tried to blink away the effects, and my ears were ringing loudly. The worst part was that I was the only one here who used aura, so I was the only one affected.

  No longer able to see or hear the others, I threw out my arms and summoned the Shield Sphere from the Tunic of the Twin Lions.

  <<<>>>

  [[Skill]]

  Shield Sphere

  Spend 1/10th of your Mental Points to conjure a stationary, transparent sphere of psychic energy around your body twice as tall as you are. This barrier has as many hit points as you do. Attacks cannot pass through a Shield Sphere in either direction, though harmless effects, air, and weather can. This skill lasts for as many seconds as half your Wisdom stat and can be used twice per day.

  <<<>>>

  The bubble expanded around me, and I wasn’t surprised to feel it pop nearly instantly. Over 8,000 hit points with the boost I received from sleeping in the Angel Express were gone in a moment and I knew Mercury and his energy-sucking sword was the cause. I had hoped he didn’t realize he could delete my barriers, which were made of pure energy, since he hadn’t done it in training, but here we were.

  It had just been a temporary measure, anyway. I sorely needed to get my vision and hearing back. “Petty tricks!” I yelled, activating the other ability that came from my tunic.

  <<<>>>

  [[Skill]]

  Noble Roar

  The very sound of your shouts can turn the tides of battle. All allies who can hear your roar receive a buff to their stats equal to 10% of your own in the same category. Enemies around you flinch and have a chance to become stunned for a short time. This skill affects everyone who can hear you, and its efficacy against foes is based on the difference between your Willpower stat and their defensive mental stat. If they do not have a defensive mental stat, their resistance depends on their highest stat divided by 2. You may use Noble Roar twice per day.

  <<<>>>

  While they presumably flinched—I wasn’t bold enough to expect any of them to become stunned—I activated the Staff of Raphael’s Touch of Heaven even though I hadn’t been injured specifically because it removed all physical debuffs as long as my Constitution was high enough. That wasn’t something I was worried about.

  Sure enough, my vision snapped into place and I could hear the crowd roaring around us. I couldn’t use my aura awareness because the energy was still filling the arena and blocking my sixth sense, which manifested itself as barely visible mist to my eyes. Their first move had been a debilitating one. I couldn’t help but be proud.

  They had been approaching me before Noble Roar, but it caused them to stumble. I had enough time to get the lay of the land. A quick sweep of the area showed that there were unlabeled vials on the ground around everyone I could see. Obviously they were Bethany’s tea, but without seeing the contents I was at a loss to what buffs they contained.

  Not only that, but Kayla was missing. Invisible, no doubt, just like she had done against Stan before. I found it odd that she didn’t leave an illusion behind, but she might have decided to save them for later, just in case. That seemed like the kind of contingency she would come up with.

  The sound of a blade cutting through the air behind me broke me from my thoughts and I threw the Staff of Raphael backwards. Mercury’s strike came fast, but didn’t cut into the Angelic weapon. I turned and began parrying his blows. Every so often electricity would spark from the Princess. That wasn’t her doing, but one that came from a skill book obtained during my time in Dublin.

  A heavy footstep hit the ground behind me, and I shifted to the side as I pushed the Princess into the dirt. Jamie’s hammer swung past me, her Weapon Mastery abilities turning a miss into a glancing blow as it slid down my arm. Spinning, I almost clocked her in the ear with the Staff of Raphael. She ducked, but I Dropped it to rap her on the head.

  It did little more than cause her to frown. Using Orbit, I gave the Staff of Raphael some slack and slammed it backwards, striking Mercury in the chest and pushing him backwards. It had been an instinctual move, but one that paid dividends immediately.

  The ground exploded when he missed. He had released all of the energy he had stolen from my Shield Sphere. A plume of dirt and grass flew into the air between us. I backed away from Jamie, getting clipped in the leg in the process, to kick at the ninja through the explosion. He fell backwards before rolling in a crouch.

  Stepping away from Jamie’s reach, I noticed Jeff standing nearby in a fighting stance. With Kayla missing, the other three surrounded me in a triangle formation. I could keep two of them in sight at any time, but not all of them.

  Retrieving my four holy sawblades and setting them to Spin and Orbit, I rushed again towards Mercury. His ability to absorb my psychic barriers and use the energy to strike back was most alarming. I could see his grin through his mask as I went after him first. I had an inkling that he was going to trade places with either Jamie or Jeff. Depending on who it was, I’d be able to get an idea of their game plan.

  The ninja steeled himself, however, as I took the first swing. He blocked low as I attempted to go for his leg and rolled out of the way when I followed up with the saw blades. They shredded the ground before bouncing at him, and he deflected them with the Princess. I stepped forward only to jump back as he lashed out, pressuring me with fast slashes that were clearly meant to be disruptive rather than damaging.

  It had gotten harder to tell which strikes were feints and I ended up with a few shallow wounds. Every few attacks had a surge of electricity pulse into me, but not as much as I anticipated. The Princess was storing some of the extra energy, at least half, in order to use it later. They’d be able to release it later as part of a melee or ranged strike. Smart.

  However, it also meant that he wasn’t storing the holy- or death-aligned energy my melee attacks conveyed as an Angel of Death nor could they cancel out my barriers. That was fine by me. I activated Shield in order to cover myself.

  I released My Diamond Bowling Ball as I heard Jamie’s approaching footsteps, and it automatically flew up to intercept the hammer that was coming down on me. The force of it released a thunderclap, causing Mercury to wince, but it stopped her surprise attack.

  There was no way I was going to leave her back there unattended, however. I turned, blocking the ninja’s disruptive attacks with the staff, and swung my wings at Jamie. She raised her golden shield, which I hadn’t seen her draw, and blocked.

  The force of my strike was immediately reflected back at me. The shield had been modified with the scales of the Pharaoh, who had been a Gold Dragon before he was mummified. That could have been bad if I didn’t have my barrier up to protect me from damage. Fire Resistance or not, I didn’t need my feathers burning up.

  Spinning, I blocked both Mercury’s blow with the lower half of my staff and stopped Jamie’s hammer blow with the head. My Diamond Bowling Ball lit on fire as it disappeared, only to reappear to strike her knee. The Weapon Master didn’t stumble, but she did grunt. My ball ricocheted off of her towards Mercury, who gave up his opportunity to dodge in order to cut me.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  The Princess slid up the Staff of Raphael before slashing at my hip. I immediately dropped Shield when he discharged the built up electricity. My barrier had taken some damage, but it disappeared without being absorbed. Unfortunately, that also meant they cut through my hip a lot deeper than I anticipated. My Diamond Bowling Ball knocked him back, thankfully.

  That got me some space. I set the saw blades to Orbit again and hazarded a glance towards Jeff. He had been ready and raring to go before, but he hadn’t moved since the match started. I focused on him, making sure that he was really there and not one of his wife’s illusions, but it was hard to tell without my aura awareness.

  Jeff shifted, nodding at me, and I returned it when I saw that the grass under his boots moved with him. I still didn’t understand, but I’d take it.

  One of Mercury’s attacks slipped past my guard. It sent electricity coursing over my body as it cut my stomach, and I put up Shield to block his follow up. I was right that the Princess was automatically sucking in the energy his skill was putting out, so I kept that in mind. He ducked under a saw blade, and I began to alter their trajectory.

  Mercury jerked back as the feathered weapon suddenly shifted direction, slicing his shoulder before he could fully dodge. I added Lift and Drop to Orbit and Spin, changing their pattern. Jamie had already needed to back up, but this made it harder for her to strike.

  Or, at least, it should have. The Weapon Master suddenly sped up, and I was pretty sure Kayla had cast Noble Sacrifice on her from somewhere around here. My Diamond Bowling Ball moved to intercept her Atlantean warhammer again, but it wasn’t so easy this time.

  The two struck each other, as planned, but a torrent of water exploded downwards on me as she activated one of the weapon’s skills, Wave Crash. It struck me with all the force of her Strength stat plus the Hammer Mastery ability, causing my Shield to shimmer. I set up a couple of Force Fields and turned away from Mercury as the water puddled at my feet.

  Two of my saw blades struck Jamie and tried to cut through her armor, one against her side under her arm and the other on her thigh. Her daggers flew off behind her, knocked away by the attack, and I attempted to Pull them into the back of her legs. They clattered to the ground instead.

  She struck the saw blades away with her hammer, sending them crashing into the ground, and I Lifted them back up as I tried to move her Desert Eagle out of the holster on her leg. That didn’t work, either. I couldn’t affect her hammer, or shield, or scimitars, which I gave a moment of effort.

  I laughed. There was a passive called Gear Guard that was quite hard to find. It essentially locked everyone else out from using anything that belonged to you without permission. She had recognized that her weapons could be manipulated in a way that I had done several times before and found a way to prevent it.

  Not only that, but she didn’t make any hints to having it, either. I was suitably impressed by her foresight, if somewhat concerned for her points.

  So I took a step forward and headbutted her in the face as her prize. Jamie recoiled, having not expected it, but didn’t stumble. She swung her hammer again, this time attacking from below, and I parried it while I sidestepped.

  The act took me out of reach of Mercury, who had gone around my Force Field, so that I dodged his attack, too. All of the electricity that the Princess had absorbed so far came my way, slamming into my Shield, and I turned off my barriers as I jumped back.

  They were both forced backwards as my saw blades interposed themselves between us. My back was to Jeff, but I wasn’t hearing him taking any steps. I still didn’t understand why he wasn’t joining the fight, and I was starting to get a little uneasy that he was plotting something. When I turned to look at him, he shifted and nodded at me.

  The same exact move he had made earlier. He was an illusion.

  This realization came just in the nick of time, but my response was lacking. Once again I surrounded myself with Force Fields covering every angle of attack except above and below. The issue was that he completely blew through the one between us.

  Jeff became visible to my left the moment his rapier touched one of my Force Fields. The defensive ability shattered on contact.

  He was moving far faster than normal, and he glowed with the same power he normally did when he activated For The Queen. Kayla needed to be at half hit points or lower, which was easily done when she could fling around Noble Sacrifices, and it boosted most of his stats by a percentage of his class’ Gallantry stat.

  Which, at this point, was going to be monstrously high now that he had so many of the Queen’s Knight’s armor pieces.

  He broke through my first Force Field and I immediately Constructed a plate in between us only for him to pierce that, too. The tip of his blade struck my Shield, which had already been heavily damaged, and shattered it. It looked like he was going to come up short as his momentum stalled against my paper armor, but I knew better than that.

  I shifted away as the rocket thruster in the Death Dragon’s Kiss activated. Its passage left a gouge in Ostwriter’s Plot Armor, but the wound it left on me was superficial. I was in a bad position; Jeff’s attacks were the ones that I was most worried about.

  The blow, glancing as it was, had inflicted Honey Clot, which lowered my Dexterity. My Constitution was able to fight off the poison and my Wisdom did the same to his curse, but I knew it was going to get harder with every strike. It would accrue over time.

  My Vague Stick fell out of my inventory when I moved away from the Queen’s Knight’s blade. The glow of his class buff, which was short-lived but could be activated multiple times, left his body as he attempted to follow up. This time, a Force Field was enough to stop him.

  The weapon I ejected fell to the ground and immediately went about harassing Jeff, causing him to have to spar with it. At the same time, my wings lashed out backwards. I winced as Mercury blocked the attack from the left with the Princess, carving through some of my feathers and hitting the bone, while Jamie blocked it with her golden shield, reflecting some damage back as heat.

  That attack had been on instinct since there was no way they weren’t going to follow up and help their companion, but it put me in a sticky spot. Now that the knight had made his move, I was boxed in. With my wings spread, I flapped them once, soaring into the air.

  At least, that was the plan. Mercury attacked my leg first, trying to skewer me, and My Diamond Bowling Ball intercepted the Princess. I couldn’t tell if his blade still had electrical energy in it or not, so I was wary about using a barrier to block him.

  A harpoon pierced through one of my wings and into my back. I grimaced as I tried to fly upwards with my psychic powers instead of doing so physically, but I was snapped back before I could get too far. A chain rattled; Jamie had me tethered.

  The four saw blades moved and sliced through the metal holding me down, allowing me to ascend once more. I Pushed the harpoon out of my back and wing but that was as far as Gear Guard would let me handle it. The weapon became inaccessible the moment it was out of me since I wasn’t an authorized wielder.

  I spun in the air, taking evasive maneuvers just as Jeff fired at me with Crusader’s Wrath. The fire bolt passed by my head close enough for me to hear it sizzle before harmlessly hitting the barrier. He was mostly ignoring my Vague Stick, which was fair considering I wasn’t really paying attention to it, but I changed that.

  It twirled, sliding up his rapier close enough that some of it was peeled off before slamming into his stomach with enough force to make him stumble backwards. Jeff grabbed it and fired a bolt from his gauntlet at it from point blank range, causing the two ends to fly off in either direction. They both stabilized in the air before coming at him again to renew their assault.

  The sound of Jamie’s jet pack caught my attention and I Constructed a knife in my hand. I spun in the air, looking ahead to see where Mercury was in order to line the shot up. He was on the ground drinking another potion while the Weapon Master approached.

  I swung the knife through the air, sending off an arc of energy through Distant Slice. Jamie was quick to pull up her shield, blocking the attack while taking her eyes off of me. Mercury, of course, simply canceled it with the Princess. Now that the Weapon Master didn’t have me in her sight, I Constructed a spearhead at the end of my Staff of Raphael and activated three instances of Drop.

  Not at her, but Mercury.

  With my Flight helping, I came down like a meteor on the ninja. He lashed out with the Princess as he attempted to backpedal away from me. Since I wasn’t using something like Crash Test that locked me into a certain direction, I simply compensated for his movement.

  Mercury shifted so that I didn’t pierce his heart, but the spear-staff did go through his chest. He wheezed through the pain and, to my surprise, dropped the Princess as my weapon pierced the ground. Both of his arms went around me, his hands grabbing my wings at the base.

  “Got him!” he wheezed.

  Someone fell onto my back, a foot on both of my lower wings, but Jamie hadn’t landed yet. Her armor wasn’t light despite being plastic and her Half-Dragon race made her heavy with muscle. I would have heard and felt that. Which meant it had to have been Kayla showing herself for the first time. My Diamond Bowling Ball was out of position and Shield was on cooldown, so I protected my head and neck with a Force Field.

  Her dagger rod fell through the two wings I had available to attack her, easily slicing through them as if I didn’t have the Bones of Steel passive. That was probably thanks to her Backstab ability, which gave her a damage buff based on her Credibility. We may have been enemies at the moment, but the trust I felt for her was real and that was the only thing that it needed to activate.

  I grit my teeth as I turned and saw her face. My Cable Conglomerate ejected itself from my wrist and grabbed hers, holding her in place. Ten of the Starstones on my back lit up as I activated their attack. At this range, there would be no dodging.

  Jeff escaped from the two Vague Sticks and lunged for me. I turned as quickly as I could, dragging Mercury along while making it so the knight would stab his wife. Even with my back turned, I made sure to keep an eye over my shoulder so that I knew that my human shield was in the right spot.

  He didn’t redirect his attack, though. Jeff continued to come at me despite Kayla being in his way. She had already used Fae Step to reach me and, as far as I knew, didn’t have any other movement techniques. My eyes widened as she used Part of the Crowd to disappear at the last second.

  No, she didn’t disappear; she transformed into something incredibly small.

  The Starstones, slow as they were to activate, curved away from where I was looking. They all exploded, but I knew they didn’t cause enough damage; Jeff was glowing again, and For The Queen also had the unfortunate side effect of giving his wife a ton of temporary hit points.

  The Death Dragon’s Kiss veered off path as I summoned a Force Field at an angle, but Jeff planted his foot, shifted, and went under it to pierce my side and into my stomach. Grunting, I felt my skin become dry and cracked, reducing my Dexterity and Constitution. That was the decidedly unpleasant Skin of Papyrus debuff at work. His free hand reached up and attempted to grab my crown.

  I shifted immediately. The Burden of the Crown passive meant that those I buffed with it were the only ones that could remove the accessory, though if they did it would crumble to dust. I didn’t think Jeff would do that for a one-off fight, but it was an immediate reaction. His hand slid off, down my flaming hair which sent an unpleasant shiver down my spine, before grabbing another of my wings over my shoulder.

  Now I could see why Sara had been so shocked when I touched her soulfire hair before. That was an intense feeling.

  I narrowed my eyes as I realized I could still feel something back there in my hair. It fluttered in the wind like paper. That gave me a good idea of what it was, but I didn’t have the time to investigate.

  Twisting, I lashed out with the Cable Conglomerate and punched Jeff in the face while the two pieces of the Vague Stick skewered him in both shoulder blades.

  A light brightened on my chest and momentarily distracted me. I was used to seeing it as a J instead of a K, but it was clear to me that I had been Marked.

  Mercury disappeared, replaced by a boulder that appeared next to my spear-staff. Jeff also backed off, taking a series of quick steps backwards so that he was out of my reach, not that I didn’t try to catch him with the Cable Conglomerate.

  The smell of alcohol descended, and I barely put up my second Shield Sphere in time to protect me from the firestorm that Jamie started breathing down on me. The flames twisted around the barrier, cutting off their vision of me, but I could see them just fine thanks to Absolute Awareness.

  I took a breather as retracted the wire rope and watched everything play out. They had thrown some damn fine curve balls my way, mostly revolving around Kayla, and I needed to take a moment to appreciate them, if only to see if I could figure out their next moves.