HOME | DD

Description
Trial 10: Cutthroat Insomnia
Two floors below, Altair’s forces decimate themselves.  Before Jason charged to the pinnacle, he broke a key weapon- an elite Grindstone loses its one eye.  In blind fury it mauls fellow Hellspawn.  Grimy bodies of Skum splatter against the earthen walls.  Braziers burn out as tarred insides quench the flames.  Attempting to escape flies a squadron of Bloodshots.  The glass-winged cannons shatter left and right.  The juggernaut’s clubbed arms pound until it dies of exhaustion.  All of is comrades fall in the process.

In a way Jason understands the Hellspawn’s trance.   He too swings his sword until it repays all of his damages. If all reason says Jason will die, he rejects all reason.  He faces an enemy with decades of experience.  Jason still recovers from a pages-long injury inventory.  He also runs without sleep at a critical hour.  None of this matters to him. After his last failure, Jason refuses sleep until he defeats somebody.   Tonight a demon possesses Jason.  He has long known this fiend called competition.

Above, the second floor has crumbled.  Spare chips hang at the wall’s edges of what once made a ceiling. Farther up, a fairer match ensues.  The top floor shall fall soon enough. Two Magnites clash over a burnt, gnarled horn- part of a still dormant body.  The seasoned general follows orders in procuring it.  His challenger, a naive Magnite the Emperor somehow labeled a threat.
“Mach Slash!” thinks Jason.  He dashes across the room, meeting the enemy blade-first. Gared Cipher blocks with the shaft of his halberd.  Jason strikes again.  The aged knight parries overhead.  Jason’s sword bounces back, leaving an opening.  Cipher snaps at Jason’s side.  The staff slams into his ribcage.   Bracing for impact, Jason exhales.  As the bar collides, it leaves only a dull thwack.  Jason releases his breath before it gets stolen.
“Don’t hold back,” Jason says.  “You’re just standing there.”  The boy swings his sword again.  If ink-black armor covers Cipher from the neck down, Jason will aim for the face.
“Do yourself a favor.  Don’t talk,” Cipher replies.  His poleaxe catches Jason’s sword overhead.
“Look,” says Jason. Both of Cipher’s hands on defense, Jason attempts to disarm. “3 times, maybe 4, I should’ve already been killed.” Jason drops his sword, instead grabbing the enemy halberd. “I don’t need another loan.”  He pushes the weapon down with both hands.  Cipher keeps a firm resistance.  The weapon barely sinks a knuckle’s length. “Besides. I’m gonna dethrone The Devil Cleaver.”  Cipher twists his halberd, its tip pointing to the ceiling.  Jason’s shoulders jerk sideways, losing the tug of war.  “I’ll put Nefas back together just so I can kill him for good.”  The boy regains balance, pushing back.  “If I can’t even beat you, I’m good as dead.”
“How moving,” responds Altair’s right hand.  Cipher headbutts the talking target.  Jason’s skull tilts back, fists keeping their hold. “Spare the hero talk.” The general throws a heavy stomp to the chest. “You ‘prodigies’ are all the same.” Jason stumbles away.  Looking down, he sees four blurred feet.  Multicolored dots drift across the brimstone floor.  A vein pounds between Jason’s eyes like a hammer on a stubborn nail.  A few blows remind Jason of his long list of injuries.

Then Jason remembers how his head worked fine before. “Prodigy?” asks the Magnite. He adds a slammed skull to that list of wounds, again folding it away for later. Jason fought his way through two-thirds of the tower already. He can endure the last fraction as well.  If every blow pushes him to a nail’s length from death, Jason simply won’t get pushed. If his crimson essence will flood out, that only proves his heart still beats. “I just don’t know how to fall down,” says Jason, looking back up.  The two plated lords meld back into one.

“You will,” Cipher assures.   “Time Art 3: Stasis.” The sandstone chamber turns gray.  Falling scraps of the ceiling suspend midair.   Jason freezes, defenseless.   Only Cipher moves in this fleeting zone.  He paces to the target.  Each footstep echoes sevenfold.  All other sound waves halt; the air stands still for all but Cipher.  The room sounds with only his breath, his footsteps, and the heave of his equipment.

The savage noble hacks at Jason’s abdomen.  Just as the blade exits, time resumes.  Color returns to the room, most notably crimson. A lake of blood opens on Jason’s torso.  A gash left by Void two days ago reopens.  The lake floods, spilling across Jason’s midsection.  The scarlet river rushes down his hip, down his leg, onto the brimstone floor.

Color drains from Jason’s face.  His laceration comes from nowhere.  One moment, Cipher stood at the other end of the room.  The next he appeared behind.    Jason never felt the axe, only his side becoming a ruptured dam.  Jason scrambles for a cure.  He tears a hole in the reservoir, rushing Water Magna to his hand.  Rivers stop when frozen, he decides.   The Magnite’s hand trembles, its temperature dropping lower and lower. His hand goes stiff and pale.  Subzero temperatures preserve it like the corpse of an arctic ancestor.

One hand guides the other to Jason’s wound.  Cadaverous fingers dip into the open slash.  Heat transfers instantly, freezing the ruby pool.   Through the crude operation, Cipher watches with amusement.  A clump of ice piles on top of the area Jason just cut. Several hand-sized prisms sprout from the patch in Jason’s side.  Cipher indulges a coarse laugh.  The boy shut off pain by essentially killing the sore part.

“What?”  Jason says. He makes light of abdominal icicles. “When it hurts, I put ice on it.”   He kneels, picking up his sword.  Jason feels his spine was replaced with a tree branch that got buried in the winter. He can twist, but fears snapping something. Still, Jason adapts to a frozen trunk.  Footwork steps around most difficulty. As for his sword arm, its hunger grows.

Soon as Jason regains his stance, Cipher resumes offense.  His armor clinks with every step forward. Shoulder guards rattle against breastplate as Cipher rears his weapon.  His garnet blade sweeps across the arena.  Jason skips back out of reach.  A marble pillar topples off to the side.    Cipher swings again with a backhand. Again Jason finds the only safe direction behind.  Next comes a reaching thrust.  The spear’s tip scratches against the quartz wall.  Jason steps aside then drops to the floor.  Soon as the blade reaches a dead-end, it changes course.  The axe whooshes over Jason’s back, tearing along the stone wall as it goes.

Seldom clashing occurs in this match.  The Magnite who controls spacing controls the battle. When Jason’s sword connects, Cipher overreaches on the counter.   When Jason can close the distance, the halberd’s edge will never cut him.  On the other hand, a precise polearm kills any swordsman’s approach.   Jason finds this opponent sluggish compared to others, but Cipher prevents punishment.

Cipher gains with every attack.  Every time the novice dodges, he uses energy.  Every second spent evading robs his time for an attack.  Nobody dodges forever, least of all a wounded, sleep-deprived child. Behind his halberd’s reach, behind his armor, and in front of a reckless fool, advantages stack high.   Undisputedly, Cipher will outlast the opponent. Every swing of the axe inches Jason to his end.

Jason faces a walking fortress. To topple it, he needs only crash the gates.   Jason runs in, arms thrown behind him, sword resting on the ground. A pulse of Magna surges down both sides.  Both hands carry a glaring neon bullet. Cipher defends with a spell of his own. Jets of magma rise underneath Jason as he passes.  The tail of his coat burns away.  Another pillar erupts under Jason’s feet.   Still he charges headlong.  The inferno’s roar at his back only drives him on.  As Jason closes in, the shell in each hand becomes a cannonball.

General Cipher intercepts with his halberd.  Jason slides underneath.  The blade nicks the tip of his nose.  Within range, Jason presses his wrists together for Light Strike #2.  Two orbs form a grand, blinding wrecking ball.  Jason shouts, “Flash Grenade!” Both fists slam into Cipher’s chest plate. The globe spirals into its target’s armor, sparks showering behind. Around the spell’s edges, the armor turns a volcanic orange.  Lines spread from this ring, across Cipher’s coal-colored armor.   Cracks spread across the shell like holes in a spider web.  Then in a pulse of light, the Flash Grenade detonates.
The spell pushes Cipher across the room.  With each step a chunk of his armor clanks on the floor.  As each shard falls, the floor barks in protest.  A single piece remains, lodged in his sternum.  Cipher yanks out the shrapnel, his other hand holding a dull bronze flame.  This hand presses against the wound. With a hiss of smoke it seals.  Cipher pounds his chest twice more, forcing out a cough.  “Needed a new suit anyway,” he says.  “Guess I can show you this.”

Cipher removes his eyepatch.  A haphazard scar carves into him from hairline to jaw line. It appears a fiend tore the skin from part of his face, if only to find the muscle underneath. The eye socket remains, albeit shut and skinless.  This scar tissue holds the same color and texture of dried meat. Cipher’s eyepatch only covered part of the damage.  “Now that one hurt like hell,” he says.  The slash lines across his mouth warp as he attempts a grin. “Think you can drag me back?”

The malformed veteran stands square. A translucent black curtain draws over the chamber.  Brazier flames dim, but a garnet light etches across the enemy’s body. In heartbeats it traces the shape of a hulking, hellish knight.  Five artists collaborating on a single stick drawing wouldn’t finish before this design.  Never a spectator, Jason charges in, reclaiming his sword from the floor.  Perhaps he can stop this strange process.

A thousand invisible arms push Jason at once.  He falls back as Cipher’s Core Drive activates.  Within the garnet outlines, details take form.  The armor’s edges sharpen and grow outward. Plating forms underneath plating and gauntlets become claws. Shoulder guards jut out from an already stocky frame.  Boots become broad and cumbersome, but impenetrable. Finally, a four-horned helmet closes around Cipher’s face.  Torchlight reflects off the obsessively polished onyx plating. In true form, the Obsidian Knight rejoins battle.

Jason keeps his distance, scouting for changes.   He assumes this armor sturdier than the last.  Also noting its bulk, Jason aims for an easy target.  The Obsidian Knight raises one boot as Jason mouths “Rai…” Cipher stomps forward. A dozen stones fall from the ceiling.    “Jin…” Jason thinks.   He cradles an electric globe between his hands. The enemy will regret covering himself in metal, Jason decides. The general continues his heavyset approach.  He barely makes two steps before Jason finishes his spell. “Ken,” he thinks, launching the Raijinken.

An impregnable forearm catches Jason’s attack.  The thundering sphere reflects off.  The Raijinken punches an arm-long window in the tower’s wall.  Cipher’s armor retains its luster.  A lightning bolt lands with the weight of a raindrop.  As Jason guessed, Cipher’s new shell gives him all the speed of a century-old tortoise.  But only one of Jason’s assumptions holds true.   He can’t call something an ‘easy target’ if arrows slide off the surface like rain down a window.

On impulse, Jason charges with another Mach Slash.  A blind man would mistake the contact for a pebble falling on pavement. Still in range, Jason swings again.  His blade echoes with a light knock.  The enemy crosses his arms, watching.  Jason strikes back and forth, back and forth, each time yielding the same empty tap.  Not even a spark flies from the onyx, polished surface.  Cipher waits for Jason to look up.

Finally, Jason notices his foe’s posture.  Seven wasted cuts came free. Cipher stares Jason down behind his helmet, ebony arms still crossed.  His halberd leans against a marble pillar.  Cautiously, Jason inches back.  The colossus stands still.  His target takes two more steps back. At a loss for offense, he pauses.  Cipher stares, remaining neutral. His mask hides concentration.
“Stasis,” Cipher says.  Again, he catches time in a stranglehold.  Once more, the room becomes a gallery of concrete statues. Only the caster has the leisure to browse this exhibit, or rather vandalize it.  Cipher reclaims his halberd.  His helmet turns to it and then to Jason, a brittle sculpture of a target.  The boy amuses him. Decapitation would come off as insulting.  Rather, Cipher wants to see what bravado comes forth as Jason bleeds himself out.  The boy already insists on fighting himself to exhaustion. Cipher lessens those demands.

The spear’s tip pierces Jason’s left side.  With his other gauntlet, Cipher shoves his target.  As time resumes, Jason is thrown off the halberd’s edge.  He falls back, a thin red stream from his abdomen.  An intense, dull pain bores into the side Cipher spared last time.  Immediately, a flame of Magna lights in Jason’s hand. Again, the general lets Jason pour salt on his wounds.  He cauterizes the opening, scalding it in the process.
The young Magnite takes a mental note for learning the Healing Arts.  Currently, he only treats the life-threatening part of an injury.  Jason still accepts the part where he feels like he got dragged up and over a mountain on his stomach.
As Jason resumes his stance a second time, Cipher prepares another spell.  A silver halo encircles the floor below him.  Twelve bronze bars form within the circle.  Finally, the clock gains two golden hands.  With each tick, the second hand accelerates.

“Accelera” grunts Cipher.  He casts Time Art #2.  For a brief, decisive moment, all of the caster’s actions double in speed.  Two hundred pounds of armor loses its sluggish bulk.  Demanding spells prepare at a moment’s notice.  Although this technique also affects bleeding, Cipher buries concern.  If Jason attempts another bull rush, a dozen bullets will hit between the horns.  Should those bullets miss, the charge still falls flat.

Cipher’s Magna reduces the tower to rubble.  The armored warlock starts with Fire Strike 4: Prominence.  A tongue of dead gray flame stretches across the arena.  Jason rolls out of the way, a heat wave at his back.  He casts off his shirt as it ignites. Behind him, a hole burns through the floor.  The pitfall measures longer than Jason’s height.  Back ahead, two more flares rise.  Jason crosses his arms in an ‘X’ before they melt off.  Their sides turn a blistered red.   Following fast, three more salamanders.  A searing tsunami engulfs the stage.  The only safe direction: down.  A three-story fall offers better chances than cremation.

Jason leaps through a hole in the arena.  As the ceiling crumbles, Jason plummets to the earth.  The ebon baron falls past, carrying at least his weight in armor.  Cipher pushes his left gauntlet forward.  With it, a current of Air Magna controls the arena.  Hundreds of stone scraps create a ballistic swarm.
Protecting the frozen patch over his wound Jason drops his right elbow in front of his side.  With his left hand, his sword deflects what it can.  The first shot slams into Jason’s forearm.  The next, he swats away with The Critical Hit.   Jason swings his sword over and over in the shape of an asterisk.  He defends against more projectiles than he can track, so his blade covers what it can.  Again and again, he slashes in the pattern of diagonal, diagonal, across.  With each block, the sword responds with a grudging clang. Still Jason keeps his defense up.  Even as a dozen stones pelt his forearm, Jason keeps his guard.  When he remembers his torture at Void’s hands, suddenly a rock barrage feels comfortable.

As both Magnites reach ground level, the stone storm finally ends.  Cipher lands first with a meteoric stomp.  The weight of his armor pounds the surface like a thousand sledgehammers.

Jason sees the bodies of Hellspawn rushing at him as he nears the surface. Cipher’s landing forced a Swordpion’s body to flip over.  Instinctively he casts Water Strike 1: Burst.  A thick column of water catches Jason’s fall.  He impacts with a splash instead of a splatter. The icy stream pushes against Jason as he falls through. He lands on his feet just as the building collapses.
A solid shadow pulls itself from the crater.  Cipher emerges from his landing unscathed. Not a chip falls from his jet-black barrier. The clock for Accelera ticks once more, flickering out of existence.  “You’re still alive,” he states.  “I’m impressed.”  He raises his halberd.  Black matter swirls about his halberd.  The crackling tentacle expands, winding tighter around the weapon.  The substance combusts, bathing the halberd in coal-colored flame.  “One day,” he says with a pause.

The Critical Hit becomes slippery in Jason’s hand.  Its hilt wrapping saturates with sweat. Jason barely hears Cipher over his parched breath. Struggling to stay awake, one arm finds itself falling closer and closer to the floor.  Ends of bandages dangle from his torso.

“I’ll build a monument,” Cipher says.  His halberd thrusts into the ground.  Jason dives behind the body of a Swordpion.  A shockwave tears across the surface and through the walls.  The shrine collapses from the bottom up. Three stories become a granite thunderstorm. Table-sized boulders fall like rain. The lightning: ornate columns from the third floor.    Jason crawls under the Swordpion’s plated corpse.  Its headless body provides a crowded but sturdy roof.

Cipher holds out one gauntlet, catching a few drops of the downpour.  He waits for Jason’s umbrella to collapse.  Human-sized stones fall left and right, in front and behind. The ground blankets with head-sized pieces of debris.  Under Jason’s shelter, he feels only a dozen dull fists pounding his back. Perhaps this accounts for the Swordpion’s resilience. Or perhaps Jason owes it to numbness and a state of shock.

Soon a second layer covers the ground, then a third.   Every stone lands with a duller crack than the last.  Soon boulders bang against boulders. Crushable objects become a fading commodity.  At last, the final pillar collapses. Cipher raises one gauntlet from the wreckage.  His claw clenches into a fist, casting Air Strike #2: Gale Force.

A titan’s breath wipes the wreckage clear. A ring of exposed soil remains where the tower once stood.  Thousands of boulders roll past, littering the open field.  The lightest scraps race to the midnight horizon. The heaviest pieces barely leave ground zero.  Cipher dusts his armor off plainly.  His one eye scans the remnants.  All of the reinforcements Altair sent have been mashed apart.  Chunks of Hellspawn parts and pieces of soldiers’ limbs scatter across the earth.  Oddly though, one corpse remains intact.

The Swordpion’s body overturns.  Jason pushes himself up, using his sword for support.     His opponent merely nods, picking up his poleaxe.  Cipher’s other hand snaps two fingers. The mounds of his wasted soldiers burn away.  Flames roar behind the Magnites as their battle draws to a close.

A midnight workout drags on for too long.  Jason’s mind insists on staying up until he wins, but his body runs on empty.  Next time Jason falls will be his last.  Only two plugs prevent him from bleeding to death.  And this time, nobody arranges for his rescue.  Jason’s only life support: his nerve.  His only preventive medicine: prowess.

Yet life support only delays the inevitable.  Should Jason survive, luck cannot account for it.  Desire for victory reaps nothing alone.  Raw willpower accomplishes nothing without direction.  In Jason’s blade, he must cleave a path to survival.  Only he knows that path. Chronus is gone; nobody can teach Jason how to cut through steel.  Ares tends to his own business; nobody will remove Jason from peril.  Terra sleeps; nobody will coach Jason and write him a strategy.
Tonight’s victory shall go only to Jason: his own skill, his own instinct and his own strength.  He takes a quick breath.  Jason needs water. He needs rest.  He needs treatment.  Once Jason wins, he will help himself to all of this.  First, he claims the necessity he came for.

The enemy halts.  Jason notices a pattern.  Every time Cipher stops, he says “Stasis,” then Jason gets cut out of nowhere.  This time, Jason will intercept.  One more cut in this shape will spell his name on a tombstone.  If Jason wants to live, he must stop this ‘Stasis’ move.  The technique Cipher uses must be a spell; Jason heard him say ‘Time Art #3.’   Once the Time Art activates, Cipher dominates the ring.  But a spell should cancel easily enough.  A clean hit will break Cipher’s concentration.  From there Jason will end the match.

Jason points his sword straight ahead.  If Cipher has immunity to single spells and bare steel, Jason will combine the two.  If the elements bounce off his armor one by one, Jason will coordinate them instead.   Air Magna swirls about his legs, preparing for a Mach Slash.  Jason needs twice the speed he can muster, if he wants to disrupt a Time Art.  But Jason must interrupt with authority.
A Flash Grenade smashed the last set of armor, so Jason advances that thought.  He pours every last drop of Magna into his sword.  A golden beacon forms at its tip, growing brighter and brighter.  If this attack fails, Jason dies anyway.  His Magna Core can replenish later. But for now, any energy withheld goes to waste. Quickly, the spell prepares itself.  Jason’s blade pierces the night, emitting a low, otherworldly hum.

“Too late,” Cipher states. He paces to an easy kill.  Not a single attack has scratched his armor so far.  Even if Jason charges in, that won’t interrupt him. “Sta-” His breath cuts short.  A soaring blade tears through his chest.

“Final Flight!” shouts Jason.  He darts through, slashing across.  Jason appears at the enemy’s back. He cuts again, ending in front of the onyx soldier.  Before Cipher can counter, Jason raises his sword overhead.  He swings straight down.  Cipher’s halberd splits in his hands. Then he rises with an uppercut.  For the final blow, Jason grasps The Critical Hit with both hands.   Cipher crosses his arms in front of him.  The blade smashes down, throwing the guard apart.

The Obsidian Knight falls.  First, his horned helmet splits.  A sapphire arc stretches across Cipher’s arm plates.  Similar markings carve into his chest and shoulder guards.  Armor splits along these lines, cleaved by a blade of plasma. An avalanche of broken Orihalcon hits the floor.  The unworldly substance becomes less-than-invincible garbage.   As Cipher falls to a knee, blood spurts from his chest and shoulders.

“You missed the vitals. On purpose,” Cipher accuses.  “What’s a soldier who can’t kill?”  The tattered veteran rises, shakily.  The ferrous stench of blood and sweat hangs over him.  Inside the crater-like scar on his face, his closed eye socket makes a sickening twitch.  “USELESS!” he bellows.

This challenge couldn’t go better for Jason.  Even as he shatters the foe’s Core Drive, his vitality overflows.  Jason can beat Cipher ever soundly.  “Make me,” he says. “You’re a Magnite, right?  So what if you’re armor’s gone.  Fight me.”  The boy sets his sword down, raising two insatiable fists.

Cipher coughs grimly. “My Magna’s run dry. You have a shot left and you’re still in your prime.  Do this right.  Finish me.”  He falls back to a knee, grasping the hilt of Jason’s sword.  He removes The Critical Hit from the soil, crawling back up.  The miserable warrior forces it back into Jason’s hands. “You know that last one won’t kill me.  Try again.”   His other hand mops a bleeding side as if he merely spilled a jar of whiskey.  “A good soldier cuts the rope.”  Cipher raises his leathery chin.  His scarred neck waits exposed.  “DO IT NOW!” he roars.

Jason grasps The Critical Hit with both hands.  The executioner and his victim stand silent.  The wind stops, listening to a funeral pyre’s whispers.  The once-commanding air about Cipher has faded; not a breath of Magna leaves him.  Jason lines his sword with the foe’s offered neck.  “Good,” Cipher says, masterfully composed.  A possible smile hides behind the mass of scars and wrinkles.  The faithful executioner rears his blade.  At once Jason swings across.  A lifelong soldier meets a fitting retirement.  For Cipher, the only ‘honorable discharge’ comes from death on the battlefield.

The blade rotates just before impact.  Jason swats Cipher’s jaw with the blunt end.  Cipher catches himself on hands and knees.  The kicked cur looks up, snarling.  His dim eye widens. Denied even death, his face blends shock and disgust.

“You’re tough.  Too tough to waste,” explains Jason. “How come you’re stuck with trash like this?”  He nods to the cremating pile of Hellspawn and soldiers that retreated too late.  “Why work for a coward like Altair?”
Cipher growls for his voice’s return.  He pays no debt for the boy’s mercy.  When one permits life, he follows his own terms.  Gared signs no contract without researching the wages.  “Ethics don’t win wars.  I take whatever side’ll win,” he says.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Jason says.  “You can do better.  And I could learn a lot from an old master.  Our team could use some credibility.  Some discipline, you know what I’m getting at?”
“You just don’t get it.  You won this.  But that’s it. You won a battle.  Even now, we’re attacking elsewhere.  Silvera. Regal.  Crux.  Biblos.  Gaelliv.”  Cipher spells out the next location with a grisly grimace.  “Luminesce.  They’ll submit to us or they’ll burn.”  Jason dismisses this warning as a bluff.  The bested general continues, “Not even 10% of this planet can stand on its own.  Not enough Magna to ruffle a broad’s skirt, those masses.  And you’d take their side.  You can do better, kid.”

Jason points his sword forward. Bold gestures mask wayward ad-libbing. He abandons thoughts of recruitment.  “I didn’t catch all that. But it sounds like you’ll keep attacking ‘til you get a helpless city? You’re right. I can do better than that,” says the Magnite.  Jason eyes Cipher down the Critical Hit’s edge.  “Wherever you go. We’ll crush you all the same.”  An electric arc slithers across the blade.  “No matter where you run. We’ll chase you down.  No matter where you hide.  We’ll drag you out.  Use all your weapons.  We’ll break em’.  Bring all your little bully friends.  We’ll dig their graves.”

The moon slips past an indigo horizon. Overhead, the stars hide behind a curtain of clouds.  As the night stagnates, so does Jason and Cipher’s encounter. The bonfires of the fallen diminish.  At the center of a collapsed tower, Cipher glares stone-faced. Only a swath of smoke hangs over the broken arena.  Even this wafts away.  The enemies reach a verbal stalemate.

After Cipher’s empty reply, Jason’s fists unclench.  “Hell. I’m not even the strongest of the group.  I’m just a rookie,” he says.  “I don’t even know what my Core Drive is yet.”  A run-on yawn ends the speech abruptly.

“So be it,” Gared says.  “Our business is done.”  He takes the Rune from underneath him and rolls it forward.  Jason picks up the wriggling, gnarled horn.  The object curls slowly in his hand. Both ends twist away from Jason’s palm, as if repulsed by it.  He grips the black relic, holding it still.  The Rune twitches feebly. The pointed end nudges against Jason’s fingers like a fly that keeps leaving, only to land in the same spot. The item accepts capture, though not eagerly.

One of the Runes in tow, Jason claims a token of victory.  He swore “no sleep until I win.”  Now the boy can claim some all-too-welcome rest.  His last defeat appears redeemed. None of Terra’s scolding will ruin that taste of sweat-soaked triumph.  None of tomorrow’s hundred aches will keep Jason’s chin down. When he gets a rematch with Void, he’ll keep a Final Flight ready.

Description
Trial 10: Cutthroat Insomnia
Two floors below, Altair’s forces decimate themselves.  Before Jason charged to the pinnacle, he broke a key weapon- an elite Grindstone loses its one eye.  In blind fury it mauls fellow Hellspawn.  Grimy bodies of Skum splatter against the earthen walls.  Braziers burn out as tarred insides quench the flames.  Attempting to escape flies a squadron of Bloodshots.  The glass-winged cannons shatter left and right.  The juggernaut’s clubbed arms pound until it dies of exhaustion.  All of is comrades fall in the process.

In a way Jason understands the Hellspawn’s trance.   He too swings his sword until it repays all of his damages. If all reason says Jason will die, he rejects all reason.  He faces an enemy with decades of experience.  Jason still recovers from a pages-long injury inventory.  He also runs without sleep at a critical hour.  None of this matters to him. After his last failure, Jason refuses sleep until he defeats somebody.   Tonight a demon possesses Jason.  He has long known this fiend called competition.

Above, the second floor has crumbled.  Spare chips hang at the wall’s edges of what once made a ceiling. Farther up, a fairer match ensues.  The top floor shall fall soon enough. Two Magnites clash over a burnt, gnarled horn- part of a still dormant body.  The seasoned general follows orders in procuring it.  His challenger, a naive Magnite the Emperor somehow labeled a threat.
“Mach Slash!” thinks Jason.  He dashes across the room, meeting the enemy blade-first. Gared Cipher blocks with the shaft of his halberd.  Jason strikes again.  The aged knight parries overhead.  Jason’s sword bounces back, leaving an opening.  Cipher snaps at Jason’s side.  The staff slams into his ribcage.   Bracing for impact, Jason exhales.  As the bar collides, it leaves only a dull thwack.  Jason releases his breath before it gets stolen.
“Don’t hold back,” Jason says.  “You’re just standing there.”  The boy swings his sword again.  If ink-black armor covers Cipher from the neck down, Jason will aim for the face.
“Do yourself a favor.  Don’t talk,” Cipher replies.  His poleaxe catches Jason’s sword overhead.
“Look,” says Jason. Both of Cipher’s hands on defense, Jason attempts to disarm. “3 times, maybe 4, I should’ve already been killed.” Jason drops his sword, instead grabbing the enemy halberd. “I don’t need another loan.”  He pushes the weapon down with both hands.  Cipher keeps a firm resistance.  The weapon barely sinks a knuckle’s length. “Besides. I’m gonna dethrone The Devil Cleaver.”  Cipher twists his halberd, its tip pointing to the ceiling.  Jason’s shoulders jerk sideways, losing the tug of war.  “I’ll put Nefas back together just so I can kill him for good.”  The boy regains balance, pushing back.  “If I can’t even beat you, I’m good as dead.”
“How moving,” responds Altair’s right hand.  Cipher headbutts the talking target.  Jason’s skull tilts back, fists keeping their hold. “Spare the hero talk.” The general throws a heavy stomp to the chest. “You ‘prodigies’ are all the same.” Jason stumbles away.  Looking down, he sees four blurred feet.  Multicolored dots drift across the brimstone floor.  A vein pounds between Jason’s eyes like a hammer on a stubborn nail.  A few blows remind Jason of his long list of injuries.

Then Jason remembers how his head worked fine before. “Prodigy?” asks the Magnite. He adds a slammed skull to that list of wounds, again folding it away for later. Jason fought his way through two-thirds of the tower already. He can endure the last fraction as well.  If every blow pushes him to a nail’s length from death, Jason simply won’t get pushed. If his crimson essence will flood out, that only proves his heart still beats. “I just don’t know how to fall down,” says Jason, looking back up.  The two plated lords meld back into one.

“You will,” Cipher assures.   “Time Art 3: Stasis.” The sandstone chamber turns gray.  Falling scraps of the ceiling suspend midair.   Jason freezes, defenseless.   Only Cipher moves in this fleeting zone.  He paces to the target.  Each footstep echoes sevenfold.  All other sound waves halt; the air stands still for all but Cipher.  The room sounds with only his breath, his footsteps, and the heave of his equipment.

The savage noble hacks at Jason’s abdomen.  Just as the blade exits, time resumes.  Color returns to the room, most notably crimson. A lake of blood opens on Jason’s torso.  A gash left by Void two days ago reopens.  The lake floods, spilling across Jason’s midsection.  The scarlet river rushes down his hip, down his leg, onto the brimstone floor.

Color drains from Jason’s face.  His laceration comes from nowhere.  One moment, Cipher stood at the other end of the room.  The next he appeared behind.    Jason never felt the axe, only his side becoming a ruptured dam.  Jason scrambles for a cure.  He tears a hole in the reservoir, rushing Water Magna to his hand.  Rivers stop when frozen, he decides.   The Magnite’s hand trembles, its temperature dropping lower and lower. His hand goes stiff and pale.  Subzero temperatures preserve it like the corpse of an arctic ancestor.

One hand guides the other to Jason’s wound.  Cadaverous fingers dip into the open slash.  Heat transfers instantly, freezing the ruby pool.   Through the crude operation, Cipher watches with amusement.  A clump of ice piles on top of the area Jason just cut. Several hand-sized prisms sprout from the patch in Jason’s side.  Cipher indulges a coarse laugh.  The boy shut off pain by essentially killing the sore part.

“What?”  Jason says. He makes light of abdominal icicles. “When it hurts, I put ice on it.”   He kneels, picking up his sword.  Jason feels his spine was replaced with a tree branch that got buried in the winter. He can twist, but fears snapping something. Still, Jason adapts to a frozen trunk.  Footwork steps around most difficulty. As for his sword arm, its hunger grows.

Soon as Jason regains his stance, Cipher resumes offense.  His armor clinks with every step forward. Shoulder guards rattle against breastplate as Cipher rears his weapon.  His garnet blade sweeps across the arena.  Jason skips back out of reach.  A marble pillar topples off to the side.    Cipher swings again with a backhand. Again Jason finds the only safe direction behind.  Next comes a reaching thrust.  The spear’s tip scratches against the quartz wall.  Jason steps aside then drops to the floor.  Soon as the blade reaches a dead-end, it changes course.  The axe whooshes over Jason’s back, tearing along the stone wall as it goes.

Seldom clashing occurs in this match.  The Magnite who controls spacing controls the battle. When Jason’s sword connects, Cipher overreaches on the counter.   When Jason can close the distance, the halberd’s edge will never cut him.  On the other hand, a precise polearm kills any swordsman’s approach.   Jason finds this opponent sluggish compared to others, but Cipher prevents punishment.

Cipher gains with every attack.  Every time the novice dodges, he uses energy.  Every second spent evading robs his time for an attack.  Nobody dodges forever, least of all a wounded, sleep-deprived child. Behind his halberd’s reach, behind his armor, and in front of a reckless fool, advantages stack high.   Undisputedly, Cipher will outlast the opponent. Every swing of the axe inches Jason to his end.

Jason faces a walking fortress. To topple it, he needs only crash the gates.   Jason runs in, arms thrown behind him, sword resting on the ground. A pulse of Magna surges down both sides.  Both hands carry a glaring neon bullet. Cipher defends with a spell of his own. Jets of magma rise underneath Jason as he passes.  The tail of his coat burns away.  Another pillar erupts under Jason’s feet.   Still he charges headlong.  The inferno’s roar at his back only drives him on.  As Jason closes in, the shell in each hand becomes a cannonball.

General Cipher intercepts with his halberd.  Jason slides underneath.  The blade nicks the tip of his nose.  Within range, Jason presses his wrists together for Light Strike #2.  Two orbs form a grand, blinding wrecking ball.  Jason shouts, “Flash Grenade!” Both fists slam into Cipher’s chest plate. The globe spirals into its target’s armor, sparks showering behind. Around the spell’s edges, the armor turns a volcanic orange.  Lines spread from this ring, across Cipher’s coal-colored armor.   Cracks spread across the shell like holes in a spider web.  Then in a pulse of light, the Flash Grenade detonates.
The spell pushes Cipher across the room.  With each step a chunk of his armor clanks on the floor.  As each shard falls, the floor barks in protest.  A single piece remains, lodged in his sternum.  Cipher yanks out the shrapnel, his other hand holding a dull bronze flame.  This hand presses against the wound. With a hiss of smoke it seals.  Cipher pounds his chest twice more, forcing out a cough.  “Needed a new suit anyway,” he says.  “Guess I can show you this.”

Cipher removes his eyepatch.  A haphazard scar carves into him from hairline to jaw line. It appears a fiend tore the skin from part of his face, if only to find the muscle underneath. The eye socket remains, albeit shut and skinless.  This scar tissue holds the same color and texture of dried meat. Cipher’s eyepatch only covered part of the damage.  “Now that one hurt like hell,” he says.  The slash lines across his mouth warp as he attempts a grin. “Think you can drag me back?”

The malformed veteran stands square. A translucent black curtain draws over the chamber.  Brazier flames dim, but a garnet light etches across the enemy’s body. In heartbeats it traces the shape of a hulking, hellish knight.  Five artists collaborating on a single stick drawing wouldn’t finish before this design.  Never a spectator, Jason charges in, reclaiming his sword from the floor.  Perhaps he can stop this strange process.

A thousand invisible arms push Jason at once.  He falls back as Cipher’s Core Drive activates.  Within the garnet outlines, details take form.  The armor’s edges sharpen and grow outward. Plating forms underneath plating and gauntlets become claws. Shoulder guards jut out from an already stocky frame.  Boots become broad and cumbersome, but impenetrable. Finally, a four-horned helmet closes around Cipher’s face.  Torchlight reflects off the obsessively polished onyx plating. In true form, the Obsidian Knight rejoins battle.

Jason keeps his distance, scouting for changes.   He assumes this armor sturdier than the last.  Also noting its bulk, Jason aims for an easy target.  The Obsidian Knight raises one boot as Jason mouths “Rai…” Cipher stomps forward. A dozen stones fall from the ceiling.    “Jin…” Jason thinks.   He cradles an electric globe between his hands. The enemy will regret covering himself in metal, Jason decides. The general continues his heavyset approach.  He barely makes two steps before Jason finishes his spell. “Ken,” he thinks, launching the Raijinken.

An impregnable forearm catches Jason’s attack.  The thundering sphere reflects off.  The Raijinken punches an arm-long window in the tower’s wall.  Cipher’s armor retains its luster.  A lightning bolt lands with the weight of a raindrop.  As Jason guessed, Cipher’s new shell gives him all the speed of a century-old tortoise.  But only one of Jason’s assumptions holds true.   He can’t call something an ‘easy target’ if arrows slide off the surface like rain down a window.

On impulse, Jason charges with another Mach Slash.  A blind man would mistake the contact for a pebble falling on pavement. Still in range, Jason swings again.  His blade echoes with a light knock.  The enemy crosses his arms, watching.  Jason strikes back and forth, back and forth, each time yielding the same empty tap.  Not even a spark flies from the onyx, polished surface.  Cipher waits for Jason to look up.

Finally, Jason notices his foe’s posture.  Seven wasted cuts came free. Cipher stares Jason down behind his helmet, ebony arms still crossed.  His halberd leans against a marble pillar.  Cautiously, Jason inches back.  The colossus stands still.  His target takes two more steps back. At a loss for offense, he pauses.  Cipher stares, remaining neutral. His mask hides concentration.
“Stasis,” Cipher says.  Again, he catches time in a stranglehold.  Once more, the room becomes a gallery of concrete statues. Only the caster has the leisure to browse this exhibit, or rather vandalize it.  Cipher reclaims his halberd.  His helmet turns to it and then to Jason, a brittle sculpture of a target.  The boy amuses him. Decapitation would come off as insulting.  Rather, Cipher wants to see what bravado comes forth as Jason bleeds himself out.  The boy already insists on fighting himself to exhaustion. Cipher lessens those demands.

The spear’s tip pierces Jason’s left side.  With his other gauntlet, Cipher shoves his target.  As time resumes, Jason is thrown off the halberd’s edge.  He falls back, a thin red stream from his abdomen.  An intense, dull pain bores into the side Cipher spared last time.  Immediately, a flame of Magna lights in Jason’s hand. Again, the general lets Jason pour salt on his wounds.  He cauterizes the opening, scalding it in the process.
The young Magnite takes a mental note for learning the Healing Arts.  Currently, he only treats the life-threatening part of an injury.  Jason still accepts the part where he feels like he got dragged up and over a mountain on his stomach.
As Jason resumes his stance a second time, Cipher prepares another spell.  A silver halo encircles the floor below him.  Twelve bronze bars form within the circle.  Finally, the clock gains two golden hands.  With each tick, the second hand accelerates.

“Accelera” grunts Cipher.  He casts Time Art #2.  For a brief, decisive moment, all of the caster’s actions double in speed.  Two hundred pounds of armor loses its sluggish bulk.  Demanding spells prepare at a moment’s notice.  Although this technique also affects bleeding, Cipher buries concern.  If Jason attempts another bull rush, a dozen bullets will hit between the horns.  Should those bullets miss, the charge still falls flat.

Cipher’s Magna reduces the tower to rubble.  The armored warlock starts with Fire Strike 4: Prominence.  A tongue of dead gray flame stretches across the arena.  Jason rolls out of the way, a heat wave at his back.  He casts off his shirt as it ignites. Behind him, a hole burns through the floor.  The pitfall measures longer than Jason’s height.  Back ahead, two more flares rise.  Jason crosses his arms in an ‘X’ before they melt off.  Their sides turn a blistered red.   Following fast, three more salamanders.  A searing tsunami engulfs the stage.  The only safe direction: down.  A three-story fall offers better chances than cremation.

Jason leaps through a hole in the arena.  As the ceiling crumbles, Jason plummets to the earth.  The ebon baron falls past, carrying at least his weight in armor.  Cipher pushes his left gauntlet forward.  With it, a current of Air Magna controls the arena.  Hundreds of stone scraps create a ballistic swarm.
Protecting the frozen patch over his wound Jason drops his right elbow in front of his side.  With his left hand, his sword deflects what it can.  The first shot slams into Jason’s forearm.  The next, he swats away with The Critical Hit.   Jason swings his sword over and over in the shape of an asterisk.  He defends against more projectiles than he can track, so his blade covers what it can.  Again and again, he slashes in the pattern of diagonal, diagonal, across.  With each block, the sword responds with a grudging clang. Still Jason keeps his defense up.  Even as a dozen stones pelt his forearm, Jason keeps his guard.  When he remembers his torture at Void’s hands, suddenly a rock barrage feels comfortable.

As both Magnites reach ground level, the stone storm finally ends.  Cipher lands first with a meteoric stomp.  The weight of his armor pounds the surface like a thousand sledgehammers.

Jason sees the bodies of Hellspawn rushing at him as he nears the surface. Cipher’s landing forced a Swordpion’s body to flip over.  Instinctively he casts Water Strike 1: Burst.  A thick column of water catches Jason’s fall.  He impacts with a splash instead of a splatter. The icy stream pushes against Jason as he falls through. He lands on his feet just as the building collapses.
A solid shadow pulls itself from the crater.  Cipher emerges from his landing unscathed. Not a chip falls from his jet-black barrier. The clock for Accelera ticks once more, flickering out of existence.  “You’re still alive,” he states.  “I’m impressed.”  He raises his halberd.  Black matter swirls about his halberd.  The crackling tentacle expands, winding tighter around the weapon.  The substance combusts, bathing the halberd in coal-colored flame.  “One day,” he says with a pause.

The Critical Hit becomes slippery in Jason’s hand.  Its hilt wrapping saturates with sweat. Jason barely hears Cipher over his parched breath. Struggling to stay awake, one arm finds itself falling closer and closer to the floor.  Ends of bandages dangle from his torso.

“I’ll build a monument,” Cipher says.  His halberd thrusts into the ground.  Jason dives behind the body of a Swordpion.  A shockwave tears across the surface and through the walls.  The shrine collapses from the bottom up. Three stories become a granite thunderstorm. Table-sized boulders fall like rain. The lightning: ornate columns from the third floor.    Jason crawls under the Swordpion’s plated corpse.  Its headless body provides a crowded but sturdy roof.

Cipher holds out one gauntlet, catching a few drops of the downpour.  He waits for Jason’s umbrella to collapse.  Human-sized stones fall left and right, in front and behind. The ground blankets with head-sized pieces of debris.  Under Jason’s shelter, he feels only a dozen dull fists pounding his back. Perhaps this accounts for the Swordpion’s resilience. Or perhaps Jason owes it to numbness and a state of shock.

Soon a second layer covers the ground, then a third.   Every stone lands with a duller crack than the last.  Soon boulders bang against boulders. Crushable objects become a fading commodity.  At last, the final pillar collapses. Cipher raises one gauntlet from the wreckage.  His claw clenches into a fist, casting Air Strike #2: Gale Force.

A titan’s breath wipes the wreckage clear. A ring of exposed soil remains where the tower once stood.  Thousands of boulders roll past, littering the open field.  The lightest scraps race to the midnight horizon. The heaviest pieces barely leave ground zero.  Cipher dusts his armor off plainly.  His one eye scans the remnants.  All of the reinforcements Altair sent have been mashed apart.  Chunks of Hellspawn parts and pieces of soldiers’ limbs scatter across the earth.  Oddly though, one corpse remains intact.

The Swordpion’s body overturns.  Jason pushes himself up, using his sword for support.     His opponent merely nods, picking up his poleaxe.  Cipher’s other hand snaps two fingers. The mounds of his wasted soldiers burn away.  Flames roar behind the Magnites as their battle draws to a close.

A midnight workout drags on for too long.  Jason’s mind insists on staying up until he wins, but his body runs on empty.  Next time Jason falls will be his last.  Only two plugs prevent him from bleeding to death.  And this time, nobody arranges for his rescue.  Jason’s only life support: his nerve.  His only preventive medicine: prowess.

Yet life support only delays the inevitable.  Should Jason survive, luck cannot account for it.  Desire for victory reaps nothing alone.  Raw willpower accomplishes nothing without direction.  In Jason’s blade, he must cleave a path to survival.  Only he knows that path. Chronus is gone; nobody can teach Jason how to cut through steel.  Ares tends to his own business; nobody will remove Jason from peril.  Terra sleeps; nobody will coach Jason and write him a strategy.
Tonight’s victory shall go only to Jason: his own skill, his own instinct and his own strength.  He takes a quick breath.  Jason needs water. He needs rest.  He needs treatment.  Once Jason wins, he will help himself to all of this.  First, he claims the necessity he came for.

The enemy halts.  Jason notices a pattern.  Every time Cipher stops, he says “Stasis,” then Jason gets cut out of nowhere.  This time, Jason will intercept.  One more cut in this shape will spell his name on a tombstone.  If Jason wants to live, he must stop this ‘Stasis’ move.  The technique Cipher uses must be a spell; Jason heard him say ‘Time Art #3.’   Once the Time Art activates, Cipher dominates the ring.  But a spell should cancel easily enough.  A clean hit will break Cipher’s concentration.  From there Jason will end the match.

Jason points his sword straight ahead.  If Cipher has immunity to single spells and bare steel, Jason will combine the two.  If the elements bounce off his armor one by one, Jason will coordinate them instead.   Air Magna swirls about his legs, preparing for a Mach Slash.  Jason needs twice the speed he can muster, if he wants to disrupt a Time Art.  But Jason must interrupt with authority.
A Flash Grenade smashed the last set of armor, so Jason advances that thought.  He pours every last drop of Magna into his sword.  A golden beacon forms at its tip, growing brighter and brighter.  If this attack fails, Jason dies anyway.  His Magna Core can replenish later. But for now, any energy withheld goes to waste. Quickly, the spell prepares itself.  Jason’s blade pierces the night, emitting a low, otherworldly hum.

“Too late,” Cipher states. He paces to an easy kill.  Not a single attack has scratched his armor so far.  Even if Jason charges in, that won’t interrupt him. “Sta-” His breath cuts short.  A soaring blade tears through his chest.

“Final Flight!” shouts Jason.  He darts through, slashing across.  Jason appears at the enemy’s back. He cuts again, ending in front of the onyx soldier.  Before Cipher can counter, Jason raises his sword overhead.  He swings straight down.  Cipher’s halberd splits in his hands. Then he rises with an uppercut.  For the final blow, Jason grasps The Critical Hit with both hands.   Cipher crosses his arms in front of him.  The blade smashes down, throwing the guard apart.

The Obsidian Knight falls.  First, his horned helmet splits.  A sapphire arc stretches across Cipher’s arm plates.  Similar markings carve into his chest and shoulder guards.  Armor splits along these lines, cleaved by a blade of plasma. An avalanche of broken Orihalcon hits the floor.  The unworldly substance becomes less-than-invincible garbage.   As Cipher falls to a knee, blood spurts from his chest and shoulders.

“You missed the vitals. On purpose,” Cipher accuses.  “What’s a soldier who can’t kill?”  The tattered veteran rises, shakily.  The ferrous stench of blood and sweat hangs over him.  Inside the crater-like scar on his face, his closed eye socket makes a sickening twitch.  “USELESS!” he bellows.

This challenge couldn’t go better for Jason.  Even as he shatters the foe’s Core Drive, his vitality overflows.  Jason can beat Cipher ever soundly.  “Make me,” he says. “You’re a Magnite, right?  So what if you’re armor’s gone.  Fight me.”  The boy sets his sword down, raising two insatiable fists.

Cipher coughs grimly. “My Magna’s run dry. You have a shot left and you’re still in your prime.  Do this right.  Finish me.”  He falls back to a knee, grasping the hilt of Jason’s sword.  He removes The Critical Hit from the soil, crawling back up.  The miserable warrior forces it back into Jason’s hands. “You know that last one won’t kill me.  Try again.”   His other hand mops a bleeding side as if he merely spilled a jar of whiskey.  “A good soldier cuts the rope.”  Cipher raises his leathery chin.  His scarred neck waits exposed.  “DO IT NOW!” he roars.

Jason grasps The Critical Hit with both hands.  The executioner and his victim stand silent.  The wind stops, listening to a funeral pyre’s whispers.  The once-commanding air about Cipher has faded; not a breath of Magna leaves him.  Jason lines his sword with the foe’s offered neck.  “Good,” Cipher says, masterfully composed.  A possible smile hides behind the mass of scars and wrinkles.  The faithful executioner rears his blade.  At once Jason swings across.  A lifelong soldier meets a fitting retirement.  For Cipher, the only ‘honorable discharge’ comes from death on the battlefield.

The blade rotates just before impact.  Jason swats Cipher’s jaw with the blunt end.  Cipher catches himself on hands and knees.  The kicked cur looks up, snarling.  His dim eye widens. Denied even death, his face blends shock and disgust.

“You’re tough.  Too tough to waste,” explains Jason. “How come you’re stuck with trash like this?”  He nods to the cremating pile of Hellspawn and soldiers that retreated too late.  “Why work for a coward like Altair?”
Cipher growls for his voice’s return.  He pays no debt for the boy’s mercy.  When one permits life, he follows his own terms.  Gared signs no contract without researching the wages.  “Ethics don’t win wars.  I take whatever side’ll win,” he says.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Jason says.  “You can do better.  And I could learn a lot from an old master.  Our team could use some credibility.  Some discipline, you know what I’m getting at?”
“You just don’t get it.  You won this.  But that’s it. You won a battle.  Even now, we’re attacking elsewhere.  Silvera. Regal.  Crux.  Biblos.  Gaelliv.”  Cipher spells out the next location with a grisly grimace.  “Luminesce.  They’ll submit to us or they’ll burn.”  Jason dismisses this warning as a bluff.  The bested general continues, “Not even 10% of this planet can stand on its own.  Not enough Magna to ruffle a broad’s skirt, those masses.  And you’d take their side.  You can do better, kid.”

Jason points his sword forward. Bold gestures mask wayward ad-libbing. He abandons thoughts of recruitment.  “I didn’t catch all that. But it sounds like you’ll keep attacking ‘til you get a helpless city? You’re right. I can do better than that,” says the Magnite.  Jason eyes Cipher down the Critical Hit’s edge.  “Wherever you go. We’ll crush you all the same.”  An electric arc slithers across the blade.  “No matter where you run. We’ll chase you down.  No matter where you hide.  We’ll drag you out.  Use all your weapons.  We’ll break em’.  Bring all your little bully friends.  We’ll dig their graves.”

The moon slips past an indigo horizon. Overhead, the stars hide behind a curtain of clouds.  As the night stagnates, so does Jason and Cipher’s encounter. The bonfires of the fallen diminish.  At the center of a collapsed tower, Cipher glares stone-faced. Only a swath of smoke hangs over the broken arena.  Even this wafts away.  The enemies reach a verbal stalemate.

After Cipher’s empty reply, Jason’s fists unclench.  “Hell. I’m not even the strongest of the group.  I’m just a rookie,” he says.  “I don’t even know what my Core Drive is yet.”  A run-on yawn ends the speech abruptly.

“So be it,” Gared says.  “Our business is done.”  He takes the Rune from underneath him and rolls it forward.  Jason picks up the wriggling, gnarled horn.  The object curls slowly in his hand. Both ends twist away from Jason’s palm, as if repulsed by it.  He grips the black relic, holding it still.  The Rune twitches feebly. The pointed end nudges against Jason’s fingers like a fly that keeps leaving, only to land in the same spot. The item accepts capture, though not eagerly.

One of the Runes in tow, Jason claims a token of victory.  He swore “no sleep until I win.”  Now the boy can claim some all-too-welcome rest.  His last defeat appears redeemed. None of Terra’s scolding will ruin that taste of sweat-soaked triumph.  None of tomorrow’s hundred aches will keep Jason’s chin down. When he gets a rematch with Void, he’ll keep a Final Flight ready.