Darklight: The New World

Part 38: The Second Battle Of Nation Plaza

Before he realized what was happening the shards of ice were upon him. His body instinctively summoned a wave of fire that leapt from his skin and melted the ice in mid air, reverting them back to their liquid form. But now Vittoria was upon him once again, her hands jabbing at Soran over and over again causing waves of force to hit Soran and knock him off his feet. The Darklight Sword was in his hands and with every wave he tried to deflect it using the sword's blade held between his hands. She looked like she was dancing - jabbing a hand, twisting and jabbing with the other, swinging the other hand downwards and then upwards again at Soran. Every time her hand was outstretched another wave of kinetic energy overwhelmed Soran's body. Finally the torrent of energy forced Soran back so far that he stumbled over his own feet and fell onto his side and into the knee-high water covering the entire floor of Nation Plaza.

"You see Soran?" Vittoria shouted at him as the water that he landed in began to freeze around him at Vittoria's command. 

"People like you and my sister are weak." Soran placed his other hand into the water to try and push himself back onto his feet.

"I require no weapons, no clumsy melee to defend myself. I hold the true power of our ancient bloodline, our advanced abilities". Soran was becoming frozen in place, facing down into the water with only his back and head out of the ice. The Darklight Sword was even encased.

"And you're arrogant just like Rammachandra, Vittoria" Soran spat at the ice, unable to turn to face her. He tried to summon fire from his hands again but the ice's cold and the lack of oxygen put it out almost immediately. Vittoria raised an eyebrow with a smirk.

"You were saying?"

He needed another way out, he needed to shatter the ice coffin that he now found himself in.

What do you find yourself surrounded by Soran?

The voice asked him. That internal voice again. It had been with Soran all of his life, was it his conscience? Did everyone have a voice like this? But this wasn't the time to contemplate.

"Ice" He told the voice.

And what is ice made from?

"Water"

And what does water conduct?

Soran smirked as he twisted to see Vittoria out of the corner of his eye. She was walking towards him as she readied another ice spear at his head. She hesitated briefly as she saw his expression.

Then the entire body of water and ice that the two were in contact with was alive with the crackle and arcing of thousands of volts worth of electricity. The current swept through Vittoria's body and propelled her upwards and backwards through the air whilst simultaneously fracturing the ice that Soran was trapped him with the intense heat of the arcs. With a sudden increase in air pressure around his body, Soran shattered the ice coffin that he was trapped in. He was on his feet again, grabbing the shards of ice with his Skry abilities and directing them as if they were bullets back towards Vittoria with an agile spin of his body.

But Vittoria was fast too, as fast as Soran. With a wave of her hand a great invisible barrier appeared in front of the High Priestess on which the ice bullets impacted.

"Its time Soran!" Vittoria shouted over the sound of the ice shards shattering on her shield. The water flowing through the plaza began to bubble, as if a cavern was opening up from beneath them. But the ground remained firm in place as a great circular glyph appeared, glowing a bright cyan. Its intricate circles overlapping and forming geometric shapes that contained ancient Skry texts - the words of an ancient civilization that could alter the very fabric of reality. 

Then Soran heard Vittoria's cry of pain and saw Natasha on her feet, hands outstretched firing razor sharp rock fragments at Vittoria like bullets. Her skin was still a greyish hue but her bright blue eyes burned with determination and hatred of Vittoria. But how could she have used Skry abilities? She was human?

"No!" Vittoria screamed. "Only the worthy can be part of the ritual! You'll ruin everything! The portal will not open with you here!" With these words Vittoria held her hands in the air towards one of the skyscrapers and pulled her hands to the ground. 

In retaliation Natasha slammed a fist into the ground and great spikes of metal, twisted from the continental plate and the earth-based minerals within them being manipulated by Natasha, sprang up in a straight line one after another closing in on Vittoria. 

With the almost deafening sound of buckling metal the skyscraper began to collapse under Vittoria's Command threatening to flatten them all. Great chunks of concrete and metal fell towards Natasha as one of her metallic shards lurched from the ground and cut a gash in Vittoria's leg, staining her golden dress with dark red blood.

"That the best you got!?" She spat at Natasha as Soran ran to save his wife from the falling skyscraper. As he readied himself to grab the structure in an electromagnetic field deflect the falling debris by summoning a strong gale, the ground opened up beneath both himself and Vittoria in a great flash of cyan light. He heard Vittoria's cries of victory and Natasha's scream of fear, and then both he and Vittoria were gone.