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In the beginning, Tsunami believed his hit-and-run idea to be quite ingenious. Unfortunately it only ended with him feeling ignominious. Between the dark outlines of phantasmal forest he believed to see a rippling of electricity shielding Nanjing. Whether his deluded attack hit or not wasn’t an issue. It was what Rou might do next, if alive at all. Obviously the plane shifter did not go down so easily, for the still air filled with disdainful mocking boasts soon turning into archaic chants.
Spying as to what exactly his foe intended to do, the shadowed pilot bided his time. “This is too long… something seems wrong... the air feels even more morbid…” Tsunami mumbled through clenched teeth. “Damn it all! Hurry up…?” An eyebrow lifted as the forest manifested itself even darker than before. Something beyond our mortal realm filled the sky with hatred in hopes of all earthly beings utter demise. Clouds parted in two as if they were gigantic waves within a sea of turmoil. Any living thing with common sense had knowledge enough to flee in protection for their very souls, away from this preternatural power.
“This is perverse flexing of the unworldly!” Tsunami cursed as he hurriedly scrambled from his hiding place in hopes of confronting Rou to stop this madness. But it was too late; already the horizon lit a flare as Nanjing’s venerable chant ended, his heavenly voice seeming to spread across the world as did his power. A glowing cloister of energies emerged from the heavens, shading the forests visage in an eerie light. Explosions hurled upon the ground as those energies erupted on impact with soil. Uproars of noise and trees struck near him, sending his body hurling into the dry dirt. Tsunami screamed, more in anger than fear as he luckily rolled into a deep crevice from a previous detonation. Somehow Mother Nature sided with this space adventurer, her final efforts to
sacrifice her own children to guard him from the planar attack. Trees fell over onto the trench, creating a blockade against the outlandish horror. His last memory flooded him with pain as a falling branch struck him on the head, rendering him unconscious in the earthly shelter.
A final burst of sound awoke him from the nightmare. Silence flowed throughout the once magnificent forest in a chilling sensation. “Might as well take a look… ow…” Tsunami rubbed the back of his skull, his body ached from the previous encounter with the unknown. Sighing, he sadly prompted his suit for a morphine injection to dull the pain. Internally, a tiny needle poked the surface of the skin on the opposite side of his elbow, filling the bloodstream with painkillers. Stretching out his limbs he thought he felt a small change in his left arm, but it didn’t make any difference now, Nanjing had to be somewhere near, and probably winded. Moving between the fallen trees that protected him from the wicked forest onslaught, and with cautious movements the ex assassin stalked about on cat like feet, eyeing the repugnance of horrible destruction. Soon his target came into view, and fortunately, was kneed over winded by his own spell.
Under the rims of his blackened boots he reached out and pulled a half a dozen small sphere shaped gadgets, flashing with various lights, in fact the entire sphere was made up of nothing but flashing colored lights. The hues melded together in a static jolted fashion, not appeasing to the eye at all. Creeping around his opponent’s radius of vision, Tsunami cleverly placed the inventions in a circle around the seemingly-tired Rou. After completing his devious plot, he strutted behind Nanjing, this time shuffling his feet to make his presence known. “Well, well!” Tsunami boasted, hoping to intimidate him. “You’re little fireworks display is very, very amusing! But let me show you my little show… it’s something I like to call.”
“Optical Delusion!”
Tsunami’s voice rung aloud throughout the destroyed forest, bringing courage of revival to the caring spirits who saved his life. Decaying ash burned the ground around him as his right hand lifted up and snapping his fingers twice activating the outlaying gadgetry. Tsunami began to casually stroll around Rou, with his hands behind his back eyeing the tired planar mage with the paralyzing stare of a cat. Was that Tsunami? No but there suddenly became two! Then three, four, until half a dozen mech pilots surrounded Nanjing, eyeing him with no other emotion but an exhortation of rage. Their walking picked up to a jog, quickening into a blazing fast run. If the human eye could pick up their movements it would have seen only the gauntlet of his right arm launching out more of his death bringing Adder Stingers, his hand released them with such speed, grace and accuracy it seemed as if the hand was more than just flesh, or even of machine. Not just the original Tsunami threw the blades of doom, but all six. Some illusion, some real, could Nanjing tell? Did it matter?
The circle showered Adder Stingers as if a wild storm of fury and metal poured upon the helpless Rou. Once before their brethren left a mark above his eyebrow, now they would finish the job after the neuro toxin took effect, and soon.
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