Nico, meanwhile, only had flash bangs and tear gas canisters shot at him through the window. He'd evade those easily considering how his Noble Arm was suddenly empowered by an infusion of magical energy that nevertheless marked the arrival of an enemy; it was an open secret that Huo Ren could not choose who his Noble Arm's leakage of power made stronger as long as the other Noble Arm had a fitting theme (Sun or Fire).
And indeed he was, his spear drawn and his eyes gleaming with greedy desire. Accompanying him was Yulian, who was carrying a strange sword, closer to a baton or small lance, that glowed with spinning red script.
"Qingshe is dead," Huo Ren had the temerity to announce. "The embarrassment I was put through today has been more than made up for, as now, I have been avenged. And now, thanks to Mr. Suburov here, I will have what I want..."
Nico made the conscious decision to ignore everything that Huo Ren had to say, summoning and igniting his Noble Arm. As soon as he felt the influx of power from the artificial sun, Nico moved like a blur, batting away flashbangs and exploding tear gas canisters long before they got within reach of him. He wasn’t quite sure why it was all happening, but he knew that the people firing through the window weren’t actively trying to kill him.
No point giving them a reason to start using real bullets.With little hesitation, Nico rushed down the Dragon with a Wildfire Dance boosted swipe, seemingly trying to cut the Dragon in two.
Huo Ren twirled his spear and fought defensively, blocking each slash and cut while allowing himself to be pushed back by his assailant, even as Yulian, seemingly content with letting his ally be on the backfoot, smiled and stepped out of the way of the fight, letting the ‘Dragon’ sweat for his rewards.
But sweating or not, Huo Ren knew how to fight, to cover multiple points with his spear’s shaft, not risking a chance to counterattack as his mind began to grasp how
outclassed he was by this young mercenary, who was more than a pretty face and honed body.
Then, the sound of chains began to ring behind Nico Makri as he fought…
Nipping that in the bud before it nips me in the face. With a quick use of Radiant Burst to blind the Dragon, Nico sent a massive Wildfire strike behind him, and another towards Yulian to be safe.
But it was clear that Nico was through with playing cautiously. It was now or never again, and the Dragon slipped away twice now. Nico swapped hands, using his dominant right hand to attempt to yank Huo Ren off balance, using his foot to try to trip the Zodiac.
In response, Huo Ren staggered back further, not hiding the fact that he was struggling against an opponent that was cutting loose, even as Yulian, some ways behind Nico, had caused chains to flash into existence from underneath his cloak; there were four, each one darting towards the Greek’s limbs even as that strange Noble Arm’s blade/baton/whatever continued spinning.
Nico let Huo Ren stagger back, turning his attention to the chains aimed at him.
“Thanks for the help, paper dragon. But I’ve got better shit to take care of.” He took a couple steps forward, which covered a significant amount of distance at his speed.
What little Nico gleaned from his last fight with Superbia made him very aware that any amount of time for the Downward Descent leader to prepare was too much. So, he improvised, using Wildfire Dance to stab at Yulian’s face from a distance with a more focused wave of flames.
Yulian continued to smile as his chains swatted away the wave of fire, then, he pointed his spinning baton at Nico, before saying, “Hmm… I changed my mind.”
The chains withdrew, as the blond caused his baton to disperse into rectangular fragments of data and instead drew another weapon, a
freezing bluish-white blade that glowed with bright runes.
One swing at Nico and a wave of strong winds, carrying ice and frost, filled the corridor. At the same time, Huo Ren launched a volley of fireballs at the youth’s back; when the ice and fire met, the room would fill with steam.
“Right stupid you two are, huh?” Without the chains to keep track of, Nico could fight at his pace, moving from the pincer attack. He used an explosive strike to kick a hole through one of the room’s walls, letting the steam escape. Nico used the remaining steam in the room as cover to once again go after the Dragon, the only sign of his overhead swing being the flames wrapped around Helios Rod, beginning to turn from orange to yellow with the increased heat.
That was enough for Huo Ren to block the glowing sword with the blade of his spear, even as the chains re-appeared once more; this time, they were covered in frost as they tried to wrap around Nico Makri’s feet and left hand.
Nico’s expression was filled with shock, as he sidestepped the chains, moving backwards and then lunging forward to strike once again. The flames around Helios Rod grew even brighter, a bit of heat haze beginning to form around the blade as the temperature spiked.
Just a little bit more, just a little bit more.Huo Ren sent a whip of superheated hydrogen to curl itself around Nico’s foot as the young swordsman began to sidestep, even as the chains drew back, their wielder building up an unholy purple darkness that gathered onto his sword’s blade…
As the whip came for Nico, his expression became a mocking smile, looking straight at the Zodiac.
“You’re way too easy to bait, ain’t ya, salamander?!” Nico had made a risky fakeout, but it ended up being a success. He only knew a few things about Huo Ren: how cocky he was, and the fact the Dragon’s own fire burned him. Even during the day, Nico had at least a bit of heat resistance, and it was all he needed.
The buildup of heat for Wildfire Dance was a crucial step, even if it was nearly unbearable after a prolonged period. But Nico was more than fine with it, at least in this moment. With no warning or fanfare, Nico smacked Helios Rod against the room’s floor, letting a massive pillar of flames engulf both Sun users.
Yulian smiled; Nico and Huo Ren were on the second floor, and the pillar both broke through the floors above that and the roof while melting
the ground they stood on all the way to the basements.
Huo Ren had vanished; it was unknown if Cao Bao had managed to retrieve and reconstitute him or if he was actually dead. But now, Nico was falling to the depths of the building, Yulian’s chains multiplied to eight, then sixteen, pursuing him…
Nico used the freshly made pit in the building to grab onto the edges of the hole in the first floor, hoisting himself up. While he would normally try the door, there wasn’t time for gentlemanly behavior. Instead, he blew another hole through the window and hopped out, running as fast as he could while Sun Stoked.
The window led right into the massing Cambodian forces, specifically on top of one of their BTR-60s, which was now directly able to fire its machine gun, capable of eviscerating even an Arms Master, at him. Without hesitation, its gunner did so, and a stream of bullets were fired at Nico’s position; enough to tear off arms, legs, and the head.
To add to the overkill, there were a platoon of soldiers around the BTR-60, all firing rifles at Nico even as more of Yulian’s chains darted at the young man’s limbs; to take them was his only apparent hope.
Nico made the split second decision to duck beneath the lip of the armored carrier, tossing his Noble Arm out into the open.
“Hey, hey, I surrender, I surrender! Let’s talk this out, before this Descent crony grabs me! I swear to my life that I won’t try anything, just don’t shoot!”One of the squad spoke English and she said, “Fully dispel your Noble Arm!,” as she accepted his surrender.
A few seconds passed. For a brief moment, it looked as though it would be all right. Then, a dark lance of dark purple matter that radiated un-light - Darkness - engulfed them all.
The squad trying to take him in. The APC. And Nico Makri himself, unless he managed to pull off another miraculous dodge.
Nico stood his ground, using Radiant Burst in an attempt to dispel as much of the darkness as he could. From his position, he shouted a rather simple request.
“Whatever ya got, unload it into that building I just came from! Superbia’s inside and I know he’s worth more than some hotel clerk like me!”The Radiant Burst was only enough to clear his body of the overwhelming pain from the agony beam, a beam that caused the mundane soldiers to writhe on the ground as though their bones and nerves were being melted inside their bodies, screaming themselves hoarse, tearing apart their own vocal cords in an effort to express their own unspeakable agony.
Then it ceased, as Yulian Suburov, bowing to the demands of pragmatism, radioed the rest, saying in English and Cambodian, “What is he talking about?! I am Yulian Suburov, observer from the Russian Federation! This young man is crazy, hand him over to -”
Then he leapt down from the second floor, his fall slowing to allow the blond to land on his feet. He then pulled out his sword once more, purple dark un-light gathering around it, as he said, to Nico, “
On second thought… If I am Superbia, I can probably cause them
all to suffer and pass it off as friendly fire.”
Stretching out his blade, even as a chain crawled towards Nico’s discarded blade, Superbia/Yulian smirked and said, “Here’s an idea; if you actually care about
your enemies so much, hand yourself over to me.”
Nico dispelled Helios Rod at seeing the chain move closer to it, walking over to the Cambodian platoon and giving a slight nod.
“Sorry that you got lumped into this, that’s on me. But I surrender to Cambodia, not him. I’ll even radio my squad mates, tell them to calm down so we can all talk this out.”“As for you,” He turned to Yulian with a fury like the sun in his eyes.
“If so much as a drop of innocent blood is spilled, I’ll kill ya, god or otherwise. They aren’t my enemies. Enemies don’t let people eat nice food and invite people to fancy stuff.”Yulian began breathing harder, but a look at his face and lips showed that it was not due to anger, but a spike of
desire, as he rasped out, “I can see why Huo Ren wants you… The perfect gentleman even towards those turned against him.”
He then turned away and began to fly up, saying, “I’ll just take my consolation prize -
Noel.”
His cape fluttered behind him as he presented his back to Nico, daring him to attack.
He rolled his eyes, taking out his radio to message the rest of Task Force Obsidian.
“This is Volunteer Nico Makri. Good news, I got these good people to stop trying to turn us into Swiss cheese. Bad news, Superbia might just be on the way over. Over.”He turned to the platoon.
“Mind telling your guys to not kill my colorful comrades? I’m sure there’s a way to explain all of this without anyone dying today.”The interpreter, who was trying to recover, said, “We can, but orders from higher-up are -”
Footsteps could be heard walking towards them, it was the Cambodian Arms Master who had accompanied them earlier - Dara Chea, was it?
Originally Bourbon from Detective ConanThe man’s next words were, “Your comrade, Callie Lindmann, has literally been caught having murdered one of our Assembly - What we call our Parliament - members. And by that… She was framed. Our Government hired
her father, a wanted terrorist and a former member of the Hammer of Masters, to lure her over so she can be in the same room as the murdered Assemblyman, one of ASEAN’s allies, by the way.”
He then turned to Nico, making eye contact with the youth, “My sister is in on their plans, but after seeing you do your job, like heck I am.”
There was a platoon of Cambodian Soldiers around to listen to the exchange; probably more with how many of them were surrounding the building. Dara Chea then extended a hand to Nico and said, “Let’s do a counter-coup, shall we?”
Nico smiled goofily at how well his - not even a plan - reckless optimism paid off, shaking Dara Chea’s hand with his own large one.
“Thank the gods, it makes sense. And sure. I’m all for that ‘taking down evil regimes’ thing.”On top of a nearby rooftop, Diligence, Avatar of Industria of the Seven Virtues, was nursing a heavy nosebleed…
END@Gerlando@Nimbus@QJT@Amidatelion@Digmata@Chiro@Creative Chaos@DammitVictor@PrinceAlbertMission Four Climax Post Summary:- Huo Ren is *probably* dead.
- Yulian decided to retreat to try and capture Noel.
- Biggest Plot Twist: Nico's duel with Yulian/Superbia II and the latter's willingness to harm and threaten his own allies convinced the Cambodian Troops surrounding the building to turn on the Cambodian Government and return to ASEAN service. This was
not something Bee had planned, but is a very well-earned reward.
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