3e.) A Test of Strength

"Gyro? Gyro wake up."

"Huh...?"

"I need you to tell Shobatsu something for me. Tell him Iko has... fallen off the bandwagon, and it might be a bit of an effort to put him back on."

"Um... okay... what time is it?"

"Time to wake up."

"Ah. Wait... why are you glowing?"

"Bad corn."

"Huh?"

"Nothing, just relay the message okay? Oh, and if Voyle asks, I'm out berrypicking."

"Bring me back some apples."

"Apples aren't a berry Gyro."

"Oh. Okay. Then bring me back a bannana."

"..I'll do that."

* * *

Gyro drowsily flew out of his room and located Shobatsu.

"Uh... fox guy. Iko's... fallen off a wagon... and he doesn't wanna throw out his back on it... while the getting is good. Something like that. Derkholm owes me a Bananana."

* * *

This deed accomplsihed, Luxor moved back out to the desert to consider his options.

Shobatsu stared at the little musician as he delivered the message. Iko had fallen off a wagon, and didn't want to throw out his back on it when the time is right, so the mummy owed him a banana.

"I think you ought to get to bed," he said gently, wondering exactly how hard he'd got hit in the fight last night.

Gyro tilted his head. "But I was just in bed... wasn't I? Or was I berrypicking? No that wasn't me... and Derkholm's never gone berrypicking before, we'd always leave fruit to Priscilla... So that means..."

Gyro looked as if he was about to have a revelation. He thrust his ginger into the air with an "Aha" motion and then slowly lowered it. "I have no idea what that means. Goodnight. Afternoon?"

Gyro drearily drifted back off towards his bed.

Jack clomped out as Gyro waddled in.

"Iko whose been taken over by a dark evil entity of dubious origin, is now hell-bent along a path of destructon."
Jack seemed very pleased with himself, being Derkholm's backup plan and all. He thought aloud to himself. "Wait... is a pumpkin eating fruit cannibalism?"

After Jack's proper explanation of the situation, before the nonsense thought (pumpkins eating non-pumpkin fruit made about as much sense as humans eating other kinds of meat, so...), Luke's expression suddenly became more tense, having heard the conversation outside of Shobatsu's direct sight, being around a corner.

He wasn't sure how to react to this statement... nor would he know how Shobatsu would act. ~What do we do now?* Luke thought to himself... ~This is almost like that virus thing, but... there's no signal of one on this damn device...~

Shobatsu's face remained expressionless as Jack gave his explanation of recent events. He closed his eyes at the end of it, letting out a sigh. The fingers of his left hand twitched, as though he were, with difficulty, preventing them from balling into a fist.

"No. Cannibalism, for you, would be eating another DaCre. Or, perhaps, another pumpkin."

He then focused...

The light around Shobatsu shimmered, flowing into him gently in small perfect spheres of white. In a few moments, a pair of white, elegant angelic wings had formed on Shobatsu's back.

Meanwhile, the light around him was still flowing inward. A helmet, similar to the one of his B rank, formed upon his head, with a seemingly mirrored front. Two arm guards formed on either forearm, also with that mirror-like exterior, and similar shin guards. The guards, not having to be removed or put on, completely encircled the areas they were on where straps and such would be on normal armor. A breastplate formed on Shobatsu's torso, also mirror-like in nature, crafted at the back so as not to limit the movement of the wings.

A flurry of lights exploded from Shobatsu, swirling around him enchantingly. Still the light focused and, after a few moments, a strong, white light began to emanate from the fox. His appearance was now very similar to his B rank, and the signature from him was indistinguishable from his B rank. The bright, blinding light around him would obscure his figure enough to erase any dissimilarities between the two forms.

He held out his right hand, and some of the light swirled down to form a sword. He tightened his grip on it, and looked down at Luke. He'd risen a few feet into the air without realizing it.

"Don't wake Carlos... he needs his rest. I'll return... hopefully with Iko." he said.

Not dispensing any more in the way of an explanation, Shobatsu beat his wings powerfully and, glowing, white feather-like objects fluttering down to the ground, rose quickly into the air until he was visible only as a faint star-like object high in the sky. And then even that was gone.

...

He'd known something was wrong when he'd lost contact with the fireflies... he knew where to go now...



_____

Jack blinked a few times. "Quite the... showman." He looked at Luke. "I... think I'm going to back to bed."

'Iko' had brought himself back to C-rank, when sensing Shobatsu's signal approaching from above. ~He intends to drown this whole area in light...~ he thought to himself, standing up from this resting position. ~Fine by me... let's see if he can even go all out against this frame... especially in this desert of infinite darkness...~

Ranking up, he quickly moved out of the castle in full armour, trails of darkness following as he stayed in range of the sand, pulling immense amounts of this versatile weapon upwards, as he saw the star in the sky...

The star seemed to pause in the sky almost directly above Iko. Then, the sky would seem to glitter...

... hundreds of needle-like lights would begin to rain down on the dark wolf, each capable of piercing through darkness to inflict minor, painful wounds. If hitting vital parts of the body, however, those needles could be very inconveniencing.

The star in the sky began to grow larger.

"'/"'/"'/"

Luxor sat in the desert, legs crossed and hands held in an "OK" looking matter, hovering in a meditative pose. A few grains of sand were stackd vertically upon one another, the only thing supporting his body as it held steady about a foot above the ground. He spoke without looking in any general direction, assuming the group he addressed was near enough.

"Fragments of the shark. I would hope that your juristriction falls solely on the wolf. I have a strategem in mind, but I'm going to have to ask you to be a little patient with me."

He didn't really expect an answer. Luxor calmly sank downward and into the sand below, letting his body sift into it as he went. The sand moved towards the minion base.

Iko simply reoriented his arms, the needles of light merely being absorbed, reflected, or broken off of his relatively lustrous armour.

~That level of attack is useless... what's he thinking...~ Iko thought, continuing to advance forward at Shobatsu at a quickening pace.

He began to create his crescent whips, absorbing the light off of himself to prevent Shobatsu from manipulating them: rather quickly, he had five blades trailing from each arm, a sixth forming.

The star continued its gradual approach, the rain of light needles continuing. There was no immediate effect from these, however, and Iko would feel no pain. Slowly, however, he would find it harder and harder to pull the shadow from the sand and himself...

... looking down, he would find that the sand itself for quite a large area around him had begun to seemingly glow, shadows melting away. Even his own shadow was very, very weak, hardly enough to pull let alone use.

The light rain continued, following Iko's movement. Now, however, the star seemed to be growing brighter, as though Shobatsu were preparing for something...

However, Iko's shadow wasn't weakening, or at least, it wasn't weakening through Shobatsu's attack: as the glow from the light failed to reach the ground, it was being incorporated into his crescent energy, quickly doubling, tripling, and extensively increasing the size of his whip, as he used his dark trail to combine with the light to create this whip, pulling from deeper sources to maintain his shadow.

Now of a decent length, he swung one arm off to the right, sending the whip off to the right, which he focused on: it arced around, quickly cracking and moving towards Shobatsu, with odd kinks at certain intervals to keep its movement unpredictable, as the sections became faster and faster. At the end, an attack that would be near invisible to the eye would swing, from a relatively large range, straight and diagonally acrossed Shobatsu's chest, with a significant cleaving force that could slice through light armour, made of light.

--------------------------

Arthur pushed out of a sand dome, which collapsed as Arthur closed the opening, which hid the entrance as quickly as it was created. Looking up at the pair, he surpressed his aura, and waited...

In fact, since the needles were already in the ground, the light did, indeed, reach the ground. The shadow in all but the deepest reaches of the sand melted away, leaving Iko with only the faintest of shadows. The shadow deeper down could be pulled up, but the amount would be decreased as it passed through the light, and it would take longer to pull it from the greater distance.

The light that hit Iko was incorporated into making the blades, yes. The amount of light that did hit him was very small in the grand scheme of things, however, and some of the light simply refracted off. This left Shobatsu with almost a minute longer before Iko, still making the blades at normal speed, perhaps marginally faster, completed and struck with his whip.

Shobatsu rose up as Iko swung his arm, and the whip swung harmlessly in front of his chest, missing by feet. Meanwhile, finished focusing, he took action. The light above Shobatsu suddenly focused into a funnel-like shape, channeling down into him in a more focused form. Then, an incredibly focused laser-like beam of light lanced down toward Iko.

The laser was capable of piercing any non-solidified darkness, and would certainly pierce through the darkness armor Iko had formed. Even if not piercing, the sheer force of the laser would deal concussive damage, possibly knocking Iko over, and the armor that would have survived the initial blast would be heating up very quickly...

Shobatsu's block against the whip was improper, as Shobatsu should know: since Iko had the capability to control the whip's trajectory by controlling the darkness (which outmassed the light and sealed Shobatsu's control over it), and since he was making an effort to randomize the whip's movement, it would have been impossible to predict the final movement by the first movement of Iko's arm.

In short, this made it much harder for Iko to miss, unless the LAST movement was dodged or blocked, which was a much harder prospect, or if a more creative method was used to block it. Since this was not the case, Shobatsu would feel a deep cut slice through his midsection, straight through the armour, fairly deep as it glided against, and cut slightly through, Shobatsu's ribs, grazing the outer (non-vital) membrane of the heart.

Moving quickly, he guided this fast-moving whip like a snake, beginning to quickly wrap around Shobatsu's frame: one full locking circle was all that was needed to prevent a rank up.

"Oh, please..." Iko mutterred, seeing the laser coming from above. He used his own special technique to fire the front of his armour out in fragments, directly into the massless beam of light, which caused the light to fragment off of the metal, like several mirrors and cast shadows behind the metal. Focusing on this, the laser split into several beams, mostly focused towards the outside, as hot pieces of metal soared through, over Shobatsu, where they would uselessly fall to the ground several hundred feet away. Several heavily weakened beams still approached Iko, which he deflected with his in-tact left vanguard, directed towards the ground...he was still extending his left whip...

At this point, the light around Shobatsu thrust outward, becoming physical for a moment. The 'lasso' was pushed outward for a moment, and Shobatsu dropped through the tunnel of light, which melted away as he cleared the whip, following him. Blood leaking from his new wound, he maintained focus...

The weakened beams did reflect off of the vanguard, but the entire laser still blasted forth as Shobatsu dropped, right through where the armor shards were blasted away. As Iko failed to move, the laser was now blasting at high speeds toward his now unprotected torso from relative close range of where the laser hit the armor shards...

The weakened main laser, from having its light deflected from the shards, was enough to allow Iko another defense, as he used his vanguards as additional bullets, fragmenting them softly and thrusting them out with the physical force of his arm, creating a temporary solid wall that deflected more light, and casted more shadow. Driving through the center of this laser like a pivot, the remaining severely weakened attack split in two, and fell on each side of Iko.

~A severe amount of light wasted...~ the phantom thought to himself, as he looked over at Shobatsu's new location, still having his helmet on. ~Ah... that wound's deep, but if I keep the pressure on him, he can't focus on healing it without risking dying... a pity... I thought my half brother would have been a more worthy opponent...~

More confident, he began to move down towards the weakened Shobatsu, who would know the effects of such severe bleeding very shortly... in fact, even his healing ability would be useless in battle, as the skin would have to be brought back together and mended, for such a deep cut. With muscle cut as well as oxygen flow, he would find his arm strength drastically weakened, as well as his general stamina, which would be drastically dropping, literally, straight out of the wound.

~As he gets lower...~

Iko commanded the shadows directly behind Shobatsu, making a solid behind him, bringing the mass towards the back of his entire body in a spiked solid. As he did this, he swung out his opposite whip as he closed the distance, which began with the same attack pattern...

------------

Arthur looked up at the descending Shobatsu, who would now be in better sight. Looking at the gravity of the wound, he began to understand the scale of this fight. ~Blood is spilled here, even not from the Lords themselves... I sense that phantom... I can't allow this fight to escalate into further danger...*

As he thought this, he held his hand on his blade, focusing, no longer concealing his aura.

Triumph was hurtling through the air, his horizontally oriented body slicing through the air as though he was falling face first sideways at speeds far surpassing terminal velocity. Twisted orange steel wings crowned his blue armor at his shoulder blades.

When Triumph and Catastrophe wanted to move quickly, they could move very quickly indeed. With Catastrophe negating gravity and air resistance, the motion Triumph generated could propel them at enormous speeds through the air.

Shobatsu continued his drop, however, the wall thrusting just over his head. The laser cut off temporarily as the wound glowed for a moment, as though light were flowing into it. Long before the wound would have time to heal, however, Shobatsu focused again.

The light that had reflected off of the now-destroyed armor wall suddenly speared in toward Iko's unprotected torso, out of his vision. The light underneath him, the still-glowing needles from the light rain, speared up from all around toward his torso.

Iko would either have to cut his whip-attack short of a strike to try and minimize damage, or hit Shobatsu and risk a very damaging blow...

The wound wasn't healed, but was stopped up, stopping blood flow. It was the equivalent of a tourniquet. Healing could happen later.

He didn't notice Arthur's signal. He was a little ways away, and the signals of Iko and Shobatsu suffused the area. He certainly didn't notice the oh-so-distance signal of Triumph and Catastrophe.

It was a risky and desperate move for Shobatsu to be making, especially with the damage stopped ever so momentarily by a turnicate, which could be so easily reopened with the proper application of pressure. Iko intended to do that damage, and oh, so much more, with his on-target whip technique with his longer, 'left' whip. However, Iko also didn't want to take 'unnecessary' damage from the light.

Fortunately, it wasn't necessary to be severely hit by the technique; using his free right whip, he tugged it shortly, briefly focusing on the darkness to come below himself. Entangling naturally over the joints, a clump of whip-blades formed in a cup-like fashion, blocking all light attacks from a low angle for everything except his attacking arm. By doing so, he was able to stop his body AFTER his attack hit, and quickly bring the blades to defend as such, having very little distance to travel.

The attack that Shobatsu decided to take on a gamble landed visciously, an even deeper cut than the last acrossed the low stomach area, fracturing his entire front-torso in the process. Iko watched from above, temporarily halted from light, as blood soared out of Shobatsu's newly created wound, which hand rended at least one vital area. Though not immediately dying, he would soon lose consciousness in that condition, and would definitely be unable to attack.

--------------------

Bracing himself in the sand below, Arthur positioned himself properly and, removing his hand from his blade, 'caught' Shobatsu by his back as he fell, carefully letting the momentum lessen instead of incredibly stop in his arms. *That phantom was able to do this... strike twice upon this kind of creature...~

Looking off to his right, he cursed as he noticed something approaching. Keeping Shobatsu at his left side, still supported by him, he drew his sword silently in the opposite arm, and began focusing an odd aura... hopefully something that would allow him to escape with this fox.

The light attack was, however, launched as Iko first began to move his whip. Iko also swung the whip and focused on it to create a random pattern at first, which meant it was off target to begin with, which meant it would take slightly longer to complete the attack than if he'd directly went to strike. The light was moving in a direct path from a closer distance at comparable speed to begin with.

This meant that he would have to immediately move to block, become a martyr to the attack and take all damage, or divide his attention to block and risk either fumbling the block and taking damage, missing the whip strike, or both.

He chose the latter.

As Iko was looking skyward to use his whip, the attack from the ground was out of his vision. He could, of course, sense the light as it was used, but his reaction time in that would be slowed. The whip-blades also began to wrap around his feet first, which slowed the defense to the torso still more.

The light would strike before the whip struck. The slowed reaction time might account for why Iko made his defense after the whip struck. Hundreds of light needles and two spear-like light strikes lanced into Iko's torso just before the cup defense was made.

The needles, having made a DaCre-pincushion of Iko, had pierced all sorts of organs, veins, and muscles. They would then begin to spin in a saw-like fashion, hanging in place, cutting up various muscles, slicing organs, and severing veins. Pain would fill up Iko's entire world as his body became a mess of internal bleeding.

The two spear-like light attacks had slightly farther to travel, however, and were longer than the needles. Their ends were clipped by the whip as it spun around his body, holding them in place, three fourths of their length already in Iko's body and causing intense pain.

They would begin to spin viciously, drilling out of the whip, trying to pierce through the rest of the way. If held in place, they would begin to seriously damage Iko's insides.

While not fractured, Iko would be more injured than Shobatsu was, and in his B rank as well. His only chance of survival would be some immediate emergency healing from a certain light-based DaCre, who he had just so recently been spiritedly attempting to kill...

Meanwhile, back on Shobatsu's side of the battle...

The whip did hit. This time, however, Shobatsu's armor was more useful. Instead of cutting through the armor and shattering the torso as previously expected, the armor actually did its job; defending Shobatsu.

The whip sheared down the front of the smooth armor that curved down and inward as moved down from the chest. Reaching the little lip at the bottom of the armor, however, it smashed through and cut into Shobatsu's body, fracturing the pelvis area instead. This area, while still vital to walking, extremely painful, and also capable of losing blood and such, didn't contain any vital organs.

Shobatsu dropped about ten feet, leaving twenty feet of altitude in between him and the dark wolf. As he dropped, the entire breastplate shattered, rushing into the completely crushed pelvis, blocking blood lose, bracing bones, caressing muscle... Still not enough.

The damage was still there, blocked up or not, and Shobatsu's vision was blurring. He couldn't feel his entire lower body. He was lucky in that respect; if he could feel it, he wouldn't be able to stop screaming.

He beat his wings with less and less power, still descending despite his efforts. He could hardly devote any of his concentration to himself, though, which was why the pain hadn't stopped, and he couldn't descend properly... It took a majority of his focus to finish his final attack.

He would land on the ground just in front of Arthur. His legs would buckle, and he would crumple to the ground unless supported.

This battle seemed to have been a draw, as neither sides would be capable of continuing battling. Both would die unless tended to, and only one of them was capable of doing so.

Then came the fireflies.

The little bugs fluttered down onto Shobatsu's form, glowing intensely brightly before fading away. The energy that had been expended into giving them life and shape had been given back. It was truly a testament to the loyalty of Shobatsu's servants. That, or a show that even those born of Shobatsu had his selfless nature.

Shobatsu would feel consciousness return. Along with it, however, came the pain. This may or may not have been beneficial for him.

Shobatsu's attack was successfully defended against, for several reasons.

Iko's left whip and arm were dedicated to the attack that hit Shobatsu where he had initially intended, and was, however a dedication of a lot of focus, never interrupted. Only an idiot could not sense a lot of light and energy downward, the very instant it was formed and the instant it intensified before it was launched.

However, natural gravity had brought Iko's initial 'right' whip straight downward; with a combination of kinetic and dark control, it simply 'moved up' AHEAD of the light attack, as Iko kept his senses on radar of the light. Upon the attack's entering range, he gave a mental 'nudge' to the 'whip cup' to move forward, blocking the initial attacks of light for everything under the very tip-top of Iko's helmet, for all attacks coming from below.

By this alone, the barrage of light that came from the sand could not physically hit Iko, because, no matter what point at the ground you looked at Iko, you would see only the cup. It was impossible to draw a straight line from the ground to Iko directly.

This left Shobatsu's two focused spears, which, aimed at the torso, would seem effective, until the cup was raised, in direct defense of an attack Iko could also sense, being more prominent than any of the other light.

Since Iko was still conscious, and actually undamaged from the ordeal, and Shobatsu was actually slashed acrossed the stomach... none of the last post happenned as intended. Considering that it was in overall past tense, there was nothing direct to respond to... Arthur was still catching Shobatsu, and Iko was still in the sky, temporarily blocked by light, when this addendum from Anihilation and Recreation came:

Vision blurring as his attack failed in all but one respect, Shobatsu's fists clenched. He couldn't lose here... if Iko was let to go on unimpeded... Like this...

The fox's torso flashed bright white. As one, each and every firefly suddenly winked out of existence, their life force completely sucked dry. His armor disappeared, and his wings shriveled and vanished.

The light around Shobatsu dimmed and flickered, flowing into him at a considerable fraction of light speed, ironically enough. The white aura he'd had before drained away into him...

...

Carlos let out a stifled moan in his sleep, device glowing strongly. He rolled over, clenching it tightly, and continued to sleep...

...

Shobatsu's torso ceased glowing, and he opened his eyes fully, just before he would be caught by Arthur. He raised his arms. The light surrounding Iko would condense closer to him, creating great pressure. More and more light would flood to him, forming a larger and larger sphere.

Absolutely no shadow could exist within a sphere like that, leaving Iko with nothing to work with but the limited material of his whips, which were partially compressing against Iko. While he could still move them, it was a struggle, reducing the power he could put outward. Further, more and more light was being added to the sphere by the second, leaving Iko with less and less of a chance to escape...

"You've been using light this whole match... I've been rationing..." Iko mutterred to himself, feeling the slow increase of pressure from the outside. This was... futile. Shobatsu had no energy left to focus: the fact that his eyes were open actually meant that the fireflies did nothing, the increased heartbeat of focusing reopening the wounds as a greater pressure from the blood pushed out. Shobatsu would literally cough blood, lose all control of light, and pass out, bleeding profusely from the front, unable to control the light at all.

Even if he could condense the light, it was moot: Iko used the shadow under his platelegs, which burst outward in a much smaller, denser sphere, which he pushed outward with his now-superior focus. Combining this with the darkness he released from both whips, shreds of light fell around him, as the attack failed utterly.

Arthur caught the even more-heavily wounded and unconscious Shobatsu, who, with his last effort, moved his wounded arms, and reopened the turnicate wound, since the cut muscles were directly connected. Cursing at Shobatsu's condition, still drawing his blade as before and focusing his energy, he began to attempt to move in the direction of the rabbit hole.

-/Some time after Tesla and Echo's fight\-

Immediately upon recovering Shobatsu's figure from the sand, it was still not certain how either of them would escape alive from Iko's onslaught of attacks. Proof of this came when Iko sent his whip once again, in the pair's direction. ~Even now...* Arthur thought to himself, clenching his blade as he tracked the whips, best he could.

~Phantom blast!~ Arthur screamed in his mind. From the blade came a ghostly cuncussive force, which thrust the last part of the whip off angle, dragging through the sand, a different section of the whip catching his right shoulder.

In the cloud that concealed them, Arthur refocused his energy once more. ~Phantom concealment!~

When the smoke cleared, neither Arthur nor Shobatsu was on the ground, or visible, their auras temporarily hidden. "So... the blue one had a power like that..." Iko mutterred. Shrugging, absorbing the data in the area, he left back towards the tower.