Navia jumped forward at Aguero with daggers in both hands. He slid back with each step, leaving a path of burn marks on the ground. Navia’s attacks were all about force, not precision. The walls were damaged, and each window they passed was shattered. As Aguero took a step back once more, he pulled the other leg back, while sliding away from Navia, he continued the motion of the kick, which Navia didn’t see coming as she was pressed against the window and fell down to the courtyard.
Once she hit the ground, the armor collapsed and turned into a pool of dark blood, making it look as if she had died from a fall, but Aguero was well aware she was fine. He jumped down, and his heel hit the solid ground as Navia rolled away from the attack, pulling the blood along with her. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t fully manifest the armor, making it look like most of it was made out of slime. As she created two daggers to continue fighting, she noticed an odd thing about this courtyard. The grass was burnt and many people lay down on the ground with partially burned clothes. All of them were alive but injured.
“Did he take out all of them?” Navia quickly brought up her daggers as Aguero got her attention with an attack, a falling kick with his reinforced boots. While the kick only destroyed her defense, the following flames burnt her skin. Once she opened her eyes, she saw Aguero’s second leg falling at her as he continued the motion, doing another flip with a kick.
The daggers that fell to the ground splattered as on impact they turned back into liquid form and moved back to Navia. She used the closest blood attached to her body to create gauntlets and block the second kick with a sturdier stance. At first touch, her blood gauntlets began to crack, and with the following push of flames, they broke, chunks of not fully liquified blood fell to the ground. With the loss of her armor, she was able to stop the attack and get an opportunity to strike back. She grabbed his leg and threw Aguero like a toy to the ground. Suddenly, her arm was jerked to the side as Aguero pulled it away. Even though he hit the ground, he used his arms to soften the landing and used them to spin around, turning small flames into a fire tornado.
The heat was agonizing, the liquid blood was boiling as bubbles began to pop from its surface. Navia had to pull back, away from the source of heat. Once she jumped back, she couldn’t react to the next attack. The tornado became smaller, and a huge piece of it was sent flying toward her like a fireball. All she could do was raise her arms, protected by hardened blood. As the fireball hit her, it exploded and pushed her further back, lots of blood under her control was either vaporized or broken into bits and scattered all over the courtyard.
Her whole body was stinging with burns as he lay on the ground, looking up, she saw more fireballs coming, this time it was smaller, but there was more of it, like a rain of arrows. As she began standing up, Navia tried to create a shield, but she didn’t have the control like that to create it. Quickly dropping the idea of a shield, she changed its shape into a sword and prepared herself to cut the falling flames.
The fireballs didn’t explode as she cut them down, but they were flying at such speed that they made a distorted whistle sound. The ones that hit the ground left a black burn mark and a small hole. Navia thought she was able to survive that attack unscathed, but there were so many flames that the skin on her forearm turned black like coal, and her calf was red after being heavily burned. Before the rain could stop, Aguero was already running toward her, as the flame was about to hit him, it moved along his body, and he redirected it forward at Navia, as if shooting an arrow.
Navia moved the sword to strike the upcoming attack, but instead of cutting it or reflecting, the sword melted midswing, stopping the fire projectile on its track. Navia was confused by the whole battle and the way her power reacted to her calls. With a path of flame, Aguero appeared in front of Navia, with his knee high, flying right toward Navia’s abdomen. Along with Aguero’s leg, Navia was lifted too, coughing out dark blood onto him.
Even in confusion, she was able to gather her mind to create a knife and stuck it into Aguero’s thigh. The blade barely got in as his pants were prepared for blades and any sort of light weapons. The blade flew away as Navia rolled away on the ground like a ragdoll, leaving a path of dark goo.
“After witnessing the gap in power. Do you wish to surrender?” Asked Aguero, hoping that Navia wouldn’t resist anymore. He didn’t want to hurt her any further.
“No… I won’t…” Navia seemed tired, but she wasn’t about to surrender. From the pool of blood, she was able to create a sword and lift it, pointing the tip of it right toward Aguero, inviting him for another round.
“I warned you…” Aguero grunted before suddenly dashing forward. The path of flames followed him, and he kicked the air a few feet away from Navia, the path stretched and moved like a whip. Navia raised the sword to deflect the fire, the force put behind the attack was great, she was barely hanging there to not let the fire slide past her defence. Next, Aguero jumped forward with another drop kick, his leg falling like a meteor and exploding as it hit the ground. The hot air pushed Navia away and burned her skin.
Thanks to the burning, she no longer looked pale, as if she were about to collapse at any second. Steam and smoke were rising from her skin. Some would say it's a miracle she was still standing and able to move.
“You’re in no shape to fight!” Aguero shouted as he constantly swiped his legs and moved from side to side. Navia was following him with her gaze and not responding. Her body was lightly swinging to the sides as if she was about to collapse, and she then began to fall forward. Aguero thought that it was the end of the fight, but Navia used the rest of her strength to turn the sword into a spear and dash forward at the man who was not expecting it. His lower body was well defended since he used mainly his legs to fight, but his upper body was without armor. Extending her arm forward, the spear slid across her arm and stabbed Aguero right in the shoulder, passing through to the other side.
Navia was in a bad state, but even the single wound that the elite guard received was life-threatening, as he was bleeding heavily. His shaking hands reached for the wound, feeling the moisture of warm blood, his blood. The woman was on her knees in front of him, breathing heavily and trying her best not to collapse. “And here I thought that something could be done about this… Affair…” Aguero clenched his teeth and raised two of his fingers. In one swipe, he used the following trail of fire to seal the wound with his own flesh. Taking care of the wound from the front was easy compared to the hole on his back.
While slowly sealing the wound by moving his finger around the injury, Aguero stated his victory over Navia. “You lost. By Liberin City law, you’re placed under arrest…” Before he could even finish, Navia fell unconscious, unable to react to his command. Aguero took out handcuffs and cuffed Navia’s arms behind her back.
“Now what do I do about this mess?” Aguero looked around at all the unconscious men lying around the courtyard, the marks left by his fire all over the place, and then, looking at the window they fell from he could hear the girls crying. “It was supposed to be a secret mission… But I have no other choice. I can’t solve all of this alone.” Aguero rapidly spun his wrist around, and the flame following his movement grew larger and larger. He then lifted his hand up and released the ball of flame. Once it was high in the air, he used his gate to pull it down and pull it apart. It exploded like a firework.
The Guards on the wall were quick to notice the signal as many of them were stationed in concern of the monster and possible riots from the Red Zone. One of them volunteered to report the signal and ran toward the nearest Guard Post in the city.
“Until the reinforcement arrives, I should watch over the girls and… the prisoner.” Aguero reached for Navia to pick her up and move into the building to watch all of them at the same time.
“That won’t do… I can’t let you take her.” Aguero turned around as he heard a whisper. No matter where he turned his head, he couldn’t locate the speaker as the whisper echoed, making it seem like the person was everywhere at the same time.
Aguero raised his fists, ready for the upcoming attack, but he wasn’t sure if it was a real threat or if he was imagining things from the loss of blood. The hair on his back rose as he felt something. He jumped forward and mid-air turned around, kicking his leg to make a wall of fire. The dark blood gathered around Navia’s body, turning into needles and being sent flying all over the courtyard. The needles were small and fragile, so the ones that made contact with the fire were quickly erased. Many hurt and unconscious people didn’t see it coming, and the needles pierced their hearts, lungs, and heads.
The elite guard couldn’t believe what had happened; all the thugs were killed in seconds. “Did she do that?! Navia is unconscious… She shouldn’t be able to. It was as if the blood reacted by itself, the gate opened without the user…” Aguero flinched, unease at the sound he had just heard. All of the thugs were grunting. “Are they not dead?”
The thugs began to stand back up, their skin pale, needles still inside their bodies. Besides that, something more had changed about them; it was hard to spot from afar, but once they got closer, Aguero was able to see something on their skin. “Barnacles?” He whispered in disbelief, then turned back at Navia. “Your power… Did that? Are you truly a monster sent by the gods?”
The whole time, Aguero thought that her odd behavior was because of her past, the struggles. After witnessing the change of the dead, that impression had changed. She was a bad omen sent by the gods. In his eyes, to protect the city, he had to dispose of her.
“It pains me to do this, but I have to. For the safety of the city.” Aguero lifted his right leg, saddened eyes at Navia, as it didn’t feel right to kill a defenseless woman, but he tried to replace that thought. “She is a monster…” Bringing his heel down like a hammer to crush her head, he did not hesitate anymore, but it took him too long. One of the undead thugs grabbed Navia’s leg and pulled her away from the attack.
“Did that mindless barnacle save her?” For decades, people thought that barnacles were brainless monsters that only move forward to kill humans, yet this one did something different.
More and more barnacles got closer to Aguero, forcing him to back away. He was able to kill each one of them with a single kick, but there were so many of them. Seeing as all of them were grouped together, he jumped back, falling on his hands. He began spinning his legs around like a windmill, raising a fire tornado from the paths of flames following his legs. The barnacles were burnt to death, with no way of being brought back to life again, leaving only charcoaled bones.
As the fire tornado slowly vanished, Aguero stood back up and cursed silently as Navia was gone. “The barnacles were a diversion for her to run away…” He took one heavy breath and relaxed his body. “It’s going to be the hardest report I’ve ever written…”