Harder They Fall

"What are you doing?" Autumn asked Nikolas.

"That Skull guy didn't think about enchanting the sword. Maybe he didn't even know the Overbone could make one out of its own consciousness, but either way that's about to work in our favor."

"This thing is a piece of its mind?" Autumn questioned, shifting the sword uncomfortably.

"That's what it feels like," Nikolas said. "Now shush for a second, I need to concentrate."

"Don't tell me to shush," Autumn said grumpily, but quieted down anyway.

'Let's see,' Nikolas thought. 'Bats, maybe? No, not menacing enough. Winged demons? That might work. And just for fun, each one will have my face, because why not?'

His mind made up, he poured Divine Energy into his Manifestation, fueling his Manifest Power. It flowed out of him and into the sword, the scant amount of blue visible through Autumn's window turning darker as his powers took effect.

The Overbone's wails kicked up another notch before it straightened, ripping clumps of dirt out of the ground as its flaming eyes darted around wildly. It threw the dirt chunks at thin air and started slashing at nothing, flailing around at invisible foes. When its enchantments kicked in, it became a blur, swiping and striking so fast that if it had any tendons whatsoever, they would have torn from the force of each strike.

Each punch sent whirlwinds throughout the catacombs, helping to alleviate the scorching heat from the flame sword. Every slap was a thunderclap as its movement breached the sound barrier.

But Nikolas grinned as he noticed a certain fact: the Overbone was slowing down. It was a slight change, the monster losing only a fraction of its speed with every movement, but within fourteen minutes the Overbone was no longer an unrecognizable blur. Nikolas could make out every detail.

He could see every scrap of ash that fell from its bones. At this point, it resembled a crumbling sculpture of ash than an undead creature of bone. By now it had lost over a third of its body mass, half of its ribs and a third of its head gone, along with sections of its arms. Its legs were now a pile of ash, whatever defensive enchantments were working to protect the Overbone not affecting the severed limbs.

Because even as Nikolas' illusions confused the Overbone, Autumn never stopped pumping the sword full of her Destructive Divine Energy. The chunk of Destruction energy that latched onto the skeleton earlier was also still hard at work, resulting in its body and mind decaying at the same time.

Autumn exhaled deeply as the skeleton started to fall backward, the sword in her hand now the size of a small house as opposed to the mansion-sized weapon it was earlier. The Overbone hit the ground in a puff of black dust, which spread out to cover everything in a dark haze.

When the dust settled, the flame sword was nowhere to be seen. Neither was the Overbone, its body now the darkened soot that covered the ground. It might've made for good fertilizer, Nikolas mused. If any plants grew down here, which they didn't. There wasn't enough light for vegetation, and it was too dry for mushrooms to sprout.

"So why didn't we just do that to the wall?" he asked Autumn.

"The wall has Tree Grade enchantments on it," she told him. "The Overbone only had Sapling Grade enchants."

"Enchantments have Grades?" he asked bewilderedly.

"Maybe if you weren't so lazy and actually studied once in a while, you'd know," she jabbed.

Maya walked over, stirring the ash under her boots. "All right, that's done. How do we get past the wall?"

"We don't," Autumn said matter-of-factly. "It has Tree Grade enchantments."

"Oh, that's not good," Maya responded, growing thoughtful.

"What the hell are Tree Enchantments?" Nikolas asked, tired of being left in the dark.

"It's an enchantment worked by an Incarnation at the minimum," Maya explained. "So that wall has defenses on the level of Incarnations, most likely ones with defensive-oriented Manifest Powers."

"Oh. Yeah, that isn't good."

"No, it isn't."

The three grew thoughtful as they tried to think of a way through the undead wall. They didn't have to think long, as the skull embedded within let out a groan, prompting them to turn their attention to it.

The wall shuddered, then sunk into the ground. As it descended, the skull's blue eyes trained on the trio.

"Good luck," it cackled, its face submerging into the dirt. "You're gonna need it!"

"We won't need luck," Autumn said after it finished.

"It can't hear you," Nikolas told her.

"I know that," she snapped. "I wanted to sound cool."

"By talking to air?"

"Stop it, Nik," Maya scolded. "Don't act like you don't talk to pretend bad guys in the shower."

"How do you know about that?" Nikolas asked, whipping his head around to her.

"You always forget to lock the door, and I happened to wander in during one of your 'big speeches,'" she said, hiding a smirk.

"I feel violated," he said, hiding his chest with his arms.

"Relax. The shower curtain hid everything. But it didn't muffle the sound."

"Hmph."

They stopped at the foot of the dais, where Skull was glaring down at them with his arms crossed. His forest green eyes went from one to the other, remarkably calm for someone that had just seen his best creations get destroyed.

"I suppose you wish to kill me. But tell me, do you know what the Moonlit Daggers plan to do to this planet when I and the rest of Edward Genton's subordinates are no longer here?"

"Does it have anything to do with the Advanced?" Nikolas asked tiredly. He hated it when they tried to muddle things with morals.

"The who?"

"Then we don't care. Autumn, get him."

Autumn leaped from the foot of the dais to the top, smashing a knee into Skull mid-flight. The man's head burst into a rain of blood as she passed, and she landed gracefully on her feet behind the fallen corpse.