The Games We Play

DISCLAIMER: This story is NOT MINE IN ANY WAY. That honor has gone to the beautiful bastard Ryuugi. This has been pulled from his Spacebattles publishment at threads/rwby-the-gamer-the-games-we-play-disk-five.341621/. Anyway on with the show...err read.

Retaliation

Needless to say, Keter was the first to close the distance, crossing the intervening space as though it wasn't even there. It wasn't teleportation or anything like that, either—he simply transformed himself into light and moved, abruptly closing in to attack. A hair-thin line of searing white light extended from his finger straight through the center of Malkuth's chest, right through where we'd last seen the portal that sustained him.

A moment later, he flickered once, the action on barely visible to my eyes. Spears of white light surrounded Malkuth in a massive sphere, hundreds upon hundreds of them created in an instant and bursting upon him just as quickly, hardly seeming to even start moving before connecting fully. Keter flashed once and was elsewhere by the time I registered it, a column of light extending from his hand to connect with Malkuth's hide—and then there were two more, each born from a slightly different position at Keter's side. By the time I noticed that his hand had moved, dropping to his side just below where the three beams of light had come from, he was closing in, hands reshaping into vicious claws as he grasped and tore at Malkuth's flesh, ripping away small chunks.

Even for me, watching him was like watching a faulty or poorly cut video and seeing it stutter and skip moments or scenes. He was somewhere, but then he was somewhere else by the time I noticed it, one action already completed even as he moved onto the next. He was just testing the waters, not wasting energy on any massive displays of power just yet, because he knew what Malkuth was capable of—and, of course, because he knew what I had in mind.

Despite that, my other and I were mere moments behind him, fluctuating into Malkuth's immediate proximity with power already gathered. My more powerful attacks flew at him from both sides, but they were hidden amongst hordes of other attacks. The brief conversation had given me ample time to regain my energy, especially as we were no longer maintaining Lucifer, and we'd both recovered to full—a fact that we were all too happy to demonstrate. Here and now, I didn't dare hold back, so my twin and I conjured two circles of firing spheres around Malkuth and let loose with everything we had.

I knew from the beginning that most of what I had available wouldn't work—and that what was left probably wouldn't work well—but every hit I aimed at him had a purpose. The Magic Missile, even with their defense penetration, were unlikely to cause him any real damage, but they were cheap enough to produce in massive quantities even when I was normal; here, with Cathedral running, Sahasrara activated in full, and a dozen other things stacked in my favor? They filled the air such that it was difficult to tell where any one ended and another began. Mixed amongst them were Thunderbolts and Far Slayers, brief flashes of light sparking around semi-luminous arcs in the air, masked occasionally by the bursting of Flares. They were a minor addition, all told, but with their price as piddling as it now was…well, it was a cost-effective method, even if the most it did was cause scratched.

Above them came my other means of attack. Gungnir didn't make as large of a showing as its lesser cousin, but still appeared by the dozens, the hundreds. Surya surrounded my twin and I even as our Aurora's flared to encompass him, my very soul reaching out to claw at my enemy. I focused Atlas on him with a thought, crushing him beneath a massive, lingering weight even as I released flashes of plasma towards him, froze him with Deposition, slashed at him with Psychokinetic blades, and more, filling in almost every space left by the first layer of attacks.

And beneath that, of course, I hid the big guns. Longinus wasn't easily distinguishable from a Magic Missile at first glance, and in the almost solid wave of attacks now flying towards Malkuth, it would have been a bit tricky even for me to pick out the lethal needle in the slightly less lethal haystack. The body Malkuth was using now—Gilgamesh's body—had no conventional vulnerabilities; hell, even complete incineration at the heart of a miniature star hadn't been enough to put him down for the count. Compared to that, stabbing him in his non-existent organs was fairly meaningless, though I aimed several sucker punches in that direction anyway, just in case he though they were safe. The rest followed Keter's example, aiming towards the portal within him, already at least somewhat damaged by the first Longinus. If I could destroy that, I'd cut Gilgamesh off from the tap and he'd be easy pickings. Besides which, it would get Malkuth out of the picture, which was a good thing pretty much no matter how you sliced it.

One might think that, given the onslaught we were unleashing a single, man-sized target, the three of us might get in each other's way—but we didn't. For my twin and I, keeping out of each other's way was almost simple, with our senses turned up to max and Pericognition accounting for all the details without need for conscious input. With the Mathematician's Answer, angling our attacks such that they didn't collide was just a matter of timing and forethought, and we slipped blows through the gaps in each other's attacks that most wouldn't have thought existed.

For Keter, things were a touch different, but the process was, if anything, even simpler. From his perspective, we must have been moving at a glacial pace and he could aim—or even approach—through the storm of attacks without difficulty. More than that, his quickened perceptions and Elemental nature gave him a variety of options that would have been impossible for most anyone else. Beams of light both massive and thin flashed across my vision impossibly, ducking under and passing through attacks as it approached Malkuth. The laser twisted, curved, and then flat out bent around anything in its path, evading every obstacle to burst upon his masked face.

The assault tore pieces out of them—sometimes nothing but tiny slivers, such as in the case of a lucky or well-aimed Magic Missile that just barely did a point of damage, and sometimes in much larger chunks as he was struck with the light or pierced through by Longinus.

And through it all, Malkuth remained still. Even as chunks were torn from his body and his left arm came free, he hardly seemed to notice. He floated in the void we'd created around him, ignoring or enduring the attacks we unleashed for several full seconds before raising his one remaining arm, a dull green pulsing outwards from it.

All at once, my firing spheres came undo, shattering at the touch of the light as if struck by some great force. The attacks I'd already used to fill the space continued on their path, breaking against his dwindling hide, and then there was nothing for a moment but silence.

"Telekinesis?" Malkuth asked, tone somewhere between interested and amused. "Ah, no; in your case I suppose it would be Psychokinesis, huh? As expected, you're mind—"

I shut him up with a fist to the face—three fists, technically. I smashed my knuckles into the left side of his face while my other went right, even as Keter appeared between us and slammed his fist into what would have been a human's nose. Malkuth leaned back at the force of the sudden assault, barely moving otherwise.

It should go without saying that I didn't stop there, though—I kept punching. Ruthlessly, relentlessly, incessantly, the three of us hit him again and again, bolstering ourselves as best we could. I Accelerated faster than I ever had before, channeled my Stamina using Qigong, drew from Bai Hu's magnum opus, and did everything I could to make every hit count. Though I saw his HP slowly decrease, I wasn't particularly convinced it was really affecting him—but, if nothing else, it was satisfying as all hell. I punch Malkuth in the face about a thousand times and it felt pretty goddamn good.

Then I abruptly felt like I'd been cut in half, which felt less good, and it took me a moment to realize what had happened. With speed that was startling even for me, he waved his arm in an arc that he somehow managed to still make seem casual—and it tore cleanly through my twin and I as though we were no different than the void around us, such that it would have cut us in half if not for the Gamer's Body.

I knew consciously that my defenses—at least some of them—had reduced the damage, but it was still fairly startling. Sure, my skin had been 'cut' but Gilgamesh, but there had at least seemed to be effect involved; Malkuth had simply moved his arm through me.

It took me a moment to realize why, even with Keter sending me information about what he'd witnessed using patterns of light on my skin. Malkuth had altered his body again, shaping his arm into a weapon—or rather, causing it to generate a field of energy that I hadn't immediately recognized. When he touched me, the molecules of my body, the atoms of it, had started to come apart. I couldn't simply observe the effect to understand it, but…what? Had he interfered with my molecular bonds somehow, disrupting the electrons in my body? Or had he gone a step further and struck directly at the Strong Force that was keeping my protons and neutrons together? Generally, that would be absurd, but…it was Malkuth, after all. I couldn't rule anything out.

I backed off for a moment, watching him as he rolled his wrist, the effect around it flickering out after several seconds.

"Full of surprises," Malkuth mused, tone unchanging. "I suppose that was your Kavacha, huh…? I suppose it's only fitting, if you intend to challenge my Kundala again, Keter. But it's still not good enough; look how easily you come apart. I feel like if I touch you too hard, I'll break you—like this."

He extended a hand towards me and his arm bulged disgust, matter flood into the limb to shape it into something new.

I made to dodge, knowing better than to just stand around and take a hit from someone who could warp natural law to his whim. I Fluctuated to the side and then, just to be safe, Fluctuated back twice, putting as much distance between Malkuth and I as possible within the bounds of my Sanctuary. As an added bonus, it put my back to the edge of my barrier, leaving me the option of either backing or firing through it. Already, I was crunching numbers, mentally mapping out paths of assault for another barrage. Any shot fired through the edge of Sanctuary's sphere would immediately reappear on the opposite side, meaning I could hypothetically hit him from anywhere and I only needed a moment to do so.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to put any of those plans into motion because Malkuth, who hadn't moved from his position since he took over Gilgamesh's body, was floating right in front of me as I reappeared.

Before I could react—before I could react—he reached out, grabbing my head with on hand and power flashed over my skin, green-black. I felt a tremor go through my body that had nothing to do with physical reactions, the sensation bizarrely similar to laying on a massive, active machine, and then…

I melted. Not in pieces or parts, but entirely and all at once. For a moment, I was treated to the feeling of my bones, organs, and skin abruptly melting, coming apart and falling away—but at the same time, I felt my body remain whole, flesh still caught in Malkuth's grasp and so the feeling of melting continued even as my HP steadily dropped.

Keeping my head, I Fluctuated again and wasn't all that surprised to find that Malkuth had already followed. He probably hadn't beaten me here—I was teleporting, after all—but he was either reading my mind, predicting where I was going to reappear, or he was just so quick to react that the distance I could put between us didn't matter. While none of those, sadly, were impossible, the first didn't quite seem to fit; he knew a lot, sure, but seemed more like he was a smug prick than a mind-reader, and I was confident that at least one of my skills could defend me.

The other options, however…I could see it. Whether my recognizing the abrupt relocation of matter or seeing how energy moved around him, it was possible. Not even my teleportation was instantaneous; it was limited by how fast I could activate the skill, after all. That was just a fraction of a moment for me at full Acceleration, but it still meant that time had passed and that might give him enough to follow me.

That…could make things tricky.

Just as Malkuth was about to grab me again, however, Keter appeared between us for a moment before just as quickly vanishing and reappearing behind him, and I knew through our light-based communications that he'd used himself as a weapon—and that it hadn't worked as intended. Malkuth slid backwards through space, looking briefly stunned, but lacking anything like a massive hole through his chest from a searing laser. I had only a moment to wonder why before Keter demonstrated, striking him from behind with a pair of lasers that seemed to simply pass through his body and come out at another angle.

Refraction, I released. He'd made the material of his body refractive somehow, allowing the light to simply pass through his body in some odd way. Not reflective, probably because he realized that hitting Keter with his own light wouldn't do anything to him, but it was a powerful defense on his part, severely limiting the offensive power of my Light Elemental.

Even so, from the grunt of effort he released, it was clear that it had still done something, causing him at least some degree of pain and discomfort in its passage. Keter's attacks weren't just light, after all, they were simply also light. We all noticed that and without a word between us, Keter approached to deal more damage.

Malkuth didn't even glance his way, instead simply hunching his shoulders. Patterns began to glow through his armor, highlighting places along his arm, back, chest, and mask—and then he released a pulse of blue and violet light, power crackling over his skin. The wave of energy expanded in an instant before abruptly halting about five meters from him, surrounding him in a perfect sphere, and as Keter passed through that wall, he abruptly slowed. He was still faster than I was, but he now moved at an almost glacial pace compared to what he'd done previously. He fired a pair of blasts at Malkuth and they also moved slowly, just enough so for Malkuth to dodge both.

My first that was that it was a field of slowed time, but no—a quick glance at the sphere left me pretty sure that the effect wasn't temporal in nature. So instead, my thoughts went a different direction and I fired a quick Magic Missile towards Malkuth, the projectile not slowing in the slightest as it passed through the sphere.

It didn't affect that, but it had slowed Keter and his blasts—slowed light. Was that what the sphere was doing? Interfering with the constant? Altering the speed at which light traveled through a vacuum? That seemed like the type of thing that seemed unfair, what with the definition of the word 'constant,' but I was fairly sure that Malkuth didn't give a fuck. I'd figured he'd have countermeasures for Keter—seeing as the last time I'd fought him with a Light Elemental at my side, I'd lost—but I'd still hoped I'd have Keter's raw speed backing me up; I suppose I couldn't feel too surprised that it didn't work, for that very reason.

My twin and I looked at one another and, by unspoken agreement, Fluctuated together and activated Tachyon, halting time. Malkuth stopped immediately but Keter didn't—whether because of some aspect of relativity or because of his nature as a Light Elemental, I wasn't sure, but seeing as stopping time didn't blind me or plunge me into unbelievably cold temperatures, I figured there was something at work there. The moment his attack splashed harmlessly over Malkuth, Keter began to withdraw, approaching us. Perhaps because of our differing methods, it was a lot harder for me to hurt people within a time stop than it apparently had been for CInder and his attacks hadn't seemed to be working regardless; better to regroup, then, and prepare.

As he did, we all kept our eyes focused on Malkuth, hoping he wouldn't abruptly move—or rather, that he wouldn't be able to come up with a way around stopped time within stopped time, at least not on short notice. If it was the real Malkuth, that probably would have been a pipedream, but within Gilgamesh's body, he was limited too that body.

Once Keter was outside of Malkuth's sphere of influence, however, my twin and I began to use Tachyon for what it was best at—buying time. Though the technique itself was outrageously expensive, it still provided an opportunity to react or prepare without needing to worry about outside influence; if, for instance, I didn't have most of my best skills running at all times anyway, I could have used it to apply them all at once. That wasn't an issue for me, of course, but I still had a few ways to use it that tended to come in handy.

Like setting up a sucker punch.

As time returned to normal, I fired another full batch of Lux Aeternas into Keter's back, providing him with a sudden and massive 'charge.' At once, his body began to waver, appearance spiking oddly and shifting—but he held himself in place even as my twin released his gathered power within the bounds of Malkuth's luminous sphere.

Or rather, his barrier, for that's what it apparently counted as to Trespasser, a fact that I became certain of the precise moment it worked. But it did work, and that's what matters.

Keter fired a blast of energy into Malkuth's chest with enough force to wipe cities off the map. Malkuth released a hiss of breathe as it hit home, the light pushing him half way to the edge of Sanctuary, and it rose into a near scream as the light passed fully through him. This time, the light acted as though his body were a prism and trails of differently colored light streaming out from his skin as he bore the assault—trails that scattered randomly, hitting the edges of the Sanctuary and passing cleanly through. In a moment, the near empty space within my barrier was covered in a network of lasers that were more than intense enough to chew through anything in their path, such as, you know, me. Significantly more hit Malkuth, but they simply scattered again and again, adding fuel to the fire and doing little to help matters.

In a moment, however, I felt my other self Fluctuate into the same space as me and Keter moved, wings unfolding to surround us. Each laser that struck him was absorbed cleanly and he channeled the power anew into another blast at Malkuth, holding it one him with brutal power.

This time, however, Malkuth was prepared and raised a hand in front of him just before Keter fired. When the massive column of light came within centimeters of his hand, it abruptly bent upwards, passing over Malkuth at an angle and slipping through Sanctuary's walls, crossing the space behind us, then behind Malkuth, and then elsewhere, instantly filling the areas with bars of searing Light the consumed Malkuth in an instant while Keter kept me safe from harm.

Then something hit us that wasn't light and Malkuth—who'd let the blast push him through Sanctuary's walls, I realized—grabbed Keter, holding onto the shaped light of his body as easily as flesh. With his other hand, he grabbed me, pulling me up through one of Keter's wings by the throat.

"Into the corner with you," He said with a click of his tongue before turning his body once and then jettisoning the arm grasping Keter, sending him towards the center of the sphere. The detached arm began to bloat in midflight before abruptly starting to shrink, crushed into an almost imperceptible hole in an instant. Immediately, I felt gravity tugging at my flesh, the light around us vanishing—but Malkuth seemed above such things and he held me still. "And now that the lightshow is out of the way, what's say we take this outside?"

Still holding onto my throat, Malkuth dove towards the nearest wall of Sanctuary—but instead of passing through, something strange happened. As the warped space made contact with Malkuth's flesh, I felt something like static erupt in my mind and had mental images of error messages.

And then my barriers shattered like broken glass, returning us to the ruin of Jericho Falls. At once, the fighting seemed to fall silent, all eyes focused on us. In the eyes of the Grimm, I saw fealty. In the eyes of my friends…

Malkuth drew a slow breath and I got the feeling he was smiling. He'd noticed then, damn him.

"It's always good to be back," He said, sounding deeply satisfied. "Now…where to start? Do you have a preference as to who will die because of you this time or should I just flip a coin?"

I grit my teeth without answering.

Not good. Keter wasn't gone, of that much I was sure—but he was trapped within the dark pit Malkuth had conjured, now rotating lazily above us. There was no sign of the terrible gravity from before, but there was also no sign that he'd escaped quickly. I'd known thing might come to this, but if they had, I'd planned to use his help first, instead of…this.

But there was no helping it now.

Left with little choice, I reached deep inside of myself, crossed my fingers, and activated the Arcana.