Dating : Save Me II

She comes after him fully serious, leaving him no time to catch his breath or run away. Every hit, even when he blocks it, hurts him. Her strength is truly monstrous now. He’s almost overwhelmed within seconds, but he continues to call for more power, and they continue to answer.

His skin soon starts steaming, unable to handle the power now being contained within his muscles and bones. His nerves feel like they are on fire, and he is stressing his powers. Unfortunately, it’s not enough. To save her, he needs more, and so he continues to call for more power.

In under a minute, they destroy the next mountain. A minute later, they go through another mountain before hitting the Great Plains. He retreats, and she chases him, as they travel thousands of kilometers in minutes. He manages to not get impaled by her, but she manages to set his right arm on fire twice, and his left leg is partially impaled by a spike of newly formed ice. Obviously, his defense is weak on his right side, but he doesn’t have the time to fix it.

He lets her next strike throw him away before he twists, landing and bounding away several kilometers to bleed off the excess force. He needs a new plan, because he’s not sure he can channel enough power to save her. She’s too strong right now, under their control, for him to win.

At that thought, he stiffens. He manages to dodge her next strike, although the follow-up manages to give him a long, shallow scrape on his right arm. He hisses as he channels more power, managing to mostly parry her next blow as he takes a moment to observe her and think.

He looks at her for a moment, looks past her long black hair, and tries to find the enslavement device she is forced to wear. The Council is clever, and so there is no enslavement collar on her neck as an easy target, unfortunately. Thankfully, she doesn’t wear much jewelry, either, so he should be able to find out what it is, soon enough.

He gasps. He feels like he is melting through channeling too much power. Actually, he is melting, but the healing magics are also working overtime, and so he doesn’t immediately explode from containing too much raw power. Instead, he is destroyed and being reborn, in a manner that slowly but surely increases the strength of his body. If not, he would have been dead already.

Their fight is still horribly one sided, but he isn’t getting injured quite as often anymore. She is still spotless, perfect in his eyes. Over the past few minutes, he has managed to get a few moments here and there to look for her enslavement jewelry. She wears neither earrings nor bracelets.

He is unable to find out where it is until he looks at her hands, and spots a new ring. It isn’t one of her signet rings that he would recognize, and is conspicuous for being the only piece of jewelry she has on. Well, it’s either that or something in her hair, in which case I’m really screwed, he notes as she makes a long slice down his thigh before twirling around sharply and cutting off his left arm.

He winces, as he is starting to make mistakes due to general exhaustion. Thankfully, it isn’t his sword arm, and he tries to retreat as he heals quickly. He kneels, unable to keep standing with just one leg functional. He only needs to stay alive for three more seconds before his leg heals, and twenty more seconds before his arm will be fully regrown. Unfortunately, in a battle like this, a few seconds can be a lifetime.

One. He rolls to avoid her next strike, before springing up using his left leg. Two. He avoids her next sword strike, but takes a kick to his wounded leg, causing him to fall again. Three. He turns his fall into a one-handed handspring and jumps over her head. When she attacks, he uses the force of her strike to get thrown far away.

Over the few minutes that they have been fighting, they have traveled in a north-west direction, cutting across the Great Plains and going near one of the smaller forests circling the Endless Forest. He therefore uses the force of the last strike to throw himself into the minor forest so as to regain the time needed to regrow his arm. Once cut at the shoulder, the four seconds of regeneration have grown it to a sizable stump almost six inches long, visibly growing when he looks whilst being thrown.

Four, he thinks as he crashes down into the forest. Five. He quickly uses all the illusions, smell-blockers, presence concealers, concealment and stealth spells he knows. Seven. He dashes away as fast as he can, crossing several streams before abruptly switching directions. Ten. He then jumps up into the trees, heading inwards towards the older parts of the forest. Fifteen.

Heh, we’re playing hide and seek again, huh. I always used to lose this, but this time, I can’t lose, he thinks as he tries to leave no tracks behind. Twenty.