The Moonlight Brings Out The Beasts

 Each step of the white-cloaked man made a slight crunching sound as he drew closer to the frozen and confused women which had their battle interrupted. He put his pinky finger in his ear, turning his wrist to search for any earwax, before drawing it out and flicking any residue off with his thumb.

“You know, I was only searching out here for something I let get away before, but when I was searching for traces of aether, I found you instead.” He rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Doesn’t matter to me though, as long as I don’t go back empty-handed. Well, if that kid was here, then it’d be a different story…” He paused in thought and closed his eyes, reminiscing on the battle he had in the alleyway not too long ago.

His reminiscing was cut short by a blow to his side. Lupus, taking advantage of his opponent’s carelessness in forsaking his vision to strike at him. Icarus’ body wasn’t thrown as Lupus expected it to be, but rather slid on the ground with his feet planted.

“You forgot there’s more than just those ladies in this fight, Cloak.” Lupus taunted, putting up a gauntlet and beckoning Icarus closer.

“Man, you’re just the type of guy I hate.” Icarus cursed his luck and soured his face, with an annoyed frown taking it over. “People like you need to learn when not to butt in—“

A metal claw was inserted in Icarus’ torso. It was quickly drawn out, then reinserted in another place. The storm of claw marks began to paint the chest, and the cloak, of the cloaked man red. After Lupus had given Icarus enough holes to breathe out of his chest, he gave the man one parting blow as he launched his body into a nearby pile of rubble as he had planned to with his first hit.

The elderly man readjusted himself, smoothing his hair back and straightening his uniform.

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen action like this…” He turned towards the girls, which had been trying to understand the exchange that had just happened within seconds, still in the pose they were in when Icarus had landed. “Are you alright?” He looked squarely at Charlotte, ignoring the enemy on top of her.

A voice came from the rubble with an answer. “Yeah, I just need a cold shower and the pain will go away.”

A sole arm burst from beneath the rock, moving stones out of the way as the man revealed himself. He pushed himself back to his feet, then stretching and cracking his back.

“You ready for round two, old man?” He asked, looking completely serious.

Charlotte, giving her first response since they had been interrupted, shouted out: “How the hell?!”

Almost in time with her statement, a slight breeze blew in, ruffling Icarus’ cloak and revealing his pincushion of a chest. Blood still stained his chest and circled around each of his wounds, but the wounds themselves had been filled with blue energy as if replacing what flesh and blood he lost.

“Ain’t this new power annoying? Cowards like me really shouldn’t be bailed out of death like this if you ask me…” The man looked downtrodden, but even moreso resigned, to the fact that he had to keep living.

April stepped forward, acknowledging the threat the white-cloaked man now posed.

“Charlotte, are you still able to fight?” She asked, turning back to her once-opponent.

“Huh? You mean, you want to fight him with us?” Charlotte’s mouth went agape as she tried to understand the sudden side-change.

Looking into the girl’s open mouth and giving a sigh, April turned back. “He said he wants to take both of us. I would say our interests temporarily align. Once he’s taken care of, we can settle things between ourselves. So, for now—“ April jumped forward and thrusted one of her blades at the undying man, caressing him in a wave of flame, giving a scowl towards her target. “Let’s put this corpse where he belongs.”

As the flames cleared, a cloud of steam formed around the rubble pile. To get a better look, April scattered a gale of wind to clear the area. As the steam was sent away, Icarus’ figure being shielded by three interlocking rings of water was revealed.

“Even if I got something new to work with, you can’t go wrong with the basics.” Icarus chuckled as he dispelled the rings of water, his water core glowing in a pocket of his cloak. As he focused on his enemies again, he let out a panicked screech as he ducked under a swipe from Lupus, before trying to slide away. However, he find his foot bound in ice. As the old man cleared out of the way, vines erupted from Charlotte’s, who had just entered the fray behind Lupus, hand and wrapped around Icarus’ torso, throwing him to the center of the clearing they had made an arena.

When the man’s body bounced off the ground, Lupus caught it with one of his claws. Hanging in the air, Icarus looked down at the weapon impaled in him and winced as Lupus turned his fist in his gauntlet. The mechanism activated by the turn fired a blast of air pressure into Icarus’ chest which created a gaping oval-shaped hole where the claw had dug into as all of Icarus’ limbs stretched backwards from the impact. After he had finished, Lupus dropped the body off of his claw and he slinked to the ground. He prayed for this to be the end, but no prayers were answered as the blue energy welled up in the chest cavity, glossing it over.

The man whose chest was now half aether rubbed his chest as he unsteadily stood up to the disgusted gazes of the three others surrounding him.

“Oh, come on, don’t give me that. I didn’t choose to be able to do this!” He gave an unsure smile as he spread his arms. “But, if you are so intent on struggling, I’m going to have to fight back.” His smile faded as he rushed forward, conjuring a thread of water in his hand.

April was at the front of the group, slashing horizontally aiming for Icarus’ brutalized chest. The blade caught fire to inflict more damage, but found itself doused immediately by the snake of water wrapping around it. Once the blade was safe, Icarus caught it in his right hand, hitting her hand with his left to make the sword drop to the ground. As she thrusted the wind rapier at him, he fired a small aether bullet at her hand, then kicked the disarmed Wendigo out of his way.

Immediately behind her was Charlotte, who had jumped and threw a kick midair at the apostle, but was effortlessly blocked by an aether-reinforced arm. Her next strategy was to constrict him with vines now that she closed the distance, but the thread of liquid which had snuffed out April’s flames burst forward, wrapping around the cluster of roots and bound them together and in place, suffocating them. Once her vine gambit had been dealt with, the girl herself wasn’t too difficult. All it took was Icarus grasping her arm and tossing her behind him to dispose of her. At least, that’s what Icarus thought, until a block of ice crashed into his back. His balance wasn’t affected at all, but his temper was somewhat ignited, with his thread moving to Charlotte’s arms, binding her arms behind her back as she fell to the ground.

Icarus sighed, turning to the old man who was left. He expected another frontal assault, but the man just stood there, unmoving.

“Uh, crap… Did you keel over from old age? I didn’t think you were that old.” Icarus became somwhat apologetic as he inspected the man’s body.

“I appreciate the compliment, young man.” Lupus painted a warm smile across his face. “I just figured attacking you head on won’t work, judging from what we’ve tried to far.” Lupus nodded towards the girls on the ground behind the apostle, smirking as much as his mustache allowed others to see.

“First, don’t call me young. Makes me feel like I have some hope to change where I’ve ended up in life.” He brushed the comment off as if joking, but his voice had a stiffness to it that Lupus took as serious. “Second, you’re right. Attacks like that won’t really work. Now if you don’t mind me, I’m gonna debilitate you so I can take these ladies in peace.”

Lupus’ smirk didn’t leave his face as Icarus approached, drawing his arm back and launching it forward at the old director’s chest.

But his hand never felt the older man’s torso.

Instead, following a red flash, he lost feeling in all of his hand.

When he gazed down to inspect what had happened, his entire hand had been separated from the wrist.

“That’s going to take a minute.” He observed dispassionately. “Who’s there?” He turned to his left, where the flash had originated. Standing at the edge of the arena in the shadow of a building were three figures, which all walked into the light together.

The first was a gray haired boy resting a blade of blood on his shoulder with a supremely annoyed look decorating his face.

“So this is the guy trashing April?” He asked, turning to the second.

“We’ll make short work of him.” Gleefully added the blonde girl in the jumpsuit who skipped ahead, with daggers of light already ready in her hand. “That regeneration might be a problem though…” She pointed to the blue energy which had already started trying to reconstruct Icarus’ hand.

“Do you think he’ll still regenerate if there’s nothing left?” The final figure revealed themselves with the activation of the blade in their hand, bathing the boy in a blue light as he asked his question innocently. “I’m just surprised he’s still alive after our first fight.” Slater twirled his sword as he prepared to enter combat.

“Oh, so you’re here too, boy!” Icarus’ face gleamed with a wicked smile. “Now you’ve gone and made things interesting!”