Spiteful Healer

The next match is beginning. You will be transported back into the arena in 10…

The message popped up in Aegis’ face as he watched Darkshot die to Skar and his three remaining party members in the waiting room, with Lina, Rakkan and Pyri all beside him him.

“Anything?” Rakkan asked Aegis with desperation in his voice.

“I don’t know… I…”

“Damnit,” Darkshot shouted in frustration as his body appeared in the waiting area with them, still following through with his last attempted dodging motion from the match which caused him to stumble into the back wall of the room. “How’re they moving like that? It’s like they’re copying us and anticipating everything.”

“Most likely…” Serenity jumped into the conversation, standing off to the side of the waiting room alongside her dancers and Kenji, “They’re being advised. They have people who study their opponents and construct perfect strategies, stuff like that. It isn’t just Skar that is your opponent here…” She explained timidly, seeing the frustration grow on Aegis face. Her words left him and his party in silence for the remaining seconds they had in the room.

With a quick flash of light, all five of them disappeared from the waiting area and re-appeared inside the arena, the blue wall that kept them on their side of the arena shimmering in front of Aegis’ face.

Match will begin in 60 seconds. All cooldowns have been reset.

Another notification appeared, and a 60 second timer appeared at the center middle of his peripheral vision that began ticking down. “If we don’t come up with something, they’re just gonna do that again,” Rakkan said urgently. He spread out alongside Aegis and the others, staring across the arena at Skar’s party who had serious expressions on their faces still. Hae-won and the VGN broadcaster got to work, but Aegis turned them out as his mind began to race, glancing between his companions to see their worried stares.

“Mom?”

“No idea. They’re using something really strange. Gimmicks like this generally have a gimmicky limitation, but that doesn’t help us if we can’t figure out what it is, and we’ve only got two more tries.” Pyri replied.

Aegis paced, now staring down Skar. “Okay, think.” He said to himself. “Everything they’re doing is calculated by a team of analysts who have hand crafted the perfect strategy to defeat us. They really want us eliminated.”

“How’re we gonna beat that?” Darkshot asked, with a nervous coo coming from Darkwing on his shoulder.

“Think about why they are doing everything. No action is being wasted. It’s all calculated. Lina,” Aegis looked at her and she gave him a confident nod. “Pyri has established herself as the most dangerous member of our party. Makaroth no doubt would have warned them of this. Yet, they still chose to eliminate you first. Why would they do that? Why would you be more important to take out first? Any ideas?” Aegis asked her as he eyed the timer hitting the 30 second mark.

“Uhhh…” Lina became flustered momentarily from being put on the spot, but then began pondering his question. “I can’t shadowstep through a grandshell…” She considered the possibility briefly while scratching her nose, but a sudden eureka thought hit her and here eyes went wide. “I can see what they are doing, inside the smoke. I can see in shadows.” Lina explained.

“Good. Okay.” Aegis nodded back. “They’re doing something they don’t want you to see. So this time, focus on using your shadow abilities to read their movements, so we can figure out what they’re doing inside that smoke.”

“Okay,” Lina replied.

“That’s not gonna change the outcome of the match,” Rakkan said.

“I know. We can’t end up in a 2v5 again. At the very least, we need a way to break that shell and interrupt their abilities before they take out three of us. Be creative, do as much damage as you possibly can, as fast as possible. Don’t hold anything back, use all the cooldowns right away.” Aegis instructed the others. “We know a 2v5 is pretty hopeless, but a 3v5 would make a big difference.”

“Hm… okay…”

“Preemptively Bless us this time,” Darkshot said to Aegis. The timer reach 10 seconds. Aegis cast Bless on all of his party members and himself, and they all moved as far forward as they possibly could. Rakkan formed his echoes and put frostbrand runes on all of his weapons, which caused a blue glow to mix in with the glowing white light of Aegis’ bless enchantment.

3… 2… 1…

“Shadow dance.” Lina cast immediately, vanishing from their side.

“Multicast infused multicast infused multicast infused multicast infused multicast, piercing ice,” Pyri spoke rapidly causing an insane amount of ice shards to form in the sky around her, much more than could ever normally be possible. Aegis was surprised by this, but didn’t have time to question the nature of her spell combination as he instead lunged himself forward and shot out multiple smites from his hand towards Skar.

Skar’s team repeated the same set of actions - smoke bomb into grand shell.

“RAIN OF ARROWS!” Darkshot shouted, unloading his entire mana pool. The entire sky above the arena was blackened by mithral tipped arrows that soared downwards towards the shell.

They raced against Pyri’s icicles to hit the shell first, as Rakkan had one echo with a crossbow begin rapid firing bolts at the shell, while another of his echoes used a rune of enlarging on his voidspear and thrust the gigantic spear forward, sending it soaring across the arena towards their opponents.

Lina used incredibly fast teleports to get to the shadows of the pillars, then the walls on the side of the arena, until eventually getting in range of the darkness within Skar’s shell. From there, she could see the shifting shadows hidden within their smoke, sensing the movements of Skar’s party as they all swung their weapons and spells towards Darkless as she stood in the middle of the group. As their attacks hit Darkless, Lina took the damage.

Combatant Lina has been defeated.

A wave of ice and arrows and bolts collided with the shell, dealing massive amounts of damage, causing it to shatter.

Combatant Pyri has been defeated.

“We got the shell down with three of us still alive,” Aegis said with enthusiasm. He ran alongside Rakkan towards the cloud of smoke. Unlike other matches thus far, though, Skar’s group was willing to risk it. They stayed in the unprotected smoke cloud as more arrows, bolts, and smites flew in.

The light of one of Aegis’ smites broke through and cleared out the smoke from Alicia’s smoke bomb, revealing Skar to have positioned himself in front of the smite to block it with his shield. Due to this, they executed their strange gimmick attack on Rakkan and caused him to take massive amounts of damage very rapidly - however not as fast as he’d done in the previous round.

“Greater heal!” Aegis reacted quickly, reaching out his hand in Rakkan’s direction as the barrage of red damage numbers began to flow above his head. Rakkan’s health dropped from 100% to 20%, back to 80% from Aegis’ healing spell, but the damage continued. “Greater heal!” Aegis tried to cast again as Rakkan let out a roar of frustration, continuing his charge across the arena towards their opponents, but it was futile.

Combatant Rakkan has been defeated.

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Before Aegis’ second greater heal could land, Rakkan’s health hit 0, and a smirk grew across Skar’s face as the only visible member of his party. He stood proudly in front of the smoke with his shield up, and moments later the rest of the smoke dissipated to show his other members with their weapons at the ready.

Skar cleared his throat, speaking to them for the first time. “You wanna just speed this along? We already know how the rest of this goes. With only you and that ranger, you can’t even out dps our cleric’s healing.” Skar crossed his arms confidently.

“Avatar of Eirene,” Aegis replied, releasing a burst of holy energy from his body as the divine wings formed out of his back. Skar responded with an elongated sigh.

“Alright, have it your way.” He shrugged nonchalantly.

“The second match has been decided, in favor of Skar.” One VGN broadcaster said, speaking in front of the livestream on display on the back wall of his broadcasting studio.

“It’s looking to be a blowout here for VGN.” His co-caster replied.

“Yep. It’s not much of a surprise. Though, I was expecting Aegis and his party to put up a bit more of a fight, given how hard they fought to get here.”

“I mean, not that hard, right? Those Schadenfreude guys just gave them a buy in the last round.”

“I bet Mikael’s really regretting that now.”

“Shut the fuck up you cheating pieces of shit!” Tommy shouted angrily at the broadcast on display in front of him, punching his fist through the transparent display and causing it to ripple around his body as he stood inside his office simulation.

“Hrraaaaah!” Darkshot growled as he appeared in the waiting area, being the last to be defeated in the match. The rest of the group were waiting for his arrival, having watched the match play out very close to how the first one had.

“If it was me and Aegis, we could probably take them.” Rakkan sighed.

“What, you’re saying you can do better in a 5v2?” Darkshot snapped at him.

“There’s a reason they aren’t taking you out, isn’t there?” Rakkan snapped back.

“Guys, calm down,” Aegis shouted at them to get them to stop fighting. He could feel the tensions rising in his group, as he himself was getting frustrated.

“Tell me you figured out something, Lina? I don’t want to enter a tournament that I don’t get to even fight in.” Pyri said.

“They’re attacking Darkless. They’re dealing damage to their cleric, and that damage is being transferred to us one at a time.” Lina explained. Before Aegis could think or say more, though, they were transported out of the waiting room and back into the arena.

Match will begin in 60 seconds. All cooldowns have been reset.

“COME ON AEGIS. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?” Hae-won’s voice was the first thing Aegis heard as he and his party appeared in the arena, her vulgar shout audible above all other sounds thanks to her voice amplification staff.

Aegis ignored Hae-won and turned to his group, huddling them together. “They’re transferring damage, so-” The source of thɪs content is 𝔫𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔩⚫𝔣𝔦𝔯𝔢⚫𝔫𝔢𝔱

“So what? Even if we know what they’re doing, we still don’t know how to stop it.” Rakkan interrupted him.

“He’s right.” Pyri nodded at this.

“Aaarrrgh…” Aegis groaned, pacing away from the others. “Solve the gimmick, but that’s impossible. We need more time. 3 matches isn’t enough.”

“Three’s all we’re going to get if we don’t come up with an immediate countermeasure,” Pyri replied coldly.

“We don’t know how to do it, yet.”

“We just gotta brute force the shell,” Darkshot suggested.

“Didn’t we just try that? Or were you guys holding back?” Aegis asked them.

“I couldn’t really deal damage to the shell. They’re killing me too fast.” Lina added her frustration into the mix.

30… 29… 28…

Aegis locked eyes with Lina, as a thought entered his mind from her words.

“Ok. Okay, got it. Let’s just brute force this shit.” Aegis cracked his neck. “Hit me. Now. All of you.” Aegis ordered them.

“Heh?” Lina looked at him in surprise.

“What?” Darkshot joined in.

“No questions. No time to explain. Hit me with as much damage as you can, without killing me.” Aegis ordered them.

“If you’re gonna Virabhadra, that won’t help - you can’t get across the arena fast enough,” Pyri explained.

“The moment the match starts, enlarge your sword and swing me at 'em like a baseball. Got it?” Aegis turned to Rakkan, and Rakkan nodded at him. “Hurry, damage, now!” he said desperately. With this, his party complied. Darkshot, Pyri, Lina and Rakkan all began swinging their weapons out at Aegis and he started rapidly healing himself of the damage.

“What the hell is he doing?” Darkless asked Skar as they watched the red damage numbers flying above Aegis’ head.

“I don’t know. It won’t work, though. Stick to the plan.” Skar replied.

“Greater heal. Greater heal.” Aegis cast on himself, watching his health fill up and then dip back down rapidly.

10… 9… 8…

He encouraged them to keep doing damage until the timer hit 5 seconds, then held his hand up to motion them to stop.

“The moment the shell is down, you use your Ranger Mark and Rain of Arrows on the first target you see.” Aegis looked to Darkshot, who nodded back at him. “Ready?” Aegis turned to Rakkan, who nodded at him and drew the enlarging rune on his sword.

3… 2… 1…

The blue wall disappeared, and simultaneously as the smoke bomb was thrown by Alicia at the feet of Skar’s party, Rakkan grew his sword gigantic, pressed it to Aegis' back with a wide swing and shot him forward with incredible force, aiming at Skar’s group.

As Aegis left Rakkan’s swing and soared through the air, the shell formed around the smoke bomb.

Pyri, Lina, Darkshot and Rakkan broke into a sprint, charging after Aegis but trailing behind him

Combatant Lina has been defeated.

“AVATAR OF EIRENE!” Aegis cast as his momentum slowed, and he flapped his holy wings furiously to keep up his flight. As he reached the shell, another message from the arena announcer filled his ears.

Combatant Pyri has been defeated.

“You’re not winning this easily,” Aegis hissed, touching the shell. “VIRABHADRA!” he roared as a dome of energy erupted from him, forcing the shell to instantly shatter and clear away all of the black smoke. As it did, Aegis saw clearly all 5 members of Skar’s party, and the looks of desperation on their faces.

Aspen stumbled away from the group, but the others held their formation around Darkless, where it could finally be seen exactly what was happening.

Darkless’ shield, which had normally been taking on the appearance of a fancy enchanted Iron shield, currently had a depiction of Rakkan’s face sculpted into it.

“Finish him!” Skar shouted anxiously, and his party followed this instruction by unloading all of their most powerful attacks towards Darkless’ shield. The moment Aegis saw this, he understood what was happening - how the gimmick worked.

“An effigy! Guard!” Aegis extended his hand as quickly as he could, projecting his shield in front of Darkless’.

All of the damage instead went to Aegis, which meant Rakkan was still alive, but the damage Aegis took was massive.

“Greater heal!” Aegis frantically cast on himself to offset the damage as his feet touched down onto the ground. They continued their bombardment of attacks, though.

“Move it!” Skar ordered Darkless, to which she responded by dashing to the side to get her shield away from Aegis’ projection.

“GUARD!” Aegis recast the projection, cutting off the attacks once more. “Greater heal!” He repeated unto himself.

“Switch then!” Skar shouted in frustration, glancing around to see Rakkan and Darkshot closing in on them.

“WORLD PIERCE!” Hunger, the dragoon, charged up his very powerful cooldown strike and aimed it directly at Aegis’ shield projection. Aegis wasn’t close enough to him to interrupt it, and had to make a split second choice - take the hit himself with his shield projection, or remove the projection and let Rakkan take the hit.

As the bright glowing orange light enveloped Hunger’s spear and shot forth, Aegis took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

The empowered strike, coupled with all of the other attacks from these higher level and well geared players was enough to finish him off and he knew it, but the damage never came.

“Rune: Echo.” Rakkan, who too had closed the gap and was right in front of Skar’s group, split himself into three. One of his echoes dove in front of the World Pierce attack, taking it in place of Aegis and Darkless’ shields, and in doing so grabbed the edge of Hunger’s spear to redirect the orange beam of magical energy. The echo disintegrated immediately, transferring 33%’s worth of damage to Rakkan’s health, but his last second of existence was enough to shift the trajectory of the attack away from the shields.

“Rune: Enlarge.” He cast on himself a second time, growing to the size of a giant, then lifting his left foot up and stomping it down towards where Skar, Hunger, Alicia and Darkless were standing. Each of them were forced to jump away in different directions to dodge his stomp, and the moment they had gotten out from underneath the shadow of his foot, they turned to retaliate against Rakkan with their own respective attacks.

Rakkan anticipated this retaliation and shrunk himself back down to his normal size to avoid the strikes, resulting in his smaller form standing in the middle of Skar’s party alongside his two echoes, each with their weapons ready, and surrounding Aegis defensively as Aegis quickly used this small time window to heal himself and Rakkan back up to full health.

Skar’s group wasn’t ready to let Aegis and Rakkan recover so easily, and were posturing to attack - but were very quickly caught off guard by attack from the side of the arena.

“RAIN OF ARROWS!” Darkshot shouted, having been unnoticed in his casting of Rangers Mark on Aspen. Aspen moved to dispel the mark that Darkshot landed on his chest, but still hadn’t recovered enough mana since having his shell drained from Aegis’ Virabhadra.

Skar reacted too slowly to project his shield, as he was caught off guard by how close Darkshot had gotten to their group before casting the rain of arrows. In less than a second, the nearly thousand arrows formed and converged like bullets on Aspen.

Combatant Aspen has been defeated.

Darkshot, now drained of mana, postured towards the center of the arena with an arrow drawn, waiting to follow Rakkan and Aegis’s lead.

“Four versus three isn’t much better. You still don’t stand a chance.” Skar declared, glancing between his companions to see them all ready to take action, awaiting his next command.

“We’ll see about that,” Aegis answered with a glare.