The Legend of Randidly Ghosthound

Devick reclined on her couch, watching the conflict between bland-old Commandant Wick and the fascinating Randidly Ghosthound with interest. Around her, the office was dark, the image the only source of light in the room. The drapes were drawn across the window and the torches had been extinguished.

It was, in Devick’s opinion, the proper ambiance for a thrilling confrontation. She pulled a grape out of the bowl in front of her and popped it into her mouth.

She enjoyed the burst of sweet tartness as she crushed the fruit.

Bringing her hands to her cheeks to check if she was blushing, Devick muttered to herself. “Truly, how can a woman handle it when two such capable gentlemen duel for the honor of being her son? Ahh… and here I isolated myself for so long because I feared the Nexus had moved far beyond me. Yet I suppose my charms are not so shallow that they are diminished by such a common force as time-”

A large crystal ball sat in a pool of red liquid, held in place from some of the shiniest chains that Devick could manifest. She felt quite proud by the lack of rust on their gleaming black surfaces. In the swirling depths of the orb, she watched as the Ghosthound used his strange Nether powers to rip at the square bindings around him while Wick used his uninteresting if competent image to isolate and break up the flow of energy his opponent mobilized. A part of Devick realized that when it came to recognizing and manipulating energy flows, these two might actually be the most talented duo in the Nexus.

Both responded to subtle changes in their opponent’s strategy on the fly. Wick likely had the superior Skill, but the Ghosthound displayed his typically rapid improvements to move toward an even match. However-

“Just fucking start punching each other already. You're not chess players,” Devick released an aggrieved sigh. She picked up a grape and smushed it between her fingers. “You are warriors! My son is the greatest warrior that the Nexus has ever seen! And also, YOU-”

Devick whirled to jab a finger at the a figure hunched over the edge of the porcelain saucer containing the crystal ball. Blood oozed out of several gashes in his arms and torso to drip into the bottom of the saucer. Otherwise, he was completely trussed up by rusty chains and bound in a kneeling position. When her ire failed to elicit a response from the figure, Devick blinked several times. “Ah, you are dying. Almost dead, even. No, no, its much too soon for that. Wake back up, please.”

She snapped her feelings and the captive’s lungs inflated. Through the binding chains, a thread of her power wormed its way into his flesh and animated his broken body. His eyes widened and small streams of blood began to gush cheerily out, filling the saucer once more. As the man coughed and spasmed, the picture within the crystal ball became clearer. It was just for her own amusement, but his blood formed the medium to convey the image.

Devick clicked her tongue. “Your fellow rebels were digging around in the Skull of Truth. What would have happened if people were to learn the truth- ha, that’s actually quite amusing, isn’t it? Considering the secret hidden there? No, you’ve committed a crime, now you must live through the punishment.”

Her attention turned back to the crystal ball. She waved a hand and chains tightened around the rebel’s throat, so the only sound he could make was a strained gasp. “Now, please be quiet. It’s getting to the good part.”

*****

Wick gritted his teeth as his image wavered in the face of the Ghosthound’s Nether storm. Despite his earlier confident pronouncements of victory, reality sadly painted a blurrier picture of their current struggle. Veritable drifts of some of the most potent Nether Wick had ever encountered slammed against the barriers his copper spikes created, weakening the isolation and allowing the winds to squeak through and stir up more power in the other portions of the giant room.

The Ghosthound somehow maintained two grand patterns of Nether, one within the binding and one without, and kept them in particular harmony just with the few gushing blasts that managed to penetrate Wick’s defenses. The insight and mastery required for such a feat astounded him. And also meant he had to watch out for Nether flares from every direction.

At this point, none of the furniture remaining. Wooden chair backs and legs had been ground down to nothing by the force of the conflict. The calamitous wind that the Ghosthound mobilized had obliterated everything and smothered the fires, so what remained were two men struggling with each other under the illumination of Wick’s copper spikes.

Wick found this conflict particularly aggravating for several reasons. First, the Ghosthound flared Nether to impact him at every chance he got. Now that Wick had weakened the influence of the storm, these attacks were relatively mild, but they still disturbed him, manifested as they were outside of his barrier. Second, they fought over spatial dominance and arrangement, an area in which Wick prided himself. To have this boy so obviously rival him was a huge affront to his dignity.

Finally, the fact that the Ghosthound continued to adjust his patterns on the fly to circumvent Wick’s restrictions- if that bastard would just gather his power into a single direct strike, Wick could obliterate it with his superior image might. Yet as long as he kept running and somehow masterfully spinning the whole room, even while trapped-

At this rate, he will be able to pry open my restriction, A little more madness seeped up into Wick’s mind. Which was why when he confronted the prospect of his loss, he decided to take desperate measures.

With a roar, Wick clapped his hands together and conjured six more copper spikes. These he slammed down unevenly, so four were on the Ghosthound right and two on his left. As he suspected, the Ghosthound’s horrifying wind paused and erupted, feeling out the limits of the new restrictions that Wick imposed without slamming itself against it. The beast of this storm possessed the same animal cunning of its master.

Sweat dripped down Wick’s face; it was difficult to maintain this many of the copper spikes while also keeping the roiling emotions in his heart at bay. But the hesitation from the Ghosthound was exactly what he had been waiting for.

The Ghosthound might be talented, but there were many ways to use patterns.

Wick’s body trembled as he twisted all the spikes from sticking vertically in the ground to laying horizontally. They ripped huge gashes in the stone as they abruptly twisted. At the last moment, the Ghosthound’s wind spun back to protect his body as though he understood what was happening, but it was too late. Those horizontal spikes, now arranged in a balanced formation on a different plane than they had been competing, shot sideways and demolished the lower tiers of the courtroom that blocked their path. However, they wove a net of binding behind themselves that swept up the Ghosthound and carried him along with them.

Most of the internal portion of the storm had been isolated from the kid’s body. It naturally joined the outer storm and began lashing at his back, but again, it lacked sharp enough teeth to even harm Wick.

“This is the price of your arrogance,” Wick snarled. His pride satisfied, he began to stroll forward to the collapsed wood and stone. He felt Nether surging in waves and several overlapping images tearing at the new, more powerful net, but Wick’s restrictions were not so easily overcome. Plus, the Ghosthound’s attempts were wild and chaotic; he clearly was panicked by the sudden development.

This response, more than anything else, made Wick step slowly and savor this victory.

When he reached the rubble, he swiped with his furry hands and the cracked stone and wood were torn apart. All in all, the two of them were demolishing this courtroom quite efficiently. The Ghosthound lay at the bottom of the pile panting, but his eyes still burned with that infuriating intensity as he looked up at him.

“That’s enough foreplay,” Wick reached down to touch the Ghosthound and initiate the final portion of their struggle. He had the advantage that he wanted. “You might have gathered a few borrowed methods, but before true power-”

The Ghosthound unleashed a blast of pure Nether, but not directly at Wick. Which, considering how rigorous the defenses Wick always maintained around his person, was perhaps intelligent. Wick was about to snort dismissively at the pathetic attempt, but that beam ripped through a section of his net and began to curve around the outside. The previously sluggish outer storm that seemed so harmless began to twist and writhe.

Wick’s eyes widened. The storm inverted itself, the energies in the middle flowing very quickly up and then down around the sides of the room. It surged along the ground and reached the edges of Wick’s net just as the blast escaped.

As the Nether edged strike curved out, it wove itself into the outer storm and accelerated. It became a spinning drill that buzzed with animosity. The drill slammed into another portion of Wick’s defensive matrix and tore through; suddenly all those seemingly random attacks the Ghosthound had unleashed a few seconds ago led to weaknesses. In but a moment, that attack had grown from an arrow to a drill to finally a howling whirlpool of vengeance, ripping without difficulty even as Wick scrambled to rearrange his defenses to withstand this force.

However, he quickly realized that moving anything too significant would loosen the grip that bound the Ghosthound currently. The boy would just escape. For a long moment, their eyes met. The Ghosthound’s emerald right eye glittered in challenge. Do you dare?

Wick snarled and reached out to create the physical contact that they needed for the final bonding. So what if your attack has some peculiar trajectory? So long as I have you at a disadvantage-

Wick’s hand neared Randidly’s shoulder. In a supreme effort of physical power, the Ghosthound rolled his shoulders and sent a shuddering shift through the net of burning copper that entangled his limbs. As he held the bindings, Wick felt the full force of the moment. The effort must have been herculean, he simply suppressed an image with just his body.

Wick’s first grasp missed. But it only took him another moment to lean the extra distance and lay his palm upon his target.

That second was enough time for the bolt of Nether to twist and crash down through Wick, ripping in through the left side of his back and then boring a hole straight down into the opposite thigh. Nether devoured flesh and image and then ran rampant through his torso and leg.

Devick’s strange methods activated, even as Wick cursed and writhed from the pain. Their bodies were left behind and they slid down through a chute of molten copper to land on a vast plain of darkness. Wick instantly felt disgust rising in him; they had metaphorically just arrived in Devick’s womb. Rust-colored madness wove itself into a fence that would subtly tighten until the duo was bound together for all eternity. Wick intended to take advantage of their arrival to strike, but the influence of Nether into his body distracted him.

By the time he had recovered, the Ghosthound raised his head and looked intently up at the copper chute. Gnashing his teeth, Wick was helpless as the kid adjusted. His form ripples and shifted, sometimes a tree, sometimes an armored monster, sometimes a vast darkness, sometimes a horrifying storm of grey flames.

Those grey flames took precedence as he reached up toward how they arrived. He was a glimmering avatar of ash and hunger, warping the world not with heat but with the sheer force of his Nether. The beast of the storm made flesh, seething in this strange mental battlefield.

“Unfortunately, even I would not be able to escape once I’ve been forced here,” Wick finally obliterated the rampant Nether inside his body with his superior image and straightened. “And being here is a death knell for you. Accept your fate, boy.”

“Maybe. But maybe not.” The Ghosthound shifted back to a creaking tree as he turned to regard Wick. His emotions continued to boil and the powerful branches creaked and groaned under their ferocity. An infinite number of emerald leaves rustled, creating a deafening pressure that surprised even Wick.

The Ghosthound took a step forward with a wicked grin on his face. “But you can be fucking sure I’m not leaving this strange place until you are dead, Wick.”

“Ha!” Wick snorted, in spite of himself. Once more, their sentiments mirrored one another. “I will take great pleasure in making your last conscious thought one of disappointment. Now… prepare yourself.”

Those dangerous grey spectral flames exploded from the Ghosthound and crashed against the rust-colored bindings of this place. Finding no outlet, they spun back together and began to churn in the familiar pattern of a storm.

However, Wick ignored the Ghosthound. At this point, it was unnecessary to fight him. His copper stakes rushed to surrounding him a very particular arrangement and then stuck into the ground. His defenses wove themselves together into a tight net. Then, at his direction, he connected himself fully to this area.

In a frothing gush, the emotions that Wick usually suppressed poured in through the copper chute. The emotions' first response to being finally freed was to lash out at their maker. The almost liquid, rainbow sparkling violence of the emotions pounced at Wick and slammed against his defenses. The colors of the liquid darkened; their hatred grew more intense as he proved beyond their reach.

But of course, there was suddenly a much easier target. The emotions happily twisted around and rushed to drown Randidly, joined every moment by more and more of that same liquid. Soon the entire plain would be submerged beneath their wild force.

Wick smirked. And once you have become part of the sea of our emotion, it will be quite easy to completely-

He couldn’t help himself; Wick gasped. Because as the rush of emotions surged toward the Ghosthound, he shifted to his swirling darkness image. Without even seeming to strain himself, Randidly Ghosthound gulped down every bit of emotion that tried to invade him.

Wick’s expression fell. It wasn’t just his Willpower earlier when I tried an emotional sneak attack. But… how the hell can he withstand that torrent?!?

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