Chapter 21
“Break him apart,” Lena declared, following her own advice by unleashing a bombardment of bubbles.
Name: Lena Novak
Branch: Arcane (Bubble Burst)
Grim swatted a few away with his scythe but ignored the vast majority. A big mistake on his part. They went to immediate work, popping against his bones. The sizzle caught Grim’s attention, and the sharpened edge of his blade dulled some, facing the brunt of Lena’s attack.
“Hey, ugly,” Kenzo shouted, hurling a bolt of gray static. “I asked you a goddamn question.”
Name: Kenzo Ito
Branch: Hex (Disruption)
“Don’t know, don’t care, don’t squeal.” Grim’s teeth chattered, biting back laughter.
Kenzo’s hex broke off Grim’s arm.
“Seriously?” Grim controlled his arm and reattached it.
Name: Grim
Branch: Augmentation (Skeletal Manipulation)
I didn’t need to disclose Grim’s abilities to them, as every guild member at Cerberus had a full debrief on the pillars of the Celestial Coven. Though we didn’t think they’d break free from detainment so easily.
“Let’s see how you hold up when we rip all of your bones apart.” Lena threw more bubbles at Grim.
“Oh, you mean like this?” Grim shattered his body into a hundred different pieces, using one hand to carry his scythe and another to carry his robe, while all his bones split apart and slipped between Lena’s attack. “Cool trick, huh?”
Grim reformed his bones beside Ellie and Hayden’s unconscious bodies.
Lena hesitated.
“Do these two mean something to you?” Grim raised his scythe.
“Don’t you dare touch them,” Lena snapped.
“Hmmm.” Grim’s head spun around. “I do so love a good dare.”
“Gotcha.” Kenzo flew out from the side of Grim’s direction, hitting the scythe with a massive bolt of hex magic. “Have fun piecing that back together.”
Grim stared at his scythe; everything seemed in order.
“Ah, I see what you’ve done.” Grim swung the scythe aimlessly. “You broke my connection to these bones. So be it.”
Grim discarded his weapon.
Lena lunged forward, forcing Grim back with a massive bubble larger than his body. Grim flew away, distancing himself from Ellie and Hayden.
“Get them out of here,” Lena demanded, popping her big bubble and sending a thousand surging toward Grim.
“You need backup,” Kenzo insisted, hurling more hexing static between the openings of Lena’s bubbles.
It prevented Grim from breaking apart to evade, and started boxing him into the corner.
“Now, dammit.” Lena scowled.
“I got it.” Gael levitated over to Ellie and Hayden, checking their vitals, and then telekinetically carrying them through the debris and into a saferoom down the hall.
“Think you can pay attention now?” Kenzo glared.
“Oh, fuck off, pipsqueak.”
With that, Lena and Kenzo struck out with synchronized precision. Lena’s bubbles continued causing caustic damage to Grim’s bones, while Kenzo’s static created an electrical cage.
“Step on through, asshole,” Kenzo gloated. “I dare you.”
“Well, I’ve never been one to turn down a dare.” Grim’s teeth chattered as he spoke. Not from fear, but anticipation. “You know, my control over my skeletal system is profound.”
“It’s something,” Lena retorted. “Can’t believe this one held his own against Gladiatrix.”
“Don’t be arrogant.” Kenzo scoffed.
“In her defense, she held back quite a bit,” Grim said, slipping off his black robe. “In my defense, so did I.”
Lena’s bubbles sizzled against Grim’s skull, melting pieces away.
“I’ve been told my full strength can be erratic, and The True Witch prefers more delicate attacks.” Grim’s teeth cracked against each other, turning sharp and jagged. “But I won’t tell her if you don’t.”
And just like that, Grim’s bones expanded, growing larger and larger. His hand swatted away the bubbles with powerful telekinesis, sending them crashing into Kenzo’s hexed cage.
“I don’t think so.” Kenzo swirled his strike around, countering to loop around Grim’s hand.
Just as before, he managed to break the bones apart from the whole. Only now they reformed into a smaller skeleton. Several smaller skeletons.
“Soldiers, formation,” Grim demanded with a chaotic cackle. “Kill them!”
His skeleton warriors leapt for Lena and Kenzo.
Lena punched one with so much force that it shattered into a thousand pieces.
But a second slashed her arm, ignoring her defensive bubble barrier.
It ate away at the striking skeleton, but it didn’t matter.
A nerve had been sliced, and Lena’s mobility had been hindered.
“They’re pawns,” Lena said.
“Caught that,” Kenzo said, backflipping away from a deadly pair hacking and swiping for him. It didn’t matter if he broke off pieces of them with hexing. They still gave pursuit.
Grim swelled, towering over Lena and Kenzo, and growing so gigantic his mere presence broke through the ceiling.
Damn. He was channeling telekinesis from every direction of his body, causing a barrier effect.
It’d keep Lena and Kenzo’s strikes from landing unless they threw more force behind their blows.
The tradeoff being that they wouldn’t last as long.
Kenzo froze, taking in the sight of this gigantic skeleton.
The weight of his body must’ve been too much for Grim, even with his control.
He tumbled forward, shifting his shape from a standard human skeletal system to some bizarre monstrosity.
Each of his ribs transformed into talon-tipped feet like a centipede.
His legs changed into clawed tails, which thrashed about, destroying more of the building.
Grim screeched, running about the facility, breaking through walls, and dodging Lena’s heavy-handed bubble attacks. They pushed past Grim’s telekinetic barrier but didn’t phase his giant bones like once before.
He swatted at Lena with his giant arms, holding his body up with his clawed rib feet. One of those clawed feet nearly impaled Kenzo until Gael reappeared, tackling Kenzo.
Neither concerned themselves with Gael’s spikes, since Kenzo made a habit of pricking himself and declaring it was nothing.
“Sorry,” Kenzo wheezed.
A similar fear choked him up. The same fear from the night Peter Graham attacked the party and nearly killed Kenzo. The night Jamie Novak died. That night still haunted me too, but for much different reasons.
Kenzo buried his fear and focused on what he knew.
“He’s just too big.”
“You’re lucky Gael’s not here.” Gael grinned suggestively.
“Take this seriously,” Kenzo snapped. “This isn’t a joke. He’s massive and a threat and—”
“Excuse me? Aren’t you the one constantly professing size doesn’t matter when you pin me to the mat?” Gael quirked a brow, thoughts flitting to his many one-on-one trainings with Kenzo, where his boyfriend often bested him.
“That’s different. Your technique is sloppy,” Kenzo said. “And you’re soft.”
“My spikes have entered the chat, calling bullshit.” Gael beamed, sharklike teeth easing Kenzo’s nerves.
They each stood, and Kenzo told Gael to move back.
“Focus on distant strikes,” he said. “And try to stay off his radar.”
“As long as you do the same.” Gael backed up, aiming his spikes at the skeleton soldiers.
“Let’s see what kind of trouble my lovelies can cause.” Grim gestured his giant hand toward the nearby street. “Go, my pretties. Slaughter the masses, purge the fat of this city.”
Lena panicked, knowing she couldn’t abandon this battle against Grim, but if she didn’t give chase, those skeleton soldiers would kill civilians.
“Diaz is nearby,” I thought, linking my mind to Lena’s. “I’ll warn him of the incoming threat.”
I sent the warning, stretching what little magic I had as far as it’d go. Hopefully, his team had recovered by now and could handle those skeleton stragglers.
“Nice tip.” Lena sent a flurry of bubbles for Grim. “And where exactly are you right now? Care to actually help, Enchanter?”
“Currently indisposed, but still doing my part,” I replied. “How about you save the backtalk and pay attention?”
Lena frowned, annoyed and in complete agreement, which only further pissed her off.
In order to break past his protective barrier, Lena had to fly in close and hit with a potent flurry of bubbles. It worked a few times, but soon, Grim changed his form, adding defensive spikes wherever Lena hovered. They sprouted long and curled unnaturally, chasing after Lena until she fell back.
Kenzo continued lashing out with his gray static, attempting to disrupt the bone spikes protruding from Grim’s giant limbs.
“Focus less on countering him,” I thought, linking to Kenzo’s mind. “Lena’s got that covered.”
“Frost?” Kenzo tsked, more annoyed than startled. “Get out of my head. You’re not my teacher anymore.”
“Maybe so, but I know your branch pretty well, and I know you could be doing a lot better than these bug bite disruptions.”
Kenzo’s scowl lessened, and the thought of casting a hex to get me out of his head only crossed his mind a few times. “Well? I don’t have all day.”
“We know your disruption can break apart magic or amplify it.” I recalled several times in class when Kenzo used his hex in such a manner.
A small smile crept on his face as I shared images of Gael twirling round and round when Kenzo triggered his levitation root.
When Layla screeched at the row of lockers, she telekinetically ripped off their hinges after a tiny telekinetic burst meant to knock someone over flew out of control.
When Melanie set her own hair on fire because she was practicing her juggling instead of paying attention during a training session with Kenzo.
All prime examples of Kenzo amplifying another person’s magic instead of breaking it down.
“Am I supposed to make his bones grow even bigger and hope he collapses from the weight?” Kenzo growled. “That’s a useless fucking idea, Frost. No wonder they kicked you out of teaching.”
“First off, I took a sabbatical. Secondly, no, you dick.” I huffed. “You’re only thinking of amplifying to cause harm. What if you aimed just enough amplification to assist?”