Siran stares angrily at Naris's glowing red eyes. The skin around his eyes, including the whites of his eyes were pure black and only the red irises showed.
"What's with the cold look, Jack?" Naris asks. "Was this human a friend of yours?".
"Not exactly" Siran says.
"That's disappointing" Naris says. "I was hoping there was more I could take from you before I kill you all. Whatever the case may be, you'll still lose something before you die. Just like every time you've ever faced me".
Zia jumps at Naris at almost the speed of sound, planting her right foot firmly into Naris's face. However, Naris didn't budge at all or even look at Zia.
"Perhaps I'll start with this one?" Naris asks as he points at Zia. Zia then jumps back up and hits Naris with her left foot, this time using a strength buff spell and reactive endo. Naris was caught off guard and tumbled to the floor. Naris landed on his feet, but as he slid across the ground, Alex dashed up to Naris. Alex kicked Naris in the stomach. Naris fell to one knee, but didn't get knocked over. Alex used Naris's knee as a step and jumped off of Naris's knee. When Alex came back down, he smacked Naris with the butt of his gun and then blasted Naris in the chest. Naris was barely pushed backwards by the shot. As Naris stands back up, Alex gets his distance. Naris silently dusts off his pants leg, and looks up at the crew.
"Is that the best you've got?" Naris asks.
"We know about your weakness" Zia says. "Reactive endo will kill you".
"My weakness?" Naris asks. "You know what the best part of possessing a human body is? With enough buff magic, I'm resilient to Reactive Endoindustria. It's true that Reactive Endoindustria would previously work on me like a charm... heh heh, charm... but I'd say I've got just about all bases covered now that I have this human's body. What was his name again? Jake Madisonwood or something?".
"James Markwood" Siran says.
"Ah yes, James Markwood" Naris says as he raises his right hand to his chin as if he were thinking. Suddenly, Naris teleports behind Siran. "You know" he says, "I could get used to this". Naris tries to chop Siran on the back of the neck with the side of his hand. Siran blocks it, but the force from his hand pushed Siran's feet into the dirt. "A human body is kind of neat" Naris says, "once you work out the kinks, of course. It would've been a whole lot more convenient if I could've had your body instead, but that old coot Gaia had to go and meddle with your biology. You're useless to me now, Jack". Siran prepares to punch Naris, but Naris caught his hand. "Oh that's right" Naris says, "I keep forgetting. You go by Siran now".
Siran grits his teeth in anger and shoots a rock spike from the ground at Naris. The rock hits Naris right in the stomach but the rock crumbles once it hits him. After the rocks crumble, a small hole in Naris's stomach starts leaking a little bit of blood. It barely affected him whatsoever. However, the blood instantly dries and turns into smoke as his stomach heals. During the strike with the rock spike, Naris let go of Siran. Siran creates a spear of reactive endo and throws it at Naris. Naris catches it with his right hand and stops the attack completely. The skin of his hand gets completely destroyed, but instantly regrows. Naris throws the endo spear over his shoulder and it creates another crater in the ground.
"Tch" Naris scoffs, "such a pity. But you'll have to do better than that. As long as I have any part of my body left, I can regenerate any part of it. You didn't think I taught you all of the different kinds of magic, did you?".
"Word of advice" Ruby says from behind Naris. Ruby stabs Naris with a reactive endo knife, and then kicks him a safe distance away from herself. The knife explodes and destroys a large portion of Naris's chest. "Don't underestimate what humans are capable of".
"Duly... noted" Naris says as he slowly gets back up. The hole in his chest quickly healing. His jacket and shirt were completely destroyed, but his chest looked unharmed and smooth. No scars or scratches, but lots of cracks and glowing red light inside the cracks. Naris turns to look at Ruby, but Rose gets him from behind. Rose stabs a knife into his forehead and a flash goes off, blinding him. Alex shoulder bashes Naris with a great speed, sending him flying at Mikoto. Mikoto grabs him by the legs and slams him into the ground, then throws him at Satomi. Satomi charges reactive endo into her bat and smacks Naris right in the face. Naris flies up into the air, and Zia came down on top of him in mid-air. With a swift kick full of reactive endo, Naris was sent several meters into the ground. As he went into the ground, Ying created a strong electrical charge and attracted lightning from the storm clouds. The lightning struck down on Naris with an explosive impact. Shortly after, Tanya sent him back into the air by manipulating the rock beneath him and making him shoot up like a piston. As he flew in the sky like a clay pigeon, Vivi shot him with every gun she had. Twenty-four beams of magic energy hit Naris, and then one really strong beam strikes him from Holly. When Naris comes back down, Siran hits him in the face with a strong punch packed with armament magic and reactive endo. Naris flies with such a strong force, that he nearly dug a trench with his body... or what was left anyways. Nonetheless, Naris gets back up. Both of his arms were destroyed, one of his legs were gone, a large portion of his chest was missing and half of his face were destroyed. However, it all regrew. Once again, Naris stands on his feet without a scratch on him.
"It's pointless" Naris says, "and it seems that none of you will understand that until I show you". Naris stretches his arms out. The ground rumbles and rocks begin to lift off of the ground. "Behold!" Naris says, "My testament!". A thin wall of endo surrounds Naris. The wall then turns into a destructive beam of power, stretching from the ground and up to the very top of the heavens. The beam stretched larger and larger, destroying the ground and everything it touches.
"Run!" Siran yells. The team tries their best to get their distance, but the beam quickly catches up. Everyone creates the strongest digital shield that they can conjure. Those who could not make a digital shield hid behind those who could. Demetri picked up Blake and hid behind Ruby. Rose picked up Finn and hid behind Holly. All of the digital shields meet the destructive beam from Naris and barely hold their shape. As the beam pushes them backwards, their shields begin to crack, the crew gets pushed further, but suddenly the beam stops moving. Siran had thrown a magic missile into the beam, right at Naris, powered with reactive endo. The missile struck Naris right in the face and stopped the beam from destroying the whole city. When the beam stops, it explodes. Everyone struggles to stay on their feet behind their shields. When the beam clears, a hole was made in the clouds and another crater that was just like Dead Crater had formed in Omnium Guild. For a short second, everyone looked around for Naris until they noticed that Naris and Siran were already locked in combat again. Zia was the first to jump in and help Siran. While Naris blocked another one of Siran's punches, Zia flew in with a kick that knocked Naris out of balance. Naris barely stood on his feet, and was quickly greeted with a wall of flames from Zia. The fire engulfs him, but he quickly puts it out. His burnt skins peels off like ash, and new skin had already regrown underneath.
"You really are an annoying one" Naris says to Zia. "I see why you get along with Siran so well. You're both a thorn in my side".
"I hope you like repetition!" Siran yells as he kicks Naris from his blind spot. Siran once again throws an endo spear at Naris and it punctures his chest and pins him to a building. The impact from the spear destroys the wall of the building that Naris got pinned to, and he falls over.
"Clever..." Naris says in a disappointed tone as he pulls the endo spear out of his chest and crushes it. Naris gets back on his feet and starts walking towards the crew. The rest of the crew had finally caught up to Zia and Siran. The crew charges up all kinds of different spells in unison, each spell powered with reactive endo. At the same time, the entire crew throws all of the spells at Naris. Naris tries to redirect the spells, but finds he can not control their spells because of the reactive endo. Naris sighs and then dodges most of the spells. With immense speed, Naris slips between most of the spells, punching the rest of the spells out of his way. When punching with one hand, that hand would be destroyed. As that hand regenerates, he blocks with his other hand. By the time all of the spells had finished, Naris once again stood without a scratch.
"It's hopeless..." Holly says.
"There has to be something we can do!" Rose argues.
"But he regenerates too fast!" Alex says.
"We'd have to destroy his entire body all at once" Satomi says, "but he's too good at only taking minimal damage. I'm starting to think he's doing it on purpose too... to taunt us".
"Are you finally starting to get it?" Naris asks. "This is not a battle you can win". Naris creates a sword from the rock beneath him. "Now just keel over for me and die".
Ruby's arms hang to her side as she looks down at the ground and slowly walks up to Naris. "Ruby?" Siran asks. Ruby ignores Siran and slowly generates a large amount of reactive endo in her palms.
"Someone has to do something..." Ruby says. "When The Six Guns give up, then it's over for the rest of the world". Ruby continues walking up towards Naris, slowly. Naris dashes forward at her and impales her with his sword. However, Ruby grabs Naris's shoulders and coughs blood onto Naris. Naris tries to push Ruby off of himself, but finds he can't move. Ruby smiles and she grips onto him harder. "It's called Repression" Ruby says. "It's an art I created, from distortion magic. As long as I have you here, you can not move. So as long as no one destroys you yet, I can hold you here".
"Impressive" Naris says. "So I can't move... but neither can you. Kind of a double edged sword, isn't it? You know, kind of like what I have in your stomach right now". Naris begins to laugh and laugh, but notices a glowing from her hands that's growing brighter. "What... are you planning?".
"Siran, you incompetent ass!" Ruby shouts as she holds onto Naris. "Listen to me! I don't have much time left!".
"Ruby!" Siran yells, "what are you doing!?".
"Just listen to me!" Ruby says, refusing to turn her head to face the crew. "You were the worst person I've ever met. You were always fighting for everyone else, and always worried about other people. Never worrying about keeping yourself together for those who cared about you. But maybe that's the reason why I also thought you were the most interesting person I've ever met. You were a leader, and a strong man. It disgusted me to think that we were once enemies. I could never figure out why you'd ever fight for a person like me...".
"What are you-" Siran asks.
"Alex!" Ruby yells. "You weren't very good at many things when we first met. But as your former commanding officer, I can safely say that you've made me proud. Not only because you became good at using magic, which used to be your weak point, but because even before all of that, you were good at leading people in The Ly'Lum. Even if you hated your job, you still always had a way to get your job done and you did it well. Just like Siran though, you always spent more time worrying about other people. You were always solving other people's problems, whether they were a soldier or civilian. It's no wonder you were promoted so quickly in the military. I was shocked, yet proud when I heard that I was no longer your commanding officer. You were by far the best man I've ever met. The time we spent together was... great for my mind. Perhaps if we had more time together, we could've been... closer".
"Ruby?" Alex asks.
Ruby turns her head to face the crew, a few tears strolling down her face. "I'm going to miss you guys".
"What are-" Siran asks.
"Ruby!?" Alex shouts.
"You know" Ruby says, "this one idiot once told me 'isn't it about time you started fighting for yourself?'. However, this time I think he's the one who needs to hear that the most". Ruby's hands glow brighter and brighter as her body starts to glow as well. "Make me proud again, Six Guns" Ruby says as she looks back at Naris. "I'll see you on the other side". Ruby overcharges her body with a massive build up of reactive endo. The endo builds up more and more, until eventually, it blows up in a bright white explosion of blinding light. When the flash disappears, Ruby was gone and so was Naris. Both of their bodies were disintegrated from the reactive endo. The crew was silent, but their silence didn't last long. A growl was heard as waves of endo shoot up from the ground where Naris previously stood.
"You're starting to make me angry!" Naris's voice echoes from around them. The endo builds up and swarms the area where Ruby died. A cloud of pure black endo swirls around and creates the shape of a person. It looked just like Siran, but monochromatic. His body shape was the same as Siran, but his whole body and clothes were black, white and gray. "This form should be fun to use" Naris says as he takes the shape of Siran's double. "My usual form is too big and easy to hit". Naris looks up at Siran, then down at the ground. There, where Ruby used to be, was Ruby's calling card. Naris picks up the card and holds it up for Siran to see. "Drop something?" He says with a smile.