Felicia extended her right hand towards the shield. When she made contact, the upper part of the shield blew into pieces. However, Felicia's crystallized hand disappeared because Hope's shield had absorbed it quick.
Seeing that, Kian took a few steps back.
"I forgot about your Aegis's specialty, Hope Domitius," said Kian as he glanced at Felicia's hand. "Banishing. Your Aegis crystals can absorb other User's crystals."
Hope smirked. "It's not like we don't know about your specialty as well, Mister Most-Powerful-Pillar."
"I already suspect you guys knew about it, from what happened back at the warehouse," Kian said. He proceeded to form a cluster of his Aegis crystals from his right palm. Then, Felicia used it to reform her missing hand.
Kian sighed. "Still, your specialty is annoying--"
My crimson scythe grazed his left cheek after he dodged it. I didn't wait for him to recover and swung my large scythe repeatedly.
"Ava," he called.
He reached out for my descending scythe and it connected with his glowing white, Aegis crystals. My scythe immediately took the shape of multiple human skulls instead. I backed away from him, realizing that Felicia tried to touch me.
Hope had sneaked behind him with a golden sword in his right hand.
"Kian!" yelled Liam.
"I know!"
Felicia twisted her body to face Hope and blocked the sword with both hands. Hope's sword wasted no time in absorbing Felicia's hands. When she pushed the sword back to Hope, he had manifested another sword, thrusting at Felicia.
Kian grinned.
He stomped the graphite and it created black spikes that guarded the duo. Hope's sword clanged onto the graphite and he pulled back a bit.
"Damn it," said Hope. "I forgot about the crystals on his boots."
Felicia once again recovered her absorbed hands by using Kian's Aegis crystals.
"Felicia, honey. What's wrong?" said Kian in a soft voice. "You let your guard down twice."
Felicia nodded slowly. She cast a glance at me.
"Aegis," I whispered to myself. "Release some of my limiters. I'm not going into my Mode yet until I know exactly what Kian is truly capable of."
"Understood," replied my Aegis.
A sudden surge of energy jolted me into focus. "Alright. Here I go."
I lunged towards Kian. White flames poured out of every inch of my Uniform and engulfed the black spikes, along with Kian and Felicia. I continued to pour my flames at them.
"Arrrrggh."
The flames dispersed in an instant, revealing Kian's burning flesh and skin. "Fire is a type of matter. It's a mixture of gas . . . Unfortunately, heat and temperature are not."
Hope frowned. "Why is he trying to act cool? His skin is charred."
Felicia's crystallized body was melting from the heat, and it didn't seem like she could reform her body on her own. Slowly, Kian manifested more of his Aegis crystals to let her recover. It was strange, really. Kian could just let Felicia disintegrated. That alone would give him more freedom in how he wanted to attack. And yet, he didn't. In fact, Felicia being there proved to be a distraction for him.
"Felicia, honey," called Kian. "If you don't want to fight, then I'll handle them alone."
Quickly, Felicia shook her head.
"Alright." Kian smiled.
Freya fired her Aegis Suppressor Gun and the bullet buried itself into Felicia's shoulder. Felicia had taken the blow for Kian.
"Tsk." Freya gritted her teeth. "It will not work like that. I need to get that guy himself."
Kian narrowed his eyes at Freya.
Unfortunately for him, both me and Hope had made our move and attacked him from behind. I summoned more of my flames to strike at Kian, while Hope formed dual golden blades. Kian swiftly dodged my flames and parried Hope's attack with his own Aegis swords. Though, the blade of Kian's swords got absorbed by Hope's when it made contact.
I manipulated the existing white flames and it dived towards Kian.
"Honey!" called Kian.
Felicia immediately held her hands towards the flames and it exploded; as if the flames had hit an invisible wall.
"What?!" I muttered.
"Dense nitrogen particles in the air," said Kian with a smile.
Freya fired two more bullets at Kian and it stopped in mid-air. "Not gonna work on that stupid Absolute Matter specialty, huh."
Felicia still had her arms extended towards the three of us, maintaining the nitrogen wall.
Freya walked over to me. "We should attract Kian's attention to us."
"Yeah. We don't want him to head over to where Caesar's team is. The least we can do is buy him some time."
Hope was attacking Kian relentlessly but was knocked back by Felicia's nitrogen wall in the end.
"We should get rid of him first, honey," said Kian. "His Aegis's specialty is troublesome. I don't want you to get hurt anymore because of that guy."
Hope got back up on his feet. "That hurts . . . But I don't think he's actually serious. Flirting around like that."
"Yeah . . . Urgh!"
I fell face first onto the graphite as if something was restraining me to the ground. Freya and Hope got affected by it too.
I looked at Felicia, and sure enough, she seemed to be the one manipulating the gas particles around us. After that, it felt like the air was being sucked out of my lungs.
I choked, trying to take in as much air as possible.
"They are taking away oxygen," said Aegis in my head. "Kian himself is suffering from it too."
Indeed, Kian gritted his teeth as he watched the three of us lying on the graphite. Liam went over to him and pointed at our left. After that, I could feel air returning into my lungs. My body was light, and slowly, the three of us stood back up.
"Help the Lutalo Aegis Users!" shouted a man.
We looked to our left, where a bunch of Pseudo Users from The People's Light had gathered. More of them started to appear from every direction. For the most part, they emerged from the alleys and corners of the street, with grey Aegis blades as their weapons.
"They have gotten this far, huh," said Kian, focusing on them.
The Pseudo Aegis Users didn't waste any time and roared towards Liam and Kian. Liam took on a few of them with his red Aegis crystals. The rest tried to have a go at Kian, only to be knocked back by his nitrogen wall.
Kian signaled towards Liam and both of them pulled back further.
"Huh?"
The ground vibrated after that when a tank on each side of the street started to appear.
"Their reinforcements?!" shouted one of the Pseudo Users.
The tanks had their aim on the Users and fired. The ground exploded from the projectiles and I shielded myself from it. Though, the remaining Pseudo Users quickly disposed of the tanks.
Kian sighed. "I told them that Felicia and I can fight Ava on our own." He looked at me. "Oh well. Let's stop fooling around, shall we?"
He and Felicia held their hands together, where Kian himself covered the street in his glowing white Aegis crystals within seconds. My mind thought of the worst case scenario and I formed large, crimson gauntlets; that grabbed both Hope and Freya. Immediately, I latched myself onto the wall of a building using my crimson claws; where it had been equipped on my feet.
Felicia clasped her hands together.
"Ugh."
The ground shook once again, and I tried my best to hold on. The area that was covered with Kian's glowing white crystals exploded to form a huge crater.
Unfortunately, the remaining Pseudo Users were eliminated when his Aegis crystals touched them. It was like they just vaporized into thin air, no remaining trace whatsoever.
Kian stared at me. "Don't be surprised, Ava. This is just me being serious."
His Aegis crystals started to stick itself onto the building I was at, and I jumped. I let go of Hope and he absorbed a portion of the crystals at our landing spot.
"His weakness is me, Ava," said Hope. "I will get close to him and--"
Felicia showed us her palms, and it shot glowing white shards at us. We avoided it easily. However, when the shards made contact with the graphite, black spikes darted towards Hope.
"What the--"
His shoulders were pierced with the graphite spikes. Another one was about to strike him in the head when I melted it down. My white flames did the same thing to the rest of the spikes and surrounding white crystals.
"You!" I glared at Kian.
At that moment, I knew I had to activate my Mode. So, I did just that and my Uniform had a 'REVISED LB MODE' popped up on the fabric.
It stayed there for a while before the Uniform itself had streaks of red lines enveloping it.
"Yeah . . . This feels different from before," I said.
"Since the negative effects are transferred to your Uniform, I'll try to release the limiters as long as you are in combat," said my Aegis.
Kian narrowed his eyes at me and I lunged at him. Again, the nitrogen particles forced me to fall on my knees, but I got back up in a jiffy. It didn't take much effort, as the Mode allowed me to exceed my physical abilities.
"Oh?" Kian frowned at me.
I sent my then multi-colored flames towards him from my Uniform. As expected, the nitrogen wall blocked it, though the flames tore the wall apart and forced its way through.
"Unbelievable," said Kian.
He dodged it, but the flames were persistent. As if it had a life of its own, that hungry creature roared towards Kian.
"It's like a reaper," he said.
Knowing that he couldn't avoid it, he formed his Aegis crystals from his arms in order to shield himself. However, it was not enough, as the flames proceeded to engulf him and Felicia.
"Aaaaargh!"
The flames dispersed after that due to Kian's specialty. Even so, he lost half of his body to it along with Felicia. Her crystallized figure had been disintegrated.
"Huh?"
He looked behind him and saw me. Despite that, I did what I had intended and threw a wave of multi-colored flames towards Kian.