Fire obviously had to be fire, it's not like the name of the cult and their preaching didn't make their obsession with flames clear. But still, why is every Synchroner I know either psychotic or pyromaniac? Is it some side effect that society keeps secret, that every Synchroner goes a little crazy?
Probably not all, but Kaz and Mingten, aren't much of a rebuttal.
Well, at least the fact that they use fire gives us a common weapon, obviously with my Ki, which I've only built up for two days I'm not much of a threat, in Synchro terms of course. I might try to stay out of trouble, but I've still lived on the streets, I'm used to a good old-fashioned fistfight.
Well this isn't exactly going to be an exchange of punches, more of an exchange of anything that's lethal, ahh, I really don't understand the me from less than a month ago who thought being a Synchroner was an easy way out of any problem, naivete indeed.
One of the two cultists, causes the flame above the ring he wears to spread, and shoots it like a whip in my direction, and I finally see the benefit of the devious method of my awakening. By pure instinct I synchronize all my Ki with the tongue of fire that came towards me.
Now, the problem with when you are synced to something is that one of the parts has to act as an anchor and guide at the same time, in which case both the cultist and I are synced in the flames in a tug of war to see who holds the anchor, and I like any fight since my awakening am at a disadvantage.
So I do what any bad loser does in a tug of war, holding it until the last moment just to let go when the opponent is about to pull the rope, in this case the connection, in which he put a lot of force, Ki, and how it happens in the literal tug of war the force itself punishes him, amplifying the flames and losing direction almost burning himself, now let's do something that I have some advantage.
I crouch lightly and run over to the cultist who attacked me, now that fire is no longer your ally, let's see how you fare in a street fight.
Probably, well, these guys didn't live a peaceful lifestyle after all.
I greet my cultist with a punch to the stomach, he doesn't seem to appreciate it, I continue with a punch to the face and a sweep.
This time he fell from appreciation.
"You infidel bastards!!" He says still on the floor.
"Please rephrase that sentence, the way you said it is making me uncomfortable." Less than being surrounded, but in this case Kaz must be close by.
"YOU WILL RETURN TO ASHES!" The cultist speaks, and for some reason I think I should take the battle seriously now.
He lights the ring again, this time holding the flame over his fist rather than shooting it at me.
Well, it's going to be a fistfight, which will cook me up as a bonus.
Damn.
*************
After the cultists set the lapis rings on fire, I lunge at the other cultist as I pull out my sword, there's still the third cultist who led us here, but I'll still risk exposing my back.
The cultist shoots a jet of fire towards me, I synchronize with the air around me, then I stop moments before the flame hits me, a light wind is generated as a result of my inertia, I put some rupture energy running in my sword and combine with my movement's breeze.
I cut toward the flames, these are scattered with the sound of the howling wind until only sparks remain.
Without waiting for the cultist to react, I run again, the third one coming after me this time.
This might be more difficult than I expected.
I don't want to end up surrounded between a second and third stage, in this case the one I'm facing and the one who guided us respectively.
I reach the front of the cultist and swing my sword, with a two-handed grip, making a diagonal slash across his torso.
The cultist, still with the ring on fire, cauterizes the cut, and exhales black smoke from his own mouth that envelops me.
Bang!
Enveloped in the black smoke, I'm punched in the back, from a hand that looks like it's made of rocks, the damn guide.
Do I need to filter this smoke, breath? No, I've already shown that I have Ki from the wind, but this smoke will make them only breathe when necessary.
Maybe dispersing the smoke instead of filtering it? Better not, using Rupture Ki constantly will end up coming back to bite me, I don't think my body can take the consequences, I need at least another minute before using it again.
Okay, I just have to put up with this situation for a minute, or take out the chimney, while I'm relatively blind and surrounded. Easy.
************
There are enough people on the run already, the situation must be getting close to being out of control.
Well, it's not like we plan on staying here for long.
Hhmm, the energy that reminds me of fission, looks like Mingten had to use it.
I wonder if one of the techniques in our agreement is about how to use this.
I walk into an alley darkened by black smoke, lean against the wall and wait to see what happens.
*************
When the chimney cultist, I need a way to differentiate him from the fiery punch, lives up to his recently gained moniker by expelling a smokescreen, I use the heart beat filter Kaz taught and I come at him again with a right hook .
He dodges and tries to punch me in the face with his flaming fist, I dodge, the flames expand, I drop to the ground and the fire passes right over me, finally a use of having my head shaved.
The cultist tries to step on me, I roll and dodge, still on the ground I grab his ankle, and with all my strength I get up still holding the cultist's ankle knocking him down in the process.
With the cultist falling, I release his ankle, and kick him in the face while on the ground causing his nose to bleed.
With a jet of fire toward the ground, the cultist launches himself into the air and kicks me, I manage to block it with both arms, and am knocked back about ten feet.
"AAARGH!!" I think my wrist or shoulder was dislocated when I blocked the kick, fuck, that hurts.
When I manage to force my body to ignore the pain and get back into the fight, I'm greeted by a flaming fist that I sidestep.
"Damn man, give the newbie a break here." I speak holding his outstretched arm, throwing him over my shoulder.
Hugh, yep figured out which part is causing me pain, dislocated my left shoulder, how uncomfortable, better get this over with before he comes at me with some more desperate trick.
With the cultist still on the ground I step on his forearm, pressing all my weight onto him, I reach down and take the ring off his finger.
The ring is made of a metal that looks like copper or bronze, poorly maintained on top of that, the so-called lapis stone, round and elegantly cut, is radiant orange in the center and as it gets close to the edges it turns into a totally opaque dark red, sometimes I can see points of light exploding inside the stone.
Fascinating, doubly so, as the lack of it caused me a very unpleasant near-death experience, in retrospect there is probably no such thing as a pleasant near-death experience.
Let's try this new toy.
I place the ring on my right middle finger, and temporarily disabling the filter I synchronize with the points of light within the stone, in response fire ignites over the stone, red and orange instead of the cultists' gray.
Does Kaz know why the difference? Probably.
Time to complete the test, I punch the cultists in the esophagus before he can get up leaving a burn mark on his chest, after which I kick his head until it looks like he passed out.
One more just to be sure.
After that I cut the connection with the lapis stone and go back to using the filter and head to where the other two cultists are.
**************
Despite being relatively blind, the heightened perception that the sixth sense gives me lets me know when there's something blocking the air currents, plus the gray glow of the cultists' flames, barely noticeable in the smoke, just barely, helps me avoid the cutists attacks.
The biggest problem is the guide, as he's clearly not as reliant on flames as the other two, which is equal to minus signs of when he's going to attack me.
As I internally complain about this I feel a new addition to the fight, please be Baha.
In answer to my silent prayer an orange light flashes through the smoke and clashes with the cultist's gray light.
Bah? I think he managed to steal the lapis from the cultist he was fighting, great.
Now that I have someone behind my back, I'm going to be a little more aggressive with our guide.
Similar to how I dispersed the jet of fire from before, I make a spiraling slash rotating my entire body, come to a screeching halt and let the wind and rupture Ki's do their work.
The smoke spreads in a circle with me as the center and spirals over the alley like a misshapen wall.
I turn to the cultist guide, all right Mingten, the difference in strength in the first three stages is not an absolute wall, you can win.
I position my sword pointing diagonally down and back. I sync with air and do my best to eliminate all resistance to my movement, then run.
Without any pause in my movement, I pull the sword and make a diagonal cut from the bottom up, the guide blocks the sword with his stone-like arms and lets it slide, leaving me open for a frontal blow.
"Aghh...h.." The cultist takes advantage of the opening by punching me in the esophagus with his stone fists.
I can feel the air trying to leave my lungs, before I can recover from the shock the guide grabs my wrist and pulls me up and then punches me in the face.
Damn, not absolute wall, you could have warned that it was still going to be bloody Kaz. I can feel the blood rushing through the inside of my mouth and running down my nose.
The guide is still holding me by the wrist, probably wants to continue treating me like mincemeat, be damned.
I drop the sword, which falls to the ground with less noise than I expected, and grab the cultist's wrist with both hands.
Break, break.
The last reserve of my rupture Ki runs from my dantian up my arms and then into the cultist's arms, with the veins popping out on either side of the confrontation my arms begin to show small cuts as the stone-like layer of protection is splintered away from them. cultist's arms, leaving cuts similar to mine in place.
No, not just alike, mirrored in fact, they just look different because of our size difference.
"Now!!" I shout to Baha who was busy distracting the chimney, which he disengages from combat with relative ease and rushes to the guide with a flaming fist hits him in the cheek, he keeps the fist connected with the cultist's face as I break through his defense.
When my arms feel like they've been striped from so many cuts, Baha puts all his Ki in a last blast of fire straight into the cultist's face, the guide falls with his face melted and I free myself from his grip.
I see the remaining cultist coming to attack Baha from behind, but right before he lands the punch.
Kaz appears running, grinning from end to end as he separates the cultist's head from his body with his hands.
"I was right, this is very good."
Ha.. there was still the crazy old man.