Jake scanned the area ahead of him and saw what he was looking for. The ground was darker up ahead. Sure enough, as he closed in the voice got louder and there below was a fissure in the ground.
"Hello? Gadget? Ella? Cass?" He peered into the darkness, the little bit of starlight barely letting him see something moving down below.
"Help please." The raspy female voice spoke. He saw the whites of a pair of eyes looking up at him.
He looked around for something to pull them out with. They were deep down, a good twenty feet or more. "It is ok. It will be ok guys. I knew it. I knew you survived." His excited voice shouted out.
"Please hurry." The voice said. Jake looked around one last time and then just jumped. Twenty feet wasn't far enough to be an issue for him. He could probably jump right back out with them.
Jake didn't panic when the permadeath warning showed up, he had expected it. He landed hard on his feet. She had moved back away from him to give him space to land. He barely got a glimpse of someone he didn't recognize before the ground shifted under his feet. Something moved in the darkness as the ground dropped out below him. Something small and fast. Jake got his left arm up in time to block it. Whatever it was wrapped around his wrist but didn't seem to do anything.
He fell further down, flailing his arms and legs. With a grunt of expected pain, he landed hard on the ground but his shield cushioned the fall. There was a sound as someone dropped down near him. Then the darkness lit up as orbs of fire floated free of a staff to circle them. Jake found himself laying on his back in the middle of a decent sized underground cave. Standing in front of him was a girl wearing the robes of a caster and holding onto a staff. It had no crystals but instead looked like burnt wood. The head of it glowed like embers as the little globs of fire floated free to light up the area.
In the flickering fire, he saw her better now. She had dark curly hair that hung down to her shoulder. Her skin was a tawny color that set off her dark brown eyes as she glared at him. Jake just blinked. He didn't know who this person was. It wasn't any of his friends.
"Who are you?" Was all he could ask.
"Don't speak murderer. Just die." Her staff pointed at him. A bolt of fire cut across the space between them in an instant. Jake attempted to Rift Jump. But nothing happened. He mentally locked on to the space right behind her and tried to jump. But instead, he stayed where he was and the bolt of fire smashed into him. It fizzled out immediately and he was shocked to see he was unhurt. At the edge of his vision, the purple glow around the top half of his health bar had reduced instead.
"What is going on?" He dived away to avoid another bolt of fire trying to figure out what was going on. Was this like the skill the Uniques woman had used? He didn't see any sort of barrier around him. He dodged another bolt of fire with a quick explosion of speed and rushed the girl. Up close he could see her face twisted into a mask of hatred and concentration. He realized she was young, his own age at best. She was smaller up close than he expected too, short enough to have been Gadget's equal.
Despite being in a permadeath zone, despite knowing it was no game, he didn't hesitate. He rushed in close, their bodies almost against one another to keep her from hitting him with another ranged attack. His fist snapped out from his side and caught her right in the chest. His strength attribute was monstrous now. He could slaughter the B rank Maws in a single hit normally. Even the short distance of the punch didn't matter, it should have had enough power behind the blow to break a normal person. Magic robes provided no physical defense.
Instead, the girl flew back, a flash of blue light covering her body as a tech shield absorbed the damage. Jake froze for a moment in shock and took a firebolt to the chest for his hesitation.
"Yes. You see now. I came prepared. You can't teleport away. You can't hurt me. And you have no defense against my attacks. Just lay down and die. Murderer." She howled as she skidded to a stop. Jake glanced down and realized what was going on. There was a bolo wrapped around his wrist. It looked to be made of fine silken rope with glowing ornate rune covered balls on each end. He tried to pull it off as he dodged another blast of fire but it wouldn't budge.
Giving up he charged forward while screaming. "Don't make me kill anyone else. Just leave me alone!" A gout of fire roared forth and he rushed through it to shoulder slam the smaller girl. She was pushed back and rammed right into the wall. Her shield flashed and Jake launched a flurry of blows against her. But nothing he did seemed able to break her shield. He had never seen a shield that powerful. Who was she?
Jake was blown back by an explosion of flame. The girl rapidly patted out her own burning robes. Beneath them, he could see the heavy breastplate. It was one he had seen before. It was one of the stupidly expensive total immunity armors. Where had she gotten it? Was she like him then, able to use both armors?
He had so many questions to ask but apparently, she wasn't willing to talk. More bolts of fire and gouts of flame launched. She seemed to have no cooldown on any of her attacks and his elemental shield was almost depleted already. Dodging attacks he again tried to rip the bolo off his wrist. Glancing up he saw the hole he had fallen through was too high up. He could climb up the walls and escape but it would leave him open to attacks. He doubted it would work.
Inside his mask, he felt hot tears start to trickle down his cheek. Did one of them really have to die?
The girl stopped shooting firebolts at him. Instead, the entire staff glowed like an ember. Jake could hear it crackle like wood on a fire and smell the heady smoke even though his masks filter. It was now or never, whatever she was doing was big.
Charging forward he rushed the girl as little more than a blur. Her dark eyes were focused on him, her face set. A great huge ball of flame formed above her staff. She had weakened him enough. This would do it. She would either kill him or trigger his trump card. Either way, he couldn't break through her armor's shield with physical damage. Even if he dodged it wouldn't matter. She had chosen this cave because it was just small enough for her biggest attack to be unavoidable. She would use her own last resort to nullify the fire damage. It was a perfect plan.
Or so she thought, he was fast. Too fast. Her spell wasn't ready. She lifted her free hand and released a gout of flame to slow him down. It engulfed him and she heard him cry out in pain finally. Even he couldn't withstand her attacks forever. She continued to channel the flame through her open hand while the staff built up its power.
Then the flames parted and he erupted from them. He wasn't trying to punch her. Instead, one hand was reaching out to grab her staff. Her eyes flashed figuratively and literally as she jumped back. She swung her staff as a club in a panic trying to deflect that grasping gauntlet. Instead of using the gathered energy as an explosive, she used it to propel the staff forward. It rocketed the club into the back of the gauntlet with enough force to knock it away. Or it should have. The staff came to a sudden stop and the fire energy gathered around it winked out.
Jake was just as confused as she was. Even more so when a female voice spoke. "Upgrade Material. Accepted."
The girl gripped the staff with both hands and tugged frantically. It was stuck to the back of his gauntlet as if glued there. The back of his gauntlet tore open as if it was a jagged mouth of metal and… chomped down on the staff. There was the sound of snapping wood and the girl was tugged forward as the gauntlet… ate the staff.
"It doesn't matter" She screamed and held both hands forward as she let go of the staff. Fire engulfed Jake whose flesh burned now that his elemental shield was depleted. In that world of flames, that endless conflagration his gauntlets changed. The metal turned from shiny to impossibly black. Taking on the appearance and texture of burnt wood. The grain of the wood was visible as thin lines of silvery metal as the change rushed up his right arm. It met the sleeve there and raced across his shoulders then down the other arm.
Jake erupted again from her maelstrom of flames. Both gauntlets now had the texture of burnt wood. He smashed his left shoulder into her knocking her back and ending her stream of flames. Twisting he smashed his right fist into her gut. Just before impact, the burnt wood glowed like embers. When the blow struck her shield flashed and absorbed the impact, but it did nothing to the explosion of fire. He chased after her as she flew back and hit her with a left hook. Again her shield flashed and she went flying. But flames erupted from his fist eliciting a shrill scream of pain. She smashed into the cavern wall and bounced down to land on the ground.
Jake pounced, his knees dropping heavily on her chest as he raised both hands over his head in a double fist. The texture of his gauntlets went from dark to glowing embers as he prepared to bring them down on her head. She looked up at him dazed and he saw her health bar was almost completely depleted. His was lower than he expected also. Down to just a third.
"Do it, murderer." She wheezed, barely able to draw breath with him kneeling on her chest. "Kill me like you did my cousin. Kill me like you did Edward." Jake paused. His arms were still held over his head.
"Who?" He asked confused. He was trembling. He didn't want to kill this person.
"My cousin. You called him Aero." She snarled. "You killed him. Murdered him."
Jake froze now with understanding. He knew who this person was. He had never met her or seen her, but he knew. Aero's cousin. Nira.
His health started flashing as it entered the twenty percent mark and he was snapped out of his daze. He looked around trying to find the source of damage before he realized his arms burned painfully. He released his double fist grip and instinctively released the elemental fire energy gathered in his gauntlets. His health stopped dropping.
"KILL ME OR DIE!" She shrieked, crying as she tried to wiggle out from under him. Jake looked down at her and saw the madness of grief. It was like looking in a mirror. He reached behind him and took something from his belt. There was a flash of sharp metal as he stabbed her in the neck. She froze her eyes going wide with fear.