Two determined humans stood off against a grinning skeleton half a mile tall. To the backs of the humans were Maya and the wall, watching with anticipation as they rooted for their respective teams.
"You can do it, guys!" Maya cheered. "Knock him flat on his ass!"
"Crush them, Overbone!" yelled the wall. "Bury them beneath your mighty feet and receive praises from our master!"
"That's very distracting, everyone!" Nikolas said.
The giant skeleton nodded in agreement, its flaming eyes giving a disapproving look at the undead wall. The stare lasted for an uncomfortably long time. Nikolas was sure that if the wall could move, it'd be squirming right now. As it was, its grinning face merely appeared chastised as it lowered its gaze to the floor.
The giant turned back to the two approaching humans, twirling its sword of flames. The air grew drier as the concrete walls started to crack. The trio broke out into a sweat, Nikolas wiping a globule of liquid from his forehead with the back of his hand.
"Ugh, I hate the heat," he complained.
"Stop complaining so much, will you?" Autumn groaned.
"But that's half of my personality!" Nikolas protested.
"And the other half is a cold-blooded killer. Maybe you should use that one, instead of the whining one."
Nikolas frowned but didn't say anything. They made it to the base of the Overbone's feet, their heads just barely poking above the appendages as they looked up at the monster. The Overbone grinned down, raising its sword ever so slowly.
When its sword went as high as it could go, nearly scraping the ceiling above, the Overbone's arm blurred. Autumn and Nikolas dove to the side, the sword appearing where they just were. It slashed into the ground, embedding itself in a self-made crater a hundred feet deep. As the two assassins got to their feet, a burst of fire from the sword sent them sprawling backward.
The sword blurred again, the Overbone twisting the blade and cutting sideways toward Autumn. She threw up her hands, catching the sword with gauntlets made of Destructive energy. Her gauntlets held, but the floor did not, and she skidded along the ground for almost two hundred feet before she managed to disperse the momentum.
Adjusting her grip, she smirked at the Overbone's flaming pupils. "Shouldn't have made your flames solid," she sneered.
With a burst of Divine Energy, her gauntlets extended up her arms and around the blade. She tugged mightily, using her Manifest Power to double her Divine Reach's grip strength. With a base Divine Intent of over fifteen thousand pounds, combined with the effects of her Manifest Power, she had over thirty thousand pounds psi at her beck and call.
Needless to say, the Overbone stood not a single chance. Not to mention its lack of muscles, it could only move thanks to the powers of a mere Personification in the first place. Its weight and the strength of its bones were all it had going for it, not including the strange way it could accelerate its speed.
Speed-enhancing enchantments were easy enough to use regardless. Nikolas suspected the skeleton had some that both lowered its weight for a few moments and others that either bent space or just changed its momentum. The possibilities were as endless as you'd expect, but the enchantments' power was not.
Autumn spun the sword around to grip its oversized hilt in her hands. With a sword that was as tall as the Overbone, that meant hugging it like she was trying to wrap her arms around a tree. It was such a funny sight that Maya let out a snort of laughter, and even Nikolas couldn't stop a grin from spreading on his face.
"Wipe that look off your face or I'll swing this thing at you!" Autumn told him.
"Just kill the skeleton, will you?"
Autumn harrumphed adorably, shifting her footing as she held the sword over her shoulder like a bat. The Overbone bent over, swiping its hands at her in an attempt to stop her. But it was too late; Autumn was already swinging.
The sword cut through the approaching hand like butter, continuing on to bisect the massive pile of bones at the spine, right below its ribcage. It let out a rattling roar as its top half slipped off of its bottom, then pushed itself up to rest on its rib cage. The Overbone swiped again, but Autumn deflected it with a smack of the sword.
The Overbone was a clever skeleton, though, and used the recovery time Autumn needed to bring the sword back to bear to use its speed-enhancing enchantments. Its other arm darted forward with the speed of an arrow, heading straight for Autumn.
The light coming from her Ex-Ear's flashlight sent dancing shadows along the approaching hand, giving it a sinister and eerie appearance.
Thinking fast, Autumn brought her Manifest Power to bear, a wave of Destruction engulfing her from head to toe and racing up the sword. The Overbone's fist made contact, only to instantly rebound away. It howled as its hand grew black and started to flake away. Its screams only intensified as Autumn's energy finished covering the sword and began to worm its way into the flames.
For a creature with no vocal cords, it was quite loud.
"Hey, Autumn!" Maya shouted. "The sword!"
"What about it?" Autumn yelled back.
"It's made of that thing's flames! Maybe it's part of it!"
"Maya, you're a genius!" Nikolas shouted to her. "Autumn, get over here!"
With the Overbone crippled by pain, doubling over as its fingers dug into the ground, Autumn sprinted over to Nikolas. Nikolas instructed her to open a small window in the curtain of Destruction energy so he could work his magic, and she obliged.
Casting his aura into the hole made by Autumn, Nikolas closed his eyes and thought of what he wanted the Overbone to see. 'Not us, obviously. It doesn't feel fear, so none of my normal tactics. Maybe?'
An idea popped into his head, and he decided to roll with it.