Warsinger James Baldwin (read this if TXT) 📖

Karalti's breath caught as she held out a hand and concentrated. A second later, her Bioscan reading appeared:

Dark Zarya

HP: ????/????

MP: ????/????

The Artists, twins of light and dark, were so skilled they could bring capture their own shadows inside one simulacrum. If you would see the sun once more, the light and darkness within must be divided, Void returned to Void.

The simulacrum was mesmerizing to watch, its stately movements graceful and elegant as a swan’s. It effortlessly eluded Suri as she swiped and stabbed after it. When one lucky blow caught up with it, Dark Zarya brought her hand up and deflected the blade with her palm, turning away the heavy greatsword in a shower of sparks with absolutely no knockback, and stepped in to slam its fist into Suri's gut. A visible shockwave of pure kinetic force radiated out from the blow that sent the heavily armored Berserker flying.

[Dark Zarya deals 896 damage.]

Zarya kept coming toward her.

Suri wasn't the sort to make the same mistake twice. She rolled to her feet and circled warily, watching the simulacrum's hands. When it suddenly whipped a pair of energy knives from the air and flung them overhand, Suri blocked them with the broad blade of her sword, sending them ricocheting back at Zarya. We watched as the shards of black energy sank into its armored skin. The simulacrum's head jerked, and it looked down at its torso as two black stains curled out over its pure white skin.

“Yeah!” Karalti jumped up and down in excitement.

Zarya was galvanized. In an instant, it lost its demeanor of detached, arrogant stillness, swooping into an exquisitely executed martial art stance before leaping headlong into the fray. Suri smashed her blade into it on reflex, but the blade bounced off and the simulacrum didn’t slow. It was incredibly dense, weathering every blow without almost no change of trajectory, and crashed into Suri like a meteor. Suri got her sword between her and Zarya's fist, but the force of the blow sent her skidding back along the floor. The metal blade glowed hot where it had been struck.

Zarya gestured with two fingers, and a fan of plasma knives appeared in front of it, flying out in all directions. I grabbed Karalti and dragged her down on reflex as they blew through the forcefield and struck the walls, sending chunks of scorched marble tumbling to the floor. One of them hit Suri and punched right through her armor. She crumpled on that side with a snarl of pain.

[Dark Zarya deals 1204 damage.]

Suri was down below half HP already, but there was nothing I could do but stay low and hold my breathas she charged forward in a blaze of heat. Zarya danced back, flinging more knives. Suri was ready this time: she smashed three of them back toward the simulacrum, who pivoted one way, then the other to dodge as it flung a second fan. Suri struck them again, and this time, four shards of simmering force rocketed straight back into Zarya. The creature writhed as black fire rushed over its slim body and left burning, spitting holes in the surface of its skin. It flicked its hands, manifesting a pair of black swords, then charged Suri at speed as the Berserker roared, unequipped her plate armor, and burst into a cloud of crimson heat.

“She's raging!?” Karalti gasped. “This thing will murder her without armor!”

“It's okay.” My eyes narrowed, as I tightened my grip on Karalti’ just a little more.

Zarya flipped and came down with a move almost exactly like Jump, but Suri - lighter without armor, faster, stronger, and feeding off her pain - rolled to the side and came up behind the simulacrum as it drove its energy blades into the floor and slagged the stone there into magma. Suri struck her several times from behind, with such force and speed that it pushed her opponent forward a couple of steps, but that was all she got. Zarya turned on her like a whirlwind, slashing and dodging, driving Suri back toward the far wall. She took a cut here, a cut there... and I began to tense, watching as Suri's HP dropped from orange, to yellow, to red. The simulacrum fought in complete silence with unerring precision, breaking Suri's guard high, low, thrusting for her heart, and barely missing as Suri spun to the side and brought her sword down on Zarya's arm. The blade crashed off it, the milk-white surface not even scratched.

“Jeez… Is it even taking damage?” I chewed my top lip, brow furrowed.

Suri, pouring sweat down her face and collarbones, bellowed as she charged in. Zarya moved to unerringly block her heavy strikes, but as she went under for the riposte, Suri caught her saber and pushed it up. She followed with a kick to the Mercurion's chest, aiming for one of the swirling black marks. Her boot connected, and for the first time, the simulacrum stumbled.

Suri caught the hint: she struck again, ramming her sword in through one of the dark spots. Zarya briefly bent double, fingers contorting in a silent scream as it dropped its swords. Suri roared a wordless battlecry, but Zarya hopped away from her like a fairy. Its body flared with white light, and no fewer than twenty shards of spitting black energy manifested around itbefore flying toward Suri.

She couldn't reflect all of them off her sword: five of them struck her, impacting in her limbs, and pitched her gasping to one knee. But she did send some of them back: Zarya staggered, shuddering every time one of the knives struck it and turned patches of its skin - chest, neck, forearm - into a sparking black void that strongly resembled the empty space in my shoulder.

Suri pressed the advantage as the Mercurion reeled. It barely got its guard up in time to catch Suri's sword, shuddering with effort. As Suri bore down, it couldn't hold the saber up against her raw power: the limb crumpled,