Ares ducked as a blade slashed above her head, missing her crimson hair by inches. She routed her greatblade in response – a weapon over half her size. Her strength-enhanced armor set allowed her to glide the blade with ease across the air, and it arched gracefully towards the shin of Cadmi Trepidor.

  Cadmi brought his shield down, steadying himself, but found his balance wavering from the sheer force behind that swing. It didn’t give him enough stability to retaliate quickly against Ares. Just as he regained his composure, attempting to extend his Johrei blade for a quick piercing thrust towards her temple. Weaker shielding wouldn’t have been able to resist such a precise, targeted attack, but he found himself to be the one knocked down in the next moment.

  He rolled out of the way of an overhead slash by Ares, kicking her shin in the process. She held on and smiled. It was a confident smile and Cadmi grew irritated.

  Cadmi looked towards his brother’s direction. Siegren was fending off flurry of strikes from a thin Johrei blade, having each one of his slashes deflected precisely. If they were over there, then what had struck him earlier?

  Cadmi stood up, glaring at Ares.

  “Your companion there? Kilm, was it? You think her family would miss her?”

  In that moment he bolted towards Kilm, attempting to stab her as Siegren continued to block her strikes. She turned to see Cadmi, surprised. Anticipating a greatblade strike, Cadmi preemptively blocked Ares’ attack from behind with his shield, still amused by the sheer force behind her strikes. The blade itself seemed to add on some additional weight behind her already bolstered strikes.

  Just as he grounded his footing, eyes landing on Ares’ expression of pure fury, he saw a strange and ghostly glimmer strafe through the air. Just then, it happened again. A second blow, just as strong as the first, knocked him towards the edge of the vehicle, which continued to maintain its course throughout the district. There was a trickle of wind which felt nice against his skin.

  He smiled, finally understanding.

  A second follow-up strike, in the exact same motion as the first. Her deduced that Ares’ strange weapon allowed her to attack twice, the ghostly second attack being a doppel of the first. Knowing it doesn’t make it any easier to deal with. With this trick of hers, she essentially bypassed the weaknesses of using greatblades and other types of heavy weaponry. Though such weapons deal heavier blows against a wider surface area, making Johrei-shield defense difficult against them, they also carry the downside of additional weight and lack of maneuverability. These type of weapons were almost exclusively used for Enthipid hunts as a result. However, this little trick of hers bypassed that problem.

  But…this was a good opportunity, Cadmi thought.

  “You the Daimyo?” he asked. She just smirked and charged in again.

  In the background, on another Prowler vehicle, Siegren continued to swing and block, in what was essentially a dance of blades. It was concerning to him how quickly she managed to step back after every strike, using the extended range and precise nature of her weapon to deal sharp, piercing strikes against his Johrei shields. Luckily, he carried an actual physical shield on him, and though the Johrei shields were susceptible to her strikes, the Bastion metal itself held underneath. Without it, he might have been in serious trouble.

  However, that didn’t fool him into thinking he had any advantage at the moment. The rehearsed motions she took after every thrust – attack and retreat, attack and retreat – made her impossible to catch. Though his blade could extend, doing so cost him Johrei reserves, and at a distance, slashes were easier to deflect than up close due to the extra distance needed for a blade to travel to reach an opponent.

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  One other problem was just how difficult it was to spot her attacks. The Paladins always donned white and gold coating which glinted under the sunlight, and with the tip of her blade being needle thin, her attacks were almost illusory under the sun. Having a shield’s wide area of defense mitigated this problem a bit but eventually she’ll find a gap and exploit it.

  On the other side, Kilm continued to attack relentlessly, using these rehearsed moments to give herself time to think. It was clear he was up to something as she wasn’t fooled by the slow mist of Johrei welling up by her feet. Any ordinary hunter may not have been able to differentiate such particles from the residue that is typically emitted during Johrei clashes, but the patterning of it felt a bit too precise, like a circle embedded in the ground. She had a feeling that once it was fully formed, which appeared to be delayed by her constant attacking, she would have to deal with something far more troublesome than her current fight.

  Luckily she was a speed-type, and her years of fighting gave her tricks of movement that allowed her to evade with nimbleness at a far quicker pace than even most Division hunters. With this combination of attack and step-back, and a solid defense against ranged Johrei strikes, she became nearly impossible to hit. Even so, there wasn’t much space for her to move aboard this ship, and she needed space to avoid whatever it was that this man in front of her had in store.

  And so the fight raged on. Cadmi on one side against Ares, and Siegren against Kilm. From an outsider’s perspective, it would look as if the brother’s were being pushed back. However, time did not favor the Paladins here. After a couple minutes of fighting, Ares realized she needed to do more than just hit him. She needed to knock him off this rig. Opting for more wide motion swings, she attempted to push Cadmi to the edge of the vehicle. He noticed this quickly and started stepping back towards the center, shield raised. This time however, something felt…different. As he swung in retaliation, she blocked the first slash only to find another force hit her blade.

  No way…

  She thought to herself that she must have imagined the doppel. But there was definitely extra force behind his swing. Before she could process what was going on, the ship where Taysa was erupted in an explosion. Fire spewed and a silhouette of a figure leaped off and landed in between the brothers.

  Nyxandria landed on Ares’ Prowler, looking casually at the two opposing forces surrounding her. Before anyone could say anything another force lept off the now descending Prowler, which crashed into the streets below. Drones began to wall off the area as passersby looked up to see Taysa leap onto another Prowler nearby.

  “You’re going to have to give in, Valkyrie. You’re surrounded,” Taysa declared. It was true that all the surrounding Prowlers carried members of the Paladin, including Taysa’s closest lieutenants, Ares and Kilm, of which one was likely the Daimyo, just by their skill alone.

  “Sorry,” Nyx declared back, raising her voice. “I’m not leaving until I complete my hunt.”

  “Over my dead body,” Cadmi said, suddenly jumping at her, with Ares trailing shortly behind. Anticipating another block, Ares chased with less vehemence than earlier, but it didn’t seem a feint this time from Cadmi. Cadmi wanted to kill Nyx.

  However, the ship tilted at that very moment, rattled by an explosion caused by a bomb Nyx snuck in as she landed on the ship. It threw Cadmi’s swing off balance, causing him to miss Nyx. Just as she was about to slash, she noticed a faint shimmer in the air and instinctively dodged.

  What was that? she thought and looked up to see Ares’ horrified expression. However, that expression lasted for only a second as Ares looked past Nyx behind her. In the next moment, she ran back and hopped off the Prowler onto another nearby. Before Cadmi or Nyx knew what was going on a sudden force compressed the Prowler’s helm as Taysa’s hammer planted itself in the path of the ship. The hammer froze in midair as if suspended in animation and the ship, unable to push it aside, crunched against the pressure, launching both Nyx and Cadmi off the ship.

  Siegren seeing this, deflected the last series of flurries from Kilm and hopped off, landing on the ground next to his brother, who took a decent amount of shield damage from the fall. Nyx however, landed more gracefully, subtly utilizing microexplosions to soften her descent.

  In the next moment, the entirety of the Paladins, led by Taysa landed around the combatants, and for the first time in a while, Nyx found herself excited at a challenge.