Return of the Runebound Professor

It took every scrap of energy that Jalen had left to keep himself awake. He honestly wasn’t even sure how he hadn’t died yet — but spite and the sheer dumb refusal to give up until he saw Father pasted into a meat patty was certainly helping. The huge hole in his chest had stopped weeping blood, but he couldn’t feel his combined rune anymore.

They weren’t the only things he couldn’t feel. His fingers were numb. So were his legs. He was pretty sure his body had started to shut down and the inevitable end was knocking at the doors of the fortress he’d built around his mind.

But they hadn’t fallen yet — and so long as they didn’t fall, he planned to enjoy the scene before him to its fullest.

Vermil never told me his Rank 7 friend was pretty. Rat bastard. I could have been so much more motivated.

“You,” Garina said, her eyes boring into Father with unrestrained fury. “And here I thought you ran like the coward you are.”

“After all the effort I went through to get here?” Father asked, his lips pulling up into a faint smile. “But fear not. I’ll be leaving shortly. There will no longer be a reason for me to remain here. Especially now that my task had been made considerably less enjoyable.”

“That opportunity has long since passed. Rank 7 mages are not permitted within Arbalest. A momentary infraction is forgivable, but you’ve been here—”

“Ever since I evaded you all those years ago. That must sting, Garina. I take some pride in it. The only mage to have ever escaped you,” Father drawled. His words were those of a smug victor, but his tone was as flat and dead as his eyes. “I admit that you are a powerful opponent. There are few other mages on this world that could force me to hide within imbued rooms for hundreds of years.”

“It was my greatest failing. One that will be rectified today.” The air around Garina trembled with sheer power, but she wasn’t calling on her runes. It was the sheer magical pressure of their presence alone. Power made manifest.

Rune Force.

Rubble at Garina’s feet clattered. It flattened like dough, crushed into the ground and turned to paste. Cracks sealed themselves over as her magical weight rolled out with the gravitational pull of a black hole, crushing everything in her wake.

Incredible. I never thought I’d get to see it in person.

Garina’s stance shifted. Despite the immense power she had, the mage wasn’t rushing to attack Father. She was wary — which meant he was even stronger than Jalen had expected.

“You stand accused of the crime of breaking the treaty and invading the empire as a Rank 7,” Garina said. She shifted her stance, lowering her weight. Black energy slithered through the air around her, borne from nothing but the existence of her runes. “I will carry out your sentence. The punishment is death.”

“I have been sentenced to death far more times than you can count. My life is not for the likes of you to claim, dog. You should realize that this fight was over before you ever arrived,” Father said. His eyes flicked to Jalen for an instant before returning to Garina. “Even though your mutt has soured my victory… I have already won.”

The air snapped.

Garina disappeared.

Even Jalen’s trained senses couldn’t keep up with her speed. One moment, she’d been before him. The next, she was upon Father, her foot raised high into the air and plummeting down like the crashing strike of an axe meant to fell a continent.

The kick slammed into Father’s shoulder with a resounding crash. He crumpled like a sack of potatoes, the sound of shattering bone and shearing metal echoing through the room. The pile of clothes that was Father then laid still and unmoving on the ground, crackles of black energy arcing across his body.

Blood pooled on the ground around Father.

Jalen blinked in surprise. For all the talk Father had put out, Jalen had fully expected the fight to be a whole lot… more.

I guess mages really just don’t expect physical attacks.

Then Father twitched. The blood seeping from his body slowed. Then it started to reverse its flow. It ran back into the pile of clothes, which bubbled like boiling liquid.

Garina leapt back instead of pressing her advantage, landing several feet away from Jalen.

Father rose, stepping away from nothing but a pile of shattered red shackles. There was no other sign that Garina’s attack had even connected with him.

An immense force drove into what little remained of Jalen’s lungs like a physical strike. His eyes bulged and he wheezed, denied even the strength to grasp at his throat with limp fingers.

Magic distorted the area around Father with its intensity. The air itself seemed to scream in pain as it was crushed by the rolling force of his magic, and flashing mirages tore through the center of the room as his Rune Force clashed with Garina’s.

“Is something wrong?” Father asked emotionlessly. “An executioner does not flee the sentenced. Surely you do not take offense to me removing my bindings. There is no purpose to hide now that you have arrived, after all.”

“What manner of magic is that?” Garina asked, her lips thinning. “What have you done to yourself?”

Father chuckled. He lifted an arm toward Garina.

“Careful!” Jalen yelled.

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Father’s hand clenched into a fist.

Perhaps Garina had already been aware of his powers, or perhaps she took Jalen’s warning to heart, but she moved out of the way. To Jalen’s eyes, she may as well have teleported.

The air where she’d been standing distorted. For an instant, Jalen could have sworn he saw shimmer of translucent fingers tightening around where Garina’s heart had been an instant before.

Garina sliced a hand down through the air.

Father lifted his arms before himself.

The room split apart.

An enormous scar, running from the ceiling to the floor, appeared in the ground. It was easily three feet wide and a dozen feet deep in every direction. There was no trace of the magic she had used.

It had simply happened.

And, in spite of the impossibly fast attack, Father stood exactly where he had been. The scar in the ground stopped directly in front of him and re-appeared in the ceiling above the staff Father stood before.

He hadn’t been so much as scratched.

Jalen’s skin prickled. Even in his situation, he couldn’t repress the awe burning within him.

Are they at the peak of Rank 7? Is this the power that one can master at their level?

Garina vanished.

Father did the same.

Jalen’s eyes strained as he desperately tried to keep up with the fight. Portions of the room shattered. Magic roared, oceans of power driving into each other. He was confident that both Father and Garina possessed more than enough power to level a city — but, for some reason, they were both restraining themselves.

At least, he was pretty sure they were.

All he could spot were the briefest flashes of a fight. Garina swinging what seemed to be a massive weapon made of energy so black that the night seemed white in comparison. Father doing a series of hand motions that forced Garina to dodge away from invisible strikes.

He couldn’t tell who was winning or if anyone had even managed to claim the upper hand. Neither of them even paid him so much as a second glance. Jalen had been completely forgotten.

Then there was a resounding crash. Something in the air shifted. Father slammed into the wall beside the staff with enough force to shatter the stone behind him.

He dropped to the ground, falling to his knees as he gasped for air. Garina reappeared before him, the huge black broadsword in her hands made purely from runic power already crashing down for Father’s head. Pure magic burned within the weapon. Jalen wasn’t sure how, but he knew without a doubt that Father would not be getting back up if the blow connected.

A grin pulled across Jalen’s weary lips.

She got him. What a fight. I wish I could have seen more of it.

He felt his body relax. There was no longer a reason to hold on. There was nothing left to see. He’d accomplished what he —

Wait.

The skin around Father’s eyes was ever so slightly wrinkled. His lips were pulled up in the faintest of smiles — one that had actually reached his eyes.

Father doesn’t smile like that.

Jalen didn’t have time to call out a warning.

All he could do was thrust a hand forward. He gathered the magic that had inexplicably stuck around even though his life should have drained it away. He took that magic and thrust it from himself. Jalen threw it forward in a desperate attempt, unaware as to what he could even accomplish with his own powers.

The air around Garina crumpled like the many pieces of paper that Jalen had crushed up to throw in the trash.

But, for a flicker of an instant, its collapse slowed like an underwater explosion. And in that second, Garina flicked to the side. A pulped mess splattered to the floor where she’d been standing, crushed and warped beyond recognition.

Only when Jalen looked to Garina did he realize what it was.

Her right arm was gone. It, along with a fair portion of her shoulder, had been ripped clean off and ground to a paste. Garina didn’t so much as stagger, but the blood weeping down her side definitely wasn’t a good sign.

“I knew I disliked you for a reason,” Father said, his eyes flicking to Jalen as he rose to his feet, suddenly no longer bothered by the apparent injuries that had brought him to his knees. “Time-space magic? You, of all people, managed to comprehend it?”

“Not in the slightest. I’ve got no idea what I’m doing,” Jalen replied through a wheeze. “That look on your face is worth it, though.”

Father’s lips twitched.

“This is over. I win, Garina. I have spent years preparing to fight you, but you have been preparing to fight everyone. You cannot defeat me.”

“Do you really think a missing arm will stop me?” Garina asked. “You cannot escape your fate.”

“Fate,” Father repeated, turning the word over in his mouth like a sour grape. “There is no such thing as fate. Fate is simply an alignment of causalities. You cannot control it.”

He turned to the staff on the wall behind him.

“Go ahead,” Garina said through a laugh. “Other Apostles are already coming. You’re out of time.”

“Yes, I sense them. You think to bait me into using what I cannot control,” Father said softly. “But you are wrong. It is appropriate, I think. You were here at the beginning, and you will be here at the end.”

Then he reached up and grasped the staff.

Jalen half expected the room to go up in flames, but nothing happened. Father lifted the shepard’s crook off the wall and brought it down to hold before himself.

It just looked like a plain piece of wood — but the horror in Garina’s features proved it was anything but.

She didn’t mince words. Garina vanished, reforming directly before Father, her sword reformed in her remaining hand. It plummeted for his neck in a streak of black.

Father pointed the staff at Garina.

Her magic shredded apart like confetti and her hand swung past Father harmlessly, no longer holding a weapon.

Garina took a step back as disbelief warped her features.

“Impossible. You can use it? How?”

“That’s the bullshit magic you used against me,” Jalen wheezed. “Talk about lame.”

“Used? He’s already used it?” Garina’s pale features somehow went even paler.

“That’s right,” Father said with a smile. A real smile. “I have already comprehended the faintest portion of the order of the universe. The staff will simply guide me. I would normally enjoy this moment for longer, but I will admit that the combined force of the Apostles would be too much, even for me. There is much I must study before I meet them on the battlefield. I have enjoyed our game, Garina, even if you did not realize we were still playing. You lose.”

Father turned. His eyes lingered on Jalen.

“Try it,” Garina said. “You’re fast, Father. But can you risk another attack? I know what you’re capable of now. Will you be fast enough to avoid my blade again? One arm is all I need. Once I have the scent of yoru blood…”

Father’s lips twitched in what just might have been distaste.

Then he folded apart like a piece of origami being pulled apart by a child.

Garina and Jalen stared at the space where he’d stood.

“Well,” Jalen said through a weak cough. The world spun around him as his wounds finally caught up to him. “That’s probably not good.”

His vision went dark and his eyes fluttered. The air before him shifted as several forms suddenly appeared before him. He couldn’t make out what they looked like despite his best efforts. The room was nothing but a distant haze, now.

“Garina!” a gruff-voiced man barked. “What happened? Where is—”

“Ready the Apostles. All of them,” Garina said, her voice grim. “The Long Night has been stolen. We must prepare for the empire to fall.”

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