Chase hurled forward, feeling the air itself pressure against his wounds.
Poppy appeared behind him, a streak of blood running down her face.
He frowned, crashing against Callahan with a powerful slam that knocked him aside, staggering him to the ground.
Poppy followed, slashing viciously several times, each more frightening than the last.
Finally, her last attack tearing straight through the eyepatch on Callahan's face... Revealing a terrible mechanical glow...
"A mistake..." The titan growled...
Chase backed away slowly, feeling the ground below him began to quake.
A projectile of metal launched itself towards Poppy, causing Chase to panic.
Time around him froze.
His breaths were slow... And his heartbeat... Almost deafening...
He felt his eyes threaten rolling behind his head... His heart throbbed, nearly ceasing its beating entirely...
His skin flashed with a terrible itching sensation...
Suddenly he had moved before even thinking of moving...
His body, was between Callahan, countless projectiles... And Poppy herself.
His axe, already spinning with complete irrationality...
"Chase?" She asked, tilting her head as the onslaught begun.
Terrible recoil ran through his body as Apocalypse tore through the flood of incoming attacks, while his arms burned violently as they braced for the worst to come.
He growled, using his footwork to progress deeper into the onslaught, ripping aside everything that Callahan threw at him.
Finally, Callahan himself appeared in the smokey haze...
His newly reforged Greatsword incoming with spite.
Chase grinned, dashing forward with what felt like a terribly overpowering shockwave-allowing Apocalypse the choice of first dialogue in this conversation.
Callahan's eyes widened as the axe knocked aside the greatsword, entering into a combo of attacks in which Callahan had zero choice but to keep try and deflecting as terrible pressure continuously performed greater and greater upon him.
Chase's eyes lit up as a blast of raw energy shot forth, knocking him back into a sliding stop beside Poppy, who had barely been able to keep up with what had just happened.
She turned towards Chase in panic, readying her spear before ceasing movement.
Chase frowned, feeling an usual pause in the battle as he forced himself to a stance once more. This time with a horrible ache in his chest from Callahan's quick thinking.
"Chase..." Poppy called out.
He turned, slowly following her gaze as he looked down.
Horrible visual depictions of fate were swirling and crawling across his body like shadowy snakes... Creeping up and down his skin... Were black markings... Some of which, Poppy found eerily familiar, and others that even Callahan found himself entranced by.
Chase sighed.
Feeling a surge in his abilities increase, he stomped his foot into the ground.
The entire crater floor quaked, causing Callahan to instinctively ready his blade.
Poppy shook her head, lowering herself as her spear glistened with light.
Chase launched forth, lazily knocking the side of his axe against the ground as he approached mid-air, causing his body to recoil into the air with violent spins and twists.
As if in a trance of his own, he easily manipulated the movements of his axe in midair. Using the unnatural spins and twists of his erratic movement in advantage of his own, blasting a barrage of flames from his feet as he knocked aside Callahan's Greatsword, giving the opening for Poppy to follow up.
However, it was naught but Jack who found his way in the front row and slashing straight through Callahan's backup defenses, allowing who Chase would have assumed to be Poppy to be the third attack in rotation.
"Think again..." Rayan growled as he shot up from below, clawing Callahan by the jaw and pinning his knee to the ground.
Jackal appeared from behind, throwing his arms around Callahan's throat and using all of his might to hold him in place.
Poppy appeared, reeling back her spear and gritting her teeth as she hurled it straight into Callahan's sternum.
CLAAAAANNNNNNGGGG!
Everyone covered their ears in pain with the acceptations of Jackal and Rayan who simply grit their teeth and held their ground.
However, it had been Chase who had used this rare moment...
He launched a giant blast of violent flames towards everyone, causing his allies to back off even with the advantage... And using this moment of halted vision...
He appeared through the flames, hurling the blade of Apocalypse towards Callahan's throat.
CLANG!
He deflected, causing Chase to lower his head and avoid the horizontal slash, in which he shot back up into the air, spinning and deflecting several attacks from Callahan, switching him to the ground and slashing several times at Callahan's legs, using this to push him further back into a corner.
He dashed forward, watching slowly as Callahan's sword slowly crawled past his vision, only and inch or two from his eyes...
He grinned, stepping on Callahan's blade and pinning to the ground, twitching his body to a stop and lifting Apocalypse and then viciously launching it straight down at Callahan's arm.
CLANG!
A wall of metal blocked it, but not before it could pin itself to something. Callahan's own defense slammed violently into his own arm.
And Chase had already moved, twisting around Callahan's body and slashing down again, this time at the back of Callahan's throat...
It was an impossible attack... Something that had taken Chase an entire battle to come up with... As if his thoughts themselves had become simple string on a table, slowly being knitted perfectly into a thread of absolute precision...
The pieces fell into place with much more than satisfaction, Chase was absolutely brimming with joy as the blade inched towards Callahan's throat.
All the titan could do... Was slowly turn and meet Chase's gleeful gaze...
...
"Sir!" A soldier rushed into the tent, causing Callahan too loose his place on the important documents in his hand.
"What!?" Callahan slammed the documents onto the desk before him, causing the soldier to instantly freeze up and bow before the general.
"Sir! The last six descendants of the Phoenix Clan have been found!"
Callahan instantly let out a satisfied breath.
"Alright, that will do then..." He nodded, causing the soldier to instantly flee out of the tent...
...
'ENOUGH!' Callahan's booming voice roared inside of Chase's mind.
As if time itself had not moved at all, Chase was back in the moment of his blade inevitably slaying Callahan... However...
'Ah...Ahaha! Ahahaha! Now that! Is something that Blaze... Could never do...' Callahan's voice spoke to Chase as time simply stood still... Or at least moved so slow that Chase couldn't notice when it did.
'You've fought him?' Chase asked mentally, simply feeling pity for Callahan's eminent death.
'Of course... It was I who met his match in the battle of Orion...' Callahan's eyes glimmered, almost looking back fondly on their battle.
'But telepathy was never an ability of his... Nor was reading minds...' Callahan boomed with laughter internally.
And as the blade crept closer and closer.
Chase felt something, and it seemed so did Callahan.
'A shame... And I mean it... I'm going to feel fear of this moment for the rest of my days... In fact, since I don't necessarily have a grudge with you... I'll consider you stronger than me from this moment on... However, I'm afraid an attack beyond your comprehension was the only thing you couldn't take account of...'
BOOM!
Vex's blade tore through reality itself, crashing straight into Chase's chest and throwing him like a missile into a wall of debris nearly a hundred meters away...