"I can't believe you went and got hit by that." Olivia Baker smirked as she watched her twin brother have to resort to healing himself. "You're getting sloppy."
Liam was not going to give her the satisfaction of a response. Instead, he sighed and regenerated his right hand. "He's got a way with elemental magic, I'll give him that much."
"Shoot," Olivia sighed. "I'd thought he'd have gone down easy like his lil' puppy had." They had both thought that the man in question was going to be an easy target, especially after Olivia tore a hole through the little girl that he had been trying to protect.
"You and me both," Liam said.
"I'm going to kill you for that," the man bellowed. His lack of height was partially why they had thought that this was going to be an easy lick, but to the man's credit, he was well built. With thick arms and a barrel chest, Liam had expected him to hit hard but not move with such swiftness.
And that neck—golly!
"You ain't gonna kill shit, farmhand!" Olivia taunted, blowing raspberries at the man. Had the man she was taunting not just used electricity to blow his forearm off, Liam might have found it funny. She looked comical taunting the man, who was taller than she was and twice as wide. Although—to her credit—his sister was stout and strongly built, a build he did not share despite being her twin. For Liam, the only thing that told of his youth on the farm was his tanned skin and a scar on his back he had gotten fooling around on the tractor.
The Mexican man growled and charged at them. Liam didn't have it in his magical reserves to block another burst of electricity that came out of his fingers. "Spark of light!"
Especially if he's gonna put some mustard behind it!
Olivia—whose reserves always were just a little deeper than his to start with— took the hit head-on and launched a punch. The man parried and pulled her in for a counter that would've rocked her jaw had she not leaned her head back at the last second. She dodged another swing and went low, striking him in the gut twice before taking a concentrated backhand that sent her bouncing off the concrete floor of the parking garage. Liam was not about to pass up that opening. "Eternal night!"
The fist of darkness struck where his shrouding was weak, and Liam smiled at the sound of ribs cracking as the man slammed through a pillar of the abandoned building.
"Olivia, goddammit, don't go getting him any more worked up than he already is," he said, still pissed off that he had been hit by a spell charged up to almost full output. That was sloppy of me... and now I gotta pay the price.
She got up and wiped the small stream of blood dripping down her nose, glaring back at him with their doe-shaped brown eyes. "Hush up! I sacrificed myself to give your ugly mug an in, and you used it to do—"
The bolt was thrown with such force that it took her off her feet and sent her crashing out of the building. It took a while to hear the crash of her body—which was then quickly followed by a car alarm going off—before Liam was certain his sister was back on the ground. He was sure that she was okay, since he didn't hear any incantations spat their way.
"Goddammit," he cussed before turning to face their enemy, now grabbing at his ribs as he limped toward him. "Still got some fight left in me for you, racist hicks."
Liam sighed. "Now I know we're twins, man, but she's the racist. I'm actually a pretty nice guy when you get to know me."
The Mexican eyed the decapitated body of his former pupil in the corner and even Liam had to admit it was a pretty bad look. "Okay… fair."
He growled, and the two began to exchange punches. Liam was surprised that he was put on the defensive with electricity-infused punches. He was a counter-puncher anyway, so this suited him just fine. But the man's long black hair and square face were dripping in crimson, and a rib was protruding against his skin — no doubt he had a puncture lung. Like his sister, he didn't seem able to heal. Either that, or he is saving up for something nasty…
A punch to the shoulder almost tore through Liam's shrouding, but he grinned and sent two heavy punches down the middle. The first was a concentrated jab that stopped him, followed by a heavy straight that broke the Mexican's already-crooked nose. The Mexican did what all big men do when rocked— he tried to grab Liam. But Liam wasn't about to allow that. "Night!" he shouted. A wave of dark energy erupted from his palm that made his opponent stumble. Liam concentrated most of his magic into the sole of his boot and kicked the man's chest, sending him into another pillar.
Liam held out both palms and said, "Away any light!"
A wave of dark magic hit the target, sending him through the pillar and smashing into the wall. His screams told Liam the output had been good enough. One never knew how many words of the incantation to risk against an enemy like this. When his attack ceased, Liam smiled at the simmering mess of a man now on his knees. He had been wearing a black shirt and a pair of jeans that would've fit better on a younger man at the start of this fight. But now he was worse than naked. His skin had been peeled off and his bones broken from the concussive force of Liam's wave. The veins around his now exposed flesh pulsed with purple light. "Give it up, buddy," Liam said, though he was not in the best of shape himself. He had learned healing behind Olivia's back for kicks, but rushing to out-do her had left it underprepared. He would be shocked if he had even a third of his reserves left after this farce. "Just die gracefully, and we can all go home happy."
His opponent looked up at him, his eyes sparking with electricity. "Not a chance, puta!"
Now that was just rude…
Liam had expected another blast and so jumped back to get some space, but the man instead raised his palms to the sky. "Spark of light!" Liam cursed, and moved to kill him. But the man unleashed his entire aura, forming a barrier that Liam had to grit his teeth to tear through as he charged. I'm fucking low!
Such a gambit would have been easy to counter if his reserves weren't critical. But now, the move had bought the Mexican the seconds he needed to get the attack off.
"To the sky I call upon thee. Mother Nature's fury rain down upon me!"
Liam reached him and punched with all his might, tearing a hole through his chest and out his back. But that didn't turn out the lights from his enemy's eyes. Blood gushed out the Mexican's mouth, but that did not stop the smile as his eyes sparked with lightning. He laughed as he spat in Liam's face, and Liam knew that he was done for. He felt the weight of Olivia's body on top of his. "Leave—"
"Lightning Bolt!"
There was a flash and then a scream. Liam felt the floor beneath him give way as it was eviscerated alongside the rest of the top three levels of the abandoned parking garage. Olivia's strong arms wrapped around him and he felt her feet land with superhuman force, forming a cobweb on the cracked concrete below. He had expected the debris of the building to crush them, but everything bounced off their master's force field. Ah shit…
"He's gonna kill us," Olivia muttered. Liam knew that to be true when the force field pulled them from out the debris to hover in front of the finely dressed gentleman standing before them.
"Now," his gruff voice sounded like someone had thrown a whole pack of cigarettes into a dying tractor engine. "Why is it that I am continuously bailing you out of messes?"
The force field dropped them to the ground, and the two moved to quickly bend their knees and hang their heads in shame. Olivia had seen to it that the Fog was meddled with and formed a barrier around the parking deck. "He was a lot stronger than we anticipated, Mister," Olivia said. Liam usually hated her propensity to speak up for him, but on this occasion, he was more than ready to take the backseat.
Their boss was a man of substantial size, standing almost 6'3 and with broad shoulders and huge gnarled hands. He had a small gut, but no man alive would confuse the rest of him for anything other than pure muscle. His skin was a dark brown that looked like he had been sewn from a leather jacket, and his face was a clean-shaven mess that could have been carved into the side of a mountain. His nose was long and powerful, and his almond-shaped brown eyes glared down at them before they looked up to survey the situation. He wore a suit, as he was wont to do nowadays, with a dark brown cowboy hat that had seen better days. Tiberius Nerva sighed and nodded for them to stand. "I suppose that must have been the case." He reached out to observe Liam's forearm; it had healed poorly. "I had to say an incantation to shield you, and good that I did, or else you two would've been off to meet your maker."
"Should've done," Olivia huffed. "I wanna ask him why he was so lazy when it came to making us."
Tiberius raised a thick black eyebrow that was soon accompanied by a small smile. "That was funny," he said, before the smile faded. "But humor will not wave away that performance. You two have been chosen for a special mission, and I had hoped that this little excursion would have been a good litmus test for whether or not you were ready."
"We're ready," Olivia said. "He was strong, damn near a Master Magician, Mr. Nerva! But we had him beat."
His eyebrow rose again, this time alone. "And how do you figure?"
"He had to make a gambit," Liam intervened before his sister said something stupid. "His life for an extra bit of power, I reckon."
Their leader's stern face told them that he was not buying it. And so, giving up, Liam sighed and said, "You're right."
"Liam—"
"It was two-on-one," Liam admitted. "We were weak. And are unworthy to walk by your side. Kill us."
He stood before them in silence, a head taller than Liam and a little more than that when compared to Olivia, before he moved to grab Liam's arm again.
"You learned healing magic."
Liam was embarrassed by the display. He had learned healing magic in the same way an infant taking a crayon to paper had learned to write. "I bumbled my way through it. Damn near wiped out half my reserves healing this forearm from nothing."
Tiberius sighed. "I am not good with healing myself, so let me not be a hypocrite. From the Source came life, from the Source came the wounding, heal the body and make us whole."
Liam's forearm grew and healed in a way that made him realize that he had done a shoddy job on top of that to boot. He is gonna kill us… he should kill us…
Olivia gritted her teeth before exhaling her rage; she had come to the same conclusion as he had.
"I can see that you wish to die," their leader said. "I agree that you should. It is becoming clearer by the day that the Source is finite. Millions of animals, seven billion humans, and quintillions of insects on top of that are spreading the Source thin. And now, we have fewer God-Killers, fewer Heralds and Herald-Killer magicians than ever before. The worthy are going thirsty because the pipe is leaking and leaking heavily, and we must rectify that."
Liam closed his eyes and prepared for the blow to come. But instead, his acceptance was met with another tired and weary sigh. "Liam, you're a good boy, but seemingly unwise. Why would I have gone through the trouble to save you, and then heal you, if I was just going to kill you?"
He frowned and could see Olivia smirk at him from his peripheral. "You're a bigger dummy than me, and that's saying something," she teased.
"Indeed," Tiberius agreed. "But even more importantly than that, you two are still useful to me."
They both dropped down to their knees and bowed their shaggy brown hair immediately. "We are yours to do with as you please," they said, in unison.
For the first time, Tiberius Nerva unleashed an unrestrained smile.
"As stated, you have been chosen for a secret mission. You are to work alongside some who are more aligned with the Phoenician—"
"But Mister, we—"
Liam did not see him move. But he did hear the ground scream as the concrete cratered. He saw his sister's motionless body in the centre, blood pooling around her unconscious head. "Steady now, Liam," he said, his voice calm as he wiped the blood off his fist with a piece of Liam's shirt. When the hell did he—
"You will work with the zealots, you will infiltrate my brother's school," Tiberius Nerva growled. "And you will make them bleed. And if you die in the process…"
Liam looked at his sister and closed his eyes. "… Then we were unworthy."