Dimensions Collide: Destiny Bond

Prota was running out of mana. Well, her staff was only half empty, but that alone was incredible considering she was fighting but one enemy.

"You're pretty good, kid," Leon grinned, driving his fist into his palm. "You're still alive. But you still haven't shown me anything interesting."

Prota clenched her teeth, staring at her opponent. So strong. He was so incredibly strong. The last time she'd felt this overwhelming strength was when she'd fought against that dwarf back in the Town of Beginnings, and she'd been a lot weaker back then.

Nothing she could do would pierce through.

Pierce… well, there was one more thing, right? It was just that pulling something like that off in a battle like this would take a lot of effort on her part.

Thanks to her training over the summer, she was capable of using her enhanced perception a total of five times a fight. Combined with her new charm that allowed her to completely restore herself up to four times a day, that was a total of twenty-five times in one fight. Of course, she'd never push it that far. She needed to save her charm for emergencies.

It was just that this fight was getting closer and closer to the definition of an emergency.

"Frozen bullet," Prota whispered, her eyes flashing as her perception went into overdrive.

With her new training, she was capable of forming three bullets simultaneously, using a single vortex to power all three. In a moment, the mana needed to create them was there, and time went back to normal, the blue ice immediately forming midair.

"Oh? Interesting! Then, I'll take this head-on!"

Leon, true to his word, opened up his arms and stood still as if waiting for someone to return a hug. With a cry, Prota sent her spell forward, a crack ringing through the air as they were released from their vortex of wind.

To everyone's surprise, they didn't melt. They actually pierced through the flames and cut into Leon's skin, and while they immediately melted soon after, the fact that she'd done some damage remained.

"Hm… then I'll step it up, too."

Prota gripped her staff. Four more times. She had to make it count.

The battle began anew, the hulking man moving faster than ever. Frankly, a man of his size moving this quickly shouldn't be possible, but with mana reinforcement, it seemed something like this wasn't even his limit.

Prota leapt up, time slowing down as she charged her spell, and once again, it pierced through the layer of flames but only managed to make a surface wound.

"Oh? You get more and more interesting, I see! So you're still capable of this much! Interesting, interesting!"

The heat of the battle only grew stronger as Leon's flames grew hotter. Prota's eyes went wide. He hadn't been going all out, yes, but she got the feeling that he was still holding something back. This spell wouldn't do. If Prota kept chipping away, he would only increase his power, and once he was at full strength, she wouldn't be able to win, even with her charm of healing.

Then, there was only one other option. She had yet to pull it off, but what other choice did she have?

The Tenth Seda. She could only manage up to the fifth step, but that was fine. She wasn't looking to obliterate an island.

Just this one man.

"One last attack, huh?" Leon said, stopping in his tracks.

He'd read her like a book.

"Fine. One more time, I'll allow it. And if you fail, well, I'll kill you and then go after that boy that was with you. We've got some problems with him, too."

John. They were going to go after him? No, no, she couldn't be distracted by something like that. Normally, such a thought would help her, but the Tenth Seda was a spell that required absolute focus. One misstep and the mana accumulated would dissipate and break the spell.

Her heart was pounding. She couldn't afford to mess up here. She only had one chance.

She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. Such an opportunity was rare in battle, but she would take what she was given.

"Han."

The mana around Prota began to gather.

"Tool. Set."

The wind picked up as the mana compressed, folding over itself over and over, similar to the way she made blue flames or blue ice.

"Net."

She was close. It was taking everything she had, but the adrenaline of battle was helping in this moment. She just needed to fold the mana one more time. Just one more—

"You'll need something more powerful than that to get through my flames! What, another ice attack? That's nowhere near cold enough! It needs to be colder!"

Her concentration broke. Just as she was about to fold the mana the fifth time, Leon's taunt shattered the spell, and the accumulated mana flew everywhere. Prota's eyes widened, and she enhanced her perception one more time in a desperate hope to do something, anything.

But what? She couldn't keep this up forever. The enhanced perception really drained her mana and mental energy, and she'd crash out soon. Something, anything…

Colder. It needed to be colder. Something John had said long ago suddenly came to mind.

"You could just freeze the space he's in, right?"

Freeze the space. She looked up. She could see the particles of mana scattered like the snowflakes falling from the sky, forming a sort of giant, shimmering cloud. It was just about as large as the man taunting her.

Freeze the space.

Keeping up her enhanced perception, she moved the mana over the man, changing its properties to ice. Colder. Colder. It needed to be colder, so cold it would snuff out the man's flames.

The coldest it could possibly be.

Suddenly, her brain couldn't keep up, and time snapped back to normal. She stumbled forward, but in the last seconds of her slowed-down time, she managed to fire off the spell. She didn't even know if it was a spell, but it would have to work.

"What the- cold. So cold," the hulking man muttered as his flames went out.

He started shivering, a feeling he'd long since forgotten. There. This was it. He was distracted, and Prota would only have a moment of opportunity to take advantage of. She leapt forward, forming an icicle in her hands and shoved it right into the man's throat, severing his spinal cord and ending his life.

His body fell over, stiff like a statue, his expression preserved as Prota's new spell froze his body solid. She got back up, panting. She was all out of energy. She hated to do it, but she needed to use one of her healing charms. In an instant, she could feel her mind and body recover as if she'd never fought for even a minute. As she regained her breath, she could hear slow applause from behind.

"Well, it seems he underestimated you. I'll be sure not to make that mistake, then," Betty said, a thin pair of gloves coating her arms. Upon further inspection, they seemed to be made of ice. "Come, little girl. Let's see what you've got against me."

~~~

"Shit! Dammit!"

John leapt back, panting heavily. He'd already exhausted half his future energy, and while he wasn't feeling fatigued or injured, he could tell he was losing.

Badly.

He'd made the incorrect assumption that his opponent, as a "zombie," had no brain. This was not the case. The Aiden in front of him had some pretty slow speech, but his movements and thought process seemed to be just as sharp as when he was alive. Well, maybe he was alive right now. Who could say?

All John knew was that the old mercenary had understood him when he'd explained his thought process out loud.

"Goddamit," he cursed, running down a hall. He ducked, narrowly avoiding another volley of throwing knives. "How does this guy have this many throwing knives? What the fuck?"

John had stupidly revealed his strategy. He'd proudly declared that, despite having a limited amount of mana, he'd beat Aiden quickly and move on.

Unfortunately, Aiden was not as stupid as his zombified form looked.

The former mercenary relentlessly attacked John, knowing his prey would need to use a limited resource to survive. John would try and counterattack, but Aiden was always prepared. It seemed death had not stripped him of any skill.

This was incredibly bad news.

"I will… kill… you…"

"I got it already! Cut it out, you freak!" John yelled, turning around to deflect yet another throwing knife. "Can you stop throwing shit at me already?!"

He wouldn't be able to run forever. He didn't know how Prota was holding up, and while he wanted to assume she was winning, it was also possible she wasn't, and if that was the case, he needed to get to her as soon as possible.

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Unfortunately, if [Infinity] wasn't available to him, going fast wasn't an option.

"Wait… [Infinity]?"

John frowned, his brain going into overdrive as he continued to run. If he thought about it, [Infinity] boosted everything but defence. This included stamina.

The thing was, there was no limit to how much he could use [Infinity]. As long as [Determination] was high enough, he could keep the ability running for as long as he wanted to. The only reason he didn't do so was that it would make him susceptible to getting caught by unwanted forces. That, and the stupid headache it gave him at slightly higher levels.

Even if he had mana, he'd learned from Kit that his energy seemed to operate on a different level from the world. Besides, his movement would surely look strange to any seasoned fighter. Thus, he couldn't afford to use [Infinity] to boost his skills, nor could he afford to use it in large quantities. Sure, he could use a little bit of it, but such a small amount wouldn't do much.

But what if that small amount was enough? He could boost his strength, speed, agility, and reflexes, but there was something else he'd failed to consider.

Stamina.

It was possible for him to grow tired using [Infinity], but now that he thought about it, he'd never actually grown tired while fighting using his unique ability. Why? The obvious answer was that his stamina was also being multiplied.

The orb he'd taken used future energy. But what if he changed the amount of energy he had?

His heart began to beat in excitement.

"Something like that… wasn't I given something stupid broken?"

He had to try it. It was worth a shot.

Since he wasn't using [Infinity] for anything besides stamina, he also had the added benefit of putting all of his energy into stamina multiplication. Suddenly, the bar in his system grew, expanding so far that he couldn't see the end. It then shrank to fit his system, but the amount of meter he had left was suddenly far greater than it'd been before.

"Then, if I do this…"

Just out of curiosity, he enhanced his arms with mana and swung.

The bar didn't deplete.

"Great."

He turned around, gripping his bat with both hands. The light in his eye was barely glowing, but it was there. A clear sign that he was using [Infinity]. A small chuckle came out of his mouth, his lips stretched out in an unconscious grin.

"Ah… this is more fair, right?"

~~~

"Kh!"

Prota was forced back as Betty's ice flew at her from all angles. Unlike her companion, she seemed to have no interest in getting anywhere close to Prota. Instead, she stood in a singular spot, swarms of icicles flying out, homing in on their target.

"Dance, little girl!" she yelled, licking her lips in pleasure. "Dance for me!"

Just one weirdo after another. Prota knew she wasn't exactly normal either, but was the world really filled with people like this? Well, if it was a [Story]... no, she was getting distracted.

She had all her charges of enhanced perception again, but her charm of healing didn't replenish mana. She had to make do with what she had. She'd tried to use Soul Steal, just out of curiosity, but as she'd expected, it had no effect.

This time around, though, her opponent wasn't playing around. Well, actually, this enemy likely wasn't fighting at 100% capability. Prota wasn't dead yet, which was a sign that Betty wasn't fighting at full strength, just like Leon before her, but she was definitely putting on a lot more pressure.

She also wasn't letting any attacks through.

Still, if the enemy before was any indication of the kind of strength these people had, things like fireballs and icicles definitely wouldn't work.

A Blossom. That had to be the first test.

So, while Prota was dancing around the battlefield, enduring the endless onslaught of icicles, she was secretly preparing her signature spell. Her focus was divided, so it wasn't forming nearly as quickly as she wanted, but in the end, nothing stopped her from getting it ready.

"Go," she whispered.

Like a petal floating through the wind, it made its way to the enemy. Just a little more. Just a little more, and it would detonate—

"Did you really think I wouldn't notice ice-based magic?"

Betty laughed, spreading her arms as the Blossom floated up in front of her. Prota gasped, her eyes going wide. She no longer had control of the spell. What? How was that even possible?

"Foolish! Completely foolish!"

The Blossom was sent flying right back at her, exploding in front of her face. Prota barely managed to put up a barrier of flame in time to melt the shards away, but in that time, she'd failed to protect herself against the dozens of icicles flying around her. Numerous cuts formed on her body, the blood freezing as soon as it leaked out.

"What will you do now? Hm, little girl?!"

What to do indeed? There was no helping it. The Tenth Seda. One more try. She couldn't use the spell she'd just made, though. No, she needed to give it one more shot. Time slowed down as the mana flowed through her nervous system, and she began to fold the mana once more.

Unfortunately, she couldn't hold her enhanced perception for the full duration of the time it took to prepare the spell, and her mana reinforcement broke before she could reach the fifth step. That was fine. She was on the fourth step. Just one more, and—

"As if I'd let you get away with that!"

An icicle pierced clean through Prota's shoulder, interrupting the spell entirely. This wasn't like Leon's taunt. The mana completely broke, and there was no way to gather it again. Prota staggered to her feet, desperately avoiding the unending barrage of attacks, but she was at a loss.

What should she do?

Wait. The Tenth Seda. It was a spell that involved folding mana over itself, but while the end result was a devastating spell that took on no unique element, that didn't mean she couldn't apply an element to the mana being folded. After all, she wasn't at the level where she could cast the spell as intended.

And hadn't she just learned that her specialty was creation?

She'd made a spell to deal with Leon. Now, she needed a spell to deal with Betty.

Think. She needed to think. Leon was concentrated fire—an unending heat that surrounded him, melting any attack that got close. The spell to counter that was a bitter, freezing cold that completely snuffed out the flames by surrounding them entirely, freezing the space itself.

Betty was filling the space with cold. Dozens of icicles that flew all over the place, commanding ice itself in the domain that was the battlefield. But if the cold was spread out, then might the solution be to pierce through with a burning flame?

John had told her not to do this, but she couldn't help it. In the dozens of stories he'd told her, dramatic irony was often a thing. The solution to the puzzle was often found within the puzzle itself. If the counter to Leon was Betty's kind of magic, then maybe, just maybe, the solution to Betty was Leon's kind of magic.

A concentrated flame, capable of burning through anything.

The Tenth Seda was once again her inspiration, but this time, instead of folding ice, she began to fold fire. She forced herself to focus, ignoring the icicles slicing away at her skin. Her resistance to pain was incredibly handy at a time like this.

Blue flame. Take a sheet, and then fold it. Fold it again. And again. The fire started burning white with heat, until it was no longer wispy, but almost a solid substance, as if the air itself had melted and turned into lava.

Betty's eyes widened as the air around the spell began to warp from the sheer heat of the fire.

"What the- what is that?!"

"Go," Prota gasped, nearly exhausted from the energy it took to create such a spell.

It flew forward like a disk, and although Betty tried to dodge, she was truly a caster in the traditional sense. She was a little agile, but Prota's command over her spell was stronger. She flicked her wrist, and the fire followed, slicing clean through the enemy's neck, and the heat of the spell set the entire body on fire.

There was no coming back from that.

"John," she gasped, using yet another healing charm.

She only had two left. Both would be reserved for her brother. She could see in the system that he was still alive. However, his health was deteriorating, and she needed to reach him as soon as possible.

"Please. Stay alive."

~~~

"You- seriously, you don't give up, do you?" John yelled.

It seemed Aiden might be more like a zombie than John had thought. With his enhanced power, he'd managed to knock off both an arm and a leg, and yet the creature just reattached them and kept pressing forward. While John's energy for attacking and dodging had been increased, [Infinity] did not boost durability, and so the amount of protection he could borrow from his future self hadn't increased.

Mana reinforcement was an option, but it wasn't a good one. Anything magic-related seemed to act rather weakly. Casting was a prime example of this, but he found his mana reinforcement did very little as well.

As a result, he was bleeding from numerous cuts. One large gash had already been tied up, with John using his scarf as a makeshift bandage, and while the extra energy was keeping him conscious, his mind was starting to feel a little woozy.

"You… will die…"

"Can you say something else already?"

He grit his teeth, holding his bat firmly. His hands felt cold. That wasn't a good sign. He had to end this fast, or else he wouldn't be ending it at all.

Unfortunately, there were no more trump cards up his sleeve. He'd used them all. He hadn't even expected [Infinity] to work, and it was definitely keeping him alive, but with that, he really didn't have anything else going for him.

The zombie was just too resilient.

"Seriously, if you were this strong, how in the world did you not kill me and Prota all the way back then, huh?"

Aiden said nothing.

"Say something, dammit! Come on, anything!"

It wasn't just to sate John's urge to banter. He needed to know why this walking corpse was here. Why him? Why not another cultist? And it almost felt like Aiden wasn't with the cultists in the first place. There was too much about this whole thing that just didn't feel right.

There was a connection here somewhere. He could feel it. It was an instinct he had as a [Reader], an instinct he trusted due to his ability, [Reader's Revelations]. He had yet to utilize it, but it was indeed a valuable skill.

The ability to feel a connection between seemingly unimportant things. It sounded weak, but with John's unique ability as a [Reader], it was incredibly useful. The reason it hadn't been used was simply because he'd always been able to consciously make the connections between certain events, but now…

"What is it?" he cursed, swinging his bat yet again. "Come on, say something!"

He needed information. Anything. Just a single hint. Just a point in the right direction, something to tell him what path to take.

But the zombie Aiden was silent.

"I… kill you…"

That was all he said. And John was running out of juice.

"Shit," he cursed.

It was time to try and end this. One last attack. If this thing really was a kind of zombie, knocking off its head should at least slow it down long enough for John to do some good damage. He dashed in, footsteps growing heavier and heavier as he rushed forward, using his last step to push off the ground, his body pivoting with as much mana as he could spare, his arms swinging in a whiplash-like motion. The bat made contact with the head, sending it flying, splattering against the stone walls.

"Haah… what a pain," he gasped, staggering forward, unable to counter the flow of his movement.

He paused to wipe his forehead.

"John!"

Prota flew out of nowhere, hands stretched out as she froze Aiden's body behind him in a block of solid ice. She crashed into him, knocking them both over, but in the brief moment John was falling, he managed to see the body's arm stretched out, knife ready to plunge into his head.

He felt a shiver run through his body. That was way too close.

"Prota. You won your fight?" he gasped, winded from the collision.

She nodded.

"Yeah, that's good. Then, I'm about to…"

Prota slapped him, and then a green light surrounded him as she used her third healing charm.

"John falls asleep too easy," she said, her eyes turned ever so slightly in a frown. "Not this time."

He sat up, his wound completely cured. The bar in his system was refilled entirely as well. It seemed that receiving healing restored his future stamina. He flinched as he saw movement from the corner of his eye, but when he turned his head, there was nothing there.

Paranoia. That was all. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself.

"Man. We can tell each other all about our fights later, but… are we done? Did you run into Destiny?" John said, recovering his breath.

Prota shook her head. John frowned.

"Then… there might be something left. Stick with me. We don't-"

He was interrupted as the sound of running echoed down the hall. They got to their feet, preparing for battle, only to find—

"John? Prota?"

"Destiny?"

Everyone lowered their guard.

"Did you just fight some demon cultists?"

"...yeah, something like that," John frowned.

Was Aiden a cultist? No time to think about that right now.

"So you too. I just finished one off as well. Is that it?"

"...maybe," John said, thinking hard. "If we ran into you here, then…"

He was once again interrupted by footsteps, but these ones were slow, heavy, and each one shook the very ground beneath them.

"I think that answers our question, no?"

John took one look at Destiny. He was in no shape to fight a final boss of sorts.

"Hey, Prota. Use your healing charm on him."

"Only one more."

"Only one- I see. Do it anyway."

"But John-"

"I'll be fine. I have mana for the time being. We'll all get teleported out if we lose, but if we want to win, we need the half-elf."

"Hey, what the- what's with the names all of a sudden?"

The heavy footsteps silenced the conversation. Prota hesitated, but then just healed Destiny, using up her last charm.

John grimaced.

"All right. Here we go. One last fight."