Rise of the Omnimage

Kyrain immediately latched on to Nyx with his nullification ability, causing her to stumble forward, but with an exertion of more aether she forced her way passed his ability for a moment to slow time around his feet causing him to stumble.

They both fell and immediately jumped back up and rushed toward one another. Kyrain was at a complete loss. Everything he read in the warrant was going wrong save for her path. He felt the time change on him briefly before he canceled it out.

He jumped up as she did and they rushed at eachother. They both tried to apprehend the other. Every time she touched Kyrain he would drain her aether before she pushed more through, which was suprising because she was supposed to be a tier 5, but she was definitely well beyond that.

For Nyx she was bewildered. His path was reducing her tier artificially and now she was at his level and being pressed by him, which was completely ludicrous.

They began grappling and with a feint upward Kyrain dropped down sweeping an ankle only for Nyx to put all her weight on that leg then try to slam his head down. With a shrug and twist he swipped her wrist and twisted only for her to roll her wrist and they reset their position to a state of neutrality.

Kyrain began allowing his nullification ability to flow around them. With his manipulation ability he had learned he could seal people and drain an area. In a matter of moments he had created a dome around them and was shrinking it.

Nyx immediately began to feel the pressure. She could feel her aether draining even more than before and to make things worse, her family's aether absorption technique wasn't working. He had somehow cut off her access to the world and the aether it held to be abke to sustain her.

She activated her time sense and was shocked. Somehow, her targets ability was cutting off every ounce of aether and had them separated from the rest of the world. She didn't even think he realized that he had effectively cut them off from time and her path. She could see a dome around her and the world outside sealed off from them almost like they were in a rippling bubble.

Kyrain watched his target, he was draining her aether as fast as he could, but she had so much of it. It felt like he was facing his uncle Kody who was believed to be above tier 10. That's insane, because it would mean a few things. First that she was holding back, second that she was certainly not a level 1 target or even a level 3, but beyond.

He could see the beads of sweat on her forehead as his aether drain was taking its toll. He darted in, not tired in the slightest and began to strike. She blocked all his strikes as if she had been fighting her whole life and began to counter-attack. For every punch thrown, he had two coming back that he would try to nullify, but he was still being overwhelmed.

Kyrain pushed even harder to nullify more of the world around her. He began to nullify the air aether. Nyx began to breathe extremely heavy now unable to get enough oxygen in her system.

Nyx began to feel the pressure redouble and knew she had to end this now or she was going to be in extreme danger from this criminal. She punched with every ounce of power she had left. Only to have the momentum in her blow not only leave her punch, but was turned back on her in a sort of concentrated shockwave directly to her shoulder and gut, doubling her over with a wheeze as the breath left her.

She staggered backwards as Kyrain advanced still draining as hard as he could. He did a front kick which she tried to grab and move with, but Kyrain had expected that. With her lack of oxygen, he was hoping she was going to begin making mistakes. He was wrong, it was a feint. She punched at the inside of his knee so fast that Kyrain couldn't drain the aether as fast as he needed to and he felt the impact knocking him sideways.

He was getting frustrated. He pulled even harder on his wellspring harder than he had to in a long time. He wanted to completely seal her off. In his frustration he used his path to obliterate all aether around his target and she froze completely and he felt his mind begin to fatigue faster than he thought possible. Be was beginning to get dizzy.

*bleep*

*bleep!*

Nyx was in a full panic. She had never been this terrified in her life. She couldn't move, breathe, anything. Her father had a similar ability, but it never stopped her or anyone he had used it on from breathing. She had never been immobilized to this degree in her life and at this point she regretted leaving home. It wasn't that bad, she was just bored. Now, she was at this criminal's mercy and she was terrified on that level too. She blacked out.

Kyrain held his target in that field for as long as he could, which was maybe a minute and a half before he had to release everything. Blood was leaking from his nose and he fell backward. If she attacked, he was far too tired defend himself. He laid there expecting the sound of an attack or even movement, but heard nothing.

Slowly, he lifted his head and looked over at where he thought he saw her fall forward only to see she was still laying on the roof face down. He slowly got up, used his shirt sleeve to wipe the blood from his nose away. His body was so fatigued he could barely use any of his skills, but had everything he could do on standby as he exhaustedly approached.

He could see the steady rise and fall of her back from breathing. He pulled a set of re-enforced handcuffs from his back and put them on her, moving her hand's behind her back then set her upright. He looked at her and even in this state, she was absolutely beautiful it was hard to see this woman as a criminal. It just didn't fit the profile. Something didn't seem right. The words from Eclipse came back to him about the path ability, but that would mean she had a dual path ability.

He sat down across from her and waited to regain some energy and for the pain in his head to stop. He pulled up his HUD.

Congratulations!

You have achieved Tier 6

Congratulations!

You have learned the skill:

Stasis(a) - By removing all aether from a specific area you freeze that area and anything within that area completely in time and space. Though a perfect prison, it takes a massive amount of antimatter to sustain and drains the stamina of the user. Caution: Significantly stronger users can overwhelm stasis causing backlash that is potentially lethal to the user.

He had tiered up and gotten a cool new skill. This one was better in more situations that a skill he had learned against beasts which at his tier and below made him instantly lethal to them, but at a cost. He looked at that skill too.

Core annihilation(a) - Use your antimatter to disburse and crush the core of a beast or user. For users, if it doesn't kill them through shock, it permanently removes their path and makes them into a pre-system human with a severely shortened life span. For beasts it instantly kills them, but removes the ability to harvest the valuable core.

Kyrain was pulled from his HUD by a drowsy moan and a shift from his target.

"Welcome back. You are under arrest for felony evasion and general disorder. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to have an attorney present for any questioning. Do you understand your rights as they have been said to you?" Kyrain said tiredly.

Nyx didn't say a word, but scrunched her eyebrows in a look of pure confusion. She slowly looked up at him, tilted her head.

"What the fu..."