Unchosen Champion

A flash of heat and energy burned long strips of Coop’s Fog of War away. For a few moments afterwards, his domain was divided into three individual parts. Wide channels devoid of any mists were carved in between each section, and for Coop, it felt like he had gone cross-eyed. A very confused Presence of Mind fed him information from three different domains in unison.

Luckily, the strange feeling didn’t linger long enough to interfere with his concentration. The split domain faded shortly after he noticed it, but he could feel the strain on his mind behind his eyes, like he had barely avoided a harsh migraine.

His mists were severely diminished by the blasts, but Fog of War formed a far more robust domain than when he first received the skill in the days before the siege event. The individual sections didn’t disappear after being sundered from the rest. Instead, they expanded into the empty space, filling the gaps until they recombined into a single proportionally reduced domain. He could practically taste the seared air that was left behind as the normal functions of his fog were restored.

A pair of circular laser beams, each four feet across, had sliced across the top of Chakyum’s temple, charring the top layer of stone before disappearing in the distance. The lasers didn’t make any noise themselves, but whatever they touched couldn’t help but react. The air hissed with a steady sizzle that was punctuated with pops and bangs as it burned. The entire battlefield was saturated with the scent of an electrical fire after the energetic discharges subsided.

One laser was aimed at the Swarm Priest who had drifted out of the way of Coop’s charge into melee, off to the side by herself. The other laser caused Coop’s skin to develop a sheen of sweat as it blasted toward the Champion of the Yucatan, nearer to his own position. While Coop was thinking of the beams as lasers, they were really more like simple blasts of shockingly powerful thermal magic. They didn’t move anywhere near the speed of an actual laser. In fact, Coop thought they might even be slower than his thrown spears, but they were pure energy that had been generated by mana rather than physical objects.

Tzultacaj and the man Coop assumed was the other Jaguar Elite, Mateo, had joined the fray with an exceptionally dramatic entrance. Several things happened at once afterwards.

The swarm of insects that erupted from the body of the High Priestess in order to dodge the laser reformed. The insects coalesced into the incomplete outline of a person. The High Priestess screamed in horror once her leather clad face reappeared from beneath a cloud of mosquitoes. Her entire left arm, a large portion of her torso, and the lower section of her left leg had been vaporized. The laser beam had cleaved straight through her swarm and disintegrated half of the mosquitoes. Apparently, that translated into significant injuries to her actual body. She collapsed to the floor, howling in shock, with the swarm still buzzing around her broken form.

Simultaneously, the Champion of the Yucatan was forced to release the restraining spell that had ensnared Coop’s mace as she defended against the second of Mateo’s attacks. She revealed another similarly shaped sphere of void in the path of the laser, which bent the beam around her as if space itself was warping, completely avoiding any damage from the devastating blast.

The way the abilities of the Elite High Priestess simply manifested in their positions caught Coop by surprise. She had no lead up time in casting her spells, they just appeared as if they had been hidden in advance, merely waiting to be exposed. He noted that she had dismissed one sphere before another appeared. Perhaps he was reaching for a tiny bit of good news, but he wouldn’t ignore his observation.

A portion of Coop's Fog of War was pulled around the edge of the sphere as well, becoming a slightly visible shell of gray around the black void without being drawn inside. The rest of the arena was coated in a calm layer of mists, invisible to the naked eye, but the sphere was like a stone in a flowing river. It created its own current and Coop’s fog responded by condensing along the surface, establishing a miniature example of rapids before thinning out on the opposite side. The void spheres diminished his hidden domain with their presence, further shrinking the total size of Fog of War as they manipulated space. Despite the improvements to his domain skill, the thin layer that he had established wouldn’t survive the skills of the High Priests for too long.

At the same time as the blasts, Tzultacaj had one of his legs kicked out from underneath him by the Colossus, staggering him and interrupting his fierce assault. Though the leader of the Jaguar Sun remained upright without toppling over, the Priest used the brief opportunity to roll away from the intense warrior and get his own legs beneath him.

Tzultacaj planted his foot to pursue the High Priest even while stone reformed along the man’s skin. Tzultacaj had honed in on a target and refused to let up, lifting his axe above his head as he roared unintelligibly. The hunt was on.

Coop’s newly freed morning star streamed with vapor trails before crashing into the Totemic, annihilating the High Priest’s defensively raised totem. With the Elite High Priestess distracted by the laser and her sphere shifted away from his morning star, Coop’s assault on the enemy healer continued.

The Totemic barely shifted his head out of the way in time, catching the spiked mace with his left shoulder instead. His face was gouged by shards of hardwood, propelled from his totem’s detonation, and his knee buckled beneath the weight of the blow. Coop raised his weapon above his head for a second time, intent on finishing the job while simultaneously casting Legacy of the Mists in response to the shifting battlefield.

The Deathstalker jumped from a black and purple ringed portal and bore her jagged obsidian dagger toward Mateo’s neck, seeking to quickly end the interloper’s life by teleporting 10 feet behind him. Mateo was rooted in place and seemingly unaware of his impending death as the Deathstalker rushed forward. He was an easy, high priority target given his stationary casting and extraordinary firepower: perfect for the highly mobile assassin to take care of.

Mateo’s life was spared in the last possible second. The Deathstalker’s stab was interrupted by a simple motion where the man drew one of his extended arms behind himself, palm facing the assassin. She reacted instantly.

In order to avoid death or serious injury from the previously demonstrated lasers, the Deathstalker disappeared like she had never been on the attack in the first place. Mateo wasn’t as helpless as he let on, though it was also possible he was mostly bluffing. The look on his face indicated that he had gotten away with something, like a mischievous child holding back nervous laughter.

Coop’s summoned phantasm leapt out of the mists, wielding a fierce morning star with a thick chain connecting it to a matching steel gauntlet. In one smooth motion, Coop’s summon crushed the skull of the wailing Swarm Priest, fully utilizing the momentum generated by his sudden manifestation. The meteoric blow put the High Priestess out of her misery, and in doing so, claimed the first kill in the melee with little fanfare.

The ghost uncoiled his body after slamming the weapon down, yanking the mace free from the crater it had created in the stone temple, letting pebbles fly into the air and clatter of his armor. Black mana smoke drifted into the air from what had been the High Priestess, escaping toward the sky where it was caught in the invisible currents that were flowing into the temple.

Once upright, the phantasm revealed that he was a hulking man, easily six and a half feet tall before considering the extra size added by the full suit of heavy plate armor that covered him from head to toe. He unhesitatingly charged toward the Champion of the Yucatan, following the direction of Coop’s subconscious when he was summoned, seeking to deal with the same priority targets that Coop had originally selected.

After witnessing a snippet of each of the High Priests’ abilities, Coop had fully expected the Swarm Priest to be the most burdensome opponent, concluding that she could most effectively counter his abilities while he struggled to overcome her own. Outside of swatting each mosquito individually, he had no idea how he would defeat an opponent he couldn’t strike directly. He was grimly satisfied to remove her from contention. The Champion of the Yucatan was the most threatening individually, and as a healer, the Totemic was the most risky to leave alone in a group battle, but the Swarm Priest was a counter to Coop’s specific physical combat style.

His satisfaction was only a fleeting sentiment as the Totemic unleashed his own frenzy, exploding into motion from where he knelt after taking Coop’s morning star to the shoulder. He saved himself in the last second just as Mateo managed the same. The Totemic’s eyes glowed with verdant green energy and the wounds on his face began stitching themselves back together as he roared and his previously planted totem vibrated with energy.

He landed his tackle while Coop was still in mid swing, moving beneath the mace and getting inside of the morning star’s range before taking what would have certainly been a lethal blow to the head. Coop had the breath knocked out of his lungs as he was driven backwards.

Thunder drowned out the collision between Coop and the roar of the Totemic. Purple lightning exploded from Tzultacaj’s axe as it clashed against the Colossus’s crossed arms again. The High Priest that engaged the leader of the Jaguar Sun had grown to be even larger than Coop’s phantasm, over seven feet tall, with earth colored stone completely obscuring what was previously a human man. Layer upon layer was being continuously added to his form, but Tzultacaj still forced the golem-like opponent backwards as the two struggled.

Stepping out of a new purple-lined portal, the Deathstalker escaped Mateo’s potential attack, giving the lasers a healthy respect. She returned to where she had trailed behind Coop, near the staircase that he had arrived on, but she was immediately confronted by a blurred streak of shimmering darkness.

First, a shadow was cast upon the diminutive rogue, giving her a moment to flick her eyes to the side. Then, a loud growling snarl accompanied the appearance of half a ton of pissed off Soulbeast pouncing on the unaware assassin from beneath the edge of the pyramid. Evidently, Juliana and Felix had passed the Test of Stairs as well.

The Deathstalker collapsed beneath Felix with a yelp of surprise. The predator had one enormous paw pressed against the face of the High Priestess, pinning her head against the temple while his jaws crushed her forearm. Juliana stomped her foot on the Priestess’s other arm, preventing the rogue from moving the last of her free limbs. A muffled scream erupted from beneath Felix’s oversized paw before coming to an abrupt stop.

The Deathstalker poofed out of existence, leaving Felix on all fours with Juliana at his side. The assassin reappeared from yet another portal behind the Champion of the Yucatan. While she could flee without a portal, after she applied her instant movement abilities, she always exited from one of the black and purple doorways. Her movements were only slightly less telegraphed than Coop’s mistjumps, but he would be able to react to her ambushes after seeing the order of operations a few times.

With a grimace on her face, the Deathstalker flipped her obsidian colored dagger with her uninjured hand, snatching it out of the air after swapping its orientation. The hand of the arm Felix had chewed on hung limply at her side, as she gingerly tested her fingers. She was breathing heavily after seeing her own life flash before her twice in quick succession, but her eyes were clear and full of fury behind raven strands of hair. Stripes of blood marred her face, making her hair stick to her skin, but she wasn’t out of the fight just yet. She shouted for a heal, but the Totemic was occupied.

Coop’s phantasm only got to swing his mace one more time before the highest level Priestess formed a void sphere that lifted his entire armored body into the air, like gravity ceased to exist. After a brief moment of flailing, his bulk was almost peacefully dispersed into a cloud of mists that flowed with Coop’s Fog of War, away from the sphere. The Elite High Priestess observed closely, like a researcher experimenting in a lab environment.

Coop fell backwards after being tackled by the Totemic, barely hanging onto his mace with one hand as he slammed the back of his head against the stone floor. The Totemic loomed over him like a linebacker daring a quarterback to test him again. The Priest’s eyes continued to glow, and the tribal tattoos had taken on the same energy, giving his whole body a wild verdant aura. It was almost exactly the same as the way the Avatar of Huracan had powered up, though the Totemic clearly had a different flavor of mana coursing through him.

The Totemic raised his arms over his head and interlocked his fingers as if he would slam his combined fists onto his vulnerable, supine opponent. Coop abandoned his weapon and kicked his legs up, flexed his abs, and using all the strength in his arms, threw himself into a backflip after lying flat on his back.

He quickswapped to his shield and one-handed warhammer as he landed on his feet, and in an effort to get some space from the frenzied Totemic, brought his weapon up in an uppercut’s motion to ward off the incoming attack. The wild counter barely grazed the man’s chin with the rear spiked chisel, drawing some blood from a superficial wound that healed as fast as it appeared. The Totemic just smiled at Coop, shifting his arms down like he would box instead. The man was completely absorbed in his bloodlust as he stepped forward, uncaring of the danger presented by Coop’s ethereal weapon.

Coop didn’t shy from the challenge, shaking off the dazed feeling after being tackled and sliding backwards. He shifted to his left to keep the man in his ideal range before planting his foot and bringing the hammer down. The Priest raised a forearm to block the strike, and to Coop’s surprise, succeeded. Wild, greenish energy exploded through the man’s body, escaping into the atmosphere as he was fully empowered. The green energy flickered and burned like a fire with the Totemic at the core.

The High Priest swung a green-glowing meteor of a fist at Coop’s chest and Coop shifted his feet to brace his body against his freshly summoned shield. Verdant energy blasted past the edges of the shield when they collided and both parties grunted with effort.

It had been a long time since Coop felt a block in his bones, but the vibration of the shield ran up his arm, through his collar bone, and into his chest. His feet slid on the stone surface, struggling to find purchase even as he leaned into the block. If he hadn’t leaned into the attack, he would have been thrown backwards.

As surprised as he was by the power demonstrated by the High Priest, he was equally impressed by the improvements that had been made to his ethereal summons. His shield wasn’t even dented by the enormous pressure applied by the man’s knuckles.

The Totemic was already swinging again by the time Coop recovered enough to peek above his shield. Rather than meet the pummeling fists head on again, Coop stepped further backwards. The first blow was enough to have him respect the empowered High Priest’s muscle. Regardless of the strength of his equipment, Coop was still on the other side. As he hopped backwards, he cast Legacy of the Mists, replacing his original position with a shield bearing ghost.

The second punch slammed into the lightly armored phantasm’s tall shield. Even though the ghost successfully blocked the blow, the summon still burst into mists after being depleted, but its purpose was fulfilled. With the extra split second bought by the ghost’s block, Coop backpedaled, summoned a second phantasm to flank the Totemic, and a third to destroy his remaining totem where it hummed and vibrated on the surface of the stone temple, linking the pair with green energy.

The Totemic didn’t care. He was completely focused on Coop. The flanking phantasm slammed his hammer into the man’s back as he lunged forward to continue his assault. The blow did little more than make the High Priest flinch, and Coop was having second thoughts about his target priority. If the healer was this much of a tank, he might be better off catching one of the others by surprise. Unfortunately, with the Priest bearing down on him, he had no more opportunity to shift his target.

The Champion of the Yucatan was also free to provide support, exposing another sphere of void to destroy the phantasm at the Totemic’s flank. The third phantasm smashed the totem, but was also evaporated by the Elite High Priestess shortly afterwards.

In the meantime, Tzultacaj was locked in battle with the other High Priest. The Colossus was living up to his name, now 12 feet tall. The leader of the Jaguar Sun was completely uninterested in backing down, though fresh blood dripped from his forehead. Large divots had been dug into the High Priest’s stone armor wherever his axe found purchase and they each seemed keen to slug it out between themselves. The level gap would be difficult to overcome, but there was no universe where the Elites of the Jaguar Sun backed down.

Mateo still had both arms outstretched, though no other lasers had appeared after the original pair. Coop had no idea if he was recharging or if he was being conscious of Coop and avoiding friendly fire. Either way, he kept one arm trained on the Colossus, intending to support Tzultacaj, and one vaguely in the direction of the Elite High Priestess who had the Deathstalker at her rear.

Of their enemies, the Champion of the Yucatan had done the least, and Coop wasn’t entirely sure what she was waiting for. Outside of minimal assistance, she hadn’t made any real offensive contributions to the fight. He wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, concentrating on the Totemic. For the moment, he was trapped by his original choices that led him to engage the enemy healer, and Coop contented himself with keeping an eye out for any changes in her stance.

When the next meaty fist was launched toward Coop, he ducked beneath it, sidearming his warhammer into the Totemic’s knee. The High Priest didn’t even flinch before aiming a body blow at Coop with his other fist. Coop blocked with his shield, sliding further backwards after green energy exploded between them.

“Where the hell is the Cloud Dancer?” He heard Mateo yell with frustration as Coop whipped his hammer down and was blocked by the Totemic’s empowered forearm once again, unleashing another outburst of green energy.

Juliana, who had been joined by Felix, answered after her sneak attack on the Colossus failed to cause any visible damage. “She’s not here.”

“What!” Mateo shouted. “That completely ruins our chances! I was counting on all four of us being here!”

“Coop took her place. She was injured.” Juliana grunted while slamming an empowered elbow into the back of the Colossus’s leg and darting away when a slow counterattack meandered toward her position.

Tzultacaj blasted the Colossus in the stone covered sternum for his distraction, but the golem shook the blow off. The three Jaguar Elites looked like they would be occupied by the single High Priest if nothing changed.

Coop surprised the Totemic by striking him in the jaw with a savage blow, utilizing the top edge of his shield rather than his weapon. He slipped beneath an empowered jab meant to counter the change in tempo, and smashed the High Priest in the thigh with his ethereal hammer before hopping to the side.

He rotated around the Totemic keeping him in between Coop and the Elite High Priestess, drawing a clear line in the sand. Only he and the Colossus were on the wrong sides, and naturally, they were both primarily melee tanks.

The two parties had entered a decent enough stalemate that Coop felt comfortable slowly building his momentum before he crushed his opponents. The Deathstalker was a wildcard, but everyone on the battlefield was hyper aware of her movements. Everyone except Tzultacaj, anyway. The leader of the Jaguar Sun moved at his own pace, but that was fine.

“Can he even dance?” Mateo mumbled as sweat beaded on his forehead, too quiet for anyone but Coop to hear thanks to what remained of the original thin Fog of War.

Mateo was upset about missing Sierra, and evidently, about a thousand other things at the same time. Coop had to tune the man out as he continued mumbling every thought, worry, and concern that entered his head.

Coop thought it was a silly question to begin with. He wasn’t the Cloud Dancer, he was the Revenant. His class was designed to be uncompromising in its pursuit of goals and he had leveraged its advantages with each opportunity. What need did he have of dancing? He would have them move at his pace instead.

He had come to Central America for a reason; the Cult of Chakyum had threatened Ghost Reef. He would eliminate the threat.