Black Onyx - Phoenix Resurrection

[Widowmaker… Well, if those two were married, then the name suits her.]

I moved to the side and fired off a few Magic Bullets at the Drow. She dashed side-to-side, avoiding it all.

“Haaah!” One of our guys slashed at her with his saber, coming incredibly close to slicing her neck, yet at the last possible moment the woman turned, letting him slip by. I watched as she grinned and then struck down with her hand, her palm easily breaking the man’s spine. He got hammered into the ground, not moving.

“Haha, you guys are so funny.” The Widowmaker laughed, covering her mouth with one hand like some kind of delicate young lady. Then her eyes sharpened and she focused. “I’m going to enjoy breaking you all.”

“The heck you will, you monster!”

“We humans are not to be trifled with! Arcane Spear!”

“Grip of the Earth!”

Many spells flared into existence at once. First, a pair of hands wrapped around the Widowmaker, and then a blazing blue spear formed in the sky above her, aimed down. Lightning crackled around it, but whether it was from the excess energy or if that was the effect of the spell, I didn’t know.

With her form firmly rooted to the ground, I pointed both my hands at her as well and fired like a machine gun, sending dozens of Magic Bullets flying.

But the Widowmaker just snorted, grabbed the corpse by her foot, and tossed it into my incoming magic. The guy was torn to pieces, explosions tearing the body apart, and if he wasn’t dead before, after tasting my power he certainly was.

Still, the woman remained rooted in place, the guy with the Grip of the Earth spell struggling to maintain it. But then, the lightning flashed one last time, and the Arcane Spear was fully charged. It shot down at her like a bolt of lightning, but then she made a few hand movements and spoke a few words, and the magic veered off course, striking the guy keeping her locked in place instead.

“Thank you!” She winked at the owner of the Arcane Spear as her temporary prison came to a premature end, the energy around her unraveling as the one controlling it was blown apart.

Too bad for her, my magic was not so easy to dodge. I shot a beam of energy at her, striking her directly in the middle of her chest. She screamed and flew away, her upper body smoking with a large hole just below her neck.

One of the guys took that opportunity to attack.

“I’ll show you-!”

[Stop! Don’t get close to her!] I shouted, but the guy was already gone. With his friends and teammates dying all around him one by one, he was determined to get revenge with his own hands. As the Widowmaker lay on the ground motionless, he thought that was his chance.

He thought wrong.

“Gotcha!” The hurt Drow suddenly jumped up, grinning like mad, and before the guy could even scream, she grabbed him and sank her surprisingly long and pointy teeth into his neck.

I watched in amazement as the guy rapidly shriveled as his energy was drained, while the Widowmaker healed her wound in seconds.

[Dirrect Essence drain? She can do that?] I looked at Onyx for confirmation, but the golem just shrugged. From his mental connection, I got the response that he was just as surprised as I was.

The final man fell while I just stood, watching. I couldn’t save them, and I accepted that fact. We were already completely surrounded with nowhere to go. I even detected metallic drones, similar to those in the Underdark, flying overhead. Somehow the Drow had gained access to the ancient technology, or they just copied it. Either way, the path home had long been cut off.

“All your friends are dead.” Widowmaker suddenly spoke and smiled at me while blood still dripped from her lips. “Why don’t you nicely hand over that sack and we can finish this? I promise it won't hurt… too much.”

I snorted and sent the sack to the side, increasing the strength of the barrier around it. My mind spread outward, touching the minds of many Drow, but especially the big one. It was getting some weird signals back.

Onyx moved between us as I focused, drilling for information without alerting her, but her mind was… odd.

[The famous Widowmaker. The darling of the Drow.] I began, spreading my hands wide and covering my body with a barrier. [It looks to me that you are but a wild animal to these people, a monster on a short leash that they can sic on their enemies.]

More memories flooded to the surface, something I gladly absorbed. [Do you really wish for us to end this? How long was it since you were last awakened? Months? Years? Decades? Surely you know what will happen after you are done here. You are going back in the pod, back on ice, until these bastards need your muscle once more. Do you really want that?]

“Shut up, human. Your words cannot move me.” She hesitated for just a moment, but then her smile widened, and she kicked off the ground with such force to create a crater, launching herself at me. Onyx was there to intercept her, the two colliding with the force of an explosion.

[Why are you calling me a human? My name is Gerald Fireborn, a being with no equal. And surely you don’t consider yourself a Drow, do you? I don’t know what kind of experiments they did to you to get you to this state, but your bloodline is more human than Drow.]

“Haha! Nice try, human!” She laughed, emphasizing the last word. “But as I said, your words… Cant. Shake. Me.” With each word, she delivered a punch to Onyx’s armor, the heavy blows rattling the poor metal man.

“Uff, she is really strong. I don’t know how much longer I can take it, Master.” Onyx said through the mental link connecting us.

[Keep her busy just a little longer. I think I nearly got through to her. Her mind is weird though. So empty.] I sent back.

“30 seconds. Any more than that and I risk breaking something.”

[Alright then.] I said aloud and focused on offensive Mystic Arts. I sent many beams and bolts at the Drow, even covering her in flames and shooting Arcane Blaze at her. It hurt her, but with all the stolen Essence, she healed quickly. Kind of like me.

Oh, right, that’s what that was, yeah… No wonder...

[Onyx, do you feel that?]

“Feel what?”

[She’s kind of like us.]

“Ooooh! You are right! Ah, but I guess hers is not as strong?”

[Still dormant, I think. Could be just weaker. It would explain why she can consume Souls though. Anyway, you can let her through now.]

“Yes, Master! One angry Drow, coming right up!”

“Haaaah!” With one last punch from Widowmaker, Onyx flew away, some metal pieces flying off as he bounced across the dirt and skidded to a stop, remaining motionless. The guy really was good at pretending to be beaten. I barely kept back my smile.

Then, I turned serious, scanning for Widowmaker’s presence, but she was nowhere to be found. I swiftly turned around, just in time to see her form looming over me. Her fist connected with my barrier, breaking it and sending me tumbling across the ground.

“There, with that taken care of…” She dusted off her hands and shifted forward, stopping before me, and lifted me by the collar of my shirt. Her green eyes stared into mine. I pretended to be afraid and trembled. “Hmph! I had hoped you would be a bit… more fun to fight. Instead, you fight like every other boring mage.”

[W- Who…] I whispered.

“Hmm?” She leaned closer.

[Asked?!]

I delivered a right hook to her cheek with a shout. She disappeared from the force of my blow, taking a piece of my shirt with her.

[This bitch…] I cursed as I looked down at my ruined clothes. Just one more piece, destroyed by combat. It seemed that the curse of nakedness would follow me to my grave.

There was an animalistic scream and I slowly, casually turned, looking at the infuriated Widowmaker. Her facial bones were slowly snapping into place as she stumbled forward while blood still flowed from her nose.

“You-!” She growled.

[Me?] I pointed at myself, confused, looking around and confirming I was the target of her rage.

“How dare you!” She roared. The bleeding stopped and her mildly attractive face was back. “I’ll kill you!”

[Oh, I’m sorry? Did this wittle wizard hurt you? Hum?] I made a sad pouting expression, pushing my bottom lip out as much as I could.

She roared and hurled herself at me, her long, pointy fingernails aimed at my neck. I crouched slightly as she approached in slow motion, the Century in a Blink technique fully active, and dodged her attempted hug, giving her a gift of my own. A fist to the nose!

There was an unsettling crunch as her face partially caved in, blood squirting everywhere. I then accelerated time a bit, seeing her get blasted back once more.

[Whoops. Was that me?] I grinned. I slowly walked towards her, stopping just a step away.

“Geah!” She growled and tried to swipe at my leg. I lifted my foot to dodge and stomped down hard, forming a crater and breaking her hand in the process.

She screamed and tried to do the same with her other hand. I broke that one as well. She was surprisingly fragile.

“I’ll kill you!” She roared, her face already healing. However, I noticed that her regeneration was slowing down considerably. The damage she sustained was not all that high, but the conversion rate of draining a person of Essence couldn’t have been all that high. It was probably garbage, to be fair. Efficiency and speed of absorption were inversely proportional after all.

[No, no I don’t think so. Also, sorry, but I’m not a mage.] I grinned.

I gestured to Onyx to come closer and ordered him to sit on her. The guy gladly jumped at the chance, slamming down with his full weight on her stomach.

“Gah!”

[If she looks like she’s about to recover, break her again.] I ordered, and the golem nodded silently.

[Let’s see here…] I sat down and crossed my legs, creating a barrier around us in the process. The other Drow warriors unfortunately realized their prized champion was down, and tried to help her.

Haha. No.

I closed my eyes and focused, connecting my mind to hers. Memories flashed through my mind, the life story of the Widowmaker unraveling. So many died at her hands, so many Souls she consumed, friend and foe alike, gaining her the name.

[Hmm…] The memories stopped about two decades ago, with nothing to show for her early life or how she became what she was. Her earliest memory was of a time when she was already the Widowmaker. What she thought was her childhood was just a memory of a memory, easily seen as a later insertion for someone with the ability to alter minds.

In other words, many of her memories were implanted.

[Widowmaker… I wonder who you really are?] I said out loud and then returned my expression to neutral. I patted her cheek. [This is going to hurt a bit. Stay strong.]

“AAAAAAAAAH!” The Drow answered.

I lied, of course. It was going to hurt a lot. I was drilling through her mind, searching for the remnants of memories that were removed, or if I was lucky, suppressed.

[Make her shut up, I need to focus.]

“Okay!” Onyx answered and the screaming stopped. I dove deeper into the core of her being, searching for answers. There, in the deepest corner of her Soul, I found a clump of memories, all jumbled and compressed, separate from the rest of them.

They were impossible to access or make sense of, except for, of course, a master of the Soul.

[Huh…] I opened my eyes and rubbed my chin. The discovery was… interesting. I looked back at the Widowmaker and saw Onyx squeezing her neck.

[Hey, let her go.] I said, patting him on the shoulder.

Onyx released her, allowing her blood to flow again, and turned to me. “Did you find what you were looking for, Master?”

[Maybe… Wait here.]

I flew up into the sky, out of the barrier, and took out a communication relic. We were far away, so I gave it a bit more juice while manually holding the Runes stable. Soon there was a connection.

“Yo! John here.”

[Hey. Quick question, if you don’t mind.]

“Oh, Gerald? What’s up?”

[What did you say the name of that last member of your group was again? The one that managed to get away all those years ago?]

“The woman who escaped? I don’t think I ever told you her name. Hmm…. It was so long, nearly three decades ago…” There was a pause. “Alexandra says her name was something like Olive?”

[Olivia?]

“Ye, ye! That’s the one, you got it.”

[Huh… Thanks.]

“Why, what happened?”

I looked around, noticing a swarm of drones flying towards me. [Sorry, I’m kind of busy at the moment. We’ll talk again later. See you soon.]

“Hey, wait! What’s-”

I severed the connection and stored away the relic. I was a bit surprised it worked so deep in enemy territory, but… Anyway...

The drones were nearing fast, with the Drow warriors similarly flying towards me, and judging by their expressions, they weren’t coming to offer me tea. I cracked my knuckles and began gathering Qi inside my chest, the Souls of the dead powering up my magic.

[Alright motherfuckers. It’s time for all of you to die.]