The Games We Play

DISCLAIMER: This story is NOT MINE IN ANY WAY. That honor has gone to the beautiful bastard Ryuugi. This has been pulled from his Spacebattles publishment at threads/rwby-the-gamer-the-games-we-play-disk-five.341621/. Anyway on with the show...err read.

Push

"You…" Gilgamesh growled, though I'm not sure why. If not for my sensory abilities, I wouldn't have been able to hear him, moving as fast as we now were. I struck my one side and my counterpart from the other, forcing him to split his attention between us. I struck high first, aiming a fist for his temple that he pushed aside with the back of a hand, before aiming a sucker punch at his side with my other that he was forced to lower his elbow to smack down. My other self swung a low kick that he stepped over and, while he was balanced on one leg, pushed himself upright with a flex of will to aim a kick for Gilgamesh's chin that the legendary Grimm jerked his head out of the way of. Gilgamesh's free hand came down, swordsmanship superb even while so off balance, but we both focused on him before the blade could hit home.

A hammer of Psychokinetic force slammed into the Grimm, knocking him several steps back and into the air. Seeing our chance, my double and I teleported into the same spot, lining up with Gilgamesh, and I gathered my strength into an Agniyastra, the legendary weapon made even more potent by its namesake and out dual nature. We layered our existences such that I was 'interposed' between the attack and my other self, shielding him from the consuming flames—I, after all, was completely immune to fire. It took only a moment to charge the attack and then I hurled it with all my might, sending the spear of supernatural flames careening towards the airborne Grimm.

Gilgamesh grunted a moment before the attack hit home, hands snapping up to catch the spear out of midair. He made a pained noise, the touch of the Agniyastra scorching even to him, and held it away from his chest even as it pushed him back through the air. He flew nearly halfway across the crater before somehow leveraging himself enough to throw the spear away while still airborne, using the impulse of the strike to send himself back to the ground where he continued to skid across the ground until he dropped a hand to the dirt to slow himself down.

Needless to say, we were already upon him by the time he rose, Fluctuating to either side—though this time, we kept our distance. Firing spheres snapped into existence around us, filling with our weapons of choice—namely, the ones that benefited the most from our current Elemental Embodiments. I called up a small swarm of Agniyastras while my counterpart filled the air around him with Gungnir's and we cut loose before Gilgamesh was even fully back on his feet. He snapped back, trying to leap out of the kill zone we'd established, but we both gestured at him and dual Gravity Crashes slammed him back into the ground before he could get far.

Then, it was just a matter of our attacks converging on a target—and we both had really good aim. And while he was pinned down, we converged ourselves, appearing right in front of him. This time, my other self took the lead, crafting a Longinus in our hands. The spear glowed brightly with the power we infused within it—but because of that same power, it wasn't something we could waste. Unlike Gungnir, Longinus couldn't follow a target and while it could pierce any defense, it could still miss; when we could afford to use it, me had to make sure it counted. Thanks to the Mathematician's Answer, I was reasonably confident I'd never miss a stationary target, but Gilgamesh was far from stationary and aiming got more complicated against a foe who could move fast enough to dodge an attack after it was fired.

Even so, I saw a shot and I took it. We stepped forward once and threw the spear towards the center of his body—tempting as it was to aim for the head, against a target as fast as this, it was better to aim for the center of mass and trust that putting a gaping hole in someone's body was bad for their health no matter where it was.

The moment it left our hands, space began to waver around Longinus, twisting violently around the blade as it flew without seeming regard for air resistance or much of anything else. The ground seemed to curve slightly as the blade flew over it, as if pushed down by its passage, and in the midst of the smoke I saw Gilgamesh's eyes snap up to the spear in recognition. He tried to react, to get out of the way, but there was a reason we'd struck from this close—near enough to minimize his chances of dodging, far enough to avoid attempts at disrupting our attack—and his attempted dodge did nothing but cause the spear to pierce through the left side of his chest instead of where a human's heart would have been. His hand came up to close over yet another hole in his chest, but his eyes were intent and fierce.

The burst of speed that followed was surprising even to me—to such an extent that we only dodged because we'd expected reprisal and had already been in motion. We went in opposite and then up, appearing such that we hung over Gilgamesh at an angle—something we promptly exploited by using Bane of the Prometheans at his open back, layering every speed booster we had in the process. We reached him at the same time, each grabbing one of his arms and sinking our claws into it before pulling back as hard as we could as the second phase of the Bane took hold. Between the two of us, we not only halted Gilgamesh's forward momentum but drew him into the air, the force and timing of our attacks drawing him right into our midst, and we floated in a quick arc until we intersected, existences aligning with one another as we occupied the same space.

When Gilgamesh was right in front of us, we took a deep breath and crossed our metaphorical fingers.

Then we used Ohr Ein Sof.

It wasn't the same as before, at least not quite—which was both a good and a bad thing. We were united and divided, at once less than perfect and more than the sum of our parts. Thaumiel was about more than just giving a physical form to my counterpart—it was about giving him true selfhood, life and power. There was a difference between our separated existence and our combined one, odd as it might be; in truth, we were always divided, as we remained two distinct souls that happened to occupy the same body, but when we were like this…we were something else.

Stuff like that mattered to the Light. Apparently, so did the two of us activating the skill twice.

Of course, the other side of that was that there were two of us—meaning we had two shots at Unraveling, coming apart as we boiled ourselves down to the most basic elements. And by the very nature of Thaumiel, if one of us died, we both died.

But this was a chance for us, maybe even for Mankind, and with Thaumiel I was pushing Gilgamesh hard enough to take advantage of it.

Once again, I had a shot and I took it. I came apart—we came apart, connected even when there was nothing left of us but who we truly were. We were light and shadow, motion and stillness, the beginning and the end; a melding of linked concepts that soon lost distinction, our division dissolving into a true unity. A name occurred to me distantly, alongside Metatron, but slipped away from me along with thought and selfhood.

I was. We were. There was nothing else.

And then there was, exploding outwards from the light. Coming back together felt harder now, like I'd frayed a bit at the edges, except the edges were who I was. I checked quickly—pointlessly, even—and my other self was still there as well, panting hard alongside me, our breaths and heartbeats perfectly matched. Only after I'd finished checking up on my other did I turn my attention back to Gilgamesh.

The ancient Grimm had really seen better days. His armor was even more badly cracked now, thanks to our continued assault and the second Ohr Ein Sof—but more notably, he was missing something now, specifically his left arm and a decent chunk of that side of his chest. If he'd been a human, the new hole would have devoured most of his left lung and maybe infringed upon his heart, but as a Grimm, it was hard to say if any of the internal damage mattered.

The loss of a limb, however…

He was at a disadvantage now and he knew it. With as hard as we'd been pushing him before, the loss of an arm—a limb to both attack and defend with—was, well, crippling. Perhaps not so badly as a leg would have been, but it was still bad and we'd be able to hurt him even worse now. The way things were going, if he didn't pull out a hell of a trick soon, this would spell the end.

Which, if I was being honest with myself, I kind of expected. Not to put too fine of a point on it, but so far, he'd been dangerous, well above just about anyone I'd ever seen, but not mythic. If this was all he had after a few thousand years, I should have killed him last time. When it came to my enemies—my real enemies, not the chafe I slaughtered for power—I wasn't this lucky. He had something up his sleeve, same as I did, and having failed to erase him from existence twice now, odds were good I was about to find out.

Gilgamesh didn't disappoint.

Letting out a growling cry, the flesh on his absent side began to bubble for a moment, as if his wounded skin was boiling—and then it burst violently, matter ejecting from it forcibly. A dark, skeletal shape took shape, seeming somehow warped, though whether it was supposed to be that way or if it was a result of the Brahmastra's interference, I wasn't sure. Either way, whips of red matter followed, coiling around the unnatural bones with extreme speed and taking shape as a twisted musculature, pulsing and flexing in odd places. Finally, a layer of black and white skin grew over it, giving it the form of a twisted arm, with white spikes piercing the skin painfully in random places.

It only took the legendary Grimm moments to regrow the limb, but that was too be expected; after the Hydra, I'd gone into this knowing that I'd be facing some extreme regeneration and that I'd best bring ways to deal with it. The Brahmastra was one, a long term thing that disrupted most forms of healing and turned them steadily against the body over time; it was something I'd been relieved to develop, for that very reason. While it was true that I, too, suffered from the effects, I was less reliant on 'natural' means of healing and even my natural HP regeneration was a secondary issue. The effects it would have on my teammates was a bigger concern, but at the very least, I could heal them as well, given the opportunity. Here in the land of the super Grimm, I'd decided we gained more than we lost.

So the fact that Gilgamesh could sprout new limbs like it was nothing wasn't much of a shock to me; if anything, I was just pleased to see that the limb he'd regained didn't seem to be in working condition. That was the insidious effect of one of my greatest skills at work, and it would worsen over time as he was forced to heal over and over again, the status effect steadily worsening. I wasn't arrogant enough to try fighting a creature of myth and nightmare with just one plan; if need be, I'd wear him down slowly over time until his own regeneration rendered him unable to fight. If possible, I hoped it wouldn't come to that, simply because drawing things out heightened the chances of something going wrong for me—but it was an option. Ideally, I'd take him down in some other way, such as with Ohr Ein Sof, but I did what I had to when my back was up against a wall.

What happened next, however, was a touch more worrying and it was what slowed my advance before I could truly close in on him. A moment after the deformed limb came forth and hung limply at Gilgamesh's side, a strange wave of dark matter pulsed and raced down from his shoulder, flickering across the limb. As it went, bone shards receded into flesh and odd, twisted lumps of muscle seemed to untangle. Other things sprouted up in their place, but they were lesser now, the damage seeming more muted, and the following wave simply erased more and it was followed by another and another still. In a few moments, there was no sign that he'd been wounded at all, at least to normal eyes.

My eyes were anything but, especially through the lens of my other self. Keen as my vision normally was, now it was almost like I'd been living life in a blur and seen it with glasses on for the first time. In some ways, it made no difference—there was a limit to the effectiveness of clarity when you could see everything about something to begin with—but in others it came in handy.

This was one of them. Even if I couldn't use observe to see the truth of the matter, I could tell that the effects of the Brahmastra were still there thanks to my Third Eye; he'd treated the symptoms, perhaps, but not the disease. I'd also been able to see the nature of the process itself, with countless tiny shapes squirming across and into his twisted flesh, breaking things down and spewing them forth. It was an interesting trick, but there was more to it than there might seem—it was just a matter of figuring out what. Important as time was to me now, it was worth a second or two.

"Surprised?" Gilgamesh said when I didn't attack. Perhaps he was feeling chatty, still, but it was more likely that he was just buying himself time to heal and wear me down. Now that I'd seen the nature of his power, I debated whether or not I should press my assault again, but…no, even this wasn't enough. My perceptions were all but shouting warnings to me, telling me of approaching danger, and so I kept still.

Besides. Time limit or not, I benefited for a breather, too. Divided nature or not, that assault had taken power and I could use a few seconds to recover what I'd lost with Dust crystals and my natural MP regeneration. Thaumiel gave me two pools of MP, but that came with a fair bit of maintenance when we went all out.

"A bit," I allowed, giving him a slight nod. "I'd begun to wonder when you would finally take this seriously. Did I manage to make an impression, perhaps?"

"Quite so," He answered, cracking his neck. "I'll admit, you took me by surprise as well; you came prepared, I see. I'd been a touch concerned about breaking you on accident—there has been a time or two when I overestimated the durability of my playmates, you see, and I thought it would be unfortunate if I ended up tearing you to pieces needlessly. I can see that was arrogant of me and so you have my apologies. As you said, I will now take this seriously."

As he spoke, the armor of his chest rippled, tiny waves of black crawling over the white armor as though someone had thrown a stone into a pond. Whatever it touched shifted and changed, edges smoothing and surfaces growing with each passing moment. He was preparing a trick of some kind and it was only the knowledge that it'd be easier to react from a distance that kept me from shooting something at him then and there. Instead, I gathered my returning power and focused it into the ground around both of us, preparing while I had the chance.

"This is my ability, you could say," Gilgamesh continued. "While I am not so fortunate as to have powers such as yourself, I was created with things that set me apart from my brethren and this is one of them. I'm sure by now you are familiar with my fellow's nature; to steal a phrase, that which does not kill us, makes us stronger."

"You learn and adapt," I replied. "Learning from your mistakes to exploit other's weaknesses. It's more than that, though; you change physically as you recover, growing to become more effective killers, whether that means changing size, shape, or whatever else."

"Just so," He agreed. "In that regard, I must concede somewhat to your earlier point—that which does not learn, dies. Both of our species know that, for after all, it is only through learning that one can truly master the art of killing. You still have your schools, do you not? Where you train the young to fight and die? Alas, we don't have anything quite the same; our lessons tend to be learned in battle and over time. Not the most efficient way, but we develop differently from you and yours. Those who grow enough to truly understand have no need to learn; those who cannot learn have no hope of understanding. Such is our way."

I didn't answer him, watching him quietly. My MP was full again, my traps had been laid, and I took another moment to check on my allies. Adam and Raven were still doing well, but Gou had begun to suffer from the effects of the Brahmastra himself. Should I break off to heal him real quickly? I could fight Gilgamesh without my other, if it was only for a short time, and there was the effect on Autumn to consider. But—

"However, as I said, I am different from my brothers and sisters," Gilgamesh interrupted, an edge to his tone. "There is a reason I was created with this form. I was not created through chance or natural processes; I am the result of Intelligent Design. And that, in turn, is my power."

His armor began to burst in random places, taking shape around him as he stepped towards me. His previous armor seemed to melt away, flowing into a different shape along with his body. His forearms and hands widened and lengthened into bulky columns, fingers replaced with jointed blades. His body grew a pure white covering, armored and yet streamlined with odd modifications to his legs. Even his mask shifted, leaving his face and head covered by a smooth, featureless helmet. It didn't look biological, like the Grimm tended to; if anything, it looked technological, akin to the power armor I'd spent quite some time imagining.

Something that had been created instead of grown.

In the next moment, Gilgamesh flickered, closing the gap between us in a meaningless fraction of a second and bringing a massive arm down with force enough to beat down mountains.