Effect

Skyler stood in front of me, stare focused on me. He let out a wave of air so strong it tore a hole in the ground. It was fast enough where I knew it was undodgeable, and time seemed to slow down as it does just before someone's death. I closed my eyes to blink, but the darkness seemed to last an eternity. I felt a slight breeze hit my face. When my eyes opened again it was Kim who stood in front of me. Her metal skin had protected her, but her clothes were shredded, barely being able to hold onto her body. 

    “Good job, my last leather jacket.” She said, taking a piece of leather hanging over her shoulder and throwing it onto the ground.

    “Yeah, now how are you going to tell the world how angsty you are.” I said.

    “Ah, at least one of the infamous Shen’s students turned out well.” Skyler said.

    “She has a big enough ego already, stop feeding it.” I said.

    “Connor...”She said, turning her head to look at me, “Do it!”

    Somehow we both knew what we meant. I launched myself at her with as much force as I could. Using my power to fly forward and her metal skin, Skyler’s wind was useless. I surrounded her blade with fire, making it powerful enough to pierce through the barrier and stab into his shoulder. The fire on the blade cauterized his wound, not being able to spread because of his wind.  Less than a second after striking him we got pushed back again, Kim’s heavy body landing on top of me. 

    “What type of metal is this? Lead?!” I asked.

    Kim and I got up as quick as we could, ready to go again.

    “Lucky shot!” Skyler said, wincing from the pain of his injuries.

    “The thing about never getting hit, is you grow soft.” I said.

    “Says the man babysitting a little kid.” He said.

    “Excuse me?!” She said.

    “Calm down, we need to hit him again.” I said. She was useless when she got angry.

    “Again? That’s not how luck works.”He said.

    “Luck?!” I asked.

    Out of nowhere both of us got hit by two different blasts of air, pushing us in opposite directions.

    ‘Not good.’ I said. ‘He knows we’re useless when we’re alone, and now he’ll do anything to keep us away from each other. We need a distraction.’ 

    I made a launched myself towards Kim, smashing against a wall of air. 

    “Nice plan.” He said, laughing. “Even if you broke through the wall I could just use air to stop you, idiots.”

    ‘Yeah, that's true.’ I thought. ‘Let's see… I can’t reach Kim because Skyler is blocking me, but I can’t reach Skyler without Kim. I’d need to get to Skyler to get to Kim, but I need Kim to get to Skyler. Breaking the wall is useless, it’s as strong as his barrier, and if I break Skyler the barrier will fall too. Of course, the problem with this is that I can’t break Skyler. Physically, at least.I can’t use the one spiritual spell I know, astral project, because then he could just destroy my body. I don’t know any mental spells, but all of the people in the Order are vigorously trained against mental attacks, anyway. I could use a wall of fire all around me and then use astral project, but he could destroy the walls. What would be my plan after I projected, anyway? Just go up to him and punch him? Physical magic doesn’t work in the spiritual realm. All that astral projecting would do to me is make me more vulnerable. I don’t even know if this guy has any spiritual spells he could use against me. The only thing is can see having a chance of working would be using an extremely powerful attack, but after that, I’d be pretty much useless. I’ll have to do it.’

    “Idiots?” I asked. “Strong talk for a man who’s about to be begging me to spare his life.”

    Skyler laughed and so did I.

    I surrounded my body with a ball of fire, increasing the temperature as high as I could, turning the flames blue. I launched with it around me, flying at him. I could still hear his laughing, up until the point of impact. The explosion expanded, but I pulled the flames back in to try and keep at least some of my energy, but there was too much to handle. It expanded outward, even pushing Kim back. 

    When the fire cleared, Skyler was still standing, using the little strength he had left to keep up a weaker form of the barrier, but he couldn't keep it up, falling to his knees.  Kim walked over to me, but our combined attack wasn’t needed.

    “Is it funny now?” I asked him.

    “Very.” He said, flying up in an instant and trapping us both in air barriers of our own. “Truly funny that you think that attack could stop me. Though, I envy your teamwork.” 

    I didn’t have any energy left, there was no way I was getting out of the trap.

    “This is actually the first time I’ve had the honor of executing a blacklist criminal, so thank you.” He said, beginning to shrink our prisons, intending to crush us. “Wonder what it’s like to be so infamous... ”

    “Gatekeeper, stop.” Another man said, materializing in our gateway plane.

    “Eyes? Why?” Skyler asked, stopping our cage from shrinking any further. 

    “I’ve been instructed with helping these people.” ‘Eyes’ said.

    “Blacklist criminals?!” Skyler.

    “Yes, and nobody can find out.” Eyes said. “Rules straight from Law.”

    “Fine.” Skyler said, gritting his teeth and letting us go.

    “I am called Eyes, I am the tracker you are looking for.” Eyes said, walking up to me and shaking my hand.

    “Well, how convenient.” I said, letting my hand go limp. “And why would the Order ever trust us with you?”

    “I’m no idiot, Flame. I know you came here seeking a high-level tracker, to find the Giver with the idea in your head of you and us having a ‘common enemy’.” Eyes said. “However, that isn’t exactly why I’m here.”

    “Then why are you?” I asked.

    “To find Lingzhi, yes, but not to get the Giver. Instead, destroy them.” Eyes said.

    “Then does that mean that the Order has the Giver?” Kim asked.

    “Yes, we do. In return for your service for the Order, we’ll let you use him.” Eyes said.

    ‘So, they want to destroy the Lingzhi but not have the backlash of making new enemies of any associates of the Lingzhi, if they have any. Or, so they don’t have to waste any strength on them and can just give what they see as a few meaningless people use of one of their weapons. Quite a gamble, especially for the Order. What are they hiding? I shouldn’t worry about that now, we need the Lingzhi gone, anyway.’

    “Yeah, I agree. We’ll help the Order.” I said.

    “Me too, I guess.” Kim said.

    “Well then, we’ll tend to your injuries and your clothes, and then get going.” Eyes said.

    “Yeah, but I’m not wearing a stupid looking s**t.” Kim said, turning her metal skin back to normal. She sat least still had enough clothes to keep her dignity. 

“Fine, let’s go then.” I said, all three of us phasing out of that plane into the original, physical one. 

It was a full day until we left. It took that long to first get some magical assistance with our wounds, and for Kim to finally pick some new clothing. Taking extremely long, especially considering she looks the exact same as she did before. We stayed in a hotel in the direction Eyes claimed to be the way to the Lingzhi hideout. It was much nicer than anything that Kim and I ever stayed in, by far. Probably because the Order was rich and all we had was the remains of the old man’s fortune. 

By morning we were all prepared for our journey ahead. 

“We have one more stop before we can go after the Lingzhi.” Eyes said.

“What?!” I asked.

“No need to freak out, it won’t take long.” He said.

“Where do we need to go, then?” I asked.

“There’s a Lingzhi expert, that’s why we’re at this specific hotel.” Eyes said.

“Lingzhi expert?” Kim asked, just climbing out of her bed.

“Yes, he claims to be related to one of their members. Our mission is to kill him if he’s a liar, or interrogate him if he tells the truth.” Eyes said.

The hotel was large, very large. It had a pool, a restaurant, a gift shop and a ton more stuff. We had to see about this guy in the extremely expensive hotel. Eyes made us dress up in a penguin suit and a dress, much to our dismay. The Order was apparently trying to get as much as they could out of us while they could. 

“And you, mister…?” Eyes asked.

“The cool little nickname I got was Mannequin.” this ‘expert’ said.

“Why are you called that?” Eyes asked.

“Huh… don’t know. I think it was an insult maybe. Has nothing to do with my powers.” He said.

“Well then, mannequin, what do you have on the Lingzhi?” Eyes asked.

“There are ten of them, sure you knew that.” Mannequin said. “There are members of the Order, the Assassins, the Nymphs, the New Age, the Classics, the Psychogen and even humanity.”

“Interesting, names?” Eyes asked.

“Hey, isn’t that Flame? He’s from humanity right?” Mannequin asked. “And that’s one of the Oni, I can tell from the masks.”

“What are we, celebrities?” Kim asked, failing to hide her happiness from being recognized.

“No, blacklist criminals.” Mannequin. “But both can end up on the cover of a magazine, so what’s the big difference?”

“You’re getting off track, Mannequin.” Eyes said.

“Please, call me Ryder.” Mannequin, or Ryder, said.

“Alright, Ryder, do you have names?” Eyes asked.

“My brother’s. Ron Williams.” Ryder said. “Which is actually funny because-”

“Abilities?” Eyes asked.

“The last I knew he wasn’t anything special with matter transformation, but I don’t know about now.” Ryder said.

“And the others?” Eyes asked.

“By the clans that they’re from you can make a guess, but I don’t have much.” Ryder said. “There’s a rumor going around that one of them can use chaos.”

“That’s not possible, even for terrorists such as the Lingzhi.” Eyes said.

“Flame and I ran into one of the Lingzhi’s traps, revealing at least some of their powers.” Kim said. “First, they can create temporary alternate planes of existence. Second, they can either summon creatures I’ve never seen before or create them themselves.”

“Describe these creatures.” Eyes said.

“Each time all of them were killed, or sometimes trapped, they increased strength to meet that obstacle.” Kim said. “The only way we could kill them is by reaching their limit the user set for them.”

“The possibility of life control is a very big deal.” Eyes said.

“And what does the Order have on them?” I asked.

“Nothing but insane rumors.” Eyes said.

“What rumors?” I asked.

“Rumors of an immortal man, and as Ryder said a chaos wielder.” Eyes said. “Do you know anything about the Lingzhi’s goals, Flame?”

“No.” I said.

“That, we do know.” Eyes said. “The completion of the Soulless clan’s goals.”

“Which are…?” I asked.

“How do you not know about the Soulless clan?” Kim asked. “The biggest event in magical history.”

“The Soulless clan was one of the original six clans and the most powerful of them all. It and it’s twisted leader aimed to take over the world.”

“What an idiotic goal.” I said.

“It doesn’t matter, because the war they caused killed off four of the six original clans, including itself. ”

“And what are the six original clans?” I asked.

“Are you serious?” Kim asked.

“In order of power; Soulless, Nymph, Psychogen, Blaze, Glacier, and Hawk.” Eyes said. “All founded by people so powerful it is said their soul survived death to be reincarnated again and again.”

“So it’s a myth.” I said.

“We know the war actually happened, but the rest is speculation.” Eyes said. “Anyway, this has been very informative. Thank you, everybody. Ryder, do you have anything else?”

“Uh… ” Ryder said. “Don’t think so.”

“Well, then. I apologize for this Mannequin, but nobody can know we were here.”

Before I knew it Eyes was over the table, his hand engulfed in magic pure magic energy. Ryder flipped a coin into the air, then dodged Eyes hand. The people around us freaked out and ran out, giving us a time limit. I stood up, unsure of what I should do. The coin Ryder flipped landed perfectly on Eyes eye, distracting Eyes. Ryder gut punched Eyes and moved to the table to pick up a table knife.

“A magic-user reduced to a butter knife?” Eyes asked. 

“Reduced?” Ryder asked. “And this is a table knife.”

He threw it into the air as if he was giving up. Eyes again covered his hand in magical energy and ran at Ryder. Ryder didn’t move. Eyes hand was inches away from Ryder’s chest when the knife came back down, landing again in Eyes eye. Blood gushed out of Eyes face, and screams came from his mouth. Ryder picked up the tablecloth, throwing it at Eyes. It wrapped around Eyes’ head, blinding Eyes so Ryder could kick him in the face. As eyes laid on the ground all you could see through the tablecloth around Eyes’ head was blood. 

“And we could have just talked.” Ryder said, “But don’t worry, I’m not stupid enough to kill a member of the Order.”

“Well, we need him, so...” I said, forming a ball of fire in my hand.

“Move, and you die, Sunshine.” Ryder said, pulling a knife out of the inside of his denim jacket. “You, I’m not afraid to kill.”

“So what’s this spell anyway? You see the future?” I asked.

“I see the correlation between cause and effect.” Ryder said. “Basically I know exactly what to do exactly when to do it.”

‘Does that mean he can never miss?’ I thought. ‘If I go fast enough- no, because then he’d see that the effect wouldn’t be the same. The only way I can think of countering his attack would be to make it so no matter what he does, the effect he wants isn’t possible. That is a long shot, though, A really, really, long shot. ’

“Oh yeah?” Kim asked, turning her skin metal. 

“Yeah, it’s pretty cool. I can never miss.” Ryder said.

“Why don’t you try your little power out on me?” She asked.

‘But how does he see it?’ I thought, ‘By touching the object? By looking at the target? Is it some kind of sixth sense?’

“Everyone has a weakness, love.” Ryder said, holding up his knife.

Kim balled her hands into fists. I still held onto the fire I had in my hand, ready to strike at any second. 

“Fine, if you insist.” Ryder said. “May the best win.”