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"I see you've learned some new tricks as well! Since when do you call out move names?"

"I learned from the best." Maximos said, a smile audible on Maximos' voice.

"I'm just getting warmed up, Max. It's time for Round 2." Maximos was hardly a man of many words. He preferred to speak with his actions. With the way he lowered Ankokuko into a one handed grip beside him, angled slightly toward the ground without ever touching it. With the way he softly chuckled. And with the two simple words he spoke. "Show me."

And Ryugi did. The dragon bolted forward, and Maximos stood completely motionless. Power wafted off of him like smoke wafts from flame, what surviving blades of grass their were waved softly, and yet with each pass seemed to echo as their shadows elongated and stretched, sluggish and drunk with the ambient waves of power. And yet for all of the restrained power Maximos kept held in reserve, capped and tight like the cork of a wine bottle, Ryugi seemed to have infinitely more.

Infact, Maximos even assumed that should he have used his bare eye and Magic Sight as opposed to Soul Sight to look at Ryugi, it would have been akin to staring into the sun using a telescope. The very reason for his trip to Angara was to attain a lens that could help him focus his sights, and his spectacles served that purpose. But, things were different in the Loricatus. This armor provided Maximos with an entire visor, and all the room inside his helm to write the enchantments required to focus and study what he sees. Maximos saw Ryugi. He saw the elements Ryugi was tapping, he saw the directions the element's came from, and in what force. His helm fed him information regarding how much of that force Ankokuko could take, and how much his arm could absorb, and how much it would take to crack or shatter his armor. All of this from safely behind a sheet of black glass. And all of these were details, and every detail was required to form a functional strategy. Knowledge, is power.

There was an explosion of soot and dust and light, could not reach Ryugi. Maximos' left eye was useless, but his right watched evenly. Patient and waiting. Ryugi burst forward at terrible speeds, and Maximos' smile stretched wide across his face. This was new, this speed, this attack, even this strategy.

His initial readouts told him immediately that should that glowing sword hit him cleanly, it had every bit of the power necessary to crush through his armor and end the match here and now. But it wasnt time for that, he had other options. Maximos boots whirred into life, squealing a high pitch scream and veins of white and violet coursed up his legs, and the ground cracked beneath his motionless feet. Ryugi...or at the very least, this Ryugi swung its sword, and as opposed to moving Ankokuko, Maximos' foot rose up to meet it. A kick, had absolutely no where near the power necessary to stop that titantic blade, but neither did it need it.

It wasnt steel that his striking Maximos' foot, it was energy. And while energy could slice through steel easier, it would not cut so easily through a hyper condensed pocket of energy. And neither did it need to. The glowing blade was about to crash into Maximos' foot at the apex of its swing, and with a smirk Maximos released a compressed blast of essence from the bottom of his boot. The blast would never stop the sword, and the sword would never really reach the boot, instead its close proximity and fierce forward motion provided just enough of a launch point to send Maximos flying back and upwards through the air.

The Shadow flipped twice before coming to a nimble stop, a slight white glow beneath his feet giving him the ability to stand on the air with his feet pressed together and Ankokuko held straight out in front of him and aimed directly at Ryugi. Wherever Ryugi may actually be. From his perch a good twenty or so feet up, Maximos purveyed the entire battle field and then smiling said, "Thats good Ryugi. Show me more!"

As you wish!!

You ever get the feeling someone is breathing down your neck? It was like that, but so much worse. This was no mere hot air, this was a ball of superheated and massively destructive fire. What Maximos' did not see, he felt wafting over and past him in heavy waves that made being inside of a form fitting suit like his increasingly uncomfortable. Maximos did not turn fully around rather, he peered back just slightly over his shoulder and the offered the dragon below a stout thumbs up! "Better! Much better! Well played sir!"

The Supernova was on him, but Maximos did not react like a man panicked. Power surged up and down his arms, arching again like vivid blue and plum colored electricity. Lunaic engravings and enchantments ran up the armored plates covering both of his arm, and now essence pulsed visibly through those engraved enchantments in waves, washing from a bright blue to a dark royal purple. Maximos did not turn, but he did drop.

He leaned forward and as he was suspended in the air, gravity pulled his top half downwards and beneath him, rolling Maximos heels over head. As he flipped, the Shadow brought his blade, up and over his head as if preparing to slice the Supernova cleanly in twain.

Gravity tugged him downwards, forcing him into an upside down fall, but at a sluggish place that was absolutely no where near fast enough to allow him to avoid the Supernova. His boots whirred and churned, the small pockets of white under the soles of his feet, spurting and warbling with instability. And yet Maximos did not make any move to avoid the attack. "My turn!"

Was the last thing heard from the Shadow, and then it was upon him. It was an explosion. And what's more, it was an explosion in mid air. Explosions are frighteningly deadly things. From the peak of a volcano, to man made bombs, explosions expel terrible outward force. The true power of an explosion relied in its ability to produce a frightening push, from no where. The jolt of even the toughest objects being suddenly hurled was highly damaging, and damaging yet still more to anything those unsuspecting projectiles hit. Like a grenade, if you did not see an explosion coming you were likely to get ruined by it.

All of these factors played into Maximos strategy. He watched the Supernova in the meager seconds it took for it to explode. Behind him, the Shadow's watched the true Ryugi, in case he should decide to rush things or maneuver. And the moment the explosion hit Maximos and filled the area with a rush of blinding magic and power, Maximos ignited his boots. The sound of his boots blasting off was absolutely smothered by the Supernova Attack. And in an instant, the situation was turned. Maximos, was in the air, free to move and fly and fall as he wished. He was not pinned under the blast to the ground, left to survive its terrible heat waves. This meant that the moment the Supernova detonated, early or on time, Maximos with is power engorged arms and black overhead held blade, moved from being a victim...to being a projectile.

Maximos a man very accustomed to high speed, had started the flight and it remained in his control, despite appearances he had never once lost sight of his opponent. The power of his boots, combined with the explosive force of the Supernova Attack, and accented by the Light Clone's self destruction made Maximos into an unbelievably powerful missile set to bare unerringly down on the real Ryugi, wherever he showed himself to be. Light could lie but Maximos' eye, and shadowspeak between himself and the silent watcher that was Ryugi's shadow, did not. Speed, Maximos summarized was a differential between both men that Ragnorok would be hard pressed to overcome. And at striking range, Maximos would bring Ankokuko down on the dragon below.

Maximos had several options available to him. He could roll in direction. He could bank. He could curve. If he strained he could even pull up and zoom above Ryugi entirely. But of all of those options, there was one thing Maximos could not do.

And that was stop.

If he cut his boots, the momentum was too strong. If he blast them in reverse, he would barely slow. Whatever force stopped him, had to bigger and stronger than all of the combined forces that propelled him to begin with. Simply put, even a full powered Maximos could not generate that type of force.

He saw the wall of light, but there was very little he could do about it. Light, was in every way his foe. It was bright where he was dark, it was hot where he was cool. It found the shadows where they hid and scattered them away to deeper dark spots opposite the light. His helm showed him the density of the wall, and yet still showed him its bubbling instability. In a moment, flickers, flashes, and beacons of red and white began popping into view declaring warnings and advising alternative courses of action. But Maximos couldnt stop.

When the Shadow slammed another full charge of energy into his boots and rocketed himself forward even harder with even more recklessness, one had to wonder that even if Maximos could have halted himself on a dime...would he?

The answer was no. Maximos' only preparatory action was to lower Ankokuko from over his head, to extended out by his side, switching its stance from a fierce slash to a right-left slash. At this speed, it was doubtful Maximos could even lift the sword against inertia back to its upward position if he tried. He didnt care. By the mere presence of so much light Ankokuko's blade was losing its sheen, gaining a duller, thicker, lifeless hue. Through blinding light and a thousand warnings, the Shadow only saw Ryugi. His friend, and more over a man to which he owed a promise. Dont hold anything back.

And he would not. He could not. In that spirit of that promise, regardless of the danger Maximos would give Ryugi his all. No matter what. A hero, no, a man never backs down from his word. Not ever. That's just the kind of man he was.

In immediate reaction Ankokuko's blade snapped into life. Empowered by Maximos determined advance the sword gleamed with renewed vigor. It acted, as the Shadow focused, spawning behind the blurring bullet that was Maximos, yet another set of jet black reptilian wings, which immediately encased him in a desperate attempt to save him from the Caller of Darkness' sworn enemy, blazing mere feet away.

And then Ankokuko kissed the wall of light and...



...Or was there? What happened next happened so very fast even the man who performed it could have missed it if he blinked.

Maximos never swung, rather, just as Ankokuko touched the offending wall he simply released it and barrel rolled like a torpedo to the left. If there was an explosion there was, if that small tap did nothing to trigger the claymore then there wasnt. But only one thing remained certain now, as it had from the very beginning.

Maximos could not stop.

Regardless of the warnings, regardless of the cracks and fissures leaking through is suit. Regardless of the pain, and regardless of the burning light, Maximos could not stop. He would take damage, he knew that, and he knew the moment the attack came to a halt the full impact of that damage would explode on him like a timebomb. But for the moment all he needed to do was hold on, and give Ryugi everything.

It would be a heartbeat later, that a slice of black would flash through the cascading remnants of the wall of light. Maximos was swooping, and like a falcon he arched his upper body up and brought his legs to bare. Skeletal black wings snapped out dramatically behind him and both feet impacted the ground with terrifying force shattering it beneath Maximos and then sending chunks and boulders of rock soaring upwards as his boots poured full blast into the broken ground.This simple action allowing the full force of the blast not to be lost in the blast, but carried...forward.

This was never about Ankokuko. Up above, as Maximos turned to face the Supernova attack, his arms arched with unholy energy, his arms carried the power. Maximos never made displays of power for show, and rarely ever did anything with just one consequence. Even if Ryugi had blocked, the sword swipe was a fake. The sword would have been released either way. And now, it was those very same super charged arms that burst forward with all of the speed Maximos was known for, and carrying every single bit of momentum, impact, and sheer power carried through each of his previous actions up until this exact moment. And even now, a ribbon of black ran from both of Maximos' hands up into the sky.

If Ryugi thought that Ankokuko's cutting edge had absolutely anything to do with the dual Shadow Cannon's exploding from the two fists careening straight for his gut...he'd be very wrong.

A man once said that for every action, there was an equal and opposite reaction. Spiraling through an explosion of purest light, slamming viciously into the ground like some sort of mad comet, and then slamming a hurricane of force into the unforgiving gullet of a super powered dragon and detonating it...at no point did Maximos let him believe this was going to be easy.

In the moments before impact, as Maximos curved his body upwards and presented his legs the Nocturnis Loricatus was acting. There was no light inside the paladin's black armor, and that very darkness seemed violently into his skin, through his muscles and surrounded his bones. It penetrated so far as his marrow and thickened itself unnaturally to act as a sort of masochist shock absorber.

At the very second his feet shattered the ground, so too did the Loricatus shatter, a suit made of plates and armor not flesh and blood would only be bound to break and crack spilling off chunks of black and chips of black. Maximos felt his legs scream in protest, he felt shadow slither through his flesh painfully and hold him together, and then the entire sensation doubled on itself as the black armor repeated the process on his arms, and then fists. His veins bulging black and spiny lengths pierced his skin and supported his fragile flesh and tissue.

And then the hit. All of that momentum brought to its apex at his fists, striking the dragon solidly. He felt his bones creak, and yet Maximos did not but grin a suicidal grin across his hidden face. Boom.

Explosions, dont usually care who or what they strike. A normal Shadow Cannon had enough kick to send an opponent backwards, and as Maximos' limbs were expecting the blast, simply to snap his arms back to him. But this, was so much more. At the instant of detonation it felt less like Maximos had punched a still dragon, and more like he had tried to stop an oncoming truck with his hands. He could feel the raw force reverberate backwards, literally rippling his armor as if it were fluid and then sending shards of black steel flying in all directions. The blow rippled across both limbs, and then destructively over his shoulders and across his chest, striking him in a violent wave, and digging his footing deeper into the broken earth.

Ryugi flew back, and Maximos arms snapped outwards wildly before slamming to halt at either of his sides leaving the Shadow a black armored cross at the opposite end of the field, with wisps of black smoke rising from either arm and faint lines of purple and blue dancing lazily from his now exposed fingers to his where is pauldrons and cracked and looked something like a partially completed jig saw puzzle. There was stillness, and silence.

And then Maximos moved, his body shedding broken bits of black steel like a frozen state suddenly brought to life might shed excess ice. When Ryugi grinned he would not only feel, but also see Maximos' matching grin. Even despite the stream of red trickling down his face, the Shadow could do nothing but smile. He had done it, he had held nothing back and the dragon ultimately shrugged it off of his scales and rose again. Empowering himself to a newer, higher level.

The science of it was easy enough to understand. While Ryugi controlled light and fire as two separate things, fire was only a distortion of light causing a dancing color where the heat was strongest and slowed the light to various points in its spectrum. Man put more mean to it than that, making red, orange, yellow all depictions of flame. But flame at its base was blue, and even hotter when it was green. To combine the two was...natural. And to be given the honor of witnessing such a thing was just as much of an honor as the defeat it would soon bring.

Maximos, had his limitations. He had only one element, and more darkness would only bring more of the same that Ryugi had already fought and survived. He could not bring the dragon's stamina.

And yet, despite it all, as Ryugi's power level sky rocketed Maximos never once let his grin falter. He brought his arms up and the crimson life pooling inside what remained of his gauntlets spilled to the ground. Shadow stitching could close the wounds, and with time he could reform the Nocturnis Loricatus, but Ryugi was not going to let him have that time. Not if the dragon was keeping true to his promise. Was he ready? Maximos was born ready. His fists snapped into tight balls, his left foot slid back and he took up an firm defensive stance his eyes locked on Ryugi's through what remained of his helmet. A man, against impossible odds.

And then, suddenly his eye contact broke and his fists loosened. Maximos head turned awkwardly to the side as if someone had called his name. He shook his head, incidentally shuffling off more black flakes and chips and then spoke, his voice soft no longer echoing. "No...I would never...are you sure? This is not your promise to keep."

Unexpectedly Maximos chuckled, then gave a stout nodded and softly said, "Alright."

His right hand rose into the air, making the broken Black Knight appear for a moment like a child reaching in the sky for long lost balloon. And out from the clouds, it came. It wasnt a sword, and it was smaller than any of the ribbons made during the fight. It was a length of black only about a foot long, perhaps a foot and a half. And it fell in a most unnatural way. Cloth would fold and tumble, but this dark strip seemed to slither and undulate. It was a long way away, so it was understandable if Ryugi did not recognize the wings folded against its back, or the small limbs tucked close to its jet black body to maximize its aerodynamic fall.

It wasnt until the small creature reached Maximos' outstretched hand that it unfolded itself. Its leathery black wings snapped out, its short legs placed along its serpentine body grasped Maximos fingers, and immediately it began coiling itself affectionately around his hand. Where its tiny claws passed, splotches of black appeared. And then, with its body intertwined around two fingers and its legs supporting it on Maximos' thumb it gave a tiny roar, which sounded more like a chirp and flapped its black wings. Maximos smiled up at the baby dragon.

And then it moved. Not with the slow pace of moments before, but in a blur. In an instant, it was there, and in the very next instant what was a black baby dragon, was now a quasi-visible shape. Maximos' hand was engulfed in black movement, lengths and bolts of black substance shot toward the blur as if pulled into a vortex and were never seen again. In a flash the shape raced down his arm, and across his torso to his left leg, pulling in chunks, lines, slivers and ribbons of jet black as it moved. It reached his left angle, zoomed around his left foot and then leaped in a burst of blinding speed to his right and in a second it was up that leg as well and moving to his left arm. And where it passed, armor followed. Not a different armor, not new armor, but fresh crisp and repaired armor. The Nocturnis Loricatus rebuilt flawlessly.

The blur spiraled down Maximos left arm, and the Shadow softly raised the limb so that it was something of a diving board. The Shape raced up his arm, flew off and only in mid air did it pause long enough to lets its reptilian form be visible before snapping its wings and diving straight down. It plunged into Maximos semi-transparent shadow as if it were a pool and immediately the entire elongated shape of Maximos cut out against Ryugi's bright light turned a bottomless black. And just as soon it moved, the shape distorted and tore itself off of the ground leaving Maximos shadowless as a large flat shape, several feet longer curled itself along in a six foot circle around Maximos, growing, fattening, and detailing itself as it did.

When it finally came to rest, Maximos, the restored Black Knight, sat in the center of large serpentine dragon easily over fifteen feet in length, its scales were as dark as any void or heartless soul and absolutely dull in the sunlight. As if it ate the substance rather than reflect it. Its head rose up behind Maximos' back and then hung over his shoulder. A slim face, with glowing eyes caught somewhere between violet, pink, and white. Maximos outright laughed, his helm was still ravaged, and yet slowly repairing itself, stretching over one side of his face and crawling to the other. "For the record, Ryugi, I want you to know I stood true to my word. I held nothing back."

His left hand rose and affectionately scratched the underside of the dragon's black muzzle. The dragon's lips pulled back revealing a maw of black razor sharp and snow white fangs which seemed to almost glow in contrast to its black scales. "But it is unforgivably rude to simply order a ladies assistance in a gentleman's battle."

The large black scaled beast arched its head up, and snapped its wings out to their full extension, and then it roared. Its voice thundering across the shadows as it breathed a gout of purple and violet flame. Ryugi had seen Maximos use the Dark Cadenza, twice this fight, these wings might look familiar. Maximos chuckled. "Thankfully, children are always so eager to please these days."

"Alright then..." It wasnt over...it could never be over like that. Light may scatter the shadows, but it could never truly defeat them. All the darkness in the world could not put out a single candle...but neither need it. In the wake of that candle shadows gather in their deepest and strongest pockets. Candles, bright, and fiery will always inevitably burn themselves to the bottom of the wick and in that instant, the shadows overcome all. The sun may always rise, but it will also always fall. "...we'll do this Ankokuko."

If one thing could be said about Ryugi it was that he did not disappoint. Maximos could quite literally see the doubt in his heart, but it did not and could not bring the dragon down. He raised his sword and his power level, and began the charge yet again.

For Maximos, the battle had taken on a new shape. Raw arcane force had its value, but there was more to power than simply energy. There was skill, and strategy. That sort of thinking was simply hard wired into the core of who and what Maximos was. The strongest weapon in the world can be beaten by a pointed stick if its wielder is an amateur. And it was along that vein that Maximos plotted his next, necessary move.

It only made sense, considering his profession that Maximos knew a fair bit about spirits. He knew how to identify them in their fledgling stages, how to feed them, and how to awaken them. A sword was a tool and yet, that sort of nurturing growth lead to attachments greater than that held by a man wielding a killing tool. The Shadow and the Caller had yet to have the battle experience that lead to the camaraderie held between warriors. He would forever be Ankokuko's wielder, and yet never be its master. The blade was his partner, and his friend, and so it pained him now to have to do what followed. Maximos took a sharp breath in, steeled himself, and let a slow breath out, and then ever so softly spoke...

"I'm sorry." He said, just loud enough for her to hear. And then he raised his right arm, and held it out over Ankokuko's hilt, where it protruded from the rocky turf. His fist tight and simply hovering with his open hand over the eager grip.

It started all at once, and it started so innocently. They looked like spikes, and then they belt and wriggled like fingers. Thin lengths of black that squirmed up from Maximos right, and as they rose separated themselves into pockets of five. Five writhing fingers to a hand, and a dozen small black hands rose Maximos right arm and began grabbing hungrily at the air. Maximos fingers splayed out wide, and all at once each of the shadowy hands and the black ribbon-esque shadowy arms they lead flew downwards, spiraling one of another until they covered his entire right arm. In one large crunch, the right arm of the Nocturnis Loricatus was crushed by the tendrils, spilling chunks of black and strings and chords of syrupy black like a fruit crushed in ones fist and ooze between its fingers, and the transformation was complete. Maximos' arm was covered in a glistening black metal, the fingers of his right hand had extended to easily a foot long and were bladed like butcher's knives each bladed edge extended out just a bit above his fingers, allowing him to ball a fist. He rolled his hand around his wrist, and a single fiercely glowing eye was made visible in his right palm.

This, was the Twilight Gauntlet. The always present, always hungering memory that Maximos was despite appearances, simply not human. He was a Shadowlander, a Leus. A predatory hunting creature of the Dark Lord Nocturne's creation, and in loving memory that beast was awakened into his right arm as a constant reminder. It was a gift, and a curse spoken in the language the Shadowfather knew most fluently power. The Gauntlet, much like the Paladin order who wore it, was the balance between mortal and god. The stronger a target became, the stronger the gauntlet which fed from it grew.

In other words, it gave Maximos a single hand worth of his opponents power. And then it left him to strategically make that the upper hand. The unbalance of excessive power thrown out for skill and planning. If he was to face Ryugi, he would face him with every bit of himself. Even those not smiled upon. The Gauntlet's metal digits clacked against each other eager to taste the blade below.

Once the Twilight Gauntlet touched Ankokuko, it would feed. The sword's energy would give the arm incredible super human strength, and simultaneously and appetite for more power. More power meant more strength, and in turn even more hunger. It was a vicious cycle, and in the end would leave the Caller of Darkness fighting to keep itself from the jaws of death, even while it dangled itself inside those very jaws and made them larger and deadlier.

Strategically this was an unsound strategy. The only way to balance the equation into being anything other than a painful road to an inevitable tragic end was to find a unfathomably massive super charged source of arcane energy to feed off of. Something that simply bled power in golden hues and plumes. This sort of thing would stand to make the Gauntlet potentially nigh invulnerable and depthlessly strong while taking nothing from Ankokuko or Maximos.

The stronger the power source began, the more harsh the cursed arm began and in turn the stronger Maximos became taking his opponents strength...on top of his own. Inside of his helmet, Maximos grimaced. "...This is going to hurt you, alot."

He said, and brought his hand down, so that his open hand rest beside Ankokuko's hilt. The sword never wavered, never retreated or vanished even though it was given the freedom to. Just like its wielder, the Caller would never retreat from pain or death. And without another word, Maximos curled each of his black metal fingers around Ankokuko's hilt. The dragon behind him, shuddered yet stood its ground and Maximos right arm began to twitch and spasm of its own accord while spilling streams of deep twilight purple and dark sunset orange, all the way up to Maximos' shoulder and back. The glowing Eye of Datho at the center of his palm rolled around so that the black dot at the center of the swirling orange vortex that was its iris locked on Ryugi.

In those final seconds Maximos' eyes fell on Ryugi and he waited, hungrily, for the inevitable attack to come.

Maximos did not know the meaning of the word careful. Fighting to the extreme with Ankokuko's very life on the line, he hadnt the time for the luxury that was care. The truth was that Ryugi's initial attack came in the blink of an eye and Maximos, never expecting something lacking a power signature and born of such speed to come from the dragon. He did miss it.

But that was the advantage in fighting with a partner. Maximos had more than two eyes, not including the one in his hand, he had Ankokuko's eyes as well. The elongated black dragon coiled around him caught the attack, and its own eyes glinted in return. As it had already shown incredible speed and was already protectively placed around its wielder, the Caller of Darkness spun. As opposed to Maximos being surrounded by a black dragon, he was for a split second surrounded by a black blur, detailing an orbit across the air as if in its wake the shadows became a wet sort of paint and splashed the open air. There was a pop, and the condensed heat slash smacked into the blur and was utterly vanquished. Furrows and trenches of varying degrees and shapes lined the floor in front of Maximos.

Ankokuko ended its motion by extending its body out in a line behind Maximos floating even with his shoulders. Maximos' eyes snapped open wide, only identifying the slash for what it was in the final moments before it was slated to hit him. A second was already on the way.



Maximos, was never one to fall for the same trick twice. His eyes slanted to a near squint and for a moment he allowed himself a bit of revelry in nostalgia. Ankokuko, sensing his preparation gave an automatic command to the Nocturnis Loricatus. The suit's boots began to whine.



Maximos' feet slid into place, right leading, left tracing behind. With a rasp of steel he tugged Ankokuko from its place in the soil, and lowered it to his left side. His left hand leading, while his right sat lower on the hilt ready to lend its power to sword motion.





Ryugi slashed a second attack and Maximos was gone. Not moving, or blasting off. He was gone. The Shadow moved so fast it seemed he simply ceased to exist only to coalesce back into something substantial the moment he reached the wave of warbly air that was Ryugi's attack. The ground did not shatter as Maximos moved, it simply had no time. Instead, the moment the Shadow stopped the perfectly still soil behind him erupted as if some gigantic subterranean beast had raced by beneath it. The Shadow seemed to stop, his left shoulder a hairs breadth from the condensed slash.



Precision and power were the elements with which Maximos lived and breathed. And in a single deft motion he brought the Caller straight up, moving it left to right and using the Twilight Gauntlet to add nothing short of impossible speed and force to motion.



The Caller of Darkness neatly ran a line exactly tracing the line of Ryugi's attack. Maximos may not have been able to magically or even spiritually sense the way or direction of Ryugi's slash. But beyond his magical sights, he had a normal sight too. Any swordsman worth his still could and should watch the direction of his opponent's swing. And Maximos matched it, flawlessly. The second slash scattered into nothing.

There was a pause, a delay in the blur that was Maximos just before Ryugi's slash was scattered. There was the shadowy outline of figure performing a cut, and then the ground reacting late and shattering. All of this gave the perfect impression that Maximos took off, stopped and countered and then kept moving.

This was a lie. Maximos never stopped. And if Ryugi took the time to see what had become of his split second slash, he would have missed Maximos bear down directly on him, for a vicious right to left slash. Ankokuko undulating through the air behind him like a serpentine slithering through open water. Speed and strength maximized in a single vicious cut.

Ryugi had nearly limitless energy, bounding off of and around him. The chaotic orange swirling eye in Maximos' right hand bounced and flitted around impatient. The black dragon behind him opened its mouth letting its black tongue hang out. Ryugi was so close...so close they could literally taste him.

It was every agonizing second beginning a meal, when you havent eaten all day. It was the moment when you can finally rest, after being on your feet an entire day. It was water, in the middle of the desert. It was fire, on a chilly day. It was a breeze, in the blazing sun. It was everything one could ever have asked for and more.

The two blades clashed and the clang echoed across the field like some enormous war gong. The ground immediately buckled and caved as of a meteor had just struck the spot they were standing on. Ragnarok, the ancient and powerful heroic blade, versus Ankokuko the fledgling and eager caller of darkness.

Ryugi's energy was incredible. It was the purest and most delectable thing Maximos had tasted, next to an actual divine being. The exact moment of impact, Maximos felt his body ready to give out and be blown away. But then his arm raged and pressed the charge like a cornered beast. In a moment, any weariness and any strain born of the conflict of steel versus steel vanished. If Maximos was searing hot metal, this was ice cold water and black gouts of streaming darkness poured from the bands of armor over his right arm as it began to feast.

The dragon had hit him with everything, and were it not for that very everything Maximos surely would have lost a direct confrontation and been sent flying, or worse. As it stood, his blade was locked against Ragnarok not quivering an inch, or budging even a hair. This, was truly the conflict both fighters were expecting.

It was of course for that exact reason, that the entire nature of the conflict was about to change from what anyone was expecting. It is said that any two people that spend long enough together will begin to take on the traits of each other. Ankokuko was born of an element that Maximos was bound to at the spiritual level, they shared a deep connection. What was more, they had trained and practiced together learning each others nuances and styles. Ankokuko could assist Maximos so automatically because it knew him. And Maximos knew it, as much as it could be known.

The Caller of Darkness, was a youth. A child. And children if nothing else are impressionable and constantly molding things. They're personalities and ways change until they settle into what they truly are. Ragnarok had done this millenia ago...but Ankokuko had not. Over the years, it had watched Maximos never as a child watches a parent. Never judging, but learning, copying and adapting.

Maximos believed that this, the meeting of two blades was the very core of the conflict. The Twilight Gauntlet would rage and devour and push harder and harder, he could already feel his arm sucking in what energy it could and pulsing with more and more unholy strength. The process was like drinking a gallon of water through a straw. And then something happened...

The black scaled dragon before him rushed forward, thrust its head over his shoulder and then slammed its fangs onto Ragnarok, over where its own blade had met the opposing sword. And then, mimicking its wielder, Ankokuko began to do the unimaginable.

It began to devour. It could not seep through the metal, it could not actually harm Ryugi's blade. But it could devour energies all for itself, and so much more voraciously than the Gauntlet. Ankokuko was meant to fissure an opening into the plane of Shadow and pour forth dark energies. It could do that, but here and now where those fangs met Ragnarok, it would feel to Ryugi as if someone had opened a rift to the plane of nothingness and the stuck Ragnarok into it. And with all the power of a normal elemental rift in reverse, this portal sought to do nothing than eat any energy it touched greedily and hungrily. Specifically Ragnarok's.

Maximos stared at Ankokuko as if staring at a new and terrible creature he had never encountered before. His eyes were wide, and his stance almost made it appear as if he was about to take a step away from the sword...but his arm never budged. A black ribbon could be seen, extending from Ankokuko's hilt and wrapping itself tightly around Maximos right arm. The Twilight Gauntlet and the Caller of Darkness were working together like some sort of terrible void. A ferocious thing with limitless appetite and vicious hunger.

"Ankokuko..." Maximos softly said, and then immediately corrected himself. "- No."

The large dragon, with its maw wrapped around Ragnarok began to growl. Its eyes glowing a fierce white, its lips peeled back enough for black wisps of flame to roll from them. It was unseen, but where Ankokuko bit, it tied a Fine Line to its opposition, securing its grip and its selfless determination. The Shadow nodded to an unseen voice, then cemented his footing and firmly said. "Dévore Ankokuko..."

Laughter echoed from inside his helm. Maximos slid his left, leading foot forward, where his slash had seconds ago ground to a cold stop against Ragnarok, Maximos now exerted all the effort necessary to resist the blade and begin pushing it back at Ryugi. "...The Devouring Caller of Darkness."

Ryugi could power up. But the more power he attained, the more he would feel the beast and the harder Maximos would swing. The size and shape of Ragnarok hardly had anything to do with this conflict anymore. What was more, Ryugi would have to push extra to maintain his higher level of charge with the equivalent of another elemental rift sapping his power away where the blades met. But not just his power. What plants remained with a 500yrd radius began to wilt, grey, and die. The air became stale as ambient energy was sucked from it. And with all of this, on top of his own power Maximos swung Dévore Ankokuko viciously right to left, like a baseball bat, aiming to send Ryugi soaring backwards. "Make this dragon FLY!"

Ryugi's retreat was marred by one thing. A ribbon, made of black that ran the distance between Ragnarok and Ankokuko, tieing the two swords together. A mentioned previously, when Ankokuko put down its fangs, it also put down a Fine Line. And as of yet, nothing had crossed it.

Ryugi may have been absolutely sure in his power, but that was the point wasnt it? How many had fallen before the Gauntlet alone because they were so sure of their power alone? Of what value would any level of magical draw be, if someone could just pull back and equalize the flow? As previously stated, the more energy the Twilight Gauntlet consumed, the hungrier it became and the more it could swallow until it was scooping out massive chunks of power from something at a time. The size of its draw equal the size of the power being fed to it. Ryugi certainly was not powering down, and so the draw certainly was not stopping. If Ryugi meant to stop that hungering feed with a draw all his own, then his absorbtion would have to continue...higher...and higher...and higher to keep pace with the energy being drained. Higher and higher, and with all the energy being fed into that ability what could be left to do other things? How much of Ryugi or even Ragnarok's concentration was going to be diverted by the need not only to keep up a constant absorption but to keep that absorption level with Dévore Ankokuko and the Twilight Gauntlet? That remained to be seen. However, there was one other unexpected hitch the Dragon's plan. His Magic Sight, and Sense would tell him if he ventured to look. Ankokuko, despite all the power it was taking...was giving off absolutely none. It was a null, devouring void. Ragnarok and Ryugi were blossoming fountains of magical energy, but Ankokuko and the arm that wielded it most certainly were not. They kept not energy, feeding it all to the Nocturnis Loricatus. Ragnarok certainly was making no contact with the shadow magic suit of armor to draw anything from it, nor was the Loricatus spilling any energy in the form of glows, or streamers or any sort of magical effect to pull from. Not being of unlimited energy, Maximos knew better than to waste any. Maximos may have had a straw in Ryugi, the serpentine black dragon with its beaming white eyes still had its jaws locked around Ragnarok...but Ryugi had no straws anywhere where anything lie.



Ryugi said, as he jumped backwards. Without the dragon on the other side of Maximos' sword it completed its swing, slashing from right to left and drawing a black line across the air. The Fine Line was now a very visible taught string between the Dragon and the Shadow...it was also the method of continual magical draw. If wanted to escape, and Maximos surely did want him to escape...he would have to try something harder than a simple base ability.

With nothing to stand in his way, Maximos had no reason to stand still. Ryugi had leapt, the Shadow completed his swing and then dash forward. Just before Ryugi's feet hit the ground, there was Maximos, bringing his hungering sword up powerful arch from his left straight up to meet the Angaran sparing not one iota of his previous attack force. Laughing the sort of laugh a man has when sharing a more than memorable moment with his friend, Maximos countered by saying. "Oh dont be greedy Ryugi! If your not going use it, someone should!"