Relik had grown used to his life as a fleshy overcoat. Not to mention Veech was far more gentle than he looked. The boy could tell that the Hurc seemed to go out of his way to minimise as much physical shock as possible.
An unnecessary action given that the boy was paralysed.
It didn't matter he had found comfort in the prospect of simply waiting out whatever cocktail was forced into his system.
That was until his relaxation was rudely interupted by the same whistling sound. It travelled to him with clear intention as though it was a conscious request for his aid.
Eclipsing that request, however, was the agonising levels of pain that came with it. So much so that he could feel the skull splitting noise in his chest. Providing him such a discomfort that all he could do was clutch the sides of his head and hold his eyes shut.
Slowly the weight of his own action washed over him.
He could move.
Veech also realised this and tossed him off.
Relik slowly removed his hand from his head and saw that the whistle had died down. Not to mention that with it's absence came a feeling of weightlessness. This was arguably the best he had felt ever in his short life.
He needed to find whatever it was that broke him out of the paralysis.
"Hey big guy there's someone who's like..." He began only to realise that he could not form the words necessary for an explanation, "there's someone powering the city, like one person, they do the whistling thing."
Veech stared at him, his lack of interest rich on his face. Thankfully, he appeared to be the most civil of the three and chose a softer response.
"We'll address that later but we have bigger fish to fry," Veech said before his muscles seemed to rearrange themselves under his skin.
Morph Warak First Step
He turned his head on a swivel to face the boy, the muscles in his Hurc frame now inflated almost triple his size and height. His eyes gave off a faint purple glow, a sign he was operating at his ultimate limit.
"The quicker we end this the quicker I can help you find this power source."
Veech then walked off the edge with a grace that should be impossible for someone of his size and mass. Relik watched on as he landed dead center of the conflict, kicking up a smokescreen of dust and rubble.
Wyva did not hesitate to abuse this distraction, and flew out of it in a shot of light, catching one of the clones across the chest with an attack. They both separated and the clone quickly healed itself.
Relik stepped back then searched himself and the surrounding area for anything useful.
There was nothing.
Then as if summoned by Astra himself a sword flew up from the lower floors and lodged itself in the wall beside him. A short narrow blade. Likened more to a knife than anything else. Nearing the tang he caught sight of some letters, scratched in using the Shink-Ra script.
Relik did not question it and took a hold of the hilt, tearing it out and flinging himself into the fray.
He had been trained to use Iké in two ways. The first was to charge bolt guns or cannons and the second was to coat sharp objects in his Iké so that he could pierce Shink-Ra skin. Considering that Vanqis was still very much made of flesh this would work just fine on him.
The boy landed next to a Logun, who immediately placed a kick just above his hip to force Relik out of reach of a clones leaping attack.
"Focus kid," Logun said shoving his back against the wall, "he's fast and has the potential to be everywhere at once."
Relik nodded then ran towards the clone that attacked him. Only to stop as soon as the clone lifted a hand in question.
"I shot you with a days worth of numbing agent. How are you up already?"
Relik shrugged then continued his attack, swinging with a series of practiced jabs and slashes, hoping that something connected. Vanqis seemed more than willing to retreat until he saw what was considered a good opening.
His hand descended quickly, but was pulled back just as fast. The Shiear took two lunges in reverse to create space between them, his arm held to his side.
Relik looked up just in time to see it regrow a missing half its hand. His immediately dropped to the floor to catch sight of the previous half twitching before it turned into a wisp of dust.
"How is your technique so poor?"
The question came from Logun who was in the process of returning his sword to its sheath, "I tossed you that one 'cause I know that's bare minimum for a recruit but.... Wyva what did you spend a month teaching this kid?"
Wyva isolated himself to give a quick response, "we spent a lot of time trying to get his boots to fit right."
Logun looked down at the boy's feet.
"At least you learned something," he remarked before tugging the boy out of the way of another flying attack, "welcome to lesson number one then."
"Happy to be here."
"Good 'cause you might stop being here if you don't listen."
Relik nodded.
"If you were smart, you'd notice that with Veech, Vanqis has two clones that are constantly within reach to redirect or dodge the heavy hits. With Wyva, he's giving him a wide berth because that blue-haired bastard's a walking taser. For you and me-"
Relik decided to add his two cents. "He doesn't know how I fight, and you provide a good enough defense that his best bet is to slip past you and crush me before I have a chance."
"Correct! You just forgot one thing," Logun replied with a broad smile.
"What?"
"I'm smarter than you," the answer came from Vanqis.
Logun didn't give Relik a second to reevaluate. He grabbed the boy by the shoulder and yanked him backward just as the floor where he'd been standing erupted.
A clone shot out of the resulting hole and landed on the ceiling above. It then perfectly found itself hanging upside down by the flat of his feet. Some form of technique that obviously required a quality of Iké too high for most to dream of doing.
"You forgot that he's more experienced than both of us," Logun muttered.
________________________________________
Success in all things mattered not to the people looking in but to those looking to achieve it.
From the outside Wyva must have looked confident in his parries, calm in his evasion and reliable enough to be left to fend of the clones.
The reality of his situation could not be further from it.
Though he relied on elemental expression that drew heavily from the soul. His body was nearing its limit, which meant that his Iké quality would only decrease the longer they fought.
It seemed that was Vanqis' plan from the very start. It was barely a battle of superiority in technique and more a test of endurance. A test that Wyva saw himself failing in the near future.
He dashed in on the clone and rounded up a stomp that sent the Shiear through a wall and into the teleportation deck.
The clone was the first to regain his bearings, adopting a calm stance as Wyva exhaled a slow, shaky breath.
"Hm," the clone began pacing his hands tucked behind his back, "this is why I always despised you elves. Put forth an image of infallibility when in reality you are all riding the coattails of Elemental expressions."
The Alven swallowed then tried fixing his frame to reflect that of Vanqis.
"It doesn't really matter if the Sar, your supreme leader, is still of Alven descent," Wyva teased in hopes that conversation could buy him more time, "I bet you've never said it to his face."
"The Sar has had a political shit storm on the horizon for the last twenty years," The Shiear replied as a matter fact, "me being petulant isn't in the best interest of Astra."
"Astra? If Astra cared about Shahari, they wouldn't be the last race to find Garig."
Vanqis snorted, "you think my people found Garig? Then you must know even less than I thought."
Wyva took in a deep breath, he had two options. Either use one large attack or stretch this out for as long as he could.
He regretted using such a large attack at the very jump of the conflict. A wiser man would have kept it simple and keep the major destruction for later.
The pause in his action caught the attention of the Shiear.
"No need to rush your recovery... Elf. I haven't flexed this much in more than a century and I plan on making it last."
With that statement it seemed that the decision was made for him. He had to use one final burst; and that he did.
Wyva erupted in a streak of blue light, tearing up the floor as he sprinted towards his target.
To anyone else he would have gone from start to finish in the speed of a thought. Yet to his slowing body and the vastly more experienced Shiear he was moving too slow for proper execution.
Vanqis grabbed him by his arm mid sprint, then swinging him up into the air. Wyva with his feet vertically in the air saw the floor and felt it against back before he was dragged back down with the weight of a falling building.
The Alven laid there stunned by what had taken place.
Vanqis stepped over his downed opponent a foot on either side watching as the boy struggled to breath. His diaphragm refusing to respond to his cries for help.
The Shiear grabbed himself a handful of blue hair and pulled the boy up into a seated position.
"There was an Alven I knew with the exact same approach to Lightning expression," Vanqis began then delivered a thunderous slap to the boy's face, "the same lack of creative liberty," a back hand was dropped drawing blood from the mouth, "it's funny how he never raised you and you both settled for the same use."
The slow rhythmic slap could be heard evhoing throughout the room. Wyva had lost all feeling in his face by the thirteenth.
That wasn't the attack he had planned but he did not expect the tables to turn so quickly.
"Back in my day you had to actually kill a Shink-Ra and present it's head in order to pass the trial," Vanqis continued with his whip like lashes, "now all you have to do is watch twenty-two of your teammates die to Eji and boom you're a Hand."
Wyva lifted a hand to block a swipe enroute. Vanqis simply used the blocked hand to grab another clump of hair and decided to pass punishment with his next.
"That's why whenever the Sar sends me a Hand I get rid of them. Because every year the grow more... And more useless!"
Wyva caught the next arm as it's palm connected with his cheek. Then caught the next when the Shiear adapted his approach, drawing him closer before the Shiear could retaliate.
Then whispered with the last bit of strength he had left.
Lightning Expression: Volt Fête
The clone's eyes widened as every hair follicle stood on end. The only sign before Wyva realised ten thousand volts of converted electricity into its system. Held in place as the body convulsed and writhed.
The boy held contact until it's skin fried and clothes were burnt. Only dropping the body aside when the screaming stopped.
He forced himself up, struggling to catch his own feet as he stumbled.
He cast a final look at the crispy corpse as it turned into dust before his eyes. Yet there was no comfort to be felt.
This was a clone that he baited into getting close enough to fry. The original would be at least five times as strong as them and yet it cost so much to get by.
They needed an advantage, or none of them were making it out of Salaam alive.