Ancient Runic Magic has evolved to (T) Runic Arsenal (Grand Master).
All runes created have their effectiveness doubled.
Speed and durability of rune creation has tripled.
Runic formation can be carved upon the fabric of reality itself and go into effect when charge with enough power.
Runes and words of powers from different corners of the multiverse can be integrated and made to fuction.
Energy cost for all rune creation is halved.
Rows and rows of of multicolored runes poured out of me and the sentient orbs circling my head, reinforcing the lightning spell. Portals opened up, linking the forking bolts to monstrosities charging the Arcanite planetoids behind me and ionizing them. The runes shone brighter than ever, feeding more energy and potency into the spell and supercharging it. The lightning shifted from teal-blue to a piercing white and thickened by the nanosecond.
The portals multiplied, encompassing the system and bringing the bulk of Lauren's attack to an awkward, jittering halt. And when they began to adapt, I infused the lightning with regular Nether Fire, transforming it into purple lightning so powerful that it banished most of the darkness in an instant.
For a long moment, silence reigned.
My orbs and I used the opportunity to upgrade all the runes and weapons on my armor and body. It took only a mental prompt to initiate the changes. I also decided to slot this new spell type in as a permanent skin enchantment that snaked up my back.
When I began to suspect she had given up or was pivoting to another strategy, Lauren came at me hard.
A blade crashed into a string of floating runes behind me, accompanied by a guttural psionic scream that thundered through the void. My runes shook, the swirl of density, gravity, telekinetic, and soul energies struggling to rebuff her attack despite the recent power jump.
"No!"
A fist crashed into the shield floating before my face, swirling with twisted reality-warping energy. It slowly pried the construct apart, and I was forced to step back and slash upward, drawing Kurogiri from its sheath. The combination of my improved Dimensional Slash and new lightning runes was enough to cut through her reinforced skin and bone.
The severed limb spun away as lightning detonated, flash-frying her and throwing her backward.
She looked very different from the last time I had seen her. Evolution had changed her again. Bulging muscles stretched beneath taut, pasty-white skin. Jagged bone jutted from her joints. Red eyes glared at me with naked hatred. They were familiar in an abstract sense.
The Doomsday bloodline. I had hoped I wasn't that unlucky.
"It should not be possible!" she screamed, her voice almost incoherent. "How do you keep doing it?"
"Doing what?" I asked.
"Cheating. Evolving. I cracked my soul just to keep up, and somehow you're just—ugh!" She choked on the words, her voice devolving into a snarl.
"I scraped and clawed for every scrap of power I have. I spent decades planning for this day. I will not let some boneheaded, knuckle-dragging Neanderthal take it all away from me!"
I knew better than to reason with her, but I did anyway.
"Take what away? Eternal servitude? Shin was never going to let you become more than you already are right now. His errand girl. His plaything. Easily replaced the moment something stronger came along. If it wasn't me, it would've been Magneto, or Jean, or any of the Omega-level mutants that exist now—or will exist in the future."
Her face twisted with every word, somehow growing paler.
"Better the right hand of a god than an insignificant firefly waiting to be snuffed out," she hissed. "I did the mental calculus the night I accepted his offer."
"You know," I mused aloud, "I've always wondered if there was something underneath all that darkness, rage, and hunger. I suppose I've got my answer."
She snarled, crimson light gathering around her hands as the darkness birthed horrors once more.
"Spare me your pity. I will show you none when I shatter your soul."
My planetoids whispered good news into my ears, and I smiled beneath my helmet.
The black hole was primed and ready.
"Fair enough, Lauren," I said. "But you'll have to catch me first."
Her eyebrows twitched upward slightly before I vanished in a flash of white. The universe blurred around me.Space folded. Stars became streaks of color. Electricity crackled from my Astral Wings as I accelerated farther and faster than I ever had before, chaining teleports together while lightning detonated in my wake.
Lauren followed immediately with a feral scream.
The darkness of her Bankai surged across the system like a living tide, and thousands of distorted silhouettes peeled themselves free from it. Some teleported. Others simply appeared, each of them changed like Lauren, more resistant to my elements, but not enough not yet.
They flooded every route I could've taken and descended on me from all directions.
I met them with lightning and fire wreathed around my blade and hammer, and thousands and thousands of floating runes.
Anathema lightning exploded from my armor in continent-spanning bolts, branching across space and vaporizing entire formations of clones before they could properly manifest. Purple fire followed in its wake, consuming everything the lightning touched and distintegrating the bits that survived.
The assault was so overwhelming that most of the clones never even reached striking distance.
Those that did fared little better. I tore through the horde with sword and hammer, a blur of unrelenting carnage until a familiar figure emerged from the darkness, wrapped in crackling crimson energy and wearing a face that I knew.
Colossus. It almost made me stop until I recognized it for what it was–a trap. If she really had this card to play, she would've done it a long time ago.
Crusher smashed through him, and lightnign erupted form the impact, reducing him and the dozen figures behind him to ash.
More faces came. Professor Xaiver, Magneto, Rogue, Wolverine, and even other mutants I hardly recognized. They tried to speak poison into my ear as I slashed, dodged, teleported, kicked, and parried, but I ignored the voices, and returned the favor by spitting barbs of my own as I led her accross an elaborate wild-goose chase around the system.
"What upsets you more? Is it that you'll never be better than me? Or that you will die accomplishing nothing at all."
Her rage was a palpable thing, but instead of attacking outright, so that I could teleport us to the heart of the planetoid. She played it safe, harassing me psychologically and physically.
Kurogiri carved dimensional wounds through entire armies while Crusher shattered everything that survived. Lightning filled the gaps between attacks, leaping from target to target in blinding chains. Every swing of my hammer detonated like a tactical weapon, and every slash of my sword left burning scars across reality itself.
The battlefield became a blur of fire, thunder, and annihilation.
Until I saw a flash of red that made me hesitate
Storm.
She emerged from a cyclone of black clouds and red lightning, floating motionlessly in the void while cosmic winds swirled around her body. Unlike every other construct Lauren had thrown at me, she wasn't immediately vaporized by my attacks.
More than that. She felt tangible. Real. The conflict was clear on her face as it was in her psyche. I could almost read her thoughts.
For a moment, we simply stared at one another.
Then she attacked.
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