Chase stood in a strange world... Very unlike the one he had been only moments ago...
An overlapping energy shunned the sand pit arena like a dome, covering every inch and yet still allowing light through, meaning that everything within this strange world could be seen quite easily from the true world outside, of course meaning that the spectators could still see the fight.
Chase glanced around slowly, feeling that his movements had almost certainly been softened and stunned by whatever magic was at play.
'Something psychological? Luna can you tell me anything about it?' Chase asked, simply dismissing any thought of retreat.
'Are you a fool? I told you to first kill them and prevent this, and then second I told you to escape, and you still want to fight someone with a Trinity Art even though you are severely weakened and handicapped by several different and unique variables?'
Luna was so disgusted at his decision making that she didn't even bother giving him any useful information.
It was too late anyway...
Chase watched with a sense of awe as the world around them grew darker, hues of black and even the shadows shifting and changing like tentacles in the air around him.
A new voice then spoke within his mind, no doubt a natural law of this strange art.
'The boy of Rebirth...' The voice growled within his head...
Chase sighed, looking upwards at where the voice seemed to be coming from... He then let out a chuckle, making eye contact with the beast that seemed to be the cause of this art...
Between the two twins... At the center of this ethereal chain... Hovered some sort of being made from shadows...
'Boy of Rebirth? That's a new one... Can't say I know of you though, now whether that's a good thing for me, or a good thing for you... Remains to be revealed...' Chase responded, spinning Apocalypse in his hand as the two twins had already begun to slowly rise like undead.
Equan landed with a slide beside Chase, already drawing his bow once more while maintaining a battle stance.
"Dude... Volaris is speaking in my head, said this shit is about to get wack..." Equan said with a heavy pant blowing into the backside of his mask.
"I highly doubt he said the word wack..." Chase responded, never ceasing to maintain eye contact with both of twins...
However, that became extremely hard to do... As some sort of ethereal energy suddenly drew their gaze straight towards the larger twin who wielded the bigger blade.
"Its Nexus... Prepare your mind!" Chase called out to Equan at his side, knowing full well that this battle was going to require outsmarting the opponents ten fold...
Chase had never truly fought a Nexus wielder before, besides that of Hextra and quite possibly Sazir; however, Chase was greatly immune to both of them during those fights and heavily buffed by other factors, but currently Chase was at a severe disadvantage.
SLASH!
Chase felt his spine sever, as his body threatened to crumble. Luckily, Chase was able to plant the head of Apocalypse against the sand and reinforce his balance.
'Its some sort of barrier, it protects the faster twin and draws all attention to the frontliner...' Luna informed him, somehow the sense of her clenching her fists came through the senses, letting Chase know just how stressed the goddess seemed to be in that moment.
Somehow, Chase's doubts got even smaller in those moments, as he began to charge up Axis energy into his entire body... Then reinforcing it with subtle flames, not so much that it would cause loss of control, but just enough to protect his body for the remainder of the fight...
Blood was dripping from the left side of his ivory armor, and Equan's subtle glance from behind his mask, let Chase know that even he who had no thoughts at all times, was heavily doubting their chances in this fight.
Chase grinned...
Before anyone knew what had happened... Chase had vanished...
No..
Chase began to fall, radiated by the terrible decaying energy of the underworld, as another disk began to form below him, pulling him through and launching him straight at the faster twin wielding two ebony daggers...
Chase hurled back, forcing his body into a momentum drawn spin that launched him like a torpedo at the twin who also seemed to be moving quite fast with a lowered head and outstretched arms...
Chase missed, soaring straight past him with a failed swing of Apocalypse; however, Equan had gotten a read quite well enough to perform his own attempt...
Soaring straight up into the air, it seemed that Equan had remembered just who he was and what his natural attunement to the world had always been...
Lightning cackled in the sky above, insane amounts of energy began to ripple through the dominion, taking hold of all energy and amplifying it five times over...
Chase's grin grew wider, as another disk formed in between him and the wall he was about to crash straight into...
Once again, he felt the presence of his mother's domain threaten to rip apart his mind, but nonetheless he passed right through, launching once more as lightning begun to comet from above, crashing into the ground like a storm of its own...
Chase's flames grew violent, just as his pulsating axe that was now only a foot or two away from meeting the frontliner twin with wide red eyes behind his cracked mask...
BOOM!
Lightning struck not the twin, but the axe Chase was wielding... Causing a huge amount of force that Chase had to first tank, but after he regained composure in only that of a second, his axe now radiated the raw energy of Equan's lightning, which reinforced the might of Apocalypse...
BANG!
The dull side of Apocalypse crashed into the twin's chest before he could even react, launching him back not once, but twice thanks to the force of Equan's own attack...
CRACK!
As the twin flew straight for the coliseum wall, a second burst of lightning imploded within him from the attack, and seemingly ending his fighting chance.
However, Chase and Equan were still fixated on that twin...
"Close your eyes..." Chase whispered, taking his own advice...
"How do we fight him?" Equan asked, doing as Chase told and turning his body in the opposite direction while backing into Chase and readying his bow.
Standing back to back, the allies waited as violent motions filled the air around them, no doubt the doing of the final twin...
"Just anticipate... You have the affinity of lighting correct? So try to make a field of weak lightning around us... If you focus hard enough, then maybe you will be able to sense their movements..." Chase informed Equan, about to test his own theory just as he hoped Equan would.
Flames shot from the ground in a circle around them, giving Chase insight into any movements that could be made on the ground, and at the same time... A sphere of weak, yet strangely potent electrical energy surrounded the two of them, cutting off any aerial attacks...
"EIGHT O CLOCK!" Equan yelled, turning his body and launching an arrow above them, which the sound of nicking armor responding immediately after...
"My left..." Chase whispered, spinning Apocalypse and throwing his upper body at the direction of the dispersing flames, in which he was met with the blockage of two pinned daggers beneath the force of his axe.
"HOW!" The twin yelled from his shadowed form...
Chase allowed his eyes to rise, showcasing the strangely beautiful sight around him.
Lightning cackled everywhere above with the backdrop of shadowy energy filling the sky above and shrouding the crowd around them while seamlessly cutting their loud cheers off entirely...
Flames shrouded the ground... Not his plain orange flames with no natural attunement, but the neon green flames of that which he desired... He had no names for these sacred and enchanting flames... But the strange decaying and cold touch that they gave his skin was enough to tell him that they were no ordinary flames...
But the shadowy form of the dagger wielding twin underneath Chase's clash, wore a panicked and unsure expression, as his mask had completely abandoned his face, no doubt from Equan's precise accuracy...
Chase grinned behind the skull... Looking down at the young twin who was probably only sixteen years of age with shadow black hair and crimson eyes just like his sibling... Chase chuckled.
"How in the hell did a kid like you end up with such a cool spell...?" Chase asked with genuine curiosity, with little doubt in his mind that he could even lose this battle at this point.
Even the clash seemed pathetically weak from the twin, and Chase made no attempt of ending the fight so quickly.
The twin; however, seemed angry, upset, and even on the verge of tears from this defeat as his arms shook violently in attempt to hold up Apocalypse...
"Why?!" He choked, straining himself to try opposing Apocalypse's will.
Chase shook his head with a sigh, then glancing down at the gash in his side.
"You got a name, kid?" Chase asked, weakening his touch on Apocalypse ever so slightly...
The boy did not respond, and instead vanished, appearing behind Chase with some sort of teleportation magic...
Chase's grin turned vast and shifted strong... As his body did the same, turning and easily dodging the two daggers that threatened the piercing of both of his eyes...
"DAMNIT!" The boy screamed, turning his arms and slashing both daggers at Chase once more from the side which they had ended after the thrusting attack.
Chase lowered his head, avoiding the daggers with ease.
"Fine..." Chase grit his teeth and loosened his grip...
Throwing aside Apocalypse, even Equan's eyes widened as Chase did something he had never thought of doing before...
He outstretched his hands... And two flaming daggers were born in his own hands...
"Then if you insist on finishing this fight... Allow me to do so honorably..." Chase sighed, feeling the flames of his new weapons lick his hands in reverence...
"How...?" The boy questioned, before gritting his teeth and growling.
"So be it..." Before launching at Chase with a newfound speed.
Chase lowered his head, entranced by the stillness of time and the power of this boy's will to fight...
Then he looked up with loud laughter, as he prepared to not dodge the next attack...
But parry it.
In which he did, as a loud clatter resounded, then another, then another and the two traded and deflected terrifyingly fast blows aimed to slaughter the other...
Over and over and over again...
It was such an enchanting battle, that even though Chase could not hear the audience, he could simply sense the silence, as well as the raw anticipation...
Even though the battle's conclusion was written in stone...
Even though Equan could end this fight in a mere moment... He had decided to stand out of the way and watch with his own two eyes... As Chase showed not only to himself... But his ally and enemy that his scope of skill with weapons was not limited to swords and axes... But daggers as well...
He remembered standing outside of his old schoolhouse, speaking with his teacher about affinities that had to do with talents and skills... And how Chase had brought up swordsmanship as a possibility for himself...
But he had been wrong...
It was the innate ability to fight...
To fight until a victor was decided...
Determination...
Which perhaps became a mirror in that moment, as this young boy who Chase had never met before... Spoke so touchingly into his own soul... Reflecting that which Chase had always wanted to know more about.
"It was a good fight..." Chase sighed, ducking underneath another thrusting attack, and then immediately parrying another slash of the daggers with his own.
"But you aren't strong enough to beat me... But promise me this..." The boy looked up in fear as Chase's flames began to grow stronger and brighter along his body... Even his daggers seemed to grow bigger...
The image of Neo hesitating before leaving on his own quest passed through Chase's mind, and the words he had last said...
"Please! Fight me again when you are stronger..." Chase grinned behind the mask, letting his energy skyrocket, and even though the tugging of corruption threatened his heart... Chase simply shrugged it off... Letting the natural aura of his energy increase ten fold...
Chase then ended the fight, dropping his daggers and grabbing the boy by the wrists, summoning the white moon shard and exploding it point blank between the two...
Ending the fight as well as clearly deciding the victor...