Of a Biblical Proportion [Africastrophe IV]

AFRICA
He'd manage to avoid the bala, for now. Even as they ripped down the sky, barreling past his skin at the nearest interval. Part of Johann's effort, Metatron's body, and his own effort; but no closer to killing the damned thing.

No fucking luck. Lukas' attitude continued to sour as his attempt to bait the hollow failed, the creature apparently now uninterested in him. If he were in better shape, a moment like this might've mattered; an ambush, a blind spot, any opening to capitalize on. Now his mind was racing, fingers tightening around his spirit weapon's hilt. Maybe it was the searing light, maybe it was a lightbulb, an idea popping into existence.

One last trick, an improvisation - but it'd have to do.

Red flushed against the reishi scarred skin of Lukas' dominant arm, veins rupturing with light. The muscle in his shoulder screamed as it drew back, rocking back forward with what he could muster. Ahnengeist took to the air, its edge reflecting against the hollow's irradiance, blinding in its own right. Aimed at an arm looking to skewer his ally.

As it'd take, Lukas' movements continued to distance himself from the imminent danger, hanging near Johann's pentagram.

As if this creature didn't have enough tricks in its prodigal pocket. A sense of dread hit him as the creature seemed to restore itself, leading Johann to quickly step backward with Hirenkyaku and toss the Ginto tubes aside, creating a stream of Reishi for them to travel along, before pushing them forward in a crude, modified act of Steigen toward Lukas, still holding the shield in front of him.

"Pour them on the Seele Schneider! Use everything we have if you need to!"

Another frantic shout into the earpiece as he reached for his last Seele, quickly fueling it with Reishi, a long, blue, blade-like extension coming to life as he swung, seeking to defend himself both the Seele and the shield, pushing it upward with the makeshift blade to softening the Cero as it made contact and absorb the loosened particles, while keeping it pressed against the shield to keep himself from being skewered.

Regardless of whether or not his ally's attack would make its mark, Johann gestured upward with a finger, creating an orb of Reishi above him that he launched toward Metatron through a flick of his finger. His voice was a low grumble as he recanted the aria, arms shaking as he tried to balance everything with stamina and energy nearing its limits.

"Tilt the goblet to the west."

The sphere rapidly and violently expanding into a large cloud, travelling downward to not only disorient the Hollow, but aggressively seek to push him down to the ground. Despite the base variant being a rather weak spell, he had poured further energy into it, ensuring that it wouldn't be destroyed easily, as well as hitting considerably harder, as if a building had suddenly collided with him.

Frustration grew in Metatron's mind as he became further overcome by rage. Though his enemies were injured and possessed limited stamina, both of which were obvious just by glancing in their direction, they still somehow managed to avoid their fate to die at his hand. They continued to buzz about, desperately clawing for any advantage with their little attacks. Such insolence.

The significant difference in power between their Reishi swords would overwhelm and destroy the one in Johann's hand, the Quincy device unable to bare the heavier weight. What prevented the elderly Quincy from being split in two by a followup attack was the sudden spurt of dark blood that rushed from Metatron's sword arm as Lukas's weapon nearly cut it off at the elbow. Pained once more by these heathens, Metatron reeled back and grasped his right arm with his left, furious at yet another injury inflicted by his foes.

Another insult flung at him, this time in the form of a large ball of Reishi. Still feeling the rejuvenating effects of Raphael's Restoration, the Zealot was able to brace himself once more as his healthy left arm shot out to slam into Johann's construct. The accumulation of their attacks was clear as even his armored skin could feel the burn of the Reishi pushing against his fingers. All the might in his body couldn't stop Metatron from being pushed back, at first by a handful of yards...and then feet...and then inches...and then...nothing. Metatron was still. Johann's Reishi sphere was still. All was still, both the Heavens and Earth.

"Against Heaven, serpents and scorpions are naught! Only I am Chosen, you are nothing! Mere vile animals to be trampled beneath Heaven's might, beneath me!"

With every blow received, every attack missed, Metatron's zealous derangement evolved to new heights. Now, in the face of this latest opposition, every fiber of his being down to the last atom was filled with wrath. Whether it was his delusions or Hollowfied soul, he refused to die. Not to these impotent Quincies, not to those disgusting, heretical Shinigami who narrowly escaped his judgment before, not to anyone.

Black energy burst from Metatron's fingertips, immediately clashing with the Reishi his hand held at bay. Meanwhile another kind of energy began to form in his right palm, which had become soaked in blood from Lukas's sword. This latter energy was bright like the Sun, blinding to the malevolent forces that oppose God, that oppose Metatron. All at once two massive blasts erupted from the Zealot's hands, one as pitch black as the night sky that tore through Johann's Reishi and then the heavens; the other bright white and distorting the space around it, which flew at the Quincy duo, screeching and enveloping all as it did.

AFRICA
Ahnengeist flew true, slicing apart the hollow's arm before it could strike down Johann. If he'd had the time, Lukas would've sighed in relief. But the times were not so forgiving. His earpiece roared back to life with Johann's cry, but the assassin's eyes were turned elsewhere.

The sword spun in the air after making contact, Lukas' focus still on it as Metatron was forced closer to the ground. The bright light pouring out made it difficult, but not impossible to follow. Holding back tears, Lukas' hand grabbed at the air,, focusing on the reishi of his spirit weapon now spiraling away from him. The arc twirled, pointing towards the hollow for a split second.

Before the edge dissapeared, and an explosion of arrows ripped towards its head.

Ahnengeist would dissolve into the air as it fired, Eindringlicher using the last of its reishi. The incoming ginto tubes slamming against Lukas' chest in the distraction, steigen splitting under his step as the reishi in the air grew exhausted. Come on.

Managing to stay airborne, he gripped onto six of the approaching ginto, the rest breaking open to join the pentagram's formation as they collided with the earth. Without the time to think or worry, without the means to keep going, Lukas pushed the last of his reiatsu into the silver tubes, infusing all with the same spell. His voice was raw as it came out, loud and jagged. "A silver rod strikes the five-fingered stone bed!"

Bright spheres popped out from the ginto's shell, a pair of three and three. One shot towards the elderly quincy, a searing light all that Lukas saw before his own enveloped him.

It would have to be good enough.

His first instinct upon sensing the gathering energy was to reach for a Ginto tube, but he fought it. He had given them all to Lukas to try and activate the pentagram below them. But, as he focused on his Blut, keeping his shield and Seele at hand, he heard the aria and saw the spheres manifest, darting toward him rapidly. He braced himself as the blast annihilated the spell, layer by layer, before eventually meeting with the Seele first, then the shield.

Even with some of the damage being mitigated through the Seele's ability to loosen the bonds of Reishi and the shield's dispersion of the attack, more cracks continued to form in the defensive armament. Yet, with how battered he had become and how much energy he used, it still send him hurtling to the ground, Blut fading and shield in tatters.

Just as his consciousness was fading, his system shocked itself awake from the impact to the ground and sliding further away. Looking up, he began to crawl, pulling himself toward one of the Seele implanted in the ground. Reaching up toward it, Johann began to manipulate Reishi in the air, liquifying it and allowing it to crash from his hand, onto the placed weapon.

The moment it did, countless dense Reishi threads sprung to life, reaching up to coil, wrap around, and bind Metatron to the center of the pentagram. Even if he should break free of them, more would come to take their place. Blue energy brightened and surged, before finally erupting into a monolithically sized pillar.

A final gambit, the strongest one he could muster: Sprenger.

The bite of arrows striking Metatron's carapace was felt, but the re-opened gulf between himself and his foes left the attack effective as little more than a distraction as his two gargantuan Cero erupted and consumed all before them. Still, it wasn't long before the Zealot's attention was drawn to the little trick they were playing a distance below him, their devices forming a shape he recognized to be a pentagram, a disgusting, heathenish form to use against God's mightiest warrior.

This was an affront to him, to Heaven, to God above. Did they truly think their machinations could overcome The Almighty's love? Or his merciless judgment? No, they would fail. Metatron was sure of it, so sure in fact he remained in place as the fragile strings wrapped around his legs, only tearing apart those that sought to pin his arms down.

"Repent! In your final moments, beg forgiveness and your end shall be swift!"

As he spoke another black sphere of crushing energy formed within Metatron's right hand, but it was not loosed upon the Quincy duo; no, instead he brought it to his chest and forced it into his body. Unlike before it didn't simply rejuvenate his stamina, this time it empowered his Barachiel's Blessing to new heights, greatly enhancing his body which began exuding steam made of pure Reishi. Metatron's armor was a fortress, prepared to repel all that assails it.

A hideous laughter sounded out across the battlefield as the pillar of Reishi erupted from the ground and reached up to overwhelm the Zealot and all else within its reach. It lit up the sky like a beacon, but like all good things it too eventually came to an end, the area left as a Reishi desert with almost none still in the air. In its wake was a totally black figure, all light having left its visage so that only a charred corpse remained. The Quincies could breath a sigh of relief, their final gambit having done exactly as it was supposed to.

Though all signs of life had left his body, Metatron remained in the air as if he'd been frozen in place. All that disrupted the eerie silence was the occasional bit of blackened dust falling from his body. Then, a flicker; a minor uptick of Reiatsu coming from the charred corpse. Had their eyes lied to them? Was this nightmare not over? Both these questions would be answered as a subtle dull glow returned to the angel's wings and mask, then a flickering flame ignited at his feet and slowly engulfed his entire body, burning away the pagan touch of their unified spell from his body.

"You have failed. Now watch as I turn your world into the Hell you deserve."

Like the calm before the storm, Metatron's right arm slowly raised, any remaining ash falling away with every inch it moved, until his open palm was aimed directly for Johann and Lukas on the ground below. His extended fingers gave off a low glow until enough energy gathered to release as a Cero meant to end the lives of the two Quincies. Before it even reached them, Metatron's left hand raised and another Cero was fired in a different direction. After these two exploded upon reaching their targets, more energy gathered at the Zealot's finger tips and were loosed in other directions, then another two, then another two; besides Lukas and Johann, Metatron had no specific target in mind. He would destroy everything with every ounce of power within him, leaving nothing but ash within his sights.

AFRICA
Vision returned quickly to Lukas as the layers of Gritz shielding him were torn apart, the blow launching his makeshift cocoon some distance as Johann's Sprenger activated. Face forward to the explosion, he carefully propped himself up off the ground, squinting at the light between fingers of a raised hand.

"Looks like it shoved another cero in its chest." Static ate at the communication channel, his ear piece no doubt damaged. With his heart still pumping, the quincy wouldn't waste the time ogling of whatever came out of the blast, alive or dead. A jump to his feet, hissing breath with his right leg buckling. Stamping out the pain, his gaze focused to a small pile of black, glinting with silver.

A discarded jacket, littered with ginto tubes.

This is gonna fucking suck. Running towards them as the ashened hollow appeared, Lukas' arm shot forward as he careened towards the earth. Gripping the canisters, they raised skywards - slamming back down to break open, liquid reishi covering Lukas.

With a scream of pain, the quincy pulled against every bit of it, the liquid dissapearing as his body was flooded with a burst of reishi. Not enough to do much, but... "Time to retreat."

His words echoed on the line more clearly as eyes slipped across the terrain for Johann, the hollow's words ringing in cacophony as he did. As Metatron readied to attack, blisters of reishi exploded underheel, an arm reaching for his elder as Lukas began to run. Whether he could catch on or not, the incoming blast required tight maneuvering to be not torn to shreds. A twist of the body that pushed Lukas back into the earth with a rut, narrowly avoidant - taking with it the last of his right arm.

Guttural, throat tearing, angered, Lukas' voice resembled a painting as blood covered his mouth. Yet his eyes did not flicker, his arm shoving him back to his knees, a step and he was back to his feet. Head swiveling as he took another forward, scanning for the old man. Hard to tell how much damage he took, can't be doing better than me... It was a good thing his arm had been cauterized by the blast; he would've bled out by now.

Another step forward and he'd speed up, gait pained as it was - explosions sounding around them, an erratic display.

Turning around to face his handiwork and prepare himself in case his last stand didn't work, Johann held his shield in front of him, and the Seele in front of it, seizing and absorbing the Reishi in the air around them into his shield, repairing the cracks and restoring it to some acceptable level of use. But, despite the bravado that the act gave, he could sense it.

He had failed, again.

Nothing they had worked. It didn't seem like anything they had done even remotely slowed down the monster. The dread in his sinking heart made him consider dropping his defenses. But, perhaps in a display of pride or sheer elderly stubbornness, he remained true. While he could still harness the Reishi around them, his own reserves were running on fumes, his body ravaged and run ragged, his uniform and bare body below burned and soaked in scarlet. The only thing keeping him moving was adrenaline.

Thus, as Lukas tore across the landscape, Johann held his arm out to return the gesture as he neared, using what little energy he had left to force his body to move through Ransotengai. Even with the forced control over his body, every cell burned as he was pulled to his feet, and the two ran. A brief, but crude manipulation of Reishi to create small threads to hold the Seele against the shield as it crashed against the shield and weapon.

The instant it did, the Reishi particles making up the attack split and softened just as rapidly as it crashed against the Seele, bisecting as each end pushed against his shield, before diverting and slamming harshly into the ground, beginning the process of cracking all over again while explosions forced them forward.

As they did, Johann looked up, seeing a collective of Sternritter running toward them. He could barely hear them shouting over the resounding drumbeat in his ears, but he could still read their lips.

"Protect Administrator Arant and Mr. Atherisch!"

He wanted to yell at them to stop, to stop them himself. But, with how tired he had become, how battered and broken his body was, all he could do was continue to run, his subordinates racing to their deaths while the two of them retreated from the infernal blaze of the blasphemous, mockery of an angel.