The mercenary gestured towards Mercy and all ten metallic spheres hurtled towards her.
She effortlessly dodged and danced like a ballerina, causing the spheres that narrowly missed to create disproportionately large dents and cracks into the floor and columns. They obliterated kiosks and concrete flower beds in their chaotic wake.
"Is she guiding these things using some kind of technology?" Mercy thought, "Perhaps those gauntlets?"
As her opponent conducted the spheres trajectory, Mercy caught a red flash in her peripheral vision. She instinctively thought of a shield and it appeared on her forearm.
The sphere had shot at her and Mercy blocked it instantly, only for the force of the collision to push her back, sending her flying.
She collided into a closed food stall. The smell of salty bread and flour permeated the air.
Retroidica's finest.
"Here, eat. I saw how you protected them, even in your current state." Said Victor, he handed Mercy a slice of bread.
Mercy cursed under her breath.
"Not now..."
The new scent in the air acted like a hallucinogen as her mind briefly wafted from the present.
Mercy got back to her feet again and casually emerged from the wreckage, brushing away both rubble and crumbs.
"That was perfectly good food…"
She deduced that they were leftovers from earlier in the day, ready to be sold at a discount the next.
"If it means that much, I can char it nice and good for you, darling."
One of the spheres shot a flat piece of bread by Mercy's feet. Charred crumbs and loose tiles sprayed on to her again, but she remained fixed on the mercenary.
"Wasteful!" she thought.
The spheres opened fire all at once, this time while revolving around her. She anticipated by constructing a dome of a three metre radius, though just as an energy projectile skimmed her right leg.
The dome began to crack under the barrage instantly as the sphere's revolutions increased dramatically.
Through an advanced neural device, Mercy could conjure any item she could think of. The more complex the object however, the more difficult it was to create and maintain.
There was an unforeseen variable that Victor didn't account for during its creation, her mental state could heavily alter and stretch the limits of the ability. Therefore, the cracks that appeared on her barrier was a mirror, reflecting her conflicted internal state.
"You shouldn't have let them leave without you!" The symphony of collisions was paired with her assailant's obnoxious laughter.
She was in a precarious situation. The resilience of her barrier was waning, not to mention her capacity to seal the ever growing fractures.
Though it wasn't despair she was feeling, but annoyance.
"What on Earth is Victor doing and why is he in a place like this?" she thought, "Everything we've been through... I don't want to believe that aligning with these guys was your true motive. I know it wasn't!"
The dome responded to her and held firm. And shortly after, the barrage suddenly ceased.
The spheres smoked and sizzled, glowing red from overuse. This was her chance!
She shattered her own barrier and with the shards now loose, sent them flying into all ten of the muzzles trained on her.
They all exploded in unison.
"Now tell me where the Red Paladin is." She had no time to gloat, she wanted to meet up with the others and find Victor.
She observed her surroundings, they had already made a mess of the station.
Smoking holes and craters littered the floor and pillars; it was a good thing no one was around to get hurt, though their cover had been blown.
The Paladins would be on the front of international news by tomorrow morning.
The mercenary stood in shock, but only for a second as she began a jovial chuckle. She was either losing it or the change in the battles momentum genuinely didn't phase her. Mercy continued.
"I don't think you understand the-"
"No its you who doesn't understand, darling! The Red Paladin? He isn't here! You will all be put down like the stray dogs you are!" As she spoke, chunks of the floor and walls began to rip away and levitate into the air.
Subsequently, the forest of concrete geometry on the ceiling broke off with a tremendous crack.
Unable to process the mercenary's words, Mercy stepped back. She watched as enormous chunks of the stations interior turned on her.
She couldn't decide whether this was the result of tangible technology on her person or an innate ability. The former would be easier to disarm.
The mercenary looked smug as her crimson hair continued to dance. She knew that using the orb lasers as a decoy would give her an opening, but she had underestimated her opponent.
All she saw was a purple blur, speeding towards her between the debris.
Mercy landed a direct punch with a fist encased in a hard, purple bubble. She spiralled through the air before collapsing into a flower bed.
"I figured you were keeping your distance, that you weren't confident in your close combat skills against me," Mercy said smugly "But it turns out I was wrong. You have none, you're just a glorified test subject."
The suspended debris dropped with a ground trembling thud, but to her surprise, the mercenary returned to her feet. Her face, a mixture of fear and rage, splattered with blood and soil.
"And I know that the Red Paladin is here, because I have faith in my team's intelligence, and they will get him back before I'm done here-"
The mercenary wiped her bloody nose, she had lost a metallic gauntlet. It was at that moment when Mercy froze.
Her tattoo, now exposed, was a neon tracing of the skeletal structure in her hand with the initials 'BH' overlapping each other in the centre.
"Oh this?" she asked smugly, "so you've heard of them. They're disbanded now, but I was a member when they were at the top of their game."
Mercy's body language must have given her away.
"You only startled me," the mercenary continued, "don't get the wrong idea, I'd rather starve to death than exchange blows, which is why this ability is perfect."
An old anger bubbled from deep within Mercy.
She wondered if she phrased it that manner because of her comment on the bread stall.
Or perhaps she was telling the truth..,
The scarcity of food was not a by product of conflict in Mercy's homeland, as is the case for many wars throughout history.
However, the search for the solution to the famine was.
When a fungal blight ravaged the prideful country of Fiana, civil war broke out as two rival factions were split on how to save the country.
The ruling faction denied outside help, they wanted to remain independent looking to their own academics, even spiritual leaders for treatment.
The other faction consisted of technocrats and foreign aligned leaders, they saw the fungus as a national security threat and argued in favour of joining the UN, accepting global support through advanced biotech and medicines.
However, in return, advanced military bases where to be built on their land. It was seen as a rejection of Fiana's traditions and an exploitation from outside governments seeking strategic allyship.
Conspiracies of Retroidica's involvement in the fungi's creation fuelled the preservationist's extremist views, further enflaming the conflict.
Through the chaos a third faction emerged, though they did not seek to find a just solution. They were opportunistic gang members who profited from the suffering.
They controlled the remaining food supply, hoarding resources and trading them to those who swore loyalty.
The villages that refused? Burned to the ground. Parents were forced to choose between giving up their children as recruits or face a blazing end.
The gang was known as The Bone Hand, and they often targeted preservation aligned regions.
They burned down Mercy's village, killing her family.
"It seems you may have come across us in the past, perhaps one of our victims," the mercenary sounded almost remorseful, "I was an orphan then, the leader brought me in. He was like a father and he taught me how to survive.
"I would've died without him. That's why we regret nothing!"
Mercy was hit with a sudden wave of nausea. She hated the Bone Hand with all of her being. She couldn't forgive them, but hearing another perspective hit her like a Retroidican train.
Bone Hand and victimhood? The notion eluded her. She held on to the naïve world view she had at fifteen, despite all her years of experience and education through the Paladin Initiative.
This, however, did not excuse their actions.
Her mind wandered to Victor again, he had found her on the brink of collapse from severe malnourishment.
She had previously woken up in a destroyed temple where her and thirteen other younger children had taken refuge. They were helped by the temples monks who offered a safe haven for orphans of war.
They had food and water and being the eldest, Mercy would make sure they'd eat first.
The monks taught them that the famine was caused by a spiritual imbalance, that Fiana was slowly straying from its roots and was therefore being punished by the Earth god Teluzhao. Mercy had once agreed, though at that moment she wanted it all to stop by whoever was able.
For a period of time they survived, they awaited aid from foreign countries to rescue them from the conflict, though none came.
Mercy often argued with their guardians, warning them that the food would eventually run out, she felt they absolutely had to secure more.
The children would cry to her about their shrinking rations, but there was only so much she could do.
Their response was always the same, to have faith that aid would come and that it was too dangerous to venture outside the temple.
Though once the inevitable scarcity of their storehouses became evident, Mercy couldn't bare her idleness any longer.
She snuck into the ruins of nearby villages, scavenging for anything that could be deemed edible.
By the time she returned, the sanctuary was raided.
Bone Hand men carrying machine guns and anti-tank rocket launchers had chained the children's neck and arms, all while their bare feet soaked in the blood of the monks who had refused their entry.
They carried away what was left of the temples food supply in crates and were beginning to set alight to the building, though their attempts were failing.
The children's cries cut deep, but they were quickly silenced by rounds fired into the painted ceiling above, followed by heartless chuckles.
The farming tool weighed a ton in Mercy's raw grasp, but she tried with all her might to fight back.
She ran towards them, screaming a bloodcurdling cry that tore at her throat.
They didn't so much as flinch.
The grown men looked down at her as the helpless child she was.
"Oh, look at that, the one I saw leave the temple in the first place… we should take her too." One of them said.
"No," replied another, "look at the state of her. She'd probably die before we make it back."
"Seems she let the kids eat in her stead. That kind of sacrifice will only get you killed in this world."
They beat her and left her for dead as she laid unconsciously on the cold, sanctuary floor.
She didn't know what woke her up. Was it her late mother spurring her on or was it her tremendous guilt and the fading cries of the children?
It was all her fault…
She slowly opened her eyes.
In her blurry vision, she saw a large white creature perched atop a half destroyed column across from her. She couldn't understand what it was, but it seemed to look at her curiously.
It flew down to the temple floor with grace, and it was then when Mercy understood.
The two and a half metre wingspan of Fiana's fabled bird, the Baise Peacock.
She watched it mid flight. It was an angel coming to her aid.
She remembered her mother's words, she had told her about the positive symbolism of purity and rebirth tied to the rare creature, though she fully understood her own personal meaning as she lay witness to its rattling display of flowery feathers in her time of need.
Resilience.
She had to go after the children!
The stain glass windows had given the peacock's plumage a purple hue, or perhaps it was actually a genetic mutation. As she briefly studied it, she looked down to its lower train feathers. It was dripping with deep red blood, almost black.
Its beauty was sullied. It was Bone Hands fault!
She rose to her blistered feet once again, willing herself not to slip on the blood soaked tiles and pushed herself after them.
She followed them back to their camp. Her bare feet were numb to its bruised and bloody mess as they raced towards the marquee where they were huddled. Her own speed surprised her.
She did all she could to get between the unsuspecting Bone Hand men and the children.
She spread her frail malnourished arms and refused to move. But before they could utter a word, a masked man leapt down from somewhere above the marquee, knocking out one of the gang members with a solid punch.
He quickly disarmed another and sent them flying in the opposite direction.
One by one he dispatched each member in the area with incredible speed and precision. It was as though he was flying above the ground as he leapt between targets, evading trigger happy assailants at impossible angles.
When the base was cleared, Mercy had already collapsed from exhaustion and hunger, but mostly from relief. They were seemingly saved.
He would've been eighteen back then and she later found out he had been tracking down Bone hand in the country on his own.
He was also spreading biocontrol agents, predicting fungal spreads and pre-emptively containing the fungus for eradication, all while Fiana's leadership squabbled.
He was truly remarkable.
So why? Why was he working with a former Bone Hand member? Her heart was beginning to break but she knew there was something more to it.
"I just need to find him," she reassured herself, "then it would all make sense..."
As Mercy emerged from her daze, she sized her opponent.
The mercenary felt the aura around the Paladin change, as faint purple lights pulsed beneath her feet in anticipation. She took a step back.
"I don't know what kind of relation you had with us, but I don't remember you." The mercenary scoffed, "Nevertheless, its seems we're both survivors of that hell that was the Fianese Civil War."
"You survived off of your father's disregard for human life," Mercy replied sharply "I survived from my drive to protect it."
"And now you continue to over look the suffering of others by becoming a mercenary funded by a corrupt government!"
In an instant, the ground around Mercy erupted in a flash of purple, blinding light. Dozens of transparent, shimmering projections appeared:
Blades, shields, farming tools, even broken fragments of Fianese temple architecture; each flickering like they'd been pulled from half faded memories.
But instead of rushing her opponent, they hovered… then slowly circled Mercy like planets around a star.
Finally the wings and plume of a peacock's feathers appeared behind her in a grand display of shimmering purple.
It matched the design motif of her helmet as requested to Victor when she had first joined.
She was going to see him again.
The mercenary took another step back. Her eyes darted between the constructs and the unwavering woman at their centre.
"What is this?" she sneered. "A graveyard of memories?"
"No," Mercy replied resolutely. "It is my sanctuary. And I will not let anyone take it away from me again."
They were just for show since she didn't mean to construct them. They had no mass, similar to a hologram.
It was much less a bluff than it was a convenient distraction, but most importantly they gave her comfort and resolve.
The mercenary raised debris from the ground once more, however this time they flew towards her.
Hundreds of concrete pieces crumbled and rearranged themselves around her body, creating jagged armour that slowly began to grow in size.
Its bulky silhouette started to tower over Mercy, casting a shadow on her and her holographic constructs.
"You puny, sappy Peacekeepers, thinking you can save the world one country at a time. A pretentious pipe dream!"
"Better to profit off of the corruption than to fight against it. Appears your Captain finally got the hint after all these years!"
Mercy didn't respond; she glared up at the rocky golem before her with disgust. Now the truth was coming out.
Large rounded debris began to encircle her, replacing the orbs she had used prior.
"I said I didn't like close quarters combat didn't I? So come on darling, enough with the sappy memorabilia! You are the Purple Peacekeeper Paladin, correct? Let's see it, the Angel of Eraedia!"
Mercy was already becoming fatigued, the stunt she pulled with the Paladin Jet had taken more of a toll on her than she had realised.
Though she hated being looked down upon by her more than anything else; she was more than happy to oblige.
Her opponent watched as purple matter enveloped her whole.
It was almost like a cocoon. A humble yet temporary state of being before she bloomed into something greater.
The giant battle suit stood at the same towering height as her, with the Purple Paladin standing within its abdomen.
The helmet design, along with the rest of the creation, was but an extreme version of her Paladin Armour, emphasizing the subtle peacock motif with a robotic flair.
It's head was wide and flat with long wing like antennas on either side.
Just like her regular armour, it's forearm gauntlets were thick and bulky, and could mechanically unsheathe razor sharp blades on either arm.
Attached to its back were large, mobile shields. They could extend and move around its body as a secondary defence against incoming attacks from multiple directions.
When stationary, they unintentionally looked like wings. Mercy thought that it was perhaps a large contributor to where her epithet came from.
The form took a lot of energy to construct and maintain, so to make the most out of it, she endeavoured to generate as few constructs as possible during its usage, consulting Victor for the mechanisms of it's moving parts.
"I'll give you what you want," Mercy lied, "But only if you tell me exactly where he is and why."
There was a slight pause.
The mercenary looked at the scene in front of her in awe. The sanctuary didn't disappear like she had hoped; it grew in size as it filled the entire station with her purple coloured past.
It had turned the retro- brutalist interior into a collage of familiar temple architecture. She saw large peacocks milling around and children running after each other between the heeled feet of the robotic construct. They played a game she could barely remember.
She refused to accept it before, but this time she was bludgeoned by the bittersweet feeling of nostalgia.
But before it could overwhelm her, the purple scenery glitched and flickered like an aged television.
It appeared she was reaching her limit, though as she looked at the playing children once more, she noticed they were bound with chains tight around their necks and wrist. Though they continued to laugh and play like normal.
"Bone hand..." she thought.
"He's here, in the city..." She began.
She didn't know it for a fact, though with her father's suspicions paired with the Paladin's unusual presence in Ascendia, it was more than likely.
"... But you're wasting your time, he's with us now. No matter how much you wish he-"
"Bang."
Mercy had her hand raised in front of her mimicking a gun, the Angel of Eraedia mirrored her gesture.
Sharp purple spikes suddenly irrupted from the Mercenary's concrete armour, running her through in multiple locations. She stiffly keeled over but the constructs denied her fall.
Blood began to stream from her armour and snake between the pale tiles of the station floor.
It was deep red. Almost black.
While Mercy challenged the nature of her character, she tunnelled thousands of small pieces of her constructs into the ground, as well as loose bits of debris.
She gathered that her opponent would use the ground to fight once more, and intended to catch her off guard should she bring them closer.
But to use them as armour... the temptation to end it all was far too overwhelming, she would get her revenge for her family, for Fiana.
"Which direction did they head in?" Mercy wondered. She disassembled her construct and landed on the ground.
She let the fight go on longer than she should have. The drama around Victor threw her off.
"Wait, you wench!" the mercenary gurgled, "My father is also a Retroid Troupe merc' and he's here right now! If he hasn't already killed the rest of you freaks-"
Mercy released her spiked constructs and she fell over, her armour dispersing across the floor like scurrying mice.
"So there's more of you," Mercy concluded, "then I guess he dies next."
Yuna kept pace with the others as they ran in silence through winding corridors. The ceiling was now low and flat and the walls curved outwards from the now deep red, floor tiles.
With the four of them, paired with the uncomfortable tension in the air, it was almost claustrophobic.
Mercy should be fine Yuna thought, but if that mercenary was half as strong as the ones they'd encountered prior, she could be in serious trouble. Should she have told the group about Victor's peculiar ability? Maybe it could've helped Mercy?
Important information like that could be the difference between life and death in battle. She was angry at herself, though the same could be said about misinformation.
As they headed deeper into the station, there were no longer signs or digital boards directing them to the various train platforms and exits; it was now almost dream like, a labyrinth of identical corridors, glaring lights and stairs leading to nowhere.
"Down these flights of stairs to the left." Merphie called out.
They followed, but the left turn was blocked by an industrial sized, steel wall with a locked door at its centre.
It looked out of place.
"I got it..." Ryu unsheathed the blade on his back and in a flash of green and brown, cut two lines.
A wide vertical slice of the wall fell inwards with a heavy 'thunk'.
It was a blur that didn't take half a second, but Yuna lay witness to his controlled movements. He brought the blade down then straight up in one swift movement and lingered in a controlled pose for a tenth of a second before returning it to its sheath.
They stared down a dark, incomplete corridor with an exposed ceiling and a patchwork floor of tiles and concrete.
"Oh dear," Merphie announced, " It appears the Captain's tracker has gotten cold..." Yuna and the others looked at him in surprise. Did something happen?
"Did he find the tracker?" Nico asked calmly.
"Most likely, but worry not, I have memorised his last coordinates, if we hurry we can get to him."
They raced down the dark hallway at a faster pace than before.
"There's three people ahead, likely enhanced." Nico beat her to it.
She was more startled at the sight of them, too distracted to actually report it to the team.
As the lights flickered on, the Paladins came to a stop ten meters away from their adversaries.
"Aren't there supposed to be six of them? Where's their Captain?" The slender mercenary on the left spoke first with a dry tone behind a masked face.
He wore only a combat vest and cargo shorts revealing, for whatever reason, seriously bad looking skin.
It was pale and crackly, like the texture of a field in a severe drought. Yuna could see it was producing some dust from a subtle draught, it was as though he was slowly withering away.
"Forget their Captain, where's the one with the seriously nice bod on TV hahaha!" The large one on the right spoke this time.
He was as rotund as he was tall, and his laughter shook the corridor, but once he stopped Yuna saw that he was out of breath, his face already glistening with sweat.
"Are we sure these are the countries infamous mercenaries? They don't seem very strong…" Yuna turned to Nico unimpressed.
"Looks can be deceiving little girl, you'd be smart to watch your mouth!" The one with dry skin hissed at her, he was genuinely offended, but he fell into a fit of dry coughs before he could continue.
"Ha, looks like she has no idea who she's dealing with, Stone-Solid Simeon!" The big one bellowed, "You're the new one aren't you, you've big shoes to fill now, especially after that overly excessive funeral everyone was so mopey about, hahaha."
Ryu's arm was already over Yuna's.
"We are the Retroid Troupe's elite trio, no one has ever seen our teamwork and lived to-"
"Oversized Newt… the strong don't need to use their words to prove their strength."
The mercenary in the middle finally spoke.
His hardened eyes were the only facial feature visible from his black balaclava. He wore a red, full-body combat suit with Retroid Troupe Company written in gold on his breastplate. Though the word 'Retroid' was partially censored.
The name Raizo was written across a thick, red headband proudly, framed by black hair that reached down to his shoulders.
His left leg stood out from the overbearing red as a silver prosthetic, it was smooth and articulate, almost too advanced for what was usually possible with modern technology.
She had seen something like it before.
"All you Paladins need to know..." He paused in a stoic silence as he gripped a red katana on his waist, "... is that we get a big bonus for taking you-"
The Green Paladin stood among them with his hands rested on his hips.
Raizo was still looking at the Paladins while reaching for his blade, when the force of Ryu's speed sent the three sprawling in different directions.
Two of them fumbled into the wall behind them, while Raizo rolled back across the floor.
Ryu didn't allow the dry skinned one a second to recover. He was a blur as he drilled multiple punches into his chest, burying him further into the wall as a cloud of dust billowed out of him.
Yuna counted thirty strikes in total, though he didn't take more than two seconds.
The large one finished him off with an opened palmed strike that buried the mercenary even deeper, shaking the corridor once again.
It was intended to hit Ryu, but Oversized Newt realised he was now standing on his head.
Nico sighed and Yuna failed to stifle a snicker.
"A brilliant showcase of speed once again Mr Green Paladin!" Merphie beamed.
Before he could react, he was kicked into the now large enough crater with an unconscious Stoned- Solid Simeon with a heavy thump.
"Green Paladin!" Flames erupted from the back of the last mercenary's combat suit as he screamed.
His stoic façade had eroded.
"You think you're confident in your speed? Rocket-stream Raizo, will show you-" He unsheathed his katana as he began to move.
He was quick, though Ryu's foot stopped his sword in its red, armoured sheath.
"... But... I-"
"Sorry man, kind of in a hurry... maybe next time? Nice suit by the way..."
Ryu threw him into the exposed concrete ceiling; when he came down he was already unconscious.
His suit gave a final splutter of flames before completely dying out.
"... But that's why we wear helmets!"
"Maybe next time?" Yuna smirked, "He'd be lucky if he's able to say that ridiculous name again without slurring now."
"Guys, lets go..." Nico didn't waste any time as he hurried past Ryu.
The others quickly followed suit.
It didn't take long before they appeared onto an expansive train platform.
The area was much older, it was as though they had unknowingly travelled back in time.
There were two pairs of tracks, divided by a platform in the middle. Grand pillars stretched into the curved ceiling as they stood at regular intervals. They served as seating at its base and as they widened towards the top they followed the ceilings curvature while melding into large, circular window openings.
They appeared sequentially between each pillar and looked up into the Retroidican night sky. It was now raining and the droplets drummed on the tinted, dome shaped panes with a drowsy monotony.
"Merphie?" Nico called. He was getting impatient.
"It appears we must go along the tracks into the tunnel." He gestured towards the dark void at the left end of the platform.
"You gotta be kidding me." Ryu complained.
"Afraid of the dark?" Nico taunted.
"No its just... it's gotta be filthy down there." Yuna rolled her eyes, though it was hidden behind her eagle inspired helmet.
"How bout I just become the Captain instead, it'll be great. Before every fight we'll say... Ryu Sentai: Peace Time Rangers!"
The silence was very loud and very intentional by the three of them as Ryu struck a rehearsed pose, Yuna thought Merphie had also caught on but he had mirrored the action inquisitively.
"That doesn't sound too bad..." A distorted voice echoed, "but whatever name you go by, it won't change your death at my hand."
The unsettling response seemed to belong to an old man, whose footsteps could now be heard above the rain as they reverberated from the tunnel.
Darkness crawled away from the mysterious mans reddish brown frame as he emerged before them.
A horizontal, line of red light flashed where his eyes should have been. It belonged to a pale metallic head, fashioned into a skull.
Behind it was a main of ginger dread locks, Yuna couldn't decide if the old man had impressive genes or the helmet came with extensions.
He was dressed like your typical mercenary wearing a chrome combat suit with two blades crossed on his back. Though he wore traditional eastern clothing that clashed heavily with the broad brimmed cowboy hat, sitting atop his helmet.
Yuna honestly thought he made it work.
"You don't look like a train operator..." Ryu deduced.
"In eighteen hundreds Lauradale maybe." Nico added.
"...If you're lost, I could help you to the nearest exit."
He leapt onto the platform they were on and casually strolled towards them. He was big, Yuna realised, perhaps even taller than their Captain.
"I'm right where I need to be," the smokers growl could be heard through the distorted voice filter, "and you guys won't be going anywhere."
Something heavy pushed down on Yuna. She tried to turn her head to look at the others but it proved difficult.
"What is this?" she asked through clenched teeth, but the others were just as confused as they also couldn't move. She looked back to the mysterious, masked man. He hadn't done anything she could see.
"Now, you'll have to forgive me, I'm still getting the hang of this - I have to concentrate." He slowly reached for the gun on his hip like he didn't dare make any sudden movements.
This was bad. A regular person would be laid flat under the pressure, it was like she was squatting a van. She couldn't fight affectively like this.
"It's like he increased the gravity of the area," Yuna pondered.
She thought about the instances of floating objects in her recent memory and Oversized Newt's seemingly effortless strength. It was plausible but didn't explain everything.
She could now see the embedded coil accelerator in his gun as he slowly pulled it from his holster. But as he did, she saw a flash of green in the corner of her eye.
Ryu had sprung into action. He ran like an athlete towards the mercenary, leaving dents in the floor in his wake.
He leapt and kicked him square in the chest.
The pressure lifted and Yuna breathed a sigh of relief.
He was slower than usual, but it must have been akin to running with four tons and a half on his back.
The mercenary was launched backwards, but he flipped and landed effortlessly on his feet.
"Like I said, I'm still getting the hang of it." He excused casually as if he wasn't about to shoot them down one by one.
"I don't mean to do a 'Purple Paladin', but I'm best equipped to fight this guy, you guys need to hurry."
Ryu drew his weapon as Nico protested.
"I was just about to make a move when you-"
"There's no time for this! If you're sure you've got this, we should get going." Yuna couldn't help but think she sounded like Mercy, but someone had to rein them in.
The three Paladins leapt onto the tracks and ran towards the tunnel; Nico muttered something under his breath.
"It's gravity!" Yuna called out, "They're somehow manipulating Earth's gravity to fight!"
"I thought I told ya'll you weren't goin-" the mercenary was cut off by Ryu's blade, it was blocked by one of his gauntlets but he slid back from the force of the attack.
"I gathered but thanks. Go ahead I've got..." they were already swallowed by the darkness.
"Rude. But I guess that shows they trust me-"
The mercenary pushed Ryu off with a wave of his arm. He was strong.
"Well, looks like its just you and me, kid." The mercenary conceded.
"What's your name by the way," Ryu remarked, " I don't want to keep calling you 'Mr. mercenary' in my head."