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Ziso turned up at the screech of metal, at least as much as she could midair. The sign above, brought down by lightning? The Force didn't work at all how the cyborg had expected, though she had very little experience properly using it anyway. It showed as she glared at the fallen sign. She turned as she fully extended. Her full height, no longer crouching. Towering in the sparks of purple and fire behind her. She was cornered.
She was annoyed now.
"Very well."
The blaster returned to the cloak. A second saber joined the first, leading to a pair of bled sabers to hum in her grasp. She lifted her blades, eyes narrowing now. She went on the defensive, using those blades to keep away both lightning and Pathbreaker from hitting her too hard, too fast. And yet, it was clear that the Assassin was no proper duelist.
Trapped, she was going to be overwhelmed despite her cybernetic strength.
The moment Ziso stopped running, Juniper felt the shift in the fight immediately. The towering cyborg stood framed by sparks and burning light, dual crimson sabers humming in the open air while she settled into a defensive stance. No more slipping through shadows. No more scrambling through sewage and collapsing tunnels. Juniper couldn't hesitate.
Pathbreaker spun in her grasp as she advanced, the crackling pink energy around her growing sharper with every step. The Force churned violently around the sorceress now, less restrained than before, raw magick bleeding from her in uneven surges as she closed the distance. She could feel the pressure building inside her chest, the instability clawing at the edges of her concentration, but she pushed through it anyway.
A spectral hand suddenly clawed upward from the shattered street beside Ziso Kus, translucent fingers scraping uselessly at the air before curling inward. It looked almost skeletal beneath the flickering light, reaching for something that wasn't there before dissolving back into drifting wisps of pink energy. Juniper barely acknowledged it, the wild magick spilling from her had become harder and harder to contain.
"There you are." A sharp burst of pink lightning snapped from Juniper's outstretched hand, crashing toward ZIso just long enough to force her guard into motion. The surge tore painfully through Juniper's arm as well, causing her fingers to twitch the moment the energy left her. Her breath hitched in her chest, but she pressed forward anyway, using the opening to drive Pathbreaker crashing into the assassin's defense.
Juniper wasn't fighting like a duelist anymore, there was nothing elegant about the way she advanced now. Every strike carried brute force behind it, each swing meant to overwhelm and break through rather than outmaneuver. Loose debris rattled across the pavement around them while nearby lights flickered wildly from the unstable magick radiating off her.
"If I go down, I'm taking you down with me." Juniper stepped into another heavy strike, lightning still faintly crackling around the edges of Pathbreaker as she tried to hammer through Ziso's defense before her own power burned her out first.
"28. A spectral hand claws upward from the ground, grasping at nothing."
It came as a fleeting side effect perhaps, but for Ziso, it was a manifestation of something utterly unknown. Hands of shadow, grasping and pulling. The Assassin's eyes widened behind her visor as she spun from one, only to see another grasping for her cloak. She needed to move, to escape, but the lightning flared as danger filled her mind.
A turn came as she brought one of her blades up to defend, accepting that she'd be grabbed, preparing for it as she swing the other low to sever the ghastly hands trying to hold her. Only, her blade found nothing. She wasn't grabbed, or even actually affected. The Cyborg blinked. Her eyes, one of the few parts of her still flesh, had lied.
A crash of metal came as her saber was knocked aside. Her defenses didn't last after the first strike, as another slammed into her shoulder. Metal caved in, the cybernetics flaring with sparks as it shattered and broke. She wheezed, not from pain but from a realization that she had lost the edge she needed to win.
"That is a fools errand. To die to win."
Another crunch of steel. She was defending her few parts of flesh that remained, but with only one arm she couldn't block everything. A leg gave out from another blow, sending the cyborg to the ground with an omph. She hissed in annoyance, wildly swinging her saber around even on her back. Her remaining leg shot out, grasping stone to chuck right up at Juniper.
Juniper Le Fey
