Arc 4:
Part 4: Riot Is Here
**Moments earlier**
Jo held her position at the open load door below the Den as she sucked on a popsicle, minding her own business. Though, she noticed something off about the situation.
I thought we were supposed to be ambushed… she observed the field, allowing the cool breeze to enter the cargo hold she occupied. Her thick, green tail whipped to the pleasantness of it. So where is this 'ambush'?
It was then that Nyx appeared by her from the ethers.
"Don't tell me you're actually itching to fight? Since when has that been on your agenda besides sleeping and touching yourself to Greed and Belle fu—"
She merely looked at him with a sullen expression, and he disappeared.
He reappeared after a few short seconds.
"Keeper! I really hate when you do that. Can you not!?"
"I hate when you say things out loud you have no business saying. Butt out."
"I was only teasing… Besides, there's no one here to hear. Your secret is safe with—"
"Please stop talking, Nyx… I'm trying to focus."
"Focus on what? It's just a blank field with a few hills and shifted tectonic plates… Reminds me of the Valley in some strange way."
"Ugh…"
"Okay, okay. I get it. Quiet time…"
They both just stared out into the strange, empty valley. But its silence was even stranger.
"I can't help but feel like something bad is about to happen," Jo spoke up after some time.
"Thought you didn't want to talk?" Nyx insinuated.
"Correction. I didn't want you to talk."
"My bad, Miss Double Standard…"
"In any case, where is this no.8 guy? Heard he uses Grand Earth magic," Jo effortlessly added.
"No idea. Grand users are about as rare as they come. You were the only Grand user I've ever encountered in all my years."
"I forget sometimes that you're a grandpa in a newborn's body."
"Ha. Ha. Very funny."
Suddenly, everything shook. And Jo nearly lost her balance as her popsicle flew out from the opening before her.
"Fuck!"
"Truly! What was that?" Nyx said.
"Not that! My fucking popsicle flew out…"
"Miss Jo…"
The place shook again, and this time she saw the ground shift outside, all around the Den.
"What the hell?"
Then from the ground, bandits emerged, flying out and onto the Den like missiles.
"Shit. Here it comes," she said as she tried to reach for her comm, but the ground had ripped up before her, quaking the place, and she dropped it somewhere in the cargo hold.
Her eyes widened as her attention shifted to it, and stuck out a hand. When she did, a massive ice wall emerged outside the front of the Den, followed by the clash of that colossal heap of earth.
Tectonic plates had then begun to layer over it, crashing one after another, trying to force its way through.
Jo held both hands out to reinforce the ice wall, gritting her teeth as the earth continued to pile over.
Fuck, is this him? This is much tougher than I anticipated…
Then, without warning, the cargo hold she was in—the Den—disappeared without a trace, leaving her behind.
She was mid-air as it vanished, and she flailed for but a moment. A moment enough to let the mounds of tectonic earth blast through her unattended ice wall.
As the cataclysm came in near slow motion to her eyes, she quickly assessed, and repositioned herself in the air, feet down as if she surfed over something.
Then from her feet, ice formed, and she pushed away, trailing it behind like a constantly forming bridge.
She surfed in the air she froze, dodging the storm of earth that raged over what seemed like the whole area.
Her ice bridge shattered behind her when she neared the ground, causing her to tumble.
She quickly regained her posture, leaping onto her feet again, tail whipping the ground as she did.
"Jo!"
She heard a girl's voice from behind, and she whipped her head to glance back.
"Alice!?"
From far back, Alice was running toward her, holding her long black skirt all the while as a group of Ironmanes were chasing her.
"Don't come any closer, Alice!" Jo yelled, and she stopped at her warning.
Just before Alice made another step, the ground before her fissured, making her gasp and withdraw.
She looked back, wary of her pursuers as she thought to herself, What the hell is going on? Why did only me and Jo get left behind?
"Look out!" Jo shouted as two meteor-shaped clunks of earth flew at Alice from both sides, along with a group of Ironmanes toward her.
Without thinking twice, Jo swiped the air, and her ice surged like the plague all the way to Alice, freezing everything around her in mere seconds.
The earth chunks stopped just feet away from her, as she looked around. The ground had been frozen for about half a mile away from behind, with the Ironmanes at her wake.
Keeper… Just how much mana does she have? Alice marveled.
The earth around them collapsed like hail, as a large figure sauntered from the dust and debris in the distance ahead of Jo.
"So this is the renowned Grand Ice user I've been hearing so much about?" the man said.
Jo didn't say so much as a word.
"So far, I'm not thoroughly impressed."
Once he stepped forth from the smoke, it blew away as if evading him.
He was tall, muscular, burly, and wore scars like a badge of honor. His hair was long and rough as it flowed in the breeze. He was heavily stubbled on the face, and he wore nothing but tattered, loose-fitting pants, as he walked around barefoot.
"However, it is rare to come across another Grand user, so you have earned my name before your death," he spoke with a deep octave voice with command sown into each word. "I am Galza, leader of the Ironmanes, and Head Officer no.8 of Riot Gang."
"K…"
"Hmm…"
"…"
The man, Galza, held his stare as if expecting some kind of response—any response…
"I don't care!" Jo shouted flatly as she held her hands to the sides of her mouth like a megaphone to make sure he heard.
Galza's brow twitched, then observed closer, staring at her green dragon tail.
I see… and a rare breed on top of that. This is truly a unique experience indeed…
"Hey," Jo uttered, her tone shifting completely.
Galza was slightly taken aback by the abruptness in her tone.
"You're not staring at my tail, are you?"
Jo's eyes glowed an ominous emerald, sending off an aura that made even Galza's tough skin shiver.
That aura… He almost couldn't believe his eyes. Is all of that coming from her?
"Since we're doing introductions, here's mine," Jo said, commanding the scene now. "I am Jo, 1st Ace of the Black Wolves… and I fucking hate when people stare at my tail."
She stepped forward and a wave of ice surged like a sea over to Galza in less than a second.
So fast!
He quickly leaped backward constantly, using earth to propel him further away as the ice purged.
Then once he was a good distance to counter, he slapped his hands together and chanted,
"Grand Earth Magic: Tectonic Wave"
Earth before him pulsed, and rippled a similar wave back onto Jo's ice surge. The two elements collided against each other, creating a tower of ice and earth that nearly reached the sky.
Alice watched in pure astonishment at the spectacle. She had seen Jo fight before, but every time she got to witness it again, it never truly hit her just how broken her magic was.
Even against an enemy that was technically on the same elemental level as her.
However, there was still one clear difference between them…
Jo swiped her hand forward and then back, forming another separate surge of ice that coursed toward Galza on both sides.
Galza flexed his hands and formed fists, throwing them in the direction of both the waves. Earth walls emerged, protecting him for a time, but the ice spilled over.
He then reeled in his fists and threw them out again, pushing the walls out, shattering the ice.
Then from the center where the ice and earth tower displayed, he raised a flexed arm and leg, and sent it down, squatting as he rested his barefoot against the shifting dust.
He raised his fist upward and the tower began to rumble, lifting, rising into the air.
On the other side, Jo had been raising her hands slowly upward, hair fluttering and eyes glowing as her ice began to layer endlessly over the tower.
An intense game of tug of war began as Galza attempted to raise it, and Jo kept it down.
"Adjust your gaze, youngling…" Galza uttered as he rotated his fist, and threw it forward, sending the massive tower through Jo's ice layers.
Before pushing the tower with his mana, Galza had been infusing it with a flow of Tantra. A technique only skilled Tantra users are able to accomplish. Much like when Leon infused Ryo's claymores to pierce through Greed's arms, a designated amount of Tantra is distributed through an object for a length of time. Had the tower been created by Elemental Summon, it would have crumbled after Tantra was infused. However, because Galza's Grand Earth magic can take on all properties of Elemental Summon, Manipulation, and Anatomy, and because he had used the spell Tectonic Wave, he was able to use the earth below his feet as a form of Manipulation, as opposed to creating the element from scratch—much like what Jo does with her Grand Ice.
Too focused on keeping it down, Jo's ice shattered as the Tantra infused tower broke through and roared toward her.
Her eyes darted ahead of her, and her arms followed a wave of motion, pushing them against the air, and sending a blizzard toward it.
The land around them froze. Glaciers grew. And the tower—stopped midair yards away.
She stopped it? Even with Tantra infused into it? Galza's eyes widened as a faint smirk twitched onto his stone cold features. At last… A true opponent!
Jo spread her arms apart, and the blizzard stopped. It was then that Nyx emerged, floating by her side.
"I need more cold," she said without facing him.
"A 'please' at the end would suffice… But whatever… It's about time you actually use your Spirit God!" he replied enthusiastically, morphing into a different form. It was as if he had temporarily evolved as he glowed light blue in contrast to her glowing green.
He seeped immense cold aura, combining with hers until it had become one.
What's this? Galza marveled at the spectacle. She even has a Spirit God? And she's barely using its power now?
The tower, like gravity struggled to bring it back down, took centuries to fall.
But fall it did as Jo, in a speed that matched it, slowly brought her hands together.
Like she was condensing a storm, the blizzard came back, and the glaciers ignited, growing layers-shattering-layers-shattering in endless repetition.
The tower remained, rejecting its fall, and once her hands were nearly inches away from each other—it fractured, exploding into a plethora of gigantic ice and earth debris.
"Then let's test their strength!" And with a hand sign of his own already in place, Galza chanted,
"Grand Earth Magic: Almighty Terradon!"
Layers of earth began piling onto him endlessly, turning him into some giant earth titan.
His eyes glowed red when he completed his form, and Jo had still yet to combine her hands.
"Do your worst! Rarebreed! Let us fight an endless elemental battle!" Galza commanded ethereally, his voice sounding like the heavens.
"I hate to disappoint you," Jo said as her hands continued to close the distance, causing the terrain to eradicate in ice. "I only know three spells…"
Galza's titan form seemed to shudder even amidst the chaos storm at the mere utter of the words.
"And they're all a one shot, one kill… Exhibit A." When her hands finally connected, it formed the only hand sign she knew. And at last, she chanted,
"Grand Ice Magic: Arctic Void."
Like a pause in the world, everything froze into a clean silence. The tower. The earth. Galza's titan form.
For a time, everything was just… quiet.
And then she released her hands.
Like she shattered existence, everything before her broke apart, and all that was left was a void in the world.
Galza's Almighty Terradon had eradicated, and he was left falling midair.
"It's not over!" he yelled as he threw his hands together and formed another hand sign… at least, he thought he did.
When he looked at his hands, they had been completely removed from their joints, floating by his sides. And as he watched in bemusement, he hadn't even noticed his lower half already departing him silently amidst the fall.
"It is," Jo replied like a quiet whisper that made it to his ears.
Incredible… His last thoughts as he continued to fall, beholding the anomaly mage that ended him, separating into more and more pieces as he neared the fiercely fissured ground. Truly… incredible…
He met the ground and became cold dust, flying toward a distance beyond—like what remained was called, leaving no trace upon these heavily demolished lands. The only evidence of his existence was the uprooted tectonic plates that he once commanded.
And Jo stood amid it all as the one who conquered it.
From where Alice was, Yuna had joined her almost out of nowhere.
"And just where were you hiding?" Alice asked her, and she barked. "Keeper…"
"Now…" Jo uttered with white, cold steam exiting her mouth. When she finally turned back to them, she and Alice shared the same lingering question as they spoke in unison,
"Where the fuck did everyone go?"