**Tartarus. 27th Floor**
It was pitch black.
Star roamed around the space, seeing only her immediate self and not even the floor she stood upon. She rubbed her eyes thinking that she only needed to adjust to the dark, but this darkness was different.
"Why the fuck can't I see anything?"
Because of Star's background in the wilderness, she had naturally adapted to dark places instantaneously. Normally, after only being in a place like this for mere seconds, her eyes would have already adjusted to a type of natural night vision. However, it did not.
She ran and ran, but no matter how 'far' she went, it seemed as if she didn't move at all.
"This is fucking pissing me off! UGH!" She stomped her feet and yelled, "TEDDY!"
But only her voice echoed.
Suddenly, from behind her, a Full-Body user appeared, attempting to strike her down.
Her eyes darted to him as she stuck out a hand, and erupted bone spikes from her arm.
The spikes eradicated him, and the pieces of the Full-Body splattered in some kind of watery liquid.
"Fucking tired of fighting Full-Body users!" Star complained as she headed off, knowing full well that the criminal would morph himself back together.
She ran some more, and another one came as she eliminated him as well, turning him into a blast of smoke.
Deranged yelling sounded off from another heading in her direction, doing the same to him, and then again to another—and another.
"You think you're crazy?" she threatened, chuckling as she halted, throwing her arms above her. "I'll show you fucking crazy!"
She slammed her arms down, and a wave of bones stabbed from the ground, rippling like a sea, piercing and shredding through all the Full-Bodies from all around.
As they eradicated and pieced themselves back together, Star menacingly cooed, "Oh, that's not all."
She flexed her hands before her, and faced them upward. Then, following her motion, the criminals erupted in bone spikes from each of their dismembered parts—or rather, all over their bodies.
Though Full-Body users can reform themselves at will, they still feel the pain of being mutilated, stabbed, or eradicated. And because of Star's contact spell, she was giving each of them an endless kind of suffering unique to Full-Body users at this time.
She cackled like a madwoman, with the sounds of their agony filling her ears.
Then from an unknown distance…
"Target locked…" a mysterious woman with dirty blonde hair confirmed to herself, seeing Star through some thermal vision. "How the hell is this bitch not locked up like the rest of us?"
Her vision then zoomed in, calculating a weak-point analysis of her target.
"Hmm… Combat: 90. Durability: 65. Magic typing: Anatomy – Boneshifting – Awakened. Mastery: 102. Speed: 135." She chuckled. "I can beat that."
She locked onto Star's structure to see more.
"I see… Halfbreed… Weak-point: Head." She concluded her recon as her extended vision scope shifted back somewhere sight unseen.
"What an easy target…"
It was then that retractable jet wings and boosters protruded out from her back, along with boosters on her calves and elbows.
Flame charged and burst from them, sending her blasting toward Star at sonic speed.
Star ceased her laughing, and whipped her head toward whatever was coming, instinctively throwing her arms up, and hardening her bones as she received the impact from a metal wing.
She gritted her teeth as the mysterious projectile rammed into her, continuing to push her backward at a staggering pace.
"What's this?" Star spoke, eyes wild like she enjoyed it. "New prey?"
The woman scoffed and replied, "You're the prey here!"
She pushed off her, and flew back.
When Star saw her opportunity, she motioned her hand, erupting her bone spikes, but the woman detached the wing that made contact before adjusting her boosters downward to hover in place.
The wing exploded in a protrusion of bone spikes, hitting the black ground, and then doing nothing more.
"Nice try, but I know exactly how your magic works. You're going to die here, girl," the dirty blonde woman said.
Out of the five Grade 0 criminals that were locked up on the seventy-first floor along with Wrath, and whom he had set free, one of them was a woman named Valkyrie. A criminal from the Sky Kingdom; known for her heinous terrorisms across the jurisdiction. Because of her diverse magic ability, it took seven S rank Sky Knights to bring her to custody, with only two casualties.
Another reason she was classified as a Grade 0 criminal was because of her rare mastery of magic. For she could chant incantations without the aid of a hand sign.
Valkyrie grinned wildly as hundreds of missile pods opened across her body, shoulders, arms, legs, fingertips. And she chanted,
"Jetshifting Magic: Missile Queen!"
The missiles launched simultaneously, lighting up the room in a storm of fire.
Star stood amidst it all, eyes widening as an unconscious grin grew on her face, too.
She bolted to the side as a group of missiles crashed and exploded the dark area she once occupied.
Another set of heatseeking missiles chased her as she lightened her bones, gaining speed; and they looked as if they battled without a battlefield.
Valkyrie shifted her vision to see Star's stats once again. "Durability raised to 80, then back down below 65—now 55. Speed raised to 145." She studied.
I see… She's adjusting her anatomy to fit the situation. She's more skilled than I thought… No matter. "Structural analysis complete."
As Star maneuvered, and the smart missiles crashed one by one behind her, another cluster split into dozens of smaller projectiles, scattering overhead.
Star glanced upward, still running as she observed where each one was going to land. She had done this in less than a few seconds.
The projectiles rained down, and she whipped herself in a zigzag motion, avoiding the bursts as they came.
Then, sensing Valkyrie in the dark flying away, she took a shortcut to intersect her.
"Found you…" Star uttered predatorially as she caught up, eyes glowing green amidst the dark, turning her arm into a bone club, and swinging it down.
But when she arrived, in Valkyrie's place, the hologram wiped away, and only a decoy missile hovered before her…
Ha?
She retracted quickly to avoid contact; however, the decoy did not need her to touch it.
It exploded, detonating a chain from any nearby projectiles.
Star bolted back, doing her best to avoid the series of explosions.
And then from behind her, Valkyrie appeared with two wrist machine guns pointed in her direction.
"Eat lead, bitch!"
She fired as the sound of endless gats beat like drums in the air.
Star hardened her bones, even forming a shield to block the rounds, but the chain of explosions was still coming from the other way.
I can always sacrifice… She considered letting one of the blows take her arm or leg. No… Teddy will be mad…
She then layered bone armor over her body and limbs, adding a layer over the bone shield in front of her as well.
No cutting today!
A bone face-cover formed over her mouth as the bombardment commenced all around her.
She became engulfed in a sea of explosions, with bullets Gatling ahead of her.
Valkyrie withdrew an arm, keeping the other still firing at Star. She shifted the armaments, and loaded a different kind of round, then faced it back.
"Let's see if your armor can withstand this!"
When she fired, a round of heavier bullets rained parallel to her normal rounds.
The first series smacked into Star's shield, cracking it, and staggering her.
She grunted. Eyes widening when she realized what kind of bullets she was now being hit with.
"Not so confident now, are you!?"
Without thinking, Star began layering the density in her legs. The bullets and explosions proceeded neverendingly.
Then just as the armor-piercing rounds shattered her shield, she crouched, and burst upward, high into the air.
Boneshifting Magic…
"No running!" Valkyrie shouted as she morphed a peculiar kind of gun from one of her palms, aiming just ahead of the direction Star was now going.
"Jetshifting Magic: Plasma Rail Cannon!"
Right then, her railgun sparked, and a flame exited the barrel, blasting a beam wave directly on a course to Star.
Star's eyes flashed as its light reflected off them, colliding—at last—with her.
The impact rippled firework-like explosions across the black space, decorating the darkness with heliochrome hues.
And Valkyrie watched, still hovering like the humanoid aircraft she was.
She shifted on her thermal vision, looking for any heat signatures behind the smoke. But she found none, as only shards of bone crumbled and fluttered back down.
"Target eliminated," she said. "Hello, Head Officer title."
Then, like silence screamed at her, her radars skyrocketed to an incoming threat… inches from behind.
No way!
A black claw found her face, but she reacted just barely in time.
Her boosters pointed out opposite her, bursting her away from the anomaly in a sonic boom dash, before it could make contact.
Her wings air-braked, stopping her instantly from a distance away to observe it, but it was already gone.
Then again from her side, it came.
Even with her radar senses, she wasn't able to track it until it was right next to her.
Shit!
She dashed away again, this time, not stopping.
Though the place was infinitely dark, her vision allowed her to locate the exact distance from where she was to the wall. She shifted the armament on her wrist, and pointed it ahead of herself, firing an explosive round; and with the other wrist, she fired a set of ricochet rounds behind her.
The wall blasted open, as glowing blue lights yawned before her, leaving the scattering bullets behind with whatever was following.
But then, like all was ignored, it burst through the open wall with her.
What? What is that form?
As if time slowed amidst her high speed, Valkyrie's violet eyes shuddered when she beheld the thing that was in pursuit.
Lightly worn bone armor, flowing bone cloth, protruding bone spikes from her shoulders and back, and past below her elbows and knees—her arms and legs were dark as night. A mandible worn like a collar, and a bone crown that intertwined with horns of darkness; Star emerged.
Since her obtention of her Mana Fusion, she now had another higher tier spell in her arsenal. However, there was still one thing she needed to do in order to perform it, despite her being a silent spell caster. And that was to consciously think the spell.
Mana Fusion: Bone Princess… Star thought as she charged like a raging beast.
Valkyrie tried to analyze her new form, but when she saw her stats, she only stared in bemusement.
"Combat: 150. Durability: 179. Mastery: 195. Speed: ERROR…" Her systems could not properly gauge that last stat, for her heart was now pounding like an overheating turbine engine.
And in that moment, all she thought to do—was to fly far, far away.
"Fuck this!" she cursed as she faced the other direction, and her jet wings flared wider. Morphing her body into a better-fit form for high-speed flight, she chanted,
"Jetshifting Magic: Mach Breaker!"
Her boosters blasted, and she accelerated beyond Mach speed.
She flew through a corridor of blurred metal pipes and bursting steam, thinking this was enough to lose her.
But when she glanced behind, Star was there, running wickedly on her tail, turning the metal pipes she ran across into bone with each step.
Her tongue clicked as her thrusters rotated independently by mere instinct, changing directions into another intersection of pipes and smokestacks.
Star ricocheted off the metal walls and ceiling, redirecting her right back onto Valkyrie, without so much as delay.
She reached a black claw out as she neared, but Valkyrie stalled, making Star zoom past.
"Get away from me!" she yelled, letting loose a cluster of flashbang bombs, and making her escape into another passageway.
Star turned around, but shut her eyes and pressed through. And when she opened them, the brightness had made everything nearly white.
There was ringing in her ears when she tried to listen for Valkyries engines, but it was easily dismissed until there was only the sound of the pipes and her running.
She closed her eyes again while she continued on, taking on a state of meditation.
A trail of suppressed aura flowed in the dark of her mind, taking her down a winding path where it led only to a vacant target.
It was her.
Among Jetshifting magic's various techniques, a highly useful one was its stealth properties.
By silencing her engine, masking her mana signature, suppressing her heat, and camouflaging her plating, Valkyrie was able to evade detection after unleashing her flashbang bombs. Such a strategy would have worked on even the best of mages; however, with Star's Bone Princess form, her senses had also been heightened along with her other stats, rivaling that of Havoc's.
If calculated through Valkyrie's vision, Star's senses were at about a 200+ category. A range where her system stops calculating, for obvious reasons.
When Star opened her eyes again, she ignored the lingering blur of white, and blazed through to her mark, like Valkyrie was unintentionally leading her toward herself through some thread of fate.
Within seconds, Star had caught up once again.
"Grr! Screw everything!"
Valkyrie disengaged her stealth, and twirled down, readjusting the position of her wings into blades that extended from her arms.
They engaged in high velocity close combat.
Blades slashing. Dodging. Spinning.
Then she sent a jet-powered kick toward the side of Star's head. She took the blow, boosters on Valkyrie's calf propulsing her leg into her more violently.
But Star barely moved, for she let her make contact for a reason.
Valkyrie withdrew her kick, and detached her leg like a discarded part as it erupted in bone spikes—similar to what she did earlier in the fight.
Star then morphed her arm into a bone blade in a stabbing motion.
And Valkyrie morphed a new leg, catching her balance as she used a wing blade to deflect it, and they exchanged blows. Slash-block-detach-slash-block-detach, one after another with wicked speed. Followed by those touched and discarded pieces erupting in bone spikes as well, almost automatically.
Another layer to Star's Bone Princess form was that it allowed her to alter anything she makes contact with, and anything that makes contact with her, into bone without conscious effort, mimicking that of a Condition type user. This also included all areas she stood within.
Much like in her battle against Velm, she had managed to weaponize her terrain, leaving only the skies as Valkyrie's safety zone.
The massive pipes they battled on burst into scattered bone spikes from the mere touch of her bare feet.
Valkyrie hovered, avoiding the instant transmutation while continuing to dodge the dancing spikes.
From her elbow, a missile spike formed, and she unleashed it, smoke trailing from the tail as Star evaded; it ignited a nearby wall behind her.
She dashed to Valkyrie, and swung downward, but she formed an energy shield to block.
"Okay. You wanna go!? Let's fucking go!" Valkyrie shouted and chanted another spell,
"Jetshifting Magic—"
Her engines revved, and her boosters sparked, shuddering the place like some massive airship was departing.
"—Mana Fusion: Afterburner Overdrive!"
The boosters roared fire that engulfed her completely, shrouding her in a cloak of flame that fluttered red at the tips. Her eyes blazed a pure white, and her features became almost demonic.
An ethereal voice spoke then, like a taunt to Star. "BURN!"
She ignited, bursting pipes and melting metal. Her weapons fired twice as fast, combining both Gatling rounds and overwhelming missile launches.
Star sustained it all, determining through sheer instinct which attacks she could muscle through, and which ones to avoid.
And then, when the two met at a colliding dash, only their fists were on course to meet.
From Valkyrie's fist, the flame seemed to migrate, charging and condensing into a burning tempest for one single punch.
She let loose a guttural yell as it met Star's black fist—who had a mere solemn look cast upon her, all the while.
Don't look at me like that! Valkyrie shouted in her head.
In a quick flash, she started to remember the man who she fell in love with, framing her for murder of his own parents. A gracious will with his and her name on it, but since he had managed to plant her fingerprints and mana residue in the scene of their deaths, and erase his—the will, the eterna, the land. All of it… had become his and his alone.
Before detainment, she ran. Ran and became what he had always believed her to be. And what the world would soon come to accept, with or without her approval.
Nothing but a criminal.
Don't look at me like I was just a pawn in your game! Don't look at me… She finished the thought with a final shout, "LIKE YOU'VE WON!"
Their fists crashed, pushing against each other in a tug for power. The metal walls and ceiling trembled like some great earthquake ruptured. And then the whole place soon collapsed.
***
**A nearby area. 55th Floor**
As the Arabella Maids fended off the army of mechs that Terek let loose onto them, a loud and massive explosion sounded nearby, interrupting their battle.
"What the fuck was that?" Terek complained.
For a moment, all had ceased their fighting to witness a female figure emerge from the thick stacks of smoke.
She sauntered onto the scene, holding a limp dirty blonde woman by the neck as the rest of her dragged behind.
And when her black, bare feet crunched the snow to a halt, she dropped the woman's comatose body at her side to be consumed by the blizzard.
A tired, quiet smile grew on Kiki's face when she saw the female's dark horns and pink hair, staring back with regal certainty in those bright green eyes.
Star of the Black Wolves had accidentally found them.