The drums thundered to the tempo of a heart enraged.
Mero's every nerve was alive. His every muscle thrummed. He and the Grandmaster slid and stomped across the polished marble of the throne room, each one a bare instant from death and yet also so far from it. A dance which had begun with careful steps was now an intricate, rapid interplay where a single badly timed blink meant death.
He challenged the perfection of the Grandmaster's stance by throwing his thigh against the Grandmaster's and pivoting his hips to push the man back. It forced a retreat, but Mero wanted a rout.
He brought his swords in next. One sought to sever his carotid artery and free a dying breath from an opened throat, while the other fantasized of opening a seam from kidney-to-kidney—reminding the world that even the Grandmaster has guts. Neither caught. The Grandmaster reversed the grip on his swords, then released it entirely, holding the blade along the length of his arm with Kinesis. The sword meant for his throat caught on the guard, while the other skated up the length of the blade.
Mero, too, released his grip. He carried the motion of the swing, turning his back on the Grandmaster just in time for his shield to deflect the invisible barrage of kinetic claws which the Grandmaster follower with. He ended his spin by catching his blades with kinesis, swapping hands so that the drag of the blades across the Grandmaster's defense weekend the grip fo the kinesis.
A mere instant of a fight which lasted minutes.
Mero threw his spell across the divide of space between his hand and the wand's grip. It caught, and a plume of flame licked out from the wand's tip. It was hardly enough to harm the Grandmaster, but it was enough to surprise him.
His footing faltered. His kinetic grasp over the wand followed.
Mero's hand closed around the grip, and roiling flames roared from the wand's tip. Purple-tinged plumes of red and gold at first, but they quickly reslved themselves into a screaming jet of blue and white, a pure jet. Mero pushed more power through, and the lazer wavered, twitched, and spasmed this way and that until finally settling into the spasmodic motion of electricity. The energy enveloped the grandmaster, who screamed in pain as his flesh and clothes seared. Most of the spell coursed out through his hands, dispersed into the floor by a last ditch save, but it was not enough.
Mero let up, and the Grandmaster crumpled to the floor.
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