Broker

Chapter 233

As Liberty pried herself angrily from another pile of rubble, Ishtar held her hand out over Sapporo’s corpse. The glowing Cult Leader tossed aside a piece of masonry and stormed down the remnants of her home like it was a staircase. Ishtar flicked her wrist and a portal appeared beneath the body and it fell inside. She heard a shriek behind her and resisted the urge to shake her head. Instead, she raised her voice to be heard across the main compound. “Little Heroes,” she called, “I suggest some of you retreat with him. Consider this my way of paying respects.”

She popped her neck and fixed Liberty with a stare.

“Liberty.”

“Ishtar.”

The woman stepped past the ruins of the outer walls of the main building and stopped her approach. They stood only fifty feet from one another. Ishtar tilted her head to the right, “Your losing members of your round table.”

Liberty’s lip twitched and she held up her fist, staring at it for a moment as the glow intensified, “So I have,” she said, “Seems like the useful ones are still standing.”

Ishtar snorted, “Halloway’s ghost won’t rest well if you say things like that.”

Her enemy scowled, “Watch yourself, I am still vastly more power-”

“You aren’t my biggest concern here,” Ishtar said dismissively, “Don’t get overexcited by my appearance, girl.”

Liberty genuinely bristled, her eyes flashing, “This entire war is about me!”

Ishtar laughed, “Is that what you think?” she shook her head, “Honestly, my plan is to let the heroes deal with you, but a small wrench fell into my carefully laid machination. Of all of your henchmen, I urge you to be the most proud of Kant. She’s remarkable. I’m jealous.”

“Speak plainly, witch,” Liberty snarled.

Ishtar sighed, “Has sucking on your cult’s teet made you stronger but weakened your brain?” she asked and tilted her head to the right, “You. Aren’t. My. Goal. Did you think this was a rivalry? Liberty,” she said the name almost consolingly, “You’re just one piece in a larger puzzle.”

Liberty’s eyes narrowed, “...the author.”

Ishtar tilted her head, “The who?”

Liberty shook her head and raised her broken sword, “I think we’ve talked enough, Ishtar. I clearly need to remind you of what you’re up against.”

Ishtar tilted her head back and opened her gaze above Crusader’s group. Snow, BLF, and Sapporo’s body were gone. I suppose it’s a toss up as to whether or not Snow has actually made herself scarce. I could ping her implant, I suppose. She shrugged. If she knew Crusader as well as she thought she did, the girl would have sent both BLF and Snow together to ensure the body was returned.

That left Crusader and Harbinger. The final players in this performance.

Ishtar rose up off the ground and hovered a foot in the air, Just wait a little while longer. You’ll have your turn, she thought as she held her hands out to her sides. The ambient light around her flickered and condensed, solidifying into a dozen spears. A knife appeared in her right hand. Liberty took her own fighting stance, gripping her broken weapon in both hands as the silver light around her body intensified. Ishtar smirked and reached into her warehouse.

Haven’t played with Magnus’ power yet. Sonya was wise to grab it during the filming of that commercial.

She felt the instincts rise into her mind from the warehouse, the guide book for the ability laid bare for her. She concentrated on a point a short distance behind Liberty and flicked her head to the right. Liberty tensed her legs, ready to charge, and then stopped. Her eyes went wide for a moment as she looked down at her side. The top half of her sword, the piece that Sapporo had shattered, embedded itself just below her lung. Liberty looked up at her in confusion.

“You looked foolish waving a broken sword around, so I returned the other half,” Ishtar said mildly, channeling her best Sonya impression, “Aren’t I nice?”

Liberty’s eyes bulged, veins pulsed in her neck. She tore the implement out of her side with her free hand and Ishtar reached towards it with her own. With a gesture she pulled it out of Liberty’s grip and to her palm as Liberty let out an infuriated roar. “If you didn’t want it, you should have just said so,” she mocked her, tossing the broken piece over her shoulder as Liberty exploded into motion. She held out her hand as her eyes went to work.

Otis’ fighting style might be simple and brutish with no nuance to take advantage of. You, on the other hand, have some formal training, Ishtar thought as a thick hexagon of light appeared over her palm. She floated back a foot and adjusted the hexagon’s position as Liberty swung, blocking the strike that released enough force to divot the ground beneath them. Ishtar kept retreating slowly, blocking blows with her hand. Up, up, down, up, left, right, up, up, down. The flurry of strikes came in so fast the air hummed. 

“ISHTAR!” Liberty’s muscled bulged and the glow sank a little into her skin as she took her next swing. Ishtar narrowed her eyes, She rarely feints, that is by design, I’m sure of it, she thought as Liberty swung. Her hand snapped out, a reinforced hexagon of light connecting with the mighty blow. It shattered with the sound of a gong, a flash of concussive force carving the ground at her feet. Ishtar retreated and landed on her feet. Very strong. On equal footing with Otis as he is now? Maybe, but is she as fast-

Liberty flickered out of slight.

Yes, yes she is-

Ishtar spun and threw up her arms, feeling the movement in the air and layering the glassy barriers of light as the next blow came. She planted her feet, leaning into the strike as broken sword ground against shattering layers of hard-light. She grit her teeth, jerked her chin, and the spears moved. The first launching itself at Liberty who batted it aside with a backhand, unwilling to take her eyes off Ishtar. The next came, then the next, and Liberty was finally forced to disengage. Swatting the construct weapons away as Ishtar rose from the ground once more.

She raised her voice and issued a command, “Advance,”

The rubble across the compound exploded here and there, marble forms clawing their way out of it, gleaming hooked swords in their hands. Ishtar pulled away further as the Legion charged towards the beset Liberty.

“THE HEAVENLY DECREE-”

CRACK!

Liberty snatched one of the spears from the air and ran the first Legionnaire through the head, hurling it aside before rounding on the next. It raised its weapon up high as the others charged from the side. The Herald scoffed and her arm snapped out, grabbing it by the face. She wrenched it in the direction of a pair of spears that hurtled in her direction as it struggled to dislodge itself. The spears struck and Liberty hurled the damaged Legionnaire towards its siblings before grabbing yet another spear out of the air, spinning, and throwing it straight at Ishtar.

It scattered into a cloud of motes as it reached her.

Ishtar tilted her head and met Liberty’s gaze.

Liberty glanced around at the Legionnaires advancing towards her. Her chest heaving as the silver light sank deeper and deeper into her skin. It was barely a halo now. Her body hadn’t grown in size, but Ishtar could feel it. The beating from Sapporo changed something, Ishtar realized as the cult leader looked down at her broken sword in disgust. She tossed it aside and stood up a bit taller with a resigned sigh. She held out her hand and it looked for a moment like she was grabbing onto something invisible.

What is she- Oh!

Ishtar’s eyes went wide as she heard Harbinger shout something from afar. Liberty bore her teeth and reared her arm back as the Legionnaires charged, their weapons outstretched. Ishtar whipped her hand out and pointed a finger, releasing a narrow ray of light. The beam pierced Liberty’s shoulder as the woman brought her arm back down with a roar. Something invisible cracked the earth and a brilliance washed over everything.

“STANDARD OF GLORY!”

THOOOOOOOM

The shockwave sent Ishtar end over end away from where she stood. Some invisible force pushing against her as she tried to right herself. She couldn’t see. Her senses cut off amidst the storm of power that was cascading around her. The only thing she could feel was the vibrations in the air as the ruins around her were pushed away in kind. She felt herself descend and tried to right herself with her ability only to feel a surge of shock as the ability didn’t activate.

She didn’t even have a moment to think about it when a hand wrapped around her wrist and she was pulled through the air before being launched at the ground with tremendous force. She collided with solid, flat stone, and bounced once as pain shocked through her back and neck. Ishtar pivoted, ignoring the pain, and spun as something heavy landed right where she’d been. She landed on her feet and darted back, her eyes rapidly trying to compensate for the brilliant light that had consumed everything.

She felt movement and ducked, something crashed through the air over her head only for another blow to come up and into her abdomen. 

“G-ah!” she gasped as she was launched up again, the air knocked out of her.

That powerful hand grabbed onto her chestplate and wrenched her back down to the ground where her head bounced against the solid floor below. Everything was spinning. She tried to roll away again, creating a good dozen layers of barriers when she sensed another incoming attack only for it to connect anyway, a boot to the gut that sent her sprawling. She felt her ribs crack as she bounced across the ground and landed in a heap. Her senses were returning, she could feel Liberty charging towards her. 

Ishtar pulled Earthwarden from the warehouse and slapped the ground. 

Nothing.

What the?

“This is my land!” came a furious bellow, “You have no claim on it!”

You have got to be kidding!

Ishtar blinked a few times and opened her eyes in time to finally see clearly, her upgraded eyes clearing the blur in her vision quickly. Liberty was almost on top of her again. She rolled out of the way and hopped to her feet, dipping beneath a haymaker and swatting aside a follow up punch. The bare contact of the second blow was enough to send a shock through her left hand and the numbness from using Visage earlier flared right back up. She winced and put on a burst of speed, retreating as much as she could to get some breathing room. She needed to assess, analyze, and concentrate. She wasn’t Sonya with her lackadaisical whimsy, able to adapt on the fly. She needed time.

Liberty, thankfully, didn’t immediately pursue and it gave Ishtar enough breathing room to create a few cranberries in her mouth that she bit down on and savored the sensation of her body recovering from the damage it had sustained. As she chewed, she took stock of her new surroundings. The ruins of the compound were gone, paved over with a sheer surface of gray-white stone surrounded by tall pillars. At the center was a glowing pole that had been embedded in the ground. Hanging from atop the pole was a long banner bearing the mark of a fist. A single flame danced at the top of the banner.

She turned her head towards Liberty and was taken aback. The silver glow was gone, suffused entirely into her skin. She was a ten-foot tall woman seemingly made of silver now. Her golden hair fluttering around her in a sourceless wind as she tilted up her chin and looked down at Ishtar over her nose, “Am I your highest priority now, Ishtar?”

She’s willing to chat, lets see what we can get out of it.

Ishtar caught her breath, “What is this?”

Liberty gestured to the pole, “My domain. My territory. Here, my word is law,” she raised a fist, “And my first decree is that this is a no-fly zone. You can’t get out of reach again.”

First decree? Ishtar glanced at the pole again, at the single flame dancing on the banner. Her mind worked at high speed, drawing on everything she knew. She pulled on the information she’d gained from Cassiopeia during their talks, especially the information divulged during the meeting with Charon. So… the longer this lasts, the more decrees she can make. Were the manifestations that Cassiopeia experienced only shadows of this far more potent function?

Her lip twitched, “I suppose I should be honored,” Ishtar finally said as she reached into her warehouse, putting away earthwarden and pulling out something else, “You’ve never used this facet of your ability before.”

“Only pieces of it,” Liberty admitted with a nod, “Powers that did not serve me, so I had no use for them. You are the first I’ve shown everything to. Revel in that before I crush that hideous helmet of yours like a tin can.”

Ishtar conjured up a pair of knives, “Then shall we resume?” she asked.

“Yes, I think so.”

–

Otis whipped his sword down, cleaning it of blood. His lips curled downward in disgust. The corpses of these things smelled foul. He panned his gaze over the field of slaughter and narrowed his eyes. Curious that the monsters acted like this, even if they are based on herd beasts. A twinge flickered at the back of his mind and his frown deepened. Someone’s watching me, he thought and turned to look in the direction of a distant treeline. He sneered and took a step, maxing out his speed stat for a moment and appearing before the asian woman who nearly fell from the tree she was crouched in.

She clung to the branch and looked down at him wide-eyed as he looked up at her with a sneer. “Who’s this?” he asked and tilted his head, looking her up and down. There was a bit of a copper glow about her, but she wasn’t wearing the usual cultist uniform, “A member of the round table?”

She took one look at him and reached her hand into her labcoat. A gun? The woman pulled what looked like a rectangular talisman out, etchings on it glowing with hidden power. Without another word she smashed it in her grip and vanished with the sound of rushing air.

He snorted, Coward.

Then a new sound drew his attention and he tilted his head to listen. He turned his head and strode out of the trees, looking up to see a solitary helicopter in the sky. He squinted at it for a moment before breaking into a wide smile. The news helicopter pivoted from where it had been surveying the carnage below before heading in his direction.

Perfect.