Meanwhile, halfway across the globe, running over uneven terrain and shifting rocks, as the smell of salt water lingered in the air, Niccolò Esposito, with reliably trained muscles that empowered each stride and a bulking frame, sprinted across the dry land at speeds comparable to a sprinting greyhound. Without losing his speed, he looked back toward The Arc, a large warship a distance off the shore, that he had escaped a few miles away after swimming away in the midst of the night. From that same swim, his coat and jeans were still sopping with mildly temperatured water. Nico was thankful that he wasn't freezing to death somewhere further from the equator, but still, he needed to figure out where he was before they noticed his absence.
Keeping the pace up, he tried not to worry. After all, with his mutation and honed skillset, Nico was confident in his ability to defend himself against their footmen and a majority of their forces, though her Horsemen were a different story. Nico chose not to worry, not that he'd ever been a very cautious person, instead focusing on getting far away from Livinia's reach as he powerfully leapt over a wide gorge, his heavy strides carrying him in a cloudy trail of kicked-up dirt.
But before he could clear the opening in the dried soil, Nico slid across the dirt to come to a stop, his nerves standing on edge from a distinct presence not far behind him. With the dim reflection of the full moon, he turned back, his fists clenched tight within a set of metal gauntlets. Nico wished he could have made it further before they caught up to him.
Ahead of him stood a shadowed silhouette against the star-filled coastline, but despite the darkness, Nico could recognize them as one of the Horsemen, and the one he wanted to run into least, Famine. The Horseman of Famine stood with a heavy two-handed sword that had a jagged curve along its long, thick blade.
A chill ran down Nico's spine, an instinct telling him to flee, to get his information to the Federal Bureau of Cognizants, where it could not only stop the Lamb’s plan but also save countless lives. But Nico was never one to back down from seemingly insurmountable foes, and he couldn't start now, not when he knew running would surely be a death sentence when Famine finally caught up to him as he tired.
Nico, raising his heavy gauntlets to a guard, spoke with an unwavering tone. "Before we do what we need to do, Choi Kwang, I want you to know that you were the only one I still saw humanity in. So imagine my disappointment when they didn't send War or Death instead. So know this isn't personal like it would be with them," he said, his eyes meeting the gaze of Kwang, a cold burning beneath his beast-like eyes peering through the pale moonlight from his commander while undercover.
"I feel the same," Kwang responded plainly, as his shoulder-length black hair hung in the breeze, his nearly seven-foot-long sword rising to his side as his feet shifted wider—the normal tension between battles missing as they casually exchanged words.
"Then think of the innocent people who will get hurt if you try to stop me now. All you need to do is tell her that you couldn't find me," Nico tried to negotiate with her Horseman of Famine. A part of Nico believed that this was the only one of them who had enough heart left to still have his mind changed.
"I can't let you do that." Answering emotionlessly, Nico remembered that this person, known as Choi Kwang, whom he didn't truly know all things considered, was just another one of her inhumane Horsemen.
"It's just business then," Nico smirked from behind his muscular guard, with a sense of amusement in the tenseness before the lethal exchange bound for them. And as he spoke, his gaze caught a glimpse of the sharp, almost wolf-like, features on Famine's face beneath the reflected light of the moon.
"I'd call it survival," Famine said, his reckless stance launching him forward in a set of powerful strides. And with his tall blade raised over his head, Famine gritted his sharp, canine-like teeth together as he easily swung down the blade, too heavy for most men to ever consider lifting.
Noticing the many openings in the arching attack of telegraphed power, Nico, just as he was trained by the Director of the FBC, didn't hesitate or back down. Instead, he swung his arm in a brutish hook as he leapt forward to close the gap between them – the attack snapping Famine's jaw with a nasty crack. Hitting much harder than Nico should, even with his hulkish frame, his pulsating muscles surged with energy and mana as new strings of red muscle fiber formed to further protect him.
And with new mass from the layers of mana-created muscle, Nico wished that he'd known what to expect from the potential Magic, Bloodline Manifest, or Thaumic Mutation he could have. He decided not to let this slow him as he stepped in to continue his assault, Nico swinging upward with an impossibly powerful uppercut, sending Famine flying yards into the sky as blood splattered and the sound of bones breaking rang under the moon's silent gaze. Though that wasn't enough to fully interrupt Famine's initial attack, his large sword snapping down before he was sent hurdling.
Fortunately reacting in time, Nico raised his spare gauntlet to parry away the force of the attack. Deflecting the blade, strands of his mutation's muscle tore apart – a big part of him wished he'd had the chance to discover Famine's ability set before tonight.
Quick to continue the assault before Famine could hit the ground, he strode forward to clear the distance. But before Nico could reach him for another attack, he caught the scent of scorching flesh as the faint crackling of embers came from Famine's position. The previous damage seemed to have no lasting effect, as he landed on all fours like an animal about to lunge back onto its larger prey.
Burning bright enough to illuminate the area around Famine, a long, tail-like trail of crackling fire grew from his lower back, and with the fiery visage of a tiger's head at its end, it sought out Nico as it trailed through the sky. At the same time, Famine swung his sword in another wide arc as he closed the distance in a single, violent bound.
Noticing the brief smoldering on Famine's face, Nico had little time to register the regressing burn where his attack landed before a bite of trailing flames threatened to burn through him. Unable to avoid it, Nico braced for impact with a raised guard, as the protective layers of intertwined muscle tore away and burned, though they kept his body beneath it safe from the fiery jaws that bit into him—Nico was no stranger to the heat of battle.
Unflinching through the scorching pain as Famine's second attack arrived, Nico, as the water in the bit sleeve evaporated, held his ground, and without much thought, the magically produced muscle twisted and knotted together to repair the damage. At the same time, his spare arm swung out to meet the wide arch of the curved blade as Nico added another layer of mass to himself, the seams on his clothes tearing as their attacks collided with a thunderous collision. Within the wave of force, dried dirt and dead plants swirled around, neither of them flinching as the metal of their weapons sang and their wills clashed, though Nico certainly felt the weight of the impact in his bones and he truly hoped Famine felt the same way—otherwise, he'd not be the one to survive.
Again, smelling the faint scent of smoldering flesh, Nico saw the dark smoke that arose from the arm Famine used to attack as he repaired the damaged muscles. Famine, in the midst of setting up their next attack, had the maw of fire unhinge its hot jaw to pull back and circle around himself as his sword tip thrusted forward alongside the fiery lunge of his tethered predator.
This time, though, Nico decided to go on the offense. And in the brief moments between Famine's attack, Nico lunged forward and fired off an overhand punch that would turn any normal man into a gruesome paste. Except that's not what happened when it crashed against Famine's sturdy chest; his body flew back instead, though Nico definitely felt the shattering of ribs beneath the weight of his fist.
Tumbling through dead foliage and prickly cacti, Famine wrecked through the cracked soil until he collided with the hollow husk of a tree, breaking his momentum. Nico, giving him no time to breathe, rushed forward with legs of layered muscle that broke apart inches of earth below him as he bulldozed toward Famine and the barely noticeable embers that traveled across his wounds and singed the cloth of his bloodied shirt.
Nico leapt forward with his hands clasped together high toward the sky before swinging his hammerfist down as he fell downward into the splintering cloud of rotted wood and fleshy smoke. Through the concealment, the fiery head of a tiger lunged at Nico's face to interrupt him, as it began melting the skin on his face. The bubbling pain of his flesh made Nico redirect his crushing blow onto the tail of fire instead.
Gasping in pain as the flames withered in retreat, Nico's face smoldered, similar to Famine, who rose from the debris of wood. However, unlike his foe, Nico's scarred flesh seemed to actually hinder him. Famine, grabbing his hand with both hands as Nico gritted his jaw, readied his guard, since neither had yet backed down from this challenge of beliefs.
And as the dust settled, the distinct glow of flames roared from Famine in a howl-like call. Now covering his head with the tiger maw of inflamed teeth, he was set aflame by the coating of fire that traveled down his back and limbs. Standing against a blazing image of a beast, Nico's jaw tightened as he began to strain from the pull on his mana reserves. He used his Thaumic Mutation to temporarily stop the bleeding on his face with the red muscle that covered the rest of his body like an empowering layer of fleshy armor.
Briefly, for a moment, through a short eye contact, they could acknowledge the exchanged sense of understanding through the battle for more than just their own lives. Then, as the red flames roared with heat, Famine looked upward, letting out a bestial battle cry toward the full moon – its physical boost making the Lunar-enthralled Horseman more dangerous. At the same time, Nico tensed his muscles, rippling with a pulsating power, as he gritted his teeth and loudly grunted out his own version of a will-enforcing battle cry – his teeth cracking from the strength of his jaw.
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The ground around them creaked as Famine rushed forward from all fours, the flame on his back blasting him forward before he twisted the momentum into his blade and an ignited punch. But as much as he wanted to meet his formidable foe head-on, as he'd done since one of his earliest memories of fighting off a much bigger schoolyard bully, So, instead of slipping into his straightforward and confrontational nature, Nico recalled his training from the F.B.C.
Using a powerful punch, Nico countered Famine's incoming hand of clawed wildfire, as the incoming sword violently snapped down on him from above. Unyielding in his defense, Nico didn't budge an inch or advance from where his feet dug into the ground. From that spot, he twisted his core, despite the resistance from the previous collision, into an uppercut to meet the curved blade. Meeting with an explosion of force that burned through the water in Nico's clothes in a blink, the terrain around them reverberated from the bass-heavy attack as the sparse foliage and rocks blew away from them. Neither budged as the ground around them slowly began sinking.
Feeling the snapping of Famine's bones from the clash against his sword, Nico, understanding it was his time to go on the offensive, quickly repaired the muscles in his arm that snapped and severed. Before he followed up with an attack of his own with a formless swing—his immensely overwhelming speed and power made the traditional gain from technique nearly meaningless. Cracking a set of ribs in an audible series of cracks, Nico's punch thundered from the impact. But instead of folding under the damage, Famine grabbed his sword with both fiery hands to stab through another attack of Nico's.
Unfortunately, while both met head-on in an attempt to land the first blow, Famine's blade stabbed into his core, penetrating his stomach. As his own gauntlet landed with disrupted power, it flattened Famine's nose, their bloods leaking onto the damaged battlefield - nevertheless, the two smiled through their damage.
Nico used this opportunity, layers of muscle tissue growing around the blade and his organ in a malignant tumor of strength, to stop the bleeding and secure the sword. As Nico planned, Famine, despite his immense strength that challenged Nico's own, couldn't free his blade from Nico's grip; a bloody, burned, and disfigured smile grew before he unleashed a flurry of punches.
Each one thrown with killer intent, Nico could feel the destruction he caused in Famine's body through the metal gauntlets, though the lingering smell of burned flesh grew stronger with each blow. Not worrying about that, Nico, knowing the world would be forever changed for the worse if he didn't defy the odds here, threw a final, devastating overhand in an attempt to end the fight.
To put his resilient foe down, Nico's attack tore through the air with a twist of his arm's colossal mass.
But the Horseman of Famine wouldn't go down so easily, a gnarly yank freeing his blade from the tumor of strength. And seconds before that hope-filled strike landed, the sword was viciously swung up. Cutting through Nico's committed attack, his arm was severed before falling to the ground with a loud thud.
The blood sprayed from where his elbow used to meet his bicep, as Nico looked toward the empty space where his reliable arm should have been. Vulnerable in this moment of shock, Famine pivoted his feet to spin the hefty curve of his blade around himself, as the fires on his back and arms furiously flared out.
Having only a second to refocus on the battle before it ended, Nico gutturally cried out as he swung at the ground in a desperate move. Causing the ground to rumble before Famine's devastating attack could land, the ground below them fell through, the two falling alongside the destroyed rubble.
Luckily, as Nico suspected from the failing foundations, they were above a cavern. While falling, he wrapped the end of his wound with a tug of mana-fueled muscle. Then, from the cloud of destruction, the far-reaching bite of Famine's tailed jaws pounced at him through the air. Unable to defend himself in time, the flames burned into the remains of his severed arm; Famine jumped from a chunk of ground as his tail pulled him at Nico, closing the aerial gap between them.
Not allowing the tug of the inflamed bite to hinder him, Nico swung that same arm into a falling rock. The chunk of rock blasted out in a shotgun of shrapnel, Famine's flight getting intercepted by the counter. Seizing the moment where Famine was stuck in the air, Nico reached outward with his missing arm, where he focused a tiring drive of his waning mana supplies - a twisting growth of gross, atomically incorrect muscle tissue binding together to replace what he'd lost.
Now, with the much larger and longer newly formed limb, he reached out to wrap around a jagged stalactite they fell past, and with a whip of his arm that now more closely resembled a tendril, Nico, similarly to the power of a missile, propelled the jagged make-shift weapon toward Famine. Whistling through the air in a blink, the stalactite pierced Famine's chest and drove itself into him; the wound growing wider as it drove itself through his flesh like butter.
Nico landed on the cavern ground, only the layers of reinforcement keeping his legs from breaking upon impact, and looked up through the darkness to search for his missing foe. A trickling trail of blood drew his attention to where Famine was pinned against the cave's steep wall, his body hanging loosely. Lowering his guard, Nico assumed that he had survived the odds, not even a Horseman could survive having their organs destroyed.
But the Horseman of Famine wouldn't die so easily. His body tensed up in a burst of life before he began clawing at the protruding stake in his chest with his bestial hands, until he got a decent grip on it. And then, with an agonized groan through sharp teeth, Nico watched as he slowly dragged himself forward from the wall, the wound getting wider as it shredded the exposed walls of flesh. After a gut-wrenching crawl, where his lower half swung uncontrollably, Famine agonizingly pulled himself to the end of the stalactite, where he managed to free himself—only pained grunts escaping the Horseman despite the injury.
Falling to the same level, he could hear Famine's legs snap from the impact as his body hit the ground. On the floor, the gaping wound in his chest oozed blood as Nico reinforced himself with the near last bits of his energy. And as Nico protected himself at a much slower rate, he watched as the mortal wound cauterized with a searing burn that traveled through his flesh in a smoldering smoke of boiled organs. Though it became apparent that it wasn't just hurting Famine as it ran through his insides and the wounds covering him, his heart weaved back together in a trail of cindering heat, before his lungs came back together, with the other missing organs burning into existence as his ribs, muscles, and skin all healing from the mortal wound. All of it mended back together in a flash burn, and as his body painfully came back together, Famine stood onto healed legs.
In this moment, it became clear to Nico that he'd underestimated the Horseman of Famine's ability. Not only did he seemingly have a Bloodline Manifest based on the tiger-like flame, but after the burning mend of his flesh, Nico assumed he also had a Thaumic Mutation—a rare combo that tended to be deadly.
But like the Horsemen of Famine who refused to go down, Nico wouldn't let this factor dissuade his will. After all, he'd never failed to defy the odds before, so Nico saw no reason to doubt himself. And with the last remains of mana he could muster before collapsing, Nico used his Mutation to alter his form. His mass nearly doubled, as he grossly changed his shape to optimize it purely for combat.
With this twisting of exposed flesh, Nico no longer resembled anything that could be considered human; even his shape looked inhumane, from the mass of muscle that hung where his arm used to be, to his hulkish figure that no longer resembled normal anatomy. Nico assumed that he'd never look the same again if he managed to survive this. But from saving the Mundane civilians ignorant of the world of magic, to the manipulated members of their militia, or finally having the ability to assist the director of the F.B.C. from his time undercover, and most importantly, making it back home safe to his younger sister, for whom he did all of this, Nico believed it a worthy sacrifice.
Stood against him on the other side of the dark grotto, Famine grabbed his sword as he coated himself in the same fire. And this time, with the flames covering him again, the fire intensified in an uproar of bright heat that illuminated the musty cave until it grew white hot. While burning bright, it also seemed to scorch Famine’s own skin in a cyclic burning of destruction and healing.
Nico, while feeling the feverish force even from his distance, felt the outer layer of his body begin to burn, his titan-like form, and understood. He understood that he needed to end the fight in this next exchange, and he trusted that the warrior within the Horseman of Famine had this same instinct.
And with everything on the line, Nico leapt forward, with his inhumanly shaped arm of strength already in motion, as the power from his body reverberated through the underground walls around them. As their dusty surroundings crumbled, fell apart, and scorched in a wave of destruction, Famine animalistically pounced forward as the blindingly bright flames boosted him to match Nico’s own unstoppable force with a committed sword swing of his own.
Colliding at the apex of their attacks, both offered everything they had into their final moves, where Nico cannoned his gnarly appendage outward as Famine twisted the blistering flames through the jagged curve of his blade. This next fraction of a second decides who’d walk away with their ideals alive.
Then after soaring through each other in a determined rush of fire and strength, a tension lingered as they intercepted the other’s attack.
Unfortunately, for the first time in his 31 years of life, Nico failed to defy the odds he bet against. His wide torso, dense like metal, slid in half, Nico’s upper body tumbling onto the floor as he slowly blinked - his gaze locked on Famine’s back that smoldered. Hitting the ground, his body lay lifeless as he recalled a memory of his sister’s admission from the hospital after his first mission within the F.B.C. The overwhelming image of his sickly sister reminded him of all the people like her who were bound to get hurt because of his failure.
“Please…” Uncharacteristically, Nico pleaded with as Famine turned to walk toward him - his form untouched from their battle. But Nico didn’t believe his pride, honor, warrior spirit, or whatever it was called, mattered right now, tears welling up in the corner of his eyes that slowly lost their spark with each passing moment. “Please don't do this… Don't doom these people to her dream…” Nico managed to weakly mutter through an outpouring of blood from his mouth and his missing lower half.
“Yeah.” With eyes closed momentarily, it almost seemed that the weight of his words and their battle got through to Choi Kwang, the person behind the Horseman. “And how many of us have already died to maintain this failing world?” Famine said with a reaffirming coldness when he finally parted his eyelids - something he recalled in those moments seemingly resolved any doubt that Nico planted through their interaction.
Within Niccolò Esposito’s final moments in the pale moonlight, despite the suffering that would follow his defeat, he wasn't resentful or filled with regret as he had predicted his meeting with death to be. Instead, he felt truly sad for the utter dread that awaited the world, and to his own surprise, he felt a deep remorse for the weight his foe carried. Not the Horseman of Famine, but Choi Kwang, the pained soul that Nico finally understood after years of his failing to truly learn about him while under cover. And as his vision blurred with tears, he started to fade. Nico wept for himself, others, and the loss Choi Kwang carried with him. In his last seconds of life, everything went black as Choi Kwang stared down with a lonely burden that drove the Horseman of Famine.
