FMH: Everything ~ Nine

It took a short while for Luke to get his bearings, as he had run through the forest with his eyes closed. Yet, without Andre here to repair the damage that he had done, it was fairly obvious which direction he needed to go. “Follow the path of destroyed forest. Can do.”

Then he started moving toward the location of ‘tree eight’, making sure to spend as much time as possible picking out the safest route. Would it be safe to go through those saplings? Who knew for sure? Perhaps he would get poked in the eye. Was that bush poisonous? Probably. Better make sure to not step on anything that appeared even mildly unsafe.

The other Ascenders in the area watched incredulously as the enormous Murderhobo picked his way through the forest, tiptoeing so as not to disturb even a leaf if at all possible. Half an hour into his journey, he had barely made it ten feet from the point where he had received his orders. The ranking Ascender was practically pulling his own hair out at this point, and walked over to shout at Luke. “Why are you doing this? I told you to go open the portal!”

“Just trying to be safe.” Luke informed him with an absolutely serious face. “Who knows what kind of dastardly trickery that Druid could have put in place. Lots of dangerous natural stuff out here.”

While his tone seemed sincere, the way he looked at the people around him left no room for imagination as to what he meant. The man in charge took a deep breath, then spoke in a pleasant tone. “Hello, Luke. You may address me as ‘Sir’, as the idea of giving you my name so that you can find me in the future seems like a terrible idea. Most people that know me think of me as someone that is very pleasant, and driven to succeed. I have less than a decade of service left before I get to Ascend, and I would like to do that on good terms with the people that are in charge of my Sigil. How about you help me out?”

“I can send you on permanent retirement, if that is what you're asking.” Luke hoisted Cookie into the air, hoping that the man in front of him would give any indication at all towards a ‘yes’.

“I was tasked with bringing you and your team back to see the king. He has gifts for you, as well as a new assignment.” Sir's words seemed to have no impact on the oversized Berserker, so he tried a different tactic. “Do you know that people have been singing your praises ever since you came back from your first mission rolling a house-sized ball of gold to the castle? Now you’ve clearly had some role to play in fixing the desert that was expanding and threatening to engulf our entire kingdom. As word of that spreads, all of you'll be heroes to the people.”

“Nn-neat.” Luke held the word in his mouth until it had two syllables, as he could not be certain that using only one syllable would be ‘safe’. He swore that he could hear Cookie chuckling at his antics, and he was glad that she approved. “Back to my question… I’m not hearing a ‘no’.”

“You want to do this the hard way? Fine. Harming neither myself nor any of my troops, go and retrieve the remainder of your team as quickly as possible without dealing permanent damage to them.” There were a few long seconds between the words leaving his mouth, and Luke acting upon them. In that time, Luke's Sigil started to glow brightly, eventually releasing an audible *chime* that continued until the Murderhobo finally started moving forward.

He activated Bum Thunder, launching forward and sending out a small shock wave behind him. It wouldn't be his fault if those troops were injured from it, he was certain. Smashing through trees, crushing bushes, only a small detour to punch a specific noisy flower, and he was back at the fallback point where his team had made their escape. Pulling back his fist, he eyed the faint distortion in the air that he was almost certain only he could see. “Ready or not, here I come.”

His fist launched forward as he activated ‘Rift Hunter’, lamenting over the fact that he didn't currently have enough Potentia saved up to start Tiering up that Skill, locking it away until it would be too late to open the portal. His knuckles tapped against the membrane of this world that kept it separated from the next dimension over, sinking in slightly as power rushed through him.

The membrane rebounded, attempting to remain closed. A deep thrumming sound radiated out from the point of impact, and was rapidly followed by punch after punch.

*Wub.*

*Wub. Wub.*

As his fifth strike landed, the portal had received enough energy and damage to stabilize and pull itself open. With not a moment of hesitation, Luke stepped through the Scar and let out an annoyed exhalation. “Feces. I had been hoping that wouldn't work. Andre, Taylor, Zed! Run away, don't let me know where you are! If you think you can't escape, you're probably correct, and should stay within the influence of the Peace Lily so I don't accidentally hurt you.”

He was shouting at the top of his lungs, while simultaneously running through the honeycomb of tunnels that greeted him upon exiting the portal. Luke let out a swift smile as he realized that the layout was different than usual. “I like that you're thinking ahead, Andre. Sorry to say it's not going to matter.”

Because he knew the rules and restrictions of this world, specifically the grove that Andre lived in, Luke couldn’t allow himself to walk the meandering halls that most likely connected back onto themselves. Instead, he tossed Cookie up and down in his hands, needing to use both of them since she had absorbed the leftover carcass of the Corrupted Nature Dragon. Then he shot forward, swinging Cookie and slamming her into the stone wall blocking his path, as he knew this was the most direct route towards the center of the grove.

Chips of stone shot at him, bouncing off of his mana-materialized armor. Anything that would have been able to deal damage, such as a boulder dropping onto his head, simply fell to the side thanks to the fact that this place made it impossible to degrade. Another strike, and he could see open air on the other side, having tunneled through a dozen meters of solid rock with his first strike. The second sent shards everywhere. Yet, when he swung again, Cookie stopped dead in the air as she walloped a tree root that had sprung out of the stone.

“Do more of that, Andre! Surround yourself with roots so that I cannot tear you away from here!” Luke bellowed instructions, hoping that it would be enough. He was unable to stay still, and rushed to be ahead of Andres' ability to grow things. That was the major downfall of the Druid's power set. Without endless mana such as Luke could provide, he was limited by the plants already in the area, as well as what he could accomplish with his own internal reserves. By his own admission, the redhead only had a small slice of paradise here, and was otherwise surrounded on all sides by barren wasteland.

He knew that he could move faster than Andre could defend himself, and so he had to take advantage of that. Another strike, this slightly to the side, sent the root system that was slowly extending up and into the air, along with the stone that had been shattered. For only a few moments, the path forward was clear, and the Murderhobo dashed forward to take advantage of that fact.

In the next moment, he was met by a wall of flames that spring up out of nowhere, clearly Taylor had not heard his instructions to run away. He was disappointed, but unsurprised. Even if they would have run, that meant it would only have taken longer for him to catch up to them.

It certainly didn't mean that they would escape.

Walking through the flames dealt no damage to him, exactly as he had known. He growled at the fact that the Sigil interfaced with his thoughts and memories, else he would have happily tricked it by making it think that he was in danger from these normally harmful substances. A moment later, a simple activation of Bum Thunder put him in range of the Mage, and he noticed that her eyes widened fractionally as his hand darted forward. She dodged, and attempted to vanish from view. It was close, so close that he tried to make it succeed, but instead of attempting to rely on his senses, his hand shot out and closed around what appeared to be empty air. Without looking, he knew that he had wrapped his hand around her neck.

Luke picked her up and walked over to a section of the ground, which he smashed with Cookie to make a roughly human-sized hole in the stone. Then he set her in the space, and rolled a boulder over her so that she couldn’t escape from the small prison cell that he had just created. A small *scuff* on the floor down a side hallway was all he needed to launch himself in that direction, and a moment later he had Zed as well. He looked closely at the man before him, and nodded carefully. “I don't know if you knew that I could always tell the difference between your clones and your real body, sorry that you have to find out this way.”

He threw the clone to the side, then swung his hammer around and blasted away a new section of rock, revealing a terrified Bard that should have just died from taking the massive Greatmace to his chest. A few moments later, the Bard joined the Mage in a small prison designed just for him. “Last and certainly most annoying, now I need to find Andre.”

As far as Luke could determine, it was unlikely that his friend would leave the others to their own fate, seeing as how the man had nearly lost his mind when he had to leave Luke behind. It certainly wouldn't happen twice more. Therefore, the most probable location to find the Druid would be at the center of his domain, where his power was the greatest. That wasn't too difficult to find, as the Murderhobo had been here before. Running down the hallways, soon he found that he was in the enormous underground cavern full of mutated and interesting plant life.

However, Luke was only interested in the animal life before him, namely the Druid and the massive bear that was standing between the two humans. “Andre. If you can manage it, I'm fairly certain that vines are pretty much unbreakable here, right? If you can loop them around my feet and arms, you can keep me contained until we figure out a way to break the control they have over me.”

The Druid nodded, fully understanding the fact that Luke was not in control of his own actions at this moment. Even so, both of them had a certain gleam in their eye. There had always been a question that they had been unable to answer: which of them would win in a fight? Luke was all direct aggression and physical power, while Andre could use the entire planet around him to fight on his behalf. The thought of that nearly made Luke salivate, “If I fought a planet, who would win? I bet I could turn it into a moon at the minimum.”

*Crinkle.*

In the absolute stillness of the scene, the sound of a plant bud breaking through the surface and dislodging a few grains of sand and tiny rocks was enough to alert the Murderhobo to his impending predicament. As much as he wanted to stay still and accept the binding, his orders wouldn't allow him to do so. “Bum Thunder!”

An instant later, he was above the massive Dire Bear, Cookie pulled over his head, so far that the flat of his feet were pressed against her top. As he approached the floor, he pushed up with his feet and swung down with his arms, generating a massive overhead two-handed strike that struck the floor like a meteorite.

Andre hadn't stayed still and accepted the blow, which would have been foolish even if it wouldn't have dealt damage to him. Even the possibility of getting sent flying and captured because he was off balance was enough to ensure that he took this fight seriously. His LivingWood staff jumped out of the ground and into his hands, a vine already strung down its length to convert the staff into a longbow. Arrow after arrow was grown and fired at the Murderhobo, who danced around the projectiles easily, knowing that they carried seeds and spores that would begin growing on him if he was impacted.

Arthur the bear joined combat, swinging a paw the size of a dinner table at the massive human, only for the limb to be directly caught by Luke as he dropped Cookie. The Murderhobo used both hands to hold on as he twisted and flung the bear over his shoulder, lifting it completely into the air and slamming it into the ground. Another swift motion brought his weapon into his hands once more, and he swung down and up as though he were throwing an uppercut into an enemy, striking the bear and sending it flailing through the air.

Even before it could hit the ground and begin tumbling, Luke had moved once more to be above the Druid. Once again, his weapon struck out, but Andre lifted his staff and caught the blow, with the wood supported by two vines that shot out and wrapped around it. The weapons stopped dead, even though there was a resounding *boom* that shook the room and sent any remnants of dust flying away from the epicenter of their battle. Just before Luke could rebalance himself in the air, those same vines released the staff and snaked around his torso and one leg.

Unable to contain himself, the Murderhobo shouted in glee, “Yes! You did it!”

The vines started reeling him in, making sure to keep him suspended in the air and give him no ability to push off a wall or other surface. Anytime he tried to generate movement, such as swinging back and forth, the lines would go slack on that side and taut on the other. Seeing as he couldn’t damage them, it was the perfect capture device.

“Release him at once!” A voice shouted in the cavern, turning the jubilation into sudden discomfort. Luke dropped out of the sky, hitting the ground and launching himself at the Druid. “Nobody move!”

Instantly, both of the members of The Four were held fast, and merely looked at each other with expressions full of resignation. ‘Sir’ had followed Luke into the portal, and took their distractions as an opportunity to succeed in his own mission. “You will both follow my commands. We are going to be returning to the capital of the Hollow Kingdom immediately. Wait… what is that?”

His eyes widened as he took in the fact that there were two artifacts of incredible power sitting right next to each other. One was a flower, and one looked like an egg, but radiated such immense Potentia that it had to be worth an incredible amount of gold. “If you can safely remove those two items from this cave, bring them with us!”

Andre’s face fell as he struggled to ignore the order.

Luke's reaction was different, he didn't move even as his Sigil began to shine brightly. A wide smile began to stretch across his face as a warning note began singing from the overburdened enchantment on his forehead. “No. Uh-oh, Sir. You just gave me an unlawful order.”

An instant later, one of the lines on his Sigil began sparking furiously, looking for all the world like a ‘Dazzle’ Spell a brand new Mage had picked up to entertain children. Sir gasped and retreated at the same moment, even as Luke took a single, threatening step toward him. “Belay that order! Cancel it, don't bring them if you don't want to!”

Immediately, the Sigil that had been breaking down due to orders conflicting with laws stopped glowing and sparking. The Ascender let out a deep sigh of relief, then ordered the two men to follow him, as he led the way to the other members of their party. Luke and Andre had no choice but to comply, and Luke's wild smile was hidden as well as he could manage. Sir hadn’t double checked the Murderhobo’s leash.

The damage that had been dealt to the Sigil wasn’t repairing itself, and Luke could practically taste its impending catastrophic failure. From this point forward, it was only a matter of time.