Dani and Faith VS Arthur Vega

"Khalil, take Mizu and Charlie and Charlotte out of here and get to safety. See if you can find Ra. Faith and I will take this guy," I told Khalil. He nodded, looking for any straggling people still left in the street.

I found it to be a problem that the streets were still crowded with various objects. Market stands and homes bordered us, which meant that our movement was severely limited. It didn't look like Arthur wielded a weapon, so Faith and I had to be careful of his true capability.

As Khalil ran off and Faith and I were left in the middle of the street, I lessened the effect of the gravity and summoned a golden saber. I hadn't been in the line of combat for a long time, but it was like a second nature to me, and I had confidence.

Arthur stood on his feet and my Eye of Providence activated, analyzing his entire body to see the Strands moving.

But... there was nothing.

I was astonished with the fact, looking all around him to find a path of Strands.

Nothing.

I held my saber tightly and for a fraction of a second, I saw Strands, and the way they were headed before he vanished into thin air. He was heading to my right.

The hollow noise of the saber colliding with a sword appeared as soon as I swung it to my right-hand side. Arthur was impressed with my intuition, kicking me back with his foot to regain his composure.

"You are... interesting. You are able to predict my movements. How?" Arthur asked me. I wasn't in the mood to talk, so I remained silent, watching him walk back and forth with an annoyed stare.

"You annoy me," Arthur said to me once more. He vanished once more, but even without the Eye of Providence, I could tell where he was going.

I threw the saber six inches from Faith's face, shattering the bone in his hand as it pierced through his reaching arm. He was going to grab her face for an unknown reason, which I could clearly see.

The Eye of Providence remained activated while we made eye contact once more. Arthur wasn't even looking at Faith now, which allowed her a clean strike to the back of his head.

Her heel interlocked with his hair and launched him forward by a foot, stumbling forward with his other hand in his pocket. When he pulled it out, it turned out to be a gun, similar to Carl's that he now wielded.

He pulled it out and shot it once into the air. The bullet within his gun traveled at a fast speed, as expected, but what I didn't notice was the curvature of it in the air.

It immediately curved down at a right angle straight toward my head. I wasn't fast enough, but Faith was.

She blocked the bullet with her golden saber as well, cutting it down before it could get into a dangerous range. Arthur immediately bolted at us with astonishing speed once more, but this time he didn't vanished. Arthur blurred against the visible light and came downward with a straightened hand, getting ready to slam it straight into my head.

I reversed it with my gravity and took three strikes at his chest. One didn't budge, one impacted his ribs, and the other broke three. I could feel each crack underneath the weight of my hefty knuckles, scanning his body to see what I could learn from the damages. Arthur wasn't all that strong after all.

After he backed up once more, Arthur snapped his fingers toward me, and I received one strike to the chest.

Then another.

Then another. The last one cracking my ribs.

I felt a kick from the back of my head as well, pushing me forward while Arthur stood with a smile and his arms crossed. It became frighteningly obvious to me that Arthur wasn't taking damage, but passing it on.

Fear enveloped me as I realized that we wouldn't be able to kill him without any severe catches. Lives were now on the line for an opponent I thought to have been a mid-range person. Quake was much more threatening on the inside, but Arthur was even scarier on the inside. I was unsure what to do next, but knew we couldn't just stop attacking. 

The one thing that bothered me was how Arthur put up some resistance, and he never just let attacks hit him. If I struck him in the head with a saber and he could reverse the damage, why wouldn't he just do that?

And why was he trying to grab onto Faith's face? Something was amiss, and something could be taken advantage of. I didn't have enough clues to make my next move, but Faith wasn't at the same level.

Using her fists, she broke out into a hand-to-hand fight where both Arthur and her landed punches of various calibers. Faith hit Arthur in the chest and the ground shook from the impact. I couldn't be sure if Faith knew what Arthur was doing, but he wasn't doing the same thing to her.

Arthur was taking every hit, even spitting up blood as she continued. Several kicks were blocked and hits were deflected, but Faith had a certain light around her eyes that whispered assuring thoughts into my mind.

Then, I was able to read text within my eyes.

[He does not want to kill me. Allow me to take care of Arthur.]

Upon her explanation, I read it carefully and used my gravity to push Arthur in opportune ways to get Faith to land cleaner hits. With every punch, I watched Strands develop in her fists with every strike that announced a powerful, piercing beam. Holes were placed in Arthur as her eyes continued to light up.

Then, he smiled. 

Arthur grabbed onto Faith's left hand and dug under the White Stone lying in her skin. She screamed out in pain as the White Stone started to pry from her skin. I had never seen it pull so far, but it was almost to the point of melting flesh being torn straight from her hand.