Faith Asterio VS Arthur Vega

---Faith's Perspective---

The opponent standing in front of me was now weak on every caliber. He wasn't able to vanish and appear elsewhere instantaneously as he used to, which allowed for clean strikes with the intent to kill to hit him.

I came in with another attack as fast as I could manage. I was no longer using my saber, so my fist came up from three inches off of the ground and swung upward toward his head. The punch ended up being so fast that it caved his arm in and shot it off of his body. Blood spewed out of his wounds as I looked for my next target.

Arthur must've had some predisposed knowledge about the White Stone and its capabilities to want to steal mine. He attempted to use Sky's infamous move 'Ultimate Deflect' to block my punch, but since the Iridescent Strands are not bound in this plane of existence, I was able to willfully change their position and follow through with the hit.

The feeling that I was running laps around Arthur now was starting to get to my head. I was beginning to understand now more than ever how Sky consistently feels. There's nobody on Earth that can beat me right now, not with these Iridescent Strands.

I was preparing for another hit toward Arthur with my fist pulled back right before he vanished into thin air.

I felt him appear right behind me with a strange interruption in what I felt around me. It felt as if my arm was being grabbed onto and the source of the hand that did so was behind me.

I turned around quickly with my fist again and struck Arthur in the side of the head, piercing his jaw and launching him directly into the ground. He didn't bounce, he only cracked the ground underneath us. 

I started to smile.

"At a certain point, you have to begin to wonder... how is it that I'm still alive? I can't use Strands, that's my entire gimmick... yet I'm regenerating myself constantly. How does that work, Faithy?" Arthur asked me. I focused on him with a smirk.

"Don't really care all that much," I confessed to him. The truth was, none of his strategies worked on me. The only outstanding thing he had was to heal, but not even that could be infinite. In the same way, Sky whittled Cole away until he was nothing, I would do the same to Arthur.

"You don't even care why I have this White Stone, do you? Why that's scary?"

"Not at all. I'm really sick of your voice," I told him.

By the time my eyes rested open, Arthur was gone once more, and I could no longer feel his presence. I looked around, all over, trying to see where he had run off to. 

Then, from deep within the confines of my mind, I heard a voice. It didn't seem to have any ill intent and instead sounded more informative.

"You're a strong girl, Faith. I just hope you're the way when my son catches you next. A Finlis and Arthur combo is the last thing this world needs, let alone you. Be safe, the clock is ticking," the voice told me.

With that, the fight had ended. I felt as if I couldn't even make enough strikes to really damage Arthur, but the important thing was that he was now gone, and I could focus on regrouping and protecting Mizu with Khalil and Charlie.

I turned to run out of the cracked street, watching people observe me from the windows on the very top floors of their homes. I ignored their gazes and didn't acknowledge them, running in the direction that Khalil and the others ran to.

Dani ran off in a direction I wasn't familiar with, but I automatically assumed it was the same direction that Khalil took. I weaved in and out of the streets, following my old path before until I happened to come upon Charlie, staring at a man wearing a green robe and a weird rotating hat on his head.

"You expect me to believe you?!" Charlie shouted out. His weapon was primed and he stood in front of Charlotte to protect her.

"I already told you. Whether you believe me or not, it doesn't make it any less true," The man told Charlie. His frown turned inward and he had never seemed so ready to attack in his life. I wanted to ask what was going on, but couldn't take away his attention from the attacker.

Charlie ran in with his sword turned on the outer edge of his body. He pulled himself inward and connected a strike to the mysterious man's head, colliding with the rotating helmet after dodging a grab.

"Lucius Pinewell is my name, but I am your father, Charlie," He declared. Charlie kicked him in the chest and Lucius slid on the cement, clutching his stomach with a straight face and boring expression.

"Do you follow Sky Asterio in his endeavors?" Lucius asked him once more. With the presence of my Strands growing from my position once more, I knew that he was going to make an attack.

[PREDICTION: PROJECTILE]

I listened to the preemptive warning within my eyes and pulled out a saber, ready to ignite it and strike with it. 

As soon as Charlie's mouth opened to form the letters of the word 'yes', Lucius summoned a terrifyingly dense spear of strands that came out of his eye with a simple blink. It was so dense and powerful that I wasn't sure if I would even be able to get through it with my saber.

Even when I tried to summon a Golden Saber, Iridescent Strands shot out of the cylinder and seemingly absorbed the dense spear of strands entirely. I panted in front of Charlie through the anxiety of the strike before quickly realizing...

I'm Faith Asterio. That wasn't getting past me. 

Heh... this is what it's like, Dad?