Chapter CCXVI: High Stakes ~Rainstorm

Rainy was sitting outside underneath the night sky. He had quietly left the train after Rynn had returned and had sat down on the ground pondering what to do. For some reason, he felt oddly like he was useless here. He seemed to be the only one not doing anything, instead, just sitting around. He looked over the horizon catching a glimpse of the landscape. He saw a building far off in the distance, which after examining his map he found out it was the building of Vole and another named Nero. Apparently it was a joint building that included a casino and a library. He thought he had seen Mazzic go off in the distance that way earlier, but he wasn't quite sure. Now that he thought about it, it had been quite a time since Mazzic left.

Rainy was rather bored another hour later as he sat underneath the stars and stared off into space quite literally. He put his hands behind his head and sighed, wondering what all was going on. So to cure his boredom, Rainy thought it was a good idea to go for a walk. For a reason even he could not explain, he headed off towards Vole's and Nero's building. As he walked along the foreign landscape, he couldn't help but keep thinking to himself that this world was very barren and indescript. There were many Twilighter dwellings around here, and yet other than that, it was just a series of canyons. It was a very lonely place he thought.

As he got closer and closer to the building, the wind seemed to pick up. Rainy drew his brown cloak even closer around him, wrapping his wings around behind his cloak to keep his back warm and to block some of the wind that had all of a sudden switched directions, now coming from behind him. He shivered, and thought immediately to himself that it was odd for him to shiver, especially since he hadn't been cold. It was as if his whole spine had trembled telling him not to go farther, telling him to stay where he was. Rainy, not being one to do that though, continued on towards the building. The actual building was much farther away than he had at first thought, but finally he arrived. On one side was a library, seeming very quiet and dark, and on the other was a casino complete with casino sounds and flashing lights. Rainy almost forgot for a moment that this was the shelter of a Twilighter, almost going inside to gamble some, but he shook off this feeling. But then after staring at the doors for a moment, he felt almost drawn to the place. He went up to the glass of the doors and looked through, finding it to look like a very normal casino, but there was only one thing strange about it: it was completely empty.

Rainy pushed the doors open tentatively at first, and then swung them full open. He walked inside finding a craps table to his left, a grand staircase in front of him, and roulette tables to his right. As he continued to walk through the casino, he came upon coin machines and a bar, all empty. And yet, though Rainy knew the place was empty, he couldn't help but feel that there was something watching him. As he began to walk back towards the door, he heard something behind him and he froze unable to move his limbs. After regaining his legs, he slowly turned around to find a Twilighter there sitting on the grand staircase he had seen on his way in. He sat there shuffling a deck of cards, rather slouched down and leaning against the railing.

"So I see you have found where I dwell, huh?"

Rainy couldn't think of anything to say.

"Well lizard, aren't you going to answer me before you die?"

Rainy still was waiting.

"My you are a stubborn one," he said aloud shuffling his cards a different way now.

Rainy began to prepare himself, waiting for an attack.

"Alright then, I'll kill you where you stand, words or no words."

And with these words he pulled the top third of his cards out and threw them through the air. Rainy didn't move at first, not noticing that there was something different about this particular deck of cards until it was almost too late. The cards were moving at an alarmingly high velocity, cutting through the air and speeding their way directly towards him. Rainy pulled out his Arlington Spear and swung it to divert the course of some of them, realizing after he struck one that they were actually quite heavy. He managed to knock it away though sending it flying into the wall where it promptly embedded itself. Rainy then rolled to his right and underneath the craps table, and the cards, which were still coming at him from all directions, proceeded to break the craps table into shards of wood sending it flying through the air. One of the cards managed to strike Rainy, knocking him back with considerable force before dropping him onto the ground. Rainy tried to pick up the card that had struck him, but before he could, it was levitated through the air and brought right back to Nero.

Nero laughed aloud, "Well, at least you have reflexes. Now let's have some real fun!"

Nero then shuffled his cards another time, quietly sitting down on the steps once more. The whole time, Rainy couldn't help but think that this particular Twilighter looked very familiar. Before he could figure out who it was though, Nero had begun to faintly glow a very dark glow as he placed his hand on top of the deck of cards. After a few seconds, he pulled out one card, flipping it dextrously with his right hand and showing Rainy what it was.

"It's your lucky day, the joker does some fun stuff," he said with a sneer.

Nero then through it into the air and it began to spin around and around at the top of the room. Rainy at first didn't notice what was happening, but a few seconds later, Nero rushed him and caught him off guard. Rainy dodged his initial rush, not noticing that the Twilighter had just gotten much faster than he originally had thought. As he turned around to dodge what he thought would be a second rush, he realized too late that it had already happened and instead of rolling away, he got a fist in the gut instead. Rainy doubled over in pain, waiting to slam into the ground, but instead noticed that he was moving towards the ground very slowly. He reached out his hand and pushed, causing his whole body to flip up in slow motion and then land on its feet just in time to jump out of the way of another attack.

"It must have something to do with that damned joker," Rainy thought to himself wondering what he should do.

He then put his foot down and kicked down hard sending him vaulting up into the air. Now floating there for a mid-second, he spread his wings and kicked again off of the roulette table that was just beneath him right before the Twilighter took his legs off. The kick was uncontrolled though and sent him careening towards the card without much grace. He recovered this though and brought up his spear in front of him, finally smashing into the card and sending it into the ceiling. As he returned to normal speed, he too crashed into the ceiling and then began to fall. But Rainy had been training to learn to use his wings. Hoping that he knew what he was doing, he twisted himself around and flapped his wings until he fluttered in mid air. He quickly searched the ground looking for Nero and found him picking up his Joker from the ground. Before the Twilighter noticed what he was doing, Rainy dive bombed the ground where Nero was standing, spear in hand and ready. Nero had just heard the whistling noise through the air, and then he looked up seeing Rainy just in time to dodge. Rainy still managed to clip him pretty good on the left arm and the force of this hit caused the Twilighter to fly through the air and land crashing onto a pool table, and sent Rainy spinning through the air until he righted himself and landed. The Twilighter got up out of the dust clapping, and yet seemingly he wasn't as hurt as Rainy had originally thought. And without saying a word, he threw a rack of pool balls into the air. Rainy thought he saw what was happening, and so he started to utter the command words to a spell. As the balls were struck as Rainy had predicted, Rainy finished the spell, namely a Globe of Containment. All but three of the balls started to bounce within the globe, knocking into each other and cracking here and there, but the three that made it through Rainy hadn't seen because he was casting the spell. Two of them struck him on either side trouncing him across the carpet and into a wall while the third embedded itself into the wall next to Rainy, barely missing.
Nero was very displeased that his trick hadn't worked quite as well as he thought it would. He then had an idea.

"That's a nice amulet you have there around your neck," he said thoughtfully trying to sound innocent.

Rainy stood and dusted himself off replying, "And what concern is it to you?"

"Oh, it's nothing really."

Rainy now wondered again where he had seen this Twilighter before.

"Ah, it was such a nice spring day that day..." the Twilighter continued.

"What are you talking about?"

"The wind was blowing through the trees and the sun was shining as the world thawed."

Rainy thought for a moment.

"It was a brilliant day for what I had in mind."

Silence.

"I still wondered about that messenger, wondered if he had made it. Seems he found you huh?"

Then it clicked. Like a bad dream, it clicked horribly loud in Rainy's mind.

"You! It was you!"

"Yes, captain obvious, it absolutely was."

"I'll kill you, I swear it!"

"Then show me, prove it to me."

Without noticing that Nero was trying to make him angry, Rainy rushed forward throwing out lightning bolts and swinging his staff in a wide arc with a total disregard for his own safety. Nero had just pulled a card from his deck and was now pulling another as Rainy sent more bolts his way. Then Nero dropped his deck to the floor instead choosing to hold both claws out to show Rainy what he had pulled: two of a kind. Rainy didn't quite know what this meant yet, but he knew that in a flash he would soon find out. Then the card began to grow bigger and bigger, and number five in the corner now taller than Rainy himself. Then it began to fall, and Rainy skidded to a halt. Not having enough time to run either way, he instead shouted out a quick word, "Parma!!"

The card continued to fall, and Nero thought that surely the battle was already over, but Rainy had other ideas. There was a flash of white light as a rather round structure appeared in the air and Rainy ran out of the way, releasing the spell and sending another out.

The shield gave way and the card began to fall again, and Rainy shouted another command word "Alius!"

This caused him to mirror image into three splits of himself that constantly switched positions. Nero thought it a trivial little trick and pulled out a set of dice. He then threw them onto the floor rolling a result of six. The left dice then exploded sending its shards towards the middle image of Rainy. Nero had thought wrong. Though he had directed the shards to the middle image which anyone would think would be the correct one, the middle image blinked out and the other vanished showing that Rainy was actually the image on the left. He then cast a fog spell in front of him before jumping into the air, spreading his wings, and sending a bolt of holy magic towards Nero. It all happened so fast that Nero had no chance to respond, and instead was lit up like a light bulb when he was struck, and then he screamed as it began to burn him. Before he let out a full scream though, Rainy appeared out of the fog and sent his knee into what would have been the Twilighters mid-section. Nero doubled over in pain, but not before sending out his dark powers from the tips of his fingers and flicking a card into the air. The velocity from the card and the velocity of Rainy caused the effect of the collision to be double sending him crashing into the wall and nearly through it, and then it was followed by a touch of dark magic which drained his strength as he shrank to the floor.
Nero had composed himself and decided to punish Rainy for not dying quicker. Using his psychic powers, he threw broken pieces of gambling tables, chips, and everything else in the room at Rainy who took hit after hit and became a battered lump on the floor. When Nero finally did reach him, he picked him up by his head and threw him into the wall and then stood in front of him. Rainy was in a large amount of pain and could barely focus his vision, but could still hear what Nero was saying to him.

"I see you're more formidable then I at first thought. I really need to stop doubting the powers of other races," he said with a sneer. He then slapped Rainy across the face with one of his cards. "Come on, I'm not such a bad guy, I'll make sure this is quick and painless. Though before you die, I think you should know something."

Then Nero moved in closer right next to Rainy's ear and whispered, "Your father's death was much slower and much more painful than what you're about to experience."

Rainy's eyes flared and he began to chant a spell, quite possibly he thought the last spell he would ever cast. The words he muttered were ones unfamiliar to the Twilighter, so naturally he was curious, thinking that Rainy had just given up.

"What's that you're saying? It won't do you any good, I'll tell you that," Nero said and began to chant a spell of his own.

Thirty seconds went by…

The room began to glow a terrible black color which was purged by a very white and blinding light.

Five more seconds went by…

Nero's chanting got louder as Rainy said a final prayer to Precipita.

Three more seconds…

Both released their spells at the exact same time, sending the darkest of magics and the lightest of magics right against each other. Rainy couldn't even raise his hands to cast the spell, but that didn't matter. His spirit was channelling the light energy at the moment, and his whole self shone with an angelic light that protruded from him into the darkness of the room. Meanwhile Nero was struggling to control his spell against Rainy's.

Five more seconds…

Rainy began to chant another spell because the spell he just cast would hold as an attacking barrier for this final one.

Six seconds…

Nero began to struggle even more against what was the light spell Rainy had just cast.

Ten seconds…

Spell number two was released from Rainy, sending the Wrath of Precipita down upon its victim. At first the whole room stopped and went silent. Time and sound themselves seemed to be non-existent for a split second before a large explosion broke the silence.

Above the horrid screams of the disintegrating Twilighter, the voice of Rainy boomed. With the support of his Goddess amplifying his voice, he shouted, "NOW YOU KNOW WHAT PAIN IS! YOU SHALL NEVER AGAIN WALK THIS EARTH OR ANY OTHER. WITH THE POWER AND WRATH OF PRECIPITA, I SEND YOU TO ETERNAL DAMNATION!!"

Nero heard these words, knowing that they were very true as he began to waste away.

The last thing Rainy said before blacking out was the last thing Nero ever heard.

"You killed my father. You murdered my friends. You burned my hometown. You have what you deserve. I played the house, and I won, so go to hell."

Then the world spun beneath him and he fell from his spot in the wall to the floor and lay still, blacked out from the over-exertion.