I quickly ran towards the direction of Pete. He seemed to be fending them off well using his blessing. There were bolts of lighting flying through the air as the unfamiliar men dodged around, trying to find an opening to attack Pete. Pete noticed me running towards him and yelled out to me, "GO BACK SID!" But just as he had turned to yell at me, I recognized the man Vanta used the opportunity to shoot something at Pete. The object seemed to graze Pete's side and a splash of blood fell across the ground. Pete winced and I could see that he was barely holding off the three men attacking him. I took that opportunity to focus on one of his attackers. One of the men seemed to have a very strange body structure. He was very bulky with a large body, and yet didn't seem over weight. He was wearing a white buttoned down shirt with black pants and a small brown hat on his head. From the distance I was at, I used the anger inside of me to send a powerful punch through my waypoint, right into the face of the bulky man. However, as I felt my hand strike his face it was almost like my hand was sinking into his body. I pushed him back maybe a few inches, but he held firm in his stance and simply looked at me with a slight grin. Damnit, so now there was the unknown power of Vanta and a guy who had a strange body. The third man didn't seem to be participating in the fight. He was standing off in the back and was simply watching everything play out. He had long black braided hair and was wearing a peculiar tasseled outfit. His behavior was suspicious, but I didn't have time to investigate. If he was going to stand back then I needed to just focus on these two first, then address him later. Pete seemed to be focused on fighting with Vanta, so I decided to engage with the second man with a strange body. I didn't want to let Pete get attacked from behind while he was focused on fending off the strange objects Vanta was shooting out.
The bulky man let out a deep chuckle. "So you're the one who Vanta is interested in huh? You're just a little squirt. What am I supposed to do, spank you?" He said with a condescending tone. "As if you're one to talk chubs. I'll make this quick." I responded with venom in my voice. I knew there was something off with this man's body, so I decided to take a different approach. The man ran towards me and punched downwards with incredible strength. But when I expected the ground to crumble from the blow, his fist simply sunk into it like it was soft. He noticed my reaction and grinned. "Trust me squirt, there ain't nothin' tough about ya." He said as he continued running towards me. The moment he had sunk his fist into the ground, I pulled out Gwyn's knife from a waypoint and kept it hidden. The man swung a heavy fist that I was able to duck under. I then used his large frame to hide my positioning and slip away behind him. As he went to turn around, I struck forward with the knife, straight into his side. He was very strong, but not fast enough to react to my attack. However, as soon as the knife struck his body I felt the tip of the blade rebound off of him as if he was solid as a rock. "What the hell!?" I said aloud. The uninterested man who was standing away from all of us called out. "Do, stop playing around. Just knock him out already so we can go. This is boring." He said apathetically. The bulky man began laughing, "HAHAHA c'mon Sunny, it's no fun that way. I haven't gotten the chance to bake bread in a long time." The man named Do responded. How did this even make sense? His body was soft when I first punched him, as if his face was just a big pillow absorbing my attack. But now his body was as tough as metal and my knife couldn't even penetrate his skin. This has to be the work of his blessing. As if on cue, I heard Navy's voice yell out to me over the sound of Pete and Vanta battling fiercely nearby. "Sid!! That guy's blessing lets him control pliability! You can't hit his body, it won't work!" My eyes quickly darted to the sound of Navy's voice. He was standing there with Sundi supporting him. I could tell immediately from the look on Sundi's face that she wasn't able to stop him from coming back here. But then in a flash, I saw Sundi's eyes grow wide and she yelled, "LOOK OUT!" But it was too late. I twisted my head back towards Do and he was right in front of me about to release a powerful punch. I tried to step backwards to avoid the blow, but he was too close. "Never take your eyes off of an opponent, squirt!" He said with a crazed look in his eyes. I pulled up my arms to block his punch, hoping to at least diminish some of the damage. But when his large round fist struck my arms, I felt his hand sinking into my arms, bending them with the power of his strike. His fist continued to sink further beyond my arms, and then immediately I felt a rebound of power send me flying backwards in the air. My body slammed through a large tree, toppling it to the ground. Upon hitting the tree, the back of my head hit it first… Sending me into a daze. I began coughing up blood from the power of the impact, and my vision became blurry. All I could see was the fuzzy outline of Do's body slowly walking towards me. But in this mental daze, I felt like I began to see things that put me into a completely different state of mind….
I felt like I began to imagine something after hitting my head. I felt like I was re-watching the scene of Oli being sucked into the Arch of Bane while I couldn't do anything but watch. I remembered the horrible guard that attacked us in the catacombs, nearly killing us. I remembered Gwyn being taken away by Livana… Within myself, I felt a mix of powerful emotions. The emotions were welling up inside of me, filling me with anger, regret, and sadness. My blurry vision started to become clearer, and I felt golden energy begin to radiate off of me. At this time, I was not myself. Golden streams of light began emanating from my eyes as tears fell down my cheeks. I yelled out with a spirit of rage, "NEVER AGAIN!" In a trance-like state of mind, I threw out a powerful punch straight towards Do. But this time was different. While consumed by my emotions, I imagined hitting the person in front of me a thousand times over. In doing so, with this one punch I was certain that I had opened multiple waypoints in a row with my hand. Each time my fist traveled through a way point, it was as if my punch began to gain otherworldly speed and power. Instead of creating a bunch of waypoints for my hands to travel, it was more like I had stacked the waypoints onto themselves, creating a tunnel through space. Through this stacked waypoint, the tunnel was seemingly projecting my fist further and further while gaining momentum at an unprecedented rate. With the power in my body surging, my fist collided with the torso of Do. In that singular moment as my fist struck his body, I was imagining the indestructible object I had been punching relentlessly. I was imagining myself shattering it into a million pieces. When I hit his incredibly sturdy body, a shockwave of power rippled across his torso. Then in an explosion of impact, he was sent skipping across the ground like a stone thrown on water. But I wasn't finished. I leaped from my place like a wild animal at a blinding speed. I imagined as if I was climbing the face of the stone spire that housed Darwin's tree. On all fours I pulled myself across the forest floor, gaining on his body that was skipping atop of the ground. I jumped forward flipping in the air just like Dutch, and punched straight down through a stacked waypoint at point blank range of his body. I could see just before impact that Do's eyes were wide, and he was unable to react to my speed. My fist blasted into his face, slamming him into the ground like a meteor descending on the world. A blast of air pressure was sent out across the forest floor. But instead of a crater being formed, Do managed to soften the ground before he made impact sending wave like ripples where he landed. He was barely conscious and breathing raggedly. Do has a massive dent like feature on his face where I had punched him. All the while, images of my past were still flashing across my mind. I kept seeing Oli being dragged into the Arch of Bane. While still in a mental daze, I reached forward with one of my hands hoping to grab hold of her. In this trance-like state of mind, I wasn't really aware of what was happening. It was as if my body was acting on its own. I was only snapped out of it only when I heard the sound of Navy's and Sundi's voices screaming at me. "SIDDD!!!! WAKE UP SID!!!!" I blinked my eyes a couple times and the golden stream of energy that emanated from my eyes seemed to dissipate. When my mind began to stabilize I was able to take in the situation in front of me. The hand I had reached out to take hold of Oli… Was now piercing the chest of the man named Do through one of my waypoints. I could feel the warm sensation of blood dripping from my hand, and Do's face was going pale as he said, "H-how is this possible…" I retracted my hand, unable to process what I had just done. Do's body fell to the ground in a loud thud.