"Today, however, I am just a 'No one'."
...
"I said, I am just a-" Vrijeme starts again but is cut off by an unamused Savos.
"I heard what you said, I just felt no need to respond. Are we going to brawl or what?" the Arch-Mage blankly asks.
Vrijeme shrugs his shoulders, "I already did, I was just awaiting your reaction." he says, prompting Savos to look down at the red line forming across his chest, something having somehow cut through his robes.
...
"Remarkable... Temporal magic, I assume?" Savos asks after swiping a glowing gold hand across his injury, healing both it and the slice in his clothing.
Vrijeme grins, "Got it in one, two, three." he smilingly says while counting down peculiarly on his fingers.
Savos' eyes widen as the mage counts two, teleporting himself a couple meters to the side just in time to avoid the attack.
On three fire erupts from Savos' previous position, creating a large pillar that incinerates everything in an isolated area.
Shaking his head, Savos thrusts his hands to the side and forcefully takes control over the pillar of fire, funnelling it upwards for a moment before turning it on Vrijeme, only to find the enemy mage standing to the side four meters away from where he was just a moment ago...
"The thing with Temporal Magic, funnily, is the lack of time you have with it." Savos remarks, "The Magicka consumption is far too great to maintain over a prolonged fight. Let's see how long you can last."
With that, the Arch-Mage fires another storm of fire at the Altmer mage, using his offhand to gather and compress clouds in the sky over Vrijeme's position.
Vrijeme, of course, easily dodges the fire and retaliates with his own attacks, primarily turning Savos' own fire against him with temporal shenanigans. While the Arch-Mage wasn't fast enough to dodge time itself, his keen magical senses and experienced intuition allowed him to predict what Vrijeme would be doing.
This was especially easy as the Altmer seemed to require somatic components to manipulate time... Time was instant, but the elf was not.
Vrijeme had tried to directly manipulate Savos' Temporal Pace as he'd done to Lina earlier, but the Arch-Mage was versed enough in Temporal magic to forcefully rid such effects from himself.
"Very impressive Arch-Mage! But no one can defeat time!" Vrijeme exclaims as a magical dome forms over and around Savos, trapping him within and seemingly freezing him in place.
Vrijeme then casually walks over and begins casting ice shards into the dome towards the Dunmer, these freeze in time too once they enter the dome, but that was only temporary... He casts many, many more, surrounding Savos completely with icy shards, leaving no room for retreat.
Once done he walks back to his position and snaps his fingers, causing the dome to disappear and time to resume.
*SHIIIIIK!*
Savos, instantly realising what'd been done, raises a radial ward around himself to block the attack. The icy shards shatter against it and the hastily raised ward isn't quite enough to block everything, allowing a couple shards to break through and impale the Arch-Mage.
"Hhhaargh!" he yelps as he stumbles backwards, his breath going frost as he examines himself... Two shards in his stomach, one in his left lung, and one in his shoulder. His stamina had been drastically reduced due to frost's innate stamina drain, leaving him feeling as if he'd been fighting for hours, regardless of his impalement.
He forcefully heats his body up, instantly melting the shards and healing them with restoration magic before turning to Vrijeme, "You are talented. But only in one school..." he remarks, if the Altmer mage had used something more powerful than ice shards, like ice spears, Savos would've probably lost the fight there and then.
"It feels like fighting a snake... If I hold your neck, what can you bite?" Savos states as the timed Destruction runes he'd cast earlier light up underneath Vrijeme's feet.
*KUUUUUSH!*
Electricity explodes from them forcing Vrijeme to slow time in front of him to avoid instant death. Unfortunately, his hasty spell doesn't slow lightning all that much, allowing some to scorch his arm, draining a good portion of his Magicka in the process...
Vrijeme had possibly the largest pool of Magicka out of any mortal in Tamriel, which was the main reason he could utilise Temporal magic so easily. He wasn't used to having his magic disrupted in this manner however, leaving him quite vulnerable to Savos' next attack which was cast before the runes even exploded.
*CRAAAAACKLE!*
A lightning bolt strikes Vrijeme's chest, scorching it black and throwing him to the ground. He forces himself to regain control from the seizing electricity and downs a potion which both heals and restores his Magicka in an instant. "You're stronger than I expected..."
...
"Give up and I'll let you live as a 'guest' in my College. Or, you can choose-" Savos starts but is caught off guard as something strikes him in the face, turning his world black.
*Thwack!*
Vrijeme suddenly zips forwards at impossible speeds and cracks Savos across the face with his staff, knocking the Arch-Mage to the floor, knocking him out in a single blow.
"Hah... Hah..." Vrijeme breathes while resting on his staff. Increasing his Temporal Pace came at the cost of speeding up his ageing, damaging his body, and exhausting him. Which is why he almost never used it in this manner.
Rikke, seeing the fight finish, orders her soldiers to continue the battle, now confident of their victory.
"Huh, Savos got beat like that? Kinda disappointing..." Michael asks while sitting on Winterhold's wooden wall. Shrugging his shoulders, he takes off his dragon mask and casually casts a red-coloured Mage Light into the sky.
"You must be Michael Tahlin." Vrijeme says while still catching his breath, "I would fight you, but I'd prefer it on even grounds..."
Michael gives another shrug, "You might not even get the chance..."
"Is that a threat?" the Altmer asks, hostility in his glare.
Michael shakes his head, "No, I mean, you gotta worry about that first." he says, pointing a thumb over his shoulder at his Spire that was glowing with more intensity than usual.
"And what is 'tha-"
*BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHKKKKKKKSHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!*
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*BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHKKKKKKKSHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!*
A humungous blue laser fires from the top of the Spire and sweeps across the now charging vanguard of the Imperial forces, turning everyone struck to ash on contact with the eye-searing light. (Imagine everyone hit as Rorschach)
Once the laser does its first sweep, it does another, aiming for those behind the vanguard... And then those behind that, and so on. It's on the second sweep that the Imperials realise just how fucked they are, and begin fleeing in the opposite direction despite all the attempts of Rikke to keep them fighting.
Indeed, Rikke couldn't fault them for fleeing however, from what she could see there was literally no way to win this now that this weapon had been revealed... Due to the Spire's height, it had an aerial view over the entire battlefield... Everyone was at risk, and everyone would die if they attempted to fight against it.
Even she, an honourable Legate of the Imperial Legion, fled in the face of this weapon.
Vrijeme was no different, boosting his Temporal Pace to the max and vanishing from where he was standing. The magical energy released by the laser alone was enough to fry his brain if he got close enough, let alone the damage the actual laser would cause. This thing was an ultimate weapon, and he hazards to guess that even gods should be wary of it.
A mage killer, army killer, and god killer rolled up into one ridiculously powerful weapon.
Michael smirks as the laser follows the fleeing Imperials like the beam released from the Eye of Sauron. "Go on! Run you daft cunts! Try invade my fucking city again!" he cackles, loud enough for the retreating men to hear him over the sounds of their friend's wails of death.
"You've got problems, Partner..."
"Shut up, sword..." he replies, idly wondering if he'd get exp from everyone the Spire kills... He wasn't receiving any souls so, probably not? Which meant he should keep any dragons away, or risk losing their souls.
A few Winterhold soldiers wanted to chase after the Imperials to get a bit of revenge, but those thoughts were dashed as the laser continued frying people from above their heads...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
With the battle concluded, the survivors got the work, first burying the dead and then overseeing the damage caused to Winterhold and the College. The Thalmor infiltrators had burned a good portion of the town, with the exception of the few Eredar properties that had been protected due to them being made from stone and enhanced with enchanted gems.
The College itself was actually on its last legs... A good portion of it had been damaged by the Thalmor naval forces, but that wasn't even mentioning the damage to the foundation's structural integrity... Even now bits and pieces were dropping off from it, as if whatever protections that were still holding it up had been used up.
Once the Arch-Mage regained consciousness, he'd actually forbid any of the Masters or Apprentices from accessing the College for fear of it suddenly collapsing. During this, Michael too the opportunity to tease the Dunmer for his loss, something Savos took in stride... While also tossing the occasional prank spell his way.
Jarl Korir hired any willing hand to help dig up the remnants of the Thalmor navy for parts and whatever else they'd sunk with... In particular, were the Fire Salts the Thalmor were using to fire their cannons, they'd last underwater for a while on their own, and a much larger length of time if in a sealed container like a barrel. A good amount of Fire Salt alone would completely fund the repairs for the city.
The fact that the Thalmor had sent a navy to flank them during the battle had sent a few citizens into a frothing rage, they were, of course, restrained and had Calm spells cast at them to chill out and stop them from trying to swim to the Summerset Isles in their anger.
Speaking of anger, Michael soon discovered that Charlotte had been attempting to assault his Spire, along with Illococoo being injured in the process... Tiffania had to stop him from using the Vessel of the Hunt and tracking her down, as it would impede his preprepared plans.
There was another issue too... Apparently, Umnii had gotten kidnapped by the Thalmor. Tiffania and the others had first heard of it, and after asking the Eredar, they couldn't find her either, confirming it.
So, a day after the battle, Michael headed out again, using the Vessel of the Hunt to track down Umnii and her Thalmor captors...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After the battle, Ulfric actually had a group of Stormcloaks waiting behind the Imperial army. Which, once they fled, ran straight into the arms of their angry Nord friends, who killed everyone who refused to surrender.
Legate Rikke was captured along with many of her men and dragged to Windhelm to be interrogated and imprisoned. With so many Imperial soldiers dead, the rebels were actually in a prime position to press their advantage.
They swept forwards and retook Dawnstar, killing any defenders there and reinstating Stormcloak rule. That wasn't all however, as they continued and sent a force to probe Morthal's defences, the 'Swamp Province' as some called it, wasn't all that greatly defended, but the swamp itself would make getting a large force through difficult.
General Tullius had also sent half of Solitude's forces to reinforce Morthal after hearing of their failure to take Winterhold. He'd also sent a request for aid to Cyrodil but, any troops that were sent would take a while to arrive...
As for Jarl Elisif's reaction to all of this? Well, let's just say that any glassware the Blue Palace had was reduced by around eighty percent. Incidentally, the number of injured servants had also increased proportionally to that... What a surprise.
Hope you bois liked the chap, if I missed anything please let me know. Thanks!
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