Amelia scrambled backward across the ground, digging her nails into the dirt to gain traction and go faster. The huge black metal blade that appeared in the sky above superimposed over Raven’s sword as it crashed down. Ripping and tearing through the sky and making a weird strangled whistling noise.

Amelia didn’t want any freaking part of this exchange.

Her mad retreat was ultimately futile, the blades struck down with a speed that made running away at this distance meaningless. The first to arrive was the two-hander in Raven’s firm grip, the second was the image of the blade smashing downward. Though they were two different and distinct strikes the image from above had started from further away but accelerated faster than the physical sword. Practically simultaneous explosions of pure force rang out across the graveyard. There was no distinct sound of two clashing forces, only one unified clash of sound as the reverb and subsequent shockwave swept over Amelia. Her tumbling resulting in a series of awkward and undignified moments where her feet frequently went over her head and her butt hit the ground a bunch of times before she finally came to a halt.

[Status: temporary deafness. 5 seconds… 4 seconds…]

[Status: temporary blindness. 3 seconds… 2 seconds…]

Amelia blinked rapidly, an instinctive if useless action since the game didn’t have any sort of mechanic that made your vision return faster if you did it, as she put her hands on the ground and pushed herself to a sort of upright position. She was hesitant to move while she was blind and deaf. Blindness and deafness weren’t really status ailments that she dealt with on a regular basis. All she did know was that they would both end quickly, then she would need to make a decision on where to move.

Her vision cleared after what felt like an eternity and she immediately caught sight of Raven pressing the sword down against the tops of Pride’s arms. Pride herself had one knee on the ground, arms crossed over her head to keep the sword at bay. Dark metal shown through the cuts of the sleeves on her robes, revealing how she had barely managed to fend off the one-armed girl’s attack.

Pride grunted and slowly pushed back upward, her knee leaving the ground. The image of the second sword above Raven’s physical began to fade, the skill attack dissipating as it spent the remainder of its energy. Pride made another soft noise and then her lips began to move silently. Two plates of light began to appear between her arms and the blade in Raven’s hand. The sword began to lift from her body slowly. With the help of the plates of light holding off the sword, Pride slowly pulled one of her arms away from defense and pointed the palm toward Raven’s chest.

Crap. That was no good. Her storied hero was about to get blasted.

Amelia was about to yell for ‘Raven’ to dodge when Pride hesitated. The hood turned slowly as she regained her feet, clearly winning the war of power against Raven as the one-armed girl began to straighten as a result of being pushed back into a standing position.

Pride slowly turned her arm to start pointing it toward Amelia.

“Raven! Protect me!” Amelia didn’t know what else to do. It was bad enough that Pride had been about to blast Raven, her only trump card. She was even more defenseless than her Storied Hero!

She didn’t know if the Storied Hero would take orders or just work on autopilot. All she did know was that Pride hadn’t been using her words today so she wasn’t confident that she would be able to reflect or counter whatever obviously terrible thing was about to come her way.

As she turned to run(she was at least going to present a moving target), the Raven clone seemed to stir, eyes going from unfocused to sharp at the command. Her arm strained with sudden force down on Pride’s arm and the light plates, making a grating noise. Pride had to immediately abandon her intention of shooting Amelia to go back to keeping that huge metal blade from crashing into her body.

Once again, Amelia found herself stupefied by the words that came out from the Storied Hero’s mouth.

“[We Don’t Let Them Die].”

The humorless and monotone voice called out and the world once again responded in a bizarre way, the ground near Raven’s feet trembled and the grass began to fall flat as if it were being pushed down by some invisible force. Pride immediately dropped to one knee again, obviously suddenly overpowered by the sword that was still looming dangerously over her head.

Raven moved her other shoulder upward, the handkerchief that covered the stump fluttered in the breeze for a moment before burning off, ash scattering in all directions. In the same manner that the sword had materialized in her grip earlier, now an arm formed from the base of the stump. An arm made from black metal. A second or two passed at most before it was fully formed.

The Storied Hero flexed the metal hand at the end of the arm once, twice, and then made a fist. Amelia had thought that Raven would use the extra arm to pressure Pride by getting a two-handed grip. She was half right. The metal fist began smashing bluntly down on top of the sword, the banging causing Pride to start to jerk unsteadily below. Fractures began to appear in the two light plates that she had summoned. She immediately began to move her lips soundlessly again, perhaps trying to create more or reinforce the existing protection spell.

The small unsteady movement appeared to be a satisfactory opening to the Storied Hero because Raven immediately stopped pounding the blade with her metal hand and even lifted her sword without warning. The long crude metal once again went straight up.

Raven, in a casual and fluid movement, gripped the two-handed sword with both hands now. This strike wasn’t accompanied by any sort of image from the skies or any sort of skill, but there was a brutality in the way the blade fell that had been absent before. The Storied Hero was dropping the incredibly heavy sword like it were a sledgehammer.

Pride howled in frustration again as she sank lower to the ground, raising both arms to meet the blade. The two plates of light that had been giving her a momentary edge disappeared, shattered instantly. The arm guards that had been holding off the sword before were cut cleanly all the way through. The arms themselves didn’t stop the blade from dropping either. Pride’s hands started to fall clear of her arms, breaking into a series of light particles even as the front half of Raven’s blade cleaved into Pride’s face and then continued downward as if the blade was red hot and Pride was butter.

Pride began to fall, but Amelia couldn’t find it in herself to be relieved or happy because... even before Pride hit the ground the Storied Hero lifted the sword and dropped it down again. Over and over on the fallen foe who could no longer muster any sort of defense. The enemy was ground into the dirt as the thing with her friend’s face kept chopping with that same empty expression.

----------------------

Local Announcement

[Encounter Ended! Level up +2 ]

[Storied Hero Raven gains 100 experience]

[Fragment of Pride]

With the defeat of Pride, all statues lose purpose and begin to wander aimlessly in a non-hostile manner. In less than a day, they will cease all movement and resume their appearance as statues! You have one hour before you will be automatically teleported to the next stage. You may also proceed to the next stage from the doorway. The doorway location is now available on your mini-map

------------------------

Amelia only casually glanced over the information, making a note to investigate the fragment of pride in a second. There was a more pressing concern. She narrowed her eyes as she examined the Storied Hero. The black arm that had appeared for that powerful sequence of attacks had faded. The Storied Hero turned toward Amelia, once again sporting only one arm. The handkerchief over the stump had reappeared. It was looking her straight in the eyes. Waiting for orders? Waiting for praise?

It was wearing Raven’s face and called out things that made Amelia’s heart lurch. [Watch Me] had obviously been a reference to the moment when Raven had stepped up in a big way to protect Elisha and some Transients during the hellish night battle in Blutonsi, years ago. The skill [We Don’t Let Them Die] must have been crafted from a series of similar situations.

The image of her friend Raven appeared in her mind. Strong, powerful, brutal when necessary. This Storied Hero certainly was those things. At the same time, the Storied Hero could not have been further from reality.

Amelia sighed, scratching her nose. “Well, I can’t call you Raven. This… is definitely not okay. Raven is … kind, compassionate, fun, admires beauty…” Amelia paused, looking up with her mouth still open from speaking, and then shut it when she saw that the Storied Hero had no reaction to her words. No reaction at all.

“Examine.”

[Storied Hero: Raven. Story Level: Powerful. Rank 0: 100/1000.]

“Edit?”

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[Name+]

Raven_ _

[Delete]

[Store]

[Add Tales]

------------------

“Add tales, huh?” Amelia grunted, relieved despite herself. “So I could write about how you’re a fun little murderbot and…”

She frowned again, immediately finding fault with the idea. She couldn’t… program fake Raven to be more like the real Raven. That was just, wrong… It was nice she could add future entries to increase the power of the image, though? Could… could she make up fake ones? The urge to make a story entry where Raven had angel… no… demon wings, was overwhelming. Definitely going to try that.

“First things first though, let’s give you a different name. I’m already making my own head hurt with this,” Amelia nodded. Yep. That was a good idea.

Then Amelia remembered she sucked at naming.

"Maybe I'll put that off too," Amelia grimaced. Then she turned to the statues wandering aimlessly around the field and remembered that she had an hour before she was teleported to the next stage. Her gaze hardened a little bit as she considered the shambling creatures.

"Raven, let's clear the field. I have a feeling leveling you up might be a useful thing to do."