Boom. The barrier’s interior was filled with colossal pressure and fire, the majority of its rune-stones exploding into shards and dust in rapid sequence. A considerable splash of CP-T was forced out through the gap in the moments before the barrier failed and flickered out. Right into the hole in that large hive’s ceiling, prompting the ground to tremble and a foreboding tremor to originate from the mega-hive.

With an ironclad side kick to the leg, Zel broke her opponent’s balance for long enough to slip her blade free of the deadlock with a sharp twist and downward yank. She followed through with an upswing as part of the motion to change out of reverse-grip, the cleaver’s tip extending out into a spur with a loud screech just before she did it. It cut across the red one’s stomach, partially cutting the armor centipede before it caught the bottom of her chestplate. It cut a small gash into the thick plate before getting stuck, freed by the blade’s reversion to its natural form.

Zel quickly returned to a stable stance and got a proper grip on her cleaver, but the mantis made her pay for the wound inflicted with one of her own. Lashing out with both blades, Zel only managed to block the left one using her arm-cannon’s barrel. It slid off the metal and the red one turned it to a downward swing, but she caught the wrist with an ironclad grip before the blade could touch her neck. On the right side, though, she suffered a light slash across the torso, just barely deep enough to scrape a rib.

Refocusing from heating the edge to fuelling the sawteeth, she managed to bring her cleaver’s saw-side to bear faster than the Mantis could pull her blade free. It bit in at a diagonal angle across the forearm. The saw’s screaming chatter was muted by the vibration of chitin being sawed apart and the screams of said chitin’s owner.

Just as she breached the plating and hemolymph began spraying out, the Mantis sent herself flying into the air with an on-the-spot jump, ragged wings spreading out of her back.

There was a series of rings and flashes off to the side, followed by a quick series of clanging gunshots. One of these struck the side of the red one’s head, sending her careening to the ground. Surprisingly enough, she landed upright and stood back up with a bullet embedded part way in her skull. It clearly didn’t do her mental state any good, considering the unhinged screams of Pateirian insults that she let out as she charged headlong at Zelsys.

Once more slipping into the trance-like hyperfocus of a duel, the silver-eyed beast-slayer laughed at her opponent and took up a countering stance. Left hand held out, cleaver held high, legs wide and low with the left foot forward.

“Style: Bea-” she began, only to be interrupted by a suspiciously close stomp and the shifting of air. Her instincts screamed and she saw the Mantis’s gaze snap to something to her left, ever so briefly. Zelsys was certain that she wouldn’t be able to dodge without at least her legs being caught by whatever it was. She turned to face it, breaking the flow of engine breathing to fill her lungs so that she might burn their full contents for a Rebound Pulse.

She’d expected a sword, an axe, or even a stomping foot.

Not a giant fist.

It was organized chaos, right from the get go. Zelsys got caught up in a duel with the Red Mantis in the seconds between her tossing the grenade and it exploding. Its explosion managed to shut down the barrier, but the Black Swordsman and the Sister were mostly unharmed. Neither of them could break out of their stupor quickly enough to remove their inhalers, as was shown when the remnants of the devices clattered to the ground.

They walked out of the smoke with cracked plates and globs of CP-T but they were such walking tanks they were far from incapacitated.

The Inquisitor kept her distance and pelted the Sister with barrage after barrage of bullets. So consistent was the masked woman’s aim that the Sister was completely blinded well before the second salvo.

Meanwhile, Zefaris breathed a lungful’s Fog onto the same batch of five coins for the second time, tossing them all high into the air. Her gaze and mind both dwelt on helping Zelsys break the deadlock she seemed to be stuck in, even if it was only one bullet. Of the remaining four, she would direct one to the Sister and three to the Black Swordsman, if only because the black one’s attention seemed to be worryingly drifting towards Zel.

Five shots in quick succession. With a somewhat awkward motion she slotted Pentacle into the speedloader, holding onto her gun with an almost painful tightness as she felt a series of ten rapid force impulses. The Black Swordsman’s head veered to the side as one of the bullets lodged into his skull, but for some reason the other two were sent into the wrist of his shield-arm. Their impact splintered the vulnerable chitin around the joint and made him drop his shield. It thudded to the ground, but the frankly ridiculous mass of black-stone that he used as a shield had no issue standing solid on its own. Zefaris thought that perhaps the technique targeted any weak points and was perhaps confused by the fact that the Black Swordsman’s head was not his own.

Perhaps out of frustration, confusion, or because his body remembered Zelsys as the one who destroyed his left arm the last time, the Black Swordsman raised his mangled fist and punched down at her. She didn’t seem to take notice until he had already taken the swing, turning her entire body on the heel of her right foot without significantly changing her countering stance. All she did was pull her left arm back, as if… No, she couldn’t. She wasn’t that foolhardy, was she?