The rays of the morning sun dragged her from the cold abyss of a dreamless healing sleep. Zelsys woke to a muscle ache that permeated every fibre of her being, soothed by the comforting grasp of familiar hands wrapped around her from behind. She stirred ever so slightly, attempting to slip out of Zef’s grasp without waking the markswoman, but her counterpart woke the moment Zelsys moved.

As she sat up and began to carefully stretch her aching muscles to alleviate some of the stiffness, she tried to remember what had happened. The memory floated to the surface and her mouth curled into a grin, one immediately dispelled by the sound of Zef’s voice and the renewed feeling of her embrace. It wasn’t speech as much as it was an admonishing groan, an expression of disapproval and a grudging admission of awe at an exceedingly foolish feat, no matter how impressive it was.

She responded with a turn of her head and a kiss planted on the markswoman’s waiting lips. They remained in this idle state between sleep and waking for a good couple minutes, wherein Zelsys took her sweet time in slowly shaking off the cobwebs of sleep, grabbing her Tablet, and retrieving a bottle of Liquid Vigor. Sipping away at it throughout the early parts of her morning, Zelsys relished the slow fading of her muscle pain and the gradual return of her strength.

Then, came Strolvath’s rock-gravel roar, just as he stomped up to the door and hauled wood into the cabin. “Finally awake, y’idiot savant?” he prodded, ambling over to the stove and tossing a couple pieces of wood into the embers. The same pot they had used for soup yesterday was already bubbling with a new batch of the very same food, the only difference being the ratio of ingredients if the smell was to go by.

Less fish, more vegetables.

Strolvath stirred the soup, grabbed one of the chairs, spun it around on a leg, and stopped it perfectly facing the bed Zel and Zef were sitting on. He sat wide-legged in the chair, and with a genuinely apologetic sigh gave an admission, “I’m at fault for yesterday. When I explained the storm, I omitted a crucial component - the Stormtrance.”

He looked to Zelsys in particular, and continued, ”The very thing that made you do what you did. The Storm entrances its chosen victims, taunts them into leaving their shelters with a siren’s call that only the most iron-willed can ignore, like Ubul. I didn’t think your soul was bright enough to draw the storm’s ire, and yet… Here we are. Regardless of the outcome, I still should have warned you. Forgive me.”

Zel blinked a few times, filing the revelation away in the back of her head to be dealt with later. She put on her usual smug grin, and instead of accepting the apology properly just said, “It’s not as if I died, is it?”

The Singer returned a bitter chuckle.

“I’ve a request, if you don’t mind. Show me your breathin’ method,” he said. “Both o’ you.”

Raised eyebrows from both of them, a smug question from Zelsys, “Why?”

“‘Cause you split a fuckin’ lightnin’ bolt n’ came out without so much as a burn mark, that’s why!” he exclaimed, angrily. It wasn’t anger directed at Zelsys, but rather at himself - both out of guilt, and because of his own inability to understand the feat he had helped achieve. A deep sigh, and an admission, “And yer the best odds I’ve got at figurin’ out Fog-breathing for myself.”

Zelsys took a deep breath, then exhaled the breath as Fog. A furrowed brow from Strolvath, “That it?”

He looked to Zefaris with a questioning look in his eye, asking, “You use the same method, yeah? Show me.”

Zefaris repeated the exact same thing Zelsys had done, only further exacerbating Strol’s confusion. The singer scratched his chin, leaning on a knee as his gaze jumped between the two of them.

“What’s the trigger?” he questioned. “There’s obviously no verbal component, so it’s gotta be mental.”

With a simple smile, Zel just set down her bottle and, without breaking eye contact, swiped to the techniques section in her Tablet and opened the detailed readout for her Deep Breath method. She turned it around, making sure to maintain her grip of the device so that Strol could read it. He leaned forward in his chair and squinted, the twin irises of his eye opening like the apertures of a camera - he didn’t seem to need the verbal trigger to activate his Homunculus Eye. It made her hand buzz with the familiar pins-and-needles sensation, and the projection flickered a few times, but she paid it no mind.

He looked up to her and hesitantly said, “This completely goes against the teachings of every major Fog-breather family. I’ll pay you whatever y’ask if you agree to teach me once we get back.”

Just as she was about to give a vague agreement that she could go back on later, her focus slipped and she noticed the projection flicker as it returned to the techniques listing, Strol’s eye darting down, reading something off it, then slowly rising back up when the Tablet reacted to her will and changed back to the readout for the Deep Breath method.

“By the way…” he drawled, “When’d you figure out a new breathin’ method?”

Zel briefly furrowed her brow, turning the Tablet to look at it.

Sure enough, there was a new entry in the listing. Whilst Zel and Zef both tilted their heads in confusion at this, the scarred singer’s head whipped around at the sound of a clattering pot lid. He wordlessly walked to the stove and began to stir the stew, audibly sniffing at it for a short while before he portioned it out into the same bowls they had used yesterday.

Being unnamed, using the details function only made sense to determine a name for the mysterious new breathing method. Over the course of her morning, Zelsys allowed herself to be led into a rabbithole of new additions in the Tablet’s registries. As it turned out, the new breathing method was rooted in the fact she had exerted manual control over her breathing and heartbeat, and her ability to do this was listed as a new trait.

Stormsurge

It didn’t seem right, but… This was the only new trait. Even the details readout didn’t help much - it said what the trait meant, sure, but the description seemed less like a direct description and more like some fragment from the Tablet’s old records that vaguely fit. Like the device didn’t know how to describe the trait, so it just looked through its records and put in the first thing that fit its criteria, whatever those were.

STORMSURGE Type: Essentia Synthesis and Manipulation Trigger: At-Will (Consumes Fog or Metabolized Essentia (Fulgur)) Effects:

Electrokinesis C+, Kinesthesia Enhancement B+, Body Control Enhancement A+, Self-Resuscitation

Advancement: Produce a Thunderclap “The human body is a wondrous contraption, marred by crippling limitations. The Kargareth Slayer’s Guild has devised a most wondrous method for bypassing one of these limitations - through imbibing elixirs distilled from bottled lightning, they force their muscles to contract at full power with but a thought. If only there were a way to chain the lightning within a living person’s Azoth Stone…”

Checking the unnamed breathing method’s details again, she used the tablet’s recall function to remember how to replicate it. She recalled breathing, but controlling each lung separately, air and Fog flowing in and out of her respiratory system without intermingling. Zelsys swallowed a spoonful of soup and decided to try replicating the feat, to see if it fit the breathing method.

It was… Surprisingly difficult. It wouldn’t work right away, she had to start with a Deep Breath and from there slowly transition to breathing with each individual lung while maintaining her Fog-breathing. Having both Strol and Zef watching her somehow helped, tangible pressure helping her to push past the initial barriers.

After the first two or three manual breaths with either lung, she felt a switch flip in her head, barely-perceptible muscle spasms spreading through her chest as her lungs began to breathe individually. It took continuous focus to do it, but switching back and forth wasn’t all that difficult once the initial start-up was complete.

Returning to normal breathing and explaining the method as she understood it to Strolvath, he immediately asked, “Like an engine?”

Zel reached into the recesses of her memory, ones she had never had to access, and there it was - she did have a rudimentary understanding of how combustion engines worked. It made enough sense, enough to give her an idea for naming this advanced breathing method.

Breath Engine

Both Zel’s and Strol’s pocket watches rang mere minutes after they finished eating. They walked and walked through the forest until noon, with this part of the forest being a surprisingly mundane juxtaposition against the desolation of the battlefield or the density of the locust-infested areas.

As they made their way onto a relatively well-defined forest trail, Zelsys continued to fish out her memories of what she had done the night prior. She recalled most of the major details, but she couldn’t help poking at the blank spots in the same way one can’t help poking at the gap left by a missing tooth.

Complaints about her ongoing headache and fragmented short-term memory were met with laughs, Zefaris remarking, “You butchered a lightning bolt, I’d say this was the best possible outcome!”

“In retrospect, it’s not all that surprising it worked,” Strol added, and began counting out all the ways in which Zelsys had had an advantage over others who attempted the same feat. “For one, the dome kept a good portion of the lightning bolt out. For two, the cleaver took most o’ the strain, what with it havin’ no previous essentia infusions n’ bein’ a hunk of solid cold-iron. Fuckin’ thing ate it up like a hungry dog.”

Zel hadn’t even thought about her cleaver since she had woken up, with her focus largely directed towards recovering and uncovering the changes to her own abilities that had arisen from her splitting the lightning. Curious, she gripped the hilt and pulled the blade free. There was only one visible change - the cleaver now had a strange, lightning-like pattern etched across its flat, the etching’s supernatural properties betrayed only by its constant subtle shifting.

A breath of Fog and a grain of focus roused the Lightning Butcher from its slumber, tongues of arcing lightning leaping across its surface as its cutting edge began to glow and its sawteeth vibrated to a growl-like ringing. Yet, the moment she stopped exhaling, so did her blade go silent, even if she willed it to wake - it shuddered and rang, but did nothing more.

“You need fuel to ignite, huh?” a stray thought crossed her mind as she observed the weapon. Strangely, the Lightning Butcher shuddered and groaned in what seemed to be affirmation. Zel paid it no mind and just put the blade back in its holster, not keen on lugging its prodigal mass in hand.

She had spent much of the trek to the third stopping-point trying to get a better feel for the strange process of “Starting the Breath Engine” and making repeated attempts at producing electric arcs between her fingers, and though they were small, it worked. With some focus and an exhalation, she could make arcs as thick as her fingers leap between her palms to the screeching of ionized air. The easiest and possibly crudest application of her new trait was forcing a muscle to contract at its absolute maximum power, which at least partially explained the reason behind the trait’s description.

Exploring only the surface of the elemental power she had usurped was enough to satisfy Zel’s curiosity for the time being, and she gladly allowed herself to mentally check out for the rest of the trek whilst she walked alongside Zefaris.

The next stopping point was similar to the first, save for the lack of locust-men. There was a fire pit and benches underneath a wooden roof, though to call it anything more than a roof would be exaggeration. Three supply bags occupied one of the benches and a healthy fire crackled in the pit, but that wasn’t what drew Zel’s attention.

It was who she presumed to be their fourth compatriot. They looked vaguely woman-shaped, though it was hard to tell. Their face was obscured by a bug-eyed gas mask with a filter canister screwed into one side, their short, rusty-brown hair covered by an officer’s cap. They wore a heavy black and gold coat, one identical in design to that worn by the Officer that Zel and the three had met at the border, from beneath which glimmered gold-inlaid full-plate and the handle of a sword in the same style, with a large wing-shaped crossguard. Zel tried to figure out if it was a Grekurian by the color of their skin, but what little skin could be seen had the palor of snow.

“Ho, Inquisitor!” Strol greeted stiffly.

The Inquisitor stood at attention accompanied by a subtle metallic clatter as they saluted. A pair of hazel eyes stared from behind the gas mask’s visor, curious and cold. Without so much as a word of conversation, they rested at the stopping-point and moved on after a few minutes. Zel felt the Inquisitor’s hateful gaze burning into her, but said nothing. When they finally departed, Strol asked a question.

“Say, y’dont mind me askin’ you for the code-phrase, yeah?” he queried.

A hateful stare. To Strolvath’s great amusement, the masked woman put her things down and quickly signed, “Unforeseen Consequences. Hang yourself already, asshole.”

Her eyes briefly shifted towards Zelsys while she signed the second part. Something felt off here. There was a disgusted, angry sort of recognition in those eyes, even though Zelsys had no clue who was behind that mask - she hadn’t met anyone in hazel eyes since she woke up in the bunker. Taking a look into the new supply bag revealed five things - the first was a seal-bottle of Vitamax, the second and third each a stick with a metal canister affixed to one side and a cover on the other - Ikesian hand-grenades, doubtlessly surplus from the war. Their paint was still in good-enough condition to make out the yellow-red explosives warning.

The fourth was a ration pack of bread, sausage, and cheese wrapped up in wax paper.

The fifth item was a worn leather belt with small loops that held a trio of seal-phials, within each a dense suspension of glimmering orange Ignis crystals suspended in translucent yellow gel. Each had a single seal that kept the cork in place.

A small piece of twine held a piece of paper affixed to the belt, which held the handwritten instructions.

Remove seal Apply contents to weak points in obstruction Heat until ignition

WARNING: Once heated, Compound P-T becomes highly adhesive. Use of Compound P-T in explosives has been outlawed under the Kargareth Peace Accords.

How curious. She couldn’t wait to see what it would do if she poured it down the barrel before firing at a locust. Around her thigh it went.

She took the rest of their brief break to fully and properly go through the Tablet, having forgotten to even check her Attributes last time.

NAME ZELSYS SEX FEMALE SPECIES UNRECOGNIZED FORCE B+ PRECISION B- HARDNESS C+ AETHER C+ TRAITS>

Zelsys didn’t remember what her own ratings were the last time she checked, but she knew that they had grown substantially - especially her Hardness. No wonder, with how much punishment she’d taken and recovered from in the last few days. Traits came next, but these were not different save for the new addition.

TRAITS Survivor’s Instinct Fog-breathing Great-cleaver Expertise Lesser Gunmanship (Arm-cannon Spec.) Osmotic Essentia Absorption Metabolic Alkahest Beast Butchering Arts (Unique) Stormsurge

No… Upon second look, there was another change - her Great-cleaver Expertise had improved. Mulling it over, she thought it only made sense. When the trait first showed up, she had only gotten the most basic feel for using her weapon. Zel found it a little amusing that, according to the Tablet, her gunmanship hadn’t at all improved since it last scanned her. Before putting it away, she took two of the slug-loaded shells out of her ammo belt and replaced them with the stick grenades, whose thick handles fit surprisingly snugly. The two shells went into Fog Storage, alongside the extra supply bag and Vitamax bottle.

Before she could put the Tablet away, Zef prodded her side, “Mind getting my war-knife out of there? Oh, and a bayonet sheath.”

“Sure,” Zel smiled, scrolling through the list. It just now dawned on her that she still owed the three the return of their property, with much of what had been stored at their old camp still in Fog Storage. That being said, the list didn’t have a label of which war-knife belonged to who, only their condition.

There were three in storage, despite the fact their squad had only four people, and Makhus had his weapon on him. A backup for the Captain, maybe? Out of the three, Zelsys defaulted to the one in best condition.

x1 Ikesian War-knife (Tarnished)

The sheaths for both the war-knife and the bayonet were further up under the overarching category of Ikesian military equipment, and once both finally emerged from the vortex Zefaris took to strapping them both to her left hip. There were even two bayonets, but both were tagged as (Dulled). That explained why none of the three soldiers carried a bayonet.

Rest and preparations finished, they returned to the march.

Between the intentionally dehumanizing outfit and outwardly hostile demeanor, she was more than happy to just stick with Zef and make no attempt to interact with the Inquisitor, who quickly took over leading the march, only for Strolvath to catch up with her much to her obvious annoyance. Had she known Crovacus would assign someone this unpleasant, she’d have suggested someone - anyone - else. Even Sigmund, had he been able to move at all.

Alas, she wagered the Inquisitor must at the very least be a competent combatant. Strolvath looked like he was just itching to tell her about the Grekurian Inquisitors, but being that there was one present right there, he couldn’t. Instead, he strummed out an ominous, creeping instrumental on his citar and began to sing.

“Lead them in chains, purify them with flames...None will dare speak their names, only dust will remain…” he sang with the most irreverently mischievous tone she’d ever heard.

“Inquisitor, how many have you slain? Inquisitor, inquisitor, in the blood of the damned you bathe! Inquisitor, is it sin that you pray for fame?”

The Inquisitor finally whipped around, standing in the middle of the path as she furiously signed at Strolvath. Zel couldn’t quite discern what she was signing, but she couldn’t have missed Strol’s response even if she tried. “A’ight, a’ight, I’ll stop! I’m just makin’ fun, by the dead gods! It’s not like anyone’d actually believe you lot are even remotely religious.”

An audible sigh wheezed out of the Inquisitor’s mask just before she turned and continued walking, her footfalls barely registering despite the fact she wore sabatons. The four produced some small noise as they walked through the last stretch of uninfested land, these being mostly brief exchanges of words and careless heavy steps, but even they quieted when they heard the ambient sounds of forest critters fade away and saw the greenery visibly becoming sparser.

There was no creeping sickness, no seeping miasma like in the Exclusion Zone. No, the forest was perfectly healthy, but every couple dozen meters they saw signs of the locusts. The first was a patch of bare dirt, stripped free of plants. Then, they saw entire trees stripped of all bark and leaves, standing on bare muddy ground. Skeletons, still steaming and glistening wet, yet picked clean with their largest bones shattered and sucked clean of marrow.

Zelsys knew better than to let her attention slip at this point - the silence was tense and heavy with the possibility of an impending ambush, the sour stink of locust-man excretions subtly lingered in the air.

Hours drew on, and they each imbibed their preferred form of stamina restoration elixir. Strol downed an entire bottle of the vile swill that was Vitamax, whereas Zef only drank a third of hers and Zel finished off her bottle of Liquid Vigor. Even the Inquisitor drank half a bottle of Vitamax, occasionally pulling her gas mask just far enough to drink.

Zel caught one, maybe two glimpses of the woman’s jaw - visibly covered in scars, even at a glimpse. Well before they would reach the next stopping-point, their charted path took a sharp turn off the established footpath. Once more into the depths of the forest, through what was functionally a barely-visible tunnel carved into the densest section of the forest that could be found.

At points, there was no path, no tunnel, it felt unnaturally dense and lively, like the living portion of the Exclusion Zone. Unlike back there, they couldn’t cut through. Even without superhuman instincts such as Zel’s, they all smelt the sour miasma that suffused the forest, they all heard the distant beating of wings and chittering of human lower jaws that had turned to mandibles. The only smell that managed to punch through the odor of massing locust-men was the smell of pure Viriditas, small puddles of the emerald fluid glistened around the roots of some brambles.

“Of course it’s artificial,” Zel thought. The gigantic bushes they were struggling through were all too large, all too dense, all too vital to be natural. It was a wonder there was a noticeable path at all, with how quickly these monstrous plants had grown back in the E.Z.

Were they even the same plants anymore? Surely, exposure to such prodigal growth would change the greenery on a fundamental level. Could a plant develop an understanding of essentia and grow and Azoth as humans or animals could? After all, Strolvath did mention that plant life had souls. What form would the Azoth of a tree take? A gemstone in its roots? An impossibly succulent fruit that never fell?

Zelsys stifled a chuckle at her own tendency to ponder such things in the most dangerous of situations. The threat of impending death made the mind race, and even in the absence of a foe to direct her ire towards, the mental energy had to go somewhere. She could only focus so hard on following the path and keeping quiet.

With the sun out of sight and their path illuminated only by the dim red of its setting, it felt like it took them far longer to get through this part of their trek than it actually did. A little over an hour and a half of this tedious sneaking, and finally they neared the next stopping-point. Yet, Zelsys didn’t feel the tension easing up - it was only getting greater. Both the stench and the chittering of massed locust-men intensified to a noticeable degree as they neared the exit. There was also loud, sporadic screeching,

“What good that did us,” Strol grumbled as he emerged, immediately followed by the sound of the Inquisitor’s blade singing as she unsheathed it. A chittering laugh echoed, and finally she saw the fourth stopping-point, and the unwelcome guests who had waited for them here.

A sea of brown-black chitin encircled a double-layered circle of warding stones surrounding a hut on stilts, chittering drones scraping and biting away at both the outer barrier and the warding stones that held it up. It rippled like the surface of water as they struggled, but something told her the stones wouldn’t last forever like this. At a glance, Zelsys counted twenty, maybe twenty-five drones at most.

What truly drew her attention, however, were the three locust-men that stood out, for they truly fit the moniker. Just as the pistoleer that had survived a point-blank shot from Pentacle to the chest, they were unique, separate from the swarm. Either they were the unique cases that didn’t mutate into outright locust-men, or they were the scarce ex-humans among a swarm of locust-men that were born into the hive - Zelsys didn’t know, and though she knew she’d likely find out, she didn’t want to know.

Positioned at various points around the circle, all three had already turned to face them before Zelsys emerged from the tunnel of brambles. The Drones were starting to look up from their tedious task, doubtlessly just now heeding a silent pheromone command as they scrambled to form a pincer formation around their masters.

The leftmost one almost looked like a drone, his body fully encased in chitin. What set him apart from the horde were his towering, distinctly masculine human proportions and the pair of tired, bloodshot blue eyes peering from fleshy pits in his split-jawed face. The matte-black chitin that covered his body almost looked like a living suit of armor at first glance. A quartet of stubby insectoid arms sprouted from his back, keeping hold of a gigantic weapon, nearly as tall as him.

It was too big to be called a sword. Massive, thick, heavy, and far too rough. Indeed, it was a heap of raw iron.

He held himself with resolute dignity, but there were cracks in his visage. Zelsys could tell that he was struggling to hold onto sanity with splintered fingers, just as the Maneater was back before she put it to rest. She wasn’t sure why, but she subconsciously assigned him the nickname of Black Swordsman.

The middle one looked far more human, and was far less mutated. She was recognizably Pateirian, and could even be considered attractive in an unconventional sense. The visible parts of her limbs were encased in reddish chitinous plates that spiraled and whirled in elaborate, beautiful patterns, her arms bearing a set of extra joints between the elbow and the wrist, from which mantis-like blades sprouted, neatly folded away alongside her forearms.

Everything above her cleavage and below her eyes had fully mutated, once more covered in whirling patterns of red chitin all the way up through her split lower jaw, her lips and nose, the shapes of which were maintained within the mosaic of chitin and flesh. It almost looked like she was wearing a demonic war mask. A pair of insectoid feelers poked through her immaculately cut black hair, twitching and whipping about. What boggled the mind most was her attire - she wore a nearly pristine bright-red dress with golden inlays.

Zel remembered the mention of mantis-like mutations, and thought that perhaps this woman was one of the lucky ones. Between this fact and the colour of her chitin, it only made sense to think of her as the Red Mantis.

Furthest to the right and possessed of the least dignified mutations, there stood - or rather, twitched in place - a man-shaped creature whose upper body had completely succumbed to mutation, and though he wore both trousers and boots, both had plentiful holes to see the brown chitinous casement that covered his legs, let alone the thick black hairs that poked out through the fabric.

A small puddle of off-yellow excretions was already forming beneath him as long strings of caustic spit poured forth from his perpetually slavering, chittering maw; lamprey-like teeth filled the gaping hole that had once been a mouth. His head was covered in spiky hairs, a pair of truly insectoid eyes bulging out of visibly human eye-sockets.

The forearms were unnaturally bulky, bearing great plates of solid chitin in the shape of small heater shields on the outside, whilst the undersides bulged with pulsating, softer tissue, the sacs possessing a set of leg-like appendages that protectively wrapped around them as they expanded and contracted.

Just as the Black Swordsman, this one had two pairs of extra arms sprouting from his back, long and stick-like, the upper two grasping small knives. It was no surprise that he would need them, for his actual arms were of no use for grasping things.

His hands were, well… Not there. He only had gaping holes where the wrist would be.

The way he held himself brought to mind a name no more flattering than Twitcher.

To their surprise, it was one of the locusts who spoke first.The Red Mantis spoke in perfect Ikesian, only the barest hint of an accent audible in her singsong pronunciation of the hard, practical language that Ikesian was.

“I must admit, this little hovel was rather well hidden,” she said, her face somehow twisted into an insufferably smug grin that only grew smugger with each word. “First I get drones mysteriously unable to pass a random part of the forest, and when I finally deign to investigate, it’s virtually invisible until I smash face-first into this…”

She stepped back a bit, and reached out for the barrier with the mantis claw of her left arm, knocking on it as she finished, “Barbaric barrier.”

“What did you plan to use this place for, huh?” continued the Red Mantis, taking on a mocking tone. As she spoke, she didn’t even bother to directly look at them, instead using her brilliant gaze as a tool of gesture, producing exaggerated expressions and even more exaggerated intonation as if she were in a play. “A widdle west befowe youw big expwedition into the scawwy dungeon? Didn’t get a good night’s sleep at the last cabin? Was there a gap in the barrier just big enough for the living storm to reach through? Aww, you poor things…”

All along, the four prepared for the carnage that they knew would soon unfold. Hands drifted towards weapons, breaths were taken, the Inquisitor’s eyes vanished from sight as her mask filled with Fog, yet not a wisp of it escaped the mask. A callous, razor-toothed laugh rang out from the Red Mantis with an equal measure of sheer seething malice and melodious beauty as her baleful gaze shifted from the group as a whole to individuals. From the Inquisitor, to Strolvath, to Zef and Zel…

Her grin grew wider yet, ecstatic yet unsurprised, like seeing a long-expected guest in the flesh. No… There was more behind those eyes. Even with her skin turned to chitin and unable to blush, Zelsys could instinctively sense the manic obsession behind the mutant woman’s leering gaze, the murderous intent. The Mantis was obviously already aware of Zel’s presence, yet chose to hold back this deranged expression until this very moment. This moment, when the Red Mantis dedicated her full, undivided attention to Zelsys alone, even approaching a couple steps before she caught herself and stopped on… A bare, albeit chitin-armored heel. To Zel’s surprise, she wore no shoes.

“And you, oh how wondrously you stink of that accursed pretender’s handiwork,” she bubbled with laughter, drawing in a breath. She swept her gaze across the four of them again, remarking that, “You all stink of Fog, but there’s no mistaking it.” before her gaze once more snapped to meet Zel’s own.

“I can almost see the cogs turning in your head. Go on homunculus, speak. Do your best impression of a person,” once more the Mantis broke into baby-talk, seeming to genuinely believe that she was speaking to a barely-sapient meat automaton, no more than a regular homunculus made capable of function outside the jar. “What is it that you intend to do here? Shoot that big gun of yours, hmm? Exterminate, maybe?”

The Mantis’s gaze shifted, any semblance of refinement or sanity momentarily fading from her visage as he broke out into full-on hysterics, like an interrogator trying to get an answer out of a mentally-damaged prisoner, “How many stolen pieces did it take the blasted fool to build something approaching a soul? Which stolen technique made you think the four of you could do anything to our hive, you tragic, cursed thing?!”

Zel took a breath and made the assumption that the barrier at the cabin had been sabotaged, answering with a smile, “I’ve never stolen a technique, though I must thank you for the opportunity to butcher a lightning bolt so easily.”

Pulling her cleaver free of its holster and raising it to point at the Mantis, she continued with her own pair of questions, making yet wilder assumptions in an attempt to strike at possible insecurities, “Can you say the same, oh blessed one? Do those mantis mutations mean anything of your worth, or are you just one of the Emperor’s favored playthings?”

With each word Zelsys spoke, some of the expression faded from the Red one’s chitin-encrusted face. By the time she was done, the Mantis stared back with a flat, empty expression.

At this reaction, Zel exaggerated her own mannerisms, putting forth a truly disrespectful chuckle as her smile turned to a grin and her insults grew yet more derogatory.

“Not the Emperor, huh?” she asked, gesturing with her cleaver like it was a stick as a show of strength. It took a great deal of effort to actually do, but the only thing that mattered was that it looked effortless. “One of his favorite nobles, maybe? A minor but favored duke? Wait, no, I’ve got it. Let me guess, you put out for some fuck-ugly merchant that bought his way into the big guy’s good graces.”

With every ounce of vitriol, every bit of mean-spirited mentality she could muster, Zelsys put on an act to try and provoke the Red Mantis into making a mistake, into striking out in anger so that she could exploit it. Alas… The Mantis didn’t fall for it. Her blank expression turned not to one of anger or hurt, but to one of concession, of grudging respect.

“I’m impressed,” she smiled, her mandibular lower jaw splitting and shifting ever so slightly. “Not only do you stink like the so-called “Sage”...” she continued, spitting the last word like an insult as she gestured air-quotes in mockery. “You even speak like him and use the same provocation tactics as him. We’ll see yet if you’re as cowardly as him.”

While she spoke, the Black Swordsman slowly, deliberately reached for the handle of his weapon, his vestigial arms raising it into his waiting grip. They let go just as he hefted it forward, stopping it dead just above the ground and causing his feet to sink into the soil from the sheer momentum.

Twitcher, on the other hand, just… Twitched, really. His legs wide and arms to his sides, he stood in place as his dead black eyed stared into space, the sacs on his forearms beginning to inflate. He was clearly preparing for something, but Zelsys could see that Zefaris had her eye on him and her hand on Pentacle’s grip.

“I’m just a beast-slayer, and so is my blade. It’s what we do,” she grinned, taking hold of the cleaver with both hands as she took up a proper stance.

“Now, Lightning Butcher! Bring me their heads!”