As Zelsys sat atop the hive, her and the Sister exchanged occasional glances. Behind the Locust Noble’s eyes roiled a volatile concoction of curiosity and battle-lust, restrained only by ironclad decorum - even down here. Thus, Zel took her sweet time browsing the Tablet - going through Fog Storage in search of anything that could be useful. There… Wasn’t much. She replenished her ammunition, switching out the odd shell so that the belt held a neat two grenades, two scattershot shells, and four slug shells, in the process also loading a fresh slug shell into her arm-cannon. If this wasn’t enough, nothing would be.

Besides ammunition, the only potentially useful objects were the remaining war-knives and bayonets, but they were all in such bad condition that she genuinely considered whether her empty hand would be better. Out of curiosity, she retrieved one of the war-knives. Its condition didn’t lie - it was tarnished, chipped, and dulled. It only had a workable cutting edge near the very tip, and even that was barely worthy of being called sharp, clearly scraped into a vague approximation of sharpness on a rock. Perhaps it would be of use as a throwaway.

Then came the new technique. A few short motions, and it was clear to see.

Unnamed Stormsurge Technique - Name Technique

Without hesitation, Zelsys assigned it the first name that popped into her head and immediately opened up its details.

THUNDERCANNON Type: Essentia Manipulation, Weapon Enhancement Trigger: At-Will (Consumes Fog or Metabolized Essentia (Fulgur)) Effects: Fulgur Imbuement B+, Armor Ablation C Advancement: Produce a Thunderclap “There are warriors able to cut lightning, and there are those who rip it from the heavens so that they might turn it against the fools who stand before them.”

Once again did the Sister’s gaze meet hers, that haughty stare a more compelling challenge than anything she’d said. Zelsys just couldn’t help herself, stowing her Tablet away and rising to her feet, war-knife in hand. It was almost comical how light it felt in her hand compared to the Lightning Butcher.

Sliding down the hive’s curved shape to the ground served to reveal what the Sister’s body had obscured - it wasn’t an altar, but rather a pillar risen up to what looked like chest height. It bore a miniature door identical to those between chambers, elaborate glyph and all.

Step by step, moment by moment, Zel strode towards the Sister. Each second felt like an eternity, their gazes locked in a wordless battle of the wills that neither was willing to concede.

Indeed, she swaggered through the rather long hallway step by step and moment by moment, her caution only equalled by the sheer sense of self-assured egoism that she exuded. She noticed uncharacteristically shaped door wings neatly set into cutouts in the wall, only made obvious by their glyphs.

Both the reason for these strange doors and the part of this chamber that would be their arena soon came into full view; it was an equilateral triangle, the hallway connected to one of its angles. The floor panels even changed from square to triangular within this sub-chamber’s confines, and the moment Zelsys crossed this precipice a violent gust of wind rushed by from behind. The doors had slammed shut without so much as a sound from the mechanism, closing the triangle with their nonstandard shape.

She stood still at the entrance of the arena, briefly tearing her gaze away from the Sister to properly take in the chamber. The chamber was plain as can be, save for the unusual shape. Even the exit door opposite the entryway was triangular. Her attention quickly returned to the black-red swordswoman, though she intentionally meandered around the room before slowly re-establishing eye contact with a grin.

The Sister gave an equal grin in return, shifting from her wide-legged resting stance to one poised for combat, lifting her blade and resting it on her shoulder whilst her left hand remained free. Open. Visibly itching to grab at something. Her smile was full of razor teeth and bestial battle-lust flashed behind her eyes.

For the first time, Zelsys felt some measure of understanding with a Locust Noble.

They both wanted to kill one another; not for the sake of murder itself, but to prove one’s will, one’s personal philosophy as superior over the other’s. What conversation would occur before the violence would serve as little more than setup for the real discussion, the one that would take place through mutual butchery.

The pillar-vault’s glyph had only lit up partially even with Zel in the immediate vicinity, and she was close enough to see why. Unlike the previous altars, there was no nozzle for a Fog-writing device, no basin to pour liquids into, not even a control handle. No, there was just a circular hole with a simple pictogram of a human forearm emblazoned underneath it. Someone’s forearm had to go in there to open it, and she wagered it wouldn’t be coming out.

“Very nice,” the Sister chuckled condescendingly. “You’re good enough to deal with some infantry. Now, before I smear you over these walls, let me ask you something: Why?”

Zelsys gave no verbal answer, only raising an eyebrow.

“Why’re you doing this? Don’t say it’s the money, I can tell you don’t care about the money. You wanna get famous? Is it plain power, like me? You got yourself a war-criminal lover you want to protect?” she reiterated the question, her voice echoing with undertones of frustration and genuine curiosity as she eyed Zelsys up and down, following the silver trails that traced all across her skin.

Her combative grin spread to a malicious snarl, “Or maybe… You’re just like the Sage’s other projects, faking free will to better carry out your pre-determined task. You know you’re not a real person, right? You’re impressive, I’ll give you that, but it’s obvious. I’ve seen things like you. Worked on things like you. You’re a composite, a collage of the best features from however many people had their bodies and souls maimed to make you.”

Zel let out an indignant chuckle, “Really? I thought you were just some treasonous deserter that wanted to skip all that inconvenient meritocracy fuss, just skip right to the top by selling out your countrymen to man-eating bugs.”

Surprisingly enough, the grin vanished from the Sister’s face at the mention of cannibalism.

“You’d love that, wouldn’t you,” she spat disdainfully. “An easy excuse to dehumanize us, to justify murder in your doubtlessly infantile mind. No, we’re very much human enough that cannibalism is a very bad idea.”

Zel mocked her in return, yanking at every string she could get her hands on, “Such civilized locust-men, you are. So you’ll just sweep across the valley wiping it clean of all plants and animals in your way, and leave the people to starve. Or will you, ah… What did one of the Red one’s servants say? ‘Breed us down into perfect serfs just barely intelligent enough to function, to consume, to serve?’ How truly characteristic of the Divine Emperor’s loyal terrorists.”

A conflicted mixture of facial expressions washed over the Sister’s face, from second-hand embarrassment, regret, pure seething rage, and even sadness, before she once again settled on a smug sense of superiority.

“It’s no wonder you’re so adamant. I bet you came out of the tank singing the Ikesian national anthem and praising the Sage of Fog. Sure, the drones are just meat golems, I’ll give you that, but how do you justify murdering deformed war veterans trapped in hostile territory? Have you considered that they might have been driven to what they became through the cruelty of the Ikesian natives?” she argued in a struggle for some subjective sense of victory.

It was then that Zel’s mental dam crumbled, and laughter came flooding out.

“I-I’m sorry…” she stammered out between bouts of laughter. “I can’t help it, it’s… It’s just so amazing to me that you actually think I am insecure enough for existentialist horseshit to remotely phase me. Besides, I couldn’t care less about your sob story. You’re threatening the lives and futures of innocent people in the name of an enemy nation, and you’re clearly not planning to stop any time soon.”

“And how do you plan to stop us on your own?” the Sister rebuked, returning to an antagonistic approach. “Killing the Queen won’t just make the rest of us fall dead. It’ll just motivate us to make a new queen, perhaps out of that one-eyed blonde you entered with.”

That wasn’t a very clever choice of words. It was an obvious jab, and though it failed to make her any angrier or more battle-hungry, it did shift her intentions from a fair duel to a cruel humiliation. She would do everything in her power to rip the Sister to shreds, both mentally and physically, before she delivered the killing blow.

“I was hired to exterminate, and that’s what I’ll do. And what do you know, I’ve got a filthy traitor to exterminate right here,” she said with a venomous smile, filling her left lung and emptying the right as she shifted her stance to place weight on her left foot.

For a moment they stood stone-still, each staring down the other. In the next moment, it began. The Sister’s sword came swinging down exactly onto her head with next to no telegraphing. With the capacity of her left lung Zel burned as much Fog as was necessary to start the Breath Engine and speed up her heartbeat, exhaling the rest for an aggressive sidestep around to the Sister’s back.

The Sister swiped her sword to follow. Zel jumped over it and grabbed hold of her left arm by one of the red plates that protected her elbow. Pain shot through her leg when the Sister’s vice-grip tightened around it, the Locust Noble letting out a chattering cackle as if she’d already won.

Before the Sister could make another move, Zel dug her fingers in and yanked at the plate, exhaling and forcing her arm to pull back in spite of the pain. The Sister’s cackle became an angered cry and she let go, trying to shake her off with a wild swipe of her arm.

Zel’s grip on the limb was nowhere near solid enough to hold on and she slipped off, a grin on her face and a bright-red chitin plate in hand. She was back up the moment she hit the ground, jumping to her feet with a handspring just in time to avoid a downward stab with a backstep. The war-knife made things more awkward than she liked, but she wasn’t willing to get rid of it. Not yet.

Aggressively striding forwards, the Sister took her sword in both hands and began swiping it in a criss-crossing diagonal pattern, trying to exploit range and sheer mass. It was a good tactic - against crowds, that is. Moreover it was consistent, rhythmic.

Predictable.

After barely jumping out of the way four times in a row, Zelsys decided to take the risk on a return-to-sender. She wasn’t confident in her ability to time it correctly on reaction alone, but that didn’t matter. One more dodge to make sure the next strike came from her right, then all it took was to feign preparation for another dodge.

Gritting her teeth into a truly bestial snarl, Zel raised her right arm and forced her right lung to contract without exhaling so much as a wisp of Fog. If she failed to deflect it even by a fraction of a second, she knew it had the momentum to cleave her in twain. The silver lines snaking across her forearm came alive at the exact moment the Sister’s black blade made contact.

There issued a blinding flash of light, the black stone greatsword sent flying out of the Sister’s hand with the full force of her swing. Even with an ironclad grip such as hers, the only choices were to either let her weapon slip free or risk the momentum throwing her off-balance or even dislocating something. Zel’s right lung was now empty, but the left was full, full enough to hold out until the right could be refilled.

Given her subsequent actions the Sister clearly didn’t know that, despite the opportunity to infer it from Zel’s breathing pattern.

She recovered from the confusion almost immediately, and Zel could read her shifting expression as clear as day. The Locust Noble thought such an ostentatious display of Fog-breathing must’ve depleted her reserves, that Zelsys would have to take another breath before she could do anything of similar intensity.

Lashing out with a left-handed punch, she tried to knock the wind out of Zelsys. Her fist was too large, too fast to dodge, but Zel saw it coming. The brief wind-up, the shifting of the air.

Just as her right lung filled up, she had to empty the left again.

Right as the chitin-plated fist touched her abs, she once more forced Fog out through her skin. The impact sent her sliding a good few inches back, ache surging through her abdomen, but the Sister was no better for wear. Even if the timing was off, it was close enough to send most of the force right back into her arm, exoskeleton cracking and blood seeping from said cracks.

The Sister stared at her arm, cautiously bending her elbow and her fingers to make sure everything still worked, then shot a mixed glare at Zelsys.

Surprise. Confusion. Fascination. Sheer, seething hatred.

“Rebound Pulse,” the beast-slayer grinned, taking a moment to readjust her breathing, trying to see if she could breathe faster and still take full breaths. She could - by mere milliseconds, but an improvement was an improvement.

“Kinetic redirection, twice in a single breath no less,” the Locust Noble laughed in exasperation. The wings on her back unfolded and she flew backwards, picking her weapon back up and approaching on foot. “Serves me right to underestimate you.”

In an instant, the Sister redoubled her onslaught. Jump. Roll. Jump. Step. Duck. Roll. She mixed wild, aimless swings with precise and controlled ones, stabbing at Zel’s legs whenever the opportunity arose. More than once did Zelsys struggle for footing as the black blade ricocheted off her leg-plates, even though the Sister aimed for her upper legs.

With each swing she dodged, the Locust Noble’s murderous gaze became more focused, more calculating. Zel couldn’t keep this up forever, not for lack of stamina, but out of sheer statistical inevitability - eventually, the Sister would get a lucky hit in. She could use that pillar in the middle of the arena for cover, but that just felt like a bad idea. Then again, perhaps ducking behind it would buy her enough time.

Zel just about moved to execute her plan, now dodging mostly to the right to try and move towards that pillar. Whether the Locust Noble noticed or simply tired of being unable to land a hit, she managed to feint an overhead slash by stepping forward and using the forward foot as a pivot to instead deliver an entirely unexpected side kick. Even with her superhuman reaction time, Zelsys barely managed to raise her left hand in reflexive defense.

With all that body mass behind it, even without armored boots or a special technique it was easily forceful enough to send Zelsys flying - or rather, it sent her flying when the kinetic dispersion harness evenly distributed its force across her entire body mass. Thankfully, the arena was large enough that she didn’t slam into a wall.

Standing to her feet, the beast-slayer couldn’t help chuckling to herself, “Ni-hi-hice.”

The distance between them was considerable, but it was close enough.

“My turn...” she said, holding up her war-knife and burning her full lung capacity to fuel Stormsurge as she slowly approached the Sister. It would be a gamble, but it was a gamble she was more than willing to make. She funneled more and more Stormsurge into the tarnished, barely-usable weapon, focusing entirely on making a light show. Pointless sparks, arcing lightning, anything. Anything to distract the Sister from her real intentions.

Even this far away, it was plain as day that what she was doing was working. The Sister stood there, her wings slowly unfolding as if Zel wouldn’t notice. Though Zelsys couldn’t see what her gambit had produced she could hear its chittering, feel the static in the air.

“What is that?! Is she just using that old war-knife as a conductor for the real attack? By the Emperor, I hope she can’t throw lightning bolts...”

Such thoughts raced through the Sister’s mind whilst she prepared herself to dodge whatever high-powered fulgurkinetic assault the homunculus planned to unleash, her gaze entranced by the tip of that war-knife. It had a plume of many smaller sparks raging at its point, as if St. Erasmo’s Fire atop the mast of a great warship.

“Beast-butchering Arts: Thundercannon!” exclaimed the homunculus, turning the blade and thrusting it forward. Without even thinking, the Sister flew upward in an attempt at evasion. It was already too late when she realized nothing came out of the war-knife.

Zelsys couldn’t believe the Locust Noble actually fell for that. By the time the look of sudden realization washed over her face Zel had already taken aim, invoked the technique, and burned the remaining four-fifths of her lung capacity all to fuel this one shot.

Her flight path was direct, her speed low. It was an easy shot to land.

Click.

Click.

An invocation, a spark of will to set off the blaze that would burn up every last wisp of Fog in her lungs.

“Beast-butchering Arts: Thundercannon!”

It was like… Liquid lightning flowing through her arm, violent arcs leaping down all the way down her arm. Muscles locked up and twitched out of control, the milliseconds between trigger pull and gunfire stretched out beyond reason. Zelsys could clearly see every furious arc of bright-white plasma that leapt between the silver lines on her forearm and the trigger lever.

The pain, the burning, the blinding light.

So much fury. So much hatred. So much savagery.

The Living Storm’s fury, screaming to be let free.

A savage beast that didn’t care who it mauled, only that blood was spilled.

Zelsys relished every stretched-out millisecond of the moment before the bullet left the chamber, and when it did, the noise that resounded wasn’t gunfire. It was a thunderclap. The slug screamed death through the air as a ball of pure light, trailing tendrils of silvery wrath that partially formed into the visage of some ephemeral, otherworldly beast’s maw.

It struck the Sister dead-center, burning into her flesh a crater thrice as wide and twice as deep as the lead ball’s circumference. Arcs of white lightning utterly enwreathed her like a sea monster’s tendrils, burning deep gashes into her armor and the flesh underneath as she plummeted to the ground. Her wings went up in flames almost instantly, and many of her plates caught fire as well.

The floor panels visibly shook out of alignment on impact, the Sister’s colossal physique twitching in an appropriately insectoid manner while she struggled to get upright. Every movement only drew out more of the lead ball’s malicious charge, every movement elicited a frightful arc of white lightning to strike at her as electric current surged through her body and locked her muscles. It was obvious that it wouldn’t last for long, that the charge would run out and the Sister would be able to move again, but Zelsys still savored every moment.

She took her sweet time in strolling at her opponent, relishing the residual muscle spasms in her arm that lingered well after she regained control over the limb. Such violent outpour of elemental power - even the droplets that remained within the conduits of her arm were enough to produce arcing tendrils as long as a finger and half as thick.

Yes, conduits - perhaps that was the purpose of all those silver lines.

By the time she traversed even this short distance, the charge had long faded. The lead ball sat embedded at the bottom of a weeping crater in the Sister’s chest.

Standing over the Sister, she just idly watched her for a few seconds. Then, she drove the war-knife’s tip into the unprotected part of her forearm, pushing it in until it hit bone to the sing-song tones of the traitor’s pained voice. It was nowhere near a scream - such trivial pain wouldn’t be enough to do that, and Zelsys didn’t expect as much. A twist of the blade here, a small movement there, all to sever as much connective tissue as possible. This wouldn’t be enough to cut it off, but she took what she could get.

No, this wouldn’t work. She pulled the beaten-up old weapon free and just tossed it aside, bending down and grabbing the Sister’s left wrist at an angle so that she couldn’t grab back.

Press the arm-cannon against the wound.

Another breath. Another spark of will.

A momentary look of confusion flashed through the Sister’s eyes

Click-clack. Click-clack. Click-clack.

Three pulls of the trigger. Three flashes of light, a staccato of miniature thunderclaps accompanied by the spray of blood and a pained howl filtered through gritted teeth.

There was no question of “Why?”

The locust already knew.

A sharp yank. The Sister’s left forearm came off easily enough, blood gushing from the stump. It did so for only a scarce few seconds until one of the red plates that once covered her elbow began to move, shifting into place to cover the stump. Zelsys wondered if those were little legs she saw come out of the plate. Surely not.

Into the slot the arm went, vanishing into the dark. The glyph continued its slow process of lighting up. Agonizingly slow.

“Why am I not surprised?” Zel sighed inwardly, turning her attention back to her opponent. She wouldn’t just end it now - that just wouldn’t do. It wouldn’t be fair. She’d wait until the Sister could move again and do it properly.

But who knew how long that would take? It would only make sense to pass the time, and what better way to pass the time than with conversation?

“You know, I would’ve been a non-factor if you just kept your highwaymen in check,” she began. “You could’ve raised an army that all of Willowdale couldn’t dream of putting a dent in. But no, you just had to extort farmers for grain!”

It was laughable. Such a menial, petty thing, and for what? To show the evil Ikes what-for, by robbing some farmers just because they happened to be the wrong color. The only thing Zel could do at this very moment was laugh. Laugh at how hard the locusts tried to be a threat, only to bring destruction on themselves by pushing too hard.

“Not only that,” she continued, “but just ‘cause I happened to crawl out of some bunker in the E.Z. and happen to have a better grasp on Fog-breathing than most, you couldn’t leave me be. So, this is what you get.”

Holding out her hand and spreading her fingers, she made white lightning arc between her fingers to illuminate her smile. She wasn’t grinning ear-to-ear, or snarling like a beast - this was a smile of earnest promise, a more severe threat than any of the extraneous words that came out of her mouth.

“I’ll be the boogeyman you want me to be. I’ll make sure you, the real war criminals, face justice. True justice. There will be no corrupt war trial, you won’t get to live on as a tolerated nuisance just ‘cause your country won the war. I’ll wipe you bugman scum out down to the last queen, and then I’m coming for the Emperor.”

“Don’t you dare speak of justice to me,” the Sister spat. “Ikesia had the gall to stand against its betters, and rightfully paid the price. And the Sage… He was as weak a leader as they come. A suicidal madman that would sooner trap his people than face defeat. We both possess strength, yet you side with those who lost. Not of your own free will, but because that’s what you were made to do.”

“Strength? You have no real strength,” Zelsys rebuked. “That’s why dregs of humanity like you feel the need to impose yourself on those who cannot defend themselves. The moment you are faced with one who equals you in violence, your philosophy falls apart. The capacity for violence is only part of real strength - that’s what the likes of you refuse to understand.”

A grin of broken teeth and chitin plates spread across the Sister’s face. “You’re fucked either way. Even if you were to somehow grow to equal the Sage, you’ve no chance against the Divine Emperor, let alone all of Pateiria. No one does. Even the Grekurians understand that simple fact.”

Zelsys returned a grin of her own, her teeth gleaming like fangs and her eyes shining predatory silver.

“I’ve no clue where the limits of my capability lie, but I know this much: I’m far from your biggest problem,” she shot back. “You of all people should know this - if terrorists like you keep encroaching on the lives of this country’s people, they’ll make the War of Fog look like a fucking joke when the blackwall comes down. They will rebuild Ikesia not as a country, but as an engine of vengeance. And you will have stoked its flames.”

She squatted down and stared the broken Locust Noble in her eyes, grabbing her chin to force eye contact.

“And when the Second War of Fog starts, we won’t be there to stop them,” she said. “We’ll be right there in the middle of it, carrying the Divine Emperor’s head on a pike through the burning streets of his capital. All because you couldn’t leave well enough alone.”

Zelsys hadn’t even meant most of what she said when she first began, having allowed a continuous stream of consciousness to lead her down this path. Even though she had spoken from a place of wrath and spite, saying all these things lit a flame in her chest that wouldn’t be extinguished. Indeed… If the Locust Nobles chose to keep going after her, and chose to keep threatening the lives of innocent people, she would willingly be the very thing they accused her of.

“You are just… The fantasies of an arrogant madman brought to life,” the traitor gurgled. “Wal-walghking propaganda.”

“Fantasy, eh?” chuckled the beast-slayer.

“Does this feel like fantasy?!” she growled, digging her fingers under the bright-red plate over the bug’s left breast. A sharp yank sent it clattering across the ground, percussion to the sweet music of the Sister’s screaming. She stepped back, already anticipating the Sister’s furious sweeping strike as she got up, using the time to work the bolt and load a new slug shell. Ka-klack. Ka-klack.

Spreading out her arms, Zelsys continued taunting the previously well-composed swordswoman, “You want me to be your perfect antagonist?! Here I am! Come at me you zipperhead-loving bug whore!”

One moment, she was taunting a downed foe. The next, she was forced into an elaborate dance of dodging by an unfettered onslaught so savage that it seemed like losing an arm only made the Sister stronger.

In the absence of said limb the Locust Noble began to rely much more heavily on her footwork, striking out with lightning-fast kicks and knees that even Zelsys wasn’t willing to go up against - not for fear of being overpowered in sheer kicking power, but because the Sister still had the advantage in terms of melee weapons. It was a foregone conclusion that if Zel made the mistake of countering the sister’s kicks with her own, the traitor would use her sword as a thrusting weapon to get the upper hand.

Instead, Zelsys just kept dodging out of the way and biding her time, giving herself fully to this dance of death. She saw the Sister adjust her hold on the blade and move her arm, giving away that she was preparing for a thrust, but something ticked her off about it.

A small shift in her facial expression, a failure to conceal an internal thought that said, “I’ve got you!”

It would be a distraction, perhaps a series of weaker blows. Zelsys prepared herself to counter the swing all together with a Rebound Pulse, but again the Sister’s expression subtly shifted. The locust knew that she knew about the impending feint, even as both of them carried out concealed preparations for their counters.

Out of all the possibilities here, Zelsys settled on the simplest one. A fake feint, one that would in the end be carried through as the same move it was supposedly feinting. It was that, or the locust would just try to overwhelm her with a kick from the right as well as a diagonal downward slash from the left.

The solution was to not take part in the charade.

The blade came crashing down and the sister’s left leg came rocketing in from the right. Zelsys responded by briefly dropping down, turning her legs into springs when she spent half a lung’s Fog to send herself flying not up and away, but right over the Sister’s head, past her attack. Just as she crossed over, Zelsys grabbed onto bundles of those bizarre hair-leg-things.

Relief and satisfaction washed over her when she realized they didn’t just come off, that they were pulling their owner off-balance. The Sister topped over backwards her blade clattering to the ground, whilst Zelsys landed upright on her feet. Just as she let go, the beast-slayer felt an ironclad grasp pulling on her own braids, mere moments before she was thrown across the chamber. Their gazes met as she flew, a cold stare from the Sister said it all.

Limbs, armor, torso, it was all fair game. All but the hair.

“Stay away from the hair,” that brief look said, and Zelsys couldn’t argue. She wasn’t keen on getting tossed around by her hair either, even if her braids were so thick it didn’t really hurt much.

Zel managed to handspring to her feet after a few bumpy, bruising rolls across the misaligned floor, just in time to see the sister holding her sword by the blade before she tossed it like a javelin. The sword was such a huge advantage that she’d never considered such a move, and dodging on reaction wasn’t exactly reliable against an opponent as fast as or faster than you. It ripped past her with all the aftershock of a cannonball and left behind the gift of screeching pain, gushing blood, and broken ribs on her right side. She just barely managed to grab its crossguard before it could slam into her chest, and the momentum nearly knocked her over altogether, were it not for the sword’s point hitting a raised floor panel to stop her.

“Nice throw!” she admitted through gritted teeth, hefting the weapon about to get a decent grip on it. One hand on the handle, the other part way down the blade for leverage. “But you know what happens now. No sword, no advantage.”

Gouts of Fog sputtered out of her mouth and nose with each word whilst the slayer forcibly put her lungs back into proper rhythm. The sword was incredibly heavy, quite a bit heavier than it would’ve been if it were made of solid steel, but that wasn’t the reason Zelsys struggled with it. Simply put, she wasn’t used to a weapon this size, with this particular center of mass.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” the locust said. She shifted into a combative stance, her good arm held up in defense. Taking care to keep her eyes on the Sister, the beast-slayer took note of the fact that the pillar-vault’s glyph was nearly fully lit. It would likely open if she got close enough.

Zel pressed her heel against the edge of a protruding floor panel, then broke into a slow run that quickly became a full sprint. The purpose of such a charge was threefold: First, to get closer to the pillar-vault without tipping the Sister off. Second, to distract her for long enough to reclaim the Lightning Butcher. Third and least importantly, to hopefully inflict a grave wound.

Charging across the arena, holding that greatsword as though a lance, Zelsys fully gave herself to the intention of running the Sister through, so that the traitor could not determine her true intentions. One moment, she was sprinting as quickly as her legs could carry her. She would skewer the Sister right through her chest, the bleeding crater of a wound that she’d inflicted serving as a target.

Only… The impact never came. At the moment before the blade would’ve struck, the sister grabbed it with such resolve that it stopped dead, scraping against the tiny plates on the inside of her hand. Zelsys didn’t even try to hold onto it, having let go the moment she felt any resistance at all and continued on her path, slipping between the Locust Noble’s legs and taking the turn towards the pillar-vault.

There was an agonizing moment before the glyph reacted to her presence and the door slammed open, long enough that the Sister had already turned and raised her weapon to bring it crashing down on Zelsys in a death-stroke.

Yet, it would never strike.

Within the vault the cleaver hung, suspended by black glyph-etched chains that pulled away like fearful snakes at the reaching of her hand. The Lightning Butcher, both its handle and guard replaced by the dungeon’s own stone, both molded exactly to fit her hands and hers alone. By the time the Sister’s murder-stroke had begun its descent, Zelsys had already grasped her blade and pulled it from the vault, gripping the handle with her right and the guard with her left, that she might better catch her foe’s edge amidst its sawteeth. At the moment of contact, a familiar warm thrumming flowed through her hands.

Its tremendous mass shifted in her hand, the center of mass subtly moving along with her intentions. All the while, she knew exactly where every piece of the cleaver was as if it were a part of her own body. The overwhelming force of the Sister’s murder-stroke crashed down on her readied blade, so powerful it forced her to bend her knees. As she stared up into the Sister’s eyes, Zelsys willed it to come awake.

At the moment that cursed vault came open, the Sister felt a tsunami of violent bloodlust pour forth. She’d already brought her sword down in a hammer-smash strike on the abomination’s head, yet the satisfying crunch never came. In its stead, there was the growling song of cold-iron when the homunculus grabbed hold of that abominable blade.

The cleaver rang like a bell when its teeth caught her blade, her opponent staring her down with an utter calm that unnerved more than any threat or wild-eyed snarl ever could. Her eyes shone silver as tendrils of white lightning began leaping down her arms and a waterfall of Fog poured from her nostrils, and the barbarous weapon’s sawteeth began screaming death as lightning arced ‘cross them.

They oscillated with such violence that the vibrations carried through her greatsword and made its blade move within her grasp, its razor edge cutting even into the protective plating on the inside of her hands and carrying through her arm at an intensity that neared painful.

It was then that she felt flecks of black sand hit her face, and realized the saw-thing had begun cutting through her blade.

“W-what?!” blurted out the Sister in utter shock.