For a second, Rico just staggered back numbly, staring down at the ravaged ribbon of meat and bone that had been his right arm. Blood gushed down onto the floor, like a miniature red waterfall. He blinked.

Then he began to scream, collapsing to the ground.

"Haha, I got you!" Joy cheered, pointing his mace down towards Rico. "Did you see? I got you right in the --"

His celebration was cut short as Serena drove her broadsword through his head while his back was turned, cutting it in half vertically. As he collapsed to the floor -- already disintegrating into Aether -- she rushed past him and slid onto her knees, crouching down next to Rico.

He was still screaming, but the noise was hoarse now, like a wheel screeching out of control. She tried to put a calming pair of hands on him, to force him to keep still, but that didn't do anything for his injury.

The arm was done for. Serena didn't know much about medicine, but even she knew that at a glance. It had been flattened and smashed by Joy's mace, and what was left of it was connected only by a few thin strings of tissue. If he moved around any more, there was a good chance it would fall off completely.

Was that better, or worse? He was bleeding anyway, right, so would it be better if he didn't have this lump of meat hanging off him? Bruno had tried to teach her first aid once, but she hadn't listened. Why, oh why hadn't she listened?

"Miss Ruth!" she screamed out to the world. "Mr. Dragan! Mr. Skipper! Help!"

There was no answer. Of course there wasn't -- she'd pretty much abandoned them going after Cott, hadn't she? It was just like Ruth had said. She'd decided to leave them behind for her own desires, so it was only natural that they'd…

"What's up?!"

Ruth burst out of the smog with her Skeletal Set, landing on all fours next to Serena. A glance down at Rico pretty much answered the question for her. Her eyes widened in horror as she saw the injury.

"Shit…" she mumbled.

"Mm-hmm," Serena nodded, her lip wobbling.

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

"Quite the show, isn't it?" asked Cott, looking down at the room below, as the sparks of warring Aether burned through the haze.

The entire history of the planet of Braleigh. Dragan writhed.

"Then again," Cott chuckled. "I guess you're not really in a position to enjoy it, are you?"

The collected works of T.T. Helinford. Dragan groaned, throat dry as sandpaper. One of his eyes loosely twitched.

Cott adjusted his position slightly, sitting cross-legged on the prone Dragan's back. Dragan couldn't so much as speak in resistance: the repeated mental assault had kicked the fight out of him. As if to add insult to injury, Cott mockingly patted his human couch on the head.

"It's funny," Cott laughed, a few cooking recipes attached to each syllable. "All you Cogitants talk so big -- and yet a few words from me has you lying on the ground like this. I guess you really mustn't be all that great, huh? I mean, if it's so easy to take you out…"

The fog shifted. Dragan faintly gurgled.

"What was that?" Cott asked, cocking his head as he looked down at the prone Dragan. "Were you perhaps agreeing with me? It makes me happy that you've seen the light, but to be frank, you might be too late… could you repeat that, maybe? For posterity?"

A last modicum of effort forced its way up Dragan's throat. "I said… fuck you."

"A little childish, don't you--"

He never finished the sentence. With devastating speed, a flexile creature lashed out of the smog -- a centipede flaring with red Aether -- and before Cott could so much as take another breath, the beast clamped it's mandibles against his jugular and squeezed. Cott gasped, his breath sharp from fear and pain.

"Wha…?!" he spluttered, staggering back from Dragan. The centipede remained attached around his throat, squeezing down tight.

The owner of the beast stepped into view -- a young woman wearing an eyepatch and a kimono, the tail of the centipede wrapped around her forearm. She glared at Cott with murderous hatred.

"You made three mistakes tonight, Cottian del Sed," she glared, eye burning with passion. "You should never have come here yourself. You should never have left your throat open. And you should never, ever, have hurt my sister."

"K-Keiko…?" Cott stared uncomprehendingly at the young woman -- Keiko, apparently. His voice was little more than a wheeze -- no doubt that bug was in the process of crushing his windpipe. "But…he…"

"No last words, please," she scoffed. "Let's just finish this. Cerevisia, kill."

The centipede squeezed down tighter, and a groaning, cracking sound filled the room. Trapped in the haze of analysis, it took Dragan a second to place it -- the telltale creaking of wood. This wasn't Cott.

The wooden puppet's voice returned to normal, all pretense of injury abandoned, his eyes dull and bored: "But he didn't come here himself."

Without another word, he threw a knife into Keiko's gut.

Slowly, uncomprehendingly, she looked down at the projectile. It was crackling with orange Aether, buried into her stomach up to the hilt. She vaguely lifted a hand up to it, as if she was going to try and pull it out, before limply falling to her knees.

"But…" she mumbled hopelessly. "No…"

The centipede clamped down on the Cott aspect’s neck dissipated into red Aether, and he rubbed a hand over the damaged material beneath in annoyance. A second throwing knife dropped into his hand from within his sleeve as he took a lackadaisical step towards Keiko.

"Afraid so," he gloated. "You should really make sure who you're talking to before you start declaring your victory -- I'm not Cott, I'm Honesty. You really are an idiot, you know that?"

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

The Cott aspect -- there was no way he was actually Honesty -- stepped past Dragan's prone form. As he did, Dragan's lips began to move wordlessly, straining to form the two words they needed…

Gemini…

"Down, boy."

'Honesty' spoke without so much as a glance back at his target. The resultant flood of information sent Dragan sprawling back onto the floor. Involuntary coughs, malfunctions of the nervous system, racked his body.

"You really are pathetic, though," Honesty said, finally reaching Keiko, knife dancing between his fingers. "I mean, look at yourself. Dressing up like some videograph villain -- I mean, a centipede, really? -- acting like you're a big manipulator behind the scenes. You're… you're nothing, really, you're a joke. It's sad."

He crouched down, staring Keiko in the eye. His calm, emotionless demeanour was a stark contrast to her face -- teeth bared in fury, eye widened in contempt.

"Go to hell," she hissed. "I-I'll kill you…"

"You can't kill me," Honesty replied softly. "I'm not even alive. How stupid can you be? Did you really think you tricked Cott, too? You? You think he didn't see your half-baked deception from the very first seconds? Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic… you're utterly pathetic. And that's why you're going to die here."

Red Aether, weak as static electricity, ran along Keiko's hand -- but as she lunged for the knife in her gut, perhaps to use it as a weapon, Honesty seized her by the wrist and squeezed. Even from this distance, Dragan could hear the snap of bone. Keiko audibly sucked in air through her teeth, but not the slightest scream escaped her throat.

"Sorry," Honesty smiled. "But I still have spite here with me, and he wouldn't be satisfied with you just bleeding out. You tried to fuck with us, after all, so I want you to die in the worst way possible."

The knife moved --

"You might not get the chance."

-- and the knife stopped. Honesty slowly turned his head as a new voice cut through the gloom. From his prone and slumped position, Dragan could only see the shoe of the person as they stepped forward next to him, but he recognised their voice: Carla Oliphant. One arm still shuddering uncontrollably, he looked up as much as she was able.

She'd changed since the last time he'd seen her -- now wearing a tan overcoat that was no doubt reinforced with some kind of armour. Carla stood with feet apart, a punchpoint revolver clutched between her hands and pointed towards Honesty with military discipline. Her eyes were cold: all preparation for killing had already been completed.

Honesty slowly lifted his hands up, throwing knife still held between two fingers. Would he try and attack with it?

"You've been gone a spell," he said calmly, glancing at Carla over his shoulder. "I was beginning to think someone had actually killed you. You know the King of Killers is here, too, right? Well, of course you do."

Carla didn't reply, her eyes just flicking around, taking in the scene surrounding her. Keiko on her knees, Dragan on the floor, Honesty staring back at her.

Keiko spluttered from her position: "He's betrayed us… Aunt Carla, he knows…"

Carla's thumb flicked the safety off with all the precision of a clock. It was aimed right at Honesty's temple -- puppet or not, having your head blown off would kill you all the same.

"That's right," Honesty smiled. "I know." His eyes flicked over to Dragan. "He does, too."

Carla blinked.

"I see," she said -- before turning on the spot and pointing her gun down at Dragan instead.

Her finger pulled the trigger.

Gemini World.

It was a supreme moment of animal instinct, the desire to survive overpowering all pain and confusion. Dragan's body unraveled into electric blue Aether as six bullets tore through the air, smashing against the floor his head had just been lying on. In his current state, he was only capable of vanishing for two seconds -- but those two seconds had been enough to save his life.

Heavy breathing filled the air as Dragan reappeared, staring up at Carla's dull, dark eyes. She clicked her tongue. "Damn."

Honesty was standing up from his kneeling position, a wry smirk on his face. "Why'd you shoot all six at once? If you'd waited, you could have just popped him when he turned back up."

"Need all six to break through an Aether-users defenses," Carla replied tersely, returning her revolver to its holster. "You'll just have to do it, Deceit."

"Sure, sure, if you're not capable," Deceit shrugged.

Dragan had once again been proven right: you should never trust anyone, especially anyone in positions of power. Inevitably, it would end up like this -- you, on the floor, with a gun pointed at your head. However, being right didn't actually give him a way out of this situation.

So he decided to talk instead.

"You're the one behind this," he rasped, voice hoarse. "The organizer of the Hunter Game. The one who framed Fix. You sent… all those assassins… against your own family?"

Carla didn't reply -- instead pointedly looking away, her jaw clenched.

If those words hadn't reached her, however, they had definitely reached Keiko. The young woman was still kneeling with that knife in her stomach, but the look on her face had swapped pain for the uncomprehending dismay of a lost child. She stared at Carla, her eye watery with betrayal.

"Aunt Carla," she whispered. "What does he mean? He's… he's lying, isn't he? This is a trick, right?"

Carla stepped over to Keiko -- for a moment, she gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut at the girl's plea, before her face abruptly returned to a calm and cold demeanor. She looked down at her niece, and her niece looked up at her.

Keiko blinked. "If you're the one behind the H-Hunter Game… that means you were the one who… the train… Sora… that's not true, right? You didn't do that?"

Carla did not reply.

"But you've always taken care of us!" Keiko's voice was like a mountain climber grasping for purchase in the rain. "Ever since we were little! You said you cared about us more than anything!"

Carla closed her eyes, and took in a deep breath. She clasped and unclasped her hands. Many seconds passed before she finally spoke.

"I do care about you…" she said, reaching down and pulling Keiko up to her feet. "...but not more than anything."

Her free hand lashed out, grabbed the knife protruding from Keiko's stomach, and tugged it free. Then, with mechanical resolve, she drove the blade back into Keiko's body, again and again and again and again, stabbing it deeper and deeper with each blow. The entire time, she stared right into Keiko's face, into her weeping eye.

Keiko opened her mouth to say something, but all that trickled forth was a hollow croak. Carla released her from her grip, and she fell to the floor in a heap.

Dragan didn't know that girl, didn't understand the circumstances of what was happening before him, but the sight of family betraying family like this filled his veins with magma. "You're a fucking monster," he snarled, beginning to pick himself up. He'd tear her damn head off.

"And down," Deceit yawned.

Dragan fell back down to the floor, but his eyes remained fixed on Carla with utter contempt. The older woman had turned away from Keiko's dying form, instead choosing to look down at the smog-filled room as she ignored Dragan's insult. She wrinkled her nose in distaste.

"They're fighting down there, then?" she asked.

Deceit nodded. "They'll be dead soon."

"Make sure they don't destroy the bodies. I need them all lined up in a row when Abraham gets here. It's not good enough just to tell him about it."

"Well, you sure are a sick puppy," Deceit sniffed. "But I do my best to honour requests."

Carla nodded, before turning her gaze back to Dragan. Her impassive eyes met Dragan's hateful ones.

"I know you boys like an audience," she muttered. "But quit stalling: kill him."

Deceit laughed, shrugging exaggeratedly. "Fine, fine… man, you're such a slave worker."

And then, fast as a viper, the knife came down.