Yelena

They came from above.

Three. Vaugely human, and descending from the top of the cavern with such speed that Yelena had to strain her eyes to even make out the outlines of their thin forms playing down the walls. How Marius had seen them from afar was anyone's guess.

They closed the distance with less time than it took her to get on her feet and ready herself. They didn't look open to negotiation.

She stood to attention when the first one came at her, slipping out of a shadowed corner of the cavern and lunging for her throat.

Her gauntlets came up to block the attack. Barely. She felt the knife of the assassin nick her armor, and even as her assailant withdrew, she knew that direct damage had not been his aim.

Status: POISONED (Rot LVL I)

-2HP/1 min

Duration: 10min

She grimaced as she looked at her gauntlet and saw where the vile mark had been made - a writhing mass of corpulent bile bubbled away there and sank through the chink in her gauntlet into her bloodstream.

She was standing, but she was tainted.

Poison!

Just who were these people?

And as the invisible stalker backed off, she saw the two other shapes fly like vultures towards her.

"Marius," she said. "My sword."

She heard him whistle from behind her. Already she knew he was backing off, attemping to hide.

"I dunno about this one, gal," he replied.

"I'll fight even if you don't give it to me, and you'll have to watch me die. You know that, don't you?"

A pause.

One that lasted for the short time it took three of the cloaked figures to rush forward as one, baring their poisoned knife-fangs.

Would he take the bait?

"Take the girl!" A voice called from above. One of them she hadn't even seen - one who chose not to join the others in their assault.

"They don't exactly seem like they're after me," Marius replied. "Tell you what, how about you go with them and I-"

"And kill the thief in the shadows!"

"-huh."

A crossbow bolt flew down from the high ceiling stalactites and she batted it away with her gauntlet. It had been aiming for the shadows to the left of her, probably where Marius has snuck off to.

POISONED

HP: -2

Then, as she saw three flashes of cold steel carve through the air in front of her, she heard the clanging of metal on hard stone.

Her sword lay between her feet.

"I'd say I'll regret this," Marius' voice said from somwhere behind her. "But at this point that's pretty much a given."

Her hand reached for her blade and brought it up to meet three sharp blows aimed at her waist. She beat back to strikes before a third sliced through her armor.

HP: -3

HP: 24/30

Already down six, and counting.

She could feel her strength swindling as the successful attacker withdrew with her blood coating his knife, and slowly they began to circle her like hawks, their forms lithe, and small - stalkers used to sticking to the shadows.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Marius!" she called out. "Have you not a weapon?"

No response.

"Marius?!"

When the next strike came she was ready for it, she sheathed her blade and brought it out in a clean arc across the air - one quick, fluid motion - and just like before the curve of azure light she sent flying towards her foe felt as natural as breath:

Searing Strike: Activated.

The attack made contact with the assassin's body even as he twisted in the air to avoid it. It caught him in his leg and he went flying back against the cavern wall with a thud and a bloody gargle.

Her victory was short lived. Before she could spin round the other two were on her - one of them narrowly missing her left arm and the other cutting a deep gouge into her right, just under her elbow.

She grunted and drew her sword across the air again, furiously expelling another dazzling azure light that illuminated all of them.

She saw them as the arc traveled towards them this time: two roughly male shapes cloaked in hoods and tight-fitting cloth armor. Nimble, agile, and dextrous. She knew this as she saw them both roll underneath the light-wave of her attack and make to jab at her from below.

She returned their strike with her own in a double riposte that would have made Di proud.

But even as she staggered back and realized the third one would have recovered by now, she felt the antigen they'd infected her with take hold again:

POISONED

HP: -2

Damn it! Where is the thief?

She grit her teeth as she sent yet another wave of energy towards them. This time the two in front jumped over the attack - leaping into the air with greater height than any mortal could have managed - while their third partner struck at her back.

"That's the way boys - keep the guardian guessing. Dodge, flank, dodge. Never from one side."

The voice again came from above - and it confirmed what she already knew: these were not some skittering monsters born from the darkness of this cavern. These were trained warriors who knew their opponents' weaknesses.

She turned with fury to try and get a hit on the assassin from behind but her strike was slow, cumbersome, weighed down by her draining life. They started to circle her, watching for when her guard was low like the nipping vultures they were.

And as she twisted her body to try and find them, a vision blinked into existence before her eyes.

A vision of her self, clad in darkness, standing above their bleeding, bloody corpses.

"No."

She said it aloud through gritted teeth as another knife-weilding assassin flew at her from the dark and pushed her back, giving his friend ample time to thrust his blade into her side.

She screamed out in the dark as she staggered forwards and twisted her sword through the air, trying to catch him.

Searing Strike: Failed

GLANCE: 0/10

Then it came again - the image of herself laughing maniacally as her assailants torn limbs lay beneath her.

You've been here before. You know you can win.

Another poison tipped knife slashed at her from the shadows. She felt the sting of its tough course through her shoulder:

POISONED

HP: -2

HP: 17

"I told you: I'm in control now."

She spoke through rasping breath as she struck at nothing but dead air. She could have sworn one of them was right in front of her a second ago. But with the pain she felt shoot up her side again, she knew she'd just fallen for some devious trick.

"Nice one, Redas! Channeling Decoy will serve ye just as well as any shield. Now, finish this!"

The voice above again. Cackling away like some little clown. What she wouldn't give to...

...to cleave the skin from his bones? Good. Call on me, my daughter.

"Shut up!"

She roared this declaration with all the strength in her chest as she vaulted forwards and caught one of them as he tried to dance around to her back. She'd stayed motionless, waiting now, too, for their attacks to come. Though they were fast and agile, they didn't dare attack her in unison for fear of her reach. That told her one thing: they couldn't have much HP to burn.

So when she made contact with the cloth-wrapped ankle of one of them, she bellowed with power and tore his foot clean from his leg, hearing his body hit the ground with a wet slap.

"Jonas!"

She brought her blade back up and aimed its tip in the direction of the boy - for it must have been a boy - that cried out in anger to see his ally fall.

"I'm fine, baby brother," she heard the fallen man say - or at least she assumed it must be him. Her eyes trailed over the spot where she'd cut him down and saw nothing but a small pool of blood in the dark.

"It'll take more than that to kill me!"

He's right, Yelena heard. The same is true for all of them. Come, my daughter, take the gift I offer in your hands.

"I don't need your gift," she spat through clenched teeth. "I don't need your power and I don't need you. Whatever you are - I. Don't. Need. You!"

And the reality of the Everloft vanished before her as soon as she said that final word.

She found herself back in that tainted field that was once her 'home', watching the cottage burn, staring at the charred bodies of her mama and papa beneath her, trying to stop herself from crying out and cursing the world that had done this to them.

"Haven't you given up yet, girl? It's really quite annoying."

Then Daddy appeared again before her, the burning orchard tree of the village looming large behind him.

"You don't need me?" he asked. "I am you, Yelena. I am everything within you that has always had a place in this world. I am your purpose and your strength, both. Have you not realized it by now?"

She dropped her sword in the vision of the dream. She felt knives cut into her flesh, the poison course through her, and her life start to fade again.

"You feel that pain, and there is a piece of you that does not wince. There is a piece of you that enjoys it, Yelena. No matter how much you'd deny that part of you breath in the waking world you call Averix."

She roared at him in anger, agony, and denial. She felt for the blade that could split this monster apart, but her sword was broken. She looked at the ground and saw it in pieces.

"But you aren't there anymore, my daughter," Daddy's snarling face whispered. "You're in my world now."

When Yelena's eyes opened, they saw two assassins standing poised to her right and left, ready to close the gap and cut through her from both sides.

"Enough games!" one of the them shouted. "Let's finish this now!"

But the voice that responded to this declaration did not belong to Yelena. The three men, and their hidden leader, now looked not upon the golden-blonde Firvak who had kept pace with them through their assault, but at something else entirely: something draped with black threads of living dark, crawling up the girl's form and seeping into the her once terror-struck face, turning the ends of her mouth up in a smile that was more a parody of joy than a true expression of emotion.

"As you wish," the demon-girl said.