“She’s just… standing there… menacingly.”

Isobel sighed, turned to Jude, and said, “She’s watching her surroundings without moving her head.”

Jude scratched his head. “Are you sure? It looks like she is just standing there to me.”

Even Leland rolled his eyes at the question. “She’s reading fate.”

“Is she? How do you know?”

“That’s what she does. What else would she be doing standing still like that? She knows she’s being hunted.”

“Well… what do we do?”

Glenny growled, “Take her soul.”

“Easier said than done,” Leland muttered. “Once we start fighting her, she’s going to teleport away.”

Isobel agreed, saying, “Then we get your dad to lock the space around here down when we attack.”

“Dad,” Leland said to the open air, knowing his father would be listening. “We are about to start.”

“How are we starting?” Jude asked. “Because I think—”

He cut himself off as Isobel raised her arm, her centipede centered parasitic weapon drawing a cold whisper. It chittered as its countless spiny legs stomped with anticipation. A malted green spike of toxic preamble formed in its mighty maw, before firing out like a main stage performer. All eyes were on the spike as it whipped through the fog, crashing into—

The Witch flinched, dodging ever so slightly. The spike continued off into the distance, breaking a brick wall in two. She then twisted, her glowing eyes highlighting thousands of potential futures.

“Come to play?” she yelled in the general direction the attack had come.

“Guess that’s that,” Jude whispered, activating one of his blessings.

Like a drop of water with his reflection in it, soon a mirage formed and flexed. Two Judes then stood beside one another, each wearing the same bone armor and carrying the same dual edged battle axe. They gave each other a grin before launching themselves into battle with a mighty leap.

They landed parallel with one another, breaking apart the ground into frozen stone. The Witch, however, had pivoted back a step, her hand darting out with magic on her fingers.

Jude Two dove to intercept the attack, blocking it for the true human. Five fingers the color of shiny red apple sliced into the mirage’s armor and chest, magic imbuing into his form like the venom of a viper.

Original Jude screeched just as another bolt from Isobel ripped through the fog. Again the Witch easily dodged the projectile, but Jude’s sudden cleave took her by surprise. It wasn’t that she didn’t know it was coming, in fact she had seen the attack moments before through the threads of fate, but rather the berserker’s speed was just too fast.

The swing took her shoulder, shearing a portion of her skin off. Blood trailed with Jude’s follow through, along with a glacial freeze of hoarfrost. She stumbled forward, right into where Jude Two was writhing in pain. She tripped, the future changing.

Magic came to her call, the threads of reality sung like a harp in a darkened forest. She plucked one, and—

And—

Nothing happened. She crashed onto the cobblestone street, still in battle.

“Wha—”

Her thread already ended, now ending right now— She rolled, the axe head slamming into the ground with a resonating burst of cold. Her thread reverted, lengthened but ultimately still ending soon.

Magic bloomed in her eyes, the future suddenly looking different. She got to her feet, dodging another flurry of attacks from Jude before softly kicking a loose stone forward.

In his mad dash to render the Witch lame, he stepped without worry or concern right onto the stone. His ankle went one way as his knee the other, a sickening crunch sounding from such a simple injury. Pain grew in his leg as red narrowed his vision like a racing horse blinder.

And despite the pain and the woman’s defiant cackling laugh, Jude didn’t over extend or fall into the rage. He accepted being outplayed, ending his assault and popping a gleaming red potion into his mouth from his inventory ring.

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A bolt of toxic whizzed by again. The Witch dodged, yelling a strangled taunt about “that being everything you’ve got?”

She continued to yell and screech as more and more arrows from Isobel cut through the fog. With each one, she casually moved out of the way, until an invisible young man appeared at her side.

She couldn’t see him, but a shift in fate alerted her of her imminent demise. Pivoting back, she felt the whoosh of a dagger against her skin. She then ducked, moving out of the way of a deadly stab. The future changed again, and she threw herself to the ground, the invisible man’s weapons flaring out and becoming a sword.

Cobblestone burst as Glenny’s weapons changed mid stab to a spear. The woman, of course, dodged.

“Leland! Can you kill her already!?” Jude yelled.

The Witch flinched at that, obviously denouncing such a wild—

Purple flames ate away the fog, encircling her like a trapped sheep. Fate changed, decisively. She sprinted, her magic still failing to interact with the material world. She wanted to teleport, she wanted to move! She had to—

The heatless fire singed her skin when she tried to brave the flames to simply run through. She rebounded like a ball against a wall, finding herself on her back in the center of the circle. As she fumbled to her feet, a green monstrous being found her.

It came from the ground, its boney mangled hands splitting the ground apart for its disproportionate body. She screamed at it, causing a wave of interest from the nearby buildings. Curtains parted, blinds opened, people peered at her imminent demise.

“No, no, no!” the Witch yelled. “If you kill me, the bombs I planted around the city will go off! Thousands will die!”

Emerging from the mist, a young man stepped forward. While he didn’t have a halo above his head, his eyes still brimmed with the same violet flames that surrounded her. A tall woman was one step behind him, though she obviously didn’t care to be there.

“I don’t believe you,” Leland Silver said, his calm tone the exact opposite of how she remembered him to be in Ruinsforth.

And while the two had never formally met, Charlotte felt she knew him better than most. He was a Harbinger, a being possibly more hated than Witches. They could work together, they could—

Her soul leaked from her body, green pooling out of her like blood spilling from a draining elk.

“People will die!” she yelled again, panic setting into her spine. She twisted and squirmed, her shoulder felt as though it was dead. She couldn’t move her arm, the ice like a doctor’s cast.

Leland Silver stepped through the purple flames, right up to her. She almost reached out to grovel at his feet, but the haunted measure in his posture made her freeze like she did whenever Ashford was properly angry.

“I do not believe you,” he said again.

Green continued to leak. “A-are you willing to risk it!? W-we could pair up, you know? You and me versus Ashford and the cultists!? I know where they hide! I know where Ashford rests! I know his true plans! I could tell you! You’ve just got to let me live!”

Leland stopped for just a moment, a glaze overcoming his piercing gaze. He blinked, shaking his head. “Again, I do not believe you.”

The Witch sputtered, “But I—”

A caw sounded to her right. A big slightly glowing blue crow was watching from the fence of a nearby house.

“I—”

It cawed again, silencing her.

She looked to Leland, her eyes big as the moon. He, however, only watched her with cold absence.

“Keeping you alive is only a detriment to us right now.” His words came like sledgehammers to concrete. Each syllable bashed what little hope she might have once had.

Charlotte “Pathways Witch” Hansley died moments later, her soul removed. She, in her death, still managed to beg and plead until the very end.

“Brutal,” Jude muttered.

“Think I shouldn’t have killed her?” Leland asked.

The berserker shook his head. “Nope. Not a bit. Unless, of course, that threat of bombs was real.”

Now it was the warlock’s turn to shake his head. “If bombs were involved, my Lord would have warned me about them when she told me the city was under attack. Not to mention, ‘terror’ doesn’t seem like her and Ashford’s style. Killing civilians would do nothing to further their gains. The cult, on the other hand… I’m not sure.”

Glenny’s stealth faded. “She’s killed too many to not die.”

“I agree,” said Isobel.

“As do I,” a voice said like a fountain of pride from the shadows. Carmon Red stepped forward, out of the darkness and fog. “Good job with the hunt, everyone. Glad you kids could take care of yourselves and I didn’t have to step in. Or Isobel for that matter.”

The three boys gave indifferent shrugs. “All things considered,” Jude said, “she was pretty weak compared to some of the other fights we’ve had.”

“I was expecting more,” Glenny added. “But maybe since her teleportation magic was locked, I guess she was defenseless.”

Leland shook his head. “She was dodging all of your attacks. Only Jude got a hit in and I think that was because he simply out-speeded her.”

Glenny rolled his eyes. “My point stands, I’d say.”

Jude pointed at his “dead” mirage. “He begs to differ.”

The mirage was a pile of sand, the Witch’s magic having sundered his body’s fate. Luckily to Jude, the mirage was able to be recreated.

Everyone took in the death, eventually shaking it off. Leland, meanwhile, took the Witch’s soul into his soul cape-necklace and thus sent off the soul of the Damned with a “thank you.”

He looked at the others. “Any updates from the others?”

At his question, a portal opened beside them. They all stepped through.