ANDRY

“Get out of their way!” Jalgoz roared as the knights charged. “Let us deal with them!”

Doesn't want us to chew through any more of his men, Andry thought. Smart.

Up close they could finally see the Regalia of the other two Brother's sloth. Jurgo's Slug Regalia was little more than a helmet, armored pants, and shoulder pads, leaving his bulging belly bare. A trail of smooth metal plates went down past his waist and trailed along the ground like a slug's tail. His helmet was smooth except for a ridge framing his wide mouthed face, forming into a kind of thick blunt widow's peak. On either side of this peninsula grew a long, golden antenna. Every inch of him glistened as if it had been oiled.

Jayban's Tortise Regalia on the other hand covered him completely, a huge bulky thing made of smooth gold plates. It was a set of plate armor that made his slender frame look muscular and thick even without the huge tortoise shell on his back. The face plate of his helmet was blank, aside from the eye holes.

The knights split off. Andry reasoned that If they could cut off the head this snake would die. Tyram seemed to have the same idea, so the two of them charged past Jurgo and Jayban to leap at Jalgoz. Their fists slammed into his chest at the same time, the force of their combined blow sending Jalgoz sliding backwards. His boots dug a pair of furrows into the dirt. But he didn't fall. So they tried again, punching him back, separating both him and themselves farther and farther away from any possible help.

J'VANN

J'vann slammed his bludgeon into the ground, calling on the grass. This time he called it not to grab, but to move. The grass beneath Jurgo's feet lifted and pushed him back, carrying him away from the battlefield.

“Oh I get it!” Jurgo smiled, his wide mouth making the expression somehow obscene. “Your Regalia can control plants! But I bet to do it really well you've gotta stay in that position. Aren't you getting tired? I suppose you wanna separate us so you don't have to fight everybody all at once. Well you don't have to go to any trouble, I'll help you!”

Jurgo laughed and turned around, racing away from them across the grass. He moved like a skater, gliding along the ground and leaving a trail of glistening slime in his wake. The Knights had to run to keep up.

“Aren't slugs supposed to be slow?” Fann complained. “I mean wasn't that the point? The Brothers Sloth? Because they all have the Regalia of traditionally slow animals?”

“That theme still holds true,” J'vann said. “Even if this particular warrior's power lends itself towards speed.”

“I'm just saying they're not keeping to type,” Fann complained.

“You guys are pretty fit!” Jurgo laughed. “If you can talk like that while running, I mean. Of course Jalgoz says I'm dumb, so if I outsmarted you, you must be really stupid, too!”

Fann was never sure exactly what he'd noticed, but instinct made him shove J'vann out of the way and leap to the side. The trail of slime they'd been following exploded in a wave of glittering spikes. The light glinted menacingly off their razor sharp edges.

“Aww you dodged!” Jurgo laughed. “Well I suppose that just means we get to play more!”

“What is this?” Fann asked, picking himself up. “Ice?”

“No,” J'vann shook his head. “Crystals.”

“Of course!” Jurgo laughed. “This is Slug the Regalia!”

“I don't get it,” Fann scratched his head.

“The slime coating a slug's body—and apparently the body of whoever wears the Slug Regalia—is an relatively rare form of matter,” J'vann explained. “In nature at least. Liquid crystal. It appears he can return it to a solid form for use as a weapon.”

“Yep!” Jurgo said. “That's pretty good, it didn't make any sense to me at first! I had to look it up.”

“Wonderful,” Fann said. “Why is it every time I go with you someplace I end up in a lecture on natural history?”

“Well why do you keep going places with me then?” J'vann smiled.

“I'm starting to wonder,” Fann said. “Come on let's kill this guy.”

“Fann...” J'vann said.

“I know I know,” Fann sighed. “We only kill if we have to. Take all the fun out of everything...”

He closed his eyes and swung his blade at Jurgo's belly. When he didn't sense the bandit attempt to protect themselves at all, he realized something might be wrong. But he was completely unprepared when his sword actually bounced off Jurgo. For a moment he felt like the ground and the sky had decided to change places. It was a vibroblade. It didn't bounce off anything. He tried a few more slashes, all with the same result.

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“Ooh a vibroblade!” Jurgo said excitedly. “I haven't seen one of those in a long time! And since it's a knight's weapon, I bet it's a super special vibroblade too! But it's not gonna work on me.”

Fann stepped back, panting from his fruitless assault. The slime on Jurgo's belly had hardened to solid crystal. Still a vibroblade should have been able to cut through that, unless...

“The crystals vibrate when my blade hits them!” Fann snarled as realization struck. “You're basically hitting my sword back with its own vibrations!”

“Well I don't know about all that,” Jurgo said. “But I know vibroblades can't cut me!”

“Allow me,” J'vann said, leaping in and delivering a flurry of blows with his bludgeon. These Jurgo did block, raising his arms to either catch the blow or turn it aside. Jurgo stepped back to consider his opponent.

“Why do you do this?” he asked.

“Oh not this again,” Fann put his face in his hands. “This is gonna get you killed someday, you know that?”

“Do what?” Jurgo said. “Kill you guys?”

“No,” J'vann shook his head. “You three are the leaders of this bandit group. Why choose violence and crime? On a world that is so peaceful?”

“Because it's so peaceful!” Jurgo laughed. “Plus it's kinda the family business. And besides, doesn't everybody want to live close to a relative who's old and sick?”

“A relative?” J'vann cocked an eyebrow. “Then you are all actually brothers? Interesting.”

“Yeah,” Jurgo grinned. “Our grandfather kind of retired here. But we were doing something weren't we? Oh right, I was killing you!”

Jurgo skated forward on his slime to tackle J'vann. With no time to get his bludgeon up the Verdant Knight dropped it, grappling with the bandit. It was difficult wrestling with Jurgo's slime coated skin, so J'vann broke away as soon as he saw the opportunity, punching Jurgo across the face and leaping backwards. The punch turned Jurgo's head, but a plate of crystal had caught most of the blow.

“That almost hurt!” Jurgo said. “You're strong! But I still win!” Jurgo gave him a questioning look. “I could tell when I saw you running. You've got a cut in your side, right? I can see it.”

J'vann put a hand to his side, where he'd cut himself with Fann's blade in the battle earlier that day. The wound was completely coated in Jurgo's slime. Before he could process what that meant Jurgo clenched his fists and the slime on the wound turned into a billion spikes of crystal, jabbing into his body. In some places the slime had gotten inside his body, flowing into his veins only to stab back out at Jurgo's command. J'vann screamed in pain and fell to the ground, a glittering ball of spikes sprouting his side.

“NO!” Fann roared, running to the other knight's side.

“Oh that was good!” Jurgo roared with laughter. “Oh the look on your face! I wish I got a picture!”

“Damnit I told you!” Fann yelled at the unconscious J'vann. “I told you! If you try to fix them all they'll wind up killing you!”

Rationally, Fann knew J'vann would probably survive this. The rule about knights and healing still held, and J'vann had other advantages. The Verdant Knight would be okay as long as they won the battle and got him some time to recover. But to do that they had to win, and to win someone had to beat Jurgo. And Jurgo was immune to Fann's sword...

Doesn't matter, Fann shrugged, gripping his katana and approaching the grinning bandit. No one else around. I'll just have to make do.

VERRO

“Well they're separated,” Verro said, staring at the gleaming shell of the Tortoise Regalia. “I just wish...”

“That we'd gotten our guy to move even just an inch?” Sasha said. “When we were kicking him in the chest over and over again like that? Yeah. Me too.”

“Yeah that was really loud,” Jayban complained lazily. “Listen, we don't really have to do this right? My brothers will kill the rest of your guys and be back here in a minute, so it's not like I really have to fight you or anything. I mean it's just wasted energy you know? So how about we just chill and wait until they get here? Less work for everybody that way.”

“Are you serious?” Verro said.

“Sure of course I am,” Jayban said. “Jalgoz says I'm lazy, but I don't see the point in getting all worked up for no reason. So we fight. So I kill you. So what? Why not wait for my brothers to do it? You're just as dead either way.”

“And what if we beat your brothers?” Sasha asked.

“Never gonna happen,” Jayban shook his head.

“Well we plan on finding out for ourselves,” Verro said, firing an arrow at Jayban's chest. It bounced off his armor/shell without leaving a scratch.

“But why you wanna do that though?” Jayban said. “I don't get it you guys are out here, running around, getting yourselves killed over a bunch of random villagers. Is that really worth getting up in the morning for? Why do that when you can....I dunno....sleep?”

Sasha rushed in and tried to stab Jayban. A spear is actually a weapon meant for fighting heavily armored opponents. The whole point being to use the weapon's reach and precise point to slip through a joint or other weak point and deal some damage. Sasha had trained with a spear her entire life, she knew how to play that game extremely well. Only Jayban wasn't following the rules. She'd stab for a weak point but at the last second her blade would shift in her hand, as if it were purposefully avoiding the joint, and clang uselessly against the thick armor.

What's going on? Sasha wondered, leaping back to reconsider her opponent. Verro wasn't having much more luck, running around firing arrows at weak points and getting a similar result.

“Be careful!” She called out to Verro. “His Regalia's got another trick besides being hard to break!”

“Come on guys,” Jayban pleaded. “Do we really gotta do this?”

“YES!” Verro and Sasha shouted in unison.

“Ugh, fine!” Jayban groaned. “The most annoying one is...you.” he pointed at Verro. “Your attacks are loud on my armor and watching you run is making me so tired.”

He opened the hand that was pointing at Verro, tracking the Eagle Knight's movements. Verro stumbled in his running.

“Woah!” he said, scrabbling in the dirt. “What's going on?”

It was like Verro was falling sideways, flying across the field towards Jayban. When he got close the bandit clenched an enormous metal fist and slammed it across Verro's face, knocking him back across the field. He got up spitting blood.

“Aww come on,” Jayban whined. “Aren't you dead yet?”

“I won't *hkpawk!*” Verro spat our a shard of tooth. “I won't go down that easy!”

“You mean I gotta do more?” the bandit slumped. “Ugh, fine. Come here.”

Jayban held out his hand, pulling Verro towards him again. This time the Eagle Knight fired arrows as he flew, but they all bounced harmlessly of Jayban's armor. This time the bandit raised both hands above his head and brought them crashing down on Verro, slamming him into the dirt. Then Jayban raised a heavy armored foot and stomped down on the knight's chest, slowly crushing the life out of him.

“See?” Jayban said. “That was so much more work!”

“Verro!” Sasha yelled, charging in with her spear raised.

“Ugh right, you're here too,” the bandit sighed. “Alright alright, let's get it over with. It would have been a lot easier to do it my way though.”