FANN

Fann hissed in pain as the crystals sliced into his flesh.

He hadn't thought much of Jurgo when they'd first clashed. Even after what happened to J'vann, the Bat Knight figured he just had to be careful of Jurgo's trump card. But no, dumb as he seemed Jurgo knew how to use his Slug Regalia. Jurgo knew tricks. And he was having the time of his life demonstrating them all over Fann's face.

His new favorite was flailing his arms wildly, sending droplets of slime through the air he would then turn into spinning blades of crystal. The move had a wide arc that made it fiendishly difficult to dodge even with the Bat Regalia's gifts.

And when Fann tried to counter attack, his sword strokes did nothing.

He closed his eyes and delivered slash after slash, but they bounced off plates of crystal armor grown from Jurgo's slime. A few moments later fresh slime oozed beneath them and the armor plates fell away, and the cycle would begin again.

B leeding from cuts across his skin, Fann managed to leap out of another whirling cloud of crystal blades. Jurgo's grin only got wider, and Fann just had time to realize where he was about to land and jump off a sonic pulse through his feet before the slime trail he'd been about to step on erupted into glittering lethal spears. That was Jurgo's other favorite trick. The battlefield was littered with jagged crystal eruptions.

Distracted looking for a safe place to land Fann didn't see Jurgo close the distance between them. The bandit was just suddenly there, spinning in place to swing his Regalia's segmented metal tail into Fann's side. The Bat Knight went skipping across the battlefield, bouncing over and smashing through formations of razor sharp crystal.

He was pretty sure he screamed in pain then, but he couldn't be sure. By the time he could focus Jurgo had him by the throat. The bandit lifted him in one meaty arm while the other fist coated itself in a spiked ball of solid crystal.

“You're tougher than the guys I usually fight!” Jurgo laughed, slamming the crystal fist into Fann's gut with a wet, ugly noise. “You can take a lot more punishment!” A loud crack across the face “I wonder how long it's gonna take to break you?” Another punch to the gut. Jurgo was winding up for another blow when an arrow hit him in the side.

And stuck in his flesh.

Jurgo yelled in pain and surprise, dropping Fann to the ground. Three more arrows pierced the bandit's belly, drawing blood. With his eyes closed Fann's echolocation could sense what was too fast for his eyes to see. Each shot wasn't onearrow, it was two, fired one after the other with inhuman speed. The first was blocked reflexively by Jurgo's crystal armor. But the second arrow was fired at a slight angle to the first, just enough to slip under the armor and pierce Jurgo's skin before the slime could come to replace it.

“Hah!” Fann laughed, pulling himself to his feet. “I knew there was a way around that armor!”

“Shut up!” Jurgo said, in a voice that was part growl part sob, as he clutched his wounded belly.

“That's my buddy Verro,” Fann continued. “I wonder if both your brothers are dead already, or just the one?”

“I said shut up!” Jurgo yelled. “You think you're the first ones to ever get a hit in on me? We'll never lose to a bunch of idiot knights! Besides, you still haven't hurt me at all!”

“Oh yeah,” Fann said. “That's right. Let me fix that.” Fann brought his blade down backwards, the blunt side hitting the arrows sticking out of Jurgo's guy and making the bandit howl in pain. “There, I hurt you! Happy?”

Fann kicked one of the arrows, shoving it deeper into the bandit's flesh until it disappeared. Two more swift kicks pounded the other two other arrows home. Jurgo shrieked, stumbling backwards, blood spurting from his mouth.

“How dare you!” He shrieked. “How dare you!”

“I suppose you could surrender,” Fann said. “We are taking prisoners. And I feel like J'vann would like that.”

“Why would I need to surrender you asshole?” Jurgo growled. “I'll kill you all!”

The truth was that Fann was nervous. Verro, both in the Bat Regalia's perfect sonic awareness of the space around him and the visual glimpses he'd gotten of the Eagle Knight while fighting, looked weak and shaky. There was blood all over him, and he hadn't move from his one-knee firing position since he arrived. And where was Sasha? Helping the others? He hoped so. The battle was costly enough as it stood.

But they weren't beaten yet, and the two fresh arrows that sprouted from Jurgo's shoulder almost felt like Verro was trying to prove it. The bandit yelled in pain and hunched over, arms clutched around his stomach, eyes wide in a face pallid and trembling. They bandit had curled into a ball to protect his stomach, eyes wide, face pallid and trembling. It looked like he was going to throw up...and then he did, an ugly spatter of blood and slime that got all over Fann's clothes.

“Oh ugh,” Fann said, wiping himself off. “I hope you can pay to have this...cleaned....”

Jurgo grinned, and in that one horrible frozen second Fann realized he was covered in open wounds and slime.

Just like J'vann.

It was pain like nothing he'd ever experienced before. None of his wounds were all that deep, and the slime hadn't had time to seep into his body before it crystallized. But he was covered in cuts, and the slime had gotten into every single one. And so every single one of those cuts was torn wider as the crystal hardend, pushing and slicing into flesh and nerves. Fann screamed and fell.

“Got him!” Jurgo giggled. “That's two! Two down! And now for you!”

Fann had been right, Verro was too weak and injured to move. Even with the enraged bandit gliding towards him. So Verro fired, arrow after arrow, the trick double shot he'd worked out watching Fann fight as he ran over. His arrows hit home. All of them. He wasn't even being careful about where he aimed. Jurgo screamed in pain but he kept coming, closing the distance and planting a meaty fist into Verro's face, sending the Eagle Knight sprawling.

Jurgo had to swing that punch with his left arm, because his right was useless. Most of his right side, the side towards Verro during the charge, was useless. There were arrows in his chest and legs and belly. One stuck out of his forehead at an odd angle where his skull had turned the point. Three more stuck out of his cheek, and two out of his neck. One had gone into his eye socket and he could feel it, wedged in his eye socket between skull and eyeball. Blood streamed down his body as if her wearing a ragged red shirt.

But he'd done it. He'd done it. The knights were down. The knights were...

Fann filled his vision, leaping with katana raised. There was a brief moment of panic, but then he realized there was nothing to be afraid of. The Bat Knight couldn't hurt him, not with his precious vibro-blade katana. It took another precious fraction of a second for him to realize what Fann already had.

The blood--!

Fann's sword met absolutely no resistance. The strike cut Jurgo's nose in half, continued down through his lips and lower jaw, then on down into his pudgy belly. Because Jurgo's own blood had washed away the protective coating of slime, and now that blood went from seeping to spraying, a great geyser of it in the moment before Jurgo fell on his face and lay still in his own pooling blood, the Slug Regalia disappearing from his body in a sparkling cloud.

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Fann stood over him, panting. Crystals still jutted out of body at odd angles, cutting new flesh every time Fann breathed and making movement sheer agony, but he made himself shamble over to where Verro had landed. The Eagle Knight's breathing wasn't exactly clean and even, but it was steady enough. He would live.

“I gotta help the others,” Fann said, turning away. “I gotta help.”

He fell down to one knee.

“In a minute,” he said. “I'll go in...just a minute.”

He collapsed unconscious beside Verro and J'vann, and the battlefield was calm.

JALGOZ

The only sound in the stillness was Jalgoz's footsteps.

He walked through the battlefield smiling. He smiled even when he saw his fallen brothers, because after all the frustration and headaches it was done. Tyram was down in a bloody heap, the rest of the knights lay helpless on the ground, and he was the only Regalia still standing. He was a little surprised to realize he would miss them, and not just because it would be easier to organize a fresh crew of bandits with them on his side. He hadn't known he cared, but he'd get over it. And he was going to need a fresh crew of bandits.

Because something had gone wrong, and the prisoners had never burst out and started wrecking the town behind the defenders. Which meant the defenders had been able to focus all their energy on the men he was leading, and they'd won. Jalgoz would give them that. The knights had scattered his men charging to get to him and his brothers, but the villagers had finished the job.

Unfortunately for them, the knights hadn't.

They had all gathered between him and the town. They'd even broken out some of their makeshift artillery and aimed it at him. That old guy was in front, what has his name, Chaddim. They looked like they meant to keep fighting. Jalgoz decided it was time they got a quick sharp lesson in reality. A theoretical lesson. If that didn't work he'd move on to the practical, and if it came to that he planned on taking his time. You know, just to drive the point home.

“Alright everyone,” he rumbled, clapping his hands together. His claws scraped against each other, throwing off sparks. “Good game. You scored a whole lot higher than I'd have guessed. But now's the time to pack it in. If you haven't already killed my men now would be a good time to let them loose. If not, well I'll just have to level your town by myself. This is a one time offer for you all to not be inside your homes when I trample them.”

“We're not moving,” Chaddim said, leveling his laser at the bandit. The rest of the villagers behind him raised their own weapons. “Why don't you go away?”

“Feeling pretty tough with your pea shooters there?” Jalgo laughed. “Most of those guns can't even hurt me. Even my guys only had a couple guns that could shoot through Regalia, and I'm pretty sure the knights broke them all.”

“I fought in the Ruin Wars boy,” Chaddim said. “You think I never saw ordinary men take down a Regalia with whatever they had to hand? It can be done, if you're determined enough. Pretty much anything in the universe can be done if you're determined enough. Even a Regalia's power runs out eventually. I bet the artillery can wear you down and our “pea shooters” can take you out.”

“That's a high risk bet,” Jalgoz said. “And alright, you might win. Let's say you do win. You think you'll all be standing here healthy and happy when its over? I'll go down hard.Bloody and hard. And I'll take most of you with me as I go down. Is it really worth it? Even after your precious knights went and let you down?”

“Don't you say a damn word against those kids!” Chaddim barked, and Jalgoz felt the strangest sense of disorientation. For just one second the old man had sounded like his grandfather. “They took a job they didn't have to take and fought battles they didn't have to fight, all for us. You've got no right to speak about them like that.”

“Alright enough of this,” Jalgoz snarled, his moment of confusion making him irritated. “If this is gonna happen, let's get started.”

And then the villagers fired.

All of them.

The regular bullets and lasers were more of a hindrance than Jalgoz thought they would be. They couldn't possibly hurt him. But the blows had force to them, and the weight of the whole village firing together pushed back at him as he tried to advance. And they distracted him when he needed to be keeping an eye out for the artillery. The makeshift guns hurled huge slugs made from metal scrap. Those did hurt. Not much, but enough to make him flinch, stumble back, bruise his skin if he couldn't swat them away. It was like he was trying to fight a herd of rampaging bulls backed up by an enormous swarm of hornets.

And the ones with the ordinary guns were firing smart, too. Whenever he raised a hand to cut the air, to clear the way with his blades of wind, all their fire focused on his hand, knocking it aside and making it impossible to use his most destructive moves. Jalgoz roared in defiance, pushing forwards through the storm.

And then he was thrown forwards.

What the villagers saw was enormous flash of greenish light and the bandit leader roared in pain, falling forwards with the ponderous inevitability of a tree crashing down after a hundred years in the same spot. He landed face down in the mud and blood with a titanic splash.

And when he had fallen they saw, standing behind him, Tyram. There was a cut across his face, another across his chest, and he stood like he was being held up with strings, but he was standing, holding a sword as if it was the heaviest thing in the world.

TYRAM

To Tyram, the sword felt like the heaviest thing in the world. He'd was wounded, and tired (oh god he was so tired) and his arm felt like it was being pulled apart from the inside. But he was still standing. He seemed to be the only one still standing. He didn't even know if the others were alive or dead, just that they lay scattered across the battlefield. The other two Brothers Sloth lay beside them. And a whole lot of other bandits and villagers, all mixed together and covered in mud and blood. Picking out sides was impossible. Just counting up the fallen was impossible. They were everywhere, and a lot of them were in more than one piece.

Jalgoz was getting up. Tyram wasn't surprised, but he'd hoped it wouldn't happen.

Can't he see it? Tyram wondered. Can't he look around and see where he are? Why does he have to keep getting up?

He didn't bother to ask the question out loud. He doubted he'd get an answer anyway. He slid the sword back into it's sheath. Jalgoz had an ugly gash down his back, bleeding through a crack in his armor, but it couldn't have been too deep. The only sign he was in pain was an experimental roll of his shoulder once he stood up.

“So,” Jalgoz said. “There's one of you still standing.”

“Yeah,” Tyram sighed. “For whatever it's worth.”

“You really think you can take me down?” Jalgoz laughed. “Like that?”

“I promised to try,” Tyram said. “Let's get this over with.”

“Yeah sure,” Jalgoz said. “Whatever you say.”

Tyram broke into a run, surprising himself. He hadn't realized he had that much energy left in him. But he had to get close. This sword strike had to hit. He couldn't keep drawing the sword like he had been. It was too much power, and if he did it over and over again his arm would finally shatter. So he dodged the bandit's swinging claws and slashed, a wave of green light catching Jalgoz in the chest, hoping it would be over.

It wasn't. Jalgoz was climbing to his feet, a bloody crack in the front his armor now to match the one on his back. He gripped the sword to bring it crashing down, but pulled up short when he realized the villagers would get caught in the blast if he did it now. He slipped it into the sheathe on his back for now and dodged away from a swipe of Jalgoz's claws, kiting the enraged bandit away from the village.

Gods I'm tired, he thought, dodging Jalgoz's blows. Finally he saw an opportunity to get in close. This time he'd do it right against Jalgoz's armor. That should....

“GOTCHA!” Jalgoz bellowed triumphantly. Claws closed in on either side of Tyram, trying to catch him between them like three pairs of scissors. But Tyram was further forward than Jalgoz figured, so instead of the points going through Tyram's gut the claws slid together like a man folding his fingers, their edges slicing into Tyram's side in back. Tyram screamed in agony as he was caught up in the blades.

“Hehehehe not what I was going for,” Jalgoz chuckled, “but maybe it's a little better?”

He lifted Tyram into the air with a gloating grin, the young knight pounding clenched fists against the bandit's armored gauntlets. The pain was excruciating, ice and fire all at once tearing through his body, but he was still conscious. He could still move. And he was closer to Jalgoz's face than he thought he'd ever get. He grit his teeth, reaching back to draw the sword and smash it right into Jalgoz's hideous smile. But the blade only pulled out an inch or two, caught up somewhere in the blades sliced into Tyram's body.

“You can't even draw your sword!” Jalgoz howled with laughter. “Oh, that's rich! I wish Grandfather could see this one, he'd love it!”

Tyram was so tired. Of so much more than just the endless battles. He called on all the auram he could muster...and was astonished to find more than he expected. Weary as he was he should have been tapped out, but somehow he had more now than when he'd begun the fight. How could...

Not important. Not yet. He had it, so he flooded his limbs with it, focusing on his arms. Held in the air like this his legs were useless anyway. He held his hand out flat like a blade, leaned forwards in Jalgoz's grip, and delivered a chop to the bandit's throat.

Tyram's hand went through the flesh of Jalgoz's kneck almost as if it wasn't there. The bandit leaders eyes bulged from their sockets, but Tyram wasn't paying attention. With his hand still buried in Jalgoz's throat he grabbed, and twisted, and pulled something out. He wasn't sure exactly what it was, a wad of bloody flesh and gore ripped from Jalgoz's body. The bandit's grip slackened, and Tyram dropped to the ground. To his own surprise, he landed on his feet. A fountain of blood sprayed from just below Jalgoz's jaw before he stumbled his last few steps and collapsed, eyes staring lifelessly up into the sky.

That looks so peaceful, Tyram thought, letting himself fall to the ground as well. It was less tiring that standing, he supposed, but it wasn't peaceful. Maybe if he went to sleep. Maybe the storm in his head would quiet down then. The sky was a little too busy for him right now, it had broken out in bad case of air cars, all of them printed with the insignia of the enforcers. Too much motion. He closed his eyes and blocked it out, and a few minutes later he found blackness.

But not peace.