The ambassador raced toward Jack with blinding speed. He turned, crying out as she swung her sickle. He dodged, but too slow. Blood hissed up from his leg and froze in the air. Ruby droplets scattered across the icy ground. As Jack crumpled, the ambassador leaped for Anton. He threw his axe, but it bounced from her skin and she planted her heel in his chest before kicking off. Anton flew ten feet before crashing into the snow.

Zoe braced herself as the ambassador sailed through the air toward her. The heartbeats of her friends pounded in her ears. She stared at its descending form like an angel of death.

It landed atop her. Legs spread and leaning down smiling with glee.

“Sadness. The queen must feel sadness when her drones fall and she cannot help. I will take them. Two sacrifices for two days, and then I will come for the others. Despair, for there is nothing you can do.”

Zoe flexed against the icy cage. It was strong, but she could break it. She pulled air into her lungs and shouted at the hideous mantis looming over her.

“You eat people! You can’t expect us to do nothing!”

“Eat?” her mandibles clattered as she rubbed her barbed scythes together. “You have met our little ones in the forest, they are so drab and dross as to kill and eat. No, our queen has grand plans for your souls. Take these few days, get stronger — juicier — for the queen! The harvest must be fat and ready before we reap it!”

She bowed her head, as though this speech had sucked all the energy of her.

“It is civilization that separates us from the animals,” said the ambassador. “You have given your message, await our rebuttal.”

Zoe gasped for breath against her crushing constraint. She flexed and heaved. The ice cracked and chipped but wouldn’t come down as the ambassador scooped up her thighbone club and Trinch’s arm.

“See you in two days,” the ambassador said.

She strode over to grab Jack by the ankle. He cried out as blood flowed from his leg into the snow. One arm weakly batted the monstrous claws but to no avail.

“See you in hell,” Zoe muttered.

[Fools Rush In]

The world sank into the sun.

Zoe blinked away the memory of flames as the ambassador strode out of the trees. Trees stood where once a landscape of ash raged under the belched flames of a dying universe.

Despite — or because of — the pain, scale, and horror of the Title; she found herself drawn to the power.

Another trick of the Crimson Armada System? Because the words it whispered were still there somewhere in her mind. Everything was reset, except her memory. How insidious.

She could just imagine the Gambler and Smith smiling at that irony, but she kept the thought to herself, whatever that meant now.

[Fools Rush In: 8/12 remaining]

[It is a cold, lonely day when the fires of time no longer burn]

The ambassador sprinted across the snowy expanse between the edge of town and the forest.

It closed the distance, and Zoe charged. She knew how it moved now. Fast. It must have some essence inside that promotes Dexterity. Maybe Wood, or Water, or it could be the rib sickle it carried. The Ice provided the Might it needed to stand up to Zoe’s attacks.

But she had bruised it. If she had enough opportunity, she could crack its shell.

She leaped, swinging with all her strength, and the ambassador sidestepped with grace.

Just as Zoe planned.

Her chain — it felt so good to have the chain whole again! — slung out and coiled around the creature’s neck. Zoe pulled herself in and mounted the creature’s back. The second her midnight boots gripped the icy carapace, she wailed on its head. No grace, no flair, just pounding her bone club against the creature’s head. Reverberations echoed up her arm and she let them feed her movement. She struck in time and each blow grew heavier until the air shook and the mantis buckled to the snow.

A crack formed in the mantis’s icy chitin, and it bucked, throwing Zoe hard. Her chain lengthened as she maintained her position, but as a claw slipped underneath, Zoe released her hold. She leaped away and landed carefully in the snow.

“Boys!” she called to Jack and Anton. “Spray its face. Keep it distracted.”

The mantis clicked and staggered before it straightened and stared at her. Mandibles clacked.

“Fools.”

It dashed forward, glowing with light as it shrank down to the size of a woman. Sickle in hand, trialing light, but Anton’s eyes flashed into its face. It flinched away from the storm of burning petals. Though they didn’t burn, they distracted. The ambassador paused, and Zoe attacked.

Her chain grabbed the creature’s foot. Zoe hauled with all her strength and pulled the ambassador off balance.

As the ambassador fell, Zoe charged. She straddled the pale woman. Her body shivered as freezing aura rushed from the insectile smile below. Zoe grimaced and brought her mirrored fists together above her head. She rained down with hammer strikes and tried to kill the ambassador.

A plume of snow erupted with each impact and it rained down around them, but the ambassador only laughed as her nose broke and blood flowed across her porcelain skin. Light flashed, and her technique unraveled.

Zoe cleared the area as the ambassador returned to her gigantic size. Her chain looped around her arm snuggling against her skin.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

The mantis bowed to Zoe.

“You are strong,” she said. “But how many humans like you are there?”

She stepped backward toward the forest.

“You believe this a victory but we return in three days. My queen is patient, but she is not merciful. If there is no sacrifice, we shall take you all.”

The ambassador faded into the trees.

Zoe stood for a moment, skin draped in mirror reflecting the falling snow, and then she collapsed to her knees with a deep ragged breath. Adrenaline rampaged through her veins. Reverberations as the air passed over her lips, as her heart rang out inside her chest, she shook, eyelids flickering, as the world burned and did not burn.

That had been close.

She put everything she had into that fight, into the bluff, hoping the ambassador would think they were more trouble than they were worth. It had worked, and Zoe was relieved, because if it hadn’t… She had no more tricks up her sleeve.

If the ambassador had time to adapt to her techniques — which Zoe realized it already had — then it would be a repeat of last time. Where the mantis simply played with her until it was done.

Footsteps behind her.

“You want a hand?” Jack asked.

Zoe looked up, still breathing heavily, as the leering pink sky shifted and swirled like a halo above him.

“I’ll be fine.”

“Sure, we all will, right? With powers like yours, we have nothing to worry about.”

She smiled, despite the moment, and it was a crack in the dam that let it all out. Laughter spilled as tears rolled down her cheeks. She felt insane and lightheaded, and Jack scooped his arm under her shoulder and lifted her gently to her feet. She leaned against him, and the weight — the contact — felt good, a moment of warmth in the cold despair that threatened to swallow her after the battle.

That mantis had been playing with her, even as she beat it down with all her strength, it simply laughed.

[Ding!]

[Playing is fun. That was fun]

“I don’t think it was fun.”

“Of course not,” said Jack surprised, and mollified. “I’m sorry I let down the team. My technique isn’t very useful against monsters higher level than me. Huh, never thought I’d say that aloud.”

She glanced at him, feeling his sincerity through the beating of her technique. It felt so intrusive. He didn’t even know about the technique. She turned away and continued toward where Anton lay spread out in the snow like an angel.

And she told Jack nothing. After all, she couldn’t read his thoughts, and the insurance felt …

Right.

[Ding!]

[Friends should not eat other friends!]

Zoe frowned.

She wasn’t like the mantis. She wasn’t devouring humans, or souls like the fanged clouds in the sky, it was just insurance. Keeping control. Keeping everyone in check.

[Never trust those you command…]

The Crimson Armada slipped through her mind like a shark fin. The voice trailed off into silence, but she heard echoes, overlapping words, as though it were talking for a while.

How long had it been whispering into her mind and shaping her thoughts?

She felt the threads of her technique connecting her to Anton and Jack like exposed arteries. Pulsing, delicate, living. Warmth flowed to her and from her. This wasn’t just a booby trap, this was resonance.

Harmony.

She walked toward the barricade a little surer of herself and her path. Not just her body path, but everything she was doing. The mantis, the gambler, the system — all problems she would deal with when they came.

And they were coming fast.

As she approached the truck, the spear bearers sheepishly emerged. None of them made eye contact except for Fleshripper.

“You were incredible,” he said. “How did you know to fight the ambassador like that? Do you think you could show me…”

He trailed off under Zoe’s glare.

“You knelt,” Zoe said. “And then you ran. Scurried away like cockroaches under the light,” she stamped her foot so hard the ground cracked. “We are not the bugs! We are not the monsters!”

They quavered as her Willpower lashed out.

“There’s nothing we can do against something so strong,” Woody said, his eyes downcast. “Nothing we can do against someone like you. So if you want to kill us…” he raised his head, tears welling. “None of us gave the orders, but we followed them. Spare the others, I’ll take —” he choked, sobbed. “I’ll take responsibility.”

“On your knees then.”

He fell to the ground as Zoe’s chain slunk down her sleeve; it shimmied across the ground like a snake and coiled around Woody’s neck.

For a moment Zoe floated outside herself, looking at the scene, with Woody kneeling and waiting for his death. She could kill him in a heartbeat, or maybe spare him — the one brave enough to accept his position — and kill the others. But as Zoe watched her body she felt no connection, no control.

“What choice did you have?” Zoe’s scarred lips muttered. “Are you serious? You should have gotten stronger. Grown powerful. Fought the damned monsters!”

“There’s so many of them! They overran the city when the safe zone —”

“Shut up. All of you on your knees.”

One by one they fell, and Zoe’s chain snaked between their necks. Nobody spoke. Fleshripper looked up, almost about to say something, but remained silent.

The sky raged purple above, and Zoe realized she didn’t know what she was going to do next.

And she floated back into her body.

The choice was hers.

“You’re all alive,” she breathed. “We need everyone alive.”

She withdrew her chain, and relief flooded her captives' faces.

“Now, I’m going to enter your town, and I’m going to do what I need, and I don’t want any trouble. If you help me, I’ll help you.”

“The mantis will come back…” Dave murmured as he stared at the forest. “We’re all going to —”

“When the mantis returns, we’ll kill them together.”

They gasped at her words, but as they looked at her, they believed. She could see it in their eyes. Did she need to say anything else?

[Our Hearts Toll as One]

Her technique whispered out. Why were they alive? Her. Who would save them? Her. Who could they trust? Her.

Every heart in the vicinity fell into her hands. Each beat with fear, with hope, and with determination. Threads of Skein shifted and danced she felt them like leashes in her grip.

[Ding!]

The Black Star’s voice was faint but satisfied.

[So many friends. Tee hee hee]

[We’ll have such fun…]