I hear a horse incoming at galloping speed from the adjacent avenue, it barely slows down to take the turn and crosses the 4th street in no time. Its rider is tall and slender, wearing a full armor with a helmet included. The crest is unmistakably Leomi's, a lance intertwined in a stag's antlers.
She pulls on her mounts reins and it slows down, stopping in the middle of the crossing. Now that she has stopped, I can hear a dozen other riders not far behind. I stand, angry, ready to call the Rykz to obliterate them all.
But my Lady dismounts and slaps the animal's rump with the steel backing of her gloves. It neighs and departs at full speed. She runs and hops over a low-wall enclosing a property, despite the weight on her back, hiding behind it.
I cool down, reassured by her actions. The Nobles pursuing her arrive at the crossing, Yvonne and Edusa leading them. They barely slow down to make a turn to take the street her horse went down. She didn't tell them where she was going.
She waits for them to pass before making her way back to the center of the crossing. She takes her helmet off to scrutinize the area, holding it under her arm. I kick the chair blocking the front door and open it.
Leomi immediately turns to the sound, rushing over at double pace. I conceal myself behind the door. As soon as she walks in, I slam the door shut and set the chair back in place. She flips around, dominant hand on her sword.
We face each other, her disappointment that I am the one who called her here is visible on her sharp traits. Her eyes soon find the broken silver lion pommel sword at my waist.
“Jessica took it in the end.” My Lady murmurs softly.
I ignore her and head to the living room, the largest in the mansion. She follows closely. Once there, I take hold of the long table and throw it against the back wall to make space.
“How did you get that? Did she give it to you? Did you steal it? How is she? Where is she? Is she here?” She presses me for answers.
I hold my tongue. She frowns and forms a fire construct to chase the darkness and anchors it to the chandelier attached to the ceiling.
“Th, ther, there's blood on it.” She stutters. “What happened?”
I take the shattered weapon in hand and throw it to the ground between us. It spins on itself and stops with its fractured blade pointing at me.
“Talk to me, Elizabeth!” She pleads. I remain silent. “Tell me, help her!” She urges me but I remain unfazed. “She's your sister for the Emperor's sake! I looked into it. There was a fire in Baron Wilhelm's mansion eighteen years ago, it's said that a two year old girl, you, died along with her family that day. It fits, your mother, Elly Wilhelm, survived same as you and she likely took a boat to the Izla to escape. She's your sister, Elizabeth, speak to me! I need to know to help Jessica!”
“So you'll break another vow.” I utter harshly, unable to stop myself. Referring to the oath Leomi took to do nothing.
She freezes, taken aback by my accusation. She fails to sustain my glare and looks away in shame.
“I'll do anything for her.” She whispers.
“Your true colors. You care not for our will.” I say with a rough angry laugh. “I knew you would throw me away for her on the first occasion.” I add, grinning inside my helmet.
Leomi straightens her posture, swallowing her saliva as she takes the accusations in. Yet the light gray abyss of my Lady's eyes never leave the broken sword laying between us, focused on its shattered tip and the blood on it. Her expression suddenly hardens and she sets her helmet back on as her dominant hand's slender fingers wrap around her weapon's handle.
“What did you do, Elizabeth Vil? Did you hurt my Jessica?” She utters each word separately, carefully articulating them in an intense tone.
“Oh, there's no doubt. I almost killed her.” I admit truthfully with a mad giggle. I tap my left side, where my spike hit when Teva stopped me. “Aimed for the heart, hit there. Lucky girl, isn't... Fuck!” I jump back, barely dodging my Lady's lightning fast slash.
The only reason I even could is because of my limb's sense. I bring my hammer around and block the upward reverse strike she throws, something I've seen her do too often to get caught by it now.
“Where is she? Where is she? Where is she? Where is she?” Leomi utters repeatedly, throwing blows with each word.
I can somewhat hazily detect how twisted by resentment her face is behind her helmet. I narrowly manage to deviate them as I retreat on my back foot. I assemble and activate a full body strengthening construct, succeeding in recovering just in time to slide away and avoid another lion strike that she sneaks in-between normal attacks.
I feel a heavy impact on my right side and am thrown aside by it. A kick she landed because I'm was too focused on her weapon. I use the split second it takes her to recover her footing to assemble a lion strike and swing my hammer towards her legs.
The blow glances her right greave, leaving a large dent in the steel. She buckles but that doesn't stop her from countering with a golden glowing left palm strike to my helmet, dazing me enough that I fall to my knees.
I watch with disbelief as she raises her sword high above her head to bring it down towards my left shoulder. Survival. My left limb brings my hammer up and blocks the strike a moment before it can cut through.
The attempt brings me back to when she sliced my burning arm off. Cold fear mixes with the cool euphoria spreading from the tendrils anchored to my bones.
I spring forward to tackle her but she lands another kick and I smash against the wall. Leomi rushes me, furiously screaming as she prepares to launch a wide slash aimed at my torso. I assemble a hardening construct for my left forearm. Reading the trajectory, I let go of the hammer with that hand, activate it and slap the flat side of her blade, successfully deviating it without getting cut. I put the construct on standby to avoid burning my energy.
I follow up on that with a one-armed upward swing of my hammer that impacts her breastplate. Clang. It throws her backward but doesn't do much damage beyond a scratch or two. That buys me enough breathing room to get into a defensive stance and assemble several lion strikes.
“I'm going to fucking break you for what you did to her, Elizabeth!” Lance threatens. “But before that, you'll tell me exactly how I can find my Jessica.”
“You still think she wants you after all you've done to her?” I ask coldly. “You're mine now.”
“Aarh!” The raging growl rumbles out of her throat.
Leomi flashes forward at unbelievable speed. The weight of her steel armor not appearing to slow her down in the slightest, her movements reminiscent of Vikiana's when she used a full body lion strike.
I activate a prepared construct but she half-spins on herself to gather even more momentum to launch two consecutive attacks on my hammer, blowing it away just enough that I am left open to a third slash that lands flat on my chest.
Clink. My feet take off the ground and I go through the wooden wall behind me. The pain of a cracked rib, muted by the substance injected from my limb, hits me mid-flight. I crash into the dark room, my lips lifting in a toothy smile. A few of my chain-mail's links broke but it did prevent the blade from cutting me.
I roll backward, standing back up before she can follow to capitalize on my overconfidence and failure to realize that I have some of the same flaws the Rykz drones do. While I can read incoming arc of attacks, it is much harder to do so when they're chained together inside a fraction of a second.
As she steps through the hole I just created, I launch a lion strike swing with my full strength. The hammerhead shreds through the wooden wall to reach Leomi, giving her enough warning to inject flow into her armor's runic construct.
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My hammer lands on the left arm she raises to block. The impact makes her reel and her steel vambrace loses much of its golden glow but it's a small price to pay to stop such a heavy blow.
I don't give her the room to mount a proper defense and throw a front kick that hits her plackart, the plate protecting her stomach. She staggers back and I follow her into the living room with a swiping attack to her feet.
My Lady uses another full body lion strike to swirl away from my weapon while her left hand flashes towards my helmet in a backhanded slap. I lean into it and it hits at an odd angle. Crack.
“Argh!” She yelps as her bones break.
There is pain as well as frustration and anger in the outcry. I press on with a flurry of hammer blows, passing it around my back by using lion strikes. She either avoids the attacks entirely or skillfully parries by locking weapons in the middle of their arcs to force them away from her.
I carry on without letting up despite how ineffective my tactic appears to be because it forces her to use full body lion strikes to sustain my assault. If she's going along to drain my flow reserves, I'm happy to oblige.
Except, after a long moment, I realize that I'm wrong. She isn't getting overwhelmed at all, I somehow got dragged into her pace and none of my attacks actually come close to landing anymore.
I leap away to put some distance between us. Leomi allows me to split. Her breaths are short and rugged. It took a toll on her to do this, she expended much more physical strength than I did.
She adjusts her grip on her sword and takes the diagonal lion strike stance, her light gray abyss challenging me through her helmet's visor. I grin and bring my hammer up in the overhead position she first taught me.
My Lady advances slowly, her dominant arm tenses up and she turns on her waist to add a rotating motion to the attack. I focus on the shape of her blade with my limb's sense. She unleashes the slash with such speed that my eyes on their own would never have sufficed to keep up.
I take a half-step back and avoid the tip of her weapon by a hair, the best I could do. Lance appears wide open after missing me but I don't let that fool me as I've seen her use such moves against the Rykz. She wants to bait me to rush in so she can counter.
I activate my lion strike and use my own feinted overhead blow to make her think that she has time to avoid or block it. Except I never rotate the weapon to slam the hammerhead down in a relatively slow but powerful arc. I make my stab as fast as possible, aiming at her shoulder.
Her eyes widen in surprise as she realizes her mistake, yet her traits tighten with determination as she lets herself fall backward. It doesn't suffice, the sharp spike at the end of my weapon's handle goes through her steel pauldron, piercing her flesh right under her left collarbone, slamming her against the ground, and pinning her to the floorboards.
A sharp pain shakes me, I feel her sword planted in my own right shoulder. I miscalculated. My Lady reversed her grip and used her prepared lion strike along with my forward momentum to impale me at the exact same spot I got her. Neither of us went for the other's vital areas when we obviously could have.
Still, I won this exchange, and took the fight with it. She's nailed down. I take her helmet off and rise to my full height, looking down at her, ignoring my biting injury to savor her twisted agonizing expression. I run my right thumb over her soft lips, ignoring the fact that it's disturbing the blade stuck in me.
Leomi opens her mouth and bites down on it. I smile and leave it there, taking advantage to close my grip around her jaw. I use my hold to force her head side to side, playing with her.
“My win.” I declare, shaking with excitement.
She scoffs, unable to talk, but definitely capable of communicating that this isn't over. I frown and immediately focus on my sense instead of wasting time searching with my eyes, cursing my inability to split my attention.
I find that her broken left hand is holding one of her needle-explosive lance shaped construct, it's still growing but it's already plenty enough to blow me away. Shit.
How does she still have enough flow? She doesn't, she's bluffing again. I place my left foot on the other side of her and lay my hand on the hammerhead. I glance down at her and apply pressure to it, making the spike plunge deeper into the floor while the handle slides along the hole in her shoulder.
“Arh!” She groans. “Fuck you Elizabeth!” My Lady roars.
She suddenly kicks up with her leg, aiming at my crotch that I just exposed stupidly. I manage to block at the last moment by closing my knees together. She follows up by bringing her lance construct around to throw it at me.
There is no doubt on her face so I start reconsidering the conclusion I drew. I jump back and expand the skin hardening construct to encompass my entire left limb before activating it. I show her my left side and use the arm as cover.
Crack. It shatters in hundreds of golden shards. Most miss as the construct has a wide radius, I block a lot of them but my legs lack protection and a dozen fragments pierce them. I falter and drop on my back.
The shards then start slowly dissipating as the compressed air contained within is gradually released, instead of exploding like they likely did when she used it against Odo's assassins. Her armor sustained some of the projectiles, but the steel plates weren't punctured.
I gather two-thirds of my reserves and weave a healing construct over the wounds. As I do that, she takes hold of my weapon's handle with both hands and begins pulling it out.
“Arh, f... ah.” The small cries escape Leomi, making me feel all odd inside.
“Say the words and my life is yours.” I tell her.
“I'll take it with my own hands when I want it.” She retorts with an unstable voice.
I laugh in response to her words, disturbing my aching injuries. I take hold of her sword, still planted in my shoulder, and yank it out. I try to catch my breath as I wait for my wounds to stop bleeding, not certain that I'll manage to stand up until it they do.
Lance manages to remove my hammer's spike and puts it aside. We remain like this for a long while, waiting to heal enough to resume our battle for supremacy. Her head turns to the broken silver pommel sword laying on the ground at a distance from us.
“Liar, you baited me here because they're attacking tonight.” She suddenly says. “Jessica told you what to do?”
“I did but not only.” I admit, ignoring the second part.
“How is she?” She asks.
“Different from what you've told me.” I reply shortly.
“You don't know what you're talking about.” She utters without doubt. “Is she hurt? Did you hurt her?”
“Not as much as you did.” I giggle.
“I hate you.” Leomi seethes in response.
I remain silent, worried that perhaps I went too far. I shake my head and decide to keep resting like she is. I don't know how many tens of minutes pass but eventually we both manage to gather ourselves enough to sit up, each holding the other's weapon.
We struggle to stand, I do because of my legs while she has to take her heavy armor into account. Before we can clash again, I hear horses approaching the crossing at trotting speed. Too many hooves are hitting the pavement for me to count.
“Shit.” I swear under my breath.
I throw her sword in front of her and extend my hand out. She glares but does hand my hammer over. While she leans in to pick up her weapon, I stumble over to the next room. I hurriedly open the door giving into the courtyard where the two hundred warriors are gathered.
Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.
The Rykz immediately welcome me with their loud breathing cry, they seem agitated and struggling to restrain themselves from moving. I hit the side of the door with my hammer and they rush forth.
I make my way back to my Lady, she's on her guard and staring at the warriors pouring in from behind me. I take a clay vial marked with a black dot off my belt and throw it at her feet.
She tries to catch it before it smashes against the ground but fails because her dominant hand holds her blade while her left shoulder has a gaping wound in it, not unlike the one in my right. The Rykz column parts ranks to pass on either side of her. Yet, unusually for these disciplined creatures, a few bump into her.
Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.
“What did you do?” She yells. “You brought these creatures in Meria?!”
“I'm ensuring that the battle ends tonight, before you make them shatter the damn walls.” I reply.
“I was going to force the issue tonight, you fool! If your jealousy didn't control you, I would be talking to the Duke right now!” She screams at me.
Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.
Some of the warriors perk up at her tone, some of their cloaks sliding off. I take another vial off my belt and uncork it, handing it over to her. She tears it out of my hands and runs to the front of the mansion where the Rykz are gathering.
“Not too late for that.” I note, following her.
She ignores me and looks out the window. I glance out. There are Templars gathering outside, at least three dozens but probably more. Fuck. The two mansion guards that I chased away earlier are among them.
Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.
Alarm bells resound in the distance, those that warn that the city is under attack. That's too soon, is it because of Cecil and the other? Leomi turns to me with a deadly glare and pale cheeks.
“You can't get caught here.” She says in a tone filled with fear.
“I think so, but why do you?” I ask, frowning.
“Because you executed a Count and called people to question Nobility's right to rule.” She hurriedly explains. “They won't let you get away with that without retaliating and the Templars aren't likely to either after what you just did. Your kinship and resemblance to Jessica makes you a threat to her life and I fucking swear that I will kill you before I let you do anything that endangers her. There is a secret passage here, correct? Use it and run.”
I smile at the sentiment and take hold of my helmet with my right hand, groaning at the strain on my wound. I'm out of time and I can settle for this stalemate.
She hits me in the stomach with her broken left hand before I can take it off, catching me off guard and cutting my breath. I fall to the ground as the impact shakes my already unsteady legs.
“Argh!” Leomi cries in pain. “What did I just tell you?” She asks with mad eyes. “Keep the damn thing on!”
Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.
The warriors turn to her, unsheathing their sabers at once. Leomi flips around to face them but almost immediately realizes that she doesn't stand a chance and jumps through the window just before the first Rykz take swipes at her.
“W, wait!” I stutter, hand desperately extended out.
“I'll settle this with you, Elizabeth. Until then, you better keep that face you don't deserve hidden.” She calls out. “And don't touch my Jessica again.”