In that moment, it looked as though Ruthers realized that there was something far more to Harper than met the eye. Something even more than her being able to fly. He stood there, hand tight in my hair as he narrowed his gaze at her. His voice, when he spoke, was gruff and clearly beyond all reason. The rational thought he’d been capable of before Oliver was killed was gone. He had always looked either like a bulldog, or like a literal bull in a China shop, and that latter analogy was even more apt now.

“I do not have time for childish antics now, Miss Hayes. You will sit down and be quiet.” Along with his words, Ruthers used his free hand to make a dismissive shoving motion. I felt a wave of clearly powerful force pass me on its way to knocking Harper to the ground.

She didn’t go down. The girl stood there, watching him as bits of her hair ruffled as though pushed by a steady breeze before it finally settled, leaving her unbothered.

Ruthers squinted, clearly taken aback. Raising his hand, he made a grabbing motion before yanking it back down as though to physically force her to the ground with his invisible grip.

Once more, it seemed to have no effect on Harper. She lifted her chin a little bit and watched him. That was it. Whatever power he was using to try to yank her down accomplished nothing.

Ruthers snapped his fingers. A crystal formed around Harper before solidifying to freeze her.

She stepped out of it, like it wasn’t there. Said nothing. Did nothing else. Just stepped out.

“Who are you?” Ruthers snapped. His grip on my hair lessened as he turned his full attention to her. I slumped to the ground and grunted a little. The man ignored me, and I saw a few of the other students he had pinned down starting to sit up, all of them looking confused, and many frightened. The song that had driven them to flee had been cut off or silenced somehow.

“You are not a student,” Ruthers murmured. “Could you be… no, no. You are not Joselyn. I know her. I would know her. You…” His head shook, and he stared intently. “Who are you?”

Even as he spoke, I saw another figure. Actually, it was an identical figure. Another Ruthers, a duplicate, loomed up behind Harper. He held a sword made of some kind of red metal, and had done something to completely silence himself. Hell, I couldn’t even sense him with my item-power. The second Ruthers was definitely within range of it (and it was working, as I could sense the other students and the first Ruthers), but I couldn’t sense anything on this one at all. He was completely silent and invisible to other extra senses.

He’d silenced everyone else too. When I tried to blurt a warning, I found myself once more unable to move. I couldn’t open my mouth, couldn’t widen my eyes, couldn’t even nod toward the girl to get her to look back. All around us, everyone else seemed frozen too, from the hybrids who had been hesitantly and fearfully picking themselves up, to the other students who came to see what the hell was going on. Ruthers was simultaneously freezing and muting all of us together, while also duplicating himself to appear behind her with that red-bladed sword drawn back. I didn’t know if he intended to stabilize her after she was disabled and get her healed as soon as she wasn’t a threat anymore, or if he was actually going straight for the kill. But one thing was for sure, he wasn’t playing around. He was going to end this.

Or not. Because despite the fact that all of us were frozen, and the Ruthers in front of her had given no indication of the other’s presence, Harper somehow knew he was there. At the last possible instant, just as the second Ruthers drove his sword at her back, she abruptly spun. A sword I had never seen before appeared in her hand just in time to smack Ruthers’ blade out of the way. It looked… fairly ordinary, particularly against the fancy red sword that Ruthers wielded. The hilt was gold, with a simple, straight guard and a ball-like pommel. The blade itself was grayish silver. There were no special designs, jewels, or anything else to make the sword stand out.

And yet, despite that, I found myself unable to look away from it. The blade, as it casually caught Ruthers’ own sword to stop it, seemed to sing. It was a… a happy song. That’s the only way I could explain it. The metal of Harper’s sword sang as it collided with the other, in a way that made it seem happy, like a woman singing in joy.

“Joyous.” The word fell from the second Ruthers’ lips as he stared at the blade that had caught his own. At least, at first, I thought he was saying joyous, agreeing with my thoughts about what the vibrating metal sounded like.

That’s not what he said. It was Tabbris. She was back in my head, and sounded completely awed. He said Joyeuse. The sword. The sword is Joyeuse.

The first Ruthers was already moving. Or rather, he had moved. Suddenly, he was right there, on the opposite side of Harper as his own red-bladed sword was driven at her exposed side, her blade still caught out of position against his duplicate’s.

A second sword appeared in the girl’s other hand, flicking up to catch the first Ruthers’ blade. This one had a dark blue hilt that seemed to be made of some kind of crystal, like a sapphire shaped into the handle of a sword. The guard was a bit more rounded than the other sword’s straight one. Its blade was a very light blue to go with the hilt, aside from the edges and a bit going up the middle, which were white. The whole thing looked almost too thin to withstand any kind of hit.

Yet take the hit it did, catching the first Ruthers’ sword easily before she pushed it aside and down. Harper stood there, one sword in each hand with the blades stopping the blades of both Ruthers and his duplicate.

“Caliburn,” the first Ruthers breathed, staring at the sword that had stopped him. “No. No, that’s… that’s impossible.” His voice actually shook a little bit, his awe and disbelief audible.

“Caliburn and Joyeuse,” the second Ruthers murmured, sounding like he didn’t even know that he was actually speaking out loud. “You… you cannot have Caliburn and Joyeuse. You… no… no…”

Wh-what does that mean? I sent inwardly, still unable to make myself move. Even distracted as he was, Ruthers was still almost absently holding me and all the others completely motionless. That’s how powerful he was, how little of a chance I would have stood against him. Caliburn and Joyeuse? What does it mean if she has those?

What does it mean? Tabbris echoed my words, and I felt her broad smile. It means holy shit.

Ruthers clearly agreed with the words themselves, if not the sentiment or emotion behind them. His eyes narrowed, and the man snapped, “You’re going to tell me where you took those swords from, how you have them. You may know a few tricks. You may have a few toys. But I am of the Crossroads Leadership Committee. And this is over.”

“Is it?” Harper asked him, still blocking both of the other swords. “Because I think it’s just getting started.”

With those words, the music that had been playing was back, the song from Twisted Sister roaring to life once more to flood the island from every direction.

Something happened then. Something I couldn’t follow. Actually, it was a lot of somethings. There was a blur of motion, a clanging of swords. Both of the Ruthers and Harper moved too damn fast to follow. It was like they were moving so quickly my eyes and brain couldn’t keep up with them. It was just a commotion of color and shapes accompanied by the sound of clashing swords. They were fighting, but they were doing so with so much speed that I had no idea what was going on or who was winning. And not just clashing swords. I saw glimpses of fire, electricity, and more. I saw a glowing ball of plasma shoot across the field, burning through the ground it passed over and turning it to a blasted line of dirt. I saw lightning called down from the sky before being broken into smaller bolts and scattered across the island. It was completely impossible to follow. As the battle (and the song) went on, I had no idea how it was going or who was doing better.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Though to be honest, the fact that Harper was in a full-on fight with one of the Committee (who had duplicated himself into two specifically to outnumber and outflank her) and I couldn’t tell who was winning said enough all by itself. Tabbris was right. Holy shit basically summed it up.

I saw energy whipping around through the air. I saw bits of ground raised up. I heard sonic booms, collisions of power and energy that I couldn’t even start to follow. I saw a whip made of darkness itself try to wrap around Harper before her sword cut through it. I saw both Ruthers sheathe themselves in some kind of diamond armor that completely covered them. Diamond armor that pulsed and crackled with what looked like contained lightning.

That lightning was sent forth through the hands of both Ruthers from either side of Harper, clearly intended to destroy her. The power just within those twin bolts from Ruthers and his duplicate sizzled the air. I could literally feel the heat from them despite being several yards away. Yet she caught the bolts on her swords, dissipating them as if they were no more than streams from a water gun.

It was enough, however, to distract her. And Ruthers, the main one (from what I could tell), took advantage by appearing in front of her. His diamond-covered fist lashed out, colliding with her face. Her head was knocked to the side, and I saw a bit of blood on her lip, a slight bruise forming.

A bruise and bloody lip from a blow that, I was absolutely certain, could have leveled a tank.

Ruthers followed up that blow. I knew he did, but I wasn’t sure how. Because the next thing I knew, Harper and both of the Ruthers were several yards away from where they had just been an instant earlier, separating as one of the man’s forms held a hand against a bloody cut against his cheek.

Then they were on the other side of me. I saw one of them on the ground, the other reeling back from a kick that Harper had put into his stomach. She had another bruise that hadn’t been there before, this one on her temple.

A blink, and they were somewhere behind me. I couldn’t move, but I heard a few clashes of swords and a grunt.

To my left, they suddenly appeared. Harper had a pair of cuts along her arm and there was blood on her leg. Both Ruthers looked damaged too. In front of me, behind, to the side. They kept disappearing, then reappearing with new injuries, new evidence of fighting that I hadn’t seen.

It was time stopping, I realized. Ruthers kept stopping time and trying to attack Harper. But Harper wasn’t frozen. They were fighting through each time-freeze until Harper landed a hit that broke the man’s concentration enough to restart time. That was why they seemed to keep bouncing randomly around us. We were only catching extremely brief glimpses of this fight, like getting snapshots instead of a movie. But why was Ruthers bothering to stop time if it wasn’t stopping Harper herself?

Because he knows the others are trying to take down the shield, Tabbris suddenly piped up. He wants to deal with her before they finish that. That’s why he keeps freezing time, so fighting her doesn’t give them a chance to take down the shield. He wants to finish her, then go to them.

Right, that made sense. Of course he’d be able to figure out that someone else was trying to take down the security shield, and wouldn’t want to waste time here with this fight. So he was just going to keep freezing time instead, making what should have been a several minute long struggle take place in a handful of seconds.

Whatever happened through the next time stop, only one of the Ruthers came out of it. He stood there, about a dozen feet in front of us. One side of his diamond-covered face was cracked a bit, and he was breathing heavily. He held his sword out in front of him, to where Harper stood. “Who are you?” the man demanded in between deep breaths. “You are not Joselyn. You cannot be… you… those swords…” He sounded like he was right on the cusp of figuring it out, yet didn’t want to. His voice cracked a little. “Who the hell are you?”

For a moment, Harper was silent. She stood with both of her blades crossed in front of her. Slowly, she looked to me, eyes gazing in my direction before moving to take in the others. All of us, dozens of students, were staring, everyone frozen in place while we watched and listened to the fight playing out before us. I even saw a few teachers mixed in there. They too were frozen, likely because Ruthers didn’t know who from Gaia’s staff he could trust. Harper looked to all of us, taking in the fact that everyone was watching. And everyone had the same question.

“You want to know who I am?” She drew herself up, literally growing a few inches in the process. Her hair lengthened, growing to her shoulders while shifting from simple pigtails to a pair of tight braids, blonde hair growing to mix with the pink.

“I am the one whose blade sings.”

Her Crossroads uniform fell away, dropping to reveal form-fitting armor. The legs and boots were mostly black, with a bit of blue going up the sides like shin and hip guards. The torso of the armor was a dark blue, with a white emblem etched into it starting at the waist and going up to the right shoulder. The emblem was of a griffin in flight.

The arms of the armor, stretching down into gauntlets, were black like the legs and boots, with the same blue reinforced spots.

“I am the one whose sword shatters fell magic. The one who stands at the right hand of Arthur, king of all and savior of this and every world. The one who shall end those who would betray Camelot and humanity to their oppressors. The one whose swords will break all that are raised against them, and send the pieces scattered as dust on the winds of their panicked cries.”

The woman stood straight, her true form revealed as she held both weapons in front of herself. A dark cloak fell into place, unfurling to drop across her armor. Her voice seemed to shake the very ground as she spoke. “I am the one who is telling you to move.

“I… am… Darkwing Duck.”

With what I swore was a literally audible record scratch, those last words made Ruthers blink, taken aback. He looked completely lost, his mouth opening to ask what the hell that was supposed to mean.

But before he could get a word out, Harper disappeared. She reappeared behind the man while he was still lost in confusion. One of her swords was driven into his side. Not enough to kill the man, I knew. Yet definitely enough to draw a cry of pain from him.

He spun, stumbling a bit as his sword fell. With his body still turned to diamond (or whatever it was), he swung for the transformed Harper’s face. But he was too slow. She ducked her head back to avoid it, before following through with her own punch. It connected against Ruthers’ face with so much force that I heard what sounded like a sonic boom explode across the school grounds. I felt the wave of concussive force like a rush of wind, even as Ruthers himself was sent flying. He went back a good twenty feet, crashing to the ground. His armor had disappeared, his skin back to normal. And he was bleeding.

“Watch a cartoon sometime,” Harper suggested. Then she was in front of him, appearing in a blink as her foot lashed out to collide with his face.

Ruthers fell, before disappearing. He vanished from sight, apparently reflexively retreating before he could fall unconscious.

“He’ll be back, probably with help,” Harper informed us, as I realized that I could move again. All of us could. The other Hybrids were picking themselves off the grass, staring at Harper in a mixture of shock and awe. I was right there with them. The one who stood at the right hand of Arthur? What did that mean? How could she… how could she do that? What… what…

Avalon and the others (Columbus, Shiori, and Aylen) had caught up by then. They skidded to a stop, looking just as confused and awed as the rest of us. In the back of my head, I could hear Tabbris stammering and babbling like a fangirl, going on about how awesome that was.

The teachers were moving again too. But none of them seemed to know what to do, or what was going on. They were all from the older years, teachers I hadn’t really officially met. They seemed lost, and I was pretty sure that none really wanted to be the first to launch themselves into a fight against someone who had just beaten a Committee member. Understandable, really. Especially since, given the secrecy surrounding this whole ‘arresting Gaia’ thing, none of them actually knew what the hell was going on.

“Who… who are you?” I finally managed. Around me, I heard some of the other students, Hybrid and normal onlooker, student and teacher, all echoing that single question.

For her part, Harper smiled faintly. It was a smile that reminded me of the innocent, cheerful, somewhat goofy girl I had seen her as until tonight. Until she did all of this, and stood against one of the Crossroads Committee.

“Who am I?” she echoed, a hint of teasing on her voice as she let the question hang on the air for a brief moment, her eyes glancing around briefly. “I am Lancelot. And I am here to get you, and everyone else who wants to go, off this island. But like I said, he’ll be back. They’ll be back. So what do you say?

“Who’s ready to run?”