Aster reached inside her cloak and gripped her fingers around a keychain with four keys hanging from it. The handle of one key circled through the handle of another as if they had been wrought together, just like how the keys on Crassus’s chainmail linked with each other. Aster’s hands closed around the lower key and she yanked hard. At first both handles held, metal against metal but then the lower key simply melted around the first key. The silver form shivered and spilled out into a misshapen mess, let the still solid handle of the first key pass through, then, as if it somehow knew it had arrived on the other side, reformed. The original shape materialized out of the melted silver, just as it had been before.

  She clutched the key in a tight fist and screamed in defiance. A metallic sheen spread along her skin out from her hand and down her arm. With a crash she landed on the piece of concrete Isaac had cowered against moments earlier. It cracked and split down the middle, with the crumpled body of Aster resting in the middle but no blood spilled from her.

  With gritted teeth and her face caked in powdered concrete she propped herself up on her elbows and sought out Isaac. He lay sprawled right next to one of the now two concrete slabs having barely escaped being squashed twice after having dived for cover when Aster came flying and again when the slab split from her impact.

  “Distract him.” Aster said.

  He looked scared and confused. “How?” he said, his apprehension showing.

  “Like you did earlier,” Aster said, she meant to say more, to encourage him. But she struggled to gather enough air to form the words and her patience evaporated. “If you had actually talked to him last time, kept him going, maybe my ribs wouldn’t be cracked right now.” She glared at him, all the while attempting to get up and out from between the slabs.

  The insult seemed to stir him out of his shock a bit. “Talk? To that guy? He’s completely insane! What’s with all this, ‘I have something of his?’ How could I have anything that belongs to him? I bloody well just got here!”

  Aster wanted to pin him full of feathers like a cushion. “Just, lead him on like last time, entertain him, tell him what he wants to hear.” She tried once again to get onto her feet but her vision faded inwards and she collapsed back. Bile rose up her throat.

  “How the hell would I know what he wants!” Isaac shouted, “He’s out of his mind!” He sounded just as exasperated as she felt. “Besides, why should I help you, you left me, remember?” The color in his skin was fully flushed now, in contrast to the sickly white color he’d sported ever since Crassus’s arrival.

  A thud sounded off in the distance as Crassus touched down onto solid earth once more. Aster’s heart rate spiked back up to borderline panic attack levels again.

  “Listen to me, you do it or we both die!” Panic and fury laced her voice. “Do you hear me?”

  Isaac opened his mouth, ready to argue back but all that came out was a shout of surprise as a rock shattered against the top of a slab and scattered chipped fragments everywhere, showering Isaac in gravel.

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  Aster cursed and the metallic sheen returned to her arm, engulfing the skin. She punched out as the next rock came flying. She screamed, eyes bulging as the stone split into pieces. The chunks zipped past her, one striking her forehead and she gasped. Her sight blinked out for a brief second but through the memory of her surroundings she dove for cover. If she couldn’t stand upright, she at least could fall somewhere, maybe it would be enough.

  The slab to her left trembled beneath her thigh and she heard a loud crack as a third rock connected right where her upper body would have been had she not moved. But her hand still trailed behind her and she felt a numbing sensation travel up it. Had she kept the armament, or was her arm now crushed? In the haze of everything having happened so fast, she could not recall. She held her hand up in front of her face and she could see it fully, but for some reason it wouldn’t register in her mind whether it was crushed or not.

  What did register however was in the background, through the rockdust she could see the outline of Crassus. He pounded the earth in pure rage with such violence that his form was almost obscured by the dirt he was kicking up. Something or other in his insanity fueled fury must’ve offended him and now had to pay the price of distracting him. Maybe he stubbed his toe. The surrealness of the mental image almost made her laugh out loud.

  Someone far, far away shouted at her... or maybe it was close? She could feel the tremors. Wait, no that was Crassus having his temper tantrum. Someone was trying to gain her attention. She looked to her side. A man stood there and shouted, he was saying the same thing, over and over. What was his name again? Ike? Zack?

  “Get up! Move! Please, for the love of god, just get up!”

  Oh... right... that. Aster pushed herself up from the ground with her right hand but the rest of her body didn’t respond fast enough as she tried to stand and she almost toppled over. Her left hand shot up to steady herself against the slab behind her. As her hand clutched around the edge of the concrete an unbelievable pain seared through every nerve-ending in her upper body.

  The pain jolted her brain awake again but her grip slid right off the slab as if it was soaked in something slippery. Gravel pierced her chin and pinched her cheekbones as her face hit the ground with a sickly wet thud. She braced herself to get up before even considering the new pain. Her right side felt as if a bandage full needles had been wrapped around it.

  A hand gripped her shoulder and she looked up in time to see Isaac bend over her and grab her ruined hand as well. For a second, all she knew was pain as he heaved her body up and onto her two trembling feet. She wanted to thank him but pure instinct instead made her shove him hard with her one good hand. Using the momentum from the push she let herself fall once more. Only this time she let loose a shockwave of power beneath her before she could hit the ground.

  Not a second later she saw Crassus slam into the slabs, one foot on each slab, hard enough to make them tilt up from the ground a bit before they settled again. His upper body curved against his feet as he fought the momentum. Aster twisted in the air before she landed, making sure her good side faced down. She clutched her wounded arm with her good one to secure it from striking the ground as she skidded to a halt.

  Mucus and bile forced its way up her throat. She heaved it out in long slow convulsions, each contraction sending waves of pain down her body. The contractions slowed but still every breath seethed with agony. She found herself slumping towards the ground. To her surprise she saw more blood than bile between her hands. The realization made her feel something, but she couldn’t decide what. It was somehow important. Something to do with Crassus. She searched for him. He stood with his back to her, crouched over Isaac, who sat covering his face. Crassus took Isaac’s arm and forced it down. That was all she saw before darkness rushed in at the edges of her vision. It consumed the world and all stilled, at last she could rest. She welcomed oblivion.