The body of Knave’s brother laid before him; machine blood splattered across their playground. More than a dozen stab and slash wounds marked a wonderfully tailored shirt, such a shame, and cracks spiderwebbed across the body underneath. At least two gaping gashes seeped with the foul-scented fluid that kept their bodies running.

His left arm was gone- he’d raised it to catch Knave’s blade, and it had only taken a simple twist of the wrist to dismember and disassemble it.

It had been a fascinating experience to eviscerate his oh so Noble brother with the body of Ophelia, but to do it with his own hands? Well… it inspired such great majesties within him. It left him feeling divinely inspired. All Knave had to do was collect his little butcher birdie, pack up what remained of Noble, and then it was off to the big city. Excitement! Adventure!

Knave had always wanted to ride a train before. The thought filled him with the laughter of a thousand other wants and desires.

“Sai… la” came the wheezy voice of his mutilated family-turned-foe.

“Ehehe, hahaha… don’t worry brother. Your young ward will remain unharmed- I want to draw that one out for quite a bit longer. She will be a fun little project to play around with.”

“Bastard… I- I’ll…” Noble tried to stand- a failure of an attempt, brought low by a coughing fit.

“Well I suppose I could take her with us too, if you wanted. How’s that, brother? We can make a proper family again. Just like you want, right?”

The words felt so bitter on what passed for Knave’s tongue. His poor, fair brother had always loved him, always looked up to him, and always understood him in a way that no one else really did. Their time in ONY’s little hit squad had broken him, broken him far worse than the beating he’d just endured.

It was a shame. The one regret Knave had was that he did want his brother back, but he’d swallowed that regret when he kicked him off the mountain.

“Se… Saila…”

More mutterings. Knave remembered his eyes existed, blinked/bit down and turned his hungry gaze down at him.

“Made your decision? Shall I round her up, and we’ll all go home together?”

“Heh”.

Despite the blood and pain, strength had returned to his brother’s voice.

Then he heard a screeching cry- THE screeching cry, proof of everything he’d seen was possible the moment he’d laid Ophelia’s eyes, his eyes, upon her.

Scorching through the sky, flames following her, scales glistening in the firelight, was Noble’s little lady.

“Yes… YES!! There she is! THE WOMAN OF THE HOUR!”

Knave threw his arms open wide.

“MADAM, MAY I HAVE THIS DANCE!?”

Rage-blind eyes blank erupting with unrelenting fury screamed ‘yes, please, I’ve been waiting for this moment all my life’.

She charged, a jet of flame proceeding her, aimed like an arrow.

Shadowy threads twisted like armor around his skeletal body, and Knave lunged to meet her head on.

He swung, and clipped a wing- scales and a splattering of blood, not enough to permanently injure her but more than enough to ground her. She crashed and tumbled across the walkway, talons ripping up handfuls of broken stone.

Knave landed- and his legs buckled, his body shaky. Saila’s flames burned hot and true, a molten hole piercing through his side. He could feel it tickling the iron core beneath. If it had hit one of the areas Noble had damaged, had touched even a drop of his life’s blood, there was a chance he’d light up like a candle tossed to the campfire.

An endless cackling burst forth from between his fangs.

He knew she would rise to greatness.

Blade in hand, Knave faced the feral child, and charged with reckless abandon.

###

If there was one thing Noble was sure of, it was this.

At some point in his wanderings, he’d made a mistake.

He had no idea where, or when, but he’d had to have.

Why else was he watching the little lady fight his brother in a ruthless dance of violence for the second time in a row?

Last time she had been injured, horrified beyond all belief, and desperate.

She’d won that.

God damn her she won that, despite everything, despite the fear pulsing through him with every methodical beat of his heart.

This time it was the real deal- not some puppeteered corpse.

But it was also, well-

Saila let out an ear-splitting roar that caused the very stones to shake loose. Knave was on the back foot- more like back ankle, as one of his feet was a molten puddle.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

-well, there was that. Saila’s trump card.

A card she didn’t even know she had.

Noble had suspected it, from her story and her fire, and had confirmed it with the good doctor… well after it was clear Saila had zero idea of it herself.

The admonishment Kenji delivered him, for palling around with a half-demon suffering through the worst the desert had to offer and not even explaining half of it- not to mention an unwanted human puberty and a score of other things Noble didn’t quite understand but knew were a faux pax on him for failing to account for.

Funny how embarrassing memories came to you at the worst times.

By the end of it, all Noble had really internalized was that ‘dragon’ was, academically speaking, a term reserved for demons that matured latter than they should… and like with a human late bloomer, the results were explosive.

Still though, to see it in person? It was a hell of a thing to watch. So much rage and fire stored up inside, released all at once like half a dozen grenades.

The open square they were fighting in looked as much. Blood-red scales crackled like dying embers, machine-oil sizzled and stained the surroundings, and the street itself was pock marked with molten holes and talon marks.

They weren’t the only ones either. Knave’s shoulders and arms were mauled and marred- puncture wounds and gouges in the black-silver metal. The ulna in his left arm had broken and hung limp and bleeding.

But for every major injury on Knave, two minor ones opened on Saila. Her scales took the brunt of it- the fact that Knave was striking those spots solely left a sick taste in Noble’s mouth- but the fact of the matter was that the little lady was bleeding out there.

All the draconic growth in the world didn’t stop Saila from the reality that she was a teenager and Knave was a machine fine-tuned for killing.

Noble had to do something.

“Kn… Knave.”

The two charged at each other. Knave swung, a wild swing that tore a bloody swathe across one of Saila’s wings. In exchange, she caught that hanging ulna with her teeth and rent the entire arm off.

She’d had to slow down to do so.

“Knave…”

He drove his sword down, and just barely caught Saila by the tail. She screamed- for the first time not in rage, but pain, as it pined her to the stonework. She turned on her heel to exhale a ruinous gout of flame, only for Knave to slam his working hand into her jaw, forcing her mouth closed.

Twin jets of flame and steam burst from the sides of her mouth, and when they stopped, she hacked up blood and vomit bubbling with heat. Before she could recover, Knave grabbed her by the back of the head and-

“KNAVE!!”

The force of Noble’s own shout was almost enough to send him back down to the ground- and truth be told, he hadn’t even noticed he’d stood in the first place.

“What? We’re having a good time!”

Saila coughed, sparks sputtering from her mouth.

“That’s enough, Knave… let her go.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Why would I do that, brother?”

Noble, hesitantly, holstered his gun.

“Because what you want, more than anything, is to have fun with this, don’t you?”

“Ohooo… are you suggesting a quick draw?”

Three sets of fangs twisted into a joyous grimace.

Noble nodded. “The Exovan way. My honour against yours. Sword against gun. I win, you leave- if you’re still able. I lose… you take me. But leave her out of this.”

Something shifted- Saila’s eyes flickered, there was a flash of red- and Knave slammed her face first into the stone with a crunch.

“Settle down, drachenkind. I’m making a deal with my-”

Then, Knave coughed, machine-blood and shadow dripping between the painted fangs of his filtration mask.

Saila had driven her claws straight into Knave’s ribcage. Straight through it, almost, talons digging deep, oil gushing down her fingers.

Muffled by stone and the rumbling of a bonfire, Saila snarled “N-… NO. You don’t… you don’t get…”

Her words trailed off. Steam rose from her demon-side, scales and talons fading away like a mirage. Her normal, human hand strip gripped the wound she inflicted on Knave’s ribcage, defiant but unable to muster a killing blow.

But she had been within an inch of it.

Knave rose to full height and hobbled away, scraps of black-silver cracking off in Saila’s half-conscious grip.

“You did good, little lady, but the final dance belongs to me and my brother.”

He took his place, thirty paces from Noble. Sword retrieved from where he’d stabbed it, he sheathed the blade and stood in position- near vibrating with excitement.

“Now then, brotheeer… let’s do this!”

Noble stared his brother down. His remaining hand drifted to his side.

Two shots- the fourth red-cap, and the fifth he’d managed to load in the chaos.

They had to be enough.

The human reflex slept.

Their hands twitched.

###

Saila, laying there, half-conscious and tattered, saw it happen. She could do nothing but.

The two stood there, stalwart against the fountain display- despite the carnage, not a bit of damage had marred its beautiful visage. The water flowed, the night-time lamps shined through it, and the two were like a shadow-puppet play.

A faint wind blew. Smoke and dust danced with it. Noble’s cloak fluttered like gentle wings.

Knave drew first, the glint of his black-silver blade as hungry as his eyes.

Noble drew and fired before it left the sheath.

A resounding crackbang echoed as he did.

Noble’s hand shattered with the recoil, revolver spiraling through the air.

And Knave?

His grinning face split, the painted fangs opened wide, and the amber heat of the bullet was snuffed out by a tumult of shadows, before it even got started.

Saila tried to scream.

Knave cleared the distance, and swung.

A spray of machine-blood covered the statue.

For a moment they stood there, the world silent- not even Knave’s discordant cackling sounded.

The silence was broken by three thuds, metal against stone- Noble’s upper torso, then his lower half, then his revolver as it finally landed, right in Saila’s reach.

In the days after, Saila would think back on this moment.

She knew Noble had been hiding something.

Six little somethings, in fact.

Hard to hide it when it involved her spitting into a vial ‘for the good doctor’.

But in that moment, as she lifted the gun and saw only a single bullet loaded, she didn’t know how many were left. All she knew was what she saw- a single red-capped round.

A single chance.

Saila aimed. The shadowy figure of Knave turned to her.

For the first time, fear crossed his face, twisting that triple-grin into a worried slant.

Saila pulled the trigger.

The shot went wide.

That beautiful statue, awash with oil, erupted in a burst of stone, iron, and flaming wreckage.

A single piece of once structural steel pierced Knave from behind.

That black-silver ribcage shattered, and within was the beating, iron engine that kept all that was Knave alive. The rebar had missed his most vital point but it was exposed.

And yet… there were no bullets left. No match to strike.

Noble’s gun fell from Saila’s hands.

With great pain, Knave wrenched the steel from his body, and hobbled over to Noble.

Despite the drumming in Saila’s head, she could hear his breath- shallow, hollow.

Shrike- the bastard that he was, limped by, fabric pressed to the stump of his lost arm.

What words were exchanged, she couldn’t tell.

Knave lifted his upper torso and slung Noble over his shoulder. Shrike fumbled with the lower half, disgust plain on his face. Saila burned that look into her mind- and Knave’s, the wavering grin of someone who’d nearly lost and knew it.

As the two walked away, Noble’s hat slipped from his head- the wind, always trying for it, had finally took the damn thing.

It dropped it square in front of Saila, who collapsed upon it.

Hat, gun, the tatters of her dress and life, held firmly to her chest.

######