Isaac and Elise treaded along the dark second level as quietly as possible. An overhead rumble boomed, sending chunks of rock and dirt to fall from the ceiling. They looked back in apprehension. “The hell is going on up there?” He asked before gazing around at the dead silent sanctum littered with corpses.

Several avian knights laid twisted and defeated on the dusty stone, some petrified while grabbing their throats or ripping off their helmets. “But more importantly, where the hell is everybody?”

Elise looked just as confused. She focused on staying keen and quiet as she watched Isaac’s back. Then she let out an intrigued, “Hmm?” and pointed toward a straggler.

They approached an avian knight leaning up against a wall. He sat with his helmet and cuirass thrown aside, clenching his neck and wheezing as if struggling for air. Glaring up at Isaac, the man lacked fight. It’d already been wrung out from him.

Isaac waved his hand in the air, curling his nose. “Smells like the remnants of some toxin. Was this that doctor’s work?”

That downed knight, face blank as a corpse, nodded rigidly.

“Well, he’s dead now. Jericho got him. We won. Now where is Al Yara? We’re reporting back to him.”

The avian knight struggled to utter anything in response. Instead, he looked off to the right down the halls with a slight twist to his head.

Isaac gave the man a pat on the shoulder. “Live long.”

“…”

Isaac led Elise in their new direction with a pep in his step. “Al Yara should be close. He’ll have guards too. We have to hurry.” He let out a pumped-up growl and ripped his mask off, chunking it onto the ground. A multicolored bandana held his hair from blocking his eyes. “I’m getting tired of being all sneaky. It doesn’t fit me.”

Elise tossed her mask into the dirt too. Flexing her fingers, she gazed down at the metal cestus machina, Ween, that rested on her right fist.

Distant speaking alerted their ears from voices intensifying with every step. Isaac’s pace increased so much that Elise began to struggle to keep up on her bad leg. They shot straight down a widening hall approaching vast double doors lit by nearby torches.

Isaac placed his palms on the heavy slabs to push but hesitated with a long exhale. His brow furrowed in uncertainty until Elise grabbed his shoulder. She slowly nodded at him with eyes as intense as they were confident. With gritted teeth, he shoved open the entrance to Al Yara’s master suite.

Many people, avian knights and owls alike, gathered around the master’s dining room table. Al Yara faced Isaac and Elise with coldblooded animosity. “Who would’ve predicted a third party now of all times? Did you hawks premeditate taking advantage of our conflict, or was it pure chance?” He shook his head, sighing. “Never mind answering. It doesn’t matter anyway. You are few and we are many, I hope.”

Even as the man known to be a master, Al Yara didn’t come off as a fighter. He lacked a machina or fiery spirit, instead hiding behind his guards with his arms crossed.

Thorin stepped forward, unsheathing his blade. Its orange cat’s eye opened, glaring at the intruders. Two avian knights armored to nigh juggernauts advanced up alongside him with halberds. “Can’t be coincidence. Ever since we took the girl, our men have been vanishing on the streets in waves. You’re here for her, aren’t you?”

Thorin looked from the hawks over to the end of the dining table where Sasha sat, her hands bound tightly in rope. Isaac followed his gaze to lock eyes with her. She called out to him, panicked, as if he were a mirage in a desert. “Teacher?!”

Isaac felt an unhinged burst of energy from hearing her voice again. He ripped out the daggers of Dio, gripping them reverse. “Sasha?! We’re here for you!” He yelled.

Sasha’s face twisted up at the recognition of his voice. Tears broke without warning, but she couldn’t compose herself enough to speak. Al Yara clicked his tongue and glared at her. “You’ve turned out to be nothing but trouble, but this isn’t over. Just be glad that you won’t have to watch your friends die.”

He commanded Thorin who stood his ground against Isaac and Elise. “You take care of them. I’ll get out of here with God and the map. We can’t lose them and the rite of Convergence no matter what.”

Thorin tensed up. “Guess I don’t mind the workout. Not like I’ll die anyway. Go ahead, Master Al Yara.”

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Isaac clenched his dual daggers. “Don’t tell me you’re a monster too?”

“Me? A monster? No. I’m the main character of this story. Why would I ever get killed off by villains of the week like you two? That wouldn’t make sense in terms of writing quality.”

Elise looked at Thorin like he was a dumbass. So did Isaac. He mumbled. “This guild’s just full of madmen and goblin dust addicts.”

Thorin mocked them. “I don’t think a peasant would get philosophy, but I can educate you. I’ve never lost, I’ve never had bad luck, and I’ve never died. Everything’s always went my way. You exist for me to defeat you. I won’t repeat myself again; I am the main character. All of you revolve around me! The world does too!”

“I’m the last one you should call a peasant,” Isaac responded.

Al Yara scoffed at Thorin’s delusions. He motioned for the rest of his guard to scoop up Sasha and disappear into his master bedroom along with him. Isaac took a step toward her as owls hauled her off, but Thorin and his knights stood in the way. “Sasha, sit tight! We’re coming!” He called out as she faded away, struggling like her life depended on it.

Isaac got into his combat stance and studied the dining room’s lighting. Oil lamps and lanterns warmly lit up the room. The shadows of chairs outstretched across the floor, casting overlapping shades over the avian knights. Right now, no shadows directly contacted Thorin though. He spoke to Elise in a low voice. “You do your thing, I’ll do mine.” She nodded in response.

Thorin struck his saber machina into the air. “Termination: Sleepwalk.” The blade segmented and extended into an alloy serpent of a razored whip. It slithered and twisted with sentience, rearing its head back before jolting forward to strike. Isaac crossed his daggers, guarding against the wormlike blade creating sparks on contact. It curved around midair and cut across his back as an avian knight charged forth with the downward swinging halberd.

Isaac growled, vanishing from thin air. The weapon bounced off the ground with a clang as he crept up from liquid shadow. The knight jolted around in confusion before shrieking, falling onto his butt. Isaac hacked away one of the few weak points in the amor: the Achilles heel.

With a loud grunt, he struck away another ambush from Thorin’s machina. That serpent blade danced and turned in the air as if it didn’t abide by gravity. It lunged toward Isaac’s throat only to snap ninety degrees and chase Elise. He warned her. “Watch out!”

Elise dodged both the second avian knight and Thorin’s attacks at the same time. Nothing could stop the serpent’s pursuit though. With a twirl overhead, it dragged across her neck, cutting her chest and shirt open. Her face froze as a splash of blood spattered from the crescent moon-shaped wound. She groaned as the avian knight came back with an enraged horizontal swing meant to behead.

Elise ducked as low as possible, grazing past her death’s trajectory, and unleashed a staggering right overhand punch with Ween into the knight’s chest.

The blow knocked him back, but not by that much. If anything, it just annoyed him. Harming him with that punch wasn’t her goal though. The avian knight tried to insult her, but found the words stuck in his mouth. His halberd fell to the ground. He observed where his left hand used to be in shock. Elise got loose and light on her feet as blood spurted from the new gash on his neck.

“This is more like it,” she exclaimed, healed to perfect condition, and sent a wild haymaker into the knight’s chin. It laid him out. A pool of dark scarlet blood formed underneath him from the lacerations meant for her.

Elise switched Ween off to her offhand, unsheathing a steel saber from her back to use with her power hand. She faced Thorin who beckoned his serpent to chase Isaac around the room. She called out to her partner who ran for his life, rolling over the dining table. “It’s only him now. You distract that snake. It can’t chase both of us at once.”

Grazing shallow cuts covered Isaac’s back and arms. “Good idea. Great to hear your voice again too. Music to my ears.”

“Now’s not the time, you flirt.”

Thorin raised his eyebrows as Elise sprinted toward him with staggering speed. His serpent machina outstretched far dealing with Isaac. Even so, he lacked anxiety. A mere moment before her attack, he commanded the serpent with a smug look. “Punishment.”

His machina petrified midair, inches from Isaac’s forehead, and exploded into innumerable sharp shards of steel. They shot toward both Elise and Isaac. One moment, the two were fine. The next, they writhed in agony on the ground.

Elise dragged herself away from Thorin, checking on her right forearm and thigh riddled with deep slashes and punctures. She oozed blood. What were those fragments embedded into her skin? Isaac yelled out across the room. It was a cry as painful as it was existential. “I can’t see! He got my eye.”

Thorin held up his bladeless machina. It was nothing but the hilt and guard. “Termination: Butterfly Effect.” To the horrible pain and screams of Elise and Isaac, the shards of the serpent dug into their flesh ripped out, returning to Thorin. They reformed the original machina now bathed in blood.

The villain questioned them. “Why don’t you two give up? Or would you like to meet the serpant’s other forms? There are many.”

Isaac stumbled up to his feet. He wiped the blood from his eye only to shiver once his vision failed to restore. After pulling his bandana down over the wound, he tightened it to provide pressure. “Elise, stand down and surrender if you value your life. You’ve no need to die for a stranger. I’m not so smart though. Long ago, I promised myself I’d never fail to protect someone again. I intend to go through with this to the end.”

Elise got to her feet with a low growl, using a nearby dining chair. “I may not know Sasha, but she’s no stranger to me. I know what she’s been through as a woman, and I know how important she is to all of you. I’m here because I am not a bystander.”

“Looks like we’re a full team of dumbasses then. Stalling for Abdul may be a good bet, but I don’t know if it’ll be him or Jericho that walks through those doors.”

“We can win. I’m sure of it. Stay strong, Isaac,” Elise demanded. She clenched Ween.

“How can you be so confident?”

“I have an idea involving Voodoo Lady, but it’s experimental.”

“I’m all ears.”

Thorin sighed, readying Termination. “Sleepwalk.” He swung it through the air. With morbid crackling akin to dislocating bones, the blade unraveled.