Eventually, the clear quick clack of heels approaches the corner. Everyone tenses, Al was placed on the roof for a view without being in the way. Edward is only one-handed… I don’t know what she’ll be able to do but 3 and a half fighters should be able to deal with her.

As she turned the corner there is a look of mild surprise on her face as she sees all of us waiting there. Her gaze sweeps over Alex’s gauntlets being on and Zig having a shortsword drawn.

She puts on a fake smile first as his eyes continue to take everything in. “Well now, this is a pleasant surprise running into all of you out here. What happened to your little friend? I know we didn’t have the best of introductions but why is everyone so tense?” She looks around at our tense forms still staring at her.

Edward puts up a fist with his one good hand. “We know what you have inside you… We want some answers.”

She let out a long sigh before becoming more serious resting a hand on her chin. “Oh? I’m not sure if I’m quite ready to take all of you at once.” Her smile slowly turns more teasing as Alex and Edward look slightly uncomfortable. She gives a glance towards me pausing for a moment realizing that I’m not fidgeting like them. “Who ruined the surprise anyways? You know it’s rude for someone to take a look inside a girl and gossip about it.” She looks towards me. “Do you know greed? It’s been a while since we last talked but he’s the only one that would know.”

I look at her confused for a moment. Greed? That’s an… interesting name. “I Never fell for your act, to begin with. I may be blind but even I could see through your shitty act. What you said didn’t match your tone.”

Edward looks like he’s about to say something before in interrupt him. “As for your other secret? Why should we tell you? If you somehow escape, then you only stand to gain from the knowledge.” I take a glance towards him again and he flushes slightly with embarrassment. He was obviously about to start spouting how we knew.

She lets out a long-annoyed sigh. “Well, at least the two kids aren’t a real threat.” She turns towards Alex and Zig. “Come on big boys? You think this is my first time taking on 3 and a half men?” She starts slowly walking towards them with one hand at her side.

Alex takes a step back slightly, with her abilities being unknown everyone is slightly hesitant to engage in close range.

BANG!

Luckily, I don’t have that problem. Everyone's attention snaps to the gun in my hand. I’d palmed it from the doctor earlier and this is probably the best use of it.

She stagers slightly, looking down at her ankle that I’d shot. “Y-you little brat!” She snarls in anger before a spark of red transmutation lightning travels up the side of her leg healing the bullet wound before our eyes. “It’s going to take more than that to get me on my kn- GAH!”

Before she even has a chance to finish, I shoot her again in the other leg. It heals just as quickly.

Right she doesn’t know I’m not blind still. “Did I get her?” Everyone gives me a dumbfounded look including her. “No dear, you must be shooting blanks let me help you with that!” She starts moving towards me and I just unload the rest of the shots into her. I’d have preferred keeping her alive but with healing like that… she wasn’t phased though. The only one she reacted to was the one to the center of her chest near where her stone should be.

She frowns before breaking into a sprint towards me, her right-hand morphing into 5 long claws easily 3 feet long.

“Shit!” I start backing up and just throw the gun at her missing entirely. None of my attacks are ranged and I don’t know what other surprises she has.

Her smile seems to grow as she finally closes the distance. “Too slow!” She pulls her hand back to slash at me only for the sound of a meaty thump to hit the ground. She looks at her now much shorter arm then down at the cut-off portion before turning to look at the tall frame beside her.

Zig stares her down. “Do not harm my lord.” He lets out a long hiss before cutting at her again, only to be parried off by a second pair of bladed fingers as she staggers back.

She glares at him with a look of hatred as the arm on the ground dissolves into dust and her own starts growing back rapidly.

“Oh… you didn’t think it’d be that easy, did you? No, it’s going to take a lot more than that to finish me off.” She smiles before charging back in.

Okay… she can heal nearly any injury and create bladed fingers… There has to be some sort of limit from mass then or we have to restrain her. Taking quick stock of my current transmutation circles I have oxygen, water, stone, carbon, steel, soap, destruction, and whatever this Armstrongs is. Considering he’s just staring at us fighting rather than helping I’m not sure what it could be.

Zig and her trade another swipe and she lets out another dark smile as Zig’s sword falls apart into 6 cut sections.

“Oh, did I break your toy? You’re just going to have to get in personally instead.” Zig lets out another long hiss and he stabs the small stub of the blade into her side but at a cost. A deep gouge from her fingers mars the side of his face now his mask giving almost no protection and only him pulling away saving him from losing his head.

“Ha, trying to penetrate me with something this small? I feel insulted.” She smiles at us as she pulls out the stub of a blade. Zig’s face is now marred with blood pooling down… Why am I just standing here watching him fight?

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

“Just shut the hell up already.” I sprint in channeling Chi into my legs to power my muscles. I’m a little rusty from not practicing since I’ve left Xing… I should take advantage of that… Stop getting distracted your in a life or death fight!

I move in close to her and she smiles and with a flick of her wrist swipes in front of her fanning out each of her fingers for a wide cut. She doesn’t catch me but she does cut clean through the tip of one of my metallic fingers… She must have made her fingers into monomolecular blades then healing can fix them if anything happens to them…

I can see her frowning at not catching me In almost slow motion with the swipe as I get in close, I grab both of her wrists.

She pulls with a surprising amount of resistance, but I still manage to hold my grip. “Let go! Didn’t anyone tell you that it’s rude to lay your hands on an unwilling lady?!”

I can’t help but let on a small smirk as I activate my steel transmutation circle. Making my grip on her arms instead act like a cigar cutter cutting the object held.

She winces back in pain before stumbling back slightly.

“Oh, I see… you still feel all the pain from anything that happens don’t you?” I close the distance and this time she glares at me with hatred. Her arms aren’t fully healed yet so she tries to kick me between the legs. She doesn’t fight with any sort of technique or style… I just pull up causing her to fall on her back smashing the back of her head into the ground below.

“You’re not much of a fighter, are you? You depend on those fingers and healing…” Getting a more solid grip on her leg I press the back of my other one onto it and activate another transmutation circle.

“Shut the hell up!” Her hand having grown back is poised to attack me again but before she has the chance she screams in pain again as I begin freezing the blood inside her body.

“You know it’s interesting, you don’t bleed but you have blood. The moment it leaves your body it just turns to ash and disappears. But you still have blood while it’s inside your body. I wonder what happens when that blood is frozen? Can you heal it?” Her screams become incoherent as the frost travels up her whole body. With a final frantic slash breaking her arm in the process she manages to cut off one of my arms but it doesn’t help that she’s 3/4ths frozen.

“Where is the witty banter? Weren’t you going to tease us?” I look down at her frozen expression. The red lightning combatting my blue in a war for her body as it unfreezes as I freeze.

I’m snapped out of the fascinating display by Edward putting his hand on my shoulder. “I-I think that’s enough. We can just tie her upright?”

I can’t help but give him a dumbfounded look. “She has the power to cut anything with her hands and heal any wound and you think that tying her up will work? She could just cut herself in half to get out of anything we could put her in.”

He clearly looks uncomfortable with that. And starts to seriously start thinking as he gazes at her face frozen in pain. “Then… why not just tie her up after breaking her arms or something that way when she heals it digs into her to the point of not being able to move?”

Interesting… that would allow for a lower range of movement and allow for a more secure hold.

“Alright, let’s try it your way. But if she starts to move she’s getting put back on ice.” I turn towards Alex who just looks at me with a series of mixed emotions playing across his face. Anger, fear, and guilt all move into a resolute acceptance.

“Thank you, young man… fighting someone else's fight just isn’t right. It looked like you had it handled.” Is that seriously the excuse he’s going with? I guess I just stood by and watched while Zig fought him… ZIG! Looking his way he’s clutching his face with a cloth but otherwise looks fine.

“How are you holding up Zig?” He turns and looks my way.

“Fine my lord. I am… annoyed that I let them harm me. I will do better in the future.” He bows deeply towards me but even with all his training, I can still see the wince of pain on his face.

Meanwhile, Edward is using some of the ground to make metal cables… “Is the ground here made of metal or something?”

“Not really just heavy metal contents. The roads are made by alchemists, and we draw up the metal content to make it more solid.” Oh, interesting I guess with access to alchemy the idea of potholes and such is ridiculous. The longer the red lightning sparks on what was once an insurmountable scream has become a dull roar. The presence of thousands of people within a small form slowly decreases by a steady amount.

Edward finishes gathering the wiring. “Alright, so now what? She’s frozen… How do I wrap her…”

“Just chip at part of her flesh and start wrapping then I’ll stop freezing her. She’s constantly regenerating against the freeze so it should prevent her from healing out.” He looks at me oddly then looks down at her frozen form.

“I-I don’t know if I can really go through with that… It’d be like killing her just… just that she’d get better after that.”

“Let me do it young Edward.” Alex puts his hand on Edwards's shoulder. “It’s the least I can do for not helping in the fight.” With a resolute face, he says a soft sorry before he punches into the frozen form of the lady. Large cracks form in her form and crumble off with each hit. Eventually, she’s become a chiseled fraction of her former self. Edward turns to throw up while Alex begrudgingly begins wrapping her up before using transmutation to make stone flow over her hands and feet making solid form fit shackles.

“Alright, make sure it’s nice and tight.” He nods and after he finishes, I stop freezing her.

Interestingly whatever mechanism causes her to heal chose to heal the frozen effect fully first before growing any of the flesh back, forcing her to feel the pain of having severed parts open to the air.

As she regenerates the metal cords are too tight. The flesh squishing over them and so tight that I hear her some bones crack and shift. Although she may heal wounds dislocations may not count as an injury.

“MMMM HMMM” She screams for a long while. Edward dry heaves as he goes to check on Al. I check on Zig’s injuries. They aren’t serious but the amount of blood that flows through the head makes any small cut bleed profusely. It’ll probably scar until I can train up healing to an appropriate level. Assuming that I get an ability that lets me heal that like before.

“I will do better next time my lord. I will improve and protect you.” He hangs his head low.

I can’t help but shake my head at that. “It’s fine Zig. Really, I’m not hurt!” He stares down at my destroyed arm.

“Hey, that’s easily fixable. Do you know what isn’t? You, and thanks to your attacks she wasn’t prepared for me. So, give yourself a bit more credit alright?” He nods slowly while his face is all bandaged up.

After a duration, she finally stops screaming into the gag in her mouth. Her hands bound solidly pointed into herself any use of her power will only result in stabbing herself and even then, without the ability to move her fingers even if she extends and cuts them without her ability to move her hands it would only result in cutting herself and forcing her to use her own.

Looking down on her I can’t help but crack a joke. “Not all jokes now are you?” I can see the frown in her eyes. Let's see what she knows...