3 minutes earlier...

Lua walked away from Nos and Joachim. It did not sit right with her, but they had to move. As long as she was alive, the worst should not befall them. But she did not want to take that chance and wanted to take down The Janus as quickly as she could. Though she doubted Joachim actually wanted to kill Nos, free will was a tricky mistress to predict.

She reached the double door alongside Pempe. “Ready?” she asked.

Pempe nodded. “Needn't ask.” Together, they pushed past the door and entered the large empty dining hall.

The room had ceilings reaching up into a mural of the stars. Unlit lamps sat embedded into supporting pillars between long walls of stained glass picture, shining light from the outside in through cracked images of forests. Multiple large circular tables littered the floor, each neatly covered with velvet table cloths and floral arrangements. Extending out of the main building like a solarium, there were no other exits into or out of the room. Yet, The Janus was nowhere to be seen.

Pempe said aloud, “It's a trap.”

“Of course it is,” she replied, drawing her swords.

Connected by a chain at their pommel, her weapons were single pieces of straight metal swords with green tinted metal and the handle wrapped in a grip. They were a magnificent paired set commissioned by her brother as a gift when they started school. She had always felt bad about never having gotten him something in return, a fact he had always brushed aside.

She held the swords tightly, feeling her brother's memories in them. With that strength, she lead on with Pempe following close behind.

“I'm down to my last barrel,” Pempe said as he loaded in new ammunitions. “We'll have to make it count.”

She nodded silently.

As she took a step past the first table of the room, her vision changed as she entered The Janus's forcefield. She did not have the chance to properly observe the field before. Every object that was solid became the colour black, with blood red lines running over them as pulsating vessels. Looking down at her body she could notice what she otherwise missed during the earlier chase and battle. She was also phasing into black and red, very slowly but noticeably overlaying into the colour of her surroundings, though she felt not a bit of physical discomfort from the phenomenon.

The Janus's voice echoed, “Fascinating, isn't it? The Clovers call it the Bound Field. It's how the gods see our world. Or, at least, how we perceive them to see it. Such complicated dimensional perception are things us mere mortals will never understand.”

She was trying to find the source of the voice. Looking back to Pempe – who also was being overlaid into the Bound Field – she quietly signalled him to split up. They had to find her as soon as possible and the hall was unsuitably large for both of them to cover together. Pempe nodded back and begun sweeping the left side while she moved right. The Janus went quiet again.

As Lua scoured slowly, eyes glazing over parts of the dizzying landscape, she saw the glint of metal flashing at her. She turned and brought her sword up and nicked the whip blade in a parry. Opposite her, Pempe turned at the sound of the clash, gun at the ready. But The Janus had slipped under a table.

Another strike of the whip shot out at her from behind the dark cloth. “Pempe!” Lua yelled.

With a jump, she dodged the attack, jumping onto a chair. With another leap, she hopped over onto the table and slammed her full weight onto the edge. The table flipped up under her, creating a wall between her and The Janus. More importantly, it exposed the latter and Pempe opened fire. His pellets smashed against the thick wooden table, but the size of each round did not penetrate the barrier from that distance. She heard Pempe pump his shotgun and for a moment wondered if The Janus had been hit. Her query was immediately answered as the villain slipped by and around the table into her line of sight.

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Lua backed away as the woman swung her sword at her. The teen parried with each move, but every time she attempted to strike back, The Janus merely stood elsewhere – not a dodge, but simply moving – out of her attack range. With Lua backing off, The Janus pushed her advance, rolling the table along as a shield while Pempe fired from the other side, each shot hitting the wood but not fully going through. The pellets that missed shattered the stain glass wall behind and rain poured with the wind through the newly opened hole in the glass wall.

From the corner of her eyes, Lua watched as Pempe rushed up towards the rolling table, intending to blast a shot through the shield from point blank. On her side, The Janus stepped away from the barrier as if having seen him coming with her own eyes. She threw her whip out and the bladed end stabbed into the bottom of the wheel. She pulled with a strength inhuman and the table flipped from the insertion point, spinning in mid air and slapping down onto Pempe's head like a hammer. He crumpled onto the ground and the table fell onto the lower half of his body, pinning him under and unmoving.

“Pempe!” Lua called out.

His chest rose as he breathed, but otherwise, his unconscious body did not move. It was down to just her and The Janus. By that point, even Lua and Pempe's body had fully overlaid with the black and red of the Bound Field, becoming walking crimson wired shadows.

“Lua Orniter.”

She turned at her name and glared at The Janus. The Janus was the only thing bright within the Bound Field, as if whatever sorcery affected the world could not touch her, as if she alone was unbound to the laws of physics of the new world.

“If you think I won't stop you simply due to evening our numbers, you have another thing coming.”

“I am offended that you think I would ever let you do otherwise!” the villain mocked sarcastically and laughed. “Free will. A truth or an illusion? I decided your fate a long time ago. Seks will die protecting his girlfriend, and Mister Byrne will follow here as I kill him.”

“Shut up!”

Lua threw her offhand sword at her opponent like a javelin. The Janus calmly took a single step back and the chain extended fully to a halt just short of the sword tip touching her. When the chain taut, Lua tugged at it and the sword flew back into her hand.

The Janus continued calmly as if the outburst had never happened. “Then, I'll kill you. But of course, by that point, Trini Alquin and Fornelia Chantervalica would have lost their lives. Mister Kerr will kill Mister Oon, and in his guilt, the poor boy will commit suicide. The prophecy will be complete and this army of unspawn will overrun the world with me at its helm! Power at my side!”

Lua spat. “It's Four-Chan.”

“What?”

“Fornelia's name is Four-Chan, you bitch.”

“How uncouth,” The Janus croaked out. “Just like my daughter.”

“You don't get to speak of her!”

Her magic circuits flared, a mixture of river blue and star red lighting up her left and right hands respectively. The rain water that washed in misted around her, turning into a steamy mist. Again, Lua threw her sword. This time though, The Janus whipped her weapon as well

Lua did not attempt to dodge. Instead, the whip simply shifted direction mid strike ever so slightly and missed its target by mere inches. The Janus had attempted to move out of the way of Lua's attack. But instead of the calm sidestep as before, she panicked when she realised the sword had followed her and twisted her body uncomfortable sideways. Still, the sword nicked The Janus's face in the chaos.

Pulling back her thrown sword, Lua kept up the attack by throwing her other one before the first even even returned to her hand. The Janus raised her weapon to parry and only barely managed to deflect the heavy projectile, stumbling back with the hit. But Lua was already charging after retrieving her first sword. She moved quickly, intercepting her second sword and closing the gap before The Janus could collect her footings.

With opposing scissor cuts, Lua sliced at the woman's arm. Her opponent stepped back and out of the way, but before the weapon contacted, Lua pushed her fire magic into the air, causing an explosion at the tip of her blade that burnt with the mist and blasting outwards, sending The Janus flying back and breaking into a chair.

The woman got to her feet and choked painfully, “Your magic...!”

“That's right. Everything within the mist I can control.” As Lua said it, the mist reformed around her. “You have our deaths planned out. So what? We get to choose how to live. And if I get to choose, I choose not to die here. I choose to be beat you. I choose for you to never hit me again. And I choose to not miss once more.”

Clutching a wound on her shoulder, The Janus roared, “Insolent child! I am Clotho Hari Janus! Spinner of Destiny! Weaver of the future! My family has controlled all that is to come since before you were a concept! You thought to defeat me?”

Lua took a fighting stance. “So what if you can change the future? Only I get to control the now!”