Adelle stood atop the sheeted roof under the cover of twilight. The dark hours in the south were short, with only a couple of hours a day. But it was enough for their goal. All she was awaiting for were the familiar orange over the horizon. She had seen the light of fire when she was younger, during the Grassplains' Rebellion. Longingly, she waited. As the lights of the Twins finally completely vanished over the horizon, a loud explosion erupted from her east. Smoke plumes rose slowly from the source of the blast. Was it Arnold's grenade? Or something else? Not too long after, bright red light flickered over the roofs of several buildings and the sound of ringing bells filled the air. Screams followed soon after and fire danced like grass in the wind over what roofs too short to cover them.

From the parapet of the fortress walls, silhouettes of the patrolling soldiers ran towards the commotion, leaving only half their guards behind on the other sections.

Adelle waited for the movements to finalise until no other guards in the area were being reassigned. She zeroed in on a single guard standing on a curved section of the wall where she wagered no one else would focus on. She drew her axes and spun them in her hands to reassert their weights. Then, with a blink, she teleported across the city and onto the top of the wall and above the guard. As she fell straight down onto her target, her heart skipped and beat. Instead of slamming the sharp ends of her axes down onto the guard's skull, she turned the axes' handles in her hand and smashed the blunt end into the guard's helmet instead.

The guard drops to their knees before they could even shout for help. Groggy from the surprise bash, they turned to face Adelle as their expression turned shocked when she backhanded them with the side of her weapon, knocking the guard unconscious.

She let out a tired breath. Her teleportation ability got her far, but long distances such as that had a tendency to sting her endurance. Squatting down behind the embrasure to prevent being seen, she took a moment to rest. Looking to the knocked out guard, she could only contemplate. If she had killed him, it would only have required a single strike. But because of the non-lethal method, she had to waste time and energy on three separate attacks. And it also meant the time she had to conduct her rescue was shortened by the soldier possibly waking up.

What an inefficient method to conduct fights. She wondered why Luce used it, and even more why Adelle herself was following the example. She put that thought aside and stood up. From her vantage point, she could see Josh, leaning out of his balcony attempting to find the source of the commotion.

Things were going too smoothly. They knew there was a trap somewhere, even if they didn't know what it was. But time was ticking. She decided to throw her fate to the wind and solve problems as they came. She teleported straight into Josh's room, weapons drawn.

"Ah!" Josh let out a scream, clutching his heart. "Adelle! I need to put a bell on you."

"Why?" she asked. "Like a slave?"

"No... like a ca-you know what? Never mind that. What are you doing here? Did you not receive my warning?"

"Yes, yes," she waved off his concern. "Trap. Need me to start end of the world. Bombs. Emps. Blah blah. Things change. Luce is stuck in Citi. Now, let's go destroy that emp thing and get this over with."

Looking around the room, she noticed the bed, or what was left of it. Aside from the mattress, the frame had been torn to pieces. In its place leaning against a wall was a wooden pavise shield made of the salvaged planks and tied together with the cloth of the beddings. A short makeshift wooden sphere with a scrap metal tip was next to it.

"You've been busy," she asked him.

"Yeah," he replied, walking over. He picked up the weapon and shield, ready to leave. "I've had some unsuccessful escape attempts."

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"Leave the weapons," she instructed. "You're not much of a fighter, and I'd rather you be able to run than get in the way of a fight."

He squinted at her but relented, dropping the equipment. Adelle took one last glance around the room and caught sight of the single sofa, untouched amid the chaos.

"What's with the chair?"

"Oh. The Pyrerai sits there when she comes by."

"She visits you?"

"Yeah. Some weird attachment thing."

"You like her?"

"What?" he exclaimed, face contorted. "No! Sure, she's a smart, powerful woman, but she's also insane!" he emphasised the last part.

Adelle shrugged, walking over to the balcony to look over it. "We've met people like that before."

"Yeah," Josh admitted. "And he was on our side."

"Oh. Right. Well, whatever. Let's get on with this. Where's the emp."

"E.M.P," Josh corrected as he walked up beside her, pointing to the tomb below. "And it's in there. This is definitely a trap."

"How do we know the emp is even still in there?" She was now saying 'emp' mostly out of pride.

"I've been keeping watch on it. Even with teleportation, moving such a large contraption would draw eyes and make sounds. Nothing's even disturbed the shrubbery, let alone went in or out."

Adelle nodded. "Okay then. Let's go walk into my trap."

She teleported them down to the front of the tomb where Josh pointed out the hole in the wall. She stared inside and immediately noticed the darkness.

"I can't see anything," she noted. From her pouch, she took out a torchlight and handed it to Josh. "I need my hands free to fight."

The latter pointed the tool to the ground and turned it on, shining a white spotlight onto the ground. "I'm ready." He grabbed her shoulder.

"Stay behind me," she instructed right before teleporting inside.

Immediately, Josh swivelled the light across the room, sweeping left to right and right to left. It was empty. The confined space meant not even dust on the floor were left for them to disturb. But it also meant the E.M.P machine was no longer there.

"No..." Josh let out softly, pushing past Adelle and jogging up to the centre of the room as if to make sure he was not hallucinating. "It was here. The machine was huge. They couldn't have moved it."

It was a trap. They knew it was a trap. She had expected them to bait her in with the E.M.P, but not to have the machine not be there in its entirety. She was willing to skirt around the device, even using it as leverage in their fight, but now, the scale of danger and worth of risk had tipped. They had nothing in their favour any longer.

She quickly told him, "Let's get out of here."

Adelle turned to leave and a glint of metal reflected the light of the torch. She pulled her axes up to parry but was too late. The spear tip pierced into her gut and a sear of pain shot through her bones. Her offhand axe dropped to the stone floor with a clang as she gripped the spear handle to prevent it from being pulled out. The blade was plugging the wound.

"Adelle!" Josh exclaimed as he swept the light over to her, revealing Lachesis' toothy grin in the dark.

"Hello," the Pyrerai's voice sounded like a wisp. "Demon Eyes."

Blood soaked down to Adelle's hand. Through the pain, her thinking clouded. She wondered why the woman had waited until she turned around to stab her. "Why?" Adelle croaked.

It seemed the Pyrerai understood. "I wanted to see you scared."

Lachesis yanked the spear, attempting to pull it out. But Adelle held tightly on, staggering forward while the tip ripped at her innards. She had no doubt the attack had cut vital parts of her insides and she needed to keep the plug in whatever the cost. Lachesis seemed to have figured that out too and attempted to pull again. But Adelle teleported backwards, bifurcating the spear off at the base of her grip while keeping the tip part in her body. She stumbled into Josh's arm, who supported her back as quickly as he could. She raised her single axe before her, ready to go down fighting.

But instead of finishing her off, Lachesis simply looked at her half of the spear, still soaked in Adelle's blood.

The Pyrerai shrugged. "I got what I wanted. Enjoy eternity." She walked to the hole in the wall and vanished in a puff of smoke.

"Wait!" Adelle screamed, pushing away from Josh and rushing herself to the pinhole exit.

Just as she got there, the light from the outside was covered away. Without a line of sight, they were trapped.

"Geared!" She swore loudly, no longer caring of stealth.

She held onto her wound as she fell to her knees, slipping down against the wall and onto the ground. Josh ran to her side and turned her over, his hand quickly moving over to her wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

"Hang in there, Adelle!" He looked worried. She was not sure if she had ever seen him worried for her.

Perhaps it was the torch running out of power, but her surroundings quickly got darker. With the last ounce of her strength, she admitted, "I lost."