“She’s over there!” Mordred shouted.

A t his shout, Aidan wheeled around and stopped pretending to be channeling the giant nonsensical spell that was blotting out the night. It was so bright now it might as well have been day.

“[One]!” Aidan shouted, focusing on B-3, who was attacking Fanciful, of all people.

B-3 didn’t bother to dodge, losing an arm to the lightning. WIth her free hand she was reaching toward Fanciful’s face, eliciting a high-pitched scream that was barely audible over the absolute howling of Amelia’s lightning river.

Vienne appeared and destroyed the rest of B-3 before Fanciful lost her head, but it didn’t stop there. Gabriel was only a few steps away from being able to help, but Gilduirn was faster. Shield lowered, Gilduirn interposed himself between Fanciful and B-3. B-3 had appeared behind Fanciful and looked like she was about to inspect the other woman’s spine. Gilduirn caught the hand on the front of his shield, directly stopping the movement. He slid backward, his back actually pressing into Fanciful before he came to a halt.

B-3 very slightly turned her chin to the left, acknowledging the impediment. Then the hand burst through the shield, continuing it’s path toward Fanciful through Gilduirn. Rat shoulderchecked B-3, sending the remorseless creature an important single step away. Vienne appeared and slashed at B-3, cutting her to pieces in a horrifyingly fast flourish of flaming steel.

Undeterred, B-3 regenerated, all the pieces hopping on each other and using themselves as a ladder as she reformed. Then B-3 paused, chin swiveling slightly as she stared at Fanciful.

Fanciful raised her pole horizontally, standing rigidly with a look of horror and revulsion. Gabriel stood slightly in front of her, shield raising fractionally.

B-3 quickly looked at the rest of them, almost as if she sensed something different about this group.

Aidan followed her look as they all tensely waited to see what she would do. Even Vienne just sort of raised her sword and waited, looking like she actually needed the breather.

Then it occurred to him.

All of them really.

They all had their arms down in the immediate vicinity and the lightning in the sky was still going on about it’s business. She had just eliminated all of them as a threat. The reason she hadn’t left yet was obvious.

Everyone around them, even the people who were in on the plot to protect Amelia, had all dropped their arms. With an exception.

B-3 slowly straightened, head cocking with a swift crack of her neck. She stared at Amelia, watching the oblivious blue robed woman swaying and dancing to an invisible beat. Small nonsense words spilled out of her mouth. Her smile was brilliant. Her eyes were lost in the sky, unblinking against the light that was too bright. B-3 focused her instantly.

An explosion of profanity lit up in the surrounding area, each individual swear word lost in the deafening cacophony of the lightning. It was turning again. It was rolling in a way that suggested it wasn’t entirely controlled anymore.

B-3 disappeared.

Vienne appeared in front of Amelia a fraction of a second before B-3 did, piercing B-3 through the right eyeball and driving her a dozen yards before B-3 dug her heels in and stopped. Her face slid along the sword as she pushed it forward, trying to get a clear view of Amelia again.

Vienne’s expression turned to disgust.

B-3 raised her hand and swatted at Vienne, forcing her to duck. The flaming sword pulled out of B-3’s face with a sickening sound. The face regenerated instantly. Several B-3’s in various stances and actions appeared in front of Amelia, hands outstretched.

Time slowed. Vienne took the first, the second, and the third…

“Agggh!” Vienne screamed. Some limit had been reached.

Gaping hole and all, Gilduirn stepped to Amelia’s left and brought his shield up. With no way to determine where she would appear he would just try to handle anything on that side.

Gabriel set on her right in a similar way.

War, picking up the idea frighteningly quick, moved to stand behind her and lifted their huge axe in a waiting motion.

It was too fast.

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Aidan cast his army of doubles, dozens of himself and Amelia bursting into view all around them. One of the B-3’s moved through an image of Amelia without even slowing to consider it. Illusion was useless.

Aidan threw himself in the way, tackling that B-3 to the ground. He grunted as he felt B-3 shift slightly, throwing him directly in the air five feet. His eyes widened when the same B-3 was hovering near him a second later. Her casual backhand sent to fling him away. She was still in that pose when she looked down at her chest. Her blow should have sent him flying but he stopped immediately, hanging off his staff. An invisible blade slowly appeared embedded in her chest. B-3 squinted slightly, looking down at him.

He sneered.

A giant sword came down from the sky and sliced through her, cutting her front to back. Raven had called the sword skill to get another B-3 that was trying to kill Amelia from the front, but Aidan wasn’t going to complain if it finished off the one he was fighting.

Raven was immediately tangled up with another B-3.

With each one dealt with, more appeared. Soon there would be more B-3 in the Square than Transients. Hunter was firing nonstop with eyes wide in an attempt not to miss any movement.

One of the B-3’s got around Raven. Raven reached out frantically but couldn’t grab the construct. B-3 reached out her hand, time slowed even further and everyone grimaced. There weren’t enough hands.

“[We Don’t Let Them Die].” Epsilon had returned, following the base function of protecting their owner. Epsilon repelled everything around Amelia and intercepted B-3, shoulderchecking her into the ground. She raised her sword--

“AAAAAAHHH,” Raven yelled out, only audible because she was the loudest. “I’M AWESOME.”

--and immediately got cut in half. B-3 had swiped at her waistline, reaching out quickly to push both halves of Epsilon in different directions and vaulting toward Amelia once more.

B-3 reached out, hand stretched, fingernails sharp and ready to plunge into Amelia when she froze. B-3 became absolutely still. It was just the tiniest moment before she killed the one in blue, but she had ceased motion.

Vienne gasped, gathering their attention from the motionless monster.

The lightning had finally found it’s way to the portal. It was crushed against it, a larger volume of matter trying to fit through a space not designed to accommodate it. There was almost something endearing about the giant mass of lightning trying to press it’s face into the portal. A beloved family pet mashing it’s face against a glass door.

Amelia let a breath out, eyes slowly focusing on her surroundings. She looked disoriented but pleased. With her disheveled hair and mischievous grin it almost looked like she’d just gotten out of bed. Like she’d gotten the best night’s sleep.

Aidan half expected her to say ‘mornin’ or something equally absurd.

Amelia pulled back half a step seeing the silent B-3 with her finger stretched out toward her head. “Oh!”

She laughed slightly as if it were all a lark. She put her index finger to B-3’s forehead. Vienne’s eyes widened and Raven took a step to pull her away, but stopped. B-3 just stood there. They all had to strain to hear Amelia as she spoke.

“Surrender?” Amelia asked.

Aidan’s mouth dropped open.

“Yes.” B-3 said emotionlessly.

“Too bad.” Amelia said after a moment. “I dislike you, so hard.”

“We believe that--” B-3 began.

“[Shadow Fall].” Amelia replied grimly. She pulled her thumb back and said a quiet, “bang.”

The sound of roaring and the deafening crush of bonehurting noise vanished. It wasn’t quiet, there were still sounds of people moving and, because of the previous sound level, yelling. It was jarring how quiet it was. How quiet it had become.

Amelia put her finger down and stepped passed B-3, eyes turned toward the portal.

Aidan’s gaze followed hers as he slipped up next to her, reaching for her fingers. She twined them in her own, never looking away.

The lightning at the portal had sprouted arms in the shape of crow’s feet. It was splitting the portal open. Where moments before it had seemed unruly and undirected, now it had a similar focus. It split the portal and then threw it’s head back in a silent scream of triumph. The lightning beast that took shape wasn’t satisfied with making the portal big enough to fit through, instead ripping it open even wider. It stepped through and vanished.

The darkness of night slowly regained sway.

“What happened?” Raven finally asked, mouth open. Quietly, for once.

Vienne waved a hand and a viewing window appeared in the sky above them. A large screen showing a rampaging lightning creature chasing a translucent tether through a corridor of stars. It traversed the corridor in a matter of moments. The tether tried to reel in faster but the lightning creature reached out with a great taloned leg and grabbed it. It pulled along the line, feeling it’s way forward. It moved beyond endless rows of cages, looking this way and that with arrogant disregard. Cages snapped open as far as the eye could see in it’s wake.

When at last the line ran out, a creature half the size of the lightning beast oozed out of the ground and tried to form legs to run. The lightning beast fell on it, using it’s body to crush it, it’s talons to claw it open, it’s mouth and breath to vaporize it.

“That’s what you named Shadow Fall?” Hunter finally asked, disbelief in her voice.

“No, that’s what Shadow Fall became when it was named,” Amelia replied. She sighed, looking at the screen. She turned to regard Aidan lovingly even as B-3 just sort of turned into ash behind her. She dropped his hand, still smiling, and then brought out her Chronicler.

She brought her quill up and began scratching an entry.

Somehow the sound of her scratching words onto paper managed to be loud amidst the throng of thousands of Transients who’d decided the battle was done, and they’d kind of won.

Amelia turned her back on them, obviously trying to drown them out so she could write in peace.

It would be some time before they could get her attention.

When she realized that she had tuned them out she became embarrassed.

When Vienne, at Raven’s insistence, showed Amelia what she looked like for the last few hours, Amelia was mortified.

Aidan just laughed.