“Any idea who these clowns are?”, Scythe asked Vuthe as they seized up their opponents. Despite the huge magical fortress the three assassins didn’t seem too concerned.

Actually, that didn’t seem entirely true. While they were different from the Mentors Vuthe knew, they displayed very similar body language. The body language of someone trained.

There was a certain hint of caution in the way they moved, which could have been easily missed. But Vuthe knew that kind of body language way too well.

“I have an inkling. Although it seems highly unlikely. I did kill them myself, after all”, she said in response, shifting into a ready position.

“Well, seems like you did a real shit job at it”, Scythe replied with a snort, reading her guns.

“Or they are someone else.”

The three assassins didn’t care to speak, simply seizing the two twins up. To Vuthe it was very clear that they were ready to fight.

Taking a deep breath, Vuthe once more immersed herself into her training. Not the one she had gotten in the guild. Well, it was based off of it, but in the intervening millennia she had changed her fighting style quite a bit. While her old guild mates would be able to recognise it, they wouldn’t know the details.

The only issue was that the three assassins in front of them obviously did, as they had shown in their previous bout.

“Cluster, secure the asset. I don’t care if you need to nuke the place to do it.”

Scythe's order was a bit overkill, maybe, although after a moment's thought Vuthe agreed wholeheartedly. The last thing she wanted was Scarlet still being present if things went south.

Without warning Vuthe shot forwards, drawing on all her training and experience, as well as magic and magick. If these three were even remotely similar to Order of the Scythe Assassins they would be very much prepared for whatever tactics she had to offer, so she attempted to take a page out of Scythe’s book. Not that she had any hopes of succeeding. Scythe’s erratic and random fighting style simply didn’t work for her, and while she may be able to adapt if she could survive long enough, that specific prerequisite didn’t fill her with much hope. Their adversaries had shown their skills already, after all.

She just hoped that Scythe could throw a wrench in their plans, whatever they might be.

The dragoness in question didn’t need any more invitation and joined the fray before Vuthe even arrived at their adversaries. Betting on Vuthe’s spatial and magical senses she unleashed a barrage of gunshots, which did seem to surprise the three assassins for a moment. Perhaps they weren’t too acquainted with firearms. Not that it mattered too much.

Vuthe for her part targeted the one that resembled Amber, simply because they were the closest. While the assassin lacked the silvery glove that Amber had sported for her thread weaponry, she had no illusions of its absence.

And that assumption was proven correct as once more threads appeared out of nowhere, once again entirely nonmagical, and threatened to decapitate Vuthe. Only able to evade the incoming attack by the skin of her teeth, she tried to push further regardless.

From the corners of her eyes she saw Scythe clash with the one that resembled Crimson, while Red was coming under fire from Archangel who seemed to have set up as a sniper somewhere behind them.

To her surprise she had a much easier time getting close to her opponent, not that it was a cakewalk. They were obviously still very skilled, but it seemed that by keeping the others busy, Vuthe was able to work with less pressure.

While she still had to dodge quite a bit to not die outright, she was able to push much further, until she was finally able to fully engage her opponent. Her wounds took their toll however, and she had to pay very close attention to the skirmish to not lose another limb. The missing hand and tailblade was already a significant handicap, but somehow she was able to make it work. At least for the moment.

What struck her as especially odd was the missing aura these three portrayed. It made reading them so much harder, a fact that became very obvious when she only barely got out of the way of a dagger that seemed to appear out of nowhere.

She had no time to think about it, however, having to focus entirely on her opponent's movement.

After another evade, barely avoiding losing her head in the process, she was able to pounce at her opponent in a moment of distraction. While she missed the heart, she was able to land a gash on their side. At least she thought. Strangely there was no blood, nor much of a reaction in general. If she hadn’t felt the resistance, she would have assumed that she had missed entirely.

Construct? Maybe golem? Unlikely, too advanced.

It was likely that they were artificial, it would explain their presence in the first place, as well as the utter lack of an aura. The question now was what they were.

She didn’t have time to contemplate it however, as in the next moment there was a jolt of pain running through her leg, something had pierced her left calf. It burned, but the feeling of dizziness was missing, so it was unlikely that it was poisoned. That in itself was strange as well, and she chastised herself for not paying attention to that sooner. Crimson had been a vivid enthusiast for anything poisonous or toxic, known in the guild as the Crimson Scorpion for that very reason.

So if these assassins had been her former mentors, the chances that she would have been poisoned by now would be almost certain.

Dodging to the left she escaped the follow up attack. The movement was agonising, as she put pressure onto her injured leg, but she didn’t allow herself to succumb to it. With another quick slash she exchanged her dagger for a katana, hoping that this quick change of weaponry would put her opponent off balance.

It worked, somewhat, although it was clear that her previous trick had alerted them to her tactics, so the only reason she even hit wasn’t that her adversary wasn’t prepared, it was simply a result of her choice of weapon being long enough to make a complete escape impossible.

The tip of her katana nicked their face and the hood they wore, tearing the fabric away from their face and revealing a face much too familiar to Vuthe.

Artificial or not, they looked identical to the Amber she had known, even including the missing eye thanks to Vuthe’s Twin Reaper, when she had carved it out in their last engagement before she had killed her former mentor.

It was quite shocking, to say the least, but once more Vuthe forced herself not to be surprised. The cut in their cheek that lacked any blood, was another sign that the person in front of Vuthe was not of flesh and blood.

Unperturbed by the events, the golem, or whatever it was, resembling Amber returned the favour, increasing the ferocity of their attacks. Threads weaved through the air, forcing Vuthe to desperately push back to try and escape their deadly grasp.

Despite the close calls Vuthe managed to ask a question that had been on her mind since the fight began. “What the hell are you?”

To her surprise her opponent actually answered, voice so eerily similar to her former guild mate that it was almost painfully nostalgic.

“A good question, isn’t it, little dragon. You killed me, yet I am here… You tell me what I am.”

Her voice was full of twisted scorn and the almost perpetual smirk Amber used to wear.

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“A cheap copy, would be my answer then”, Vuthe shot back, a little surprised by the answer she had gotten. To acknowledge her killing her old friends was not something she had thought would come out of this conversation. Although if they were made by Apocalyptica it would make sense.

“A cheap copy?”, Amber asked, laughing heartily, “Seems like I’m a pretty good copy, eh? Or why are you struggling so much, little dragon? Lost your touch? You always were subpar at best”, she snarled, redoubling her efforts which forced Vuthe to focus entirely on evading for a moment.

Another gash joined the first one on her arm, but she didn’t let herself be distracted. Not more than any conversation during battle would be, in any case.

“Couldn’t be too bad, could I? Killed you before already, after all. Can do it again!”, she snapped back, pushing against the onslaught and summoning up her greatsword Schattenstolz, hoping to surprise her assailant.

In response Amber laughed as she blocked the blade with her open palm, not caring as it dug into her hand, and somehow stopping the massive weapon cold. “What you killed before was a lesser me. A weak me. Now I am so much more, so much stronger. All thanks to Black Lotus!”

The name didn’t mean anything to Vuthe, maybe another guild, or just an attempt to distract her. It was clear to her that this wasn’t the Amber she had once known, and she didn’t put much stock into her words.

That didn’t mean, of course, that this would be easy. More and more she was pushed back, the wounds slowly taking a toll on her.

Despite her struggle she wasn’t alone, a fact that became evident when suddenly a figure crashed into Amber, pushing her away, quickly followed by Scythe who was laughing like a mad man, wielding some kind of long cylinder with a radiation warning sign on it.

With not time to parse the details Vuthe ignored it, immediately refocusing on Amber who was picking herself up again. Taking this time she summoned shadows to work as makeshift bandages, hoping that that would help a bit. Although the outcome would not change if she couldn’t find a definite way to win soon.

The fight continued, but more and more Vuthe felt her strength leaving her. Even with the bandages as a makeshift solution, her wounds were simply too grand for a battle of this calibre. She had to hope that Scythe would be able to manage something, otherwise all she could do would be to fall back to magic and hope that that was enough. So far her spellwork had no discernable results, likely thanks to the same magic blocking effect that was on the Church’s complex now being applied to her adversaries.

The only thing left she could try before she had to resort to her divine power would be greater magick.

The difference between magic and magick, to most, was thought of as arbitrary and simply meant a difference of scale. To a truly advanced practitioner, however, that difference was much more meaningful. While magic was in most cases used to influence the world around the caster with the base elements, both magical and chemical in some cases, magick could do so much more. It went beyond the bounds of element, and even the bounds of underlying and imprinted intent. In a way it would be fitting to say that magick was the pinnacle of magic, either in its complexity or in its application. For this case it was the latter.

Considering her current situation Vuthe refrained from actually casting a specific spell, and focused more on her inborn talent to shape the shadows. She was good and she trusted herself a lot, but in a situation like this something as complex as spellcasting would be too much even for her.

So she went a different route, not even knowing if the person in front of her could be afflicted by her magick as they seemed to be artificial. If that was the case, however, all her attempts would be mute regardless. And that would mean she would have to use her last resort regardless.

Trying to focus as much on her magick as she dared, Vuthe began to apply much less pressure during the actual fight. It wasn’t that she entirely tried to disengage, however both fighting and focusing the magick together against an opponent like this simply wasn’t possible for her.

More and more she embraced the shadows around her, let them seep into her being and calm her nerves. Ever since her shackles had been broken, shadows felt protective to her, and right now she embraced this feeling wholeheartedly. She allowed them to take the reins, to guide her, to protect her.

And it worked.

With their whispers Vuthe found it easier to escape death, however that was only part of her plan. For the rest she dove deep into her connection with shadows, to the very root of what shadows were.

Thankfully their arena was lit up brightly by Cluster’s magical fortress, it made Vuthe’s job a whole lot easier.

Most people would assume that strong lights would hamper any shadow mage, and for the untrained that would be true, however for a truly advanced shadow mage any source of light was a welcome sight. The reason lay in a truism that most did not understand: The stronger the light, the stronger the shadows.

It sounds paradoxical at first, however the simple truth is that without light there would be no shadow, only darkness. The difference is subtle, but it does exist. Most shadow mages could utilise darkness as much as shadows, yes, however one was much stronger than the other as it was flexible. Darkness was stagnant, it was a state, so all it could be was dark.

Utilising this simple truth about the shadows around her she focused on what she wanted to achieve while she once more dodged a thread trying to encircle her still functioning arm. It left her open to another nick of Amber’s blade, but she ignored the slight cut it made, thanks in part to the shadows protecting her.

For the effect she tried for she had to go to the root of what shadows were. They were the absence of light, formed by the light, and since time in memorial connected to dark and evil things through the belief and imprinted intent of billions of people over billions of years.

They feared Shadows, and they feared the dark. It was the strongest emotion attached to this element, and now she dragged this old fear, this slumbering giant, back to the forefront with all her might and pushed.

Fear was one of those things that had no cure. There was no being that didn’t experience fear, or the fear of the dark and unknown. Even those species that had evolved sufficiently viable darkvision still had this base instinct somewhere in their genetic code. Fear was a helpful survival tool, it told you when you were out of your depth and had to make a run for it.

She knew that back in her guild everyone was trained to resist fear, and she knew as well as most that her former mentors were quite fearless, but that didn’t mean they were immune.

This tactic was based off of the comments Amber had brought up earlier, making herself seem alive. It was unlikely, but since nothing else in her Arsenal made any difference she had to take the chance.

More and more she funnelled the ancient and primordial fear of the shadows towards Amber, at first a slow trickle, then a lumbering stream, which slowly grew to a cascading river.

Amber, however, showed no reaction.

This wasn’t helped by the fact that Vuthe couldn’t read their auras, making it very hard to judge the results. In the end though, she decided that this was meaningless. There were many ways for Amber to escape her magick, either the magic blocking spellcraft Apocylptica had dreamed up, them being artificial and therefore immune to outside stimuli, or even specific training to keep their head on their shoulders even when facing the gods themselves. The last one was highly unlikely in Vuthe’s eyes, but not impossible outright, so she had to consider it.

This basically only left one last option for her, an option she didn’t really want to utilise, but then again, she didn’t really have a choice. If she started spell casting, presuming it even worked, she would be wide open to attacks from someone on Amber’s level, especially if any of her sisters was able to enter the fray, which became more and more likely the longer this dragged on.

The worst part was, that even if she somehow managed to fight back, she didn’t trust her body to survive it all. The wounds had taken a toll and it became only worse with every passing moment. She could feel herself become slower and more sluggish. To deal with those she would need to resort to her divine power regardless, and even then it might not be enough considering her lacking training in healing magic.

With a deep breath she sent a shadow towards Scythe, hoping that her twin would understand the quick signal it conveyed. Then she stopped any and all pretences and dropped deep into her shadows for a moment of calm.

A moment later the world inside Cluster’s magical fortress turned black, a darkness so dense it had almost physical mass to it. And from inside this darkness her aura exploded outwards, scouring everything, obliterating whatever magic blocking spellcraft Apocalyptica had applied to the three assassins, and with it she could finally feel it.

These beings were artificial, yes, however they was one very important thing: The rotten remains of her former mentors aura’s had been stitched to them by way of soul magick. Someone had disturbed the long sleep of death of her mentors to create these unholy apparitions.

Vuthe had no love for her former guild, they had been just as bad as the humans had been, but nobody should experience this. When she had killed them she had buried them on sacred ground to prevent them from being raised as undead, partially out of necessity, partially out of respect. That only worked for the physical body, however, as the soul would pass on at the moment of their death, judged by Altis and accompanied to their afterlife.

How Apocalyptica had managed to get his hands on their souls she didn’t know, and frankly she didn’t care. This was an affront to the world and she would need to fix it.

A deep growl rend the world asunder as she emerged in her true form from deep within the darkness.

Strangely enough there was no fear there, only… acceptance. It was almost as if they were relieved.

Finally all the pieces settled into place in Vuthe’s mind, and her scorn was forgotten in this moment as she looked down on her former guild mates. These people were not here by choice, they had been taken hostage and controlled. She could very much sympathise, that was how the guild had felt in the aftermath.

Children of the Scythe, your prayers have been answered. Let me take away your pain as a last sign of my respect for our past. You have suffered for long enough.