Ledo crouched behind a snow-draped bush, the Andronian winter gnawing at him for having the audacity to wear only his jacket. In more sensible conditions it would have kept him warm, but ‘sensible’ was not on the cards when you were stuck on Andron VII. Each breath puffed out in little clouds that vanished into the air, as if the weather itself were quietly mocking him. Somewhere deep inside, a hum of power reminded him that while his body was freezing, his madra was doing quite the opposite. He drew in a slow breath, channeling the energy, focusing. As proud as he was of the fight his son was showing, he knew he was going to have to intervene.
Ahead, General Stantych loomed over Denor’s body like a bad statue no one had quite worked up the nerve to topple. His armor gleamed in the pale sunlight, shimmering underneath a shield that had barely been tested, and so wrapped up was he in the moment that he was unaware that somewhere behind the trees, vengeance was simmering nicely.
Ah yes, vengeance. Nothing quite like it to warm you up on a chilly day.
Ledo flexed his fingers, feeling the madra curl and swirl in his palms, reignited after the previous failed battle and eager for use. Jade in rank he might be, but even a Jade needed to pick his moment against a Trunian general. Stantych could not have risen so highly in the ranks by being an easy target. The man was all efficiency, brutality, and an alarming proficiency in the art of crushing rebellions. Trained in the lethal arts of the Trunian Empire, where people apparently learned that ‘gentle persuasion’ was just another way of saying ‘hit them harder until they stop complaining.’
But Ledo had something Stantych didn’t: a deep-seated, patriotic fury. And, since the last embarrassing defeat to the Trunians and the subsequent occupation, a grudge big enough to build a space dock around.
With the kind of deliberate calm that usually precedes acts of great heroism or spectacular mistakes, Ledo stepped out of the trees. The snow crunched under his boots with all the subtlety of a cannon blast, stealth completely forgotten about.
“General Stantych!” he bellowed across the clearing. “Leave that Denor alone!”
The general turned, his face settling into an expression of increasing discontent at being interrupted yet again. His aura flared out, oppressive and heavy, like sheet metal pressing down on your head. A nasty grin stretched across his face, as if he was a maladjusted child who had discovered a new toy to play with.
“Ah, the father has made an appearance!” Stantych drawled, closing the distance and completely ignoring the girl. “The boy is dead, I have crushed his skull. Does that trouble you?”
Ledo raised an eyebrow. “Well, no, not really.”
The General mentally checked his script, this wasn’t how it was meant to go. “Bravado in the face of a devastating loss!”
The Andronian shrugged. “It’s really not, trust me.”
Stantych dismissed the oddity and advanced on the former gunsmith. “Very well, then let us dispense with the pleasantries.”
This was always an excellent thing for a calculating villain to say, and Ledo’s heart thumped in his chest, but there was no time for fear now. Besides, it wasn’t really fear, right? Simply concern. That’s all it was.
His own aura rose to meet Stantych’s, crackling with furious energy. If Stantych’s madra was iron chains—cold, oppressive, and designed to crush—Ledo’s was a storm, wild and untamed, like the wind that screamed down the Andronian mountains when it had nothing better to do.
Without another word, Ledo struck. He leapt forward, madra coursing through his limbs, turning him into a blur of motion. His right hand blazed with deep blue energy. “Frozen Gale!” He roared out, a technique he’d polished in secret, much like one might polish a weapon they weren’t supposed to have. The air shimmered around him as he swung at Stantych, the cold biting harder than the winter wind.
Stantych’s arm shot up, a shield of solid steel madra snapping into place. The clash of energy was enough to send the nearby trees into nervous shivers. Ice met metal with a screeching noise that suggested the universe really should have rethought its approach to physics.
“I recognised you from the first battle,” Stantych growled, his grin fading into something much more dangerous. His madra surged, and with a twist, he sent Ledo skidding across the snow like an overenthusiastic sled. “You were the one who gave the Kilru pause.”
Ledo twisted midair, landing in a crouch with surprising grace for someone whose joints were going to regret this the following day. Stantych, for all his power, was as predictable opponent thus far.
The general lunged, his fist crackling with gray energy. “Iron Spike!” He bellowed, because you always had to shout the name of the move. Fast, deadly, and the sort of thing that ruins your day if it so much as grazes you. Ledo dodged at the last possible second, the attack slamming into the ground with enough force to create a crater where he had been standing a mere heartbeat ago.
Ledo's hands moved like a blur, spinning madra into a disk of frost that hummed with dangerous intent. “Cyclone Edge!” It sounded rather impressive if you said it quickly, and doubly so if you didn’t really know what it did—which was slice through the air like an angry circular saw of winter.
Stantych, the general who had clearly missed the ‘don’t block magical flying disks with your face’ memo, raised his arm to meet it. That, of course, was exactly what Ledo had expected. The moment the disk hit, it exploded into a thousand icy shards, more distracting than being trapped in a small room with a talkative Denor, and just as uncomfortable.
Stantych snarled, swatting at the icy splinters with his gauntlets and extending his shield to absorb them. Ledo wasn’t one for idle observation, he was already moving, fists glowing with frosty madra, mist swirling around him like some sort of angry winter spirit that had had quite enough of Stantych’s nonsense. Punch after punch flew, the general’s shield deflecting a few with a screeching sound, but the fourth penetrated the flaring energy barrier and landed with a satisfyingly meaty sound right in Stantych’s side. It sent a ripple of energy through the man that even Ledo could feel, on account of Tycho having done it to him many times over in training when he was younger.
He pressed on, strikes coming faster and faster, until Stantych was being forced backward to the treeline, where ducking and dodging would be much more difficult. The general’s shield faltered, cracking under the pressure of the imbued energy of each strike.
It wasn’t enough, Stantych flared with energy and his shield was restored. Ledo needed something special beyond simple fists to take this Trunian down. He took a sharp breath, drawing in more madra than seemed entirely healthy, feeling the cold settle deeper into his bones. His final technique shimmered at the edge of his vision. It was the one he’d promised himself he’d use to finish the man who had destroyed his village, but this General would have to be the recipient instead.
In the blink of an eye, he disappeared in a flash of blue light, reappearing behind Stantych as though he'd never been there at all. “Frostfang Barrage!” Ledo shouted, because if you’re going to unleash something dangerous and icy, it helps to let everyone know.
The world seemed to slow down, as it tends to in these situations, while Ledo’s hands moved with lethal efficiency as he put the concluding touches on the technique. A dozen thin blades of ice-infused madra flew toward Stantych, each one aimed with surgical precision and a rather chilly disposition towards shielding.
Stantych, sensing the danger to his shield, spun around in a desperate whirl of clanking armor and flashing aura, but it was all too slow, too late. The icy blades tore through his defenses and embedded themselves in him with a sound that suggested his day was about to get much, much worse. He staggered, blood staining the pristine snow, much to the satisfaction of a nearby sapling that tried to drink greedily from it.
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“You—!” Stantych growled, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. His aura flickered, dimming like a candle caught in a strong draft.
Ledo, standing tall and breathing heavily, spoke in a low voice that carried the weight of far too many tragic backstories. “This is for my village.”
With one last surge of energy, Ledo slammed his fist into the ground, and the snow beneath Stantych erupted in a flurry of jagged ice, imprisoning him where he stood. The general’s eyes widened as the frost crept up his legs, freezing him in place like a man who had just realized he was being put in time-out by nature itself.
He would let the Andronian climate do the rest, he was nearly tapped out from so many moves in such a short period of time.
Ledo turned, preparing to check on Gella and carry the boy’s corpse for the second time.
As he began to entertain the dangerous notion of victory, there was a sudden explosion of power behind him. “”Iron Wall!” Stantych bellowed, and his aura snapped back to life as he broke free of his imprisonment. The frost that had encased him shattered, pelting Ledo’s back, and with a roar that suggested Stantych was not in the mood for any more of this icy nonsense, he advanced on his foe.
Ledo sighed. It was never easy, was it?
He spun around, eyes narrowing as he tried to channel what was left of his energy. Sure, he'd seen a few mercenaries crack through his ice before, given enough time. Not at this speed, that was worrying. There stood General Stantych, very much alive despite the blood decorating his armor and the frost lingering in his beard. Worse still, the man radiated an aura that practically screamed, ‘I’m not dead yet, and I’m feeling fresher than a daisy’. His madra, that grayish, moody metallic energy that Trunians so loved, writhed around him like iron chains, anchoring him to the battlefield and resonating with each purposeful step.
“You thought you could finish me off with some ice-based parlour tricks?” Stantych growled, his voice deep enough to rattle bones. It wasn’t so much a question as a confident declaration of Ledo’s impending failure. “You lost the war, and you will now lose this battle.”
With the casual flick of someone swatting a particularly annoying fly, Stantych raised his hand. His madra pulsed, and suddenly those iron chains of his weren’t just decorative—they slithered out, wrapping themselves around Ledo's legs. The air thickened, and Ledo felt a metallic taste in his mouth that had nothing to do with blood. His energy dissipated, and he found himself dragged down to one knee. The weight wasn’t just heavy; it was Imperial heavy, the sort that made you feel like the entire might of the Trunian Empire was sitting on your chest.
“Crushing Bind!” Stantych’s voice dripped with barely disguised venom. He clenched his fist, and the chains obeyed, tightening with a creak that suggested they were about to crush organs if they weren’t countered swiftly. Ledo gritted his teeth, feeling pain shoot through him like a badly timed practical joke.
With a growl that came from somewhere deep and chilly, Ledo gathered what was left of his own madra, ice-blue and cold as a miser’s heart. His core flared with power, a frosty storm brewing inside him. The chains dug into his skin, but instead of breaking his concentration, he used the pain, turned it into fuel. Because if there was one thing Ledo knew how to do, it was take something horrible and make it even worse for his enemies.
Born from an absentee father, losing the love of his life to the Temrit, losing his legacy to a brain damaged child. He let the pain fester inside of him in that cold place where no light grows.
“Ice will cover your Empire,” he hissed, breath fogging in the now-frosty air. “Your people may crush my home and occupy my planet, but they will not crush my spirit! You don’t know what my pain feels like! Let me show you what the planet thinks of you!”
The ground obeyed him next, freezing over as his madra spread like a winter wind, turning the snow into a slick, polished sheet of ice. With one final, determined push, his aura exploded outward in a burst of frosty defiance, shattering the chains with a devastating chill. Stantych’s eyes widened, realising he had made a terrible mistake opposing this man on his home planet.
“Impossible!” the general snarled, gripping the hilt of his sword with the fury of someone who had just found out his subjugation wouldn’t work due to a particularly frosty loophole. His aura wavered, just for a moment.
Ledo wasn’t so far gone that he didn’t sense that wavering, it was an opening that he couldn’t waste time waiting to exploit. He vanished into the cold, reappearing above Stantych with a fist full of spiraling frost madra. The temperature plummeted, the kind of cold that makes you wonder if someone’s left a door open to the Arctic.
“Frozen Gale Fist!”
Stantych barely had time to lift his arm before Ledo’s frosty knuckles collided with his chest, sending out a shockwave that rattled the trees. The general staggered, feet skidding across the ice, but that armor of his—sturdy, reliable, expensive—absorbed most of the blow with a screech that could only be described as deeply uncomfortable to both metal and ice.
With a grunt of irritation, Stantych swung his imbued sword, a sweeping arc of crackling gray madra trailing behind it. The blade screamed across the clearing, cutting through the air with all the finesse of a battering ram. Ledo ducked, sliding gracefully across the ice as the madra wave slashed past, obliterating the vengeful sapling.
Stantych pressed the attack like a man possessed. His sword flashed through the air sending arc after arc after his nimble foe. Every swing carried the full weight of his Jade-level power, which was far too much power for anyone's comfort in the Outer Rim—even Ledo's. The blade was a blur of iron light, and it looked as though Stantych himself was turning a metallic gray from using it.
Ledo weaved between the wild strikes with the practiced grace of someone who had narrowly avoided death far too many times. But even he could feel the pressure mounting. Each swing from Stantych forced him back, closer and closer to the tree line, and the General, looking irritatingly smug, showed no signs of tiring.
"You're a fool if you think you can stand against the might of the Trunian Empire!" Stantych growled, his aura swelling with all the subtlety of a thunderstorm. His madra lashed out like the aforementioned storm, of which there were plenty to pick from in Andron VII. It was relentless and decidedly not interested in Ledo’s continued good health.
Ledo was painfully aware that dodging forever wasn’t exactly a sound strategy. His core was burning, his madra reserves looked like they would falter at any moment, and he was well aware that his options were shrinking fast.
And then as Stantych’s sword came down in an overhead slash, Ledo decided to gamble. He stepped into the strike, arms glowing with madra as he raised them to meet the blade directly.
It hurt. Oh, how it hurt. The force of the impact rattled his bones like a set of dice in the hands of a particularly cruel fate, but he held firm. Ice crept up from his hands, encasing the blade and negating its power.
With a roar that was more desperation than triumph, Ledo twisted his body, deflecting the sword to the side. It was a small opening, the kind you'd almost miss if you blinked, but for Ledo, it might as well have been a mile wide.
He surged forward, what was left of his madra glowing like a winter storm condensed into the palm of his hand. This time, he wasn’t interested in Stantych’s armor. No, Ledo had decided to make things personal. His fingers, sharp as a spear of frost, darted forward, aimed squarely at the general’s heart.
“Shattering Winter Strike!” he screamed, exhausting his voice with his madra.
Stantych’s eyes widened, and for the first time in what had felt like an eternity, he looked genuinely surprised. The madra pierced through his sputtering shield, and punctured his chest plate, sending a freezing pulse of energy into his body. His breath hitched, a mist of ice forming around his mouth as the cold sank into him, right down to the bones.
Ledo poured the last of his strength into the technique, watching as frost spread across Stantych’s body, slowing him to a crawl as the cold overtook him and stole the warmth from his bones.
Stantych gasped, dropped to one knee, and his sword, which had been so menacing mere moments ago, clattered to the ground. His once-imposing aura flickered, then sputtered out like a candle in a snowstorm, leaving him frozen in the snow.
Ledo stood over him, breathing heavily and looking like someone who had just realized they were absolutely done with today’s nonsense. His own aura dimmed as exhaustion set in, and for a brief, blessed moment, silence filled the clearing. The only sound was the fearful sobs of the young girl Gella, who had quite sensibly moved to the treeline with Denor’s body.
Except for the clapping. There was a clapping sound too. That was odd.
Stantych was still alive, and managed to lift his head, lips curling into a grim smile even as blood coursed out of his mouth.
"You may have won today," he rasped, voice barely above a whisper, "but you’ll never escape the Empire. They’ll come for you… and they’ll destroy this planet completely."
Ledo’s eyes hardened, but he said nothing, simply turning away, leaving the general to freeze in the snow, except that his feet didn’t seem to want to obey that request.
He collapsed in the snow, and still heard that strange clapping sound.
***
Foggle watched from above, as he was wont to do. It was his right, after all. He watched and he applauded the display from the disillusioned gunsmith. “Bravo!” he exclaimed, clapping happily at how fate had conspired so precisely without so much as a peep of complaint from Martos.
Shortly after, a goat made its way back to grazing.
***
Denor rose groggily, stared at the defeated General and then at Gella, whose jaw had practically hit the floor. “Did I miss something?” he asked.