SPLASH!

When Rudolf opened his eyes, it was as though he had two pairs of them. His head felt impossibly heavy, his neck strained under the weight, and there was a disturbing pressure on either side of his skull. Then it hit him—he had two heads, fused to his torso.

“AAAAAAAAH! AAAAAAAHH! AAHH! AAAAAAAH!!”

“Remarkable, isn’t it? I cut off one head, and two grow back,” came a familiar voice. The man lounged in a chair, watching calmly as Rudolf struggled against the chains holding him to the wall.

Rudolf's eyes widened, and he tried to speak—only to realize that he didn’t know which mouth to use. “Aa… aa! Aaah!”

“What did you… you dare…”

“…you do to me?!”

It was as if his mind had been cleaved in two, each half battling for control. The cacophony of his thoughts poured out through both mouths, each head betraying a different piece of his fractured consciousness. “Stop! This is hell—kill me! Make it stop! Kill! Kill me! Spare me!”

Each mouth spoke its own nightmare, the twisted reality that now governed his existence. Two voices, two streams of desperate pleas, entwining into something far more grotesque than the sum of their parts.

“I haven’t even begun,” the tyrant replied, almost amused.

Suddenly, one of Rudolf’s heads began to cough up blood, and the screams began again—louder, more ragged, more pitiful.

“What do you want from me…? Stop this…”

The other head could only choke out, in a broken whisper, “… kill me.”

“Oh, I will kill you,” the tyrant said. “I will kill you if you give me what I want.”

“Anything! Please! Just let me… let me… let me…”

“Tell me everything you know about the Alliance, the Seven Heavens, and the Overlords,” Burn said. “Everything.”

***

CLASH!!!

In the dimly lit outskirts of the capital, a symphony of clashing metal echoed through the narrow alleyway, painting a scene of chaos ripe for a spectacle.

Two masked figures, draped in black, wove through the shadows like whispers, their movements a dance of desperation and finesse.

They were not just running; they were maneuvering through a grim game of cat and mouse, blissfully unaware that they rehearsed their moving eulogy with every fleeting second.

Behind them, a legion of guards—also clad in black and sporting menacing masks—pursued with relentless fervor. The air was thick with tension, a delicious irony in their synchronized thuds as they crashed against cobblestones in futile attempts to close in.

The first masked fugitive leaped gracefully over a stack of discarded crates, landing with the confidence of someone who had rehearsed this escape in the theater of their mind.

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The second, however, tripped over the crates. With a glance that screamed, "Really?! Now?” and a glance back that said, “Sorry!” they were off again, leaving a trail of unintentional comedy amid their dire straits.

As the guards closed in, swords glistening ominously under the flickering light of a solitary lantern, a sinister gleam danced in their cold, calculating eyes. Heavy boots echoed on the cobblestone, an unsettling rhythm promising inevitable closure.

Clad in deep black leather, the guards were a daunting assembly, each figure a dark silhouette against the night. At their sides, wickedly curved blades caught the faint glow, wielded by hands that relished the thought of embroidering the alleyways with tales of failure.

The two fugitives, hearts racing, exchanged fleeting glances, their smiles under their masks of bravado tragically out of place. They sprinted, thoughts racing with the hope of escape, only to be met with the chilling realization that they had been encircled.

Shadows slipped from the rooftops, figures poised like vultures, throwing blades glinting in the dim light, ready to rain down like merciless judgment. No way out.

The alley shrank, walls closing in as figures emerged from the darkness, clad in shades darker than the night itself. Black cloaks billowed ominously, blending seamlessly into the shadows, while the metallic hiss of steel whispered promises of misfortune.

“Tan, I think we should kill them all after all,” one of the fugitives said.

“Did you bring it?” the other one asked.

“Always,” she said as she threw one potion bottle at him.

As the potion glimmered ominously in the moonlight, the pursuers watched with a mix of confusion and disbelief. One pursuer wondered what those potions were, squinting through the darkness as if expecting a superhero transformation.

In that moment, the fugitives downed the potion like it was a shot of overpriced whiskey, their grins mismatched to the gravity of the situation. A deafening silence fell, anticipating what would happen after.

“Huh? Nothing?”

The pursuers exchanged baffled glances.

“Get them!”

At their leader's command, they took off, charging forward and cornering their targets in a narrow alley. But before they could even catch their breath, the duo pulled a move straight out of a fever dream. Like a pair of agile cats, they bounded off the smooth walls, vaulting toward the roof.

“Stop them! Attack!”

And if that wasn’t annoying enough, their movements were perfectly synchronized, like a duet of acrobatic show-offs, shoving and hauling each other upward. The rooftop assailants began hurling blades and daggers, but it was as if the weapons had developed stage fright and couldn’t hit a thing.

“What is this? They’re too fast!”

As the pair ascended, it became obvious that something strange was happening. Their eyes… were those hearts? Pink, heart-shaped eyes?

The potion they’d chugged earlier…

They landed atop opposite rooftops—one drawing a rapier and the other wielding a bow with zero arrows in sight. The Force art masters had clearly arrived in full, flashy form.

But then, their dramatic moment was rudely interrupted. The leader of the pursuers leapt up in a single, unnervingly powerful bound, joining them on the roof and leaving the pair momentarily impressed.

“Oh, great. He’s strong,” said the man with the bow.

“Think he’s as strong as Galahad?” the woman with the rapier asked, her tone dripping with skepticism.

The man let out a dry chuckle. “What, Galahad? The walking nightmare? Are you complimenting this random guy?”

The woman rolled her eyes. “Well, then we can’t lose. Imagine disgracing the Round Table.”

“Absolutely. But he’s probably as strong as Morien.”

“Decent comparison.”

The leader's gaze flicked between the two, taking in the heart-shaped eyes. “Hmm… pink hearts after downing some random potion. You’re…”

“Oh, look at that. We’ve been recognized again, Tan,” the woman drawled.

“It’s the price of using our signature moves on an infiltration gig,” Tan replied, sighing theatrically. “Which means…”

“We gotta kill you all.”

And thus, the eleventh and twelfth members of the Round Table found themselves on yet another highly classified, absolutely absurd battlefield.