Fell Champions

Il-Su staggered into the safehouse, and it took all of his effort not to slam the door behind him. He pushed it closed with a soft click, not drawing any attention from anyone that would be passing the small home. It was doubtful anyone would remember anything as tiny as a slamming door in the middle of the day, but his every instinct screamed at him that he needed to be inconspicuous. 

What a disaster. What an absolute disaster of a day.

He stumbled across the simple room. It was decorated with a bed, a small table, a chair, and a small oven that was powered by a glyph. One lone cabinet with some meagre food supplies hung above it.

Nothing specifically for medical needs. He didn’t have the resources yet. Kirhaela was generous, as was his other patron, but the house alone, purchased through a proxy, had used almost everything he had. 

Well, he’d just have to make do. But first, he had to peel his armor off. 

The leather had burned and partially fused to his skin. It was agony to rip off, and not for the first time, he cursed Holt out for making the pain feel so realistic. At one point, he had to stop trying to pull the breastplate off and just began sawing at it with his knife, which didn’t help. He was forced to clench his teeth around the handle of one of his smaller knives as he tore the leather from his burned skin. 

After that, first aid got a little easier. He had some liquor in his cabinet. He had no idea what it was, other than something Silayans brewed up, and that it was strong as hell. Pouring that over the wound burned nearly as much as getting struck by lightning had.

Il-Su really wished someone had warned him that Juala could throw lightning bolts. Or was it the spear that had been doing that? She didn’t toss them about without it, so he was more inclined to believe it’d been a property of the weapon. Too bad he hadn’t grabbed it on his way out. It wasn’t his style, but he could learn, for the sake of that kind of destructive power. 

Next, he tore up the single sheet on his bed and cut it into neat strips. Those would be used for bandages later, after the grisly work was done.

Il-Su was no doctor, no matter how much his parents had wanted him to be one. But he knew that leaving little bits of leather burned and melted into his skin, even with video game powers, was probably a bad idea. 

He took a swig off the alcohol, then poured a little on his knife, and got the the ugly business of cutting out the pieces of armor still fused to his chest. 

He screamed a lot, muffled only by the handle wedged between his teeth. But it was like a bandaid. He had to rip it all off at once. Or that was what he kept repeating in his head, over and over, as he worked.

He woke up an hour later, only groggily realizing he must have passed out from the pain. Every instinct in his body was screaming at him, telling him he was in danger. He snapped open his eyes and saw Kirhaela standing over him.

Her armor was gone. Today, she was dressed in colourful silks, cut to accentuate and even flaunt her gorgeous figure. Her hair wasn’t pinned up in a professional bun. It was loose, her white hair curling ever so slightly. Her makeup was done to perfection, all warm colours for a change, her lips painted blood red, her mouth tilted in a smile.

So, she’d come as an executioner.

He tried to croak out some words to explain his actions, but her hand closed around his neck in an instant, lifting him from the bed and slamming him against the wall. Only strangled wheezes came from him. 

Instincts caused him to move his fists to move in a defensive measure, to try to break the lock she had on his throat, but they were futile. His hands went limp even as he formed the thought, his own body betraying him and refusing to act.

She stared at him the entire time she held him, the smile gone, her face dispassionate. He was an insect to her, a piece of trash for her to clean up. Not just nothing, something with a net negative worth. 

The edges of his vision began to go black. He wasn’t sure what was worse. The knowledge he was being slowly strangled to death, that there was nothing he could do about it, or that she was intentionally doing a sloppy job of it to make it last longer. 

She pulled him away from the wall only to slam him against it again, his head smacking off the wooden surface and sending stars across his vision. His Tenacity still hadn’t recovered yet. Not that it’d help. He’d already learned the hard way that even prepared and armed and at full health, he stood no chance against her. 

Her Pact was unbeatable.

She released him, and he ragdolled to the floor, gasping for breath. His lungs burned in a way he didn’t think possible, and it was all he could do to not choke in his body’s desire to suck in too much air all at once.

“Why?” she asked, and he didn’t need any more context than that.

“Orders,” he croaked.

She squatted down, staring at him intently. “I told you to deliver a message. That we were taking Pruana Isle, and moving our entire garrison there. That they could have the rest of their islands, and we’d be out of their way. No more interfering with their culture. Everyone gets what they want. How did you fuck this up so badly that you killed my sister?”

“Old Grey gave me different orders.”

Her expression went flat. “What did my father tell you?”

“That the rivalry between you and Juala was done. And I was to end it, one way or another. She went hostile first. So I answered in kind.”

She stood and walked away from him, pacing about the room. Even agitated, she looked perfect. He hated that he couldn’t bring himself to look past her physical appearance. All he wanted to do was stare at her and worship.

One of her fists clenched tightly. Tight enough that, after a moment, a few drops of blood began to drip from it where her own nails gouged the skin of her palm.

“I hated her,” she said. “I hated her so much some days. She brought out the worst in me. She had a way of doing that to everyone.”

Il-Su rubbed at his throat, and bit back a remark about how the feeling must have been mutual.

“She was just an all-around nasty person,” Kirhaela said. “Always putting down everyone around her, always making others feel lesser. She had a hard life growing up, and some part of her that just couldn’t be fixed had to make that everyone else’s problem. She knew she was in the wrong. She wanted to stop. But she just didn’t know how. And some part of her never let her accept help.

“And she liked me. In a way that I don’t think I was capable of returning. Mikovians… we’re not like Silayans. We don’t feel that way about…”

She trailed off, and Il-Su realized she was confiding in him. How odd.

She continued, “Some twisted part of her decided she had to hurt me. So she used her position to find one of my subordinates guilty of smuggling. Trying to get weapons out of the Islands. And when I protected him, tried to prove his innocence… she called in Rua.

“We have these positions. Burdens, they call them. And that word is so true. Burden of Shadows, that’s what Rua is. And her job is to kill anyone who is deemed a threat to the Islands. Juala weaponized my sister against me, because she could.

“And instead of doing the sensible thing, of just burying my dead and moving on… I retaliated. Burden of Dreams. I found someone telling tales. Harmless stories, told poorly in an inn cellar, so as to reduce the risk of creating a Mythwalker. I normally would’ve just locked her up, but she was wearing one of the uniforms of Juala’s soldiers. So I asked Rua to take care of her.

"She practically volunteered. Leapt at it. She always wanted to prove herself, to be of use. But it killed a part of her. To just be a weapon. She would never admit it. But she wanted my approval so badly.

“We did that to her. Both Juala and I. We used our sister as a weapon against one another until she ran away, until she broke under her duty. A duty she’d been so proud of, and that we made filthy. I never forgave Juala for it. But more importantly, I never forgave myself. I was supposed to protect Rua, not hurt her.”

Could he use any of this? Probably not. It was a weak point to be sure, but not one he was certain he could exploit. If he could hurt Rua, maybe. But he wasn’t going anywhere near that house again. That little ginger bitch terrified the shit out of him. 

That gave him an idea.

He thought about it for a second. Connected some dots with what he knew about this world, which wasn’t a lot. But he’d seen Old Grey’s trophies. He knew what they meant. 

He couldn’t handle this Vex woman, not with her seemingly infinite regeneration. Just like he couldn’t handle Kirhaela. But maybe he didn’t have to.

“Rua doesn’t need protection anyway. You should’ve seen the bodyguard in her house. Some Criobani thug with a scary Pact.”

Kirhaela snorted with extreme derision. “Rua is the last person to go to a Criobani for anything without a weapon in hand. She hates them more than even Sureya, and that’s saying something.”

Il-Su shrugged. “She wore a collar. Like from a Vexurian. Even called herself ‘Vex.’”

“Impossible. A Vexurian pilot can’t survive outside their armour.” 

“Maybe it has something to do with her Pact. Every time I cut her, stabbed her, whatever, she just pulled the blades out and healed instantly. I don’t think she can be killed. I did a comical amount of damage to her, and she just shrugged it off.”

“Impossible, there’s never been a Fleshcrafter from the Silayan Dreamer, she’d…” He could practically see the wheels turning behind her eyes, putting the two very simple pieces of information together. “What else did she do?”

He began to open his mouth, ready to weave an exaggerated tale, but she cut him off. “I command you to tell the truth.”

The words stalled in the moment. New words came out in their place, wooden and out of his control.

“She regenerated from multiple injuries that would’ve felled anyone else. She made the wood of the floor move all on its own. I had to use my Voidcloak. She grew some new ears and eyes so she could hear and see me. She seemed determined to get a hand on me as soon as my Tenacity broke. I retreated shortly after Juala nearly killed me, but not before stabbing her with a knife laced with the Faceless Oppressor.” 

“Where did you get… no, it had to be my father. Of course. It sounds like some kind of Fleshcrafter variant. Tales. What is Rua doing? It’s dangerous to have one of those around. She’s never going to forgive me for what comes next.”

Il-Su shook himself, throwing away the compulsion of the order. It left him feeling filthy, unclean in a way he wasn’t comfortable with. “And what am I to do?”

Kirhaela gave him an appraising look, long and careful, and not for the first time he realized he was very much in danger of being killed. Every one of his interactions with this woman had always ended poorly in his favour. Even the one time they’d had sex had left him feeling ashamed and degraded, unable to satisfy her in any meaningful way and questioning his own manhood. 

She walked towards him, placing a hand on his chest and pushing him back to his bed. He fell backwards. She reached down and picked up his discarded knife in one hand.

“I should kill you,” she said. She ran the blade across his chest. Hard enough to scrape skin, but just soft enough not to cut. “I hated Juala. But I also loved her. The fact that my father ordered her death is the only thing sparing your neck.”

The knife point came to a small piece of leather in his chest, still burned into his skin. The tip dug beneath it, and he hissed in pain. She slowly cut it away, taking some of his skin with it. He tried not to make any further noise, but by the time she was done, he made a choked whimper.

She pretended not to notice, a small mercy. “I feel some measure of responsibility for you. Anything you do, I am guilty of just by association. Any judgement of you must first be put on me. And I have too much to do to waste on that right now.

“Heal. That’s my command of you. And if my father gives you any more orders, you will tell me first before executing them.”

She rose, and left. The door clicked behind her. Il-Su breathed out a sigh of relief when she was gone.

She hadn’t asked too deeply. Hadn’t thought to probe deeper. Her control only went so far, and her arrogance about its efficacy was unearned.

He looked down at his chest, a mass of small bleeding and crusted over wounds and burns. He still needed to finish the work. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it just yet. Instead, he opened his menu, and went looking for his messages. 

He hadn’t been able to attend Holt’s latest circus of idiocy and madness, but he’d asked people to report back to him in exchange for future favours. Three messages waited for him. All pre-recorded, no live chat requests. He opened the first.

Fitzkim’s face displayed, a goofy grin ready. “Bro. You are not going to believe who revealed herself. Turns out that Pandemona chick isn’t actually Pandemona. GrandTheftOtter is.”

Il-Su listened to the announcement, Fitzkim’s version of events. When he was done, he opened the other two messages, and they gave similar accounts. All three seemed to agree. GrandTheftOtter was Mayumi.

As the truth sank in, Il-Su found his heart beating wildly. At first, with happiness that finally, he could stand together with Pan again. Fight alongside her, finally be with her. 

And then to fear, as he realized… he’d just killed the sister of the woman Otter had been seen together with at every opportunity.

Well. This was a problem.

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