Fell Champions

Otter summoned a new Thread of the Scourge to replace the one that had winked out of existence. There were no telegraphed wide arcs this time, no trying to build up momentum or confuse her opponent with wild movements. It shot forward in a straight line and connected with Il-Su’s chest.

She willed it to wrap about him, but it was already too late. As soon as the Thread made physical contact with him, it stuttered and vanished. That same pins-and-needles sensation hit her fingers and extended up to her elbow before washing away like the tide.

Il-Su made no reaction until after the fact, his smile turning cocky before settling on predatory. 

Some distance away, Vex jumped up and down and shouted for help, screaming for justice for Juala against her murderer. The crowd was beginning to stir, but it wasn’t ready. They weren’t a mob yet. They were confused, unsure of what was going on. A stranger’s call for violence against another unknown party wasn’t enough to motivate them. Not yet.

Otter’s whole chest beat in a furious tempo, like a new heart had been birthed inside her. Her Fate Sense just wouldn’t shut up, and it was only getting louder, and she had no clue if that was good or bad. 

She really needed to talk to the Dreamer. Talk to her, and maybe kick her in the lady bits. Or god bits? What exactly did a god-like entity have between its legs other than infinity and insufferable mystery? 

What use was this kind of ability? Did it even have a use, beyond turning her into a literal human vibrator? Some part of her brain wondered if someone else would be able to feel the tiny tremors in her fingertips, and maybe even get–

She narrowly dodged a blade thrown at her leg, side-stepping just in time as Il-Su hurled it at her. 

Right. She was in the middle of a fight. Time to put the ADHD brain away and focus. 

She tapped her left middle finger against her thumb in a pattern of threes, and began to set her mind to work. 

She’d fought alongside Il-Su for years. Sparred against him, ran raids and PVP arenas with him. They’d laughed and cried with one another. She knew what his O-face looked like, in all its ridiculousness, in those rare moments where his guard was down. She knew how he battled, she knew how he strategized, and how he thought.

And she also knew his biggest weakness.

Il-Su threw another pair of daggers at her, both going for her arms. He was looking to wound, to disable, not to kill. At least that was something. 

Otter twisted her body, not really avoiding the attacks but repositioning them so her clothes summoned by her Thread of Sanctuary tanked the hit at an angle so the knives would better deflect off her. It was difficult to reliably dodge Il-Su’s ranged attacks. While other people aimed at where a person was, Il-Su threw to where he knew they’d be by the time his weapon got there. It wasn’t just target leading like so many shooters did. It went beyond that. His brain was just built different, like it was doing a psychological profile on his targets and high level math at the same time. 

Of course, ask Il-Su to actually apply either of those skills outside of combat, and he’d come up short. 

Whatever the cloth that made her shirt up was tough. It took the hit from the daggers, and they bounced right off, finding no purchase in Otter’s skin. It still hurt like hell. It might’ve prevented her from getting pierced, but a chunk of metal thrown with good force had just slammed into her. She was gonna have some bad bruises after this.

The edges of her vision started to blur a little bit, and she felt a little wobbly.

Right. She was still bleeding from that stupid grappling hook lodged in her shoulder. She’d only have bruises if she didn’t bleed out.

That spike stabbed through her was probably the only thing preventing her from spraying arterial blood everywhere. What was the one she had to worry about getting cut? Axillary? Subclavian? Sami had made them memorize them all once, all the ways to kill a person, and then quizzed her extensively with sexy times as a reward. 

Most of that knowledge was just out of reach. She hoped due to having smoked a ton of weed since then, and not because she’d lost too much blood. 

Il-Su went to throw another dagger, his arm pulling back to throw another piece of steel at her, and Otter unleashed her master plan.

She dismissed her Thread of Sanctuary. 

Suddenly, she was naked, tits, ass, and everything else out to the world, her only remaining clothes being her boots and her belt, which held her own collection of knives. Il-Su nearly fell forward on his face as he threw. The knife planted in the ground right in front of her. He stumbled off-balance like he’d put a little too much force into his throw. Or maybe it was the yips. Otter had no idea what ‘the yips’ were, except Everett and Il-Su had once talked about it and acted like it was some kind of sage wisdom from the heavens, when in reality it was just baseball nonsense. 

She’d stopped paying attention after that. Honestly, who watched baseball, much less talked about it? 

Wide-eyed and confused, Il-Su stared at her tits for a second too long. Otter jumped on him, and not in the way he probably wanted, tackling him to the ground. He raised his hands to push her off of him, but looked a little too hesitant to touch anything on offer to him.

Poor Il-Su looked like the same innocent virgin he’d been the first time she’d watched Sami and Everett double-team him, too caught up in everything around him and too scared to contribute anything on his own.

So, while he was gawking and too scared to actually touch Otter, she drew her own knife and stabbed him in the side.

Her little kunai wasn’t exactly big enough to do anything fatal, especially in the confused brawl the two had suddenly found themselves in on the ground. Otter had difficulty keeping her balance, and when she tried to support her own weight with her wounded arm, she got a painful reminder of how she really shouldn’t be using it for anything. 

Il-Su used the opportunity to kick her off, swearing the entire time. He crawled away, gasping in obvious pain.

Otter’s chest thundered, her whole being slamming with the drum beat of fate itself.

She struggled to rise, slipped, then tried again. She was gassed, just out of fuel, and considering said fuel was leaking out of her shoulder, that wasn’t a good thing. 

“Bitch!” Il-Su roared, and made to stand up, his hand darting under his cloak for the next in a long series of knives she knew he’d have.

Otter wasn’t sure she had much fight left in her. Weird. She didn’t expect Il-Su of all people to kill her. She figured she’d go out to someone at least a little less… pathetic. 

And then a pair of arms draped around Otter, a body shielding her from Il-Su, and pressing something into her hand. A pouch. Her own, a small leather bag meant to hold, well, stuff. But she hadn’t been on the Islands long enough to accrue any stuff to put in it.

Except three soul crystals. Two from the goblins she’d killed in the arena, and one from Ashborne. The one she’d been holding onto for Sunny – Vex – until she would accept it.

The pouch had probably fallen from her pockets when she’d dismissed her clothes. 

Otter looked upwards and into the eyes of Leilynn, Rua’s sister. When had she gotten there?

Leilynn smiled at her. It was a hopeful, sweet smile, and it made Otter feel warmer just for having seen it.

“You’re almost ready,” Leilynn said.

“Ready for what?”

Leilynn placed a hand against Otter’s chest, where fate itself slammed against her. 

“Say the words.”

“What…” But some part of Otter knew. Her brain clicked into focus. Fate itself aligned. She wasn’t sure if it was something she did, or something she sensed, but she knew what was coming. She could see it with perfect clarity.

Otter nudged Leilynn aside. Not too hard. Not too gently. Just enough to move her heard so that Il-Su’s next thrown dagger missed her, parting the hair on the side of her head and cutting a few loose strands free.

Otter stood, not with strength, but certainly with conviction. She could see it, see it all, stretched out from behind Il-Su, all of it, every choice he’d made and every cursed decision that would be forced on him. And she could see the cause and effect, the ripples he would cause, the lives he would ruin, and those he would save. 

But most of all, she saw one shining light. One truth in a universe of lies, one thing she did not know, could not know, and she smirked.

“Like lightning from the clouds, she will descend and smite her foe. The sisters will stand united once more. The murdered will find justice,” Otter said, and the words left her with a finality, a force powered by the drumbeat of fate as it tore from her and sounded like a giant clap from the heavens themselves. 

Otter wobbled, and nearly collapsed again. Her mind shattered. Knowledge fled. The rhythm of fate stopped. 

She was back to a hamster-powered brain, and had no idea what had just happened. 

She looked up to Il-Su, to see if he had any idea. He looked about as clueless, but definitely stunned. And maybe a little shaken. Had he heard that giant clap as well?

He shook it off, and pulled one hand back to throw his knife.

Something blurred towards him, long and black and moving fast. The throw wasn’t great, but it didn’t need to be, as a spear gored out the meat in his bicep. 

Il-Su let out a surprised scream of pain, clutching at his ruined arm, and then whirled about just in time to catch a fist across the face.

Otter recognized the woman, but only in an abstract way. She was tall – for a Silayan anyway – and muscled, curvy in just the right proportions, dressed in leathers that left more of her exposed than covered. Which, Otter wasn’t complaining, but it was like the woman was literally wearing video game titty armor, and that hardly seemed practical in this kind of setting. Damn Silayans and their need to bare midriffs and legs. 

Il-Su skipped backwards, dodging away from any follow-up attacks before they came, but this newcomer had something else in mind.

“I am Reyna,” the woman said, screaming to the small crowd that had begun to gather, drawn by Vex’s calls. “Captain of Juala’s guard! And I accuse this man of her murder! Stand as sisters and cut this knave asunder, or be forever ashamed to call yourselves Silayan ever again!”

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